Climate Change, Deux

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Group9

Are you going to get upset if anyone posts any opposing viewpoints or is this just a "get on the bandwagon or else" kind of thing?

Is there actually a scientifically-supported opposing viewpoint?

I mean it's OK to, for example, have the viewpoint that evolution is a crock, but don't expect much respect or credibility.

Too much of the AGW-denial arguments are just parroting of scientifically insupportable FUD put out by the fossil-fuel lobby and friends. And/or grade-school rhetorical cheap tricks.

Personally, I remain completely open to additional scientific input on all sides of this issue. Key word is scientific.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Is there actually a scientifically-supported opposing viewpoint?

I mean it's OK to, for example, have the viewpoint that evolution is a crock, but don't expect much respect or credibility.

Too much of the AGW-denial arguments are just parroting of scientifically insupportable FUD put out by the fossil-fuel lobby and friends. And/or grade-school rhetorical cheap tricks.

Personally, I remain completely open to additional scientific input on all sides of this issue. Key word is scientific.

+1

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by SailOar

It is a common mistake made by AGW skeptics to say that computer climate models “consistently failed to predict what turns out happening.” They are actually remarkably accurate, or even conservative, and as more data comes in they are getting better and better.

This is why fewer and fewer people are paying attention to AGW fans. They keep saying things that are untrue, either out of ignorance, or a desire to make their case even if it takes jiggering the data, a.k.a. Climategate.

The models have been consistently wrong, as this exchange in Speigel magazine with Dr. Hans von Storch, Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg shows:

"SPIEGEL: Just since the turn of the millennium, humanity has emitted another 400 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, yet temperatures haven’t risen in nearly 15 years. What can explain this?

STORCH: So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We’re facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn’t happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year."

The reason why you can find graphs like the ones you posted is because some climate scientists and AGW drum beaters pretend that it is ok to observe how your predictive model is failing, then go back and change assumptions so that it now predicts what it couldn't predict and call that validation. You would get laughed out of any other scientific discipline I can think of if you did this. I think I should know because the company I run is in the business of creating predictive disease risk models. I have two patents in bio-informatics and have been co-author on a score of peer reviewed papers on the subject, and I can tell you that if we submitted for review a paper claiming validity for a model that we jiggered the way climate models are 'tweaked', we'd never make it past the first reviewer. Nor should we.

Here is an admission of this practice, by Dr. Maynard Michael: “Climate change has made it increasingly difficult to predict climate change,” says Dr. Manyard Michael, the lead scientist behind the study. “The current 16 year pause in global warming illustrates just how serious this situation has been; if not for climate change, we now know that we would have been able to accurately predict the current break in warming and clearly show that climate change is actually accelerating faster than forecast – not stopping as climate change is making it appear to those outside of the climate science community.” Dr. Michael also noted that they stumbled on this important finding almost by accident. “We just happened to notice that the higher carbon dioxide concentrations climbed, the more we had to adjust the data to get the results we knew to be right, and the more we adjusted the data, the bigger the error in the models. It’s a very strong positive feedback.”

In other words, he is saying two things. First, he knows what results "are right" and is happy to adjust his data until he gets the result he wants (a.k.a. pseudoscience), and second, that current climate theory not only can explain climate, but why the current climate theory can't explain climate.

Alice in Wonderland, and a scientific joke, if you ask me...

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Actually, the cooling effect of even a large volcanic eruption lasts only a few years. But I can understand why this type of discussion might put you out of your depth.

So what you're saying.... if I disagree with you.... then I must be a knuckle draggin' idiot?? Wow... that's heavy stuff man... way over my head.

Please espain dat unc agin? bot go reele sloo.. duhhhh..... eeeeeeu.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by SailOar

How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions?

Good grief. So according to this analysis, the 96% of natural CO2 emissions are neatly absorbed by the environment keeping everything in perfect balance (except for all that observable climate change in the past), but the 4% of total CO2 from man made sources is special somehow and resistant to absorption like the other 96%?

This is why no one is listening anymore, but carry on if you like.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

So what you're saying.... if I disagree with you.... then I must be a knuckle draggin' idiot?? Wow... that's heavy stuff man... way over my head.

Please espain dat unc agin? bot go reele sloo..

As predicted, and after whining about ad hominem attacks, we're now to be feted by the OP with ad hominem attacks. How tedious.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Delfin

This is why fewer and fewer people are paying attention to AGW fans. They keep saying things that are untrue, either out of ignorance, or a desire to make their case even if it takes jiggering the data, a.k.a. Climategate.

The models have been consistently wrong, as this exchange in Speigel magazine with Dr. Hans von Storch, Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg shows:

"SPIEGEL: Just since the turn of the millennium, humanity has emitted another 400 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, yet temperatures haven’t risen in nearly 15 years. What can explain this?

STORCH: So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We’re facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn’t happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year."

The reason why you can find graphs like the ones you posted is because some climate scientists and AGW drum beaters pretend that it is ok to observe how your predictive model is failing, then go back and change assumptions so that it now predicts what it couldn't predict and call that validation. You would get laughed out of any other scientific discipline I can think of if you did this. I think I should know because the company I run is in the business of creating predictive disease risk models. I have two patents in bio-informatics and have been co-author on a score of peer reviewed papers on the subject, and I can tell you that if we submitted for review a paper claiming validity for a model that we jiggered the way climate models are 'tweaked', we'd never make it past the first reviewer. Nor should we.

Here is an admission of this practice, by Dr. Maynard Michael: “Climate change has made it increasingly difficult to predict climate change,” says Dr. Manyard Michael, the lead scientist behind the study. “The current 16 year pause in global warming illustrates just how serious this situation has been; if not for climate change, we now know that we would have been able to accurately predict the current break in warming and clearly show that climate change is actually accelerating faster than forecast – not stopping as climate change is making it appear to those outside of the climate science community.” Dr. Michael also noted that they stumbled on this important finding almost by accident. “We just happened to notice that the higher carbon dioxide concentrations climbed, the more we had to adjust the data to get the results we knew to be right, and the more we adjusted the data, the bigger the error in the models. It’s a very strong positive feedback.”

In other words, he is saying two things. First, he knows what results "are right" and is happy to adjust his data until he gets the result he wants (a.k.a. pseudoscience), and second, that current climate theory not only can explain climate, but why the current climate theory can't explain climate.

Alice in Wonderland, and a scientific joke, if you ask me...

you're cherry picking. In the same interview you quote from, Storch also says that:

SPIEGEL: But it has been climate researchers themselves who have feigned a degree of certainty even though it doesn't actually exist. For example, the IPCC announced with 95 percent certainty that humans contribute to climate change.
Storch: And there are good reasons for that statement. We could no longer explain the considerable rise in global temperatures observed between the early 1970s and the late 1990s with natural causes. My team at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, in Hamburg, was able to provide evidence in 1995 of humans' influence on climate events. Of course, that evidence presupposed that we had correctly assessed the amount of natural climate fluctuation. Now that we have a new development, we may need to make adjustments.


and ...


SPIEGEL: Does this throw the entire theory of global warming into doubt?
Storch: I don't believe so. We still have compelling evidence of a man-made greenhouse effect. There is very little doubt about it. But if global warming continues to stagnate, doubts will obviously grow stronger.
SPIEGEL: Do scientists still predict that sea levels will rise?
Storch: In principle, yes. Unfortunately, though, our simulations aren't yet capable of showing whether and how fast ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will melt -- and that is a very significant factor in how much sea levels will actually rise. For this reason, the IPCC's predictions have been conservative. And, considering the uncertainties, I think this is correct.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Deniers try to have it both ways: (edit) their next strategy is to suggest that any given solution to the problem will leave us all poor and enslaved - or, alternately, that climate change is actually GOOD for us all.

This sophomoric diversionary tactic wouldn't pass muster on a middle school debate team.

So if we don't agree with your climate religion.... we are labeled as "Deniers."

I think calling the people who disagree with you names is more of a "sophomoric diversionary tactic." Actually... I think it's more kindergarten.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Delfin

As predicted, and after whining about ad hominem attacks, we're now to be feted by the OP with ad hominem attacks. How tedious.

My bad. Apologies to Kenomac.

[Capt Phil]

I was not born a skeptic but an experience my son had about 2 years ago took me along way towards being one.
He is a high school science teacher and to bring some supposed enlightment to his high school class, he screened the Al Gore movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth'. It caused much discussion and debate in the class so he followed up with a guest professor in Environmental Science from the University close by where he teaches. As a thank you for taking the time to talk to his class, he took her to dinner and after a couple of drinks the conversation turned to the subject of educational grants, supplemental income for those teaching at the graduate school level and support for scientific inquiry from wealthy donors and the community. She was quite open about the fact that much of her supplemental income and indeed, funding for her research came from sources with a vested interest in the outcome of her research. She saw no conflict whatsoever in taking $ from organizations or individuals that expected her research and published papers to support their particular viewpoint. I aked him if he had shared this nugget of information with his students to give them a proper perspective on the science and he replied he had not and did not intend to. I told him that I was disappointed in his decision and he replied that had he mentioned it to his class, it would no doubt get back to the University staff and he would have no chance of having guest professors talk to his high school class in the future.
Hence, I am skeptical of just about all 'scientific' research... whoever is footing the bill will have a say in the results. When you throw politics into the mix, you discover what PHD stands for... Piled Higher and Deeper... just my humble opinion. Phil

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by SailOar

My bad. Apologies to Kenomac.

Accepted. Good, now I can clean up all the drool.

[foggysail]

WELL STATED PHIL

[Teknav]

So, you want to know when the climate changes...sail away south until you get to Antarctica...that is where the cold is (don't forget your long johns)...sail away to the equator, and you will find plenty of warmth (don't forget your A/C)...see?...that was easy!

Mauritz
Green canary, yellow canary...all same...eat cat!

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by sneuman

you're cherry picking.

I picked the quotation that proved my point, which is that climate models have failed to predict climate, at least according to those that build those models.

Originally Posted by sneuman

y"But if global warming continues to stagnate, doubts will obviously grow stronger."

Well now, I guess we'll have this all settled in the next few years, won't we? If temperatures continue to stagnate (against the predictions of all models, including those retroactively adjusted) then doubts will certainly grow stronger, and sensibly so.

[sneuman]

So, you accept that climate change is, as this scientist states. Most certainly occurring? If not, I think the "denier" label is a fair one.