Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 07/25/2010 - 10:57.
I found this blog as a result of doing a Google search after reading an article in the Sept./Oct. 2009 issue of Skeptical Inquirer titled, “Can a Reasonable Skeptic Support Climate Change Legislation?” I did the Google search because, frankly, I was appalled by the use of the value attribution fallacy (i.e., ad hominem attack), rather than a discussion of the science, or lack thereof, itself. Shame on Skeptical Inquirer!
I have long been dubious of the search for patterns in a complex, chaotic system, and the predictive value of the results. The climate is a complex system in the mathematical sense that it is made up of many separate parts that are inter-connected, inter-dependent, and adaptable. It is chaotic in the sense that it is a deterministic system that is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out, you can curve-fit virtually any dataset, regardless of how random the data is. But whether or not the result has any predictive value is the question.
So, as a devout skeptic, I have a number of questions about the science itself that I have yet to see adequately addressed by those who assert the AGW theory. Here are just a few:
- The prediction horizon for weather forecasting is about 10 days. Given that weather is primarily atmospheric, and climate includes many other sub-systems as well, how do we conclude that the prediction horizon for climatology is at least 100 years? And how do we test this? And if we can’t test this, can we really call it ‘science’?
- What about that 0.92 correlation between the PDO and global temperature over the past 110 years, vs. the 0.66 correlation between CO2 and temperature over the same period?
- What about the fact that the IPCC acknowledges right in the executive summary of AR4 that they don’t understand clouds or how to measure their extent or depth on a global scale over time, and that a 2% change in cloud cover over the past 120 years would account for all of the warming that has been observed, and the fact that the sun-spot cycle appears to exert a significant influence on cloud formation?
- What about the Bond cycle and the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle that have been observed in proxy data over the last 800,000 years, and why isn’t the warming over the last century simply another high point in this cycle?
- If increases in CO2 drive increases in temperature, then why have changes in CO2 concentration lagged behind the corresponding changes in temperature by 800 to 1,200 years for the last 800,000 years, as seen in ice core proxy data? And where did those increases in CO2 come from anyway? It’s not like we’ve been operating coal-fired generators for the last 800,000 years. Does the current increase in CO2 correspond, by any chance, to something that happen 1,000 years ago? Like the Medieval Warm Period?
- How about the infamous ‘hockey stick curve’ and the “Nature trick to hide the decline” that was mentioned in the CRU emails? If the paleo dendritic proxies that are commonly used by the high-priests of AGW are so good, why was there a need to splice in actual temperatures after 1978, rather than continuing to use temperatures predicted by the proxies, and why 1978 rather than 1880? What is the ‘divergence’? Is it good science to use a proxy that is inconsistent with actual data for much of the time period that is available, rather than rejecting the proxy? Is it good science to cut and splice charts to hide the fact that the proxy doesn’t agree with reality? And what about the fact that those proxies don’t show the MWP or the Dalton and Maunder minimums? Were those stories about the Vikings farming in Greenland really a clever hoax perpetrated by the global warming deniers?
- How about that recent report from D’Aleo and Watts showing the systematic elimination of temperature monitoring stations (roughly 4,500 out of 6,000) in colder locations, and just might this account for some, or all, of the warming that has been reported, as D'Aleo and Watts assert? How about the fact that the satellite record hasn’t shown any warming trend at all over the entire period that it has been recorded (from about 1990)?
I have lots of other questions as well. Skeptical Enquirer’s substitution of ad hominem attacks and pejorative language for an objective examination of the science, or lack thereof, in contrast to their approach to other issues is extremely disappointing.
![[SOHO Sun Spot Image]](http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/latest.jpg)
I found this blog as a result
I found this blog as a result of doing a Google search after reading an article in the Sept./Oct. 2009 issue of Skeptical Inquirer titled, “Can a Reasonable Skeptic Support Climate Change Legislation?” I did the Google search because, frankly, I was appalled by the use of the value attribution fallacy (i.e., ad hominem attack), rather than a discussion of the science, or lack thereof, itself. Shame on Skeptical Inquirer!
I have long been dubious of the search for patterns in a complex, chaotic system, and the predictive value of the results. The climate is a complex system in the mathematical sense that it is made up of many separate parts that are inter-connected, inter-dependent, and adaptable. It is chaotic in the sense that it is a deterministic system that is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out, you can curve-fit virtually any dataset, regardless of how random the data is. But whether or not the result has any predictive value is the question.
So, as a devout skeptic, I have a number of questions about the science itself that I have yet to see adequately addressed by those who assert the AGW theory. Here are just a few:
- The prediction horizon for weather forecasting is about 10 days. Given that weather is primarily atmospheric, and climate includes many other sub-systems as well, how do we conclude that the prediction horizon for climatology is at least 100 years? And how do we test this? And if we can’t test this, can we really call it ‘science’?
- What about that 0.92 correlation between the PDO and global temperature over the past 110 years, vs. the 0.66 correlation between CO2 and temperature over the same period?
- What about the fact that the IPCC acknowledges right in the executive summary of AR4 that they don’t understand clouds or how to measure their extent or depth on a global scale over time, and that a 2% change in cloud cover over the past 120 years would account for all of the warming that has been observed, and the fact that the sun-spot cycle appears to exert a significant influence on cloud formation?
- What about the Bond cycle and the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle that have been observed in proxy data over the last 800,000 years, and why isn’t the warming over the last century simply another high point in this cycle?
- If increases in CO2 drive increases in temperature, then why have changes in CO2 concentration lagged behind the corresponding changes in temperature by 800 to 1,200 years for the last 800,000 years, as seen in ice core proxy data? And where did those increases in CO2 come from anyway? It’s not like we’ve been operating coal-fired generators for the last 800,000 years. Does the current increase in CO2 correspond, by any chance, to something that happen 1,000 years ago? Like the Medieval Warm Period?
- How about the infamous ‘hockey stick curve’ and the “Nature trick to hide the decline” that was mentioned in the CRU emails? If the paleo dendritic proxies that are commonly used by the high-priests of AGW are so good, why was there a need to splice in actual temperatures after 1978, rather than continuing to use temperatures predicted by the proxies, and why 1978 rather than 1880? What is the ‘divergence’? Is it good science to use a proxy that is inconsistent with actual data for much of the time period that is available, rather than rejecting the proxy? Is it good science to cut and splice charts to hide the fact that the proxy doesn’t agree with reality? And what about the fact that those proxies don’t show the MWP or the Dalton and Maunder minimums? Were those stories about the Vikings farming in Greenland really a clever hoax perpetrated by the global warming deniers?
- How about that recent report from D’Aleo and Watts showing the systematic elimination of temperature monitoring stations (roughly 4,500 out of 6,000) in colder locations, and just might this account for some, or all, of the warming that has been reported, as D'Aleo and Watts assert? How about the fact that the satellite record hasn’t shown any warming trend at all over the entire period that it has been recorded (from about 1990)?
I have lots of other questions as well. Skeptical Enquirer’s substitution of ad hominem attacks and pejorative language for an objective examination of the science, or lack thereof, in contrast to their approach to other issues is extremely disappointing.
Al B.