A convenient lie

[Pandora]

Try reading some of these:

You are insulting my intelligence. Do you think I won't read what you post? Your first link refers to a study of the ocean current in California! That's not exactly global, is it? Besides that, here is the abstract of the study. It has nothing to do with global warming. The only thing they mention in passing - if one can trust co2science - is that it is problematic (which is true!) to detect human influences on climate, not that it its impossible.

The second one is an editorial on a website. If you really have a BS you should know that this does no count as a scientific publication. Even if it was, it just says that global warming isnt' so bad, not that its not happening, and not that we are not to blame.

I wonder if you read your last link yourself. They say in the first paragraph:

However, researchers at the MPS have shown that the Sun can be responsible for, at most, only a small part of the warming over the last 20-30 years. They took the measured and calculated variations in the solar brightness over the last 150 years and compared them to the temperature of the Earth. Although the changes in the two values tend to follow each other for roughly the first 120 years, the Earth's temperature has risen dramatically in the last 30 years while the solar brightness has not appreciably increased in this time.

... which is exactly what I have tried to explain above.

[woodchip]

Try reading some of these:

You are insulting my intelligence. Do you think I won't read what you post? Your first link refers to a study of the ocean current in California! That's not exactly global, is it? Besides that, here is the abstract of the study. It has nothing to do with global warming. The only thing they mention in passing - if one can trust co2science - is that it is problematic (which is true!) to detect human influences on climate, not that it its impossible.

I believe the intent was to show the record of pacific currents in context to a world wide climate relationship:

"In addition, they note that "the long-term ocean warming and cooling of the California Current region appears to be in phase with the warming and cooling of the midlatitude North Atlantic described by Keigwin (1996)."

The second one is an editorial on a website. If you really have a BS you should know that this does no count as a scientific publication. Even if it was, it just says that global warming isnt' so bad, not that its not happening, and not that we are not to blame.

Yes it is a editorial, but also linked to references. Having a degree I took the time to read the references. How about you?:

1) as evidenced by the fact that the baseline from which modern warming commenced was the uncharacteristic cold of the Little Ice Age, which is judged to have been the coldest interval of the current interglacial, which has itself been deemed to have been colder than all four of the interglacials that immediately preceded it (Petit et al., 1999).

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 429a0.html

2)Have Greenland and Antarctica been losing ice mass at an accelerating rate that has been causing global sea level to rise at an accelerating rate? Absolutely not. In fact, we have recently reviewed two sea level studies that indicate the rate-of-rise of global sea level over the last half of the 20th century was actually less than the rate-of-rise over the first half of the century

http://tinyurl.com/2xqus2

I wonder if you read your last link yourself. They say in the first paragraph:

However, researchers at the MPS have shown that the Sun can be responsible for, at most, only a small part of the warming over the last 20-30 years. They took the measured and calculated variations in the solar brightness over the last 150 years and compared them to the temperature of the Earth. Although the changes in the two values tend to follow each other for roughly the first 120 years, the Earth's temperature has risen dramatically in the last 30 years while the solar brightness has not appreciably increased in this time.

... which is exactly what I have tried to explain above.

Perhaps you should have read further rather than stopping where you found something to fit your argument:

"These data show clearly that the Sun is in a state of unusually high activity, for about the last 60 years. The time interval for which this statement can be made has been tripled by these new investigations, for now the reconstructed sunspot numbers extend back to 850 AD. Another period of enhanced solar activity, but with substantially fewer sunspots than now, occurred in the Middle Ages from 1100 to 1250. At that time, a warm period reigned over the Earth, as the Vikings established flourishing settlements in Greenland."

[Pandora]

Will, again, you're not relying on scientific work, but on the interpretation of scientific works by journalists. And they're not honest. Further above, you quote an article from junkscience.com. They are part of a thinktank that was originally established by Philiip Morris to cast doubt on the scientific findings on the dangers of smoking, and managed to delay action for 20 years. They are now funded by Exxon. Guess, what's on their agenda, now?

As to the scientists they are referring to: one of them (McKitrick) is an econimist, the other a mineral-exploration consultant (McIntyre). They are known to make silly mistakes in their work, and, guess what, at least one of them is funded by Exxon. An independent commision that was set up to investigate the charges made by them has vindicated the Hockey Stick paper.

Your latest post. Guess what? The journalist, Tom Harris, is one of the heads of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP) that is funded by ... not Exxon, this time, but by the energy lobby nonetheless. Many of the \"scientist\" - like Patterson and Tim Ball - he quotes are employed by this organization as well. In addition, Tim Ball lies about his credentials. Others, like Bob Carter, havn't published anything on climate change.

I could go on, but to be honest, I am bit fed up with doing the footwork for you. You're an intelligent guy. You can double check your sources yourself. Please do so before posting the next \"scientific article\".

[Pandora]

@Woodchip: I have problems understanding what you are trying to say with these points. As far as I can tell, none of them challenges anything I have said. If you want to make claims, please spell them out. Just citing random paragraphs from studies is not really helpful...

For example this:

These data show clearly that the Sun is in a state of unusually high activity, for about the last 60 years. The time interval for which this statement can be made has been tripled by these new investigations, for now the reconstructed sunspot numbers extend back to 850 AD. Another period of enhanced solar activity, but with substantially fewer sunspots than now, occurred in the Middle Ages from 1100 to 1250. At that time, a warm period reigned over the Earth, as the Vikings established flourishing settlements in Greenland.

This may be the case. But where does it challenge the point that global warming is partially manmade, especially when the researchers clearly say that it does not? Am I missing the point?

[Pandora]

Also, your link to the study by Church & White (2006). I quote:

Here, we extend the reconstruction of global mean sea level back to 1870 and find a sea-level rise from January 1870 to December 2004 of 195 mm, a 20th century rate of sea-level rise of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm yr?1 and a significant acceleration of sea-level rise of 0.013 ± 0.006 mm yr?2. This acceleration is an important confirmation of climate change simulations which show an acceleration not previously observed. If this acceleration remained constant then the 1990 to 2100 rise would range from 280 to 340 mm, consistent with projections in the IPCC TAR.

Again, where is it challenging the consensus? The opposite is true. What's your point

[dissent]

An independent commision that was set up to investigate the charges made by them has vindicated the Hockey Stick paper.

Nice set of links, Pandora. This one was also an interesting read, but I don't think it's quite correct to say that the committee "vindicated" Mann, et. al.'s paper. Indeed, both above and below the chart in the article are quotes from the climate scientists on the panel taking issue with the way the graph was used in the IPCC report, and with the level of certainty of the accuracy of the proxies that Mann used for the pre-1600 data. If it is true that all Mann thinks is that it is good that we can now get "this silliness behind us", then I think he is being just a little disingenuous.

It would be good if we could count on the scientists who are reporting their data to also speak out vociferously when these results get hyped out of proportion by the media just cruising for a good headline, and on a public all too prone to hysteria. We need sober heads and clear thinking in order to craft good policy.

[Pandora]

You're right, \"vindicated\" might have been a bit too strong a word, heat of the moment thing... I also agree with the rest of your post.

I would like to note, though, that Mann was the first to try what he did. With the knowledge we have now, his statistical choices were not optimal. Nevertheless, there are now newer studies that confirm Mann's findings with other, more sophisticated methods.

[Will Robinson]

You're right, "vindicated" might have been a bit too strong a word, heat of the moment thing... I also agree with the rest of your post.

I would like to note, though, that Mann was the first to try what he did. With the knowledge we have now, his statistical choices were not optimal. Nevertheless, there are now newer studies that confirm Mann's findings with other, more sophisticated methods.

I hope he's not only the "first to try what he did"..but the last! Because what he did wasn't just an oversight or bad math, he purposely censored (his own verbiage) results that would have shown a much less alarming jump on the graph.

"

As the story unraveled, more intrigue came to the surface. McIntyre: "On Mann's FTP site, the directory for the North American network contains a subdirectory with the striking name BACKTO_1400-CENSORED. The folder contains PCs that looked like the ones we produced, but it was not clear how they had been calculated. We wondered if the folder had anything to do with the bristlecone pine series: This was a bulls eye. We were able to show that the 14 bristlecone pine series that effectively made up Mann's PC1 (and six others) had been excluded from the PC calculations in the censored folder. Without the bristlecones sites, there were no hockey sticks for Mann's method to mine for, and the results came out like ours. The calculations used in Mann's paper included the controversial bristlecone pine series, which dominate the PC1 and impart the characteristic hockey stick shape to the PC1 and thereafter to the final temperature reconstruction. Mann and his colleagues never reported the results obtained from excluding the bristlecone pines, which were adverse to their claims."

And as far as their qualifications to discover the bad science used by Mann I don't care if they are gas station attendants! If Mann was dishonest and his lies were heralded as a major indication of global warming caused by humans then I want to know what the hell is up. You don't seem to care that Al Gore's list of scientists that make up this so called consensus are for the most part not climatologists yet you can't even consider the work of anyone who doesn't support the opinion you have drawn up based on reports you have read. Convenient!

Lets get something straight, the so called vindication you claim says this:

"This study was the first of its kind, and they had to make choices at various stages about how the data were processed,"

One of those choices was to remove data from their own study so it wasn't calculated into the graph and instead keep it in a folder labeled "Censored"! Then they used the one sample as if it occurred twice in a period of time it shouldn't have been used...

Now you think an economist isn't qualified to recognize the mis application and calculation of data?!?! Give me a break!
They have been trying to cover up that gaffe harder than Sandy Berger and the Clinton apologists tried to sell the story that he "accidentally" stuffed secret documents in his pants! Some people refer to that as just sloppy work habits too. The 'vindication' you offered sounds like the same kind of crap!

Now think about the charges I made, not the ones you tried to ascribe to me earlier, but the actual complaint I raised about the tactics and disingenuous arguments they used then read the text from the very vindication you offered:

Panel members were less sanguine, however, about whether the original work should have loomed so large in the executive summary of the IPCC's 2001 report. "The IPCC used it as a visual prominently in the report," says Kurt Cuffey, a panel member and geographer at the University of California, Berkeley. "I think that sent a very misleading message about how resolved this part of the scientific research was."

Sounds to me like your report is full of the same kind of critisism I raised!

Now as to Mann's work being 'vindicated'.
Read this part of the 'evil journalists' piece and tell me, besides the scary fact that he's a journalist, is there any evidence that the conclusions he reports, conclusions that were drawn from quotes of real scientists who found fault with Mann's subsequent defense of the chart...are they wrong or just inconvenient?
In particular please address the parts in bold.

Mann has obviously decided to defend his graph to the bitter end. Not too long ago, he and his team launched a weblog, www.realclimate.org, in which they strike back very aggressively. Mann's main criticism of McIntyre and McKitrick's previous calculations is that they should have expanded the list of North American PCs from two to five, so that the bristlecone pines in the fourth PC (PC4) could be included.

Not surprisingly, McIntyre is unfazed by the criticism: "Mann claims that his PC1 (essentially the bristlecone pine series) represents a dominant trend in the North American network. Using his incorrect standardization, the PC1 does account for 38% of the NOAMAER [North American] network variance. However, in a correct calculation, the bristlecones are demoted to the PC4 and only account for 8% of the variation. Hardly a dominant trend, like Mann claims. His argument to increase the number of PCs is simply a desperate move to salvage the hockey stick. Look at this from a robustness point of view: Mann has claimed in print that his result is so robust that even removing all his tree ring data will not overturn it. Now all of a sudden, he insists that a single PC4 based on the controversial bristlecone pine data plays the deciding role in the temperature history of the entire Northern Hemisphere."

When we put forward some of the criticism to Mann, Bradley and Hughes in an e-mail, we received an elaborate response within the hour. Apart from the stock arguments that McIntyre and McKitrick are not real scientists, Mann rationalized the presence of the directory BACKTO_1400-CENSORED on his FTP site: "After publication of the first hockeystick in 1998, we ran a number of sensitivity tests to determine if we could come to a reliable reconstruction without having to correct certain tree ring series at high altitudes for non-climatological effects, like the influence of CO2. We reported on this in the publication of 1999."

McIntyre is not satisfied: "In his second publication, Mann mentioned problems with the bristlecone pines, but only with regards to the period of 1000-1399 and not the 15th century that is in this file. More importantly, if you know there are problems with the bristlecone pines, the obvious test would be to eliminate them from the calculation and see what the effect is. This is exactly what Mann did in the directory BACKTO_1400-CENSORED. When he did not like the results, he did not report them and proceeded to include the bristlecone pines in his final analysis."

We asked Mann about the apparent inconsistency between the claimed robustness and the evidence that the shape of his hockey stick relies heavily on the bristlecone pines. Mann responds that he can reach the same results even without doing a PCA, arguing that you could simply use all 95 proxies individually in the calculations: "There is no clearer proof that McIntyre and McKitrick claims are false."

"Mann is a clever debater," McIntyre points out. "That he can produce a hockey stick with another method that also allows the bristlecone pines to dominate is completely irrelevant. The bristlecone pine series are still essential for this new result. When you do the calculation without the bristlecone pines, the result does not resemble a hockey stick in any way."

Mann further argued that he is not the only scientist to have found the hockey stick graph: "Over a dozen other estimates based on proxy data yield basically the same result." That argument is not new to McIntyre.

At this point, McIntyre has growing doubts about the other studies as well. His initial impression is that they are also dubious. It is almost certain, or so he states, that the other studies have not been checked either. McIntyre: "Mann's archiving may be unsatisfactory, but other researchers, including Crowley, Lowery, Briffa, Esper, etc, are even worse. After 25 e-mails requesting data, Crowley advised me that he had misplaced his original data and only had a filtered version of his data. Briffa reported the use of 387 tree ring sites, but has not disclosed the sites. Other researchers haven't archived their data or methods or replied to requests."

"Mann speaks of independent studies, but they are not independent in any usual sense. Most of the studies involve Mann, Jones, Briffa and/or Bradley. Some data sets are used in nearly every study. Bristlecone pine series look like they affect a number of other studies as well and I plan to determine their exact impact. I'm also concerned about how the proxies are selected. There is a distinct possibility that researchers have either purposefully or subconsciously selected series with the hockey stick shape. I'm planning to use simulations to test if the common practice of selecting the so-called "most temperature sensitive" series also yield hockey sticks from red noise."

McIntyre and McKitrick draw far reaching conclusions from their research: "When the IPCC decides to base their policy on such studies, triggering the spending of billions of dollars, there should be more thorough checks. At some point, some one should have done an elementary check on the principal component calculations. This never happened and there is no excuse for this."

Rob van Dorland of the Royal Netherlands Meteorlogical Institute has read the article that will appear in Geophysical Research Letters and is convinced it will seriously damage the image of the IPCC. "For now, I will consider it an isolated incident, but it is strange that the climate reconstruction of Mann has passed both peer review rounds of the IPCC without anyone ever really having checked it. I think this issue will be on the agenda of the next IPCC meeting in Peking this May."

This brings climate research back to square one. McIntyre: "Our research does not say that the earth's atmosphere is not getting warmer. But the evidence from this famous study does not allow us to draw any conclusions about its extent, relative to the past 1000 years, which remains as much a mystery now as it was before Mann's article in 1998."

[Pandora]

Okay, Will, your Exxon-funded junkscience.com article glorifies the work of McIntyre & McKitrick, that are also funded by energy lobbies. That should ring even your alarm bells. Excuse me, also, if I don't share the enthusiasm and trust in these guys who are known elsewhere for their shoddy work and for that their effects disappear when the errors are corrected (i'll refer to them with M&M from now on). But that's just a preamble...

So, what about their new criticism? Is it valid? Amann & Wahl (.pdf) performed an independent assessment of both the original Hockeystick and M&Ms criticism. It is well explained in the report of the house of representatives hearing in 2006. They first note that M&M make two sensible statistical suggestions, but their use doesn't change Mann's results. The Hockeystick remains. So what about M&M's main claim that Mann only got the Hockeystick because he included the bristlecone time series? Here is the data with the time series included (left) and excluded (right).



Gosh! There's a hockeystick in both! How can that be, considering M&M's immaculate track record so far? Note in particular that the inclusion of the bristlecone time series even hurts Mann's data because it makes the 1400-1450 interval appear warmer than without it. So, if Mann tried to fake his data he is really, really bad at it!

So why the difference to M&M's own work? Why do they say that the Hockeystick would not exist when all their corrections are included ? Guess what? Their work is much more flawed than that of Mann and colleauges.

I really wonder why your Exon-funded junkscience.com article didn't mention all this about their buddies?

[woodchip]

@Woodchip: I have problems understanding what you are trying to say with these points. As far as I can tell, none of them challenges anything I have said. If you want to make claims, please spell them out. Just citing random paragraphs from studies is not really helpful...

For example this:

These data show clearly that the Sun is in a state of unusually high activity, for about the last 60 years. The time interval for which this statement can be made has been tripled by these new investigations, for now the reconstructed sunspot numbers extend back to 850 AD. Another period of enhanced solar activity, but with substantially fewer sunspots than now, occurred in the Middle Ages from 1100 to 1250. At that time, a warm period reigned over the Earth, as the Vikings established flourishing settlements in Greenland.

This may be the case. But where does it challenge the point that global warming is partially manmade, especially when the researchers clearly say that it does not? Am I missing the point?

The challenge is not that the earths mean temperature is not rising. The challange is to prove it is manmade when in light of research that has shown global warming has occured before. So in light of axis wobble, sun activity and the waxing and waning of ice ages, please show me where the warming going on now is NOT a naturally occuring event. Statistical graphs of accelerated warming based on tree rings measuring a span of two thousand or more years is nothing when compared to a 4.5 billion year life span of a planet.

[Pandora]

No, Woodchip, you go first. I have spent so much time on this thread already, you can do some work by yourself. Everyone can conjure some alternative explanations out of thin air. You could as well just say that God is responsible for the recent warming, or the Marsians, and then want me to disprove it. You need to show first that each of these factors could potentially affect the current warming. Spell it out, and include all the assumptions that underly the arguments. Then i have something to work with.

For instance, regarding sunspots. You seem to suggest that sunspots are a good indicator for the radiation output of the sun (but you don't say that). You seem to suggest that because of that the increase in sunspots might explain the medievel warm period and the viking settlements (but you don't say that). You also seem to suggest that because we have more sunspots now this means there is more solar output, therefore global warming is explained! But, again, you don't say that.

What you don't say as well is that the researchers on who's work you rely explicitly state - in your own link - that their results CANNOT explain global warming. For instance, even though sunspot activity might have increased, the radiation output of the sun has stayed more or less constant the last 40 years -- we do have data for that, you know. And bam, there goes the sunspot theory...

Did I get your reasoning approximately right? If no, please say so. And regarding the other alternative explanations, do some work yourself, and make the effort to craft an argument.

[woodchip]

Lets try this one more time Pandora and hopefully you will get it. You have just stated sunpot activity has increased but remained constant for 40 years. Ergo, sunspot activity increased 40 years ago and then stayed constant. Good so far? Now you seem to be a bright and intelligent sort, so let me ask this, \"If you put a great big pot of water on the stove and turn the heat on high...does the water instantly start boiling? Or does it take a period of time to heat up even though you keep the heat \"constant\"?
So the big question is, if sunspot activity were to lessen back to the pre 40 condition, would the earth then gradually cool off? Alas we do not have the data and since the activity has not yet lessened it is at this point in time merely presumption man is causing this warmining cycle. Present your assertions only if the suns activity lessens and 40 years hence the temps continue to increase.

[dissent]

This Wiki article has some links in its references to some interesting related articles.
For example, see
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradle ... y2003d.pdf
and
http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/Atlantic/GPCabs.htm
and, of course,
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/070.htm

Reading through this shows that there are numerous references to highly localized climate variabilty, even within the longer term trends in the global climate. In other words, these data are fairly complicated (i.e. your local weather over a several year, or even decade, time frame is not necessarily a good estimate of climate change), so hysteria either for or against a certain position stands a good chance of leading to faulty conclusions.

I repeat my admonition for sober heads and clear thinking.

[Will Robinson]

That's exactly the point Woodchip, the short cycles don't do much and the alarmists don't seem to honestly want to include the affect of long term cycles and the lag time it takes for those slow steady increases in output to affect the earths temperature.
I'm not saying they aren't smart enough to calculate it, they definitely are. So smart in fact that when they gather data that doesn't work to illustrate an alarming conclusion they hide the data!
They then get their fellow scientists to back them up and we find out that the review is being conducted using much of the same data.

So now Pandora says there is yet another independent study to validate the Mann hockey stick...well maybe he's right but how do I know this study was done without just re-using the same data like was done in the first two attempts to fabricate some vindication?

If the data was there to show the earth wasn't warming in a long term cycle they sure wouldn't have to hide the data that they were gathering, if the science was anywhere near as absolute as they want us to believe they wouldn't have to spend so much time shouting down and trying to discredit so many of their peers.
Pandora complains about groups receiving funding from Exxon et al, well if I was under attack from a group of scientists and knew of other scientists who presented a different view I'd sure as hell contribute to that second group getting their work published! Especially if the alarmist group held a stranglehold on the usual outlets for publication!

Just because Exxon wants the story to come out doesn't necessarily mean the story is false!

And when the scientists who supposedly validate the initial alarmist study decline to disclose their data or admit after the fact that they don't have any or say their dog ate it...
....after the U.N. removes the earlier warming period from their own publications...
.... one of their \"scientists\" reported to say \"we have to get rid of the medieval warming period\"....

Well hell yes I'm skeptical!

How much the hockey stick graph should really be pointing upwards and how flat the line should be preceding the upturn is certainly nowhere near as absolute as they want us to believe.
But exactly how sharply and often the line should rise on the graph isn't nearly as important as knowing just how far the alarmists are willing to go to censor data so as to ensure their viewpoint is the only viewpoint given any credibility!

If you didn't like the way G.W. Bush cherry picked the intel to vilify Saddam then you should be careful buying into the alarmist, Al Gore, interpretation of the global warming situation!

Note I accept the fact that the globe is warming, I just want to hear some apolitical objective reporting on the degree that humans are responsible and to what degree are we accelerating the rise in temp's. Instead I'm hearing two camps of scientists polarized in a very unscientific fashion, more like members of the RNC and the DNC! Science alright...political science!

Another thought occurs to me, the way they come up with the hockey stick rise on the chart is by modeling. As everyone who's ever lived in the path of a hurricane knows the computer models vary quite a bit and often everyone of them are wrong!

Here's some more of those scientists who shine the light of doubt on the projections of the alarmists.
read the stalagmite like a tree ring

Now of course I have no doubt that the alarmists have dug through their backgrounds to see if any large corporations have ever contributed to the schools or foundations they work for....

So Pandora I have to stand firmly by my belief that there definitely is no consensus worthy of causing me to dismiss the other scientists who question the alarmist position. Al Gore's list of scientists is no less suspect than the Exxon funded M&M as you call them.

[Pandora]

Lets try this one more time Pandora and hopefully you will get it. You have just stated sunpot activity has increased but remained constant for 40 years. Ergo, sunspot activity increased 40 years ago and then stayed constant. Good so far? Now you seem to be a bright and intelligent sort, so let me ask this, "If you put a great big pot of water on the stove and turn the heat on high...does the water instantly start boiling? Or does it take a period of time to heat up even though you keep the heat "constant"?

See, this is how you make an argument. I knew you could do it! Too bad that the researchers that produced the data you refer to (like Wilson, the guy Will wrote about above, and the researchers from your link as well) don't agree with it at all.

The physics about it is absolutely clear. The sun sends out energy and the earth catches and stores some of it because of the greenhouse gasses. But even if you take the increased energy output of the sun in the whole 20the century, it is not enough to explain the recent warming (the increase in energy that is now present in the system). To use your analogy: it is as if your soup has suddenly started to boil even though you just turned the nob a teeny-tiny bit. Do YOU get it now? Here's the link to the physic basics, that I had already posted on page 1, but that you obviously didn't read...

[Pandora]

So, what you are saying, Will? That the National Academies of Science of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Uk, and the USA are lying? The highest scientific bodies in each of these countries? You say that the hundreds of scientists or so that contributed to the newest IPCC are lying? You say that all the scientific journals are under the control of the \"alarmists\"?

And then, somewhere, the lone (but Exxon funded) gunmen M&M have the truth, despite the errors they made and have admitted? Is there any evidence for this worldwide left-wing/scientific conspiracy you so much want to be there?

This is getting ridiculous...

[Will Robinson]

So, what you are saying, Will? That the National Academies of Science of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Uk, and the USA are lying? The highest scientific bodies in each of these countries? You say that the hundreds of scientists or so that contributed to the newest IPCC are lying? You say that all the scientific journals are under the control of the "alarmists"?

And then, somewhere, the lone (but Exxon funded) gunmen M&M have the truth, despite the errors they made and have admitted? Is there any evidence for this worldwide left-wing/scientific conspiracy you so much want to be there?

This is getting ridiculous...

No, I'm saying the way the alarmists have framed the debate (or lack of as they would have us believe) is presented in the very same disingenuous and hyperbolic way that you just tried to frame my position!
Ridiculous indeed....

[woodchip]

One last try. The following is from one Dr. Roy Spencer with a brief synopsis of his credentials:

\"Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. In the past, he has served as Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.\"

On the hocky stick:

\"Thus, at least in the context of the last century or more, today's global temperatures are unusually warm. But when was the last time that the Earth was this warm?. You might have heard claims in the news that we are warmer now than anytime in the last 1,000 years. This claim is based upon the \"Hockey Stick\" temperature curve (Fig. 2) which used temperature 'proxies', mostly tree rings, to reconstruct a multi-century temperature record. That \"warmest in 1,000 years\" claim lost much of its support, however, when a National Acadamy of Science review panel concluded in 2006 that the most that can be said with any confidence is that the Earth is warmer now than anytime in the last 400 years. (Note that this is a good thing, since most of those 400 years occurred during the Little ice Age.\"

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spe ... arming.htm

The link has a bit more explanation on the whole climate thing. So go ahead Pandora, Will and I are both schmucks and haven't a clue as to whats going on.

[Jeff250]

lol @ Roy Spencer. Do you not remember this thread? One of his areas of expertise is \"Evangelical Movement and Global warming,\" since the two are clearly related.

[Pandora]

Exactly. He is also the guy that said that the satellite data would disprove global warming models. Too bad it later turned out that his satellites were not correctly calibrated, and he has admitted as much (reference in the thread Jeff linked to). Despite that he belongs to a think tank, that ... wait for it ... is funded by Exxon. But, I'm sure that doesn't mean anything...

edit:
Why this denialist fixation on the ten-years-old hockey stick paper? It was the first of it's sort, there are now I think 10 other papers that show exactly the same thing, around half of them from other labs, and using other temperature records. Besides that, even if the hockey stick (and all the follow up studies) were completely wrong, this still would have no bearing on the conclusion of man-made global warming. We knew about global warming before the hockey stick. The hockey stick wasn't even in Al Gore's movie! Scientists are sure that man-made global warming is happening right now because the physics doesn't add up. The earth stores more energy than it would if the greenhouse gasses had no effect.

[Will Robinson]

edit:
Why this denialist fixation on the ten-years-old hockey stick paper?

No fixation. I claimed the alarmist faction of the global warming crowd was just as devilish in their tactics as the right wing denialists, you wanted to have examples...I happened to pull it from memory...

I said there is debate instead of "virtually all" scientists forming a consensus regarding the whole global warming scenario (not that there isn't warming, but that the alarmists may be over-reacting)
So I gave you some examples.

Feel free to move on to trying to discredit Augusto Mangini and Peter Verdes, of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Germany, and Christop Spötl, of the Institute for Geology and Palaeontology, at the University of Innsbruck, Austria

My guess is you haven't acknowledged their existence and skipped discussing the science behind their work because your alarmist resources haven't found any Exxon connections....

The hockey stick wasn't even in Al Gore's movie!

Do you really want to move on to Al Gore's movie in a discussion where my point was the alarmists are using dishonesty to hype their cause?!?! Go ahead make my day!!

[Pandora]

Feel free to move on to trying to discredit Augusto Mangini and Peter Verdes, of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Germany, and Christop Spötl, of the Institute for Geology and Palaeontology, at the University of Innsbruck, Austria

This is the first real reference to a scientific article that you produce. I don't dismiss the others because they are Exxon-funded but because they make their claims on webpages instead in the scientific literature, and because their work is flawed. This one here meets standards of a scientific publication. Their data suggests that the medievel warm period is larger than assumed by the IPCC, and if you read the article itsefl, they even say that the influence of the sun might be larger than previously thought (which should make Woody happy). This does, however, NOT challenge the view that global warming is (a) happening and (b) and can be explained only by a combination of human and natural factors (this is exactly about what I said virtually no scientist would disagree with on page 1). You haven't given me one example that shows that THIS point would be scientifically debated (as opposed to unfounded claims on a website!).

Do you really want to move on to Al Gore's movie in a discussion where my point was the alarmists are using dishonesty to hype their cause?!?! Go ahead make my day!!

Sorry, Will, I don't get your point. Are you saying that the hockey stick is extra-dishonest because Al Gore does NOT rely on it in his movie? My whole point is that the hockey stick is more important for the "denialists" than for the scientists. But if you want to discuss the movie, by all means, go ahead!

No fixation. I claimed the alarmist faction of the global warming crowd was just as devilish in their tactics as the right wing denialists, you wanted to have examples...I happened to pull it from memory...

No, Will, I never wanted to discuss the politics and the "devilish tactics", I wanted proof for a debate in science about the basic consensus (global warming = human + natural causes). You still haven't produced any. For something to be part of a scientific debate, it needs to be in the peer-reviewed literature! Claims on a website, or journalists (mis-)reporting on the work of scientists DO NOT COUNT AS SCIENCE.

Now, to the examples:

(1) You said a scientist wrote an email saying "We have to get rid of the medieval warming period". As far as I can tell, the source for this anecdote is a David Deming (again founded by Exxon, but what the heck). Do you have any further evidence that this is correct despite his claim? Who is the researcher? Where is the email?

(2) Similarly, the whole claim that Mann's data is doctored rests on the following logic. (a) he faked his data, (b) he is stupid enough to store the excluded data on his public FTP server, (c) he is also stupid enough to label it as "censored". And, to top it off, Wahl & Ammann who tested the complete data sets (including the "censored" part) are also part of the conspiracy and risk their scientific career. How does McKitrick back up these, frankly a bit implausible seeming, allegiations?

Unless you have further proof both of these claims are hardly examples for misconduct of the "alarmists". They are much better examples for the smear tactics of the "denialists"!

[Pandora]

But if you want to discuss the movie, by all means, go ahead!

Oops! Cancel that! I face a super busy week at work, so if you want to discuss it, it would be great if you could do it a bit later...

[Will Robinson]

.....This does, however, NOT challenge the view that global warming is (a) happening and (b) and can be explained only by a combination of human and natural factors (this is exactly about what I said virtually no scientist would disagree with on page 1). You haven't given me one example that shows that THIS point would be scientifically debated (as opposed to unfounded claims on a website!).

Once again you try to attribute a point of view to me that I never expressed and then you expect me to defend the position I never took!
Go back and look at the first response I made to this thread! I took Woody to task for trumpeting the right wing mantra ie; "Look at all this snow, Global Warming where...?"

I then closed my rant with what is in my view a very reasonable observation only I wasn't careful about my choice of words and you jumped on the literal, grammatical interpretation instead of considering the point I was raising. when I said the global warming disciples... I meant the alarmist faction...not all scientists! I quickly apologized for leading you to believe I was implying "all scientists" fail to use the suns output in their models. My point was aimed at the Al Gore's and the other leftwingnuts who have co-opted the scientific communities concerns on the subject to demagogue it into political power.
I believe I tried to clarify this position more than once but you locked your radar onto semantics and grammar, ignored my explanations of my position and did a fine job of shouting me down...basically illustrating my point even though it was lost on you.

I said there are scientists who doubt the substance of the scare mongers who claim the world is melting. I mentioned one I remembered from before and dug up another I had read about and another....

First you made excuses for Mann's tactics saying he was the first and it was just a minor mistake...then you said he was later vindicated (by collegues using his same data -great scientific peer review there ) and now you say he's too smart to have censored the data and named the folder "Censored" etc.
Well you forget he was asked about this and he didn't deny he did it or that he labeled the folder censored or even deny that he used only one sample which his own people admit is poor science, while leaving out the other samples that would have left his hockey stick looking limp! Instead of deny it he gave some wishy washy excuse! So quit trying to carry his jock for him.
Sure as it turns out his model wasn't too far off in the grand scheme of things but that does nothing to change the fact that he is one of many activists who have the elitist mindset that they know best and when the data started to look like it wasn't going to cause enough hysteria to help the cause he made a choice, he chose to alter the facts to fit his agenda!

That is the very tactic I was talking in this discussion!

Now you want the documentation of the U.N. scientist who was quoted as saying "We need to get rid of the medieval warming period"
Well I don't think the burden of proof lies on me since it is documented that the U.N. subsequently removed the medieval warming period from their own previously published charts!!!!

Do you think that someone at the U.N. suddenly removed that bump on the graph completely by chance without any reason at all for doing so?!?

It's like saying I need to prove someone planned to fly planes into the World Trade Center!
Once the deed is done it becomes kind of a moot point don't you think? After all, if the bump on the graph really just accidentally fell into Kofi Anons pants when he was walking by don't you think they would have replaced it once they realized the error? That isn't what they did though is it? I imagine their re-published chart is still missing the censored medieval warming period they once showed. So there is plenty of blame and I think I'm justified in accusing their side of being just as devilish in their tactics to manipulate the masses.

Bottom line is this. There is global warming and then there is global warming denial and there is also global warming hype.
You don't seem to want to discuss the hype. Fine, your prerogative, but remember where you are, you are in a thread about the hype surrounding global warming!!!

Let me ask you this. Let's assume the U.N. is right in their fantastic forecasts (which get more and more outrageous everyday), but let's say we need to do something right away and they are suggesting solutions on a global scale. So the first thing they do is make unrealistic demands on countries who produce the green house gases but then exempt most of the big polluters (Kyoto)!
Does that sound like a body that is trying to offer sound, scientific, logical solutions...or....does it sound like the same kind of crap politicians give us all the time? You know, we need to raise taxes to solve the problem but then they issue exemptions to their friends....

I have no problem with scientists telling me there is a problem, I'll defer to their expertise...right up until I find out they are full of political bull★■◆●, then I get a little skeptical!

And I'm truly sorry for being an ass in this, I know I was being one and you don't deserve the abuse. You are passionate and informed and I should have counted to ten before I spouted off. I just get so sick and tired of two faced social engineers demagoguing my childrens future so they can cash in at some fundraiser! When you said "Virtually all scientists..." I recalled that tactic and didn't even see that you said "all scientist agree that it is the combination of the two, human and solar...

So much of my rant was a bit misdirected at you, I was focused on the media's version of the "consensus" which has been to spin it into virtually all scientists agree with everything the alarmists say and what they say is a lot more than you have said here.
So forgive me for lumping you in where I sense you don't belong.

[dissent]

This is a rather interesting discussion. See especially the back and forth between Gavin et. al. (realclimate.org) with Roger and others. I can't stay up tonight to read the whole thing, but it looks like a lively discussion, at least in the beginning part, about what some of the actual terms mean in relation to climate discussions and the way they may (or may not) be used correctly in a recent IPCC report.

[Will Robinson]

This is a rather interesting discussion. See especially the back and forth between Gavin et. al. (realclimate.org) with Roger and others. I can't stay up tonight to read the whole thing, but it looks like a lively discussion, at least in the beginning part, about what some of the actual terms mean in relation to climate discussions and the way they may (or may not) be used correctly in a recent IPCC report.

That is definitely an interesting discussion!
Here's a thought I had as I read through it.

If the scientists who form the 'consensus' decided that the best way to save the planet from anthropogenic forces declared the oil producing countries must be invaded and the oil flow be strictly regulated and rationed so we can lower the output of green house gases....do you think the activists/alarmists who want us to blindly accept the Kyoto treaty based on the science would agree and say "Yes, we must invade!"...or would they start to question the science and say we need to look into it further?

[Floyd]

how much petrol does an average car use? how big is its cylinder capacity and how much performance does it offer VS. how fast can/are you allowed to drive with it? OR, how fast do you have to drive with it? also, does it necessarily have to be \"a ton\" of weight?
it's not the vendor that pollutes the air, it's the user!

[Will Robinson]

how much petrol does an average car use? how big is its cylinder capacity and how much performance does it offer VS. how fast can/are you allowed to drive with it? OR, how fast do you have to drive with it? also, does it necessarily have to be "a ton" of weight?
it's not the vendor that pollutes the air, it's the user!

How much of an effect do humans have in total compared to other forces would be a much better question.
How much of a benefit would there be relative to all the forces at work effecting the temperature of the earth if we stopped all fossil fuel burning?

Because until you can answer those kind of questions the argument that "We must do something and driving cars adds to global warming therefore we must drastically reduce the use of cars..." is quite possibly as ridiculous as saying 'People die from automobile accidents so the government must mandate a reduction in the time people spend in automobiles'.

Bear in mind I have an Exxon credit card in my pocket and own 4 V8 automobiles , one of which can hit 185mph which means everything I say is a lie

[Floyd]

the car was just an example to reflect the whole energy wasting in general in reply to your \"consensus\"-construct of regulating oil usage.

[Herculosis]

...one of which can hit 185mph...

Just make sure the windows are closed and the air conditioner is turned off, and you should be OK. And WEAR YOUR SEATBELT for cripes sake!

[Birdseye]

funny thing here is that the republicans who think global warming is a lie also approve of Bush's pre-emptive strike.

What if you are wrong about global warming?

whats also funny, is that even if global warming is fake, the same countermeasures to prevent it will have certifiably positive health effects such as cleaner air for us to breath.

[Will Robinson]

...one of which can hit 185mph...

Just make sure the windows are closed and the air conditioner is turned off, and you should be OK. And WEAR YOUR SEATBELT for cripes sake!

I chickened out at 155...I came up with the 185 figure by modelling
Looking foward to a track day though, I figure on a closed course with some instruction first I can find the top end no matter how fast it is!

whats also funny, is that even if global warming is fake, the same countermeasures to prevent it will have certifiably positive health effects such as cleaner air for us to breath

I'm all for improving the quality of the environment and if the U.N. wants to get the whole world to follow some guidelines then all they have to do is make them reasonable and apply to everyone. They haven't come close to that though because they have been too focused on creating punitive and crippling measures for the U.S.

As for the pre-emptive strike. It was a complete success. There is no way in hell Saddam can rebuild his WMD capability now.
The problem is the management of the aftermath of the preemptive strike.
I imagine the current U.N. would mismanage their preemptive strike against green house gases even worse than Bush handled the aftermath in Iraq considering how bad their initial plan of attack read (Kyoto). So not signing it was smart

All smart assed comments aside, if we do nothing we have failed but if we shoot ourselves in the foot and hand the U.N. a big chunk of our sovereignty we have failed more than miserably...it will prove fatal.
So push for rationale solutions and avoid the hype....from both extremes.

[woodchip]

Ummm...Birdy, No one here is NOT saying Global Warming is occuring. We are debating how much mankind is influencing it. The only way to really verify it is to eliminate all the suspect items, wait 10 years and see what the graphs show. We all remember the scientific method do we not?

[Birdseye]

lol

[Firewheel]

If this conversation is any indication, it's impossible to determine whether global warming is real/caused by humans/whatever. How confusing.

[Duper]

That's the point Firewheel. No one really knows definatively. It's a lot of speculation extrapliated (?) from some facts. Kinda like the two men trying to describe the elephant while standing with their noses up to it.

[Pandora]

Sorry for not posting the last two days, I am really stuck in work at the moment. And it doesn't seem to be getting better...

Anyways, thanks for the clarification at the end of your post above, Will. I also got the impression we were talking at cross purposes in this thread. Sorry, if you felt misrepresented, that wasn't my intention.

[Pandora]

Snow is still on the ground here in southern Michigan and the temp has been down in the single digits at night. NOAA says this is the 6th coldest Feb. on record. So I am wondering how many of you believe the agenda driven lefts assertions, as exemplified by Algores award winning docufiction, that the world is rapidly approaching a Venus like condition?

Just had to post this because it reminded me of the start of the thread (se Woody's post above). Turns out that February was a record low only for the U.S. When seen for the whole world it is a record high...

It turns out that, according to GISS data for the planet earth, this February did not show “record low temperatures.” In fact it’s closer to a record high — a lot closer to a planetary high than the U.S. was to a national low. This February was the 5th-hottest on record. The five hottest Februarys on record are (in order): 1998, 1995, 2002, 2004, and 2007.

[Will Robinson]

...[/b] The five hottest Februarys on record are (in order): 1998, 1995, 2002, 2004, and 2007.

And just like our skepticism of a scientist taking one tree ring and trying to prove decades of climate history by modeling from such a small sample.... we should be wary if Al Chicken Little Gore says "Look at that, 5 out of the past 13 February's were the hottest yet!"....The sky is melting!
And god forbid someone comes along and mentions that during those same 13 years we had some months that were colder than ever before because surely they will be Exxon stooges working for the Bush/Dubai/Haliburton Cartel!

[woodchip]

Last week 0 deg's, yesterday in the 70's...go figure. It would seem even the liberal 'ole grey lady is now printing doubt about Algoreistic hype:

\"Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.\"


\"Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

http://tinyurl.com/289cvq