The nub of the climate change thing problem

[Skjellyfetti]

BREAKING: CLIMATE CHANGE DISPROVEN!!

Do you know what this is? It's a snowbalL. It's just from outside here, so it's very, very cold out ... very unseasonable. Mr. President, catch this.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rDFtDN4Pc4[/youtube]

[biobengal]

P.S., the reason I put "science" in quotes like that is that if you're really strict about it climate study is not science. Science requires controlled experiments on the actual thing; not model simulations. It's really, in the strictest sense, climate observational study.

And I'm not making that up people. I'm really not.

I didn't read the whole thread, it is too dang long, but I did read the very first post and found the gem above.

Does science require controlled experiments on the actual thing? This is 100% false.... one hundred percent!!!

[Grizalltheway]

P.S., the reason I put "science" in quotes like that is that if you're really strict about it climate study is not science. Science requires controlled experiments on the actual thing; not model simulations. It's really, in the strictest sense, climate observational study.

And I'm not making that up people. I'm really not.

I didn't read the whole thread, it is too dang long, but I did read the very first post and found the gem above.

Does science require controlled experiments on the actual thing? This is 100% false.... one hundred percent!!!

Seems to me he's confusing the scientific method with science as a general concept.

And let's not forget that AGW, like evolution, is a scientific theory, not a law.

[JohnStOnge]

Does science require controlled experiments on the actual thing? This is 100% false.... one hundred percent!!!

I'm talking about if you're going to make a cause and effect statement about the actual thing.

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. If you are a drug manufacturer who says your drug will cure a certain cancer in humans you are going to have to actually show that the drug will cure a certain cancer in humans. You're not going to be able to do it by mathematical modeling. You're not going to be able to do it by using animal models. You are going to have to go through clinical trials that are controlled experiments with actual human patients showing that the drug will indeed cure that certain cancer in humans.

Otherwise, you are not going to be able to make the claim that the drug cures a certain cancer in humans.

If you're going to make a cause and effect statement about X causing Y with respect to some particular thing you are going to have to do controlled experiments with that actual thing. You CAN NOT make the cause and effect statements otherwise. You can say stuff like "this is consistent with the belief that X causes Y." But you can't say "X causes Y."

I mean really. Could you imagine what would happen if some drug company went to the FDA and said, "Hey, we haven't done clinical trials on real people to show that our drug is safe and effective. But we have done experiments on MATHEMATICAL MODELS of how we thinK the human system works and those show that it's safe and effective!" What do you think the chances are that the evidence would be considered sufficient?

Don't bother. I can tell you that the chance is 0.

[SeattleGriz]

Taco cat!

[travelinman67]

Cold records are shattered...

https://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/201 ... 015-02-25/

[Skjellyfetti]

Scientists have observed an increase in carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect at the Earth’s surface for the first time. The researchers, led by scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), measured atmospheric carbon dioxide’s increasing capacity to absorb thermal radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface over an eleven-year period at two locations in North America. They attributed this upward trend to rising CO2 levels from fossil fuel emissions.

The influence of atmospheric CO2 on the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing heat from the Earth (also called the planet’s energy balance) is well established. But this effect has not been experimentally confirmed outside the laboratory until now. The research is reported Wednesday, Feb. 25, in the advance online publication of the journal Nature.

The results agree with theoretical predictions of the greenhouse effect due to human activity. The research also provides further confirmation that the calculations used in today’s climate models are on track when it comes to representing the impact of CO2.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfsCmEP94pU[/youtube]

The scientists measured atmospheric carbon dioxide’s contribution to radiative forcing at two sites, one in Oklahoma and one on the North Slope of Alaska, from 2000 to the end of 2010. Radiative forcing is a measure of how much the planet’s energy balance is perturbed by atmospheric changes. Positive radiative forcing occurs when the Earth absorbs more energy from solar radiation than it emits as thermal radiation back to space. It can be measured at the Earth’s surface or high in the atmosphere. In this research, the scientists focused on the surface.

They found that CO2 was responsible for a significant uptick in radiative forcing at both locations, about two-tenths of a Watt per square meter per decade. They linked this trend to the 22 parts-per-million increase in atmospheric CO2 between 2000 and 2010. Much of this CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels, according to a modeling system that tracks CO2 sources around the world.

“We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,” says Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and lead author of the Nature paper.

“Numerous studies show rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but our study provides the critical link between those concentrations and the addition of energy to the system, or the greenhouse effect,” Feldman adds.

He conducted the research with fellow Berkeley Lab scientists Bill Collins and Margaret Torn, as well as Jonathan Gero of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Timothy Shippert of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Eli Mlawer of Atmospheric and Environmental Research.

The scientists used incredibly precise spectroscopic instruments operated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility. These instruments, located at ARM research sites in Oklahoma and Alaska, measure thermal infrared energy that travels down through the atmosphere to the surface. They can detect the unique spectral signature of infrared energy from CO2.

Other instruments at the two locations detect the unique signatures of phenomena that can also emit infrared energy, such as clouds and water vapor. The combination of these measurements enabled the scientists to isolate the signals attributed solely to CO2.

“We measured radiation in the form of infrared energy. Then we controlled for other factors that would impact our measurements, such as a weather system moving through the area,” says Feldman.

The result is two time-series from two very different locations. Each series spans from 2000 to the end of 2010, and includes 3300 measurements from Alaska and 8300 measurements from Oklahoma obtained on a near-daily basis.

Both series showed the same trend: atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 Watts per square meter per decade. This increase is about ten percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy such as clouds and water vapor.

Based on an analysis of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s CarbonTracker system, the scientists linked this upswing in CO2-attributed radiative forcing to fossil fuel emissions and fires.

The measurements also enabled the scientists to detect, for the first time, the influence of photosynthesis on the balance of energy at the surface. They found that CO2-attributed radiative forcing dipped in the spring as flourishing photosynthetic activity pulled more of the greenhouse gas from the air.

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co ... -increase/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JohnStOnge]

But this effect has not been experimentally confirmed outside the laboratory until now.

I suspect that the author of the article rather than the investigators is responsible for the error in that statement but what is described is not an experimental study. It's an observational study. There isn't any "experimental" confirmation.

[travelinman67]

atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 Watts per square meter per decade. 

, the scientists linked this upswing in CO2-attributed radiative forcing to fossil fuel emissions and fires.

So, they have "proved" the basic greenhouse gas theory is correct.

Yet...

...they cannot determine what percentage is from fossil fuels or fires...

...but the current upswing supposedly adds two-tenths of one watt, per square meter, per decade...

....assuming the sun plays no role.

[Chizzang]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8tfuBIutLI[/youtube]

[LeadBolt]

Walter Cronkite reporting on the New Ice Age, 1972:

On September 11, 1972, Cronkite cited scientists’ predictions that there was a “new ice age” coming. He called that prediction from British scientist Hubert Lamb “a bit of bad news.” -

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/julia-seym ... ew-ice-age" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lamb, the scientist Cronkite cited, was no fringe scientist. He founded the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain. When he died, the CRU director called him “the greatest climatologist of his time,” according to the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He was also credited with establishing “climate change as a serious research subject.” Unlike scientists often quoted by the media today, GWPF said that Lamb viewed the Earth’s climate as changing constantly and naturally.

[kalm]

Walter Cronkite reporting on the New Ice Age, 1972:

On September 11, 1972, Cronkite cited scientists’ predictions that there was a “new ice age” coming. He called that prediction from British scientist Hubert Lamb “a bit of bad news.” -

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/julia-seym ... ew-ice-age" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lamb, the scientist Cronkite cited, was no fringe scientist. He founded the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain. When he died, the CRU director called him “the greatest climatologist of his time,” according to the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He was also credited with establishing “climate change as a serious research subject.” Unlike scientists often quoted by the media today, GWPF said that Lamb viewed the Earth’s climate as changing constantly and naturally.

Has the speed of computers and accuracy and amount of data increased since then?

[LeadBolt]

Walter Cronkite reporting on the New Ice Age, 1972:



http://newsbusters.org/blogs/julia-seym ... ew-ice-age" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Has the speed of computers and accuracy and amount of data increased since then?

The speed of computers has increased. The accuracy of the data has been degraded with revisions.

Undoubtedly temperature has risen since 1978 but not nearly what the revised data shows. The cause of the change is still a matter of debate.

[Chizzang]

Has the speed of computers and accuracy and amount of data increased since then?

The speed of computers has increased. The accuracy of the data has been degraded with revisions.

Undoubtedly temperature has risen since 1978 but not nearly what the revised data shows. The cause of the change is still a matter of debate.

The ONLY matter up for debate is "the cause"
The changes are dramatic and simple to observe and universally agreed for anybody with eyeballs

[travelinman67]

The speed of computers has increased. The accuracy of the data has been degraded with revisions.

Undoubtedly temperature has risen since 1978 but not nearly what the revised data shows. The cause of the change is still a matter of debate.

The ONLY matter up for debate is "the cause"
The changes are dramatic and simple to observe and universally agreed for anybody with eyeballs

[LeadBolt]

The speed of computers has increased. The accuracy of the data has been degraded with revisions.

Undoubtedly temperature has risen since 1978 but not nearly what the revised data shows. The cause of the change is still a matter of debate.

The ONLY matter up for debate is "the cause"
The changes are dramatic and simple to observe and universally agreed for anybody with eyeballs

I'd go with Dr. Lamb that climate change is constant and natural. It explains the age of the dinosaurs as well as ice ages prior to man being a factor.

Man made causes don't square up with: 17 year pause; growth of Antarctic ice pack while the Arctic ice pack shrinks; temperature increase not nearly as much as green house gas increase; etc.

[kalm]

The ONLY matter up for debate is "the cause"
The changes are dramatic and simple to observe and universally agreed for anybody with eyeballs

I'd go with Dr. Lamb that climate change is constant and natural. It explains the age of the dinosaurs as well as ice ages prior to man being a factor.

Man made causes don't square up with: 17 year pause; growth of Antarctic ice pack while the Arctic ice pack shrinks; temperature increase not nearly as much as green house gas increase; etc.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... al-warming" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[travelinman67]

Cape Cod awash with sea ice...

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/03/09/g ... -cape-cod/

[kalm]

Cape Cod awash with sea ice...

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/03/09/g ... -cape-cod/

Spokane enjoying a record stretch of warm weather.

[kalm]

Tman, you should probably watch this documentary.

Oh…and Rick Scott…

For Naomi Oreskes, professor of scientific history at Harvard, there’s no more vivid illustration of the bitter war between science and politics than Florida’s ban on state employees using terms such as “climate change” and “global warming”. No matter that the low-lying state is critically vulnerable to rises in sea level, or that 97% of peer-reviewed climate studies confirm that climate change is occurring and human activity is responsible, the state’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, instructed state employees not to discuss it as it is not “a true fact”.

In one sense, news of the Florida directive could not have come at a better time – a hard-hitting documentary adaptation of Oreskes’s 2010 book Merchants of Doubt is just hitting US cinemas. In another sense, she says, it is profoundly depressing: the tactics now being used to prevent action over global warming are the same as those used in the past – often to great effect – to obfuscate and stall debates over evolutionary biology, ozone depletion, the dangers of asbestos or tobacco, even dangerous misconceptions about childhood vaccinations and autism.

Scott’s de facto ban is, she tells the Observer, “a grim state of affairs straight out of a George Orwell novel. So breathtaking that you don’t really know how to respond to it.”

It is also a display of just the kind of prevarication and intransigence that Oreskes studied to establish her formidable scholarly reputation. Each argument – if that is the correct term – has followed a strikingly similar path, and in each case, scientists have been drawn into debates that have little to do with a sound-science, rigorous exchange of knowledge.

Directed by Robert Kenner, best known for the hard-hitting Food, Inc., and backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, the Merchants of Doubt film exposes the tactics of climate change “experts”, who are often in the employ of thinktanks funded by industries invested in maintaining the status quo.

It’s a fascinating look at how overwhelming certainty acquired through rigorous scientific enquiry has been time and again upended and delayed by a small group of spin doctors. As one scientist points out in the film, they have to prove their case while their opponents only have to sow the seeds of doubt. Nowhere is that more keenly felt than in climate change, with a massive disconnect between public acceptance and the political will to act.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/new- ... te-change/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Baldy]

Tman, you should probably watch this documentary.

Oh…and Rick Scott…

For Naomi Oreskes, professor of scientific history at Harvard, there’s no more vivid illustration of the bitter war between science and politics than Florida’s ban on state employees using terms such as “climate change” and “global warming”. No matter that the low-lying state is critically vulnerable to rises in sea level, or that 97% of peer-reviewed climate studies confirm that climate change is occurring and human activity is responsible, the state’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, instructed state employees not to discuss it as it is not “a true fact”.

In one sense, news of the Florida directive could not have come at a better time – a hard-hitting documentary adaptation of Oreskes’s 2010 book Merchants of Doubt is just hitting US cinemas. In another sense, she says, it is profoundly depressing: the tactics now being used to prevent action over global warming are the same as those used in the past – often to great effect – to obfuscate and stall debates over evolutionary biology, ozone depletion, the dangers of asbestos or tobacco, even dangerous misconceptions about childhood vaccinations and autism.

Scott’s de facto ban is, she tells the Observer, “a grim state of affairs straight out of a George Orwell novel. So breathtaking that you don’t really know how to respond to it.”

It is also a display of just the kind of prevarication and intransigence that Oreskes studied to establish her formidable scholarly reputation. Each argument – if that is the correct term – has followed a strikingly similar path, and in each case, scientists have been drawn into debates that have little to do with a sound-science, rigorous exchange of knowledge.

Directed by Robert Kenner, best known for the hard-hitting Food, Inc., and backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, the Merchants of Doubt film exposes the tactics of climate change “experts”, who are often in the employ of thinktanks funded by industries invested in maintaining the status quo.

It’s a fascinating look at how overwhelming certainty acquired through rigorous scientific enquiry has been time and again upended and delayed by a small group of spin doctors. As one scientist points out in the film, they have to prove their case while their opponents only have to sow the seeds of doubt. Nowhere is that more keenly felt than in climate change, with a massive disconnect between public acceptance and the political will to act.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/new- ... te-change/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

97% of children like to eat sweets and stay up past their bedtime.

Of course you have to prove your case Mr. "Scientist", there is no consensus in science. Scientists do not vote on confirming a scientific hypothesis. You have to prove it.

[kalm]

Tman, you should probably watch this documentary.

Oh…and Rick Scott…



http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/new- ... te-change/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

97% of children like to eat sweets and stay up past their bedtime.

Of course you have to prove your case Mr. "Scientist", there is no consensus in science. Scientists do not vote on confirming a scientific hypothesis. You have to prove it.

This doesn't apply to both sides of the debate.

[Chizzang]

Any climate scientist will also tell you...
Right after they tell you it is likely accelerated by human activity
they will tell you its far too late to change anything now

And - its too late to worry about it now
Like all science and research, we are better at determining things that "already happened"
and this is pretty much the case here...

Full Speed Ahead

[kalm]

Any climate scientist will also tell you...
Right after they tell you it is likely accelerated by human activity
they will tell you its far too late to change anything now

And - its too late to worry about it

Full Speed Ahead

I'm not sure "any" is accurate.

[Baldy]

Any climate scientist will also tell you...
Right after they tell you it is likely accelerated by human activity
they will tell you its far too late to change anything now

And - its too late to worry about it now
Like all science and research, we are better at determining things that "already happened"
and this is pretty much the case here...

Full Speed Ahead

Good, let's all just shut the fuck up about it, then.