A long series on climate change

[Rivington]

Academics from spurious academic disciplines sign open letters to lend the weight of their credentials to their political opinions all the time. People should see it for what it is when they're presented a long list of names and faculties backing a 'scientific consensus'.

Nice rhetorical card-palming there. The open letter states that there is a consensus, it is not itself presenting its signatories as proof of the consensus. (Hint #1 of course is that most of the signatories are working in or around Australia.)

It's pretty easy, actually, to find secondary data analysis to measure the amount of consensus among client scientists. Here's the abstract of one from last year: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/20...87107.abstract

Compare this to the unsourced claims of conspiracy, and an undetailed appeal to "interactions" with meteorologists, from Dr. Gray quoted above.

[Cullion]

Nice rhetorical card-palming there. The open letter states that there is a consensus, it is not itself presenting its signatories as proof of the consensus.

Yes it is. It's an attempt to establish credibility for an opinion by the use of academic credentials.

It's pretty easy, actually, to find secondary data analysis to measure the amount of consensus among client scientists.

Science is not a democracy.

Compare this to the unsourced claims of conspiracy, and an undetailed appeal to "interactions" with meteorologists, from Dr. Gray quoted above.

You must have missed the CRU leaks and the New Zealand court case. There is nothing unsourced here.

[W. Rabbit]

Science is not a democracy.

Ah but scientific "consensus" is a democratic process where everyone brings their science to the table and they basically try to agree on what the best data is, using the best info they have available.

This is why I don't trust Prof. Gray...if you read into his works, he's essentially dismissing the science performed by the rest of the world (ie IPCC)...if it isn't American Science, it's Fake. At least that is what I take away from Gray. He seems to always do more ranting about how all his opponents have drunk the Kool Aid than actually take part in the WORLDWIDE research on the issue.

You must have missed the CRU leaks and the New Zealand court case.

The CRU scientists, while chastised by their peers for poor professionalism, were exonerated from any sort of cover up. They did some number fudging to make graphs look more favorable toward man-made climate change, but once removed....the basic climate science still stood.

But boy, Fox News kept that story about CRU up for a long time...crossing their fingers probably.

[Rivington]

Yes it is. It's an attempt to establish credibility for an opinion by the use of academic credentials.

Yup. What it's not, however, is "the basis of the 'scientific consensus' this article trumpets on its first page" which you claimed it was in your first post. I acknowledge your backpedal as an admission of the same.

Science is not a democracy.

If there's another better way to determine what results the research points to other than looking at the research and seeing how much of the high-quality stuff points in some direction, please detail your methodology. You should find yourself with an endowed chair at any university you like by September. Science certainly doesn't involve determining which scientist you believe based on your pre-existing political framework. If you can articulate an actual critique of climate-modeling—and of course any model or set of models is going to have problems, which is why people look to see what multiple sets of scientists are doing with multiple methods—let's hear it. If not, guess what, you are playing the "AM radio" game after all.

You must have missed the CRU leaks and the New Zealand court case.

I didn't, actually. If you found the CRU emails somehow a compelling demonstration of a global warming hoax, you didn't actually play close attention to how it played out.

[Cullion]

Yup. What it's not, however, is "the basis of the 'scientific consensus' this article trumpets on its first page" which you claimed it was in your first post. I acknowledge your backpedal as an admission of the same.

The article is entitled "Climate change is real: an open letter from the scientific community", and then the first item is the very letter.

The rheotorical device is very clear. 'Oh but I meant a different consensus'. You are the one back pedalling.

If there's another better way to determine what results the research points to other than looking at the research and seeing how much of the high-quality stuff points in some direction, please detail your methodology. You should find yourself with an endowed chair at any university you like by September. Science certainly doesn't involve determining which scientist you believe based on your pre-existing political framework. If you can articulate an actual critique of climate-modeling—and of course any model or set of models is going to have problems, which is why people look to see what multiple sets of scientists are doing with multiple methods—let's hear it. If not, guess what, you are playing the "AM radio" game after all.

Science is based on falsifiable predictions. If 1000 leading astronomers agree that light isn't warped by the presence of a massive object, and your theory predicts just that to be detectable during an eclipse, which is then detected, then you have a better theory than the 1000 worthies. This is the scientific method at it's heart. It's laughable that you think only people who disagree with this hypothesis are basing their opinion on their political affiliations.

Why don't you list the falsifiable predictions of this hypothesis for us.

I didn't, actually. If you found the CRU emails somehow a compelling demonstration of a global warming hoax, you didn't actually play close attention to how it played out.

Yes, yes I did.
I hope you're not about to claim exoneration by Muir Russell et al.

Go on, do it.

[W. Rabbit]

Science is based on falsifiable predictions. If 1000 leading astronomers agree that light isn't warped by the presence of a massive object, and your theory predicts just that to be detectable during an eclipse, which is then detected then you have a better theory than the 1000 worthies.

You just referenced Sir Arthur Eddington's work, one of my science heroes.

It's true that without Eddington's work filming starlight during eclipses, that Einstein's theories of relativity would have failed to be accepted by the physics community that was literally poised to dismiss relativity (and had already kind of done so) because no experiments had successfully proven them, and past experiments filming eclipses had actually appeared to DISPROVE relativity!

Eddington literally beat the clock by traveling across the globe to film an eclipse and successfully supported relativity theory with good data, causing the physics community to do an abrupt about-face and accept relativity as a fundamental part of the Universe.

Varrot for you, sir, all things considered.

[WhiteShark]

Climate change science that doesn't consider the sun and water vapor is a steaming pile of ****. When I read long articles that never mention anything but Carbon (instead of saying Carbon Dioxide) and rule out methane and other green house gases in the first paragraph I get pretty skeptical about the whole thing.

I was a hardcore believer about 5 years ago but the more I research stuff without the help of commercial media outlets the more I doubt the DEGREE of human contribution to current global temperatures.

[Cullion]

The CRU scientists, while chastised by their peers for poor professionalism, were exonerated from any sort of cover up. They did some number fudging to make graphs look more favorable toward man-made climate change, but once removed....the basic climate science still stood.

They were 'exonerated' by people with conflicts of interest (extensive financial ties to companies profiting from heavily subsidised renewable energy initiatives).

E.g. Lord Oxburgh's conflicts of interest:-
President of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association
Chairman of wind energy firm Falck Renewables
A member of the Green Fiscal Commission

..and admitted in writing to not examining the actual science.

It’s not our job to audit CRU’s scientific conclusions. That would require a different set of skills and resources.

The request to delete all emails in case an FOI request was submitted, by itself, is clear evidence of intent to deceive the public.

The conclusions do not remain in place after 'minor tidying up', and I'm not sure where you got that impression.

[W. Rabbit]

Personally, my position as an astrophysics geek is that the Sun contributes 99.999% of the temperature of the Earth in any given year.

I am in line with the current IPCC report. Worldwide, it represents the largest most collective effort to analyze the situation.

Could a single detractor prove them all wrong? I guess it is possible, but I'm still waiting to hear why the last few years have been the hottest on human record and storm systems are wilder than anyone can remember, meanwhile people like Gray are claiming we will be entering a cooling period. If the global temperature starts to drop like Gray says it will over the next 10-15 years, he'll be exonerated and the IPCC will look foolish.

But something tells me the IPCC is very aware of the potential of looking foolish and so that explains the vast time, money, resources, and experts being given to the problem.

[Cullion]

They don't demonstrate a meaningful trend unless you genuinely believe that a sample of ~120 years is of statistical significance in geological time.