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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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Oh, my, the 'pause' actually increased the long term rate of warming.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Ice isn't subject to statistical cherry picking and trickery. We are in an interstadial of a multi million year ice age. The global ice cover is increasing. The puny effect of trace gas CO2 is being downsized , by necessity of at least seeming to conform to undeniable observational facts, as the ice sheets advance. Any bounce of global surface temps from our current El Nino will be quickly squashed by downslide to unseen depths in solar output and many feedbacks, increasing ice cover being one of the strongest.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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No problem, don't mention it. It's 72 f today, the sun is finally out and I'm sweating with all the humidity coming out of the rain soaked ground as I bend over framing these walls. Thoughts of an ice age are a comfort today.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Notes from the war on science: Senator Brandon Smith (R), at a meeting of the Kentucky State Senate's Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment.
"I don’t want to get into the debate about climate change, but I will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There are no factories on Mars that I’m aware of."
Senator Smith's quote seemed so mind-boggling I thought it must be a hoax. But the video is at 2:20 here.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
This guy is Majority Whip in the Kentucky State Senate. He's been elected twice.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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More about the war on science later, but here's some real science instead, by Franks and coauthors just published in Geophysical Research Letters. The gist of it is that atmospheric CO2 levels over the past 500 million years have been less variable than previously thought, and that climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing may therefore be higher.
This seems to be the newest contribution from the paleoclimate community, who often report higher CO2 sensitivity estimates than other researchers working just from the modern instrumental temperature records. It's an ongoing discussion within climate science.
New constraints on atmospheric CO2 concentration for the Phanerozoic
Earth’s atmospheric CO2 concentration (ca) for the Phanerozoic Eon is estimated from proxies and geochemical carbon cycle models. Most estimates come with large, sometimes unbounded uncertainty. Here, we calculate tightly constrained estimates of ca using a universal equation for leaf gas exchange, with key variables obtained directly from the carbon isotope composition and stomatal anatomy of fossil leaves. Our new estimates, validated against ice cores and direct measurements of ca are less than 1000 ppm for most of the Phanerozoic, from the Devonian to the present, coincident with the appearance and global proliferation of forests. Uncertainties, obtained from Monte Carlo simulations, are typically less than for ca estimates from other approaches. These results provide critical new empirical support for the emerging view that large (~2000 − 3000 ppm), long-term swings in ca do not characterize the post-Devonian and that Earth’s long-term climate sensitivity to ca is greater than originally thought.
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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^^ Forgets that the US is less than 2% of the globe ^^
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dave729
Trad climber
Western America
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There you go Monolith. Your CO2 exhalations have caused
another typhoon and probably will kill many people.
You are such a sh#t not to end yourself and save
their lives. Creep.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2014 - 07:33am PT
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At least Mono exhales CO2; while you, Dave, exhale turds.
That must taste pretty raw.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/upshot/when-beliefs-and-facts-collide.html
"Mr. Kahan’s study suggests that more people know what scientists think about high-profile scientific controversies than polls suggest; they just aren’t willing to endorse the consensus when it contradicts their political or religious views. This finding helps us understand why my colleagues and I have found that factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective at reducing misperceptions and can even backfire on issues like weapons of mass destruction, health care reform and vaccines. With science as with politics, identity often trumps the facts."
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2459057
Climate Science Communication and the Measurement Problem
Dan M. Kahan
Yale University - Law School; Harvard University - Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
June 25, 2014
Advances Pol. Psych., Forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the science-of-science-communication measurement problem. In its simplest form, the problem reflects the use of externally invalid measures of the dynamics that generate cultural conflict over risk and other policy-relevant facts. But at a more fundamental level, the science-of-science-communication measurement problem inheres in the phenomena being measured themselves. The “beliefs” individuals form about a societal risk such as climate change are not of a piece; rather they reflect the distinct clusters of inferences that individuals draw as they engage information for two distinct ends: to gain access to the collective knowledge furnished by science, and to enjoy the sense of identity enabled by membership in a community defined by particular cultural commitments. The paper shows how appropriately designed “science comprehension” tests — one general, and one specific to climate change — can be used to measure individuals’ reasoning proficiency as collective-knowledge acquirers independently of their reasoning proficiency as cultural-identity protectors. Doing so reveals that there is in fact little disagreement among culturally diverse citizens on what science knows about climate change. The source of the climate-change controversy and like disputes is the contamination of education and politics with forms of cultural status competition that make it impossible for diverse citizens to express their reason as both collective-knowledge acquirers and cultural-identity protectors at the same time.
The source of the public conflict over climate change is not too little rationality but in a sense too much. Ordinary members of the public are too good at extracting from information the significance it has in their everyday lives. What an ordinary person does—as consumer, voter, or participant in public discussions—is too inconsequential to affect either the climate or climate-change policymaking. Accordingly, if her actions in one of those capacities reflects a misunderstanding of the basic facts on global warming, neither she nor anyone she cares about will face any greater risk. But because positions on climate change have become such a readily identifiable indicator of ones’ cultural commitments, adopting a stance toward climate change that deviates from the one that prevails among her closest associates could have devastating consequences, psychic and material. Thus, it is perfectly rational—perfectly in line with using information appropriately to achieve an important personal end—for that individual to attend to information on in a manner that more reliably connects her beliefs about climate change to the ones that predominate among her peers than to the best available scientific evidence (Kahan, 2012)
These studies imply misinformation is not a decisive source of public controversy over climate change. People in these studies are misinforming themselves by opportunistically adjusting the weight they give to evidence based on what they are already committed to believing. This form of identity-protective motivated reasoning (Sherman 2003; Sherman & Cohen 2006) occurs, this work suggests, not just in the climate change debate but in numerous others in which these same cultural groups trade places being out of line with the National Academy of Sciences’ assessments of what “expert consensus” is (Kahan, Jenkins-Smith & Braman 2011).
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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How about we examine this issue in an honest considerate manner?
considering that responses to the question you posed above have been discussed at great depth during the course of this thread, and that the specifics of the current climate behavior have also been discussed, extensively, in terms of the most recent scientific findings, it is a bit surprising that you would make the condition "honest considerate manner".
I took down my posts because it became obvious that the argument wasn't over the science, it was about our perceived political views. I don't know any scientific argument that will displace closely held beliefs.
In discussing evolution (which is also discussed in the paper) I obtained the ire of both sides by stating, essentially, that the scientific theory of evolution is consistent with the observations and experiments. The creationists have constructed a theory that is also "consistent" with the observations. The predictive power of these two explanations is vastly different, and no one would deny health care which was a result of the application of the scientific theory of evolution as opposed to having just faith (obviously this is not an accurate statement since there are small groups of people that do not seek medical treatment and instead practice their faith alone).
There is a difference in constructing an explanation to "fit the facts" as opposed to creating a theory that is capable of predicting.
I had taken the time to extract predictions from Hansen's 1983 paper on the temperature anomaly, and then compare that with the subsequent behavior of the temperature anomaly. It agreed quite well, given that Hansen had to project the likely CO2 emissions, and account for significant natural variability.
It was a prediction of the climate models, and I stated that given the nascent state of the models and the computational power available in 1983, the prediction's agreement with what actually happened are quite good (and we could quantify that).
Using fits to the time series is not the same thing as building a model based on the underlying physical principles, developing procedures for initiating a predictive time series and then letting the computer project into the future. The time series lacks any explicit underlying theory. The essential hypothesis being that the time series can be represented by a linear relationship which has two free parameters: a value of the anomaly at one point in time and a constant rate of change.
We know that the actual physical situation is not described by that underlying hypothesis, but it is the hypothesis you are asking for clarification on.
When an analysis uses the insights gained by the modeling to fit the same time series, as Chiloe showed he reproduced from a paper, the natural variability is represented by the observed time series of various indices and fit to the anomaly time series, there are 8 free parameters representing the magnitude of the contribution of the indices, and a time offset of the index series. These fits are quite good. The paper left out the CO2 emission index, and the residual to the fit of the temperature anomaly was a linear trend following the emission index.
This model has no predictive power, but is a simple way to test the results of the much more elaborate computer models which identify the most significant contributions to the anomaly.
One could conclude that the computer models, having gotten that right, can be used to make predictions which have higher fidelity in terms of treating the actual physical system. One could seek to understand the fit's parameter values to similar values calculated by the models, and relate those parameters to physical phenomena.
A linear increase of the anomaly is not a very faithful representation of the physical system, and no scientist believes that it is...
So the whole premise of your question seems to be irrelevant to the science discussion.
What is relevant, and what has been discussed at length, is the idea that our models could have predictive power on a decadal time scale, with spatial resolutions that are much smaller than hemispheric. There is a considerable amount of scientific discussion on this point, and it is relevant to the larger discussion considering the recent behavior of the temperature anomaly.
It will be a major scientific accomplishment to obtain accurate climate forecasts on the decadal time scale for sub-continental space scales. These forecasts have a great influence on response to climate change that affect us all. Learning what the limits are in the accuracy of those forecasts is an important program. The current behavior of the anomaly is part of that learning process.
There is little scientific doubt that on the global scale and for century time periods, that the models make accurate predictions given CO2 emission scenarios. While the annual contribution of the emissions are small, the cumulative effects of a century of emissions overwhelms the natural variability.
I'm sure this is a much too long response to your question. I hope you find it made "in an honest considerate manner".
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raymond phule
climber
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I wonder if anyone will honestly address ^these^ points.
Which points? That both the time series and the time interval have been cheery picked? The other temperature records show a much higher trend over that time interval. The trend also change quite a lot if you change the starting time.
I stopped to believe in the accuracy of the rss temperature record when I read that Spencer also thinks that it is suspect and that it only should be used when you wanted to show a negative trend.
I really don't understand why linear trends are used as often as they seem to be on climate data when the variability is so high so that the trends change quite a lot if the start time and end times are changed.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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As an example, did you with your computer skills have a clear understanding of the actual risk posed by the Y2K bug? I mean seriously, its all just a mush of zeros and ones for 99.99 percent of us but if we just percolated a bit do you think we'd be in any better position to decide? Do you really think a run of the mill day trader or whatever you are can grasp the meaning from such a techncal process? I mean why not - our environment is equal parts climate and computers after all.
Interesting analogy Bruce--remember that the Y2K bug was to a large extent a hoax promulgated by the media to generate buzz and by a some so-called experts who would charge a fortune to "solve the problem."
In most of the world, people weren't even aware of the "problem" and did nothing whatsover to "solve" it, and they did just fine. The suckers were those who spent a fortune to "study" the problem, generate reports, and keep a team of "experts" happily and profitably employed for as long as they could play the game. (Unfortunately for them, the game had a hard ending point!)
The Y2K thing wasn't a complete hoax--there were a few programs here and there that needed to be tweaked.
Remind you of anything else that may be under discussion here?
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SuperTopo on the Web
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considering that responses to the question you posed above have been discussed at great depth during the course of this thread, and that the specifics of the current climate behavior have also been discussed, extensively, in terms of the most recent scientific findings, it is a bit surprising that you would make the condition "honest considerate manner".
Let us know!