Global Warming: Massaging the Data per Desired Results?

[Philip]

Again, this argument is ridiculous unless someone can dismiss my points concerning how the slight warming, (edited to say) perhaps on the wane (prior to last two years), with only about 150 years past any significant industrial outputs beginning, and with many, known, past 20,000 year cycles of extreme warmth and subsequent extreme cold - how could you know we've not just been in a natural temperature cycling of the planet? A mere 150 years of partial data vs. 20,000-year data intervals just isn't sufficient PROOF! And the models have a PROVEN track record of great inaccuracies. It's only a certainty in the eyes of true believers. Showing me how we can KNOW man has caused warming, and whether dangerously so, means addressing those key questions. I'm all for being a realist on what we can substantiate, but also on what we cannot presently. Meanwhile, we should be cautious with our industrial pollutants, cleaning up all we can - but not per the countless $$$billions solution politically driven globalists insist is the answer to a problem we presently have great uncertainties about. And not addressing these obvious questions while foaming at the mouth and demonizing and ridiculing those who reasonably ask them only shows me a largely politically and emotion-driven argument. So, address my first sentence above - but with factual answers - as mere hot air may be adding to the problem!

[Morny]

[... see previous post ...]

Again: Understand the other side's claims.

What is the climate scientists' response to your question?
Do you understand that response?
If yes, where specifically do you disagree?

[RickD]

[... see previous post ...]

Again: Understand the other side's claims.

What is the climate scientists' response to your question?
Do you understand that response?
If yes, where specifically do you disagree?

Not sure why you're quoting me. I didn't say that.

[Morny]

Oops... Sorry about that, Rick.

My post was meant for Philip's most recent post.

[Philip]

Morny:
What is the climate scientists' response to your question?
Do you understand that response?
If yes, where specifically do you disagree?

The response of many is that warming has happened and is now in a lull. Most believe it man-caused, to varying degrees - with many of those believing it to be very dangerous if not reversed.

Of course I understand it.

I've already explained what I disagree with - and they ignore it. Climate scientists cling to a mere tiny slice of data concerning correlations with man-made pollutants, because we don't have accurate temperature records going back very far - partial data of about somewhere over 100 years or so - and there are many problems with those (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ge/419850/). So, at best, we have problematic and partial data not even going back two centuries. And really, what we do have are more records in Western cities - but look at the link as to those challenges. Again, you have 2,000-year interval swings - MANY of them. As for ice cores, you still have the problem that history shows many great swings between very warm and very cold - how would you know you're not in a natural cycle? You have about 1/10 of enough data, as far as time-wise, and that is partial and problematic. Climate scientists admit the modelling of today has many assumptions and many unknowns - which is what you are plugging that partial data into. Also note that pollutant outputs didn't get to significant levels until the 1850s, and only past 1900 did industry truly begin to cause far greater output. Not until about 1870 did the world's industrial-related greenhouse gasses begin to surpass the yearly amount of volcanoes. So, perhaps 100 years of significant output measured against cycles that can by 20 times that long. So, while we can see there has been warming -
A) we can't know the cause, B) Can't know if it will return / continue, C) Can't know if it is dangerous, D) Also can't know that it's NOT dangerous. Ultimately, we can't prove the warming hasn't merely been cyclical, per it's cause.

So explain how we can know we've not merely been in a cycle? Explain why Al Gore's "Wicked Witch" scenario hasn't come true, per his predictions? Explain why the models Gore based his predictions on haven't proven true?

[Morny]

The response of many is that warming has happened and is now in a lull.

Climate scientists do not say that. You don't seem to know even what their claims actually are.

Of course I understand it.

And knowing what the other side's claims are is a pre-requisite for understanding how the other side thinks that their evidence supports their claims.

(https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ge/419850/)

Quoting "The Atlantic", a literary and cultural commentary, as an authority on climate change claims is like me citing "The Reader's Digest" for evidence dating the original Biblical manuscripts for the Book of Daniel.

[Philip]

Morny: Climate scientists do not say that. You don't seem to know even what their claims actually are.

READ: There certainly has been a lull, if not for the last two years - but you don't measure a theory with such long intervals by two years: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature2 ... spiegel.de

Article outtake: Whether there was a hiatus or slowdown at some point is still debated, with some arguing strongly for it 25,31 and others saying it lacks scientific basis 30,36,37,39 . The conclusions unsurprisingly
depend on the time period considered, the dataset and the hypothesis
tested, so the diverging conclusions do not need to be inconsistent.
Natural climate variability has long been known to be important for
short-term trends
18,89,90
, but the observed temperature during the hia-
tus differed enough from that projected by climate models to challenge
at least some elements of the scientific basis for anthropogenic climate
change (for example, how sensitive the climate system is to an increase
in CO
2
; see Methods section ‘Transient climate response’). As a conse-
quence, after a surge of scientific studies on the topic (see Fig. 1), we
have learned more about the ways in which the climate system works in
several areas.
Uncertainties in observational records continue to be a challenge. Even
for surface temperature, the lack of data and the combination of data
from different instruments is non-trivial
36
. For ocean data, the com-
bined uncertainties from instrument calibration and limited sampling
(in particular in the early decades) are even larger
92,93
. As a consequence,
reconciling models and observations (Fig. 5) requires that the user under-
stands the strengths, weaknesses and uncertainties in the datasets, and the
differences between them. There are other instances where observations
were as much a limiting factor as the climate models
94
, and methods to
compare models and observations continue to be challenging.

And knowing what the other side's claims are is a pre-requisite for understanding how the other side thinks that their evidence supports their claims.

Obviously, it depends upon whom you ask, and how they interpret the massively complex data! There does appear to have been a lull - otherwise, it wouldn't be a raging debate. The question is, does it mean anthing, one way or the other.

[Philip]

But whatever, don't dodge the question at the end of my previous post - how can you know that apparent warming isn't part of a planet cycle that has occurred many other times? And how can you know from a mere 130 years or so of partial data - inconsistently measured, btw. I think it's that people have a ridiculous amount of faith in computer models that are assumptions based with many unknowables.

Here's some of the issues, per Dr. John Spencer, a former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites: http://www.drroyspencer.com/my-global-w ... r-dummies/

Last 2,000 years of temperatures: http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warm ... peratures/

About year 850, it was just as warm as today, only 550 years afterward to begin a 400-year mini-ice age in 1400. So all that medieval period heat - no industry or greenhouse industrial pollutants - totally a natural cycle. So, if THAT was natural, why can't it be today? And, again, how could you know? And so the question of whether it is warming significantly or not - that depends upon from what place in time and baseline do you measure it. We don't have accurate ancient data - or much so beyond 130 years back.

[neo-x]

The warm-blooded controversy had raged for fifteen years, before a new perception of dinosaurs as quick-moving, active animals was acecpted-but not without lasting animosities. At conventions, there were still colleagues who did not speak to one another.
But now, if dinosaurs could be cloned-why, Grant's field of study was going to change instantly. The paleontological study of dinosaurs was finished. The whole enterprise-the museum balls with their giant skeletons and flocks of echoing schoolchildren, the university laboratories with their bone trays, the research papers, the journals-all of it was going to end.
"You don't seem upset," Malcolm said.
Grant shook his head. "It's been discussed, in the field. Many people imagined it was coming. But not so soon."
"Story of our species," Malcolm said, laughing. "Everybody knows it's coming, but not so soon."

From Jurassic Park, Chp: Third Iteration

[Morny]

READ: There certainly has been a lull, if not for the last two years - but you don't measure a theory with such long intervals by two years: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22315.epdf [...]

Your own Nature article reference disagrees with your implication that the climate change trend is ambiguous. To paraphrase one of our elected leaders: "How can climate change be true? Today is cold."

From the Nature summary:

"Between about 1998 and 2012, a time that coincided with political negotiations for preventing climate change, the surface of Earth seemed hardly to warm. [...] Combined with stronger recent warming trends in newer datasets, we are now more confident than ever that human influence is dominant in long-term warming."

But whatever, don't dodge the question at the end of my previous post - how can you know that apparent warming isn't part of a planet cycle that has occurred many other times? [...] Here's some of the issues, per Dr. John Spencer, [...]

Spencer no more represents climate change science, than I represent Biblical exegesis.

The 1st step is to accurately state the other side's claims, a responsibility which you still seem to be taking lightly. I don't agree with Flat Earthers, Young Earthers, or Creationists, but I strive to fairly represent their claims.

[Philip]

Morny: Spencer no more represents climate change science, than I represent Biblical exegesis.

Exactly what I thought - you didn''t address the questions, you merely attack someone who disagrees - a person, BTW, who has exemplary credentials as to the matter at hand.

The 1st step is to accurately state the other side's claims, a responsibility which you still seem to be taking lightly. I don't agree with Flat Earthers, Young Earthers, or Creationists, but I strive to fairly represent their claims.

Please, there are more than a few scientists who think there was a lull in the warming. Not to mention, the issue of warming has to do with where you measure the baseline from. Again, the Medieval period was just as warm, but it didn't stay so - why? A natural cycle! And I know you're not going to answer the unanswerable - because NO ONE can KNOW, given past cycles. And from my point of view, it really doesn't matter whether GW is man-caused - even if we can't know that. Because my response is we should make prudent efforts to clean up our pollutants, as much as we can. Otherwise, it's a gamble that it's not man-caused. Not to mention, cleaner industries can't be a bad thing. "Newer datasets" are also ones taken over a very narrow window, climate wise. Even the extremes over these long cycles, had periods of considerable flunctuations. Correlations are not necessarily cause and effect, per the GW narrative. It MIGHT be, but we just don't know that.

We're just going to have to disagree about what can't be currently certain. As per the issues this forum addresses, the climate change one is WAY down on my list of what I consider important.

[Morny]

Exactly what I thought - you didn''t address the questions, you merely attack someone who disagrees [...]

Spencer does not represent consensus climate change claims. Until you can clearly and concisely state one, you cannot argue against climate change.

Please, there are more than a few scientists who think there was a lull in the warming.

At best, extremely misleading. For example, what if I summarized Jesus with this sentence: "More than a few Biblical scholars think that Jesus preached and then died."

As per the issues this forum addresses, the climate change one is WAY down on my list of what I consider important.

Given what appears to be your understanding of climate change, I'm not surprised.

For our children and grandchildren, no issue is more worrisome than climate change.

[neo-x]

Guys, the climate is always changing, always. Even as the moon drifts away from the Earth inch by inch, it will affect the climate as a whole. Be certain of that.

Have the humans dumped a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere? Yes, we have. Whether or not the ME period was the same as today or not, (it could be for many reasons, including abrupt Solar radiation, continental drift and volcanic eruptions) the fact is that whatever we are doing will add to the natural equation nonetheless.

Past cycles are only the evidence of what happened, you can't use them to predict what will happen. For that various other aspects need to be factored in. But we can get general trends. Like one trend is - whenever CO2 emissions are high, it is bad news for life. We don't need research to verify whether Climate is changing (it is) and we're adding to it, rather how to make it beneficial to human life and other ecosystems on the planet and what we need to preserve it.

Ever wondered why can't we predict weather beyond a few days accurately? Because you can't predict weather that far, it's extremely complicated, not to understand, we can understand it just fine but it's such a dynamic process that to always calculate it is almost impossible unless we have a better tech in the future. But the tech we have today atleast can aptly show that man-made CO2 emissions are in the atmosphere. It's adding fuel to the fire.

You don't really need data more than a couple of hundred years to at least acknowledge that. And as I said before, except for getting rough trends, you can't predict earth's climate based on previous events anymore than you need 4 weeks old climate data to predict the upcoming week's climate.

It is an alarming issue. An accident waiting to happen. It is only a matter of time.

[PaulSacramento]

I think that what must be addressed is what to do about rising CO2 emissions EVERYWHERE.
It's all great to state that CO2 is the problem ( no matter the debate to what DEGREE it is) but what can be done about it REALISTICALLY and over ALL the world, not just in N.America.
Japan is making more coal plants:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-0 ... ts/8224302

France and Germany:
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/a ... turn-coal/
Germany to complete yet another coal plant – Energy Transition
https://energytransition.org/2017/02/ge ... oal-plant/
Feb 1, 2017 - The plant could have been abandoned. It may still be. But Uniper, formerly Eon, now says it will put the nearly completed Datteln 4 into ...

In 3rd wrold counties, fossil fuels are the only fuel they can use to survive.

CO2 emissions buy country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _emissions

China 10,641,789 29.51% 7.7
United States 5,172,338 14.34% 16.1
European Union 3,469,671 9.62% 6.9
India 2,454,968 6.81% 1.9
Russia 1,760,895 4.88% 12.3
Japan 1,252,890 3.47% 9.9
Germany 777,905 2.16%

If we look at China and India, together they produce more than the US, EU, Russia, Japan and Germany combined.
No real change can be address without addressing China and India.


Trends for the future:
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=26252

As you can see, we need to find a viable, POSSIBLE, alternative and we need to be realistic that until that happens, until poorer countries can have an alternative, then we are just getting on our high horse and not caring about the millions of lives this will effect.

[Philip]

Philip wrote: As per the issues this forum addresses, the climate change one is WAY down on my list of what I consider important.

Morny: Given what appears to be your understanding of climate change, I'm not surprised.

MORNY, either be respectful, or you are going on a vacation! This is an issue that reasonable people disagree over - so please don't try to demonize people over a scientific issue or try to cause trouble with sarcastic comments. One, btw, which you failed to address my questions.

I've been reading about climate change for way over 20 years now - I more than understand the assertions. And just because I don't believe the wider belief doesn't mean my take on it isn't reasonable, without certain unknowable being unanswered. I admit that I could be wrong, but I also think our response should be the same: AS IF GW is man-caused and we should be cleaning up our industries. Note that I didn't say climate change wasn't important, but that IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MISSION OF THIS FORUM, it's not my biggest issue to address. In other forum contexts, it would be.