Losing Bet on Climate Change: Update

Proposing a reasonable global warming wager

Ronald Bailey | January 17, 2008

For those making predictions, it has become increasingly popular to put your money where your mouth is. For example, the Iowa Electronic Markets and Intrade allow users to participate in online futures trading involving the outcomes of political events. The Long Now Foundation sponsors the Long Bets website at which competitors bet on issues that are societally and scientifically important—e.g., by 2010 at least 50 percent of all books sold worldwide will be printed on demand at the point of sale, or that at least one human being alive in 2000 will also be alive in 2150.

So what about climate change? In April 2006, I wrote a column, "Losing Bet on Climate Change," about a notional wager proposed by University of Virginia climatologist, Cato Institute senior fellow, and catastrophic climate change skeptic Patrick Michaels. In 1998, Michaels made the following bet in his World Climate Report:

If we were of a betting sort (and there are some nasty rumors going around that we are), we would be willing to wager that the 10-year period beginning in January 1998 and extending through December 2007 will show a statistically significant downward trend in the monthly satellite record of global temperatures.

Surely such a wager should sound interesting to those who think the planetary temperature will increase several tenths of a degree during that period.

Michaels acknowledged in my 2006 column that "technically we lose the bet." Why? Because no statistically significant downward trend had emerged. On the other hand, the actual upward satellite record temperature trend of +0.032 degrees Celsius was not significantly different from zero.
On January 7th of this year, Michaels sent an e-mail alerting me to the fact that global temperature trend in the satellite data set put together by researchers at Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) showed a downward temperature trend. Michaels correctly noted that the RSS data set is generally preferred by "greens" because it shows a higher rate of warming than does the satellite data set put together by John Christy and his colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). According to Michaels, "The trend in the monthly anomaly data from January 1998 through December 2007 is -0.06degC/decade." Michaels' email added, "I expect you will note this prominently."

The first thing to keep in mind is that the downward trend between 1998 and 2008 in the RSS data cited by Michaels is not "statistically significant," so he would still have lost his bet. And new information suggests that that there may be a spurious cooling trend in the last few months of the RSS data set. So Michaels' colleague Chip Knappenberger did calculations using the UAH data and found that the "trend in the UAH derived temperatures of the earth's lower atmosphere for the most recent 10-year period (January 1998 though December 2007) is a positive 0.04ºC/decade (although it is not statistically significant)." Either way, both sets of satellite data show that the trend in average global temperatures for the past decade has been more or less flat.

Carl Mears from RSS argues that a decade is too short a time period for teasing out man-made trends from the climate record. What is the long term trend? Since 1978, the RSS data set finds that the lower troposphere is warming at about +0.173 degrees Celsius per decade, while the UAH data set trend is +0.142 degrees Celsius per decade.

Another problem with making bets on temperature trends is that the data sets are constantly being revised. Knappenberger notes that both the RSS data and UAH data have been revised, as have the surface temperature data sets compiled by Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and the Hadley Centre in Britain. Knappenberger adds that even with revisions the surface temperature data sets nevertheless show a warming trend of +0.16 to +0.18 degrees Celsius per decade. In 1998, the world experienced a huge El Nino event in which the tropical Pacific Ocean heated up the planet. The tropical Pacific has now switched to a La Nina which will reverse the El Nino and cool the planet. If the La Nina had occurred earlier in 2007 and there are no errors in the RSS data, there might have been enough cooling such that Michaels would have won his bet. But that didn't happen.

So what about future climate change bets? Bets force intellectual clarity and can capture the public's imagination. Over at Long Bets, there are a number of climate related predictions on offer though no actual bets have been placed. One proposed bet is that by 2100 global average temperatures measured by satellites will be less than +1.94 degrees Celsius higher than the average temperature in 1990. Another predicts that temperatures will increase by at least +0.15 degrees Celsius from 2005 to 2025. This last one is wimpy considering that even the lowest trend is the UAH's at +0.142 degrees Celsius per decade. At the Bali Climate Change Conference, the Hadley Centre boldly predicted that by 2014 "the global average temperature is expected to have risen by around 0.3 degrees Celsius compared to 2004, and half of the years after 2009 are predicted to be hotter than the current record hot year, 1998."

The Hadley Centre prediction sounds like a pretty reasonable bet to me. Now will any climate change skeptics and militants step up and make it?

Disclosure: I am an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

Ronald Bailey is reason's science correspondent. His most recent book, Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution, is available from Prometheus Books.

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|1.17.08 @ 8:23AM|#

I bet that there will be at least 3 comments accusing Ron Bailey of being a global warming denier.

I'm surprised that more attention hasn't been given to the relatively flat temperature trend of the last decade. While timeframes like this are certainly short, do climate models output such 'pauses' from their overall upward trend forecasts?

Jackanapestarian|1.17.08 @ 8:32AM|#

The only thing I'd be willing to bet on is that in a few thousand years we'll be entering another glacial period. Its severity will probably be tempered somewhat by the industrialization that has taken place during our current interglacial period. Or not. Nobody knows or will know. One other bet: if humans are still around by then, they'll be fretting over what to do about it.

|1.17.08 @ 8:41AM|#

I thought we were on an accelerating warming path, like the "hockey stick". Did the "hockey stick" get tossed out?

Jon|1.17.08 @ 8:44AM|#

"One other bet: if humans are still around by then, they'll be fretting over what to do about it."

Either that or they'll still be arguing about newsletters, paleos and cosmos...

DavidS|1.17.08 @ 8:52AM|#

I'm surprised that more attention hasn't been given to the relatively flat temperature trend of the last decade.

As 1998 was a particularly warm year due to El Nino - it's hardly surprising that a 10-year trend is fairly flat when that year is used as a starting point.

Ron mentions this in his article...

In 1998, the world experienced a huge El Nino event in which the tropical Pacific Ocean heated up the planet.

...though he could probably have done more to highlight the issue.

ithaqua|1.17.08 @ 9:01AM|#

I'd be willing to bet that the RSS study will be trumpeted far and wide over the Internets as proof - PROOF! - that "global warming" is part of a socialist plot to nationalize the means of production, or whatever the liberal conspiracy du jour is, without any mention of the nuances and conflicting studies Mr, Bailey mentioned.

Any takers? :)

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 9:01AM|#

I bet that people who believe in AGW will continue to believe in it no matter what evidence is shown to them, whether it is sunspots, no warming after all, cow farts, whatever. Religions are like that.

|1.17.08 @ 9:07AM|#

The Hadley Centre prediction is a sucker bet. Using the annual United States temperature data gotten from the NOAA, the temperature for 2004 was over 1 degree Fahrenheit colder than the 1998 temperature (approximately .5 Celsius). If we get back to close to 1998's temperature, you would win the bet.

Link to the page I used is:
http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl

Wow, I figured "pedant" would be the first to post.

|1.17.08 @ 9:10AM|#

David S typed:
Ron mentions this in his article...

In 1998, the world experienced a huge El Nino event in which the tropical Pacific Ocean heated up the planet.

...though he could probably have done more to highlight the issue.

Sorry, I was unclear...I meant I was surprised that the relatively flat trend hasn;t gotten more attention by other, more broadly distributed media. I wasn;t commenting on RB's attention to the data.

|1.17.08 @ 9:11AM|#

"I bet that people who believe in AGW will continue to believe in it no matter what evidence is shown to them, whether it is sunspots, no warming after all, cow farts, whatever. Religions are like that."

Religions are supported by a broad consensus of the experts who are especially trained to understand this and devote far more time to the meticulous examination of the relevant data? Geez, and all these years I've been an agnostic, d'oh!

|1.17.08 @ 9:12AM|#

I don't need no stinkin' bet; I'll be raking in the dough, up here in Montana on my banana plantation.

|1.17.08 @ 9:14AM|#

Episiarch
You think those thousands of scientists, scientists now, with Phd's, ten years plus of education and immersed daily in the relevant evidence, numbering thousands and scattered across nations, ethnicities, governments, industries, etc., are all being bamboozled or have fallen into a trance-like thrall of some Gaia worship?

And the only ones who see the truth are a small minority of folks, many of whom have a vested interest or ideological stake that would lead them to oppose Global Warming?

Now THAT'S a foolish bet I should think...

|1.17.08 @ 9:19AM|#

OT tech question: sometime between yesterday and this morning Firefox decided it was going to start rendering all reason.com pages weird. Hard to describe but in short, everything looks like it hopped in a time machine back to the Web circa 1995 -- it's all just left-justified black-on-white text devoid of any layout or style. Navigation bar on the left side (Home, Subscribe, Contact Us...) is plain text links. Oddly enough, the only image on the page is the little orange button for the RSS feed. All the text appears to be here far as I can tell.

Can't think of any settings or software changes I may have made, and it displays normal in IE. Only other page I regularly visit that's messed up is Wikipedia, and it's not nearly as bad as HnR -- looks like it's just not showing up in the right font and text size, layout is otherwise intact. Everything else looks fine.

Some cursory Googling revealed nothing useful, but I'm not sure I was even looking in the right direction. Any ideas wtf is up? I'll just reinstall ff if necessary but this baffled me. Thanks.

|1.17.08 @ 9:21AM|#

OT continued: Even weirder still, as soon as I clicked submit comment, the page reloaded and displays as normal. Wikipedia still looks funny.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 9:21AM|#

Thank you, MNG, for proving my point. Your hysterical disbelief that anyone could reasonably be skeptical (not 100% against, just skeptical) is the most telling thing. "How can you not believe that JESUS is our SAVIOR?!?!?!? Thousands and thousands of priests agree!!!"

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 9:23AM|#

Anonymo, you may have had a bad download of the style sheet.

|1.17.08 @ 9:23AM|#

I'll never understand the propensity of many folks to wrap scientific findings around their political or religious ideology rather than the other way around.

One can be against any government that is not reasonably necessary to protect one from rather direct harm from the actions of others. Fine. That's an interesting view worth discussion.

But to then think that this ideology means you must strongly argue against any claim that the class of actions that inflict rather direct harm on others is wider than we once thought is goofy imo.

If there was a product, x, which was thought to be harmless when dumped into streams and rivers, a libertarian would of course be justified to oppose government attempts to prevent folks from dumping it into streams and rivers. If, though, it became the scientific consensus that this product was in fact harmful to any who came into contact with water contaminated by it, then a libertarian would be a fool to say "well, it's still wrong to coerce people from exposing others to this because coercion is wrong." It would be nearly just as foolish to feel obligated to say "the scientific consensus is wrong, we can't be sure this product is harmful to others, and trying to have government regulate it is creeping socialism, blah, blah."

If the actions of others cause direct harm to others and their property, then its OK to coerce them to stop, but that should be the limit of government. That seems an intelligent libertarian view. Then let science examine what falls into that class.

pedant|1.17.08 @ 9:23AM|#

Wow, I figured "pedant" would be the first to post.

Pedant likes a challenge. By the way, were the quotation marks necessary?

I read a great story that reminded me of the "global warming consensus". During the 1930s a bunch of Nazi scientists all signed a declaration that said that reletivity was false because it was Jewish Science, whatever that is. When asked about the delcaration and its many signers, Enstein responded something to the effect of, "if it were true, only one person would have to sign it." The fact that the global warming industry has to get 100s of scientists to swear it is true speaks I think to their insecurity over the issue rather than their confidence.

|1.17.08 @ 9:26AM|#

Epi-you miss the mark. Your analogy is faulty because our "priests" are not like priests at all, and science is not like religion. Instead, my "priests" are a broad consensus of the highly trained experts in the relevant fields. Their "dogma" is peer review, the scientific method, replicable studies, careful observation and recording of phenomena, careful statistical modelling, etc.

The "priests" on you side? People with strong ideological committments and those with vested interests.

Hallelujah, Brother!

Anonymo the Anonymous|1.17.08 @ 9:29AM|#

Anonymo, you may have had a bad download of the style sheet.

Yeah, that seems (at least in layman's terms) to make a lot of sense -- any way to force it to redownload the style sheet or whatever I need to do?

|1.17.08 @ 9:31AM|#

"Your analogy is faulty because our "priests" are not like priests at all, and science is not like religion. Instead, my "priests" are a broad consensus of the highly trained experts in the relevant fields."

See Enstein, if it were true, only one person would have to say it. Does that mean it is untrue? Not necessarily. It just means that antropromorphic global warming is not established fact. If it were, no one would bother signing petitions and applealing to the "consensus" on the subject. When confronting creationists, no one talks about the consensus that supports evolution do they? No they don't because unlike global warming you can point to evidence and facts, not consensus to support to support evolution.

Anonymo the Anonymous|1.17.08 @ 9:31AM|#

Ah, got it -- manually cleared the cache. Sorry for the interruption and thanks Epi.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 9:35AM|#

You keep touting "consensus". I know this has been said and doesn't seem to sink in, but there is no consensus science. Don't you know that dinosaurs were cold-blooded and slow? Everyone agrees.

|1.17.08 @ 9:36AM|#

A single decade is going to be too prone to noise and to cyclical events, like el Nino/la Nina, whose cycles are a single-digit number of years long.

Pedant likes a challenge. By the way, were the quotation marks necessary?

Well, yeah, unless that is in fact your real name. And unless you have "and old bet" to settle, you're slacking.

"The "priests" on you side? People with strong ideological committments and those with vested interests."

And no one on the pro global warming side has any vested interest? No one sees it as an excuse to get every pet program they love enacted? No scientists anywhere who have recieved grants and tenure based on the support of the theory have any vested interest in it being true. If the solar physicists who claim that global warming is due to solar activity are correct, do you realize how many careers will end? A ton.

It is perfectly reasonable to believe in man made global warming. But it is not reasonable to claim that one side doesn't have a vested interest in the result.

Warty|1.17.08 @ 9:37AM|#

"if it were true, only one person would have to sign it."

That is a point that isn't made enough. Consensus is the opposite of science.

Michael Chrichton gave a speech about this that I liked.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Disclaimer: I don't pretend to know anything about global warming. I do, however, know politics when I see it.

|1.17.08 @ 9:41AM|#

Nyah nyah, Mr. Nice Guy.

Someone who doesn't know the difference between a scientific researcher and a priest accused you of being unscientific.

Gee, I but that stung.

|1.17.08 @ 9:43AM|#

See, as John points out, our problem is that there are just too many scientists who agree with us.

That's how you know there's something fishy going on; because the scientists why study the issue keep coming to the same conclusions.

I mean, what else could possible cause such a thing to happen?

From The Keystrokes of John Q.|1.17.08 @ 9:45AM|#

Mr Nice Guy,

I definitely think the earth has been on a warming trend. As for the whole: This is the greatest threat to humanity to do special...

I'm not sold. First the earth was heating up and turning into a giant dustbowl. Then the earth was freezing. Time Magazine in the mid 70's printing expert concensus on how the earth is going to turn into an ice cube. Now the earth is warming again.

If you really believe all these future predictions by all these experts, ask them to tell you how next spring is going to be. They spend huge sums of grant money to generate computer models of the earth to show the future of the Earth's weather. So why don't they start selling the weather information for the future? Too many variables.

Ask someone who is roughly 100 years old what the most monumental thing's they've seen are, and I bet the Ocean rising a foot won't be one of them.Somehow we managed to make more land in Hong Kong? The Kyoto Accord is suppose to prevent the temperature change for a grand total of 7 years. Now THAT is a foolish bet I should think...

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 9:46AM|#

Someone who doesn't know the difference between a scientific researcher and a priest accused you of being unscientific.

Gee, I but that stung.

Someone who doesn't have an education and background in science is mocking someone who does.

Gee, that stings.

|1.17.08 @ 9:47AM|#

Joe,

Every scientist who studies the subject agrees with evolution to. Yet, no one ever resorts to argument by petition on that subject. The reason of course is that there is no need to. There are tons of irrefutable pieces of evidence to point to with regard to evolution. There isn't in global warming so people resort to argument by petition. Further, not every scientist believes in man made global warming. There are legitimately serious people who deny it completely and there is absolutely no consensus on the really dire forecasts. Most of the serious scientists on the subject, even if they agree with the theory are embarrassed by the exaggeration and politicization of the subject.

VM|1.17.08 @ 9:49AM|#

MNG or Epi with the science education and background?

genuine interest: which, and what area?

thx!

|1.17.08 @ 9:50AM|#

The Germany example is again inapt. That scientists in a nation under political pressure from extremists can make wrong claims is actually more ammunition for me (since the ones strongly opposing global warming usually have strong ideological positions). Of course the consensus of scientists in the world, outside of Germany, though such a document was pretty funny. Just like they think the work of GW deniers is pretty funny.

John:
...antropromorphic global warming...

Not a major deal, but I think you mean anthropogenic global warming.

Elemenope|1.17.08 @ 9:50AM|#

The Global Warming Industry? Is that kind of like the ill-tempered sea bass industry?

|1.17.08 @ 9:54AM|#

Well, that didn't last long joe.

R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 9:54AM|#

Religions are supported by a broad consensus of the experts who are especially trained to understand this and devote far more time to the meticulous examination of the relevant data?

That's a fair description of the Catholic Church, yes.

See, also, above comments re vested data, etc. And if you think there isn't a robust peer review process for Christian and especially Catholic theology, well, you haven't seen the process at work.

Instead, my "priests" are a broad consensus of the highly trained experts in the relevant fields.

This is simply not true. A substantial fraction of the experts in the relevant fields don't buy the CO2 hypothesis or the AGW hypothesis.

Their "dogma" is peer review, the scientific method, replicable studies, careful observation and recording of phenomena, careful statistical modelling, etc.

Amusing, given the very poor predictive record of AGW models, the need to constantly correct them, or "correct" the dato to conform to the model, etc.

"I know this has been said and doesn't seem to sink in, but there is no consensus science."

You are missing the point. Yes, something is not true BECAUSE there is a consensus of the experts in that area on that topic. However, the consensus of the best trained folks devoting the most time to that topic is a STRONG reason to defer to their judgment on THAT issue.

In the course of the history of science certain scientific claims have ultimately been proven incorrect. Of course, non-science claims, including industry and ideological groups, has a much worse record.

Perhaps you anti-GW types can instruct us as to what other scientific claims which have a similar level of support from relevant experts you think are wrong? Are there any that you have no ideological problem with? What criteria do you use for rejecting scientific consensuses on various claims?

|1.17.08 @ 9:56AM|#

Mr. Nice Guy,

It is not just whackjobs being forced at gunpoint to sign a petition. Are the solar guys in Russia just crazy? Further, even among the scientists are a part of the alleged consensus, there is no consensus on the actual extent of the "problem". We just don't understand our climate very well. It is enormously complex. Maybe the theory is right maybe it is wrong, time will tell. But the idea that our understanding of climate and man's effects on it is so developed that global warming can be equated with say relativity and evolution in terms of validity, is just ludicrous.

"This is simply not true. A substantial fraction of the experts in the relevant fields don't buy the CO2 hypothesis or the AGW hypothesis."

What fraction? And where do you get that from?

If you don't know the difference between how scientists operate and how priests operate, it probably isn't terribly useful to argue science with you.

I think this thread makes perfectly clear where the religious thinking comes from.

|1.17.08 @ 9:58AM|#

"Every scientist who studies the subject agrees with evolution to. Yet, no one ever resorts to argument by petition on that subject."

Actually the do all the time. Where do you get the idea they do not? It's quite reasonable, like expert testimony in courts of law. It establishes consensus.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 9:58AM|#

VM, I have degrees in biology and anthropology.

VM|1.17.08 @ 9:59AM|#

gaijin
*giggles*

|1.17.08 @ 10:00AM|#

Anti-GWers tend to not answer questions put to them, but instead try to keep picking at the long end of this claim of the GW consensus over here, and the long end of that claim over there, much like creationists.

So how about an answer to my post way up-thread:
You think those thousands of scientists, scientists now, with Phd's, ten years plus of education and immersed daily in the relevant evidence, numbering thousands and scattered across nations, ethnicities, governments, industries, etc., are all being bamboozled or have fallen into a trance-like thrall of some Gaia worship?

VM|1.17.08 @ 10:01AM|#

cool, Epi, thanks!

Were you during or post Chagnon's Yanamamo "fierce people" phase?

(I've run across quite a few Anthro people in my world (pharma mktg/mktg research). Lots of fun to do work with them)

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 10:02AM|#

That scientists in a nation under political pressure from extremists can make wrong claims is actually more ammunition for me (since the ones strongly opposing global warming usually have strong ideological positions).

It is? They do? And those who support it don't have strong ideological positions? People who call bullshit on "OH NOES THE SKY IS FALLING" have a really, really good track record. I will stick with that.

I'm sorry if I don't believe in ManBearPig, Al. Maybe when we open up the portal to Imaginationland I will.

|1.17.08 @ 10:03AM|#

VM
I have a doctorate in political science actually, (it would be nice if I worked in that field though!, I do social science research for a firm) but I'm not making my claims based on MY expertise, but the expertise of the bulk of scientists in various fields who study this subject.

I can't think of a single professional association of scientists who have concluded that GW is bunk. Can you? I can though provide you with a list of the ones that have backed the theory. Do you really need that?

|1.17.08 @ 10:04AM|#

I consider evolution to be a settled truth, because the overwhelming majority of scientists who study the issue have concluded that it is the truth.

If I was really, really motivated, I could find some hacks from the Discovery Institute who say otherwise, but it would take a lot of work. Nonetheless, they would have letters after their name.

Within the community of responsible, fair-minded scientists, there are large area of disagreement about whether ordinary genetic drift can account for species variability, or whether there had to be periods of increased genetic variability, just to pick one area where there is ongoing dispute. While the hacks at the Discovery Insitute like to point to such disputes as evidence that the case for evolution is weak, none of the responsible scientists on either side of that dispute would agree with them at all.

And so with climate science. Yes, John, the climate is enormously complex, and there is much to still learn. Each and every one of the climate scientists and biologists who has documented the evidence of global warming will tell you that. They will also tell you, just like biologists who study evolution, that the areas they do not understand in now way disprove those things they do understand.

|1.17.08 @ 10:05AM|#

"Perhaps you anti-GW types can instruct us as to what other scientific claims which have a similar level of support from relevant experts you think are wrong? Are there any that you have no ideological problem with? What criteria do you use for rejecting scientific consensuses on various claims?"

I can certainly point you to any number of theories which had a lot better consensus than global warming and turned out to be wrong; that dinosaurs were cold blooded lizards, that acid and stress, not bacteria caused ulcers, that electrons orbited around a nucleus of an atom like planets, that there was such a thing as ether that everything moved through, just to name a few. The point is that it is a endless process of hypothesis and experiment. The climate is enormously complex. There is no guarantee right now if the theory is correct or if it is to what extent it is correct and to what extent we are better off adapting rather than preventing warming. If it were a risk that could be prevented by a few billion dollars like CFCs that would be one thing. But that is not what people are advocating. Further, I will believe it is a crisis when the people who say it is a crisis start acting like it is rather than taking private jets to conferences in Bali.

|1.17.08 @ 10:06AM|#

"And those who support it don't have strong ideological positions?"

No, no common one I can think of. It's a broad consensus covering a variety of fields, nations, and, yes, "political ideologies" (as John Derbyshire has pointed out in the evolution debate on the claim of IDers that evolution consensus is based on some ideological position of "scientists", most successful full time scientists are fairly non-ideological, they are immersed in their work for hte most part).

I'm sorry if I don't believe in ManBearPig, Al. Maybe when we open up the portal to Imaginationland I will.

Al? Al who?

But remember, kids, it's the people who agree with the scientific consensus who are letting their politics get in the way of their scientific understanding.

VM|1.17.08 @ 10:06AM|#

"I do social science research for a firm"

cool! and I'm just genuinely interested.

Same answer to you as to Epi - I run into Social science (poli sci, econ (natch), soc, anthro, etc) people all over the place. And considering the negative attitude hier that many have, it's always cool to see :)

|1.17.08 @ 10:09AM|#

The point is that it is a endless process of hypothesis and experiment.

Yes, there is. And as that process has continued and additional evidence collected, the consensus among the relevant scientists regarding global warming has become both broader and more certain, while exactly the opposite happened with each and every one of the other consensuses you mentioned.

VM|1.17.08 @ 10:11AM|#

FYI, "A Call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology"

seems kinda cool!

|1.17.08 @ 10:11AM|#

BTW, I like Bailey's language. If you are on the side opposed to the IPCC, you are a "skeptic."

If you agree with it, you are a "militant."

How do you cash in on the long bet that someone alive in 2000 is still alive in 2150 if you are not that person?

ithaqua|1.17.08 @ 10:11AM|#

John wrote:

Every scientist who studies the subject agrees with evolution to.

O RLY?

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 10:12AM|#

Were you during or post Chagnon's Yanamamo "fierce people" phase?

During, and before the major controversies.

|1.17.08 @ 10:14AM|#

ithaqua, I'm sure they're just fair-minded scientists who drew different conclusions from the data.

I mean, if dinosaurs were cold-blooded, Jesus would have gotten a cold bum.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 10:15AM|#

The best part is that joe is just as absolutely sure that AGW is happening the way he thinks it is, as Stephen Hawking was about the black hole information paradox.

|1.17.08 @ 10:15AM|#

"And so with climate science. Yes, John, the climate is enormously complex, and there is much to still learn. Each and every one of the climate scientists and biologists who has documented the evidence of global warming will tell you that. They will also tell you, just like biologists who study evolution, that the areas they do not understand in now way disprove those things they do understand."

Biologists are not asking the world to give up trillions of dollars in standard of living as a result of evolution. The fact is the earth was three degrees warmed in 3000 BC when civilization arose than it is now. Yet, people claiming now that a 2 degree increase in temps are going to make the world uninhabitable. It is just politically driven bunk. Further, I have yet to see any realistic plan to actually do something about it if it were true. Most of what I have seen borders on the religious in that it is, make this sacrifice even though it will do no good, but at least you tried kind of thing. If warming happens humans will adapt just like they always have. Given a choice between spending trillions on projects that are unlikely to solve a problem that may or may not exist or doing nothing. I will take nothing and bet on it either not being true or humans adapting.

|1.17.08 @ 10:16AM|#

We read "Yanomamo: the Fierce People" as a text book when I took Anthropology.

ithaqua|1.17.08 @ 10:18AM|#

John wrote:

The fact that the global warming industry has to get 100s of scientists to swear it is true speaks I think to their insecurity over the issue rather than their confidence.

From The Global Warming Petition Project:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

[...]

"This petition has been signed by over 19,000 American scientists."

The fact that the anti-global warming industry shills have to get 1000s of scientists to swear it is false speaks, I think, to their insecurity over the issue rather than their confidence.

Heh.

|1.17.08 @ 10:20AM|#

John,

You shouldn't let your opinions about science's political implications influence your understanding of science so much. You aand the Episiarch are the ones dragging politics into the discussion, while MNG and I have written only about science. Maybe that indicates something.

If your opinion would change 180 degrees, if only the people who agreed with the science tended to advocate for the political vision you support, you aren't really making a scientific judgement.

The best part is that joe is just as absolutely sure that AGW is happening the way he thinks it is, as Stephen Hawking was about the black hole information paradox.

Actually, I'm as certain that global warming is happening as Stephen Hawking is that black holes exist. Full stop.

VM|1.17.08 @ 10:21AM|#

joe - I had figured you had, cuz we're about the same age. thanks Epi.

Last night on WGN radio last night (missed Tuesday with Michael Shermer, dammit):

YOUR INNER FISH

Where and how did humans evolve from water to a land living animal? This is the quintessential question, and Neil Shubin thinks he has the answer.

...

was really cool and some really fun people called in. I fell asleep (sigh) before they started talking about the Yanomamo.

|1.17.08 @ 10:23AM|#

I don't think the AGW religion is a product of climate scientists, but rather the celebrity layman on the street and the gullible public who listens to them.

Now that so many people talk about AGW in moral rather than scientific terms -- a discussion that treats carbon emissions like a sin, and offer carbon offsets as papal indulgences for the rich to remain pious -- the religion mantle settles firmly on the movement.

Start looking at AGW as a scientific problem to solve and not a moral stain to scrub off the human soul and maybe the religion thing won't come up so much. Or be so obvious.

|1.17.08 @ 10:25AM|#

I would bet that AGW is real but will be a very small problem.

BTW Lookup biochar for a potential solution.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 10:27AM|#

Actually, I'm as certain that global warming is happening as Stephen Hawking is that black holes exist. Full stop.

Great! So in other words, you will accept no evidence to the contrary. Good old-time religion.

Chuck|1.17.08 @ 10:32AM|#

A big part of the problem is that we debate "global warming" as if it were one issue. There are really three or four distnct questions that need to be separated out:

1. Is the earth getting warmer?
This is a fairly straightforward question (depending on what time scale you adopt), and nobody seriously disputes that there has been a significant upward trend over the last 50 or so years. HOWEVER...

2. How much of this trend is due to factors we can control?
I am not an expert on the subject, but I have seen claims ranging from zero to around 70%. If there is a consensus on this figure, I have not seen it and would appreciate any pointers.

3. Is this trend a Bad Thing?
This is not a question that science is equipped to answer, although a lot of people would like to believe that it is. Science can provide estimates of how much warming will occur (over a relatively short time frame), but warming will have positive effects in some areas and negative effects in others. Whether the net outcome is positive or negative (and in fact which outcomes actually count as "positive" or "negative") involves questions that science is not set up to answer.

4. What, if anything, can/should be done about this trend?
Science can--maybe--answer the "can" part, but again is not equipped to handle the "should" part.

IMHO, a big problem with the AGW scientific community is that many of them stray way too far into questions 3 and 4, and try to act as if science can provide clear answers to those, when in reality their positions on these questions are based mainly on their own values. If they want to express their opinions as individual members of society, they are of course free to do so, but they do everyone a disservice when they try to use their credentials to make it appear as if being a scientist gives them some special insight into questions involving value judgements.

|1.17.08 @ 10:32AM|#

Biochar is one of the neatest ideas I've seen in a long time.

SugarFree,

I see people on these threads making moralistic statements about the harm done to people by over-regulation and taxation every single day, and linking it to the moral shortcomings of a society that doesn't adequately value blabbitty blabbitty blah blah. And there's nothing wrong with that. If people are being harmed, there is a moral dimenstion to the issue.

Episiarch,

So in other words, you will accept no evidence to the contrary. No, genius, I would be just willing to accept evidence that there is no global warming as Stephen Hawking would accept evidence that there are no black holes. In both cases, we aren't moved, because there isn't any convincing evidence for the "skeptical" side, and a mountain of convincing evidence for the consensus position. Duh. Do you ever even think before you write this crap?

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 10:36AM|#

In both cases, we aren't moved, because there isn't any convincing evidence for the "skeptical" side, and a mountain of convincing evidence for the consensus position.

joe, if you can't even be bothered to examine the skeptic side, you can't be taken seriously. Maybe you should think before writing your crap.

R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 10:37AM|#

If you don't know the difference between how scientists operate and how priests operate, it probably isn't terribly useful to argue science with you.

I'm quite aware of the differences. I just think its amusing that the social practices being put up as support for consensus science also exist to a not insignificant degree in academic theology.

What fraction? And where do you get that from?

See ithaqua's 10:18 post. Personally, I don't put much stock in petitions and consensus science, but the AGW folks are the ones who started this game. If a petition is taken as evidence of a consensus, then a counter-petition should refute claims of a consensus.

R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 10:39AM|#

I don't think the AGW religion is a product of climate scientists, but rather the celebrity layman on the street and the gullible public who listens to them.

I also don't think that climate scientists are immune to being seduced by movement politics that raises the profile of their work and strokes their egos.

|1.17.08 @ 10:40AM|#

"The fact that the anti-global warming industry shills have to get 1000s of scientists to swear it is false speaks, I think, to their insecurity over the issue rather than their confidence."

No it says that we really don't know a lot that is concrete about climate so both sides have to resort to argument by petition. Let them settle it before you come and ask me for the trillion dollars.

R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 10:41AM|#

In 1998, the world experienced a huge El Nino event in which the tropical Pacific Ocean heated up the planet.

Since the 1998 warming spike was caused by an El Nino, doesn't that mean it wasn't caused by CO2?

|1.17.08 @ 10:44AM|#

joe,

I see people on these threads making moralistic statements about the harm done to people by over-regulation and taxation every single day

I agree, but no one around here just banned the lightbulb. That's the difference.

The (non-scienist portion of the) AGW movement thinks that the fairly settled science proving AGW automatically implies the moralistic and, in my opinion, hysterical fixes that they advocate.

It would be useful if we could all move onto the arguing of solutions and not keep lapsing into the "skeptic = denier \ skeptic =\= denier" strange loop.

|1.17.08 @ 10:47AM|#

*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

[Dream Sequence]

General Uproar: "Is not!" Is so! "Is not!" "Is so!" "Notnotnot!" "Izzizzizz!!" "Liar!" "Stoopid!"

Kindly Old Priest: "Heer now, yooze fellers! What's all this distarbince?"

Kid: "That kid over there sez Roger Maris couldn't beat Babe Ruth in a fistfight. Wotta DOPE! Maris'd slaughter that old fat guy!"

Kindly Old Priest: "Ah, fer the luvva Pete! That's the dopiest t'ing oi've heard t'day.
Yooze fellers got no bizniss playin stickball in this semmeterry! Git along wit yiz, ya sacreligious little bastards!
"And anywayze, Koufax could take 'em both, wit' one hand inniz pocket! Keeeroist, Oi need a drink!"

|1.17.08 @ 10:49AM|#

R C Dean,

I also don't think that climate scientists are immune to being seduced by movement politics that raises the profile of their work and strokes their egos.

Of course I agree. Everyone wants a hug from Bono. Don't you?

|1.17.08 @ 10:51AM|#

Episiarch, did you not notice the word "convincing" in my comment?

You're good at not noticing things, aren't you?

Personally, I don't put much stock in petitions and consensus science, but the AGW folks are the ones who started this game.

Bullshit! Against the scientific evidence of global warming, the denialists have been putting forward "Yeah, well, I found a scientists who says..." arguments for years. Pointing out just how lopsided the numbers of climatologists are on either side is a response to that. It has never been the basis of the scientific community's position on the issue; the evidence has been the basis, and the size of the consensus is a consequence of independent scientists overwhelmingly coming to the same conclusion.

Since the 1998 warming spike was caused by an El Nino, doesn't that mean it wasn't caused by CO2?

Since the warming in my car was caused by the greenhouse effect, does that mean it didn't get warmer when I turned on my heater?

|1.17.08 @ 10:53AM|#

I agree, but no one around here just banned the lightbulb. That's the difference.

Yes, SugarFree, that's the difference: people are allowing their political opinions to influence their understanding of the science.

The term is Lysenkonism, and I would hope we were beyond that.

Frankly, allowing your politics to cloud your opinion of the science is an admission that your political philosophy can't come up with an adequate solution.

|1.17.08 @ 10:55AM|#

This paragraph should not have been in italics:

Bullshit! Against the scientific evidence of global warming, the denialists have been putting forward "Yeah, well, I found a scientists who says..." arguments for years. Pointing out just how lopsided the numbers of climatologists are on either side is a response to that. It has never been the basis of the scientific community's position on the issue; the evidence has been the basis, and the size of the consensus is a consequence of independent scientists overwhelmingly coming to the same conclusion.

And, I wanted to post it again.

|1.17.08 @ 10:56AM|#

I mean, if dinosaurs were cold-blooded, Jesus would have gotten a cold bum.

That's funny!

Cosmo Kramer|1.17.08 @ 10:58AM|#

Episiarch, did you not notice the word "convincing" in my comment?

joe, nothing is "convincing" to you, you are a True Believer®. You have faith; Kierkegaard would be proud.

|1.17.08 @ 10:58AM|#

joe,

people are allowing their political opinions to influence their understanding of the science.

A) You didn't read a damn thing I said, did you?

B) That's what we think you guys are doing. Therefore, we are at in impasse.

It is now my duty to remind you of your New Year's Resolution and the reason you made it in the first place.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 10:58AM|#

Whoops, forgot to change my name back.

|1.17.08 @ 11:06AM|#

joe, nothing is "convincing" to you, you are a True Believer®. You have faith; Kierkegaard would be proud.

Of course not. I mean, what other explanation could there possibly be for not finding evidence convincing other than an imperviousness to evidence?

You haven't written anything but personal insults for three consecutive posts, Episiarch.

Strike three, yer out!

|1.17.08 @ 11:10AM|#

You're right, SugarFree, I shouldn't be wasting my time with the equivalent of creationists.

Bye bye.

"From The Global Warming Petition Project:"
You're kidding right? The Oregon Institute of Science and Medecine? Well shit,THAT settles that, now doesn't it?

I mean, you can CLICK to get a form to "sign" the petition, and you have to admit the requirements are PRETTY high: "Signatories to the petition are required to have formal training or
specialized experience in the analysis of information in physical science. This includes many of
those with BS, MS, or PhD degrees in science, engineering, and related disciplines."

Wow, a BS degree! That is a substantial fraction of hte experts, there! Look at the box in which you write your "scientific experience."

C'mon guys, this is taking credulity a bit far, eh? Let's chuck the affirmation of GW by the following:
The 2001 joint statement was signed by the scientific academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Germay, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK. The 2005 statement added Japan, Russia, and the U.S. The 2007 statement added Mexico, and South Africa. Professional societies include American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, American Astronomical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London, Geological Society of America, American Chemical Society, and Engineers Australia.

|1.17.08 @ 11:12AM|#

I mean, you think all those national academies of science and professional scientific organizations, though they come from nations that are have as thorny relations as China, Russia, the US, etc., are all driven by some made delusion of Gaia worship? That's incredible.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 11:16AM|#

Strike three, yer out!

Can't argue with the religious. They believe, damn it!

|1.17.08 @ 11:16AM|#

The 2001 joint statement was signed by the scientific academies of Australia...

Yeah nothing politically motivated in the action of scientific academies. Oh no, nothing at all. If they could point to concrete evidence that was beyond dispute, they wouldn't need to politic scientific academies. They would just show the evidence. Of course they can't because the tempature measurements and the models are all over the place. While there may be a "consensus" among some or even most that man contributes to global warming the extent of that contribution and the actual scope of the problem, which are the meaningful questions, are anything but a consensus. Again, let them get to a point where they are no longer arguing by petition before you ask me for the trillion dollars.

"I can certainly point you to any number of theories which had a lot better consensus than global warming and turned out to be wrong;"

Well, shit, hindsight is of course 20/20. What CURRENTLY supported scientific consensuses, other than GW, do you find false? Let's get you guys who have the amazing amatuer ability to discern which scientific conesnsuses are false and which are true to be on record on a few here!

tsehov|1.17.08 @ 11:18AM|#

I think it would be healthy for both sides to consider what subjective, irrational and ego boosting factors encourage us to take passionate stands on certain issues (such as this) of which we ourselves don't know so much about.

Most ideologies seem to get their fire from the conflict with the opposing ideology, At the root of it seldom is about immediate self-interest, at least not financial. I think it's more about a very irrational and pleasure generating emotion of being in a group and sharing it's aggression and loathing towards another group.

Deep down, don't you just love those Gaia worshiping GW-cult liberals? Those parasites, those Stalinists, those stupid, lazy misled welfare-hippies and those corrupt statists that exploit them and especially YOU... Aren't they the ones that create the contrasting background for your freedom loving, hard-work-loving, broad minded intellectual honesty and morality to shine?

|1.17.08 @ 11:21AM|#

John
Are you drunk, or lazy? The scientific academies don't just issue a sheet of paper with signatures on it. They release reports with copious data, and they actually work to get them public with the arguments and data.

Our national academies: http://www.nationalacademies.org/onpi/collection.html
Here's NOAA's page on it for example:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#INTRO

R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 11:22AM|#

Since the warming in my car was caused by the greenhouse effect, does that mean it didn't get warmer when I turned on my heater?

joe is just not getting it.

The basic problem here is that there have been warming and cooling trends throughout geologic history, without the benefit of man-made CO2. The difficulty that the AGW folks have yet to overcome, in my opinion, is demonstrating that the current warming trend isn't just more of the same.

So, when we hear that the warmest year on record was caused by an El Nino, this strikes me as being a real problem for AGW, because an El Nino is a natural phenomenon. You can't blame AGW for things that have been happening for eons.

joe's response? "It was so AGW, because it got warm!", which misses the point, that mere warming does not prove AGW. Here we have an alternate cause for this particular spike, which to my mind reinforces the fundamental weakness of the AGW hypothesis, and the response is the same old inadequate correlation-without-causation BS.

The 2001 joint statement was signed by . . .

And every one of those joint statements has been criticized and repudiated by qualified and respected members of the field.

Cmon, science isn't settled by statements issued by political bodies. It is settled when hypotheses are confirmed by data, something that has not happened yet for the AGW hypothesis. Indeed, that hypothesis is laboring under mountains of data that refuses to conform to its predictions.

I'm still waiting for an explanation of prior climate trends. We haven't even explained the baseline yet; how can we possibly claim to explain deviations from the baseline?

|1.17.08 @ 11:23AM|#

*yawn*

|1.17.08 @ 11:28AM|#

"And every one of those joint statements has been criticized and repudiated by qualified and respected members of the field.

Cmon, science isn't settled by statements issued by political bodies. It is settled when hypotheses are confirmed by data, something that has not happened yet for the AGW hypothesis. Indeed, that hypothesis is laboring under mountains of data that refuses to conform to its predictions."

RC-where do you think the majority of scientists, as represented by the recognized professional organizations in the relevant fields, are getting these conclusions? Scientists tend to be very careful folks, they don't want to look foolish. You don't think they reference copious amounts of data, highly advanced statistical analyses, hundreds of peer reviewed and replicable studies, to come to this conclusion?

Sure, there are some Phd's with peer reviewed work in the field questioning some of it in various areas. They are by far the minority of the qualified experts. You're not claiming that the vast majority is somehow motivated by foolish sentimental dogmatism and the minority is motivated by large amounts of data and analysis are you? WTF?

|1.17.08 @ 11:31AM|#

"Indeed, that hypothesis is laboring under mountains of data that refuses to conform to its predictions." And somehow the majority of the most qualified scientists across the globe sharing various ideologies are somehow missing what you have discerned!

Again, please let us know what other currently established scientific consensuses are false, wise amateur discerner of truth. If you can wade through the data here and see that most experts are wrong, then please let us know where else you have applied these powers. Let's get you on record now!

Sam Grove|1.17.08 @ 11:37AM|#

Computer Models Fail to Predict Climate

|1.17.08 @ 11:38AM|#

Can't argue with the religious. They believe, damn it!

Yup, hence my bailing on you creationist wanna-be's.

I'll stick with the scientists, thanks.

Sam Grove|1.17.08 @ 11:43AM|#

I am not a degreed scientist and I accept evolution because it is an elegant and non-mystical explanation that fits into my reasonably functional mind.

Creationism requires that I forsake my own rational faculty and place unquestioning faith in someone else's assertion.

On GW: I don't know what's going to happen and I don't think anyone else KNOWS what's gong to happen either.

Very little is proven, aside from the fact of warming, and computer modeling can not possibly account for ALL relevant factors.

|1.17.08 @ 11:46AM|#

Computer modeling can't predict all relevant factors in the creation of the solar system, either.

Anyone want to deny that the sun expelled material during its creations which accumulated into bodies that settled into established orbits?

How about if I tell you that, if the above scenario was true, it would mean we needed to raise the top income tax rate to 40%?

T|1.17.08 @ 11:47AM|#

Scientists tend to be very careful folks, they don't want to look foolish.

I call bullshit. Have you seen how most PhDs dress? They obviously don't care about looking foolish.

|1.17.08 @ 11:48AM|#

There has been a lot of talk lately about why the libertarian movement attracts people who would agree with the Ron Paul newsletters. I submit that the fact that on this thread that the only folks arguing for the scientific consensus on GW, me and joe, both admittedly not libertarians, forces the question: what is it about libertarianism that seems to convince most libertarians that mainstream scientific views, like GW, are very threatening and must be vigorously opposed? Is this healthy for any movement? Are their scientifically "with it" libertarians? If so, why is their voice not heard more? If not, then WTF is wrong with libertarianism?
In theory, as I pointed out above, it should not be difficult to be convinced by the scientific consensus (which, my friends, is BASED on reams of recorded and replicable data processed by sophisticated statistical analyses by a broad range of highly educated and trained experts) on such subjects AND still be a good, principled libertarian. The fact that IN PRACTICE that does not seem to the case should be a very, very scary thing for bright libertarians (I'm thinking fluffy, cesar, neu mejican, and a bunch of others)...

Jackanapestarian|1.17.08 @ 11:48AM|#

Shouldn't somebody be making a shitload of money right now on the certainty of the coming apocalypse? That's usually a pretty good indicator of the validity of an idea, but not always. Depends on when you sell your shares.

|1.17.08 @ 11:49AM|#

Chuck at 10:32 wins the thread, for calmly summarizing the actual current state of what we know and what we need to consider going forward. My one quibble is that on item number 2 you could get a consensus on the proposition "probably above zero."

Notice that Chuck got exactly zero responses. Chuck, try yelling names at somebody or accusing them of holding religious beliefs. You'll get a lot more attention.

|1.17.08 @ 11:50AM|#

Well, joe, then it would be false of course, and our ideology, er, I mean, our higher amatuer discernment of scientific truth, would make it our duty to argue strongly that it is indeed false...
Later gators, gotta eat :)

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 11:53AM|#

Anyone want to deny that the sun expelled material during its creations which accumulated into bodies that settled into established orbits?

Yes. Good thing you're such a reliable source of knowledge and info, joe.

|1.17.08 @ 11:54AM|#

Well, MNG, since neither of us are scientists with a material interest in conforming to the consensus, and since we are, in fact, arguing a minority position, I guess that makes us right.

|1.17.08 @ 11:57AM|#

Episiarch,

Thank you for posting a link which demonstrates that all respected theories about planet formation are based on stars expelling material.

Oopsie, you confused disputes within the field about different models for how this happens with a confusion over whether it happened. Again.

|1.17.08 @ 11:58AM|#

*Ha ha*

Maybe you'd do better on these threads if you didn't make everything so personal.

Russell|1.17.08 @ 12:01PM|#

As this matter was examined 4 months ago on Adamant:

A Brief History Of Global warming bets
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/10/a-brief-history.html

And a clearer picture of the latest revisionist gambit is posted there now :

All Of The Data All Of The Time

http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2008/01/all-of-the-data.html

I'll bet Ron has been reading it too.

But I'm gladI read his latest here , for it enlarges my curiousity as to whence the latest K-Street effort to rewrite climatic history comes --

Have the ususal suspects been betting their advertorial paychecks on folks believing the next one they write?

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 12:07PM|#

Thank you for posting a link which demonstrates that all respected theories about planet formation are based on stars expelling material.

Thank you for proving you don't even read. You're so anxious for a gotcha you jumped the gun. Maybe you should go back and read again. If you can't understand what they are saying about protoplanetary disks, it just further proves the point that you should really keep quiet about science.

|1.17.08 @ 12:11PM|#

Actually, Episiarch's planet-formation gambit demonstrates very well the problem of selective skepticism that characterizes, er, what's the PC term for those people in 2008? "Catastrophic Climate Change Certainty Skeptics?"

Anyhoo, the predominant theory is that our solar system was formed as I described, an idea first put forth in the 1700s. All evidence collected backs this theory up, though it has been modified to include the addition of new material from stray bodies from outside the solar system - bodies that were, themselves, formed from material expelled by other stars.

In some other solar systems, bodies have been found with different features than would be predicted from this model. Perhaps those bodies were formed some other way. Perhaps the process by which the formation of solar systems via solar expulsion operates differently than has been currently understood.

None of this undermines the basic thesis that our solar system was formed by materials being expelled from our sun, though it may demonstrate that our understanding of how that occured needs revision.

And yet, he presents the link as if it were a refutation of my statement the sun expelled material during its creation which accumulated into bodies that settled into established orbits

Why does he do this? Because he so desperately wants me to be wrong, not because there is any scientific reason to believe that my statement was untrue.

R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 12:11PM|#

Chuck at 10:32 wins the thread, for calmly summarizing the actual current state of what we know and what we need to consider going forward.

True dat.

|1.17.08 @ 12:12PM|#

Brian24 - I largely agree with your post. And also with Chuck's post at 10:32.

As far as responses to the nonreponse of this board to Chuck's post - I visit Reason's blog mainly to laugh at the snark and to be entertained. Rarely does any actual enlightenment occur. ;~)

|1.17.08 @ 12:15PM|#

And there we go.

Because the timing of the expulsion - was the Sun in its current condition, or was it more like a disk? - is not completely understood, that means that the sun expelled material during its creations which accumulated into bodies that settled into established orbits is not a true statement.

Got that? Because the theory of how everything in our solar system came to be is being modified, the sun has never expelled any materials which formed bodies and settled into orbits.

Episiarch is just as capable of understanding the flaw in that logic as I am, and yet he won't.

At this point, it's personal, and there's no way he'll walk it back.

|1.17.08 @ 12:16PM|#

...any more than he'll admit that the position he decided upon about global warming is refuted by the evidence.

It's not about the evidence anymore. It's about proving that the bad people were SO not right, when he was wrong.

Paul|1.17.08 @ 12:18PM|#

I thought we were on an accelerating warming path, like the "hockey stick". Did the "hockey stick" get tossed out?

The "hockey stick" is really considered a symbolic piece of scientific "turf" that obscures meaningful debate. It has been debunked, defended, redebunked, defended, and eventually, some have pointed out that while probably debunked, the errors in the data don't change the larger picture of AGW much.

Paul|1.17.08 @ 12:20PM|#

socialist plot to nationalize the means of production, or whatever the liberal conspiracy du jour is

Hasn't that always been the liberal conspiracy? It hasn't changed much in the last 100 years, really.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 12:22PM|#

joe, you are clearly unable to understand either accretion disks or the point of my link. The latter was merely to point out that you smugly made a point about solar expulsion (which is wrong, you can't be this stupid or bad of a reader) which was totally incorrect. I pointed this out, as an example of how you think you know something, yet are completely wrong--yet you are convinced that you are right. So convinced that you used it as an example. This then draws a parallel to your surety in AGW.

Understand now? Read it slowly.

And let's just nip your usual tactic in the bud, which is to get nitpicky about (in this case) solar formation, in an attempt to divert attention from the fact that you made a huge mistake. I now look forward to you ignoring this and beating your misreading of accretion to death.

Guy Montag|1.17.08 @ 12:23PM|#

As I presented to Mr. Bailey at the last Reason council, over cheap cigars ignited with money of course, there should be no fear of sea level rise due to global warming of any cause.

Something that has been left out of these calculations is that the whales will drink all of the extra water.

This, combined with the additional fertility effects of dihydrogen monoxide (not presented to the Council), that will be flooding the seas, there will be an endless supply of renewable, organic, cetacean-based oil to fuel humanity for the next 5 centuries.

toddb|1.17.08 @ 12:24PM|#

Echo about Chuck at 10:32...an attempt at a reasoned, logical argument gets totally ignored by a lot of pots calling kettles black, etc...

|1.17.08 @ 12:24PM|#

you smugly made a point about solar expulsion (which is wrong, you can't be this stupid or bad of a reader) which was totally incorrect

Really?

the sun expelled material during its creation which accumulated into bodies that settled into established orbits

Please, oh superior mind, point out the incorrect part.

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 12:25PM|#

And my prediction is 100% correct.

Paul|1.17.08 @ 12:25PM|#

Personally, I would like to see more investigations (as hard as they may be) about the simultaneous warming occurring on Mars and Earth. If the two can be linked scientifically, I couldn't think of a more... inconvenient truth.

|1.17.08 @ 12:26PM|#

Lemme guess: ok, that's not incorrect, but...

Guy Montag|1.17.08 @ 12:27PM|#

Paul,

I blame the whales for that too.

|1.17.08 @ 12:28PM|#

Here's the entire comment, Episiarch.

joe | January 17, 2008, 11:46am | #

Computer modeling can't predict all relevant factors in the creation of the solar system, either.

Anyone want to deny that the sun expelled material during its creations which accumulated into bodies that settled into established orbits?

How about if I tell you that, if the above scenario was true, it would mean we needed to raise the top income tax rate to 40%?

I eagerly await your beating.

|1.17.08 @ 12:29PM|#

Lemme guess:

Yeah, well, that's just nitpicky. You must be stupid not to know that you're wrong. Why can't you read, joe? Why?

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 12:31PM|#

joe struggles vainly to ignore what I said and do exactly what I predicted. You make this too easy, joe.

|1.17.08 @ 12:33PM|#

Yeah, I didn't think so. Run home to mommy.

I didn't ignore what I said, moron, I dispoved it. You said I was wrong, but so sure I was right that I used something I was wrong about as an example.

Except for that "wrong" part didn't quite work out, did it?

|1.17.08 @ 12:35PM|#

*puff puff puff*

Strugglin'!

*puff puff puff*

Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 12:38PM|#

I didn't ignore what I said, moron, I dispoved it.

No, you ingnored what I said, joe. But keep on throwing "moron" around! It's a sure sign of victory in joetopia, the land where joe pwns everyone and joe understands science.

|1.17.08 @ 12:39PM|#

This could have a been a civil discussion, and was, but for you deciding to make it a treatise on my moral and intellectual failings.

Stop that. It annoys everyone else, and doesn't work out very well for you.

|1.17.08 @ 12:41PM|#

I see we've reached "Yeah, well, I bet you think you pwned me!"

I guess that's that. If it's any consolation, good catch on that "I/you" typo.

|1.17.08 @ 12:51PM|#

There is so much dishonesty going on among AGW supporters. The Hockey Stick was put up as absolute proof time and again by the media. No one in the pro AGW community ever bothered to mention its limitations. Then when it is shown as bunk, the story changes to "the data doesn't change the larger picture of AGW much". Basically, the argument is that the hockey stick didn't really mean that much in the first place and therefore its debunking is also meaningless. Well, that may be true, but why the hell didn't anyone say that in the first place? The answer is that no one said anything because many AGW supporters don't really care if their cause is supported by bogus or misinterpreted data. The same thing happened with the recent correction to the "10 warmest years in the last century" figures. For years supporters threw out the fact that however many of the ten warmest years in the century have happened in the last decade. Then come to find out that wasn't true and that the temperature measurements were off and other years in the 20th Century were warmer. In response to this AGW supporters came out and said that the temperature correction wasn't that significant and it really doesn't matter how many of years of the last decade are among the ten warmest; basically again saying "the data doesn't change the larger picture of AGW much". Of course they never had a problem claiming the data was significant when it supported their position.

Of course most of the lying is done by the media and nitwits like Al Gore. Whether it be the famous picture of polar bears allegedly trapped on the ice flow due to global warming (in reality polar bears can swim for miles and were anything but trapped) or blaming every hurricane on global warming, there is a tremendous amount of lying and exaggeration going on. If the scientists are really that committed to the truth, then they need to come out and stop their supporters from lying and exaggerating. Until they are willing to do that and show that they are actually committed to giving the unbiased truth, I frankly could not care less what the "consensus" is.

Paul|1.17.08 @ 1:02PM|#

MNG:

what is it about libertarianism that seems to convince most libertarians that mainstream scientific views, like GW, are very threatening and must be vigorously opposed?

I'll bite.

A good question, and one with probably too complicated an answer to sum up succinctly, but I'll try.

First off, I bristle at the notion that libertarians dislike "mainstream scientific views". Let's focus on AGW, shall we? Because if we go into a broad range of "mainstream scientific views", I'm sure there's a whole passle of stuff I could come up with that put non-libertarians into the "scientific minority" camp-- especially when it comes to the environment or say, GM foods in general.

So, back to AGW.

I would submit that most libertarians would have never had a major problem with AGW, until it was turned into a major political football by...the usual suspects. The natural reaction to the "remedies" being proposed by the usual suspects were or were seen as a serious aberration of the basic freedoms libertarians hold dear.

Add into the mix the suspiciously non-scientific types who always have a large number of "solutions" to any environmental problem and are ready to instantly pull the trigger labeled "doing something", and the libertarian movement is quickly going to become an attractive place for people who are naturally afraid of government-- let alone one that acts without thinking.

You know, come to think of it, one would wonder why the ACLU's membership rolls sharply increase as soon as the President declares there are terrorists among us and he needs expidited powers so he can "do something" about it. Strangely, it always seems to attract people who don't think terrorism is quite the same problem as the Administration does.

Paul|1.17.08 @ 1:05PM|#

err, "expedited powers"... my bad.

|1.17.08 @ 1:35PM|#

That seems to be a fair comparison, Paul.

When both are true - "X is a problem" and "the usual suspects want to use X for their agenda,"
people opposed to that agenda have a strong interest in denying X.

It's the difference between "We need more troopos in Afghanistan!" Bush critics and "We need our troops out of Afghanistan!" critics.

Gilbert Martin|1.17.08 @ 1:43PM|#

Consenus, blah blah, blah - same old B.S. from the man-made global warming true beleivers.

"Consensus" isn't proof of anything.

Show me a PERFECTLY LINEAR one for one correllation between variations in so-called man-made greenhouse gases and variations in global temperatures that tracks consistently over every single second of the entire timespan of human existence on this earth.

Can't do that, then you haven't proven a damn thing.

Anything on this earth that can't be proven with absolute definitivness is not proven at all.

And there is no such thing as an "expert" on any subject on this earth where the veracity of the claim being made cannot be unambiguously quantified as being 100% accurate by meaurement in the physical world.

Sam Grove|1.17.08 @ 1:56PM|#

If planets were formed from ejected solar material, does that mean there is iron in the sun?.

Obviously, the creation of elements beyond H and He are nicely covered by the nova theory. The question is: did the nova created elements in our system come from our sun? Or were all elements in our system created by the explosion of another sun?

Joe?

Sam Grove|1.17.08 @ 2:11PM|#

I think science has been seriously compromised by the doctrinaire public education system. For some time now public schools have been pervaded with an anti-market/anti-human mindset as well as having an undue focus on 'feelings'. This has had an effect on science discourse. IOW, many climate scientists look at the data with the inherent belief that man is to blame for nearly everything.

|1.17.08 @ 2:18PM|#

Yes, there is iron in the sun.

No, the (vast, vast majority of) material that formed the planets was not ejected by the sun.

joe, are you seriously saying it was? Between argument baiting and argument making, I can't quite tell.

|1.17.08 @ 2:35PM|#

The bet appears to be that by 2014, the climate will be remarkably similar to what we have now -- I mean, three tenths of a degree Centigrade warmer? The median average temperature by year being equal to a recent year? I'd guess that with no human climate influence at all, random fluctuations and the margin of error in the measurements would make this prediction happen maybe 30% of the time.

If you were in a room at 70 degrees F, and you were told that at a random time someone would crank up the heat to about 70.5 degrees, I'll bet no one could tell when the change occurred.

Paul|1.17.08 @ 2:42PM|#

If you were in a room at 70 degrees F, and you were told that at a random time someone would crank up the heat to about 70.5 degrees, I'll bet no one could tell when the change occurred.

Oh, my mother could...fer chrissakes.

|1.17.08 @ 2:48PM|#

I didn't notice much comment on how irrelevant the original Bailey piece is to anything. Nobody doubts that the temperature goes up and down. It's that "A" in AGW, Ron. Did humans cause warming? And if so, can/should we do something about it?

As near as I can tell, the only "evidence" that supports a human cause is the computer modeling. That would be the same computer modeling that predicts upper troposphere seeing a greater effect than surface temps (didn't happen) and that the southern hemisphere would see a greater effect than the northern (didn't happen) and that, in particular, the south pole would be most strongly affected (yeah, it didn't happen).

In 1998, Canada Environment Minister Christine Stewart spilled the beans: "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits."

Guy Montag|1.17.08 @ 2:52PM|#

PiperTom,

And NONE of it takes account of the whales!

|1.17.08 @ 2:53PM|#

I'm starting to seriously wonder if "Gilbert Martin" hasn't been pulling our leg this whole time.

That was just...that was really something, Gil.

Same Grove,

If a star in the same location as our existing sun went nova, scattered material, and some of that material reformed into what became our sun, shile other bits formed into objects in orbit, is that two different stars or one? I think we're into definitions here.

Mike P,

What I'm "seriously saying" is that there was material ejected from the sun that became planets. Whether that is all there was in those planets, and what the %s are, I dunno.

|1.17.08 @ 2:56PM|#

As near as I can tell, the only "evidence" that supports a human cause is the computer modeling.

If you don't include CO2 which is the number 1 suspect in AGW.

As near as I can tell, the only "evidence" that supports a human cause is the computer modeling.

There are also the correlations between the rising temperatures in the 20th century and the rising CO2 levels.

The Foruth IPCC Report does a good job covering what is known, and how we know it.

|1.17.08 @ 3:01PM|#

MikeP -- About 0.14% of the sun's mass is iron, according to this

According to this , regular solar fusion reactions can produce helium, carbon, oxygen, and iron, though stars of the sun's mass stop at the carbon-oxygen stage. Elements heavier than iron can only be produced in a supernova.

So, as I understand the science, virtually all the materials forming earth (and our bodies) are detritus ejected by stars other than our sun, and were not created by our sun or ejected after it formed and the fusion reaction was lit off.

Sorry for ruining a perfectly good argument by dragging in facts.

Guy Montag|1.17.08 @ 3:03PM|#

So, human beings are to blame for the Minnesota Vikings? If it weren't for us filthy humans that area would still be under 1000' of ice and snow?

|1.17.08 @ 3:03PM|#

What I'm "seriously saying" is that there was material ejected from the sun that became planets. Whether that is all there was in those planets, and what the %s are, I dunno.

As a ballpark estimate, I would suggest that the percentage of material in the planets that was ejected by the sun is less than 0.01% -- perhaps many orders of magnitude less -- almost all of it hydrogen from solar wind.

The notion that the sun ejected any of the iron, silicon, or even oxygen that forms, say, the earth is wildly mistaken.

|1.17.08 @ 3:08PM|#

From Wikipedia: "Scientists have been able to reconstruct detailed information about the planet's past. Earth and the other planets in the Solar System formed 4.54 billion years ago[7] out of the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun."

Paul|1.17.08 @ 3:17PM|#

From Wikipedia: "Scientists have been able to reconstruct detailed information about the planet's

I uhh, just made that edit.

|1.17.08 @ 3:38PM|#

de stijl says (2:56) that to the "evidence" that supports a human cause for warming, we must add CO2. And Joe adds, "there are also the correlations between the rising temperatures in the 20th century and the rising CO2 levels."

Correlation is now causality? In that case, which one causes the other?

There is a reasonable mechanism for warming to cause atmospheric CO2. Temperature affects the equilibrium between CO2 in the air and the much larger reserves in the ocean. Basically, warm ocean surface gives off CO2 and cold ocean absrobs CO2.

|1.17.08 @ 3:40PM|#

Sam Grove

I think you have confused "novae" and "supernovae". There is a vast difference between the two in current astrophysical theory.

Novae are thought to be white dwarf stars that accrete mass from a nearby source - generally a nearby giant star. Periodically, the mass accrete on the surface reaches the point of thermonuclear ignition for the accreted hydrogen, which fuses to helium, blowing off much of the accreted mass in a burst with about 10^40 ergs of energy. The white dwarf remains intact and can go nova again. IIRC, there is one star which has reliably gone nova every 20 - 22 years for the last 150 years.

Supernovae break down into at least two broad categories (and a third one is being considered for addition)

Massive star supernovae - very massive stars, which successively burn hydrogen to helium, helium to carbon, carbon to oxygen, etc until the core of the star is almost entirely composed of iron. At this point, the core can no longer produce the energy to overcome the stars own gravity. The core collapses and then rebounds (this mechanism is not fully understood), blowing off most of the star's mass into space, leaving behind either a black hole or a pulsar. (Caveat: Astronomers still have not detected the remanent of SN1987a, which they had expected to by this point.)

Lower mass supernovae - stars which have proceeded through their stellar evolution leave behind a white dwarf star just under 1.4 solar masses. The white dwarf is the remanent core of the original star and is mostly hydrogen and helium. As with a nova, the white dwarf accretes matter from a nearby source. At some point, the white dwarf accretes sufficient mass to trigger a thermonuclear explosion. In this case, however, the surface explosion triggers a chain reaction that ingnites the helium core. The resulting explosion burns the helium very rapidly and completely disrupts the white dwarf star, scattering its matter through space.

Both types produce the heavy elements, including the iron, which disperses into the interstellar medium and is picked up by the nebulae in the galaxy. New stars and solar systems form in the nebulae and incorporate the heavy elements, which is why both the sun and the planets have iron. IOW, the planets got their iron from the left over matter that was not taken up by the sun.

Astrophysicists are now postulating a third basic type of supernova: Binary-pair instability. SN2006gy appears to have been this type. This type of supernova only happens with stars with over 100 solar masses. Essentially, the star's core gets so hot that it produces gamma rays of high enough energy to form electron-positron pairs. The pairs collide, emitting neutrino bursts, which drains the star of the energy needed to support the star's mass against gravity, triggering a collapse and ensuing chain of events like the first type of supernovae described above. rho Cassiopeia is a candidate for this type of supernova.

(Apologies for the long post.)

The notion that the sun ejected any of the iron, silicon, or even oxygen that forms, say, the earth is wildly mistaken.

At the formation of the solar system, according to some theories, matter existed as plasma, which cooled into different.

|1.17.08 @ 3:41PM|#

Evidence that warming causes atmospheric CO2: http://warmoak.com/images/causes2.gif

|1.17.08 @ 3:43PM|#

Correlation is now causality?

It is evidence of causality, but not proof in and of itself.

Particularly when the causality known as the Greenhouse Effect - the trapping of solar energy in heat caused by CO2 (and other gasses) in the atmosphere has been known for over a century.

Come on, you know this. The greenhouse effect is taught in third grade science.

Gilbert Martin|1.17.08 @ 3:51PM|#

"I'm starting to seriously wonder if "Gilbert Martin" hasn't been pulling our leg this whole time"

I don't really care what you wonder, joe.

You aren't an expert on anything.

|1.17.08 @ 3:58PM|#

At the formation of the solar system, according to some theories, matter existed as plasma, which cooled into different.

Got a reference?

Sam Grove|1.17.08 @ 5:12PM|#

Ain't it cool? All I have to do is ask a couple of questions to get others to do all the work for me.

Sam Grove|1.17.08 @ 5:15PM|#

The greenhouse effect is taught in third grade science.

heh

I think science has been seriously compromised by the doctrinaire public education system. For some time now public schools have been pervaded with an anti-market/anti-human mindset as well as having an undue focus on 'feelings'. This has had an effect on science discourse. IOW, many climate scientists look at the data with the inherent belief that man is to blame for nearly everything.

PantsFan|1.17.08 @ 7:01PM|#

What about the correlation between the steady decline of pirates and global warming?

|1.17.08 @ 8:08PM|#

Ron, you are normally very smart and do good science.

But cherry-picking a starting point, as you have done, is a huge huge huge scientific no-no.

I am serious that this is the biggest techinical failure that I have ever seen you make. 1998 was a clear outlier on a very solid trend line. Choosing it as a starting point is pure deception. Why not pick 1997 or 1999? Because the "flatness" disappears.

|1.17.08 @ 9:09PM|#

Chad - I sugguest you reread the article - pay special attention to the second paragraph.

|1.17.08 @ 10:29PM|#

Global warming? Isn't there a threat from ozone holes?

|1.18.08 @ 12:38AM|#

PiperTom wrote:
As near as I can tell, the only "evidence" that supports a human cause is the computer modeling. That would be the same computer modeling that predicts upper troposphere seeing a greater effect than surface temps (didn't happen) and that the southern hemisphere would see a greater effect than the northern (didn't happen) and that, in particular, the south pole would be most strongly affected (yeah, it didn't happen).

I am curious where you got this notion of the predictions?

|1.18.08 @ 1:00AM|#

I mispelled my name grrr....

|1.18.08 @ 4:18AM|#

I have a bet for you:

I bet that anyone who is stupid enough to accept a bet like the one offered -- effectively even money on something with 1/20 shot under the "null hypothesis" will be bankrupt within a year!

C'mon! This is a bad bet whatever your priors about global warming because if there were no trend at all, you would only win 5% of the time (if significance is measured at the 5% level). If you believe there is an actual NEGATIVE trend, then whether this is a good bet would depend on your priors about the strength of the trend and the variability in the data, but this kind of bet looks like a great way to loose a lot of money.

Anyone want to bet me that in a sample of 10 people born in the same year there is a significant correlation (either way, you can choose) between social security number and darness of hair?

|1.18.08 @ 10:36AM|#

Chad: This thread is likely dead, but first, I did not pick the starting point for the "bet," Michaels did. And if you'd read my earlier column on the topic (I can't recapitulate every point in every column), I agree with you that Michaels had given himself a substantial advantage by picking 1998 (the big El Nino year). The point is that even with that advantage, he lost his bet.

As for the trend, please note I included information on the overall trends from 2 satellite records and 2 surface records. For some calculations regarding trends since 2000 take a look (scroll down) at the January 8, 2008 Prometheus Science Policy blog entry entitled "Forecast Verification for Climate Science, Part 3."

TallDave|1.18.08 @ 4:33PM|#

You think those thousands of scientists, scientists now, with Phd's, ten years plus of education and immersed daily in the relevant evidence, numbering thousands and scattered across nations, ethnicities, governments, industries, etc., are all being bamboozled or have fallen into a trance-like thrall of some Gaia worship?

I think they just don't know; i.e., we don't have the data to say for sure what the situation is. Even the IPCC would go only so far as to say it's 90% likely.

Thousands of scientists had a consensus the Universe was Steady State before Hubble's revelation. Were they enthralled? No, they just had insufficient data.

Anyone who says they know for sure about anthropogenic warming either way based on the data available today is wrong.

The problem is that greenhouse gas forcing is just that -- forcing. We're not able to go out and calculate directly that X amount of CO2 will absorb Y amount of sunlight and cause Z amount of heating. All we have is computer models that say "with X amount of CO2, the temperature was Z -- and there were also factors A,B,C,D.." and new problems with those models crop up every month.

Maybe the Earth is warming because of CO2, or maybe it's manmade but a totally different cause. Maybe it's because of solar cycles. Maybe it's something no one has thought of yet.

|1.18.08 @ 5:06PM|#

TallDave wrote:
"The problem is that greenhouse gas forcing is just that -- forcing. We're not able to go out and calculate directly that X amount of CO2 will absorb Y amount of sunlight and cause Z amount of heating. All we have is computer models that say "with X amount of CO2, the temperature was Z -- and there were also factors A,B,C,D.." and new problems with those models crop up every month."

I will turn your attention to a Deltoid article http://tinyurl.com/2urrvu covering jsut how good the models were as of 20 years ago at predicting just that sort of thing. Basically, James Hansen's 'most likely Scenario B' matches pretty gosh darn closely with actual temperature records since.

"Maybe the Earth is warming because of CO2, or maybe it's manmade but a totally different cause. Maybe it's because of solar cycles. Maybe it's something no one has thought of yet."

Other things -may- be responsible for the current warming, but an explanation has yet to be proffered as to how the additional anthropogenic CO2 (a long recognized greenhouse gas) -can't- be adding to the warmth. Any competing hypothesis must include such to be taken seriously. And seriously, luminosity from the sun (and it's Sunspot coreletion), responsible for warming the Earth oceans and thus our climate, has remained flat on an average multidecadal scale for the past 50 or so years. As such is not a good explanation for the warming experienced since the 70's. http://tinyurl.com/2mhgpb

|1.18.08 @ 10:38PM|#

Realclimate has a relevant and interesting article on the trends of the past two decades: http://tinyurl.com/2ycajn

therein is a graph showing the slope of the line for each year in terms of 8-year trend lines. In that context, the last time there was a year where the global temperature trend (averaged over 8 adjacent years) had negative slope was 1992. Shown further below, if this were reduced to 7 year trend-slopes, then 1993 was the last negative slope year. I'd like to see the 50-year slopes for each year, as 5-year trend lines are often shown.

Mark Bahner|1.18.08 @ 11:33PM|#

Hi,

Two of the Long Bets predictions are mine:

Long Bets #180

In Long Bets #180, I predict that Michael Crichton's prediction of 0.81 degrees Celsius warming will be more accurate than the IPCC's projection of 3.06 degrees Celsius warming. (Note: The IPCC doesn't make predictions. That would be too much science and honesty for them. They instead make dishonest and unfalsifiable "projections." The value of 3.06 degrees Celsius is from a Wigley and Raper paper in Science in July 2001.)

The bottom line of that prediction is that I'm predicting that the lower tropospheric temperature rise (as measured by satellites) from 1990 to 2100 will be less than 1.94 degrees Celsius.

That bet is open to any primary or secondary author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report. Or to William Connolley or Gavin Schmidt of the "RealClimate" weblog. (I included those two because they were ragging on Michael Crichton on RealClimate, and I wanted to see if they'd put their money where their mouth's were.) (So far--as expected--they haven't.)

Long Bets #181

In Long Bets #181, I predict that my predictions for methane atmospheric concentrations, CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations, and temperature increases will be more accurate than the IPCC's.

That bet is also open to any primary or secondary authors of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report (or Fourth Assessment Report, for that matter).

So far, no takers on that one, either.

Mark Bahner

P.S. In my Long Bets prediction #181, I predict that lower tropospheric temperature rise from 1990 to 2030 will be 0.36 degrees Celsius, versus the IPCC's projection (via Wigley and Raper) of 0.80 degrees Celsius from 1990 to 2030. Should be interesting.

Mark Bahner|1.18.08 @ 11:46PM|#

You think those thousands of scientists, scientists now, with Phd's, ten years plus of education and immersed daily in the relevant evidence, numbering thousands and scattered across nations, ethnicities, governments, industries, etc., are all being bamboozled or have fallen into a trance-like thrall of some Gaia worship?

No, they're simply dishonest. The IPCC is a fundamentally dishonest organization.

It's fundamentally dishonest for scientists to pass off non-science as science. That's what the IPCC has been doing for almost 2 decades with their "projections." (I guess the IPCC has correctly figured that if the Limits to Growth authors can pull off a scam for 30 years, the IPCC can do the same thing.)

|1.19.08 @ 12:27AM|#

I note that a number of people say things along the lines of "So what degrees do you have?".
Now, I'm just a blue collar boy with a HS education, but I had a mechanical engineer roommate a few years back. Watching him try to put together basic mechanical devices like a garage door opener or a gas grill used to give me HOURS of entertainment.

I listen to what is said, and what is not, and I pay attention.

Now, I've seen a lot of stuff in the news, but I've never yet seen any mention of a cohesive, experimentally verified explanation for how humanity causes global warming.

If I just missed it, could someone please point me to it.

Mark Bahner|1.19.08 @ 12:51AM|#

If a star in the same location as our existing sun went nova, scattered material, and some of that material reformed into what became our sun, while other bits formed into objects in orbit, is that two different stars or one? I think we're into definitions here.

Ummmm...who thinks that a "star in the same location as our sun went nova"?

Not any scientist of whom I'm aware. Here is one scientist explaining how the sun and planets formed. There's no mention of a nova:

How did the sun form?
We believe that the sun formed from a big cloud of gas and dust. The cloud was dark and cold, and its gravity caused it to fall together. The gas that collected at the center got hot from all the other gas falling on it. When nearly all the gas and dust had fallen together, the center became very hot and very dense - our sun. Some of the leftover gas and dust going in orbit around this baby sun became the planets.

Mark Bahner|1.19.08 @ 12:58AM|#

Now, I've seen a lot of stuff in the news, but I've never yet seen any mention of a cohesive, experimentally verified explanation for how humanity causes global warming.

If I just missed it, could someone please point me to it.

Humans have caused the CO2 in the atmosphere to increase from approximately 280 ppm to about 385 ppm. C02 absorbs infrared radiation, causing the earth's atmosphere to heat.

That's the basic science. The key questions are: 1) "How much of the warming that was observed in the 20th century was caused by the increase in CO2, other greenhouse gases, and black carbon?", and even more important, 2) "How much additional warming, if any, can we expect in the next decades to centuries?"

|1.19.08 @ 1:07AM|#

Thanks Mark, do you have a reference I could look at?

Mark Bahner|1.19.08 @ 10:28AM|#

Hi Jon,

A reference for what? The topic is so huge! And there's a second huge problem, which is that (I think) hardly anyone is both informed and dispassionate about global warming.

Here's a website I (partially) put together many years ago (circa 2002), which I've never got around to updating. It covers six questions, and tries to provide 6 answers capable of being read in minutes.

"Mark's Global Warming Webpage"

Several important caveats:

1) I'm an environmental engineer, not a scientist. So the questions of what will happen in the future, and what should we do about it are of most interest to me.

2) Being done in 2002, the website is very dated.

3) One important example of how the website is dated is that it contains several references to discrepancies between surface temperature measurements and satellite measurements in the lower troposphere. Those discrepancies have largely been resolved (mostly, due to recognition of errors, the satellite temperature record has been adjusted upward).

4) Perhaps even more important is that I was clearly wrong about future human emissions of CO2 (at least for the next 2-3 decades). In the near future, emissions from China (and India and the rest of the developing world) are increasing much faster than I thought they would in 2002. (However, the climate's sensitivity to CO2 may be even less than I thought.)

Mark

P.S. I wanted to find a video an infrared light shining through a container containing air with little CO2, then CO2 is added to the container. If you see a video like that, you'll see the infrared light gradually hidden as the CO2 is increased, because the CO2 absorbs the infrared. But I couldn't find a video like that (even though I've seen them in television specials). Such a video is the most graphic demonstration that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.

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