Scientists jumping off the warming train

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In summary, the US Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007.
  • #176
Skyhunter said:
There are relatively few scientists that dispute AGW.
A rather broad statement given this summer's APS statement:
There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.
[my highlight]
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm
Skyhunter said:
The most prominent Lindzen, Spencer. and Pielke all accept the view that CO2 is contributing to a warming trend.
I am unaware of any scientists at all, anywhere, that dispute the basic idea of greenhouse gas warming from CO2, methane, or other such greenhouse gases. So? The size of the IPCC temperature rise statements are primarily based on feed-backs and secondary / follow-on effects. It is the process by which IPCC came to these assertions, especially in the feed back domain, that has drawn increasing criticism, most notably from those you named. The number of such critics constitute a 'considerable presence' and, at least per the OP, is growing.
 
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  • #178
  • #179
I remain curious as to what bucket of warm cushy science these scientists are jumping into from the AGW Sunset Limited? Or is their departure based more on some political or economic calculus?

For instance is this what lemmings are thinking as they are free falling into the sea? "The 700 geniuses ahead of me can't be wrong?"
 
  • #180
  • #181
At 2:15 in "Engineers are divided about what caused ..."

Maybe they should have taken a vote before it happened?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxTZ446tbzE
 
  • #182
That was amazing that was caught on film. I don't get the crowd of people calmly walking away with the bridge moving like that behind them. I would have been watching it.
 
  • #183
Evo said:
That was amazing that was caught on film. I don't get the crowd of people calmly walking away with the bridge moving like that behind them. I would have been watching it.

After it was built the bridge had shown signs of resonance at milder wind speeds. And in fact it had become a bit of a local sport to drive over the bridge when it was "galloping" like that. There had been some months of warning about the problem. I suppose that people had gotten used to it.
 
  • #184
Skyhunter said:
There are relatively few scientists that dispute AGW.
The most prominent Lindzen, Spencer. and Pielke all accept the view that CO2 is contributing to a warming trend.

And who promoted these three birds?
 
  • #185
Current CO2 levels absorb what percent of the black body radiation of the Earth being reflected back into space in the 2, 3 and 15angstrom range? If the answer is 100% then there is no way CO2, no matter the concentration, can contribute to any increase in warming? Simple end of debate. Does the Hadley, MSU, NOAA or other data cover any of this?
 
  • #186
A geologist (I don't remember the name) on a talk radio program suggested that volcanic activity, both underwater and above land, could significantly influence climate temperatures. This is the first time I've heard of this being a potential factor. Anyone heard of this?
 
  • #187
Volcanic activity, or volcanic gases?
 
  • #188
Volcanic gases and particulate have apparently been modeled with the natural forcings and would seemingly have been accounted for in the models.
The natural external factors that affect climate include volcanic activity and variations in solar output. Explosive volcanic eruptions occasionally eject large amounts of dust and sulphate aerosol high into the atmosphere, temporarily shielding the Earth and reflecting sunlight back to space.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/FAQ/wg1_faq-9.2.html
 
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  • #189
O2Polluter said:
Current CO2 levels absorb what percent of the black body radiation of the Earth being reflected back into space in the 2, 3 and 15angstrom range? If the answer is 100% then there is no way CO2, no matter the concentration, can contribute to any increase in warming? Simple end of debate. Does the Hadley, MSU, NOAA or other data cover any of this?

This is not true. While it is correct that certain lines in the spectrum are entirely absorbed by CO2 (and hence doubling its concentration doesn't make any difference), the "tails" of these resonance peaks do not absorb as much. It is the widening of the "significant width" of the resonance curves with increasing concentration that makes for the increased absorption with increasing concentration.

Look at a program like MODTRAN (do a google search) to see these effects.
It is true that the effect is small, but then the power fluxes are very large, so small variations on a large flux can make a significant effect.
 
  • #190
O2Polluter said:
Current CO2 levels absorb what percent of the black body radiation of the Earth being reflected back into space in the 2, 3 and 15angstrom range? If the answer is 100% then there is no way CO2, no matter the concentration, can contribute to any increase in warming? Simple end of debate. Does the Hadley, MSU, NOAA or other data cover any of this?
First mistake. Black body radiation is not reflected it is emitted.
Second mistake. Infrared lies in the 7500 - 10,000 angstrom range.
Third mistake. The atmosphere itself is radiating. The saturation of the CO2 absorption bands takes place in the first 10 meters from the surface. However that 10 meters of air is also emitting IR that is once again being absorbed by GHGs in the atmosphere. And each successive layer does the same until a height is reached where the atmosphere is no longer opaque to IR.

As for your question...Your "argument" is about theory not data. Your question makes no sense.
 
  • #191
drankin said:
A geologist (I don't remember the name) on a talk radio program suggested that volcanic activity, both underwater and above land, could significantly influence climate temperatures. This is the first time I've heard of this being a potential factor. Anyone heard of this?

Total geothermal, including all volcanic activity is responsible for about 0.002% of the energy in the Earths climate system. Volcanic CO2 emissions are < 1% of human emissions. However the aerosols from large plumes do have a rapid and dramatic cooling effect.
 
  • #192
Is AGW taking a Holiday? being up to ones knees in snow and having icicles fall on ones head suggests so.
 
  • #193
Skyhunter said:
Volcanic CO2 emissions are < 1% of human emissions. However the aerosols from large plumes do have a rapid and dramatic cooling effect.

Source? I had been in the belief that the total CO2 emissions directly from human activity amounted to less than that of Volcanic activity; where do you get your <1% figure?
 
  • #194
wolram said:
Is AGW taking a Holiday? being up to ones knees in snow and having icicles fall on ones head suggests so.

It's +2C here in Edmonton, Alberta! Global warming is confirmed!
 
  • #195
This page gives a balanced view

http://climatedebatedaily.com/

I am sure, if the debate started with this much conflicting evidence no one could come with
a case where a consensus AGW could be reached.
 
  • #196
Noo said:
Source? I had been in the belief that the total CO2 emissions directly from human activity amounted to less than that of Volcanic activity; where do you get your <1% figure?

You have been misinformed by denialist propaganda.

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html"

This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.
 
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  • #197
Yet another fact of AGW ripped apart.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3332616/that-famous-consensus.thtml

Surely the band wagon has run out of road.
 
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  • #198
wolram said:
Yet another fact of AGW ripped apart.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3332616/that-famous-consensus.thtml

Surely the band wagon has run out of road.

Correct me if I am wrong here, but I was told that only scientific sources and opinions were considered valid. I know this is the P&WA forum but I would expect that there would at least be a minimum standard of objectivity.
 
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  • #199
Discussing the politics of AGW follows P&WA guidelines which allows for current media coverage.
 
  • #200
Evo said:
Discussing the politics of AGW follows P&WA guidelines which allows for current media coverage.
Even biased non objective media coverage?

What about these rules?
2) Statements of a purely inflammatory nature, regardless of whether it is a personal insult or not.
3) Assigning truth values to opinions.
 
  • #201
wolram said:
Yet another fact of AGW ripped apart.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3332616/that-famous-consensus.thtml

Surely the band wagon has run out of road.

I assume here that the specious argument presented in that ill informed opinion piece you are declaring a "ripped apart fact" is a response to the cover story in Nature magazine.

How this is construed as discussion of the AGW politics is beyond me. Since when are ad hominem attacks and red herring arguments a discussion of politics?

Here is what she says about MBH 98/99
This shoddy research was subsequently torn apart so comprehensively that it has been called the most discredited study in the history of science
I am sure that someone has called it that so technically she is not lying.

After examination by the http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20060622.html" at the request of Congress the conclusion was:
There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, retreating glaciers, and other "proxies" to say with confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new National Research Council report. There is less confidence in reconstructions of surface temperatures from 1600 back to A.D. 900, and very little confidence in findings on average temperatures before then.
She also declares that the IPCC has "quietly dropped" the reconstruction from it's assessment. An outright lie. Since it is right there in http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf" on page 476 with eleven other reconstructions that also have a hockey stick shape.

Is this the PF standard?

Are the rants of right wing lunatics now considered to be objective media coverage?
 
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  • #202
Skyhunter said:
...

Here is what she says about MBH 98/99

I am sure that someone has called it that so technically she is not lying.

After examination by the http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20060622.html" at the request of Congress the conclusion was:

She also declares that the IPCC has "quietly dropped" the reconstruction from it's assessment. An outright lie. Since it is right there in http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf" on page 476 with eleven other reconstructions that also have a hockey stick shape.

Is this the PF standard?

Are the rants of right wing lunatics now considered to be objective media coverage?
Knock off the blather. The Spectator piece, in that it refers to the dropping of MBH 98/99 work published in the 2001 IPCC, is correct. The 'hockey stick' graph of MBH 98/99 has indeed been dropped from IPCC 2007. MBH 98/99 was displayed as http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/005.htm" in the 2001 IPCC Summary for Policymakers and the MBH 98/99 plot no longer appears there, or anywhere else in the 4th assessment, nor should any reconstruction found to have 'very little confidence' over most of its range (before 1600AD). MBH 98/99 obliterated the medieval warming period. Figure 6.13/2007 returns the medieval warming; Mann 2005, significantly different from MBH 98/99, is only one of the data series plotted there.
 
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  • #203
mheslep said:
Knock off the blather. The Spectator piece, in that it refers to the dropping of MBH 98/99 work published in the 2001 IPCC, is correct. The 'hockey stick' graph of MBH 98/99 has indeed been dropped from IPCC 2007. MBH 98/99 was displayed as http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/005.htm" in the 2001 IPCC Summary for Policymakers and the MBH 98/99 plot no longer appears there, or anywhere else in the 4th assessment, nor should any reconstruction found to have 'very little confidence' over most of its range (before 1600AD). MBH 98/99 obliterated the medieval warming period. Figure 6.13/2007 returns the medieval warming; Mann 2005, significantly different from MBH 98/99, is only one of the data series plotted there.
Is the entire work of MBH98/99 reduced to one chart?

And why does http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-6-10.jpg" still say MBH99 if it is not included?

Next assessment they may replace it with http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/fig3.jpg" but currently it is included and even discussed in the IPCC Fourth assessment.

So I ask again, is this Spectator piece the standard here for objective journalism?
 
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  • #204
Skyhunter said:
So I ask again, is this Spectator piece the standard here for objective journalism?
While I personally don't care for the tone of it, factually, it is correct. I'm pending a decision on replacing it with just the facts from the article, but with the server acting up, that's going to have to wait.
 
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  • #205
Evo said:
While I don't care for the tone of it, personally, it is factually correct.

How can you say that?

MBH99 is cited and discussed in the IPCC Fourth assessment report.
Proxy-based reconstructions of temperature
Reconstructed Location Of Proxiesc
Series Period Season Region H M L O Reference
JBB..1998 1000–1991 Summer Land, 20°N–90°N y y o o Jones et al., 1998; calibrated by Jones
et al., 2001
MBH1999 1000–1980 Annual Land + marine, 0–90°N n n y y Mann et al., 1999
BOS..2001 1402–1960 Summer Land, 20°N–90°N n y o o Briffa et al., 2001
ECS2002 831–1992 Annual Land, 20°N–90°N y y o o Esper et al., 2002; recalibrated by Cook
et al., 2004a
B2000 1–1993 Summer Land, 20°N–90°N y o o o Briffa, 2000; calibrated by Briffa et al.,
2004
MJ2003 200–1980 Annual Land + marine, 0–90°N y y o o Mann and Jones, 2003
RMO..2005 1400–1960 Annual Land + marine, 0–90°N n n y y Rutherford et al., 2005
MSH..2005 1–1979 Annual Land + marine, 0–90°N y y y y Moberg et al., 2005
DWJ2006 713–1995 Annual Land, 20°N–90°N n y o o D’Arrigo et al., 2006
HCA..2006 558–1960 Annual Land, 20°N–90°N y y o o Hegerl et al., 2006
PS2004 1500–2000 Annual Land, 0–90°N y n o o Pollack and Smerdon, 2004; reference
level adjusted following Moberg et al.,
2005
O2005 1600–1990 Summer Global land y n o o Oerlemans, 2005
Right there it is in the http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf" . How can you say the article is factually correct when I have just demonstrated an outright falsehood?

Since when is an ad hominem attack against the scientists considered valid argument?

Steig et al is a robust well received reconstruction of Antarctic temperature for the last fifty years. The claim that this study overturns some consensus that Antarctica is cooling is also preposterous. They did not make up data. They use satellite data calibrated to the AVHRR data to extrapolate temperature in grids that do not have surface stations. The method is not new and the results are not unexpected.

Because the SH is warming slower than the NH (a function of geography) And Antarctica even less, (a result of ozone depletion) the deniers have twisted this into an argument for global cooling and other specious arguments. This study takes away another denialist talking point, so they disparage the character of the scientists with these op-ed's. I would expect that the more sophisticated consumers of information on this forum would not be so easily duped by what is an obvious hit piece.

I guess this is just a demonstration of the power of a confirmation bias.
 
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  • #206
Mann's Hockey stick has been soundly debunked.

I know that you get most, if not all of your information from the global warming meetings you previously mentioned that you attend, but you really should look at the most current data, obviously the information those people hand out is biased, eh? There is truth on both sides, the real truth, somewhere in the middle.

I think you should give this a read to put things into perspective. It's from 2006, but still holds true.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597
 
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  • #207
Evo said:
Mann's Hockey stick has been soundly debunked.

When did the practice of debunking scientific research in op-eds begin?

I know that you get most, if not all of your information from the global warming meetings you previously mentioned that you attend, but you really should look at the most current data, obviously the information those people hand out is biased, eh? There is truth on both sides, the real truth, somewhere in the middle.

That is quite a condescending attitude and I think you have me confused with someone else. I do not attend "global warming meetings." I get my information from science journals and dialogue with climate scientists.

I think you should give this a read to put things into perspective. It's from 2006, but still holds true.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597

No thank you. If Richard Lindzen has a scientific opinion I can read it in the peer reviewed journals.

MBH99 has not been debunked.

What has been debunked is the lie that it was "quietly dropped by the IPCC."

Thus the premise for your conclusion that "Manns hockey stick has been soundly debunked" has itself been demonstrated to be false, IE debunked.

To argue otherwise is illogical.

Now if you want to parse words you could argue that overconfidence in the results was an exaggeration. But since those statements have been validated by new research it seems a little petty. But that is what you get when you have political enemies attmpting to assassinate your character.

There was also a statistical error discovered that effected the amplitude of the final reconstruction by ~0.05C. This was minor and has been corrected.

Science is self correcting and it progresses. The good news is that Mann undertook to address the reasons the NAS lacked confidence in his earlier results.

The sparseness of proxy data especially in the SH led the NAS to conclude that the statement that the last 2 decades of the 20th century were warmer than any other period in the past millennium, although quite plausible could not be supported with high confidence beyond 400 years.

Mann recently published http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105.full.pdf" that addressed the concerns of the NAS. This reconstruction, along with a dozen or so others confirms that the last two decades of the 20th century are the warmest in 1300 years and the last 1700 years when the tree ring data is included. I would also like to point out that the last 10 years have been warmer than any ten year period of the 20th century.

Maybe you should start getting your information from science journals instead of op-eds in the WSJ.
 
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  • #208
wolram said:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....ecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

POZNAN, Poland - The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices and views of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See Full report Here: & See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' ]

Full Senate Report Set To Be Released in the Next

What do you guys make of this?

I am not impressed.

There are more historians denying the Holocaust and scientists supporting intelligent design creationism than the number of scientists dissenting from human induced climate change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_From_Darwinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
"Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?" by Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman

It is perfectly alright to reject the political ideologies from certain climate fanatics that want to reduce so much usage of fuel that it would disrupt the global economy on a huge scale; it is entirely different to reject the science.

But above all else, let us not make the error of mistaking honest debate about details with a controversy about the wider picture. I'm sure that we all reject this line of argument from creationists and Holocaust deniers.
 
  • #209
Moridin said:
I am not impressed.

There are more historians denying the Holocaust and scientists supporting intelligent design creationism than the number of scientists dissenting from human induced climate change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_From_Darwinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
Speaking of not impressed, your argument is pure fallacious reasoning. First and foremost, it is a false analogy (an informal fallacy). Secondly, the cited articles do not support your claim (false attribution). Even if they did support your claim regarding absolute numbers, there are a lot more historians and biologists than climatologists (hasty generalization). The fraction of historians who reject the Holocaust and biologists who reject evolution are very, very small numbers. Thirdly, your argument is a non sequitur and ignores that arguing that a consensus for AGW does not exist is a valid argument against AGW because the AGW bases its claim for validity in part on consensus (which is a logical fallacy in and of itself, appeal to loyalty).

Calling people who dispute AGW "denialists" (post #196) and comparing them to Holocaust deniers (post #208) are an ad hominem attacks, yet another logical fallacy. Calling arguments against AGW "denialist propaganda" (post #196 again) coming from "biased non objective media coverage" (post #200) is "poisoning the well".
To summarize: Stop using logical fallacies. You and Skyhunter have used several fallacies (formal and informal) in the last few posts: false analogy, false attribution, hasty generalization, non sequitur, at hominem, poisoning the well. Not good.
 
  • #210
D H said:
Speaking of not impressed, your argument is pure fallacious reasoning. First and foremost, it is a false analogy (an informal fallacy). Secondly, the cited articles do not support your claim (false attribution). Even if they did support your claim regarding absolute numbers, there are a lot more historians and biologists than climatologists (hasty generalization). The fraction of historians who reject the Holocaust and biologists who reject evolution are very, very small numbers. Thirdly, your argument is a non sequitur and ignores that arguing that a consensus for AGW does not exist is a valid argument against AGW because the AGW bases its claim for validity in part on consensus (which is a logical fallacy in and of itself, appeal to loyalty).

Calling people who dispute AGW "denialists" (post #196) and comparing them to Holocaust deniers (post #208) are an ad hominem attacks, yet another logical fallacy. Calling arguments against AGW "denialist propaganda" (post #196 again) coming from "biased non objective media coverage" (post #200) is "poisoning the well".



To summarize: Stop using logical fallacies. You and Skyhunter have used several fallacies (formal and informal) in the last few posts: false analogy, false attribution, hasty generalization, non sequitur, at hominem, poisoning the well. Not good.

If one denies something and then propagates false information in support of their denial what do you call them?

Do you consider telling the lie that one volcanic eruption emits more CO2 than all human activity in a year to be a valid argument against AGW?

Where do you think Noo got the idea that volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activity?

It was certainly not from the USGS.

And since the topic of this thread is the "consensus" pointing out that there is are more holocaust deniers then AGW deniers is a valid argument about the "consensus". Not an ad hominem attack on AGW deniers.

And if you believe that op-eds, especially op-eds from the Spectator are not biased, then you are very naive.
 

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