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And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [W:54

Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Jack Hays said:
And the author's 22 page critique?:peace
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Very badly flawed.

For example, here's one section (pp.9-10):

For the first year shown in the figure, 1880, there are two dots: one red, at -0.10 °C; one blue, at -0.36 °C. The two dots indicate the 90%-confidence interval for the global temperature in that year: [-0.10 °C, -0.36 °C]. The other dots indicate similarly for the other years. A straight line that was fit only via observational uncertainty would have to lie below almost all the red dots and above almost all the blue dots. Such a line obviously cannot exist. Hence, it is not possible to fit a straight line based only on observational uncertainty.

If one doesn't understand confidence intervals, this seems convincing. However, a basic understanding of confidence intervals easily dismisses this argument. A 90% confidence interval is + or -1.645 sigma. Hence, from the differences in the upper and lower bound of the confidence interval (blue and red dots), one can determine the value for sigma and also the central or mean value. A trend line would be based on the central or mean values.

And all the major global data sets (HadCrut, GISS, NCDC) have specific values for each year. It is from those values that the standard deviation and confidence intervals were calculated.

As a matter of fact, if one didn't know the central values, one could not have known that the differences represented 90% confidence intervals.
 
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Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

donsutherland1 said:
Very badly flawed.

For example, here's one section (pp.9-10):

For the first year shown in the figure, 1880, there are two dots: one red, at -0.10 °C; one blue, at -0.36 °C. The two dots indicate the 90%-confidence interval for the global temperature in that year: [-0.10 °C, -0.36 °C]. The other dots indicate similarly for the other years. A straight line that was fit only via observational uncertainty would have to lie below almost all the red dots and above almost all the blue dots. Such a line obviously cannot exist. Hence, it is not possible to fit a straight line based only on observational uncertainty.

If one doesn't understand confidence intervals, this seems convincing. However, a basic understanding of confidence intervals easily dismisses this argument. A 90% confidence interval is + or -1.645 sigma. Hence, from the differences in the upper and lower bound of the confidence interval (blue and red dots), one can determine the value for sigma and also the central or mean value. A trend line would be based on the central or mean values.

And all the major global data sets (HadCrut, GISS, NCDC) have specific values for each year. It is from those values that the standard deviation and confidence intervals were calculated.

As a matter of fact, if one didn't know the central values, one could not have known that the differences represented 90% confidence intervals.
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I suggest you may want to peruse the comments that follow the critique.:peace
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

And another issue...

He writes:

A leading statistician in the U.S. said the following in an e-mail to me.

My sense is that the observed time series is not sufficiently long to cleanly distinguish among various time series models, nor to definitively demonstrate man-made warming versus natural cycles versus (for some models) a mostly flat trend.

Again, nothing wrong with what the statistician wrote. However, the IPCC report does not purport to "definitively demonstrate man-made warming versus natural cycles..." Instead, it uses probabilistic language e.g., "very likely," "extremly likely," etc.

In the end, the author devotes a lot of time to statistics but then makes claims about the IPCC report that are inaccurate (it does not estimate trends from uncertainty, as the actual datasets have central values) and does not make any "definitive" claims. In effect, he's trying to impress readers with nuanced statistical arguments while making claims about the IPCC's report that don't stand up to scrutiny.

Moreover, attribution science uses multiple approaches to try to gain insight into phenomena. One example is that the IPCC report states:

Although, estimates of multi-decadal internal variability of GMST need to be obtained indirectly from the observational record since the observed record contains the effects of external forcings (meaning the combination of natural and anthropogenic forcings), the standard deviation of internal variability would have to be under- estimated in climate models by a factor of at least three to account for the observed warming in the absence of anthropogenic influence. Comparison with observations provides no indication of such a large difference between climate models and observations.

In the end, while I have no big arguments with his general discussion of statistics, his review of the IPCC report is badly done. He has created a caricature of the report that does not resemble the actual report and attacks that caricature. Unfortunately for him, the caricature is not the actual report and it easily survives his misdirected critique.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Jack Hays said:
I suggest you may want to peruse the comments that follow the critique.:peace
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WUWT is a website that rejects AGW and has attracted an audience largely comprised of those who similarly reject it. One can only expect to see a "cheerleader" effect based on the composition of the site's audience.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

donsutherland1 said:
WUWT is a website that rejects AGW and has attracted an audience largely comprised of those who similarly reject it. One can only expect to see a "cheerleader" effect based on the composition of the site's audience.
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WUWT readers are generally more open to opposing views than are AGW warmist orthodox priests at Real Climate. That is not, however, my point. It looked to me like some of the commenters were taking up the same points you mentioned.:peace
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Jack Hays said:
WUWT readers are generally more open to opposing views than are AGW warmist orthodox priests at Real Climate. That is not, however, my point. It looked to me like some of the commenters were taking up the same points you mentioned.:peace
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My issue is not with the WUWT readers per se, but the fact that they don't provide a representative audience to draw very broad conclusions. The same would also occur with respect to let's say Joe Romm's blog on Think Progress.

Steve Mosher made a relevant point that applying the author's critique more broadly, it would be difficult to statistically demonstrate such natural climatic fluctuations as the Little Ice Age.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

donsutherland1 said:
My issue is not with the WUWT readers per se, but the fact that they don't provide a representative audience to draw very broad conclusions. The same would also occur with respect to let's say Joe Romm's blog on Think Progress.

Steve Mosher made a relevant point that applying the author's critique more broadly, it would be difficult to statistically demonstrate such natural climatic fluctuations as the Little Ice Age.
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Fair enough. :peace
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Unlike those political appointees on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there are many highly regarded climatological scientists that do not correlate global warming with human activity. Science is about evidence not consensus, is about questioning the validity of assumptions and data. The IPPC political attempt to block off debate by correlating human activity with global warming on the basic of consensus and calling it settled science reveals the weakness of its arguments.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Sandokan said:
Unlike those political appointees on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there are many highly regarded climatological scientists that do not correlate global warming with human activity. Science is about evidence not consensus, is about questioning the validity of assumptions and data. The IPPC political attempt to block off debate by correlating human activity with global warming on the basic of consensus and calling it settled science reveals the weakness of its arguments.
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There are a few climate scientists who do that. Approximately 3%. And this has been shown repeatedly, as well as in reviews of scientific literature.

The IPCC may appoint people to the panel who are political as they review potential remedies, but the scientists are selected by a scientific committee and chosen for their scholarship. And the consensus is that the evidence for AGW is overwhelming.

This reminds me of something I saw. How the media portrays global warming.

8ememyna.jpg
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Sandokan said:
Unlike those political appointees on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there are many highly regarded climatological scientists that do not correlate global warming with human activity. Science is about evidence not consensus, is about questioning the validity of assumptions and data. The IPPC political attempt to block off debate by correlating human activity with global warming on the basic of consensus and calling it settled science reveals the weakness of its arguments.
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The IPCC Mandate says it all in this section:
"... to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy."
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My highlight.


Human-caused climate change is IPCC mandate
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Why highlight the accepted science? The statement merely serves to underline that the IPCC role is to adapt policy to meet the scientific reality.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Manc Skipper said:
Why highlight the accepted science? The statement merely serves to underline that the IPCC role is to adapt policy to meet the scientific reality.
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That doesn't make sense.

Please translate.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

The accepted science is that there is a human-induced element.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Manc Skipper said:
The accepted science is that there is a human-induced element.
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And what has science deduced is the percentage that this human element represents ?
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Earthling said:
That doesn't make sense.

Please translate.
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It doesn't make sense if you don't understand that anthropogenic global warming from CO2 is accepted science. Totally accepted... like to the 97% level.
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Threegoofs said:
It doesn't make sense if you don't understand that anthropogenic global warming from CO2 is accepted science. Totally accepted... like to the 97% level.
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When were 97% of scientists ever asked if they accept it ?
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Earthling said:
That doesn't make sense.

Please translate.
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Here is the citation for Threegoofs' number
Ninety-seven percent of scientific papers that take a position on anthropogenic climate change say it exists, and of authors of those papers, 97 percent endorse the idea of human-caused warming.
Study: Consensus on Climate Still Means Consensus -
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

ethanUNC said:
Here is the citation for Threegoofs' number
Ninety-seven percent of scientific papers that take a position on anthropogenic climate change say it exists, and of authors of those papers, 97 percent endorse the idea of human-caused warming.
Study: Consensus on Climate Still Means Consensus -
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Pardon me if I dont take a survey done by a cartoonist and his team of butchers. bakers and candlestick makers too seriously. This paper has been already dealt with at length elsewhere

About Skeptical Science


John Cook. I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist and web programmer by trade. I did a Physics degree at the University of Queensland and while I achieved First Class Honours and could've continued onto a PhD, I instead quit academia and became a professional scrawler.

Having a physics degree doesnt make you a 'physicist' as the article claims :lamo
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

flogger said:
Pardon me if I dont take a survey done by a cartoonist and his team of butchers. bakers and candlestick makers too seriously. This paper has been already dealt with at length elsewhere

About Skeptical Science


John Cook. I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist and web programmer by trade. I did a Physics degree at the University of Queensland and while I achieved First Class Honours and could've continued onto a PhD, I instead quit academia and became a professional scrawler.

Having a physics degree doesnt make you a 'physicist' as the article claims :lamo
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Genetic fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I shouldn't even entertain your use of the genetic fallacy, but here you go--a different study at your request:

A 2010 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers and drew the following two conclusions:

(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.
Expert credibility in climate change
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

ethanUNC said:
Genetic fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I shouldn't even entertain your use of the genetic fallacy, but here you go--a different study at your request:

A 2010 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers and drew the following two conclusions:

(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.
Expert credibility in climate change
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Oh look I found a more recent Peer reviewed survey whose participants are not reliant on the promotion of global warming for their livelihood

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis - Forbes

Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.
 
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Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

flogger said:
Oh look I found a more recent Peer reviewed survey whose participants are not reliant on the promotion of global warming for their livelihood

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis - Forbes

Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.
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The commenters did the work for me:

"The survey the author cites isn’t “scientists” as stated in the title of the op-ed, it is a survey of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta. That’s like surveying tobacco company CEO’s about the dangers of smoking. It would be a reasonable piece about the opinion of petroleum engineers in Alberta if that was made clear, instead that was hidden. I wonder why?"

Ahh, petroleum engineers in my very own home province of Alberta--the Texas of Canada whose economy is based on oil. Checkmate.
 
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Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

The deal with Global Warming... no conveniently changed in terminology to "Climate Change" is that cooling or warming, it's all man's fault. It reminds me of the line in "Demolition Man", when it's revealed that "All restaurants are Taco Bell". Well... all climate fluxuations are now "Climate Change" and if it's a little hotter, it's Global Warming - and all the chicken littles run around screaming about predictions of Polar Bears being extinct in <insert number here> years. If it's getting colder, it's obviously Global Cooling and the same predictions about New York having a 100 mile glacier on it in <insert number here> years. What's consistent is that, well... it's all our fault for using <insert item here>. You can choose from fossile fuels, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, cows farting too much, urbanization of natural lands, stripping natural resources, water pollution, air pollution, sound pollution, large corporations, DDT, etc...
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

ethanUNC said:
The commenters did the work for me:

"The survey the author cites isn’t “scientists” as stated in the title of the op-ed, it is a survey of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta. That’s like surveying tobacco company CEO’s about the dangers of smoking. It would be a reasonable piece about the opinion of petroleum engineers in Alberta if that was made clear, instead that was hidden. I wonder why?"

Ahh, petroleum engineers in my very own home province of Alberta--the Texas of Canada whose economy is based on oil. Checkmate.
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Your "commenter", which is just some random internet guys comment, is ignorant...A link to the paper..

Science or Science Fiction? Professionals

And now some common sense...An engineer is a person who uses science to build things or create things that serves a purpose or function. Engineers are science made real.. And a geophysicist? I really need to tell you that they are scientists? And geologists don't all work for big oil...
 
Re: And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% [

Ockham said:
The deal with Global Warming... no conveniently changed in terminology to "Climate Change" is that cooling or warming, it's all man's fault. It reminds me of the line in "Demolition Man", when it's revealed that "All restaurants are Taco Bell". Well... all climate fluxuations are now "Climate Change" and if it's a little hotter, it's Global Warming - and all the chicken littles run around screaming about predictions of Polar Bears being extinct in <insert number here> years. If it's getting colder, it's obviously Global Cooling and the same predictions about New York having a 100 mile glacier on it in <insert number here> years. What's consistent is that, well... it's all our fault for using <insert item here>. You can choose from fossile fuels, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, cows farting too much, urbanization of natural lands, stripping natural resources, water pollution, air pollution, sound pollution, large corporations, DDT, etc...
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Your ill-informed layman's reasoning cannot be applied to science.

It's like saying "PFF it's silly, hot water always freezes slower than cold water since it needs the extra time to cool down the temperature of the cold water" without knowing anything about the science behind the Mpemba effect.
 
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