Nothing is caused by human activity

There are some aspects of the climate debate where the arguments taking place seem to be based on nothing at all, when you go back to first principles and try to start from the beginning. Tim Osborn started a long twitter debate by saying that sceptics “haven’t provided a credible explanation for observed warming”. Another climate scientist, Robert Rhode, followed up on the “no credible explanation” question. I asked them both

and there was a stony silence from both of them. The point is, of course, that this long temperature record for Central England, going back over three centuries, shows that nothing unusual is happening at all. The current rate of warming is no greater than it was at various points in the past. Now of course the CET isn’t global temperature, and unfortunately there isn’t a global record going back that far. But for the global data sets that do exist, the warming in the early 20th century was very similar to the warming in the late 20th century, so the same issue arises (or rather, again, there is no issue to explain). Whatever “caused” the warming that seems to have occurred from about 1700-1740 could also have “caused” the more recent warming. So there is nothing that needs to be explained.

Two days after the silence from Osborn and Rohde, John Kennedy came up with this, which I found quite remarkable:

I’m not entirely sure what John is trying to say in this tweet. If he really means “recent climate change” then he hasn’t understood the simple “nothing to explain” point, but he’s smarter than that, and the links to the papers show that the real message from climate science is this:

The nothing unusual that is happening in the CET data can be explained by human influence.

The first paper is by Karoly and Stott, neither of whom I would trust to add 2 + 2. Recall that Karoly was the senior scientist behind the attempt by Gergis et al to create a hockey stick graph using a bogus method that got called out by Climate Audit leading to the withdrawal of the paper. Stott has a record of making misleading claims to the public.

The paper claims that “the recent warming is larger and longer duration than any other period in the record” which just isn’t true. They claim that, according to their computer simulations, natural fluctuations can’t have caused the warming seen in CET over the last 50 years. The obvious question of what caused the very similar warming in earlier times is ignored.

One climate scientist (the one who does not believe in the existence of Jaime Jessop) decided that the way out of this problem was to declare that “We must get away from the idea that climate science is driven by observed climate change”.

It’s a similar story with the attribution of extreme weather events, something we’ve discussed here from time to time — see for example this recent article by Geoff and this one on floods by Jaime. The IPCC AR5 summary statement on floods is

In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.

For tropical cyclones, they say

Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century and it remains uncertain whether any reported long-term increases in tropical cyclone frequency are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities

and they include this graph, which shows no long-term trend in storms hitting Australia and the US over the last hundred years.

So again, nothing unusual is happening, and there is nothing to explain. But there is now a whole industry within climate science trying to show that this nothing is caused by human activity.

60 Comments

  1. Wait, what? We are not to be swayed by actual observations of weather? I assume this means that only models/computers really can know what is happening and our empirical observations are just so much snail frothy? And these people are serious?

    Like

  2. Peter Stott and David Karoly published this paper in 2006 which attributed the 1C rise in annual mean CET since 1950 to anthropogenic GHGs. To do so, they used HadCM3, a climate model with a sensitivity of about 3.2C, if I remember correctly. They also constrain the limits of natural variability in the series by simply assuming that all of the variation 1700-1900 is natural because GHGs can have had little influence up to that cut off date. Talk about circular reasoning! They provide a cause for the post 1950 warming by running a high sensitivity climate model and they automatically eliminate the alternative natural explanation by assuming that natural variability can have been the sole cause of variation in temperature only up to the cut off date of 1900!

    https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/asl.136

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  3. Great post.
    In effect the climate extremists are waiting for Godot. Speculating on something that is not arriving yet fervently, feverishly hoped for.
    They are projecting their obsessive concerns on to a blank canvas and claiming it is photographic evidence.

    Like

  4. Whatever “caused” the warming that seems to have occurred from about 1700-1740 could also have “caused” the more recent warming. So there is nothing that needs to be explained.

    So, the argument is that if two periods in a time series look the same, then whatever caused one could have caused the other, and there would be nothing that needs explaining? What if we have other information indicating that there are differences in these two periods that suggest that the variations didn’t have the same/equivalent causes?

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  5. “So, the argument is that if two periods in a time series look the same, then whatever caused one could have caused the other, and there would be nothing that needs explaining? What if we have other information indicating that there are differences in these two periods that suggest that the variations didn’t have the same/equivalent causes?”

    That’s the whole point Ken. Scientists have constructed a plausible cause of the modern warming (GHG driven climate models) and they use these models, run with and without poorly defined natural variability (they don’t really know what caused previous comparable periods of warming), to attribute unremarkable modern warming to anthropogenic causes.

    Like

  6. Jaime,
    Alternatively, scientists have spent a long time studying what might have caused the observed warming and have concluded – based on the evidence – that it is mostly due to the increase in atmospheric CO2 driven primarily by our emissions.

    Like

  7. > What evidence?

    That it’s gotten warmer of course!

    Of course, there seems to be huge amount of circular
    reasoning associated with these claims – as we’ve seen
    discussed many times before. In my view there are also
    significant problems in *what* is actually being talked about
    i.e. there is no such thing as an average temperature,
    temperature is an intensive not an extensive property, we
    should really be talking about enthalpy and heat etc. etc.

    I’ve encountered very few climate change deniers who
    don’t accept the radiative properties of CO2 or that,
    ceteris paribus, RF should increase as GHG concentrations
    increase. The problem is that the atmosphere is not a
    bell jar and all other things are most certainly *not* equal.

    What everybody wants to know is how much warming can
    be attributed to GHG emissions; in other words, what is
    the climate sensitivity. People can hand wave all they
    like but there has been no real progress on this in years
    – well, EBMs indicate much lower ECS and TCR than
    GCMs so there is obviously something very wrong with
    them /sarc.

    It’s a not a zero sum game. Policy advocates need to
    acknowledge the significant burden they are asking the
    world’s population to undertake. They damn well should
    expect to have to justify whatever actions they are advocating.

    Personally, I’d just let the free market sort it out. Anyone
    want to buy some Volcano insurance?

    The academics should remember that everything else is
    based on economics.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I guess the best strategy with weaponised circular logic is to only be around for the minimum iterations of any one instance.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Paul states.

    Tim Osborn started a long twitter debate by saying that sceptics “haven’t provided a credible explanation for observed warming”. Another climate scientist, Robert Rhode, followed up on the “no credible explanation” question.

    This is another illustration of a why climatology is not science. The climate community put the onus on critics to provide an alternative explanation. But for that alternative explanation to be admissible, let alone “credible“, it must come from someone who believes recent observed warming is human caused. This is far more than circular reasoning. In Britain, the evidence of the natural world is put through the strong filters of institutionalized dogmas.

    Liked by 3 people

  10. Here is an alternative explanation for warming since 1980. There has been an enormous reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions. Air is cleaner so the sun can heat the surface. Explains akso why Europe is warming faster than the rest of the world

    QED, thank you.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Ben,
    Sorry, were you expecting something more?

    Manic,
    The point being is that those who dispute that our emissions have caused most of the observed warming have not provided an alternative that is credible. Doesn’t have to come from someone who accepts that most of the observed warming is human caused. It simply has to be consistent with the laws of physics, be able to explain the observations, and (in my view) also explain what we’re getting wrong when it comes to the impact of enhanced atmospheric CO2.

    Hans,
    The impact of aerosols is already included. It’s probably reduced the warming by about 50% (i.e., without this, we’d probably have warmed even more than we have).

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  12. Ken the cooling effect of volcanic aerosols is overrated and pollution aerosols is underrated,
    Proof:look at the cold snap of Pinatubomodeling, which does not reflect observations, and look at the flat line of modeled pollution after 1980.

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  13. >The point being is that those who dispute that our emissions have caused most of the observed >warming have not provided an alternative that is credible.

    Did mean this ironically or did you learn science at an alternative educational
    facility?

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  14. Jon,
    I meant it quite seriously. I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at. Maybe just being pedantic about the way in which I’ve phrased something? If one wants to be Popperian, then in fact the hypothesis that the most of the warming has been non-anthropogenic has been rejected at the 95% level. Given the prosecutor’s fallacy one should be careful of then assuming that this means that the warming is mostly anthropogenic. However, since there are really only two possible causes in this context (anthropogenic or non-anthropogenic) rejecting that it is mostly non-anthropogenic really does imply that it has been mostly anthropogenic.

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  15. Nice try Ken, if the decreasing pollution aerosols are not modeled correctly after 1980 then a warming factor is omitted, this warming factor, when properly applied, decreases the co2 warming effect and hence co2 climate sensitivity. That’s physics innit?

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  16. Hans,
    One way that climate sensitivity could be low is if we’re over-estimating the cooling effect of anthropogenic aerosols. However, if this is the case, then the reduction in SO2 emissions since 1980 should have had little effect. On the other hand, if you think this reduction in SO2 emissions has had a large effect, then it implies that aerosol cooling is high and, hence, the climate sensitivity is also high. You can’t really have it both ways.

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  17. Ken there are two types of aersols,

    Volcanic ones, these are injected high into the stratosphere. For this type of aersols it is demonstrated that the overall cooling is overestimated, hence co2 sensitivity must be smaller.

    The second group are the pollution aerosols, these remain low in the atmosphere and have been substantially reduced since 1980 however in the forcing graph they are flatlining since 1980, which means that the cooling effect of this type of aerosols since 1980 also is overestimated, hence also a smaller sensitivity is remaining for CO2.

    Summary
    Two types of aerosols, two effects.
    The cooling effect of pollution aerosols is estimated ok, but the forcing dataset is wrong after 1980,
    The cooling effect of volcanic aerosols is generally overestimated and should be a lot smaller.

    Like

  18. ATTP 18 Aug 18 at 10:00 am
    You state

    The point being is that those who dispute that our emissions have caused most of the observed warming have not provided an alternative that is credible.

    That was the point I have answered. Do catch up.

    It simply has to be consistent with the laws of physics, be able to explain the observations..

    That statement is false. The laws of physics are not sufficient to explain the observations. Climate is chaotic, detailed, high quality, data is lacking, and the models make “heroic” assumptions. By the very nature of the observations will always not fit the theory. Even if one makes the unsubstantiated assumption that all the warming so far is human caused then, assuming a high ECS, the warming in the pipeline is at least as high as the reveal warming. With estimates of ECS wide-ranging, and the time period to reach ECS unknown, but guessed to be long, then any virtually and set of observations can be explained by the theory.

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  19. Manic,

    It simply has to be consistent with the laws of physics, be able to explain the observations..

    That statement is false. The laws of physics are not sufficient to explain the observations.

    You appear to have misrepresented what I said. What I said was

    It simply has to be consistent with the laws of physics, be able to explain the observations, and (in my view) also explain what we’re getting wrong when it comes to the impact of enhanced atmospheric CO2.

    The It in the above referred to the alternative. The alternative explanation has to obey the laws of physics, (and) be able to explain the observations, and explain what we’re getting wrong when it comes to the impact of enhanced atmospheric CO2. I didn’t say that the laws of physics are sufficient. Also, a chaotic system still obeys the laws of physics. However, you do make a valid point when you say that the observations will not always fit the theory. This is broadly correct. We don’t expect an exact match. There are always factors (known and unknown) that can influence how well the observations match the theory. This doesn’t change the point, though. If you want to present an alternative then this alternative should obey the laws of physics, be able to reasonably explain the observations and, ideally, be able to explain what it is that is wrong with our current understanding (i.e., demonstrate why we can reject that it is mostly anthropogenic).

    Like

  20. ATTP,

    With all due respect, I think you may be missing the point. Back in 1990 the IPCC said:

    “A global warming of larger size has almost certainly occurred at least once since the end of the last glaciation without any appreciable increase in greenhouse gasses. Because we do not understand the reasons for these past warming events, it is not yet possible to attribute a specific proportion of the recent, smaller warming to an increase of greenhouse gasses.”

    It was the inability to explain earlier warmings that was preventing the IPCC from making a reliable attribution with respect to the recent warming. Therefore, in order to now make such an attribution we must now have an adequate explanation for the earlier warming events. You should therefore be concentrating upon outlining the developments in understanding since 1990, apropos the earlier warming events.

    Stopping to look once one has an explanation that fits the facts and complies with existing laws is one of the best known and pernicious of cognitive biases. It’s called ‘Congruence Bias’.

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  21. Jon,
    Yes, of course understanding past change is an important part of understanding what might be causing changes today. 1990 was almost 30 years. Our understanding today is much better than it was then.

    Like

  22. ATTP,

    “Our understanding today is much better than it was then.”

    Thanks for your response but I was hoping you would be more specific. The last time I looked, the likes of Judith Curry were still claiming significant uncertainties.

    Like

  23. John,
    Yes, I realise that Judith Curry claims there are still significant uncertainties. I’m not quite sure in what way you expect me to be more specific. The suggestion in the post seems to be that modern warming is comparable to previous warming and, therefore, whatever caused the previous warming could have caused the modern warming. Therefore, there’s nothing to explain. I’m suggesting that people have considered this and still concluded that modern warming is mostly due to our emissions. I wasn’t really trying to convince people that this is indeed the case (even though I think it is), I was mainly trying to suggest that people consider that this might be the case.

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  24. ATTP,

    I really shouldn’t attempt to speak for others, but I, at least, would not argue that the existence of previous warming events of equivalent scale, that did not involve increases in CO2, therefore disproves the AGW position. But whilst such warming events remain unexplained, one cannot assume that the existing congruence between the AGW theory and the evidence settles the issue. I think you are correct in suggesting that people should consider the possibility that the AGW theory is the most plausible explanation of the facts, but whether I do or so or not depends upon the extent to which I believe alternatives have been adequately explored, and this is difficult to ascertain whilst previous warming events remain unexplained.

    I hope this explains where I am coming from. I will not get sucked into debating whether or not you are mischaracterising other people’s position on this forum. They can speak for themselves.

    Further to the above, I should add that there is also considerable disagreement over what the facts are that need to be explained and a lot of concern regarding how congruence has been achieved.

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  25. ATTP at 3:52 pm

    I am sorry that I misinterpreted you.

    The alternative explanation has to obey the laws of physics, (and) be able to explain the observations, and explain what we’re getting wrong when it comes to the impact of enhanced atmospheric CO2.

    There seem to be two sets of rules here. To disprove climate alarmism requires much higher standards than the unsubstantiated dogmas which established it. Noticing that observations differ from theory is excluded. You seem to forget that any new theory or noticing that observations differ from theory is in denial of the scientific consensus, so dogmatists like youself will ensure that it never sees the light of day. Ditto pointing out that observations fail to support the climate dogmas.

    Thank you Ken for so emphatically demonstrating the institutionalized bias of climate pseudo-science.

    Like

  26. Manic,
    What I’m suggesting is not all that complicated, or controversial. If there is an alternative, then ideally someone should check that it doesn’t violate the laws of physics, show that it does a reasonable job of explaining the observations, and also explain why the current understanding is wrong (i.e., reject that anthropogenic influences have caused most of the observed warming). Our current understanding certainly obeys the laws of physics, can explain the observations, and the reason why we regard most of the observed warming as being anthropogenic is that we’ve rejected the hypothesis that it is mostly non-anthropogenic. An alternative should be able to basically do the same.

    Like

  27. The CO2 obsession has prevented significant improvement in the range of guesstimates, the causes and certsinly not actual predictions since 1990.
    Yet ATTP blandly claims it is the dkeptic’s job yo explain away the fsikures of the consensus he believes in.

    Like

  28. ATTP, you state @ 18 Aug 18 at 10:05 pm

    Our current understanding certainly obeys the laws of physics, can explain the observations, and the reason why we regard most of the observed warming as being anthropogenic is that we’ve rejected the hypothesis that it is mostly non-anthropogenic.

    IPCC AR5 WG1 Ch10 Page 869

    More than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010 is very likely due to the observed anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.

    That is a statistical test, decided by the proponents of theory. HADCRUT4 observations are from 1850. NOAA & GISTEMP from 1880. You are stating a belief that is not supported by a statistical test set by the proponents of theory.
    More importantly, there are three variables that cannot be pinned down by the observations.
    1. The amount of observed warming accounted for by rises in GHG concentrations.
    2. The value of ECS. In AR5, ECS is taken to be in the range 1.5 to 4.5, same as in the Charney report of 1979.
    3. The time taken to achieve full ECS.

    With such vague criteria, any amount of observations can be accommodated by the theory.In the philosophy of science this is known as the underdetermination thesis.
    What happens to unexplained GHG warming? It is just in the pipeline to be revealed sometime in the future.
    Now, why should the collective judgement of supporters of this pseudo-scientific waffle be allowed to determine the criteria for accepting an alternative theory that will undermine their beliefs?
    Which scientific method supports your non-controversial opinion? I will help you out with an extensive survey.
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/

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  29. Manic,
    Not quite sure what you’re criticising now. Was it that I didn’t make clear that the formal attribution claim made by the IPCC referred only to 1951-2010?

    With such vague criteria, any amount of observations can be accommodated by the theory.In the philosophy of science this is known as the underdetermination thesis.

    This is simply not true. We can estimate the relationship between the transient and equilibrium responses and, hence, there is clearly warming that would be inconsistent with these estimates.

    Thanks for the link, but I think I understand the scientific method pretty well (despite your rather insulting suggestion that I don’t).

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  30. Ken,
    Since you are refusing to recognize anything but you own opinions I will give you an analogy to help you out. Imagine a Court of Law, where the prosecution build a case based on hearsay and weak circumstantial evidence. The accused is guilty unless they can prove beyond reasonable doubt to the prosecution that someone else did the deed. The prosecution decides what evidence for the defence is admissable and is free to interject at any time.

    What you appear to be doing here is objecting to divert from Paul’s post above, to stop the undermining of your dogmatic beliefs. If I am wrong about you Ken then you will be able to contradict with, evidence, Paul’s concluding comment.

    So again, nothing unusual is happening, and there is nothing to explain. But there is now a whole industry within climate science trying to show that this nothing is caused by human activity.

    On your own blog would be nice, so that people can compare and contrast, solely on the basis of the arguments presented, who has the better case. Like in a criminal court, I believe that if there is a strong case for a clear signal for human activity then you will be able to demonstrate that case on a level playing field without recourse to hearsay.

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  31. Ken — Sorry, were you expecting something more?

    Of course not — you had been asked for evidence. Didn’t you understand the point?

    Like

  32. Another indication that recent warming is caused by reducion of so2 emissions over land

    Starting in 1980 the divergence between land and ocean temperature is increasing rapidly.

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  33. Hans,
    Again, if you’re implying that the recent warming is mostly due to a reduction in aerosols, then you’re implying a high climate sensitivity, rather than a low climate sensitivity. Also, the land warms faster than the oceans due to their different heat capacities. The figure you show is anomalies, which are baselined to the same time period (probably 1950-1980). Hence, you expect them to have the same anomaly over the baseline period, and to then appear to diverge at later, and earlier, times.

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  34. Ken,

    You say

    “the land warms faster than the oceans due to their different heat capacities”

    So why is that there is no difference in early twentieth century warming?
    There issue is replicated in HADCRUT4 data.

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  35. Ken,
    You mean this one for NASA Gistemp?
    Looks to have a similar pattern to NOAA and HADCRUT4. From 1910 to 1940s similar warming for land ocean. Post 1980 a lot more warming on the land. Hopefully the png image will so others can verify for themselves.

    Like

  36. Actually, looking at the GISTEMP figures again, there is a divergence. Land does appear to warm in 1920s and sea in the late 1930s.
    So why should one data set show one something different to the other two? There is a huge commonality in the actual data used, particularly in the ocean data figures.
    I have done a quick graph showing the difference between land and ocean temperature anomalies for HADCRUT4 and GISTEMP.

    Notice the annual data points in HADCRUT4 are more closely aligned for ocean and land in the early twentieth century than GISTEMP. Further, in the period 1880-1900 there are huge differences, though it is curious that in GISTEMP the land temperatures rise, whilst the oceans cool.

    Like

  37. Hans,
    Whilst I do not think that the data supports the “land warming at faster rates than oceans” argument, I also do not believe that reducing aerosols or SO2 emissions are the cause either. The reason I do not believe this is the case is if the impacts are concentrated over land, they will be concentrated above the areas where the emissions were generated. That is the heavily industrialized areas in about 1980. That is Eastern USA, Europe and Japan. There would be less warming in areas like Eastern Siberia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia where there was little concentration of emissions.
    The picture is mixed. You can get an idea from Gisstemp maps. My example below is deliberately before the onset of the El Nino. Change the dates slightly and the pattern will change markedly. But in general Central & Eastern USA have shown little warming or even cooling.
    https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
    C:\Users\Manicbeancounter\Documents\Temp data\GISS Surface Temperature Analysis_ Global Maps from GHCN v3 Data.png
    However, it is the data that will confirm or refute your conjecture, not some waffle about alternative vague theories. Sifting through the data may lead to ambiguous conclusions, as temperature trends vary hugely across the globe.
    My own view is that the reason for the divergence in land and ocean temperatures is primarily due to issues with the calculation of the averages. Or more accurately, I speculate that there should be more divergence in the early twentieth century warming than is apparent. The land heating faster than the oceans argument has traction. But at the same time UHI biases and other potential biases may impact on recent land warming. These are potentially testable.

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  38. AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS says:
    19 Aug 18 at 7:03 pm
    Hans,
    Again, if you’re implying that the recent warming is mostly due to a reduction in aerosols, then you’re implying a high climate sensitivity, rather than a low climate sensitivity

    No Ken, because this reduction of aerosols is not honoured in the models after 1980, hence a crucial warming factor after 1980 has been omitted, a warming factor which is then wrongly attributed to CO2.

    Like

  39. This is John Kennedy, Met Office climate scientist, tweeting as though it is I who (anomalously) believes that the 1940-70 cooled and that I had to do science to ‘prove’ that it did:

    I hadn’t realized things had gotten this bad.

    Whereas, on the other hand, all Kevin Cowtan or any other adjuster has to show – by the scientific method of simply making a claim – that adjustments are needed and they are unanimously adopted into the official record.

    There has to be a universally determined, agreed-upon-once-and-for-all 1) reference period baseline, 2) methodology in calculating global temperatures, with an accepted moratorium on (statistical/analytic) methodological innovations and an accepted freeze on adding new stations.

    If one moves a slider across from the mid-to-late 19th century to the present, data quality, coverage and heterogeneity of sources move gradually from the worst to the present. Climate practitioners seem to have utter disrespect for recorded raw data as they think they can Frankenstein their way out of any data deficiency problem.

    Once you *permit* yourself to believe you’ve sold a data quality deficiency by way of adjustment, there is nothing to prevent you from thinking data that doesn’t fit your theory must be deficient. This is the problem. This is why climate scientists permit themselves to think the 1940s to 70s must not have cooled as much as sceptics make out to be, or that the 1945 ‘spike’ must be an ‘artifact.’

    Liked by 2 people

  40. Correction: “Once you *permit* yourself to believe you’ve solved a data quality deficiency by way of adjustment, there is nothing to prevent you from thinking data that doesn’t fit your theory must be deficient.”

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  41. Shub
    I think you understate the issue.
    The evidence is partly from my exchange with ATTP.
    If you could come up with a evidence for global cooling it would be rejected by for a spurious reason. You have no right of reply to the climate monopoly.
    It does not matter how good your evidence is , nor how rigorously you have followed a scientific method. All evidence and methods are ultimately subservient to received opinion.

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  42. Manic. But it was always such and in all fields of study. I still recall being told as a student that the systematics of ammonites depended upon who was currently the ammonite expert and his views were sacrosanct. When he died, the whole subject would be overhauled by his successor. At that time there had already been two such revolutions and the world was awaiting a third. There are experts everywhere and their words are law.

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  43. Alan
    But with climate alarmism who is going to overturn the falsehoods of climate doom?
    The ammonite expert I am sure would have been able to substantiate his arguments a bit more than taking a survey of those in the field asking if they believed ammonites were extinct marine creatures. Then labelling anyone who questioned their pet theory an ammonite denier.

    Like

  44. As this post is about visible impact’s of warming I have a rule-of-thumb that is applicable to claims.
    In human-caused climate change the strength of the evidence for a particular conjectured consequence is inversley related to the likely seriousness of the consequence.

    Like

  45. ATTP, as well as that Kennedy guy in the tweet are totally sold in on non-rational claptrap.
    The court room analogy of how the climate extremists are “discussing” climate is spot on.
    These charlatans are rewriting climate history more than the Bible was edited to support the church.
    The climate clowns are worse, because they are destroying objective evidence, adjustment by adjustment, to support a ridiculous apocalypse.
    A bunch of self-reinforcing fools, no conspiracy needed.

    Like

  46. Another nice example of “nothing to explain”, a paper by the Rob Wilson team, on tree-ring data in Scotland. Jo Nova has a post with the key graph in it.

    The abstract of the paper says

    “NCAIRN suggests that the recent summer-time warming in Scotland is likely not unique when compared to multi-decadal warm periods observed in the 1300s, 1500s, and 1730s, although trends before the mid-sixteenth century should be interpreted with some caution due to greater uncertainty. Prominent cold periods were identified from the sixteenth century until the early 1800s—agreeing with the so-called Little Ice Age observed in other tree-ring reconstructions from Europe—with the 1690s identified as the coldest decade in the record.”

    Like

  47. Why was ATTP’s explanation of ‘what the greenhouse effect is’ snipped? Presumably it was tedious and obvious? Even so, it’s often revealing to see how one’s opponents would express something one already knows. *Especially* revealing, you might argue, when the concept itself is a constant and only the choice of words is variable.

    I know this isn’t my thread. Nevertheless, Paul, could we please try not to snip if doing so results in the loss of potentially-useful information about our opponents’ reasoning and/or rhetorical processes? Please?

    (I’m not saying that’s necessarily what happened in this case. I don’t know, because I can’t see the &*^$@! comment.

    And I’m not denying that I myself have made precisely the mistake I’m deploring. I did once. To my regret.)

    And could we be particularly reluctant to snip, please, in situations where snippage gives the opposite party a pretext to flounce without satisfying honor? We can hardly say, now, that ATTP couldn’t answer our question, if all he has to do is say, “well I tried to answer but you deleted what I wrote so screw you guys I’m going home.”

    _______________________

    Anyway, the amusing thing about this whole thread is that every international scientist of reputable national body or conference-reviewed peer standing in any respectably seriously legitimate way ON THE PLANET disagrees with us.

    Yet a grand total of one [1] scientist (of sorts) tries to correct us.

    ON THE PLANET.

    Something doesn’t add up.

    Like

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