John Roskam stirred up a hornets nest on ABC Q and A. Apparently he quoted Phil Jones on climate change.
JOHN ROSKAM: Kevin Rudd is running a million miles away from the ETS. You had, the other day, one of the leading climate change scientists in the world say the world hasn’t warmed since 1995.
(GROANS FROM AUDIENCE AND PANEL MEMBERS)
JOHN ROSKAM: Now, we can run, and Malcolm you can sigh, Mungo you can sigh, those are not my words. The point is whether…
MUNGO MACCALLUM: Whose words are they?
JOHN ROSKAM: They’re Philip Jones, the head of the Climate Research University, the basis of climategate, so whether you believe in climate change or not, undeniably the public is losing faith in the debate.
Matthew Knott at Crikey is very upset.
Phil Jones did not say there had been no global warming since 1995; in fact, he said the opposite. Global temperature records show there has been warming since 1995, he says, but it is difficult to establish the statistical significance of that warming given the short nature of the time involved. The warming trend consequently doesn’t quite achieve statistical significance.
So to remind ourselves, what did Jones say?
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
Let’s do that again.
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes …
Roskam has accurately reflected what Jones said. Now as Knott at Crikey indicates we can debate about sample sizes and whatnot all we like. An estimate that is not statistically significantly different from zero is not an increase, it is zero (it is a flat line not an upward sloping line). Knott might want to argue that the statistically insignificant trend of 0.12C per decade has oomph, or that there are other factors that are important, and so on but Roskam’s interpretation of Jones’ answer to question B is correct. To be sure Jones’ answer to B isn’t the final word, but that is the complete answer that he gave to that particular question. The answer is not convoluted as Matthew England suggests but rather is incomplete as I have argued before. The other thing to remember is that these are not off-the-cuff comments in an interview. According to the BBC
Some brief answers have been slightly expanded following more information from UEA.
Jones had time to fully reflect on the answers and provide additional information. The answer to B is well considered and complete to Jones’ satisfaction.
what a load of cobblers.
Like you Roskam is loose with the truth.
I do believe he mentioned the 95% confidence level did he not.
So it was a trend at what level?
What reasons did he give for that.
What did he say about data from 1975.
What is different between what Jones said and what Knott says exactly?
more peanuts for the ignorant gallery
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
25 Feb 10 at 11:57 am
Seems to me to be silly games of “gotcha’s” being played here, which is hardly conducive to advancing sensible debate.
By the way, Sinclair, you mentioned to Rog the other day that it wasn’t a good look to be talking about sea level rises because of the retraction that day of a paper for errors.
I’m not sure if anyone else has yet pointed out, but despite a misleading headline, the retraction was because the paper is now believed to have under (not over) estimated sea level rise:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Misinterpreting-retraction-of-rising-sea-level-predictions.html
[Steve - the link that you have neglected to insert is here. You will notice a link to the Guardian newspaper - not normally known as a denialist organisation. You will then notice my explanation to rog's query here. Nowhere did I make the kind of allegation that your link makes or suggests. Indeed, neither does the Guardian, despite the fevered argument at that post. The paper is being withdrawn due to methodlogical pronlems exactly as the Guardian said. I've fixed your typo. Sinc]
steve from brisbane
25 Feb 10 at 12:47 pm
Matthew Knott’s response seems (its behind a paywall so I’m unable to read it in full) to reek of desperation. We get another 10 years of what we had over the last 10 years and even the argument that the time period is too short is no longer going to wash.
BTW, Homer, why do we need to go back to 1975? We need 30 years of data to measure ‘climate’ which means that the temp record from 1979/80 is long enough.
dover_beach
25 Feb 10 at 1:28 pm
I do believe he mentioned the 95% confidence level did he not.
.
What cracks me up is all these warmist lefties who don’t understand significance or confidence levels.
daddy dave
25 Feb 10 at 1:47 pm
“I do believe he mentioned the 95% confidence level did he not.
So it was a trend at what level?”
What’s the trend from the medieval period?
Semi Regular Libertarian
25 Feb 10 at 1:58 pm
Snoopy what are you actually measuring and why are you measuring it!
from the Medieval period hmm hockey one hockey two
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
25 Feb 10 at 2:01 pm
Snoopy what are you actually measuring and why are you measuring it!
from the Medieval period hmm hockey one hockey two
Can someone translate this into English?
dover_beach
25 Feb 10 at 2:05 pm
“Snoopy what are you actually measuring and why are you measuring it!
from the Medieval period hmm hockey one hockey two”
What’s the trend from the medieval period?
Semi Regular Libertarian
25 Feb 10 at 2:09 pm
What’s the trend from the medieval period?
That’s a nasty question, SRL. When we look at the following multi-proxy studies the answer would appear to be: no statistically significant trend since 900AD.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=112
dover_beach
25 Feb 10 at 2:18 pm
BTW, SRL, have a look at the following analysis of Central England temps since 1659:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/warming-trends-in-england-from-1659.html
dover_beach
25 Feb 10 at 2:42 pm
“The Central England data show nothing unusual about the evolution of current temperatures. And because there is really nothing special about Central England, it’s reasonable to expect that no place in the world is experiencing anything unusual in the modern era, in comparison with other epochs since 1659.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Jarrah
25 Feb 10 at 7:54 pm
I do not come to Catallaxy very often these days, and Sincs’ post reminds me why. Roskam did not accurately represent Jones on Q&A. That Sinc seeks to pretend he did shows how incapable of objective analysis on such matters he is. Then there is the childish “gotcha” aspect to this post, a poor substitute for serious analysis. That the Catallaxy cheer-squad apparrantly laps this sort of third-rate stuff up shows how hopelessly tribal they too have become.
Tom N.
25 Feb 10 at 7:55 pm
So Tom – explain then how John Roskam got it wrong. How is a number not statistically significant suddenly important?
Sinclair Davidson
25 Feb 10 at 8:10 pm
I thought John presented poorly. Most of the IPA crowd on Q&A have been disappointing. They come across as very defensive and somewhat petty.
TerjeP (say Tay-a)
25 Feb 10 at 8:21 pm
Can someone translate this into English?
.
Sure. It means: Nazis? Great economists.
Adrien
25 Feb 10 at 8:25 pm
You have to realize this is a Darwinian thing. Around the Universe there a lots of intelligent, technological species. Each one at some point must confront the consequences of its civilization on its habitat. The test is can you sustain yourself. If so you get to go on to the next level. If not too bad.
.
I guess we’re one of the ones that becomes nothing.
Adrien
25 Feb 10 at 8:27 pm
Roskam’s wording was a bit fast and loose but that’s not the issue.
There has been no statistically significant warming over this period because over a period of less than about 15 years it’s a bit hard for there to be statistically significant warming given the substantial autocorrelation.
Surely most kids learn at high school that if you don’t use much data you get high p-values?
PSC
25 Feb 10 at 11:29 pm
Sinclair: if the Guardian is correct when it says “Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper’s estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate” I have mis-represented the argument in that Skeptical Science post.
SS is arguing that the withdrawal of a paper which argued for the lower range of predicted rises logically means there is one less reason to doubt the recent papers which have argued for a higher range and that the IPCC estimate was too conservative. I hardly see that as a “fevered argument”.
And I also don’t see how, in these circumstances, one can realistically argue that the headline the Guardian gave to its report was misleading to about 95% of readers.
steve from brisbane
25 Feb 10 at 11:39 pm
Bah! I meant to say “was not misleading” in that last sentence.
steve from brisbane
25 Feb 10 at 11:40 pm
Sinclair this is truly pathetic.
We’ve been saying for years – in the face of all denialist claims to the contrary – that 10, or even 14 years are not enough to establish statistical significance.
So Jones says the same thing and now he’s “admitting” that the denialist case is correct?
Hogwash.
JM
26 Feb 10 at 1:15 am
“The Central England data show nothing unusual about the evolution of current temperatures. And because there is really nothing special about Central England, it’s reasonable to expect that no place in the world is experiencing anything unusual in the modern era, in comparison with other epochs since 1659.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Jarrah, could you point out the problem with the analysis that ended with the above conclusion.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 8:46 am
We’ve been saying for years – in the face of all denialist claims to the contrary – that 10, or even 14 years are not enough to establish statistical significance.
So when Hansen walked into Congress in 1988 with a similar length of temp data indicating ‘warming’ this was also “statistically insignificant” because of its brief duration?
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 8:50 am
Dover, could you explain what is right with the analysis?
As to what’s wrong (or might be wrong) there are a couple of problems.
Firstly it’s Lubos who is incredibly arrogant even for a string theorist (who are arrogant even by physicist standards) and who pays very little attention to the actual science behind AGW. As far as he’s concerned if you can’t express it in 10 (or is it 11?) dimensions, it doesn’t exist. His “analysis” of other fields usually amounts to outright dismissal based on purely emotional criteria.
Secondly he’s dealing with rates of temperate increase and his rates look high to me (5C/century???), so I’m not sure he’s got it right, I’ll have a closer look over the weekend*
When he looks at rates rather than increases he ignores the actual magnitude of the increases we’ve seen over the last few years. The noughties were hotter than the nineties which were hotter than the eighties which were hotter than the seventies.
At some point you have to put your hand up and say “it looks like a trend”.
Thirdly, his assertion that there is no such thing as a global average temperature is farcical. I don’t want to go into this too much but if his argument was extended to his own field it wouldn’t exist (the keyword is “manifolds”).
As for Hansen and Congress in 1988, GISS base their results on 1950 so when Hansen went there he had 38 years of data – quite good enough.
* But unless his arrogance has really got the better of him I’m not 100% confident of finding anything off the top of my head.
JM
26 Feb 10 at 7:30 pm
“As far as he’s concerned if you can’t express it in 10 (or is it 11?) dimensions, it doesn’t exist.”
Oh yes I’m sure he said that.
Tom N – no one cares if you come or not.
Semi Regular Libertarian
26 Feb 10 at 7:32 pm
Oh yes I’m sure he said that.
Ahhh, he has SRL. Many times. He is a very aggressive proponent of string theory and brooks absolutely no argument. He’s famous (and got fired from Harvard) for it.
And if you look at his comments on fields outside string theory it’s absolutely apparent that he regards them as mere “stamp collecting”.
He can’t be bothered to educate himself outside his speciality so he just indulges himself in abuse.
I suspect the only reason why he is tolerated is that he’s very clever and great things are expected of him. We’ll have to wait a few years for that.
JM
26 Feb 10 at 7:48 pm
Does stamp collecting exist? Yes or no.
Semi Regular Libertarian
26 Feb 10 at 7:57 pm
Hey, I’m way out of my depth on statistics but isn’t it more accurate to talk of “statistically significant evidence” of warming rather than s s warming?
ken n
26 Feb 10 at 7:59 pm
Firstly it’s Lubos who is incredibly arrogant even for a string theorist (who are arrogant even by physicist standards) and who pays very little attention to the actual science behind AGW. As far as he’s concerned if you can’t express it in 10 (or is it 11?) dimensions, it doesn’t exist. His “analysis” of other fields usually amounts to outright dismissal based on purely emotional criteria.
Pure JM. Start off with an ad hom and follow it up with a slur.
Secondly he’s dealing with rates of temperate increase and his rates look high to me (5C/century???), so I’m not sure he’s got it right, I’ll have a closer look over the weekend*
WTF?
When he looks at rates rather than increases he ignores the actual magnitude of the increases we’ve seen over the last few years. The noughties were hotter than the nineties which were hotter than the eighties which were hotter than the seventies.
At some point you have to put your hand up and say “it looks like a trend”.
Motl’s point is that you can do the same for the three decades between 1690-1720 as for likely many others, i.e the late 19th C. In other words, there is nothing exceptional about the current period of warming.
Thirdly, his assertion that there is no such thing as a global average temperature is farcical.
Where does he assert that in that post?
As for Hansen and Congress in 1988, GISS base their results on 1950 so when Hansen went there he had 38 years of data – quite good enough.
No, sorry, you’re confusing the baseline period (1951-80) used to create an anomoly graph for the length of the trend. As you can see from the following graph,
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
the warming trend appears in the late 70s, so Hansen only had a decade of warming to present to Congress.
JM, its absolutely clear that Motl is knowledgable beyond his own speciality. His scientific opinions are certainly worth listening to, and it is abundantly clear that this is the case because in criticising him you offer us nothing but ad hom dressed-up as criticism.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 8:30 pm
Dover, I’ll say it again. Lubos is famously arrogant and rude. There are many examples of his behaviour. Secondly his attitude to other fields outside his own is very dismissive. Read his blog.
I’m not making an ad-hom attack, I’m simply describing his behaviour.
there is nothing exceptional about the current period of warming.
Lubos is one of the few people who think that. I’m with those that think it is exceptional and I’ll get back to you if I can find fault with his analysis beyond what I”ve already pointed out – that the derivative doesn’t show the absolute increase.
Where does he assert that in that post?
He doesn’t. But he has in a number of other posts on his blog. As I said I don’t want to get into that too much because my rebuttal is quite technical, and means that his own argument could – I assert – be used to demolish his own field rather than his target. An own-goal, or and example of blowing your own foot off if you like.
the warming trend appears in the late 70s, so Hansen only had a decade of warming to present to Congress.
Not really. In 1988 Hansen had a trend – not as strong as is apparent today, but still a trend – to show; and he based it on 1950-80.
Motl is knowledgable beyond his own speciality.
Many of us would disagree.
JM
26 Feb 10 at 9:09 pm
DB, as a sceptic do you think AGW is a valid theory?
sdfc
26 Feb 10 at 9:22 pm
Are youse still debating the existence of AGW?
Fair dinkum, this place is looking more and more like the internet’s Jurassic Park
rog
26 Feb 10 at 9:27 pm
And as for Roskam on Q & A…he was a pathetic little squib
rog
26 Feb 10 at 9:30 pm
Roskam was being disengenuous, by applying a literal interpretation to what Jones said he turned it around.
It was a deliberate and cynical misrepresentation which bounced back on him
rog
26 Feb 10 at 9:34 pm
Are youse still debating the existence of AGW
.
Don’t tell me, let me guess.
You’ve personally noticed that summers are much hotter than when you were a kid. Right?
.
Roskam was being disengenuous, by applying a literal interpretation to what Jones said he turned it around.
.
Yeah, damn those literal interpreations of when people are talking literally.
daddy dave
26 Feb 10 at 11:07 pm
Dave I don’t think you understand English.
If I spend my life saying “black is black” and you spend your life saying “black is white”, don’t do a Roskam and accuse me of renouncing my views when I repeat “black is black”.
Jones – and many others – have said for years that short term fits lack statistical significance.
So when he says that a short term fit lacks statistical significance he – and many others – are quite right to object if others twist their words.
rog is right. Matthew Knot (and Roskam) are being disingenuous and very dishonest when they ask the question “So you agree that black is black?”
And get the answer “Yes”.
JM
26 Feb 10 at 11:15 pm
Now it’s dishonest to quote Phil Jones?
Sinclair Davidson
26 Feb 10 at 11:21 pm
Roskam was being disengenuous, by applying a literal interpretation to what Jones said he turned it around.
Exactly, when your reading the Gospels according to Phil, it’s always best to simply not take what he says literately.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:22 pm
It’s dishonest to quote him out of context, was he just saying the sample size was too small?
sdfc
26 Feb 10 at 11:25 pm
wrong. He was asked- has there been any statistical warming since 1995. He did not explain that the window was too small. He answered the question straight – indicating that an answer was possible – and said it was not significant.
That’s black = black.
Top scientist says “no significant warming.” AGW acolytes try to explain that it doesn’t mean what it seems to mean.
daddy dave
26 Feb 10 at 11:26 pm
He does say ‘yes’ to the question.
Sinclair Davidson
26 Feb 10 at 11:26 pm
To add to my answer. There is no ambiguity in Jones’ answer. The issue here is why he said yes at the 95% level when the 90% level is acceptable too.
Sinclair Davidson
26 Feb 10 at 11:29 pm
Roskam:
You had, the other day, one of the leading climate change scientists in the world say the world hasn’t warmed since 1995.
what did Jones say?
“B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just.”
Rog says Roskam was taking Phil too literally and SDFC says he was dishonest.
Seriously, this is really becoming a religion.
Literal quotation doesn’t even matter any more.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:35 pm
No JC I’m just asking if Jones was referring to the small sample size. If he was then where is the controversy.
sdfc
26 Feb 10 at 11:38 pm
We can’t trust what Phil Jones says?
Sinclair Davidson
26 Feb 10 at 11:41 pm
Roskam doesn’t have to mention anything about the sample size has he was quite specific by mentioning Jones said it hadn’t warmed since 1995.
I really don’t get the fucking problem here.
Roskam is most likely a sceptic so he would think that Mr. Top Climate scientist saying it hasn’t warmed much since 1995 when everyone else for that side has been telling people to ignore their lying eyes and just believe it is warming is really significant to him.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:47 pm
oops as he was..
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:48 pm
Oh I get it. It’s unfair to quote climate scientists at their word when they may appear to be telling the truth. You should only quote them when you know they’re lying.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:49 pm
C’mon JC that’s beneath you. Jones was quite clear in what he said, and with follow up questions there would have been clarification and we wouldn’t be having this “debate”
Oh, whoops there’s no need for follow up questions because his next few words – “only just” – and sentences expanded on his statement to the point where any intelligent person could understand his meaning.
Unless you’re into “gotcha” quoting that is.
JM
26 Feb 10 at 11:57 pm
JM:
Yes, Jones was quite clear with what he said. Even “only just”means what it means.
The only reason what this has become significant is because lots of people including climate scientists have been saying other wise.
Jones was really quite clear.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 12:00 am
Actually, just to make this point a little bit stronger, Jones said:
Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
ie. If you do the fit over more than 14/15 years you’ll achieve statistical significance.
Or we could take Sinclairs approach:
why he said [no statistical significance] at the 95% level when the 90% level is acceptable too.
If 90% is acceptable, then we’re dealing not so much with a storm in a teacup, as me stirring my sugar in.
JM
27 Feb 10 at 12:04 am
climate scientists have been saying other wise.
No JC, they haven’t. Climate scientists have always said 14 years wasn’t enough.
JM
27 Feb 10 at 12:05 am
Let me edit the Jones comment is a way that may solve things here.
Instead of Jones saying:
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
What he’s really saying is:
No, not at all. The world has been steaming since 1995 despite what the charts are saying.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 12:05 am
He seems to be saying the sample size is too small. Did Roskam mention this when he quoted him? It is a simple question.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 12:23 am
Why would Jones apply a 95% confidence level to a small sample? Isn’t it wrong to do so in stats. I would have thought you would need to widen the confidence level. Is this another case of Jones hiding the decline but this time in what appears to be a interview in written format.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 12:30 am
So Roskam quoted Jones but didn’t mention what he said about sample size. I would call that dishonest.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 12:46 am
I’m not talking about Roskam, SDFC.
I’m now talking about Jones new trick of offering a 95% confidence level and later in the para takes it back in an underhanded way.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 12:51 am
I still fail to see the controversy in his remarks, maybe I have missed something. If so can someome point it out to me?
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 1:15 am
Dave: He did not explain that the window was too small.
Jones:- Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
The window is too small in other words.
And Dave doesn’t understand English.
JM
27 Feb 10 at 7:36 am
It is either statistically significant or it is not. After the fact we can speculate why is isn’t statistically significant but that doesn’t change the fact that it was not statistically significant and that is what Jones said. We can all crap on about power and effect sizes and sample sizes and type I errors until the cows come home, Jones agreed that there had been no statistically significant global warming between 1995 and the present. Those are his words quoted by the BBC. As I said before that is a strange comment because if it just missed out at 95 percent, why didn’t he simply use the 90 percent level?
Sinclair Davidson
27 Feb 10 at 8:07 am
Sinclair, the 90 percent level is not in my opinion a satisfactory cutoff. You’re basically doubling the number of erroneous, not-real findings. More Mozart-effect type findings that later have to be retracted. (ie more type 1 errors)
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 9:46 am
I’m not making an ad-hom attack, I’m simply describing his behaviour.
No, its an ad hom argument; you have nothing interesting to say about Motl’s argument so you attempt to diminish it by reference to his past behaviour.
Not really. In 1988 Hansen had a trend – not as strong as is apparent today, but still a trend – to show; and he based it on 1950-80.
Hansen had a 10-year trend in 1988, simply admit it. As can be seen from the following graph, there is no warming trend from 1940-1980. So, he had only 10-years then but 10-years now is regarded as insufficient. It seems to me there is one law for the lion, another for the lamb.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 9:51 am
Oops. Here’s the graph:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 9:52 am
DD – sure, but 90 percent is one of the generally accepted significance levels. Should it be accepted? A whole different issue again. As McCloskey says these levels are all somewhat arbitrary.
Sinclair Davidson
27 Feb 10 at 9:56 am
DB, as a sceptic do you think AGW is a valid theory?
sdfc, it has validity, but I think the effect of CO2 on climate is less pronounced than the ‘theory’ imagines.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 9:58 am
Climate scientists have always said 14 years wasn’t enough.
JM, you need to get your story straight. When Hansen walked into Congress in 1988 he didn’t have even 14 years of warming to speak of and that trend was unexceptional because we had a similar trend appear between 1920-40. See figure above.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 10:02 am
It is either statistically significant or it is not. After the fact we can speculate why is isn’t statistically significant but that doesn’t change the fact that it was not statistically significant and that is what Jones said.
Exactly.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 10:09 am
DD – sure, but 90 percent is one of the generally accepted significance levels.
.
In the past .05 was the gold standard but we see more use of “marginal significance” at .1. McCloskey is basically saying that the whole system of significance testing is broken and I agree. However, people use the criticism that the levels are “arbitrary” to allow what you might call ‘level creep’, accepting increasingly dubious findings at increasingly lower levels of significance. That’s just making the problem worse, and not really McCloskey’s point.
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 10:15 am
DD – we’re in full agreement. Nonetheless Jones had wiggle room and he chose not to wiggle. That makes me suspicious.
Sinclair Davidson
27 Feb 10 at 10:24 am
This is certainly very interesting and one more reason to have these global datasets (NCDC/NOAA/HadCRUT/ GISS) independently audited:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/26/a-new-paper-comparing-ncdc-rural-and-urban-us-surface-temperature-data/
Lets wait and see if this is replicated independently.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 10:31 am
Rog – this is why we’re not just debating AGW, but we’re ignoring it. Yes the greenhouse effect exists with CO2, but why bother?
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/climategate-30-year-timeline/
Just as public opinion sways, you’re getting on the “Earth Hour” bandwagon about two years late.
Semi Regular Libertarian
27 Feb 10 at 11:56 am
So DB you’re guessing that its impact is not significant.
Because?
I must say the “sceptics” case seems to consist largely of clutching at straws.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 12:05 pm
“I must say the “sceptics” case seems to consist largely of clutching at straws.”
Rubbish. Note the timeline at Jo Nova’s. Try and refute it.
Semi Regular Libertarian
27 Feb 10 at 12:26 pm
So DB you’re guessing that its impact is not significant. Because?
Its not a guess, sdfc, that is where the evidence points. You might have noticed that most observational-estimates of climate sensitivity range between 0.5-2 C per doubling.
I must say the “sceptics” case seems to consist largely of clutching at straws.
This is rich considering that most of all of the derivations of CS >2 C per doubling are model-based.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 12:28 pm
Another broadside at the integrity of these temp datasets:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/26/contribution-of-ushcn-and-giss-bias-in-long-term-temperature-records-for-a-well-sited-rural-weather-station/
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 2:17 pm
DB
As afar as I’m concerned the data from land bases is so potentially corrupt and potentially tampered with that it is unreliable in the extreme.
For instance anything that Gavin Fenton-Communications-Schmidt and Jim Crimes-against-Humanity- Hansen say can’t be trusted in the least. Hansen is basically caught up in his own bullshit and because Schmidt is so grossly dishonest it’s doubtful if you could even get an honest reply to greeting him.
Having said that, are the satellite stats reliable?
JC
27 Feb 10 at 2:31 pm
The thing is JC that the production of these indices should be performed by statistical agencies, not climate or meteorological agencies, and the collection and adjustments made to the data should be open and transparent.
As far as the satellite stats are concerned, I think they are likely to be more reliable but they have their own unique problems as well.
I really think that the analysis presented here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/26/a-new-paper-comparing-ncdc-rural-and-urban-us-surface-temperature-data/
may be a game-changer. Look at the raw trend of the 48 rural stations since 1900. Like Motl,
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/02/ncdc-urbangate-how-urban-crap-was.html
I think this will be a bombshell if it can be verified; for one thing, the adjustments are made to the rural stations, not to the urban stations as you would expect if they were correcting for UHI.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 2:51 pm
The thing is JC that the production of these indices should be performed by statistical agencies, not climate or meteorological agencies, and the collection and adjustments made to the data should be open and transparent.
Yes of course and double checked to see these bozos aren’t cheating.
These fuckers have more moral hazard than a 1/2 drunk dude in a lap dance joint with wallet full of 100′s.
I honestly can’t believe we let them go on like this.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 2:58 pm
Are you kidding me? Motl shows the Prague station is between those apartment buildings? How the fuck is anyone supposed to eliminate heat island effect from such a station?
This is incredible.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 3:02 pm
DB Is this comment correnct? ( from Watts site you linked to)
Rural readings reflect the real natural climate variability in temperature whereas urban readings are poisoned by various sources. This is an obvious truth. There’s only one explanation why they persistently adjust the rural readings up to match the less useful urban ones instead of adjusting the urban ones to other way. That’s obvious too so I don’t need to explain it.
They actually adjust rural stations up to conform to urban stations.
Is this a joke?
JC
27 Feb 10 at 3:05 pm
For anyone that would like to see, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit has a submitted a comment to the inquiry going on about the climategate scandal in the UK parliament.
Steve details the reasons why the Inquiry needs to sanction Jones .
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3202.htm
JC
27 Feb 10 at 3:31 pm
Are you kidding me? Motl shows the Prague station is between those apartment buildings? How the fuck is anyone supposed to eliminate heat island effect from such a station?
No, JC, that don’t use that Prague station. Motl’s point regarding the Clementinum which is the second longest record, the longest being the Central England record, is that even though it shows a warming trend, if you remove UHI effect (and if it is approx. 0.6 C) as that graph suggests then you effectively remove the warming trend from that record and likely for the globe as well.
They actually adjust rural stations up to conform to urban stations. Is this a joke?
If this can be independently confirmed, it will not only be a joke, it will be nightmare for those involved in the production and usage of these datasets. Beyond the particular groups, imagine the consequences for scientists whose research depends upon its validity. The result will effectively be junk and require recalculation.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 3:32 pm
What’s the central England station showing, DB?
JC
27 Feb 10 at 3:46 pm
SRL – Thanks for the tipping me off about
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 3:51 pm
comment from Motl’s link:
Climate Skeptic has pointed out some time ago that the NOAA has put out a graph which shows that the adjustment process accounts for 0.5 degrees of the 0.6 degrees of warming in the USA.
over 80% of the temp rise in the US is the result of the adjustments?
Are they freaking kidding me? Has anyone even checked/audited the statistical processes they use in these adjustments.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 3:51 pm
Sorry fat fingers. What I was going to say is that I find the opinions of climate scientists more convincing than conspiracy theorists.
That you put more stake in conspiracy theories than climate scientists, sounds to me like a guess. I’m not a climate scientist so I don’t know what you mean by CS > 2% means but I’m guessing such derivations are by necessity model based.
In trying to understand the sceptic position, maybe you can let me know why the opinions of climate scientists are thrown out in favour of conspiracy theorists.
There are lots of references to “climategate”, Jones’ uncontroversial interview with the BBC, climate audit etc, but precious (none?) few to realclimate, a site run by climate scientists.
Sorry gotta go will answer when I get back.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 4:06 pm
Realclimate.org is an advocacy site run by a bunch of left-wingers like Gavin Schmidt who gave up science long ago in his pursuit of advocacy.
Realclimate was set up by Fenton Communications which is a leftwing pr firm.
For a start Gavin Schmidt has no formal training in climate science so it would be wrong to refer to him as a climate scientist.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 4:16 pm
Sorry fat fingers. What I was going to say is that I find the opinions of climate scientists more convincing than conspiracy theorists.
Sorry, sdfc, but this is not a contest between the opinions of ‘conspiracy theorists’ and climate scientists. That you want to make it such a contest suggests that you would prefer to remain ignorant of the opinions of climate scientists who disagree with other climate scientists, preferring to imagine that the opinions of climate scientists are monolithic.
I’m not a climate scientist so I don’t know what you mean by CS > 2% means but I’m guessing such derivations are by necessity model based.
You don’t need to be a climate scientist to understand that by CS > 2 C I mean climate sensitivity greater than 2 C. And, no, that guess would be wrong since you can derive CS via observational estimates and those I referred to which give figures ranging from 0.5-2 C where derived by climate scientists, not ‘conspiracy theorist’.
In trying to understand the sceptic position, maybe you can let me know why the opinions of climate scientists are thrown out in favour of conspiracy theorists.
If you want to understand the sceptic’s position you would be better off actually reading what climate scientists sceptical of the ‘consensus’ position like Koutsoyannis, Pielke, Christy, Spencer, Lindzen, Douglass, etc. actually say or do you simply prefer carrying on about so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’? Your attitude, to date, indicates the you’re rather insincere in your attempt to achieve understanding.
There are lots of references to “climategate”, Jones’ uncontroversial interview with the BBC, climate audit etc, but precious (none?) few to realclimate, a site run by climate scientists
Why would I refer to the site, realclimate, when discussing this topic, in general, or climategate, in particular, considering that many of those implicated in the climategate emails are regular posters at RC? That site also has a habit of censuring opinions it finds uncongenial, not unlike the habits disclosed in the cliamtegate emails but then they invariably happen to be part of the same small clique that policed the range of opinion of climate scientists.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 5:09 pm
it would be wrong to refer to him as a climate scientist.
Do you just make stuff up in the hope that no-one will notice?
Gavin Schmidt has a PhD in mathematics from Oxford, works at Goddard and lists his climate relevant publication record here
By comparison, some people Watts as a climatologist – his history:
Watts became a television weather presenter in 1987 when he joined WLFI-TV in Lafayette, Indiana, and KHSL-TV, a CBS affiliate based in Chico, California.[2] After working at KHSL for 17 years, he left in 2004 to become the radio weather presenter for KPAY-AM, a Fox News affiliate also based in Chico, California.
Apart from the Heartland Institute and WattsUpWithThat I don’t think he has a publication record at all
He’s a TV personality for heavens sake.
JM
27 Feb 10 at 5:15 pm
realclimate, a site run by climate scientists
.
Realclimate plays an important role in the climate debate, in the same way that Al Gore also plays an important role. It is the front end of the faltering climate propaganda machine.
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 5:17 pm
Sinclair: Nonetheless Jones had wiggle room and he chose not to wiggle. That makes me suspicious.
Now if you were being honest you would go beyond innuendo and evaluate the situation if you did allow a 90% significance.
But you don’t. Because you know what the result would be. Therefore innuendo and you’re not being honest.
BTW – what is “oomph”? What’s it measured in? What are its units?
JM
27 Feb 10 at 5:19 pm
Gavin Schmidt has a PhD in mathematics from Oxford
.
Yeah well, that’s not “climate science.” I say that somewhat sarcastically, as Ian Plimer and other sceptical scientists in other disciplines have been shouted down for not being “trained in climate science”. Sauce for the goose and all that.
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 5:24 pm
BTW – what is “oomph”? What’s it measured in? What are its units?
effect size; measured in standard deviations.
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 5:25 pm
Now if you were being honest you would go beyond innuendo and evaluate the situation if you did allow a 90% significance
Why? If Jones wanted to calculate the statistical significance at 90% he could have done this himself and then he could have said, Yes. But he didn’t; I assume that he thinks 95% is to be preferred to 90%. He is to be commended for that.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 5:25 pm
JM – see here.
If you’re going to accuse people of dishonesty you could at least make the effort the read what they have said on the issue.
Sinclair Davidson
27 Feb 10 at 5:39 pm
I should qualify that effect size is my take on ‘oomph’, but in these discussions it is really meant to be “substantive importance” in a general sense, as opposed to statistical significance.
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 6:35 pm
Dave, as far as I know there is no qualification in “climate science” per se (unless you’re talking about Atmospheric Physics or Geophysics or related things which have been around for ages).
It’s perfectly legitimate for a physicist to have qualifications in mathematics. In fact, many of them do.
There are two reasons why people like Plimer get shouted down (although not over his qualifications that I can recall hearing)
1. They make really dumb, elementary mistakes
2. Their views are not coherent with the rest of science – in fact, for them to be right we’d have to start rewriting huge chunks of it
JM
27 Feb 10 at 6:38 pm
How’s the homework going, JM?
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 6:41 pm
JM
That is my point entirely. We cannot take seriously – as an argument from authority – any claims from somebody just because they identify as a ‘climate scientist.’ As a discrete science, it is just far, far too embryonic to justify giving it the respect/deference/trust we give to chemistry or physics, for example.
Peter Patton
27 Feb 10 at 7:03 pm
Dover: Why?
Because if you think there’s an error in something it is beholden on you to a.) correct the error and b.) reevaluate to see if the conclusion changes after the error is corrected.
If the conclusion doesn’t change, the error is relatively unimportant.
If you don’t follow through and do that extra analysis you’re using innuendo.
Sinclair: So why doesn’t Jones say that?
and
Nonetheless Jones had wiggle room and he chose not to wiggle. That makes me suspicious.
That’s not innuendo???
Thanks, I hadn’t seen Oomph Version 1.0 – sorry I get your point now. But I think from re-reading Jones’ comments that Dover’s right – Jones obviously thinks 14 years (or 7) is too short and by implication is setting his standard at 95%
I can’t see any need to postulate perfidy on Jones part.
JM
27 Feb 10 at 7:10 pm
DB
So CS is climate sensitivity DB, pardon my ignorance but that’s all I was asking. It seems pretty obvious that predicting the sensitivity of climate to changes in concentrations of CO2 requires modelling. Considering they are trying to predict future events, observation alone doesn’t really cut it.
That some on this site refer to the scientists at realclimate as an advocacy site run by left wingers sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
As for the work done by Lindzen et al, other than confirmation bias is there any reason you accept their conclusions while dispelling the conclusions of other researchers in the field.
Like I have said previously I personally have no idea what the consequences are however given the risks you would have to be pretty sure of your position if you are to dismiss the possibility of AGW in its entirety.
I also have no vested interest in the theory being correct, in fact I would love it if it were proved to be complete bunkum.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 7:51 pm
No. It is a very straight forward question.
Sinclair Davidson
27 Feb 10 at 7:57 pm
Peter, we have to take the people who work in the field seriously. If they don’t work in the field they can still make serious contributions if their credentials or past experience is relevant. Otherwise they’re likely to blunder and you have to look at what they say carefully.
Schmidt works in the field and has for many years. Watts doesn’t and hasn’t.
Apart from that Watts makes frequent errors and never corrects them.
JM
27 Feb 10 at 8:00 pm
Such as?
Semi Regular Libertarian
27 Feb 10 at 8:04 pm
So CS is climate sensitivity DB, pardon my ignorance but that’s all I was asking. It seems pretty obvious that predicting the sensitivity of climate to changes in concentrations of CO2 requires modelling. Considering they are trying to predict future events, observation alone doesn’t really cut it.
Yes, attempting to derive CS observationally does require models, but no, deriving CS isn’t about predicting future events principally, but simply deriving the sensitivity of the climate to variations in CO2.
That some on this site refer to the scientists at realclimate as an advocacy site run by left wingers sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Well, it might, but that it is an advocacy site is confirmed by the evidence.
As for the work done by Lindzen et al, other than confirmation bias is there any reason you accept their conclusions while dispelling the conclusions of other researchers in the field.
It isn’t a matter of having to dispel the entire corpus of one and not the other, that would be ridiculous; the work of Pielke Sr doesn’t require the rejection of the individual conclusions of ‘consensus’ scientists, it simply requires the modification of the ‘consensus’ view. So, rather than CO2 ‘dominating’ the climate, it becomes merely another of many other first order forcings, like land cover change, etc. that influence climate.
Like I have said previously I personally have no idea what the consequences are however given the risks you would have to be pretty sure of your position if you are to dismiss the possibility of AGW in its entirety.
Not at all. You could employ this erroneous argument to any endeavor. And as I’ve said, it isn’t a matter of dismissing AGW in its entirety.
dover_beach
27 Feb 10 at 8:21 pm
JM
OK yes. But ‘climate science’ is such an unprecedentedly syncretic field that when in the company of our current understanding of physics, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience, these traditional and much older sciences simply must swoon, inhale deeply in wonder, and Keanu Reeves-like (in The Matrix) just sigh “whoooaaahhhhh!”
The problem is that the syncretic necessity of any claim that there is an actual unique “climate science” can never pass muster as the ultimate science, which its syncretic presumptions would imply.
Peter Patton
27 Feb 10 at 8:22 pm
Peter, I might have agreed with you, except that climate science is predominantly based on physics.
And pretty well known and simple physics at that.
You don’t get to chemistry until you start considering people like Svensmark who relies on chemistry to get a proposed mechanism for his “cosmic rays form clouds” hypothesis.
So I think its conclusions deserve to be taken with quite a bit of the kudos due to physics in mind.
(BTW – don’t you mean “multi-discipline” rather than syncretic? I’m not sure that’s quite the right word.)
JM
27 Feb 10 at 8:28 pm
JM
No, it is vital we use syncretic as that implies integration.
Peter Patton
27 Feb 10 at 8:43 pm
No DB the risk that AGW is correct and the possible ramifications for the environment severe, marks it as not just any endeavour.
That realclimate is an advocacy site is granted but given the advocates have some expertise in the subject suggests that advocacy should not be dismissed out of hand.
CO2 is just one of many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, some of which have increased sharply in the last 200 years or so.
Surely it is possible that global warming may contribute to changes in land cover which if so could constitute a feedback loop.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 8:44 pm
JM
It is not just Physics when it comes to the the terrestrial, aquatic, geomorphological/volcanic, flora/fauna levels.
The process that most intrigues me is the water vapor cycle, which tends to be dismissed as a mere consequence of carbon GHG climate-forcing. I am not persuaded.
Peter Patton
27 Feb 10 at 8:48 pm
“Jarrah, could you point out the problem with the analysis that ended with the above conclusion.”
Are you serious? He wants to dismiss the current GLOBAL warming trend as unexceptional based on ONE weather station, and you don’t see the problem?
“They actually adjust rural stations up to conform to urban stations. Is this a joke?”
It’s extremely disturbing, if it’s as simple as it’s portrayed on that blog. The correct thing to do is what GISS does – adjust urban stations down to the nearest rural one. See here:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20011105/
Jarrah
27 Feb 10 at 8:53 pm
Peter, we have to take the people who work in the field seriously. If they don’t work in the field they can still make serious contributions if their credentials or past experience is relevant. Otherwise they’re likely to blunder and you have to look at what they say carefully
.
JM, you obviously know a lot about the subject and over the course of many threads, you debate not just knowledgeably, but honestly. Speaking frankly: I think you give way too much credit to climate science. You clearly love science, especially physics and chemistry. This love for the parents blinds you to the nature of the deformed bastard child that is claiming their inheritance. These guys are careless with data, careless with modeling, careless with references, treat peer review with contempt, engage in nasty playground-style politics in journals, are in cahoots with far-left political groups with vested interests (such a WWF and Greenpeace), and are generally a bunch of unpleasant, ideological warriors with an axe to grind.
I have never seen that kind of culture in other science faculties. It’s really exceptional.
As I noted earlier, you’re a guy with integrity. Therefore, as I’ve said before, I’m pretty confident you’ll disown them in the fullness of time. .
This is just meant as an overall comment, not really a contribution to this particular debate.
.
As you were, chaps.
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 9:25 pm
JC says
I would say that JC wouldn’t know science if it bit him on the leg, which is fairly typical for a right wing advocate.
JC’s statistical analysis can be summarised as a statement of the bleedin’ obvious
Thats an insightful and prescient comment; the market will either go up or it will go down.
I expect JC’s predictable, thoughtful and robust response – the man has no sense of irony and even less grip on reality
rog
27 Feb 10 at 9:30 pm
Rog:
Stop trying to sound bright as you know that we know that you know we know you’re a numbnut.
Your dumb link doesn’t work again, you meathead. Stop posting links that don’t work.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 9:44 pm
JM
There are universities like MIT that offer atmospheric science as a graduate degree. Gavin Schmidt doesn’t have a degree is atmospheric science or any aligned discipline.
Math degrees are basically crap degrees in a way. Anyone with a decent head for numbers can get one.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 9:47 pm
Jarrah
would you mind providing links that are not from Goddard as anything that Hansen and Schmidt are attached to are basically tainted.
Can you offer a substitute link.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 9:49 pm
Thanks JC I’ll have to let my son know, he’s just started is honours.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 9:50 pm
Your son’s the exception. SFDC
JC
27 Feb 10 at 9:55 pm
Thanks JC I feel better now.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 9:56 pm
Honours in maths is impressive.
Semi Regular Libertarian
27 Feb 10 at 10:01 pm
SDFC’s spouse is obviously very smart, SRL.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 10:03 pm
I think she was having an off day when she agreed to marry me.
sdfc
27 Feb 10 at 10:05 pm
JC, the dumb link is to your dumb comment
DD gives the game away
rog
27 Feb 10 at 10:19 pm
Rog:
this isn’t the thread to be talking about these things, you troll.
You’re not a trader (in fact you’re a numbnut) so you really don’t understand.
My thinking was that if the market went south last night it would cement a bear market for a while because there was a lot of tension and stress i being exhibited.
It’s an opinion, you nimrod. It’s not testable fact.
I also said that it would likely close down to square as I saw no real upside for the evening, which ended up being right.
I don’t see what you could possibly criticize me for.
I was asked my opinion and that was my opinion.
I thought that if the S&P breaks though 1095, it’s going down another 10% to 15%.
Next time, stop trolling around polluting threads with your grudges and take it up in the open forum.
You goose.
JC
27 Feb 10 at 10:53 pm
I didn’t believe it for a while but my contacts and recent events suggest this was a bear market rally. I hope they’re wrong.
I think they are, but they just can’t seem to get a away from bad news. I am worried however that the change in our cash rate reflects the change in our equities market. I hope all of our firms don’t follow the B&B business model.
Semi Regular Libertarian
27 Feb 10 at 10:56 pm
DD gives the game away
.
I don’t understand what game I gave away.
daddy dave
27 Feb 10 at 11:40 pm
JM take note: The real scientists are getting suspicious. They’re beginning to wonder what the kids have been up to when left unsupervised.
daddy dave
28 Feb 10 at 12:02 am
I see that Lambert has a post with an interesting bunch of comments on this, including a couple of visits from Motl!
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/the_economist_calls_a_lie_a_li.php
steve from brisbane
28 Feb 10 at 12:05 am
Interesting link, Steve. It’s pretty clear from the entire debate over there that the only people who actually understand statistics (in that thread) are Lubos Motl and John Quiggin.
Motl, correctly, makes the point that if it ain’t significant, then from a statistical point of view it doesn’t exist. Says Motl:
The locals then fall about laughing and mocking him, which is funny because Motl is right. So they’re simply showing themselves to be stupid, ignorant idiots. Lambert, for some reason isn’t inclined to set them straight… I guess it’s dangerous to rile your fan base.
.
Quiggin turns up and makes an interesting point:
Interesting. Equally interesting is the fact that, like Lambert, he fails to support Motl’s elementary correct assertion, instead leaving him to the wolves.
But the Quigster is just warming up!
As a sceptic, I’m chastened, and will go away and study some basic statistics. Maybe then it will all make sense.
daddy dave
28 Feb 10 at 12:23 am
Steve:
Motl is right actually.
By the way have you seen what your undersized hero was up to at the debate.
The voice wasn’t Pinker. It was someone else pretending to be her with this horrifying Canadian/Australian English.
this what Jo Nova says about it:
Lambert’s staged recording and carefully edited slide contained this select message:
“The CO2 “radiative forcing” value that Mr. Christopher Monckton is quoting refers to the impact on the Earth’s Radiative balance as described above. The numbers that we quote in our paper represent the change in surface SW due to changes in the atmosphere (clouds, water vapor, aerosols). These two numbers cannot be compared at their face value. To the best of my understanding this is the source of the misunderstanding.”
“Our work was properly interpreted in the latest IPCC Report (2007)”
But look at Lambert’s PDF (Is this really her whole reply–nothing omitted?). Without also seeing Lambert’s original e-mail to Pinker, it’s impossible to make sense of some phrases. In places, she appears to be correcting Lambert as much as Monckton. An honest look at the Pinker statement says Monckton may have gotten the terminology wrong, but allowing for this, his analysis “passes”:
“People tend to use the concept of “Forcing” kind of “freely”. There are many concepts of forcing in use, such as aerosol forcing, cloud forcing, which can be related to shortwave or long wave or both (as defined above). Since the energy from the sun is the major driver of the climate system, and since clouds are the major modulators of how much of this energy reaches the surface, people tend to label this effect as “cloud forcing” (which is not the same as the formal definition). I believe that one of the issues pointed out in your communication is related to the use of the “cloud forcing” concept. Indeed, this is not the official definition of “cloud forcing”; however, if we give Christopher Monckton the benefit of doubt and assume that he meant “the impact of clouds on the surface shortwave radiation” than it can pass.”
So Lambert’s accusation that Monckton was incorrectly citing Pinker is bullshit. The voice over wasn’t Pinker’s at all and as usual the little dwarf comes back to where he always ends up, which is dishonesty and utter contempt for the truth. The only part where people thought Shiny had the heads up was this one as we were all led to believe that the voice was Pinker, but it wasn’t.
Sorry, but this shit isn’t science and he isn’t into any science. He’s just a filthy little liar.
JC
28 Feb 10 at 12:49 am
JC I don’t quite know how to say this fairly, but – Lubos is a mathematical physicist (or used to be anyway, I don’t know what he’s doing now). And a theoretical one at that.
That means he has a mathematicians view of the truth which sets a very high standard, and since he’s theoretical he has little understanding of observational error*
I think Chris O’Neill says it best it that thread:
If nothing else, at least we know Lubos thinks 6% probability means likely.
In other words, Lubos is a guy who will argue that the world is flat until you can get him up in orbit around the earth and he can see otherwise (or even worse a philosophical “empiricist” who refuses to believe any measurement they didn’t make themselves).
He’ll be right about that in a very absolutist sense, but it doesn’t mean you and I have to take his word as the last one on the matter.
Strictly speaking Lubos (and Jones I might add) are right. Significance at the 94% level is not (usually) acceptable.
But there’s a hell of a lot of policy (and economic) decisions we make with far less reliable information.
* I can prove this from posts on his own blog, including one mentioned upthread, but it’s not very important at the moment.
JM
28 Feb 10 at 1:34 am
Jm
Not for nothing, but earlier you were suggesting that Gavin Schmidt has credibility as a climate scientist because he has a math degree from Oxford.
You now have the gall to criticize Lubos’ credentials because he has a degree in mathematical physics (from Harvard I think)………… and you somehow turn that into suggesting he isn’t able to figure out what Phil Jones was saying.
How many parallel universes are you away from the one the conscious world, Dude?
JC
28 Feb 10 at 1:45 am
JC – My suggestion is that because Lubos is an arrogant string theorist (is there any other kind?) who doesn’t have any time at all for people of any other discipline and not only thinks they’re idiots but is quite happy to tell them that to their face; and a person who has no regard – scorn in fact – for knowledge he didn’t obtain himself ….
… that he’s not the most open minded person in the world.
The fact is that he does think 6% probability means likely, and he won’t be easily dissuaded from that.
JM
28 Feb 10 at 2:03 am
Sorry, forgot this bit.
Schmidt has credibility as a climate scientist because he is a climate scientist
He works at Goddard, he’s done a lot of climate related work – published in peer reviewed journals – and has a relevant degree.
Is that so hard?
JM
28 Feb 10 at 2:06 am
JC: (referring to JoNo’s characterization) The voice over wasn’t Pinker’s at all and as usual the little dwarf comes back to where he always ends up, which is dishonesty and utter contempt for the truth.
From Lambert’s site (my bold):
Then I played a recording of a female colleague with an American accent reading out Pinker’s
He says explicitely on his site that the recording is a reconstruction. Where’s the dishonesty?
Why do you and JoNo ping him for something he’s quite upfront about?
JM
28 Feb 10 at 2:10 am
He never mentioned anything at the debate! In other words it was deliberately misleading by omission. Everything the little douche touches has a fucking curve ball.
He never said at the debate that the person in the recording was not Pinker. In fact he corrected Monckton as he didn’t know Pinker was indeed a woman.This was to create the impression among the audience that the person of the tape was Pinker when it appears that it was someone with some awful hybrid accented English.
What about the rest of the comment where Nova shows that Pinker said the opposite of what the little toad suggested she said, which i will repeat as you seemed to have missed it.
….Indeed, this is not the official definition of “cloud forcing”; however, if we give Christopher Monckton the benefit of doubt and assume that he meant “the impact of clouds on the surface shortwave radiation” than it can pass.”
In other words, it appears Monctkon didn’t get Pinker wrong at all.
You know what really pisses me off about this. I feel that I was conned and angry at myself for even thinking that he’d pull this one.
As I keep saying in an earlier time the little fucker would have been a pick pocket.
Don’t, whatever you do start whoring for him.
JC
28 Feb 10 at 2:29 am
Let me get this right. You’re critical of Motl’s credentials but defending Schmit’s math degree and calling him a climate scientist?
That real chutzpa. Your insulting my intelligence with that crap.
JC
28 Feb 10 at 2:32 am
Then I played a recording of a female colleague with an American accent reading out Pinker’s
He’s bald faced lying there too. It wasn’t an American accent at all. It was what I strongly believe to be a Canadian accent. I know American accents and can even pinpoint where they come from if it isn’t disguised. I can even tell regional NY accents. That was Canadian . He’s just lying again. He lives in canopy of lies and distortions.
Go ask him. Ask him if the accent was really American or Canadian.
I know what he’d say to cover up his bullshit. He’d say American meant north American.
We know why.
JC
28 Feb 10 at 2:40 am
No JC, I’m critical of Lubos’ behaviour and his understanding of climate science. I’ve no problem with his credentials at all.
My earlier point is that you can’t take someone’s comments uncritically unless they work in the field. Lubos doesn’t.
Otherwise they either have to have relevant credentials or experience or you need to be careful in examining what they say.
Lubos has relevant credentials but not experience. Normally his opinions would be ok, but because he seems to be so radically unfamiliar with work in the area – and so scornful of the people involved – and what he does on his blog is often so simple minded, I’m not real happy about taking his comments uncritically.
And btw, many non-North American speakers can’t tell the difference b/n Canadian and US accents, I have trouble myself and I’ve worked with many US and Canadian citizens.
In any case, who cares? I can’t see that it makes any difference.
As for Pinker, she has to give Monckton the “benefit of the doubt” before she lets his comments pass. That’s a long way from saying she endorses Monckton’s description of her work.
Particularly when she says the opposite shortly beforehand:-
Our work was properly interpreted in the latest IPCC Report (2007).
JM
28 Feb 10 at 3:12 am
Via Blair:
65 million years of cooling.
Great graphs.
C.L.
28 Feb 10 at 4:02 am
Pinker is also a climate scientist which places JC, Monckton, Novawhatever, Tim Blair et al well outside the tent
rog
28 Feb 10 at 10:51 am
“It’s also important to remember that the year 1995 was chosen precisely because it’s the furthest back you can go without having enough data to find statistical significance.”
What about 900?
Semi Regular Libertarian
28 Feb 10 at 11:00 am
When you have a time series that is so sensitive to sample size selection you also have to worry. All these issues are ineresting and important – but again if we could see what Jones has done we could all have a far more informed discussion.
Sinclair Davidson
28 Feb 10 at 11:04 am
Now East Anglia has misread Parliament, reports The Times:
University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’.
C.L.
28 Feb 10 at 11:58 am
Rog:
Are you on the right thread? Pinker is no the issue you flaming moron.
JC
28 Feb 10 at 12:05 pm
Rog, you lunatic…. read the PDF transcript from the 12.49 comment.
Pinker actually gave Monckton a pass. lambert seems to have used the atrocious Canadian voice-over to lie about what she really said.
No one is doubting Pinker’s resume or what she claims in her studies, you moron.
Do you understand now, Mr. $477 billion?
JC
28 Feb 10 at 12:28 pm
JM
As for Pinker, she has to give Monckton the “benefit of the doubt” before she lets his comments pass.
Religious cult alert….. Warning!!!!
Doofus, she doesn’t have to give anyone a pass if she believes people (Monckton) has misunderstood her study.
She isn’t forced to do anything.
She gave Monckton a pass because he was possibly right.
That’s a long way from saying she endorses Monckton’s description of her work.
It wasn’t the issue.
Please comment on the last sentence in the PDF.
JC
28 Feb 10 at 12:49 pm
When you have a time series that is so sensitive to sample size selection you also have to worry. All these issues are ineresting and important – but again if we could see what Jones has done we could all have a far more informed discussion.
Which is precisely the point demonstrated by Motl when he demonstrates the various trends at different timescales that can be extracted from the Central England record. Jarrah, unfortunately is unable to understand this point.
dover_beach
28 Feb 10 at 12:54 pm
JC I’m not sure which sentence you mean (and if you’re referring to this document?.
Because if you mean paragraph 6.:
People tend to use the concept of “Forcing” kind of “freely”. There are many concepts of forcing in use, such as aerosol forcing, cloud forcing, which can be related to shortwave or long wave or both (as defined above). Since the energy from the sun is the major driver of the climate system, and since clouds are the major modulators of how much of this energy reaches the surface, people tend to label this effect as “cloud forcing” (which is not the same as the formal definition). I believe that one of the issues pointed out in your communication is related to the use of the “cloud forcing” concept. Indeed, this is not the official definition of “cloud forcing”; however, if we give Christopher Monckton the benefit of doubt and assume that he meant “the impact of clouds on the surface shortwave radiation” than it can pass.
she’s being very conditional. Only if she gives Monckton the benefit of the doubt and lets him use a shorthand for “cloud forcing” does she give him the pass. She’s giving him a pass for usage of terminology, not agreeing with his analysis.
But if you mean the actual, real last sentence:
I hope this is of some help.
I think that’s pretty anodyne.
JM
28 Feb 10 at 6:28 pm
Actually, while we’re talking about Lubos a bit I thought I’d pass this on.
If you google ‘Lubos Motl’ one of the first suggestions is “Lubos Motl crackpot”. The first entry in that search is a link to BackReaction (a really good physics site) where they explain why they’ve barred Motl from their site.
They also provide a link to a collection of Lubos’s rants and insults where he slings off at a series of major figures in physics.
It’s pretty entertaining in a way, but it probably explains why he isn’t working anymore.
JM
28 Feb 10 at 6:41 pm
“Pinker is also a climate scientist which places JC, Monckton, Novawhatever, Tim Blair et al well outside the tent”
I keep saying that I am not a climate scientist so there is not a lot I can say. But nor are many of the noisiest people on the issue: JQ, Lambert, Gore, Hamilton, Flannery, Kerry and many of the many hundreds who went to Copenhagen and hovered around the edges.
ken n
28 Feb 10 at 6:47 pm
JM:
So we’re now going ad him our way out? Please.
Yes, Pinker gave Monctkon a pass because he was right as that was what he meant.
Meanwhile the Canadian voiceover was bullshitting people.
JC
28 Feb 10 at 7:28 pm
oops ad hom him…(Motl)
JC
28 Feb 10 at 7:28 pm
Ken: But nor are many of the noisiest people on the issue:
True enough.
But that’s because they have something substantial to contribute. Unlike the denialists they accept the science – about which there is no debate
They are focussing on the hard issues still in front of us:- politics, economic and public policy.
I see nothing wrong with that.
JC: Lubos “ad hom’s” himself.
JM
1 Mar 10 at 1:34 am
JM
Frankly I don’t really give a shit what some obscure physics site has had arguments with Motl. That has next to no importance to what he’s saying on the climate matter and whether he’s right.
Stop attacking the guy and critique what he has to say on the matter we’re discussing.
JC
1 Mar 10 at 1:41 am
“They are focussing on the hard issues still in front of us:- politics, economic and public policy.”
Sometimes, much of the time they are just abusing those with different views,
ken n
1 Mar 10 at 6:20 am
But that’s because they have something substantial to contribute. Unlike the denialists they accept the science – about which there is no debate
The “there is no debate about the science” is clearly a lie and a nonsense. If there was no debate, their would be no journal articles, conference papers, research programs, etc. in the field of climate science. It seems to me that the likes of JM, etc. who parrot this line, thoughtlessly, are much like the venerable Jorge in The Name of the Rose who believed there was no longer anything to be discovered in learning, there was only recapitulation. Now, if I were a politician hearing this I would say: Fine, that is good news; therefore, you no longer need the billions devoted to an active research program since the science is, as you continue to say, “settled”.
dover_beach
1 Mar 10 at 7:54 am
So dover, if “no debate” means “no journal articles” why are there journal articles on optics? Newton settled it 400 years ago.
Answer, there is no debate on optics but journals address new applications and extensions to ideas.
JC, Lubos is deranged on this topic. A while back he said he would be comfortable with a 13C global temperature rise on the basis that Prague would become a tropical paradise. He specifically said that he didn’t care if Australia became uninhabitable as a result.
Further, the people he attacks are not obscure. They are major, leading figures in modern physics. It’s the equivalent of the rookie recruit abusing the star player on the team.
JM
1 Mar 10 at 8:25 am
So dover, if “no debate” means “no journal articles” why are there journal articles on optics? Newton settled it 400 years ago. Answer, there is no debate on optics but journals address new applications and extensions to ideas.
Optics is not climate science. The journal articles being written in climate science are not about the “new application and extension” of well-known climatic laws and principles to other ideas. You go on and on about radiative physics but the application of this idea to climate science is not straightforward because a climate scientists is not simply concerned with radiative physics but with how this forcing influences the climate in association with a range of other forcings and feedbacks as well, many of which they have still only a low to moderate level of understanding. Now, to say that the science is settled when this obtains simply because they have a high level of understanding of the radiative properties of GHGs is to gild the lily by several orders of magnitude.
JC, Lubos is deranged on this topic. A while back he said he would be comfortable with a 13C global temperature rise on the basis that Prague would become a tropical paradise. He specifically said that he didn’t care if Australia became uninhabitable as a result.
Motl was simply addressing the canard that climate change would be the end of humanity. He exposed this canard by simply arguing that even 13 C of global warming would not make the plant uninhabitable even if it made Australia such. Your response to Motl’s hypothetical is to cry hysterically that Motl is deranged. You really are rather silly, JM.
dover_beach
1 Mar 10 at 8:43 am
JM
I think your take on the ‘noisy’ ones is a little naive. They quite doggedly elide their roles as policy entrepreneur and scientist. They present the two as a non-severable whole; that their policy prescriptions are as rational, as scientific, and thus obvious as the carbon cycle itself. Thus the noisy ones insist that criticism of them is a denial of the science.
Peter Patton
1 Mar 10 at 9:10 am
“That has next to no importance to what he’s saying on the climate matter and whether he’s right.
Stop attacking the guy and critique what he has to say on the matter we’re discussing.”
Says JC, who has to pop a blood pressure tablet whenever a claim by Lambert or Schmidt is noted here.
steve from brisbane
1 Mar 10 at 9:41 am
Steve, I think you will find that the consensus view among cardio-vascular specialists is that a specific event is not a cause of hypertension or a trigger for an adverse event. Hypertension (and hypotension) are chronic conditions.
Please stick to accepted science on these matters.
ken n
1 Mar 10 at 10:01 am
JC says that “Pinker is not the issue” and then says “Pinker gave Monctkon a pass because he was right as that was what he meant.”
If Monckton is right it is because he has interpreted Pinker correctly however Pinker said
Pinker is the issue
rog
1 Mar 10 at 10:30 am
Says JC, who has to pop a blood pressure tablet whenever a claim by Lambert or Schmidt is noted here.
No, not true, Steve. I would encourage people to quote Lambert, although I would know what you would quote him on as all he does is block quote.
After figuring out hat he both lied and misled people are that debate I would encourage people quote that pick pocket any time they want.
JC
1 Mar 10 at 10:54 am
Hey Rog:
Here’s a little puzzle for you. Please explain in you won words what that means.
JC
1 Mar 10 at 11:02 am
Here is Monckton, in his own words
rog
1 Mar 10 at 11:07 am
“Please explain in you won words what that means.”
Que?
rog
1 Mar 10 at 11:08 am
I give in JC, what is the answer to the puzzle?
rog
1 Mar 10 at 11:09 am
Que? Is that Eaatwood for looking to appear smart, Rog? are you also focusing you “intelligence” typos now. Lol
You goose.
Look Dummy, this is what pinker said:
Indeed, this is not the official definition of “cloud forcing”; however, if we give Christopher Monckton the benefit of doubt and assume that he meant “the impact of clouds on the surface shortwave radiation” than it can pass.
There’s nothing ambiguous about that.
Did he mean that?
It appears as though he did.
In other words the pick pocket lied again.
JC
1 Mar 10 at 12:24 pm
Dover: the science is settled when this obtains simply because they have a high level of understanding of the radiative properties of GHGs
I’m glad you accept that the radiative properties of GHG’s are a settled issue. That gets the first proposition – that the measured increase in GHG, principally CO2 must cause a rise in temperature.
I’m very glad you concede that, because you’re conceding that the basis of AGW is true. Which is my major point.
Given that you accept radiative physics as the basis, no doubt you also accept the measurements of C14/12 ratios in atmospheric CO2? The ones that show that the additional stuff added during the 20th century came from fossil fuels – ie. human activity.
Good.
The basic premise of AGW is therefore settled.
Now we’ve got the major stuff out of the way we’re left with a couple of uncertainties.
1. A small one in the actual value of climate sensitivity. This can really only be determined from observation (and not models as someone said upthread.) Guess what? It has been determined from observation. It is 3C (error range from 2C to 4.5C) for all determinations made in the last 15/20 years.
So that’s settled.
2. The magnitude of positive feedbacks such as the magnitude of the effect of increased water vapour due to warming. A widely reported paper recently determined that we get an extra 7ppm per extra degree C.*
So that looks close to settlement as well.
Last of all we get to two remaining problems that are widely discussed. There are hypotheses that are widely accepted though
a. Where is all the extra CO2 that we know we released into the atmosphere but which apparently isn’t there? (We know how much fossil fuel we’ve burnt and how much CO2 has been released, only about 1/2 of it has ended up in the atmosphere)
Most people believe its in the oceans (and CO2 content of the oceans has measurably gone up) and trees (and growth rates in the amazon have been measured to be going up)
b. Where is all the extra heat going? The atmosphere, oceans, melting ice, etc? The exact rations of where its ended up are disputed but we know that its there – the ice is melting, the oceans are warming, droughts are more common, the atmospheric temperature is increasing.
And we’re measuring all those effects.
It’s in this area that there is a lot of scientific work, to determine the magnitude of those effects and their effect on climate. This is what GC models are doing – figuring out what might be the detailed climatic effect of the extra heat.
It’s this area where there are journal articles, and there will continue to be journal articles until all the gaps are filled.
Which will take a long time. There are still journal articles related to special relativity and quantum mechanics for example – and those are definitely settled. But there are small gaps.
You can’t demand that a question isn’t settled until the last paper is published.
The basics are settled long before that.
The basics of climate change are settled. Climate science itself will go on for a long time, just as physics continues long after Newton.
* BTW Lubos totally misrepresented this paper on his blog and said it concluded the exact opposite of what it actually says, and then went on the give the impression that it also eliminated 80% of climate sensitivity as well. None of his representations are in the actual paper.
There is that substantive enough criticism of Lubos for you?
JM
1 Mar 10 at 5:39 pm
Peter: They quite doggedly elide their roles as policy entrepreneur and scientist.
I think there’s a spot of elision/conflation in that sentence. I wasn’t aware that any of “JQ, Lambert, Gore, Hamilton” represent themselves as climate scientists.
In any case, I don’t think anyone has ever described objections to their policy opinions as denial.
The fact is that the denialists, do deny the science and the basic facts as well. They work overtime to claim all sorts of nonsense up to and including that the climate record is n’t real because “you can’t trust thermometers”
That’s why it’s called denialism, it’s the equivalent of a six year olds excuses when caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
JM
1 Mar 10 at 5:49 pm
The aspect of all this that I find most interesting is that nothing that anyone does or thinks in this country will make any difference to AGW. We are all irrelevant.
Now, I accept that if there is global action we should join – as Rudd says “no more no less”. But meanwhile we do not matter.
So why is it so important to those I named (the Australians) that they win the argument? Why do they think it so important that they need to use such strong terminology to describe those who disagree?
It must be just good old fashioned tribal warfare. My side must win.
ken n
1 Mar 10 at 5:58 pm
My side must win.
I don’t think so. I think the sane people are affronted by the antics and deceptions of the crazies, we find it an insult to our intelligence.
On the other hand, I think its the crazies who want to win at all costs, as far as they’re concerned they’d rather win now and don’t care at all about the consequences if they’re proven wrong in the future.
JM
1 Mar 10 at 6:02 pm
What exactly are you affronted with, JM?
Failure to support the ETS?
JC
1 Mar 10 at 6:09 pm
What exactly are you affronted with, JM?
Existence proof: Monckton.
I don’t know how anybody can defend this clown who claims to be a member of the House of Lords (he isn’t) and a Nobel Prize winner (he isn’t), and all the other s**t he comes out with (I think a cure for AIDS is in there somewhere but I don’t quite remember).
His views on climate change are equally lunatic and unreliable.
JM
1 Mar 10 at 6:19 pm
Sorry JC forgot.
I an ETS of some sort is a viable market based solution, that is also the only politically viable one with any chance of getting up. Unfortunately, political reality means it is likely to be full of kludges, holes and shortcomings, but so what? It’ll be better than nothing, and can be improved later.
A tax might be more economically desirable (I don’t know, economics is not my strong point), but I can’t see any politician getting it up.
Prescriptive legislation would be even worse.
JM
1 Mar 10 at 6:23 pm
Has he said he was a member of the house of lords?
He actually was a party (the IPCC) that was handed the Nobel. Recall Doc. Soft Porn received it on behalf of everyone else.
But let me take your eord for it that he said he was a house of Lord’s member.
Gore said he invented the internet. Gore said he was the inspiration to the Movie, Love story.
Here’s some more that I forgot.
CLAIM: “I accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires broke out [in Parker County].”
TRUTH: FEMA spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker told NR: “During the fires in Parker County, Texas, the vice president participated in a roundtable about the fires with FEMA’s regional director. . .
got me a letter today. His name is Randy Ellis, he has a 15-year-old daughter named Kailey, who’s in Sarasota High School. Her science class was supposed to be for 24 students. She is the 36th student in that classroom, sent me a picture of her in the classroom. They can’t squeeze another desk in for her, so she has to stand during class.”
October 4, A.M. Tampa Bay, 970AM WFLA
TRUTH: Dan Kennedy, principal of Sarasota High School: “I think the facts that he was provided with were inaccurate ….
CLAIM: At Sept. 22 press conference, Gore says, “I’ve been a part of the discussions on the strategic reserve since the days when it was first established.”
TRUTH: President Ford established the Strategic Petroleum Reserves when he signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) on December 22, 1975 — two years before Al Gore became a congressman.
CLAIM: Addressing a Teamsters meeting, Gore spoke of lullabies from his youth and sang, “Look for the union label.”
TRUTH: The song was written in 1975, when Gore was 27.
March 15, 2000; CNN
CLAIM: “What I did yesterday was to call on the Democratic National Committee—and they’ll comply with this—to not spend any of the so-called soft money on these issue ads unless and until the Republican Party does.”
TRUTH: “The Democratic National Committee announced a $25 million summer ad campaign, paid for with soft money. The Republicans, so far, have not bought ads with soft money for Bush.”
CLAIM: “Under Bush, Texas’ recidivism rate has increased by 25 percent.”
TRUTH: Nobody knows what has happened to the recidivism rate under Bush because those figures haven’t been published, due to extensive lag times in reporting. The most recent numbers are from 1994, according to the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council.
CLAIM: Describing the Clinton administration plan outlined in the 1999 State of the Union address to have the federal government invest some of the budget surplus in the stock market: “We didn’t really propose it. We talked about the idea.”
TRUTH: Page 37 of the Clinton administration budget submitted to Congress in February: “The President also proposes to invest half of the transferred amounts in corporate equities.” From last year’s budget: “The administration proposes tapping the power of private financial markets to increase the resources to pay for future Social Security benefits.”
CLAIM: “It’s not fair to say, ‘Okay, after his sister died, he continued in the same relationship with the tobacco industry.’ I did not. I did not. I began to confront them forcefully. I don’t see the inconsistency there.”
TRUTH: The same month Gore’s sister died in 1984, he received a $1,000 speaking fee from U.S. Tobacco. The next year, he voted against cigarette and tobacco tax increases three times and favored a bill allowing major cigarette makers to purchase discounted tobacco. In the 1988 campaign, Gore bragged of his tobacco background: “I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put [tobacco] in the plant beds and transferred it. I’ve hoed it, I’ve dug in it, I’ve sprayed it, I’ve chopped it, I’ve shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn, and stripped it and sold it”
CLAIM: “My family had grown tobacco. It was never actually grown on my farm, but it was on my father’s farm.”
TRUTH: Gore had already admitted growing tobacco on his own farm: “On my farm, we stopped growing tobacco some time after Nancy died” (Cox News Service, 4-26-99). Also, Gore received federal subsidies for growing tobacco on his farm (Wall Street Journal, 8-10-95).
CLAIM: Gore said he has “always, always, always” supported Roe v. Wade.
TRUTH: In 1977, Rep. Gore voted for the Hyde Amendment, which says that abortion “takes the life of an unborn child who is a living human being,” and that there is no constitutional right to abortion. He cast many other votes favorable to the pro-life cause and earned an 84 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee.
CLAIM: “We had a huge event with 3,000 people at Ohio State University.”
TRUTH: “Officials at that rally said the room where it had taken place did not hold more than 1,200 people, and, given the area needed for the staging erected for the occasion, they estimated the crowd at 500,” reported the Times.
CLAIM: “We won in every single demographic category” in the New Hampshire primary.
TRUTH: Bill Bradley carried male voters and voters aged 18-29, according to exit polls.
CLAIM: “Why did you [Bill Bradley] vote against the disaster relief for Chris Peterson when he and thousands of other farmers here in Iowa needed it after those ’93 floods?”
TRUTH: Bradley voted for $4.8 billion in flood aid and opposed an amendment, also opposed by the Clinton White House until the last minute, to add $900 million in disaster compensation.
CLAIM: Gore has suggested that he contributed important lines to Hubert Humphrey’s acceptance speech at the 1968 Democratic convention. “Young Gore later often told the story . . . [A]s [he] sat in the convention hall and looked up at Humphrey in the spotlight, he thought he heard his own words coming back to him.”
TRUTH: When Gore’s supposed conduit to Humphrey denied the influence, Gore blamed his recollection on “Faulty memory. Faulty memory.”
CLAIM: “I live on a farm today. I have my heart in my own farm.”
TRUTH: Gore lives in the vice-presidential mansion at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. After making this farm claim, Gore said: “Yes, I live in Washington, D.C., when I’m working there”!
CLAIM: “I helped to negotiate an agreement with the Internet service providers to put a parent-protection page up and give parents the ability to click on all the websites that their children have visited lately. That’ll put a lot of bargaining leverage in the hands of parents.”
TRUTH: Bartlett Cleland of the Internet Education Foundation, seven months earlier: “There was no Gore involvement. They hijacked this issue. He makes it sound like he led the project. I can’t imagine what he will invent tomorrow”
CLAIM: “I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. I had the first hearing on that issue.”
TRUTH: In October 1978, Gore did hold congressional hearings on Love Canal — which he apparently “found” two months after President Carter declared it a disaster area and the federal government offered to buy the homes.
CLAIM: “I was a home builder after I came back from Viet-nam. . . . I know a good bit about how to make money that way. . . . To build this country is a great thing.”
TRUTH: A Gore family corporation, Tanglewood Home builders, built nine houses between 1969 and 1973 on property once owned by Gore’s father. “I believe he [Al Gore Jr.] came by a time or two, but not too often,” Jewell Dillehay, the contractor for the development, told the Orange County Register on February 20, 1988.
CLAIM: “Unlike Senator Bradley, I was a co-sponsor of it.”
TRUTH: Gore and Russell Feingold never served together in the Senate. Gore later admitted to the Times that his comment “was a mistake . . . [W]hat I meant to say was that I supported that.”
CLAIM: “I was the author of that proposal [the Earned Income Tax Credit]. I wrote that, so I say [to Bill Bradley], Welcome aboard. That is something for which I have been the principal proponent for a long time.”
TRUTH: The original EITC law was enacted in 1975. Gore entered Congress in 1977.
CLAIM: “I carried an M-16. . . . I pulled my turn on the perimeter at night and walked through the elephant grass, and I was fired upon.” In 1988, Gore told the Washington Post: “I was shot at. . . . I spent most of my time in the field.”
TRUTH: Gore never faced direct enemy fire, although several times he may have arrived on the scene shortly after fighting was completed.
CLAIM: “I ask for your support, and your mandate if elected president, to send this treaty back to the Senate with your demand that they ratify it. I’ve worked on this for 20 years because, unless we get this one right, nothing else matters.”
TRUTH: Gore indeed “worked on” this matter for many years, but often in opposition to a test ban. During his presidential campaign in 1988, he criticized his Democratic primary opponents for “the very idea of having a complete ban on all flight-testing of missiles when we rely on deterrence for the survival of our civilization”
CLAIM: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
TRUTH: The Internet is an outgrowth of a Pentagon program established in 1969. In the 1980s, Gore supported legislation considered favorable to the Internet’s development.
CLAIM: “The Republicans know theirs is the wrong agenda for African Americans. They don’t even want to count you in the census!”
TRUTH: Most Republicans opposed the Clinton administration’s plan to conduct the census by statistically sampling the population rather than actually trying to count everybody.
CLAIM: “I did not know that it was a fundraiser.”
TRUTH: A DNC memo prepared for Gore made plain that the event at Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif., was a fundraiser. A Secret Service document called it a fundraiser, Gore’s staff described the event as a fundraiser to reporters, and DNC chairman Don Fowler testified to the Senate that he knew “there was a fundraising aspect to this event.” Six weeks before attending the event, Gore met with temple master Hsing Yun at the White House with fundraisers Maria Hsia and John Huang. Later that day, Gore sent an e-mail saying that he couldn’t be in New York on April 28, 1996: “If we have already booked the fundraisers [in California], then we have to decline.”
CLAIM: “I reached out to individuals who are leaders on the [pro-life] side of this issue” to “make common cause” on reducing unwanted pregnancies. He went on to imply that Catholic pro-lifers’ opposition to birth control made it impossible for both sides join “together to make abortions rare.”
TRUTH: Despite many queries, no pro-life leader has ever said Gore approached him on this subject
CLAIM: Gore said his sister was “the very first volunteer for the Peace Corps.”
TRUTH: Nancy Gore Hunger was a paid employee at Peace Corps headquarters, 1961-64.
CLAIM: “I’m Al Gore. I grew up on a farm,” and “growing up in Carthage, Tennessee, I learned our bedrock values . . .”
TRUTH: Gore, the son of a senator, grew up primarily at the Fairfax Hotel in Washington, D.C., in a suite of rooms overlooking Embassy Row. He graduated from the ritzy St. Albans National Cathedral School, also in the capital.
CLAIM: Narrator calls him a “brilliant student.”
TRUTH: “His grades were uneven, never approaching the plateau of A’s and B’s that might be expected of one who possesses such a pedagogical demeanor,” reported the Washington Post (3-19-00).
There are tons more if you want them and I can always present Doc. Pach’s behavior too. Let me know.
JC
1 Mar 10 at 6:42 pm
He actually was a party (the IPCC) that was handed the Nobel.
No he wasn’t. He was an outside reviewer in an open process that anyone could participate in. I could have, you could have. Had we done so, does that make us Nobel Prize winners? No.
Many of the crazies participated, but Monckton is the only one who claims a personal Nobel as a result. No-one else does.
Monckton has claimed membership of the House of Lords several times but the facts are otherwise. He is a hereditary peer (The 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) but is not a member of the House. There are only 92 hereditaries who are members, Monckton is not one of them.
From wikipedia:-
Although an hereditary peer, Monckton is not a member of the House of Lords.[3] He was an unsuccessful candidate for a Conservative seat in the House of Lords in a March 2007 by-election caused by the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton. Of the 43 candidates, 31 – including Monckton – received no votes in the election.
Re. Gore: Gore said he invented the internet. Gore said he was the inspiration to the Movie, Love story.
Both of those claims are actually true – at least within the bounds of political speech.
Remember when Gore campaigned for the Presidency in 91/92? His signature campaign issue was building an “information superhighway”. Almost nobody knew what the hell he was talking about.
Earlier as a senator he sponsored funding for the earlier government run version of the internet and later as VP pushed through for the commercialization of the internet in 1996.
Many of the technical prime movers for the internet are on record as saying that Gore’s claim to be the political inventor of the internet isn’t unreasonable and that actually no other politician did more to bring it about.
As for Love Story, the script writer is on record as saying that Gore was the inspiration for the male character, but that Tipper was not the inspiration for the female character, someone else was. It’s not clear whether Gore claimed that Tipper, who he was dating at the time, was the inspiration but so what? He’s substantially correct.
JM
1 Mar 10 at 7:05 pm
Jm:
Buzz off with the claim Gore invented the internet. He invented shit. He simply approved the release of the code in the private sphere.
As for the love story claim. Have you seen the movie? Does the character remind you of Gore?
Please stop offending our intelligence by suggesting Gore is some sort of Love story inspired computer geek. He’s a dime a dozen failed professional politician. You just like him because he supports your political and AGW bedwetting beliefs.
JC
1 Mar 10 at 7:19 pm
I forgot to mention this whopper from the serial liar- Algore.
Gore that his dad was thrown out of office for his courageous stand on Civil Rights.
Senator Gore (his dad) voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Do you want more, JM?
JC
1 Mar 10 at 7:27 pm
That gets the first proposition – that the measured increase in GHG, principally CO2 must cause a rise in temperature.
No, that it ‘might’ do that is I think something that we should accept on its face, but that it ‘must’ do that, No, only because the radiative properties of the GHGs are not the only term in the equation we call climate.
The basic premise of AGW is therefore settled.
No, JM, the basic premise of AGW is that CO2 ‘dominates’ the climate.
1. A small one in the actual value of climate sensitivity. This can really only be determined from observation (and not models as someone said upthread.) Guess what? It has been determined from observation. It is 3C (error range from 2C to 4.5C) for all determinations made in the last 15/20 years.
No, there are quite a few observational-estimates of CS that fall between 0.5-2 C. The error-range you’re referring to seems to be the standard range reported by the IPCC which from memory are modelled-estimates.
2. The magnitude of positive feedbacks such as the magnitude of the effect of increased water vapour due to warming. A widely reported paper recently determined that we get an extra 7ppm per extra degree C.*
That, as we and JohnH found last week, reduced existing estimates of CS by one third. So the range you report above should now read, 2 C, error range between 1.34 – 3 C.
b. Where is all the extra heat going? The atmosphere, oceans, melting ice, etc? The exact rations of where its ended up are disputed but we know that its there – the ice is melting, the oceans are warming, droughts are more common, the atmospheric temperature is increasing.
Space or the deep oceans? Either way it is not likely to effect us. The ice melts and again freezes. The oceans are not currently warming and haven’t been for the last 5 years (sea the figures for ocean heat content). More common/ frequent dorughts? Do you have the figures? And no, the atmospheric temperature is more or less static and has been since 2001.
The basics of climate change are settled. Climate science itself will go on for a long time, just as physics continues long after Newton.
No, you elide the fact that they still do not understand significant terms in the equation. They know very little about the influence of clouds, for instance, to the extent of not even knowing the sign of the influence.
* BTW Lubos totally misrepresented this paper on his blog and said it concluded the exact opposite of what it actually says, and then went on the give the impression that it also eliminated 80% of climate sensitivity as well. None of his representations are in the actual paper.
This is a lie. And no, he didn’t say it eliminated 80% of CS, he said it effectively reduced it by 1/3.
dover_beach
2 Mar 10 at 8:14 am
JC you don’t know what you’re talking about. The code was always available, but the pre-1996 internet was government funded (via legislation a lot of which was sponsored by Gore) and barred from commercial use.
You couldn’t advertise or send an email that promoted anything at all and ISP’s (such as they were) had “acceptable use policies” that would ban you if you did so.
Post 1996 commercial use was permitted.
JM
2 Mar 10 at 8:18 am
Global warming: the big picture at Powerline.
In short, glaciergate, Amazongate etc are all distractions. The main story is still the manipulation of the temperature record.
daddy dave
2 Mar 10 at 9:46 am
QUASHED
For those still struggling with first year stats, John Quiggin carefully exposes the delusional nature of the argument in this post, and neatly categorises the different types of AGW denyers who have attempted to defend or propogate it, here.
Tom N.
2 Mar 10 at 1:53 pm
Dover it’s nice to see you come off the fence for once. But I can’t agree with your coming out as a rank denialist.
JM
2 Mar 10 at 8:05 pm