Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by The Dude » Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:31 pm

So just to get this clear in my addled brain; "SDN tactics" is just another way to say "arsehole"?

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:15 pm

"Arsehole" scarcely begins to cover it. I'm an arsehole. The CRU guys are also arseholes, but more than that they are sloppy lying defrauding defaming thugs who aren't qualified to be lab rats.

"SDN tactics" was merely shorthand to give the flavor of just how bad the CRU guys are.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:34 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:In the big picture, though, the case for man-made global warming is strong, and it's been getting stronger every year as more data becomes available. We know exactly how CO2 can trap additional heat, from how it interacts with different frequencies of light. We know exactly where extra CO2 is coming from. We don't know where it's all going - there are some unexplained (and irregular-seeming) absorption mechanisms that make things difficult to model. We also know that ocean pH is shifting, which, as I mentioned previously, I find more alarming than temperature shifts.
The claim that CO2 can create higher temps has some persuasive arguments behind it, but as yet there is no evidence in the real world that CO2 -> higher temps. If anything, we've seen higher temps in advance of CO2 rises, historically, not to mention the assorted warmings that had absolutely no relationship to CO2 whatsoever.

Put simply, there is a theoretical mechanism, and sporadic correlation, but no evidence of causation (and evidence against).
I recommend reading RealClimate's take on it if you would like to have a balanced view after the WSJ article (and RealClimate has actually posted a link to what seems to be the e-mails in question, no "hack" required), but the fact of the matter is that the facts themselves remain independent of the techniques used to argue for them.
I read that a few days ago. RealClimate's response is incredibly weak . . . understandable, since CRU is indefensible.

For instance, the HARRY_READ_ME file is glossed over as issues "presumably fixed", yet you can see in the file itself that this can't be so.

The "hide the decline" by not using the particular tree ring data after 1960 because it doesn't match the preferred station data adjustments is defended on the grounds that someone suggested not using it in a paper, with no explanation as to the mechanics of how it could be wrong. And yet we're supposed to keep using those same hand-selected 12 tree ring cores for everything prior to 1960 with no reservations? It doesn't even make internal sense, much less making sense in regards to its contradiction with their adjusted station data.

And their CRU data accessibility point is the same Jones-stated BS he concocted as an excuse in the e-mails, which is fabulous.

And, of course, there's no mention whatsoever of the sloppy code that doesn't work correctly, unknown data sets, fudge factors, knowingly made up information, hard-coded fake tweaks that make the earlier times cooler and later times warmer, and all the other bones of contention. And that's just from HARRY_READ_ME!

In short, the RealClimate defense is one of those moments where the appearance of a response is considered more important than a lack of response, even though the response they gave is a lack of response.

The deeper you go into the released data, the more alarming it gets. The RealClimate response can only work if (a) you're already full of the RealClimate Kool-Aid or (b) you've only given the ClimateGate data a passing blush.

Here's some fairly in-depth notes on the matter. It's a long thread but there's a lot of excellent information and links and quotes from other sources, making it a pretty good (albeit chronologically-sorted) overview of the event.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:21 am

Here's a slightly better response in Popular Mechanics (story's getting traction now . . . still not on TV much, though). He correctly notes the damage to science.

However, the guy seems to be ignorant of the fact that it's pretty much all the same raw data, and the main thrust of his defense is basically Pascal's Wager. Seriously.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:34 pm

2046 wrote:The claim that CO2 can create higher temps has some persuasive arguments behind it, but as yet there is no evidence in the real world that CO2 -> higher temps. If anything, we've seen higher temps in advance of CO2 rises, historically, not to mention the assorted warmings that had absolutely no relationship to CO2 whatsoever.
Geologically, the consensus is that CO2 has played a more minor role in climate in the past... because its rate of change has been low. Geologically, there's been a tendency for a time lag. On the historical level, there's been a tendency for what we might like to call a geologically negligible period of lag. There's almost certainly a measurable time lag in the paleoclimate data, suggesting that in the past, CO2 levels have mainly reinforced existing temperature shifts rather than initiating them... but if there's a statistically significant time lag in the historical-timescale data, it's on a level that we wouldn't be able to measure in the paleoclimate data.

The paleoclimate time lag is in no small part because warming and cooling trends have a certain degree of self-reinforcement. Warming thaws permafrost and melts icecaps, releasing greenhouse gases and reducing the albedo; CO2 also is absorbed into the ocean better at lower temperatures, which means it gets released at warmer temperatures. It's a self-reinforcing loop.
Put simply, there is a theoretical mechanism, and sporadic correlation, but no evidence of causation (and evidence against).
Sporadic correlation? It's a remarkably strong correlation the last I heard.
I read that a few days ago. RealClimate's response is incredibly weak . . . understandable, since CRU is indefensible.

For instance, the HARRY_READ_ME file is glossed over as issues "presumably fixed", yet you can see in the file itself that this can't be so.

The "hide the decline" by not using the particular tree ring data after 1960 because it doesn't match the preferred station data adjustments is defended on the grounds that someone suggested not using it in a paper, with no explanation as to the mechanics of how it could be wrong. And yet we're supposed to keep using those same hand-selected 12 tree ring cores for everything prior to 1960 with no reservations? It doesn't even make internal sense, much less making sense in regards to its contradiction with their adjusted station data.
The tree ring cores are hardly the only pre-1960 data used to draw inferences. There's also ice core data.
And their CRU data accessibility point is the same Jones-stated BS he concocted as an excuse in the e-mails, which is fabulous.

And, of course, there's no mention whatsoever of the sloppy code that doesn't work correctly, unknown data sets, fudge factors, knowingly made up information, hard-coded fake tweaks that make the earlier times cooler and later times warmer, and all the other bones of contention. And that's just from HARRY_READ_ME!
"Just"? I would say that it's likely the very worst of it.

Right now, I'm assuming that the CRU group and its co-authors are the exception, rather than the rule, in attempting to subvert the peer review process. If it's the rule, then we have a much more serious problem.
In short, the RealClimate defense is one of those moments where the appearance of a response is considered more important than a lack of response, even though the response they gave is a lack of response.

The deeper you go into the released data, the more alarming it gets. The RealClimate response can only work if (a) you're already full of the RealClimate Kool-Aid or (b) you've only given the ClimateGate data a passing blush.

Here's some fairly in-depth notes on the matter. It's a long thread but there's a lot of excellent information and links and quotes from other sources, making it a pretty good (albeit chronologically-sorted) overview of the event.
He seems alarmed that a climate research group would get $22 million in grants since 1990.

That's actually not that much money. We're talking around $1-2M per year in a group that has several dozen Ph. Ds on staff. Which means that if you want to play "follow the money," most of it actually comes from the U. of East Anglia's payroll office.

If you want to play "follow the money," the oil and coal industries have a lot more to throw around. The infotainment industry has a lot more to throw around.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Thu Dec 03, 2009 1:22 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
2046 wrote:The claim that CO2 can create higher temps has some persuasive arguments behind it, but as yet there is no evidence in the real world that CO2 -> higher temps. If anything, we've seen higher temps in advance of CO2 rises, historically, not to mention the assorted warmings that had absolutely no relationship to CO2 whatsoever.
Geologically, the consensus is that CO2 has played a more minor role in climate in the past... because its rate of change has been low.
I'm not aware of any studies that manage such fine distinctions over the history of the past millions of years. That is, if we look here . . .

Image

. . . I don't know of any point on that chart (except the wee last pixel or two) where we've really got a good idea of variations over a timespan of, say, a century. That is, I don't know that our scan resolution is good enough to be able to make a distinction between long-term and short-term events on a theoretical level. Even superior-looking temperature charts (see link below) are based on just 17,000 or so adjusted readings, which over about 525 million years works out to an average of almost 31,000 years between individiual datapoints. And yes, I'm sure it's not a perfect even spread, but still.

However, the chart itself is interesting merely because there is very little correlation between temperature and CO2. Indeed, looking at about 180 million years ago, we see CO2 go apeshit with no apparent temperature rise even to the earlier temperature high at 248, but instead a drop in temperature a few million years later, with a drop in CO2 coming afterward. Also, there's the huge temperature drop at 440, with CO2 dropping only after the temperature recovery was already underway.

Even using this temperature chart, the aforementioned superior-looking one which is rather less flat, you can see that 150 million years ago did not feature correlation.

I point that out not to be a cherry-picker (because there's that spot around 280 that looks like a CO2-preceded temperature bump), but because there's a contradiction.

"But I said low rate of change," you might retort. Okay, sure, but the Azolla event was supposed to have happened over 800,000 years as the Azolla plant in what is now the arctic sequestered teratonnes of CO2 and led to a drop in temperature, it is said. The amount of CO2 taken out of the system in this way is said to have dropped the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere from 3500ppmv to 650, a factor of five. And the cooling that supposedly resulted took millions of years . . . 35 million or so by some estimates as to when the northern pole took to icing over.

So long-term changes due to rapid CO2 changes are claimed in the science, but only on certain occasions. Certainly I'm seeing no indication of rapid CO2 changes leading to rapid temperature changes.

Don't get me wrong . . . I understand that the atmosphere is complex, and that determinations on past temp events are complicated all the more by issues like the continents refusing to stand still, volcanism, changes in the biological tapestry, and so on, but what I'm seeing from where I sit is that we don't know enough yet to conclude that we ought to be attempting to create a steady-state atmosphere and expending exhaustive resources to do so.

Climate science is simply too young. Hell, the whole concept of the Azolla incident is only a couple of years old.
Put simply, there is a theoretical mechanism, and sporadic correlation, but no evidence of causation (and evidence against).
Sporadic correlation? It's a remarkably strong correlation the last I heard.
Frankly, what we're hearing from some of these folks just doesn't mesh with reality. I'm sure there are a lot of good climate scientists out there, but considering how many flaws, many of them intentional, that there are in the accepted wisdom on various matters, I'm not predisposed to accept things just on their say-so. The charts above, for instance, do not bear out such claims, so either I'm just being a dumbass layman who is failing to see the magic nuances in the lines that counterintuitively show their claims to be true, or their claims are as yet unproven.

However, if you have someplace to point me where these strong correlations (especially regarding short-term incidents) are demonstrated, please let me know. Unlike the CRU guys, I am open to having my mind changed if the evidence warrants.
The "hide the decline" by not using the particular tree ring data after 1960 because it doesn't match the preferred station data adjustments is defended on the grounds that someone suggested not using it in a paper, with no explanation as to the mechanics of how it could be wrong. And yet we're supposed to keep using those same hand-selected 12 tree ring cores for everything prior to 1960 with no reservations? It doesn't even make internal sense, much less making sense in regards to its contradiction with their adjusted station data.
The tree ring cores are hardly the only pre-1960 data used to draw inferences. There's also ice core data.
Of course. My point was apparently unclear. It is not that the tree rings were the only source, but that it didn't make sense to continue to rely on them pre-1960 if they fail post-1960. If they are an accurate proxy then they ought to be accurate the whole time. If they are demonstrably inaccurate over a long period (e.g. the last 50 years), then unless you can explain very clearly why they are inaccurate over that period but no others you should drop them from your list of useful proxies.

By analogy, if you have a thermometer parked on the side of your house and discover that its temperature readings vary based on the color of paint on the side of the house (and magically this is the only variable), then you might decide to drop the last few years of readings when the house was white or black or whichever. However, if you then continue to use all prior readings without defining the color of the house over time (e.g. a putrid green from 1970) and its effect on the thermometer readings, your data is virtually useless and should not be used as a valid measure.
And that's just from HARRY_READ_ME!
"Just"? I would say that it's likely the very worst of it.
There are in-program remarks that are being looked through, as well, in assorted .pro and other files.
Right now, I'm assuming that the CRU group and its co-authors are the exception, rather than the rule, in attempting to subvert the peer review process.
For the most part I concur, though it is a distressingly large group that was involved, and they were the main source of the claim of man-made global warming and the UN's main go-to guys. It is no accident that Gore relied on Mann's hockey stick for his exclamation point.
If it's the rule, then we have a much more serious problem.
That's just it . . . for AGW, they were the rule. There's a lot of other/tangential stuff done elsewhere by good climate scientists, I'm sure, but you won't find that Jones and the gang had a lot of competition . . . and what competition they had usually worked off the same adjusted datasets. (For instance, Jones dissed GISS info, but IIRC 95% of their recent data was taken from GISS adjusted data which was then de-adjusted (ponder that) and re-adjusted.)
He seems alarmed that a climate research group would get $22 million in grants since 1990.
I think his alarm is based on the fact that their output is so crappy for the money they get.

That's a drop in the bucket compared to lobbying money. Contrary to AGW alarmist claims, a lot of the corporate lobbying is to get themselves on the right side of legislation, so as to make a lot of money if cap-and-trade goes through.

But then, I hate lobbyists even if I agree with their position, so the whole "follow the money" act means little to me, and is usually used purely for ad hominem purposes.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:19 am

HARRY_READ_ME and other comments, also showing hard-coded fudge factor in briffa_sep98_d.pro program that raises later temps and lowers earlier ones.

Meanwhile, here's "SwiftHack", a clear leftist site that takes its name from the "swiftboating" of John Kerry. Lefties think the Swift Boat veterans were liars, hence they consider "swiftboating" to be a campaign of lies rather than exposure of facts and/or contrary viewpoints.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:57 pm

2046 wrote:I'm not aware of any studies that manage such fine distinctions over the history of the past millions of years. That is, if we look here . . .

Image

. . . I don't know of any point on that chart (except the wee last pixel or two) where we've really got a good idea of variations over a timespan of, say, a century. That is, I don't know that our scan resolution is good enough to be able to make a distinction between long-term and short-term events on a theoretical level. Even superior-looking temperature charts (see link below) are based on just 17,000 or so adjusted readings, which over about 525 million years works out to an average of almost 31,000 years between individiual datapoints. And yes, I'm sure it's not a perfect even spread, but still.
Perhaps I should have said the "archaeological" time period. The time lag in the ice core data is interesting, and the subject of a lot of work. RealClimate talking about Al Gore and ice core graphs.

Even within the "historical" time period, though, there's a fairly recent shift in the strength of the correlation between temperature and CO2 - from a correlation suggesting about one third of the variance to a much stronger forcing.
However, the chart itself is interesting merely because there is very little correlation between temperature and CO2. Indeed, looking at about 180 million years ago, we see CO2 go apeshit with no apparent temperature rise even to the earlier temperature high at 248, but instead a drop in temperature a few million years later, with a drop in CO2 coming afterward. Also, there's the huge temperature drop at 440, with CO2 dropping only after the temperature recovery was already underway.

Even using this temperature chart, the aforementioned superior-looking one which is rather less flat, you can see that 150 million years ago did not feature correlation.

I point that out not to be a cherry-picker (because there's that spot around 280 that looks like a CO2-preceded temperature bump), but because there's a contradiction.

"But I said low rate of change," you might retort. Okay, sure, but the Azolla event was supposed to have happened over 800,000 years as the Azolla plant in what is now the arctic sequestered teratonnes of CO2 and led to a drop in temperature, it is said. The amount of CO2 taken out of the system in this way is said to have dropped the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere from 3500ppmv to 650, a factor of five. And the cooling that supposedly resulted took millions of years . . . 35 million or so by some estimates as to when the northern pole took to icing over.
Current rate of carbon change: 1-3 ppm per year (about 2 per year average).
Rate of carbon change during the Azolla event: 0.003-0.004 ppm/year.

There are a lot of different factors that can produce long-term changes in climate. Carbon is only one factor, and over the long term, it's generally thought to account for about a third of the variance - only a small fraction of the story. And if we're looking at the data, what we have right now is basically unprecedented in terms of rates of change. And, on top of that, it's usually an amplifying factor rather than an initiating factor.
So long-term changes due to rapid CO2 changes are claimed in the science, but only on certain occasions. Certainly I'm seeing no indication of rapid CO2 changes leading to rapid temperature changes.
We only have CO2 changes this rapid in the recent historical record. In which the correlation is pretty strong... unless the data available are false.

Here is the demonstration of the most primitive of all techniques - the simple linear regression of the recent "historical" CO2 with temperature. Which isn't quite what the IPCC uses, but it underlines things very sharply. Plot historical temperatures with historical CO2 levels, and you get a strongly monotone trend. Plot historical temperatures against historical CO2 levels, and track the strength of the correlation over time, and you find that the last half dozen decades show a much stronger correlation than the previous century.

And that's the picture that today's climate scientists - about 95% of them, anyway, which is actually a remarkable amount of agreement considering how new the field is and how politically charged it is - are painting. CO2 plays a natural "amplifier" role in climate changes, but normally does not drive the change, because there are no major natural fast-rate forcings of CO2. However, during the last industrial century, humankind has forced CO2 into the system quickly. About halfway through the 20th century, the normal short-term CO2 dampers and climate dampers started hitting capacity.

And I will repeat that the climate shift - as alarming as warming is for those living near the coast, or on small islands, or as alarming as precipitation pattern changes are for those living in the areas getting short-changed, or as alarming as sharply cooling Europe (if the Gulf stream shut down due to overall global warming, as some have suggested) might be, the most alarming part of the CO2 picture is the ocean pH shift.

IMO, it's terribly understated in the media, because it cannot be understood simply in terms of direct impact on humans. Sea life is a very important part of the ecological system.

Don't get me wrong . . . I understand that the atmosphere is complex, and that determinations on past temp events are complicated all the more by issues like the continents refusing to stand still, volcanism, changes in the biological tapestry, and so on, but what I'm seeing from where I sit is that we don't know enough yet to conclude that we ought to be attempting to create a steady-state atmosphere and expending exhaustive resources to do so.

Climate science is simply too young. Hell, the whole concept of the Azolla incident is only a couple of years old.
Thirty years ago, climate science was too young. Twenty years ago, people weren't wholly sure about what was going on. Ten years ago, it started to get very convincing. Now, at this point, there's a lot of certainty.
Frankly, what we're hearing from some of these folks just doesn't mesh with reality. I'm sure there are a lot of good climate scientists out there, but considering how many flaws, many of them intentional, that there are in the accepted wisdom on various matters, I'm not predisposed to accept things just on their say-so. The charts above, for instance, do not bear out such claims, so either I'm just being a dumbass layman who is failing to see the magic nuances in the lines that counterintuitively show their claims to be true, or their claims are as yet unproven.

However, if you have someplace to point me where these strong correlations (especially regarding short-term incidents) are demonstrated, please let me know. Unlike the CRU guys, I am open to having my mind changed if the evidence warrants.
I think the Grumbine page is pretty nice. Wish he'd posted the spreadsheet he used, though.

The big thing is, though - and the thing that makes this very difficult - is trying to define a global average temperature, and then compute it from very limited data.
I think his alarm is based on the fact that their output is so crappy for the money they get.

That's a drop in the bucket compared to lobbying money. Contrary to AGW alarmist claims, a lot of the corporate lobbying is to get themselves on the right side of legislation, so as to make a lot of money if cap-and-trade goes through.
Yeah, grandfathered permits are kinda crap. You have a motivation to increase emissions leading up to the permit issuance stage when they do it that way. If you issue tradeable permits on the theory that the market will assign an appropriate value to them and reduce overall emissions by distributing the load appropriately between more and less efficient producers, you should be auctioning them all in the first place.

Most environmental legislation in the US has not been particularly dangerous to the corporate bottom line.
But then, I hate lobbyists even if I agree with their position, so the whole "follow the money" act means little to me, and is usually used purely for ad hominem purposes.
The "follow the money" act is a good idea if you're suspicious of motives. It's usually a pretty good tell-tale when it comes to bad science. You look at who's spending money to put out the study and who's spending money to publicize it.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:20 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote: And, on top of that, it's usually an amplifying factor rather than an initiating factor.
Given the 800-1000 year time lag of CO2 as seen in CO2 increases plotted against temperature over the past few hundred millennia, in addition to the period 1940-1980 when the temperature and CO2 did not correlate (plus the past decade, actually), I would agree that CO2 is not an initiating factor of global warming.

CO2 Concentrations

Inst. Temp Record
So long-term changes due to rapid CO2 changes are claimed in the science, but only on certain occasions. Certainly I'm seeing no indication of rapid CO2 changes leading to rapid temperature changes.
We only have CO2 changes this rapid in the recent historical record. In which the correlation is pretty strong... unless the data available are false.
But that's my point.

1. The 'scan resolution' of the past is not adequate to support the claim of rapid changes in CO2 forcing rapid temperature increase.
2. The data from the present (e.g. 1940-1980, or post-2000) is not adequate to support the claim of rapid changes in CO2 directly forcing rapid temperature increase.
3. Slower-change correlations indicated by the available data from the past do not show changes in CO2 forcing temperature increases.

So to make the claim that now is a special case which proves the point is rather odd, since now doesn't prove the point and there's no other known proof of said point, unless I'm missing it somewhere.
Here is the demonstration of the most primitive of all techniques - the simple linear regression of the recent "historical" CO2 with temperature. Which isn't quite what the IPCC uses, but it underlines things very sharply. Plot historical temperatures with historical CO2 levels, and you get a strongly monotone trend. Plot historical temperatures against historical CO2 levels, and track the strength of the correlation over time, and you find that the last half dozen decades show a much stronger correlation than the previous century.
No one's denying possible correlation during certain times, merely causation. You can look at a chart of the past 400,000 years and see that Antarctic ice core CO2 and O18 are within one another's ballpark (albeit with CO2 delay), and as shown previously in the big orange graph there was a sporadic correlation over the more recent geological timescales (albeit not a direct one). On the other hand, over the past decade there's been none.

It rather depends on where and when you look, and for how long. But this guy deceptively shows weak modern correlation and claims causation. Hell, given the old timelag, I'd be tempted to wonder just where this CO2 is coming from . . . could it be the time-lagged reaction to the MWP? Wouldn't that be a pisser?

You can also get correlation with solar activity, geomagnetic activity, and assorted retarded things like US wars. And hey, don't worry . . . if correlation fails at one point, you either pick a more helpful period to work with, or monkey with the data a la CRU, or monkey with the graphing technique.
And that's the picture that today's climate scientists - about 95% of them, anyway, which is actually a remarkable amount of agreement considering how new the field is and how politically charged it is - are painting.
Consensus is not reality, and from what I'm seeing most of the numbers claiming numbers of scientists in either direction are highly variable anyway. So I see no need to pay attention to such things. Evidence should be the guide, not claims about a crowd.

(e.g. From January 2009 there's a survey responded to by 157 people who identified themselves as climatologists and 97% said they thought human activity is a significant factor in altering the mean temperature of the planet. But of course, that can be spun both ways, because even I think human activity is a significant factor in altering the mean temperature of the planet. I may not think it's as significant as folks like James ('Jail the Deniers!') Hansen, but I don't think we have no real effect. I just think other causes far outweigh us. And note that there was no mention of CO2 in that survey.)
CO2 plays a natural "amplifier" role in climate changes, but normally does not drive the change, because there are no major natural fast-rate forcings of CO2. However, during the last industrial century, humankind has forced CO2 into the system quickly. About halfway through the 20th century, the normal short-term CO2 dampers and climate dampers started hitting capacity.

And I will repeat that the climate shift - as alarming as warming is for those living near the coast, or on small islands, or as alarming as precipitation pattern changes are for those living in the areas getting short-changed, or as alarming as sharply cooling Europe (if the Gulf stream shut down due to overall global warming, as some have suggested) might be, the most alarming part of the CO2 picture is the ocean pH shift.

IMO, it's terribly understated in the media, because it cannot be understood simply in terms of direct impact on humans. Sea life is a very important part of the ecological system.
Thank you for the excellent display of AGW alarmism.

A lot of claims scattergunned in, with the basic premise being that we're all going to die, it's all our fault, and by the way we're taking the fish with us. Meanwhile, the history of Earth (at least what hasn't yet been re-written by folks trying to "contain the putative MWP" and such) shows a world full of natural cycles of change, with myriad events far outstripping any claimed danger of present trends (no matter how carefully-selected they are).

Now I don't think that Earth is some magic haven that will always fix itself no matter what we try to do to break it, but I also don't think the ecosystem is some delicate flower that will die if we so much as touch it. Reality is somewhere in between. Sure, the more we populate the planet the more concerned we get over every acre, but again I say that pushing for a steady-state Earth is most unnatural, and expending vast resources to make it so is ridiculous in the extreme.

Let's get some predictions right, and then we can talk.
Thirty years ago, climate science was too young. Twenty years ago, people weren't wholly sure about what was going on. Ten years ago, it started to get very convincing. Now, at this point, there's a lot of certainty.
Undeserved certainty, because it's still too young. Thirty years ago they said we were going into an ice age. Twenty years ago James Hansen predicted that New York 2009 would be a hot half-sunken high-wind hellhole, and made assorted wild claims to Congress that haven't come true. Ten years ago alarmists were predicting the same old fiery death and sea level rises as early as 2010.

Now, at this point, the simple fact is that all that certitude doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Certainty in the absence of predictive success is mere mental masturbation.

These guys flaked out completely when the current cooling occurred, and to make their claims they had to lie about the past. As ClimateGate shows, a lot of the certainty coming out of the major AGW camp was nothing more than intellectual and factual dishonesty, mixed with piss-poor methodology. And besides . . . if they were so certain of their science, why would they feel the need to launch such destructive attacks against the careers of their foes?

Nossir . . . if their science is so spot-on, they ought to be doing a lot better. They've had 20 years of alarmism to get the science right, and they still suck at it. I say we give them another 20 before paying attention to them again . . . assuming they're not back to global cooling by that point.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:38 pm

2046 wrote:Given the 800-1000 year time lag of CO2 as seen in CO2 increases plotted against temperature over the past few hundred millennia, in addition to the period 1940-1980 when the temperature and CO2 did not correlate (plus the past decade, actually), I would agree that CO2 is not an initiating factor of global warming.

CO2 Concentrations

Inst. Temp Record
Do you realize those two graphs have timescales going the opposite direction?

Here's what you get if you superimpose and rescale them:

Image

Now, that's flux, not concentration, but you can see that starting around a half-century in the past, human emissions and temperature start moving in lockstep. Before that? It's noisy as all get-out. If you want to see the correlation there, you have to actually throw it into a spreadsheet. It's a lot weaker, but it still exists.

So what changed? We hit some key threshold of output past the ability of the global ecosystem to damp it. It's a phase transition. We expect those.

We know, actually, from the details of the human carbon flux (well known) and the global CO2 concentrations (well known) that there are some fairly powerful absorbing elements in the system. Some are more sporadic than others. The CO2 concentration is increasing below the rate of human-caused increases.
But that's my point.

1. The 'scan resolution' of the past is not adequate to support the claim of rapid changes in CO2 forcing rapid temperature increase.
Which is why models are required. We're dealing with a "new" situation. Never before has CO2 concentration been increased at this sharp of a rate for year after year.
2. The data from the present (e.g. 1940-1980, or post-2000) is not adequate to support the claim of rapid changes in CO2 directly forcing rapid temperature increase.
Strangely, the data 1960-present has no such trouble... nor the data of the whole record. The correlation is there.

Is some other dampening mechanism that we don't know about coming into play? Possibly.
3. Slower-change correlations indicated by the available data from the past do not show changes in CO2 forcing temperature increases.
The ice core data has a similar correlation as the old historical data... about a third of the variance. It shows, in other words, the same "amplifying" relationship.
So to make the claim that now is a special case which proves the point is rather odd, since now doesn't prove the point and there's no other known proof of said point, unless I'm missing it somewhere.
"Now" is demonstrating the point. Temperatures are still on the whole tracking fairly well with CO concentrations on the historical record.

We're not sure why temperature has levelled off a little in the last ten years, but there's still a lot going on.
No one's denying possible correlation during certain times, merely causation. You can look at a chart of the past 400,000 years and see that Antarctic ice core CO2 and O18 are within one another's ballpark (albeit with CO2 delay), and as shown previously in the big orange graph there was a sporadic correlation over the more recent geological timescales (albeit not a direct one). On the other hand, over the past decade there's been none.
More limited ranges aren't a good thing. We have an established non-CO2 related peak in 1998 related to El-Nino, which brought temperatures well above the "norm" we would expect only from a predicted CO2 effect.

It rather depends on where and when you look, and for how long. But this guy deceptively shows weak modern correlation and claims causation. Hell, given the old timelag, I'd be tempted to wonder just where this CO2 is coming from . . . could it be the time-lagged reaction to the MWP? Wouldn't that be a pisser?[/quote]
We have correlation not only during certain times, but during all times. What varies, strangely, is the strength of the correlation. And we actually know very well where the carbon comes from - coal, oil, gasoline, etc all tend to be sold, monitored, taxed, shipped, et cetera.
You can also get correlation with solar activity, geomagnetic activity, and assorted retarded things like US wars. And hey, don't worry . . . if correlation fails at one point, you either pick a more helpful period to work with, or monkey with the data a la CRU, or monkey with the graphing technique.
Except strangely, we have a nice strong correlation over the whole historical record. Where it's weak is when we take a selected subset of the data (see the details on the Grumbine site; the correlation over the entire historical record is not far from the correlation of the last 50 years. It's only that if we separate the last 50 years, the correlation drops. Curiously, we also have a major increase in the quality of data in the last 50 years.)
Consensus is not reality, and from what I'm seeing most of the numbers claiming numbers of scientists in either direction are highly variable anyway. So I see no need to pay attention to such things. Evidence should be the guide, not claims about a crowd.

(e.g. From January 2009 there's a survey responded to by 157 people who identified themselves as climatologists and 97% said they thought human activity is a significant factor in altering the mean temperature of the planet. But of course, that can be spun both ways, because even I think human activity is a significant factor in altering the mean temperature of the planet. I may not think it's as significant as folks like James ('Jail the Deniers!') Hansen, but I don't think we have no real effect. I just think other causes far outweigh us. And note that there was no mention of CO2 in that survey.)
Other causes, unfortunately, have by and large failed to account for a small fraction of the temperature variance.
Thank you for the excellent display of AGW alarmism.
Not particularly. You're still missing the main point.

On the wide scale of things, a few degrees here or there is a temporary inconvenience. It's shitty if you happen to be living right on the coast and your house gets washed away, but that means little. There are a bunch of little local shifts that could happen - but again, all that means is that change happens.

The ocean pH thing is more important... and intrinsically linked to excess carbon output. It's not alarmist to say that it will have a major impact, and it's worth being alarmed about the possibility of ocean life going mostly extinct (though the projections of that also involve continued serious overfishing.)
These guys flaked out completely when the current cooling occurred,
The "current cooling" - which is to say, the temperature basically remaining static following the 1998 El Nino - still represents on the instrumental record a warming from the past... and still represents part of a powerful correlation of CO2 with temperature, and implicates CO2 not simply as a symptom, but a contributor. Again, CO2 serves as an amplifier; we know how that works. Hotter temperatures release more carbon, more carbon traps that little bit more radiation, which we know straight from its emission/absorbtion spectrum.

The icecaps also serve as an amplifier. We understand pretty well how that works. Hotter temperatures melt more ice and snow, and the ocean has a much lower albedo than the ice and snow surfaces.

Every single large set of the data shows this link.

There's a lot still to be learned - but the link between CO2 and temperature is a hard fact. It's not the whole story, but it is one of the few hard facts climate scientists have on hand. They're still trying to figure out where all the carbon goes in the system. They're trying very hard to figure out what all of the dampening factors are - they obviously exist, as Earth's climate is geologically pretty stable - and what their limits are. One of the big puzzles is that there's a lot of CO2 that has gone missing, and they haven't tracked down exactly what's making it disappear.

But we do know, to a pretty good degree of precision, exactly what CO2 does while it's in the atmosphere and exactly where it comes from.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:09 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
2046 wrote:Given the 800-1000 year time lag of CO2 as seen in CO2 increases plotted against temperature over the past few hundred millennia, in addition to the period 1940-1980 when the temperature and CO2 did not correlate (plus the past decade, actually), I would agree that CO2 is not an initiating factor of global warming.

CO2 Concentrations

Inst. Temp Record
Do you realize those two graphs have timescales going the opposite direction?

Here's what you get if you superimpose and rescale them:

Image
Thank you for illustrating the point I was making. As you can see, the period I described is as I described it.
Now, that's flux, not concentration, but you can see that starting around a half-century in the past, human emissions and temperature start moving in lockstep. Before that? It's noisy as all get-out. If you want to see the correlation there, you have to actually throw it into a spreadsheet. It's a lot weaker, but it still exists.

So what changed? We hit some key threshold of output past the ability of the global ecosystem to damp it. It's a phase transition. We expect those.
Here's the point of logical departure between us, besides the definition and meaning of correlation. You state the threshold hypothesis as if it is proven and understood, but it isn't. Hell, look here:
One of the big puzzles is that there's a lot of CO2 that has gone missing, and they haven't tracked down exactly what's making it disappear.

But we do know, to a pretty good degree of precision, exactly what CO2 does while it's in the atmosphere and exactly where it comes from.
So we know where it comes from but not where it goes? Isn't where it goes part of that whole threshold thing you just stated as fact?

I'm sorry, chief. "There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

I can tell you're sold on AGW and I'm hearing you say the same words that are said and with the same veracity, but there's just not enough fact behind it for me. The data just doesn't interlock as nicely as is claimed, and contrary examples are blissfully ignored. Hell, you yourself just stated correlation during all times, which we know ain't so. Not only are things being claimed as truth by AGW folks that were hypothesized a short time ago and as yet are undemonstrated and unverified, but the scandal that has emerged shows us that even the best AGW modeling is crap and, quite simply, full of lies.

The burden of proof is on AGW. The science is not settled, and the debate has scarcely begun. When it can be shown accurate beyond a reasonable doubt and starts making worthwhile predictions that actually pan out, we can reconvene. However, right now we're just talking in circles, because you're saying everything's proven by a science that can't do squat and I'm showing you holes both geologically and short-term and exactly when it hasn't done squat and we're just not getting anywhere. It's a waste of time.

In my opinion, we should make no major policy changes, and we should give climate science time to grow and learn and shake off the whack-jobs currently running amok within it. Perhaps there will be more information in 2020 or so, at which point the world can reconsider, but for now there just isn't much there there . . . just wild claims and lots of insistence without evidence.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Dec 04, 2009 1:10 am

5K-6K scientists sue Al Gore...
About the scandal and hacked files, some memos had JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs pointing out that carbon hunting was the new gold rush.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:37 am

2046 wrote:Thank you for illustrating the point I was making. As you can see, the period I described is as I described it.
I see, relative to a smooth growth curve, two local "dips" in carbon flux. The first, bottoming out around 1942ish, is followed by a temperature trough. From 1960 onwards, when we have good data, the human emissions curve peaks and dips ever-so-slightly behind.

Now, you seem concerned with the period of 1940-1980. Have you ever wondered why, back then, there was some wondering about whether or not global cooling was going to be a problem?

Because the instrumental record of 1940-1980 showed cooling going on, overall. More specifically, the global instrument record of 1940-1956 showed cooling going on. And in 1959, someone decided they would start measuring the atmospheric concentration of CO2.

That's one of the reasons why many graphs start at 1959; it's not because that's where the strong relationship phase starts. It's the period for which we have direct measurements. All other periods, the carbon levels are being inferred; all other periods, the instrumental record is much less complete. The temperature change of the course of the last century is reported to be known within only a 24% margin of error.

And here's a question I don't actually know the answer to: How much of the reduced correlation of CO2 levels to temperature in the pre-1959 data is due to decreased accuracy of the methods being used to estimate temperature and CO2 concentration? If I compare the ice core data to the Manua Loa data from 1959-1978 (which is where I could get overlapping data), I get that in a typical year, the ice core data is off by 30% in estimating the flux of carbon. The ice core comes up 1.6 ppm short (about 2%), so it's not too bad on a coarse time scale, but for anything less than a 5-10 year period, it's pretty crappy.

I went and I plotted the data out in a spreadsheet. If I used some splined ice core data, which I found clicking through the links on the carbon flux graph on Wiki, against the instrumental record, I get a -0.16 correlation between the rate of change of CO2 concentration and temperature. CO2 rising, TA falling. If I used the Manua Loa rate data against the instrumental record, I get a +0.74 correlation. If I use cumulative CO2 instead of the rate, I go up to +0.89. Which is, for a chaotic system, pretty much lockstep.

And on one hand, we have a few periods in which the correlation looks pretty weak; but on the other hand, the better our measurements have become, the closer the correlation looks. There's something very strange about that on first glance, but then you realize: The less noisy your data, the better your correlation. If I use the rolling-average temperature data, my simple old linear correlation goes to +0.96.
Here's the point of logical departure between us, besides the definition and meaning of correlation. You state the threshold hypothesis as if it is proven and understood, but it isn't. Hell, look here:
One of the big puzzles is that there's a lot of CO2 that has gone missing, and they haven't tracked down exactly what's making it disappear.

But we do know, to a pretty good degree of precision, exactly what CO2 does while it's in the atmosphere and exactly where it comes from.
So we know where it comes from but not where it goes? Isn't where it goes part of that whole threshold thing you just stated as fact?
I just stated as a probable hypothesis. It's not known to be a fact; it's inferred.

We know the rest of the ecosystem has been acting consistently as a carbon sink for a number of years. We haven't tracked down all the ways in which it does so, but every year, the carbon in the atmosphere comes up short. Sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot, and we don't know why that varies... but we do know that under normal circumstances, the rest of the ecosystem does not act as a net sink. CO2 concentrations don't go to zero; they fluctuate.

This tells us for a fact that something is up.
I'm sorry, chief. "There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
And the variability of the carbon sinking? That's a known unknown. It's being looked for.
I can tell you're sold on AGW and I'm hearing you say the same words that are said and with the same veracity, but there's just not enough fact behind it for me. The data just doesn't interlock as nicely as is claimed, and contrary examples are blissfully ignored. Hell, you yourself just stated correlation during all times, which we know ain't so. Not only are things being claimed as truth by AGW folks that were hypothesized a short time ago and as yet are undemonstrated and unverified, but the scandal that has emerged shows us that even the best AGW modeling is crap and, quite simply, full of lies.
The data does interlock quite nicely... at least, on the big picture scale of things. We know several things beyond any reasonable doubt:

-Carbon, methane, and several other gases cause (overall) warming. A physicist can establish the mechanism with a spectrometer, and it's the work of thirty minutes to download the data and see the correlation.
-No other proposed causes, such as variance in solar irradiance, can be correctly modeled as accounting for the shift.
-Mechanisms are in play which have not been identified.

If the Manua Loa data is correct, and the average global temperatures correct... then I can infer that carbon dioxide concentrations are moving pretty much in lockstep with temperature over the span of the data. Since I know exactly where the carbon dioxide excess is coming from, I can logically eliminate the idea that the carbon increase is caused by an increase in temperature, as human economic activity is not inhibited measurably by warm weather.

It's a lot harder to infer things from the paleoclimate data.
The burden of proof is on AGW. The science is not settled, and the debate has scarcely begun. When it can be shown accurate beyond a reasonable doubt and starts making worthwhile predictions that actually pan out, we can reconvene. However, right now we're just talking in circles, because you're saying everything's proven by a science that can't do squat and I'm showing you holes both geologically and short-term and exactly when it hasn't done squat and we're just not getting anywhere. It's a waste of time.

In my opinion, we should make no major policy changes, and we should give climate science time to grow and learn and shake off the whack-jobs currently running amok within it. Perhaps there will be more information in 2020 or so, at which point the world can reconsider, but for now there just isn't much there there . . . just wild claims and lots of insistence without evidence.
Really? No. What we have is enough evidence to say that we have caused warming and ocean acidification.

Now, how much of an increase we can expect in the future, that is up for some debate. And unfortunately, we don't have a control Earth to run on the other side of the experiment.

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Dec 04, 2009 6:03 am

Didn't Mars' albedo change noticeably over the last years?

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Re: Global Warming Supported Via SDN Tactics

Post by 2046 » Fri Dec 04, 2009 4:58 pm

NSFW: Jon Stewart's Take

To review, you are repeating the AGW alarmist claim that modern CO2 levels are rising at a historically unprecedented rate, which will cause unprecedented warming and assorted other ecological changes.

This is a flawed claim, because, to paraphrase myself:

1. The data from the distant past is not adequate to support the claim of no prior rapid changes in CO2 due to low 'scan resolution'.
1a. Slower-change correlations indicated by the available data from the distant past do not show changes in CO2 forcing temperature increases. Over timescales of millions of years there is only vague and sporadic correlation between the two at all . . . over timescales of hundreds of thousands of years there is rough correlation, but not causation, because CO2 increase lags behind temperature increase.
2. The data from the present (e.g. 1940-1980, or post-2000) is not adequate to support the claim of rapid changes in CO2 directly forcing rapid temperature increase, because we have seen continuing CO2 increase mixed with temperature steadiness or decline, with no explanation from the AGW camp over these 'correlation breaks'.

So with the data not supporting that conclusion, the repeated insistence of it by AGW alarmists is seemingly based on little more than the fact that AGW is the new secular religion. I don't like religion in science, be it Michael Behe's variety or James Hansen's, so the pious chanting of the faithful isn't going to get very far with me. Indeed, that sort of religious fervor just makes me want to go start a smoky bonfire for the sheer hell of it, especially when they're claiming AGW causes everything bad in the world.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:
2046 wrote:Thank you for illustrating the point I was making. As you can see, the period I described is as I described it.
I see, relative to a smooth growth curve, two local "dips" in carbon flux.
Not the dip; the part you call a trough. I'm considering them as the same basic event, hence describing the period 1940-1980.

Wouldn't continual CO2 increases imply continual temperature increases according to mainstream AGW? Or, if we accept the decreases of 1940-1980 and 2000-now, shouldn't there be some explanation in the science for just how it is that continual CO2 increase failed to increase temperature?

I realize you're arguing for not quite as direct a relationship, but CO2 is claimed to be one of the largest climate forcing agents by "mainstream" AGW guys like Hansen the Nut. This climate forcing agent is supposed to be continually on the rise to unnatural degrees, per your own statements, and per your own statements we've overwhelmed nature in that regard. So doesn't it seem like they ought to have an explanation for almost a half-century slip during the time of Packards and Cadillacs and Skodas, and now during the time of SUVs and China?

Instead, we're told the science is settled, while behind the scenes they talk amongst themselves declaring their inability to explain the situation a "travesty". I agree completely, which is the problem I have with them.

(See, I really am capable of agreeing with AGW guys!)
Now, you seem concerned with the period of 1940-1980. Have you ever wondered why, back then, there was some wondering about whether or not global cooling was going to be a problem?
Because the science was too young ... they saw a recent trend and flipped out. Nowadays, the science is too young ... they see a recent trend and are flipping out.

Yesterday afternoon, the temperature kept climbing. I was about to flip out over this possible runaway local warming until I looked at the long-term record and saw that the temperature would likely be falling again.

Compare recent trends to the cycle of the past 400,000 years, and hell . . . I would predict possible further warming and then significant cooling over a millenial timespan. Increasing dust in the atmosphere would freak me out more than CO2 (I kid, but at least it happens before temp rises!). What I would most certainly not predict is that somehow we are going to break that cycle. To do that, I'd want to know the precise causes (engines) of that cycle and be able to show clearly and precisely how we have broken or will break the engines of said cycle.

The problem there is that according to theory, the 100,000 year cycle has as an engine the planet Earth. The cycle's been going on for millions of years, and is based on natural orbital mechanics cycles. AGW guys are trying to claim that we can overwhelm that via CO2 and such, but I do not think they have yet made their case, since they're basically arguing we can overwhelm the orbital mechanics of the planet.

Focus on shorter timescales at that point seems a little silly, especially when they ignore the Holocene Max and try to pretend the MWP didn't happen (thereby ignoring all longer timescale issues). It's like seeing the big arms of an old locomotive moving those back wheels and seeing the track stretch for miles, but focusing on tiny pits in the track surface and declaring that the train's about to derail, while ignoring how the train already cleanly passed over earlier track discontinuities.
If I compare the ice core data to the Manua Loa data from 1959-1978 (which is where I could get overlapping data), I get that in a typical year, the ice core data is off by 30% in estimating the flux of carbon. The ice core comes up 1.6 ppm short (about 2%), so it's not too bad on a coarse time scale, but for anything less than a 5-10 year period, it's pretty crappy.

I went and I plotted the data out in a spreadsheet. If I used some splined ice core data, which I found clicking through the links on the carbon flux graph on Wiki, against the instrumental record, I get a -0.16 correlation between the rate of change of CO2 concentration and temperature. CO2 rising, TA falling. If I used the Manua Loa rate data against the instrumental record, I get a +0.74 correlation. If I use cumulative CO2 instead of the rate, I go up to +0.89. Which is, for a chaotic system, pretty much lockstep.
We're talking completely cross purposes here, you know. You're seeing a short-term "lockstep" and I'm talking about the two major deviations comprising 50 out of the last 100 years and we're not getting anywhere. Frankly, your methods are flawed, and I can tell you why.

First, you are ignoring the geological record showing only a weak relationship (the orange graph from posts ago), and even the shorter-but-still-long term rough correlation that shows CO2 lagging behind and not forcing. This same forgetfulness mixed with claims of how CO2 could be a greenhouse gas enables AGW guys to ignore the causation indicated by history, and instead try to reverse it so that CO2 (all 0.038% of it) is suddenly a greenhouse uber-gas that will kill us all.

Second, you are picking a short timeframe (yes, I know, Mauna Loa's only been at it for a little while). However, at any point over the past 400,000 years, there are short periods where the two correlate well and periods where they do not. From 1980 to 2000 they correlated quite nicely . . . other times, not so much at all. It's a cherry-pick that happens to not look like one because it happens to correlate to a time of our most sensitive data gathering methods.

Third, you are stripping even the concept of the chronology out of the picture by doing things the way that blogger dude Grumbine does. His method is convenient because it removes time, and thus effectively hides the periods I've described, turning them into dots a little more distant from the line but still appearing to support the line.

This is why I agree with a general correlation over time, but not this "lockstep" of yours, because during some historical periods the correlation looks non-existent, provided you're looking at the right timeslice. Picking the 1980-2000 timeslice and saying "we're all gonna die!" is unconvincing to me.

Again, you are claiming that CO2's present rate of increase is a special and historically unprecedented case that will produce unprecedented warming. And yet I'm telling you that based on recent events, such a claim does not follow, and I've used the past CO2 and temperature record to show that with what information we have CO2 is not the driver as AGW claims, and that what information we have from the past is too low resolution to make the claim that this is an unprecedented CO2 increase.

So in every way, I have exposed the flawed reasoning of your argument's foundation, and even explained where work would need to be done to make me review my position. I have seen nothing in return to cause me to doubt my skepticism, and no real indication of any skepticism on your own part.

For instance, despite your claim that you merely stated a probable hypothesis, you stated it as if it were anticipated fact, and there are various other things from the AGW camp that you repeat as if they are certain but which are not. This is not the hallmark of healthy scientific skepticism (not "skepticism of science", but "scientific skepticism"). Many AGW advocates have trouble on this same point. Sometimes it's just an attempt to give the appearance of certainty in a debate setting, but if anything, it sounds like religious faith to those who are skeptical.

And, of course, I'll touch on this again since it's the point of the thread . . . there's also ClimateGate, where we learn that the main AGW alarmist researchers were cooking the books to make AGW look like a more solid claim. That's more than a little damaging to the whole "science is settled" thing.

This is not like evolution where all you have to do is connect the myriad fossil-dots that are in neat little lines already to reach the same conclusion as has been out there for 150 years, and which was a neat way to explain evidence from geology to biology, and which has the benefit of genetics and other things on top of it to strengthen it further. This is new and strange and exceptionally young, with major hypotheses just a couple of years old and from a subset of the scientific community that has unprecedented ideas on what being peer-reviewed means (they think it's the end, but it's just the beginning), and whose science is largely based on models that utterly fail to correspond to reality.

((You're right, we have no "control Earth" to play with. Hence models. But the models do not represent Earth and fail to predict what it happening on Earth. And the claims of climate scientists (e.g. about ocean pH problems) aren't squared with reality either.))

And ClimateGate is not like Piltdown Man. ClimateGate would be more like Thomas Huxley running around trying to modify animals and burying fake fossils all over the world trying to support it, and getting caught shovel-in-hand.

Earth may be warming (though for whatever odd reason they've been cooking the books on that as well, which is a real pisser), but to ascribe the cause to man's activities is too far a jump at this time.

So again, I say give it a couple of decades. Do smart things like nuclear power and electric cars and reel mowers, but stay the hell away from my thermostat.

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