Climate Change - The Scientific Debate (Vol. II)

[PRTVR]

ludo said:

PRTVR said:

ludo said:

I suspect it is done this way because the alternative is to change the past record as we gain more data and need to homgenise. There is an obvious practical problem with this, which is that it means you can't update/compare existing analyses that use the dataset, so it makes more sense to keep the past the same (for a given version of the algorithm) and change the current measurements.

You have to remember that the datasets (with perhaps the exception of BEST) were not created to convince climate skeptics (not that such a thing is actually possible), they were made to allow climatologists to research the climate.

But without the fear factor would the scientists be able to get the grants for the research ?
Is it not a fact of life that a problem is a good thing for research.

lol another ad-hominem. Keep it for the politics thread. If someone wanted to make money as an academic, they wouldn't choose climatology, there is way more money in biosciences and AI at the moment. You do know, don't you that acedemics don't get to keep the money? It gets spent hiring an RA to do the interesting work (that you would enjoy doing yourself) while you spend time administering the grant and writing reports.

It's not an ad-hominem, it's a fact of life.
Do you think that funding for climate science would be anywhere near the levels it is now without a scare story attached ?
it's not about making money but is about securing grants to maintain the work.

[ludo]

PRTVR said:

It's not an ad-hominem, it's a fact of life.
Do you think that funding for climate science would be anywhere near the levels it is now without a scare story attached ?
it's not about making money but is about securing grants to maintain the work.

Yes it is an ad-hominem as it is an attack on the source of an argument in place of an attack on the content of the argument. That is what an ad-hominem is.

I don't think the increases in funding for the environmental sciences has risen faster than funding for the biological science, physical sciences, engineering or medical sciences. I vaguely recall looking up the funding of the various research councils and didn't find anything interesting. Do you have any evidence to support your claim (as it is your claim, the onus is on you not me to support it)?

[PRTVR]

ludo said:

I don't think the increases in funding for the environmental sciences has risen faster than funding for the biological science, physical sciences, engineering or medical sciences. I vaguely recall looking up the funding of the various research councils and didn't find anything interesting. Do you have any evidence to support your claim (as it is your claim, the onus is on you not me to support it)?

Surely logically why with ever decreasing availability of funds would you prioritize an area that has little return over a science that had ?,
climate science is considered important because of the fear of climate change, would it receive the same priority, if they were saying it's all natural and there's nothing we can do about it ?
My view it would not.

[ludo]

PRTVR said:

ludo said:

I don't think the increases in funding for the environmental sciences has risen faster than funding for the biological science, physical sciences, engineering or medical sciences. I vaguely recall looking up the funding of the various research councils and didn't find anything interesting. Do you have any evidence to support your claim (as it is your claim, the onus is on you not me to support it)?

Surely logically why with ever decreasing availability of funds would you prioritize an area that has little return over a science that had ?,
climate science is considered important because of the fear of climate change, would it receive the same priority, if they were saying it's all natural and there's nothing we can do about it ?
My view it would not.

(i) I note that you avoided the point that is *was* an ad-hominem, and as such should be left for the poltics thread, not the science discussion.

(ii) I note that you have provided no evidence whatsoever to support your claim that there was an increase in funding, other than the sort of increases in funding for science generally.

(iii) I notice you are unable to admit that.

[kerplunk]

PRTVR said:

ludo said:

PRTVR said:

ludo said:

I suspect it is done this way because the alternative is to change the past record as we gain more data and need to homgenise. There is an obvious practical problem with this, which is that it means you can't update/compare existing analyses that use the dataset, so it makes more sense to keep the past the same (for a given version of the algorithm) and change the current measurements.

You have to remember that the datasets (with perhaps the exception of BEST) were not created to convince climate skeptics (not that such a thing is actually possible), they were made to allow climatologists to research the climate.

But without the fear factor would the scientists be able to get the grants for the research ?
Is it not a fact of life that a problem is a good thing for research.

lol another ad-hominem. Keep it for the politics thread. If someone wanted to make money as an academic, they wouldn't choose climatology, there is way more money in biosciences and AI at the moment. You do know, don't you that acedemics don't get to keep the money? It gets spent hiring an RA to do the interesting work (that you would enjoy doing yourself) while you spend time administering the grant and writing reports.

It's not an ad-hominem, it's a fact of life.
Do you think that funding for climate science would be anywhere near the levels it is now without a scare story attached ?
it's not about making money but is about securing grants to maintain the work.

Ok let's suppose that's true - what do you propose doing about it? Do you have an alternative plan? This is a politics discussion really isn't it, but go on - give us your ideas about what should be done differently to improve things.

[Kawasicki]

ludo said:

wc98 said:

the fact there are other places , reykjavik springs to mind the contiguous united states is another,suggests current warming isn't global. yes i know these are small areas of the planet relatively speaking, but the term global warming requires everywhere to be warming...

That simply isn't true. That would be an absurd definition of global warming as climatologists know perfectly well that increasing GHG won't uniformly increase temperatures across the globe.

What is dinstinctive about the current phase of global warming?

Recent interglacial periods were warmer than the current one.
The rate of temperature change in both polar regions were much higher than we are now experiencing.

An argument can be made that current climate change is relatively gentle.

[ludo]

Kawasicki said:

ludo said:

wc98 said:

the fact there are other places , reykjavik springs to mind the contiguous united states is another,suggests current warming isn't global. yes i know these are small areas of the planet relatively speaking, but the term global warming requires everywhere to be warming...

That simply isn't true. That would be an absurd definition of global warming as climatologists know perfectly well that increasing GHG won't uniformly increase temperatures across the globe.

What is dinstinctive about the current phase of global warming?

A question that has nothing whatsoever to do with the point made in the quote. It is almost as if you were trying to distract the attention away from the fact that wc98 had written something utterly absurd.

[Kawasicki]

ludo said:

Kawasicki said:

ludo said:

wc98 said:

the fact there are other places , reykjavik springs to mind the contiguous united states is another,suggests current warming isn't global. yes i know these are small areas of the planet relatively speaking, but the term global warming requires everywhere to be warming...

That simply isn't true. That would be an absurd definition of global warming as climatologists know perfectly well that increasing GHG won't uniformly increase temperatures across the globe.

What is dinstinctive about the current phase of global warming?

A question that has nothing whatsoever to do with the point made in the quote. It is almost as if you were trying to distract the attention away from the fact that wc98 had written something utterly absurd.

It was a response to your post, so I shouldn’t have quoted wc98 too.

I know that climatologists expect the polar regions to warm fastest. I don’t see that the current rate is anything special.

[ludo]

Kawasicki said:

ludo said:

Kawasicki said:

ludo said:

wc98 said:

the fact there are other places , reykjavik springs to mind the contiguous united states is another,suggests current warming isn't global. yes i know these are small areas of the planet relatively speaking, but the term global warming requires everywhere to be warming...

That simply isn't true. That would be an absurd definition of global warming as climatologists know perfectly well that increasing GHG won't uniformly increase temperatures across the globe.

What is dinstinctive about the current phase of global warming?

A question that has nothing whatsoever to do with the point made in the quote. It is almost as if you were trying to distract the attention away from the fact that wc98 had written something utterly absurd.

It was a response to your post, so I shouldn’t have quoted wc98 too.

It was a non-sequitur to my post even without wc98's bit.

You can always go back in time and find greater temperatures or greater rates of change, provided you look at extreme events like the transition from a glacial to an interglacial. We are talking about global mean temperatures (note I gave a caveat when I mentioned ice cores, which are at best regional).

[Kawasicki]

So where is the evidence that the current warming is unusual?

[ludo]

Kawasicki said:

So where is the evidence that the current warming is unusual?

Already pointed it out. The proxy records, which have global coverage and ice cores (caveat: regional only and as you pointed out, there was a larger change at the end of the last glacial).

[grumbledoak]

The inevitable gets a step nearer.

According to a new computer model, geoengineering can save us
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-dose-solar-geoengine...

[Kawasicki]

I looked again at both Vostok and Greenland ice core data.

In the current interglacial period there are rates of temperature change significantly higher than what we are currently experiencing.

Yes, I know they might both only be regional rates, but global temperature proxies with usable temporal resolution going back 10,000 years seem quite rare. Any ideas where to find them? I’m stumped.

[kerplunk]

Kawasicki said:

I looked again at both Vostok and Greenland ice core data.

In the current interglacial period there are rates of temperature change significantly higher than what we are currently experiencing.

Yes, I know they might both only be regional rates, but global temperature proxies with usable temporal resolution going back 10,000 years seem quite rare. Any ideas where to find them? I’m stumped.

I doubt global temp reconstruction efforts that combine multiple proxy datasets will have the resolution you're looking for. The Marcott et al paper reconstructs temps for the holocene, but in a Q&A on Realclimate there's this:

Q: Is the rate of global temperature rise over the last 100 years faster than at any time during the past 11,300 years?

A: Our study did not directly address this question because the paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of ~120 years on average, which precludes us from examining variations in rates of change occurring within a century. Other factors also contribute to smoothing the proxy temperature signals contained in many of the records we used, such as organisms burrowing through deep-sea mud, and chronological uncertainties in the proxy records that tend to smooth the signals when compositing them into a globally averaged reconstruction. We showed that no temperature variability is preserved in our reconstruction at cycles shorter than 300 years, 50% is preserved at 1000-year time scales, and nearly all is preserved at 2000-year periods and longer. Our Monte-Carlo analysis accounts for these sources of uncertainty to yield a robust (albeit smoothed) global record. Any small “upticks” or “downticks” in temperature that last less than several hundred years in our compilation of paleoclimate data are probably not robust, as stated in the paper.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013...

[ludo]

I think it is worth going back to the start (or at least nearly)

ludo said:

Kawasicki said:

Do we have data with high enough resolution to support the conclusion that it is currently warming at an unusual rate?

I'd say so, the proxy records show that it is warming faster than at any time in the last 2000 years. The Vostok ice core has high resolution for the last 10,000 years and it hasn't warmed as fast in that time either (at least in that region), I gather the Marcott et al proxy reconstruction suggests likewise.

Kawasicki asked a question, and I gave my opinion (note "I'd say so" rather than "yes, there are", because in a scientific discussion it is a good idea to know the difference between an opinion and a fact). I'm happy to be shown to be wrong (note I agreed with Kawasicki about the rate of increase at the glacial/interglacial boundary).



I don't think there is a great deal of point in going back further than the start of the last interglacial because human civilisation and agriculture doesn't go back any further than that. IMHO climate change presents little danger to us as a species, it just raises problems for our civilisation and our ability to feed ourselves in the numbers that currently inhabit the planet - the problems will largely be in the developing world.

[ludo]

kerplunk said:

Kawasicki said:

I looked again at both Vostok and Greenland ice core data.

In the current interglacial period there are rates of temperature change significantly higher than what we are currently experiencing.

Yes, I know they might both only be regional rates, but global temperature proxies with usable temporal resolution going back 10,000 years seem quite rare. Any ideas where to find them? I’m stumped.

I doubt global temp reconstruction efforts that combine multiple proxy datasets will have the resolution you're looking for. The Marcott et al paper reconstructs temps for the holocene, but in a Q&A on Realclimate there's this:

Q: Is the rate of global temperature rise over the last 100 years faster than at any time during the past 11,300 years?

A: Our study did not directly address this question because the paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of ~120 years on average, which precludes us from examining variations in rates of change occurring within a century. Other factors also contribute to smoothing the proxy temperature signals contained in many of the records we used, such as organisms burrowing through deep-sea mud, and chronological uncertainties in the proxy records that tend to smooth the signals when compositing them into a globally averaged reconstruction. We showed that no temperature variability is preserved in our reconstruction at cycles shorter than 300 years, 50% is preserved at 1000-year time scales, and nearly all is preserved at 2000-year periods and longer. Our Monte-Carlo analysis accounts for these sources of uncertainty to yield a robust (albeit smoothed) global record. Any small “upticks” or “downticks” in temperature that last less than several hundred years in our compilation of paleoclimate data are probably not robust, as stated in the paper.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013...

Thanks for the link, such caveats are useful - it would be interesting to see what PAGES say about resolution, will report back if I find anything.

[wc98]

ludo said:

lol another ad-hominem. Keep it for the politics thread. If someone wanted to make money as an academic, they wouldn't choose climatology, there is way more money in biosciences and AI at the moment. You do know, don't you that acedemics don't get to keep the money? It gets spent hiring an RA to do the interesting work (that you would enjoy doing yourself) while you spend time administering the grant and writing reports.

someone should have told jagdish shukla that.

[LoonyTunes]

wc98 said:

someone should have told jagdish shukla that.

I just tuned in hoping to see a response to this:

ludo said:

wc98 said:

the fact there are other places , reykjavik springs to mind the contiguous united states is another,suggests current warming isn't global. yes i know these are small areas of the planet relatively speaking, but the term global warming requires everywhere to be warming...

That simply isn't true. That would be an absurd definition of global warming as climatologists know perfectly well that increasing GHG won't uniformly increase temperatures across the globe.

Or maybe even this:

kerplunk said:

ludo said:

wc98 said:

yep there is nothing wrong with it if you believe smearing temps with places 1200km away gives you anything accurate.

Spatial averaging is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Leaving coverage gaps creates biases as well (e.g. the cool bias in HADCRUT due to not including the high Arctic). The climatologists cross-validate their data to find the approaches that are most reliable. You may not like that, but then again you haven't got a demonstrably better approach.

I've told wc98 before - if you don't like the smoothing methodologies employed in some datasets then stick to Hadcrut which doesn't do that. But of course there's not much difference in the observation of global warming in the Hadcrut dataset so making a big noise about smoothing is just the usual pea-rolling.

But no

[gadgetmac]

This is why I stay off the science thread, you end up looking like a burke the first time you get into a debate with somebody who actually knows what they are talking about.

It's also why a lot Science stuff is currently being posted in the Politics thread.

I prefer the politics - checking sources and looking for misrepresentations and self interest is such low hanging fruit by contrast.

[Kawasicki]

ludo said:

I think it is worth going back to the start (or at least nearly)

ludo said:

Kawasicki said:

Do we have data with high enough resolution to support the conclusion that it is currently warming at an unusual rate?

I'd say so, the proxy records show that it is warming faster than at any time in the last 2000 years. The Vostok ice core has high resolution for the last 10,000 years and it hasn't warmed as fast in that time either (at least in that region), I gather the Marcott et al proxy reconstruction suggests likewise.

Kawasicki asked a question, and I gave my opinion (note "I'd say so" rather than "yes, there are", because in a scientific discussion it is a good idea to know the difference between an opinion and a fact). I'm happy to be shown to be wrong (note I agreed with Kawasicki about the rate of increase at the glacial/interglacial boundary).



I don't think there is a great deal of point in going back further than the start of the last interglacial because human civilisation and agriculture doesn't go back any further than that. IMHO climate change presents little danger to us as a species, it just raises problems for our civilisation and our ability to feed ourselves in the numbers that currently inhabit the planet - the problems will largely be in the developing world.

I did actually pick up on the fact that you were offering your opinion. Thanks.

Saying that, shouldn't scientific debate focus on data/facts?

The data shows that the current interglacial period is not particularly warm.
We have no reliable data to support the notion that the rate of warming in the current interglacial is remarkable/outside the range of natural variation.

If anyone can provide data to suggest either or both of those two statements are wrong, I am very interested to see it.