The harder the Alarmists try ...

[Sunny and Warm]

Fair enough, but I was just indicating that I know a little about those people and where they are coming from. I don't need you to teach me about them.

Truth be told, I don't agree with them on those issues either.

[LakeEffectKing]

Do you understand what is settled? What part of the question do you think is not settled?

The parts where the Scientific Method hasn't either been employed and/or completed......the direct radiative forcing of CO2 has adequately transversed the Sci. Method....the results of such observed in a super complex system have not....thus not settled.

[WeatherRusty]

Ah, but you see that it is easier to refute someone via ad hominem and lazy insults, than it is to bring up specific statements he has made. What I find funny is that you would think Lindzen's position and title would be something most AGW'ers would salivate over if he were completely in their camp.

Lindzen believes the atmosphere behaves like the iris of an eye, modulating the amount of sunlight reaching the surface. He tries to prove this by proposing that the upper troposphere dries out in response to warming where air is sinking from high altitude thus reducing the amount of high cloudiness and providing negative feedback.

Spencer uses a variant of this argument. Trouble is, they propose no mechanism in support of this claim, only that they find evidence of it occurring in the tropics when looking at the MJO.

[Sunny and Warm]

Lindzen believes the atmosphere behaves like the iris of an eye, modulating the amount of sunlight reaching the surface. He tries to prove this by proposing that the upper troposphere dries out in response to warming where air is sinking from high altitude thus reducing the amount of high cloudiness and providing negative feedback.

Spencer uses a variant of this argument. Trouble is, they propose no mechanism in support of this claim, only that they find evidence of it occurring in the tropics when looking at the MJO.

Maybe we should give them more grant money to prove/disprove their hypothesis? Let the grant money flow to the anti-AGW crowd, and when those ideas are debunked, all that's left standing is AGW.

[WeatherRusty]

The parts where the Scientific Method hasn't either been employed and/or completed......the direct radiative forcing of CO2 has adequately transversed the Sci. Method....the results of such observed in a super complex system have not....thus not settled.

LEK,

I respect you again! Like it or not! The heat of the battle you know.

I think the area of the science which is not settled is found in the value for climate sensitivity.

What is settled is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas which when doubled in atmospheric concentration will produce a forcing (change in TOA radiative balance) of 3.7W/m^2, which equates to 1.2C of black body Planck response. Mankind's activities are raising the level of atmospheric CO2 at a very quick pace and will have no trouble at least bringing about a doubling. Therefor mankind is actively raising the Earth's surface temperature by enhansment of the greenhouse effect. That is what is settled.

How much will it warm is not settled. The best estimate lies between 2C and 4.5C for a doubling of CO2.

[PhillipS]

A failure to criticize actions is tantamount to approving them. Do you approve of Mann trying to block every FOIA request that comes his way? Or East Anglia?? How about Climate gate? Do you approve of emails among that group that suggests that anti-AGW papers be kept out of the peer-reviewed science? You support all that, and still claim that the science is settled? To me, a settled science is confident enough of the underlying theory, facts, and outcomes that it wishes to be tested out in the open.

What a nice morning surprise - another error and untruth filled rant from you, conspicuously lacking any links to supporting evidence. I"ll start at the beginning:

A failure to criticize actions is tantamount to approving them. - Only true in a very limited sense, and only relevant when applied equally. It is silly to claim that not criticizing something is tantamount to approving it. Have you protested in front of the Chinese Embassy? No? So that means you approve of China's human rights record and destruction of Tibetan culture? If each of us when through our days criticizing everything we disagree with there wouldn't be time for anything productive. We all prioritize, and many people feel that it's better to focus on positives and not to waste time criticizing others. Doesn't mean they approve of bad things.

Mann trying to block every FOIA request that comes his way - your statement is simply not true.

The documents related to Mann's research have already been released in compliance with the FOIA requests.

What

Mann is trying to protect is his private email correspondence

. That's a completely different issue.

Or East Anglia?? How about Climate gate? Do you approve of emails among that group that suggests that anti-AGW papers be kept out of the peer-reviewed science? - since these are all related I'll address them together. This whole sham scandal resulted from a number of hacked emails being selectively quoted out of context. Were the papers mentioned actually supressed? No, of course not. Was there language in the emails that the writers would have phrased differently had they known the emails would be published? Of course. But there have been

multiple investigations

and all of them have exonerated the researchers. Get over it.

[A] settled science is confident enough of the underlying theory, facts, and outcomes that it wishes to be tested out in the open - okay, what do you feel is not being tested out in the open? Please give us examples with links to supporting evidence. Who do you think is actually out in the field doing research? It's not Watts or Monckton, that's for sure. Climatologists are testing everytihng they have money to test. If you want more research done then lobby your Congressmen for more research funding.

[Strongbad]

What a nice morning surprise - another error and untruth filled rant from you, conspicuously lacking any links to supporting evidence. I"ll start at the beginning:

To stop you before you continue, I believe much of what he wrote were his opinions. At no point did he state they were concrete facts. Therefore you wasted your time ranting, in response to his supposed "rants".

[LocoAko]

Well said. I agree that we can not flat out say that our activities do not have an impact on the global climate. Dogmatic statements are by nature anti-scientific. But like Richard Lindzen, I believe natural factors are simply too dominant, thereby making overreaching or overreacting to AGW null and void.

Why do you believe this? What evidence do you have?

[Strongbad]

If you have read the work. Why not give us a brief summary of his work?

I only mean what I am about to say to help you. In the future, use a comma to separate your sentence. As for asking me to summarize his body of work, why not make a thread regarding Mr. Lindzen and we can dance around there.

[LocoAko]

See, these sort of statements inserted into an argument only hurts your body of work on here. Stick to the point instead of trying to drag someone into the muck. Second hand smoke and creationism have absolutely, positively nothing to do with this thread or the value of their positions on AGW.

You can't honestly believe what you just typed, can you?

How could someone be trusted when they go against such well documented, mainstream scientific beliefs? One would just about have to outright lie to claim, with a straight face, that cigarette smoke isn't harmful. It undermines their credibility as a scientist who can think objectively.

[Quixotic1]

I prefer the peer-reviewed work done by thousands of scientist as opposed to the little done by Lindzen and Spencer.

You do know that Spencer is a devout "Creation Scientist, Intelligent Design" adherant?

Shocker.

The argument on ID is primarily used as a lever to move the ignorant. The argument on AGW is much more nasty and has infinitely more at stake.

[PhillipS]

I think we are all pretty annoyed with the length of your posts, as well as the font sizes and incessant usage of Bold.

As for my statements regarding the AMO, you really need to explain in detail how I was wrong regarding its affects on global temperatures. Thanks and for future reference, it's always best to keep it simple.

Speaking for myself, I enjoy Friv's posts. I may not always fully agree with him but he has a fresh perspective, he provides links the the research and data which underlie his assertions, and his posts are generally on-topic. I've learned a lot from his posts.

In comparison, you post tired old debunked denialist nonsense, you rarely provide links to supporting evidence, I can't recall the last time you provided a link to peer-reviewed papers that actually support your assertions, logical fallacies are sprinkled heavily throughout your posts, and you love to engage in personal attacks. Honestly, I can't think of a thing I've learned from your posts.

[WeatherRusty]

Maybe we should give them more grant money to prove/disprove their hypothesis? Let the grant money flow to the anti-AGW crowd, and when those ideas are debunked, all that's left standing is AGW.

It shouldn't be pro or anti, it should just be science.

[LakeEffectKing]

It shouldn't be pro or anti, it should just be science.

I agree! We are making progress!!!

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"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" - Phil Jones

[Sunny and Warm]

I agree! We are making progress!!!

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"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" - Phil Jones

... and yet I cannot recall ever seeing one comment from the AGW side condemning such behavior as anti-science.

[PhillipS]

You say stolen while many others say leaked. Nice try.

GISS has a particular habit of cooling records from 100 years ago and warming records in recent times to show a greater warming trend. They do this with reasons that are in conflict with that station's siting, data, or history. I call that tampering. I ONLY use satellite data.

More nonsense, huh? The Norfolk Police and Scotland Yard have looked at the evidence and believe that the emails were hacked, not leaked. So unless you have evidence that Scotland Yard isn't aware of, you are flat wrong.

And your lie about GISS tampering with the temperature record has been debunked multiple times. The two recent skeptical examinations of the temperature record, the BEST project and Anthony Watt's own SurfaceStations project, both confirmed that the GISS trend is accurate and robust. You should be embarrassed to even mention such nonsense.

[skierinvermont]

A failure to criticize actions is tantamount to approving them. Do you approve of Mann trying to block every FOIA request that comes his way? Or East Anglia?? How about Climate gate? Do you approve of emails among that group that suggests that anti-AGW papers be kept out of the peer-reviewed science? You support all that, and still claim that the science is settled? To me, a settled science is confident enough of the underlying theory, facts, and outcomes that it wishes to be tested out in the open.

East Anglia doesn't block the FOIA requests.. they simply cannot respond to them because they don't own any of their data. The FOIA requests need to be directed at the people who actually own the data.

The paper you are referring to that scientists 'plotted' to keep out of the literature is Soon and Baliunas and it is a piece of garbage. It was not properly reviewed and they are right for wanting to keep it out of the literature.

[tacoman25]

Asking what will prove AGW is wrong is like asking what would prove evolution wrong.

Eh, kind of, but then again it's really not that simple. It's not just a matter of the theory being "wrong" or right. Both things have undoubtedly occurred to some extent, but there are a lot of gaps in knowledge about how exactly changes have occurred and how much/how quickly things will change in the future. A lot of current assumptions relating to both theories could be off.

[WeatherRusty]

Eh, kind of, but then again it's really not that simple. It's not just a matter of the theory being "wrong" or right. Both things have undoubtedly occurred to some extent, but there are a lot of gaps in knowledge about how exactly changes have occurred and how much/how quickly things will change in the future. A lot of current assumptions relating to both theories could be off.

What you are in essence saying is that scientific theories leave room for modification, and you are correct. No theory represents the absolute final truth. Theories are a description of reality, or an explanation for observed phenomena and behavior. There is always more to learn so no scientific theory should be considered complete. However, that is not to say that just because a theory lacks completeness it does not largely represent a fundamentally correct, useful explanation for reality.

[skierinvermont]

Eh, kind of, but then again it's really not that simple. It's not just a matter of the theory being "wrong" or right. Both things have undoubtedly occurred to some extent, but there are a lot of gaps in knowledge about how exactly changes have occurred and how much/how quickly things will change in the future. A lot of current assumptions relating to both theories could be off.

Basically what Rusty said.. the theory of evolution isn't 100% complete.. just like we can't exactly pin down climate sensitivity yet. But you would never doubt the core aspects of either theory, which in the case of AGW is the doubling of CO2 causes 1.2C of warming, and that the earth's feedbacks, as the history of the earth shows, are predominantly positive due to water vapor. Unless some absolutely stunning unimaginable new evidence came to light. Like we found out all fossils were really put there by aliens.

[tacoman25]

Spencer has recently had a dubious paper published which has been disavowed by the journal that printed it, leading to the resignation of the editor-in-chief. there's a whole thread on it.

do you support research funds for misleading research?

Another way to look at this though is that Spencer's paper received a lot of scrutinization because it went against the consensus. How many "dubious" or flawed papers sneak through the peer review process but no one notices because they aren't scrutinized so closely? I wouldn't dismiss this possibility.

Also, I'm sure there was external pressure on the journal after they published Spencer's paper which probably contributed to the editor-in-chief's resignation. Not to say that he didn't honestly feel it was a mistake to publish the paper.

[tacoman25]

What you are in essence saying is that scientific theories leave room for modification, and you are correct. No theory represents the absolute final truth. Theories are a description of reality, or an explanation for observed phenomena and behavior. There is always more to learn so no scientific theory should be considered complete. However, that is not to say that just because a theory lacks completeness it does not largely represent a fundamentally correct, useful explanation for reality.

You wouldn't know that from the absolute, black/white statements people make sometimes.

[Sunny and Warm]

Spencer has recently had a dubious paper published which has been disavowed by the journal that printed it, leading to the resignation of the editor-in-chief. there's a whole thread on it.

do you support research funds for misleading research?

Trix, in all honesty, you don't do very well on weather and climate subjects. You should stick to AP.

Spencer's paper, while not perfect, was not as wrong as some believed. The editor resignation was theatrics at best. His sin was to allow the non-believers to get a paper published through peer review. Your lack of knowledge on this matter shows through.

[tacoman25]

it's amazing how much you all will defend bad science as long as it fits your agenda. if Spencer's paper was so strong and correct, why didn't he submit it to one of the top tier journals that dealt directly with the subject matter? I'm guessing you didn't read the thread about it here in CC.

Excuse me? What is "my agenda"? And how am I defending bad science here? Did you even read what I wrote? I never said Spencer's paper was strong and correct (though I agree it was flawed, I don't think that invalidates the entire thing). I did indeed read the thread about it here. My point was that certain aspects of the peer review process were revealed by the publication of his paper: flawed papers can get through, and a paper that gets a lot of press/scrutinization is probably a lot more likely to be disavowed than one that is less controversial.

Ease off on the assumptions, it makes you appear more reasonable - and less wrong.

[Sunny and Warm]

Basically what Rusty said.. the theory of evolution isn't 100% complete.. just like we can't exactly pin down climate sensitivity yet. But you would never doubt the core aspects of either theory, which in the case of AGW is the doubling of CO2 causes 1.2C of warming, and that the earth's feedbacks, as the history of the earth shows, are predominantly positive due to water vapor. Unless some absolutely stunning unimaginable new evidence came to light. Like we found out all fossils were really put there by aliens.

... and yet, Svensmark proposed an unimaginable new hypothesis, and the AGW crowd has treated him like a pariah. Why?? What's wrong with finding the truth?

[skierinvermont]

Also, I'm sure there was external pressure on the journal after they published Spencer's paper which probably contributed to the editor-in-chief's resignation.

If there was external pressure brought to bear (no evidence presented to support this) then it was rightfully so, as the paper was garbage and was not reviewed adequately.

[PhillipS]

Spencer has recently had a dubious paper published which has been disavowed by the journal that printed it, leading to the resignation of the editor-in-chief. there's a whole thread on it.

do you support research funds for misleading research?

The Spencer & Braswell research was funded by taxpayers. The acknowledgement in the paper says:

This research was sponsored by DOE contract DE-SC0005330 and NOAA contract NA09NES4400017.

Given the poor quality of their paper I wonder if we taxpayers are due for a refund?

Sadly, there is no way ahead of time to predict whether research will produce useful results. Like the old sayings "For every nugget you have to sluice a lot of mud" and "For find a Prince you have to kiss a lot of Frogs". Words to live by. The annual Ignoble Prize awards go to research that is definitely on the fringe, but even those researchers didn't start out trying to do lame research. Sometimes it just happens.

The self-correcting nature of science generally means that doing shoddy research makes it harder to get successive funding due to the competition for limited research dollars. We can hope that happens here.

[PhillipS]

... and yet, Svensmark proposed an unimaginable new hypothesis, and the AGW crowd has treated him like a pariah. Why?? What's wrong with finding the truth?

As you've probably heard, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Svensmark didn't provide the evidence and subsequent research refuted his hypothesis pretty soundly. He's not a pariah, he's just wrong.

[skierinvermont]

... and yet, Svensmark proposed an unimaginable new hypothesis, and the AGW crowd has treated him like a pariah. Why?? What's wrong with finding the truth?

For one thing, Svensmark's hypothesis is completely unproven and there is strong evidence contradicting it. Second, even if Svensmark is right (which he's not) and GCRs affect cloud cover and thus temperature, it would do absolutely nothing to change the physics of CO2 which dictate 1.2C/ per doubling or the positive water vapor and albedo feedbacks.

[Strongbad]

Speaking for myself, I enjoy Friv's posts. I may not always fully agree with him but he has a fresh perspective, he provides links the the research and data which underlie his assertions, and his posts are generally on-topic. I've learned a lot from his posts.

In comparison, you post tired old debunked denialist nonsense, you rarely provide links to supporting evidence, I can't recall the last time you provided a link to peer-reviewed papers that actually support your assertions, logical fallacies are sprinkled heavily throughout your posts, and you love to engage in personal attacks. Honestly, I can't think of a thing I've learned from your posts.

It continues to amaze me how great the divide is in our understanding of the world around us. I have a completely different view from you and do not think anything you just wrote is true. But you do, and it is a free country. Cheers!

Still, this won't avoid the perception you have created of being part of an elitist, quasi-religious cult. The public will not respond well to your message and unless you find a better way of coming across to people, nothing you fight for will matter.