Anyone seen this?
Is it trustworthy? How about realclimate.org? Plain bs?
I can’t view the You Tube here, but generally at this point nothing you read or watch about climate science is trustworthy. RealClimate is paid for by left wing activist orgs and run by people close to and totally mixed in with the whole Climategate fiasco which is turning out to run much deeper than even most skeptics expected. The IPCC has been caught citing unpeer reviewed papers in direct violation of their own standards while peer reviewed literature existed on the issue in question but didn’t tell the story they wanted to tell, and the IPCC head has been called out for benefitting majorly from his position, which he is incidentally not qualified to hold if we apply the same standards to his position as RealClimate contributors demand their skeptics must meet. Climateaudit and WattsUpWithThat and other such active skeptic sites are good for pointing out problems with existing research and data but don’t really have the resources themselves to produce anything authoritative on the subject, and may or may not have significant links to others with financial interests dictating the content go one way and not the other, though after following them for a long time myself I doubt they do.
So at this moment the only thing you can really say about Climate ‘Science’ is that, in general, the world has probably warmed a bit. We have released a lot of CO2 and other green house gases. This may or may not have a statistically significant effect on climate in the long or short term. This effect may or may not be overshadowed by much more powerful forcings and feedbacks over any and all time frames. There may or may not be any practical solution. Most people involved at this point are too specialized to give anything but targeted critiques, most people with professional qualifications in the specific field seem to be caught up in a shit storm of political bias and chasing grant money. So at this point I wouldn’t try anything about the climate but licking your finger to see which way the wind happens to be blowing.
The description of the video uses the word “denier” to describe skeptics. I would not consider any source that uses the word “denier” as trustworthy. It also states that existence of skeptical peer-review is “quite low” - this is a lie,
500 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming
As for RealClimate.org…
The Truth about RealClimate.org
“RealClimate.org is assumed by those who do not know any better to be an “objective” source on climate change. It features activist scientists with degrees in Geology, Geosciences, Mathematics, Oceanography and Physics who are all self proclaimed “climatologists”. Yet skeptical scientists with equivalent credentials are not (probably because they have not proclaimed it). Essentially the site exists to promote global warming alarm-ism and attack anyone who does not agree with their declaration of doomsday (proven of course by their own computer climate models) and the need for government intervention against the life supporting, atmospheric trace gas, carbon dioxide. Standard operating procedure is to post “rebuttals” to everything they disagree with and then declare victory, making sure to censor comments challenging their position. It doesn’t matter if they actual rebutted any of the science or facts just so long as they provide the existence of a criticism. This gives their fanboys “ammunition” to further promote alarmist propaganda across the Internet (and of course declare victory). Their resident propagandist William Connolley’s job is to edit dissent and smear skeptical scientists on Wikipedia. In the world of global warming alarmist “science” pretending you win is apparently all that matters because in real debates they lose. The truth is that RealClimate.org is an environmentalist shill site directly connected to an eco-activist group, Environmental Media Services and Al Gore but they don’t want you to know that.”
Here are much better presentations,
Patrick J. Michaels: Climate of Extremes (Video) (60min) (Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Climatology)
Richard S. Lindzen: Deconstructing Global Warming (Video) (55min) (Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT)
If anyone’s interested I wrote an article on the climate change nonsense last year: If It’s On TV, It Must Be True.
The site also has a list of links to other sites dealing with exposing the facts around climate change.
Infowars.net and PrisonPlanet.com also post a lot of informative articles on climate change.
Alimentarius,
The previous responses are good, but remember there are some facts that are either indisputable or generally agreed upon.
One, CO2 and other noted green house gases are in fact greenhouse gasses. All else being equal, they will trap heat in some direct relation to their concentration. How that plays out in a complex open ended system like the planet’s climate as opposed to the lab where it’s been verified is another matter. As with economics, it could technically be true but have the overall effect on things that’s negligible like increasing the money supply .00000000001% or something. Sure the fact is the money supply has increased and dollars will ‘devalue’, but if it were limited to that amount I’d doubt anyone would notice or give a shit. The effects of CO2 and other GHGs could likely be the same; drastically over shadowed by other effects.
Two, the Earth has warmed over the last century. However it has also cooled or leveled off for periods of time. Modelers in climate, much like modelers in economics, fiddle with their models until the perfectly ‘predict’ the past. However this does jack shit for future predictive power or reliability. One of the biggest emails to come out in the Climategate leak was Kevin Trenberth saying it was a travesty that the models did not predict the current cooling. It’s a big email because it was a private admission there was cooling, which was then countered by a lot harranging about it depending on where you started the trend. However all trends have starting points; that’s why they’re called trends. Speaking in geological time frames, conveniently starting a trend on or after 1998 to show cooling is no different or more or less valid than starting a trend just after the little ice age to show warming, or just after the medieval warm period to make 20th century temperatures look anomalous. The code released in the Climategate files also shows numerous attempts to disregard proxy evidence before 1400, meaning in layman’s terms “Don’t show the medieval warm period, it makes current temperatures look not so worrisome.” That the Earth has warmed is fairly settled. Why it has warmed and whether or not it is anomalous hasn’t been settled.
The Trenberth email was also significant because it diverged (pun intended) from his public statements dramatically, with some of the so called Hockey Team even denying any cooling had happened. And, lo and behold, almost on release of this email from Trenberth, an NOAA study pops up showing current cooling, which up until then hadn’t even been admitted by most people, was due to natural variations. That’s an aside though.
Three, arctic ice is in retreat, so are some glaciers. Antarctic ice is anyone’s guess so far as I can see. The large ‘shelf’ of ices seems to be melting, the arctic land ice itself seems to be gaining. There may or may not be a valid explaination as to why that’s consistent with AGW theory; wind patterns and the like seem most likely.
Four, we can affect our climate. All life does, it’s stupid to think we can’t or won’t. Life and geology and climate, it’s all part of the same system. And we, as very advanced animals could arguably have a tendency to affect the climate to a great degree. It’s quite possible we could turn the Earth into a pressure cooker. It’s also quite possible the Earth could take our input, incorporate it into a new balance and maybe give us a few extra hurricanes to deal with at most, along with more farmland and longer growing seasons, etc., etc. However all the Earth’s systems are interconnected, and we as humans are very, very good at doing what all life does, which is rearrange our environment to our benefit. All animals do that, at the chemical level even when they eat and deficate, build a nest, dam a river, etc.
The computer models though are the crux the AGW argument. The whole turning point of this whole debate is that because these precious models can’t account for warming for the last few decades unless man made influeces are assumed, then man must be altering the climate. This is circular and ridiculous. The modelers admit their models don’t even account properly for cloud feedback among others, and don’t incorporate well known weather patterns like PDO. Now we know they didn’t predict the current cooling.
People who believe the sun is a bigger driver of the climate may have predicted the current cooling, it’s unclear and I’m not convinced at least. However the overall point is if you are relying on these models to attribute warming to humans and they can’t yet account for natural variation which can apparently completely eclipse the claimed warming for a time, the models are not adequate. The arguments get more technical than that as well, dealing with spacial resolution methods and how they may leave heat artifacts, stuff that’s above my head, maybe some of the math geeks here could explain more in laymans terms.
You need to know the above because the AGW alarmist strategy is always, always and without fail, to start with settled science - green house gases, warming trend, scale and nature of human industry, polar ice and glacial changes/retreat - and then use those to try and say the unsettled science - the degree, if any, to which we have caused warming, the accuracy of the models - is settled. You see it all the time. “CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and the polar caps are melthing, glaciers are retreating, etc., etc., etc., therefore human caused global warming.” It’s stock and trade in every interview these guys do, every article they write. Take what is settled, pull a shell game with what isn’t, and link the two without the necessary work to prove the link. Under the third shell should be that work, instead it’s the completed theory and you’re not supposed to notice the missing piece. It’s important to know because a lot of these scientists will be honest when questioned, and when you target your questions right, they will admit uncertainties.
You can even see these strategies in the Climategate emails. I think it was some scientist called Wjborn or something, trying to reconstruct one of Jone’s temp histories. He couldn’t do it, so he repeatedly asked for help, data, etc., and for a while was referred to this or that study, where he would find more problems and inconsistencies. So he’s write back asking for more, and eventually writes back saying he can’t reproduce the result, that the studies he was pointed to seem to use cities when they claim they didn’t, etc., and the alarmist he was emailing with, I think it was Jones or Trenberth, basically said as politely as possible, “Well, it doesn’t matter; CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so screw off.” It was a classic and somewhat hilarious example of this strategy that I’ve been seeing for a long time among alarmists, it was funny and gratifying to see even the supposed ‘scientists’ used it to dismiss critics. In essence it’s no different than Algor showing a picture of a polar bear on a small floating iceberg as ‘proof’ of man made global warming.
So for one, keep the facts straight. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we can and do affect our environment, and the Earth has warmed a bit. What’s at issue is the degree to which we cause this if any, why and how we do so, and what are the possible remedies if they are deemed needed. Don’t let idiots from either side sway you from the facts, because this is one excuse in a long trend of what I call Therefore, Socialism doctrine. Basically every crisis, cultural shift, environmental change, gerbil fart, etc., is taken up as The Cause by some group, and the conclusion is always socialism. When energy and resources were considered super scarce and about to run out, the answer was socialism. When energy and resources were considered super abundant and we were in a supposedly post scarcity world, the answer was socialism. For every drought, hurricane, health issue, car crash, pet death, consumer product defect, or crying child, for some people the answer is always socialism. Climate Change is just the latest in the long run of antecedents for their desired consequent which hasn’t changed since the beginning of bullshit.
Sorry for the long response, just remember the extreme of both sides of this argument gets a lot wrong. Skeptics deny facts, alarmists fabricate them. Neither is right, learn what is certain and what isn’t so you know who is handing you a line of shit when you need to.
From University of Illinois
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg
Pretty much what I have seen too. But keep in mind there are more subtle forces at work, or at least claimed to be at work. Warming is supposed to hit the Northern hemisphere harder because of various factors, existing currents in the air and water and what not. It is not a simple matter of measuring ice area. Ice thickness and location are relevant. For example, if someone predicts gains in ice coverage but loss of the shelf as a consequence of warming, simply measuring ice area wouldn’t be all that’s needed.
The Arctic has exhibited a reduced summer sea-ice extent minimum since satellites began monitoring it in 1979 (a cold period) but this is not historically unusual,
Less Ice In Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 Years Ago (Geological Survey of Norway)
While Antarctica has seen an increase in sea-ice,
Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking (The Australian)
Satellites Show Overall Increases In Antarctic Sea Ice Cover (NASA)
The net result is no statistically significant difference in polar sea-ice cover since 1979,
Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979 (DailyTech)
Alarmists like to cherry pick the Arctic while ignoring the Antarctic.
No they don’t.
Nothing in the climate debate is “certain”,
Not that CO2 is at historical levels,
180 years of atmospheric CO2 gas analysis by chemical methods (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 2, pp. 259-282, March 2007)
- Ernst-Georg Beck
Not the greenhouse effect,
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (PDF)
(International Journal of Modern Physics B, Volume 23, Issue 03, pp. 275-364, January 2009)
- Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner
The Arctic melting cannot be due to global warming, can it? We have after all had no global warming for 15 years. Or does the oceans “lag behind”?
Technically yes since “globally” there has been no statistically significant warming for the last 15 years but you can have a global trend while having different localized trends. The Arctic a slight warming and the Antarctic a slight cooling. There are direct coorelations between solar activity and the arctic air temperatures,
Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, Issue 16, August 2005)
- Willie H. Soon
The planet has continued to accumulate heat since 1998 - global warming is still happening. Nevertheless, surface temperatures show much internal variability due to heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. 1998 was an unusually hot year due to a strong El Nino.
Actually it hasn’t, temperatures have declined,
!(http://www.hyscience.com/Global Cooling Graph.jpg),
But that’s the surface temperatures, right?
Those are the satellite measurements of the surface. Those are the most accurate global measurements we have.
Bullshit. I’ve been in many a debate where skeptics lose it because they deny basic and well understood facts like the nature of greenhouse gases.
CO2 and Methan are greenhouse gases. If you don’t think this is certain, I invite you back to high school level science.
The Earth has warmed over the last century, that is also a statement that is virtually certain, though some would like a full on audit of the temperature record and proxy studies before saying it is so, which I wouldn’t disagree with.
A paper which many have not heard of because of the severe vacuum that remains after the authors had their new assholes torn for them. The first half of their paper is sheer surprise that there’s not a glass shield around the Earth when basic texts on the matter clearly delineate the difference between an actual greenhouse (convection heating) and the greenhouse effect (radiative heating). McIntyre wouldn’t even allow it at his site, most skeptics run from this paper like it’s been dipped in an ebola cocktail. Might give you pause as to citing it. There’s been ample discussion of this paper at both skeptic and proponent sites though like RC and Rabett Run, etc., no one seems to be taking it seriously.
The problem with this claim is it’s qualitative when we’re dealing with hard sciences and should have quantitative data. Sure, the Earth might be warmer now than it otherwise would have been had we not expelled so much CO2. It’s possible. Proving it is another matter however. And you need to do one of two things: one, do what Austrian economists have done, admit their are epitimological limitations to what you can know and therefore what you can predict and speak in qualitative, highly qualified terms; two get your science to the point where you can make reliable quantitative predictions. The Earth has cooled… unless you go back before 98 and then it has warmed… unless you go back to before the little ice age, and then it has cooled and then warmed… unless you go back to… What, really, is the relevant time frame?
then you say:
Does this mean you lost it or are a skeptic? No need to answer. Simply thought how inconsisently funny this was.
That depends on who you are talking to, you can find extremists on both sides. But you should know better that skeptical scientists arguing this are not making these claims and thus implying it with your statement is disingenous.
I don’t think anything is certain until it has been empirically proven (yes I am aware of the experiments). The term greenhouse gases is misleading as even with the common theory it is nothing like a greenhouse. Forcing, Sensitivity and Residence Time are in wide dispute.
The centuries accepted warming is +0.6C and the warming originated at the end of the LIA.
I have not seen any debate on this paper including it’s authors. I don’t run from anything based on peer-pressure or appeals to authority. Please provide the ample discussion at the skeptics sites, I am not interested in RC or Rabett Run.
Back to my original point skeptical scientists don’t deny anything.
Well, it’s a scientific fact that CO2 and Methane capture and retain heat. But it’s also a scientific fact that greenhouse gasses are the result of increased temperatures, and not the cause. The “believers” confuse causality–something quite common. CO2 and Methane emissions would have risen with or without human industrialization.