The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

[Munger]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

You speak as if nobody has heard of the southern oscillation before. Those "peer reviewed" papers you keep linking to are either rubbish or misrepresented. Cherry picking scientific studies and telling us what you think they mean is hardly persuasive, and does not invalidate AGW.

It is funny you mischaracterize all the data presented by a dozen organizations as anecdotal. Is this more sophist nonsense? I'll bet you don't believe in the moon landing either. No amount of evidence will satisfy you, why do you pretend otherwise?

Just listen to this partisan hack:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Steven Chu
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

[sunskyfan]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

The irony is that the image you mapped to your avatar is a monkey with a gun. That is what I am talking about. The difference between "collective" moral authority and "singular" moral authority is no different when considering the environment or the economy. I am as Libertarian as the next fellow but the difference between a useful libertarian and disfunctional nihilist is the acknowledgement of collective responsibility for the world around us.

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

You speak as if nobody has heard of the southern oscillation before. Those "peer reviewed" papers you keep linking to are either rubbish or misrepresented. Cherry picking scientific studies and telling us what you think they mean is hardly persuasive, and does not invalidate AGW.

It is funny you mischaracterize all the data presented by a dozen organizations as anecdotal. Is this more sophist nonsense? I'll bet you don't believe in the moon landing either. No amount of evidence will satisfy you, why do you pretend otherwise?

It is amusing, I keep posting 'peer reviewed' papers which poke very specific holes in AGW, and you keep responding with general statements and calling said papers sophist nonsense.

Where is your massive data? Why are these papers so hard to refute?

Where are your dozen organizations?

Every single argument you've presented uses a singular viewpoint: that AGW is real when true scientific inquiry starts with just looking at the data.

Or perhaps you feel as Mr. Hansen does:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article....icle_id=104255

In March, Al Gore’s science adviser and prominent climate researcher, Jim Hansen, proclaimed that when it comes to dealing with global warming, the “democratic process isn’t working.”

The new McCarthyism: man-made Global Warming?

Call it the 'Green Scare'

Just listen to this partisan hack:

It was interesting to see how Chu hemmed and hawed a bit about the 'majority' of scientists question.

But more importantly: if just using white roof covers and white roads has such a massive effect - why then is it not possible that it is these types of man-made changes to the earth's albedo which is causing at least some of the warming as opposed to CO2?

Chu also carefully says that the Waxman-Markey bill doesn't do squat - but it sends a signal that the US is serious about global warming/higher oil prices.

Well, if a signal is so important - why not just triple gasoline taxes? That'd be pretty unambiguous.

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

I see what California is using a vast amount of solar energy for: installing solar-powered radar along its highways to either count cars or monitor car speeds or to watch traffic. This monitoring or supervision might be great in controlling civil-disorder or to spot terrorists. Or this monitoring just might catch speeders or other law-breakers.

Solar-powered monitoring stations are every quarter-of-a-mile on the way to San Jose along both sides of U.S. Hwy 101. Each station is powered by about one square metre of California sunshine.

I see very little coming out of solar power except for trouble from government and a rather wasteful expense for everyone.

You caught me... Smashing global warming and vanquishing nukes are both secondary to our highway spying. And let me warn you, measuring distance in meters, (especially spelling it in proper English), will get you on a short list of trouble makers.

Never a speeder or disobedient citizen or Canadian free thinker will pass without our solar surveillance tracking you...how else would we survive..:rolleyes:?

[radon]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

It is amusing, I keep posting 'peer reviewed' papers which poke very specific holes in AGW, and you keep responding with general statements and calling said papers sophist nonsense.

Many of them are nonsense. I'm glad you put peer reviewed in quotes. I'm sure you'd like to keep me busy refuting the headline news on every crackpot website and online conspiracy journal.

And yes, referring to decades of measurements by thousands of people all over the planet as anecdotal is nothing less than sophism.

This entire thread is filled with rhetorical rubbish. For instance, comparing a journalist's modeling skills to an astrophysicist, editing a graph so that is misrepresents someones position, printing graphs of ocean data and claiming it represents global temperature etc. This is all nonsense and are the same tactics used by such people trying to get you to believe in intelligent design, and that the moon landing didn't happen. Why the charade?

Where is your massive data? Why are these papers so hard to refute?

I've posted several links in this thread and another. You know where to find it. You are obviously capable of going to various journals, or in the absents of that giss or noaa for summary data sets. But that would be harder than going to conspiracy websites wouldn't it.

Every single argument you've presented uses a singular viewpoint: that AGW is real when true scientific inquiry starts with just looking at the data.

Any scientific inquiry begins with observation. Scientists don't start with a viewpoint then cherry pick things that justify it, they leave that for the crackpots.

My position is simply this:

We are in the middle of a long term warming trend. There is a hypotheses, based on a well known physical mechanism, as to why this is occurring. It is falsifiable, and consistent with observation.

If you can show me reputable data to the contrary I will change my mind. So far this has not happened.

Or perhaps you feel as Mr. Hansen does:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article....icle_id=104255

The new McCarthyism: man-made Global Warming?

Call it the 'Green Scare'

You forgot:

Bjorn Lomborg, the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist"


DCSD investigation

On January 6, 2003 the DCSD reached a decision on the complaints. The ruling was a mixed message, deciding the book to be scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of expertise in the fields in question:^[3]

Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. ...In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.

The DCSD cited The Skeptical Environmentalist for:

1. Fabrication of data;
2. Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
3. Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
4. Distorted interpretation of conclusions;
5. Plagiarism;
6. Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjorn_L...fic_dishonesty

He is hardly unbiased, and apparently quite ignorant.

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

For instance, comparing a journalist's modeling skills to an astrophysicist,

Um ok, so again you're attempting to tell me that the information presented is irrelevant because the 'expert' says so. Yet plenty of astrophysicists, PhD meteorologists, and what not also say the models are not correct. Ultimately it seems you're just saying my guy is right.

editing a graph so that is misrepresents someones position,

Editing what graph? The graph presented is exactly the same as the graph you presented and from the same source. The difference is that you focus on the one which justifies your position, while I focus on the one which introduces doubt. But both graphs are valid. You have yet to explain why your 'part' of the graph is better.

printing graphs of ocean data and claiming it represents global temperature etc.

If you believe ocean temperatures are irrelevant, fine. What about the paper showing the majority of temperature swings are due to non-man made phenomena?

He is hardly unbiased, and apparently quite ignorant.

Whom are you referring to? Hansen or Lomborg? After all, Lomborg isn't the one saying the democratic process isn't working because he isn't getting his own way.

Nor is Lomborg the one playing politics from a government funded position.

Lastly Lomborg isn't the one who has been pushing global warming even before there was global warming. Or is Hansen so transcendant that he could extrapolate a climate model output before there practically were computers (1957)?

For that matter your argument applies just as well to other well known proponents of AGW: Gore, Krugman, etc etc. - none of these are even degreed in anything close to mathematic rigor.

[radon]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Um ok, so again you're attempting to tell me that the information presented is irrelevant because the 'expert' says so. Yet plenty of astrophysicists, PhD meteorologists, and what not also say the models are not correct. Ultimately it seems you're just saying my guy is right.

No, I'm saying that the astrophysicist knows more about physical models than a journalist because he has actually spent time building them.

Editing what graph? The graph presented is exactly the same as the graph you presented and from the same source. The difference is that you focus on the one which justifies your position, while I focus on the one which introduces doubt. But both graphs are valid. You have yet to explain why your 'part' of the graph is better.

My graph is the whole graph that was published in 1988 and shown during congressional testimony. Your graph was edited to remove two scenarios, including the most likely one, in order to deliberately misrepresent Hansen's position. If you want to introduce doubt there are better ways to do it than starting with a straw man. If you mean the SST anomaly chart I will continue below.

If you believe ocean temperatures are irrelevant, fine. What about the paper showing the majority of temperature swings are due to non-man made phenomena?

When did I say ocean temperatures were irrelevant? It seemed to me that you were implying that that ocean anomaly data is somehow equivalent to the global annual mean, it is not. You wanted to assert that the SST anomaly chart demonstrated a cooling trend. This is not the case since they are all positive. You also said that the global annual mean did not take into account ocean data when their published methodology clearly indicates otherwise. This leads me to believe that either you never read it or are attempting to be deliberately misleading.

Whom are you referring to? Hansen or Lomborg? After all, Lomborg isn't the one saying the democratic process isn't working because he isn't getting his own way.

Nor is Lomborg the one playing politics from a government funded position.

Lastly Lomborg isn't the one who has been pushing global warming even before there was global warming. Or is Hansen so transcendant that he could extrapolate a climate model output before there practically were computers (1957)?

Lomborg writes sensationalist journalism. Do you really believe that someone whose work is built on fabrication of data, selective citation, plagiarism, and deliberate misinterpretation of others' results is interested in anything other than selling books? I have no reason to believe he has any interest in correctly representing Hansen's position.

For that matter your argument applies just as well to other well known proponents of AGW: Gore, Krugman, etc etc. - none of these are even degreed in anything close to mathematic rigor.

I already posted my position. It is not complex. My argument is supported by observation not AGW proponents.

[we_are_toast]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Where is your massive data? Why are these papers so hard to refute?

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Where are your dozen organizations?

..."The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)]. Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../306/5702/1686
On and On it goes.

[WildspitzE]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

The irony is that the image you mapped to your avatar is a monkey with a gun.

There is no irony or coincidence behind this thought out avatar.

[sunskyfan]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

I am sure there isn't. It is a great avatar. Any irony I was referring to was in the context of the point I was making not you.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

You caught me... Smashing global warming and vanquishing nukes are both secondary to our highway spying. And let me warn you, measuring distance in meters, (especially spelling it in proper English), will get you on a short list of trouble makers.

Never a speeder or disobedient citizen or Canadian free thinker will pass without our solar surveillance tracking you...how else would we survive..:rolleyes:?

Government surveillance of the population is very scary to me. It is one of the principal reasons why I would never want to move to the UK.

Anyway, there are not many uses for solar energy, but helping to heat hot water, especially in the desert, is one of the best uses of solar energy that I have seen. Putting solar lights on top of sailboats is another good use for solar energy..... Unfortunately, government surveillance of highway traffic is one of the more questionable uses for solar energy in my opinion, and government surveillance is a now a major use for solar energy in California.

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

No, I'm saying that the astrophysicist knows more about physical models than a journalist because he has actually spent time building them.

Sorry, but a little bit of knowledge in a complex subject is completely meaningless.

I've worked with computer models for years - does that make me an expert on climate models? It does not.

What I can say about models is that they can do whatever you want them to. A complex model is millions or even hundreds of millions of lines of code. At this level of complexity - the only way to validate its behavior is to run batteries of tests to see if real world behavior is met.

Anyone who isn't intimately involved in this process of development and testing is no better than the marketing guy.

And as I've said many many times - the inability of existing models to even predict the last couple of Ice Ages bodes poorly for their ability to predict the future.

My graph is the whole graph that was published in 1988 and shown during congressional testimony. Your graph was edited to remove two scenarios, including the most likely one, in order to deliberately misrepresent Hansen's position. If you want to introduce doubt there are better ways to do it than starting with a straw man. If you mean the SST anomaly chart I will continue below.

Yes, your graph. The source graph of both the GISS and the UAH data (non-satellite vs. satellite) is direct from GISS. Thus the point is that there is a peculiar anomaly why the GISS earth data is so different from the GISS satellite data. Others have pointed out that the GISS earth surveying stations do not take into account urbanization around the stations in the past 20 years, but I haven't bothered.

The simple point is that the cherry picking being done is not by me - but rather by you and the AGW crowd. I continue to point that the satellite data shows significantly different temperature behavior than the earth-based data.

As for Hansen: you again failed to reconcile how Hansen's own words in the Hansen co-authored paper I posted that 'Scenario A' was "the high side of reality" - which is what he told Congress. Thus any misrepresentation is not by anyone other than Hansen himself - and irregardless the jury is still out as to whether Scenario B or Scenario C are correct even though Scenario C is with full compliance to the Hansen eco-Nazi regime. Scenario A is clearly WRONG.

When did I say ocean temperatures were irrelevant? It seemed to me that you were implying that that ocean anomaly data is somehow equivalent to the global annual mean, it is not. You wanted to assert that the SST anomaly chart demonstrated a cooling trend. This is not the case since they are all positive. You also said that the global annual mean did not take into account ocean data when their published methodology clearly indicates otherwise. This leads me to believe that either you never read it or are attempting to be deliberately misleading.

I have never said that warming cannot be occurring - what I have said is that it is inconclusive that the majority of said warming is due to man-made CO2.

The papers I have pointed out from a cursory search (all published in the last 2 months) all point to the man-made component of warming being less than originally estimated by IPCC and others.

If the man-made component of warming is 0.18 degrees C, then the need for draconian eco-Nazi crap is much less than if the man-made component of warming is 3 to 5 degrees C.

Once again like many of the AGW crowd - you seem to think that disagreement with your position means I think the earth is cooling, or that warming is entirely natural, or any number of other straw man positions.

Lomborg writes sensationalist journalism. Do you really believe that someone whose work is built on fabrication of data, selective citation, plagiarism, and deliberate misinterpretation of others' results is interested in anything other than selling books? I have no reason to believe he has any interest in correctly representing Hansen's position.

Sure, Lomborg is a sensationalist. So is Hansen. Does this mean both are fools? I'm ok with that.

You still failed to respond to clear quotes of where Hansen is clearly less interested in discussion and more interested in getting his own way no matter what.

Here's another one: Hansen criticizing Waxman-Markey

Cap-and-trade is the temple of doom. It would lock in disasters for our children and grandchildren. Why do people continue to worship a disastrous approach?

...

The only defense of this monstrous absurdity that I have heard is “well, you are right, it’s no good, but the train has left the station”. If the train has left, it had better be derailed soon or the planet, and all of us, will be in deep do-do.

eco-Nazi! Or perhaps eco-Torquemada is a better term.

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Yes, and the source article notes:

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Nice and circular. IPCC says so, and then all the papers underneath agree.

The article goes on to say:

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.

Pascal's Wager again...

and

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open.

Hmmm!

And of course the obligatory final note:

But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

Here's some countervening data:

http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/m...endorse-reject-

Pie chart showing a study of 528 peer-reviewed scientific papers published on the ISI Web of Science. Chart shows number of papers that either explicitly endorsed, implicitly endorsed, rejected, or were neutral on the hypothesis that humans were having at least some effect on global climate change

• Explicit endorsement: 38
• Implicit endorsement: 199
• Reject: 32
• Neutral: 259

Wow, that 'implicit endorsement' sure is ringing isn't it? Even of a general statement that humans are having 'some' effect on global climate change.

..."The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)]. Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

Yes, all of these are nicely circular as well.

IPCC's report(s) have been talked about already - no need to go into the editors inserting their 68 opinions over the thousands of contributors.

Instead let's look at these "endorsements":

American Meteorological Society: original link dead for some reason but cached copy:

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:...tacademies.pdf

The statement by the academies is consistent with the AMS in 2003 statement entitled “Climate Change Research: Issues for the Atmospheric and Related Sciences.”

The AMS statement concludes that there is now clear evidence that the mean annual temperature at the Earth's surface, averaged over the entire globe, has been increasing inthe past 200 years.

The Society also acknowledges that there is clear evidence that the abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased over the same period.

The AMS calls for specific and focused research to address any gaps in the science to make sound policy decisions.

Temperature rising. Greenhouse gases increasing. No relation of one to the other. No mention of man made. More research needed.

National Academies of Sciences endorsement:

It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed

to human activities (IPCC 2001)2.

Quotes References:

Notes and references
1 This statement concentrates on climate change associated with global warming. We use the UNFCCC definition of climate change, which is ‘a change
of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to
natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods’.
2 IPCC (2001). Third Assessment Report. We recognise the international scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
3 IEA (2004). World Energy Outlook 4. Although long-term projections of future world energy demand and supply are highly uncertain, the World
Energy Outlook produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA) is a useful source of information about possible future energy scenarios.
4 With special emphasis on the first principle of the UNFCCC, which states: ‘The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and
future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective
capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof’.

5 Recognising and building on the IPCC’s ongoing work on emission scenarios.

Or in other words, AAAS is taking IPCC's word for it.

American Geophysical Union:

This group has the most clear statement

During recent millennia of relatively stable climate, civilization became established and populations have grown rapidly. In the next 50 years, even the lower limit of impending climate change--an additional global mean warming of 1°C above the last decade--is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past thousand years and poses global problems in planning for and adapting to it. Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and--if sustained over centuries--melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters. If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO₂ must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century. With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential.

And yet...

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/pr...pened_at_.html

December 20, 2006

So what happened at AGU last week?


Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change
[this is a cross-post from this original]
With thirteen thousand people at a confab of geophysicists and geophysicists-in-training, a few thousand of whom work on something related to the climate system, you expect to hear about climate change.

In perhaps a short decade, climate change has rapidly surpassed seismology as the primary membrane between the public and the geophysics research world. Climate is now what most makes the American Geophysical Union relevant to non-members; climate is now what essentially drives the meeting despite the presence of dozens of other specialties represented.

As a physical oceanographer (which by definition also means "climatologist")- become-enviro policy guy, though, I wasn't so much interested in the details of climate science at this year's AGU. What I was (and am) interested in is seeing the conference as a whole. My interest in AGU has strayed from the hardrock science, moving into something more to do with feelings and hunches. That's right, feelings. Hunches. Intuition. The squishy, soft underbelly of the human mind; the part we want to ignore in pursuing geophysical data analysis. What I want to know is attitude. More than the state of the science, I now want to know about the state of the scientists.

I will grant that talking to the people I did at AGU represents a small fraction of all the attendees. I will grant that there is no way to know whether my averaging of attitudes in the climsci world, as sensed by talking with a few people over a few days, scales up to represent the true feelings of the collective. But I will tell you what I found, and what I felt, and whether you think it might represent the current attitude of climsci world is up to you.

To sum the state of climsci world in one word, as I see it right now, it is this: tension.

What I am starting to hear is internal backlash. Sure, science is messy and always full of tension between holders of competing positions, opinions and analyses. That has always been the nature of science, and of course extends to climate science. Tensions come out at meetings, on listservs, on letters pages, and in the press. But these tensions normally surround a particular paper, or a particular question. While much more broadly-based tensions have existed for years on the state of understanding on global warming, they haven't really been tensions internal to the climsci community, but tensions between the climsci community and interested outsiders.

What I am sensing now is something much broader and more diffuse, something that has less to do with particular components of the science in the field and is much more about how the field is composing itself.
What I see is something that I am having a hard time labeling, but that I might call either a "hangover" or a "sophomore slump" or "buyers remorse." None fit perfectly, but perhaps the combination does. I speak for (my interpretation) of the collective: {We tried for years – decades – to get them to listen to us about climate change. To do that we had to ramp up our rhetoric. We had to figure out ways to tone down our natural skepticism (we are scientists, after all) in order to put on a united face. We knew it would mean pushing the science harder than it should be. We knew it would mean allowing the boundary-pushers on the "it's happening" side free reign while stifling the boundary-pushers on the other side. But knowing the science, we knew the stakes to humanity were high and that the opposition to the truth would be fierce, so we knew we had to dig in. But now they are listening. Now they do believe us. Now they say they're ready to take action. And now we're wondering if we didn't create a monster. We're wondering if they realize how uncertain our projections of future climate are. We wonder if we've oversold the science. We're wondering what happened to our community, that individuals caveat even the most minor questionings of barely-proven climate change evidence, lest they be tagged as "skeptics." We're wondering if we've let our alarm at the problem trickle to the public sphere, missing all the caveats in translation that we have internalized. And we're wondering if we’ve let some of our scientists take the science too far, promise too much knowledge, and promote more certainty in ourselves than is warranted.}

I came to this place in a few ways. One was a colleague describing a caveat he put into his poster abstract out of fear --- yes, fear! (He strongly called into question widely-quoted data supporting a decline in snowpack and advance in spring peak runoff in the northern Rockies.) Another was multiple colleagues giving me independent but similar blistering accounts of the GCMs they work on (upcoming post on this). Yet another was listening to competing ideas presented by Torn (GC22A-02) and Knutti (-04) in this session. It was in these and other events and conversations that a theme arose that pervaded my meeting.

None of this is to say that the risk of climate change is being questioned or downplayed by our community; it's not. It is to say that I think some people feel that we've created a monster by limiting the ability of people in our community to question results that say "climate change is right here!" It is to say that a number of climsci people I heard from are not comfortable enough with the science to want our community to push to outsiders an idea that we have fully or even adequately bounded the risk.

I heard from a few people a sentiment that we need to stop making assumptions and decisions for decision-makers; that we need to give decision-makers only the unvarnished truth with realistic bounds on our uncertainty, and trust that the decision-makers will know what to do with it. These feelings came of frustration that many of us are downplaying uncertainties for fear of not being listened to.

[we_are_toast]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

:p:p:p

Here's some countervening data:

http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/m...endorse-reject-

Quote:

Pie chart showing a study of 528 peer-reviewed scientific papers published on the ISI Web of Science. Chart shows number of papers that either explicitly endorsed, implicitly endorsed, rejected, or were neutral on the hypothesis that humans were having at least some effect on global climate change Explicit endorsement: 38 Implicit endorsement: 199 Reject: 32 Neutral: 259

Wow, that 'implicit endorsement' sure is ringing isn't it? Even of a general statement that humans are having 'some' effect on global climate change.

I quote from science Magazine, and what is the source of your "contravening data " ? :p

The journal Energy and Environment is a social science journal published by Multi-Science. The journal's editor is Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, a reader in geography at the University of Hull in England and climate skeptic. Energy and Environment is not carried in the ISI listing of peer-reviewed journals. Its peer review process has been widely criticised for allowing the publication of substandard papers.^[1][2] Numerous climate skeptics and contrarians have published in the journal and these studies have later been quoted by Republican critics of global warming science such as Senator James Inhofe and Congressman Joe Barton.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...nd_Environment

As I said, the denialists can only rely on the deception of pseudoscience to fool the uninformed into believing the junk they spew. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but apparently you can fool the denialists all the time.

:p:p

[Starving Steve]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

May 2009 was the coldest on record in New Zealand, everywhere. July 2009 is about to set a record for cold in New York City. Ohio is seeing near record cold. San Francisco, California just tied its all-time low temperature record for July 24th, low 50F (10C). Go look at their graph of daily temperature ranges for the last month:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr

The graph shows remarkable stability of temperature ranges. Go look at previous months, and the same pattern, stability, is seen. Go check previous years, same pattern, remarkable stability in the temperature range is seen on the graphs.

Yes, this is all just ancedotal evidence. But the evidence just keeps coming in. And little change in sea levels too. Ocean atolls like French Frigate Shoals and Midway Island are still doing fine.

If calamity is going to happen on Earth in just ninety-one months due to AGW, shouldn't we be seeing some signs of that impending calamity right now?

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

May 2009 was the coldest on record in New Zealand, everywhere. July 2009 is about to set a record for cold in New York City. Ohio is seeing near record cold. San Francisco, California just tied its all-time low temperature record for July 24th, low 50F (10C).

If calamity is going to happen on Earth in just ninety-one months due to AGW, shouldn't we be seeing some signs of that impending calamity right now?

Thanks for pointing it out. It's called climate change and that's a nice way of saying unpredictable and sometimes horrible weather. Let's keep adding CO2 and see where it breaks. If you like measuring records, I'm sure new ones are on the way.