global warming real? or hoax

[crux]

Here's one article in a scientific journal discussing the problem: http://www.nature.com/news/hidden-heat-1.13608. They discuss some of the attempts at explaining the pause, but at the end of the day the fact is this: the folks on the skeptical side of the argument expected the rise in the late 20th century to level off, and that is exactly what happened in the real world. Shouldn't we assign them a higher credibility than mainstream climate scientists who essentially said that CO2 is the only driver of climate and will cause steadily rising temperatures?

The article talks about different propable causes for global warming and that the climate seems not as sensitive to it as previously expected.
I don't see a problem with that. All you do is paint all scientist that support the global warming/climate change cause in one colour with baseless claims.

Uh, it discusses probable causes for _lack_ of global warming, and I quoted it to specifically show that this is actually a real phenomenon and not something the skeptics made up (sadly most people still believe the ridiculous "skeptics tell lies" meme because it's the easiest way to discard information that contradicts their world view). Since you didn't read it properly, here are two quotes from the article, "Although a prolonged hiatus in warming does not necessarily contradict prevailing theory, this one came as a surprise" and "The hiatus in warming is at the centre of an ongoing debate about ‘equilibrium climate sensitivity’". The article is not as forceful as it maybe could be, but I'm trying to find sources like Nature which can't be brushed aside by the usual "evil oil-funded denier shills, la-la-la I can't hear you" debating tactic.

[p2501]

Here's one article in a scientific journal discussing the problem: http://www.nature.com/news/hidden-heat-1.13608. They discuss some of the attempts at explaining the pause, but at the end of the day the fact is this: the folks on the skeptical side of the argument expected the rise in the late 20th century to level off, and that is exactly what happened in the real world. Shouldn't we assign them a higher credibility than mainstream climate scientists who essentially said that CO2 is the only driver of climate and will cause steadily rising temperatures?

The article talks about different propable causes for global warming and that the climate seems not as sensitive to it as previously expected.
I don't see a problem with that. All you do is paint all scientist that support the global warming/climate change cause in one colour with baseless claims.

Uh, it discusses probable causes for _lack_ of global warming, and I quoted it to specifically show that this is actually a real phenomenon and not something the skeptics made up (sadly most people still believe the ridiculous "skeptics tell lies" meme because it's the easiest way to discard information that contradicts their world view). Since you didn't read it properly, here are two quotes from the article, "Although a prolonged hiatus in warming does not necessarily contradict prevailing theory, this one came as a surprise" and "The hiatus in warming is at the centre of an ongoing debate about ‘equilibrium climate sensitivity’". The article is not as forceful as it maybe could be, but I'm trying to find sources like Nature which can't be brushed aside by the usual "evil oil-funded denier shills, la-la-la I can't hear you" debating tactic.

My bad, I misstranslated hiatus. So the warming is not following the predictions - I can see how that is a good argument for your point of view, but it does not disprove it all together in my eyes. As far as I know scientists have made it always clear that it is very hard to predict how it will develop.

[crux]

We went over this in the other thread, but look up how much money is spent on climate research and on industries like solar and wind farms, then reconsider "no financial incentive".

If I were a climate scientist willing to lie for money, I would make more by lying for the fossil fuel industry than by lying for the solar power mob.

Well, consensus climate scientists are actually funded in part by Big Oil and don't seem to find anything wrong with that: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history That kind of puts a dent in your faulty assumption that oil funding is one-sided. The other faulty assumption you're making is that oil (which you conflate with evil) is the only industry with an interest in this topic.

Governments have more money to spend even than oil companies. Look up how much money is spent on climate research and technology, then try to find documented cases of oil companies funding skeptical scientists and compare the numbers. I think you'll find that there is at least a factor of 1000 difference in favour of the consensus government-funded science.

It's dangerous to dismiss people purely based on their affiliation. Let me quote from an article by Andy Revkin, NYT environmental journalist and (presumably) very much not in the pay of big oil. The article discussed the question of climate sensitivity which came up in this thread.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/a-closer-look-at-moderating-views-of-climate-sensitivity/?_r=0

The stakes here are far higher than in potentially flunking out of a course.

For these reasons, I can understand why some climate campaigners, writers and scientists don’t want to focus on any science hinting that there might be a bit more time to make this profound energy transition. (There’s also reluctance, I’m sure, because the recent work is trending toward the published low sensitivity findings from a decade ago from climate scientists best known for their relationships with libertarian groups.)

Translated, this means "Hmm. So the IPCC said climate sensitivity was 3, Lindzen said it was 0.7, and recent research is trending down and puts it as low as 1.5. If that's the right value, everyone was off by a factor of 2 - isn't this a little embarassing given that we've spent years trying to vilify scientists like Lindzen?"

[SoDesuNe]

My summary of http://www.nature.com/news/hidden-heat-1.13608 (my emphasis):
One study says: Due to unknown cause the La Niña phase is longer than normal and that this "could temporarily counteract the temperature increase expected from rising greenhouse-gas emissions". The study also says that they have no idea "where the missing heat is going".

Another study suggests that this missing heat "that would otherwise go into the atmosphere is getting buried deeper in the ocean." (Law of conservation of energy?)

The first study researchers confirm that La Niña’s opposite effect, El Niño "can boost global temperatures."

So, in my words: We have yet another freak nature incident, which we cannot explain but seems to work in our favour for a change. The article does not deny anywhere that global temperature is rising, some percent just gets swallowed by the ocean for the moment but (if my school education does not fail me) as the Law of conservation of energy states the heat does not vanish with this.
Finally, what now seems to have a cooling effect can change any day to the opposite (El Niño).

My conclusion: The article makes no other point as that the climate system (and nature) is hard to predict and explain. Nowhere is written global warming is wrong. Nowhere is writting that we have global cooling. "But policy-makers would be foolhardy to think that the danger has receded."

[TheBigH]

Governments have more money to spend even than oil companies. Look up how much money is spent on climate research and technology, then try to find documented cases of oil companies funding skeptical scientists and compare the numbers. I think you'll find that there is at least a factor of 1000 difference in favour of the consensus government-funded science.

This is misleading, for two reasons. Firstly, even if the total money in government funding exceeds the total money from corporate funding does not mean that an individual government-funded scientist gets paid more than one working for industry. This is the kind of sleight-of-hand I have come to expect from the anti-science side.

Secondly, I am still not seeing the motivation for governments to pressure scientists to propagate a global warming hoax. In my experience, governments are happiest when they can sit on their hands and do nothing but mumble comforting slogans. Suggesting that there is something dangerous and irresponsible in our modern lifestyle is a sure-fire vote loser. So, if anything, governments have a motive to suppress, rather than promote, the idea of anthropogenic climate change.

[hyperpape]

You are not so far off as you think about public opinion, Magicwand: http://www.gallup.com/poll/161645/ameri ... -rise.aspx

The go boards probably are atypical for a variety of reasons.

[Shinkenjoe]

So guys, if science isn't about believing (as p2501 said in the other thread), how much more will observations have to contradict climate science predictions before you stop believing

I'd say 30 to 40 years, as in such a span trends can be analyzed in a reasonable way. Your timeframe of 10 years is not useful, for example we didnt have an el nino since 1998, a phenomenon which come around all 10 years. You dont justify your time choice. Also I'm curious what caused the pain in your painful discovery.

[Mike Novack]

"Science is about comparing observations to theories. Climate science predicted a rapid rise in global temperature, and we're now at a point where we've gone more than a decade during which that simply hasn't happened"

It is much more complicated than that (how science works).

a) Random comparison of existing observations with theories is not how science makes progress (distinguishing between theories). Given any collection of existing observations always possible to construct multiple theories that fit so that's only the first step. What you do is examine two of those theories and ask what observation (the results of that observation are still unknown because the observation not yet made) would distinguish between them and then go out and make that observation.

b) The observed rises (the average observations) have not been out of line with the average predictions. But there will always be variation in both the predictions and the observations. Comparing the predictions that were most extreme on the high side with the observations most extreme on the low side and saying "see, didn't happen" is fooling yourself.

c) The academic world is "publish or perish". There is great incentive to try to write on the minority side of any scientific debate as competing with fewer papers and thus easier to get published. Experiments/observations can always be criticized/challenged and that is a good thing (results in being redone with tightened techniques).

d) I think we (greatly?) mistake some of the motivation behind denial. The really bad news being denied is that there is really not much we can do to stave off disaster/collapse. Already too little too late. That's not a message that can get votes. Sorry, but we are going to "crash".

[crux]

The article does not deny anywhere that global temperature is rising

Except possibly for the two sentences I quoted? Read them again, the ones containing words like "prolonged hiatus in warming"? Do you deny that this means "global temperatures haven't been rising for a long time"? Astonishing.

some percent just gets swallowed by the ocean for the moment but (if my school education does not fail me) as the Law of conservation of energy states the heat does not vanish with this.

This is an attempt to explain the fact that measured global temperature isn't rising. And that's OK, attempts at explanations range from "CO2 has no effect" on one side to "it's all gone to warm the deep oceans by 0.01C while leaving no trace anywhere else" on the other. The deep oceans are a convenient location since it can't actually be measured very well yet. Occam's Razor on the other hand suggests that maybe the missing heat just doesn't actually exist. One can have different opinions about the cause of the pause, or the likely trajectory from here, but this does not change the basic fact in evidence that the temperature rise has stalled and consensus scientists didn't think this could happen. Yet you immediately and uncritically accepted their after-the-fact explanation of why it happened - why is this? Given that they were surprised by the situation, it is perhaps not unreasonable to have some doubts about whether they really understand what's going on and aren't just coming up with excuses for their really expensive mistake.

Even most climate scientists as of this year are no longer trying to deny obvious observational evidence. The Revkin piece contains a quote from a climate scientist about "the stubborn refusal of the planet to warm as predicted". James Hansen, whose 1988 Congressional testimony can be seen as the starting point for the global warming hysteria, said this year "The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade" (he also attempted an explanation but once again, be careful not to confuse one with the other). At this point, the only honest reason to insist that global warming has continued as predicted is to have been misinformed by your choice of news media, and once I again I'd recommend seeking out other sources of information for balance.

You can also plot global temperature datasets using a tool called the Internet. Try
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to/trend
and various other starting years. This particular one corroborates the Hansen quote. HadCRUT is compiled by members of the orthodoxy so you may safely look at it.

[hyperpape]

Governments have more money to spend even than oil companies. Look up how much money is spent on climate research and technology, then try to find documented cases of oil companies funding skeptical scientists and compare the numbers. I think you'll find that there is at least a factor of 1000 difference in favour of the consensus government-funded science.

This sounds dubious. The NSF has a $7 billion budget, but most of that doesn't go towards climate science. Are you suggesting oil companies fund less than $1 million annually?

I'm also confused about the NYTimes blog post you cite: it seems to state that views about climate sensitivity are moderating, it doesn't at all seem to suggest that they're converging to zero. What exactly is your reasoning here?

[HermanHiddema]

You can also plot global temperature datasets using a tool called the Internet. Try
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to/trend
and various other starting years. This particular one corroborates the Hansen quote. HadCRUT is compiled by members of the orthodoxy so you may safely look at it.

What you suggest:


What I look at:

[crux]

You can also plot global temperature datasets using a tool called the Internet. Try
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to/trend
and various other starting years. This particular one corroborates the Hansen quote. HadCRUT is compiled by members of the orthodoxy so you may safely look at it.

What you suggest:


What I look at:

So, the warming from 1910 to 1940 was caused by human CO2 emissions, in your opinion? If not, what makes that period different from the period from 1980 to 2000? How do CO2 emissions compare in these two time periods? How have CO2 emissions developed after 2000?

No one's denying that temperatures rose in the 20th century. You might want to look up the Little Ice Age on Wikipedia or any other source of your choice: "NASA defines the term as a cold period between AD 1550 and AD 1850". If you go to the cited NASA site, you'll see "This period was marked by rapid expansion of mountain glaciers, especially in the Alps, Norway, Ireland, and Alaska. There were three maxima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals." Guess what you'd expect after a cold period named the Little Ice Age? Correct, some warming, and retreating glaciers. The question is not whether the climate has warmed a bit, the question is whether or to what extent humans (more specifically, their CO2 emissions) are responsible and how much of it is random variation. And for this, the most recent period, which coincided with the highest human CO2 emissions ever, and for which climate science predicted rapidly rising temperatures, is more relevant than the early 20th century. We had a specific prediction which can be falsified by observations which is what makes the recent past and near future important.

However, the earlier period is interesting in that it does show is that temperatures vary without significant human CO2 emissions. The assumption of a perfectly stable and unchanging climate in equilibrium, which underlies the attempt to attribute the 1980-2000 warming to humans, is idiotic.

[p2501]

However, the earlier period is interesting in that it does show is that temperatures vary without significant human CO2 emissions. The assumption of a perfectly stable and unchanging climate in equilibrium, which underlies the attempt to attribute the 1980-2000 warming to humans, is idiotic.

From http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... _id=294083
(which I linked in the original thread and which I would recommend you to read)

On December 13 2011 07:48 FoeHamr wrote:
I think that climate change is probably happening, but we don't impact it as much as a lot of people seem to think. Its very possible that global warming is happening, but are we really affecting it that much? I'm pretty sure that the earth simply has cycles were it is warmer and some where it is colder - like the ice age. There was no cars, electricity or technology back then and somehow the Earth's temperature drastically changed. You obviously know more than I do about it, but that's just the opinion I have made based off of my current knowledge.

This is good scientific thinking. There is a lot of internal climate variability on decadal time scales, longer scales are usually driven by external effects.
Scientist look at how Climate reacts to perturbation of its forcing, i.e. changes in solar activity, atmospheric composition (volcanoes) . We then analysed if there were such perturbations in the 20th century besides man made Co2 changes. As of now, we do not know of any other perturbation that could explain the climate variation.

[HermanHiddema]

So, the warming from 1910 to 1940 was caused by human CO2 emissions, in your opinion? If not, what makes that period different from the period from 1980 to 2000? How do CO2 emissions compare in these two time periods? How have CO2 emissions developed after 2000?

I have no opinion on that.

Why? Because I am not an expert. I have not studied climatology, I do not hold a degree in any even slightly related field.

And the same is true for a million other fields. The number of fields where I consider myself well-qualified to form an opinion from the data is very very small indeed.

So what can I do? Well, I consider the sane course of action to ask an expert.

And there is no doubt that the experts agree. Overwhelmingly, the experts say that global warming is real and is caused by humans.

Are there experts that disagree? Yes.
Is there a reason for me to prefer their opinion over that of the vast majority? No.

[crux]

So, the warming from 1910 to 1940 was caused by human CO2 emissions, in your opinion? If not, what makes that period different from the period from 1980 to 2000? How do CO2 emissions compare in these two time periods? How have CO2 emissions developed after 2000?

I have no opinion on that.

Why? Because I am not an expert. I have not studied climatology, I do not hold a degree in any even slightly related field.

And the same is true for a million other fields. The number of fields where I consider myself well-qualified to form an opinion from the data is very very small indeed.

So what can I do? Well, I consider the sane course of action to ask an expert.

So much for the earlier claim in this thread that Go players exhibit exceptional critical thinking skills.

The experts claimed global temperatures would rise dramatically. James Hansen, to take a prominent example, gave three scenarious in 1988 - from business as usual (Scenario A), to a drastic curbing of emissions (Scenario C). They desperately want to claim that Scenario B in the middle is the one we should compare to, but even so - guess where global temperatures have ended up? Below Scenario C. This is easily verifiable without unusual expertise (consensus climate scientists even make an annual graph of it which you may be able to find). A similar phenomenon applies to all expert predictions made in IPCC reports, as demonstrated in this article: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/09/16/ipcc-models-getting-mushy/. While the author is a notable skeptic, which may lead some folks to instinctively want to dismiss the article, the graphic is by the IPCC itself and shows that even if one is feeling generous in the interpretation, the data is just barely clinging to the lower edge of the predictions (and some additional time has passed since then without any noticeable warming). A similar and even more spectacular graph exists for wrong IPCC predictions of methane emissions.

So why trust these experts if they demonstrably and consistently err in one direction? Isn't the sane course of action, based on the evidence, to assume they are biased (for whatever reason, I might get into my thoughts about that later - I do not think it is a hoax as Magicwand posed the question) and dismiss them or at least apply a healthy correction to their claims?