Open Mind

155 responses so far ↓

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  Deep Climate // June 26, 2009 at 3:53 am | Reply

  Carter, a retired geology professor, is a “scientific advisor” for the Canadian “astroturf” group, Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP) and for the “skeptic” umbrella group International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). The NRSP was started by Canadian PR specialist Tom Harris, who is now Executive Director of the ICSC.

  The pair organized the infamous Bali Open Letter to the U.N., released in the dying days of the UN climate change conference in 2007. The open letter was released through the Canadian right-wing newspaper National Post, which hid key details of the letter’s provenance from readers.

  See:
  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Natural_Resources_Stewardship_Project#Bali_open_letter_to_U.N.

  Also see:
  http://deepclimate.org/2009/06/16/freeman-dysons-shadowy-canadian-connection/

  sigh … yet another battle in the ongoing “War on Science”.

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  KenM // June 26, 2009 at 6:19 am | Reply

  I don’t challenge your overall analysis, which, as a non-expert and a laymen, I find impressive ….

  However, with regard to cherry picking El Nino vs La Nina years … isn’t ENSO a regional variation? Cooling in one part of the ocean offset by warming in another? Shouldn’t global averages be consistent regardless?

  What does it mean to cherry pick years in the context of ENSO and global averages?

  Not that it matters much, since your analysis of the overall trend vs 10-year slices is compelling on its own…

  [Response: Although el Nino is regional with respect to ocean temperatures, it allows for greater heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere -- hence it has a considerable effect on global average surface air temperature (the most common measure of global warming). You might be interested in this.]

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  Chad // June 26, 2009 at 8:30 am | Reply

  Hey Tamino, what program do you use for your analysis?

  [Response: I still use a lot of programs I've written myself (for methods of my own devising), but these days I mainly use R. It's free for the download, easy to learn, and immensely powerful. If you're interested in acquiring it, google "CRAN" (the comprehensive R archive network); there are versions for both PCs and Macs.]

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  TCO // June 26, 2009 at 1:03 pm | Reply

  Tammy:

  I think the main thing with the denialists is them not being intellectually honest, about them beleiving in things that go their way, looking for things that go their way, only looking for faults in opponents arguments never their own.

  I think this is really a common human nature aspect. Not just that of the right or of GW denialists. You see the same behavior with those who think the WMDs must still be out there, in Syria or something…or that the CBS Bush memos were typed, not written in MS Word.

  I’ve just had a devil of a time pinning them down on a rather minor theoretical point, where they made an overstatement.

  http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/tired-and-wrong-again/#comment-7481

  I do think that they actually float rather interesting issues and concepts to the fore and pick away at the details of papers in a way that forces understanding the guts of them, rather than taking a Nature or Science (which are so short they are press releases) pub for granted. The bad thing is that they overstate their cases. That they don’t realize that often the best they can come up with is a middle ground (uncertainty) rather than a smoking gun to their side.

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  george // June 26, 2009 at 1:58 pm | Reply

  The ten year average method is simple and clearly shows what is going on with global temperature over the past few decades.

  A linear regression of the ten year average values over the entire period gives pretty much the same slope as the linear regression of all the data points over the same time span.

  Most importantly, it averages out the short term noise and when it comes to estimating the trend, actually prevents using less data than 20 years of data (since 10 years are required for each decade value)

  As a result, if one uses ten year averages to illustrate what is going on with the climate, one avoids the “debate” about short trends entirely. Perhaps most importantly, one avoids the (vacuous) “arguments” about the “trend since 2001″ (or even 1998), which are so popular in some circles).

  The 10 year average method seems almost ideally suited to the case at hand. So I am puzzled why those who are honestly trying to represent what is going on with the climate seem to focus so often on trying to trend yearly (or even monthly) temperature values.

  I understand the advantage of using yearly or monthly values for the entire period if you want to estimate uncertainty of the trend, but for illustrating to someone who has no background in all the abstruse statistics, it would seem far better just to show the ten year averages and perhaps a trend line through those.

  [Response: I think you're right that scientists have done an excellent job communicating with themselves but a poor job communicating with the public. The scientific instinct is to use maximum available information (which means monthly data) and apply heavy-duty statistics to show what's meaningful and what isn't. I've done so myself, but that leads to discussion of autocorrelation and ARMA models for the noise and their impact on confidence limits of regression analysis ... which for the general public, can make them roll their eyes in boredom and even suspect we're "pulling a fast one." Only lately have I come to appreciate the value in "KISS: keep it simple, stupid!"]

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  lweinstein // June 26, 2009 at 2:03 pm | Reply

  [edit out a tediously long list of ludicrous misstatements of fact, which would make the most die-hard denialist proud, culminating in this annalysis:]

  … The present trend seems to have peaked about 2003, …

  [Response: If you can make this statement after reading this post (did you even read it?), then there's no hope for you to return from beyond "the threshhold."

  This is what we're up against, folks: those who are blind because the will not see.]

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  David Larsson // June 26, 2009 at 3:59 pm | Reply

  Thanks, as another non-expert, I found this post (which I learned of via the hyperlinked phrase “more cherries” on Gavin’s Real Climate blog today) very helpful. Today’s WSJ, for example, speaks in hushed and reverent tones of Mr. Fielding in an editorial subtitled “The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere,” and asserts that “the inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. ” While my expectations of the accuracy of factual assertions contained in that particular section of that particular publication are admittedly low to begin with, the information in the above post gives me a much better appreciation of the great care that the WSJ editorial board takes to back up its assertions with data — reminiscent of the precision behind the statement “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Downright Clintonesque. Admirable, really.

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  Deep Climate // June 26, 2009 at 4:19 pm | Reply

  Here’s one of the statements in the Bali Open Letter (organized and presumably written by the NRSP’s Bob Carter and Tom Harris):

  “Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today’s computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998.” [Emphasis added]

  The statement was signed by 100 scientists, engineers and economists including “usual suspects” like Carter, Freeman Dyson, “IPCC expert reviewer” Vincent Gray and Don Easterbrook (list below):

  http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164004

  In the Bali open letter, Carter listed himself as “Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia”.

  In fact, Carter retired in 1999 and now has the “largely honourary” title of Adjunct Professorial Research Fellow at JCU. Furthermore, JCU policy on Adjunct Appointees states:

  “Adjunct titles shall not be used outside of University related business … appointees should not use a University title in their normal professional capacity but limit their usage to involvement in University activities.”

  Some time ago, I wrote JCU to protest the apparent misuse of Carter’s university title, but received no answer.

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  Ian Forrester // June 26, 2009 at 5:45 pm | Reply

  Here is another signatory to that letter. someone who should know better:

  “Edward J. Wegman, PhD, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University, Virginia.”

  Just how honest is this “statistician” who deniers say has shown the statistics used by Mann to be wrong? How can anyone who claims to be a statistician agree with the contents of the Bali letter?

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  Anna Haynes // June 26, 2009 at 9:04 pm | Reply

  re the motives of delayers –

  I’m probably going to regret this, but it _could_ be a smoking gun. If you could take a look and give me your interpretation, I’d be most grateful.

  I’ve been digging behind one delayer-friendly meme that Tierney spread in his NYTimes blog last year, right before the Heartland conference – namely, “the more informed you are about climate change, the less you worry”. Last month I documented what I’d found in this Daily Kos post.

  As part of that investigation, I made a public info request to Texas A&M for email correspondence involving the post-publication publicity for the paper whose soundbite meme Tierney was spreading; and they gave it to me, albeit slightly (family members’ names/relationships) redacted.

  One particular email exchange between the paper’s Author#1 and Tierney made no sense to me whatsoever – but now I see there’s at least one explanation, which, if correct, would appear to be a smoking gun.

  But I could be wrong – it’s more than likely that there’s another interpretation that I haven’t thought of. So please, please help keep me from making a mistake that’d make me look extremely foolish – tell me, what do you think is being said here?

  Context:
  From content and tone of the emails, Tierney and Author ostensibly don’t know each other.

  The paper gets published. Tierney emails Author expressing interest and asking a few Qs about it. Author answers. Tierney does his blog post about the paper. We commenters who went and read it proceed to pile on, pointing out the paper’s glaring flaw (namely, the self-reported nature of the climate “informedness” metric).

  Then:

  Author emails Tierney saying, “i think the post reads just great”, then adds:

  ———

  “I notice that it’s racking up the comments, too.
  One of my [redacted] promised (hopefully facetiously) to post something about how the study is flawed due to a childhood nickname. The risk of telling one’s [redacted] about these things, I suppose.”

  Tierney responds “I try to keep ad hominem attacks out of the comments, so he probably wouldn’t succeed anyway.”

  ———

  Question for Open Mind readers: how can you interpret the “childhood nickname” comment, and Tierney’s response, in a way that makes sense?

  [Response: I think such discussion belongs on an open thread. So I've started a new one, just to make it easy. Readers who wish to respond should do so there.]

• 

  Gareth // June 26, 2009 at 11:01 pm | Reply

  Carter feels free to make the most outrageous claims about global temperatures – and this latest example is far from the most egregious. I blogged about his biggest lie back in April, when he wrote this:

  First, there has been no recent global warming in the common meaning of the term, for world average temperature has cooled for the last ten years. Furthermore, since 1940 the earth has warmed for nineteen years and cooled for forty-nine, the overall result being that global average temperature is now about the same as it was in 1940.

  And he says all this in a persuasive voice and with a straight face. I sometimes wonder if he isn’t (along with Monckton) a parodist playing a very deep game…

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  Nathan // June 27, 2009 at 1:01 am | Reply

  Being an Australian I am embarrassed by Steve Fielding. Thankfully we will have an election late next year and he will be removed from parliament. By a series of strange events he was elected to the Senate with only 2.1% of the votes. He certainly represents very few people, mostly fundamentalist Christians. Sadly because of how the election panned out he has the balance of power in the Senate, and is doing his best to block anything the Aussie Govt does on it’s emissions trading scheme. Soon we will all be able to ignore him, just not this year.

  [Response: Most nations have some politician to be embarrassed about; senator Inhofe comes to mind. In fact, until recently in the U.S. our biggest embarrassment was the president.]

  • 

    Glenn Tamblyn // August 10, 2009 at 8:28 am | Reply

    Firstly, as an Australian, let me apologise for Senator Fielding – ’some mothers do ave em’

    A couple of comments. Firstly wrt ‘Denialism’, while there are most definitely some folks out there in the Denialosphere who are working for the Dark Side, many other people can’t grasp it and don’t want to. Its too big and disturbing. This might be an issue more related to psychology than anything else. Remember back to the 70’s, and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s book – ‘On Death & Dying’ – about how we respond to the news of our impending demise. If I recall correctly, the first stages people pass through were Denial then Anger. The problem is that for those people in Denial about AGW, Senator Fielding for example, the delay before they pass through to the Acceptance stages could mean that AGW is a death sentence, rather than just a VERY BIG PROBLEM.

    On my second point, as another way to convey the reality of AGW, why do we seldom see the data presented as the aggregate of temperature in all parts of the environment, particularly the Oceans which are where maybe 90% of the heat has gone, rather than just the lower atmosphere temperature. Since most people equate ‘Climate’ with what happens outside my front door, don’t we need ways to convey a broader persepctive that is simple enough yet visceral enough to get through to people, to get them to move their perspective further afield. How about this for an idea. Rather than show temperature, why not show total environmental heat content. The Synopsis report from the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in March this year had a graph – Page 8, figure 2 showing the cumulative figure for 1961-2003; 15.9 * 10^22 J seems pretty clear cut. Why not a time plot of this trend from 1961 onwards. Then to make it a bit more visceral and since 99% of the world thinks a joule is something you wear on your finger, a second vertical scale – number of Hiroshima Bomb equivalents. Would that get Joe Public’s attention?

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  Bertus // June 27, 2009 at 5:53 am | Reply

  Steve Fielding is a national embarrassment and hopefully won’t be in the Parliament much longer.

  Just a small technical question: in your fifth graph (temperature anomaly 1970 – 2010) it shows a year, looks to be about 2005, which is HOTTER than 1998. Is this so? I thought ‘98 was the hottest year on record.

  [Response: These are GISS data, and in the GISS data set the hottest year on record is 2005 (as mentioned in the introduction)]

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  Geoff Russell // June 27, 2009 at 6:03 am | Reply

  Great post. But you need to explain “residuals” for people who’ve never studied such things. Briefly, if people
  look at Tammino’s plot of GISS from 1970 to 2010. The “residuals” are the differences between the temperature data points and the red line. If a data point is above the red line, the residual is positive, and if it is below, then the residual is negative.

  If the residuals tend to be more positive than negative (or vice versa), then the trend (the red line) is changing. If they look randomly spread above and below zero, then the trend is constant.

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  Deech56 // June 27, 2009 at 11:07 am | Reply

  It amazes me that we need to see the same analysis time and time again – our host is truly patient. Embarrassing politicians aside, the US took a major step yesterday with the House’s action on Waxman-Markey. It’s not perfect and there are still pitfalls ahead, but it’s a start.

  I’ve read that public opinion on climate varies with the perception of short-term effects, and I’d like to think that maybe the points that Tamino has made here and in other posts have fallen on receptive ears, so I guess our host’s patience is justified after all. I am probably not the only one who has linked to earlier “Open Mind” regression analyses.

  My hope is that we will have a mechanism in place for starting to address future climate change and that we will have some credibility going into the Copenhagen Conference. Warming will continue, and the phenomena and cycles that have affected global temperature over the short term will cause warming above the trend line – even the denialists will have to sit up and take notice.

  • 

    Duane Johnson // June 27, 2009 at 9:01 pm | Reply

    Deech56

    Your hope that global warming exceeds the trend line reveals a motivation that conflicts with the supposed purpose of the conference. Isn’t it the position of most AGW proponents that we’ll be better off with less warming? Or are other political objectives involved?

• 

  dhogaza // June 27, 2009 at 10:03 pm | Reply

  Your hope that global warming exceeds the trend line reveals a motivation that conflicts with the supposed purpose of the conference. Isn’t it the position of most AGW proponents that we’ll be better off with less warming? Or are other political objectives involved?

  Get yourself a clue-by-four and whack yourself in the head with it until you understand English.

  Here’s Deech56’s hope:

  My hope is that we will have a mechanism in place for starting to address future climate change and that we will have some credibility going into the Copenhagen Conference.

  He hopes that we (the US) will have legislation in place.

  Then he states a fact:

  Warming will continue, and the phenomena and cycles that have affected global temperature over the short term will cause warming above the trend line – even the denialists will have to sit up and take notice.

  Not a statement of hope, but of fact.

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  Deech56 // June 27, 2009 at 10:28 pm | Reply

  Duane Johnson, you are misreading my post. My hope is that we have a mechanism for reducing CO2 in place – my expectation is that when El Nino and the next solar cycle kick in, global temperature will be above the trend line. When that happens, or when we have another bout of major Arctic melting, the denialist position will be that much more difficult to defend.

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  michel lecar // June 28, 2009 at 9:27 am | Reply

  There is really no such phenomenon as ‘denialism’ about climate change. There are no ‘denialists’. There are people who, for good or bad reasons, sincerely take a different view of the evidence from you.

  To label this as thoughtcrime convinces no-one who was not already convinced, and lends an unpleasant air of religious or ideological fanaticism to the controversy.

  It is perfectly possible to be informed, rational and sincerely motivated, and take, rightly or wrongly, a different view of the extent and cause of climate change from the one taken here and on Real Climate. Or to remain puzzled by the evidence and find it not pointing unambiguously in one direction. It serves no useful purpose to deny this.

  Reasonable people may differ on this one. Perpetually shouting that they may not is not a contribution to the debate.

  [Response: Is there no such thing as "denialism" about the earth not being flat?

  Certainly there are people who sincerely believe earth is flat. Are they "informed" and "rational"? Or are they simply in denial?]

• 

  Ray Ladbury // June 28, 2009 at 1:25 pm | Reply

  Michel,
  Horse Puckey. If someone is confronted with the evidence and DENIES it, they are a frigging denialist. If they embrace every hare-brained scheme that comes along to keep from having to face the evidence, they are a denialist.

  You say “It is perfectly possible to be informed, rational and sincerely motivated, and take, rightly or wrongly, a different view of the extent and cause of climate change from the one taken here and on Real Climate.”

  OK, Michel, show me someone who actually understands the evidence who is not concerned that we are altering the climate. And sweetie, here’s a hint. You don’t meet the prerequisites.

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  Lazar // June 28, 2009 at 1:43 pm | Reply

  michel,

  There is really no such phenomenon as ‘denialism’[...] sincerely take a different view of the evidence

  wrong michel… there are people who knowingly lie about the evidence… and people who have no interest in studying because evidence contradicts their daft beliefs…

• 

  Briso // June 28, 2009 at 1:44 pm | Reply

  Tamino wrote:
  “It’s appropriate to end this post with a quote from Timothy Chase in recent reader comments:

  … anyone who tries to establish the trend in global average temperature with much less than fifteen years data is — in my view — either particularly ignorant of the science, or what is more likely, some sort of flim-flam artist …”

  So 15 years is acceptable. How much less than 15 years is unacceptable? 14 years? 13 years? 12 years?

  [Response: The quote indicates that less than 15 fails, not that 15 succeeds.

  It's a mistake to attempt to define a set time limit. It depends on specific circumstances and depends strongly on what variable is being studied.

  The whole "x works but x-1 doesn't in all cases" idea is a simpleton's approach to the issue; one should run the trend analysis AND compute valid confidence limits, then draw conclusions. And even that's probabilistic, not conclusive (although with enough time the "false alarm probability" becomes ludicrously small).

  The simpleton approach is a recurrent tactic of denialists -- but then, that's their target audience.]

• 

  dhogaza // June 28, 2009 at 1:52 pm | Reply

  There is really no such phenomenon as ‘denialism’ about climate change. There are no ‘denialists’. There are people who, for good or bad reasons, sincerely take a different view of the evidence from you.

  Quit lying. It’s tiresome.

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  12Volt // June 28, 2009 at 1:59 pm | Reply

  NRSP= Not Real Science People

• 

  Boris // June 28, 2009 at 2:12 pm | Reply

  michel,

  Denialism is a rhetorical strategy:

  “Denialism is the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one’s viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions.”

  http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php

• 

  Ray Ladbury // June 28, 2009 at 4:05 pm | Reply

  Michel says, “There is really no such phenomenon as ‘denialism’ …”

  Wow, Dude, you are even in denial about denialism.

• 

  Timothy Chase // June 28, 2009 at 4:30 pm | Reply

  There is really no such phenomenon as ‘denialism’ about climate change. There are no ‘denialists’. There are people who, for good or bad reasons, sincerely take a different view of the evidence from you.

  Michel,

  There are still those who deny that the earth revolves around the sun — or at least since 2000 — and I am embarrassed to say that some of them are in the UK. And of course they likewise are in denial that men landed on the moon. Interestingly enough one of them personally emailed me while I was working with the British Centre for Science Education — because he also opposed evolutionary biology. (I said to myself, “I know that name sounds familiar.”)

  Phillip E. Johnson is an olde earth creationist who is clearly in denial that evolution took place and invented intelligent design as a cover for a movement of which the good majority are young earth creationists. However, he is not simply in denial regarding the discoveries of evolutionary biology but also that HIV causes AIDS.

  Roy Spencer has been in denial regarding global warming, originally that it was taking place and now with respect to its severity and the fact that it is man-made. He is also a creationist who endorsed intelligent design as scientific, and as such he is in denial when it comes to evolution.

  There are those who are in denial about special relativity, general relativity and quantum mechanics. I know because they were quite common in the “Objectivist” movement that I belonged to for thirteen years — and it violated their “neo-Aristotelean” view of the world.

  And then there are those who are in denial when it comes to either the fact that the holocaust took place or to its scale. In the United States many of these people are also in denial when it comes to the fact that the confederacy lost the civil war.
  *
  The evidence for the conclusions that each of these groups of denialists are in denial of is overwhelming. To deny these conclusions is indicative of either considerable to extreme ignorance or of some form of irrationality.

• 

  George D // June 29, 2009 at 11:52 am | Reply

  If you want a laugh, have a look at the Facebook group ‘Steve Fielding does not exist’.

  http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=221725975556&ref=ts

• 

  Bob meade // June 29, 2009 at 12:57 pm | Reply

  Can we go back further than 1970? In Australia we have excellent temperature data back to about 1901 and reasonably credible data back to about 1870.

  Why only go back to 1970?

  Would not a longer time span have more credibility and smooth out the problem of where in the niño cycle the analysis begins?

  [Response: The analysis can be extended long before 1970, but then the trend is demonstrably nonlinear so it becomes more complicated. But it doesn't affect the result one whit; global warming is *still* not about the decade-scale fluctuations, it's about the changes from decade to decade. Claims that it's stopped based on ridiculously short time spans are still ridiculous.]

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  John Thacker // June 29, 2009 at 3:06 pm | Reply

  The analysis can be extended long before 1970, but then the trend is demonstrably nonlinear so it becomes more complicated.

  What you mean here is the the period 1930-1960 were warmer than 1960-1970, so the trend does become nonlinear. If there’s a cyclic trend in addition to a linear trend, then the choice of endpoints becomes very important.

  1970 was a local minimum. You’re engaging in cherry-picking as well. A 40 year period is better than a ten year period, but you need to have strong reasons to justify why you “believe that the “turning point” marking the start of recent warming is 1975 rather than 1970,” in order to justify why using a 60, 80, or 100 year period wouldn’t be more relevant. CO2 concentrations didn’t start going up in 1975 (perhaps the warming effect of CO2 was being obscured by other pollutants until the EPA was created?)

  The linear regression trend rate is 0.0164 +/- 0.0028 deg.C/yr.

  And the linear regression trend from GISS for the period 1880 to 1999 is 0.0044 deg C/year, about one-fourth as large. And that’s actually a fairly reason number, not cherry-picked. An absurdly low number could be obtained by taking a Dust Bowl 1930s year as the starting point.

  By taking more years, the trend is significant and larger than the margin of error, but it’s also a smaller trend.

  Why don’t you try comparing the results from many different starting points?

  [Response: Either this is your idea of a joke, or you're giving everyone a live demonstration of crossing the "stupid threshold."

  But it's not the ignorance you show about trend analysis that puts you over the line -- it's the fact that you actually think you know what you're doing.]

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  Kenny // June 29, 2009 at 4:55 pm | Reply

  [In response to your response to John Thacker's comment.] I admit I must be unknowingly crossing the “stupid threshold” myself – why is it so absurd to compare different trends for different starting points? I can’t find any information about you (or any other posters at this blog) – what exactly are your qualifications?

  [Response: First, the fact that you admit you don't know puts you on the safe side of the "stupid threshold."

  Second, there's nothing absurd comparing different trends for different starting points. But when we apply statistical tests, we'll ultimately reach a point at which we can show that a straight-line trend is a false picture. Attempting to use such a trend to argue that global warming isn't happening at a rapid pace, is faulty.

  Third, mentioning "if there's a cyclic trend" is abysmally ignorant, since there's zero evidence (none at all) of any such cycle -- he just did it to muddy the waters. You might as well say "if the moon is made of green cheese."

  Fourth, since the warming rate has changed over time, in order to estimate the present rate we must either fit a nonlinear model or restrict analysis to a range of time for which the signal is plausible linear. I chose the 2nd option; accusing me of "cherry-picking" for doing so is nonsense.

  Fifth, his comment is meant to cast doubt on this post -- but it's entirely irrelevant to this post, which is about the folly of Bob Carter's claims about recent global cooling.

  Sixth, every one of the "doubts" he raises have been raised, and demolished, not only here but in myriad places -- not just on blogs but in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Yet he speaks with the air of authoritative knowledge even though he's either too lazy or too obstinate to investigate these issues. I'm not the least bit interested in arguing the same old same old bunk with yet another bunk-peddler -- which is why John Thacker doesn't even deserve a response.]

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  Gavin's Pussycat // June 29, 2009 at 5:55 pm | Reply

  “CRAN” (the comprehensive R archive network); there are versions for both PCs and Macs.

  …and for Linux, which I gave a superficial try and seems to be fine.

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  Gavin's Pussycat // June 29, 2009 at 6:00 pm | Reply

  “…there really is no such thing as meta-denialism…”

• 

  michel lecar // June 29, 2009 at 8:40 pm | Reply

  Ray, you (and quite a few other people committed to AGW) think there is such a thing as thought crime, and that people who do not agree with you 100% are guilty of it. Without political power, you will convince no-one because your tactics are simply bullying. With political power, your approach has been able to compel if not agreement, at least the pretense of it, and has been responsible for some of the great evils of the last century.

  You (and tamino for that matter) need to understand that a feeling of righteous indignation when confronted with someone who does not fully share your views is not something to be indulged. It is a warning that you are standing into danger.

  Some of us think somewhat differently from you. Get used to it.

• 

  dhogaza // June 29, 2009 at 9:58 pm | Reply

  Some of us think somewhat differently from you. Get used to it.

  We’re used to it. Doesn’t mean we have to respect it when it comes down to black-and-white things like the fact that the earth’s not flat, and CO2 warms the planet.

• 

  David B. Benson // June 29, 2009 at 11:54 pm | Reply

  John Thacker // June 29, 2009 at 3:06 pm — Helps to actually look at the data. Here are the deecadal averages from the HadCRUTv3 global temperautre product:
  http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/10yave.jpg
  First thing to do is eyeball a straightline trend through the data; you’ll see a generally upward trend with some wobbles to either side of the trend line. To a first approximation, that trend is esplained by the increase in CO2. See BPL’s
  http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Correlation.html
  for more.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // June 30, 2009 at 12:06 am | Reply

  Michel, No, I don’t believe in thought crime. Rather, I believe some people (like you for instance) willfully ignorant.

  Michel, this isn’t an argument between you and me. It is an argument between you and the evidence. You lose.

• 

  Philippe Chantreau // June 30, 2009 at 1:40 am | Reply

  Michel take your warnings about righteous indignation over at whazzup, where it is dripping all over each and every thread, be it as abysmally stupid as the CO2 snow musings. But eh, everyone is free to have their opinion on phase diagrams, right? All opinions are created equal, aren’t they?

  A lot of student pilots I taught had their own opinion about the speed at which they wanted to land the airplane. I thoroughly beat that opinion out of their minds. Did I feel like a bully? Feh!

  Bullying? So what do we call the innumerable allegations of fraud from the so-called “skeptics”? And what should we call the forceful extraction of data and code that virtually noone in the “skeptic” community is qualified enoug to exploit, but that everybody can torture until it shows what they want?

  What do we call the use of lies, deception? What do we call statements taken out of context, authors’ findings misrepresented, blatant ignorance of facts and data? It’s all alternate opinions, therefore all immune?

  You’re all ablaze with rightful indignation about HadCru not releasing their data and code, while you would have no idea what to do with it. What’s the name for that?

  And what do you call it when an individual makes a blatantly uninformed, misleading statement, then refuses to acknowledge the nature of his statement but instead moves on to more inane verbosity? Sould it be tolerated just for the sake of making the poor lad feel good about himself?

  As for example in this comment by Michel:
  “the North Sea is, according to all records I’m aware of, not actually rising.”
  Promptly addressed by Lazar:
  http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/images/bslindex.gif
  And immediately evaded by Michel, who goes on talking (something he’s really good at) about other stuff, with a mighty dose of rightful indignation.

  You sure think differently, but if I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

• 

  Rob // June 30, 2009 at 2:17 am | Reply

  The temperature data is a Markov Chain and therefore there is going to be a long term trend one way or the other.

  [edit]

  [Response: This is a good opportunity to let everybody know that comments which cross the stupid threshold will either be simply deleted, or ridiculed.]

• 

  jyyh // June 30, 2009 at 3:56 am | Reply

  Hmm, in r Markov… , the universe, on average, is cooling as it expands (by the ideal gas law) so there can be no stars? (Delete this if I crossed the line.)

• 

  Deep Climate // June 30, 2009 at 3:58 am | Reply

  Just noticed this is a “Hawt” post at WordPress.com. You’re about to get a lot more traffic!

  Speaking of embarrasing questions (only slightly off topic), it turns out the “suppressed” Carlin plagiarized disinformation report was even worse than I thought. The central premise and four key sections were lifted almost verbatim (without attribution, of course) from Pat Michaels’ World Cliamte Report blog.

  http://deepclimate.org/2009/06/30/suppressed-carlin-report-based-on-pat-michaels-attack-on-epa/

• 

  Some guy // June 30, 2009 at 8:40 am | Reply

  “Michel, this isn’t an argument between you and me. It is an argument between you and the evidence. You lose.”

  You do realize that he didn’t actually state a position on AGW don’t you? Your and many others’ arguments against Michel here are loaded with your own assumptions that you go rebutting, but those here who’ve actually dealt with what he was saying have done so poorly. For the point that he was making, the dismissive tone of the responses is ample evidence in itself. Rationalizing that tone by referring to the obviousness your position and comparing his view to flat-earthism is simply lazy, and again, confirms his point. The first step in fairness here should be basic reading comprehension: don’t read into your interlocutor’s statement things that aren’t actually there but which constantly haunt your own thoughts.

  And I say this as someone who’s on the ‘let’s do something about GW’ side.

• 

  Martinsh // June 30, 2009 at 10:17 am | Reply

  First, I’d like to say that currently I am on the side of “there is no proof of long-run global warming”; however, I would be really glad to find it, since my mind is rather opened to such things.
  The reason I am not convinced by the data and analyses presented here is the following:
  how can you distinguish natural changes in climate from changes created by CO2 emissions. (for example, there used to be ice age, yet trough a similar global warming it went away) – thus it seems normal to me that in the long run there is a trend of how these changes happen. However, ALL studies focus on relatively short run and I do agree that in the recent past the temperature has gone up. But the thing is that we do not have any data of how did the climate look like 200-300 years ago. Nobady can provide reasonable data on this thus no inference can be made about the long run change. And this is exactly why I am not convinced that CO2 is the thing to blame.

• 

  Gavin's Pussycat // June 30, 2009 at 12:38 pm | Reply

  Martinsh, don’t project your own ignorance on others; least of all on the whole scientific community. The fact that you are unable to find pertinent info in no way proves its nonexistence. In this case it rather proves your lack of elementary skills in literature search. This stuff isn’t exactly secret.

  On a human note, ignorance is something most folks are ashamed of and quietly try to mend, not something to proudly display. /me wonders why you would be the exception.

• 

  Deech56 // June 30, 2009 at 12:43 pm | Reply

  RE: Martinsh // June 30, 2009 at 10:17 am

  Have you looked at the proxy data (the dreaded sports implement)? According to the NAS, the confidence of the 400 year temperature record is high, and that was prior to a recent update: Mann, M.E.; Zhang, Z., Hughes, M.K., Bradley, R.S., Miller, S.K., Rutherford, S. and Ni, F. (2008). “Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia”. PNAS 105: 132520–13257.

• 

  dhogaza // June 30, 2009 at 1:47 pm | Reply

  DeepClimate – good work. Carlin’s some martyr, eh?

• 

  Ray Ladbury // June 30, 2009 at 3:11 pm | Reply

  Someguy–Look at Michel’s posts over time. He has made it clear he is merely a troll who craves attention to validate his pathetic existence. So, of course he takes no position–or rather he takes whichever position he thinks will get him the most attention.

  Learning curve slope=0.

• 

  Chris S. // June 30, 2009 at 3:40 pm | Reply

  Some Guy hasn’t been reading back through michel lecar/miochel lecar/michel’s past ‘contributions’ to this site…

• 

  Chris S. // June 30, 2009 at 3:49 pm | Reply

  Martinsh: Check this out: http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8417/kyotocherrys.png
  The date of the Kyoto cherry blossom festival since ~700

  or this: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2261570
  looking at a phenological record that spanned the years 1736-1947

  or this: http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/989897__909088489.pdf
  Migratory bird arrivals in the UK since 1888.

  and another one for Swallows since 1883: http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/819480__909088543.pdf

  And a study on phenology with respect to climate here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118575603/abstract

  Hope that helps…

  • 

    michel lecar // July 10, 2009 at 8:20 am | Reply

    Checked out these. Two were not accessible for some reason.

    One was about the timing of the Kyoto cherry blossom. It’s a png graphic, so not very easy to interpret, but there is a trend line through it drawn by an unknown method. There look by eye to be a couple of clusters of early arrivals, one in about 1400-1500, the other one recently. If the trend line is valid, the current bunch is some smallish number of days earlier, it looks to be under 10 earlier on an average of 110. Is it significant? No idea. Is it purely regional or local? No clue in the graphic. I wouldn’t make any investment decisions on this one.

    The second one is the Masham phenological record 1736-1947. Its $18 for full access, but it doesn’t seem terribly relevant to what is happening today, from its period. No-one doubts that there has been phenological change, the question is how much of an outlier recent ones have been in comparison to the thousand year record.

    The third is a much more seriously relevant piece. From the abstract, it seems to show that

    in 21 European countries (1971–2000). Our results showed that 78% of all leafing, flowering and fruiting records advanced (30% significantly) and only 3% were significantly delayed, whereas the signal of leaf colouring/fall is ambiguous. We conclude that previously published results of phenological changes were not biased by reporting or publication predisposition: the average advance of spring/summer was 2.5 days decade

    So the conclusion seems to be that there is a correlation between temperature and phenological events, and that in this particular 30 year period, the date of spring advanced by 2.5 days. Which is extremely interesting, but what exactly is it proving? One would like to know how often such advances have occurred in the historical record. Were there such advances and retreats in MWP and LIA? In short, is there any cause for alarm in the current phenological record, or is it just natural variation?

    Its very interesting, not knocking it, but its not very decisive about any of the main issues, surely?

• 

  Chris S. // June 30, 2009 at 3:51 pm | Reply

  Oops my last post may have fell foul of the dreaded spam filter – too many hyperlinks to long-term phenological records

• 

  Forrester McLeod // June 30, 2009 at 6:48 pm | Reply

  Holding our planet close to my heart I click my heels, my brain, and all my actions murmering softly:

  “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

• 

  michel lecar // June 30, 2009 at 8:11 pm | Reply

  “he is merely a troll who craves attention to validate his pathetic existence”

  More of the same old crap. He is just someone who does not think identically to you.

• 

  David B. Benson // June 30, 2009 at 8:28 pm | Reply

  Martinsh // June 30, 2009 at 10:17 am — To begin relieving your ignorance, read “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:

  http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

  Andy Revkin’s review of above

  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E7DF153DF936A35753C1A9659C8B63

• 

  Paul Middents // June 30, 2009 at 10:15 pm | Reply

  Some guy swoops in and chastises Ray and other responders to the various Michel incarnations for their rancorous tone. He then castigates those with the patience to address Michel’s points that they have done so poorly.

  Some guy says he believes something should be done about GW. Why doesn’t he indulge in some recreational typing to address Michel’s questions? He could do this one on one. I’m sure Tamino could put the two of you in touch.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // June 30, 2009 at 11:54 pm | Reply

  Michel says of himself, “He is just someone who does not think …”

  You know, you could have stopped right there.

• 

  george // July 1, 2009 at 12:14 am | Reply

  michel lecar says:
  

  There is really no such phenomenon as ‘denialism’ about climate change. There are no ‘denialists’.

  What should we then call the members of Congress (Inhofe and others) who think global warming is a gigantic hoax perpetrated by thousands of scientists on an unsuspecting public?

  Conspiracy theorists?

  As Paul Krugman (Nobel economics laureate) says , doing so would actually be an insult to crazy conspiracy theorists:

  if there was a defining moment in Friday’s debate [in Congress regarding the recent bill to address climate change], it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.”I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.
  Yet Mr. Broun’s declaration was met with applause.

  There is really no denying that climate change denialism is real — and prevalent at the highest levels of our government, unfortunately.

• 

  Barton Paul Levenson // July 1, 2009 at 9:24 am | Reply

  Martinsh writes:

  how can you distinguish natural changes in climate from changes created by CO2 emissions.

  Like this:

  http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Correlation/html

• 

  Barton Paul Levenson // July 1, 2009 at 9:27 am | Reply

  Darn it. That last slash should have been a period. Here’s the link again:

  http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Correlation.html

  • 

    KenM // July 1, 2009 at 2:46 pm | Reply

    What would really seal the case would be if you could show that over the last, say, 1,000,000 years there were no other 127 year periods where the temp anomaly correlated so well to today’s CO2 change. At least in my mind that would prove it’s no coincidence.

    [Response: Over the last 1,000,000 years there haven't been any CO2 changes comparable to today's -- the CO2 changes haven't been nearly so rapid, and CO2 levels haven't been as high as today.

    I think you're just trying to move the goalposts.]

    • 

      KenM // July 1, 2009 at 7:23 pm

      I think you’re just trying to move the goalposts

      Honestly I’m not. There’s a graph in the wikipedia entry on Vostok where the date range is much much larger, but there are some squiggles in there that make me wonder if there is in fact an arbitrary 127 year portion that would correlate as well. On the other hand (and I know this has been discussed a lot), the temp to CO2 lag also appears to be much greater than what we’ve experienced in the last 100 years. Is the idea that this time around CO2 is driving the temp change more than the other way around? What’s so special about today that makes that true? Why didn’t temp and CO2 follow each other so closely in the past?

      [Response: You're probably unaware of the tremendous slowness of the changes in the Vostok ice core, compared to the last century. For example, the temperature changes (about 10-12 deg.C total, which corresponds to about 5-6 deg.C global change) take typically 5-10 thousand years; modern temperature increase is happening about 20 or more times as fast. The CO2 changes (about 120 ppmv total) also take about 5 to 10 thousand years; we've increased atmospheric CO2 that much since the industrial revolution. There's nothing like that in any ice core record -- because it didn't happen.

      As for "temp to CO2 lag," that doesn't happen these days at all. During glacial cycles the *trigger* for warming/cooling isn't CO2 at all, it's changes of solar input caused by the changing configuration of earth's orbit and tilt. This causes warming, which causes CO2 increase, which then causes more warming, which then causes more CO2 increase, in a potent feedback loop. Both CO2 and warming are both cause and effect.

      The whole "CO2 lags temperature" issue is a total red herring. In fact it's one of the most incorrect and blatantly dishonest arguments put forth by denialists. I'm sorry to hear you fell for it.]

• 

  Briso // July 1, 2009 at 2:35 pm | Reply

  Briso // June 28, 2009 at 1:44 pm | Reply

  Tamino wrote:
  “It’s appropriate to end this post with a quote from Timothy Chase in recent reader comments:

  … anyone who tries to establish the trend in global average temperature with much less than fifteen years data is — in my view — either particularly ignorant of the science, or what is more likely, some sort of flim-flam artist …”

  So 15 years is acceptable. How much less than 15 years is unacceptable? 14 years? 13 years? 12 years?

  [Response: The quote indicates that less than 15 fails, not that 15 succeeds.

  It's a mistake to attempt to define a set time limit. It depends on specific circumstances and depends strongly on what variable is being studied.

  The whole "x works but x-1 doesn't in all cases" idea is a simpleton's approach to the issue; one should run the trend analysis AND compute valid confidence limits, then draw conclusions. And even that's probabilistic, not conclusive (although with enough time the "false alarm probability" becomes ludicrously small).

  The simpleton approach is a recurrent tactic of denialists -- but then, that's their target audience.]
  

  Thanks for the reply. I understand your point, but unless I’m totally missing something, you yourself have set up a kind of bet where the question could be settled in as little as two years, and it’s not unlikely to be less than 15.

  [Response: Perhaps you've forgotten what this post is about: Bob Carter's ludicrous claim that the globe has cooled, with the implicit implication that global warming has stopped. It's overwhelmingly likely that in far less than 15 years, he'll no longer have a leg to stand on regarding that claim.

  But the only "bet" I'll take is this: when the HadCRU record is broken, Bob Carter will *still* deny global warming.]

• 

  george // July 1, 2009 at 4:37 pm | Reply

  the only “bet” I’ll take is this: when the HadCRU record is broken, Bob Carter will *still* deny global warming.

  … prolly even from six feet under, if it takes that long.

• 

  Briso // July 1, 2009 at 5:41 pm | Reply

  [Response: Perhaps you've forgotten what this post is about: Bob Carter's ludicrous claim that the globe has cooled, with the implicit implication that global warming has stopped. It's overwhelmingly likely that in far less than 15 years, he'll no longer have a leg to stand on regarding that claim.
  ]
  Perhaps you’ve forgotten my (limited) point. From one of your own posts, to which you personally directed me, you stated that two years data showing a sufficiently high or low temperature would be significant. Of course, it is unlikely to be next year and the year after, but it’s perfectly possible, indeed if I understand you correctly likely, to take less than 15 years. You can’t have it both ways. Either you can’t do it with less than 15 years data or you can, surely?

  [Response: But those two years will only be meaningful in the context of the 20+ years that preceded them. Taking two years in isolation -- means nothing.

  It's the charlatans who make claims about temperature trends based on *only* a decade or thereabouts, that this post is about.]

• 

  Anne Thomas Manes // July 2, 2009 at 12:03 am | Reply

  Shesh! I just forward a link of this discussion to a “denialist” friend of mine. He responded by sending me a link to http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/. In other words: deny the validity of the data.

• 

  KD Brown // July 2, 2009 at 12:56 am | Reply

  Cheers to all for posting – even the crazies.

  Fact is: those who are ignorant about the science of global warming, or willfully so, have lots of $$ on their side.

  They have managed to influence the news, our politicians, political process, social and economic progress, industrial design… in short, so many of our society’s methods of coping with and adapting to change, have wasted so much time, that now serious minds have serious doubts that we have enough time to deal with the issue without catastrophic consequences.

  So if folks who are new to the site come across some of the exchanges herein, and are dismayed by the attack ads, no surprise that they will be more susceptible to the rantings of the flat-earth, buggy whip manufacturers.

  There undoubtedly is plain bad science, and thanks for the great post on the issue of “different points of view”, Mr Chantreau.

  But there just as assuredly is plain bad strategy.

  BUT! So much depends on your point of view and learning curve. Even just two weeks ago I would have been much more patient with those with different points of view on this issue. The data that I am uncovering during a current update in my reading on the issue is not simply a matter of concern, something that we have plenty of time to discuss and think about. It is downright alarming, frightening, to know that the conclusions of the IPCC report may have been too conservative, as bad as they were. And that we may already be in the soup.

  So I fully understand the impatience of the editor in dealing with the views of the denialists…

  At what point does the President (or Prime Minister) just say that there actually is a time to put the best interests of, say, EVERYTHING ahead of personal interest, and demand responsibility for the scientific claims being made?

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 2, 2009 at 2:10 am | Reply

  KD Brown,
  At this point, if people aren’t convinced by 90% confidence level, they won’t be convinced by 95% or 99%. Some people are not educable. We do have the solace that these are probably not the sorts of minds likely to come up with creative solutions. The only challenge I see is to develop strategies to keep the idiots from f***ing things up while the rest of us try to deal with the problem. So, it’s no different than any other crisis–the few who understand the problem work their butts off to try to find a solution. If they find one, they are chided as alarmist because the threat wasn’t realized. If they fail, they get the blame.

  And meanwhile the airheads will continue to tell us we have nothing to worry about.

• 

  KenM // July 2, 2009 at 3:37 pm | Reply

  The whole “CO2 lags temperature” issue is a total red herring. In fact it’s one of the most incorrect and blatantly dishonest arguments put forth by denialists. I’m sorry to hear you fell for it.

  I don’t think I’ve fallen for anything (yet). I’m well aware that temps rising will cause CO2 to rise. I’m also aware that CO2 rising will cause temps to rise. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I though only one of those physical outcomes was possible.
  As you point out, there’s a feedback, so that although temps may be the initial driver, CO2 increases will further increase temperatures (or vice-versa).
  The disconnect I’m having is this – given the feedback mechanism in place, why do the past records of temp and CO2 seem to lag one another by so great a period, but the relationship today seems to be relatively “instantaneous” ? What am I missing?

  As for the past changes in CO2 not matching what we are seeing today, I certainly can’t prove otherwise, but you can still test for correlation, can’t you?
  Sure today’s CO2 change shot up 100ppm in just over 100 years, but is there some other period in time when it “shot” up 100 parts per 10 million, or 100 million, in 100 years? Wouldn’t those increase also correlate well to today’s temperatures changes? I guess I don’t understand the significance of “correlating” 2 sets of data if you can make the same “correlation” with some CO2 set 1,000 years ago. I’m not saying AGW is a hoax, I’m just interested in the math.

• 

  KD Brown // July 2, 2009 at 3:59 pm | Reply

  I am afraid that ’tis exactly so, Ray.

• 

  michel lecar // July 2, 2009 at 5:16 pm | Reply

  “Michel, this isn’t an argument between you and me. It is an argument between you and the evidence. You lose.”

  Ray, this is in one sense between you and me: it is you acting like a little Hitler, but towards me, in whom you have someone who cannot be shouted down. I will change my mind and make up my mind in accordance with the light of my own reason and conscience, and no amount of frothing at the mouth and insults and personalities will make any difference.

  It does seem to me that one of the great benefits for some people of joining the AGM movement, if one can put it like that, is that it is felt to give them a free license to indulge in mindless rage and personal insults towards anyone who takes even a slightly different point of view, including being even slightly less committed to all points of the Party Line.

  Irritation, followed by contempt is the reaction. Yes, Ray, its mutual.

  [Response: Godwin's law in action.]

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 2, 2009 at 8:38 pm | Reply

  Michel, It is a matter of utter apathy to me what you do or think. I merely will not let you mischaracterize the evidence.

  Here’s a rosetta stone for understanding the reactions on this blog: It’s about science. Science is about evidence. If you cannot be bothered to understand the evidence or to characterize it accurately, your reception here will not be warm. Period. Nothing personal. I don’t know you. I don’t want to. Your only significance to me is as someone I must correct.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 2, 2009 at 9:14 pm | Reply

  Tamino’s Response: “Response: Godwin’s law in action.”

  http://xkcd.com/261/

  Yeah, not to mention Dunning-Kruger.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 2, 2009 at 9:22 pm | Reply

  KenM. OK, think about this. What is happening today? We are pumping out gigatonnes of CO2, and about half of it’s going into the oceans. But we’re pumping out so much that it’s still rising and still raising temparatures. We are only just now beginning to maybe see outgassing from permafrost.

  Now what happened in the past? First, temperatures rose–pretty slowly. It takes awhile to reach temperatures where CO2 and CH4 start outgassing. But much of that CO2 will go into solution in the oceans, slowing the rise. These two factors–the slow temperature rise associated with very slight changes in insolation, coupled with the reservoir of the oceans give us a significant lag between temperature rise and CO2 rise from natural sources.

  For extra credit, how will things be different when natural sources of CO2 start outgassing this time?

• 

  Gavin's Pussycat // July 2, 2009 at 10:19 pm | Reply

  The disconnect I’m having is this – given the feedback mechanism in place, why do the past records of temp and CO2 seem to lag one another by so great a period, but the relationship today seems to be relatively “instantaneous” ? What am I missing?

  Two things.

  Firstly, 800 years is not a great period at all, when a deglaciation lasts easily 5000 years. And that 800 year figure comes from the early literature, it is now believed to be smaller.

  Secondly, glaciation/deglaciation are quasi-periodic processes. The current increases in CO2 and temperature OTOH are approximately exponential. It is easy to show that the correlation between two exponential processes isn’t changed by an arbitrary delay between them — meaning, you cannot solve the delay by correlating them either… appearance notwithstanding. The delay in this case is believed to be around 30 years (sometimes referred to as heating “in the pipeline”), but this figure is somewhat uncertain for the above reason.

  …and oh yes, a third point: the mechanisms are very different. Why would you even expect comparable delays?

  • 

    KenM // July 3, 2009 at 2:37 pm | Reply

    and oh yes, a third point: the mechanisms are very different. Why would you even expect comparable delays

    Well, since it is a feedback system, I didn’t think how it started was all that important. Once it’s started, what is the difference between then and now, mechanism-wise? That was my thinking, but I think I understand what you are saying and it makes sense to me.
    The delay is believed to be 30 years but it can’t be correlated? Interesting.

• 

  David B. Benson // July 3, 2009 at 12:01 am | Reply

  KenM // July 1, 2009 at 7:23 pm — While there are at least two instances of rapid warming in the ice data from central Greenland, neither was due to equally rapid CO2 changes. The reason was most likely the melting of sea ice in the Nordic Sea.

  So at least during the Holocene, there are no 127 year instances which have both the rapid warming and the CO2 increase seen in the most recent 127 years, in any ice core data.

• 

  Barton Paul Levenson // July 3, 2009 at 11:54 am | Reply

  Here’s a discussion of the ice core lag issue:

  http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Lag.html

• 

  KenM // July 3, 2009 at 2:38 pm | Reply

  For extra credit, how will things be different when natural sources of CO2 start outgassing this time?

  HaHa! Trick question. CO2 has already started outgassing. See GP’s reply.

• 

  KenM // July 3, 2009 at 2:42 pm | Reply

  So at least during the Holocene, there are no 127 year instances which have both the rapid warming and the CO2 increase seen in the most recent 127 years, in any ice core data.

  Oh I believe that for sure. What I was asking about though, is there any past 127 year change of CO2 (up or down) that correlates to *today’s* temperature change? That may seem like a silly question to you, but what I’m trying to understand is what is the usefulness of correlation if you can pick out other periods of time that have the same correlation?

• 

  Petro // July 3, 2009 at 2:50 pm | Reply

  michel whined:
  “I will change my mind and make up my mind in accordance with the light of my own reason and conscience, and no amount of frothing at the mouth and insults and personalities will make any difference.”

  You would do great, if you used your reason to actually learn something. You are treated here like an ass, because you repeat constantly exactly same unfounded arguments again and again and again, without showing any regard all the pointers given to you.

  Somehow you are not showing any sceptic attituge towards the bullshit you read from the blogs of the deniers. Would you spend a couple of days to analyze any recent oomph raised, tracking down the original papers and statements, it would be evident for you where the science is and where it is missing.

  Show some effort!

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 3, 2009 at 5:40 pm | Reply

  KenM says “Trick question. CO2 has already started outgassing. See GP’s reply.”

  There is some limited outgassing from previously frozen tundra–but very little–and the oceans are still a big sink for CO2. What happens when these become significant sources?

• 

  Gavin's Pussycat // July 3, 2009 at 5:56 pm | Reply

  KenM, the point is that the process that leads from temperature increase to release of CO2 from the oceans may have a different — probably longer, like many centuries — response time than the different process whereby increasing CO2 concentrations cause warming. This may be roughly characterized by the 30 years or so mentioned.

  The combined process, i.e., CO2 release followed by greenhouse warming as a feedback to deglaciation primary forcing, will be controlled by the slowest response time.

  > HaHa! Trick question. CO2 has already started outgassing. See GP’s reply.

  No, don’t see… temperature increase will lead to outgassing everything else being the same. In the modern era it isn’t, and the increased CO2 concentration over the oceans produces a downward flux swamping any outgassing: only half of the human-released CO2 remains airborne, most of the rest ends up in the oceans.

  I won’t venture to address your correlation question, which appears rooted in misconceptions the nature of which I don’t want to guess at.

• 

  David B. Benson // July 3, 2009 at 10:10 pm | Reply

  KenM // July 3, 2009 at 2:42 pm — There are no instances in any ice core record of CO2 concentrations changing by 100 ppm in 150+ years. What is seen is an increase of about 100 ppm over omething like 15,000 years and comperable decreases requiring almost 100,000 years.

  But the underlying physics, not just correlation, has been knwon (up to the constants) since
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect

• 

  michel lecar // July 4, 2009 at 9:51 am | Reply

  “Somehow you are not showing any sceptic attituge towards the bullshit you read from the blogs of the deniers”[sic]

  This is typical of the response to everyone who does not accept the Party Line 100%. The mindset is basically Manichean. You either accept one view, which seems to be roughly the Hansen approach, or you are assumed to accept in its entirety some undefined set of evil thoughts called the denialist approach.

  I do not accept everything I read on what you call the denialist blogs. I read Watts, and some pieces there strike me as interesting, some just silly, some as wrong. The comments strike me as similar in tone to those here and on RC, though moderation enforces greater politeness on Watts. Similarly I read CA and in general find it thought provoking, though I don’t always agree with what Steve M posts. The analysis of MBH, and his latest piece on Rahmsdorf, strikes me as accurate and to the point.

  I do not follow Party Lines. Either in politics, medicine, programming, climate. If a point of view seems justified to me, I accept it. I do not consistently vote a Party ticket. There is nothing wrong with this, and it is not in the least denialist or camp following. Quite the reverse.

  It seems most probable to me at the moment, though I may change my mind, have done on quite a few issues of this matter over the years, that some of the arguments and predictions of the AGW fraternity will be validated, and others not.

  At the moment the last IPCC forecasts of global temperatures look too high. There is warming, but so far less than forecast. However, we are not very far into the forecasts and things may pick up and confirm them.

  I feel considerable uncertainty about feedback and thus about climate sensitivity, and don’t feel able to have a settled opinion either way on this – other than that it is a critical issue. Very sorry if this upsets anyone.

  As to the amount of warming, I look at the satellite series and do not see in them trends which justify great alarm. I am not sure whether the warming trend since 1975 is so great that it requires explanations other than natural variability, and I am not convinced that it is unprecedented in historical times. But I may change my mind about that too.

  You can abuse and accuse of denial all you want. Basically, I don’t much care how other people feel. I am only interested in what they think about issues. I make up my own mind, always have and always will.

  AGW may have some similarities as it evolves to cholesterol and saturated fats. It has turned out to be a fairly complex story with many twists and turns. Where we seem to have ended up is a place importantly different from the early views on dietary fats of all kinds. But, we have not ended up with a view that says fats, both their kind and their amount in the diet, do not matter.

  Similarly, it must be most unlikely that we will end up with a view that human activity does not affect climate, or that pollution of the atmosphere is not an important global issue, and I expect us to conclude in the end that human activity can have and has had dangerous climate effects. I am a lot less certain that we will end up accepting the view that CO2 is the really important variable to worry about.

  if you want to call all this denialism, feel free. I don’t much care what you call it.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 4, 2009 at 11:56 am | Reply

  Michel, The problem is that this is a scientific issue, and you insist on treating purely as politics. We’re playing soccer and you are insisting that it’s basketball. Hell, you are going as far as refusing to even acknowledge the existence of soccer.

  There is no party line. There is what the evidence allows you to say. The consensus model of Earth’s climate explains in a very economical fashion a huge range of phenomena–among the most telling being simultaneous warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere. There simply is no credible, comprehensive alternative theory.

  Do you really not realize how specious your analogy is between cholesteol and the greenhouse effect. Medical science is truly in its infancy, while the greenhouse effect has been known for more than 150 years. Michel, it is not the fact that you disagree with us. It is your refusal to make any effort to learn about the science before pontificating.

• 

  Petro // July 4, 2009 at 3:24 pm | Reply

  michel, you can opine until your face turn blue, that is your right. Still, you are not entitled twist science for your opinions. That is denialism in action.

  You must have a very frustrating life, with all that avoidance of reality.

  Have ever read a basic textbook in climate, meteorology, or any science? Have you ever grasped what is scientific methodology?

• 

  Timothy Chase // July 4, 2009 at 6:39 pm | Reply

  michel lecar quotes Petro but uses a [sic] to signify a misspelling:
  

  “Somehow you are not showing any sceptic attituge towards the bullshit you read from the blogs of the deniers”[sic]

  What is it with the “[sic]“?

  The only word one might have to give a second thought to is “sceptic” and that is the proper British spelling. You have previously claimed to be from the UK if I am not mistaken, so you should be aware of this.

  Of course for Americans it is a play on words, a bit like Homer having Odysseus respond, “I am μη τισ” (“no body”) to Polyphemus when the cyclops asked who it was that had put out his eye. When one removes the space one gets μητισ which translates as “reason.” (In fact, one of the epithets used to describe Odysseus is πωλιμητισ which roughly translates as “crafty, of many devices.”)

  Of course in this case the play on words is between “sceptic” and “septic,” but the ancient Greeks certainly weren’t above that sort thing, either. (For example, Plato had various allusions to homosexuality in his Socratic dialogues.) In fact they had their own version of the Chinese dragon dance 舞龍 except it was a little less subtle, involving a giant phallus that was sometimes used to chase the opposite sex.

• 

  Timothy Chase // July 4, 2009 at 6:44 pm | Reply

  PS

  Sorry — I didn’t see the “attituge” — but then that is a typo where “attitude” is the correct word.

• 

  David B. Benson // July 4, 2009 at 10:31 pm | Reply

  Timothy Chase // July 4, 2009 at 6:44 pm — I rather like “attituge”. That’s what deniers have, an attituge.

  :-)

• 

  Speedy // July 5, 2009 at 12:08 am | Reply

  “[edit out a tediously long list of ludicrous misstatements of fact, which would make the most die-hard denialist proud, culminating in this annalysis:]”

  Is it just me that finds this, on a page that is headed ‘Open Mind’, to be hilarious?

  [Response: I guess you're one of those who thinks keeping an "open mind" means removing your brain.

  Now that is hilarious!]

• 

  Timothy Chase // July 5, 2009 at 12:53 am | Reply

  My apologies.

  I found that I had misspelled a word — not that it matters all that much I suppose. But in any case, if someone were to look this up, the correct spelling of the epithet describing Odysseus is: πολυμητισ, not πωλιμητισ , and the code is: πολυμητισ. An omicron instead of an omega and an upsilon instead of an eta. That will teach me to attempt Ancient Greek using phonetics.

  Online you may visit:

  The Odyssey (in Ancient Greek)
  http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0135:book%3D1:card%3D1

  … then click on the Show for the “Notes (W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, 1886)” for book 1, line 15 which will be on the right hand side.

  Don’t you just love the internet…

• 

  Timothy Chase // July 5, 2009 at 1:10 am | Reply

  David B. Benson wrote:
  

  Timothy Chase // July 4, 2009 at 6:44 pm — I rather like “attituge”. That’s what deniers have, an attituge.

  Well, in any case it gave me the chance to play the part of an erudite buffoon, tossing around Ancient Greek and traditional Chinese while missing a typo. I rather like that.

• 

  naught101 // July 5, 2009 at 10:41 am | Reply

  Tamino: This probably doesn’t have any statistical significance, but I think iit emphasises your points:
  Try including the 4 decade-long linear trend lines on the same graph as the 40 year linear trendline. It’s immediately obvious that the 70’s and 80’s both showed far less warming than the over all trend. It also shows that the 2000 trend is the only decade where the entire trend line is above the 40 year trend (i.e. warming trend is slightly less than 40-year trend, but temps are higher to start with).

• 

  Lazar // July 5, 2009 at 8:07 pm | Reply

  michel,

  first… i want you to enjoy this forum and to contribute…

  i think you misunderstand why people are jumping down your back… it’s not ‘coz you disagree with them by 1%…
  a) you disagree with the evidence… by more than 1%…
  b) your statements tend to be assertions…
  c) which have been debated endlessly before

  why i love this forum… timothy chase’s discussion on interpretations of natural variability… he teaches me new stuff… by presenting and weighing evidence and theories… backed by references… try and contribute something similar… but when you say stuff like ‘hadcrut has zero value because of closed source code’… which is a) unbalanced b) assertion which c) teaches me nothing and d) which doesn’t move anything forward and e) which has been debated over and over before… people suspect you’re playing games…

  … and we’re tired of reading and debating this stuff… if we wanted to read and debate this stuff we’d spend our lives at wuwt or ca…

  It seems [...] I feel considerable uncertainty [...] do not see in them [...] I am not sure [...] I am not convinced [...] a lot less certain

  you need make clear to others when ‘uncertainty’ is scientific (with pointers to relevant papers) or an expression of a degree of personal study… and similarly, when you say you ’see’… is that a paper, or a guess?

  no citizen of an advanced technological society can be knowledgeable on every issue… everyone places trust in experts… recognize who experts are and when to trust them… and who are cranks… loonies… salesmen… both untempered skepticism and universal trust are impractical and counterproductive to learning…

  how effective is an approach to learning… in terms of the time spent studying… reading textbooks and papers is not ‘equal’ to reading crank blogs authored by biased and incompetent amateurs… presenting the output of crank blogs, or individual papers with a challenge to ‘disprove’ ‘their’ ‘content’ is playing the ‘find my pony’ game… it is not effective learning… study broad and deep and weigh the evidence…

  very clever minds have studied this problem for a very long while…

  [link]

  “So you have to have that contrarian streak. You have to have that questioning streak. That doesn’t surprise me in the least that most good scientists have that attitude. But in the best scientists that attitude is also married with a humility — maybe you don’t know everything that is going on. You can come into a field and say, “these people seem to be making this assumption, how have they analyzed it?” Generally speaking, they have analyzed it to death. When you come into a new field or when you comment on a field that isn’t something that you have grown up with over time, you have to come in with a humility that says, these people are smart as well, and let me see how they have used their smarts.” — Gavin Schmidt

  … h/t to rustneversleeps

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 10, 2009 at 12:56 pm | Reply

  Michel, try this link:

  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/114298147/PDFSTART

  Int. J. Climatol. 28: 905–914 (2008)
  Published online 1 August 2007 in Wiley InterScience

  There’s also this:

  http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NRCreport.pdf

  Unless one is ignorant of the science, it’s kind of hard to make the argument that the current period is unexceptional while keeping a straight face.

• 

  Igor Samoylenko // July 10, 2009 at 4:55 pm | Reply

  Ray Ladbury:

  “There’s also this:

  http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NRCreport.pdf”

  This report is also available on-line in a browsable format, which may be easier to use than the pdf version:

  http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676

  Lazar addressing michel said: “you need make clear to others when ‘uncertainty’ is scientific (with pointers to relevant papers) or an expression of a degree of personal study[...]”

  …or simply based on personal incredulity.

  Michel said: “The analysis of MBH, and his latest piece on Rahmsdorf, strikes me as accurate and to the point.”

  How did you established that (just out of interest)? What is your criteria? Unless you understand all the maths etc behind it how exactly did you determine that? Just because it sounds plausible? But then there is a lot of plausible nonsense out there one can construct (see http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/
  for example)? What else? Lots of obscure language and complex-looking maths? Lots of people apparently agreeing with the claims? Anything else?

• 

  Chris S. // July 10, 2009 at 5:04 pm | Reply

  I posted the following in the Vapor Lock thread in error, apologies to all.

  Michel, thanks for looking. The reason I posted them was in response to Martinsh’s assertion that we “do not have any data of how did the climate look like 200-300 years ago” this is not the case as these records show. The Marsham data shows that phenology showed no significant change over much of the 200 year period 1736-1947.

  That phenological records are now showing evidence of a shift in the onset of spring (2-7 days per decade being typical across many of the groups so far studied (on a side note the 2.5 days you cite above is per decade not per 30 years)) that was not seen throughout the previous 200 years (as shown at Marsham-thus demonstrating the relevance of that dataset to what is happening today).

  This phenological shift is important in (at least) two aspects: firstly it shows that something is occurring in the natural world that has not been recorded before (since the 1730’s in the UK, in the last 900 years in Japan). Secondly, the spring-time advance of certain species could have serious detrimental effects on ecosystems – both natural (bird species ‘missing’ the peak dates of their prey) and agricultural (aphids getting into crops at a younger, more vulnerable, growth stage).

  As for Kyoto, the best reference for it is:
  Lamb, H. H. (1977). Climate Past, Present and Future. London, Methuen. I’d heartily suggest asking your library to get hold of it for you.

  I’d also suggest “Visser, M.E. & Both, C. (2005) Shifts in phenology due to global climate change: the need for a yardstick. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 272, 2561-2569.” for a good overview of the subject (see here: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/272/1581/2561.abstract )

• 

  The Dake Page // July 15, 2009 at 8:52 am | Reply

  Bob Carter isn’t the only one with an incestuous relationship with the free market organizations. Check out this chart showing the interconnections of the most often cited skeptics scientists and groups such as the Heartland Institute, whose mandate is to fight anything that might lead to regulation.

  http://thedakepage.blogspot.com/2009/07/independent-climate-skeptics-well-maybe.html

• 

  Ian // July 31, 2009 at 1:03 am | Reply

  Have you ever subjected the satellite data from UAH and RSS to a similar statistical analysis as that you describe here? These data certainly do not show 2005 as warmer than 1998. Concentrating on GISS is perhaps unwise as there is considerable disquiet regarding the UHI effect on these data. With regard to the comments by scientists, those made recently by members of the American Chemical Society suggest there are either a lot more of those you refer to as “scientists” because of their questioning of global warming or a lot more scientists who believe the science is not settled at all. Ad hominem attacks possibly aren’t all that helpful in promoting your cause as they sound rather too shrill for comfort.

  [Response: Satellite products are nowhere near as reliable as the denialosphere claims -- none of them are direct measures of lower-troposphere temperature, and the divergence between the different satellite-based estimates of lower-troposphere temperature (there are at least five, not just two) are far greater than the divergence between the three main surface-temperature estimates (GISS, HadCRU, and NCDC).

  Crying "urban heat island" is one of the oldest and tiredest canards; it's an issue which has been analyzed to death, and it has been repeatedly shown that the trend based only on rural station data is not smaller than the trend based on UHI-corrected data for all stations. Discounting the reliability of the surface record based on an utter lack of valid evidence is a cowardly evasion of the truth. You should be embarrassed.

  As for the reaction of the membership of the ACS, interested readers should heed the Rabett.]

• 

  ShadowStar // July 31, 2009 at 4:10 pm | Reply

  Of course, there are several styles of denialist. On the one hand, you have the conspiracy theorist types -> They will simply say you are wrong, a puppet, a manipulator and end it at that. And the opposing confirmist will argue that person as ignorant or blind. These discussions will no doubt touch on ice sheets, solar cycles, cold and hot summers and use words like “millions of years” and “obvious.”

  Then there are the analyzers -> They will point out contradicting trends (for which a model may not yet account or may be unable to account,) and thus discount the entire hypothesis.

  Then there are critical thinkers in general -> They must ascribe to some aspect of 1 or 2 above, or we would simply conform and follow, but prefer to see scientific (not just intuitive) reasoning.

  To contest your analysis above, which is well thought out, but, at its heart nothing more than the first several chapters of statistics (as you know -> Represent the data reasonably, put on a ruler and use your pen.) I would point out that GISS data reports Anomaly and Index. Anomaly must obviously be referential, and the reference point is not made clear in your analysis. This may skew your trend toward one side or the other, simply by picking a reference point. To speak in Index terms (and then to change to absolute) one must then estimate a global mean.. Which obviously will change with respect to local data points and can be manipulated. The trend in anomaly which you show may be inside the noise floor of the fluctuations of global mean best estimates for each year, and the reference point may minimize the magnitude of your slope or change it.

  Also, for the purpose of consideration, if you change your scale the end result seems much less doom and gloom than otherwise it appears here. We are simple beings.

  I find it overly simple how the two camps divide themselves typically: Denialists seem to deny all things to do with climate change, and confirmists (or whatever) seem to approve of all measures taken to confirm the point

  For example, propaganda (persuasive statements, right or wrong) proferred by the confirmist side suggests that “Global Warming Is Speeding Up!” or that CO2 concentration will cause an exponentiation by feedback mechanisms: This is not substantiated by the presented primary source information (GISS temp data, as presented) and subsequent analysis (as shown here.) You show, in fact (albeit with high residuals, we’re talking about quite a large system here) a linear fit with no apparent exponent in sight.

  Without the exponentiation, the “crisis” becomes a “problem” and “radical countermeasures” become “considerations.” Which view should be substantiated most by confirmists? Policy makers currently speak of carbon tax, credits, cap and trade and other things that can only be instated because of an obvious crisis -> Once you have identified a political motive for science, you must suspect any supporting science and reach for primary source. Once you have suspicion, you have critics and skeptics.

  Further, to raise an opposing point (which is woefully off topic) for your readership: Consider the efficiency of plants in a high CO2 environment to grow, produce, spread, (consume CO2 is an implication..,) and thusly supply humanity.

  [Response: Then there are the "skeptics" who talk like they know what they're doing and like they're thoughtful and impartial, but discuss "anomalies" and "index" in ways that show they really don't have a clue. They end up claiming things like "the reference point may minimize the magnitude of your slope or change it," which I'm sure they think is so intelligent and scientific but in reality is ... babble.

  It's surprising how often they add a plug for CO2 fertilization. It's no surprise at all how long-winded they are.]

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 31, 2009 at 5:59 pm | Reply

  Shadowstar, we have something in common: Neither of us has the vaguest clue what YOU are talking about.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 31, 2009 at 6:02 pm | Reply

  Ian, heres a test: Spot the difference between the two terms below:

  A. scientist

  B. climate scientist

  OK, now for extra credit, which is more likely to know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to issues of climate?

• 

  dhogaza // July 31, 2009 at 7:23 pm | Reply

  Anomaly must obviously be referential, and the reference point is not made clear in your analysis. This may skew your trend toward one side or the other, simply by picking a reference point.

  Dude, whenever you’re tempted to make this claim, repeat after me:

  (t1 – R) – (t0 – R) = t1 – t0

  For all reference points R.

  The slope of the linear regression doesn’t vary with the reference point.

  We know that Watts, PhD MS BS high school graduate, thinks it does and apparently you’ve drunk his kool-aid, but it doesn’t.

• 

  Richard C // July 31, 2009 at 8:38 pm | Reply

  Shadowstar, the words were english, what was the language?

• 

  Ian // July 31, 2009 at 10:11 pm | Reply

  Ray Ladbury, heres a test: Spot the difference between the two terms below:

  A. scientist

  B. climate scientist

  OK, now for extra credit, is the editor -in-chief of the ACS a climate scientist? From your logic is he likely to know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to issues of climate?

• 

  dhogaza // July 31, 2009 at 11:45 pm | Reply

  OK, now for extra credit, is the editor -in-chief of the ACS a climate scientist? From your logic is he likely to know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to issues of climate?

  No, which is why he defers to those who do …

  climate scientists.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // July 31, 2009 at 11:52 pm | Reply

  Ian, just one tiny, little problem with your reasoning–the editor was not passing himself off as a climate scientist. He was passing on the consensus viewpoint of scientists who actually do climate science–as opposed to the shills from Heartland. Sorry, dude, you should have studied.

• 

  t_p_hamilton // August 1, 2009 at 1:51 am | Reply

  I should point out to Ian that there are quite a few climate scientists in chemistry.

• 

  Ian // August 1, 2009 at 9:33 am | Reply

  t-p-hamilton
  If, as you say “there are qute a few climate scintists in chemistry” (and I have no evidence to either support or refute your assertion ) your post would be far more appropriately directed to Ray Ladbury who appears to have an entirely different view. He appears to consider the members of the ACS are “shills from Heartland “

• 

  t_p_hamilton // August 1, 2009 at 4:42 pm | Reply

  Ian said:If, as you say “there are qute a few climate scintists in chemistry” (and I have no evidence to either support or refute your assertion )”

  Um, wouldn’t that be an excellent reason to address my comment to YOU?

  Susan Solomon, Co-chair of IPCC Working Group 1 is a chemist.

  There are many more in Jim Prall’s excellent list of all 619 authors of Working Group 1 of the IPCC.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // August 1, 2009 at 5:15 pm | Reply

  Gee, Ian, OK, dude, work with me here. Maybe there could be chemists who are doing work in climate science and who (…OK, now stretch your mind) are therefore also climate scientists. I would be willing to bet, that the idjits who wrote in to complain do not fall into this category, and neither do you.

• 

  Mark // August 1, 2009 at 6:15 pm | Reply

  Ian, stop engaging in absolutism.

  Common in denial spheres, but it doesn’t work.

  It’s not

  “This is a chemist and a climate scientist therefore all chemists are climate scientists”

  and it’s not

  “This is a chemist not a climate scientist therefore all chemists are not climate scientists”

  either.

  Some chemists are client scientists.

  But you have to check that they do climate science too.

  And an editor has no more to be expert in everything they produce in their paper than the CEO of a manganese mining corporation has to know how to operate a hydraulic digger and miners pimp AND how to manage ore extraction and purification through chemical bonding and dustbed-distillation (and all the other elements of operating a company).

• 

  Robert P. // August 1, 2009 at 7:13 pm | Reply

  I should point out that the ACS is a *huge* organization. It has over 150,000 members, every one of whom is automatically subscribed to Chemical and Engineering News. Many, probably most, of these are chemical engineers or technicians rather than chemists per se. Of course you’re going to find a few climate contrarians in a sample that large. You’ll also find creationists, HIV-deniers, cold-fusion enthusiasts, and a guy who thought he had figured out a way to separate optical isomers by spinning them in a gravitational field.

• 

  Ian // August 1, 2009 at 9:13 pm | Reply

  Thank you one and all for your instructive ecomments. I do have a PhD (molecular biology/biochemistry) but have totally failed to commmunicate correctly here. My original comment that members of the ACS criticised their editor in chief for his stance on climate change has been totally lost in comments from others centred around whether those complaining about this stance were climate scientists or not. I’m not sure of the relevance of that as those scientists (like me) do understand that science is not controlled by consensus and are completely correctly expressing a view that the science on anything is rarely settled.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // August 1, 2009 at 10:16 pm | Reply

  Ian, if you don’t understand the relevance of consensus to science, you aren’t much of a scientist, if you are a scientist at all.

  For instance, how, if we exclude consensus, do we keep Intelligent Design out of biology textbooks? There are, after all, biologists who reject evolution. Do we allow them to teach their BS to students who cannot understand scientific research in context?

  Do you even know what scientific consensus is?

• 

  Ian Forrester // August 1, 2009 at 10:38 pm | Reply

  Ian, so you think “science is not controlled by consensus”?

  Let me take you back a few years and we will discuss some science in your field; molecular biology/biochemistry.

  The year is 1953, two papers were published within weeks of one another in prestigious journals, one in PNAS, the other in Nature. Both papers described the chemical structure of DNA. One paper said that it was a triple helix and one showed that it was a double helix.

  By your description of how science works there will be no consensus as to which paper is correct since you state that ” science is not controlled by consensus”. Are you of the opinion that there are still two camps, each believing in the double or triple helix structure?

  Please tell me, since you claim to be a molecular biologist, how many strands there are in the DNA molecule. What percentage of molecular biologists/biochemists will agree with your number? Do they constitute a “consensus”?

  The two papers can be found at:

  “A proposed structure for the nucleic acids.”
  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 39 (February 1953): 84-97: Pauling L, Corey RB
  and
  “Molecular structure of nucleic acids; a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid”. Nature 171 (4356): 737-738 (April 1953): Watson JD, Crick FH

• 

  TCO // August 2, 2009 at 12:49 am | Reply

  I don’t know the whole background (complain at CNE), but I know that I stopped subscribing partially because they were reflexively liberal (on diversity, global warming, Bush, etc.)

  It was always slipped in there…but enough to lead no doubt where the editors would vote. I would Bayesian bet on it with siginificant odds.

  The other thing is that even when they pushed stuff it was so trite in concept. At such a beginner level. And they themselves are not knowledgable in theses areas.

  Should see some of the boners they pull when discussing econ. I mean if I want a liberal economist, I’ll read Krugman or Delong (and still find flaws), but they are way WAY smarter (and we are still just talking popular articles for those two) and at least make me think.

  CNE is a waste. If you want to keep up with the industry, Chemical Week is way better. ACS has been captured by the professional society employees…and the tenured professors.

• 

  Ian // August 2, 2009 at 2:52 am | Reply

  On this particular blog I should have known that commenting on scientific consensus was going to be misinterpreted. Let me be quite plain consensus comes as a result of solid experimental evidence not on the results of computer modelling where the input data is not fully understood as is clearly shown by contrasting views in the current litrature from climate scientists. There is consensus on global warming it is clearly happening but whether or not the cause is anthropogenic is a very different matter. Computer models say it is but in real life it is less clear. The comment on DNA is true, it is a double helix and that has been proven by experimental observations not through computer simulation of the helix. If the differing views had been derived from and substantiated by computer modelling only, perhaps the triple helix would have prevailed. Who can say it would not? Some of you may recall the scientific consensus of ~100,000 genes in the human genome. Again experimental observations, sequencing the human genome, have shown that figure to be ~30,000. And on the double helix what is the consensus on the non coding regions? This used to be termed junk DNA but it is now known it most certainly is not Can all of you who criticise (and Ray Ladbury why should you question my veracity regarding possessing a PhD?) point to the empirical evidence for the effect of human produced CO2 on global temperature? Not just that it fits in computer models but that it is experimentally provable in the real world. Tamino him/herself says that the El Nino in 1998 had a greater effect than did CO2 so how many other factors have an effect greater than CO2? And the answer that these are superimposed on a CO2 induced rise in temperature would require some expermental not simulated evidence for this. Like many other posts on other blogs there seems to be some confusion between cause and correlation. As global temperatures recently have been rising a little less perhaps this is due to the fall in global finances as this also correlates quite well with a change in the upward trend

  [Response: The consensus that global warming is anthropogenic is not based just on computer models. The solid experimental evidence is that CO2 (and other gases) are infrared active. As for other solid "experimental" evidence, this is an oft-stated requirement by those who won't be satisfied without multiple earths to experiment on.

  As for global temperatures recently rising less, that is an unsupportable claim; there's no statistically valid evidence that recent temperatures are anything other than a continuation of the existing trend plus random noise.]

• 

  dhogaza // August 2, 2009 at 4:42 am | Reply

  Let me be quite plain consensus comes as a result of solid experimental evidence not on the results of computer modelling where the input data is not fully understood as is clearly shown by contrasting views in the current litrature from climate scientists.

  Gosh, tell that to the physicists who are in charge of ensuring that our nuclear deterrent still works, despite being restricted to model results since we can no longer test our weapons, as they age, new designs, blah-blah.

• 

  Ian Forrester // August 2, 2009 at 5:11 am | Reply

  Ian said:

  This used to be termed junk DNA but it is now known it most certainly is not

  I don’t think you really understand what non-coding (aka junk) DNA actually is. There are a number of different theories as to what it is and what it might do.

  How come you agree on “scientific consensus” when it suits you and say that it doesn’t exist when you are in denial about the science of AGW? You did say “science is not controlled by consensus” didn’t you? Science goes through stages but mature science is “consensus science” and climate science, even though people like you deny it, is a mature science.

• 

  Ian // August 2, 2009 at 6:43 am | Reply

  Ian Forrester non coding DNA certainly has been called junk DNA even though it is now known that introns are involved in the differential expression of genes and for your enlightment an Aiustralian slapped a patent on junk DNA in 1995 much to the chagrin of those who now realise his foresight. The non coding regions also contain viral DNA thought incorporated millemia ago and the roles of the non coding region are yet to be defined.
  And can you tell me whre I intimated I thought climate science was not mature? I think no such thing. I do however have reservations that much of the concern regarding gobal warming is based on computer models that however sophisticated they are, in the final analysis rely on data put in by humans. Data moreover pertaining to climate that is affected by systems that are imperfectly understood. For example consensus on the role clouds play has by no means ben reached as is shown by this quote from a recent article in Science

  “The accuracy of these models has been hampered by the uncertain influence of clouds on the global climate system”

  There were indications in the paper that clouds have a positive effect but other comments on the article do show uncertainty. As is shown below

  Daniel Lunt, a climate scientist from the University of Bristol, UK, said this was an “important finding”, but that it would be a “quantum leap” to conclude that this single model’s predictions about the effects of cloud cover on the future climate would be correct.

  “Cloud feedbacks do not necessarily work in the same way under conditions of natural variability compared to (how they will work during) future carbon dioxide-induced warming,” he explained.

  Given this level of uncertainty over just one aspect of climate is unsurprising that there are those who remain to be convinced that human activities are the major/sole cause of global warming

• 

  Ray Ladbury // August 2, 2009 at 1:30 pm | Reply

  So, Ian, where is the solid “experimental” evidence for plate tectonics? Stellar nucleosynthesis? Supernovae formation? Formation of pit craters 0n Jupiter’s icy satellites?

  I question whether you are a scientist because you don’t seem to understand how science is done. You’ve shown no more understanding than would be needed to get through an article in Discover or Scientific American.

• 

  TCO // August 2, 2009 at 1:35 pm | Reply

  NO WAY is it a mature science. We don’t model clouds well. Milankovitch is a good idea, but still has some definite hair on the ball. Etc. Etc. Note, that this does NOT mean that you can’t think the different strands of evidence point to GW. But it is much more of an argument of multiple inferences, than hard-core simple stuff like in solid state physics. (Which is fine. That’s life…we don’t have multiple earths.)

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  dhogaza // August 2, 2009 at 1:43 pm | Reply

  This used to be termed junk DNA but it is now known it most certainly is not…

  Ian’s spent some time reading the creationist literature, I see …

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  TCO // August 2, 2009 at 1:48 pm | Reply

  I mean that is COOL that it is not a mature science. That makes it FUN. Makes it exciting. Not like classical thermodynamics (which can still be fun for a student…in the joy of discovery…but has no reason for funding, active research, etc.)

• 

  Ray Ladbury // August 2, 2009 at 3:05 pm | Reply

  Ian, computer models are not necessary to establish greenhouse-induced warming as a concern. Arrhenius got pretty close to the modern sensitivity value back in ~1900, particularly on his second attempt. You can do a back of the envelope calculation yourself that demonstrates that climate change is worth taking seriously.

  CO2 sensitivity is determined quite well–to the point where the entire 90% confidence level gives cause for concern. Much of that evidence is independent of any GCM.

  And as to “maturity,” the science is nearly 2 centuries old. It is certainly as mature as any other geoscience, and the role of CO2 is nailed down pretty tight. Indeed, one could argue that climate science is as mature as much of materials science–and we’re willing to depend on that enough to dictate bridge and airplane construction.

  Oh, and TCO, there is still active research going on in classical stat mech behind classical thermo.

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  Mark // August 2, 2009 at 4:00 pm | Reply

  “NO WAY is it a mature science. We don’t model clouds well. ”

  We don’t model relativistic effects in quantum gravity AT ALL.

  We don’t model the Higgs Boson energies at all.

  We don’t model lots of things about subatomic particles.

  Does this mean that atomic theory isn’t mature science???

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  TCO // August 2, 2009 at 4:50 pm | Reply

  Atomic theory is more mature than climate science. It’s a scalar, not a Dirac delta function.

  And we model the pdfs fine for quantum effects.

  Segue: In addition, while Schroedinger rules…and in theory, you can just derive everything in chemistry, even everything in bio, we can not model it. That does not mean that Shroedinger is wrong, but just that we can not make useful predictions (for instance of crystal structures) based on first principles. We end up finding it more useful to use direct observation (primarily) or more emperically based intuitions (Pauling ionic radii, etc.) to actually make predictions.

  Ray: Yes, there is some good stuff still being done in stat mech. I guess I meant, classical classical thermo. ;-) I actually still enjoyed learning this and it’s non-trivial…and I still never really got it perfectly down (but enough to throw up squid ink versus Eli or lesser TimL or lesser lesser JohnA.) But I do remember a guy who was doing very cutting edge stat mech experimental work (small clusters, etc.) telling me that my joy in classical thermo was unwarrented…that “all that stuff was dead and buried 100 years ago.)

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  TCO // August 2, 2009 at 4:52 pm | Reply

  I think the immature sciences are the more excting ones people! Rise up and over all your blog-PR kerfuffle and politics and policy advocacy and ENJOY science and curiiosity! (El Nino from GA Tech will back me up on this being proper attitude.)

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  Robert P. // August 3, 2009 at 1:44 am | Reply

  TCO, this is off topic and I won’t argue with you about what constitutes a “mature science”, but your knowledge of quantum chemistry is about 30 years out of date. I don’t know about crystal structures (it’s not my field), but people have been calculating chemical properties (molecular structures, vibrational spectra, even thermodynamic properties like delta-H and delta-G) from first principles for a long time. Yes, approximations are required; no, the answer isn’t always right (but neither is experiment, and sometimes the experiment is not possible), but nowadays a site-license for GAUSSIAN is as much a part of the toolkit of the working chemist as an NMR spectrometer or an HPLC.

  When I was an undergraduate, my Advanced Inorganic professor (1978) portentously informed us that “No one can make a living by solving the Schroedinger Wave Equation.”) Well, there’s a bunch of companies out there now that are making a rather good living doing exactly that.

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  Mark // August 3, 2009 at 8:13 am | Reply

  “Atomic theory is more mature than climate science. It’s a scalar, not a Dirac delta function”

  Ah.

  You do know that “stream of consciousness” babbling shows you have not the slightest clue what you’re talking about, don’t you?

  Rutherford split the atom in 1911, explaining that it was not the “plum pudding” model of Thompson.

  Tyndall worked on explaining the ice ages (climate) in 1859.

  Which is more mature?

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  Barton Paul Levenson // August 3, 2009 at 9:02 am | Reply

  TCO writes of climatology:

  NO WAY is it a mature science.

  If by “mature science” you mean “science where everything is known,” there is no such thing.

  If by it you mean “recently developed science where everything is uncertain and there’s no general model yet,” you’re just wrong.

  Let’s review. Aristotle divided the world’s climate into torrid, temperate, and frigid zones c. 300 BC. Torricelli invented the barometer in the 1600s and made the empirical finding that pressure declines with altitude. Continuous records of daily temperatures began in central England in 1650. Fourier postulated the existence of the greenhouse effect in 1824. Agassiz demonstrated the existence of ice ages in the 1850s. Tyndall showed which gases in the Earth’s atmosphere (H2O and CO2) accounted for most of Earth’s greenhouse effect in 1859. Hadley and others elucidated the circulation patterns of the atmosphere in the 1870s. Arrhenius proposed the theory of anthropogenic global warming in 1896. Dines published the first detailed energy budget for the climate system in 1917. Want me to go on?

  Looks like climatology is older than quantum mechanics or relativity.

• 

  TCO // August 3, 2009 at 12:48 pm | Reply

  Tammy, seems more willing to tolerate denialist herecy from those that can at least bring it science-wise, than just the Watts yuck-yucks. So I think he’ll put up with some actual science talk that is not off-topic more than a Palin rant.

  I don’t think practicing chemists (on average) use GAUSSIAN as much as NMR. No way, no how. Do a search on papers with each of the terms…

  Let me tell ya a story about working with a theorist (not Pople, but a big guy). I had an issue of which site a dopant occupies. Given the levels of substituent as well as the relatively similar nature of the sites (no Mossbauer was not suitable for differentiation), it was difficult to determine which site was preferred (or if equal).

  Anyhow…this guy wanted to do a paper with me. He would do some predictions and calculations but wanted it tied together with some experimental work and my literature knowledge: “I can’t just go publish the spaghetti (band structure) on my own.”

  Fine and good. I told him, make a model, figure out the energy difference of the different sites and predict occupation versus temp (involved some stats mech above my head, but he was quite capable of it) . It’s actually a non-trivial (not the stat mech, but the problem itself) situation for modeler also, because the structure is repeating, but the dopant is random and low occupancy.

  Anyhoo…HE REFUSED. What he said, was, “go figure out what site the dopant is on…and then we will predict it!” I begged the guy. Told him, I would put him on the paper regardless. Told him that I wouldn’t even publish his first prediction if it was wrong. Told him that it would help him and his postdoc more if they took a prediciton first and then had to fix it, then if they just copied nature. Told him that I did not expect theorists to have totally correct answers…said I was happy with inferences and clues (even if wrong sometimes). But he was adamant. Refused to make a prediction…before I went to a synchrotron or something and somehow brute force figured out that problem experimentally…

• 

  Biker Trash // August 3, 2009 at 2:04 pm | Reply

  Yet another naked strawman by dhogaza at dhogaza // August 2, 2009 at 4:42 am.

  The ASC Program, previously known as Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, or ASCI, employs critically important elements that have been omitted from the AOLGCM calculational universe. See, for example,

  D. E. Post and R. P. Kendall, “Software Project Management and Quality Engineering Practices for Complex, Coupled Multiphysics, Massively Parallel Computational Simulations: Lessons Learned from ASCI,” International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, vol. 18, pp. 399-416, 2004.

  T. G. Trucano, M. Pilch, and W. L. Oberkampf, “General Concepts for Experimental Validation of ASCI Code Applications,” Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, SAND2002-0341, 2002.

  More info here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Simulation_and_Computing_Program :

  “The Advanced Simulation and Computing Program (formerly called Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, or ASCI) is a supercomputinginitiative of the United States government, created to help the maintenance of the United States nuclear arsenal after the 1992 moratorium on nuclear testing.”

• 

  TCO // August 3, 2009 at 2:15 pm | Reply

  Age is not the appropriate metric. It’s the difficulty of the problem. We understand (despite calculational difficulties), the electronic structure of materials, much better than Milankovich, etc. stuff.

  Mark, I don’t reply to you much, but hang with me dude. You saw how my lazily phrased C-C had a point and were backed up by the paper writers. Just don’t be a “hater”. ;)

• 

  Mark // August 3, 2009 at 2:25 pm | Reply

  “Age is not the appropriate metric. It’s the difficulty of the problem.”

  No, age IS the appropriate metric.

  The difficulty of the problem would be a good metric for, oh, I dunno, how hard it is.

  PS I’m not a hater.

  PPS Try not being an idiot.

• 

  Mark // August 3, 2009 at 2:29 pm | Reply

  “Yet another naked strawman by dhogaza ”

  Says Biker trash.

  However, I don’t see anything in his post that shows it is a strawman.

  Do the nuclear physicists looking after the nuclear stockpile use computer models to determine if the current stock is vital or not? Do they use computer models to work out how to better make bombs or not?

  NOTHING in your post says that they aren’t. All you’ve posted is that they use computers that are really powerful.

  How? By playing Doom3 and rocket jumping all day until the CPU overheats???

• 

  dhogaza // August 3, 2009 at 3:45 pm | Reply

  “The Advanced Simulation and Computing Program (formerly called Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, or ASCI) is a supercomputinginitiative of the United States government, created to help the maintenance of the United States nuclear arsenal after the 1992 moratorium on nuclear testing.”

  How does this disprove my snarky point that we depend heavily on computer models to help maintain our nuclear arsenal after the 1992 moratorium? What do you think those supercomputers are doing, if not running models?

  Someone’s missing something, here …

• 

  Mark // August 3, 2009 at 5:26 pm | Reply

  “Someone’s missing something, here …”

  Cue the Scarecrow’s song…

  ;-)

• 

  Gavin's Pussycat // August 3, 2009 at 7:52 pm | Reply

  TCO:

  . It’s the difficulty of the problem. We understand (despite calculational difficulties), the electronic structure of materials, much better than Milankovich, etc. stuff.

  Yes… and no. For some crystalline material perhaps; but for cellular constituents, especially in a living cell?

  And about Milankovich, the astronomy of that is very well understood. It’s the physics, and especially the biology, where it gets tricky.

  Not to mention another essential difference. Those material samples are with us now. Milankovich is dead and buried and we get to patch together what happened long ago from pieces we dig up…

  What I’m trying to say it that, around the edges, every science is immature. The right question is, how mature is the core.

• 

  Ray Ladbury // August 3, 2009 at 9:23 pm | Reply

  TCO, the idea that we must understand everything or we understand nothing is simply a fallacy. We do not know the crystalline structure of iron in the inner core, but we know it is solid and that solidification of molten iron is one of the energy sources that fuels convection and thereby the geodynamo.
  Just because we don’t understand everything about clouds doesn’t invalidate what we understand about CO2. For one thing we have multiple sources of evidence constraining that understanding.
  Ask yourself: Do you really expect that the basic theory of climate will be drastically different in 10 years than it is today? We will fill in details, and our understanding will be better, but the basics aren’t going to change–and the reason is because the theory works.

• 

  TCO // August 3, 2009 at 10:38 pm | Reply

  Ray and GP: I agree.

• 

  David B. Benson // August 3, 2009 at 11:35 pm | Reply

  TCO // August 3, 2009 at 10:38 pm — I’m shocked. And pleased.

• 

  Gavin's Pussycat // August 4, 2009 at 6:11 am | Reply

  BikerTrash,

  do those nuclear folks intercompare the results of multiple independent code bases, as is the common practice in science? The IPCC did this for 22 different codes (some of those may have common code though). You need to do this — the idea that you can prevent serious errors by good engineering practices alone is a wee bit naive.

  As for experimental validation, the climate folks do that too all the time: it’s called weather, and no model is let loose on the climate before getting that right.

  …but yes, those computing resources would be nice to have…

• 

  Biker Trash // August 4, 2009 at 1:53 pm | Reply

  “NOTHING in your post says that they aren’t. All you’ve posted is that they use computers that are really powerful.”

  Nope, what I posted, is that they use computer programs that have successfully undergone independent Verification and Validation. And I cited two references. Admittedly, these were not in the first sentences.

  To make it easier, I’ll repeat these and list also a few URLs (http:// removed).

  (1) D. E. Post and R. P. Kendall, “Software Project Management and Quality Engineering Practices for Complex, Coupled Multiphysics, Massively Parallel Computational Simulations: Lessons Learned from ASCI”, International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, vol. 18, pp. 399-416, 2004.

  (2) T. G. Trucano, M. Pilch, and W. L. Oberkampf, “General Concepts for Experimental Validation of ASCI Code Applications”, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, SAND2002-0341, 2002.

  (3) Patrick Roache, “Verification and Validation in Computational Science and Engineering”, published by Hermosa Press. kumo.swcp.com/hermosa/index.html and kumo.swcp.com/hermosa/html/vvcse.html

  (4) William L. Oberkampf, Timothy G. Trucano, and Charles Hirsch, “Verification, Validation, and Predictive Capability in Computational Engineering and Physics,” Sandia National Laboratories Report SAND 2003-3769, 2003. http://www.csar.uiuc.edu/F_viz/gallery/VnV/SAND2003-3769.pdf

  (5) William L. Oberkampf, Verification and Validation in Computational Simulation”, http://www.psfc.mit.edu/ttf/2004/talks/oberkampf.pdf

  (6) M.J. Bayarri, J.O. Berger, R. Paulo, and J. Sacks, A Framework for Validation of Computer Models”, http://www.stat.duke.edu/~fei/samsi/Readings/File6.pdf

  (7) D. Sornette, A. B. Davis, K. Ide1, K. R. Vixie6, V. Pisarenko, and J. R. Kamm, “Algorithm for Model Validation: Theory and Applications”, /arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0511219

  There are thousands of additional references, many available via Google and Google Scholar. None from The Climate Change Community, however.

  Maybe someone can point me to the many that disprove the last statement.

  The AOLBGCMs DO NOT resolve weather. Try again. Or, show me where they do.

  ” … if you only had a brain …”

• 

  Biker Trash // August 4, 2009 at 2:23 pm | Reply

  Maybe it was a reference to this ‘weather’ forecasting skill:

  climatesci.org/2009/08/04/comment-by-the-uk-met-office-on-their-seasonal-weather-predictions/

• 

  t_p_hamilton // August 4, 2009 at 3:49 pm | Reply

  Biker Trash makes a claim:”There are thousands of additional references, many available via Google and Google Scholar. None from The Climate Change Community, however.”

  What is in these references that is not implemented in the climate change community, again? A specific example would be nice, maybe from your research experience dealing with scientific modeling.

  A google scholar search for “model validation climate” turns up 433,000 hits by the way.

• 

  dhogaza // August 4, 2009 at 4:04 pm | Reply

  Your follow-up posts are just barely related to your first post, and certainly doesn’t lead to the conclusion that my point regarding the dependence on models by the weapons community is a “strawman”.

  The AOLBGCMs DO NOT resolve weather.

  While on the subject of strawmen … no, they don’t. They’re not designed to. Nuclear weapons models don’t resolve weather, either. They’re not designed to, either.

• 

  Mark // August 4, 2009 at 4:05 pm | Reply

  “Nope, what I posted, is that they use computer programs that have successfully undergone independent Verification and Validation.”

  Which shows that they don’t use computer models HOW?

• 

  dhogaza // August 4, 2009 at 4:21 pm | Reply

  Nope, what I posted, is that they use computer programs that have successfully undergone independent Verification and Validation.

  Furthermore, this only increases confidence that the physics model is correctly implemented by the software model.

  It says nothing about the validity of the physics model itself…

• 

  dhogaza // August 4, 2009 at 5:09 pm | Reply

  Also, GISS Model E is open source, and the physics model is based on a bunch of published work in the open literature.

  So while no formal verification is done, you’re more than welcome to go find bugs yourself.

• 

  Mark // August 4, 2009 at 7:28 pm | Reply

  “The AOLBGCMs DO NOT resolve weather. Try again. Or, show me where they do.”

  As said above by Dhogoza, that doesn’t say that nuclear weapons tests are done by computer modelling.

  Nobody said they did.

  So why are you asking people to prove they do?

  Now, please answer the question: what have you got that says D’s original point that Nuclear Bombs are tested by computer models is a strawman.

  Leave out the non-sequitors and the streamofconsciousness babbling. Falling back to them merely indicates a rectal-cranial inversion especsially of the aural/vocal kind.

• 

  Gavin's Pussycat // August 4, 2009 at 7:34 pm | Reply

  Biker Trash:

  http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/2006_Schmidt_etal_1.pdf

  specifically Section 5.

  Note, it’s about validating weather patterns, not predictions, which are uninteresting climatologically (but you knew that, didn’t you?)

• 

  Anna // August 20, 2009 at 1:20 am | Reply

  Just for the record, in this comment above (June 26, 2009 at 9:04 pm), which I’d prefaced with “I’m probably going to regret this…” – well, unfortunately I predicted correctly; it was a figment of my own inability to notice the obvious.

  (which is something I explained in the open thread (#14) that Tamino redirected its discussion to, but I see that anyone reading these here comments would be highly unlikely to know that.)

  Sorry, and I hope this sets the record sufficiently straight.