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Post by nickrr on Oct 23, 2011 8:46:09 GMT 1
Do you not understand the meaning of words like "may" and "if"? Both of these words were used in the context of this statement and the authors provided no evidence to show whether the "may" and "if" are satisfied.
Science is about proving things to be true. This statement was not shown to be true therefore it was not a conclusion of the report.
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Post by principled on Oct 23, 2011 10:54:13 GMT 1
Nick, I heard the interview on R4 with one of the scientists involved in the study. As you say, he confirmed that GW was happening. He added, however, that their study was not primarily about any causes of GW but was carried out to confirm/reject the "climategate" results achieved previously using weather station data.
As a layman in these matters, I would have thought that the sensible thing would be to accept the results of the Berkley study and now seriously discuss all the possible causes. If ALL sides of the debate were to put ALL their energies into discussing ALL the possible causes, then they may be able to produce better computer models that will, hopefully, separate any anthropogenic warming from other natural causes.
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Post by abacus9900 on Oct 23, 2011 11:10:25 GMT 1
I do wonder why those people who disagree with the AGW hypothesis think there is some huge conspiracy on the part of all the scientists all over the world to 'dupe' everyone. What purpose could this serve? Why do we generally believe scientists on other matters but have grave doubts when it comes to climatology? Why should we come down on the side of the minority of scientists who choose to differ? Politics should not enter into science.
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Post by rsmith7 on Oct 23, 2011 11:22:40 GMT 1
I do wonder why those people who disagree with the AGW hypothesis think there is some huge conspiracy on the part of all the scientists all over the world to 'dupe' everyone. What purpose could this serve? Why do we generally believe scientists on other matters but have grave doubts when it comes to climatology? Why should we come down on the side of the minority of scientists who choose to differ? Politics should not enter into science. There IS a huge conspiracy and politics has thoroughly perverted climate "science". Why do you have a problem accepting these facts?
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Post by abacus9900 on Oct 23, 2011 11:34:31 GMT 1
Would you mind telling everyone why such a conspiracy would exist? For what purpose?
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Post by rsmith7 on Oct 23, 2011 11:47:03 GMT 1
Would you mind telling everyone why such a conspiracy would exist? For what purpose? Global "progressive" control.
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 23, 2011 15:55:50 GMT 1
"Why do we generally believe scientists on other matters but have grave doubts when it comes to climatology?" asks abacus.
Because the IPCC (and that is what we are talking about) is the creature of the United Nations in cahoots with the small dominant clique of alarmists/activists/advocates of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis.
The IPCC was set up to demonstrate AGW not to investigate the way the climate works - the results were pre-ordained.
No-one believes in a massive world-wide conspiracy but there is certainly a demonstrable clique of movers and shakers with an agenda at the top of the IPCC on whose every world the mainstream hang.
Anyone who has read all the links to climate research that I have posted over the years has to be well aware that there is huge disagreement with the IPCC's interpretation of the data both from expert climatologists who have always been outsiders or who have left the IPCC in disgust, plus informed laymen.
There is inadequate historical data with which to make comparisons and there is little contemporary measurement which is reliable. So, not enough factual data to make "climatology" even approach the status of the "hard" sciences.
It's more a branch of social science than real science - like geography with pretensions. The more modest climatologists recognise this. The IPCC hacks and followers do not and moreover think they can make reliable predictions a hundred years in advance. Hubris! Social science has always been riddled with ideological value judgements and so is the travesty of "climate science" promoted by the IPCC.
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Post by marchesarosa on Oct 23, 2011 16:47:47 GMT 1
Here is a letter Matt Ridley sent to the editor and deputy editor of The Economist following their laudatory welcome of the BEST papers. www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/no-change-makes-big-news A comment on the piece by James Astill about the Berkeley temperature study. Most of the article is a sensible discussion of a deadly dull piece of statistics that changes nothing. But it's topped and tailed with claims that this leaves little room for doubters, and that the warming is "fast". Both these conclusions are badly wrong. 1. To think this will dampen doubt badly misreads what the doubt is about. What sceptics mainly doubt is not that there has been warming but the cause and the future projections. Here's what Richard Muller of the Berkeley study actually says in the Wall Street Journal: "How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that." So no change there. 2. Given that Muller used the SAME temperature station records as the other sets, his graph is no surprise at all. About the only thing Muller has added is a statistical attempt to find out if the urban heat island has exaggerated the effect. He says no, but his efforts in that regard have already been taken apart by McIntyre, Watts, Eschenbach and Keenan (the latter in email correspondence with Astill). In any case, it turns out if you look at the data in Muller's article, rather than the press release, he very much does NOT get the same result. He gets a decline in the last decade then hides it by smoothing. See Eschenbach's piece here: wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/22/a-preliminary-assessment-of-bests-decline/#more-497923. Even if Muller is right, the last word of the Astill article is "fast". Yet Muller has merely confirmed that — in his analysis — the temperature is rising about as fast as the three surface temperature sets. Which is at a rate SLOWER than the zero emission prediction made by James Hansen in the 1980s — and ten times slower than the warming rate at the end of the ice age, by the way. Hansen told us to expect 2-4 degrees in 25 years if we continued emitting co2. Thatcher at the Royal Society spoke of a degree per decade. Muller confirms that we are experiencing about 0.16 degrees per decade and that's not including the sea, so the real number is lower. That's nearly an order of magnitude slower!!! How can that conceivably be called fast? We are exactly on course for the zero-feedback version of greenhouse warming — ie, a doubling of CO2 leading to a harmless 1.2C of warming. See the chart at this site. www.Real-Science.com/doubt-temperatures-rising-fast-hansens-emissions4. The Muller study has not yet been peer-reviewed. It appears to have been rushed into print full of errors to suit Muller's self-publicity machine. Nothing wrong with you writing about scientific ideas before peer review, but when I asked Oliver earlier this year to cover the interesting work of Nic Lewis who has proved that the IPCC had statistically altered a chart of probability density function of climate sensitivity in a way that fattened the tail (from green to blue in the chart below) — implying far higher probability of high warming than the only empirical study of sensitivity warranted — Oliver said he would not cover it till peers and the IPCC had reacted. Double standard there.The IPCC reacted eventually, and quietly, by admitting that Lewis was right and publishing an erratum. Yet still not a word for your readers. The consequence of that is that the IPCC now admits that the probability of any warming over 2.3 degrees is highly unlikely. Now that is a big story, unlike the Muller thing. 5. Why does this matter? Here are two reasons. About 190,000 people probably died last year needlessly because of policies for making motor fuel out of food. Near where I live hundreds of jobs are about to be lost in hard-pressed south-east Northumberland because of Huhne's carbon rationing driving RTZ's aluminium smelter abroad. When people at Notting Hill dinner parties talk of the need for sacrifice, that's what they mean, not paying more for home-grown runner beans. Both these are a direct result of carbon emissions reduction policies. If you want to endorse the imposition of such hardships, you'd better have some darned good evidence that the cure is less painful than the disease. The Muller study merely confirms that the patient has the symptoms so far of a mild cold. The coverage of this story in the press has been abysmal — as if somebody had written a paper saying that the euro has been increasing in value, therefore the eurosceptics were wrong and the media had taken them at face value. The Economist used to take apocaholic vested interests with a pinch of salt.
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Post by nickrr on Oct 23, 2011 17:56:48 GMT 1
principled,
I have no problem with this. It's has been my position all along. This exercise was probably unnecessary from the scientific point of view in that it hasn't told scientists anything they didn't already know. However if it helps persuade people that GW is real then it's not wasted.
I'd also add that we know beyond reasonable doubt what the main cause of the temperature rise is - humans. That doesn;t mean that we don't need to do a lot more research to understand all the factors in much more detail.
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Post by nickrr on Oct 23, 2011 18:01:01 GMT 1
One reason is that from the thousands of emails released during 'climategate', as far as I'm aware, not a single one even hinted at this sort of conspiracy.
For this reason I always thought that the most important thing 'cllimategate' told us was that there isn't a conspiracy.
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Post by nickrr on Oct 23, 2011 18:07:46 GMT 1
No. The IPCC is meant to report and advise on the current scientific consensus on GW. It is scientists who are producing the evidence that shows that the earth is warming and that humans are largely responsible. The IPCC is just passing the message on.
Of course you try to put a different spin on it because you don't like what they are saying (i.e. what the science is telling us). It's a variation of 'shoot the messenger'.
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Post by rsmith7 on Oct 23, 2011 18:33:08 GMT 1
One reason is that from the thousands of emails released during 'climategate', as far as I'm aware, not a single one even hinted at this sort of conspiracy. For this reason I always thought that the most important thing 'cllimategate' told us was that there isn't a conspiracy. Don't be so silly. So you're telling us that the ipcc, a few hundred bent scientists, a few bent governments, a compliant MSM and a few pressure groups hold sway over the majority of scientists, governments and normal thinking people? Take the compliant MSM out of the equation and things would be VERY different.
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Post by abacus9900 on Oct 23, 2011 18:44:15 GMT 1
marchesarosa, if such a clique exists what possible motives could it have in maintaining such a conspiracy? Also, it's hard to accept that so many scientists, worldwide, are a part of this conspiracy because it would seem highly improbable that so many individuals could ever come to a consensus about supporting such a big lie.
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Post by rsmith7 on Oct 23, 2011 19:10:09 GMT 1
marchesarosa, if such a clique exists what possible motives could it have in maintaining such a conspiracy? Also, it's hard to accept that so many scientists, worldwide, are a part of this conspiracy because it would seem highly improbable that so many individuals could ever come to a consensus about supporting such a big lie. Funding, old boy.
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Post by mak2 on Oct 23, 2011 20:25:32 GMT 1
"The IPCC is meant to report and advise on the current scientific consensus on GW"
There does not have to be a conspiracy. The scientific consensus has turned out to be wrong many times in the past. In so far as there is a consensus on global warming. it could be wrong again. One should not mistake agreement among a group of scientists for proof.
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