Climategate was a serious body-blow to AGW proponents. One of the scandals that arose when the emails were aired (by Wikileaks btw) was that the scientists were deliberately spiking peer review of 'denier' articles. Now, I know that scientists are people too and are subject to pettiness, envy, and greed, just like anyone. But I suppose laymen like myself just expect scientists to be...smarter about things. And deliberately keeping articles that you don't agree with out of publications is the height of idiocy. It brings peer review into question for one thing and it lets any whack-job claim that his paper is the real deal but was shot down by eeeevil conspirators.

I think that's what Tom is referring to Fax, the fact that there actually was a demonstrable effort by leading climate scientists to silence anyone not saying what they were.

Trust what you see, seemingly valid points getting dismissed because the person is not a "Climatologist" is one of the keys. The head of the IPCC is not a climatologist either...why do you trust him? He is an expert, no doubt but why can you accept his credentials and not others? Dismissal based on facts is fine, based on his education (or anything else) is another situation.

PC you understand that the sco-called cruicial e-mail was about something 10 years ago? And that all the research in the subsequent 10 years has continued to support AGW? Or do you really beleive that time stands still and we are debating scriptures?

Many commentators quoted one email referring to "Mike's Nature trick" which Jones used in a 1999 graph for the World Meteorological Organization, to deal with the well-discussed tree ring divergence problem "to hide the decline" that a particular proxy showed for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising. These two phrases from the emails were also taken out of context by climate change sceptics including US Senator Jim Inhofe and former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin as though they referred to a decline in measured global temperatures, even though they were written when temperatures were at a record high.[33] John Tierney, writing in the New York Times in November 2009, said that the claims by skeptics of "hoax" or "fraud" were incorrect, but the graph on the cover of a report for policy makers and journalists did not show these non-experts where proxy measurements changed to measured temperatures.[40] The final analyses from various subsequent inquiries concluded that the so-called 'trick' was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion,[8][41][dubious – discuss] and while the WMO graph would have been clearer with separate colours for the change in measurement[citation needed], the 2001 IPCC report discussed this issue and the graphs in IPCC reports clearly showed a separate line for the instrumental temperature record.[42

And you understand that the results of every inquiry debunked the claims?
X refers to the arguement that sceptics like you and Tom use, where you think proving that one small detail is wrong somehow disqualifies the whole theory. That doesn't work with a theory based upon proven, testable properties . It doesn't work where there is a vast accumulation of evidence supports the science, and it doesn't work where the original claims are proven to be untrue, and at best distortions.
But your reference to the hoary old "climate gate" hoax is a great illustration how, an idea is presented and despite any effort to educate and debunk the idea remains. This can only happen if those who hold the idea (Climategate) remain willfully ignorant of the evidence that debunks their claim.
Conspiracy theorists like 9/11 truthers, and Obama birthers are the same ilk. No matter what anyone does to debunk them, they resolutely hold fast and invent a reality in which their claims are somehow valid ; but a great conspiracy keeps the rest of the world from knowing the truth they know so well.

Three investigations into the affair were initiated in the UK, two of which were concluded by the end of March 2010, with the remaining review releasing its findings on 7 July.[9] The CRU's director, Professor Phil Jones, stood aside temporarily from his post during the reviews, then was reinstated in a new position as Director of Research after the reviews cleared him of the most serious charges.[9][10]
The investigations concluded that there was no evidence of scientific malpractice and Jones was cleared of any scientific misconduct.[11] They reported that while sharing of data and methods was in line with common scientific practice, it was desirable that there should be greater openness and information sharing.[12] The Select Committee report concluded that "the scientific reputation of Jones and the CRU was untarnished".[8] The CRU was commended for their maintenance of temperature proxy chronologies by the Science Assessment Panel, which also found that although some of their statistical methods may not have been the best for the purpose, better methods might not have produced significantly different results. The panel deplored the tone of much of the criticism and said some was "selective and uncharitable", but believed the questioning would result in improvements to working practices.[13] The question of alleged failure to comply fully with the Freedom of Information Act was left to the third review, published on 7 July, which concluded that the responsibility lay with the university administration rather than with the CRU research unit.[12] It said that there was "unhelpfulness in responding to requests" and that "e-mails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them".[14][15] A separate review by Penn State University into accusations against Michael E. Mann cleared him of any wrongdoing, concluding that "there is no substance" to the allegations against him.

X, since its the surface of the world that we live on, its the surface temperature that mostly matters... So, in the end instrumentation from satellites and weather stations is wholly appropriate as a gauge. And yes temperatures change daily ...but we're talking about a calculation of the annual average.... Variations over 8760 hours. Its part of the calculations.,..
My point about the oceans is that the one area we know least well, is the effect of the oceans. And that's simply because we have the least amount of data due to the difficulties in measuring and exploring its extent. From what I've read (and understood) its that particular cooling effect that is most contentious in the various models...
However your comments about the changes we see, and which scientists in certain fields note well and attribute to warming climate offer compelling supportive evidence for AGW. Include in that the significant changes taking place to ocean temperatures where sea life has clustered in volume. Reefs are bleaching and life is also leaving previously flourishing areas in part because of warming water...
(I'd say just warming instead of AGW except that there is no competing theory of warming that has been supported by evidence. And I include in that solar activity or a change in the planets attitude in orbit.. And I also include in this the "Its just a natural cycle" ...People who make that claim have to explain why the cycle occurs...they haven't been able to and also point to any current evidence of the natural cycles' forcing factor of the cycle in their explanation. Thats the problem with most of the skeptics Tom keeps pointing to...they raise competing hypothesis, but are unable to support them. And thats why they get shot down Tom. Not a conspiracy.
The closer one lives to the North Pole, the easier it is to accept the fact of warming. Permafrost is melting that has been frozen for thousands of years. In the Yukon this has lead to a treasure trove of fossilized bones of dinosaurs and other creatures popping to the surface....
Ports in northern arctic coastal communities are open 6 weeks longer in the fall, and reopen six weeks earlier in the spring than they've been able to for the last century. Plants and animals are being found in regions that could never support them before ... Skeptics would tell you this is coincidence...

wow Ricky, because Scientists can't explain why a cycle occurs, it simply does not matter? We can't explain why ice ages come and go so I guess they never happened? And the alarmists simply can not explain why their models fail (miserably) so why can't we simply dismiss those as well? Some competing hypohesis are shot down, yet most of them are shot down while every bit as supported and provable as the CO2 theory. One fact you fail to accept, the CO2 theory has not been proven and has not passed any sort of testing, it simpl,y "makes sense" to the alarmists and that is good enough for them when it supports their claims, it is not good enough when it doesn't. THEY can use flimsy evidence, no others can.

Oh, and I like your reply to the wikileaks situation, to paraphrase...
Yeah, that was ten years ago when they all lied about things, since then however, they stopped the lies and the evidence now supports their previous lies"

and then theirs this gem:

No matter what anyone does to debunk them, they resolutely hold fast and invent a reality in which their claims are somehow valid ; but a great conspiracy keeps the rest of the world from knowing the truth they know so well.

I suggest you read what you wrote and try looking in the mirror.

ricky, I read Lord Oxburgh's report where he chided the scientists for their maladroit, but ultimately not illegal, handling of data and peer review. That's a long throw from full vindication, especially in an environment that's supposed to be above reproach.

Though you are quite correct about one thing...this is beginning to take on the overtones of Catholicism vs. Baptism or Mac vs. PC. Skeptics trot out their data and misgivings and the faithful dutifully decry the heretics and bring out their own.

So let me reiterate a post I made in a similar thread on the old Redscape. What are the shibboleths for the Church of AGW? If it's a belief that developed nations need to make the switch to alternative energy sources...then I'm all set for baptism! The U.S. especially needs to get away from dependence on Canadians for their energy. So three cheers for nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and fusion! I'd even favor a tax increase to support research into that last one. Decreasing CO2 means decreasing pollution which means improved air quality, improved life expectancy and improved property values (see the Hudson River shoreline).

I ride my bike to work each day, recycle, shut down my computer when I'm not posting to Redscape and have a bird feeder in the backyard. Do I fit under the tent yet?

I'll admit that I think carbon trading schemes look like giant scams; but none of them seem to be in effect as yet so perhaps that doesn't disqualify me. I'm with President Clinton on the Kyoto Protocol but since even Japan has backed away from those provisions I think that shouldn't disqualify me...right? I fully support President Obama's move towards non-binding agreements on C02 reduction.

I suppose, at my core, I still think that humans have a negligible overall effect on the globe's climate. But as long as I'm doing all of the above things...does it really matter if I testify?

Look, if Obama and a majority Democratic Congress and Senate didn't do much more than Bush on global warming...it ain't gettin' done. So...shouldn't we be shifting more towards damage control than prevention? Are we?

tom

wow Ricky, because Scientists can't explain why a cycle occurs, it simply does not matter?

Until they can explain how their hypothesis might be working, its a non-applicable hypothesis. Yes. To be considered as an alternative they have to be able to point to evidence that the "forcing effects" they think might be causing warming are ocurring. If they can't - an unworkable hypothesis does not matter. They might as well be suiggesting magic.
Tom

We can't explain why ice ages come and go so I guess they never happened?[/quote
Maybe you are ignorant of the reasons for ice ages but paleo climatologists certainly can explain why ice ages happen. There are two accepted theories for which there is abundant evidence. One is volcanic or meteoric ash. (for 3 of the ice ages) and one a change in the earths attitude in orbit.(for 1)

]And the alarmists simply can not explain why their models fail (miserably) so why can't we simply dismiss those as well? Some competing hypohesis are shot down, yet most of them are shot down while every bit as supported and provable as the CO2 theory

Your ignorance on this subject is as glaring as your ignorance of the causes of ice ages.. If the hypothesis you claim have been supported by evidence exist where are they Tom? Please point to a hypothesis that has been advanced with supportable evidence....before you link to another debunked scientist like Ball making pronouncemnet do your self a favour and link to the site I showed you with Ball... Most of the reasons for their failings are covered succintly there.


Tom

. One fact you fail to accept, the CO2 theory has not been proven and has not passed any sort of testing,

The theory of CO2 concentrations was proven in 1858. (see my posting on about page 3 of this new thread.)
You don't retain much of the scientific evidence that anyone else points you to on these discussions do you Tom?

PCHiway wrote:I suppose, at my core, I still think that humans have a negligible overall effect on the globe's climate.

I'd like to compare notes with you on this, not by way of hostile competition but just out of curiosity. On the subject of AGW I've generally felt, and so admitted on the old site, that I'm inclined to have great faith in the ability of humans to exceed average expectations in this regard. My "core" thinking is certainly conditioned and influenced by having been an earth sciences major in college and in everything I've learned since, but I won't deny that it's also influenced by things I can't show evidence for - by whatever it is that makes me a bit of a misanthrope.

My story many pages back about the Mississippi was an attempt to provide some of the evidence. It's like I'm saying to you, "Look at what humans can do to a natural system as huge and powerful as the Mississippi river and river basin." In a similar vein I'd ask you simply to get on google maps or google earth and fly over the satellite image of the Amazon at a scale where you can see the extent of the deforestation. Also consider this: the ecosystems of large hunks of North America were radically altered four times by humans to the extent that the changes would have been easily visible from the moon: once when ancient humans (in full or part, intentionally or un-) killed off the Pleistocene megafauna, once when Native Americans used fire to clear brush and in other ways manage the ecosystem to meet their needs, once when white men introduced new grazing animals, and once with intensive agriculture. You could probably include city-building as a fifth time. Stay on google a while longer and just fly over the eastern seaboard or Europe, and think about what those regions would have looked like before humans descended from the trees.

There's a natural and understandable tendency to think that anything as BIG as "global climate" must be stable and very tough to alter. But we've long known that climate has changed quite a lot many times during earth's history and we're just now starting to learn that some of these changes took place over surprisingly short time scales. The question that's thus begged is: what does it take to cause a change in climate? Must it be something as huge as the Indian Subcontinent crashing into Asia? Or might it be much smaller "triggering" events? It's here that my thinking is influenced by complexity theory.

Please don't think that I've read math texts about complexity or could expound more than the most rudimentary description of it. No. My understanding of complexity comes from a simple little computer simulation (or game); it comes in several forms but maybe the most common is WaTor (it's short for water torus). A hypothetical predator-prey system is built of six variables you can control. The idea is to adjust the variables so as to achieve some form of stability. All (?) stable systems show a lot of oscillation/cyclicality (just like the earth's climate). The lessons I've absorbed from killing time with this fun little "game" are these:

• It's hard to achieve stability.
• Stable systems can almost always be destabilized by surprisingly small changes in one or a few of the variables.
• It's not too tough to create conditions that yield what looks to be a stable regime; it runs and runs and runs without much apparent deviation from stability, and then suddenly, for no obvious reason, either wobbles and crashes in the relative blink of an eye, or starts to wobble, then wobbles more, then more, and then crashes. Those second kind are fun to watch because sometimes they manage to "pull themselves together" and "recover" from the brink of disaster. I've had runs where it looks stable, I go eat lunch and it's still running when I come back, and when I check it yet again 20 minutes later it's crashed - it can take that long for instability to express itself.
• No matter what's done to the variables there's always a "seventh" condition that can be critical: the starting position, or where in the cycle the system is when a variable is altered.

Click HERE and you'll get a running stable (?or is ti?) Java version of the simulation with which you can play. I encourage everyone to first watch the initial simulation for at least a minute to get a feel for it's natural range of variance, and then to start playing with variables.

What I mean by that last bullet point is that it's possible to stop a stable system at point X in time, change a variable, turn it on again, and see almost no change, but do the same thing at point in time X plus a tiny bit and it makes a huge difference - the run spins out of control. So why am I talking about a cute little math game? What relevance can it have? Are these lessons really applicable in the natural world?

One of the second-order lessons to be learned here is about the anthropic principle. At any point in time a natural system (like the earth) might be stable enough long enough for intelligent life to evolve, and those intelligent beings will see stability as the natural order of things, but in fact stability may be quite illusory. What if the sharks in WaTor were intelligent? Might they not want to alter the "shark breed" variable to what they think is their advantage, or just because they enjoy breeding? What would happen then?

Real-world natural systems display, within the huge range of examples available, both systems that show amazing resilience to perturbation and those that are in precarious balance and easily nudged over a "tipping point". Which type is climate? I don't know, but what I'm impressed by is how quickly we're seeing changes get expressed in some of the fundamental variables of climate. Is this something we'd see no matter what? Is it independent of human influence and just a rare sort of "blip"? Or can the faster-than-geologic-time-scale changes be more rationally explained by the only thing on this planet that has EVER moved faster than geologic - and MUCH faster at that: human culture? I honestly don't know, but the latter explanation doesn't seem improbable to me because humans are incapable of nudging the variables far enough to make a difference. To the contrary, I think we're more than capable.

More double talk Ricky, you stated yourself you will only accept what can not be proven if they are already on your side. The CO2 theory is still not PROVEN, there is certainly solid evidence that suggests it could be true but it is not proven. Models have failed miserably, all the things you will refuse from those on the other side are simply ignored when your own side faces the same thing. Lots of double talk and changing things around but bottom line, you simply refuse to accept anyone else regardless of what they have to say.
and MX, I don't think anyone is saying humans do not affect the environment? But as far as CO2, even IF this were the primary driver of warming (dubious at best) humans have their part but it is less so than other factors PLUS much of this is impossible to reduce regardless. For us to radically reduce CO2 the difference would still be somewhat minimal in the overall scheme of things. And CO2 is pretty much the basket that alarmists have placed all their eggs. A theory unproven, full of holes, and one that humans can hardly make a dent in even if you buy the science of it 100%

PCHiway wrote:In all seriousness Dan, thanks for the thoughtful response to my 'thesis' post. You are quite correct, and presented your argument well, I'm on board; AGW is a host of different theses. And X, Dan is right on another point too. If AGW (in all its pieces) is, at its core, a science, then it is testable...just like math and molecules.

Thanks, PC. I can see that you are get it. I guess you will agree to differ on how many of those theses hold up, and how vital they are to the overall science.

GMTom wrote:and it has so far failed all tests

Tom, was that in reply to PCH? And so following on from my previous post? In that post, I listed seven general theses that are involved in Climate Change, and for each of them I gave one thing that would falsify it.

So, you are saying that each of those seven things is true? That there are potentially may other tests that the theories have been measured against and failed?

Or what?

PCHiway wrote: think that's what Tom is referring to Fax, the fact that there actually was a demonstrable effort by leading climate scientists to silence anyone not saying what they were.

It was not as simple as that. The main issues that surrounded that particular charge was over the way that one journal was being run. Phil Jones et al thought that it was being partisan and biased, and putting through under-reviewed papers. In short, that it was not up to the standards. So they wanted action, which was to arrange a boycott.

An over-reaction, I would say, but it's not the same as trying to silence opponents. The journal was still free to publish, and anti-Climate Change studies or articles could still be printed.

Yes, scientists are human. Which is why the processes used in science are vital, to try to minimise the human factor as much as possible.

The Climategate thing has dented the reputations of some of the people involved in Climate science, and of course can be used by sceptics like Tom as a kind of blanket excuse to attack the whole lot.

But I suppose laymen like myself just expect scientists to be...smarter about things

like we expect our politicians to be more able, our cops to be totally uncorrupt, our bankers to look after money...

Science does suffer from over-expectation, for a very important reason. It does not very often result in 100% certainty, but that is what people really want: Does substance 'X' cause cancer? Well, says 'science', there's a study here that says it increases the risk, but it was performed on mice. There's another study over there that shows that it also reduces the risk of heart disease, based on a long term study of people. The media reports these studies (often just after a PR or the asbtract has come out), and exagerrate the significance of them (it's a slow news day, and the truth of the study is boring, but with a few caveats it can be made so much more...)

But readers get confused. Should they stop eating 'X'? Eat less? Eat more? Should kids be treated different to adults? It's way too complex for the way that it comes out. And people are not going to delve into the detail. It's often hard work.

To fight global warming...ahem, I mean climate change...I hereby pledge to make sure my carbon footprint is less than Al Gore's for as long as both of us live.

Do you actually know how big his is? Or are you assuming that a big house means it's very large?

I do hope you've compiled some figures in order to make sure you keep this pledge, and it's not simply a case of a throwaway line...

Four big houses (each more than 10,000 square feet), flights hither, tither and yon aboard private jets to have his chakras released, limosines from door to door...

I'm pretty comfortable that I'm in compliance with my pledge.

In short, when Al starts taking this global warming stuff seriously, I will.

Minister X wrote:I'd like to compare notes with you on this, not by way of hostile competition but just out of curiosity.

Sure thing X.

The first thing I should point out is that I actually do think we're in a warming period and are due for much warmer temperatures worldwide. I base this primarily on two factors. The first are the results of historical temperatures taken from the ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. here's the Greenland one.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/a ... k_fig5.php

My take from this is that we're in an unusually cool time and are overdue for a return to warmer times. This dovetails with the other factor which was a summer I spent at a solar observatory in California in my college days. Based on my own observations there, we're in a low ebb of solar activity that is bound to pick up again. So we're going to get warmer...even if we stopped all emissions today.

But I've heard for years how a temperature increase, even a small one, will result in environmental catastrophes the likes of which we've never imagined. Well...that increase is coming so we should be talking about mitigation should we not?

But we aren't, we're talking about prevention and maintaining equilibrium. Two completely bogus goals in my opinion. The earth has never been at equilibrium. Ever. Ecologies have shifted and species have gone extinct long before humans showed up.

Not to say that humans don't have an effect on their local ecologies. We absolutely do. Deforestation, irrigation, pollution, overfishing. But now we reach a question of definitions. What is climate? What is weather? What effect do our local ecologies have on either? Climate is long-term weather patterns in my estimation. Did the irrigation of the Great Plains affect average rainfall and temperatures? How much? Did the taming of the Mississippi (argubly tamed I grant you) change the weather of the region?

So this gets us to the core argument of AGW which is that, by changing our ecologies, humans are changing the weather. I'll bend enough to admit that any change in a system causes unexpected consequences. I've walked the (no longer) shores of the Aral Sea so I know what can happen when people put their minds to really screwing something up. But, as deplorable as the conditions in that part of Uzbekistan are, I can't honestly say that average rainfall or temps would be different there if the Soviets hadn't embarked on their mad cotton scheme. I maintain that we are as nothing compared to the changes the Sun and Earth themselves can wreak upon us.

But I've digressed a little here. My main contentions are that 1- we're going to get warmer and 2- there is damn-all we can do to stop it.

The contention that is being held out to the masses by some policymakers is that we can have immediate effects on global climate. Goals of x degrees celcius of global cooling... What rubbish! If we're still coming out of the Little Ice Age, then no amount of emissions reduction is going to stop it. Why then cripple the economies that stand the best chance of coming to grips with the new ecological realities to be foisted upon us by Gaia?

If the alarmists are right about the effects of a temperature increase then we're going to need the genius and money of the First World to come up with ways we can all survive the changes.

Not that we couldn't stand to change our approach to energy for reasons I've already enumerated in an earlier post...I just object to the public policies that are swirling around the dialectic.

I'll use an obviously flawed metaphor. I see the First World as a 13 year old girl being told that she must adopt a vegan lifestyle now, today!, or she'll get fat and ugly. Now this girl is already overweight and wealthy and feels guilt about both of those facts. A vegan lifestyle would be excellent for her on many different levels and she'd benefit tremendously from cutting out junk food and getting some exercise. But the people selling the vegan lifestyle are particularly smarmy. They want her money to provide her with hideously overpriced vegan meals. Not only that, they want her to quit school and get a job to provide them with more money to research her condition and better recipes.

Now the beauty of this is that girl isn't done growing yet. Her gaining weight and going through the usual womanly changes are inevitable. But every pound, every pimple, every change in dress size will be instantly seized upon as evidence that the vegan pushers were right all along. Any improvement can be waved off by pointing to another factor. "You've lost some thigh fat, sure, but look at how your hips have flared! You aren't the girl you used to be are you tubby?" Thus turning the natural changes in the girl into horrifying exemplars of her egregious lifestyle and reasons that they need her money in perpetuity; all the while playing on her negative self-image, guilt, and obvious problems.

I recognize that a warming change in the Earth's climate is happening and has been happening naturally for decades. But I can also recognize scams that try to take advantage of that fact.