Global Warming is over.

[Fusion]

And ski resorts being as 'great' as they were this past year.

So if AGW lead to a poor last winter, let's predict this winter is average or lower temps than average, what will the explanation be?

[Hansel]

What about when Nicolaus Copernicus was a member of the 2-3%? We all know how that ended up.

The church gave up on planetary science and moved on to the definition of marriage?

[gwb72tii]

I've answered this question before, specifically to you. There are less than a handful of dissenters that have "credentials" worthy enough to consider in a climate debate, really only 2 or 3 people specifically. If you actually research their background, they themselves have been proven wrong time and time again to the point where they offer really nothing of value to the scientific community. These guys are old farts like yourself, set in their ways, and have tenor at their university and are not actively involved in publishing research. So of course the scientific community doesnt really pay attention to these guys, because they have poor tract records and bring nothing of value to the table. They make up the 2% to 3%.
Btw, my car is not for sale, but thanks for the interest George.

so would you mind naming the "qualified" scientists?

[herbivor]

What about when Nicolaus Copernicus was a member of the 2-3%? We all know how that ended up.

Great analogy. That is almost exactly the same thing. /sarcasm.

[cale]

What about when Nicolaus Copernicus was a member of the 2-3%? We all know how that ended up.

Haha, right. Because comparing the accessibility and quality of "knowns" in the 1400's with today's is reasonable.

This isn't the 1400's, modern science doesn't get to where it is without serious scrutinization. It's presented to layman's and taught because it withstood the scientific method. The means by which we observe, measure and test is astronomically more reliable and precise than it was back then. Are you sure you don't want to argue flat-earth theory instead?

[herbivor]

so would you mind naming the "qualified" scientists?

Richard Linzden, Fred Singer, Roy Spencer, Ivan Gaviever.
You probably have posters of them hanging in your room. Do a little research, they're jokes. See below for an example.


A team of UK climate experts has published a critique of a talk given by climate skeptic scientist Richard Lindzen a few weeks ago. The event was organised by the Campaign To Repeal the Climate Change Act.

Lindzen, a Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was speaking at the House of Commons in a meeting chaired by Christopher Monckton. While the authors of the critique could agree with Lindzen on some grounds, they also found some pretty glaring inaccuracies in his talk.

Lindzen has published a large body*of peer-reviewed work on climate change, but his work remains disputed. It's very popular with the skeptic end of the media and he is also member of the academic advisory council to Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation.

His speech was criticised by the blog Skeptical Science. Climatologist Dr Gavin Schmidt also pointed out flaws in his presentation*of temperature data at the blog Real Climate, resulting in an apology from Lindzen.

Now, several UK experts have got in on the act, offering their own critique of Lindzen's speech. They are climate physicists Professor Sir Brian Hoskins at Imperial College; Professor John Mitchell, of the University of Reading and the UK Met Office; Professor*Keith Shine, University of Reading; Professor* Tim Palmer, University of Oxford; and Professor* Eric Wolff, British Antarctic Survey Science Leader.

Points of agreement
The critique starts with the key points on which Lindzen and the UK experts agree. They welcome Lindzen's acceptance of some well established 'knowns' of climate science, including:

"There has been a large increase of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other*greenhouse gases due to emissions resulting from human activity over the past 150 years [...]*Global average surface temperature has very probably warmed by about 0.7°C in the same*period [...] Increasing carbon dioxide alone, and in the absence of climate feedbacks, should cause about 1°C warming for each doubling."

"'Uncertain' doesn't imply 'unknown'"
The scientists also agree with Lindzen that scientists should base their arguments on "physical reasoning and data", and that uncertainties should not be exaggerated or ignored - *indeed these points are the ground rules by which scientists operate.

Where they disagree is on Lindzen's inference that scientific uncertainty means scientists are ignorant about some key issues, implying we then don't have to be concerned.

One of Lindzen's favourite arguments seems to be his criticism of our knowledge of cloud feedback processes. Climate models suggest a weak to moderate positive cloud feedback, but there are uncertainties associated with how this will change in the future.

In his speech Lindzen suggests that these uncertainties mean "we don't know if there is a problem". The team of experts disagree, saying:

"[Lindzen] is right to draw attention to uncertainties in climate change feedbacks e.g. associated with clouds. However, it is wrong to infer from this that we know nothing about these feedbacks. Contemporary science suggests unambiguously that there is a substantial risk that these feedbacks will lead to human induced surface temperature change considerably larger than 1 °C in global average this century and beyond."

According to the paper, Lindzen makes similar errors in his discussion on sea level rise, reconstructions of solar activity, and climate sensitivity - how much the world's average temperature would rise from a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Inconsistencies in Lindzen's arguments
The team also point out some pretty glaring inconsistencies in Lindzen's take on some climate topics, for example:

"There is an interesting dichotomy in [Lindzen]'s line of argument between the implication in the rest of the presentation that the climate is rather insensitive to change, and the observation *that, on glacial interglacial scales, even very small changes in energy input led to massive change."

They say Lindzen is "not consistent in his discussion of the accuracy of past temperature data" or of climate models.

And elsewhere, the team say, Lindzen makes claims that are simply wrong:

"[Lindzen] claims that the derived sensitivity of climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1°C, based on the assumption that all the observed warming is due to atmospheric greenhouse gases. This claim would be wrong even without this assumption [...] The assumption itself is unjustifiable as it neglects other mechanisms that drive climate change."

Lindzen "does a disservice to the scientific method"
The team sums up Lindzen's presentation, saying:

"A pervasive aspect of [Lindzen]'s presentation was the conflation of uncertainty with ignorance; in his view, because we are uncertain about some aspect, we therefore know nothing about it and any estimate of it is mere guesswork. In this way we believe [he] does a disservice to the scientific method, which seeks to develop understanding in the face of inevitable uncertainties in our knowledge of the world in which we live. The scientific method has served society well for many hundreds of years, and we see no reason to doubt its validity for trying to quantify the risk of climate change and its impacts on society this century."

They go on to point out that Lindzen's arguments are not anywhere near sufficient to discount man-made climate change:

"[...] We reassert that there is a substantial risk of human-induced climate change considerably larger than 1°C in global average this century and beyond. There is nothing in [Lindzen']s talk to cast doubt on the existence of this risk."

Scientists in the service of politics?
At Real Climate, Schmidt points out the value of questioning established norms of climate science:

"[Lindzen] has, in times past, raised interesting critiques of the mainstream science. None of them, however, have stood the test of time - but exploring the issues was useful."

The two responses however argue that Lindzen's statements on climate science go beyond questioning the science, instead presenting scientific uncertainty as ignorance and meanwhile advocating against climate policymaking. It seems strange to us that Lindzen is so vocal about criticising climate scientists for being politicised while speaking at an event organised by a political campaign against the UK's Climate Change Act.

The scientists respond to this element of Lindzen's presentation, concluding:

"It is up to policymakers, not scientists, to decide whether governments should take concerted mitigating action to try to reduce [the risk of *human-induced warming above 1 degree celsius]. *On this we do not comment."

Tim Palmer, one of the scientists who wrote this latest response, told us he felt it was important to respond in this case because Lindzen is "an established atmospheric scientist and hence likely to have some influence". He and the other scientists thought it was important to make it clear to UK policymakers that Lindzen's view that the threat of substantial climate change is minimal runs "completely counter to the view of almost all who work actively in the field."

[rwh11385]

So if AGW lead to a poor last winter, let's predict this winter is average or lower temps than average, what will the explanation be?

I don't think it was AGW, I think it was El Niño.

But if the mean temperatures keep rising, Colorado and the PNW will be hurt financially from bad snow.

[rwh11385]

so rwh, when you do economic analysis, you gather the raw data yourself right? you don't rely on labor dept info etc, you actually compile the data yourself, right?
your ongoing comments do nothing more than prove you have no clue what i do. being an economist is akin to being an auditor (no offense to you auditors). it would be like watching paint dry.

What do you do exactly? Besides sell the clueless some bonds?

The BLS is a source people use for a supply of data. Now reading a blog writer's opinion of a newspaper's anaysis is multiple layers of bias and degradation of information.

If you wanted to post skeptic studies directly instead of a blog article about a book author about them, then that'd be a lot better.
But you are used to second hand.

[Fusion]

I don't think it was AGW, I think it was El Niño.

But if the mean temperatures keep rising, Colorado and the PNW will be hurt financially from bad snow.

Bad snow I'm guessing means less snow.
Did you stop and think for a second that "good" quantities of snow and/or lower than average winter temps also have huge economic impact? Maintaining roads costs something, ability for transport to supply stores, ability to get to work, above average heating needed, power outages due to fallen trees, etc. etc...

[rwh11385]

Bad snow I'm guessing means less snow.
Did you stop and think for a second that "good" quantities of snow and/or lower than average winter temps also have huge economic impact? Maintaining roads costs something, ability for transport to supply stores, ability to get to work, above average heating needed, power outages due to fallen trees, etc. etc...

Well a little snow that doesn't melt is better than a lot of snow that keeps
melting away.

So AGW makes for better productivity? Lol.

[gwb72tii]

herb, i guess i'd like to see the rebuttal from lindzen

[herbivor]

herb, i guess i'd like to see the rebuttal from lindzen

There was none. In fact he apologized for his errors. I don't think he is completely in the denial camp anymore, although he still likes to criticize the modelling, despite most of them having been proved pretty accurate if not too conservative so far.

Bad snow I'm guessing means less snow.
Did you stop and think for a second that "good" quantities of snow and/or lower than average winter temps also have huge economic impact? Maintaining roads costs something, ability for transport to supply stores, ability to get to work, above average heating needed, power outages due to fallen trees, etc. etc...

This came from a lengthy report you guys probably don't want to read but it's a good summary of the economic impact of climate change. The report goes into significant detail on how different studies come up with the number so don't assume it's just pulled out of the air. The little green bar is what politicians and deniers are arguing against.

[Q5Quint]

I think the problem with the global warming argument is that it is such a large thing to comprehend it almost doesn't make sense. i.e. beach front property in Russia will obviously help their economy but turning the Rockies into a desert would hurt our ski industry. The facts are not quite as black and white as that~ the words 'global climate change' make more sense when you see that some areas will see a rise and temps and some areas will actually get colder, some will get more precipitation and some less etc.

If you think the world is going to turn into a desert that is a middle-school over simplification.

More effective arguments need to hit home rather than at the meta-scale 14,000 foot level.

I like to talk about trout.

People come to NC to fish for trout and bass. We have all kinds of fancy mountain trout streams and lakes and shit all over. But there is a problem. Somebody has been putting mercury in the goddamn air and its getting into the water. So much goddamn mercury that 14,000 kids are born in my state a year with mental retardation directly attributed to mercury poisoning. Where da fuk did mom eat that much mercury? O yeah, freshwater fish/ trout. About 27% of the streams across our nation have fish with higher than consumable amounts of mercury.... woops.

If you are preggers or have a wife who is preggers or have a young kid.... DO NOT EAT FRESHWATER FISH IN NC OR SC. OR TN.

Of course all this data comes from the USGS: http://www.catawbariverkeeper.org/is...eport.pdf/view

Or the city of Charlotte: http://www.catawbariverkeeper.org/ab...ble1222111.jpg

Or the NC Dept of Health: http://epi.publichealth.nc.gov/fish/safefish.html

Or the SC Dept of Health: http://www.scdhec.gov/administration...0110106-01.htm

So obviously these sources are biased and and trying to destroy our country.

My response: Fuck you because now I can only eat bass once a month due to goddamn pollution and my kid is going to be a retard if my wife eats fish I caught in my backyard. You are destroying our country and destroying the lives of people who depend on natural sources for food instead of 1$ hamburgers of pink slime from china.

Global warming aside this is a serious issue we need to address asap instead of waiting for all our children to be retarded due to our own pollution. Don't shit where you eat and that is exactly what we are doing.

*disclaimer: please excuse the French~ I mean all that in the most constructive way possible and I would enjoy continuing this discussion in the most civilized manner. I only feel a slight personal connection to the issues since I cant even eat my own fucking fish.

And double shit rainbows because you cant eat fish in TN either: http://www.tn.gov/environment/wpc/pu...curylevels.pdf

[frankenbeemer]

So much goddamn mercury that 14,000 kids are born in my state a year with mental retardation directly attributed to mercury poisoning.

Not to deny the importance of your point, but are you sure of this 14,000 figure?

[gwb72tii]

herb and Q5

curious if all these signers have been "debunked"?

The Manhattan Declaration

http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=54

signers at the conference

http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=54