What global warming?

[quikshop]

O please move on, we all know that the issue is about how much people are contributing to climate change and whether it matters or not.

The science tells us that we very probably are and that it very likely does.

You make a judgement on probably and likely?

There is no definitive answer yet because a significant amount of the data used in published 'scientific' papers has been proven to be inaccurate at best, and a down right lie in the worst cases.

Simple things like not taking into account the growth of ubanisation across the World which have directly affected readings from a not insignificant number of climate monitoring stations dotted around the sub-continent and Asia.

Or, random climate statements which have not been pier-reviewed used as 'absolute evidence' by Government scientists in global forums.

 

[cjd]

You make a judgement on probably and likely?

I don't make a judgement - that's what the science says. I do not have an opinion and am not entitled to one.

 

[quikshop]

I don't make a judgement - that's what the science says. I do not have an opinion and am not entitled to one.

The science is not accurate as have been proved over the last few weeks. The so called evidence has been found to be in parts shamelessly dishonest, not pier-reviewed, bogus or cobbled together to present a particular argument without debate or analysis.

Its comparable to the telecommunication industry-sponsored 'scientific' reports stating the mobile phones pose no health risk that are always without fail released just days after any unadulturated scientific report is published claiming health risks relating to the use of mobile phones.

As you know from the God debate, I will defend science and the application of it but like the religious debate, everything is coloured by vested interests.

 

[Dawg]

I don't make a judgement - that's what the science says. I do not have an opinion and am not entitled to one.

'ow fery fery 'umble. Not to 'ave an h'opinion.
Now, I'm h'off to the cobblers.

(Note to self: send forelock tugging brochure to Duffyfone Mansions.)

 

[cjd]

What's your opinion of Quantum Mechanics?

 

[Cornish Steve]

I don't make a judgement.... I do not have an opinion and am not entitled to one.

Please excuse me while I fall off my chair laughing.

 

[cjd]

excused........

 

[Cornish Steve]

It seems the Germans are no longer so warm about global warming.

 

[Dawg]

Interesting little fact about food/carbon miles, (the carbon footprint of foodstuff logged up because it is brought in from around the world):

The carbon footprint of potatoes is affected more by whether you cook them in a pot with or without the lid on, than anywhere they come from in the world.

(Interesting but not particularly useful: I think freshly picked spuds from a Farmers market are one of the few things worth getting there. There is an amazing taste difference.)

 

[cjd]

(Interesting but not particularly useful: I think freshly picked spuds from a Farmers market are one of the few things worth getting there. There is an amazing taste difference.)

Even better if you grow them in your back garden.

Just planted (yesterday) a spud with the gorgeous name of "International Kidney". When grown on the Island and tax haven of Jersey they become "Jersey Royals". That's marketing for you.

 

[Dawg]

I'm sure you could call them Brighton Knowalls..

 

[cjd]

or the Dogs Bollox

 

[Dawg]

Ooh er. That was good. A dog joke. Nearly as good as a Creutzfield-Jacob joke, eh Duffo?

Dog jokes; good for terminal torpor.

 

[cjd]

I think so - yes; maybe a bit better.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Don't let your spuds marry a news presenter: Wouldn't want your prize spud to marry any old common tator.

 

[cjd]

bloody hell

 

[Cornish Steve]

And now it's NASA's turn to admit that their climate data is almost useless. The entire fabricated house of cards is beginning to fall - and Al Gore's hope to become the world's first green billionaire are dwindling fast.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Been having a bit of a debate (argument) with the missus over the correct pronounciation of NASA (Yes, we do need to get out more).

I argued that it was pronounced as 'NASSA' where as she believes it is pronounced 'NAYSA'. Please do an old fool a favour and give me an unbiased answer (preferably swinging towards my answer).

 

[StephenW]

Re above post: I have only ever heard it pronounced NAS-SA


Re: "Results of the Climategate Parliamentary Inquiry in the UK"

Report is on Watts Up With That website

Worth a quick read of the extract and comments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/30/results-of-the-climategate-paliamentary-inquiry-in-the-uk/

 

[Dawg]

If you think a creche is something that happens on the M6 it will be NAYSA, otherwise NASSA.

 

[cjd]

So the the Commons Science and Technology Committee investigating UEAs 'Clamategate' found

... no evidence Professor Phil Jones, whose e-mails were hacked and published online, had manipulated data. It said his reputation, and that of his climate research unit, remained intact........We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus that global warming is happening and is induced by human activity

Just human cock-up by 3 hassled scientists with no back-up from their Uni.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists aren't happy (and never will be)

Climate sceptics on the sceptic website Bishop Hill ridiculed the MPs' findings. One asked: "Is it April fools already?" Another commented: "No-one with half [a] brain cell will view this conclusion as anything other than a hasty and not very subtle establishment cover-up."

Have to wait now to see what the other investigations reveal, if anything.

 

[nextdayprint]

The ice formations at both polar caps are heavily instrumental in powering global current streams -they work like giant pumps. Many of these have not formed, or have formed to a limited extent, over recent years, and as such The Gulf Stream is reducing in strength. This in turn is causing lower temperatures in the UK during the winter where The Gulf Stream provides about 50% of our "warmth".... or something like that

 

[Dawg]

Ahh but you (Potatoboy cjd) would Christine Keeler/say that wouldn't you? Other selective quotes...

MPs investigating the climate change row at the UK's University of East Anglia (UEA) have demanded greater transparency from climate scientists.

and

the MPs concluded, the UEA appeared to support a culture of "resisting disclosure of information to climate change sceptics".
The committee chairman, Phil Willis, described this as "reprehensible".

and

The MPs have urged the Information Commissioner's Office to make a formal ruling as to whether the university's failure to disclose information was a breach of the law.

all because:

The committee expressed regret that its inquiry had been cut short because of the end of the Parliamentary term.

and because:

But it found no evidence Professor Phil Jones, whose e-mails were hacked and published online, had manipulated data

(my bold)
and also:

One dissenting member of the committee, Labour MP Graham Stringer, said he was unhappy that neither of the independent reviews had a climate sceptic member.

"There should be a reputable scientist on the panel [who is] sceptical about man-made global warming," he said.

"If we are trying to establish credibility this would be preferable."

Now. Which is melting faster: IPCC credibility or Himalayan glaciers?

 

[cjd]

Quite - they were guilty of handling all the hassle they were getting very badly - but not of anything that changes anything about the science.

They were 3, possibly 4 dull scientists, doing work in a dusty corner for years in a science that used to be extremely unsexy; they suddenly became the centre of global scientific and political attention and got no help dealing with it from the university. Or it was massive conspiracy.

But there are two more enquiries yet so maybe something that matters will be found.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Here's a detailed and quite objective view of the current status of the climatology debate. It contains a number of very interesting little facts. For example, did you know that one reason why temperature readings may be rising in the Northern Hemisphere is because of reduced air pollution? In other words, improving our environment could be a reason why temperature measuring devices are coming up with higher numbers. I hadn't thought of this before, but it makes sense: The fewer smog particles blocking sunlight, the more radiation will reach the earth's surface.

 

[Dawg]

It's a good article that one^^^^

 

[cjd]

Well I can confirm that it's both quite good and quite interesting but it wasn't remotely objective.

 

[Dawg]

Well I can confirm that it's both quite good and quite interesting but it wasn't remotely objective.

Pot, kettle?

 

[cjd]

kettle, pot?

 

[cjd]

If you're interested in following up the rebuttals of all that (and other - what they call climate contrarian arguments) you can find it here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/index/#Responses

For example, here's what the consensus science says about the Hockey Stick opponents

The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick, which hold that the "Hockey-Stick" shape of the MBH98 reconstruction is an artifact of the use of series with infilled data and the convention by which certain networks of proxy data were represented in a Principal Components Analysis ("PCA"), are readily seen to be false , as detailed in a response by Mann and colleagues to their rejected Nature criticism demonstrating that (1) the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction is robust with respect to the elimination of any data that were infilled in the original analysis, (2) the main features of the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction are entirely insensitive to whether or not proxy data networks are represented by PCA, (3) the putative 'correction' by McIntyre and McKitrick, which argues for anomalous 15th century warmth (in contradiction to all other known reconstructions), is an artifact of the censoring by the authors of key proxy data in the original Mann et al (1998) dataset, and finally, (4) Unlike the original Mann et al (1998) reconstruction, the so-called 'correction' by McIntyre and McKitrick fails statistical verification exercises, rendering it statistically meaningless and unworthy of discussion in the legitimate scientific literature.
The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick have now been further discredited in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, in a paper to appear in the American Meteorological Society journal, "Journal of Climate" by Rutherford and colleagues (2004) [and by yet another paper by an independent set of authors that is currently "under review" and thus cannot yet be cited--more on this soon!]. Rutherford et al (2004) demonstrate nearly identical results to those of MBH98, using the same proxy dataset as Mann et al (1998) but addressing the issues of infilled/missing data raised by Mcintyre and McKitrick, and using an alternative climate field reconstruction (CFR) methodology that does not represent any proxy data networks by PCA at all.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Why, when random data is used as input, does their model still produce a hockey stick? How on earth do you rebut that?

When I spent three years modeling physical systems, calibration of this type was fundamental. If you couldn't predict known results, you most certainly had no credibility when trying to predict new configurations. We used random data in our model and, surprise, got random results. We could also predict known effects and trends, another form of calibration. Why aren't Mann and his team held to the same basic standard? And that's before you look into the credibility of his actual input data.

The more time goes by, the more credible scientists are realising that the work of the IPCC and cohorts must be thrown out and redone.

 

[cjd]

I have no idea Steve and neither do you because neither of us have read anything other than the headline crud.

But the claim smells terribly of the zombie arguments used by creationists vs evolution - if I had to guess (which I do because I'm not going to spend an hour researching it), I'd say that it's been debunked years ago but still lives in the minds of lazy journalists writing a good story.'

Do you genuinely think that the entire scientific community is blind to a basic premise of modeling that only you and our economist are aware of it?

 

[Cornish Steve]

Billions in funding and personal fortunes were, sadly, not on the line when I was doing my research.

 

[sunny09]

agree with you,look for the same.

 

[jncc]

Do you genuinely think that the entire scientific community [can be] blind to a basic premise of modeling that only you and our economist are aware of it?

Easily. It happens all the time, especially in fields like medicine, for example. "The scientific community" is, in my experience, just as vulnerable to band-wagon jumping, fashions of opinion, and dogma as a group of school children. Perhaps they are even more so (due to certain character traits often found in that community), and certainly a lot more dangerous when it happens.

 

[cjd]

Why, when random data is used as input, does their model still produce a hockey stick? How on earth do you rebut that?.

If you actually want to know the answers to these questions they are easy enough to find. Why don't you start with the stuff I've pointed you at?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.ph...-regarding-the-mann-et-al-1998reconstruction/

False Claims by McIntyre and McKitrick regarding the Mann et al. (1998) reconstruction

Filed under:

• Paleoclimate

— mike @ 4 December 2004
A number of spurious criticisms regarding the Mann et al (1998) proxy-based temperature reconstruction have been made by two individuals McIntyre and McKitrick ( McIntyre works in the mining industry, while McKitrick is an economist). These criticisms are contained in two manuscripts (McIntyre and McKitrick 2003 and 2004–the latter manuscript was rejected by Nature; both are collectively henceforth referred to as “MM”). MM claim that the main features of the Mann et al (1998–henceforth MBH98) reconstruction, including the “hockey stick” shape of the reconstruction, are artifacts of a) the centering convention used by MBH98 in their Principal Components Analysis (PCA) of the North American International Tree Ring Data Bank (‘ITRDB’) data, b) the use of 4 infilled missing annual values (AD 1400-1403) in one tree-ring series (the ‘St. Anne’ Northern Treeline series), and c) the infilling of missing values in some proxy data between 1972 and 1980. Each of these claims are demonstrated to be false below.
[McIntyre and McKitrick have additionally been discredited in a recent peer-reviewed article by Rutherford et al (2004)].
[Added 1/6/05: See also "On Yet Another False Claim by McIntyre and McKitrick" which discredits the claimed "Monte Carlo" Experiment Results from the Rejected McIntyre and McKitrick comment to Nature]

etc

 

[MartCactus]

It seems to me very unlikely that our human activity is having either no effect, or a beneficial effect. One cold winter in the UK doesn't mean the entire theory is flawed.

Its surely good that we seek to reduce our carbon emissions in any case.

And I say that as a Hummer driver.

Its unfortunate that the issue has become a political one, since this makes it increasingly difficult to get at the truth.

I just don't buy into the conspiracy... I don't believe there is that much money in fabricating climate change. There is much more money to be made denying it (oil industry, car industry, etc).

 

[Cornish Steve]

A partial answer to that comes from the author Michael Crichton:

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.
​

 

[cjd]

That's a new low Steve; what a pile of un-evidenced drivel.

 

[jncc]

That's a new low Steve; what a pile of un-evidenced drivel.

There can be no "evidence" for what was said there, it's not a quantitative kind of thing at all, it's just someone's subjective comparison of those two communities.

It's quite reasonable in any case, I would tend to agree with it. Add in the existence of priests ("scientists"), scriptures ("evidence" and scientific publications) that the uneducated masses can not comprehend by themselves, and what is generally blind allegiance to the cause, and it really does look a lot like a religion.
I would extend it far beyond just environmentalism, though - most scientific topics enjoy the same regard.

Humans always fall into the same ways, I suppose.