The Skeptics Case - Global Warming

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The Skeptics Case

The data presented here is impeccably sourced, very relevant, publicly available, and from our best instruments. Yet it never appears in the mainstream media — have you ever seen anything like any of the figures here in the mainstream media? That alone tells you that the "debate" is about politics and power, and not about science or truth.

Please read the link. Go ahead and read it critically. It presents the data and the argument very clearly and isn't a polemic.

I think the main point here is that there is sufficient grounds for there to be a debate/discussion on the issue in society, but that politics and the media are not allowing it. Just like the argument for free speech in general, if the argument on one side is so clear and convincing, then what's the harm in allowing the other side to point out the perceived flaws in it? But a seemingly large proportion of the proponents of global warming tend to just try to shut up the objections. This is probably coming much more from the political arena than from the scientific arena, but they do overlap.

Think about your own reaction to these challenges. How do you respond? Do you want to try and independently verify the claims in some manner or do you simply dismiss it and stick to your belief as it is right now? Then I suggest you think about whether you do this on other subjects too; is it your pattern or is this topic special?

Comments

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Mises.org.

The debate is meaningless if it's only had by people who have made up their minds about it already. The 'global warming skeptics' in this case certainly have.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair this is also so with Creationism, but what's a little honesty when people can play political Calvinball?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

So, not open to discussion or learning. Noted.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

I can take either side because I'll be dead by 2050 anyway.

Regardless or hot or cool, pollution is just that. You can't expect to treat the planet like a garbage can.

Less pollution is better, regardless of feedback's effect.

Interesting read.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

thisthisthisthisthisthisthis

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Needs more proof. If people are going to challenge the consensus view, they need more evidence than people working within the consensus view do, as theirs is a higher burden of proof.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I'm particularly interested in the victimhood complex by these alleged skeptics. Can they go two sentences without pointing out how the scientists are out to get them?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

What needs more proof? Also, why do you think this particular set of evidence isn't high enough to discuss?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

There's really no money to be made on the skeptics side. That is a reason they are outnumbered, we'll just have to sit around and see if it's the only reason.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Very funny! :-D

[telemann.livejournal.com]

lulzy.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I thought all the conspiracy theorists sell books quite well, exactly because they're "outside the box" or something like that.

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

"Do you want to try and independently verify the claims in some manner "

I do, but sadly, even with a background in science, I'm not competent to judge what sort of jiggery pokery goes into transforming raw data into pretty graphs. But I can see that one of these things is not like the others.

From Skeptic's Case


From Real Climate:


From Skeptical Science:


From Columbia University (updated January 2012):

[telemann.livejournal.com]

You may find this interesting. "What we knew in 1982" taking video lectures and comparing it to what happened.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Mises:

The feedbacks dampen or reduce the direct effect of the extra CO2, cutting it roughly in half.[5] The main feedbacks involve evaporation, water vapor, and clouds. In particular, water vapor condenses into clouds, so extra water vapor due to the direct warming effect of extra CO2 will cause extra clouds, which reflect sunlight back out to space and cool the earth, thereby reducing the overall warming.

That old saw.

Most of the "experts" who litter the Internet with their theoretical writings on the subject, aren't experts.The only person who is really an expert that believes this is Richard S. Lindzen, who teaches at M.I.T. But unlike your Mise fellows, he does believe humans are causing global climate change, and it's due to CO2 created by human industrial activity. (He's said anyone who doubts this is nuts). Dr. Lindzen's paper on the idea that clouds would save us (source) (http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%282001%29082%3C0417%3ADTEHAA%3E2.3.CO%3B2) was rebutted by others in the field, like these two. (http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/IRIS_BAMS.pdf) Basically, "saying that the methods he had used to analyze the data were flawed and that his theory made assumptions that were inconsistent with known facts. Using what they considered more realistic assumptions, they said they could not verify his claims. "

And what do you know, I addressed all of this in my most recent post on Science a few days ago. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/earth/clouds-effect-on-climate-change-is-last-bastion-for-dissenters.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2)


There are literally hundreds of other issues with your Mises org link, but I have a lot better things to do with my time.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Depends on what kind of expert you want. Experts in fields other than climatology do have insight into the issue and should not be dismissed out of hand.

Dr. David M.W. Evans consulted full time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analyzing complex systems is electrical engineering, and the most crucial and disputed aspects of understanding the climate system are the feedbacks. The evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006, causing Evans to move from being a warmist to a skeptic.

You oversimplified the argument in order to dismiss it, but in the process you missed most of it.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Do you have enough of a science background to evaluate this data?

Are you able to independently verify any of the claims made on mises.org with an independent source?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes and yes. Although I haven't had time to do so yet.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

How do I respond? First, I note the psychological dynamics at play. For instance, global warming promoters are "shutting other people up", but global warming deniers are "trying to have a conversation". I see this sort of greatly biased characterization all the time. Simply believing in global warming makes you intolerant, according to this logic.

Do you want to try and independently verify the claims in some manner or do you simply dismiss it and stick to your belief as it is right now?
Well, my belief, as it is right now, is that digging stuff up from underneath the ground, and putting it into the air, probably has an exogenous effect on our atmospheric and surface cycles. Personally, until someone can explain to me how literally adding tons of physical matter of previously sequestered material into the surface environment is a non-factor, I will probably just assume those who know climate science have a pretty good idea what they're talking about.

I think of it like this: I have some dirt. I move this dirt into my house. I think, "this dirt will have an effect on my house." So someone else comes and says, "Nah, it's just normal." And I'm like, "No really, I just personally put this giant pile of dirt in my house, that wasn't there before. I think it will change some things about my house!" And they say, "Oh it'll be fine." And I'm like, "I don't care if it will be fine, I'm just trying to nail down the very obvious reasoning about putting things in places they weren't before."

Then I suggest you think about whether you do this on other subjects too; is it your pattern or is this topic special?
For most issues I find the most basic concept at issue, and see which one fits the best. As long as my general untutored intuitions seem to match up with prevailing scientific trends, I tend to think they're pretty good. But I'm not a climate scientist and I don't really know what goes on in their work. I didn't take a Climate Science 101 class or anything. And no, I'm not going to get into the material from a wholly politically motivated place just to have arguments on the internet about it.

And that's the main reason I'm a climate skeptic skeptic. Because I don't see why they hold to what they do outside of purely spiteful political contrarianism.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I see this sort of greatly biased characterization all the time.

Why do you conclude it's biased and not actually an accurate observation?

Personally, until someone can explain to me how literally adding tons of physical matter of previously sequestered material into the surface environment is a non-factor,

That's not the argument. The argument at hand is that it's not the doomsday scenario that it's claimed to be.

And no, I'm not going to get into the material from a wholly politically motivated place just to have arguments on the internet about it.

So you also dismiss evidence that is carried by a messenger you don't like rather than actually dealing with the evidence itself. Noted.

Because I don't see why they hold to what they do outside of purely spiteful political contrarianism.</q. I think the article explains pretty well how it's not just spiteful political contrarianism.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Please read the link. Go ahead and read it critically. It presents the data and the argument very clearly and isn't a polemic.

Okay. Not sure what I'm supposed to do with the data or the argument, as I'm not a climatologist. Do you have an argument for what position we should take, based on this information?

I think the main point here is that there is sufficient grounds for there to be a debate/discussion on the issue in society, but that politics and the media are not allowing it.

Uh? You haven't cited any evidence or provided any argument that it's politics and the media that are to blame here. Anyway, your railing against the "media" is increasingly anachronistic - there are plenty of conservative outlets to amplify this guy's argument. Strangely, none of them seem to have taken it up, either.

Just like the argument for free speech in general, if the argument on one side is so clear and convincing, then what's the harm in allowing the other side to point out the perceived flaws in it? But a seemingly large proportion of the proponents of global warming tend to just try to shut up the objections. This is probably coming much more from the political arena than from the scientific arena, but they do overlap.

I take it as a sign of bad faith that you ask us to take "The Skeptics Case" seriously, to read it "critically," but then launch immediately into a paranoid rant about the way that politics, media, and the scientific establishment have closed ranks against the truth. No evidence, no rationale, no explanation.

Think about your own reaction to these challenges. How do you respond?

Since I am not a specialist in this area, I have to go by proxies. Here, we have a notoriously paranoid member of the community, who assiduously avoids providing good reasons for any of his positions when challenged in every discussion I've entered into involving him, presenting us with a piece on global warming by an electrical engineer posted on a website hosted by a libertarian think tank. My google searching for serious criticisms of his piece turns up empty; mostly what I've found are obscure blog posts that trumpet its triumph over the entire scientific establishment.

So, I dunno. I'm not saying that I know he's wrong, but I'm not saying that I know he's right, either.

Do you want to try and independently verify the claims in some manner or do you simply dismiss it and stick to your belief as it is right now?

How did you respond to it? Did you try to independently verify its claims in some manner, before you presented them here? Or did you think, "Here's a very self-serving story that will help to demonstrate to me and the other conservatives in t_p that all of the stupid liberals in that community are hypocritical know-nothings?"

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Well it is a giant conspiracy you know. The only possible reason people hold to climate change is that they have ulterior political motives involving the resurrection of the USSR within the borders of the US of A.

[korean-guy-01.livejournal.com]

The bottom line is people who assert that man-made emissions are the primary culprit of global warming have not demonstrated a mathematical formula relating change in global temps to the summation of all causes of global warming multiplied by their respective contribution factors to 95% confidence intervals. Anything less than that is intellectually dishonest. What's good enough for gravity is good enough for man-made global warming.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Place + Stuff that wasn't there = Things changed.

I'm 100% confident in this mathematical equation.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I'm not a climatologist, but I'll play.

The first section in your "skeptic's" guide (amplification) is based (IIRC) on very early theories of how this warming might play. The rebuttal cited by the skeptic site was actually part of an ongoing debate within the community. Both views have since been replaced (again, IIRC) by the Tipping Point Scenario, something discovered fairly recently.

Essentially, ice core samples revealed that past warming events do not gradually take place as the amplification scenario suggested. Instead, they snap from one more or less stable zone to a completely new zone in a matter of just a couple years. The dampening effects cited happen as long as they can, then they are overwhelmed and simply collapse, leading to another atmospheric and oceanic paradigm. Think of a canoe. You can rock it quite a bit and it will snap back to its stable point; after a certain point the water pours over the gunnels and in the water you go. Quickly.

I heard an interview from one scientist who first discovered this in Greenland. After he and his on-site colleagues made the discovery, they sat and drank, alternating between "Wow, this is big! We'll be famous!" and "Wow, this is huge! We could soon be dead!"

So, section one is old news. Why wasn't this update considered in the skeptic's guide, I wonder? Interesting.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

So, section one is old news. Why wasn't this update considered in the skeptic's guide, I wonder? Interesting.

Probably for the same reason creationists point to the PIltdown Man as a counter-argument to evolution.

Science moves on, but people who have been told the same thing their entire lives do not.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I'm also a bit leery of the Outgoing Radiation section. I'm not aware of any climate model that posits the heat emission to space should drop. Why? One would have to measure heat emission not weekly or monthly, as the article states, but in real time.

CO2 absorbs and then releases IR energy. It would absorb this when the sun shines, then release it later. With IR, it's like a time-released medicine capsule. The aggregate energy remains the same; the only thing that would change would be the time the energy spends on the planet. For that, one would have to simply measure heat emitting at night only, I guess. Either way, measuring aggregate for long periods wouldn't do much but show an increase.

---

Ah, but that's not what really bugging me. The way you are posing this question is troubling:

I think the main point here is that there is sufficient grounds for there to be a debate/discussion on the issue in society, but that politics and the media are not allowing it.

Why troubling? It mirrors the Discovery Institute's Wedge Strategy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy) to question evolution. Posting this questionable material (comparing the graph to graphs provided by Essential Saltes shows we should be skeptical of the skeptic here) seems quite akin to Phase III, "Cultural Confrontation & Renewal." "Look at this, what you're not allowed to talk about!" it seems to scream with indignant rage. Cultural confrontation, indeed.

In both the Mises article you cite and the Discovery Institute, we find the objectionable material is not the science presented, but the conclusions the science reaches.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

You posted an argument that there is still global warming, it is just a matter of degree (well 2.8 degrees per time unit predicted).

"The serious skeptical scientists have always agreed with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2."

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes. And?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Why is the polar ice melting?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Whale farts!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I think the main point here is that there is sufficient grounds for there to be a debate/discussion on the issue in society, but that politics and the media are not allowing it.

That is nonsense. The skeptics point of view, in various screed, is paraded around the media to the nth degree. It is in the scientific journal themselves that there is almost unanimous acceptance from the relevant researchers of anthropic global warming.

Real scientists use multiple data sources and multiple predictions and construct their argument from that multiplicity. For example, they've chosen lower air temperature as the temperature model of choice. Never mind that everyone else uses surface temperature, or even more often, land surface temperature, and with five-year averages.

I can't stand it when people like David Evans misuse science like this. But it's not the first time (http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans) this grade-A tosser has done this, is it? (http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The skeptics point of view, in various screed, is paraded around the media to the nth degree

That is nonsense. I have never seen any skeptical viewpoint on any mainstream media, whether tv or print.