Monday, August 11, 2014

Falsified AGW





Anti Persistency of Monthly Global Surface Temperature Series Falsifies Positive Feedback, which Falsifies AGW
Andre Bijkerk
Falsifying catastrophic antropogene global warming requires to demonstrate that the climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 is less than the lower value that is considered AGW. The IPCC generally defines this lower value to 1.5 degrees Kelvin per doubling CO2. However assuming the generally accepted 3.7-4 w/m^2 IR energy increase for doubling CO2, a value of less than one degree Kelvin can be calculated, when substituting this in the temperature differentiated Stefan -Boltzmann equation (F= σT4 ). However models generally assume a value of 1.2K for an equilibrium value. Hence to obtain any value higher than 1,2K the climate system must be governed bydistinct positive feedback mechanisms. Consequently, disproving AGW can be done by demonstrating a lack of positive feedback in the system, which is required to push the general climate sensitivity to more than 1-1.2K per doubling CO2
This has been done before, for instance: Kärner 2002, Kärner 2005, Kärner 2007. Here it will be demonstrated that for instance the HadCRUT4 global surface temperature series show characteristics of negative feedback.
Feedback is well known in system control engineering as well as its specific traits. Apart from the mentioned amplification effects another major element in feedback is persistence or anti-persistence.
If a system output deviates from the average/norm/ etc, then positive feedback tends to enlarge that deviation, while negative feedback tends to reduce it. Because it is feedback, essentially this happens after a certain time lag for the system to process the inputs, forcing and feedback signals. That is crucial. So the output of a system is what the system normally would have produced plus or minus the feedback factor of the previous output one time lag unit ago.
This is demonstrated in the excel sheet tab labeled "feedback demo" in this spreadsheet:
HadCRUT reversals.xlsx
HadCRUT reversals.xlsx
Shared with DropboxView on www.dropbox.comPreview by Yahoo
This demonstrates what basic proportional positive and negative feedback do to a simple random walk down in the C-column in a most elementary way. The strength of the feedback factor (typical range 0-1) can be adjusted in cell C2.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent....
View on dl.dropboxuserconte...Preview by Yahoo
Fig 1 . Demonstration of positive (red) and negative feedback (blue) on a certain basic forcing signal (black) with a random monte carlo simulation (one dimensional random walk). Open circles denote reversals of the signal direction, demonstrating general persistency in direction with positive feedback and general anti-persistency in direction with negative feedback.
The graph shows the original random walk in black, and what would happen with positive feedback in red, and negative feedback in blue. Two things to note--first, the red graph is always fluctuating the highest as it has more gain and steers the system away from the center value . Alternately the blue negative feedback graph has the smallest absolute value all the time as it steers the signal back to the average value of zero here. The second point is that the red graph is smoother overall as it resists letting the signal return to lesser values, the feedback keeps pushing it away. Consequently, it has less reversals of direction, which are indicated here with the open circles. The blue line of negative feedback tries to reverse back to the center all the time and consequently it has clearly more reversals than the red line of positive feedback, steering away from the average value.
Obviously these reversals can be counted and compare to the original signal. If there are clearly more than 50% reversals the system would undergo negative feedback and with significant less than 50% reversals, it is positive feedback. Due to the chaotic nature, values close to 50% are hard to judge on weak positive or negative feedback, depending on the statistical significance. Note that using a feedback factor of 0.5 (positive) resp -0,5 (negative) in this demonstrator would lead to a positive gain of about 1,5 with about 38-40% reversals resp for the negative feedback, a gain of about 0,5 with about 60-62% reversals.
In exactly the same way, the data of a long series, for instance monthly global temperatures can be analyzed on persistency behavior, which would indicate the nature of feedback, if any.
To check that for monthly global temperature series, the longest series, HadCRUT04 monthly global temperature data from 1850 till now (June 2014) was analysed in the tab "HadCRUT reversals" of the spreadsheet. It counted 1192 reversals and 780 non-reversals as shown in cells D3 and D4..Hence a reversal rate of 60,4%. So the series demonstrates anti-persistency on a monthly basis. Consequently, the feedback on the global temperature system is predominantly negative under the sum of all negative feedback with approximately a monthly lag.
Then the question raises if there would be a difference in reversal rate from before and after the the start of the increase of CO2, which could indicate a difference in feedback once CO2 started to change significantly. To address this, the counts have been split to before (1850-1949) and after (1950-2014) the start of the CO2 enrichment.
The reversal rate with the monthly time constant is 59.8% before the CO2 and 61.5% afterwards. This suggests that the monthly feedback became more negative when the CO2 started to rise.
Next other time constants are analysed, ie, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi annual and annual, averaging any possible combination starting with each month. For instance for bimonthly, there are two datasets, for odd and even months, while for yearly results there are 12 sets, each beginning with a different month. It's all shown in the spreadsheet.
The result is in the box in the sheet labeled "HadCRUT reversals".
monthlybi-monthlyquarterlysemi annualannualReversals 1850-195059,8%57,3%58,9%56,2%57,8%Reversals 1951-201461,5%51,6%50,4%53,4%58,6%
This shows that all values are greater than 50%. Consequently there is no evidence of persistent behavior hence no evidence of distinct positive feedback on any of those time constants. It does show, however, that the persistency increased on a bi-monthly, quarterly and semi-annual basis during the CO2 enrichment period. Whereas on the annual basis the persistence acts again as on the monthly basis, becoming slightly stronger in the CO2 enrichment period.
Notice that this does not say anything about the nature of causes of positive or negative feedback, be it variations in the sun, variations in humidity, cloud cover, ice melting, ocean signals, volcanoes, polution, aircraft contrails, El Nino, anything. It merely shows if the reaction of the system is persistent or anti-persistent to (forcing) factor variation. It's not about what causes the variation, rather, it's about how the system reacts to those.
Since there is no reversal rate anywhere below 50% it is evident that the temperature series is not at any point driven by a sufficient strong positive feedback signal that would be required to create catastrophic global warming. Also it shows that intermediate time constants of months the persistence became less negative when the CO2 started to rise as af 1950. However both the monthly and annual time intervals negate this, showing a weaker persistence in the CO2 enrichment period. Consequently without evidence of significant persistence, the required strong positive feedback for catastrophic global warming does not exist. Therefore the actual climate sensitivity per doubling CO2 has got to be about the basic value ranging from 1K to 1,2K. So the minimum value of the IPCC, 1.5K, can be considered falsified.
REFERENCES
Dataset HadCRUT4 http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ha...
Kärner O, 2002; On non-stationarity and anti-persistency in global temperature series. Journal of Geophysic Research Volume 107, Issue D20, pages ACL 1-1–ACL 1-11, 27 October 2002
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
Kärner O, 2005; Some examples of negative feedback in the Earth climate system. Central European Journal of Physics vol 3 No 2, pp 190-208
http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/cejpo...
Kärner O, 2007 On a possibility of estimating the feedback sign of the earth climate system. Proc. Estonian Acad. Sci. Eng., 13, 260-268
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/...



Response:

Let's take a look at the global surface temperature average since 1850:

Temperature since 1850.gif
Source: Met Office via Corporate Responsibility

Now, take a look at the CO2 emissions for the same period:

Graph of Global Carbon dioxide Emissions, 1850 to 2009.
Source: NASA Earth Observatory
We can see many things here, but one of them is that there was a prolonged period of warming in the 1800s (about 1860 - 1880) that correlated to minimum amount of CO2 emissions. In other words, there was a natural process going on during this period that caused the climate to warm. This is not controversial or new, although the contrarians would like to make the case that it is. There is natural variability in the climate. We know this because the climate scientists have done the hard work to discover it.

What you have done is to compare the period of low-CO2 emissions to the period with high-CO2 emissions to see if there was a relationship between temperature change and CO2 emissions. However, your procedures were invalid.

We can see by comparing the two graphs above that, in fact, there was a considerable amount of climate change between 1860 and 1880, even though CO2 emissions were very low during this period. What that means is that there was something else causing climate change during this period. Then, we can see there was a great deal of climate change between 1950 and 2006 (end of data on graph) and there was also a great deal of CO2 emissions. So, what you thought you were doing is changing one variable versus another (CO2 levels versus temperature), but in fact, you were changing at least three variables simultaneously - CO2 levels, temperature and what ever it was that caused the climate change between 1910 and 1940. You wanted a dependent variable (temperature) against an independent variable (time) and looking at two different periods where you assumed only one thing changed (CO2 levels). But, this is not the case.

Obviously, something was going on in the 1800s and you did not do anything to isolate or identify that cause and simply assumed that what ever it was that caused that change back then is not relevant to the calculations. You have, at least, a second dependent variable in the data that is not accounted for. If climate scientists did this contrarians would be all over them, as they should. Having a second dependent variable invalidates the experiment and this is a pretty typical exercise in most introductory labs.

Let's look at the price of gasoline as an example. You can plot the cost of gas at the pump versus time and compare it to the regulatory and tax situation in some period in the past and some period more recently. By doing this you can conclude that the cost of gas has been rising because of an increase in regulatory oversight and greater taxes. Both of which are valid observations. But, there is also the vastly increased cost involved with having to go to greater and greater extremes to find the crude oil. So, if we were to compare the cost of gas to regulatory periods we would certainly get a plot. But, that plot would not include the fact that it costs a lot more to get crude oil today than it use to. Plotting data always gives a plot, but that doesn't mean it means anything.

Until such a time as you identify the second dependent variable and take it into account, your calculations make no sense and prove absolutely nothing.

You did not prove man made global warming is not real.




54 comments:

  1. Hey Dr. Keating,


    I just wanted to say that I was on the fence about AGW until I came across your blog. Having read the sometimes absurd, always flawed challenges, I now firmly trust the climate scientists. I believe that those who do not accept AGW belong to one of two groups,


    1) They don't know what they're talking about, either because they were lied to or refuse to do research.


    2) They are liars who intentionally obfuscate the debate by repeating constantly refuted points and resort to personal attacks or changing the topic. Their vitriol is too persistent to be anything other than malice.


    I believe that the "debate" is largely a product of the failure of scientists to communicate with an unscientific population. I just wanted to thank you for doing your part to show people how the fundamentals of AGW theory are actually quite commonsense.

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  2. Dr Keiting. ...... Do you know that there may be 1 or 2 submission that is in those posts that you received that is right because it is not yet available in our current human understand?

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  3. If a hypothesis is out of the realm of human understanding, then why would anyone try to make a case for it? Clearly, there could be now supporting evidence for it.

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  4. First, the science supporting AGW is so overwhelming that I don't see that it is possible. That is like saying it is possible the Sun orbits Earth because there is science we don't yet understand.


    But, besides that, let's look at the submissions and see which ones might become valid with new science in the future:


    Could it be the ones that just say this is a natural cycle? No, the science has shot that one full of holes.


    Could it be the ones that say AGW isn't real because they don't like the climate models? No. That argument is not only false, but irrelevant.


    Could it be the ones that say there has been no warming? No. Not until they start looking at the entire globe instead of 7% of it, these claims have no validity.


    How about the ones that say AGW isn't real because CO2 doesn't absorb IR radiation? There would not only have to be new science but evidence that hundreds of years of science and engineering was all falsified before it could be considered.


    But, there are the ones that say global warming isn't real because it is real, but the planet isn't warming as fast as they think it should. No, you can't prove AGW isn't real by proving AGW is real and no new science will change that.


    How about the ones that claim 'you can't prove a negative'? I'm telling you that door over there is locked. If you go over there and open it, you have proven the negative. ALL experiments prove a negative, in some way. So, no. No new science will change that.


    Or, the guy that took a handful of data points and claimed that it was superior to the thousands of data points and the analysis of five different professional groups, even though his math was invalid? No, that one will never be valid even with new science. It would require a new universe where his math is valid.



    Then, there were the ones that took a handful of cherry-picked bodies in the solar system out of hundreds and used questionable data to claim they were warming (maybe they are, maybe the aren't. We don't know for sure.) and claimed that as evidence that AGW isn't real. Until they can show all (or, at least most) of the bodies in the solar system are warming it isn't relative. After all, we would expect SOME of them to be warming just through natural orbital dynamics.


    Or, how about the one that claimed AGW isn't real because George Carlin said so, even though he never said so. I loved it, but no amount of science will ever make it right.


    Then, there were several, such as The Great Global Warming Swindle film and anything using Roy Spencer or the Heartland Institute, that said AGW isn't real because we are going to falsify everything we claim. No. Any new science will still leaving them holding the title of 'fraud.'



    Then there's my favorites:


    AGW isn't real because all of the ice cores are wrong and any science that disagrees has to be thrown out. Because I said so.



    or,


    AGW isn't real because water doesn't absorb IR radiation and any science that disagrees has to be thrown out. Because I said so.


    or,


    AGW isn't real because I can pick some mountain valleys and their average temperature today is less than the average temperature of a period I carefully picked by hand and any science that disagrees with me has to be thrown out. Because I said so.


    No. Any new science has to incorporate and explain what was already known. Even if it turned out that there was some new science in any of these extreme cases, it would still have to explain centuries of science that supports the previous work.


    But, let's not forget.... Well, I think I made my point.

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  5. I brought up Al Gore because he basically put himself up in the limelight. I could also bring up Pres. Obama and mention that the base for carbon trade in US was (is?) in Chicago...


    To put your last statement into perspective, one could take all humanity, gather them all up, and fit them inside one county in Florida. Somehow you believe that an area the size of a county in Florida has the ability to affect the climate of the whole entire planet. That is water, land, atmosphere, ozone layer, magnetic field, the moon's affect on weather and water, the sun (which apparently is not hot enough to affect anything), the sun's magnetic field, which affects earth as well, etc.


    How can one even consider that our actions may preclude naturally occurring events from also changing the climate? With the two opposing sides as they stand, how can we even take ourselves into account? You have the actions of the sun, the sun's magnetic field, the earth's magnetic field, the moon's gravity on earth, the ozone layer, the stratosphere, the water, jet stream, etc. Nature has a LOT more things going on then we do. What do we have...carbon dioxide (supposedly). That's it. That against what could be hundreds of mechanisms that we have not discovered yet, next to those that have been discovered and ignored. ("The Neglected Sun" anyone?) Not to mention actual observations and records don't cover the 4.5 billion + years of earth. What can't be directly observed can technically only be assumed. (What if our methods or interpretations are wrong?) For instance, models today cannot accurately portray the observed past, so how can they be trusted to show the future?


    Yet the science is settled, according to you.

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  6. Did you REALLY think I wouldn't do a little homework on that statement? If you put 7 billion people shoulder-to-shoulder and allowed them a mere 1 square meter a piece they would occupy an area of 2,703 square miles. The largest county in Florida is Palm Beach County with 2034 square miles. So, not even close.

    That statement was not only wrong, but it was clearly designed to deceive. Why do contrarians do this? Is it because they have nothing to support their claims, so they make something up? Yes, in fact, that is the exact reason why.

    Let's look closer at your claim. The first problem is that it only includes the humans with no living space and does not include any of the industrialization, agriculture or waste infrastructure necessary to support those 7 billion people. Why did you leave all of that out?

    The next serious problem is that you turned a 3-dimensional issue (volume of emitted greenhouse gases) into a 2-dimensional issue (area needed for 7 billion people to stand).

    Frankly, this statement is so such a blatant lie that it destroys any credibility you might have with anything else you might say.

    The rest of your comment is only marginally better. It is clearly designed to deceive. I hope it is more of a problem that you simply didn't bother to do any homework than you came here with the intent to lie.

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  7. Ndeshi-pax Michael AmupoloAugust 13, 2014 at 1:13 PM

    Yes, its still me Michael. Dr Keiting. You forgot that supper volcanoes used to occur in the past. All the greenhouse gases that were in the atmosphere are not there forming a gas cloud. Which means that greenhouse gases precipitates out of the atmosphere. I believe my statement because I can model it and explain it further by considering the water cycle. Same applies to greenhouse gases that people release into the atmosphere. If you don't believe it, some days after few hundred years some scientists will prove it.

    National cyclea are real, and nothing else is permanent in this universe. Its transfered from one state to another. All laws that governs nature says so. Even the first law of thermodynamics.

    KEITING, I WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THAT GREENHOUSE GASES IN THE ATMOSPHERE ARE NOT PERMANENTLY IN. All I want to find out from the world is how? How are they removed from the atmosphere? All those billions of years ago, but greenhouse gases even from huge smokes of volcanoes are not in the atmosphere at a huge amount.....where do they do?

    If we stop/decrease the amount of greenhouse gases that people release in the atmosphere, after many years, we may experience a free fresh atmosphere and the earth may balance everything on it's own by making Nitrogen at 78, oxygen at 21 ETC.....

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  8. The problem with your statement is that, not only is it not disputed, but it is included in models. Supervolcanoes in the past had enormous effects on the climate. But, so what? There have not been any supervolcanoes in thousands of year. A supervolcano is one that is categorized 8 under the volcanic explosive index (VEI) (expels at least 1,000 cubic kilometers of ejecta). The last time this happened was the Toba eruption 74,000 years ago.



    So, claims about supervolcanoes don't apply to today. And, regular volcanoes don't emit carbon dioxide at significant levels.



    Yes, we know CO2 stays in the air for a long time before being washed out. The time period is not know for certain, but estimates vary between 200 and 2000 years. We know the greenhouse gases are not permanent. They will eventually be cleaned out, but not if we keep increasing the amount of emissions we make. And, the amount of time it takes to clean them out means that, even if we were to stop emitting today, there is enough already in the atmosphere to cause the climate to continue changing.



    Natural cycles are real, but not permanent. Even the natural cycles change with time.

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  9. * jab to the ribs joke * You haven't done homework in a long time have you. I did my own math, and then decided to do a little research. According to National Geographic, you could fit all 7 billion people in the world, shoulder to shoulder, in Jacksonville, Florida, and still have over 300 square miles left over. (The actual information from National Geographic is that you could fit 7 billion people shoulder to shoulder within 500 square miles, and Jacksonville Florida is 874.3 square miles.)


    I was in a rush on lunch break when I wrote my reply, so I could not check into whether we would still fit inside of Jacksonville Florida, so I chose county instead, so I wouldn't be blatantly lying. I have since had a chance to check into the Jacksonville Florida statement I heard over 20 years ago, and found that it still holds. (and then some)


    The volume of the earth is 260,732,699,457 cubic miles. The volume of the atmosphere is approximately 3,000,000,000 cubic miles (a conservative number next to 3.97 billion found using a rounded 20 miles for the height of the atmosphere.) The surface area of the earth is approximately 196,000,000 square miles. The whole human population of earth, standing shoulder to shoulder only takes up 500 square miles. That is 83,635,200,000 cubic feet if the average height of all 7 billion people was 6', which is only approximately 5.7 cubic miles. Somehow we are to believe that 5.7 cubic miles worth of organisms can by any action affect an area of 3,000,000,000 cubic miles to the point that it affects the climate of 196,000,000 square miles, to the point that is has a greater impact than the 260,732,699,457 cubic miles of planet, the 196,000,000 square miles of surface (mountains, volcanoes, oceans etc.), 3,000,000,000 cubic miles of atmosphere (weather patterns, clouds, storms, etc), and one really hot sun combined. That seems just a little absurd. Though I sense a real money making opportunity.


    This is without taking in what could potentially be hundreds, or even more, or possibly less, variables that could impact climate, that have absolutely nothing to do with the organism (in this case, humans) at all. I am just putting things into perspective. I understand that observation and perspective do not matter in science, and fall to the wayside along with facts. Those facts being that we really don't understand who things work, which is why we still have days of shoveling partly cloudy off our driveways. (Not to mention an entire month where the daily forecast is off by over 10-15 degrees every day...that was interesting.)


    It becomes even more absurd when one realizes that our planet is rather adaptable to catastrophic events that it brings about on itself. (Such as when Mount Pinatobo erupted, or that earthquake that moved a whole city and changed the rotation speed of the whole planet.)

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  10. I think that number is questionable. That would allow only .2 square meters per person and that is an area of about 43 centimeters on a side, or about 17 inches. I am not sure you could put some inside a box 43 centimeters on a side. But, we don't need to worry about that. The real issue is that you took 7 billion people and fit them on an area and assumed that that small area is inconsequential to the environment because it is such a small part of the planet. But, you ignore the 3-D effects of those 7 billion people (and, no, I am not talking about their height). We emit over 35 billion tons of CO2 a year. Squeeze the people into as small an area as you want and we still emit over 35 billion tons of CO2 a year filling the atmosphere, not to mention all of our other gases. Then, there is all the land that has to be farmed to feed those 7 billion people. How do you fit those into that county? And, there is the problem of bringing food and water to all of those people in that county. Not to mention getting all the waste and trash out of the county. Making a statement about fitting all 7 billion people in one county is deceitful. I said it before and I stick to that statement. The only way your statement could possibly be anywhere near relevant is if you crammed 7 billion people into an area shoulder-to-shoulder and then left them all there to die. Because, if they are to live it will take a whole lot more than the land of one county to do that. A whole lot more.

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  11. You really are a comedian, Keating. Thanks for another laugh.

    "Any new science has to incorporate and explain what was already known."
    Did genetics have to incorporate and explain what Trofim Lysenko already knew? People used to know the earth was flat. I could go on, but the basic fact is that every single major breakthrough in science did not explain what was already known. It exposed and overturned what was previously misunderstood. Ninety nine percent of what your climate scientists think they "know" will land in the dustbin of history. And their millions of pages of peer reviewed science can line the bottom of as many bird cages.

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  12. A lot of the submissions were legitimate, fulfilled all requirements, and at least one should have been paid.


    You are a welcher and a scoundrel for reneging.


    Despicable.

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  13. Mr. Keating:

    You are reneging with this excuse:

    ... this doesn't even qualify as a proof under the scientific method.



    There is no 'proof' under the scientific method. By making this your false criteria, you are welshing.


    ~Mo Gono
    Accra

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  14. You are absolutely delusional if you think any of these submissions proved AGW is not real. And, isn't just like a denier to come and make these kinds of statements without anything to back it up. It sounds good, doesn't it, to just make a claim like that. Tell me, which of these "A lot" of submissions were legitimate? Point them out and tell us why they were legitimate. I am betting you can't. And, which one should have been paid? I'm betting you can't show us which one it was because not a single one was anywhere close to being scientifically valid.


    We'll wait for your answer and I'll be patient because I imagine you'll be taking a while to do what you claim. Oh, yeah! That was what the challenge was all about wasn't it? Telling deniers to do what they claim they can do. They couldn't and neither can you.


    The message of the challenge is pretty simple and applies to you:


    If you can't do it, stop saying you can.

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  15. Ndeshi-pax Michael AmupoloAugust 16, 2014 at 8:43 PM

    I think what Mr Mogumbo wanted to emphasis on was to tell Dr Keiting to just thank even 3 posts that excited him of all those hundreds of posts that he received. Just to thank them with even a dollar, to prove to the world that no one could beat his challenge on global warming, but the most important objective of this challenge was to improve the brainstorming of people so that people that are blind on science topics can open their eyes. Mr Keiting, supply even a dollar to few posts. This challenge was the first step towards the future. If such challenges continue like this, we may obtain imprtant theories that may unlock our science world wide. But if Dr Keiting's challenge doesnt supply even a dollar, people in the future will stop posting what they think about, and science may die.So just open up your doors and the world will keep on posting. You never know coz you are almost already recognized by the world because of this challenge, so if you don't let us down, we will not let you down. Viva science...

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  16. How utterly ridiculous! You want me to give money to someone for engaging in false arguments, deceit and rejecting science?

    If people will stop making ridiculous claims like what was submitted here we will be able to advance our understanding of science, instead of wasting time on these false claims. Our understanding of science will advance, not 'die'.

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  17. The whole solar system's warming, right? Taking the thumbnail definition of "scientifically significant" as at least 5%, a successful solution just needs to show that at least 95% of global warming would be occurring anyway. We should be able to figure out how to do that with remote sensing.

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  18. The whole solar system is not warming. That is something some contrarian started somewhere. Basically, there are hundreds of bodies in the solar system. We fully expect to see some of them getting warmer through simple orbital mechanics. A small handful of bodies may possibly be warming, but that is based on as few as two data points for at least one of those bodies. The bigger question is why aren't at least 50% of the bodies in the solar system getting warmer? You would think that is what we would be seeing through normal orbital mechanics, but we don't. Hmmmm.

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  19. Okay. Only two data points. One of the sources I scanned says flat out that we simply don't understand Pluto's warming.

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  20. I would point out that it is not a reneging because I required a proof to conform to the scientific method. This was done to prevent just the kind of arguments some people submitted that are of the "Because God said so." variety. I have received submissions from people that have stated, literally, that any science that disagrees with them is wrong and needs to be thrown out.



    Be that as it may, I would also point out that I gave a response to even those submissions. So, you cannot possibly say I reneged on anything. If there is any science to support the contrarian stand, then why couldn't anyone produce it?

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  21. Well, I gather MIT thinks otherwise.newsoffice.mit.edu/2002/pluto

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  22. Keep the facts straight, please. A team of scientists at MIT 12 years ago said, based on two data points of the thickness of the atmosphere, that it appeared the planet was warming. That is a very sketchy thing to base any argument on for any purpose what so ever. And, the observations have not been repeated, so we don't even know if there is any validity to them.


    Here's more:

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/pluto-global-warming.htm

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  23. Facts straight here. Two data points for, zero data points against. I didn't change any words or facts. The piece was published by MIT, based on MIT resesrch, and concludes Pluto is warming. QED

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  24. Science is not a sporting event. There are no scores. As for QED, that stands for Quod erat demonstratum - "which was to be proven". The team did not set out to prove, or disprove, Pluto was warming. They examined two data points of the thickness of Pluto's atmosphere and they concluded, based on those data points, that the atmosphere is getting thicker. This does not necessarily mean the planet is getting warmer and it is now believed the reason for the thickening is merely the amount of time it is taking for the atmosphere to escape into space after degassing (Pluto is too small to hold its atmosphere with gravity). Besides, the atmosphere is only a tiny fraction of the thickness of our atmosphere. As humans on Earth, we would call Pluto's atmosphere empty space and is thinner than the atmosphere surrounding the International Space Station (yes, it is still in the atmosphere of Earth). Pluto's atmosphere is an atmosphere only to scientists. Additionally, Pluto is so far away and is so small it is very difficult to get reliably accurate measurements. One of the reasons behind sending the New Horizons spacecraft (which will pass Pluto next year) was to get there before the atmosphere all froze out.



    Is Pluto getting warmer? Absolutely not. Does it matter to the issue of global warming? Absolutely not. This is a red herring until someone, somewhere, can show how this is, in any way, relevant to the issue.



    If you are going to talk about chances of Pluto getting warmer you'll also have to talk about all of the bodies that are getting colder and explain them. I'll save you the trouble, they are all getting warmer, or colder, due to normal orbital mechanics.

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  25. Actually, it bears great resemblance to sporting events. Both endeavors have rules and referees, with encomiums awarded by vote (like in boxing and other individual sports). And you usually enter both fields as an apprentice under tutelage. I say the similarities far outweigh the differences, i.e. "Lakatos' research program methodologies are akin to Coach's game plan for the big match on Saturday night". QED was intended to show I proved what I claimed, not that they showed what they claimed. Which leads me to: first you write (re Pluto warming) "We aren't even sure it is warming", then you hit us with "Is Pluto getting warmer? Absolutely not."

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  26. No, we are not sure the two measurements show there was warming in Pluto's atmosphere over the period in question. The second comment is directed to the more general issue that Pluto is not getting warmer. This is due to its orbital mechanics that is taking it away from the Sun. So, the two comments are both valid. It is not sure that the two data points show warming, but Pluto is rapidly moving away from the Sun and is certainly not getting warmer.

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  27. Well, there is this book:

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Neglected-Sun-Catastrophe-Independent/dp/1909022241

    It is by by Fritz Vahrenholt (Author), Sebastian Luning (Author), Pierre Gosselin (Translator)

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  28. The affect of solar variability on the climate is well documented. What I find interesting is the synopsis on one hand talks about the Sun's current cooling cycle, then seems to be saying AGW isn't a problem. But, if there is a cooling cycle from solar activity and the temperature is rising anyway, what happens when that solar cooling trend comes to an end and we have continued to increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? It doesn't sound good.

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  29. CK - I was actually commenting on the supposed political banning of the book from Amazon. The book he says is not available on Amazon is available on Amazon.

    Ralph A Jansen said, "Such as Amazon refusing to sell books that present evidence to the contrary, apparently due to political expediency. *note: political correctness*."

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  30. Sorry. I didn't put the your comment in context and misunderstood.



    I am not privy to the inner-workings of Amazon, so it is possible they are banning certain books, but that just doesn't seem credible to me. If Amazon thought it could make money selling a book, I think it would sell it, no matter what the subject of the book.

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  31. I quite alarmed at the use of the word Deniers. Kinda reminiscent of the name calling resereved for people who wish to debate the holocaust. Is the use of this emotional response iintended to replace resoned argument?

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  32. Why would you be "alarmed" by the use of that word? Is it not a reasonable thing to call someone that denies manmade global warming and denies the scientific evidence supporting it? I would also point out that many of the deniers refer to themselves with that very same word.

    I do not normally equate deniers with people that deny the Holocaust, although I don't think it is unreasonable to do so. Mostly, I equate them to people that deny evolution, the Moon landings and claim there is a big face on Mars.

    In the spirit of trying to be more accommodating, I have been using the term 'contrarian', if that will make you feel better. However, understand I still equate contrarians with people that deny evolution and the Moon landings and claim there is a big face on Mars. I also suppose you could call people that deny the Holocaust 'contrarians', as well. A rose by any other name, so to speak.

    It isn't the word that should "alarm" you, it should be the fact that so many people are rejecting science in favor of their preconceived conclusions.

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  33. Chris

    Glad you cleared up the Deniers issue up for me. Could you help me out with another little problem. I am a physicist who has also studied climate change as part of an Oceanography masters. After looking at both arguments and doing extensive research into the scientific literature I believe in global warming but contend that it is a natural cycle and do not think that man is responsible. Do I come under the category of Denier and would you equate me to people that deny evolution, the Moon landings and claim there is a big face on Mars.

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  34. Thank you Chris your answer could not be clearer. why waste time on scientific argument when you can compare the opposing camp tto people that deny evolution, the Moon landings and claim there is a big face on Mars.

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  35. Because I have spent a tremendous amount of time on scientific arguments replete with mountains of scientific evidence and contrarians consistently and continuously reject any thing that doesn't fit their preconceived conclusions. When someone wants to get me into a conversation (read, 'debate') on global warming, I ask them one question: "Is there anything I can say or do that will convince you that manmade global warming is real?" If the answer is, 'No', there is no need to continue. I have never had even a single person tell me, 'Yes.'

    I find that the mentality of people that deny science is always the same, no matter what topic of science they choose to reject. And, if you will bother looking at this blog you will see that I have provided a considerable amount of scientific evidence and arguments. Did you see that, or did you just go to your preconceived conclusion?

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  36. You failed to do your homework and came to a conclusion you found convenient for your preconceived notions. There are plenty of natural cycles, but if you had really bothered to study these natural cycles and learned what was going on you would have learned the naturally occurring cycle we are currently in is a cooling one, not a warming one. Something other than naturally occurring cycles is causing the climate to warm when, if left to itself, it would actually be cooling.

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  37. As stated before I have done extensive research as part of my Oceanography MSc. I think you are making the mistake of focusing on a small (recent) part of the graph. Step back a bit and we are clearly in a warming phase. For a proper scientific debate it is necessary to back up your assertions with some kind of evidence.

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  38. As an oceanographer, what is your opinion regarding the efforts to protect marine species in the Gulf of Mexico? Some people claim the Deepwater Horizon oil spill threatened to kill off several species, but there have been die-offs before, right? That's just a natural cycle. And there are natural oil seeps in the ocean floor, too. Clearly these protection efforts are just some politically motivated waste of taxpayer dollars. Right?

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  39. The claim that this is just a natural cycle because there have been warming cycles in the past is one of the most common false arguments contrarians like to pull out nowadays. I have commented on this one extensively and wrote a posting addressing this issue:

    http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.com/2014/06/naturally-occurring-cycles-are-not.html


    As a physicists, this should be very easy for you. There is more energy coming into the planet than going out. What happens to a body under that situation? And, the amount of energy coming in is declining while the temperature is going up. The only way that can be possible is if the system is becoming more efficient at storing energy. The rest is details.


    The fundamental issue is this, since we are concerned in this conversation about the effects of manmade emissions, we need to focus on the period of time when manmade emissions were significant. Until you can show some evidence that the current warming cycle is some how connected to naturally occurring cycles, the argument is a false one. This is especially true considering the evidence shows we are in a naturally occurring cool cycle. And, part of that cycle is that the solar activity over the last 50 years has been declining, right during the time period we are interested in.

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  40. Although I have an MSc in Oceanography, I consider myself a physicist. My position on protecting marine species in fact land and airborne is that it is generally a good idea. I,m also in favour of looking after our planet in general. However I am suspicious of the motives of the politicians etc who promote the AGW position. I believe that it part of the new world order ie it is a means to transfer wealth from the developed world to the third world. See Richard Feynmans report on the Durban Climate conference

    http://motls.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/richard-feynman-on-climate-conference.html

    I think that reducing our dependence on dwindling fossil fuels is a good idea but it needs to be done with global agreement not the UK etc ruining our economy going green whilst china etc burns more fossil fuel. The fact that the developing world are allowed to produce increasing amounts of CO2 is good evidence that world leaders dont take the AGW position seriously but use it as a device to send more aid transfer more industry to the East etc.

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  41. Let me get this straight. You are saying AGW isn't real because you don't trust politicians? You could justify any argument you want with that line of reasoning.



    If trust is a factor, then tell me what you think of the motives of people like the Koch Brothers, the coal industry, the Heartland Institute, NIPCC, the Idso family, Roy Spencer and all of the rest of the denier crowd? Don't you think they have motives that don't serve your best interests, also?

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  42. And, by the way, Richard Feynman died in 1988 and could not have possibly commented on the Durban Conference - unless you happen to believe in psychics.

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  43. You are right on this occassion I havent done my research properly. Feynman did make observations on the transfer of wealth but this was in the fifties at Long Island. I was tricked by theses lies and I apologise for replicating them here. This just proves your point about the "Denier Crowd" and I promise to be more careful with what I post in the future.

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  44. Jonathan Charles BennettSeptember 20, 2014 at 1:47 AM

    more, sea water to desalinate and turn into drinking water...who cares. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. So if global warming is true, then its a good thing. Use the energy.

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  45. Sexist pig. For god sakes, err I mean for spirit sakes use "it" not "he" *shakes head in disbelief*

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  46. Hi Professor: I was over at WaPo beating my head against deniers today and I encountered an argument I've just started seeing. The argument is that the majority of scientific papers are synthesis papers, not original work.


    Now, I assume that multiple topics are synthesized in the same way that multiple appellate opinions are synthesized. By taking the various holdings together, you can discern a Rule. Seems like no paper should have to recreate every line of evidence, much less every single paper having to recreate all the lines of evidence to get to the point. But, then again, I don't know what they are complaining about. I looked through your list, maybe too quickly, but I didn't see this line of attack. Do you know what the deniers mean when complaining about synthesis papers? Any idea?


    Oh, and I just read Mogumbo here. Holy... Dude is the person stupid people point to when complaining about stupid people. I don't mean to be mean, but come on.

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  47. Spending your time trying to convince deniers - you are both braver and more patient than I am.


    This is the first I have heard of this claim. It seems to me that this is really weird, even for the deniers. What they are saying is that there is no AGW because all of the papers are based on papers previously found to be valid.



    I would make them define what they mean and then produce these papers they claim have no original work. Then, I would ask them how their claim proves ALL papers are invalid. They would need to demonstrate that ALL papers fit this description for it to be relevant.



    I think Mogumbo is in a group of people sent here just to take up my time. I have noticed someone will come along that keeps asking the same question over and over no matter what I respond with. I cannot prove it, but I believe it is some kind of effort to just take over blogs that show the science and debunk deniers. I have actually had to blacklist a few people because they were sending so many comments and they were becoming increasingly offensive. When I do, a new one appears.

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  48. What's a "climate denier?"

    Does anyone deny climate?

    Is it a person who denies that
    climate exists?

    Do they deny that climate changes?

    I'm not a climate denier, climate
    change denier, or even an anthropogenic climate change denier,
    I'm sceptical that climate change will be a catastrophe and so are many
    scientists who work in climate science and related fields.



    Who denies that climate changes?

    It's possible I could be accused of denying
    the C in CAGW.

    What are CAGW sceptics "denying,"
    exactly?

    1. CAGW sceptics don't "deny"climate,
    therefore cannot be "climate deniers."

    2. CAGW sceptics don't "deny"
    that climate changes, therefore cannot be "climate change
    deniers."

    3. CAGW sceptics don't "deny" that
    Earth has warmed by almost 0.8º C over the last 162 years, therefore cannot be "global
    warming deniers."

    4. CAGW sceptics don't "deny"
    that climate science exists, therefore cannot be "climate science
    deniers."

    5. CAGW sceptics don't "deny"
    that CO2 can cause a small amount of warming, therefore cannot be "anthropogenic
    global warming deniers."

    6. CAGW sceptics don't "deny"
    anything, we're sceptical of the inaccurate figures bandied about by alarmists
    and very sceptical of the scary catastrophe stories about everything and
    anything to do with climate.

    We are justifiably sceptical of computer models.

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  49. Why is it the deniers arguments always depend on lies and deceit? If you had a real case, you wouldn't need to do that, you could rely on the science.

    To say that people are not denying climate change (even naturally occurring climate change) is a lie. To say that deniers are not saying manmade climate change is not real is a lie (see John Coleman as an example, or anyone on Fox News). To say deniers are not denying global warming is a lie. To say deniers don't deny climate science is a lie (the only way you can be a denier is to deny the science). To say CO2 causes a small amount of warming is a lie. To say you ""deny" anything" is a lie. To say you are "justifiably" skeptical of models is a lie. The models have been very accurate and are getting more accurate on a yearly basis. The claim they are not accurate is a lie the deniers have cooked up and is not supported by the facts and reality. See my comments here:

    http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.com/2014/08/lets-talk-about-climate-models.html


    You have either done a pathetically poor job of doing your homework, or you're a liar. Either way, people are fully justified in calling you a denier.

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  50. Science in one post, by Christopher Keating:
    deniers
    denying
    deniers
    lies and deceit?
    denying
    lie
    deniers
    lie.
    deniers
    deny
    lie
    denier
    deny
    lie.
    deny
    lie.
    lie.
    lie
    deniers
    liar.
    denier.
    Nuff said. Ö¿Ö

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  51. I'm glad we agree. When you can come back with some facts and science to support your position, I'll be interested in hearing what it is.

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