The REAL problem with Global Warming

[ERCougar]

To me, the recent controversy over missing data is a non-issue, although I don't doubt that in climate science, as in every other field, there is some data doctoring and/or dredging that goes on on both sides, and that scientists, being human, have agendas.

Here's the problem as I see it: the pro global warming folks are misunderstanding or intentionally ignoring objections. They assume that everyone who questions them is arguing that global warming is not occurring. While there may be some who argue this, the larger question is whether we can do anything about it, and secondly, whether doing anything about it is worth the cost. To speak to the first, the global warming folks themselves have already published studies arguing that it's too late to avert massive consequences. To the second, to have any meaningful effect on CO2 admissions (assuming we accept the connection between CO2 and warming anyway) would require enormous cutbacks and liimits on growth--just fine for those of us hopping around on private jets for public appearances, not so acceptable (or fair) to those living on pennies a day in the Third World.

And then there's the whole sniff test problem--do we really think that energy-efficient lightbulbs are going to reverse the course of a warming trend, when the earth has gone through much larger temperature swings through its history, absent human involvement?

So in response to these objections, what do we get? Scientists just yelling louder that the earth is warming.

[Indy Coug]

Here are some basic objections

1. There is no valid global climate model that can accurately account for our present climate, let alone project 10, 20, 50 or 100 years into the future or account for global climate in the past.

2. In the absence of a valid global climate model, there is no way to ascertain how much of global climate change is anthropogenic and therefore what if anything can be done to mute human contribution to global climate. Does spending $100 trillion to combat climate change accomplish any more than $1 trillion, $100 billion or $100? If you don't know the answer to that question, how do you justify the extreme expenditure of resources to combat it? If you don't know the answer to that question, the mantra of "well, doing something is better than nothing" sounds emotionally and intellectually immature at best.

3. Global climate is undoubtedly an extremely complex set of variables with innumerable interactions. Despite that, science and the media have protrayed CO2 or sometimes more generically as "greenhouse gases" as the primary driver of global warming. See points #1 and #2. Additionally, correlation is not cause and effect and even the correlation of CO2 to global temperature is questionable at best.

4. How is the global climate temperature measured and recorded and represented? This was a question before, but the recent events with East Anglian University losing and fudging results makes this an even bigger question mark.

5. How does science adequately explain tens of millennia of global cooling resulting in the ice caps dropping down as far south as the Ohio River Valley, only to vanish over a relatively short span of time, resulting in the sea levels rising around 100 meters over just a couple of millennia? During this period of negligible human influence, what were the drivers of these much more extreme and prolonged climatic swings? If we don't understand the factors at play then, how do we know they aren't the primary drivers now rather than any human influence?

6. Signficant global climate shifts typically last centuries (like the "recent" Little Ice Age) or millennia, not decades. As recently as 35 years ago, the Global Cooling siren was being sounded. There is a lot of volatility from year to year in the global mean temperature. Given that volatility and given our complete absence of a working global climate model, to take a snapshot of a very thin sliver of time and try to wildly extrapolate out into the future what future temperatures will be is bad science at best and criminally fraudulent at worst.

[Hallelujah]

To me, the recent controversy over missing data is a non-issue, although I don't doubt that in climate science, as in every other field, there is some data doctoring and/or dredging that goes on on both sides, and that scientists, being human, have agendas.

Here's the problem as I see it: the pro global warming folks are misunderstanding or intentionally ignoring objections. They assume that everyone who questions them is arguing that global warming is not occurring. While there may be some who argue this, the larger question is whether we can do anything about it, and secondly, whether doing anything about it is worth the cost. To speak to the first, the global warming folks themselves have already published studies arguing that it's too late to avert massive consequences. To the second, to have any meaningful effect on CO2 admissions (assuming we accept the connection between CO2 and warming anyway) would require enormous cutbacks and liimits on growth--just fine for those of us hopping around on private jets for public appearances, not so acceptable (or fair) to those living on pennies a day in the Third World.

And then there's the whole sniff test problem--do we really think that energy-efficient lightbulbs are going to reverse the course of a warming trend, when the earth has gone through much larger temperature swings through its history, absent human involvement?

So in response to these objections, what do we get? Scientists just yelling louder that the earth is warming.

I thought that 'science' is supposed to be agenda-free. I think one of the big issues is how human existence is contributing to global warming. If we are causing it, we should change our behavior.

[JohnnyLingo]

The owner of the Post Register in Idaho Falls wrote a column about global warming that ran yesterday.

Here it is in a nutshell:

"The climate is changing! CO2 levels are rising! We must ACT NOW!"

That was it. I wrote in and reminded him that correlation is not causation.

[YOhio]

Here are some basic objections

1. There is no valid global climate model that can accurately account for our present climate, let alone project 10, 20, 50 or 100 years into the future or account for global climate in the past.

2. In the absence of a valid global climate model, there is no way to ascertain how much of global climate change is anthropogenic and therefore what if anything can be done to mute human contribution to global climate. Does spending $100 trillion to combat climate change accomplish any more than $1 trillion, $100 billion or $100? If you don't know the answer to that question, how do you justify the extreme expenditure of resources to combat it? If you don't know the answer to that question, the mantra of "well, doing something is better than nothing" sounds emotionally and intellectually immature at best.

3. Global climate is undoubtedly an extremely complex set of variables with innumerable interactions. Despite that, science and the media have protrayed CO2 or sometimes more generically as "greenhouse gases" as the primary driver of global warming. See points #1 and #2. Additionally, correlation is not cause and effect and even the correlation of CO2 to global temperature is questionable at best.

4. How is the global climate temperature measured and recorded and represented? This was a question before, but the recent events with East Anglian University losing and fudging results makes this an even bigger question mark.

5. How does science adequately explain tens of millennia of global cooling resulting in the ice caps dropping down as far south as the Ohio River Valley, only to vanish over a relatively short span of time, resulting in the sea levels rising around 100 meters over just a couple of millennia? During this period of negligible human influence, what were the drivers of these much more extreme and prolonged climatic swings? If we don't understand the factors at play then, how do we know they aren't the primary drivers now rather than any human influence?

6. Signficant global climate shifts typically last centuries (like the "recent" Little Ice Age) or millennia, not decades. As recently as 35 years ago, the Global Cooling siren was being sounded. There is a lot of volatility from year to year in the global mean temperature. Given that volatility and given our complete absence of a working global climate model, to take a snapshot of a very thin sliver of time and try to wildly extrapolate out into the future what future temperatures will be is bad science at best and criminally fraudulent at worst.

Would somebody respond to this so Indy doesn't feel bad?

[JohnnyLingo]

Would somebody respond to this so Indy doesn't feel bad?

I assumed the silence indicated agreement. Indy owns this argument, in my opinion. I've yet to see someone manage to defeat him re: the Global Warming debate.

[Mr Incredible]

Here are some basic objections

1. There is no valid global climate model that can accurately account for our present climate, let alone project 10, 20, 50 or 100 years into the future or account for global climate in the past.

2. In the absence of a valid global climate model, there is no way to ascertain how much of global climate change is anthropogenic and therefore what if anything can be done to mute human contribution to global climate. Does spending $100 trillion to combat climate change accomplish any more than $1 trillion, $100 billion or $100? If you don't know the answer to that question, how do you justify the extreme expenditure of resources to combat it? If you don't know the answer to that question, the mantra of "well, doing something is better than nothing" sounds emotionally and intellectually immature at best.

3. Global climate is undoubtedly an extremely complex set of variables with innumerable interactions. Despite that, science and the media have protrayed CO2 or sometimes more generically as "greenhouse gases" as the primary driver of global warming. See points #1 and #2. Additionally, correlation is not cause and effect and even the correlation of CO2 to global temperature is questionable at best.

4. How is the global climate temperature measured and recorded and represented? This was a question before, but the recent events with East Anglian University losing and fudging results makes this an even bigger question mark.

5. How does science adequately explain tens of millennia of global cooling resulting in the ice caps dropping down as far south as the Ohio River Valley, only to vanish over a relatively short span of time, resulting in the sea levels rising around 100 meters over just a couple of millennia? During this period of negligible human influence, what were the drivers of these much more extreme and prolonged climatic swings? If we don't understand the factors at play then, how do we know they aren't the primary drivers now rather than any human influence?

6. Signficant global climate shifts typically last centuries (like the "recent" Little Ice Age) or millennia, not decades. As recently as 35 years ago, the Global Cooling siren was being sounded. There is a lot of volatility from year to year in the global mean temperature. Given that volatility and given our complete absence of a working global climate model, to take a snapshot of a very thin sliver of time and try to wildly extrapolate out into the future what future temperatures will be is bad science at best and criminally fraudulent at worst.

Thank you for that thoughtful response.

[Indy Coug]

Thank you for that thoughtful response.

I bet you say that to all the guys when you're wearing next to nothing.

[Moliere]

Here are some basic objections

1. There is no valid global climate model that can accurately account for our present climate, let alone project 10, 20, 50 or 100 years into the future or account for global climate in the past.

2. In the absence of a valid global climate model, there is no way to ascertain how much of global climate change is anthropogenic and therefore what if anything can be done to mute human contribution to global climate. Does spending $100 trillion to combat climate change accomplish any more than $1 trillion, $100 billion or $100? If you don't know the answer to that question, how do you justify the extreme expenditure of resources to combat it? If you don't know the answer to that question, the mantra of "well, doing something is better than nothing" sounds emotionally and intellectually immature at best.

3. Global climate is undoubtedly an extremely complex set of variables with innumerable interactions. Despite that, science and the media have protrayed CO2 or sometimes more generically as "greenhouse gases" as the primary driver of global warming. See points #1 and #2. Additionally, correlation is not cause and effect and even the correlation of CO2 to global temperature is questionable at best.

4. How is the global climate temperature measured and recorded and represented? This was a question before, but the recent events with East Anglian University losing and fudging results makes this an even bigger question mark.

5. How does science adequately explain tens of millennia of global cooling resulting in the ice caps dropping down as far south as the Ohio River Valley, only to vanish over a relatively short span of time, resulting in the sea levels rising around 100 meters over just a couple of millennia? During this period of negligible human influence, what were the drivers of these much more extreme and prolonged climatic swings? If we don't understand the factors at play then, how do we know they aren't the primary drivers now rather than any human influence?

6. Signficant global climate shifts typically last centuries (like the "recent" Little Ice Age) or millennia, not decades. As recently as 35 years ago, the Global Cooling siren was being sounded. There is a lot of volatility from year to year in the global mean temperature. Given that volatility and given our complete absence of a working global climate model, to take a snapshot of a very thin sliver of time and try to wildly extrapolate out into the future what future temperatures will be is bad science at best and criminally fraudulent at worst.

The whole global warming fascination does intrigue me, but for different reasons. Ever since I visited the gardens of the Versailles Palace it always has intrigued me the way that man thinks he can control and manipulate nature. In some instances we can by pruning bushes to make them look like cones or by planting trees all in a row. However in many more instances we have no control.

It just shows the human desire to have things all be orderly, and by orderly I mean we not only want nature to behave the way we want it to but we want to find the switch that will allow us to change that behavior. For the GW alarmists this switch is supposedly CO2.

It's also in the current human thinking that if you throw enough money at something it will get fixed.

[dabrockster]

Boxer has her feathers all in a ruffle now:

She is talking about criminal charges against those who hacked in and got the emails..


Didn't see that coming from the Ultra Liberal Boxer.. :slap:

[ERCougar]

Here are some basic objections

1. There is no valid global climate model that can accurately account for our present climate, let alone project 10, 20, 50 or 100 years into the future or account for global climate in the past.

2. In the absence of a valid global climate model, there is no way to ascertain how much of global climate change is anthropogenic and therefore what if anything can be done to mute human contribution to global climate. Does spending $100 trillion to combat climate change accomplish any more than $1 trillion, $100 billion or $100? If you don't know the answer to that question, how do you justify the extreme expenditure of resources to combat it? If you don't know the answer to that question, the mantra of "well, doing something is better than nothing" sounds emotionally and intellectually immature at best.

3. Global climate is undoubtedly an extremely complex set of variables with innumerable interactions. Despite that, science and the media have protrayed CO2 or sometimes more generically as "greenhouse gases" as the primary driver of global warming. See points #1 and #2. Additionally, correlation is not cause and effect and even the correlation of CO2 to global temperature is questionable at best.

4. How is the global climate temperature measured and recorded and represented? This was a question before, but the recent events with East Anglian University losing and fudging results makes this an even bigger question mark.

5. How does science adequately explain tens of millennia of global cooling resulting in the ice caps dropping down as far south as the Ohio River Valley, only to vanish over a relatively short span of time, resulting in the sea levels rising around 100 meters over just a couple of millennia? During this period of negligible human influence, what were the drivers of these much more extreme and prolonged climatic swings? If we don't understand the factors at play then, how do we know they aren't the primary drivers now rather than any human influence?

6. Signficant global climate shifts typically last centuries (like the "recent" Little Ice Age) or millennia, not decades. As recently as 35 years ago, the Global Cooling siren was being sounded. There is a lot of volatility from year to year in the global mean temperature. Given that volatility and given our complete absence of a working global climate model, to take a snapshot of a very thin sliver of time and try to wildly extrapolate out into the future what future temperatures will be is bad science at best and criminally fraudulent at worst.

I'd be curious to hear responses to these objections--they're certainly much more sophisticated than mine. I'm not sure we even have to get that complicated, however. I'm happy to leave the complicated data-sorting to the scientists, but what really frustrates me about this debate is that there are some fairly basic objections that are being completely ignored. I fall pretty far left on most environmental issues but I can't do it on this one. I'm absolutely open to convincing, I'd even really like to be convinced, but I've had the same objections on this subject for several years now and have yet to come across anyone even making an attempt to address them. It's baffling to me how the public has bought into this so completely.

[JohnnyLingo]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-1-2009/scientists-hide-global-warming-data

Ah, Jon Stewart, I take back the mean things I have said about you in the past. Again.

EDIT: Well, maybe. I finished the clip and the last minute or so makes it seem like these e-mails merely make climate change theory look bad, but it's still true, for sure, yep.

[statman]

Here are some basic objections

1. There is no valid global climate model that can accurately account for our present climate, let alone project 10, 20, 50 or 100 years into the future or account for global climate in the past.

2. In the absence of a valid global climate model, there is no way to ascertain how much of global climate change is anthropogenic and therefore what if anything can be done to mute human contribution to global climate. Does spending $100 trillion to combat climate change accomplish any more than $1 trillion, $100 billion or $100? If you don't know the answer to that question, how do you justify the extreme expenditure of resources to combat it? If you don't know the answer to that question, the mantra of "well, doing something is better than nothing" sounds emotionally and intellectually immature at best.

3. Global climate is undoubtedly an extremely complex set of variables with innumerable interactions. Despite that, science and the media have protrayed CO2 or sometimes more generically as "greenhouse gases" as the primary driver of global warming. See points #1 and #2. Additionally, correlation is not cause and effect and even the correlation of CO2 to global temperature is questionable at best.

4. How is the global climate temperature measured and recorded and represented? This was a question before, but the recent events with East Anglian University losing and fudging results makes this an even bigger question mark.

5. How does science adequately explain tens of millennia of global cooling resulting in the ice caps dropping down as far south as the Ohio River Valley, only to vanish over a relatively short span of time, resulting in the sea levels rising around 100 meters over just a couple of millennia? During this period of negligible human influence, what were the drivers of these much more extreme and prolonged climatic swings? If we don't understand the factors at play then, how do we know they aren't the primary drivers now rather than any human influence?

6. Signficant global climate shifts typically last centuries (like the "recent" Little Ice Age) or millennia, not decades. As recently as 35 years ago, the Global Cooling siren was being sounded. There is a lot of volatility from year to year in the global mean temperature. Given that volatility and given our complete absence of a working global climate model, to take a snapshot of a very thin sliver of time and try to wildly extrapolate out into the future what future temperatures will be is bad science at best and criminally fraudulent at worst.

Good points all. For those that don't understand why deleting the original data is huge, it ties to Indy's first two points.

First of all, these are PREDICTIVE climactic models - they look at past relationships to predict the future. You know if your model is good if it can fairly accurately predict what is going to happen. The model is made up of several different factors or variables that should be theoretically linked to the behavior in question (like CO2 IS linked to temperature. There's no debate at all that it is a greenhouse gas. There is only a question about how big its impact actually is. The importance of each of the factors (the size of its impact of each factor on global temperatures) in the model is determined by the coefficients/weights the mathematics assigns to each factor. The math is complicated, but as long as reasonable methods rare being used, it's really kind of trivial. The discussion can still be had on a conceptual level without delving into the math.

IF your model is specified correctly - if you've included all the pertinent factors (and only pertinent factors) and assigned proper weight to that factor - it WILL BE predictive. The fact that the IPCC's models completely suck tells you that the model is misspecified - they've either added impertinent factors to the model that confound its predictive power, or they've not included all the pertinent variables, or they've completely misestimated the coefficients for the factors. Or it could be a combination of all three of these.

When a model sucks at predicting the future, the first thing you do is check the data. Did I fill in missing data properly? Did my transformations of the data systematically change the relationships I was trying to model? Did the time-frame I used for modeling the relationships fit the variables I specified well, but there was something unusual about that time frame that itself should be accounted for in the model? Again, any or all of these could be factors that cause a model to fail, even with the a purely neutral scientist who wasn't at all trying to skew his results. If a modeler has an agenda, he can use all kind so of techniques to skew results the way he wants them.

Unfortunately, the only way you can really check anything is if you have original data. If all you have is transformed data, the predictive failures could lie ENTIRELY within the transformation. Or the interpolation of results could have been the wrong method for filling in missing data, and could be the source of the predictive problems. Without the original data, you're pretty much stuck with the model that they gave you. You may be able to transform some variables or include a few variables that weren't in the model before, but you're still stuck with the assumptions that transformed the data.

In a nutshell, this is the problem with Jones et al having deleted the original data - no one has the ability to know if the assumptions he made were right or wrong. No one has the ability to check ANY of his work. The IPCC model IS THE model, whether it works or not, and you simply have to accept on faith that it was developed properly.

Here is the fact about the models that has bothered me from the get-go. It is a scientific fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it accounts for only ~1% of greenhouse affect. But the IPCC model specifies CO2 as the main culprit in warming. Okay, I guess that COULD be true. The proof would be in the predictive accuracy of the models. If CO2 is actually the main culprit, and CO2 levels have increased consistently over the last 150 years, especially in the last 50, you'd expect temperatures to follow the same pattern. But they most definitely have not. In fact, as atmospheric CO2 has increased every year, global temperature has gone through several warming and cooling cycles over the same time-frame. This tells me that their models are wrong plain and simple. CO2 is simply not as important as they say it is. But why are they wrong? Is the model underspecified? Overspecified? Are the coefficients simply off because of a poorly chosen modeling time frame? Without the original data, you simply can't know. At this point, the IPCC is asking us to follow blindly...

Remember Churchill's famous quote about "Lies, damned lies and statistics?" In today's world, it should be "Lies, damned lies, statistics and predictive modeling."

[statman]

Boxer has her feathers all in a ruffle now:

She is talking about criminal charges against those who hacked in and got the emails..


Didn't see that coming from the Ultra Liberal Boxer.. :slap:

How does the US Senate file charges for Russian hackers hacking a database in the UK? And that's assuming that the hacking explanation is accurate. It could also be that the information was simply leaked...

Boxer is a waste of air...

[statman]

The owner of the Post Register in Idaho Falls wrote a column about global warming that ran yesterday.

Here it is in a nutshell:

"The climate is changing! CO2 levels are rising! We must ACT NOW!"

That was it. I wrote in and reminded him that correlation is not causation.

An even better argument - change the time-frame of the comparison, and the correlation disappears as well...