126 Comments

1. I think I’m going to come down on Tom’s side after when I’ve thought about it a bit more, but first, a correction to a point Tom makes:

   …the venues where conversation is taking place are shrinking in number while growing in shrillness. In the climate blogosphere, gone are the days when open discussion was widely held and we happily migrated from Bishop Hill to Climate Audit…to Real Climate … cursing or cheering as we went. They’re all dead or dormant…

   BishopHill Unthreaded is alive and kicking, which I only realised recently. Steve at Climate Audit is extremely active on the Russian hacking story, using his rare talents on a subject that requires them, whereas there are thousands of people who can deal with the run of the mill climate scare stories. And there are hundreds of new blogs on the warmist side, many of them (conspiracy alert) well-financed by charitable foundations, the EU etc.

   And if there’s anyone on our side who’s feeling a bit dormant and neglected, we’re always open to considering new contributors.

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2. As a natural pessimist, I’m with Tom. I see little sign of scepticism gaining much ground. Yes there are encouraging signs on the scientific/technical front as evidence accumulates that CO2 is not a major driver, but look at what the politicians are doing (ex USA). When I hear that a significant scientific academy is expressing doubts, then I’ll be convinced that the good guys have a chance.

   Geoff. If you think Bishop Hill Unthreaded is vibrant, try some of its Discussion threads. Unfortunately the Blogs are suffering.

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3. reality will win… and events are more ‘interesting’ than climate change…. too much else going on, for people to worry about climate change… the public are and have always been largely oblivious to blogs, it is only those that have been involved in blogs that notice.. I’ve said to a few sceptics a while back, if all the sceptic blogs went on holiday for a couple of years.. hen who would the alarmists blame/attack? those that have dismissed sceptics, will then find themselves under attack for a sensible question on say energy policy? Brendan O’Neill. Guido_Fawkes, Litlejohn even Prisonplanet guy, Katie Hopkins or even Iain Dale mild sceptical comments will likely have more impact amongst the public than sceptical blogs.

   Too much else is going on, on the political stage, for politicians to care much about climate..

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4. which is not winning… it will just it will fade away…and climate scientists will be right whatever happens… however much I personally like a ‘win’ – here’s looking at you Prof Lewandowsky and John Cook, it is unlikely to happen. And nobody (public) knows who they are anyway. and Michael Mann is still the award winning director of Heat and responsible for Miami Vice.(old joke)

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5. I think a lot of the focus in the climate debates is shifting to the battle between nuclear and renewales. The best place to follow this is on Michael Shellenberger’s Twitter feed. He’a bringing up all kinds of issues, like whether the US is abandoning the nuclear industry to Russia and China, solar waste and lots of criticism of Mark Jacobson’s 100 percent renewable schemes.

   Tweets by ShellenbergerMD

   As far as warming goes, it’s happening, but slower than expected. We’ve had some hurricanes (which happen anyway), but only after a long dearth. It’s become boring. The real interesting topic is renewables. A lot of innumerate politicians and activists are all excited about passing laws to mandate high percentages of them in the energy mix. CS readers should be sure to read WUWT’s satire of Jacobson’s Sientific American proposal to power the whole world with renewables as a Sokal type hoax:

   https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/27/scientific-american-sokalized/

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6. I agree with Tom that the skeptical/lukewarmer side is not winning the war as long as states like CA and NY and other countries enact ever more stringent low carbon energy policy goals. On the other hand I think that the arguments for those energy policy goals are built on sand and when the costs hit home there will be a reckoning for those who have pushed the alarmist agenda of eliminating fossil fuels. In particular, when the costs of energy are undeniably higher due to those policies and folks start asking well how much did those policies actually affect global warming I clutch to the hope that the technologically feasible but only financially possible with unlimited money programs will crash and burn.

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7. This is about the struggle between alarmists and skeptics for the public’s attention regarding climate claims. One side is looking to shore up and extend support for the consensus, and skeptics wanting people to ask questions and investigate rather than going along with the crowd. I agree that all the institutional power is alarmist, and it may be that skeptical hopes ride on public discontent from true believers overplaying their advantages.

   For example, I think the brouhaha over hurricanes actually makes inquiring minds want to know more, The Paris Accord has sprung a leak, and handouts of US$ looking like a pipe dream. Pipeline activists are going on trial in the US claiming necessity as a defense, but now in the context of a skeptical federal administration. Wheels are falling off Germany’s renewables program, and Trump will take no preaching from Merkel about reducing emissions. China is leading the world in a building program to increase coal-fired power plants by 43% globally. According to EIA 2017 was the last year to bend the curve on fossil fuel emissions; Oh wait, it seems the models overheated.

   These are some of the most obvious chickens coming home to roost. At some point the hypocrisy becomes too glaring to ignore. The alarmist juggernaut can turn into a paper tiger like the Soviet Empire if only the public’s goodwill turns sour.

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8. You can’t win against a religion, you can only morph it into mythology.

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9. I’ve always thought that the only way the ‘dangerous global warming’ industry is going to collapse is if we see significant and prolonged global cooling, which not even the data-botherers can disguise. Combined with a growing body of research which suggests natural variability has played a more significant role in observed recent climate trends, the man-made global warming consensus will evaporate rather quickly. It may take a while longer for the Green Blob’s House of Cards to subsequently fold, but it will.
   If the Pause continues, the slow war of attrition will continue. Worse, if global warming takes off again like it did post 1977, then, rightly or wrongly, the warmists will win the day and our fossil-fueled Halcyon days will be numbered, likely to be replaced by a Renewable Clean Green Nightmare that will devour the environment and very likely sound the death knell for Western industrialised nations, heralding a new era of Asian dominance.

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10. in this conflict, skepticism has an advantage. The mitigation agenda has unpleasant consequences that make it unpalatable to many people and governments. In the long course of human history, attempts to modify fundamental human instincts and preferences have always failed. They usually result in hypocritical and delusional thinking and attempts to stifle debate too. Technological advances however can enable issues to be addressed in ways that people find attractive. That’s what will probably happen here too. Improving energy technology will make the issue moot long before the scarcity mitigation agenda can be enacted.

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11. Sadly, reality doesn’t always win.
    Especially when it comes to subjective beliefs.
    Consider the persistant power of religion as a case in point.
    And as so many of us have noted, and as so many climate obsessed have demonstrated so well, the climate issue is very much religious in nature.
    So sadly the only hope of Tom not being correct is based on the thin reed of hope that the climate obsession arc of belief will decline as quickly as it has risen.
    The reality is that nearly every major institution has been infected with climate obsession. And sadly we are rapidly leaving the age of tolerance and open discussion. We are transitioning to an age of legally enforced public beliefs and restrictions on free speech.
    In fact I would suggest that the tossing aside of the underpinnings of past society: rational duscussion, scientific method, tolerance, critical thinking, etc. have created the environment that has permitted the claptrap of climate apocalypse to fester and metasticize.

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12. It’s not cooling yet, in fact the world is continuing to warm quite rapidly according to the latest UAH lower troposphere update. El Nino cannot be blamed for this as it peaked nearly two years ago. Something is keeping the planet on the boil and that something is precipitable water vapour. Positive water vapour feedback is of course a feature of the climate model projections. Rather unusually, considering El Nino peaked in the Pacific two years ago, NOAA is forecasting a possible moderate to strong La Nina for this winter, something which generally only happens directly after an El Nino. If that happens, it will probably cool the planet. So these are weird times and it would take a brave person to predict what the next 5-10 years hold in store for global climate. As I said though, I think only a deep and prolonged cooling will sound the death knell for climate alarmism. Anything short of this will allow them wriggle room.

    

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13. Jaime,
    I wouldcrespectfully point out that none if this weird and that calling the present weather “earth on the boil” is nonsensical. Water vapor is an integral part of earth’s climate/weather system. It is not behaving unnaturally or dangerously.
    The question that seems most relevant us:
    What in the he’ll is going on that enables obsessing about weather and so-called climate change?
    In an important sense climate change is manmade: we have created it in our minds.

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14. Hunter, ‘earth on the boil’ was just a turn of phrase, by which I mean global mean surface temperatures are still high (relative to the 30 year mean) two years after the most recent El Nino and appear not to be showing any imminent sign of cooling off significantly. I didn’t suggest that the system was behaving unnaturally or dangerously, just that things were a bit weird, which I think they are, compared to the last 50 years or so, when you look at all that’s been happening (ENSO, QBO, NAO, jet streams behaving ‘strangely’, rapidly declining solar activity, etc.). It gives the impression that the global climate is in a state of rapid flux from one phase to another. It may not be; this may be just random ‘weather’. Personally, I suspect it is not and that the Pause is drawing to a rapid close, to be replaced either by continued warming or significant cooling.

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15. Jaime,
    I apologize for allowing the autofill on my phone yo garble my points all too often.
    What I am trying to convey is that calling what is occurring “boiling along” is to abuse the language.

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16. Hunter, sorry if you think I’m abusing the English language. That’s not something I’m often accused of, I must admit!

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17. Do you really reject the greenhouse effect, Jaime? You seem to make a good case that climate has changed and is still changing, while strenuously avoiding any mention of what is accepted almost universally, namely that the earth system is accumulating energy. It is an odd thing to behold.

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18. Len,
    Where is this excess energy accumulating?

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19. Len:

    “You seem to make a good case that climate has changed and is still changing, while strenuously avoiding any mention of what is accepted almost universally, namely that the earth system is accumulating energy.”

    Were I to grant you that the above is true, what do you believe can be done about it and why do you believe what you believe?

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20. Len, I understand that it must be odd for you to behold a ‘climate sceptic’ making observations and resisting the attempt to draw premature conclusions from those observations based upon what “is accepted almost universally”. I accept that must be an alien concept.

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21. “any mention of what is accepted almost universally”

    You haven’t a clue, Martinez.

    The list of scientific theories that were “accepted almost universally” and have been entirely superseded or debunked is very long indeed.

    Two of the more recent high profile reversals have been the acceptance of Alfred Weneger’s theories of tectonic plates and continental drift, which were universally ridiculed for over a century and not accepted until well after his death, and theory by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren that gastric ulcers – occasionally leading to cancer – were actually caused by infection by the bacterium helicobacter pylori – as opposed to the prevailing theory that they were caused by stress, excess acid and spicy food – and could be cured by a simple course of antibiotics, which initially caused Marshall and Warren to be heavily vilified by the pharmaceutical and surgical industries that profited by many $billions annually selling myriad remedies and carrying out surgical procedures such as colonic resections, which destroyed a huge source of revenue almost overnight.

    Eventually of course Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were awarded many honours culminating in the Nobel Prize for their success.

    Of course, the classic example of a universally accepted theory being superseded is Newtonian physics, overtaken by relativistic and quantum physics.

    Anyone who displays such evangelical adherence to any hypothesis – which is the true status of anthropogenic global warming, it has not yet acquired the stature necessary to be classed as a theory – is demonstrating a massive lack of understanding of the scientific method and a total lack of knowledge of the history of science.

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22. “any mention of what is accepted almost universally”

    You haven’t a clue, Martinez.

    The list of scientific theories that were “accepted almost universally” and have been entirely superseded or debunked is very long indeed.

    Two of the more recent high profile reversals have been the acceptance of Alfred Weneger’s theories of tectonic plates and continental drift, which were universally ridiculed for over a century and not accepted until well after his death, and theory by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren that gastric ulcers – occasionally leading to cancer – were actually caused by infection by the bacterium helicobacter pylori – as opposed to the prevailing theory that they were caused by stress, excess acid and spicy food – and could be cured by a simple course of antibiotics, which initially caused Marshall and Warren to be heavily vilified by the pharmaceutical and surgical industries that profited by many $billions annually selling myriad remedies and carrying out surgical procedures such as colonic resections, which destroyed a huge source of revenue almost overnight.

    Eventually of course Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were awarded many honours culminating in the Nobel Prize for their success.

    Of course, the classic example of a universally accepted theory being superseded is Newtonian physics, overtaken by relativistic and quantum physics.

    Anyone who displays such evangelical adherence to any hypothesis – which is the true status of anthropogenic global warming, it has not yet acquired the stature necessary to be classed as a theory – is demonstrating a massive lack of understanding of the scientific method and a total lack of knowledge of the history of science.

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23. What Catweazle said.

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24. And some

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25. Who wins?
    Sceptics with little support, Tom?
    Consensuals with papal legitimacy, Ian?
    Agnostics with no idea?
    Only nature knows, but
    like luck she is fickle
    She may not leave with who she came in with.

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26. Winning or losing is the wrong way to look at this in the same way that ‘is AGW real’ is the wrong sort of question. Neither is a binary issue. They’re multiple lines of enquiry and the answers are complex and variable. CO2 will have an effect, we still don’t know how much. We’re all waiting for the data to tell us.

    The scientific element has moved slightly in our direction after decades of only advances for the believers. Despite what warmists claim, between the late eighties and mid noughties, there was almost no opposition to climate hysteria other than natural political inertia. Each claim got more outrageous and implausible. An Inconvenient Truth was the high point of warmist success. The Pause, Climategate and even 10:10 saw the green fuel tanker slow a bit more, although it has taken a long time for it to come to a halt and even now there are people in power refusing to admit that it’s no longer full steam ahead. The biggest ‘worse than we thought’ noises now are from outsiders to the climate community eg Dr Lew.

    Those changes have not been about us winning but them losing. We can’t win. They hold all the aces. The institutions, the luvvies, the media, a lot of business, the disaster porn industry. We’re just a few trouble makers. We don’t even have a common cause, other than make the authorities do a better job. We plant seeds of doubt (we aren’t merchants, our seeds are free). They are slowly taking root but everything is dependent on the climate.

    On the side of what we do or don’t do about CO2, we have more umm fertiliser. Renewables are rubbish. The major driver of government scepticism is the money pit that renewables are turning out to be. CO2 isn’t falling the way they thought it would and it must be apparent we’re still picking the low hanging fruit. The plans to ditch fossil fuel vehicles and heating systems are sufficiently far into the future for current politicians to pretend that they mean it. The time will fly by.

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27. Jaime, you congratulate yourself on not jumping to conclusions but claim that the little wiggle in the UAH curve after el Niño IS due to “precipitable water vapour”. And your other deductions are like finding Dr Black dead in the drawing room with a hole in the head and Colonel Mustard holding a gun and concluding that the doctor was poisoned by Miss Marple.

    As for what the weasel said, that is standard ‘skeptic’ stuff copied from a dozen other dimwits with little idea of what they are saying. Rejecting established and accepted science such as radiative physics in favour of nothing is not equivalent to developing a better theory to enhance Newton or a better explanation for ulcers. It’s just ignorant nihilism, which I’d expect Alan at least to be beyond. But evidently GHE denial is alive and well here.

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28. I’ll add. One of the most sneaky warmist trick is the tipping point trick, where modest CO2 warming triggers faster warming events. There is zero evidence for it, so the chart where they show warming accelerate rather than plateau in the way CO2 science predicts is total tosh. We are at the point where CO2 should be having its greatest effect. Warming now is no predictor of similar scale warming in the future. Since the warming we’ve seen is at the lowest end, the scientists must start to admit that the scary predictions are unlikely.

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29. Len:

    “Rejecting established and accepted science such as radiative physics in favour of nothing is not equivalent to developing a better theory to enhance Newton or a better explanation for ulcers…But evidently GHE denial is alive and well here.”

    And why shouldn’t I deny the assumptions of AGW, given the following “established and accepted science” from those proposing it?

    “In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.”

    http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm

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30. “Only nature knows, but
    like luck she is fickle”

    

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31. Poor Len, the fool thinks if one disagrees with apocalyptic claptrap one is against radiative physics.
    His apocalyptic crap predictions fail because of physics.
    But his religious zeal has him confusing his vision with reality.

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32. RON CLUTZ: (04 Oct 17 at 7:27 pm)

    This is about the struggle between alarmists and skeptics for the public’s attention regarding climate claims. One side is looking to shore up and extend support for the consensus, and skeptics wanting people to ask questions and investigate rather than going along with the crowd….For example, I think the brouhaha over hurricanes actually makes inquiring minds want to know more…

    Good point. A couple of French islands were badly hit by Irma. Climate experts were wheeled on every TV news programme to torture something out of the data about hurricanes getting worse, even if not more frequent, and so on. They were listened to politely, but what people wanted to know was: What is the state going to do about it? No-one dared say: “Put solar panels on the roofs of your wooden shacks and wind turbines to replace the flattened palm trees.”

    Warmists welcome extreme weather events as an occasion to push the case for climate disruption, but when they happen and we see people suffering here and now, the last thing we want to hear is plans to bring temperatures down by the end of the century.

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33. Hunter, there’s been a large increase in GHGs and physics says that should raise temperature and disrupt climate. Jaime sees both effect and blames them on something else. Who’s the fool there?

    Geoff, what you’re seeing with the hurricanes is the expected mix of response to climate change: the rich adapt, the rest suffer. Any minimally informed skeptic will say it’s obvious that we must make everyone rich to solve that problem. But Puerto Rico, whose people are US citizens and which has been controlled by the US Congress since 1950 is still poor, to say nothing of the poverty in the rest of the country. Climate skepticism is an indulgence of the affluent.

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34. Len writes
    “physics says that [a large increase in GHGs]should raise temperature and disrupt climate.
    Say huh?
    Face palm!

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35. You disagree?

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36. Len
    Naturellement. Physics says nothing.

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37. Are you quibbling about the verb ‘say’? You mean in the same way as physics doesn’t *say* that hot and cold bodies radiate at different wavelengths? You can be a twat sometimes.

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38. No Len, even overlooking your odd language usage, physics is neutral. People have to apply physics to real world situations and that’s where we disagree. There’s lots of different physics out there. You choose to emphasize some physics whereas others (with whom I have greater sympathy) emphasize different aspects and so reach different conclusions.
    BTW you’re a twat most of the time.

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39. Len:

    Maybe you missed my question to you above since I neglected to close an HTML tag in the comment. Or perhaps you don’t care to address the question. If the latter just let me know and I’ll refrain from asking you again.

    The scientific consensus of the scientists at the IPCC is that the “long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible” because humans don’t understand the “coupled non-linear chaotic system” that is the earth’s global climate.

    Further, these scientists also concur that the totality of that which is “climate change” is therefore reduced to an analysis of the statistical differences in the probability states of an amalgam of software models. Now, these software models are coded by humans who don’t understand the system they’re trying to model in the first place. That’s probably why the additional consensus exists at the IPCC that a methodology for diagnosing the software models has yet to be invented.

    Moreover, even if we were to overcome the brick walls agreed to by the consensus of scientists at the IPCC above, at the moment they further agree that the hardware required to run the models (that cannot be yet be accurately coded or diagnosed) that could approximate the earth’s global climate (that we don’t understand and therefore, by common sense logic, cannot predict), doesn’t exist.

    So to recap:

    1. We don’t know the system therefore it is impossible to predict it.
    2. Because we can’t predict the system we don’t understand we’re left to trying to deduce something out of a statistical differentiation of the results of software models that can’t predict the system that’s impossible to predict because we don’t understand it.
    3. Even if we could do 1) and 2) we don’t have the hardware to run that model.
    4. Even if we could do 1) and 2) and 3) we don’t have a methodology to diagnose the accuracy of that model.

    Given the above is the scientific consensus of the IPCC regarding AGW, why should I or anyone else believe you?

    “In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.”

    http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm

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40. Alan, is it too much to ask which aspects of physics you (or those with whom you agree more) think override the retention of energy caused by increasing CO2? Jaime doesn’t state any physical reason for believing that temperature will go down or stabilizer. All of the strange climate and rising temperatures is without cause according to her and you.

    Sy, you don’t have to believe me. Go read the IPCC reports that you are so keen on cherry picking and see what they conclude. You seem to believe your favourite titbits, why not the rest?

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41. “Sy, you don’t have to believe me. Go read the IPCC reports that you are so keen on cherry picking and see what they conclude. You seem to believe your favourite titbits, why not the rest?”

    Because if I were to believe the rest you claim exists, then isn’t the best one can conclude in such a case that the consensus of scientists therefore contradict themselves? And if one is able to derive a contradiction in any belief system, doesn’t that therefore nullify the belief system and/or relegate one who would believe it to believing by faith alone?

    If not, why not?

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42. Len, theresphysics andthentheresphysics. ‘Your’ physics is ‘heat trapping GHGs = energy accumulating in the system = global warming = hurricanes and droughts and floods and heatwaves and ice caps and glaciers melting and other really bad stuff happening. But there’s other physics. The physics of water vapour feedback, from whence comes the ‘dangerous’ or ‘catastrophic’ part of AGW. because poor old CO2 and his other GHG pals on their own are not really able to produce the full blown Thermageddon so beloved of climate alarmists. They need strong, positive water vapour feedback – which on current atmospheric trends, looks a bit like May’s ‘strong, stable government’.

    Then there’s the physics of deep convective processes and the physics of cloud radiative feedback, which can be negative and has the potential to be an order of magnitude greater than the radiative forcing due to GHGs, and which is not at all well understood. And then there’s the physics of stratospheric ozone interaction with highly variable EUV solar energy and the physics of top down climate interactions and the physics of condensation nuclei and GCRs and the physics of ocean upwelling and downwelling and long term energy transport and so, so much more – all physics.

    I may be wrong, but I reckon ‘your’ physics, demonstrable in a high school lab but in the atmosphere, not so much, might take a back seat when we know how all that other physics applies to planet Earth’s highly complex and semi-chaotic ocean-atmosphere system.

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43. Sy, a “coupled non-linear chaotic system” indeed. People like you love that one. I suggest you read the latest report instead of someone else’s cherry picks from the 2001 report. Read the discussions in context and then come back and discuss.

    Jaime, yes, lots of physics. Nobody knew it was that complicated! But you’ve analyzed it all and decided the little wiggle in the UAH curve after el Niño is due to “precipitable water vapour”, all the while hedging your bets by suspecting that “the Pause is drawing to a rapid close, to be replaced either by continued warming or significant cooling”. And though you can see warming and weirdness occurring, you bow to the unknown gods of gamma rays and high energy UV and ocean circulation and cloud feedbacks rather than admit that it is more likely to be the very well known radiative effects of an measured and marked increase in an essential and common gas. I’m left aghast at such world class “skepticism”.

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44. “Sy, a “coupled non-linear chaotic system” indeed. People like you love that one.”

    Oh I see…”[p]eople like” I, “love that one” do we? Well aren’t you just honey-pot-butter-bacon-biscuit-gravy special to know all about “[p]eople like” me?

    “I suggest you read the latest report instead of someone else’s cherry picks from the 2001 report. Read the discussions in context and then come back and discuss.”

    Oh dear…have I, that is, “[p]eople like” I, erred?

    Well did you mean like this assessment (bold mine)?

    “In order to obtain climate change projections, the climate models use information described in scenarios of GHG and air pollutant emissions and land use patterns…Key factors driving changes in anthropogenic GHG emissions are economic and population growth, lifestyle and behavioural changes, associated changes in energy use and land use, technology and climate policy, which are fundamentally uncertain.
    {WGI 11.3, 12.4, WGIII 5, 6, 6.1}”

    Click to access SYR_AR5_FINAL_full.pdf

    Or maybe you meant a different one? Maybe you meant this assessment instead (bold mine):

    “In general, there is no direct means of translating quantitative measures of past performance into confident statements about fidelity of future climate projections. However, there is increasing evidence that some aspects of observed variability or trends are well correlated with inter-model differences in model projections for quantities such as Arctic summertime sea ice trends, snow albedo feedback, and the carbon loss from tropical land. These relationships provide a way, in principle, to transform an observable quantity into a constraint on future projections, but the application of such constraints remains an area of emerging research. There has been substantial progress since the AR4 in the methodology to assess the reliability of a multi-model ensemble, and various approaches to improve the precision of multi-model projections are being explored. However, there is still no universal strategy for weighting the projections from different models based on their historical performance. {9.8.3, Figure 9.45]”

    Click to access WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL.pdf

    So it would seem according to the latest assessment no direct means of confidence exists concerning the fidelity of future predictions, except of course for (perhaps anyway) sea ice projections, but then we’re not quite sure about that either since such projections are only “in principle” reliable dependent upon emerging research. While we have supposed “substantial progress” to diagnose model ensembles, that doesn’t do for us because it appears we still have no strategy to diagnose the individual models…

    Odd how one could diagnose the ensembles without first having a diagnostic of the individual but…you know…”[p]eople like” me surely just don’t get it.

    Perhaps you could assist little ‘ole “[p]eople like” me, understand what’s changed as to the state of climate science and GC modeling?

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45. Sy. There are much more knowledgeable people to ask than “our Len”. But I suppose those high priests (and priestesses) have pronounced and don’t wish to debate with the likes of you. But surely we can do better than Len? Any takers? Ken?

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46. Alan:

    No matter. The point’s been made regardless of acknowledgement, deflection, ad hom or charred Men of Straw.

    Len:

    Now, however, I’m forced to apologize to all for bringing my own haughtiness here in the face of the characteristic arrogance of yours.

    Blech, what a bitter pill!

    Nevertheless, I should’ve ignored your ilks typical, arrogant, foolish, snidely, tripe and maintained my maturity.

    There that’s all I’m willing to do.

    :-p

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47. Yeah, people like you, Sy. For all that I disagree with him, someone like Alan would never use such a pretentious quote. You and many others, on the other hand, don’t realize your own flatulence. As for your quotes, what’s with them? Are you really so stupid as to search through a huge body of text looking for words expressing doubt and uncertainty and think that taken out of their original context they give you some killer quote? Or worse, are you just copying someone else’s dull-wittedness?

    For all your quote mining, you have no more explanation for Jaime’s observations and conclusions than she does.

    Alan, you are doubtless more knowledgeable than I, so when you said, “You choose to emphasize some physics whereas others (with whom I have greater sympathy) emphasize different aspects and so reach different conclusions” I imagined you’d be willing to explain. But you still haven’t said what it is you believe in place of the GHE. Is it Jaime’s gamma rays, high energy UV, ocean circulation and cloud feedbacks that you believe override the GHE, or something else?

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48. “Are you really so stupid as to search through a huge body of text looking for words expressing doubt and uncertainty and think that taken out of their original context they give you some killer quote?”

    And there you have it folks. And they call us “deniers”. Bah.

    Burn down that Man of Straw Len…burn him down!

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49. Len’s take on the title of this blog post and his personal approach to fighting GHE denial:

    “Whinging! Not Winning!”

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50. Len. the reason I don’t usually answer questions like yours is that I know I’ll get dragged into a debate in which I will feel uncomfortable. The physics and mathematics I did stopped at Junior school and debating questions like yours will soon get me floundering. You may therefore ask why I am a sceptic. The answer is that I observed inconsistencies in the evidence and argumentation employed by alarmists, an unwillingness of the same alarmists to explain these inconsistencies, all the palaeoclimate nonsense, the very poor behaviour of most alarmists and what I consider rather elegant science done by some sceptics like Roy Spenser and good statistics work by the likes of Paul Homewood.

    My answer to your specific question is that I do not deny that increasing CO2 may well produce a tendency toward increased temperatures but that this tendency is likely to be swamped by negative feedbacks (or weather). I don’t believe in the water positive feedback because it is not observed and extra humidity is rained out well before 100% humidity is reached. The argument that warm air can hold more water (and so can explain more frequent or more intense hurricanes) is counterproductive. If it can hold more water it can more readily retain it.
    The more I have considered the matter, the stronger has my conviction become that the alarmist position is built upon quicksand.
    I will not debate this matter with you. You refuse to tell me your qualifications, and I am tired of this particular issue – I’ve been debating it with climate scientists and students for more than 15 years now and am rather tired of doing so with those who keep aspects of themselves hidden. Frankly Len I’ve debated these issues with better people.

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51. Questions like mine, Alan? You stated a preference for some unspecified physics over the importance of CO2 and the GHE. I just asked you to qualify that opinion. It wasn’t a trick question or an unreasonable question, just an obvious response. If you don’t want to or cant support your opinions, why state them?

    I’m fascinated by your high opinion of Spencer and Homewood. Sourcewatch is informative about Spencer, but I guess you probably dismiss that as you’ve read good science from him. And Homewood? Wow, are you serious? Care to give an example of “elegant” (and valid) climate-related science from Spencer and good climate-related statistics by Homewood?

    As for clouds feedbacks and such, ATTP had an article on that a few days back if you can bring yourself to read it. And to my qualifications, I have physics/chemistry to A-level 35 years back and electronics to degree level. Does that add anything when we are talking climate science? I don’t think so.

    “The argument that warm air can hold more water (and so can explain more frequent or more intense hurricanes) is counterproductive. If it can hold more water it can more readily retain it.”

    Does that run? We get rain when water vapour condenses around a nucleus, forms a droplet and falls from the sky. If there’s more water vapour, doesn’t it follow that this should happen more easily? There’s doubtless more too it than that, but the obvious (perhaps incorrect) conclusion is that there would be more rain. Why do you think that is “counterproductive” (or maybe you meant counter intuitive)?

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52. Len. Don’t treat me as being stupid. Your little innocuous question would lead to another and then another until I find myself immersed into a detailed debate involving physics that I am uncomfortable with. What part of “I will not debate with you…” did you not understand?

    Paul Homewood tests climate claims by looking at real data. For example claims that some thermokarst in Russia are a response to climate change seem not to be supported by temperature trends in the area.
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/siberias-mysterious-crater/
    This sort of relentless challenging of alarmism with hard evidence gets my respect.

    I will need to find the work of Spencer that i admired so much.

    Your background is important. When you make certain claims I now know that I must give them more credence. From recent comments to others you have made it is clear that your knowledge of my background influences how you treat my statements; or is that all pretence?

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53. My two cents, for what it’s worth. What Len is getting at (I think) is that physics is a key aspect of global warming (and, consequently, climate change). It is therefore hard to see how one can assess claims about global warming/climate change if one is unwilling to consider the underlying physics.

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54. Thanks for taking us back round in a big circle Ken. That’s terribly useful. Alan and myself are arguing that there is more physics to the physics of climate change than the simple physics of radiative properties of GHGs. You only need a 1st degree of common sense to appreciate that.

    Len’s argument rests entirely on the premise that ‘simple, well understood, basic physics’ has been applied correctly and knowledgeably to the global coupled ocean-atmosphere system, resulting in the current projections of continued global warming. Sceptics’ argument is that GHG radiative physics may not have been applied correctly or knowledgeably and that ‘other physics’ – perhaps more complex, but probably just as equally well understood in its fundamental aspects – may apply to the coupled ocean atmosphere system, resulting in different conclusions being drawn re. the continued prospect of ‘dangerous’ global warming. Len just doesn’t get that. You of all people should.

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55. Jaime,
    If you’re going to claim that the way in which the physics has been applied is wrong in some fundamental way, then it would nice if you were willing/able to explain (properly) why this is and the consequences of this. There’s nothing wrong with simply being dubious, but it doesn’t really explain why it is that a large number of people, who have extensive relevant expertise, are making some kind of fundamental mistake that is somehow quite easy for blog commenters to spot.

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56. ATTL
    your two cents is worth two cents, the same as everyone else (except that I would bite your coins).
    Physics is indeed the heart of any understanding, but that doesn’t mean that someone like me with an inferior physics/maths background cannot make informed judgements. You listen to sceptics, then see what alarmists reply, and then what the sceptical side responds and on and on. What I and my students commonly found was that alarmists failed to respond or, if they did, they did it with ad hominem attacks or misleading statements. I never needed to preach scepticism, they learned it themselves. All I did in my classes was to give them room to be sceptical.
    There are huge areas of scary climate predictions that haven’t materialized, attributions made of links to climate change that cannot be true (even using physics like surface heat transfer in polar regions caused loss of permafrost that totally ignore heat transmissivity in soil and rocks). I don’t need physics to be sceptical.

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57. To which I am bound to respond:

    1. I didn’t claim that GHG physics HAD been incorrectly applied, only that it may have been.
    2. There is ample evidence in the peer-reviewed literature that 1. is the case.
    3. Where is your damning scientific evidence that simple GHG radiative physics HAS been correctly applied by ‘relevant experts’?

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58. Alan,
    I’m guessing you don’t find this somewhat ironic?

    What I and my students commonly found was that alarmists failed to respond or, if they did, they did it with ad hominem attacks

    Anyway, I’ve given my two cents. Carry on.

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59. Two cents ain’t worth a nickel.

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60. ATTL
    “I’m guessing you don’t find this somewhat ironic?”

    No I don’t. I was writing of my situation when I was teaching more than 7 years ago. I did not know of your esteemed existence then.
    When I very occasionally venture into the fetid swamp of most alarmist blogsites I find little change, same old personal attacks, same old obfuscations. Some sceptical sites (not this one) are, I’m sorry to say, similar on occasion.

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61. “You listen to sceptics, then see what alarmists reply, and then what the sceptical side responds and on and on. What I and my students commonly found was that alarmists failed to respond or, if they did, they did it with ad hominem attacks or misleading statements.”

    A good illustration of Alan’s point is the response to Tony Abbott’s talk. One climate scientist’s response is to say ‘MMMmmmmm…’ and then talk about Dunning-Kruger and popcorn.

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62. I find that if a climate alarmist/scientist pulls the Dunning-Kruger card in conversation with sceptics, there’s a 97% probability that they are an AGW consensus jerk.

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63. Another reason for skepticism of science generally is the growing recognition that much of it is wrong or misleading. This is getting very well documented in Nature and a big article in the Economist a couple of years ago. I personally know that the literature in my field is strongly affected by selection bias. You run the code hundreds of times varying parameters until you get a result you like. Then you publish the result you like, while attributing all those other results to “not running the code right”. Or even worse, you can average 2 wrong results to get a better looking result. Don’t laugh, it is commonplace. Basically, you simply can’t trust much in the literature because the literature is often viewed as a tool for self-promotion rather than a way to argue about science and arrive at a better understanding. Things are improving a little with more code and model comparison workshops, but its very slow progress.

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64. Alan, in my experience people who are relentless commenters on discussion sites, like you, do like to debate their opinions, even when they say they won’t. But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I am puzzled though why you appear to have developed your views of climate science using blogs as a source when you had direct phone/email/face-to-face access to experts in any relevant area of science at UEA other universities and at conferences. Blogs are by their nature often aimed at non-expert audiences, so expecting to get the full story behind any part of science from a blog is unrealistic.

    Please do find that Spencer piece, as long as it is not relating to his preference for intelligent design over evolution, or his suggestion (perhaps apocryphal?) that God wouldn’t allow dangerous climate change. As for Homewood, it will take an article with some statistics in it to convince me that he knows any. But you’ve seen good statistics from him, so where is it?

    “…your knowledge of my background influences how you treat my statements…”

    Yes, your background makes you interesting, as does Geoff’s, for example. I read what you say with interest, unlike many others.

    “ATTL
    your two cents is worth two cents, the same as everyone else…”

    Except that you said you judge people’s comments by what you know of their education, so clearly that is not true.

    Jaime,

    “Len’s argument rests entirely on the premise that ‘simple, well understood, basic physics’ has been applied correctly and knowledgeably … Sceptics’ argument is that GHG radiative physics may not have been applied correctly or knowledgeably and that ‘other physics’ … may apply to the coupled ocean atmosphere system, resulting in different conclusions being drawn … Len just doesn’t get that. “

    Except that “sceptics” don’t have a coherent argument like that. There might be some who do, whoopee if you’re one of them. There’s plenty who just deny the GHE or that there is any warming or a hundred other notions. I’d be surprised if you don’t indulge in your own fair share of adjustment phobia or index denial. I bet you wouldn’t post GISS, preferring UAH, the index with the lowest warming of them all. As for your “other physics”, CERN’s CLOUD has been looking into cosmic rays – did they find something that supports your case? There’s lots of work on clouds. Does any of it support your case? And ocean temperatures are rising just like land temps, so that looks doubtful for your ocean circulations idea (whatever it was). In short, you’ve got no data supporting anything you believe, but you believe it still, just like Alan.

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65. Hey Len, what evidence do you have to support your preferred viewpoint?

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66. Nb, the polar bears are increasing in numbers, ice is growing, hurricanes are not increasing, but on the other hand my gas bill has risen

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67. But if CO2 is rising then surely my heating bill should not rise. Puzzle

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68. But CO2 rising means that some places get cooler and others get hotter, in which case it is a theory that explains nothing. A theory that explains nothing is good enough for most alarmists as they hoover up their grants

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69. Len, why use no or very few words to say nothing much at all when you can use hundreds.

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70. LEN
    “Alan, in my experience people who are relentless commenters on discussion sites, like you, do like to debate their opinions, even when they say they won’t. But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

    A near perfect example of your tendency to distort. I write that I am uncomfortable about getting into debates incorporating maths and physics and you distort that to make it seem that I am falsely stating that I don’t like debating (on any subject).

    “I am puzzled though why you appear to have developed your views of climate science using blogs as a source when you had direct phone/email/face-to-face access to experts in any relevant area of science at UEA other universities and at conferences.”

    A near perfect example of your tendency to imagine stuff. I didn’t get my views on climate science from blogs. I got them from reading, thinking about inconsistencies I discovered and comparing alarmist dogma with my own experiences (like upon non-melting permafrost), doing non-directed research with undergraduates, and yes, “direct face-to-face access to experts in any relevant area of science at UEA” Over the past few years I have repeatedly mentioned those discussions in posts here or over at Bishop Hill (perhaps you didn’t notice). Of course, post Climategate I became persona non grata with the climate specialists (but surprisingly not with the meteorologists or Keith Briffa).

    “Blogs are by their nature often aimed at non-expert audiences, so expecting to get the full story behind any part of science from a blog is unrealistic”.

    A near perfect example of your inability to talk sense. Blogs come in all shades, some, as you say are aimed at non-expert audiences but others are specialist – like ClimateAudit. You also ignore the fact that much of the sceptical view is effectively banned from normal scientific discourse and to find it you have to turn to the blogosphere. So yes, over the years my views have indeed developed from my reading of blogs. I gain knowlege of alarmist tactics and arguments from reading posts from people like yourself. Carry on, you’re doing a good job.

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71. Tom I reread your contribution and was struck by your ending – your hope that things on the ground might change, the sceptical view might prevail and so, as a consequence we might be saved from the insanities of green energy. I’m afraid that I’m even more pessimistic than you. Climategate should have holed the bad ship AGW below the waterline but it survived almost without scath, shiny from dips in cleaning agency reviews. If the climate industry can survive that, I think they will be able to survive almost anything.

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72. Regarding the “insanities of green energy”, I’m a little more optimistic than you Alan.
    Most people are starting to realise now what policy sceptics have known for years.
    See for example this article from Climate Home yesterday,
    Germany to miss climate targets ‘disastrously’: leaked government paper.
    Wow! Amazing! Who could have seen that coming?!

    Also, in the NY Times,
    Germany’s Shift to Green Power Stalls, Despite Huge Investments
    “prices for consumers have doubled since 2000.” “emissions have been stuck at roughly 2009 levels, and rose last year”

    and at Forbes,
    Why Aren’t Renewables Decreasing Germany’s Carbon Emissions?

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73. Paul. My pessimism remains intact. “Saving the planet” trumps petty matters of the economy. Renewable energy and electric cars – they are the future, dude. Get wiv’it!

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74. Jaime, since your position seems to be that temperatures will go, up down or sideways but whatever happens it aint due to increased CO2, you’d be best to just keep quiet.

    Alan, you often write of how what you see as bad behaviour, contradictions etc. on consensus blogs lead you to disbelieve the consensus position (but strangely never that such things on sceptic blogs, which must be so much more common, leads you the other way). So it is not unreasonable to conclude that you get your position from blogs. If that isn’t true, you do a bad job of showing it.

    And as for your disagreement with me suggestion that blogs are aimed at non-expert audiences, that is hard to reconcile with the truth of the most popular blogs – from my blogfeed: Real Climate, ATTP, SKS, James’ Empty Blog, Rabett Run, Stoat, DeSmog, Energy Matters, Science of Doom, Variable Variability, Open Mind, Moyhu, Climate Lab Book, Bad Astronomy, Isaac Held. The last might be aimed more at experts and maybe you have objections to what he writes, but the rest? Which blogs am I missing that you’ve been reading that cater to experts and mislead them, as you seem to think they do? You give CA as an example of catering to specialists, but many of the commenters there don’t appear that way to me (hell, there’s Richard Drake), but how many others are there? WUWT, Bishop Hill, Climate Etc, Paul Homewood – you cannot be serious! Even CA has taken a bizarre twist, with McI pretending to be a information security expert (try listening to the Risky Biz podcast at risky.biz if you are interested in security).

    On electric cars, they are just better unless you actually like the noise and fumes, gears and complexity of a normal car. Not yet cheaper yet, but they will be. What’s not to like?

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75. “Your little innocuous question would lead to another…”

    The classic definition of clown dancing, in other words.

    You can never ever win a debate with a clown dancer, even if it is over something as apparently as incontrovertible as the fact that black is not white.

    Martinez has no interest whatsoever in honest debate, he just laughs at you for a sucker as he ties you in knots with his utterly dishonest Alinskyite debating techniques.

    As far as I’m concerned, life is too short to act as a source of amusement for dishonest little twerps like him, but if you have nothing better to do with your time, that is of course entirely your affair.

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76. Len.
    “So it is not unreasonable to conclude that you get your position from blogs. If that isn’t true…”
    You accusing me of lying Martinez?

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77. ]”Thought for Today.”

    In the end Nay-chur
    will have the last word,
    short-lived humans.*

    The lights will either
    stay on or switch off.

    A serf.

    (* Generations X, Y or Z.)

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78. Len,

    “Jaime, since your position seems to be that temperatures will go, up down or sideways but whatever happens it aint due to increased CO2, you’d be best to just keep quiet.”

    I was intending to not say much until you trolled me with this ridiculous comment. In fact, I’ll stick to not saying much because you’ve been fed enough on this thread.

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79. Beth

    The sun shines,
    The wind blows,
    Waves pound and
    The burn flows.

    Switches will still work and
    Lights shine
    My ephemeral humans.
    Though prefer you now my
    Ephemeral hydrocarbons.

    Singer beneath bridges

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80. Ephemeral hydrocarbons, ) … and the yonge sonne
    hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,

    h/t Geoffrey C.

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81. If Greens have their way,
    In the old UK
    Nobody shall say:
    ‘Turn the lights off before you leave’
    Because they’ll have gone off beforehand
    And we’ll be left to grieve,
    In the dark,
    Bereft of snark, even,
    We, the Denier heathen.
    The fossil fooled masses,
    The once energy rich proles,
    scratching around like moles,
    Beneath the swishing bright blades of
    The Filthy Clean Green Revolution.
    The Final Solution.

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82. Wye speekerh o’Caunterbury yonge Beth?

    “So priketh hem Nature in hir corages”

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83. Hit a nerve did I, Alan? I accuse you of nothing, but ever since I’ve seen you commenting, you’ve emphasized how the behaviour of the ‘alarmist’ side was important a factor in the development of your ‘skepticism’. I’m guessing that it was not bad behaviour in published papers or in face-to-face, email or phone conversations with physicists or other academics but in the public sphere. Correct me if I’m wrong. You even give an example of it in your reference to Homewood and Siberian holes. So the evidence I have is that it is blogs that guide you. You say that is not true. So where did your notion that “other physics” overrides the GHE come from if not from Jaime, CA, Paul Homewood, Climate Etc., Bishop Hill or WUWT?

    And what’s wrong with electric cars?

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84. Len:

    “I’m guessing that it was not bad behaviour in published papers or in face-to-face, email or phone conversations with physicists or other academics but in the public sphere.”

    Even if such is the case, what’s wrong with that?

    If we go to the source, i.e., the IPCC, none of those academics with whom you’re guessing Alan hasn’t spoken can offer anything beyond, “We don’t really know how the climate works at present, therefore we can’t really predict anything truly worthy of your time”. But yet the best you can offer to the consensus opinion of the IPCC is they don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t you contradict yourself? If not, why not?

    And if the above weren’t enough, well you’re here. You appear to be quite sure skeptics have lost their way. Hence, surely you’ve read the “published papers” and had the “face-to-face” interactions. Surely you’ve had the “email or phone conversations with physicists or other academics”, etc. Shouldn’t we therefore already have an informed look at the other side of the debate from the best of the best with your presence here? If not, why not?

    But you don’t seem to offer much in the way of convincing evidence of your position other than contradiction, fiery men of straw and ad hominem?

    What’s wrong with electric cars??

    Oh good grief, why would I give up my big, bold, black and boisterously-beautiful, Ford F-350 Super Duty Diesel, (modified to rid itself of all the silly emissions nonsense with which one can lawfully dispense) for a putridly-pathetic, preposterously-puny, pitifully-pitiable…electric…car? Why? For what’s at best circular reasoning and at worst, a hoax?

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85. Len Martinez: ‘And what’s wrong with electric cars?’

    They are status symbols. They’re the posh person’s bull terrier – shit as cars/pets but they let your neighbours know what sort of person you are.

    Will they ever move beyond being status symbols? Perhaps. Perhaps not:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/08/electric-cars-wont-get-us-very-far-because-they-cant/

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86. The ephemeral theme, Alan, and the passing seasons,
    yonge sonne, drought of March is ended, and then
    there’s the optimism of renewal. Greenies might read
    it and maybe observe Nay-chur…
    ‘and the yonge sonne
    Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
    And smale fowles maken melodye,
    That slepen al the night with open ye,
    (So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
    Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, ‘

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87. Why does it matter, Sy? Well, Alan thinks his scepticism did not arise from reading blogs and the like that are aimed at non-expert audiences. For that to be so, his idea that “other physics” trump’s the GHE came from academic sources: papers, conferences, personal conversation with experts. Yet he is not competent to debate physics or to form his own view of physics, by his own admission. From this I have to believe that the preponderance of *expert* opinion offered to him supported other physics overriding the GHE. That’s not the IPCC position and it seems an unlikely result.

    As for your F350, it would be an embarrassment in most of Europe.

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88. Such curdled chains of pseudo-logic doth Len maketh his cloth, be-dangled with insults and accusations and tied with the charm of an adder. I’ll no be discussing matters of climatry with the couthless fellow.

    Sy I once drove a Celica (with a “tea-tray”). It ate Texas highways, seeming almost to break the sound barrier and kept one Texas stripper-well in continued employment. Comparing it with an electric car is like comparing a Pacific class steam locomotive with a London Underground train.

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89. “As for your F350, it would be an embarrassment in most of Europe.”

    Oh dear well throttle me recalcitrant that I should discountenance the ilks of thee! For your sake, when I come visit I’ll be sure to place a warning placard admonishing people like you to promptly look away lest thy stones return expeditiously from whence they came.

    As for you, what?! Down to restating original propositions? We’ve already dealt with your prevaricating pontifications regarding the *experts* and the blogosphere and you’ve been shown lacking in an argument of any consequence.

    Now gird up thy loins and answer the queries I gave you to answer or put your hand over your mouth and try not to get in the way when next I drive by. It’s a bit difficult to see small people like you from this driver’s seat.

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90. “As for your F350, it would be an embarrassment in most of Europe.”

    Wrong as usual.

    The roads of Europe are crammed with large 4×4 crew-cab pickup-type vehicles from Mitsubishi, Nissan etc. An F350 would not stand out at all, there are plenty for sale second hand also, as a quick inspection of the Internet will reveal.

    All Europeans aren’t sociology lecturers and their wives and don’t all drive round in a pauper’s box on a rollerskate, no matter what your sources in the Guardian and similar “Liberal” trash papers would have you believe.

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91. An electric car would be an embarrassment anywhere – ethically, technologically, environmentally, socially. It says: “I’m a virtue-signaling twat with more money than sense who only pretends to care for the environment and/or doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to fully appreciate the very large environmental impact of my shiny ‘green’ virtue-signaling machine”

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92. “Sy I once drove a Celica (with a “tea-tray”). It ate Texas highways, seeming almost to break the sound barrier and kept one Texas stripper-well in continued employment.”

    Why Alan, are you saying you’ve earned your way in the Great States as an ecdysiast?!?

    🙂

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93. Sy
    Tea-tray = spoiler
    Ecdysis – well the top could be shed.

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94. It’s okay Alan, everyone knows your ‘scepticism’ come from blogs. It’s public knowledge that you ripped off CA posts for your lectures. But you’re in good/bad company, as all authors and probably most if not all commenters here got their scepticism from blogs too. There’s no original thinkers here.

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95. To put the record straight
    1) I got many of my illustrations (not my ideas) for my climate lectures from blogs – but Len can’t even get this right. Phil Jones accused me of getting them from CA but in actual fact none came from that source and the largest number came from JoNova’s excellent little handbook. (All documented in BH).
    2) I have told how I became a sceptic several times, but for Len whose investigative skills seem somewhat wanting (or is it his team of feeders?), I became sceptical after reading “A state of fear” by Michael Crichton and followed this up by investigating material in his accompanying appendix. From there I began reading as much sceptic literature as I could. “The Satanic Gases” by Michaels and Balling was an early and useful reference, leading down many new avenues. Discussions with climaty colleagues proved not very helpful. Most would bluster, call the person I was quoting a charlatan or recommend I frequent a consensus-friendly blogsite or read their latest paper. Which I did, but usually it was not of much help.

    ROLL UP, ROLL UP, BIG PRIZE FOR DISCOVERY OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT FROM LEN MARTINEZ
    Rubbish piles being turned over in what experts say is a futile search.

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96. Alan:

    ec·dys·i·ast
    ekˈdēzēəst/
    noun humorous
    noun: ecdysiast; plural noun: ecdysiasts

    a striptease performer.

    Len:

    “It’s okay Alan, everyone knows your ‘scepticism’ come from blogs.”

    Perfunctory pity from a boorish purveyor of provocateurish, propositional poppycock? Perhaps you could be a good fellow and spare us any more of your tripe?

    “There’s no original thinkers here.”

    Don’t you (yet again) contradict yourself Len? How original is it for you to believe what you believe by faith alone? Hasn’t humanity been doing so religiously (pun intended) since the beginning? My goodness how *do* you deal with the contradictory mess that is your belief system?

    You really have become boring.

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97. Sy
    Repartee should have gone. Stripper-well -> ecdysiast (BTW made me smile) -> “well the top (of my car) could be shed.

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98. Alan:

    Gotcha. That went straight over my head.

    Who says you’re not an original thinker?

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99. Oh crikey, that’s even worse, Alan. Your skepticism comes from a fantasist and blogs. And at least CA might have got something right, but Nova? The handbook is so dumb, I find it hard to believe you were taken in by it, even if you are a physics dolt, given that you had access to experts. I mean it even had a temperature graph starting at the peak of the 1998 el Niño to claim no warming, gets the idea of a hot spot wrong and misunderstands how the GHE works. Only the 800-year lag is not such a clear shot in the foot. And you *still* think it was/is “excellent little handbook”!

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100. If JoNova’s handbook were complete and utter rubbish I would have no regrets about having used it within my first-year lectures at UEA. The reason is simple. My task was not to proselytize for climate scepticism, it was to redress the overwhelming bias toward “consensual” climate science. Without my small contribution, our students would never be aware that other voices existed. I never pushed the sceptical position on climate change upon anybody in my UEA lectures. Those were always preceded by a “health warning”, by a statement that I wasn’t a climate scientist, and by another that the lecture would include information and data that they otherwise might not see. I put a tiny bit of scepticism into students’ minds but I was always very very careful not to push it. I strongly believe a university education should force students to debate, to experience contrary interpretations , rather than to simply absorb what science currently accepts.
     I believe that, with my departure, the sceptic argument at UEA has died and students are turned out as proper little climate sausages that have been through the climate mincer and pumped up with CO2.

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101. Austrian Green party:
     2013 election: 12%
     2017 election: 3%
     Apparently this means they will drop from 24 seats to zero.
     Winning?
     (Their President is still a green though!)

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102. *If* it were rubbish, Alan? You still don’t know, do you? It’s like teaching homeopathy to med students to address the overwhelming bias of teaching of traditional medicine.

     Even 10 (hell, 50) years ago it was known how the GHE works, except by idiots like Nova. Your exercise might have been worthwhile if you had asked students to explain the errors in the booklet, but I’m guessing that you weren’t and still aren’t aware of them yourself. More useful would have been to discuss areas where there really was still uncertainty, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell those from Nova’s ignorant “skepticism”.

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103. So Len exactly how do GHGs work in our atmosphere? From my limited knowledge I believe there are multiple explanations and major disputes between different advocates. There has been a discussion thread on the topic running since July over at Bishop Hill and moderated by Schrodinger’s Cat. That might temper your bluster and give you some idea of the complexity of the topic.

     I notice that you are up to your usual tricks of ignoring your opponent’s arguments in favour of turning the discussion down a side alley of your choosing.
     [ Yes I know devilish Catweazle, a definite sign of some whatsit dancing]

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104. A discussion on BH, eh? That’s bound to get to the bottom of it.

     As for there being many explanations, ATTP would be the person to ask. But the earth cools by radiation of IR to space. Adding CO2 raises the height at which most IR escapes and higher means cooler. Cooler in turn means less energy escaping, which means the surface and the atmosphere warm until the original balance is regained.

     I’m not deflecting discussion. As I said, it would have been worth discussing areas that really were unknown and possibly important, but not presenting ignorance as worthy of debate.

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105. Alan,

     From my limited knowledge I believe there are multiple explanations and major disputes between different advocates.

     No, I don’t think that there is. There are various different ways to explain it, all of which involve some kind of simplification. This doesn’t, however, mean that there is a major disagreement about how it actually works. If you really are interested, then I’d be happy to highlight some examples of explanations, but I’m in a bit of a rush at the moment (Realclimate is a good place to start, though).

     There has been a discussion thread on the topic running since July over at Bishop Hill and moderated by Schrodinger’s Cat. That might temper your bluster and give you some idea of the complexity of the topic.

     I had a look at the discussion thread and all that it really shows is that a number of the commenters on Bishop Hill are rather confused about the topic.

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106. Actually, the Tyndall Lecture by Ray Pierrehumbert if pretty good.

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107. “I’m not deflecting discussion. As I said, it would have been worth discussing areas that really were unknown and possibly important, but not presenting ignorance as worthy of debate.”

     How many times can a single individual contradict themselves, Len? Is it not your purpose here to school the benighted? Otherwise, why are you here waxing eloquent? Should you not, given your priggishness, share all of your intellectual wealth with we who are the unfortunate paupers of the world? Why is it that Alan alone should be the benefactor of your wisdom? I’m certain your belief system must contain some sort of “from each according to his ability…”, etc., premise?

     But alas, it isn’t that you don’t wish to share is it? Rather, it’s that you gave it your best shot but then Red Herrings, Ad Hominem and bearing false witness of “cherry picking” don’t particularly convince the rational individual of anything:

     “Go read the IPCC reports that you are so keen on cherry picking and see what they conclude.”

     “Sy, a “coupled non-linear chaotic system” indeed. People like you love that one. I suggest you read the latest report instead of someone else’s cherry picks from the 2001 report.”

     “Are you really so stupid as to search through a huge body of text looking for words expressing doubt and uncertainty and think that taken out of their original context they give you some killer quote? Or worse, are you just copying someone else’s dull-wittedness?”

     “For all your quote mining…”

     I’m sure you’ve read the reports yourself. All you have to do is point out to the world how I’ve taken anything out of context and you’ll have dispatched this “ignorant” Texan and his F-350.

     Certainly, Len, people like you are able to do that…aren’t you?

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108. Sy
     “Why is it that Alan alone should be the benefactor of your wisdom?”

     I’m willing to share, honest!

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109. Alan:

     Wonderful!

     It would appear then the only question before the house remains to be, “Is Len able?”

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110. “Why is it that Alan alone should be the benefactor of your wisdom?”

     Not just Alan, he just happens to be around now. And he is interesting in as much as he has been in a position to find out easily, for example, that Nova’s booklet is nonsense yet seems not to have taken the opportunity. I find Geoff interesting too, as a lefty who one might think would find having common cause with the odious right to be distasteful. Tom, ditto. Paul Matthews is also interesting to me because of his academic position and math background both of which I’d expect to give him access to scientists who he wouldn’t treat with contempt – there must be some. And Jaime is also often worth the effort of formulating a chat (and that I’m always struck with the mental image of the mayor of Guayaquil, who is on TV frequently here, when I see the name). Most others don’t interest me much. You, Sy, are just a flat-pack “skeptic” with your quote mining and your “coupled non-linear chaotic system” pretensions to wisdom. I can do without that.

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111. As usual Len is completely wrong about how medicine should be taught. Science is not a stable dogmatic system, but a constantly evolving series of arguments. Particularly in medicine, skepticism is strongly justified. The literature is full of wrong papers that are never corrected or withdrawn. A few examples:

     1. If you are old enough, you will remember the crusade against fat and after 50 years the emerging evidence that the crusade was based on flawed science and probably did more harm than good.
     2. Likewise for statin drugs. My brother keeps pointing out to me that statins have nontrivial side effects and the number needed to treat is high to prevent one cardiac event.

     I could go on in this vein but you get the point. A strong dose of skepticism would dramatically improve medical care and save huge numbers of questionable interventions.

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112. Well now Len truth be known my pack has become quite rounded as I’ve aged and furthermore I’ve been most thoroughly amused rolling it “American gun-totin’ Texas style” all over your embarrassed little EU backside.

     Some salve will do to treat the tread marks…

     I do hope a lasting impression has been made, but I suspect not given its quite clear from the above that “people like” you don’t appear to be naturally inquisitive about the vain philosophies of men.

     And don’t you worry yer smug little head about this boot-stomping, okay? I’ll also have you know you’re in “good/bad company”. You’re not the first “people like” you to have his AGW habitus choralis tossed in the dirt by “people like” me.

     Goodbye from Texas for now…y’all take care now, ya hear?

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113. Why does a vision arise of my having slipped on a Nova ring and attracted the gaze of the flaming eye of Mordor (with Len as a merciless Sauron)? The vision is, however, false because Len commonly displays Orkish behaviour.

     Reading Len”s latest, I find myself in extremely good company. [Who be Gandalf?]

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114. Renewable power subsidies dumped as Malcolm Turnbull unveils new energy policy.
     Winning?

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115. “the earth cools by radiation of IR to space. Adding CO2 raises the height at which most IR escapes and higher means cooler. Cooler in turn means less energy escaping, which means the surface and the atmosphere warm until the original balance is regained.”

     Len, bravo! Something interesting (or so it seemed to me). I take it this is an explanation of why more CO2 causes warming (apologies if this is not what was intended). It seems plausible, at least to one who knows as little about it as I do. To the ill-informed reader, there are one or two gaps in the argument about heating and height of emission that might be interesting to fill, but I’m not sure that it’s worth your time.

     This is because there are many readers (and writers) on this blog who may well accept the essence of your argument, that CO2 causes warming (other things being equal, at least). What concerns them is what (if anything) we should do about it. Your argument gives no figures. The IPCC gives a broad range for the rate of warming, and is unwilling to commit to a most likely one. At the lower end of the range, action is unnecessary – at the top end, close to pointless. So what do we do?

     “”The science doesn’t tell you what to do; how hard to do it; or when to start” (Scott Adams, July 2017 – not peer-reviewed, I fear).

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116. Osseo, yes it is the standard description of GHG warming. It has been known for so long, a century or more, but I don’t believe many people here accept it, or understand it or could quote it from heart despite it being so simple. It’s clear that Alan doesn’t despite his background. As for what to do, when you’re in a hole, stop digging. No science is needed for that. We’re not in a hole I hear many saying, but they don’t know that, they are just hoping for the best.

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117. “he has been in a position to find out easily, for example, that Nova’s booklet is nonsense”

     Hilarious, even by your Olympian standard of truly invincible pig ignorance.

     As if you would be mentally or educationally equipped to make such a judgement in the first place.

     

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118. Why is it I wonder that Einstein’s famous theory of general relativity was considered to be so conclusively demonstrated to be correct by Eddington’s empirical observations when a theory of global warming supposedly accepted by 97% of scientists has not been similarly confirmed as correct by similar empirical evidence? Is it perhaps that no conclusive, definitive empirical evidence exists which demonstrates the reality of AGW unequivocally? The answer has to be yes.

     ATTP’s link above shows that there is tantalising physical evidence which appears to confirm the predictions of man-made GHG global warming theory but it is not conclusive. The 666cm-1 IR absorption band for instance. Predicted. Observed. But not conclusive evidence that CO2 is warming the planet. Tropospheric warming, stratospheric cooling. Predicted. Observed. But not as strong as predicted. Tropospheric tropical ‘hotspot’. Predicted, but ‘missing’ according to many observational datasets. Stratospheric cooling: an order of magnitude greater than predicted and likely due to stratospheric ozone depletion, not CO2. Surface warming. Predicted, Observed, but not as much as predicted and certainly not in the way predicted.Much regional variation, both on land and sea. The jury is therefore still out on the empirical evidence confirming AGW – even after 35 years. Hence the models are pushed relentlessly, often in preference to actual observations, as ‘evidence’ that scientists got it right on CO2. The general public can’t appreciate this lack of hard empirical evidence in the detail that sceptics can, but they know hype when they see it and they instinctively know when they are being sold short on facts in favour of political advocacy.

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119. what a sad blog/online comment life Len must lead (if he is a real person, not a community).
     if you disagree with people at a blog so much, why you do keep coming back?

     suppose that’s why I suspect the “community” above.
     all the “sceptic” blogs seem to have a “Len”
     almost as if a job for some people.

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120. DFHUNTER,

     Len, the Ecuadorean wonder-boy, has ‘advisers’. It seems they have been rather pre-occupied with other matters of late, hence we’ve been getting the slimmed-down version of Len which mainly consists of low level trolling interspersed with one or two more insightful comments. Cliscep denizens seemingly don’t rate as high priority when it comes to countering the big oil financed disinformation campaign run by climate deniers.

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121. Len,
     Or “We’re in a hole I hear many saying, but they don’t know that, they are just fearing the worst.”? How much are you willing to pay to reduce uncertainty? And how much certainty do you require that what you pay will deliver the goods? I don’t think science can answer such questions – not yet, if ever.

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122. Do you think Nova’s booklet is *not* nonsense, weasel? Wow, what an admission.

     Jaime, I am but one, but if it comforts you to think you are made fools of by a collective, go for it

     Osseo, yes, nice. But most people I know who accept the IPCC position, as many skeptics seem to (since they love quoting it) would conclude that a range of 1.5 to 4.5C with no most likely specified means we are in a hole but we don’t know how deep it is – it’s as likely to be 4.5 as 1.5. Stopping digging in such a predicament seems entirely sensible.

     As for paying more, I’d be happy to. I currently pay $6 per month for electricity and $2 per gallon of petrol thanks to the government borrowing 4.5% of GDP to subsidize energy. In the rich world, I’d willingly accept a carbon tax/dividend, especially as I would probably be a net beneficiary, but even if not.

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123. “Do you think Nova’s booklet is *not* nonsense, weasel? Wow, what an admission.”

     What I posted trollboy is that *you* are neither scientifically nor intellectually qualified to hold an opinion on the subject, as you are damn well aware.

     Now SHOO, that’s as much clown dancing as I’m prepared to do with a sad little low grade troll like you this month.

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124. You really do think that the booklet isn’t nonsense, weasel. For a nym that adopts the mantle of ‘physicist’ that blows your credibility. But then you had none, so no loss.

     It’s sad that a community that goes on about science so much, can’t apply the first bit of it to its recommend publications.

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125. Moonbat:

     Which of these would you name as the world’s most pressing environmental issue? Climate breakdown, air pollution, water loss, plastic waste or urban expansion? My answer is none of the above. Almost incredibly, I believe that climate breakdown takes third place, behind two issues that receive only a fraction of the attention.

     Winning?

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126. That insect biomass study’s findings are indeed a bit depressing but it’s bonkers to proclaim them as proof that we’re heading for ecological Armageddon. Almost all of the trap sites (58/63) are in one German state, Nordrhein-Westfalen, a particularly populous state full of particularly intensive agriculture, and most of the trap sites there are in or just beyond the outskirts of Germany’s biggest metropolitan area.

     The study didn’t try to gauge changes in agricultural intensity but that’s got to be the main factor. What else could it be? (Diesel? Let’s blame that. Lots of roads near the trap sites.) I had a look at old vs new satellite pix for about ten of the 26 sites where traps were set in more than one year and at only one of the ten was there an obviously relevant change in land cover – an adjacent pond had disappeared between the first and second samplings. For the rest, the explanation probably has to come not from what the land is used for but from how it is used.

     But that doesn’t justify doomwankery like Prof Goulson’s. He’s an entomological Jim Hansen. Respect his learning but treat his activism with caution.

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