ransos – Member

Ah, the classic cherry pick tactic – using 1998 as your base year. Funny how they never choose 1997, or 1999.
Aye – its a classic.
Another good game is to follow the trail of quotes and references from the deniers – almost always end up with people with no expertise in the area and / or confirmed right wing loonies.

Show me a model that successfully predicted the fact there would be virtually no warming trend over the past decade’s observational data… or one that can explain why

Except, urr, we have. As discussed in the report that this thread is about.

Ransos – thats a graph of different observational records

not a graph of modelled predictions

the fact that the ten year trend is limited, is irrelevant

the modeled predictions all showed a constant warming trend, with no downturn

the models did not match the observational data

that means the models were wrong

that mans you go back to the drawing board and figure out why, instead of denying it

Note I’ve never denied one here that warming is happening, I’ve also never accepted it has – I’ve consistently said that I think the data is bollocks, and therefore we simply do not know, I maintain that that is a perfectly responsible and fair scientific position to hold.

the models did not match the observational data

that means the models were wrong

that mans you go back to the drawing board and figure out why, instead of denying it

Read the report.

Basically the sea was a slightly better heat sink than expected, so it hasn’t warmed as much as was expected.

As a result if you include sea temperatures in your observations then it looks like there is less warming than was predicted, because it is lagging behind a bit.

If you look just at land temperatures then the 1°C rise has been continuous as modelled.

Reckon The Flying Ox had it right and deserves posting again:

Ransos – thats a graph of different observational records

All of which refute your earlier assertion. If you’re going to start with a false premise, there’s no point in discussing anything else with you.

Next!

I’ve never denied one here that warming is happening, I’ve also never accepted it has – I’ve consistently said that I think the data is bollocks, and therefore we simply do not know, I maintain that that is a perfectly responsible and fair scientific position to hold.

Only if you give equal credence to the internationally recognised climate scientists and the rag bag fringe of deniers with no expertise in the area.
And on he last debate we had on this you flatly denied it was happening

Except, urr, we have. As discussed in the report that this thread is about.

Except, urr, the report was observational data, not a predictive model 🙄

For those interested, here’s the prediction made by Hansen in 1988. The scenarios are for different rates of emissions growth and assumptions about volcanic eruptions. Scenario B most closely represents what actually happened – modest emissions growth and one large volcanic eruption. Note how accurate it was!

Except, urr, the report was observational data, not a predictive model

That’s right. It is a report on observational data that follows the predictive model.

Show me a model that successfully predicted the fact there would be virtually no warming trend over the past decade’s observational data… or one that can explain why

Not that I expect it will change your mind Zulu but here’s a quote from the report about that “fact”:

Though it is sometimes argued that global warming has abated since the 1998 El Nino event (e.g. Easterling and Wehner 2009, Meehl et al. 2011), we find no evidence of this in the GHCN land data.

Applying our analysis over the interval 1998 to 2010, we find the land temperature trend to be 2.84 ± 0.73 C / century, consistent with prior decades.

Meehl et al. (2011) associated the recent 27 decreases in global temperature trends with increased heat flux into the deep oceans. The fact that we observe no change in the trend over land would seem to be consistent with the conclusion that any change in the total global average has been driven solely with oceanic processes.

— Berkeley Earth Temperature Averaging Process, October draft [PDF]

Obviously there’s a bit more discussion, but I’m sure you’ve read it all so I won’t bore you with repeating it here.

Well no scienist thought that there was a faster speed than light until a few weeks ago. This was proclamed with ‘absolute certainty’… thats all I have to say about that.

Well no scienist thought that there was a faster speed than light until a few weeks ago. This was proclamed with ‘absolute certainty’… thats all I have to say about that.

They think the same now. Your point is?

Well no scienist thought that there was a faster speed than light until a few weeks ago. This was proclamed with ‘absolute certainty’… thats all I have to say about that.

Yeah. And and they still don’t think there is this week.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/17/remember-those-faster-than-light-neutrinos-great-now-forget-e/

But besides that, science being overturned is not a sign of weakness. It shows that scientific method is working.

Yep, you are right. But shall we give up questioning as we are told that a ‘consensus’ has been reached?

But shall we give up questioning as we are told that a ‘consensus’ has been reached?

Of course not. But likewise should we do nothing because there are still people with questions?

No-one’s given up questionning. But if you’re going to do so, it’s better to come up with some evidence to support your assertions. Then that evidence can be examined, tested, and either be rejected or accepted. What we have from the denialists is a load of half-truths, lies, cherry picking and a near total absence of any actual science.

I certainly don’t advocate doing nothing, but I certainly don’t think its a foregone conclusion either. We have a very long way to go yet before we reach a thorough understanding of what is happening.

(incidentally I like “denialist” better than “denier”, which always makes me think I’m arguing with some unusually thick lady’s stockings)

I certainly don’t think its a foregone conclusion either.

Which part?

The evidence that warming/change is happening is fairly clear. Most sceptics, (even Zulu apparently) accept that part.

The remaining debate is how fast, are we causing any/part/all of it, can we do anything to mitigate it and do we need to?

What’s the downside to trying to cut down our emissions while we figure this stuff out?

What’s the downside to trying to cut down our emissions while we figure this stuff out?

Absolutely zilch. We will only achieve better things.

My personal stance is I am unconvinced by the amount of effect man is having. But that doesn’t mean that we should acquiesce.

Maybe to some people burning lots of stuff still feels like ‘progress’

My personal stance is I am unconvinced by the amount of effect man is having.

Based on what though?

a rudimentary understanding of carbon cycles – no more.

I do however have a very profound understanding of predictive models (day job), and know how fallible they are.

‘to accurately predict the future, you need an infinite knowledge of the past’.

edit: sorry that is quite nebulous, not looking for a debate, just trying to make the point that arrogance and dogma should have no place in science, whatever discipline.

That’s what we mean – having questions about consensus is good – but generalised, arm-wavy “I don’t think so, but have no particular evidence or critique to offer” isn’t really all that helpful.

‘to accurately predict the future, you need an infinite knowledge of the past’.

True to a degree, but, for example, I don’t need infinite knowledge to know that pulling the trigger on a loaded gun held at my head is likely to end badly.

Sometimes knowing that things are bad, and that we are currently doing them and they have seem to have the bad effect we thought they might, should be enough to persuade us to stop. Or at least pause!

Ok – so back from doing the work that needed to be done. So how much progress has been made? Do we have an answer?

Graham – despite the fact that I think the “head in the sand” photo was aimed at me, you seem to making particular sense both in your first post and more recently:

The remaining debate is how fast, are we causing any/part/all of it, can we do anything to mitigate it and do we need to? What’s the downside to trying to cut down our emissions while we figure this stuff out?

The case for global warming does seem to be strong (so lets hope that unlike the IPCC data that allegedly fudged some of the graphs) that this analysis holds up to scrutiny. Then that part of the argument can be put to bed. But given the debate already today, I doubt this will be the smooth ride that others predict here.

[Out of interest – what are the arguments for the decline in temperature between approx 1940-70s and does any one know about solar activity over this period – genuine ? here BTW]

But as you say the crux really is the causation argument. It really isn’t good enough for either side to hide behind comments such as TJ’s above:

equal credence to the internationally recognised climate scientists and the rag bag fringe of deniers with no expertise in the area.

It is absurd to claim that there is unanimity in the science profession in this area and that any opponents are merely the ‘fringe’. This is TJ’s usual cyber bullying approach. But it is absurd. Imagine if derniers/sceptics did the same.

The problem in this area is the vast interest groups that lie behind each side of the argument. And mistakes made on each side. So for every Pachauri we will have a Delingople etc….Who is funding Lawson’s group etc…?

what’s the big deal about climate change anyway ? Humanity will survive, just not in the way it does now.

Toxicity, however, may kill us all. Why is there less fuss about that ?

Out of interest – what are the arguments for the decline in temperature between approx 1940-70s and does any one know about solar activity over this period – genuine ? here BTW

its about cherry picking data

or the long trend

you canplay around with data sets and time lines /trens and othere stuff from
http://www.woodfortrees.org
very interesting to play along with

the cause is probabaly [ most likely ] whatever you prefer as your “proof” word

The mid-century cooling appears to have been largely due to a high concentration of sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere, emitted by industrial activities and volcanic eruptions. Sulphate aerosols have a cooling effect on the climate because they scatter light from the Sun, reflecting its energy back out into space.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11639-climate-myths-the-cooling-after-1940-shows-co2-does-not-cause-warming.html

t is absurd to claim that there is unanimity in the science profession in this area

well 97% of climate scientists agree so its pretty strong.
Very few “credible” scientists disagree and of those who do most are not from this area – would you care if Steven Hawkins disagreed on an economics law for example?
Whilst it is not as clear cut as TJ said it is not as “diverse” as you suggest either.

Imagine if derniers/sceptics did the same.

you mean like question where the funding comes from and say they are in the pay of governments?
On balance it is fair to say it s a tiny minority of people who oppose this view within the discipline and a small minority within the scientific community at large.

Flinging mud is easy for either view but clearly temperature is rising, clearly C02 is a green house gas and it is rising – ppm. There little suggestion from deniers as to what would or could ameliorate the forcing affect of rising C02.
I am not sure what people want as proof tbh as they seem happy to deny despite the fact they have no “proof” to account for these known facts.

You cannot deny that most vociferous deniers are not academics or students of the discipline – see lord lawson for example. It is amasing [ actually no its not] but very few even have a science background.
It is worthy of debat eand there are areas for debate but sadly most of the noise if from loud but ill informed individuals [ a bt like stw then really

Incidentally I think the climate change arguments are absolutely hilarious. Truly, utterly hilarious.

What other branch of science has suddenly bred such a massive amount of “experts” overnight?

It would be great if we could channel this to another science. Surely with the sheer brain power of all the armchair scientist experts (who obviously have studied this area in their spare time to a greater depth than people whose jobs it is to do this every day) we could have cured cancer/HIV/antibiotic resistance/food shortages etc. by now?

Shouldn’t we just ask Lord (but not of the Lords) Monckton to give us the cure for leukaemia? He should be able to whip it up in no time!

Ok – so read some of the Berkeley stuff and what does this tell me? First, there is an incredible amount of data and it seems a high degree of openness. But does it make me more or less sceptical about global warming and what does it add to the debate as to the causes.

With regards to the first question: It does neither. To state the obvious, I do not think that there is a debate a global warming. It is happening and has been happening for a long term. Given that we are in an interglacial phase, this is a non-contraversial conclusion. The same can be said for greenhouses gases. But reading the reports (particularly the third draft from the website (http://berkeleyearth.org/resources.php) the most striking thing for me it the doubts that is raises on the usefulness of the data.

The report quotes its own findings and that of other research which show that the statistical errors are three-four times the scale of the actual increase in global warming that has been “found”. And this excludes the data from non-US stations. Professor Muller concludes that “our temperature record is poor, especially over the oceans, that it is limited, filled with errors and biases, and when used as a basis for judgment, leads to over-certainty.”

So one does not have to be a denier, or one of TJ’s rag bag fringe members to at least maintain a relatively healthy degree of scepticism about the findings. Muller concedes that himself. I had hoped that reading the report would increase my level of certainty but it has actually done the opposite.

Ok, the second question. Again one only has to read the authors’ own comments: “How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.”

So really, I cannot see what the fuss is about. We know that global warming is happening, we know about greenhouse gases (and the relative importance of water vapour vs CO2), we have data that is very difficult to draw reliable conclusions from, and we still do not understand the causes.

Now i understand why the likes of Al Gore have to use images of power station towers – they do not show CO2 at all, but they look sufficiently scary to raise alarm in the absence of scientific proof. Funny I though CO2 was invisible – just shows how little I know!

So really, I cannot see what the fuss is about. We know that global warming is happening

Well not everyone does. The aim of the report was to openly re-examine the data and make it all public.

The hardcore deniers (the “fringe members”) were claiming that the data was flawed (due to weather stations within urban heat islands), and that the Climategate emails and closed nature of their data showed that GW proponents were trying to hide the “fact” that global warming didn’t exist or had completely stopped in the last decade.

The report demonstrates that is false, that urban heat islands have not skewed the data, and proposes new methods for examining the data to address mathematical criticisms of other models.

You are quite right that it doesn’t tackle the possible causes. That was not its aim. It simply confirms it is definitely happening.

you are cheery picking

our temperature record is poor, especially over the oceans, that it is limited, filled with errors and biases, and when used as a basis for judgment, leads to over-certainty.”

Did the research group , funded largely by sceptics, conclude it was warming or not?
Did they conclude the data was too error prone to draw a meaningful conclusion?
the abstract is at the end of this post for clarity [ one would not format properly on here so I have just added the final line [ sorry it is not an attempt to cherry pick even if it appears it is]

Given that we are in an interglacial phase, this is a non-contraversial conclusion.

it was as sceptics said it was not warming and funded a group to independently investigate it , they have at least removed one controversy [ myth if we want to get all adversarial here]

How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.”

There goal was to see if there was warming or not. It was not to reach a conclusion on the causes- everyone knows this surely?

So really, I cannot see what the fuss is about.

😯 – you should read up a bit more [ no offence I like debate swith you we rarely agree but clearly you ar e bright and open minded [ in agood way]

We know that global warming is happening, we know about global warming, we have data that is very difficult to draw reliable conclusions from, and we still do not understand the causes.

do we ? there whole point was to have reliable data so I am not sure why you make that claim
As to what it means 97% of climatologist are able to understand the causes even if an economists in a MTB forum is not.
you should [skim] read the IPCC report it covers other possible causes of warming and gives values for C02 and forcing. Its is very very long though and quite heavy going.
If i got 300 physicists to sign a petition to join the Euro would you even care what they thought – you never answered that point but it is a very important one. Experts do know more than other people Whilst this does not guarantee them being right all other things being equal i would rather liste to an expert in that field than someone equally bright from another area.
here is the full abstract on what they said my bold which is a much fairer reflection of what they think that your selected highlights – we all have bias

A new mathematical framework is presented for producing maps and large-scale averages of temperature changes from weather station data for the purposes of climate analysis.
This allows one to include short and discontinuous temperature records, so that nearly all temperature data can be used. The framework contains a weighting process that assesses the
quality and consistency of a spatial network of temperature stations as an integral part of the averaging process. This permits data with varying levels of quality to be used without compromising the accuracy of the resulting reconstructions. Lastly, the process presented here is extensible to spatial networks of arbitrary density (or locally varying density) while maintaining the expected spatial relationships. In this paper, this framework is applied to the Global
Historical Climatology Network land temperature dataset to present a new global land temperature reconstruction from 1800 to present with error uncertainties that include many key effects. In so doing, we find that the global land mean temperature has increased by 0.911 ±
0.042 C since the 1950s (95% confidence for statistical and spatial uncertainties). This change is consistent with global land-surface warming results previously reported, but with reduced uncertainty.

And from the report on errors

The absence of a statistically significant difference between the two sets [poor and ok data sets] suggests that networks of stations can reliably discern temperature trends even when individual stations have large absolute uncertainties

EDIT: should i work on being as brief as GrahamS

The world is a biggg old place, some humility on both sides regarding understanding it all would be nice.
Altering our climate by accident, and not design, would be truly tragic though.

Junkyard, in the bit you’ve quoted it refers to 95% confidence levels. Whilst this ‘sounds’ a high percentage. Statistically this is appalling.

In a world where companys use six sigma methodology to ensure their products don’t fail, if we were to rely on 95% confidence levels we would have planes falling out of the sky, trains derailing, gas explosions etc, etc. Whilst these catastophes still happen (you can never 100% accurately predict) they are thankfully the exeption rather than the rule. And we use confidence levels of 99.996%.

The data can too easily be discredited. The data simply is not good enough… for now.

95% confidence levels. Whilst this ‘sounds’ a high percentage. Statistically this is appalling.

Statistically, 95% is the standard and most commonly used confidence level, as used by researchers in every field across the world.

However, the dataset is published with the report so if you’d like to calculate a different CI and precision then you are free to do so.

In a world where companys use six sigma methodology… we use confidence levels of 99.996%.

Sorry but that is a completely different measurement and has chuff all to do with confidence intervals.

It is absolutely about confidence levels.

Statistically, 95% is the standard and most commonly used confidence interval, as used by researchers in every field across the world.

Yes but this standard is not high enough.

However, the dataset is published with the report so if you’d like to calculate a different CI and precision then you are free to do so.

However I mucked about with the figures I still couldnt improve the precision of the raw data.

Yes but this standard is not high enough.

Damn them for using the standard eh?

However I mucked about with the figures I still couldnt improve the precision of the raw data.

No but you can calculate it to your own confidence level.

For example, Junkyard’s quote talks about 0.911 ±0.042 C (95% confidence).
I’m not about to sit and do the maths (especially on my phone) but you could recalculate it to be something like 0.9 ±0.1 C (99% confidence) if you really wanted to.

You lose precision but gain confidence.

Whilst this ‘sounds’ a high percentage. Statistically this is appalling.
The data can too easily be discredited. The data simply is not good enough… for now.

and there went most/the majority of science with your first point.
Secondly the report it is specifically about the quality of the data and what it means. I gave the quotes on what they concluded but hey you may know more . Luckily it gives the raw data and the methodology used so why not rip it apart rather than attack it philosophically.

Damn them for using the standard eh?

Ah the default position of mockery of anyone who dares question the consensus.

What I do have genuine concern about is if the data is interrogated using the rigours of statistical analysis used in six sigma, it falls apart. Athough I do concede the application differs somewhat.

Well it’s easy to improve the quality of the data set.
The confidence level relates to the sample versus population size, yes?

Here our samples come from weather stations and the population is the actual temperatures at every point on the globe.

So all we need to do is jump in a time machine, go back 200 years, place one weather station every 5km around the world, then come back and collect the data, which should now be “good enough”.

I’m sure a Sigma6 Black Belt can manage that 🙄