The very first sentence of Lucy Skywalker’s post (reproduced on WUWT) about the arctic is:
What sudden recent warming?
I’ll answer that question.
I retrieved surface temperature data for the far north from GISS, selecting stations according to these criteria:
- Latitude 60N or greater.
- At least 30 years of data.
- At least some data since the year 2000.
A handful of stations were omitted because the data was so sparse, or because of huge gaps. Also, it’s possible that I missed some stations (there are quite a few!), but any such omissions are purely accidental. It’s at least possible that I didn’t miss any.
The sample includes 113 station records. I assigned them to 13 very large grids, with grid 0 being stations north of latitude 70deg., grids 1 through 12 covering latitudes 60N-70N in longitude bands 30deg. wide starting with 0 and heading east. For each station, I transformed temperature to temperature anomaly relative to a 1960-1990 baseline.
For each grid I combined the anomalies into a grid-wide average. I also computed 5-point moving averages of annual averages of the grid-wide data (equivalent to 5-year moving averages when no data are missing), to reduce the noise level for graphing. Further, I computed a lowess smooth for each individual station record, and for the grid-wide average (based on monthly data). With a lowess smooth (as with most smoothing methods) it’s possible to compute the probable error in the smoothed estimate, and for the smoothed grid-wide averages I’ve done so (using 95% confidence). To look for “recent warming” I computed the trend rate for the most recent 30 years of each data record by linear regression, together with the probable error for that estimate (again at 95% confidence).
Local temperature data show far less autocorrelation than global or hemispheric records. Nonetheless there’s still some, so the effective number of degrees of freedom is generally a bit more than half the actual number of data points. This means that probable errors will be about the square root of two times as large as their white-noise estimates. So, I inflated all white-noise probable errors by a factor of 1.5 as a conservative compensation. One drawback of local records is that they tend to show much larger scatter than global/hemispheric averages, so the uncertainties tend to be much larger than those of whole- or half-planet averages in spite of far less autocorrelation.
It’s well worth taking a close look at grid zero, stations at latitude 70N or greater (by some definitions the arctic doesn’t start until latitude 66.5 deg., the location of the arctic circle). There are 17 records: Barrow, Bjornoya, Clyde, Cokurdah, Danmarkshavn, Eureka, Gmo Im.E.K.F, Gmo Im.E.T., Hatanga, Jan Mayen, Nord Ads, Ostrov Dikson, Ostrov Kotel’, Ostrov Vize, Ostrov Vrange, Resolute, and Svalbard. Here are the estimated trend rates over the last 30 years for each:
For those who want more than just the last 30 years, here are moving averages of the grid-wide average:
Finally, here’s the lowess smooth of the grid average with confidence limits, on which I’ve superimposed the moving averages:
Several things are abundantly clear:
- The “sudden recent warming” is right there. Just open your eyes.
- In the last decade extreme northern temperature has risen to unprecedented heights.
- Over the last 3 decades, every individual station north of 70deg. indicates warming, 13 of 17 are significant at 95% confidence, all estimated trend rates are faster than the global average, some are more than 5 times as fast.
- Oft-repeated claims that “it was warmer in the 1930s” or “it was warmer in the 1940s” are wrong.
- The idea that present arctic temperatures are about equal to their 1958 values is “not even wrong.”
It’s also worth looking at all the grids, including those from 60N-70N; here are the lowess smooths of their data:
Because anomalies are computed relative to a 1960-1990 baseline, all the curves tend to “converge” about 1975. Here are the estimated 30-year trend rates for all 113 individual stations:
Again several things are abundantly clear:
- The “sudden recent warming” is right there. For every grid. Just open your eyes.
- For every grid the last decade is the warmest.
- Over the last 3 decades 108 out of 113 individual stations indicate warming, 48 of 113 are significant at 95% confidence, none show significant cooling.
- Oft-repeated claims that “it was warmer in the 1930s” or “it was warmer in the 1940s” are wrong. For every grid.
- The idea that present arctic temperatures are about equal to their 1958 values is “not even wrong.” For every grid.
Lastly, let’s plot the curves for each grid using a 2000-year time axis:
Add a handle to that blade, you’ve got one helluva hockey stick.
143 responses so far ↓
Chris S. // September 11, 2009 at 1:35 pm |
Just eyeballing the third graph (the lowess smooth) it seems the upper uncertainty bound at the start of the series is roughly equal to the lower uncertainty bound at the end. I’m sure someone will attempt to make capital out of that.
“See, even tamino shows there’s been no warming!”
Slioch // September 11, 2009 at 3:26 pm |
What is the betting that someone will write an article about just those five out of the 118 stations that show (insignificant) cooling and somehow forget to mention the other 113?
William // September 11, 2009 at 3:33 pm |
How do you know the period from 1960-1990 is “normal”. Why not compare temperature anomalies to any other 30 year period?
Your comparison point is as arbitrary as your plotted results.
[Response: Pick any baseline period you want. It will still be true that:
* The “sudden recent warming” is right there. For every grid. Just open your eyes.
* For every grid the last decade is the warmest.
* Over the last 3 decades 108 out of 113 individual stations indicate warming, 48 of 113 are significant at 95% confidence, none show significant cooling.
* Oft-repeated claims that “it was warmer in the 1930s” or “it was warmer in the 1940s” are wrong. For every grid.
* The idea that present arctic temperatures are about equal to their 1958 values is “not even wrong.” For every grid.]
Scott A. Mandia // September 11, 2009 at 3:37 pm |
Tamino,
You used GISS data, which at WUWT, is a BIG 4-letter word.
[Response: But Lucy Skywalker's post denying the truth uses data too ... and it says "All data comes from NASA GISS or CRU originally." I guess they like GISS data when they can misinterpret it -- but not when it shows how wrong they are.]
Zeke Hausfather // September 11, 2009 at 4:03 pm |
William seems to have the same difficulty that Watts often has in realizing that the baseline period for an anomaly has absolutely no effect on the trend.
Layman Lurker // September 11, 2009 at 4:18 pm |
Tamino, I have a couple of questions. First, are recent (since introduction of satellite) arctic temperature trends consitent among the data sources? Second, how much are these recent trends amplified or dampened by mult-decadal ocean oscilations?
[Response: I'm not sure what you mean by "consistent among the sources." If you're asking whether nearby stations have similar trends and details, then yes. If you're wondering whether GISS, HadCRU, NCDC show the same behavior, again yes. If you're wondering whether satellite records (which are for the troposphere, not the surface) also show much greater warming in the arctic than for the globe as a whole, again yes.
As for ocean oscillations, I don't believe they're at all responsible for arctic temperature trends.]
Layman Lurker // September 11, 2009 at 4:32 pm |
What about AVHRR?
Greg Simpson // September 12, 2009 at 1:30 am |
Tamino, I would have thought ocean oscillations to be the most likely cause of the large drop in temperatures in grid 0 between 1940 and 1965. What else to you suppose might have been the cause?
Giove // September 29, 2009 at 2:52 pm
uh to me the graphs seem to show a peak immediatly after 1929, then a small drop getting steeper around 1945 , and a recovery of the upwards trend after 10-15 years.
Interesting dates, could it be that
1929) huge economic downturn first stopped global warming that happened in the first quarter of last century
1939-1945) massive death and destruction in industrialized countries reversed emissions and the trend
1960-1965) massive economic boom started the upward trend in emissions again.
It seems to fit well with historic causes and correlate with economic trends. Interesting fact is that the lag between forcing economy/CO2 emissions and temperature increase seems to be almost zero
dhogaza // September 11, 2009 at 4:27 pm |
I wonder if Watts also believes that falling 20 feet from a building in a city at sea level is far less damaging than falling 20 feet from a building in a city a thousand feet above sea level?
Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
Ben Lankamp // September 11, 2009 at 4:59 pm |
Nice analysis, one again :). One question though, I have the GHCN inventory in my database and tried to compile the list of stations according to the criteria you mentioned (30 years+ of data, 2+ years since 2000, 60N or higher), but I arrive at 111 stations. The inventory was fetched from GHCN just yesterday. Care to compare lists? Not that I doubt your analysis, on the contrary: I just like to take the exercise :-).
[Response: I didn't require 2+ years since 2000, just at least one data point since 2000. Also, there were couple of stations with such glaring gaps that I omitted them, and as I say, I may have missed a couple.
I'll send you the list some time soon; it's on a different computer.]
GaryB // September 11, 2009 at 7:38 pm |
This type of post is the reason this site is my favourite anti-anti-AGW goto place for hard information.
Thank you Tamino.
Ian // September 11, 2009 at 8:45 pm |
Although I am regartded as a pariah on this site you may be interested in this post I have just placed on WUWT
n response to Lucy Skywalker’s piece on WUWT (September 9) tamino at Open Mind (http://tamino.wordpress.com/) has just posted an analysis of data from arctic weather stations that quite clearly show a hockey stick graph. I realise that posters here are not receptive to such data just as posters on Open Mind are very dismissive of WUWT. I do not have the expertise or to be truthful, the interest/incentive, to check the validity of tamino’s results but at face value they certainly cast significant doubt on Lucy Skywalker’s headline “Arctic Temperatures-What Hockey Stick?” It may not go down well here but if left unchallenged or not scrutinised, the results from tamino will cast significant doubt on the scientific validity of the articles published on WUWT and maintaining scientific credibility surely must be paramount.
chriscolose // September 11, 2009 at 9:46 pm |
Ian– there’s never been scientific credibility at WUWT. Sorry, but you’re way too late.
dhogaza // September 11, 2009 at 10:13 pm |
And you don’t need to be regarded as a pariah here. All you need to do is to understand that Watt’s gibberish is scientifically and statistically nonsensical, that most of those he allows to post there are no better, and that he lies when he says he doesn’t censor the site (as many of us here know from personal experience).
Once you accept this simple reality you might consider that the professionals at places like this blog and real climate really *do* know more about science and statistics than a washed-up TV weather reader who doesn’t even have a BS to his name, much less an advanced degree or background in scientific research.
And then you’ll be in a position to learn. Honest, sincere questions won’t be laughed at by most of us here.
Jim Galasyn // September 11, 2009 at 11:32 pm |
Great post, Tamino. Featured as Desdemona’s Graph of the Day: http://desdemonadespair.blogspot.com/2009/09/graph-of-day-temperature-anomalies-for.html
John Philips // September 11, 2009 at 11:42 pm |
Some things puzzle me about this WUWT post. Like, why it ever appeared in the fist place, given that site policy is :-
Internet phantoms who have cryptic handles and no name get no respect here. If you think your opinion or idea is important, elevate your status by being open and honest. People that use their real name get more respect than phantoms with handles. I encourage open discussion.
or maybe Lucy really is the sister of the more famous Luke? In response to Tamino’s critique above, the stellar-striding one observes … Sorry T didn’t see fit to ask me if I’d like to reply, as might have been done without any real extra effort… Lucy, the floor is yours. Please feel free to enlighten us as to where Tamino may have erred in his analysis, backed up of course with citations of hard and current data. We await your contribution, if perchance it falls foul of Tamino’s comment policy then simply make a copy and post on Professor Watt’s site, or indeed, over at Green World trust.
Standards of scientific rigour are simply immense at Green World, and rightly so. It seems Lucy has recently been reading Gavin Menzies serious study of the Chinese Navy’s polar expedition to the ice-free North Pole, [via the Suez Canal] in 1421, in the book of the same name. Ms Skywalker observes sagely..
You should read Gavin Menzies’ book “1421″ which describes an ice-free Arctic Ocean amongst other extraordinary things. The book is well worth a read, in fact it is so robustly challenging, intrepid Tintin-style, that an army of academics have collaborated in setting up a website specifically to debunk it. That speaks volumes already. It fired me up to read BOTH SIDES and it was clear pretty soon which side had truth and integrity – as well as all the other human virtues – on its side.
Clearly the concensus amongst academic historians is as dismissable as that amongst climate scientists.
Phil Clarke.
* Notes: TinTin is a fictional Belgian cartoon character, Luke skywalker is a protagonist in the science fiction movie series ‘Star Wars’. Hope this helps.
Derecho64 // September 12, 2009 at 3:31 pm |
WFTWT’s site policy:
“Internet phantoms who have cryptic handles and no name get no respect here. If you think your opinion or idea is important, elevate your status by being open and honest. People that use their real name get more respect than phantoms with handles. I encourage open discussion.”
That’s utter BS. I used my real name there, once, and got Watts so mad that he harassed me, trawling the web to find out about me as much as he could. He then extracted an out-of-context quote from me, sprayed it as far and wide as he could, in an effort to embarrass me professionally. For that, Watts is beneath contempt. He’s unprofessional, immature, deceitful, censorious, a liar, and dishonest. I advise anyone to put WTFWT on their list of shitty sites.
Sig // September 12, 2009 at 1:17 am |
Tamino:
Let me get this straight. You stated:
“As for ocean oscillations, I don’t believe they’re at all responsible for arctic temperature trends.”
Are you saying the PDO, ADO etc have no influence whatsoever on the temps in the Arctic?
[Response: No, I'm saying they're not responsible for the trends.]
GaryB // September 12, 2009 at 4:03 am |
Sig, there is a difference between the variation caused by ocean oscillations and the underlying trend as explained by Tamino here
John Mashey // September 12, 2009 at 5:17 am |
tamino: another nice analysis to bookmark, thanks.
Greg Simpson:
Re: drop in temperatures 1940-1975ish
See <a href="http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14537.pdf",Figure 3, page 14. on world sulfur emissions.
Note large runup, most in Northern Hemsiphere during that period, of cooling aerosols.
See earlier discussion here.
barry // September 12, 2009 at 5:29 am |
Ian, but that was an even-handed post you made at WUWT. I know what it’s like to challenge them and I thought you made a good attempt at enjoining the crowd there to reflect.
It’s hard to unlace people from their preconceptions, but much harder if you don’t sugar the effort a little. The regulars will never shift if they’re routinely disparaged.
But maybe I’m too optimistic. :-)
gp2 // September 12, 2009 at 8:24 am |
CRU gridded land surface temperature dataset (60-90N) shows exactly the same behaviour:
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1224/tsicrutem30360e6090nnyr.png
Aslak // September 12, 2009 at 8:58 am |
I dont understand the english in this sentence: “The idea that present arctic temperatures are about equal to their 1958 values is “not even wrong.” For every grid”
Eamon // September 12, 2009 at 12:00 pm |
Tamino,
much thanks for your hard work and insightful and informative posts.
As an aside, I’ll note that comments have been made on Skywalker’s post referring to ‘Vikings’ and ‘Greenland’ – a good indication of the level of discourse that is tolerated there.
Gavin's Pussycat // September 12, 2009 at 1:43 pm |
What I like about the posts here is not so much what tamino chooses as the target for his debunking — that is immaterial, and WTF is fish in a barrel, and anyway these same fateful memes orbit all around the internet — but the thorough, step by small step, analytical way the argument is made. A great demo of how science is done.
Sekerob // September 12, 2009 at 2:00 pm |
Aslak, It’s so wrong, there are no word to describe it is my interpretation.
In other news:
The Polar Stern weekly report is interesting. Going up a Greenland fjord that most probably has never seen a ship before. Warm weather.
Melt Area loss per Cryosphere was on Sep.6 55,000 km^square. JAXA reports 41 kkm^2 extent loss for Sept.11. Think both are now on or past the 1979-2000 mean melt stop date.
Beluga shipping reports successful heavy payload delivery taken from South Korea to a port at the Ob, carrying on to Rotterdam port.
Cryosphere Image shows a very clean route as at Sept.10, 2009
Oh yes, report on thickness study also just out.
Satellites and Submarines Give the Skinny on Sea Ice Thickness
CO2 up 12 months running ending August 2009 up by 1.77 ppmv
Aggi Report out. Since 1990 we’ve added 1.036 Watts^2 in Forcing to the atmosphere.
And sorry if any of this is old cake, but what’s there to discuss about WUWTBOH? That name should be on the banned words list.
luminous beauty // September 12, 2009 at 3:42 pm |
Aslak,
“Not even wrong” attributed to Wolfgang Pauli.
mspelto // September 12, 2009 at 5:01 pm |
Each glacier in the Arctic is also a proxy weather station. The Canadian’s have been watching the mass balance of several glaciers, Baby, White, Devon and Meighen. The last decade has been the worst decade since the program began in the early 1960’s. Accumulation rates have not been significnatly reduced but ablation rates have been higher. http://glacierchange.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/134/
Slioch // September 12, 2009 at 5:02 pm |
If anyone wishes to see the sort of nonsense that is being written by Christopher Booker of the UK’s Daily Telegraph (supposedly a ’serious’ newspaper), about (lack of!!) recent temperature rises in the Arctic they should consult:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6179713/New-hockey-stick-graph-on-climate-change-under-fire.html?state=target#postacomment&postingId=6179910
It seems to me that this kind of widely disseminated misinformation is the front line in the battle concerning the truth over global warming. Tamino has provided the ammunition to win the battle wrto Arctic warming above, but I have to say that I am continually disappointed to see how few of those of you who comment on this site join forces in the debates in these more widely read forums.
We really could do with a bit more support from articulate and scientifically literate commentators in such places: they are being over-run by ignorance and denial.
Marco // September 12, 2009 at 7:34 pm |
Slioch,
Booker also wrote this piece of nonsense:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5525933/Crops-under-stress-as-temperatures-fall.html
I think I can get my 15-year old nephew to spot all the mistakes and ask all the nasty questions, but even that will never ever convince Christopher Booker nor the flock of denialists he attracts. They are beyond reasoning, until it starts to hit home. Then you’ll see them screaming that “scientists should have told us earlier!”
TrueSceptic // September 12, 2009 at 5:14 pm |
I note that Lucy Skywalker and others at Watts, when replying to commenters such as Scott Mandia, make a big thing of claiming that they used to be AGW “believers” or even active AGW “advocates” until they looked at the data and made up their own minds.
Does anyone here believe them? What led them to “believe” before their Damascence conversion? How much trust can you put in anyone with such poor powers of critical thinking and lack of true scepticism?
thingsbreak // September 12, 2009 at 6:07 pm |
@TS
Those familiar with the Usenet/Talk Origins evolution denial battles will find that particular gambit familiar.
Ray Ladbury // September 12, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Actually, it should be familiar to anyone who has read the Confessions of St. Augustine–or at least who has been cornered by an evangelical who knowingly or not was inspired by the good Saint’s confessional style.
It is also a familiar technique from psychology or interrogation, as it can help to establish identification between the speaker and listener. Of course, it’s more effective when the speaker isn’t an absolute moron with no understanding of the subject they are addressing, but that doesn’t appear to be an option in the denialosphere.
Ray Ladbury // September 12, 2009 at 6:31 pm |
Aslak, Wolfgang Pauli is said, upon reading an utterly hopeless paper. “This is terrible. It’s so bad, it’s not even wrong!”
There is considerable wit in this statement. Wrong can be corrected, but if the writer is so clueless that you don’t even know where to begin–that’s “so bad it’s not even wrong.”
Pauli was reputedly quite a funny fellow. He once remarked on the similarity of his name to that of fellow physicist Wolfgang Paul by referring to him as “…my real counterpart in Bonn.” And one time when he grew tired of Paul Dirac harping on how irrational it was to believe in God, he quipped, “Our friend, Professor Dirac also has a religion. It’s chief tenet is ‘There is no God, and Dirac is his messenger.”
Dan L. // September 12, 2009 at 7:13 pm |
“…claiming that they used to be AGW “believers” or even active AGW “advocates” until they looked at the data and made up their own minds.
Does anyone here believe them? ”
Absolutely not. Creationists often tell the same sort of lie WRT evolution. It is a cheap ploy to create the impression that they are open minded, critical thinkers.
dhogaza // September 12, 2009 at 7:32 pm |
This has long been a favorite tactic of the creationist community. “I used to believe in evolution until I looked at the data and made up my own mind”. I don’t think this is coincidence.
Both communities claim fraud on the part of the appropriate science community (climate scientists, evolutionary biologists), with the motivation being political power (AGW:increasing government power, evolution:diverting people from god).
There are other commonalities as well, and other breeds of denialism tend to share them, too.
Scott Mandia // September 12, 2009 at 8:58 pm |
Slioch and TrueSkeptic have hit two nails on the head here. Two of the central themes of Moody and Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America (a must read, IMO) are:
1) The science in peer-reviewed literature is not making it to the general public because scientists are not communicating in public forums while the denialists are. They praise Realclimate.org for trying to do so and they explain why WUWT wins for Best Science Blog instead.
2) Many of the skeptics are actually intelligent people who do try to do their own research. They are very well-intentioned but have gone down the road to hell.
Unfortunately, most peer-reviewed literature is inaccessible to the general public either for financial reasons or the lack of science background that allows one to understand what is written if they do in fact have the article in hand.
Lucy Skywalker’s home page (http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm) reveals quite a lot. Look at the sources she cites for why she turned from AGW believer into AGW denier. I think she is a great example of a person who was pro-AGW because of what she heard but then became anti-AGW when she actually did some research. Other than the IPCC reports (which are lengthy and difficult to read) what other sources did she use? As we all know there are vast amounts of “science” on the Web from the skeptics and denialists so there is certainly the appearance of a preponderance of skepticism. Can you fault her? Even if she were to visit Realclimate, put yourself in the shoes of a person without a science or mathematical degree. Look at the language there both in the initial post and subsequent comments. My wife is a History professor who is very intelligent. However, I can tell you that she would be lost there also. Now consider how many in the public have no college degrees or just non-science undergraduate degrees with no real research technique training. How are they able to differentiate the truth from the fiction?
Finally, because the IPCC is a UN sponsored entity, it is quite easy for folks to throw it aside as politically driven. Once the average person discards the IPCC reports, there is little publicly accessible material left to support the AGW side. Although I think Gore did a huge service by releasing Inconvenient Truth, because he is a politician this film has helped to politicize the issue. You cannot believe how many blog posters rebut me with “Gore” somewhere in their reply. I have never quoted Gore nor is he used as a resource on my site. In fact, I did not vote for him!
The posts and the comments on WUWT are easy to read and most posters speak in a conversational style. Although there are many who just parrot the same anti-AGW misinformation without reasonable support, there are a few there who are very sharp and can quickly come up with data to support their arguments. I even had to dig into a journal article or two recently to back up what I thought was common sense. I can easily see why WUWT is so popular and why we cannot abandon posting there.
Scott Mandia // September 12, 2009 at 9:08 pm |
BTW, I mentioned Realclimate because it is probably the most popular pro-AGW site and was mentioned in the book.
I mean no disrespect to Open Mind which I personally greatly prefer. :)
[Response: I much prefer RealClimate.]
TrueSceptic // September 12, 2009 at 11:50 pm |
Scott,
This (Lucy’s site) is as bad as I expected. I stand by my 2nd para above.
Does anyone here believe them? What led them to “believe” before their Damascence conversion? How much trust can you put in anyone with such poor powers of critical thinking and lack of true scepticism?
I’ll respond in more detail when I have time (if Tamino doesn’t consider it OT).
Sig // September 13, 2009 at 12:00 am |
Scott:
I have no college degree, just the school of hardknocks degree. Yet, with that being said, I will put my IQ to work, degree or not.
What pure horseradish to make a statement like that. I once believed in AGW……UNTIL I read the literature. And yes, I can understand the literature very well thank you.
Some of what is posted on Anthony Watts site is poor, just as some that is posted on Real Climate is poor science.
An example of the hysteria over the Arctic Ice is:
Since 1978….or 1973. Go to the Hudson Bay records, go to folklore of the Vikings. The Actic has been as warm in the Halocene period before as it is now. Is this a cause for concern? No…..because I am talking climate…..NOT WEATHER. To use a 30 or even 40 year trend as climate is just plain foolish and without any scienetific merit at all.
And to call me “not being able to understand” because I don’t have a degree shows your total lack of knowledge of people.
[Response: I doubt that you understand the literature. That's based on your statements, not your lack of a degree.]
Sig // September 13, 2009 at 12:15 am |
Think what you may, I do understand the literature very well.
I will stand by my statement.
dhogaza // September 13, 2009 at 12:59 am |
She thinks Monckton is the best … that’s all you need to know.
dhogaza // September 13, 2009 at 1:00 am |
Stomps feet…
dhogaza // September 13, 2009 at 1:04 am |
OK, I’ll bite. Point us to the Hudson Bay records and Viking folklore that convincingly makes the case that the entire arctic experienced the kind of sustained warming we’ve been seeing the past decades.
Explain to us why any regional record you choose to cherry-pick can safely be extrapolated to conditions in the arctic as a whole, while the studies in the scientific literature are wrong.
Scott Mandia // September 13, 2009 at 1:32 am |
Sig,
I just knew when I posted my comments that it could easily be interpreted as snobbish or condescending. I am sorry if that is how you inferred my statements but it is not what I intended. I actually deliberated over posting these comments for that very reason and it is why I decided to mention my very intelligent wife as having difficulty with the science in the literature. My point is that, for most folks, without a strong background in science or mathematics, it is almost impossible to understand the literature.
I teach at a community college and an overwhelming majority of my students will never be science majors. I left Penn State to teach there because I find joy and exceptional personal value in bringing science to those who might otherwise not get it, or worse, who might get it wrong. Many folks are getting climate change wrong and I view climate change as one of the most important issues facing humanity today and into the near future.
Ray Ladbury // September 13, 2009 at 1:42 am |
Scott Mandia, Sorry, don’t buy that Lucy ever was anything but a denialist and a right-wing tool. I also don’t buy the arguments in Unscientific America. Americans are proud of their ignorance. They won’t even look at the evidence unless it’s been pre-chewed by the mother ship over at Faux News.
You say laymen would have trouble understanding Realclimate? Well, maybe they need to damn well wise up! Ask frigging question–in the spirit of realy trying to learn, not thinking they know more than the experts before they begin to study.
Humans have spent 10000 years telling themselves comforting lies. Well, now science is showing how false those lies were. It’s showing them that the Universe is a big, scary place that is utterly indifferent to their continued existence. They can either use science to help them make their way in that big scary Universe or they can cease to exist. Those are the choices.
Sig // September 13, 2009 at 1:43 am |
dhogaza:
First……the warming during the 1920-1947 period is no less steep or dramatic than the current warming.
[Response: You're mistaken.]
Saga:
Here a two links.
[edit]
[Response: If you want to spout, or link to, nonsense, do it somewhere else.]
Sig // September 13, 2009 at 1:44 am |
Also, as an aside, I was told these stories that I found on the internet by my grandfather before I ever read them. I am Icelandic by heritage.
[Response: You found it on the internet and you were told by your grandfather.
You really need to go somewhere else.]
Sig // September 13, 2009 at 2:22 am |
dhogaza asked…..I provided links. And yes, my grandfather. Those old sagas. When he told me, I didn’t give them credence. I do now tho as artifacts have been found to my surprise.
I won’t post again, nor mention bowhead whales. Seems a scientist used the fossil record to reconstruct ice data, but I know you wouldn’t be interested in that.
dhogaza // September 13, 2009 at 4:11 am |
She (or he or the organization or whatever) isn’t really trying to hide it.
She says “I studied this for one month”, and then concludes that *everything* mainstream science says about climate science is wrong, and *everything* in the denialist realm is right.
Her website is a masterpiece of (largely) unattributed cut-and-pasteness (assuming she’s a “she”, even Lucia’s not this transparent).
Slioch // September 13, 2009 at 8:30 am |
Meanwhile, the number of ordinary people believing that AGW is a scam appears to be increasing, at least in the UK, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8249668.stm
Is part of the reason for that, that scientifically literate individuals conclude with Marco above that deniers are “beyond reasoning”, and that therefore we should leave them to rule the roost in the popular newspapers/blogs. If we do that then the less hard-line deniers and the undecided have no counter arguments to the clever misinformation put out by the likes of Anthony Watts. Is that why their numbers are increasing?
Thanks to Scott Mandia for support, but where it is needed is the cess-pits of denial, where the sort of graphs that Tamino provides might, given exposure and explanation, just prevent the ranks of denial from becoming an overwhelming tidal wave of objection to doing anything commensurate with what is required.
We should not leave the Christopher Bookers of this world to sing their silly songs unchallenged.
Marco // September 20, 2009 at 5:44 pm |
Whoa, I didn’t say that we should not confront them! It’s just that we shouldn’t be so stupid to think we can actually convince the deniers. We can convince skeptics, and we can prevent the ‘ignorant’ (which should be taken as in “lacks knowledge”) from getting swayed by the deniers. But that isn’t easy in a blaze of fury from the deniers on blogs like WUWT and in the reactions to Christopher Booker’s columns.
Sig // September 13, 2009 at 3:50 pm |
[edit]
[Response: I already told you, you need to take your nonsense elsewhere. You even said you wouldn't comment again, as a result of which I deleted someone else's rather pointed retort so you could leave in peace.
Goodbye.]
george // September 13, 2009 at 4:59 pm |
Scott Mandia:
Kudos to you for doing what you do: educate the masses on science.
And, by the way, wading into the den of ignoriquity (WUWT) takes real guts.
Unfortunately, I suspect that many of the people who comment there are probably too far gone to “come around” on their “thinking”. In fact, the essential problem is that they don’t think — don’t even know how.
WUWT is a magnet for those who believe that global warming is nothing more than a “hoax” cooked up by a government bent on exerting ever more control over their lives. The whole thing is just goofy.
The site is a symptom of a very serious disease: willful ignorance and denial on scientific matters — and why any legitimate scientist in his or her right mind would wish to have his or her articles posted on that site is beyond my comprehension.
Marco // September 20, 2009 at 5:47 pm |
George, regarding your last line:
It’s because they want recognition. Many of them can’t get it in the scientific community, so they seek it elsewhere. I think many do recognise the crowd for what they are, but it’s nice to have an army of yay-sayers…
Paul UK // September 22, 2009 at 9:26 pm |
Re Scott Mandia:
“I think she is a great example of a person who was pro-AGW because of what she heard but then became anti-AGW when she actually did some research.”
I agree with some other posters here.
Just wondered what evidence there is that the person in question ever was pro-AGW??
It’s quite an easy thing to say that you were once pro something, to make the anti-stuff sound more convincing.
eg. Some dishonest preacher on the make might say they were once a drug addict but later saw the light.
Timothy Chase // September 23, 2009 at 12:19 am |
Paul UK quotes Scott Mandia:
… then Paul UK responds in part:
Honestly this reminds me of young earth creationists who claim that at one time they believed in evolution, but then they saw
the light— er, I mean — examined the evidence and realized how much more convincing the scientific case is for a literal understanding of Genesis.What did she find out with her research? That the laws of physics had been suspended? The physics underlying radiation transfer need not apply? The case for water vapor feedback has evaporated?
Paul UK // September 23, 2009 at 9:40 am |
Ehhm, the person in question gives little evidence that she did think AGW was true, other than sound bites about Al Gore and some well known stuff that anyone could get from mainstream news headlines.
I think anyone that truely did want to convince people, would supply more detail about their past ‘conviction’ .
But apart from that, her analysis of the data appears to be crude and inaccurate. She reads something into a graph that she thinks is misleading or even suggests a drop in temperature over an extended period beyond what the graph clearly shows.
I also notice she has used a graph which i believe is from an Australian publication and the graph has been discredited, partly for cherry picking and partly for inappropriate curve fitting.
I’m sure Tamino could go on forever pulling apart the page(s). I think many people could.
It’s a shame that the organising the her page is British and that they have been duped into accepting it.
dhogaza // September 23, 2009 at 4:01 am |
It’s a well-established anti-science tactic, creationism, anti-HIV, anti-smoking, etc.
It’s so well-established that anyone who uses this tactic, regardless of the subject matter (HIV, evolution, 9/11, blah blah including climate science) should be ignored.
Ray Ladbury // September 23, 2009 at 10:04 am |
Her “analysis” reminds me of the scene in “A Fish Called Wanda” where Otto, the CIA assassin is called an ape and replies, “Apes do not read philosophy.”
Wanda replies: “Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it.”
Kevin McKinney // September 23, 2009 at 12:13 pm |
My two cents on the “communicating the science” subthread that’s evolved here is that:
1) denialist claptrap must be countered consistently in mainstream fora, such as news sites;
2) WUWT and such probably aren’t worth a lot of effort, as the mindset is too entrenched;
3) counter claptrap engagingly, matter-0f-factly, and authoritatively (I’d say “civilly,” but we already chewed that adjective to death at RC, as many here will know);
4) repeat nonsense as little as possible when countering it;
5) and cite sources as much as possible (Hank has definitely convinced me of the value of the last two!)
On another topic, if Tamino will allow me a little promo, my “life, work and times” Arrhenius article is now out:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Global-Warming-Science-And-The-Dawn-Of-Flight
J // September 23, 2009 at 1:19 pm |
Heh. Watts’s commenters have moved on to attacking the link between CFCs and stratospheric ozone depletion.
What’s next? Bashing Alfred Wegener and plate tectonics? Maybe they’re going down the same road as a certain unnamed SF author I used to like when I was a teenager (before he wandered into denialism on AIDS, dinosaurs, relativity, CFCs, the holocaust, …)
Gavin's Pussycat // September 23, 2009 at 2:21 pm |
Kevin, did you write that? It’s lovely. Literary. Just the right combination of precision in detail and painting the ‘greater picture’.
Hank Roberts // September 23, 2009 at 2:45 pm |
> don’t repeat bad information
Let’s cite _that_ as it’s an important one, well covered at the blog where I first read it:
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/09/deck_is_stacked_against_mythbu.php
which points to this science news story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090300933.html
“… for correcting these myths…. rather than repeat them … rephrase the statement, eliminating the false portion altogether so as to not reinforce it further (since repetition, even to debunk it, reaffirms the false statement).”
It’s important. The temptation to repeat what we want to refute is intensely human, and backfires. That’s the report from the science.
Ray Ladbury // September 23, 2009 at 3:11 pm |
J, Oh, no, these guys love Wegener–the classic iconoclast confronting an entrenched scientific establishment. Never mind that Wegener’s initial ideas on plate tectonics were just flat crazy. It’s the classic ant-science, populist clap-trap–people who are afraid to learn anything lest it spoil their “objectivity”.
Timothy Chase // September 23, 2009 at 5:14 pm |
J wrote:
Could be.
According to a Research 2000 poll (July 27-30, 2009) when asked the question of whether the Americas and Africa were once part of the same continent, “Pangaea”…
Democrats 51%, Republicans 24%, Independents 44%.
I suspect that, as with evolution, the Young Earth Creationists are bringing down the Republican score on this one, but clearly general scientific illiteracy is an issue regardless of political persuasion.
Research 2000 poll, July 27-30, 2009
http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/7/30/US/320
For Watts readers, just in case…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea
Kevin McKinney // September 23, 2009 at 6:17 pm |
“Gavin’s,” yes, that’s my piece. (It’s the 4th of an ongoing series–the first 3 cover Fourier, Pouillet, and Tyndall, respectively. I’m following the plan of the NSF “classic global warming papers,” so I’m desperately hoping to be able to turn up some colorful information on
Nils Eckholm.)
For those interested in the original papers, see:
http://wiki.nsdl.org/index.php/PALE:ClassicArticles/GlobalWarming
Thanks so much for the kind appraisal, Gavin’s–its quite encouraging!
Thanks, too, to the warm interest from readers here–ten or so page views in just a couple of hours. Comments (and especially corrections) are highly welcomed.
Kevin McKinney // September 23, 2009 at 6:21 pm |
Of course I meant to type “FOR the warm interest.”
Ah, well.
Gavin's Pussycat // September 23, 2009 at 6:54 pm |
Kevin, that would be Nils Gustaf Ekholm.
An original biography with some personal details is found on
http://runeberg.org/display.pl?mode=facsimile&work=sbh&page=a0286
The Wikipedia article is an excerpt from this.
If you need help with the archaic Swedish, let me know ;-)
Gavin's Pussycat // September 23, 2009 at 8:01 pm |
Eh, no, I don’t… it’s called knowledge.
Deech56 // September 23, 2009 at 8:10 pm |
Kevin McKinney,
That was an excellent write-up. Kind of reminded me a bit of the old “Connections” series. Please keep this up.
Alan Woods // September 24, 2009 at 12:58 am |
hehe, nice one dhogaza.
Tamino himself has said that he was skeptical of AGW until he started to research it…
[Response: To repeat the story:
I had heard of global warming, had no reason to doubt it but didn't pay much attention to the issue. Then I heard about the Soon & Baliunas paper in E&E. I'd never heard of that journal, but I've referenced some of Baliunas' work in my own papers, so it caused me to be skeptical and I figured I should investigate.
Then I read the Soon & Baliunas paper. Sad.
Reading more of the peer-reviewed literature has convinced me that global warming is real, it's man-made, and it's dangerous. The more I learn about it, the more convinced I am that it's the world's greatest threat to humanity.
I'm also *aghast* at some of the crap that passes for "science" from the denialist camp.]
Kevin McKinney // September 24, 2009 at 2:19 am |
Deech, thanks. Will do–but perforce not as quickly as I’d like!
dhogaza // September 24, 2009 at 3:39 am |
Yes, and I was, too, back in the late 90s early 00’s when biologist colleagues (I’m a CS guy but have done a lot of biology fieldwork) started pinning changes in migration patterns, etc, to global warming.
Because the physics, climate science types were saying “it will happen, but we’re not sure we’re seeing the signal vs noise yet”.
After researching more, I realized that the changes in timing of natural cycles being observed by my biologist friends (some analyzing data collected by myself over many years) were really real.
I then started digging into what was available online (ignoring junkscience, which back then was about the only junk science site available, full of DDT lies which my own education was sufficient to debunk), and, whoa.
Shit was happening.
Still is. Is bad. Getting worse. Anti-science types are working hard to end effective education in biology (evolution) and climatology, and have a significant political force behind them in both cases (and others).
Anyway, anyone with a reasonably mature analytical outlook can figure out what science is saying on all these things. You don’t need to be able to beat Tamino at statistics in order to figure out the Big Picture (despite what folks like TCO insist). You just need to be able to follow the argument.
Anyway, Alan Woods, I hope you’ll learn from science, not the ideologically driven denialist sites.
Kevin McKinney // September 24, 2009 at 3:58 am |
Gavin’s, thanks once again.
I have an English version of the text, but this is the first actual image of E. that I have!
Much appreciated!
Gavin's Pussycat // September 24, 2009 at 6:43 am |
dhogaza:
Yes, precisely.
And this is the way people misconstrue the IPCC confidence statements. And unfortunately the IPCC has not done a lot to dispel this misconception: their 90% confidence (“very likely”) is not about “greenhouse warming being real”, but about what we are seeing now being what we have been waiting for to happen.
Hypothesis testing time is long past. We’re living parameter estimation time.
Gavin's Pussycat // September 24, 2009 at 6:58 am |
Kevin McKinney,
the Lord helps those who help themselves ;-)
More images:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Gustaf_Ekholm
(Note how he declined to participate in the Andrée balloon expedition that ended in the death of the crew. Sometimes a scientist lives literally by his wits.)
http://www.smhi.se/sgmain/om_smhi/historik/smhihist_1913.htm
Interesting link:
http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tomrum/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/tempestselektronisk.pdf
cce // September 24, 2009 at 9:06 am |
I was taught that AGW was a “Hoax” in the environmental sciences class I took in college. In fact, for the lab we watched “The Greenhouse Conspiracy.”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5949034802461518010#
Gavin's Pussycat // September 24, 2009 at 9:46 am |
…and this is his gravesite where he rests with his wife Agnes Elpidina:
http://hittagraven.stockholm.se/Info.aspx?gpkey=22+2+21C+271&upplnr=1
Gavin's Pussycat // September 24, 2009 at 9:51 am |
One more image:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Andree.balloon_crew.1896.png
Dan L. // September 24, 2009 at 11:35 am |
dhogaza: “You don’t need to be able to beat Tamino at statistics in order to figure out the Big Picture ”
Indeed. In fact the basics are rather simple and the evidence is a “slam dunk”. Therefore, if one has studied the argument for a while and finds “CO2 is such a tiny part of the atmosphere, it can’t be having any effect!” persuasive, one must either have a cognitive deficiency or a political agenda.
Any denier claiming to have been persuaded to his or her position by the evidence is a liar or simply stupid.
Kevin McKinney // September 24, 2009 at 12:45 pm |
Actually, I think it’s easier even than Dan says; all you have to do is notice that the opposition arguments are not self-coherent.
(As in “we can’t reliably measure temperatures on Earth, but Neptune is warming at the same rate, so the sun did it!”)
TrueSceptic // September 24, 2009 at 4:00 pm |
Agreed. You don’t even need to know much of the science. All it takes is some critical thinking to see that there’s something badly wrong with the Deniers. As I said somewhere else, and not for the first time,
The signature of Deniers is not only that they ignore anything that contradicts their beliefs but also that they are able to hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously.
The simplest example is:-
Climate data cannot be trusted, therefore there is no reliable evidence that it is warming.
Climate data shows that it’s cooling.
They never stop with that one, do they?
Deech56 // September 24, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Or stating that climate models cannot be trusted and linking to a paper that makes a prediction apparently favorable to their cause – but which uses climate models.
Kevin McKinney // September 24, 2009 at 1:31 pm |
Gavin’s–wow. Thanks so much; the images are great, and the paper absolutely fascinating. Golden, in fact, for my purposes; I’ve got direction for readings, not to mention some great direct bibliographic leads.
If, as you say, “The Lord helps those who help themselves,” then I guess you are doing the Lord’s work here! At any rate, I’m most grateful.
(And to all readers here, the paper linked is highly recommended if you’re at all interested in the topics of meteorology, Arrhenius, Nils Eckholm, or the role of media in science communication. See the post at 6:58 AM, 9/24, by Gavin’s Pussycat.)
Dan L. // September 24, 2009 at 1:49 pm |
cce: “I was taught that AGW was a “Hoax” in the environmental sciences class I took in college.”
Two questions:
What college?
Is it too late to get your money back?
Hank Roberts // September 24, 2009 at 3:20 pm |
> the environmental sciences class I
> took in college.
Where, if you don’ t mind the question, did they use that film and call it education?
Or if you’d rather not identify them, have you checked back to see if they’re still doing that?
I learned what was knownabout these concerns when I was in college in the late 1960s , from my ecology teacher, and started working at making things different even then, so I’m always astonished to hear that teachers are telling kids this isn’t happening.
TrueSceptic // September 24, 2009 at 3:52 pm |
The only way a teacher should be using material like that is in the sense of:-
“Here’s a film I want you to watch. I’d like you to take notes and at the end we’ll discuss whether the film fairly represents the state of climate science.”
cce // September 25, 2009 at 12:41 am |
This was in 1995. The class was otherwise excellent. Just a very real example of a professor wandering into a topic he knew nothing about and letting ideology dictate his science.
Hank Roberts // September 25, 2009 at 3:25 am |
Uh, how old was this — professor?
Ray Ladbury // September 25, 2009 at 12:36 pm |
CCE, even in 1995, there was little controversy among scientists about the reality of climate change, although there was more spread of opinion about how significant the consequences would be. Your prof was well outside the scientific mainstream even back then.
cce // September 25, 2009 at 8:02 pm |
He was probably in his 60s. I recall the TA in charge of the lab asking “even if it isn’t changing the climate, what is the effect of all of this stuff we are emitting into the atmosphere.” I’m not sure if he was a “skeptic” too, or just taking orders.
In 1995, there was a consensus among scientists specializing in the field, but among other scientists, I’m not so sure. It doesn’t take much to convince people to believe nonsense. Witness how many people have signed (and continue to sign) the Oregon Petition based on the attached Robinson/Soon/Baliunus paper or simply whatever they had heard.
Ray Ladbury // September 26, 2009 at 2:41 am |
CCE, in 1995, I was writing for Physics Today. At least among those who thought about climate change, I’d say there was better than 50% agreement that climate was changing and that we were likely behind it.
Hank Roberts // September 26, 2009 at 5:33 am |
There was certainly a consensus then about the great extinction already in progress. Did he teach the observation, even if he didn’t talk about causes?
cce // September 26, 2009 at 2:27 pm |
The Doran and Kendall Zimmerman survey published this year found 82% of earth scientists believed AGW. Or to put it another way, 1 out of 5 earth scientists don’t believe or don’t know even today. 14 years ago it would certainly be common for scientists to not believe it.
The professor taught about extinction, but AGW is hardly required to build a case that humans are the cause. e.g. introducing new species into areas, clearing forests, building roads, overhunting etc.
Hank Roberts // September 26, 2009 at 3:48 pm |
Was this a state college? private school? university?
“Belief” isn’t the basis for instruction, except in some religious schools. Textbooks are or were heavily and selectively edited for Texas and a few other states.
But aside from those problems, the idea is to teach what’s known and what’s being thought about, not what fits the teacher’s “belief.”
No offense; we all took what education we could find as best we could, and continued learning after that or we wouldn’t be here.
But — heck, when I was in college I got hold of gradeschool history books that some of my schoolmates had used in the 1950s. It was astonishing to compare the treatment of the Late Unpleasantness, variously referred to as the Civil War in a few pages, or the War Between the States in a full chapter — the treatment depending on which regional edition the kids got. And the treatment of the individual prominent figures differed rather drastically.
You don’t find out how much manipulation there has been til you look back and compare.
http://www.texscience.org/releases/2008July16-TCS-HouseEducationTestimony.htm
Dan L. // September 26, 2009 at 3:55 pm |
cce: “The Doran and Kendall Zimmerman survey published this year found 82% of earth scientists believed AGW. ”
Which has always seemed an oddly low number, to me, for so recent a survey.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
contains the sentence “While respondents’
names are kept private, the authors noted that the survey included participants with well-documented dissenting opinions on global warming theory.”
As well it should, of course, but I wonder if such dissenters might be over-represented.
The survey started with an invitation to 10,257 Earth scientists, to which about 30% responded. How much more motivated to respond might a scientist be who believes his or her views are being marginalized, than one who feels comfortably within the mainstream?
cce // September 27, 2009 at 2:13 am |
Not that it’s relevent, but it was a State Univeristy.
I’ll point out that if you go to MIT today, it’s possible that you’ll be taught by Richard Lindzen, who really is a climatologist. Ian Plimer (allegedly a geologist) is teaching some pour souls in Adelaide.
Since scientists don’t have infinite time and are not experts in every field, it is often a matter of “belief”. No one independently verifies every paper they cite or otherwise rely on to form an opinion.
Ray Ladbury // September 27, 2009 at 12:47 pm |
CCE,
If a scientist “teaches” a personal opinion that conflicts with the consensus of experts, in my opinion he would be guilty of academic misconduct. It would be fine to mention that one dissents from the consensus and even give reasons why. Lindzen could perhaps accomplish this, although he has developed a disappointing tendency to appeal to logic even he knows to be false when speaking to lay audiences. Plimer cannot mention climate without looking like an idiot.
The prof who taught me stat mech didn’t believe in quarks. He was not allowed to teach particle physics, but could teach any other core course. If a scientist is going to dissent from the scientific consensus of experts in a field, then he had better at the very least be expert in the subfield that constitutes the basis for his dissent.
Ray Ladbury // September 27, 2009 at 12:49 pm |
Dan L.,
There has always been a huge difference between the value of opinions of experts in a field and of “scientists” in general. Just because one does science doesn’t mean one fully understands the method in all its generality.
Timothy Chase // September 27, 2009 at 4:21 pm |
cce wrote:
A division of cognitive labor in science? Who woulda ever thunk? Actually come to think of it, the thing is rather extensive, isn’t it? And a large part of the reason why outside of one’s own discipline one so often needs to rely upon scientific consensus.
Timothy Chase // September 27, 2009 at 4:51 pm |
PS
Regarding a related issue touched on earlier in this thread, if you know that something is a fact or that it is true, then presumably you believe it to be so. This is after all why — the “Gettier problem” not withstanding (as it is actually about the corrigibility of knowledge) — knowledge is given “Plato’s” tripartite definition of “justified true belief.” It is why saying that “I know something to be true, but I don’t believe it!” sounds so odd, paradoxical, incoherent and — depending upon how it is delivered — quite possibly downright humorous.
(Of course things really start to get interesting when you try to define those three elements in terms of something more fundamental than knowledge. But at that point it may at least potentially be useful to keep in mind Aristotle’s joint actualization theory of consciousness .)
Anyway, thank you cce.
David B. Benson // September 27, 2009 at 6:22 pm |
cce // September 27, 2009 at 2:13 am — Richard Lindzen is a meteorologist. Not the same.
cce // September 28, 2009 at 1:56 am |
Ray,
It was improper to show a video like that to a class, but it was not unusual to find earth scientists who were skeptical of AGW at that time. Even today, there is a strong skeptical streak in geologists and meteorologists.
David,
Lindzen’s an atmospheric physicist, as is Hansen. By my standards, their publishing record makes them climatologists.
Ray Ladbury // September 28, 2009 at 2:26 pm |
cce, it’s easy to find cab drivers who are AGW skeptics–and their opinion is about as valuable as that of the geologists and meteorologists.
Timothy Chase // September 28, 2009 at 6:47 pm |
cce wrote:
Although cce made this point, I would be interested in anyone’s response to the following question: beyond the law of large numbers as it applies to weather vs. climate, what are the most central points that you think geologists and meteorologists are missing when they honestly disagree with the consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming — assuming their disagreement is honest?
*
Ray Ladbury wrote:
Ray, wouldn’t you agree that the opinions of geologists and meteorologists is considerably more important in at least establishing the case for anthropogenic global warming, e.g., with geologists and their understanding of the paleoclimate record and with meteorologists (that is, those who have the status of scientists in the field of meteorology) at least the claim to understand many of the physical principles underlying our understanding of climate change?
*
cce wrote:
David, would you agree that judged from their publishing record (at least in terms of the subject matter and the periodicals involved, i.e., those which are professional and specifically devoted to climatology), that Hansen and Lindzen have roughly the same basis for claiming that they are climatologists? If not, then what criteria would you use in order to distinguish between their respective claims to be authoritative specialists in climatology?
*
Ray Ladbury wrote:
Ray, I am assuming that you are thinking (for example) of the case in which Lindzen argued — given the global warming on other planets (e.g., Mars, Neptune)– at least implicitly that the warming is caused by the sun — when the warming on other planets is due to different, well-understood physics (albedo on Mars, season on Neptune), and if the warming were due to sun and acted according to an inverse square law with regard to distance (e.g., the warming were due to increased solar radiance) then given the Earth’s proximity to the Sun compared to the outer planets, the warming on those distant planets would imply a warming on Earth that would render our planet uninhabitable? Can you think of another good example?
cce, would you agree that even though Lindzen has roughly equal claim to being a climatologist as Hansen, any right that Lindzen might claim to being able to negate the claim that at least within the field of climatology there exists a strong, well-justified consensus regarding the fact that global warming is taking place, that it is anthropogenic, and that it is dangerous? If not, why not?
*
My apologies if my questions seem at times to be somewhat leading or the proper responses obvious, but I am trying to get a clearer idea of what actual disagreements exist, both for myself and for other lay-people, and it will be helpful to me to make sure that those points which I take to be well established are indeed so, at least as far as the participants are concerned. Likewise, it has been my experience that points of agreement are oftentimes just as important as points of disagreement in terms of a cooperative endeavor that aims to identify what is true regarding a given matter.
*
“Understanding is a three-edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth,” Kosh, Babylon 5
Timothy Chase // September 28, 2009 at 7:07 pm |
PS
Although it may not be particularly important in terms of the current discussion, the sig quote regarding “understanding” I used is I believe actually Sheridan quoting Kosh with regard to the first sentence, then Sheridan explaining this statement in terms of his own understanding. Kosh himself would never be so verbose as to utter anything more than the first.
Robert P. // September 28, 2009 at 7:10 pm |
1995 was an important turning point: it was the year of the 2nd IPCC report, which for the first time concluded that “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. Prior to that there was widespread agreement that continued greenhouse gas emissions would *eventually* lead to discernable warming, but most were hesitant to say that the AGW signal had yet been observed.
I audited a graduate course taught by a distinguished (and very much mainstream) atmospheric chemist in 1993, and she was always careful to phrase things as “if global warming is happening” rather than “since global warming is happening. Similar language was used in seminars and colloquia during that period.
Timothy Chase // September 28, 2009 at 7:18 pm |
Correction
After seeking to establish Ray’s basis for claiming Lindzen is dishonst, I posed a question for cce but omitted the words in the bolded italics below…
David B. Benson // September 28, 2009 at 8:36 pm |
Timothy Chase // September 28, 2009 at 6:47 pm — I was just going by his professorhip (of metereology). But checking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
I now think in reasonable to say he has specialized in one aspect of climatology. I doubt the label, one way or the other, matters.
Ray Ladbury // September 29, 2009 at 1:24 am |
Timothy, As to Lindzen, his suggetion that the same mechanism could underlie warming on bodies as diverse as Earth and Jupiter is so patently absurd that no knowledgable scientist could make that mistake. This is just one instance of many–for instance his Wall Street Urinal editorials–where Lindzen speaks out of one side of his mouth to his former fellows (scientists) and the other to lay audiences. Such deception borders on scientific misconduct. Christy has also come close, but has not quite crossed over the line, and Spencer has quite simply taken leave of his senses. I am sure Lindzen is sincere in his belief that climate change is not a real threat. He probably believes his beloved Iris effect will save us. However, he has chosen to believe this in spite of the evidence, rather than because of it. I almost wonder if he doesn’t see his Iris as a corollary of the the Anthropic Principle (strong version).
As to the expertise of geologists and meteorologists, and even my fellow physicists, their value for the consensus depends on their willingness to learn the science. Merely understanding disjoint facts independent of the theoretical framework of climate science is not particularly helpful and may even be misleading in our attempts to understand climate.
As Luis Alvarez said of the consensus in physics: “There is no democracy in physics. We can’t say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi. “
Steve Bloom // September 29, 2009 at 1:54 am |
Timothy, you can make Lindzen and Hansen seem sort of equal by calling them both atmosphere physicists, but that neglects the real differences: Lindzen has expertise in the physics of short-term weather phenomena (thus meteorology) that Hansen lacks, and Hansen has expertise in radiation physics and computer modeling that Lindzen lacks. Hansen’s is rather more important when it comes to climate.
As with the example you cited, note that Lindzen’s pronouncements on climate are with one narrow exception not based on his peer-reviewed work, whereas with Hansen the opposite is the case. Whenever Hansen’s papers have crossed out of his expertise (e.g. with paleoclimate), he’s made a point of recruiting suitable co-authors.
Lindzen is no more qualified than you or I to speculate about the significance of temperature trends elsewhere in the solar system. He is qualified to discuss his “iris” idea in meteorological terms, but it’s long since been rejected by the field.
The “iris” never made sense as a large-scale effect on paleo time scales, otherwise we would expect it to have damped out the rapid changes associated with the Bond cycles (e.g. Heinrich events) and indeed the glacial cycles themselves. For years, Lindzen dodged this problem by basically saying “not my job” and by not exploring the issue with paleo co-authors, and got cut slack due to his important (but unrerlated) past contributions to meteorology and because it took a long time to exclude the possibility that the “iris” might be a small but still significant effect or perhaps might operate just in the short term.
But Lindzen will stick to his story all the way to the grave, similar to how he keeps insisting that cigarettes must not be a real problem since they haven’t killed him yet, providing one more data point for Max Planck’s hypothesis that older scientists clinging to outdated, incorrect ideas are much more likely to die off than to ever accept a new scientific paradigm.
/rant
dhogaza // September 29, 2009 at 4:09 am |
Good post by Ray …
I totally agree. If one wants to argue that it’s not true regarding climatology, they’re immediately faced with his “smoking is not really harmfull” claims.
No one with any honest study of the evidence can say that.
I haven’t paid much attention to Christy in awhile, but earlier, he did explain his position in political and religious terms, very honestly. I think his view of God etc is more important to him than his scientific reputation, yet, he’s not been willing to totally sacrifice the latter (as Ray says, “hasn’t crossed the line).
I admire him for being willing to state, in public, some years back, that he’s convinced that (first-world style) development will save the masses in Africa, therefore even if AGW is true, we must ignore it (in the name of God etc).
He’s wrong, but at least his cards were laid out on the table some years back.
Spencer’s transformed himself into a totally dishonest cartoon of a scientist.
Ray Ladbury // September 29, 2009 at 12:27 pm |
The issue I take with Christy is that he sees it as “climate or development” rather than as both being two facets of the same problem–sustainability. We can help Africa and the rest of the developing world become part of the solution or we can make them “the problem,” by forcing them to adopt a dirty and archaic fossil-fuel based energy infrastructure. In some ways building clean, green infrastructure is easier than turning an already existent infrastructure clean and green. CO2 molecules don’t respect national borders, so our thinking on this problem must transcend them.
I think that Christy’s belief in an interventionist deitymay be responsible in part for his denialism. Likewise Spencer. And while I know nothing about Lindzen’s religious beliefs, some of his utterances on the Iris make it sound as if he believes in a strong Anthropic principle at the very least.
IMHO, believing that we are essential to the fulfillment of the future is one of the surest ways of ensuring we won’t be part of it.
Timothy Chase // September 29, 2009 at 5:22 pm |
Ray Ladbury wrote:
Ray, I hope you don’t mind if I respond to this first…
At the moment I am still have to do a little digging on Christy. (I may have had the information at one time, but my hard drive has gone belly up a few times in the past three or so years.) However, regarding both Spencer and Lindzen you may want to look at:
Endorsers of “A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming”
(Updated September 8, 2006)
http://web.archive.org/web/20061215001108/www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/OpenLetter.pdf
It was taken down at the website — too many linking to it — including the website ExxonSecrets by Greenpeace, but it is still in the web archive.
The letter itself is here:
A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor:
An Evangelical Response to Global Warming
By E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., Paul K. Driessen, Esq.,
Ross McKitrick, Ph.D., and Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060827200338/www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/CalltoTruth.pdf
Standard denialist disinformation.
You will notice the “Dominion. Stewardship. Conservation.” in the upper left of the first page.
The Interfaith Alliance was — oddly enough — formed by the Reconstructionists, also known as the Dominionists. They seek to reconstruct society as a theocracy in accordance with Old Testament law — except where later parts of the Bible literally exempts us from Old Testament law — in preparation for the End Times and the war with the anti-christ. I say “oddly enough” because they intend to play nice with other Christian faiths — until they get into power. More on that in the links below. Howard Ahmanson, the billionaire who largely funded the Discovery Institute and its “Intelligent Design” propaganda war against evolution — belongs to the Dominionist movement. And Spencer has publicly endorsed Intelligent Design.
Please see:
For more on Howard Ahmanson, please see:
From Genesis To Dominion: Fat-Cat Theocrat Funds Creationism Crusade
by Steve Benen
from: Church & State (ACLU), July/August 2000
Originally: http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs7003.htm
http://www.texscience.org/files/discovery.htm
For more on the Reconstructionists and Dominionists, please see:
Christian Reconstructionism, Part 1: Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence, March/June 1994
by Frederick Clarkson
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre1.html
I would also recommend checking out:
The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy – Part One
By Chip Berlet Mon Nov 28, 2005
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2005/11/28/172929/14
TrueSceptic // September 29, 2009 at 10:03 pm |
Is it just me or does John Christy look a lot like Ned Flanders?
dhogaza // September 29, 2009 at 9:14 pm |
I don’t see Lindzen on the list of endorsers, though Spencer, of course, is there (along with Guillermo Gonzalez, one of the star “victims” of “Expelled”).
Timothy Chase // September 29, 2009 at 9:59 pm |
A Community of Knowers, Part I of II
Steve Bloom wrote:
I will quote from this passage more fully down below, but I would like to address this smaller point.
Neither I nor cce (who is quite an asset — please see: http://cce.890m.com ) are really arguing for their equivilence, but merely arguing that one can rightfully claim that Lindzen is a climatologist if Hansen is a climatologist. However, we wish to understand the issues that are involved, and a discussion can be quite useful in this regard:
The points that you, Ray and David make are quite helpful in this regard.
*
Ray Ladbury wrote:
Well, certainly the mere “understanding of disjoint facts” wouldn’t qualify a geologist or meteorologist as any sort of expert on issues in climatology, but then again much of their understanding, at least in their respective fields, is integrated, and oftentimes their will be considerable overlap — such as with a meteorologist who understands the theoretical principles of thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. However, your point is taken: a climatologist will typically have a better understanding of the principles of climatology than someone in a field which only overlaps with climatology in some areas, not in others. I will have more to say about that point shortly.
*
Quoting more fully, Steve Bloom wrote:
So in this sense not all climatologists are to be regarded as having the same level of expertise, and some subdisciplines in climatology are more important than others. And I would certainly agree that radiation physics and computer modeling are far more central to the discipline than the principles underlying our understanding of short-term weather phenomena.
*
Ray Ladbury wrote:
Expertise certainly matters. But ultimately it isn’t even a question of who has more expertise, is it? It is a question of evidence. Then again, Gavin Schmidt has argued that one shouldn’t even trust the opinions of individual authors all that much, that instead a community of knowers can have a far greater understanding than any one knower in isolation. Which is of course part of what you are getting at when you appeal to a consensus in physics.
Timothy Chase // September 29, 2009 at 10:00 pm |
A Community of Knowers, Part II of II
Steven Bloom wrote:
Rejected by the field: this is an appeal not to a majority, but to a scientific consensus based upon expertise and ultimately evidence I take it. If I remember correctly there does seem to be a reduction in cloud cover, particularly in the 20°N-20°S. It increases the outgoing longwave in accordance with Lindzen’s iris theory, but it reduces the outgoing reflected shortwave at the top of the atmosphere by the same amount so that the net effect of reduced cloud cover is neither to decrease or increase the temperature. And yet we have the increased opacity of the atmosphere due to higher levels of carbon dioxide forcing and water vapor feedback, thus we may conclude that in the tropics the “iris effect” has no net effect. More recently (earlier this year, I believe), it is my understanding that of an ensemble of models, the model that did the best job of reproducing cloud cover in the mid-latitudes (British?) showed a strong, positive feedback from clouds at that latitude — and likewise had a higher climate sensitivity than the others.
Steven Bloom wrote:
Understood. To a first approximation, forcing is forcing, regardless of whether it is due to the sun or anthropogenic carbon dioxide, and thus the feedback will be much the same. The forcing due to orbital variations isn’t enough to explain the amplitude of climate variations that we see in the paleoclimate record. As such this argues for strong feedback — the same strong feedback we should expect to see with forcing due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
Thus we have multiple, largely independent lines of evidence all arguing against Lindzen’s iris hypothesis, and if I may quote from one of my essays where I spoke of the “dialogue of human thought” and of the nature of empirical science:
*
If I may pull together some of these thoughts regarding the power of a community of knowers and the nature of scientific consensus:
TrueSceptic // September 29, 2009 at 11:16 pm |
Just in case anyone doesn’t know what Christy looks like, see this.
Timothy Chase // September 30, 2009 at 3:48 am |
dhogaza wrote:
The “full list” of endorsers is in OpenLetter.pdf
Spencer is on page 7, Lindzen is on page 8.
It states:
However, looking at this a “second” time, I see that this is a second group where the individuals listed are “Non-evangelicals with special expertise in climatology or related sciences, economics, environmental studies, theology, or ethics: …,” so evidentally he is a non-evangelical endorsing a statement by an “evangelical” organization — where the organization itself was created by dominionists. So the fact that his name is listed does not imply any religious affiliation. He could be a religious zealot, libertarian ideologue or simply a paid stooge. His dishonesty (e.g., arguing that since the outer planets are warming, global warming must be due to the sun) lead me to believe that it was one of the two latter alternatives. Ray lead me to think that it might be the first, but now I am not so sure.
I might be inclined to think that dishonesty disqualifies him from the first, but as is made evident by their quote mining, the religiousity of young earth creationists in no way limits them being dishonest — so long as it is for a higher good. In fact it is their peculiar form of religiousity that necessitates a war with science and trains them through habit to be extremely dishonest — to the extent that they actively participate in the “creationist/evolutionist-debate.” To be as a god — in their own eyes, achieving “immortality” through the unlimited power of denial that makes invincible their unchanging, dogmatic belief — so as to avoid the “death” of one’s self-conception that a willingness to admit one’s mistakes might imply. But others, equally religious, would view that changelessness itself as a form of death, and the growth (or “constant rebirth”) which an openness to admitting one’s mistakes implies — as the one true form of immortality which is open to us in this world.
Barton Paul Levenson // September 30, 2009 at 10:28 am |
I hope everyone understands that mainstream Christianity, at least in the US and Commonwealth countries, is very much FOR separation of church and state and AGAINST theocracy. As C.S. Lewis put it back in the ’50s, theocracy is the worst possible form of government, since it gives the state the highest pretensions.
To me, the Christian spirit in politics is exemplified by people like William Wilberforce, Julia Ward Howe, Dorothy Day, Raoul Wallenberg, and M.L. King, Jr.
The Dominionists remind me of the Israelites in 1st Samuel who told the old prophet, “make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” The Lord’s response was:
“This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. SA1 8:12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. SA1 8:13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. SA1 8:14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
SA1 8:15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. SA1 8:16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. SA1 8:17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
SA1 8:18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.”
But they replied “Nay, but we will have a king over us.” And in the end, as he so often does, the Lord gave them what they wanted.
I for one will fight like hell to make sure that never happens in the United States. I wouldn’t want some Taliban-like regime to impose Sharia and I don’t want the Christian Taliban to do that sort of thing either.
[Response: I couldn't agree more, that we have to distinguish between those who use Christianity as an excuse to impose their will on society, and mainstream Christianity. They are as much in opposition to Jesus as terrorists are in opposition to Muhammed.
If all Moslems and all Christians followed the teachings of their own religion, how much better the world would be! Unfortunately, it's just as easy to pervert scripture as it is science -- and people have been at it a lot longer.]
Mark // September 30, 2009 at 12:56 pm |
“[...Unfortunately, it's just as easy to pervert scripture as it is science -- and people have been at it a lot longer.]”
Worse, at least with science there’s nature to check against.
Supernatural isn’t so amenable to sanity checks.
Add to that the fact that science is the word of man (so saying “that’s wrong” means the scientist will think you a poopy-head) whereas religion is the word of God (so saying “that’s wrong” means you’re saying that the whole thing is wrong and calling an infallible god wrong: and that’s a sin!). Of course, this is more a problem with monotheistic religions. Polytheistic ones have gods that are just as fallible (just a lot more powerful) as humans and the local gods of the african peoples have many stories about how they were fooled by clever humans.
You won’t find any abrahamic stuff talking about how some smart bugger got one over on the God. Satan, on the other hand…
dhogaza // September 30, 2009 at 1:39 pm |
It was taken seriously (he came up with this idea twenty or so years ago) but the physical evidence doesn’t support his hypothesis.
I found what appears to be a very good link discussing it.
As far as Lindzen endorsing the evangelical piece, I missed it because, as you said, endorsers are split into two groups, evangelicals and satanic fellow-travelers :)
Since the list of endorsers is alphabetical, when I got to “Spencer” without having encountered “Lindzen” I thought you were mistaken. I didn’t continue on to page 8 where the second set of endorsers, including Lindzen, appear.
dhogaza // September 30, 2009 at 1:43 pm |
I don’t think many people will confuse Dominionism with mainstream Christianity.
My evangelical sister grew up in eastern Washington (I was older and already on my own by the time my folks moved there from Portland). Lots and lots of Mormons, there. As she once put it to me, without separation of church and state, the country might be a catholic or mormon theocracy. Which, of course, is why the founders insisted on it, their ancestors having come from England and its established (and in the Glorious Revolution, during the early colonial days, very heavy-handed) Anglican church.
Ray Ladbury // September 30, 2009 at 2:51 pm |
Timothy, very interesting discussion. My own thoughts on scientific consensus were formed in large measure by my time at Physics Today. I noticed that in many fields, opinion was strongly influenced by a few individuals who shared common characteristics.
First, they were invariably very smart and experienced people, thought that didn’t really set them apart.
Second, they tended to have a broader publication record (touching on more subfields) than the average researcher in the field.
Third, they tended to have a reputation as an “honest broker”. That’s not to say that they didn’t hold strong opinions, but that they were capable of putting those opinions aside and considering the work of others–even rivals–on its merits.
Fourth, they were very helpful–not just to me as “press,” but to other researchers, post docs, grad students… A corollary to this was that they tended to have a lot of students themselves, and they usually (not always) concentrated on getting those students graduated and fostering their careers afterwards.
Fifth, they tend to be broadly connected and know the leaders in their field. If they aren’t the right “expert,” they don’t hesitate to put you in touch with someone more knowledgable.
Referring back to Alvarez’s comment, you’ll see that Fermi fit this description to a T. So while science is ultimately about what the evidence allows us to say and with what strength, there are inevitably some scientists who are better at interpreting the evidence than others. These people tend to have deep insight into their field of study, and this often is reflected in their publication record and its influence (e.g. # of citations). I’ve pointed to this website of citations of climate authors before, but it’s worth pointing out again that the denialists are way, way down the list. Lindzen has the most impressive publication record, but most of his “influential” papers are decades old! Likewise Spencer, Christy–and the other denialists barely even make the list. In fact, the only denialists who make the top 200 who have any expertise related to climate at all are Lindzen (#122), Kukla (#172–also long of tooth), Baliunas (#173–note that there does seem to be a “cabal” of solar scientists in the denialist community), Legates (#184) and Bruce West (not really a climate scientist, but has published with Scafetta). So none of the top 100, 5 out of the top 200 and maybe 22 out of the top 500 are dissenters having any relevant expertise at all–and that’s a generous count.
That’s consensus.
Timothy Chase // September 30, 2009 at 3:39 pm |
Barton Paul Levenson wrote:
It is also my understanding that the leaders from the majority of Evangelical churches understand that anthropogenic global warming is real, serious, and believe that it is their duty to cherish and defend the gift which God has made of his creation.
There is an article about it here:
Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative
By Laurie Goodstein
Published: February 8, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/national/08warm.html
These Evangelicals have created a website for their views here:
Barton, I am not a Christian, and so by people of your faith I may at best only be considered a good samaritan. But if I have any understanding of the second book of Genesis at all, I gather that a literalistic, dogmatic interpretation of that book is as a seed fallen upon barren rock, and a proper understanding of it as it stands in relation to the rest of the Bible and of how it ministers to the human soul is as a seed fallen upon fertile soil — and thus takes firm root only over time.
dhogaza // September 30, 2009 at 6:10 pm |
Well, the spencer/lindzen endorsed piece you link to above was written in opposition to a coalition of evangelical leaders calling for action on climate change.
Evidence that their denialist position is a minority one among evangelical leaders doesn’t get any better than that :)
Timothy Chase // October 3, 2009 at 5:11 am |
Addendum to “A Community of Knowers”
I had written in part:
Ray responded in part:
I think your piece really said what was left that needed to be said — and so I didn’t want to add to it at first as this might distract from what you had to say — particularly in your concluding remarks. However, it did get me to thinking. Why would we refer to experts in the first place — or for that matter defer to their expertise — if evidence is what ultimately matters?
Well, obviously not everyone has the ability to become an expert in a given area. In some cases it may be a lack of intellectual capacity, but in others a lack of time — particularly when it is hard enough to simply be an expert in one’s own field — whatever that may happen to be. So it comes back to a division of cognitive labor at this point. So at this point the judgment of an expert can be seen as standing in for a wealth of information in the field in which they have expertise — as the product of a process, the process being the expert’s process of discovery.
However, this doesn’t make the evidence inaccessible — such that the evidence is known only to that expert. Rather, the expert can act as a means for fascilitating the discovery of that evidence by others — such as when someone asks the expert a question, or when the experet writes an article, gives a presentation, participates in a colloqium or teaches a course. So in refering to the judgment of an expert one isn’t refering to something which is unanalyzable — but merely unanalyzed within the current context. Yet some things will necessarily need to be left unanalyzed (or as I would refer to it in On “Scientific Consensus”, “tacit”) — since the attempt to explicate (“articulate”) everything that is known by a real expert in an advanced field would in all likelihood require a set of encyclopedias.
But what of the number of articles or citations? What role do these play in determining the level of importance or expertise? Well, first these are informal measures. But in large part, the number of citations for a given article and likewise, the number of times that a given author’s articles are cited is a fairly good measure of the importance of that article or author. In fact it is nearly the best measure we have within any given field — given likely complexity of the subject matter to which those fields are devoted.
However, there are slight improvements one might make — taking into account how long a given article has been around or the “importance” of the articles which are citing the article — by means of an alogrithm similar to what Google employs for determining the importance of a given web page. And as a matter of fact, some are exploring just this sort of thing in determining the importance of articles, authors or even journals — using the citations of articles as a starting point for the analysis of each.
In the essay I had written, it was clear that I thought that both play a role and that evidence matters more, but I wasn’t exactly clear about the role that each plays, that is how they are related. But reading your response has helped me clarify this for myself — and hopefully for others — at least for those who are interested in something which may not have that much immediate import but which I personally find rather fascinating.
Thank you.
Timothy Chase // October 3, 2009 at 6:29 am |
dhogaza wrote:
Actually as far as the more hardcore dominionists are concerned, anyone who does not believe exactly the same way they do (having minor differences over detailed, esoteric “literal” interpretations of various passages of the Bible — let alone disagreements over what version of the Bible to read) is a satanic fellow traveller — to be tolerated only until the establishment of a theocracy. It is pretty much the ultimate in “Us vs. Them.” Consequently, keeping the dominionists out of power is in everyone’s interest — including the dominionists.
Timothy Chase // October 3, 2009 at 7:10 am |
dhogaza wrote:
If you take an interest in evolution, you might be interested in examining the list of clergy that have signed the following Letter…
Ray Ladbury // October 3, 2009 at 12:47 pm |
Timothy,
Hope your convalescence is going well, and I’m glad you found what I wrote helpful.
In my mind, there are two aspects that inform scientific consensus–evidence and insight. Evidence is of course primary. It is the framework on which any scientific consensus must be built. Insight, though is also important. It is the mortar that holds together all the disparate pieces of evidence. It let’s us see how all the information fits together and allows us to reach just a wee bit beyond where we have solid information to plan the next experiment, analysis or study.
Insight is what the all stars of science provide. It is why, even though I know undergrad physics, I still sometimes read the Feynmann Lectures on Physics and other books by Feynmann. It’s why I still take out my well-thumbed Landau and Lifshitz texts, and why Jackson Electrodynamics is on my bookshelf rather than in a box somewhere.
BTW, speaking of Insight, I’ve recently been reading Ed Jaynes’s Probability text at the suggestion of a friend and colleague. It is a gem–full of those insights that only come with a lifetime of deep contemplation of a subject. I strongly recommend it.
Timothy Chase // October 3, 2009 at 3:57 pm |
Ray Ladbury wrote:
Well, the procedure as of yet has to take place. I was told that it could be as early as last Wednesday, but it won’t be until Wednesday of next week — and frankly I can’t wait. Yesterday I went to Renton taking care of the last piece in the financial aid puzzle for this quarter, but when I got there I found out that the fellow who was handling the paperwork wasn’t ready and needed to pick up the paperwork a few blocks from where I live in Seattle — and it was going to be a of hours before he would be able to go up there, so he didn’t want me to just wait around. I convinced him that we could meet there rather than in Renton, but by the time we met up again I had found it necessary to take two nitro tablets. All totalled, what could have taken perhaps half an hour had cost me four due to the bus system and Seattle traffic.
The surgeon had said a year, but I am beginning to think that without the procedure I would have considerably less time than that. The previous day had been rough, too. Fortunately the surgeon seems to think that we can get away with just stints, no bypass. And within a matter of days my situation should be improving — perhaps back to that style of walking I picked up at Iowa State University (prior to the University of Iowa — Jim Hansen’s old school) when there was five minutes between each class and every class seemed to be on opposite sides of the campus from the previous one. Back then I had to be quick — and had to carry all of my books for the whole day in a backpack. And now twenty years later just two more days of walking to school with a 5° angle for most of four blocks causing angina that stops me maybe four or five times on the way — and I will be set to get a lot of that strength back.
*
Ray Ladbury wrote:
I would most certainly agree — although I would call “evidence” the foundation (or to be more specific, in my view at least and Aristotle’s as far as I can tell, one of two foundations — with an analysis of the subject/object-relationship for a being possessing volitional awareness forming a second, complementary, metaphysical foundation — one that is needed simply in order to define “knowledge” — or to be more precise, truth, justification and belief in terms of which “knowledge” is defined — let alone a theory of knowledge and consequent philosophy of science) and “insight” or “understanding” the structure which is built upon that foundation. Such insight (as “knowledge”) consists of a division of cognitive labor as well — between the various concepts, principles, contexts, perspectives and theories that exist primarily as something internal to the individual mind.
However, at this point I believe you might also remind me that insight consists not only of knowledge but of the process by which it is derived and the capacity which makes that process possible. While of course there is that native capacity we call “intelligence,” I view the primary means for that process (“activity”) as “knowledge,” such that knowledge is both the product of cognition and the means to further cognition. A complementarity of essentially the same nature as that which exists between an organism and its mode of survival.
*
Ray Ladbury wrote:
I would very much like to read that at some point. It is basically a question of time. Incidentally, did you know that Aristotle’s school was called the Paripatetics? “Paripatetic” means “to walk about from place to place.” They would walk and engage in dialogue while walking — with the activity of walking together acting as a constant reminder of their shared purpose: that of understanding — which they pursued by means of the dialogue, temporarily at least forming a community of knowers.
Ray Ladbury // October 3, 2009 at 6:16 pm |
Timothy, my mother is a new woman after her “warning-shot heart attack” and the insertion of a stint ot two. Our friend Ed has more Bypasses than the greater Houston area, and each time, he feels better than he did when he went in.
I view evidence as a framework because the process continues continually higher. Insight allows us to know where to reach for that next hand or toehold.
It appears that the current topic at RC has really brought out the wing nuts. Gavin et al. have swatted at the McFrauditor hive and the mindless hornets are defending turf. They don’t realize that they are utterly irrelevant to the process. If they lose, they’ll be forgotten. If they win, our species will be forgotten.
Timothy Chase // October 3, 2009 at 9:15 pm |
Ray Ladbury wrote:
I have my own experience to go on as well — going from a life-threatening heart attack back to a fairly high level of activity. But that of course was with some plaque that had broken lose when I tried to push someone’s car.
Ray Ladbury wrote:
Without a conceptual framework a beam of light that would otherwise signify the curvature of spacetime becomes a bright spot on a darkened day. Additional evidence takes us further, but at root it is pretty much all the same without that framework: a sensatory or perceptual awareness of the world similar to what might have been seen, heard or felt ten thousand or a hundred thousand years ago.
Ray Ladbury wrote:
I will check it out. They put up the post only yesterday, and now that I look at it after having taken a nap the responses are nearly at 400.
However, the essay pretty much says it all: there are many different sets of data well beyond any tree cores that show a hockey stick. Even if Briffa et all were guilty of some misconduct all of that evidence would remain.
And I believe it was already shown that McIntyre was guilty of cherry-picking the data that he chose to throw out. Furthermore, as Mann had demonstrated regarding his most recent hockey stick, throwing out the tree data actually makes the blade more pronounced, not less.
Hank Roberts // October 4, 2009 at 9:42 pm |
Has anyone opened a betting pool on the seasonal reappearance of the regular netwits posting that “Arctic ice is expanding, this proves the Earth is cooling” — common at DotEarth? They’re about due, I imagine.
dhogaza // October 4, 2009 at 11:38 pm |
I think you’re too late. If you look at the IJIS graph, when the annual minimum was met and the first stage of the autumn freeze momentarily crossed above the 2005 value for the date, Watts made a post about it. As many claims of “it’s recovered to 2005 levels” you’d ever want were provided by his Blog Lab Assistants.
Timothy Chase // October 5, 2009 at 1:54 am |
dhogaza wrote:
Watts blog operates a lot a sewage treatment plant — only in reverse. Pretty much everything else is downstream — except for the “think tanks” and corporate boards, I would presume.
Sekerob // October 5, 2009 at 11:06 am |
Well you will have noticed dhogaza that slick willy watts said ‘on this day’… as of ‘now’ and ’since’ a swing from > 100kkm square above 2005 to > 200 kkm square below 2005 and rapidly heading for 2008 levels again. Might be in the snow cover on the siberian side to some extend. Day 277
http://128.6.226.99/~njwxnet/png/daily_dn/2009277.png
Interestingly Dr Roy is making finally a discovery that something is pushing the temp at a lower sensitivity… might he discover it’s CO2 with a 30 year lag factor ;?
dhogaza // October 5, 2009 at 2:14 pm |
Yes, Watts, the famous Blog Scientist, took care with his wording, but his Blog Lab Assistants were much less careful – that’s why I mentioned them. Hank said “regular nitwits” but didn’t specify fully-qualified Blog Scientists.
Hank can probably structure a pool that would exclude Watts’ hasty post, though …
Yes, indeed, which is why I said “momentarily crossed above the 2005 extent”…
Timothy Chase // October 5, 2009 at 3:49 pm |
Sekerob wrote:
Please permit me to ruin the joke for everyone else — or at least those who hasn’t been paying attention for more than a year…
Roy Spencer modelled the climate system with a 50m swamp giving the ocean a 1.6 year lag-time due to a low thermal inertia, suggesting that the climate system will achieve equilibrium much more quickly than what would be indicated by a more realistic thermal inertia that results from the ocean being as deep as… the ocean, with a lag-time of roughly 32 years.
Please see:
Spencer’s Folly
July 28, 2008
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/spencers-folly/
With such a short lag-time it would appear that we have pretty much experienced all of the warming we can expect to experience from the carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere — and conclude that the climate system has a much lower climate sensitivity than the roughly 3°C that is much closer to what everyone else expects. As such he can conclude for those who can’t* see through his little scam that we have very little to worry about.
*or would prefer not to…
Kevin McKinney // October 5, 2009 at 7:26 pm |
“rapidly heading for 2008 levels again”– yeah, I’ve been faithfully pasting values from IJIS and wondering what freezeup was going to look like with these elevated SSTs we’ve had. (Though last time I looked at GISS they seemed to be moderating quite a bit.)
In the event, it’s unusually slow freezing, so far.