Cobb: Are we moving toward a fact-free future?

[dohboi]

Thanks for the post, pops. Kurt Cobb usually has something interesting to say.

[dorlomin]

Arctic ice is thinning partly due to warming of ocean waters but also do to adverse wind patterns. It shouldn't be surprising that ice would be retreating as we are still coming out of a glaciation.

I am trying to stay out of this and not turn an interesting thread into yet another rerun of the same tired old arguments.

But this is so obviously wrong that I just cant shut my mouth.

Over the past 11000 years the earth should have been cooling very significantly. We were coming out of the glaciation the 11000 years before that true enough, but the process should long ago have reversed.



There are three main variations in the earths tilt and orbit that modulate glaciation\ deglaciation. Over about 22000 years the precession of the perihelion is very important. That is the earths orbit is eliptical (it varies between being eliptical and more rounded over a period of 100 000s of years). About 11000 years ago the earth was closest to the sun during the nothern hemisphere summer. Nothern hemisphere is key because it has the most landmass where snow can lie and thick glaciers can form. The summer is key because the cooler the summer the further south a snowpack can lie and begin to form glaciers. As the earth got closer to the sun during NH summer the glaciers were slowly melted back over 1000s of years, the melt back of glaciers reduced the amount of energy reflected into space and allowed the earth to warm up and the atmosphere to hold more water vapor. A rough cross over point happened about 8-6000 years ago when the increasing distance from the sun during NH summer and the melting of glaciers meant the recent warm period, the Holocene reached its warmest. We have been cooling since then. The energy difference at the equator between SH and NH summers is not small, its is roughly 1411wm^-2 and 1329wm^-2 respectively c. 6% difference.

You can all argue about the climate, but you cant argue with astronomy.

[smiley]

@dorlomin, @rockdock

With due respect, but you just demonstrated what is troubling me about the whole GW debate. When the issue came up my first reaction was to ignore this tread, however I do feel compelled to react.

Disclaimer I am by no means a specialist in GW.

My personal stance is that something is happening to the climate and that that is going in a direction and at a pace that warrants attention. And I am more than willing to admit that human activity must have an influence on the environment.

But what is troubling me that I find the current hypotheses all rather shallow, gut feeling is that we're still missing some important parts of the puzzle.

What is compounding to this problem is that on the different sides of this debate, people are dug so deep in their trenches that the debate reaches almost a religious intensity.

And to me it seems there is little incentive to providing real insights outside of the established positions. Moreover the scientific method and the basic principles of fact finding seem to have been abandoned in a lot of the research surrounding GW. Al Gore is a politician, he can be forgiven, but when a scientist shows a graph showing two lines moving in roughly the same direction (CO2, T) and claiming that is proof of causality, well it makes my stomach turn.

Same goes for the debate. People are throwing the same arguments at each other over and over again,until it starts to look like a slapstick boxing scene. And woe, to those who bring in a new viewpoint, they get hit from both sides.

So how do we get out of this?

[Lore]

It bares repeating, because we don't know everything that doesn't mean we don't know something's and we know enough to understand that we have a real and fatal problem in development. The level of intensity is proportional to the seriousness of the issue. This isn't cheering on your favorite baseball team.

[AgentR11]

So how do we get out of this?

We don't, and its irrelevant anyway.

If AGW is not causing massive climate change, we will do nothing about it.
If AGW is causing massive climate change, we will do nothing to stop it.

[rockdoc123]

But what is troubling me that I find the current hypotheses all rather shallow, gut feeling is that we're still missing some important parts of the puzzle.

What is compounding to this problem is that on the different sides of this debate, people are dug so deep in their trenches that the debate reaches almost a religious intensity.

And to me it seems there is little incentive to providing real insights outside of the established positions. Moreover the scientific method and the basic principles of fact finding seem to have been abandoned in a lot of the research surrounding GW. Al Gore is a politician, he can be forgiven, but when a scientist shows a graph showing two lines moving in roughly the same direction (CO2, T) and claiming that is proof of causality, well it makes my stomach turn.

Same goes for the debate. People are throwing the same arguments at each other over and over again,until it starts to look like a slapstick boxing scene. And woe, to those who bring in a new viewpoint, they get hit from both sides.

So how do we get out of this?

the issue is not about the scientists in general but rather the personalities. It is about the politicization of the work they do, the subsequent access to "rock star" importance that some of them can garner and the access to large amounts of gov't funding they also have at their disposal.
People are people...just because you have an advance university degree doesn't mean you aren't basically a scumbag at heart. It should not be surprising to any of us that there are individuals in the research community who do not have higher ideals. What I find appalling is the lack of integrity that is being shown. It is so different from the ethics that I learned to stand by in my grad studies many years ago.
.

[smiley]

The level of intensity is proportional to the seriousness of the issue. This isn't cheering on your favorite baseball team.

Indeed, when I look how the thread Kublikan started on the subject only took 2 pages to derail into personal insults towards Rockdock, It more resembles cheering an icehockey match.

It bares repeating, because we don't know everything that doesn't mean we don't know something's and we know enough to understand that we have a real and fatal problem in development.

True enough, again, I am not a GW sceptic or "denier" as you call them.

But allow me to take this to something I do understand. I build systems, pretty complicated ones. And unfortunately these things do not always function up to specification. And more often than not the cause is unclear. System engineering gives you a lot of tools to adress these issues: 8-d problem solving, dmaic, Ishihawa, fishbone... etc. The name of the method doen't actually matter and you don't need to follow the $5000 courses, because these things all work the same. They contain a few stages:

1) Problem statement
This is actually deceptive. Sounds easy, but actually is pretty hard and usually discovered that although you are certain that you have a problem, you may find that you actually have a few anadotical events and observations that you link together and may or not be part of a problem.
2) Data collection
This stage you secure all the data that you may or may not need, without even thinking about possible solutions or causes.
3) Hypothesis
Again there are a lot of methods here, but the idea is to generate as much hypotheses as possbile and sort them out based on the problem statement and the data.
4) verification
speaks for itself.

Anyway what all of these methods tell you is that you should not start with a taking hypothesis and run with that. Because then your data collection will be completely biased towards this hypothesis, and even your problem statement will be tuned to the hypothesis. And I have seen that happen many times.

To give an example. A couple of years back I was involved in a set of turbine failures. The head manager was convinced from the start that this was a dynamical issue. So he spend a truckloads of money fitting turbines with all kinds of dynamical sensors. And true enough every time sensors were added we found new abberations, which were corrected. And then they crashed again. Eventually after we took a step back we found that the problem was a simple manufacturing error in a seal. Easy to detect and and took about $50 to solve.

This anekdote for me shows, that when you start looking at something with a certain bias, you will always find things that enhance that bias. And unless you are looking at the right spot, you are bound to overlook things which are really important.I fear that the whole GW debate is in a similar shape.

[rockdoc123]

You can all argue about the climate, but you cant argue with astronomy.

would be great if you could prove each and every glaciation or pulse of glaciation was due to nothing more than "astronomy".
That isn't the case.

and you say I'm very wrong when I say we are coming out of a glaciation and then you say I'm right?
Perhaps I'm missing something here but the last glaciation regardless of when it would be is what we are coming out of and hence should be warming. Not sure what all of your diagrams on astronomy do to disprove what I said?

This is a bit like trying to place a bet at the race track and someone is bending your ear about the evolution of horses....it's interesting, yes, but it is not relevant to the problem at hand.

[SeaGypsy]

I have had arguments on here with people who say I am a 'denier' because I pointed out that most Australian climate data is less than 100 years old and comprehensive data only begins in the 1960's (hence very little if anything can really be extrapolated about long term climate here/ esp considering the massive non apmospheric changes wrought since swhite settlement/ deforestation in paralell with Brazil etc.) For this reason I feel that the debate has tipped over into the realm of religion. It's not that I don't think it is happening. It is that there is a frenzied need to fill gaps in the theory / science / data, and what fill those gaps is often translated into doubtfull policy.

There is an ongoing national debate here in Australia about our government's introduction of a carbon tax. The focus in the MSM is mainly on the fact that every few months China adds another Australia's worth of CO2 production to it's total; also that 'Why should our industries be weighted in a way our competitors are not?"
The Gov response is about median to long term competitiveness and setting an example/ at least making some attempt at redress of climateologists concerns about getting away from fossil fuels. All very sensible, except meanwhile we have state governments ramping up coal production for Chindia like there is no such thing as a climate debate, just a danged new tax. Hypocrisy is rife.

IMO what is happening with the oceans is enough reason to go with a global energy renaissance. IMO it won't happen, just because there is still too much cheap energy left in the black, brown and gaseous stuff and the industrial/ economic imperative is always lowest cost.
Even if the first world goes beyond current levelling out, industry will just accelerate towards countries without regulation. It's a massive catch 22. Meanwhile the debate about the science gets lost in the noise, layers of it. Peak oil will only increase noise about the economy. The social imperative is clearly in favour of continuing to burn. Climate debate, like peak oil/ peak resource discussion, becomes a 'talking heads' subject which pops up regularly; but has no centrality to what actually happens.

[rockdoc123]

What is compounding to this problem is that on the different sides of this debate, people are dug so deep in their trenches that the debate reaches almost a religious intensity.

And to me it seems there is little incentive to providing real insights outside of the established positions. Moreover the scientific method and the basic principles of fact finding seem to have been abandoned in a lot of the research surrounding GW. Al Gore is a politician, he can be forgiven, but when a scientist shows a graph showing two lines moving in roughly the same direction (CO2, T) and claiming that is proof of causality, well it makes my stomach turn.

Same goes for the debate. People are throwing the same arguments at each other over and over again,until it starts to look like a slapstick boxing scene. And woe, to those who bring in a new viewpoint, they get hit from both sides.

You should go and spend some time at Judith Curry's site Climate Etc. She is a well known climate scientist with more publications behind her than most of her peers. She doesn't moderate her site very strongly so you do get a lot of opinionated whackos posting comments but you will also see a number of physicists and mathmaticians, geoscientists and climate scientists posting relevant comment. She was strongly on the side of AGW for sometime but then figured that rather than ignore or mock the critics it made sense to engage with them as they clearly had something to offer. She started out by engaging in discussion at Steve McIntyre's site Climate Audit and eventually decided that she would start her own site. She is now proclaiming to clearly be in a separate camp, one in the middle that sees that CO2 is playing a role but also understands that the climate sensitivity is likely overblown. She has taken her share of flak....first due to her claims a number of years ago that hurricanes had nothing to do with global warming (turns out that is now the mainstream view) and the folks at RealClimate have claimed she is now a traitor to the cause. As you say there are camps but my own view on this is the scientists who agree that CO2 has a role to play but that is is overstated (Pielke Sr as an example) have a very centered view. They are interested in the science and not the rhetoric. In the end information is where you find it and you often have to ignore what might be incorrect interpretations of that information. If you have a modicum of science background and are willing to think for yourself there are some self-evident truths that will arise as you work through the information.

[Lore]

This anekdote for me shows, that when you start looking at something with a certain bias, you will always find things that enhance that bias. And unless you are looking at the right spot, you are bound to overlook things which are really important.I fear that the whole GW debate is in a similar shape.

Good science looks at a question and let's the evidence construct the conclusion. There is also a peer-review process to help validate this against bias. A good example is the BEST study which led skeptics to arrive at virtually the same results as those in question.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Same goes for the debate. People are throwing the same arguments at each other over and over again,until it starts to look like a slapstick boxing scene. And woe, to those who bring in a new viewpoint, they get hit from both sides.

So how do we get out of this?

As AgentR11 says below, we probably don't. (Sadly, given human nature, this conclusion seems inescapable).

One individual who I respact, which has taken a different path - one down the middle, and gets much undeserved scorn (IMO) is author Bjorn Lomborg. He has written widely read books like "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It - The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide To Global Warming".

This guy analyzes environmental scientific evidence and tries to come up with practical solutions that don't spend "too much" money BEFORE WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, yet tries to do something far more meaningful than ignore the problem while we heat the planet.

He concedes AGW is likely a factor, but cautions we don't know nearly enough to assess how much. Far more importantly from a financial perspective, he points out that we don't yet have the scientific know-how yet to effectively react without bankrupting the global economy.

This to me, seems to be an honest, open, attempt at a rational starting point for compromise. For example -- he wants a carbon tax, but NOT a huge carbon tax.

Whether some offshoot of a policy using this kind of thinking as a starting point will "work" or not is hard to say -- but surely it's got to be better than both sides yelling the same things at each other more and more angrily and loudly -- while the powers that be churn out more profits and global heating continues apace.

[Lore]

Most people arn't aware of the facts because those facts are being 'swift boated' by the news, bias radio, websites and faux think tanks.

[Keith_McClary]

This is what makes me a climate sceptic.
...
The scientific method seems to have been shelved and I'm not sure why.

What exactly are you sceptical of? Can you state a testable hypothesis, pro or con?

[Lore]

This is what makes me a climate sceptic.
...
The scientific method seems to have been shelved and I'm not sure why.

What exactly are you sceptical of? Can you state a testable hypothesis, pro or con?

You're just asking for a string of gish gallop.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

[dorlomin]

the issue is not about the scientists in general but rather the personalities.

The whoe skeptical position in a sentance.

It is about the politicization of the work they do, the subsequent access to "rock star" importance that some of them can garner and the access to large amounts of gov't funding they also have at their disposal.

Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov are the two scientists who when working in Manchester Uni made a serious breakthrough in the study of graphene. Since then they have been awarded Nobel prizes, showered with money and been to meet and great the entire establishment of the UK.

Now using the logic of the climate skeptic I can declare graphene does not exist. The reason I can say this is the funding and 'rock star status' of the scientists.

Sir Isaac Newton achieved rock star status and was showered with money. Using climate skeptic logic I can declare gravity does not exist.


The point being that socially important discoveries or research will recieve a lot of attention. So claiming they do not exist or are invented to create attention is an argument for the ignorant.
Science stands on its scientific merits. Not the smears and insinuations of opponents of its conclusions.

[Lore]

Well put!

[rockdoc123]

The point being that socially important discoveries or research will recieve a lot of attention. So claiming they do not exist or are invented to create attention is an argument for the ignorant.
Science stands on its scientific merits. Not the smears and insinuations of opponents of its conclusions.

Slight of hand once more. The "rock star status" I mention was pointedly directed at Mann and his colleagues. They have published data shown to be patently incorrect, have omitted data but at the same time have attained a following that is somewhat bizzare. Mann attracted over $6 million in funding over a period of a few years for his research. His following are so convinced that he is "a rock star" that they completely ignore the use of inverted series, reliance on a single tree ring series, and more recently we become aware avoidance of incorporating the longest, most reliable ice core chronology (which shows an warmer MWP and no "hockey stick" in the twentieth century).

If what you were arguing were true then accredited scientists who have made important contributions should all be receiving such status. They do not. Richard Lindzen has more awards and publications that the lot of the Real Climate crew and he has a hard time even getting NRC grants. One of my thesis supervisors was instrumental in bringing the concept of pore fluid pressure to the oil and gas industry. He had been a colleague of Hubbert and Rubey at the Shell research centre when they published their groundbreaking research in pore fluid pressure effects in rock mechanics. That bit of work made it possible for the oil industry to understand the concept of "fracing" which is probably the most important advancement in the past decade or so. Peter was always challenged to get funding...NSERC claimed he wasn't doing "original research" but rather was using other experimental research to create his theories and applications, he died a poor but happy man, god rest his soul.

If you think that funding has anything to do with credibility then you need to start talking to actual scientists.

[rockdoc123]

What exactly are you sceptical of? Can you state a testable hypothesis, pro or con?

It is quite simple. CO2 is not the principle driver in climate. There is not a climate sensitivity of 3 or greater, there is not some crazy set of feedbacks going on that would cause CO2 to suddenly be the “death dealer”.
The test for this is quite simple. Plot temperature versus CO2. But don’t go to the websites that have already fiddled with the data by doing averages, plot it for yourself at woodfortrees.org which links to the actual datasets. What you will see is that CO2 has been continuing to rise since 2000, whereas temperature has not. You can come up with all sorts of arguments about aerosols etc but the fact is the models created with the 3.0 sensitivity predicted temperatures should be much, much higher at this point in time. Indeed temperatures are currently closer to the prediction that Hansen made a number of years ago of where we should be with no increase in CO2.
My point here is when your theory doesn’t fit the empirical/experimental evidence then you need to adjust your theory. This is standard scientific method as I learned several decades ago.
I find it interesting that scientists were quite comfortable trying to understand the way climate functioned by looking at all of the interactions of things like ENSO and AMO , Solar and GHG up until around 1998 when suddenly it became impossible that climate could be controlled by anything other than CO2.
I put back to you a testable hypothesis…show me some evidence that isn’t a model that illustrates CO2 is driving climate. I've been asking for this from the AGW crowd on this site for several years and no one has come forward yet.

You're just asking for a string of gish gallop.

You really are an ass. You make derogatory statements about people who post supported arguments here but you can’t seem to actually formulate a proper argument yourself and prefer to insult. I am not sure if your are a teenager with a high school education (your posts would suggest that) or just someone who is incapable of formulating a cogent argument. If you have something intelligent to offer please do.

[Lore]

You really are an ass. You make derogatory statements about people who post supported arguments here but you can’t seem to actually formulate a proper argument yourself and prefer to insult. I am not sure if your are a teenager with a high school education (your posts would suggest that) or just someone who is incapable of formulating a cogent argument. If you have something intelligent to offer please do.

Regardless of your childish usual ad hominem remarks, I'm in in all likelihood older then you and with obviously better social skills. I'll repeat, gish gallop remarks don't change the accepted science.