Four degrees of warming 'likely'

[chris_coreline]

this incessent hunger for detail in these debattes, while ostensably honerable in my oppinion is simply rationilising inaction.

If a doctor tells me i have a problem with my hart i dont ask for the raw data including the serial numbers of the ecg machenes used in the diagnosis, i do what he says.

if a plumber tells me i need to replace the boiler i dont conduct a full background check on him and cross refrence his previous customers, i do what he says.

so whats going on here then?

[Lorenzo]

The devil's in the details, so we need to know where all the thermometers are/were located, and how many, and from when until when.

You'd also want to know where all the trees were, as well as their first and last names.

Why? Good science would be concerned about location, numbers, and time. For example, if thermometers readings, taken over the last few decades, have only been taken at the world's major cities, at airports (surrounded by asphalt and concrete) rather than at pristine mountain pass locations, that might present a flaw in the process.

[SteveShaw]

this incessent hunger for detail in these debattes, while ostensably honerable in my oppinion is simply rationilising inaction.

Excellently said. Bullseye. The key word is "ostensibly." I think I might replace "ostensibly honourable" with "disingenuous" or "self-serving."

[SteveShaw]

The devil's in the details, so we need to know where all the thermometers are/were located, and how many, and from when until when.

You can find this information if you really want to. Recording stations with uncertain exposure conditions or supect instruments are excluded, and that covers those whose immediate environments have altered over the years. Data from stations with inconsistent, interrupted or incomplete records is not permitted to bias the overall picture. The vast majority of scientists are not stupid, nor do they have an evangelical message to put across. As Chris said, just keep on asking for the minutiae and we'll all just sit here and do nothing. We'll all hang on to our profligate lifestyles for now, but just remember to not tell the grandchildren.

[Lorenzo]

Recording stations with uncertain exposure conditions or supect instruments are excluded, and that covers those whose immediate environments have altered over the years. Data from stations with inconsistent, interrupted or incomplete records is not permitted to bias the overall picture.

Where are you getting your information? Where can I find the locations and numbers of recording instruments that have been used?

[chas]

Show me data and conclusions that rest on good scientific principle and not political conspiracy, and you will get my attention. Until then, the Global Warming Conspiracy is right up with the Flat Earthers and Fake Moon Landing theorists.

The NAS report is probably the most in-depth objective evaluation of the evidence.

Like you, I am skeptical of, for example, the IPCC, which consists of political appointees who make sure their governments' points of view are well-represented. However, the National Academy of Sciences is an independent entity that serves to evaluate and present subject matter in an objective manner, whether their conclusions support or detract from the government line. You'll find that their conclusions seem similar to those of the IPCC, but are presented in a much less (for want of a better adjective) confident manner. The report above was widely quoted when it came out a few years ago, and I'm sure you can find large chunks of it on the web.

If you want to go right to the horses' mouths, you're gonna have to wade through Science and Nature, where most of the important papers appear. The most important papers usually have short articles on them in the beginning of the journal, where the findings and sometimes the methods are presented in a way that a bright non-specialist can grasp them. These are much better than stuff you'll find in the mass media or even in New Scientist or Popular Science. (If you don't have access to the journals, I'd recommend NS or PS.)

[I.D.10-t]

Answer found.

[SteveShaw]

Why don't we just declare open season on all science and scientists! None of them is to be trusted! They're all liars! They all have sinister agendas!

I repeat. If you want the information, it's all out there. I subscribe to the Royal Meteorological Society house magazine and that's where I get my info mostly. None of it is top secret, I assure you. If you sit at your keyboard pestering people who are telling you what you don't want to hear for "information," it's because you don't really want to see that information. You know that if you really seek it out it will make you too uncomfortable. Instead, you'll pick up on isolated little snippets about the occasional rogue scientist from the gutter press and Fox News. Don't worry - they'll tell you everything you want to hear about why it's OK to turn up your thermostat and keep that huge 4x4 behemoth on the drive. The difference between climate-change deniers and scientists is that one group hears what it wants to hear and the other seeks the truth. We can sit here diligently providing you with the information you don't want 'til we're blue in the face and you still won't believe it. The amateur arm-chair expert sceptics will nit-pick over thermometers while the professionals do the real work. Like I said, it's all out there. Go and have a look if you want, and don't if you don't.

[caedmon]

You are deluding yourself. The evidence that the world has warmed considerably over the last 150 years is incontrovertible, and the link with man-made emissions is so strong that there is hardly a single serious scientist who now denies it. If you don't want to see the evidence you won't look for it, and that appears to be the camp you're in. Doubtless you're sincere in your misguided beliefs, but people like you who actually have influence are going to see us all go to hell in a handcart. It truly is as serious as that. What you need to be doing is to be serious about seeking information and then be serious about taking it on board. Instead, you've latched on to the wrongdoings of a tiny minority of scientists who are charlatans and taken succour from that to reinforce your prejudices. Open your eyes and look for the evidence. It's out there in spades, but you've set your mind against seeing it.

Yes, warming since 1650. It is called a "natural cycle".

That tiny minority of scientists are creating the standard by which governments are basing country-wide policies that affect billions.


I am impressed by the hubris, though. I admire the conviction of your belief.

[caedmon]

The devil's in the details, so we need to know where all the thermometers are/were located, and how many, and from when until when.

You can find this information if you really want to. Recording stations with uncertain exposure conditions or supect instruments are excluded, and that covers those whose immediate environments have altered over the years. Data from stations with inconsistent, interrupted or incomplete records is not permitted to bias the overall picture. The vast majority of scientists are not stupid, nor do they have an evangelical message to put across. As Chris said, just keep on asking for the minutiae and we'll all just sit here and do nothing. We'll all hang on to our profligate lifestyles for now, but just remember to not tell the grandchildren.

And you believe this...how? Because the scientists told you? Scientists, for whom Global Warming is paying their research bills? Scientists willing to manipulate the results to further "prove" their theories?

[caedmon]

Steve, this question is directed specifically at you.

Do you find it disconcerting that respected scientists would lie about the data and results?

[I.D.10-t]

this incessent hunger for detail in these debattes, while ostensably honerable in my oppinion is simply rationilising inaction.

Excellently said. Bullseye. The key word is "ostensibly." I think I might replace "ostensibly honourable" with "disingenuous" or "self-serving."

This annoys me. People should have have learned to reduce, reuse and recycle long before now regardless of the climate. Oil will become prohibitively expensive to pump, we rely on outside countries to supply it. Our infrastructure must change and it should have started 30 years ago. No amount of pumping CO2 into the ocean to turn into limestone will change this. Cap and trade won't change this. Nothing specific to global warming will change this.

The politics have really screwed things up. The "science" is suspect due to many factors and has made what should have been a straightforward study into a train wreck as bad as the Bush administration's EPA studies, and Phillip Morris's tobacco studies. It is no wonder that people fear and loath science. Mention evidence medicine and people protest for their right to have antibiotics for the flu, but politics is now into medicine and the right to ineffectively treat a virus is better than the fear of "rationing" health care.

[SteveShaw]

You are deluding yourself. The evidence that the world has warmed considerably over the last 150 years is incontrovertible, and the link with man-made emissions is so strong that there is hardly a single serious scientist who now denies it. If you don't want to see the evidence you won't look for it, and that appears to be the camp you're in. Doubtless you're sincere in your misguided beliefs, but people like you who actually have influence are going to see us all go to hell in a handcart. It truly is as serious as that. What you need to be doing is to be serious about seeking information and then be serious about taking it on board. Instead, you've latched on to the wrongdoings of a tiny minority of scientists who are charlatans and taken succour from that to reinforce your prejudices. Open your eyes and look for the evidence. It's out there in spades, but you've set your mind against seeing it.

Yes, warming since 1650. It is called a "natural cycle".

That tiny minority of scientists are creating the standard by which governments are basing country-wide policies that affect billions.


I am impressed by the hubris, though. I admire the conviction of your belief.

No, it is not a natural cycle. Again, you have picked up on some snippet you've read somewhere. The warming that has occurred does not fit any part of any natural cycle. Of course, you clearly have information to the contrary, but I won't press you on that. The only significant correlation is with increasing carbon dioxide levels. That doesn't prove cause and effect, of course (please note the scientist coming out there), but the correlation is highly significant and is supported by firm evidence we have about the physical properties of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. You can easily find out about all this if you really want to, but you clearly don't want to. As for my conviction, it's based on no more than the science I know about. It happens to be an area in which I've been interested for over 40 years, and I have looked into it just a little, unlike you, by the sound of it. And please don't confuse hubris with directness, which is what I believe is needed in order to deal with the nonsense peddled by some climate-change deniers.

[SteveShaw]

The devil's in the details, so we need to know where all the thermometers are/were located, and how many, and from when until when.

You can find this information if you really want to. Recording stations with uncertain exposure conditions or supect instruments are excluded, and that covers those whose immediate environments have altered over the years. Data from stations with inconsistent, interrupted or incomplete records is not permitted to bias the overall picture. The vast majority of scientists are not stupid, nor do they have an evangelical message to put across. As Chris said, just keep on asking for the minutiae and we'll all just sit here and do nothing. We'll all hang on to our profligate lifestyles for now, but just remember to not tell the grandchildren.

And you believe this...how? Because the scientists told you? Scientists, for whom Global Warming is paying their research bills? Scientists willing to manipulate the results to further "prove" their theories?

Whatever the independent climate-change scientists receive in funding is, per capita, a pin-prick compared to what the oil companies are paying a minority of "scientists" to deny climate change. Blinkers off, caedmon!

[SteveShaw]

Steve, this question is directed specifically at you.

Do you find it disconcerting that respected scientists would lie about the data and results?

I find it particularly heart-warming to think that well over 99% of scientists working in the field of climate-change are upright, diligent and honest workers who well understand all the limitations of their endeavours. But, as you so clearly mistrust all science and all scientists, I'm sure you'll prove me wrong.