[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

The place you got your graph from SHOULD have sources for everything. If they don't, they may be being dishonest with you. Beyond that, the IPCC should have links to all the papers THEY use. My time is finite, unfortunately, and there's a limit to how much time I'm willing to spend doing research for other people.

Well you could find a graph - there is this thing called Google. BTW the observations fell out of the 95% error bars a few years ago.

Apart from that I agree with you, except about the IPCC as they use "gray literature" too - you know WWF, Greanpeace etc. They are also reviewers too.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Any scientific publication, and really any publication making claims about science, SHOULD have sources. If they don't, they're doing something wrong. You provided the graph, so you should be able to find the source material. Properly sourced research should allow you to trace any given reference back, paper to paper, to the very first discoveries in that field of science.

Agreed.

So, this hockey stick thing from god knows how many years ago that nobody apart from friends of the authors has been able to reproduce. Or indeed the recent "97% consensus" paper which nobody can reproduce because the data is hidden. And of course climate models which nobody can recreate. Did you know that one of the datasets from HADCrut is incapable of being reproduced. Prof Michael Kelly commented in the Oxburgh report following on from Climategate:

(i) I take real exception to having simulation runs described as experiments (without at least the qualification of ‘computer’ experiments). It does a disservice to centuries of real experimentation and allows simulations output to be considered as real data. This last is a very serious matter, as it can lead to the idea that real ‘real data’ might be wrong simply because it disagrees with the models! That is turning centuries of science on its head.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

once again, we are talking about ice volume, not extent or "coverage". A pond with a millimeter of ice on it has the same "coverage" as one with three feet, but nobody sane would think they've got the same amount of ice. Start here: Accelerating uplift in the North Atlantic region as an indicator of ice loss : Abstract : Nature Geoscience

So the land is rising due to less weight on it because of ice loss which is based on GPS data.

Remind me how long has GPS data been available and how long have satelites been over the arctic ?

Since 1979.

Rather sadly some people decided to "raise awareness" of "climate change" by sailing the passage this summer which they expected to be ice free - and they are being rescued (hopefully) because there is lots of ice.

I include this only to note that prior to 1979 the extent and thickness of ice in the arctic was estimated by observations of ships - any ship, noting and recording a report in it's log and/or reporting it in via radio. So those ships on different days and maybe at different times and using different standards all reported ice extent, thickness etc. etc.

And this is compared to a modernised hour by hour satelite and GPS monitored arctic and it is considered the same ?

Pull the other one, it has bells on it.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Yes. Have you? There's a link there, with authors and everything. Are you willing to actually look into it, or are you just here to ask questions to which you've already been given answers?

Yep - they are news stories driven by press releases, most of them (from a random 10 click sample 90%) from universities and scientists - what you think Journalists work for a living ?

As for the hosting site I never read it ever - it's just a list, there are others too.

If you did look you will find that they range from AGW causes A to AGW prevents A, sometimes in the same newspaper at about the same time. With so much science getting UN provided CC funding how could this not be ?

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Sorry, this is stuff I learned when I was a kid, I sort of assumed that it was covered in most people's science education, like the photosynthesis thing. Start here:
NASA's Cosmos

That doesn't answer the queston posed, which is how do you know the heat escaping has decreased ?

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

"A couple" not "two". It was an approximation. The breakdown in correlation began in the 1970's, and it's a correlation between ACTUAL Solar activity and ACTUAL temperature.

Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?

YES, it's skeptical science. Complain about that after you've checked the numbers - the sources are all provided.

You mean this ?



I don't follow the "Its the sun what won it" theory but it is interesting, maybe. Both "divergences" kind of scupper both theories.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Yes, I know what "hide the decline" refers to, and I'm pleasantly surprised to hear you speaking of it in a manner that suggests you know too, although you seem to be missing part of it. It ONLY refers to northern-latitude tree rings. It does not refer to ice core data, coral core data, seafloor data, ecological data, and so on. Tree rings aren't all there is.

There are a number of possible reasons for the tree ring divergence, but prior to that, they, along with the other proxies track very well with the instrumental record, and with archeological record.

Excellent we are on the same page.

Agreed they may have diverged for all sorts of reasons, but they are the majorly dominant record on reconstructions anywhere even in papers where they say they haven't used them.

Do the other proxies still match up - I haven't researched this, it is a question.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

They do do hindcasts. That's how they calibrate their models. That's what the majority of their work is ABOUT. Where are you getting your information?

I posted seperately - there is a difference between models predicting the future and those recreating the past.

The UKMO claims to use the same models it uses for predicting CC as they do for predicting the weather. OK, except they stopped issuing any medium term predictions after the failure of a "barbeque summer" they predicted a few years ago which turned out to be wet and cloudy, and then a "mild winter" where I struggled to find places to put the snow that kept on falling.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

No, I was NOT talking about feedbacks - you asked me to specify the things that we know happen due to warming. Sorry I didn't break down quotes, I guess you got confused. I'm doing it this time. Go back and look. I said the effects of heat are pretty straightforward and you said,

"You will need to be less, er, unspecific here."

That's the context for the comment. NOT. FEEDBACKS.

OK but the models fail because they include those feedbacks. Not including those means the models come closer to reality but not really close. Surely the bottom line is that we (as humans) don't really know what is happening.

That is both reassuring - as we are not DOOMED as predicted - and also scary - a we wouldn't know if we were doomed in the other direction, cold.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Yes dear, it means less water than is usual in a region, which means less water than plants are accustomed to. Again - basic botany.

Oh you old tease you - and to think I had the furry cuffs for that guy in the Infiniti - whatever that is.

But yeah - it doesn't mean "no water" as you said, although it might include that...

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

As I've said before, doubt is included in EVERY PAPER. Try reading them instead of random op-ed pieces by contrarians. You're moving into conspiracy theory territory here.

Citation and context needed. I'm done fishing for now.

Well I don't do conspiracy theories myself although according to SkS's web host I apparently think men didn't go to the moon I don't have a go at other members of EM but Mr (maybe Dr now ?) Cook is a muppet of the first rank and should go back to drawing cartoons.

The press release for the PAGES2K paper (this was discussed tens of pages ago - go fish) there was a scary graph showing temps off to the stars. Neil posted it.

The really scary bit was the 20th century reconstruction - which the Authors stated later that their 20th century reconstruction was "not significant". But it also raises the question as to how valid the previous reconstructed period was.

Joe Romm still posts it even now. Ahh well - I think you should take over from him.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Maybe you can. I'm seeing no indication that you are USING that ability or skill, based on the questions you're asking. Maybe it has to do with the sources you rely on.

What, the papers themselves ?

I'll post on this seperately.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Yes. Quite a few of them. It got boring fast.

Yeah, the Daily Mail can do that to you, all those celebs in bikinis gets wearing after maybe 6 or 8 hours...

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

..."Question everything" is the lazy man's skepticism...

We did the "CAGW is a theory vs Gravity is a fact" dance inside of 20 pages of this thread, so I won't be doing it again whether you like it or not, and I would also refer you to Prof. Michael Kelly's comments I quoted above.

I would actually correct myself and state that "question everything" is a lazy man's way of describing scientific scepticism and consensus and agree you are partly correct in that science should assume what has been said before is fact and continue onwards - and when your extension of the science doesn't work then question your step first and if that stands scrutiny then look at the science you based your theory on. As Karl Popper said :

no amount of experiments could ever prove a scientific theory, but a single experiment could disprove one, all scientific progress should be based on a process of falsification, where experiments are designed with the hope of finding empirical data that the current theory could not account for, indicating its falseness and the requirement for a new theory

I would propose that the world not doing what the models said suggests that the theory has been disproven - we don't know why though - more science please, but hold off on those massive world policies until we work that out.

Seems sensible to me.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

That's what they did, but in most cases, scientists don't have time to track down every little piece of crap website that twists their words, and MOST news-oriented sites get the story wrong. Hence focusing on checking what the authors say, and comparing it to what your favorite news story says.

Taking research that someone else has done, and lying about its contents is NOT science. The process of challenging, debating, and checking research goes on in research journals, where the editor of the publication TELLS the author of a given paper if a rebuttal has been written, and gives them the opportunity to reply.

Popular news sources DO NOT DO THAT as a matter of course. They take a press release and spin it into a story they think will catch people's attention.

I would agree and also add that quite often papers which are expected to have "an impact" end up being "handled" by PR guys and not the scientists themselves. PAGES2K is a classic example - they had what they assumed to be a good result but one graph (based on "not significant" data) was taken by the PR people and spread out first. The result was a lot of FLAK for the authors who are no doubt earnest in their endeavors and which they didn't need.

The scientists are the good guys here, they need support and funding for their next big idea - maybe they will discover the key to what has and is happening, and maybe even discover it is humans or not. They need to be able to do this in a stress free knowledge-led atmosphere where they can challenge ideas and people - me included.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

back atcha.

Maybe. These get very long. Hows about splitting them out next time ? I'm busy tomorrow doing some climate destroying activities like oil drilling and driving my 4x4 everywhere with my red coloured neck.

Or more likely driving Mrs A's Prius to the shops and back, the family clothes Ironing and entertaining friends back from a holiday over a couple of coffees.

Either way maybe I'll read this or maybe not.

My life is so wild it hurts...