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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:30 pm Post subject: How has the (climate) science been disproved? |
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Yes, I know there is already a huge thread devoted to the topic, but that thread supposes (by its title) that there is a conspiracy. It's also full of antagonistic exchanges of a personal nature, and lastly it has become FAR TOO LONG for all but the most patient or zealous.
In this thread I want to explore the actual science and how (if at all) it has been called into question by the hacked emails. These days I have very little time to follow the news, but I haven't seen anything in the media which convincingly explains how the email scandal has proved the general scientific consensus wrong. An article I just read (of which parts are posted below) inspired me to ask the question (in the title).
May I ask for people to refrain from turning this thread into a petty flame war? I would like this thread to be a little less passionate, and a little more thoughtful than the other, and just stick to discussing the actual science, not the politics.
Science forgotten in climate emails fuss
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| No one identifies any scientific flaws in Phil Jones's work, yet the 'fallen idol' narrative is too alluring for the media to resist |
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Can you imagine this kind of response if the subject of the emails had been something we actually care about, such as health or the economy? The discovery of the HIV virus involved one of the murkiest incidents in the history of science. It's an insult to UEA's Phil Jones and his colleagues to even suggest the comparison, but it serves to make the point. Reporters on the HIV affair always scrupulously stressed that although the integrity of some of the individuals involved was called into question, the evidence that HIV causes Aids was unaffected. People might have died if the public had been misled on that point. Whereas if it's only about climate change �
A colleague working in astrophysics was expressing bemusement to me yesterday about why the reputation of British science was apparently under threat, given that no evidence had actually emerged of scientific misconduct. Her specific question was: "Has anyone found evidence of an error in a published paper or dataset?" If they had, then of course the error would need to be corrected, which happens in science all the time.
If it could be proved that figures had been deliberately altered to give a specific result then it would be very serious, but so far no evidence has emerged from these Climatic Research Unit (CRU) emails of any error in the HadCRUT instrumental temperature record at the centre of the row, never mind proof of deliberate intent to mislead. How often have you heard that repeated, clearly, by the mainstream press reporting on this incident? Even if they were reporting on Berlusconi's sex life they would be more careful. Berlusconi can afford better lawyers than Jones can.
Take, for example, the "trick" of combining instrumental data and tree-ring evidence in a single graph to "hide the decline" in temperatures over recent decades that would be suggested by a naive interpretation of the tree-ring record. The journalists repeating this phrase as an example of "scientists accused of manipulating their data" know perfectly well that the decline in question is a spurious artefact of the tree-ring data that has been documented in the literature for years, and that "trick" does not mean "deceit". They also know their readers, listeners and viewers won't know this: so why do they keep doing it?
What is particularly ironic is that a favourite graph in the climate sceptic community a few years ago entitled "Most accurate global average temperature" did precisely this. It stitched temperatures from the satellite-based temperature record from 1979 onwards together with the surface temperature record before then. At that time the satellite record showed no evidence of warming, so one might call this a handy trick to hide the recent warming in the surface temperature record. Did that make it evil? I wouldn't say so: there were concerns about the impact of incomplete coverage and something called the urban heat island effect on the surface temperature record, so combining the two data sources might have been legitimate, provided it was clear what was done and why. This particular figure has fallen out of favour since an error was discovered in the satellite data processing which, when corrected, revealed the satellites were actually showing warming after all.
Perhaps the most concrete example of journalists claiming to reveal "problems" with the CRU temperature record was a report on Newsnight (widely redistributed) in which a software engineer criticised computer code contained in the leaked email package. Neither of the two pieces of code Newsnight examined were anything to do with the HadCRUT temperature record at all, which is actually maintained at the Met Office. Newsnight's response, when I challenged them on this, was: "Our expert's opinion is that this is climate change code." Presumably, then, the quality of the code I use to put together problems for our physics undergraduates shows that we should not trust results from my colleagues who work on the Large Hadron Collider on the grounds that "it is all physics code".
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| So the narrative journalists have collectively decided upon is that a few scientists may have manipulated their data, and either (a) it doesn't matter because the evidence for human influence on climate is so strong or (b) this shows the whole edifice is now crumbling, depending on their editor's predilections. And George Monbiot laments that the high priests of his climate change religion have let him down. All without any evidence that any number, anywhere, is actually wrong. Journalists, who always find numbers irritating, are revelling in the fact that they are back in the driving seat. By making the story about the individual scientists, rather than scientific results, they can go back to reporting on the story as they see fit without being constrained by scientific evidence. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| ...the actual science, not the politics. |
This is exactly the problem, Big_Bird. There is no neat, dividing line separating the science from its politics, academic and otherwise. The two remain entangled, from IPCC's creation forward. It has always been, at least halfway so, a political endeavor, involving the United Nations and national governments.
Proponents' continued refusal to acknowledge this will sink them in the long run, they will never win acceptance of their "science" through reason, and they will be forced to continue their current methods to ram this down all of our throats, by alleging we are stupid, deniers, in the oil-corporations' pay, etc. This includes proclaiming the matter entirely settled when it is not, and, as Pluto just posted on the other thread you reference, organizing violent protests at climate meetings to pressure governments to bend to "the people's" will...
In any case, when a group of people wants me to believe that the world is going to end, and that we can prevent it if only we do what they say, and that also happens to coincide with leftists' anticapitalist and antiimperialist politics, and indeed when these leftists, such as Al Gore and Naomi Klein, are serving as public spokespeople for this movement, then I say we have to slow down and be sure we know exactly where it is they propose to lead us. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:09 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| in the oil-corporations' pay |
That much has already been proven. In the case of numerous media frontmen, bogus science websites and corporations paid to send out anti-science propoganda.
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| This includes proclaiming the matter entirely settled when it is not |
There are many scientific theories that are not entirely settled, yet they are widely accepted. You're asking for a proof way beyond all the rest?
The climate has changed and warmed exactly co-incidentally with human industrialisation.
Carbon dioxide is a proven greenhouse gas: it traps heat in the atmosphere.
To any reasonable mind this is enough. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:41 am Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| in the oil-corporations' pay |
That much has already been proven. In the case of numerous media frontmen, bogus science websites and corporations paid to send out anti-science propoganda. |
What's proven is that the oil companies are all owned by the same banking establishment you want us to pay our carbon taxes to. Al Gore is a big oil front man (he got most of his fortune from Occidental Petroleum). Fact.
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| This includes proclaiming the matter entirely settled when it is not |
There are many scientific theories that are not entirely settled, yet they are widely accepted. You're asking for a proof way beyond all the rest? |
This theory is becoming widely rejected. In the scientific community especially. Thousands upon thousands of scientists consider the whole thing to be a sham. Unlike Al Gore they're not working for big oil.
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The climate has changed and warmed exactly co-incidentally with human industrialisation.
Carbon dioxide is a proven greenhouse gas: it traps heat in the atmosphere.
To any reasonable mind this is enough. |
We are in a period of carbon deficiency. CO2 is a life giving gas that plants breath and has a negligible effect on warming. Any warming will not be catastrophic in any way, and can in fact only be beneficial. Based on real science (not junk science funded by the same people who own all the major oil companies), we could use more CO2, not less. My New Year's resolution will be to increase my carbon footprint and help the planet. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:24 am Post subject: |
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Actually, Big Bird, your post makes a good point...emails aside, there's nothing that's been published in a peer-reviewed paper that refutes anthropogenic climate change. For obvious reasons...a paper that demonstrated anthropogenic climate change but which contained false data or faulty reasoning would get filtered out of the peer-review process pretty quickly. You'll notice, too, that most of the individuals complaining that global warming is a "conspiracy theory" focus on emails, not on peer-reviewed research...probably because most of them are incapable of understanding the papers.  |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:33 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Actually, Big Bird, your post makes a good point...emails aside, there's nothing that's been published in a peer-reviewed paper that refutes anthropogenic climate change. |
Peer review has turned into a corrupt process and can no longer be bandied around (as you're attempting to do here). There have been articles that refute anthropogenic climate change (not climate change in general), but they were generally silenced and mocked by the people whose articles you consider to be "proof" of AGW.
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| For obvious reasons...a paper that demonstrated anthropogenic climate change but which contained false data or faulty reasoning would get filtered out of the peer-review process pretty quickly. You'll notice, too, that most of the individuals complaining that global warming is a "conspiracy theory" focus on emails, not on peer-reviewed research...probably because most of them are incapable of understanding the papers. |
It's not just emails. It's fraudulent data that was used in computer models to make bogus graphs like Mann's hockey stick. Everything you think you know is based on admitted lies. Most of the original data was even deleted. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 8:34 am Post subject: Re: How has the (climate) science been disproved? |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
May I ask for people to refrain from turning this thread into a petty flame war? I would like this thread to be a little less passionate, and a little more thoughtful than the other, and just stick to discussing the actual science, not the politics.
Science forgotten in climate emails fuss
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| No one identifies any scientific flaws in Phil Jones's work, yet the 'fallen idol' narrative is too alluring for the media to resist . |
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The above is itself a political statement by a supporter of Phil Jones, so it can be discounted.
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Take, for example, the "trick" of combining instrumental data and tree-ring evidence in a single graph to "hide the decline" in temperatures over recent decades that would be suggested by a naive interpretation of the tree-ring record. The journalists repeating this phrase as an example of "scientists accused of manipulating their data" know perfectly well that the decline in question is a spurious artefact of the tree-ring data that has been documented in the literature for years, and that "trick" does not mean "deceit". They also know their readers, listeners and viewers won't know this: so why do they keep doing it?
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Except that a "trick" in the email is clearly a "trick" intended to mislead and decieve the public. The context of the email makes it clear that "trick" means an attempt to hide the truth.
It also clear from the context of the email that "hide" is used to mean actually "hide" the truth.
Trying to justify what Phil Jones et al have done with lies and political positions that pretend to be other than political is a desperate attempt to avoid the truth that has been revealed by the emails.
Other scientists around the world have already indicated that they will be throwing out the tainted data and starting over. The real scientific community has already agreed to throw the AGW data out and begin again. The scientific reality is that that is what needs to be done.
The political attempt to save Jones by using lies to protect him is shameful. Jones and his group should be prosecuted for fraud. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Sorry, when was (climate) science -{how clever!}- proven? Was it during the last decade of rising emissions and declining temps? Must have been then. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 4:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| ...emails aside, there's nothing that's been published in a peer-reviewed paper that refutes anthropogenic climate change. |
Very well, Manner, you have an investment in this, you believe in it, and you and I have exchanged before.
Would you mind explaining, reviewing exactly what it is in dispassionate laymen's terms for me, just to clarify we are on the same page? What is the problem and the exact nature of the threat. Further, what exactly is it that we are supposed to do about it? And who is included in this "we?" |
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thecount
Joined: 10 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
The climate has changed and warmed exactly co-incidentally with human industrialisation.
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RealClimate.org is by far the most in-the-tank proponent of ACC.
This is no surprise, as they are owned by Environmental Media Services and Betsy Ensly. Ensley founded sites such as Womenagainstbush.org, bushgreenwatch.org. Her former secretary was Kalee Kreider, Gore's spokesperson. Arlie Schardt, Gore's former PS, is on the EMS board of directors. Remember Moveon.org? EMS owns Fenton Communications!
With that intro out of the way, even RealClimate.org is forced to admit that there was a cooling trend for the 40s to the 70s. They rail against it, they claim *this* and *that,* but they admit that it was there.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
So please explain why the most aggressive supporters of ACC, who would leap on any chance to qualify your statement, have not yet done so. |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| I've been passing more gas and smoking cigarettes since I found out about those emails! |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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Here's a risk management take on the issue:
http://www.gregcraven.org/
The video is about half way down. |
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sunnata1
Joined: 19 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:55 am Post subject: |
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The science hasn't been disproved by the emails. The emails give insight to how difficult it is to have a peer reviewed journal accept a submission that argues against man made global warming.
If you can't get an article published you can't argue the science.
And that is the problem. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 3:55 am Post subject: |
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| sunnata1 wrote: |
| The science hasn't been disproved by the emails. The emails give insight to how difficult it is to have a peer reviewed journal accept a submission that argues against man made global warming. |
That is not a problem for other scientific theories though, is it now?
Have the peer-reviewed journals ever accepted anything that argues against evolution?
Yet its widley accepted as fact.Probably because Oil companies do not stand to lose profits over it. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:00 am Post subject: ... |
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So, a recap:
Roughly one page in, we have:
-claims that thousands of scientists disagree with it and are producing research to refute it
response: 700 scientists named Steve-arguments are meaningless in the absence of a change in the consensus demonstrated by national academies:
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| Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. Some organisations hold non-committal positions. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
-a link to a page supporting ACC cherry-picking the part that describes a cooling period
response:as explained in the article, the instrumentation available at that time was archaic, and the amount of CO2 discharge since the seventies has blossomed.
-references to the "hockey stick", which is still a great matter of debate.
Mann points out that he readily admitted the inaccuracy of his findings. Better research has been done since that time. ACC doesn't depend on Mann's research.
-citation of the East Anglia incident as grounds to categorically reject peer review
response: Peer review doesn't hinge on a single university in the UK.
-a comparative literature interpretation of events
response: The IPCC doesn't constitute grounds for resigning this to philosophical thought any more than research on evolution. This supposes the IPCC was acting politically first and scientifically secondly. There is no evidence of this at this time. The hard sciences don't work that way. We've heard of 700 scientists named Steve, but right now we have:
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| Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. Some organisations hold non-committal positions. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
a non-controversy.
Criticizing the above doesn't constitute bringing evidence for your side. |
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