while you guys are freezing...

[El Presidente]

14 minutes ago, rcarlson said:

Perhaps.  I really am curious what your "something is."

As a gumby I would start on non biodegradable plastics (ban) and acceleration of the move away from oil. 

 

[Fugu]

On 2/2/2019 at 6:09 AM, Ken Gargett said:

to say you are supported by a 'humungous body of scientific research' but you won't dump it on the forum is a cop out. you use the excuse that everyone has made up their minds so no point. again, the easy way.

This exactly! I really didn't want to get involved any deeper in this thread, but this cannot be left to stand uncommented.

Folks claiming to be having extensive professional experience on the subject (and I'd assume then as a scientist or at least journalist), thus to be actual "experts" in the field, but then having nothing more to add than directing towards the weblinks of two of the most prominent misinformation spreading, central pseudo-scientific, coal- and big-oil-funded "climate change denial" agitation websites out there (check CFACT, check Anthony Watts and Heartland Institute) - instead of showing us their original publications of their works - is more than lame.

I'm always one for a lively controversy, but that debate here seems to be partly driven by preoccupied agitation of those exactly, who soar up to criticise it. Letting me want to quickly drop out again. But not before pointing to a similar discussion in an older FOH thread from 5 years back. That past debate on the, back then, 'hot-topic' "warming pause" has by far been overtaken by reality meanwhile, the older topic proven to be flawed on so many levels.... I bet in another ten years from now, we will - quite regrettably - see even clearer.

Just two plots:
back then (from the 2013-thread)

and now (NASA GISS data, 2018)

 

@rcarlson, it is quite funny how you are citing that New Scientist's article in trying to support your stance of scepticism. The report is part of the series of "Climate myths" by Michael Le Page, in that one of them being about the "sceptics' " claim that the 'hockey stick' graph were proven wrong. The article describes how exactly the opposite is true! How it actually has not been proven wrong but subsequently been widely confirmed! And that even though there were shortcomings back then, shortcomings that had been openly addressed by the original authors already.

Since you may not have read it, but only pasted link and title, here are some main excerpts for info:

"In fact, later studies support the key conclusion: the world is warmer now than it has been for at least 1000 years:"

"The “hockey stick” graph was the result of the first comprehensive attempt to reconstruct the average northern hemisphere temperature over the past 1000 years, based on numerous indicators of past temperatures, such as tree rings. It shows temperatures holding fairly steady until the last part of the 20th century and then suddenly shooting up."

"The conclusion that we are making the world warmer certainly does not depend on reconstructions of temperature prior to direct records."

"Since 2001, there have been repeated claims that the reconstruction is at best seriously flawed and at worst a fraud, no more than an artefact of the statistical methods used to create it (see The great hockey stick debate).
Details of the claims and counterclaims involve lengthy and arcane statistical arguments, so let’s skip straight to the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Science (pdf). The academy was asked by Congress to assess the validity of temperature reconstructions, including the hockey stick.
The report states: "The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world".
Most researchers would agree that while the original hockey stick can - and has - been improved in a number of ways, it was not far off the mark. Most later temperature reconstructions fall within the error bars of the original hockey stick. Some show far more variability leading up to the 20th century than the hockey stick, but none suggest that it has been warmer at any time in the past 1000 years than in the last part of the 20th century.
Yet again, though, the key conclusion is the same: it’s hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years."

 

 

[Ken Gargett]

55 minutes ago, rcarlson said:

Ken, that is cop out.  The sites are fully searchable, and as I said, the quantity of data is humongous.  I talked about the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority."  You make the point. 

Break it down in bites, and maybe I can retrieve an expert that you will accept for whatever reason. I haven't a clue what you've looked at, why you've accepted it, or what caused your epiphany.  I also haven't a clue who your attacking and what their article said.  Almost anyone can contribute to the site, no different than here. 

 https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-climate-study-error-20181113-story.html

i seem to have had a post go missing.

i'll try again.

i would completely dismiss that.

i acknowledge the sites are searchable and i spent a considerable amount of time doing so. i detailed that, so you know what i have looked at.

not once did i find anything that was supported by any of the science you  claim. there was, as i have said, a great deal of humiliation and so forth. The experts were  paid by the oil/gas industry in the first link. 

if anyone out there does have links/sites with genuine scientific evidence that are worth looking at, post them up!

[El Presidente]

Fugu

Cheers for that. 

I have a natural suspicion of all reports.  I have a bigger suspicion of "experts".  I think many of us are in the same boat. 

Much of this suspicion has come from the medical field where industry funded studies  are touted as miracles and marketed by doctors/specialists in white coats to a compliant market. Google up "statin wars' and watch the vid by Dr. Maryanne Demasi

Substitute medical field for  agricultural/climate/etc.

5 years ago I would have felt very differently on the subject of climate change.  That is the beauty of discussion and debate.  All that is required is an absence of hostility and a willingness to see through another mans lens. 

[Fugu]

Here is another striking example for such an approach of misleading information, again about the "warming hiatus" debate:

This text there citing three ostensibly supporting publications, in the attempt to confirm the claim for the non-existence of global warming. But in actual fact, all three linked publications (1, 2, 3) are dealing with the identification of a decadal periodicity, responsible for the observed short-term variabilities in the global temperature rise. All three are supportive of a general global warming trend (but looking into explanations for the short-term slowing of rates). They are even warning that after such a period of temporary "slowing down" an acceleration is to be expected due to the superimposition of these decadal waves (decadal modulated oscillation, DMO) over the longer-term trends (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-016-3085-8)

"When the DMO is in an upward (warming) phase, it contributes to an accelerated warming trend, as in last 20 years of twentieth-century. It appears that there is a downward swing in the DMO occurring at present, which has balanced or reduced the radiative forced warming and resulted in the recent global warming hiatus."
"The results conclude that the DMO can not only be used to interpret the current warming hiatus, it also suggests that global warming will accelerate again when it swings upward." and
"Regardless of the model’s projections, our study also suggests that warming will accelerate again when the DMO enters its upward phase. However, when this change is likely to occur, and how much time we have left to prepare for the accelerated warming expected in the near future are questions that remain unanswered."

 

These conclusive findings, however, are then usually omitted from the agitational pamphlets. Limpid manoeuver. But only for those to debunk who take the time to follow up and go into the details of the original publications.

This is quite the typical modus operandi of the "denier's camp". Nothing wrong about a denial per se, everyone is entitled to his own opinion. But : Putting up a particular claim, then shamming supportive findings by citing certain publications, preferably even of high-tier journals, making an impression they were supportive of said claim (from the title at best, or nothing to prove it at all), but then not actually looking further into it and not reproducing the true message of those papers, is to be called fraud.

 

[rcarlson]

Fugu, I know exactly what the article said.  What you point to is why I linked it.  

[rcarlson]

Ken, I didn't say "I" had a humongous amount of info an all aspects of the debate.  I said there is a ton of it.  "Climate change" or "global warming" is not one topic anywhere but in newspapers. 

As for my professional experience, it is in one aspect of the debate.  I am not a scientist.  If you care, I wouldn't mind shooting you a PM. 

[Fugu]

13 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

if anyone out there does have links/sites with genuine scientific evidence that are worth looking at, post them up!

Ken, I suggest starting with this, as cited above, for an overview:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

[rcarlson]

Looks like a comment or two of mine were gobbled too. 

My original point pertains.   a forum such as this is not good for debates on such complex issues.  You've called me out for things I did not say and positions I did not stake, I think.  we're certainly talking past each other.

I'm gonna tap out.

[Luca]

On 2/1/2019 at 1:21 PM, El Presidente said:

On another note @Elpresidente......when I was at Ian's place... I always wondered why he made phone calls outside under his olive tree...?

[Midnight]

Yeah, I hate to break to to everyone but the earth is getting cooler right now not warmer.  The sun cycles control the temperature on earth and the current cycle appears to be pointing to some potential problems coming due to the shorter growing seasons and crop production.

 

...only an intellectual would be able to point out that the sun has no effect on global warming. Strange but true

[El Presidente]

4 minutes ago, Midnight said:

Yeah, I hate to break to to everyone but the earth is getting cooler right now not warmer.  The sun cycles control the temperature on earth and the current cycle appears to be pointing to some potential problems coming due to the shorter growing seasons and crop production.

 

...only an intellectual would be able to point out that the sun has now effect on global warming. Strange but true

can you link to a couple of scientific studies on the current cooling of the planet for us?

[Fugu]

Some further reading perhaps for those with an open-minded interest in original research:

- on ir/reversibility and time scales:

https://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1704

- on tipping points:

https://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786

- and a more recent one on setting anthropogenic carbon release rates into historical perspective (read at least abstract and final para)

http://climatechange.lta.org/wp-content/uploads/cct/2015/03/ZeebeEtAl-NGS16.pdf

And finally another noteworthy article from The Guardian in 2015 about predictions made in a report a 50-yrs back by a group of scientists advisory to then-US president L.B. Johnson....

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/05/scientists-warned-the-president-about-global-warming-50-years-ago-today

[HopeUgood]

12 hours ago, El Presidente said:

can you link to a couple of scientific studies on the current cooling of the planet for us?

Here is an article from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration done in Oct 2018 calling the year to date the 4th hottest on record. Not sure how the year ranked at the end.

https://www.noaa.gov/news/september-2018-and-year-to-date-were-4th-hottest-on-record-for-globe

 

[Midnight]

16 hours ago, El Presidente said:

can you link to a couple of scientific studies on the current cooling of the planet for us?

 

 

 

 

[El Presidente]

1 hour ago, SenorPerfecto said:

The reason this issue is so frustrating for those of us who "believe" in manmade climate change, and the need for us to quickly do something to avert disaster, is that "belief" has nothing to do with it. This is settled science.

Now, this does not mean that people have to believe in science. There are flat-earthers still knocking about. There are idiots not vaccinating their kids and then sending them off to public school. If that's the direction you choose to take your life, there's little anyone can say to you.

But manmade climate change is not "I believe this, you believe that, we can agree to disagree." It's just not. It's more like I agree, along with the rest of the species, that the earth is spherical. You, along with a few others, do not. You are wrong. Period. Why? Not because I myself have done the math, or flown in orbit around the earth to prove to myself that we live on a globe; I simply am competent enough, and just barely without hubris enough, to admit that there are people who know a lot more than me about this, and they ALL say climate change is manmade and steering us toward global disaster.

If you choose to take it upon your uneducated self to say, "no," out of hubris, or because you're gullible enough to listen to Big Oil and the politicians in their pocket, c'est la vie.

But what you "believe" about manmade climate change doesn't matter at all. You're in reality, or you're not.

I honestly couldn't disagree with you more. 

The art of debate....and it is an art....is simply lost when one closes his ears. 

You mention the "idiots' not vaccinating.  Nice slur ( refer art of discussion line).   My kids are all vaccinated and I would do it again but I feel for a mum who googles up the "risks" and sees report after report about it's correlation to autism and attention deficit disorder. Yes, there are "doctors" and "scientists" on both sides of the debate.  The Govt will tell you it's "settled science". Who in hell trusts a government these days? Thalidomide anyone?

"Flat earthers". They exist ...but again by taking the worst aspect of the "opposition" and characterising them all as backwoods bevans simply does nothing for the debate except to elicit responses of UN loving "chicken littles". 

Be it once, be it 1000 times, one sharpens their argument, prepares and presents the rebuttals and does it in a manner of class. The objective is to change minds...and it may never be the one you are pitching at but rather the ones listening in.  That is debate.  

There is a fair bit of denier mumbo jumbo being thrown around in this thread. Some cracking lines used to diffuse further scrutiny.  "I want to avoid this or that".They are on the ropes at that point. 

It's gold for a skilled debater. He also understands that the moment he uses personal inflammatory language, the debate is lost.