Climate Change means no more flying for you after 2050

[gkainz]

Yabbadabba delicious!

Looks like Flintstone Village, Custer,SD maybe early '70s? If I look real close, I can probably see a cousin serving sherbet flavor of the day ice cream cones.
BTW, sold and closed last winter.

 

[GlennAB1]

I'm just calling it like I see it, scientists seem to be quick to justify and excuse these "mistakes", but honestly they are inexcusable. We are not talking rocket science here, we are talking about temperature measurement, relatively simple stuff. It certainly looks like tampering, it is at least gross incompetence.

Scientists claim that human activity is causing polar ice to melt faster, fact is; as a mass of ice decreases it naturally melts faster.

 

[BrianNC]

Follow the money with climate doomsayers. It's like the AMA coming out recently and saying coconut oil is bad and you should still use vegetable oil and eat margarin. Seriously? They are in plenty of corporations pockets. And the climate accord Trump pulled out of? Basically a redistribution of wealth with climate change as the front. We're the big bad USA and everybody wants our money. It's only fair, right?

 

[SoCal RV Flyer]

Scientists claim that human activity is causing polar ice to melt faster, fact is; as a mass of ice decreases it naturally melts faster.

And when we lose ice from a land mass, it's a double whammy...a rise in sea level from the melt, and more darker, heat-absorbing land exposed, raising temps yet again to melt more ice. A lose-lose. (Well, the alligators win when all of Florida looks like the Everglades!)

 

[steingar]

How far back did it go, what was his motivation?

In other words, people don't always get caught the first time. And I assume he did it for money?

They didn't get paid anything to do it. To be honest, I think the motivation was simple expedience. Most of the "cooked" data were control experiments, from what I've seen. It does go back awhile, and it did take some time to really get moving, that I'll grant. But moving it is. Heck, David Baltimore, a Nobel prize winner who is as big as they come, got caught up in one of these scandals and had to resign as president of Rockefeller University. And he didn't even do anything wrong!

Now we have people who are not at all connected to the scientific community claiming massive fraud by the adherents of an entire discipline. What really honks me off is I know some of these folks, and I really don't much appreciate good, hard working honest people being branded liars by folks incapable of comprehending their work but how don't like the conclusions.

 

[jsstevens]

They didn't get paid anything to do it. To be honest, I think the motivation was simple expedience. Most of the "cooked" data were control experiments, from what I've seen. It does go back awhile, and it did take some time to really get moving, that I'll grant. But moving it is. Heck, David Baltimore, a Nobel prize winner who is as big as they come, got caught up in one of these scandals and had to resign as president of Rockefeller University. And he didn't even do anything wrong!

Now we have people who are not at all connected to the scientific community claiming massive fraud by the adherents of an entire discipline. What really honks me off is I know some of these folks, and I really don't much appreciate good, hard working honest people being branded liars by folks incapable of comprehending their work but how don't like the conclusions.

I think the skepticism is because of a couple of things:
1) Most people's only exposure to the scientific community is via the media. That's a really bad way to learn about science and current thought. Many jounalists read an abstract or press release, write a click grabbing headline and sometimes the headline contradicts the abstract (much less the actual paper). Then next week or next year there's an opposite headline because somebody in the scientific community (rightly) questions some small part of the original paper. Think how badly the media gets flying stories. They don't do any better on science stories.
2) Whether because of #1 above or not, many of the climate change articles come across as confident to the point of arrogance. I'm old enough to remember the outcry among the scientific community in the 1970's that we were headed for another ice age because of our interference in the climate-pollution and smog. Now it's global warming. Knowing what I do about the scientific community, I'm reasonably sure they've gotten better data and different (hopefully better) models and changed their mind. That's how it's supposed to work. But they don't yet have all the data and a model is not reality. So we can still be surprised.

I'm not broadly exposed to the scientific community that deals with climate science but I strongly suspect they look like any other community of smart people: many, many are doing their jobs as well as they can given the resources. Some are fabulously dedicated and rigorous. Some are ambitious to the point of not caring about rigor as long as it doesn't interfere with their personal goals. Some are lazy. Kind of like every field of endeavor I've dealt with in my life.

John

 

[Cap'n Jack]

How far back did it go, what was his motivation?

In other words, people don't always get caught the first time. And I assume he did it for money?

They usually get caught the first time someone tries to reproduce their experiment and it doesn't work. Like Steingar said, the data is factual and someone falsifying it gets caught when someone tries to verify that data.

I can't speak for Steingar's example, but they usually do it to look good, to have something interesting to share. Scientists don't usually make a ton of money unless they do Nobel, Lasker, Copely, or Priestly award level research. The highest paid researcher I'm aware of was Paul Lauterbur who got a handsome salary to move to Illionois after he got his Nobel for MRI. It was still much less than the football coach.

I'm just calling it like I see it, scientists seem to be quick to justify and excuse these "mistakes", but honestly they are inexcusable. We are not talking rocket science here, we are talking about temperature measurement, relatively simple stuff. It certainly looks like tampering, it is at least gross incompetence.

Some of it is rocket science- remote sensing from space. Measurements of the atmospheric temperature and that of the oceans and land surface temperatures.

Temperature measurement seems simple for measuring the temperature of a cup of tea. But there are correct ways to use a thermometer. How far do you dip the bulb into the liquid? Dip it too deep, and the mercury (or whatever is used as the expandable liquid) has too much exposed to the heat, causing too much expansion and a higher temperature reading. Dip it too little, and you get a low temperature. That's why lab thermometers have a line that indicate how deep to dip the bulb. How long do you let the thermometer sit while the bulb matches temperature and the liquid inside stops expanding? while waiting for this, the tea is also cooling down. How was the thermometer calibrated? If calibrated using distilled boiling water, what was the atmospheric pressure at the time of calibration?

In real scientific papers, we list our methodology, and we list potential sources of error. As equipment and technology gets better, we can reduce or eliminate these errors. Some of these errors are measurement bias. Let's we pretend we find that we can measure temperature using a low-mass , quick reacting device instead of a bulb thermometer. We find the temperature is always 5 °C higher with the new device, due to the tea cup cooling while taking the bulb thermometer temperature. One is justified, provided they explain how they determined the correction, in applying the correction to the older data so they can better match the data to the current measurements. I don't understand how that is tampering or incompetence. If someone gave you a ruler with the first inch cut off, and you used it to measure something that read 11 inches, would you report it as 11 inches, or the real value of 10 inches, while mentioning the bias on your measuring device?

The articles most of us read (popular press, summaries from whatever web sites agree with our beliefs) don't explain how or why corrections are applied, and you probably don't have the patience to read them anyway.

Maybe YOU don't. But it is naive or either self-serving to say this doesn't go on.

Please read my post again- I didn't say it doesn't go on. But people who do this do get caught as soon as someone tries to reproduce their research. Likewise plagiarism gets noticed quickly, because the various scientific communities are small enough that we do read one another's papers and notice if an image was used elsewhere. A former colleague cherry-picked drug metabolism data, but he was found out as soon as contracted outside researchers tried to reproduce the results. No money involved, he was trying to be the person with the cool project and "good" data. A review of his subordinate's lab notebooks quickly showed the issue with the work. The Chinese are cleaning their researchers; their government is advancing their research and a few researchers were found to be a bit too positive in their results. They seem to be aggressively addressing this problem.

 

[steingar]

I think the skepticism is because of a couple of things:
1) Most people's only exposure to the scientific community is via the media. That's a really bad way to learn about science and current thought. Many jounalists read an abstract or press release, write a click grabbing headline and sometimes the headline contradicts the abstract (much less the actual paper). Then next week or next year there's an opposite headline because somebody in the scientific community (rightly) questions some small part of the original paper. Think how badly the media gets flying stories. They don't do any better on science stories.

Its really difficult to believe that no one questions the media. When I was in University I noticed that the brightest students weren't necessarily going to the Journalism school.

2) Whether because of #1 above or not, many of the climate change articles come across as confident to the point of arrogance.

I hate to tell you this, but the climate change "articles" that count are published in scientific journals with language dry to the point of unreadability. Scientists can't exactly control how the media reports about them.

I'm old enough to remember the outcry among the scientific community in the 1970's that we were headed for another ice age because of our interference in the climate-pollution and smog.

Then your memory is highly selective. What you don't remember is the pall of smog that sat over most Western cities for much of the year due to particulate emissions from smokestacks and automotive exhausts. The science about global cooling was as elegant as any I've ever seen, and again the data were correct. That research got new rules put in place for particulate emissions, scrubbers put on smokestacks and catalytic conversion on autos. Particulate emissions were reduced and the threat abated. A nice side effect tis you don't have to look at what you're treating in much of the industrialized US.

Now it's global warming. Knowing what I do about the scientific community, I'm reasonably sure they've gotten better data and different (hopefully better) models and changed their mind. That's how it's supposed to work. But they don't yet have all the data and a model is not reality. So we can still be surprised.

Hard to believe when there is compelling evidence of climate change all around us.

I'm not broadly exposed to the scientific community that deals with climate science but I strongly suspect they look like any other community of smart people: many, many are doing their jobs as well as they can given the resources. Some are fabulously dedicated and rigorous. Some are ambitious to the point of not caring about rigor as long as it doesn't interfere with their personal goals. Some are lazy. Kind of like every field of endeavor I've dealt with in my life.

Then you need to be exposed to the Biological idea if selection. Folks who are just lazy tend to get selected out of the scientific community, scientists are a hard-working bunch, and if you're supervisor suspects you for being otherwise he or she will toss you out on your ear without a second thought. I don't think I've ever met a lazy scientist, and I've met a LOT more than most others here.

Folks who don't care about rigor are again selected fairly early. If you don't use rigor in your experimental design and analysis you'll be found early, that I promise. You either learn to do it or wash out.

In a way you're right, its just that what you're saying is altered to a strong degree. A "lazy" scientist probably looks pretty hard-working to those on the outside. One who lacks rigor has to exhibit sufficient to make it through a doctoral thesis. Moreover, to get tenure anywhere you need a rock-solid international reputation, and you don't get that by lazily cooking data. Again, we don't have an entire branch of science where this selection hasn't occurred. I've known a bunch of these folks, they weren't scofflaws. One of my favorite examples is a scientist at my home institution I met when I was an undergraduate. Realizing that high altitude glaciers were melting due to climate change, he made it his mission to visit as many as he could to get core samples before they all disappeared. Scientists can't afford jet helicopters, most of these ascents were by mule and sherpa. He had at this so hard he wrecked his heart and needed a transplant. That's the guy you're calling a lazy scofflaw that cooks data.

I recall meeting him and asking why he went to the North Pole. He said that's where the data is.

 

[azure]

They didn't get paid anything to do it. To be honest, I think the motivation was simple expedience. Most of the "cooked" data were control experiments, from what I've seen. It does go back awhile, and it did take some time to really get moving, that I'll grant. But moving it is. Heck, David Baltimore, a Nobel prize winner who is as big as they come, got caught up in one of these scandals and had to resign as president of Rockefeller University. And he didn't even do anything wrong!

Now we have people who are not at all connected to the scientific community claiming massive fraud by the adherents of an entire discipline. What really honks me off is I know some of these folks, and I really don't much appreciate good, hard working honest people being branded liars by folks incapable of comprehending their work but how don't like the conclusions.

And that is usually what it is. Admittedly there are a lot of stories implying research misconduct in the news today, but most retractions of papers that I've seen so far have been for errors and questionable practices that don't rise to the level of fraud. However some do. And it is not confined to any one discipline. When I teach intro physics lab, especially to science majors, I tell my students on the first day of class that they'll be graded far more severely if I catch them cooking numbers or insisting their data are consistent with theory when they aren't, than if they simply get results that are out of tolerance and honestly report that they are not sure why they got the results they did.

I'm convinced that massive fraud in science is rare, and in particular, fraud is not the problem in climate science. I think it's largely the complexity of the science itself, an unwillingness to believe the conclusions, and in part the public equating "scientific" with "factual" and "knowing with 100% certainty" that has gotten climate science into hot water. I think scientists in general have not done a great job making the public aware of uncertainties in their results. For example, we don't have a good enough handle on the equilibrium climate sensitivity (temp increase per doubling of CO2 levels) to KNOW how to keep greenhouse warming to under 2C; all prescriptions for emissions limitations are based on model projections that vary between models and carry a high level of uncertainty. That uncertainty is swept under the rug in most popular discussions, and I don't think that public understanding of science or climate science is well served by this.

 

[Cooter]

Particulate emissions were reduced and the threat abated.

So are you saying that the earth was on track for catastrophic cooling in the 70s, but then the measures taken were too effective and we are now headed in the opposite direction temperature wise?

 

[steingar]

So are you saying that the earth was on track for catastrophic cooling in the 70s, but then the measures taken were too effective and we are now headed in the opposite direction temperature wise?

All I am saying is it is likely that had steps not been taken the predictions of the climatologists might, and I do stress might, have come to pass. Do keep in mind that popular dislike of the environmental conditions the time was the driving force behind regulatory changes, and not predictions of scientists. That said, scientists were heeded when a hole was discovered in the Earth's ozone, and as far as I can tell the steps taken have been successful.

The difference is we can easily see the results of climate change predicted years ago. It isn't a prediction anymore, its here. The difficulty lies because we really don't know how a warmer Earth will appear.

 

[X3 Skier]

One thing that always strikes me as the weak point of predictions is not so much the data but how the data is used. Several models have "predicted" more dire consequences that have actually been observed. Either the data is wrong or the model is wrong or some combination.

My personal belief is the models are wrong but arguing about data is confusing the issue. Falsified data is easily exposed but anybody can claim their model is the best and since in this case, it will take decades to prove which was the most accurate predictor, anybody can "predict" with little fear of being "exposed".

The other issue is what to do about it. The best info I've read about this is limiting the emission levels of the USA while allowing China, India and other "developing countries" free reign, means essentially zero in regards to slowing warming, no matter which model is used.

BTW, I'm an engineer so any model I use is immediately verified by the results of a test of the design. Difficult to do when talking about the whole Earth and decades of time.

Cheers

 

[BrianNC]

Please read my post again- I didn't say it doesn't go on. But people who do this do get caught as soon as someone tries to reproduce their research. Likewise plagiarism gets noticed quickly, because the various scientific communities are small enough that we do read one another's papers and notice if an image was used elsewhere. A former colleague cherry-picked drug metabolism data, but he was found out as soon as contracted outside researchers tried to reproduce the results. No money involved, he was trying to be the person with the cool project and "good" data. A review of his subordinate's lab notebooks quickly showed the issue with the work. The Chinese are cleaning their researchers; their government is advancing their research and a few researchers were found to be a bit too positive in their results. They seem to be aggressively addressing this problem.

The problem is the zealous media and politicians get hold of the data and won't let it go. There is a religious fervor among the liberals, liberal media and politicians to the point that some are wanting to prosecute climate change deniers. That is ridiculous.

 

[Matthew]

BTW, I'm an engineer so any model I use is immediately verified by the results of a test of the design. Difficult to do when talking about the whole Earth and decades of time.

But models can be tested using historical data, can't they? Set the "present time" to, say 1817 (or 1917), press START, run until today (one or two centuries), compare results by looking out the window. I'm going to suppose that's been done. That doesn't necessarily mean you can extrapolate to a couple decades, or millennia, into the future, though.

 

[X3 Skier]

But models can be tested using historical data, can't they? Set the "present time" to, say 1817 (or 1917), press START, run until today (one or two centuries), compare results by looking out the window. I'm going to suppose that's been done. That doesn't necessarily mean you can extrapolate to a couple decades, or millennia, into the future, though.

I'm not familiar enough with the models to say with certainty but I really doubt it. Things like power plants, cars, "chemical trails", solar temperature and whatever they use as things adding to the atmosphere are considerably different in 1817 or 1917 and thus the model would have to be significantly changed. I just note that the change in temperature predicted by most models of a few years ago to have occurred by now hasn't happened. Thus my skepticism.

Cheers

 

[BrianNC]

The problem is the zealous media and politicians get hold of the data and won't let it go. There is a religious fervor among the liberals, liberal media and politicians to the point that some are wanting to prosecute climate change deniers. That is ridiculous.

This is very dangerous. From the Washington Times:

Prosecuting climate change ‘deniers’

They call themselves “AGs United for Clean Power.” A more accurate name would be “AGs United to Silence Dissent.”

I’m referring to a coalition of 17 attorneys general representing 15 states as well as the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. They announced at a press conference on March 29 that they will be targeting any companies that challenge the “accepted” wisdom of catastrophic climate change.

This push by government officials to investigate and prosecute climate change “deniers” is not only an abuse of their authority — it’s a fundamental violation of the First Amendment. And it should terrify scientists, researchers, engineers and anyone else who engages in the vigorous debate over scientific issues that is the hallmark of an advanced technological society.

Attorneys general participating in this scurrilous persecution, such as New York’s Eric Schneiderman, claim the First Amendment doesn’t apply to scientific debate and dissent on climate change because apparently Mr. Schneiderman knows the “truth”: “Climate change is real.” In his view, the targets of their investigation are committing “fraud” and are therefore not protected by the First Amendment. The arrogance is truly appalling — and dangerous.

Unfortunately, that attitude seems to be shared by other high-ranking law-enforcement officials. Take U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. In answer to a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, at a recent Senate hearing in which the senator was urging such prosecutions, Ms. Lynch told Mr. Whitehouse that she had been discussing this internally at the Justice Department. She has even referred it to the FBI to see if it meets the criteria for investigation. The fact that she did not immediately rebuff Mr. Whitehouse and tell him that government prosecutors have no business involving themselves in policing scientific debates is shocking.

Calling man-caused climate change an unproven scientific theory is giving it too much credit. A scientific theory is an explanation for a phenomena or an occurrence in the natural world that has been substantiated and repeatedly confirmed through experimentation and observation. The claim that the global climate is slowly warming has not been proved — and neither has the claim that man is causing it even if it is happening.

Scientific theories are never 100 percent correct; they are usually just the best explanation we have at the moment. That means we have to be open to ideas contrary to those theories. It’s skepticism versus dogmatism.

The point is that these prosecutors, who have no expertise in science, are trying to treat one set of scientific views as absolute, infallible and above critique. This has happened before — such as in Spain in 1478, when the Spanish Inquisition began systematically silencing any citizen who held religious, scientific or moral views that conflicted with the “truth” as seen by inquisitors. The AGs United for Clean Power are treating global warming theory the same way — like a religion whose blasphemers must be investigated and prosecuted.

The first victims of this new Inquisition include ExxonMobil and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Washington think tank. The attorney general of the Virgin Islands is targeting the gas and oil giant for supposedly defrauding consumers by lying about climate change. He is claiming violations of the Virgin Islands version of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO — a law designed to prosecute organized crime and major drug cartels.

CEI has already been hit with a subpoena. The Virgin Islands AG is seeking all of CEI’s research, studies, commentaries, writings and op-eds on climate change. He even wants any letters to the editor CEI wrote, which are the very hallmark of how Americans express their First Amendment-protected opinions.

Two other state attorneys general, however, expressed their opposition to this unwarranted government prosecution. Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma and Luther Strange of Alabama pointed out that “reasonable minds can disagree about the science behind global warming and disagree they do. This scientific debate is healthy and should be encouraged. It should not be silenced with threats of criminal prosecution by those who believe that their position is the only correct one and that all dissenting voices must therefore be intimidated and coerced into silence.”

That is what the AGs United for Clean Power is doing: engaging in intimidation, coercion and abuse of the law-enforcement powers entrusted to them by the public.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/20/has-von-spakovsky-prosecuting-climate-change-denie/

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I'm not familiar enough with the models to say with certainty but I really doubt it. Things like power plants, cars, "chemical trails", solar temperature and whatever they use as things adding to the atmosphere are considerably different in 1817 or 1917 and thus the model would have to be significantly changed. I just note that the change in temperature predicted by most models of a few years ago to have occurred by now hasn't happened. Thus my skepticism.

Cheers

Which models are those? I fear you are using the same tactics as some on the left, and choosing data. There are a wide range of models and the press usually picks the most sensational for their reporting. Then when it doesn't pan out, "Deniers" use the reported models as proff there is nothing to worry about.

One thing that always strikes me as the weak point of predictions is not so much the data but how the data is used. Several models have "predicted" more dire consequences that have actually been observed. Either the data is wrong or the model is wrong or some combination.

My personal belief is the models are wrong but arguing about data is confusing the issue. Falsified data is easily exposed but anybody can claim their model is the best and since in this case, it will take decades to prove which was the most accurate predictor, anybody can "predict" with little fear of being "exposed".

The other issue is what to do about it. The best info I've read about this is limiting the emission levels of the USA while allowing China, India and other "developing countries" free reign, means essentially zero in regards to slowing warming, no matter which model is used.

BTW, I'm an engineer so any model I use is immediately verified by the results of a test of the design. Difficult to do when talking about the whole Earth and decades of time.

Cheers

Again, which models? Based on actual measurements, there appears to be climate warming- retreating glaciers, large parts of the antarctic ice shelf breaking off, reduced arctic polar ice- it is common to sail the "northwest passage" now between the Atlantic and Pacific by going north of Canada and Alaska. Only a matter of time before Carnival makes it a regular cruise. I've read of "ghost forests" on the east coast attributed to rising sea levels, but my sources for this last are somewhat questionable.

The problem is the zealous media and politicians get hold of the data and won't let it go. There is a religious fervor among the liberals, liberal media and politicians to the point that some are wanting to prosecute climate change deniers. That is ridiculous.

That's different from scientists making stuff up. And wanting to prosecute climate change deniers is ridiculous. There is a religious fervor among the conservatives, conservative media and politicians to discount or ignore the problem as well, to the point that scientists are called "liars" or "incompetent". That is also ridiculous.

 

[Everskyward]

This is very dangerous. From the Washington Times:

For one thing, quoting such a large chunk of text from a site is against our rules of conduct. For another, both sides are guilty of hyperbole and simplification, and you are straying into partisan political argument.

 

[Cooter]

All I am saying is it is likely that had steps not been taken the predictions of the climatologists might, and I do stress might, have come to pass. Do keep in mind that popular dislike of the environmental conditions the time was the driving force behind regulatory changes, and not predictions of scientists. That said, scientists were heeded when a hole was discovered in the Earth's ozone, and as far as I can tell the steps taken have been successful.

The difference is we can easily see the results of climate change predicted years ago. It isn't a prediction anymore, its here. The difficulty lies because we really don't know how a warmer Earth will appear.

The fact is that they were wrong. Terms like likely, might have, are guesses unless you can point to the data that will quantify those terms. If the earth's climate is so volatile and easily manipulated at we can, over 3-4 decades, dramatically shift futures patterns from one extreme to the other, then the situation is not quite as dire as has been predicted. Once it starts getting uncomfortably hot lets just deal with some particulate emissions and swing it back the other way for a while. Science is often wrong, and weather scientist are some of the most wrong. Everyone here knows not to trust the 7 day forecast, and I'm assuming everyone here updates their weather brief before going flying. When it comes to CC, the scientist, the politicians, and the media all want to silence discussion, not encourage it. The climate scientists seem to want to step forth from their laboratories and pronounce truth and have the masses fall dutifully in step. Those who don't are labeled and denounced. Environmentalism as a whole has become a religion for the Left and the fervor of its more extreme adherence has gone mainstream.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

This is very dangerous. From the Washington Times:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/20/has-von-spakovsky-prosecuting-climate-change-denie/

From a year ago and that group seems to have fallen apart, thankfully.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

The fact is that they were wrong. Terms like likely, might have, are guesses unless you can point to the data that will quantify those terms. If the earth's climate is so volatile and easily manipulated at we can, over 3-4 decades, dramatically shift futures patterns from one extreme to the other, then the situation is not quite as dire as has been predicted. Once it starts getting uncomfortably hot lets just deal with some particulate emissions and swing it back the other way for a while. Science is often wrong, and weather scientist are some of the most wrong. Everyone here knows not to trust the 7 day forecast, and I'm assuming everyone here updates their weather brief before going flying. When it comes to CC, the scientist, the politicians, and the media all want to silence discussion, not encourage it. The climate scientists seem to want to step forth from their laboratories and pronounce truth and have the masses fall dutifully in step. Those who don't are labeled and denounced. Environmentalism as a whole has become a religion for the Left and the fervor of its more extreme adherence has gone mainstream.

Again, which scientists want to silence discussion? Do you think we have a New World Order secret bunker under KDEN where we discuss how to manipulate the press? Assuming the scientists were wrong about global cooling, you don't think they can learn from their mistakes? You are confusing short term weather with longer term climate. You do know that summer in the USA is warmer than winter? You don't need to have and advanced degree to know that, yet that is a longer term forecast than 7 days.

There's a lot suggesting that climate change exists- go and see for yourself.

 

[jsstevens]

Its really difficult to believe that no one questions the media. When I was in University I noticed that the brightest students weren't necessarily going to the Journalism school.


I hate to tell you this, but the climate change "articles" that count are published in scientific journals with language dry to the point of unreadability. Scientists can't exactly control how the media reports about them.

I did mention that it could be because of the media as cited above.

Then your memory is highly selective. What you don't remember is the pall of smog that sat over most Western cities for much of the year due to particulate emissions from smokestacks and automotive exhausts. The science about global cooling was as elegant as any I've ever seen, and again the data were correct. That research got new rules put in place for particulate emissions, scrubbers put on smokestacks and catalytic conversion on autos. Particulate emissions were reduced and the threat abated. A nice side effect tis you don't have to look at what you're treating in much of the industrialized US.

What's selective? I do, in fact, remember visiting Los Angeles in the late 1970's and not being able to see the San Gabriel mountains at all. It was awful. I was not privy to the research at the time. But the tone (again tempered through the media) was similar. And yet, here we are. I suppose it's like folks who say the Y2K press was all overblown but have no idea how much work folks like me did to fix things before we got to 1/1/2000.

Hard to believe when there is compelling evidence of climate change all around us.

Hard to believe there are still things we don't know? Hard to believe our model isn't yet perfect? Models are never perfect. Just hopefully good enough for the intended purpose.

Then you need to be exposed to the Biological idea if selection. Folks who are just lazy tend to get selected out of the scientific community, scientists are a hard-working bunch, and if you're supervisor suspects you for being otherwise he or she will toss you out on your ear without a second thought. I don't think I've ever met a lazy scientist, and I've met a LOT more than most others here.

Folks who don't care about rigor are again selected fairly early. If you don't use rigor in your experimental design and analysis you'll be found early, that I promise. You either learn to do it or wash out.

In a way you're right, its just that what you're saying is altered to a strong degree. A "lazy" scientist probably looks pretty hard-working to those on the outside. One who lacks rigor has to exhibit sufficient to make it through a doctoral thesis. Moreover, to get tenure anywhere you need a rock-solid international reputation, and you don't get that by lazily cooking data. Again, we don't have an entire branch of science where this selection hasn't occurred. I've known a bunch of these folks, they weren't scofflaws. One of my favorite examples is a scientist at my home institution I met when I was an undergraduate. Realizing that high altitude glaciers were melting due to climate change, he made it his mission to visit as many as he could to get core samples before they all disappeared. Scientists can't afford jet helicopters, most of these ascents were by mule and sherpa. He had at this so hard he wrecked his heart and needed a transplant. That's the guy you're calling a lazy scofflaw that cooks data.

I recall meeting him and asking why he went to the North Pole. He said that's where the data is.

No, that's the guy I'm saying is incredibly dedicated and rigorous.

Perhaps I'm referring to the scientific community more broadly than you. Are there no lab or field technicians who are just doing their job well enough to get by? Are there no ambitious department chairs with no scruples? None? I intentionally did not attempt to quantify the various folks. But I'm pretty confident from my exposure to various scientific, technical and standards bodies that all those sorts of folks show up in all those communities. (And yes, I am familiar with the biological concept of selection. But any large enough organization will have pockets of folks who just get by...)

John

 

[X3 Skier]

There's no problem saying things are changing when the data says things are changing. Where I fall off the turnip truck is:
a) the rate of change is predicted to be higher than observed. For example IPCC predictions, presented as a consensus of climate scientists was higher than observed and no rational corrections/explanations offered.
b) the "solution" oft times presented as in the Paris Accords that limit developed nations like the USA while allowing "developing" nations like China and India to continue ever growing emissions.

Cheers

 

[Salty]

Its really difficult to believe that no one questions the media. When I was in University I noticed that the brightest students weren't necessarily going to the Journalism school.


I hate to tell you this, but the climate change "articles" that count are published in scientific journals with language dry to the point of unreadability. Scientists can't exactly control how the media reports about them.



Then your memory is highly selective. What you don't remember is the pall of smog that sat over most Western cities for much of the year due to particulate emissions from smokestacks and automotive exhausts. The science about global cooling was as elegant as any I've ever seen, and again the data were correct. That research got new rules put in place for particulate emissions, scrubbers put on smokestacks and catalytic conversion on autos. Particulate emissions were reduced and the threat abated. A nice side effect tis you don't have to look at what you're treating in much of the industrialized US.



Hard to believe when there is compelling evidence of climate change all around us.



Then you need to be exposed to the Biological idea if selection. Folks who are just lazy tend to get selected out of the scientific community, scientists are a hard-working bunch, and if you're supervisor suspects you for being otherwise he or she will toss you out on your ear without a second thought. I don't think I've ever met a lazy scientist, and I've met a LOT more than most others here.

Folks who don't care about rigor are again selected fairly early. If you don't use rigor in your experimental design and analysis you'll be found early, that I promise. You either learn to do it or wash out.

In a way you're right, its just that what you're saying is altered to a strong degree. A "lazy" scientist probably looks pretty hard-working to those on the outside. One who lacks rigor has to exhibit sufficient to make it through a doctoral thesis. Moreover, to get tenure anywhere you need a rock-solid international reputation, and you don't get that by lazily cooking data. Again, we don't have an entire branch of science where this selection hasn't occurred. I've known a bunch of these folks, they weren't scofflaws. One of my favorite examples is a scientist at my home institution I met when I was an undergraduate. Realizing that high altitude glaciers were melting due to climate change, he made it his mission to visit as many as he could to get core samples before they all disappeared. Scientists can't afford jet helicopters, most of these ascents were by mule and sherpa. He had at this so hard he wrecked his heart and needed a transplant. That's the guy you're calling a lazy scofflaw that cooks data.

I recall meeting him and asking why he went to the North Pole. He said that's where the data is.

I need a job like that. I make a random warning. If I'm wrong, I claim my warning was heeded and disaster avoided. If I'm right, I say "told ya so".

Somehow after the millennia the same "pollution" magically causes global warming instead of cooling.

Like I said. I need a job where I can make stuff up and claim you're too stupid to understand the science behind it if you disagree.

unsubscribing before I get banned.

 

[jsstevens]

I need a job like that. I make a random warning. If I'm wrong, I claim my warning was heeded and disaster avoided. If I'm right, I say "told ya so".

Somehow after the millennia the same "pollution" magically causes global warming instead of cooling.

Like I said. I need a job where I can make stuff up and claim you're too stupid to understand the science behind it if you disagree.

unsubscribing before I get banned.

It's not the same pollution. What was making such a mess of places like LA in the 70's was mainly un-burned hydrocarbons, soot and particulates. Along with carbon monoxide. What is purported to be causing global warming is mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) which is actually maximized by clean combustion. The other stuff were products of sloppy and incomplete combustion.

 

[azure]

The fact is that they were wrong. Terms like likely, might have, are guesses unless you can point to the data that will quantify those terms. If the earth's climate is so volatile and easily manipulated at we can, over 3-4 decades, dramatically shift futures patterns from one extreme to the other, then the situation is not quite as dire as has been predicted. Once it starts getting uncomfortably hot lets just deal with some particulate emissions and swing it back the other way for a while. Science is often wrong, and weather scientist are some of the most wrong. Everyone here knows not to trust the 7 day forecast, and I'm assuming everyone here updates their weather brief before going flying. When it comes to CC, the scientist, the politicians, and the media all want to silence discussion, not encourage it. The climate scientists seem to want to step forth from their laboratories and pronounce truth and have the masses fall dutifully in step. Those who don't are labeled and denounced. Environmentalism as a whole has become a religion for the Left and the fervor of its more extreme adherence has gone mainstream.

You really need to be specific about who "they" were, and what their arguments were. There was a small minority of papers back then predicting global cooling as a result of aerosols in the atmosphere. There were also some papers talking about a long-term cooling trend due to Earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis, basically saying that we're eventually going to return to glacial conditions, but - and this is an important but - that prediction was of something not expected to happen for at least several thousand years. People have tended to confuse those two predictions (I'm not sure whether you're doing that, but the confusion has contributed to the survival of the "global cooling was predicted back in the 1970s" argument.) The idea that greenhouse warming could be a major factor in the climate of the future was very much in the air even back then. From what I've read, the majority of papers on the subject in the '70s predicted global warming, not cooling.

The argument that we can't predict the weather reliably 7 days out, how can we expect to predict the climate any better, is fallacious. We can certainly predict that the northern hemisphere will cool by 10s of degrees between now and January. Long term averages are a lot easier to predict than the day to day weather. That's easiER, of course; not saying it's at all easy to predict what the global average temp will be in 2050, but the problem doesn't rely on our ability to predict the WEATHER that far out.

 

[Cooter]

Again, which scientists want to silence discussion?

People like this guy:
Former NASA scientist James Hansen the “father of climate change” in 2006:

“We have at most ten years — not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions ... We have reached a critical tipping point ... it will soon be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences.”

If you want me to go look for more examples I can, i'm certain there's no shortage of supply. I'm guessing Al Gore's documentaries would provide plenty of examples.

When it comes to global warming, that is the tone of much of the conversation. Whether it is in forums, blog posts, the media, or news reporting, the assumption is that the science is settled and conversation only hinders implementing this solution. Anyone who disagrees with the "settled science" is someone who stands in the way of progress. Science has taken this heady approach before and the results have been disastrous.


No, I don't think you have need of a bunker. Dissgreement and skepticism doesn't equal conspiracy theorist.

Yes, I think science can be informed by their failures and should learn from their mistakes. In this instance, it appears that they are not. They may be making the same mistake.

 

[Cooter]

You really need to be specific about who "they" were, and what their arguments were. There was a small minority of papers back then predicting global cooling as a result of aerosols in the atmosphere. There were also some papers talking about a long-term cooling trend due to Earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis, basically saying that we're eventually going to return to glacial conditions, but - and this is an important but - that prediction was of something not expected to happen for at least several thousand years. People have tended to confuse those two predictions (I'm not sure whether you're doing that, but the confusion has contributed to the survival of the "global cooling was predicted back in the 1970s" argument.) The idea that greenhouse warming could be a major factor in the climate of the future was very much in the air even back then. From what I've read, the majority of papers on the subject in the '70s predicted global warming, not cooling.

The argument that we can't predict the weather reliably 7 days out, how can we expect to predict the climate any better, is fallacious. We can certainly predict that the northern hemisphere will cool by 10s of degrees between now and January. Long term averages are a lot easier to predict than the day to day weather. That's easiER, of course; not saying it's at all easy to predict what the global average temp will be in 2050, but the problem doesn't rely on our ability to predict the WEATHER that far out.

"They" are the scientist who influence the media and politicians. Because they are the ones that are trying to influence behavior. The reason that people like me care is that we are being told that our lifestyle is destroying the planet. That I, need to change my behavior or people will die. This isn't obscure science by a couple of nerdy guys who leave their work at the lab. It is political through and through.

As far as the long term vs short term, the point is that both are based on models. The models for short term surely have more data from which to project, yet they still conflict with each other and they still get it wrong. We have a daily reminder that models aren't perfect but we are still persuaded to believe that this one has it right. The scary one, the one that says your very existence on the planet is causing its destruction, the one that says we're overpopulated and we can't have BBQs in our backyards anymore. Or, just pay Al Gore or the govt and you get a pass.
http://www.motherjones.com/food/2015/07/your-grills-smoky-truth/
https://www.google.com/amp/reason.com/blog/2007/04/03/belgians-ban-bbq/amp

 

[denverpilot]

But models can be tested using historical data, can't they? Set the "present time" to, say 1817 (or 1917), press START, run until today (one or two centuries), compare results by looking out the window. I'm going to suppose that's been done. That doesn't necessarily mean you can extrapolate to a couple decades, or millennia, into the future, though.

Even when it has been done, the models are wrong. Take weather forecasting for instance. Every model out there falls apart beyond three days and regularly gets tomorrow wrong.

In fact, almost hilariously, the local NWS forecasters have had a subtle shift in their summary reports over the years. They used to simply write up the things THEY saw on the charts, explaining their forecast in the summary product. Nowadays it's VERY common for them to name MULTIPLE models BY NAME in their summaries. As if anyone reading the forecast cares and/or knows anything more than they do about the models they're using. It's hilarious.

Why? Because you can tell the cheapness of computing power has now given them their own pile of conflicting models, so they don't just have one or two. They TELL us now which of the 20 they're using -- because they KNOW many of them are wrong, but they don't know WHICH ONE.

The forecast summaries have become quite entertaining.

And that's just weather for a week. Climate? Not a chance they'll get it right. And even if one model does get it right they've got massive computing resources spitting out multiple models at them. The S/N ratio is off the charts.

This is very dangerous. From the Washington Times:

Prosecuting climate change ‘deniers’

They call themselves “AGs United for Clean Power.” A more accurate name would be “AGs United to Silence Dissent.”

...

The point is that these prosecutors, who have no expertise in science, are trying to treat one set of scientific views as absolute, infallible and above critique. This has happened before — such as in Spain in 1478, when the Spanish Inquisition began systematically silencing any citizen who held religious, scientific or moral views that conflicted with the “truth” as seen by inquisitors. The AGs United for Clean Power are treating global warming theory the same way — like a religion whose blasphemers must be investigated and prosecuted.

I've said it for a long time now that the politically powerful in our country have turned into cults. It's religion.

Which models are those?

Whichever new one anyone has punched into a computer. As mentioned above, none of them have any accuracy beyond days, so expecting accuracy over decades is clearly useless.

For one thing, quoting such a large chunk of text from a site is against our rules of conduct. For another, both sides are guilty of hyperbole and simplification, and you are straying into partisan political argument.

I thought he was exposing how "settled science" gets created inside of cults. The scientists don't claim it, politicians do.

The sick part about that story is that AGs aren't supposed to be political. They're supposed to prosecute the Law as written. But when cults rule... and they're members of one of the cults, we see what that gets us.

Hard to believe there are still things we don't know? Hard to believe our model isn't yet perfect? Models are never perfect. Just hopefully good enough for the intended purpose.

There's the problem right there. Science isn't supposed to have an "intended purpose". I mean, practically it always does, but as someone shows above, the "intended purpose" can easily become "jail my political enemies, because science!" In fact, for those people, it already has become that.

They don't care that the science isn't accurate or complete. Hand them a result that matches their political cult views and they're off and running to the point of holding press conferences that they're going to prosecute people for crimes.

It's pretty much the Spanish Inquisition repeated, whether scientists and science meant for it to be so or not. You didn't see too many of the scientists who regularly speak in public to the public denounce that garbage, either. Any nice hour long PBS specials documenting "The rise of the climate-change legal witch hunt" and then telling the prosecutors to knock it off because the science isn't "settled"? Nope.

What you hear is ...

"There's change! There's change! There's change! Do something. Do something. Do something."

Then the outcome is ...

"Okay, we'll put some people in jail."

"Wait, um... well... um... oh never mind. Go ahead. We can't control you..."

 

[denverpilot]

They didn't get paid anything to do it. To be honest, I think the motivation was simple expedience. Most of the "cooked" data were control experiments, from what I've seen. It does go back awhile, and it did take some time to really get moving, that I'll grant. But moving it is. Heck, David Baltimore, a Nobel prize winner who is as big as they come, got caught up in one of these scandals and had to resign as president of Rockefeller University. And he didn't even do anything wrong!

Now we have people who are not at all connected to the scientific community claiming massive fraud by the adherents of an entire discipline. What really honks me off is I know some of these folks, and I really don't much appreciate good, hard working honest people being branded liars by folks incapable of comprehending their work but how don't like the conclusions.

So it's not a single event, but a pattern over significant time? Why would anyone trash their own reputation and the reputation of their industry for "expedience"?

We see that in engineering the real motivator is usually money. Not expedience. "Get this done by [insert impossible date here] or we will find someone else who will."

And then the bridge falls down.

The expectation that people won't react poorly and even overreact to such news, isn't rational. People always do. That's usually why people don't do things repetitively and willingly knowing it will create a "scandal" once uncovered.

So my honest question is: Who pushed for the "expedience" and what leverage did they hold over the scientists that they'd willingly cut corners? I don't see "expedience" as a motivator low enough on Maslow's hierarchy to get them to trash their own careers. Someone has to have pushed a lower "button".

 

[denverpilot]

By the way, as the OP... I want to say my intent on posting the article was to show the ridiculousness of the article and have a good chuckle. Not trigger an overall climate change debate.

That said, I thought up a new headline that matches the level of the original article.

"By 2050, Climate Change will make Climate Change models impossible to run"...

You know. Because cooling the data centers that we run the modeling machines in, will become too expensive to operate after they're mandated to run on solar and the solar panel plants are being shut down for massive pollution they create because of it.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Wow. Lots of people here are climate "experts"- they think the same models for a short range forecast are the same for a whole-earth model. While the models differ in the amount of warming, they agree there will be warming. What people have been for in jail for denying climate change? Are there activist sites spewing garbage on both sides of the debate?

Interesting debate here...first all scientists are liars or incompetent. Next, we have a cabal that meets monthly under KDEN in the New World Order bunker (yes, I'm exaggerating this last).

I'll save us a few pages here:

1. Allegations that scientific consensus involves conspiring to fake data or suppress the truth: a global warming conspiracy theory.
2. Fake experts, or individuals with views at odds with established knowledge, at the same time marginalising or denigrating published topic experts. Like the manufactured doubt over smoking and health, a few contrarian scientists oppose the climate consensus, some of them the same individuals.
3. Selectivity, such as cherry picking atypical or even obsolete papers, in the same way that the MMR vaccine controversy was based on one paper: examples include discredited ideas of the medieval warm period.[129]
4. Unworkable demands of research, claiming that any uncertainty invalidates the field or exaggerating uncertainty while rejecting probabilities and mathematical models.

 

[denverpilot]

Wow. Lots of people here are climate "experts"- they think the same models for a short range forecast are the same for a whole-earth model.

Oh for effs sake. No that is not what I was saying. I was saying models are cheap and easy to produce and if the accuracy of a model that only goes out a DAY is crap, there's a pretty good likelihood that a model that goes out a year is worse. Etc.

Shove your "expert" comment. Seriously. Humans know other humans lie, and lie regularly, for personal gain. We are all experts at being human, whether we know jack crap about climate.

Hell humans will lie when just embarrassed even. Ever see a flight student adamantly say they didn't push the yoke when they did, just because you called them out on it in a review of their performance? It's a documented behavior and even prominently warned against in the worst of all possible scientific documents about adult learning, the FOI. lol.

And the Professor has already guessed that a highly regarded scientist trashed his entire career and reputation for "expediency".

Could such a quest for "expediency" be quite widespread? How would we know? The more papers that get written, the less oversight because everyone else is too busy being "expedient" to notice?

Is it "expedient" to fly jet airliners to global conferences to discuss how jet airliners are destroying the planet? LOL.

Humans. We're all humans. Laugh a little. We tend to be just a tiny bit inefficient at figuring things out.

Meanwhile the good professor's life's work is probably involved in the treatment of a friend today who's undergoing surgery for a craniopharyngioma. And his knowledge of my own wife's genetic condition is fascinating.

I'm far from claiming to be an expert or a "climate change denier" or any other personal attack labels you want to toss at me. I'm just saying computing power and ability to write complete crap code is expanding nearly exponentially and generally does. The mighty "science models" aren't immune from similar errors caused by such growth in computing technology.

The evidence is in the forecast discussion daily -- a list of models from some forecaster who's forced to choose between twenty of them who tries to guess which one will be right 12 hours from now. So he tells us (as if we care) which one's he's "settled his science on" today.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Oh for effs sake. No that is not what I was saying. I was saying models are cheap and easy to produce and if the accuracy of a model that only goes out a DAY is crap, there's a pretty good likelihood that a model that goes out a year is worse. Etc.

Models trying to do real predictions are't cheap or easy to make. Again, different models. We have a model that predicts where the trade winds are likely to be, and it works pretty well. It can't tell you exactly where the trade winds start each day, or their strength, but you have good odds of finding them with the model- you probably studied it for ground school with Hadley and Ferrel cells.

Shove your "expert" comment. Seriously. Humans know other humans lie, and lie regularly, for personal gain. We are all experts at being human, whether we know jack crap about climate.

Hell humans will lie when just embarrassed even. Ever see a flight student adamantly say they didn't push the yoke when they did, just because you called them out on it in a review of their performance? It's a documented behavior and even prominently warned against in the worst of all possible scientific documents about adult learning, the FOI. lol.

And the Professor has already guessed that a highly regarded scientist trashed his entire career and reputation for "expediency".

Could such a quest for "expediency" be quite widespread? How would we know? The more papers that get written, the less oversight because everyone else is too busy being "expedient" to notice?

Here we go again....the scientists are liars. Or they are wrong because they want to get their paper out quickly. And now you seem to be saying the reviewers aren't reading the papers before publishing.

Is it "expedient" to fly jet airliners to global conferences to discuss how jet airliners are destroying the planet? LOL.

Humans. We're all humans. Laugh a little. We tend to be just a tiny bit inefficient at figuring things out.

It's really only some of the extremists against air travel.

Meanwhile the good professor's life's work is probably involved in the treatment of a friend today who's undergoing surgery for a craniopharyngioma. And his knowledge of my own wife's genetic condition is fascinating.

Hope your friend gets better.

I'm far from claiming to be an expert or a "climate change denier" or any other personal attack labels you want to toss at me. I'm just saying computing power and ability to write complete crap code is expanding nearly exponentially and generally does. The mighty "science models" aren't immune from similar errors caused by such growth in computing technology.

The evidence is in the forecast discussion daily -- a list of models from some forecaster who's forced to choose between twenty of them who tries to guess which one will be right 12 hours from now. So he tells us (as if we care) which one's he's "settled his science on" today.

So, go and look at the models and see why they are wrong. Again, the forecaster uses different models than those for the longer term climate. Even so, all of the short term models tend to agree on the change, but they do differ on timing and magnitude (how much rain/snow? When will it happen? How much cloud cover?).

And I don't see anyone denying the shrinking glaciers, ice sheets, the opening of the northwest passage, and so forth that have been actually observed by credible people.

 

[PaulS]

Wow. Lots of people here are climate "experts"- they think the same models for a short range forecast are the same for a whole-earth model. While the models differ in the amount of warming, they agree there will be warming. What people have been for in jail for denying climate change? Are there activist sites spewing garbage on both sides of the debate?

Interesting debate here...first all scientists are liars or incompetent. Next, we have a cabal that meets monthly under KDEN in the New World Order bunker (yes, I'm exaggerating this last).

I'll save us a few pages here:

1. Allegations that scientific consensus involves conspiring to fake data or suppress the truth: a global warming conspiracy theory.
2. Fake experts, or individuals with views at odds with established knowledge, at the same time marginalising or denigrating published topic experts. Like the manufactured doubt over smoking and health, a few contrarian scientists oppose the climate consensus, some of them the same individuals.
3. Selectivity, such as cherry picking atypical or even obsolete papers, in the same way that the MMR vaccine controversy was based on one paper: examples include discredited ideas of the medieval warm period.[129]
4. Unworkable demands of research, claiming that any uncertainty invalidates the field or exaggerating uncertainty while rejecting probabilities and mathematical models.

Argumentum ad absurdum, no one has said anything of the sort.

Readings in Australia were wrong, gated by a "software" error, or maybe more accurately a "modelling mistake" of course the mistake biases the data toward record warmth. I seem to recall a university applying it's smoothing and correction techniques to reams of temperature data, then destroying the original data, don't remember who at this point, but I'm sure someone will chime in with the info. Why would any scientist in his right mind do this?

 

[Cooter]

And I don't see anyone denying the shrinking glaciers, ice sheets, the opening of the northwest passage, and so forth that have been actually observed by credible people.

How many ice ages have there been?

It's kind of like the nutrition guideline's seesaw that we've had to listen to. Going to the Dr and having to listen to the nutritional recommendations is insulting. If I strictly followed all the conventional wisdom, my diet would be somewhat like the latest fashions, on a 15-20yr cylcle where it all comes back in style. Eggs good, eggs bad, eggs good again. Whole milk good, bad, and good again. Coffee will kill you, coffee is good again.

I'm reminded of Malcolm Muggeridge's quote, "We have educated ourselves into imbecility". It certainly rings true in the headline grabbing popular science that the media rushes to publish.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Argumentum ad absurdum, no one has said anything of the sort.

Readings in Australia were wrong, gated by a "software" error, or maybe more accurately a "modelling mistake" of course the mistake biases the data toward record warmth. I seem to recall a university applying it's smoothing and correction techniques to reams of temperature data, then destroying the original data, don't remember who at this point, but I'm sure someone will chime in with the info. Why would any scientist in his right mind do this?

Go back in the thread...The accusation that scientists were liars was indeed made. Read the replies earlier.

 

[denverpilot]

Here we go again....the scientists are liars. Or they are wrong because they want to get their paper out quickly. And now you seem to be saying the reviewers aren't reading the papers before publishing.

No I didn't say that. I said there were supposedly plenty of folks reading that "well respected" scientist's stuff and the Professor said AFTER he looked at the guy's data, he suspects he was cutting corners for "expediency".

There's no "here we go again" to my statement other than once again, eventually a "well-respected scientist" who obviously had a long pattern of cutting corners, got caught. People lie.

When the people at the TOP of an industry keep getting caught in long-term laziness at best, and long-term deception at worst, and even their own peers are surprised by it, there's a systemic problem underneath. At least that's what any systems engineer such as myself would start looking for.

It's understandable that the people working INSIDE that system would be "offended" by the external observation, but as you all say... it's science.

Let's say I have a theory on how to fix scientists lying and a whole bunch of models on a computer from "well respected" systems engineers that I claim we all "peer reviewed" and we would like to test and prove that theory if y'all wouldn't mind me mucking with your pay and lives for a bit to figure out the errors in our "models". Additionally once the press and lawmakers and lawyers get ahold of that news, they tell you guys if you disagree with our models that say scientists lie, you'll be jailed. This will be done because there's one political cult who claims that they're the only cult that supports engineers and systems engineering and the other cult doesn't want to spend money and waste time on such "important" social engineering.

I'm going to guess you're going to say you're not interested in our witch hunt. Just a guess.

It's really only some of the extremists against air travel.

Extremists in any industry should be shouted down LOUDLY by the much more powerful mass of peers. This is the same defense as, "There's only a few bad cops." We know that.

You all need to eradicate them from your ranks or they taint you all. "You're known by the company you keep." The non-extremists should always be making so much noise against the extremists that they're overshadowed.

And you do. But you haven't figured out how to stop new ones from doing it. And never will.

Get used to it. The idea that scientists are perfectly noble creatures is well-debunked and it gets old hearing it.

The scientific theory is essentially:
1. Measure
2. Guess
3. Test

You can never do #3 on a global scale. So it's never finished. I don't mind that, but jailing people over it is a bit much when you're only at step 2 and can never get to step 3.

So, go and look at the models and see why they are wrong. Again, the forecaster uses different models than those for the longer term climate. Even so, all of the short term models tend to agree on the change, but they do differ on timing and magnitude (how much rain/snow? When will it happen? How much cloud cover?).

And I don't see anyone denying the shrinking glaciers, ice sheets, the opening of the northwest passage, and so forth that have been actually observed by credible people.

Not my job, man. That's your job if you work in that field.

All I as a consumer of the product need to know is that it's a fairly expensive product for a lot of inaccuracy. It's better than it was 30 years ago but objectively not by much. It likely won't get much better than that in another 30 years before I die.

What I do know from history is that the humans that follow on behind me are quite adaptable, and will react faster to real-world problems than they ever will react to predictions of the future, since we all know humans suck at that.

We don't need to be "experts" with the magical "models"/crystal balls to know most of what people believe about the future is simply religious and based on information barely better than the Voodoo we had 100 years ago.

The argument is essentially this: "We have more information than ever so NOW we can predict the future!"

It shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone that the vast majority are quite correctly skeptical of such claims.

Especially when there's repetitive scandals of "top" people.

That's called... a cult. The "leaders" at the top make a claim and nobody in the worker bees below bothers to check it for a while. Then they do and they oust that leader and appoint a new one. Same cycle repeats.

It's okay. Nobody minds. We all have our cults. We just find it entertaining that some cults get more offended by the fact that they're human too, than others.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

How many ice ages have there been?

It's kind of like the nutrition guideline's seesaw that we've had to listen to. Going to the Dr and having to listen to the nutritional recommendations is insulting. If I strictly followed all the conventional wisdom, my diet would be somewhat like the latest fashions, on a 15-20yr cylcle where it all comes back in style. Eggs good, eggs bad, eggs good again. Whole milk good, bad, and good again. Coffee will kill you, coffee is good again.

I'm reminded of Malcolm Muggeridge's quote, "We have educated ourselves into imbecility". It certainly rings true in the headline grabbing popular science that the media rushes to publish.

Apples and oranges. Climate isn't nutrition. Don't read the popular media, whether from Brightbart, MSNBC, Fox News, or CNN. We know how they all get aviation messed up. Read something with some credibility.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

No I didn't say that. I said there were supposedly plenty of folks reading that "well respected" scientist's stuff and the Professor said AFTER he looked at the guy's data, he suspects he was cutting corners for "expediency".

There's no "here we go again" to my statement other than once again, eventually a "well-respected scientist" who obviously had a long pattern of cutting corners, got caught. People lie.

When the people at the TOP of an industry keep getting caught in long-term laziness at best, and long-term deception at worst, and even their own peers are surprised by it, there's a systemic problem underneath. At least that's what any systems engineer such as myself would start looking for.

Then why use the word "lie", "liars", and other such terms? I didn't read he had a "long pattern" of cutting corners. You seem to be cherry-picking the data...there are a few bad scientists, so all of them are bad. He did get caught, the system worked.

It's understandable that the people working INSIDE that system would be "offended" by the external observation, but as you all say... it's science.

Let's say I have a theory on how to fix scientists lying and a whole bunch of models on a computer from "well respected" systems engineers that I claim we all "peer reviewed" and we would like to test and prove that theory if y'all wouldn't mind me mucking with your pay and lives for a bit to figure out the errors in our "models". Additionally once the press and lawmakers and lawyers get ahold of that news, they tell you guys if you disagree with our models that say scientists lie, you'll be jailed. This will be done because there's one political cult who claims that they're the only cult that supports engineers and systems engineering and the other cult doesn't want to spend money and waste time on such "important" social engineering.

I'm going to guess you're going to say you're not interested in our witch hunt. Just a guess.

You are assuming there is a systemic problem. The fact that these guys get caught and outed seems to be ignored here.

Extremists in any industry should be shouted down LOUDLY by the much more powerful mass of peers. This is the same defense as, "There's only a few bad cops." We know that.

You all need to eradicate them from your ranks or they taint you all. "You're known by the company you keep." The non-extremists should always be making so much noise against the extremists that they're overshadowed.

And you do. But you haven't figured out how to stop new ones from doing it. And never will.

Get used to it. The idea that scientists are perfectly noble creatures is well-debunked and it gets old hearing it.

The extremists really aren't the scientists involved in the work. Please don't confuse the scientists with the activists such as the "mother jones" web page posted earlier. We know scientists aren't "noble". but the vast majority of us aren't bad either. It gets old hearing that we are liars or incompetent too. I think you are confusing the activists and politicians with the scientists.

The scientific theory is essentially:
1. Measure
2. Guess
3. Test

You can never do #3 on a global scale. So it's never finished. I don't mind that, but jailing people over it is a bit much when you're only at step 2 and can never get to step 3.

Who was jailed over it? I asked that question earlier in the thread and never got a reply, much less a plausible one.

Not my job, man. That's your job if you work in that field.

All I as a consumer of the product need to know is that it's a fairly expensive product for a lot of inaccuracy. It's better than it was 30 years ago but objectively not by much. It likely won't get much better than that in another 30 years before I die.

What I do know from history is that the humans that follow on behind me are quite adaptable, and will react faster to real-world problems than they ever will react to predictions of the future, since we all know humans suck at that.

We don't need to be "experts" with the magical "models"/crystal balls to know most of what people believe about the future is simply religious and based on information barely better than the Voodoo we had 100 years ago.

The argument is essentially this: "We have more information than ever so NOW we can predict the future!"

It shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone that the vast majority are quite correctly skeptical of such claims.

Especially when there's repetitive scandals of "top" people.

That's called... a cult. The "leaders" at the top make a claim and nobody in the worker bees below bothers to check it for a while. Then they do and they oust that leader and appoint a new one. Same cycle repeats.

It's okay. Nobody minds. We all have our cults. We just find it entertaining that some cults get more offended by the fact that they're human too, than others.

Again, scandals...cults... I'm wondering who is the climate change cult leader.