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What an interesting post by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.!
January 20, 2010 — xanthippaThere is very little my commentary could add to this most interesting post!
Systematic Misrepresentation of the Science of Disasters and Climate Change
It was written in June 2009 – long before the infamous CRU emails were published by a whistle-blower. The tone, the exact wording, the systematic presentation of evidence of the flaws in the IPCC review process and why it is broken.
I had come across it while following a link from his current post about the IPCC knowingly misrepresenting the whole Himalayan glacier melting…
He describes a pattern that is more disturbing than many observers realize: instead of re-butting, debunking or answering much of the most serious, scientifically supported criticisms directed at the IPCC reports (all of them), the IPCC simply ignores them. Refuses to acknowledge that the criticism was even made….and, since there is no ‘noise’, nobody reports on it….and nobody ever learns of the criticism. That’s what we get for drawing our journalists from the among ‘social sciences’ majors!
But, back to the Himalayan glacier story: the IPCC’s ‘consensus of the world’s scientists’ that the ‘Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035’ – and which was blindly accepted and repeated by the media – was based on a journalist’s mis-quotation of a scientist, published in a news paper…not a study, not a scientific paper, not peer-reviewed, not published in a scientific journal…. Just a single mis-quotation of a single scientist, by a single reporter, in a non-scientific publication….
What is worse, Dr. Pielke Jr. points out, the error was reported within the frame of the IPCC review, prior to publication, by scientists who were IPCC reviewers, but it was not corrected. It was just ignored. And, despite this, the IPCC’s lead scientist, Dr. Ragendra Pachauri (reportedly soon to beat out Al Gore to become the world’s first ‘carbon-cap-trading billionaire’), vigorously defended the ‘Himalayan glacier melt’ claim as ‘scientific consensus’ even recently….
Dr. Pielke Jr. correctly points out: either Dr. Pachauri knew about this mistake, or he did not. Given the evidence Dr. Pirlke Jr. presents, it is hard to say which is worse…
Update: fixed a broken link – thanks.
UPDATE: MORE ON THIS FROM ‘THE REFERENCE FRAME’, AND DR. ROGER PIELKE JR.’S BLOG HERE, HERE… the IPCC statement….and from Watts Up With That.…the skeptical blogosphere is abuzz…
A letter to Mr. Prentice, Minister of the Environment
December 4, 2009 — xanthippaDear Mr. Prentice,
Recently, you have said that, despite the leaked documents from CRU (and, the latest evidence suggests they were not hacked, but leaked by a conscientious whistle-blower), your position remains:
With the Copenhagen conference coming up, Mr. Minister, I would like to most emphatically point out that the science has never been ‘relatively clear’, at least not clear in support of the claim that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is the driving force behind climate change.
There has clearly been a very lively scientific debate since these ACC claims have first been made.
On the one hand, there is the series of IPCC reports, the latest of which claims the support of 2,500 scientists and policymakers. If this is a matter of numbers – which is something measurable – then let’s contrast this 2,500 scientists and policymakers versus the 31,486 scientists (including 9,029 with PhDs) who have signed a petition disagreeing with this claim, because in their expert opinions, the scientific evidence does not support the ACC claim.
Just because very many of scientists think something is right, it does not makes it so: I am simply bringing this to your attention as proof that there has never been a consensus among scientists on the topic of anthropogenic climate change. With 2,500 saying ‘yes’ and 31,486 saying ‘no’, it is clear that the ‘science’ has not been proven and that the debate has never been ‘settled’.
Please note – this petition predates any of the current scandals (the Dr. Jones CRU team, the Dr. Mann data, the Dr. Wang data, or even the Danish cap-and-trade scandal)
Something else that many people have been very uncomfortable with – for a very long time – is the militant way in which those supporting ACC claims have behaved: some people have labeled them ‘warm-mongers’, because of their bellicosity! Dr. Suzuki, for example, a once-respected scientist, has even called for jailing people who have different opinions from his!
That is not how scientists behave. It is not just ‘the heat of the issue’ or its importance: this is contrary to the very rules of scientific behaviour. Perhaps the greatest physicist of the 20th century, Dr. Richard Feynman, explained this very clearly:
As you see, Mr. Minister Prentice, we do not have all the facts, the science is not clear – relatively or otherwise. No conservationist and no responsible environmental steward would make decisions or commitments based on unsettled science and uncertain data!
Please, keep that in mind during the Copenhagen conference: my children’s future depends on it!
Sincerely yours,
Xanthippa
[well, actually, I used my real-life name….and provided contact info, just in case…]
The ‘Tree Ring Circus’: what does ‘divergence of the proxy’ mean?
November 26, 2009 — xanthippaWith the ‘leaked emails’ confirmed as authentic, many experts are sifting through the materials and analyzing them.
One thing which has been highlighted was the discussion about tree ring studies, from which the (now infamous – you can get T-shirts with it) ‘hide the decline’ phrase comes from. Here, I would like to explain what the ‘tree ring’ and ‘multi-proxy reconstruction’ thing is all about, and why it really, really matters.
When constructing the graphs of global temperatures, the scientists ran into a tiny little problem: how do we know what the Earth’s temperature was like, say, 1 500 years ago? There were no ‘standardized measurements’…. So, how do we ‘know’?
Aside: my explanation is going to be a simplification for the sake or clarity, which runs the danger of being an over-simplification. Please, consider it to be a starting point for your own inquiry, not anything more.
The idea is that there are other ‘indicators’ of the Earth’s temperature than just ‘direct measurements’, like we can make today.
For example, ‘tree ring data’. Each year’s growth can be measured on each tree, because tree-trunks grow radially outwards: the latest year adds the newest (out-most) ring to the tree. By looking at the rings, scientists can see which ones are thicker (meaning that the tree added ‘more growth’ that year) and which ones are thinner (meaning the tree grew less that year).
The reasoning goes something like this:
- The years when the weather is nice and warm, plants do well and grow more.
- Trees are plants, therefore trees do well grow more: the warmer a year it was, the bigger the tree’s growth ring for that year will be!
- Therefore, looking back and comparing the size of tree rings will tell us when it was warmer and colder.
Sounds good, right?
So, that is what they did.
(By ‘they’, I mean the scientists who promote the ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’ agenda and on whose scientific work the current political policies are based. I shall refer to them as ‘the IPCC cabal’.)
They took core samples of very, very old trees and looked at their rings, counted the years and centuries, compared them, analyzed them, assigned temperature values to various ring thicknesses – and they came up with a nifty little graph. Because it does not measure the temperature directly, but uses a ‘proxy’ (a substitute) – the growth of trees – this nifty little curve was included on the graph they submitted to the IPCC report as one of the ‘proxies’ for actual temperature records from long ago.
Except that….
During the time period when we have had the most reliable, actual temperature readings, say, from 1960 to now, the tree ring growth did not correspond to the temperatures the scientists measured!
To the contrary: while these scientists measured an in increase in temperatures, the tree ring ‘record’ from 1960 to now shows a DECLINE in temperatures!
The scientists did notice this divergence: one set of readings went up, the other down. That can clearly be seen from the email exchanges between them – and from the graphs they exchanged, which I linked to above. Now, at this point, a real scientist would look at their data and say: “We have actual, measured temperatures going up, while the temperatures reconstructed from tree-ring temperatures are going down! Obviously, there are other factors at play here: either some of our measurements are wrong, or the method how we are using to figure out temperatures from tree rings is wrong. Therefore, either have to figure out what we are missing or figure out where we have made a mistake: either way, this data cannot be used as is!”
Alas, that is not what happened.
Instead, they decided that since the first ‘divergent’ year that the ‘common data’ was available for both the actual measured temperatures and the tree-ring proxy temperatures was 1960nto now, they would simply stop showing the tree-ring data from 1960 on!!!
Then, nobody could tell that the tree-ring data showed something different than what they were claiming! This is hard to believe. Please, consider the picture below:
The bigger graph was what these people submitted to the IPCC thing.
The picture on the right (or below – depending on your browser and settings) is a close-up of the last few decades of the graph. It shows the actual temperatures measured in modern times (black), and the ‘proxy’ temperatures as they were gleaned by the ‘scientists’ for the past dozen or so centuries.
The ‘tree-ring data’ – the temperatures they figured out the Earth ‘had to have been’ based on the thickness of the tree-rings from those years – is the pale blue line.
When one looks at the enlarged view of the graph, it becomes obvious that that line stops a few decades before the other ones do: 1960, to be exact…. And, the email exchanges show that the only reason that this data was excluded – why the line was not continued – was not because they did not have the data….it was because they did not like what the data showed!!!
And THAT is FRAUD!
By excluding the data, by stopping the blue line on that graph in 1960, even though the data since then exists, the IPCC Cabal of scientists PROVED they knew they were committing fraud!
And THAT is why so many respectable scientists are so very, very angry.
Disappointed, and angry.
Note: the formatting of this post got ‘messed up’, so, I edited it to fix it. Aside from formatting (and this note), the post has not been altered.
Feynman says: good science demands scrutiny!
November 25, 2009 — xanthippaOur policymakers have all been coerced, in one way or another, to ‘accept’ (or, at least, pay lip service to) the assertions that the Earth is getting warmer and warmer, and that we, humans, are the cause of it.
These policies are largely based on the UN’s series of IPCC reports on Global Warming/Climate Change which claim that there is a scientific concensus that the Earth is warming and that the increase of CO2 due to human activity is the cause.
Recently released documents (originally hacked, but since verified as authentic) have demonstrated that many of the scientists who produced the studies which demonstrated this ‘CO2 forced (caused) climate change’ have refused to release their data for scrutiny by other scientists: they have even stated they would rather destroy their original data than permit other scientists to analyze it!
And, they have been caught hiding data which would contradict their official findings….
So, what would Richard Feynman – in my never-humble-opinion, THE most brilliant scientist to have ever walked this Earth – say about this?
Lubo Motl, of The Reference Frame, reminds us of Richard Feynman’s famous commencement speech at CalTech in 1974 , in which Dr. Feynman discusses ‘cargo cult science’ and how it is gaining a hold in our mainstream education and science…. The whole speech is an excellent read! Still, this is perhaps the most salient point he makes:
It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards.
For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can–if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong–to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
And, Dr. Motl asks:
Do you think the e-mails indicate that the climate scientists have followed the same principles?
ACC scientists’ fraud fallout: the lawsuits are starting!
November 24, 2009 — xanthippaWhile much of the mainstream media (MSM) is still sounding apoplectic apologetic about the ‘Global Warming Guilt’ scientists being caught in large scale fraud and subversion of the peer-review process, the documents leaked last week from UK’s University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) (I so do not want to use the term ‘ClimateGate’!), others are not so idle.
‘Watts Up With That?’, a well-regarded blog run by the outspoken and highly respected Anthony Watts, posted a story by Chris Horner of The American Spectator, entitled: ‘CEI Files Notice of Intent to Sue NASA GISS’.
Why, and how is it important?
CEI is the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, which has focused on verifying whether or not ‘the government’ is releasing accurate statements, especially when it comes to issues with impact as pervasive as ‘Global Warming’ or ‘AGW’ or ‘ACC’ (whatever you want to call it).
NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (yes, the astronaut people) and GISS is NASA’s Goddart Institute for Space Studies. And, in their own words, “Research at GISS emphasizes a broad study of global climate change.”
Dr. Hansen heads up GISS, and is perhaps one of the best known voices on this side of the Atlantic pond (aside from politicians and celebs) calling for drastic action to save us all from the inevitable catastrophe caused by man-made ‘climate change’.
The article starts out:
Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies’ refusal – for nearly three years – to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding “ClimateGate” scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries’ freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer codes and other data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK’s East Anglia University.
So – this is why it matters:
‘Good scientists’ – even the CRU scientists know this, as per the leaked documents – always hand over the ‘raw data’ (that means, exactly as it was collected (along with the methodology used, conditions under which it was collected), before it was processed or ‘normalized’ (scientific meaning of the word) in any way-shape-or-form), what they did with it and why, and their results along with their hypothesis and conclusions when they submit their work for peer-review.
This is really, really important: errors or mistakes (not to mention fraud) can occur at any point of the work. It can occur at the very point of data-collection. For example, if a thermocouple ‘x’ were used to measure temperatures at 5 out of 15 points, and thermocouple ‘y’ was collected for the rest, it will be necessary for any reviewer to read up on both thermocouples to make sure they behave exactly the same way under all conditions.
Simplification: consider 2 thermometers commonly used to measure fever. One is an old fashioned mercury one, the other is the modern, stick-in-the-ear one. If one takes a child’s temperature using the ear thermometer, they may get a different temperature than if they use the old-fashioned mercury one under the child’s arm. Therefore, one would have to document taking the child’s temperature simultaneously with both temperatures and record the readings. Then, one would ‘analyze the difference’ between the readings to see what the difference in readings is. Then, if one recorded 5 temperatures with the ear thermometer, and 15 with the mercury one, then one would have to ‘normalize’ one set of the readings (by adding or subtracting the ‘normal difference’ between their readings) before one could lump all 20 together as one dataset.
When doing peer-review of another scientist’s work, making sure there were no errors or mistakes in how the data was collected (like lumping together readings from the two thermometers in the example above), that there were no mistakes in making any ‘normalization’, and so on. And, since errors or mistakes can occur at any point from here on, all the ‘work’ has to be subjected to scrutiny by one’s peers.
‘Good scientists’ consider this to be a necessary part of any peer-review process.
Yet, the ‘leaked documents’ demonstrate that many of their studies, on which so much policy is being based, have been submitted for ‘peer-review’ without supplying any of their actual data to the peer doing the reviewing!
That means that their work was not FULLY ‘peer-reviewed’!
That means we ought not put much weight in that body of work!
But, even worse: the leaked emails show that, in multiple instances, some of these ‘alarmist scientists’ stated they would rather delete their data than release it for scientific review!!!
That is NOT what ‘good scientists’ do!
Which brings us to the point of the Notice of Intent to File Suit:
CEI, using ‘Freedom of Information Act’ FoIA, requested GISS to release much of the data it used to make its predictions of doom and cataclysms. It appears that, for years, GISS has not released it.
In addition, CEI appears to have requested access to the records of ‘discussions’ between various GISS employees about how the data was collected, processed and analyzed. It would seem that they requested sort of similar-type material like was leaked, except from GISS instead of CRU. And, it appears that GISS has not released it, either.
And, though I am no lawyer and people ought to draw their own conclusions, but it does seem to me that CEI is citing the information from the ‘leaked files’ that this ‘cabal of scientists’ was willing to deleted information requested under FoIA (which might constitute a pattern of behaviour among this group of scientists) to put NASA’s GISS on notice that if they do not release the requested information (as the law demands they do), they will indeed face a lawsuit.
As they say, we do live in interesting times…
IPCC scientists, hacked emails and largescale fraud
November 23, 2009 — xanthippaBy now, most people are aware that the University East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has had their database hacked and tons of documents – including emails between scientists (if one can use that term, in light of the ‘now confirmed’ information revealed therein) which contain some extremely incriminating evidence of scientific fraud, collusion to defraud the public and systematic efforts to subvert the scientific ‘peer review’ process and turn it from an objective assessment into partisan shill.
To me, the last one is the most serious. But, first I have to ask: how come this has not been the leading story in every newspaper and newsprogram everywhere?
Most people have only had a chance to come across a few apologetic articles, like this one in the New York Times, which present tiny snippets of the information unearthed (I condemn the means – let’s get that straight from the beginning – but now that the info is out there, we must assess it), without reasonable context, in order to explain it away as ‘harmless’ and thus diffuse any resulting criticism. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!
I first came across this at The Reference Frame, and I recommend it for the following reasons: Mr. ReferenceFrame himself taught Physics at MIT. Dr. Lubos Motl is a respected Physicist in his own right, with ties and connections with scientists all over the globe. These, he put to good use himself, verifying whether or not the data the hackers leaked is genuine or not and whether what it reveals can be trusted. As a Physicist, he is much more thorough in this than I would trust most journalists to be, he has the knowledge to evaluate ‘things’, and, let’s face it, as ‘one of them’, most scientists will be more comfortable and open discussing things with him. (The corollary, of course, is that many ‘bad’ scientists will feel more threatened by him because he’s trained to detect any scientific BS!)
Plus, he is updating his post to include the latest bits…
AND, he has posted a comprehensive list of sites which are analyzing/discussing this. Again, I much recommend it… overall, I find his post to be a most useful frame of reference!
In case the absence of the mass media coverage on this topic has left you wondering what it is I am jabbering on about, here is the tip of the proverbial (and growing, not melting) iceberg:
If you would like to check through all the ‘leaked documents’, you can download them from Junk Science, or Friends of Science. Or, look through the database Lubo Motl provides on The Reference Frame: it is excellent. There are many well written blogs (as opposed to news stories(!)) that give the ‘scoop’ on this!
What the emails appear to have revealed:
- data had been altered to ‘hide cooling’
- data had been forged to demonstrate a ‘warming trend’
- Scientists lamented that their data did not demonstrate the conclusions they wanted: this is nothing new. What is new is that they sought advice from each other how to fiddle the data in order to hide what it shows and instead conform to their desired conclusion
- Scientists threatened to destroy data rather than permit other scientists examine the un-altered dataset on which their study is based (this is an essential part of the peer review process – without examining the raw data, another scientist cannot possibly assess if it had been processed ‘correctly’: it is unthinkable that a proper peer review could possibly be done without examining the raw data
- Scientists knowingly passed only the data that supported ‘Global Warming’ on to the IPCC panel for evaluation, suppressing existing data that opposed it.
- Scientists intentionally manipulated ‘impartial’ scientists performing peer review on studies which had findings which did not support AGW/ACC point of view, tricking them into rejecting non-AGW/ACC supporting studies…
All this is bad. Very bad. BUT – and this is, in my never-humble-opinion, is something so vile and unforgivable, I am having trouble wrapping my brain around it: THEY COLLUDED TO SUBVERT THE SCIENTIFIC PEER REVIEW PROCESS!!!
Why is subverting the peer review process the thing that upsets me so much?
Because if people do ‘bad science’ – the peers reviewing it will, eventually, catch it and expose it.
Because if people are committing scientific fraud – the peers reviewing it will, eventually, catch it and expose it, and ruin the reputation of the scientist committing it.
Because if there is a group of scientists conspiring to defraud everyone – the peers reviewing it may take a while to catch on, but, eventually, they will catch it, expose it and make sure these conspirators never get near any science again!
The scientific peer review process relies on the honesty and integrity of scientists. It is nothing more – and nothing less – than, when one writes up one’s experiment/scientific study, one submits BOTH the write-up AND all the supporting data and materials to other scientists who have expertise in this field. These other scientists read the experiment’s/study’s hypothesis, then they examine the methodology used, data (the actual, physical data that was collected, the method/means it was collected by, the ‘controls’ that were placed to limit other possible factors that might affect the data and so on, the methodologies and techniques used to analyze the data, and so on) and then they analyze whether or not the data, collected in the way it was, analyzed as it was, supports the hypothesis as proposed.
It is not an easy process – and it relies heavily on the integrity of the ‘peers’ doing the ‘review’!
That is why it is so highly valued!
There is no fame or fortune in it, yet it is hard (and necessary) work! That is why most scientists take ‘peer review’ at face value!
By showing that this very process which is supposed to test (and thus assure) the integrity of scientific findings can be subverted, and subverted so easily, these people have ended the ‘age of innocence’ among the scientific community!
To sum it up – they have falsified science (and manipulated policymakers) in order to increase their own funding, they have subverted (and thus for ever destroyed the credibility of) the scientific peer review process and utterly destroyed the credibility of science and scientists!
I wish I could think of names vile enough to call them – but, there are none! Their names will go down in history and become the worst possible insults a person can be called!
I see a black (car) door and I want it painted red?!?!?
March 28, 2009 — xanthippaCalifornia is seriously considering banning ‘black and dark-coloured cars’, on the grounds that since they heat up faster, their carbon footprint is unnecessarily high.
If that were not enough, apparently, they have already done so with their buildings!
All right: I am seriously considering banning California, on the grounds that since they are passing laws like these, their ‘idiot footprint’ is unnecessarily high!
Hat tip: Dvorak Uncensored
If a tree falls in the forest….
August 27, 2008 — xanthippaHaving spent time in such serene surroundings like this:
Canada has magnificent trees.
…is it not surprising that my mind had taken a break from the ‘everyday’ and slipped into a bit of philosophising?
If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is there to hear it, would it make a sound?
In the past, when discussing this with my kids and husband, we have invariably fallen into the pitfalls like, for example, trying to define what does ‘sound’ mean: is it simply the movement of air molecules in a particular way, or does it have to be ‘perceived’ by human ears? (If it is recorded, then the sound we hear is made by the recorder, not the tree…and endless possibilities along these chains of thoughts.)
This year, I began so see it from a different perspective…
Richard Feynman is perhaps my favourite genius of the 20th century – and I am convinced he is an ‘Aspie’ to boot! ( Just reading his most awesome book, ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!’, is an excellent lesson in how an ‘Aspie’ mind organizes thoughts and commits them onto paper – plus it is fun and curiously comforting to read). In his Lectures (available as podcasts, and ideal for relaxing with while ‘away from it all’), specifically, in the ‘Quantum Mechanics’ lecture, he also visits this question about the proverbial tree falling in the forest…
Dr. Feynman gives some very specific qualifications regarding this issue: he would not be a physicist had he not done that. He states that in the real world, even if there is no observer when the tree falls, there are still unmistakable physical signgs that it had, indeed, made a sound. These signs, perhaps as minute as little scratches from vibrating leaves/needles as the sound energy is transferred to them, could then be observed after the event itself and the presence of such sound would be conclusively demonstrated. Thus, he concludes that ‘in a real world, of course, a tree falling in a forest makes a sound‘.
He is, of course, absolutely correct – given the qualifications he does.
Yet, listening to him made me think that perhaps his ‘after the fact observer’ – as our familial discussions from the past – were really missing the whole point of the question!
Whether during the act of the tree falling, or afterwards; directly or through recording devices of some sort (even leaves and needles) – this introduces an observer. And the fact remains that if an observer is present, and the original condition (or, rather, its intent) is breeched.
Yes, I’ll gladly concede that in the real world, it might be impossible to have a ‘no observer’ scenario – but that is not the point. The question asks us about a hypothetical situation, where no observation (during or after the event) occurred (even had it been possible).
Let us imagine an observer who makes a direct observation that 999 trees, as they fell, indeed did make a sound. Then the observer leaves, and our proverbial tree falls. No observation as to the sound of any kind had been made during the event. The scene has since been altered so much that no additional evidence can be gathered. How can we answer the question now? Did our proverbial tree make a sound, or not?
And this, in my never-humble-opinion, is the crux, the core, of this principle: one can only say that one does not know.
It would be reasonable to predict that it is highly likely that the tree had made a sound, based on previous observations. But one would not know !
This is the difference between direct observation and a guess. Perhaps it might be an ‘educated guess’ (based on the previous 999 observations) , but it is still only a guess. And that is the whole point: to get us to stop and think, to learn to recognize that difference between what we know and what we are making educated guesses about (or a semi-educated guess about).
One of my sons thought this simply reduced the question to the ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ scenario, but I think there is a difference. This is not about probability curves and their collapses, this is about learning to recognize the blinders we all wear which let us treat guesses (whether ors or those of others) as equally valid to observed facts.
And it is about time that some of these blinders statred coming off!
After all, guesses, even educated ones, are not facts – and we must not fall into the easy trap of treating them as such. Especially in cases where the guess is not based on 999 direct observations of this very event…or not on even one such event having ever happened!
Which leads me to the next question: If the global temperatures change by 0.6 of a degree, and no well-financed lobby group is there to use it as a pretext to organize a scare-mongering, funds-transfering campaign, would anyone notice?
Perspective - we all need it!
Observations do not match IPCC’s predictions
July 14, 2008 — xanthippaThis is the beauty of ‘scientific theories’!
In order for something to qualify as a ‘scientific theory’, it must include a set of predictions of ‘actions or reactions’, which will prove or disprove said theory. Though not usually well understood, this is what makes ‘scientific theories’ ‘respectable’.
The IPCC’s report formulated a theory. This theory predicted that due to human activity, there has been (and continues to be) an increase in the Carbon Dioxide levels in our atmosphere, AND that this difference is CAUSING specific, observable changes in world climate. It then makes a set of specific predictions of how the climate will change as a result of this.
OK. So far, so good.
Now, back when it came out, there were a LOT of us criticizing the IPCC’s report. Whether it was: their methodology, their underlying data – whatever the causes, there was much criticism. This was answered by the supporters of the IPCC report in various ways, which were not always satisfactory. Much bickering ensued.
But, all this is slowly and surely becoming irrelevant, thanks to the IPCC’s report itself. WHY? Because of the predictions it made. The very ones which – if observed to occur – will confirm that the IPCC report was accurate and the critics were full of dingo’s kidneys. If, on the other hand, observations are made which are NOT in agreement with the IPCC report’s predictions, it proves the sceptics were correct and that the IPCC report itself is a load of dingo’s kidneys!
Well, over the last little while, much data has indeed been coming in. Like, loads of it. And, as many actua scientists (as opposed to advisors to policymakers) had predicted, the bits which ‘fail to support the IPCC report’s predictions’ are the ones most favourable to that ‘report’. Most of the data coming our actually directly contradicts it….
Here is just the tip of the iceberg:
‘Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered’
Abstract
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions probably caused more than half of the “global warming” of the past 50 years and would cause further rapid warming. However, global mean surface temperature has not risen since 1998 and may have fallen since late 2001. The present analysis suggests that the failure of the IPCC’s models to predict this and many other climatic phenomena arises from defects in its evaluation of the three factors whose product is climate sensitivity:
- Radiative forcing ΔF;
- The no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter κ; and
- The feedback multiplier ƒ.
Some reasons why the IPCC’s estimates may be excessive and unsafe are explained. More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no “climate crisis”, and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful.
Just in case you like ‘graphic representations’, the article has some nifty graphs. Not as alarmist as Mr. Gore’s graphs were, but they DO show actual temperature measurements: please, follow the link to the article and look at them….using plain linear regression, they demonstrate the temperatures are going down…
According to the IPCC’s graphs, these should be going up. And, before you say ‘this is natural variation and does not prove anything’, let me point out that the IPCC’s predictions say these graphs cover a long enough period to demonstrate warming.
The article then inclused more colourful and pretty charts, diagrams and graphs, a ‘ton’ of actual physics, and comes up with this closing statement:
In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.
Thanks to Jenifer Marohasy for the story! But that site also had another interesting article: ‘Global Warming is a myth: a Note from Jim Peden’. It has a respected physicist, looking not at ‘climate change’ itself, but analyzing the physics of the very mechanism that the ACC crowd claims is responsible for ‘Greenhouse gasses’ causing ‘Global Warming’. This is how it starts:
As a dissenting physicist, I simply can no longer buy the notion that CO2 produces any significant warming of the atmosphere at any rate.
I’ve studied the atomic absorption physics to death, from John Nicol’s extensive development to the much longer winded dissertation by Gerlich & Tscheuschner and everything in between, it simply doesn’t add up.
In case you are not familiar with the claims made by the ACC crowd, they say that the atoms of ‘greenhouse gasses’ absorb energy in the visible and UV spectrum, break it down into smaller bits (heat) which they then release, and which are then ‘trapped’ in our atmosphere. Here, a physicist who specializes in atomic absorption (and is respected and recognized as an expert in this), calls their claims a load of dingo’s kidneys….
Gosh, I hope everyone loves kidney pie!
Please note: the original post contained an unjustified statement by me, where I jumped to conclusions instead of properly checking my sources. This was spotted by ‘tamino’, who commented on it. Many thanks for his help, as getting the correct information is essential. The incorrect claim has been removed.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Viscount Moncton, author of the American Physical Society’s ‘Forum on Physics & Society’ article, which is the 1st of the articles I linked to and quoted from, has some questions for the American Physical Society…. (via SmallDeadAnimals and TheCorner)
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 