Among other interesting results, the recent election gave a Senate seat to One Nation member Malcolm Roberts. Roberts is notable for his expressed belief that global warming is a fraud produced by a global conspiracy of bankers seeking to establish a worldwide government through the United Nations.
Unsurprisingly, Roberts has copped a lot of flak for these statements. But his position seems to me to be more credible than that of the average “sceptic”.
I’ll take, Don Aitkin as an example of the kind of sceptic generally seen as more credible than conspiracy theorists like Roberts. Among other indicators of credibility, Aitkin has an AO, he’s a former Vice-Chancellor, and was Chairman of the Australian Research Grants Committee (predecessor of the Australian Research Council) and a member of the Australian Science and Technology Council. His own academic background was in history and political science. As far as I can tell he has no training or research background in either statistics or natural science of any kind.
Given his background, you’d expect Aitkin to be aware of the years of training required to become an academic expert in any field, and the ease with which amateurs can get things badly wrong. But in his writing on climate change he expresses supreme confidence in his own ability to assess the work of thousands of scientists and pronounce it wanting. As he says
here wasn’t much abstruse science in the global warming issue. A bit of radiative physics, a bit of solar physics, a lot of data of various kinds, large GCMs — global circulation models — and a good deal of extrapolation
All in an afternoon’s work for a retired academic administrator, it seems. No wonder VCs are so highly paid!
Unsurprisingly, we discover that what Aitkin actually disliked was
the message: a set of policies about curbing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the use of fossil fuels.
.
So, according to Aitkin, the entire discipline of climate science, backed up by every major scientific organization in the world, is engaged in a transparent fraud, has, in the service a political agenda, published false research, easily seen through by a retired political scientist and his circle of emeritus colleagues. They have succeeded in persuading every national government in the world to sign on to agreements based on this fraud misrepresentation of the facts. And to what end? To change the way we generate electricity, or maybe to shift a few research grants from one field to another. The disproportion between effort and goal is akin to using a nuclear-powered piledriver to crack a peanut.
And the same, more or less, is true of most of the relativel respectable “sceptics”. There simply isn’t enough payoff to explain the gigantic effort that’s gone into constructing the global scientific consensus on climate science.
By contrast, once you accept Malcolm Roberts’ premises, the rest makes sense. Suppose there is a gigantic conspiracy to establish a world government. Then suborning a few thousand scientists and dozens of scientific academies, all the weather bureaus in the world and the entire mass media (except for the Murdoch press) would be child’s play. The only question is when the black helicopters will land.
John Quiggin 
Not enough options there Joe.
The third option: Joe is in a conspiracy with all of his Denialist moron associates.
Clearly the third option is the winner there.
* On big effects from small amounts: the atmosphere contains just 1% water, and yet that is sufficient to provide all of the clouds, rain and snow that sustains life on land.
* Those little fleshy blobs that are humans now move more minerals than all of natures process combined.
BilB you are not making sense but i guess that is your aim.
@Joe
perhaps BilB’s second ‘Joe’ is intended to be ‘Malcolm’ or ‘Don’…
@Joe
Why would you guess that BilB is aiming not to make sense? What evidence do you have as a basis for making this assumption?
Perhaps you need to tell us your story and how and when you came to see that ‘it’ was all malarkey? Was it a blinding flash of insight you had or was it something that crept up on you?
I didn’t understand your sighing question but didn’t think you were deliberately being obtuse. I thought you were trying to get through to people here how irritating it is for you when they can’t understand the reasoning of the living souls who can see though the malarkey. I do understand your irritation and how frustrating it must be for you to have to live among lesser beings.
Sigh. Dear Julie-someone: Thomas., the living soul. You are nearly funny, well done. I am here, amongst the lesser fish coping with the malarkey… Sigh. I am not obtuse, nor am i abstruse, but you, whoever you are, are a fraud, every day of the week.
For the next person who makes the CO2 ppm argument, here is something to ponder….
The total mass of 7 billion human beings is around 63,000,000 tonnes. The total mass of the biosphere down to the depth of the height of the humans standing on it (Land only and light loamey soil) is around 357 trillion tonnes. So the percentage of humans in their living zone is a big .00017%, as against CO’s .04%, 2 orders of magnitude less.
Yet those faint traces of human material in their environment are able to move more dirt and rock than all of natures processes put together, along with many other dramatic impacts such as doubling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (easily proven with empirical Carbon isotope examination) in just 150 years.
Now that is simple maths easily verified empirically, Don Aitkin, feel free to demonstrate how that is not true and irrelevant.
…is around 630,000,000 tonnes.
@Joe
“I am here, amongst the lesser fish coping with the malarkey”
Why bother though? What’s in it for you?
Denialist Don Aitkin says:
A 16-year pause, in global warming, from about 2000 was not predicted at all by the models.
NASA says:
Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet’s warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.
Denier Don Aitkin says:
Coral islands are growing, not disappearing, and there are no climate refugees,
The ABC news says:
A grassroots group in Bougainville is scrambling to relocate the Carteret Islanders before rising sea levels swallow their land forever.
@BilB
Our exPM TonyA used to regularly bob up like a meerkat and remind us that CO2 was only a trace gas. So 0.04% CO2 reminds me of 0.05% blood alcohol limit. Next time I am pulled up I will try the “But it is only a trace, officer !” and see how that works.
Here are the facts to be compared to the silly statements by denialists that warming has ceased, or that recent increases in CO2 are detached from temperatures etc etc.
Global Temps Chart
IN the next 50 years, if present overall trends continue, we will all be taliking about CAGW and crying over boiling frogs.
Deconstructing Don again: from his essay #5 ‘Are human beings causing the warming?’
…and the ‘opinion’ of the writers is drawn from a multitude of real data and observations, and synthesis of real data, evidence, theory and natural laws….not exactly a casual ‘opinion’.
Don makes no attempt to understand why and how attribution is decided then presented in such a report of unprecedented length and detail. Needless to say, it’s a complex and diverse process. It’s important to consider it…but Aitkin is completely uncurious, and prefers ignorance.
Then he offers:
This has been plucked from his backside. 1951 was not during a ‘cooling period’, it was during a period of hiatus, and 1951-1980 is pretty much trendless, an ideal baseline. The reason for the baseline concept is discussed in the reports. The most important thing being that there is quality data, and thirty years of it. 1951-80 is ideal. His ‘explanation’ is deliberate rubbish. He could have cited the reports.
He wants one paper, and thinks it reasonable or necessary to demand it? There are so many papers that consider attribution directly or indirectly, and since attribution is fundamental to the ‘diagnosis’ and the strategies to deal with it, there is a chapter on it in the assessment reports. Don didn’t seem to think he could mention this…it might be too neutrally informative. Don should have no trouble understanding the concept of ‘synthesis report’…but again the aim is not to inform, but to pretend to consider.
That’s just the first few paragraphs of the essay…showing no respect for subject or reader, dispiriting, dull, and of no informative value.
Alas, the Quiggins site is abusive, and in this it reminds me of The Conversation, where bulldogs set themselves on anyone who criticises the CAGW orthodoxy. What follows is a short reply to ‘Nick’ who starts his long attack abusively — he ‘cannot understand [my] arrogance unless it is to compensate for my ‘woeful incomprehension’. Wow! What a civil start to a discussion.
‘Nick’ says that in my Chapter 4 I avoided answering the question ‘Is the planet warming?’ in a direct and coherent way. What did I say? This — ‘The apparently simple question like the one in the title of this essay is in fact almost impossible to answer unless it is specified further.’ And I explain why. ‘Nick’ says I ought to have asked a different question: ‘Is the planet warming’ in the industrial era?’ Well, if he had written the essay he might have chosen such a title. But he didn’t write it. Blaming someone for not doing what you would have done is not a helpful contribution, it seems to me.
Now ‘Nick’ has a go at answering his own question. I’ll quote the whole section.
‘Is the planet warming’ in the industrial era? The answer is unambiguously ‘yes’. We have a useful thermometer network. We have evidence from long-term tide gauges. We have evidence from changes to the cryosphere, shrinking glaciers and ice caps. We have evidence from measured changes to the atmospheric temperature profile. We have evidence from the arctic, in widespread changes to permafrost and increase in methane outgassing. We have long term ice-in, ice-out records for lakes and rivers, and long term phenological records for cherry blossoms and grape vines. The planet is warming, and continues to warm.’
Now let’s look at the first four of these claims, or assumptions.
(1) When did the industrial era start? My economic history reading says the second half of the 18th century — 1760 or 1770. Wikipedia says 1760. Has the planet warmed since then? Possibly, and I’ve said so myself. Unambiguously? Well, it depends on what you are using as measurements. So what measurements is ‘Nick’ using?
(2) ‘We have a useful thermometer network’. Do we? Let’s look at the datasets. HADCrut4 is the standard, and it starts in 1850, and its designers are at their most confident from 1951 on. There are real problems with sea-surface temperatures until very recently. (See https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/). GISS is the US equivalent, and for much the same reasons, it doesn’t start in the 18th century either. Try 1880 (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/). Now I’ve written about all this many times. Yes, there are temperature data, but no, they’re not very good. Yes, the planet has warmed, but up and down, as you will see with any long-term graph. ‘Unambiguously’ it doesn’t seem to be.
(3) ‘We have evidence from long-term tide gauges.’ What evidence is ‘Nick’ talking about? The Sydney tide gauge, which is one of the long-term ones, shows an average 6.5cm rise over a century. For those who wonder why such a metric is important, the assumption is that a warming world will produce warming oceans, which will expand in volume, and cause a rise in sea levels. There is argument at the moment about whether or not there is acceleration of the rate of warming, but the measured rate so far is tiny. The whole area of sea-level rise is made difficult by differences in the rise and fall of land-masses, but Sydney is a stable region geologically. Unambiguous? Again, I’ve written about all of his. Did ‘Nick’ somehow miss it?
(4) ‘We have evidence from changes to the cryosphere, shrinking glaciers and ice caps.’ Do we? What does it show? I used ice-core data in my chapter and ‘Nick’ didn’t like my data, because they didn’t help with his answer to his question. They weren’t intended to, because I had no notion of ‘Nick’s’ question. What data exactly is he pointing to? No sign here. ‘Shrinking glaciers? Which ones? Does ‘Nick’ know how many glaciers there are in the world? A few short of 200,000. We know little about any of them, and our best knowledge has occurred since 1999. Unambiguous since the beginning of the industrial era? Hardly. The glaciers closest to us, Franz Joseph and Fox, in the South Island of New Zealand, have both advanced and retreated in the last fifty years. Unambiguous?
There are four more sentences/claims/assumptions, and each of them is questionable. And there is no evidence given, no data, just a claim, as though all of this is somehow given. Can I make the point, as politely as I can, that when one is talking about major changes to policy, one has to do much better than vague claims.
I’ve looked hard through my Chapter 4, and I can find no ‘arrogance’ there. It is not arrogant to point out apparent errors or flaws in analysis. That was my job, in research policy and funding, for almost three decades. Nor can I find any ‘woeful incomprehension’, and ‘Nick’ has not shown any evidence of it. What I do find, both in his long complaint, and in the words of others here, is a kind of indignation that someone of apparent standing could object intellectually to the CAGW orthodoxy. How dare he!
Tough. I was trained to find problems in what others were proposing, not to smile and let them through. I’m happy to argue the case on proper grounds, but to be called a ‘denialist’ is a bit too religious for me.
Unfortunately I missed Roberts on Q&A. However, the above discussion raised a new point for me. I was a climate change professional of sorts for five years. And, yes I considered AGW to be real if somewhat more uncertain than IPCCs most pessimistic work. So according to Roberts and Aitkin and Bolt and the rest I am either stupid (brain washed) or ideological or financially compromised! Mmmmm.
I recorded the Q and A, and have attempted to watch it, but it all gets messy when Roberts declares to Brian Cox that NASA has tampered with the temperature data.
The problem is that the likes of Roberts have some notion that there is a magical instrument call a thermometer that where ever it is it gives a faithful measure of air temperature. I have a quite accurate infra red scanner for measuring temperature of materials and when I look around my environment temperature of “things” varies hugely, as does the air around these “things”. Humidity content of air changes the temperature variability of air. There are a huge number of factors that can distort temperature readings. So where science needs to build a standard method for temperature measurement scientists do a huge amount of research to determine the best and most stable technique and equipment, then they test this against the huge variety of historical temperature measurement systems. Then they correlate previous data against the standardised measurement methodology to give a uniform temperature record for the full period being studied.
It is this correlation that the conspiracy theorists are claiming to be a falsification of temperature data, when it is exactly the opposite, it is a refinement of the information which from what I have seen requires very small adjustments. If it was currency conversion, or if it was about determining the purity of a gold ingot, they would understand. But it is about temperature and worse, Global Warming.
I will force myself to watch the whole horror, mainly because I want to see if Roberts and Hunt finish the show holding hands.
Hunt reminds me of a quote that Churchill made about Stafford Cripps: his chest is a cage in which two squirrels are at war; his conscience and his career. Except i think the career squirrel has won already.
As a student he won a prize for “A Tax to Make the Polluter Pay”, Fulbright Scholar, bears his blushing honours thick upon him, and then he just sells out his whole box and dice to get into the Mad Abbot Ministry.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he could have kept his powder dry for a couple of years, and kept a shred of his dignity.
Politics aint easy but Mr Hunt, you messed that one up big time i think.
Where are the true liberals? And where are the conservatives, as opposed to reactionary old crusties? The so-called liberal party is a party of crusty old fogies, Dutton near the front in his much-encrusted youth.
I would have thought that after 40 years or so of the scientists warning about climate change, a conservative would tend to support some action, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”. But no, not these peanuts.
@Joe
Yes, Hunt fits that to a tee.
It makes Hunt watching difficult.
Every day something comes up that challenges his core understandings to hold up to ideological nonsense, and he buckles every time…it’s self-flagellation, though well-remunerated.
And yes, these modern Libs are not conservatives, they are witlessly destructive.
@Joe
“crusty old fogies”
See if you think that Jason Wilson nailed the characteristics of Liberals when he described the IPA as
“corrupt property developers, chinless libertarians, young fogies, and elderly racists that compose your membership.”
The complete letter to John Roskam is worth reading. http://jasonawilson.tumblr.com/post/89901662170/thankyou-note-to-john-roskam
I’m jumping to conclusions again by supposing this – so set me straight if I am wrong and fraudulent – but by quoting Churchill’s insight as something relevant to current affairs you are verifying my theory that climate change deniers have a thing – a big thing that needs psychological help – about great white men being geniuses and how we should read them over and over and note and follow how they won and defeated the enemy through the power of their intellect.
@Joe
“crusty old fogies” you say?
See if you think that Jason Wilson nailed the characteristics of Liberals when he described the IPA as
“corrupt property developers, chinless libertarians, young fogies, and elderly racists that compose your membership.”
The complete letter to John Roskam is worth reading.
I’m jumping to conclusions again by supposing this – so set me straight if I am wrong and fraudulent – but by quoting Churchill’s insight as something relevant to current affairs you are verifying my theory that climate change deniers have a thing – a big thing that needs psychological help – about great white men being geniuses and how we should read these individuals over and over again and note and follow how they won and defeated the enemy through the power of their intellect.
again Julie thomas, not engaging the argument. Barking up the wrong tree. Get a real job.
@Don Aitkin
Don, you have written more in replying to me than you have in the essay I criticise….and still you fail to deal adequately with the questions you posed in that essay!
That speaks volumes to the shortcomings of your work.
Addressing your points-in-reply”
1)The planet has warmed unambiguously since the 1850s. The evidence is in observations across the ocean/atmosphere system…natural signals are unequivocal. The progress of warming has been subject to regional fluctuation caused by the physical reality of different time-frames in system response, and the effect of pseudo-cyclic climate features like ENSO. Such internal variation is expected on a rotating planet with axial tilt and its unique distribution of land mass and ocean.
Your evidence is, and must be,all observations. The IPCC process is not some casual glance at one index…and those who reject the claims must deal with all the observations as well. No cherry-picking.
Sea level data from the global network and remote sensing, surface thermometry from the global network, atmospheric measurement of temperature throughout the atmospheric column from remote sensing and ground-sky observation, glacial mass balance programs, cryosphere observations by satellite and ground measurement and through the use of photographic records going back in some cases 150 years.
Those are some of the observation suites that scientific inquiry uses.
2)
They’re ‘not very good’? What sort of claim is that? Your opinion? What is you opinion worth? Are you a domain expert? No, you are not.
Whatever, if Don thinks the thermometry record and the vast effort in vetting and reconstructing past measurements is ‘not very good’, we’ll discard it.
The observations in toto are so robust, we don’t need thermometry. We know from personal observation that many glaciers around the world are much shorter and lower in mass than during the early to mid 1800s. We know from paleoglacial study…glaciers leave physical evidence of there extent. Even Otzi the Iceman, who lay frozen in a static icefield for 5300 years until the late 1990s, tells us that the European Alps have warmed..and he tells us how relatively insignificant fluctuation was over that period. Exposure of previously ice and snow-entombed organic artefacts is seen throughout the Alps over he last thirty years, and you can read the papers that discuss these vents and sites.
If you are committed to using all observation systems, that is.
THe IPCC is certain that global mean surface temperature has net increased since the 19th century. They state this unambiguously. Because they commit to use the full observation suite necessary to substantiate a claim of such physical scale they have the confidence to do this..
3)Once again, the global network tells us that SLR is unambiguous…and yes, domain experts know how to account for confounding issues like geostasy, isostasy, network gaps, seasonal fluctuations, ENSO mediated regional sea level shift and etc. No references to single tide gauges are acceptable. Global and regional SLR is expected to be uneven, and is a very difficult signal to extract from local and background effects…scientists know this, and Australian science has provided some of the very best in this field. That’s why we’re letting them go….
4) evidence from the cryosphere is unambiguous…when used in toto without spurious reference to a few apparently confounding ice streams. Best knowledge in NZ [from NIWA] tells us that glacial mass has declined by about 40% in the last 40 years…that knowledge is drawn from a measurement/observation system that covers the length of the Southern Alps, designed to provide robust answers to important questions, as discussed here by Dr Mauri Pelto
http://blogs.agu.org/fromaglaciersperspective/2016/03/24/new-zealand-glacier-change-index/
…unlike your approach, Don, which amounts to ‘but, here’s one that isn’t, case uncertain’
The World Glacier Mass Balance program is very thorough, transparent and informative, and its coverage is excellent. Then forty years of satellite observation covers any glacier systems that are hard to reach historically.
All these information systems are available for public access.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, Don…not extraordinary lengths to avoid the extraordinary evidence.
What do we know about Fox and Franz Josef that you won’t tell us?:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818114001246
Indeed. To be polite, your essays are very information-shy…your rhetorical technique is to provide a little, hint at more, then ask a ‘question’ framed in such a way as imply the field is as ignorant as you are. Well, it isn’t.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
Climate scientists and research institutions have been ‘objecting intellectually’ to the AGW hypothesis for generations…that’s their job, to generate and interrogate the broadest suite of observations that can be gathered. Your arrogance is the presumption that you have in any meaningful way approached the issue with the same commitment and standards.
Good.
Get to it then.
Tough.
@Joe
Why? What tree? What’s a real job?
Do you think you are in the wrong place my friend and you’d better leave?
If you don’t think I am worth interacting with, do you think it would be better to have just ignored me rather provide a response that reveals more information about your capacity or not for rational argument?
If you want to carry on with this sort of exchange, if you do get some sort of titilation from saying rude things to a female lefty we can do that; there is a sandpit where you can provide me with some more empirical evidence about the cause and effect of critiquing a great white man who likes to quote Churchill.
Don Aitkin think he is a great white man and his claim that this is an abuse site reveals how offended he is but I thought it was the case that people choose to take offence, offence is never given? So why does Don choose to take offence? Does he have a special right to take offense?
I read another article by Don about the moral basis of the left. It is not about climate change but it illustrates that climate science is not the only area in which there are other misunderstandings that these great white thinkers choose to make about other aspects of reality.
Don writes; “For Marx, and those who follow his ideas, it is the journey of humanity through a series of stages, each one somewhat better than the previous one, until humanity is ‘one’, there are no rulers, no classes, no rich, no poor — all are equal. The journey is unstoppable, though it will have known pauses and apparent halts. Something like this is part of all Left views of the world, that people are naturally equal, and the task of a good society is to get them back there again (as though they once were, or at least ought to be).”
Sheesh my grandfather who never went to uni could do a better job of misunderstanding and misrepresenting Marx and the Left than this Don Aitkin who publishes his insights at Online Opinion, no less.
@Julie Thomas
I have to say I’d never been to his site before this interaction, and I’m surprised at how ‘great’ Don thinks he is…it goes beyond being a confident communicator with a facile style, and the fact that one needs some robust self-respect to promote one’s own views. It’s all faux-humble ‘questions’ masking dismissiveness.
Scratch a little and you can see the prickliness of course.
It appears, according to solar research we could be heading to a new “Maunder minimum” or “prolonged sunspot minimum” potentially leading to new mini Ice Age effects. The last mini Ice Age occurred from about 1645 and continued to about 1715. This new predicted prolonged sunspot minimum occur in around 15 years time and last for a relatively short time of a maximum of three solar cycles (around 30 years).
This is not cause for complacency about AGW and burning fossil fuels but it might be cause for some hope. This could give humanity more breathing space for addressing our physical and economic dependence on fossil fuels. We still need to progress as fast as we can in replacing fossil fuels. Our rate of change so far has been too slow. We need to pick it up considerably.
People who support the burning of fossil fuels and claim that this does not affect our climate still have to accept that fossil fuel reserves are finite on planet earth. Logically, a change still needs to occur. All that has to be argued about is the necessary rate of the change and the necessary replacement energy sources. No matter what your view on climate change, fossil fuels have to be replaced. In the current economic system, if an economic level playing field is established, including realistic costs for negative externalities then this specific problem (fossil fuel burning for energy will resolve itself successfully, if energetically feasible and unless the time frame available for resolution is too short for energy system, infrastructure system, economic system and social system adjustments.
Those who variously accept, doubt or reject the AGW thesis and science only have to agree that fossil fuels are finite to then all accept the same following proposition. We have to transition to other energy sources. People who believe in complete markets and believe that a good approximation of a complete market for primary energy could be set up would all likely believe that that transition could be achieved and achieved in good time.
As people here know, I have my doubts that the solution outlined in the above last sentence could be achieved under capitalism, or at least under current neoliberal capitalism. It might be possible under conditions of moving back to greater social democracy and using statist measures and regulations including ensuring nearly complete markets which are designed and set up to ensure eventual transition to a non-fossil fuel economy.
I note that ‘Nick’ has made another long critique. I will deal with it on my own website.
@Don Aitkin
..and there’s another in moderation in direct response to you at #63.
Don, you’d be better of withdrawing from the froth and bubble of interaction, and get back to the IPCC reports. It’s not about you and me or any online chat.
It’s a long struggle, but you should better acquaint yourself with their methodology and content. You need to really understand what we truly know. Don’t worry about policy implications at this stage.
When any issue gets to such a point that denialism erupts – such denialists have thereby debased the currency of discussion.
Just to be clear …
CO2 either has, no effect – warms the ecosystem – or – cools the ecosystem.
You use science and analysis to explore each of these options – TINA.
It is entirely appropriate and interesting to explore and analyse evidence for any option.
It is not appropriate to just cast dispersions against one option, ramble on about vagueness etc, without showing the science and analysis for any alternative is just as robust and extensive.
Criticising the mainstream view is not science. It may point to where science may go, but you cannot use this to argue against the mainstream view. Tagging it as a mere hypothesis is debased. For example; that the Sun is the centre of the solar system is not a hypothesis. To claim this would be denialism.
So in the case of CAGW, it is a case of put up or shut up.
Where is there science and analysis that anthropogenic CO2 cools the planet over decades, where is there evidence that CO2 has no temperature impact, or where is there evidence that any past warming period is anything like the current hockey stick?
It is natural and necessary to criticise to the point of rejection, those who provoke or criticise CAGW just as it is natural to criticise anyone who promotes nicotine, racism, astrology, slavery or male chauvinism.
These statements are not sensible:
1) Has the planet warmed since then? “Possibly”!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) Yes, there are temperature data, but no, they’re not very good.??????????
3) vague claims.
The science and politics underpinning
nicotine,
racism,
astrology,
slavery
feminism
are not hypotheses to be criticised without a legitimate cause at least at the same level of rigor as the current position.
Neither is CAGW or its precursor AGW.
Well, I got to the end of Q and A, with the help of others. Greg hunt did not come out of it too badly, though he did suggest that, on climate, Malcolm Turnbull is to the right of himself.
Malcolm Roberts? well you would have to believe in an imminent attack from Mars to match his degree of delusion. Constantly pushing the notion of empirical evidence (apparently the entire scientific community never does direct measurement in Robert’s view) it seems we will need to wait till we can actually measure 5 degree’s C global average temperature rise before we can act to prevent it. You have to be Empirical, says Roberts.
Screwball aside, it was a good event.
Replying to Don Aitken, it’s pretty silly to think that a debate between a political scientist and an economist is going to tell us much about physical science. But, I have an adequate knowledge of time series statistics to address at least some of the issues. Given that Don makes claims about warming trends, he presumably thinks he has picked up enough statistics to speak knowledgeably on the issue.
So, in the interest of discussion, Don, I suggest you propose a simple time series model incorporating a global warming trend and some measure of ENSO, then spell out the statistical test you would propose for a structural break around 2000 (the so-called hiatus). If you do that, I’ll be happy to respond.
@BilB
His view on the consensus was the doozy of the show. It’s script that not even Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant could make up.
You guessed it…Don Aitkin again. Remember the ‘pause’ was only derived from the TLT satellite reconstruction of lower-mid atmosphere mean temperature. The surface network shows no pause, only a slight slowdown…meaningless in terms of CO2 forcing, and its persistence.
So how well are GCMs doing? If we can tear ourselves away from bogus GCM discussion by the likes of GWPF/WUWT and the graphic deceit of Dr John Christy in congressional testimony, we find that models are doing well. Not ‘poor’ at all, Don:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/08/unforced-variations-aug-2016/
And in regards to models not predicting pause/hiatus, that’s misleading as well. Individual model runs have all sorts of hiatus in them, pauses emerge as the model runs…when all the model runs are gathered in an ensemble, which has overall better projective power long-term, those individual hiatus disappear…but model individual runs are well-inputted enough to produce climate simulations with realistic internal variability, which is what contributed to the apparent ‘pause’.
Don has to stop talking and start learning if he wants to usefully engage with and communicate climate science’s output. He’d be mortified to think he was off the pace and misleading people…and himself in particular.
JQ, I have a reply to Don in moderation a little back there…probably too many links. If you could fish it out, many thanks.
Don,
The long list of questions your pose to Nick at #63 merely identify potential sources of uncertainty that may or may not bias the AGW estimate. Simply identifying uncertainty is not an argument. Unless you can outline why you think the issues you raise identify a source of bias not previously considered by climate science your argument is incomplete. In which case the assumption that error term sums to zero has to be accepted.
Once we diss all of the modern (climate) data and the efforts at analysis, we are also in effect dissing all of the data prior to the existence of the modern instruments that we’ve already dissed. Therefore we can’t know anything. Boo-hoo.
Or did I miss something?
[Yeah, bit irritable today.]
@Donald Oats
Yep, this. Is anything real? Is there empirical evidence for gravity or was the data cooked up by NASA?
@Don Aitkin
First reply to this lost in the system; I’ll reply point by point…after a comment on the extraordinary feat Don attempts in suggesting that I had essentially completely reframed the titular question of his essay #4 ‘Is the planet warming’.
Don decides I think he’s asking ‘is the planet warming in the industrial era?’, a warming he reluctantly agrees might be happening…Well, Don, where is it in that title that excludes the industrial era from the question, and why should we not be a tad interested in the time in which we are living? And how is pointing at the great variations of the past anything more than ignoring the industrial-era warming as it has been clearly framed for decades now?
Then he links to an article about a nonsense paper [Andresen, Essex and McKitrick [2007]] that purports to soberly dispute that a global mean air or sea temperature is calculable or meaningful. Well, when you want to talk global values and scales, you provide caveated global metrics…standard procedure in economics, social science and earth system science. This paper has caused a good few laughs in climate circles, meanwhile sea level is observed to have risen, no doubt because the mean depth of the ocean floor is decreasing. I suppose I’d better point out that’s sarcasm. And the ice retreats.
So Don is willing to entertain a nonsense in the chance that it may offer him an out from considering modern warming: can’t calculate temperature, therefore don’t know, or doubt justified. The paper is dangled as a real factor, but never tested by Don.
No, Don, you completely avoid specifying how to reasonably answer the question, you note the things that reinforce your conviction that the question cannot be answered satisfactorily!
…you simply wish to suggest past natural variation is so great we cannot tell whether present warming is special. Yours is an argument from incredulity…and it’s an argument thoroughly settled by the IPCC process.
It depends on what measurements you’re using??
Why wouldn’t you use all means to determine that value, if the task is such and the tools are variable in fidelity? That’s what science demands, and that’s what the WG1 IPCC process does. All direct and proxy metrics of warming and change.
Modern warming is unambiguous, the IPCC examination rates it as certain.
@Don Aitkin
Don writes:
This is too funny. Modern temperature data is ‘not very good’…but Don has enormous confidence in estimates of past variation derived from proxies with large error margins.
Again, modern warming over 150 years is certain…past variation is less well quantified in temperature and time units. I’ll refer Don to Donald Oats at #84…
@Don Aitkin
Don A again:
Sydney? Irrelevant. The evidence is in the global tide gauge data base, accessed at the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level. The evidence is in satellite data, and a hell of a lot of work.
Sea level rise quantification is ‘difficult’? Why,perhaps because of the many confounding factors that researchers are more than aware of, Don? Who knew?
Another argument from personal ignorance and the diminution of others real expertise. And Don never dedicates any real time to comprehensively exploring the issue without prejudice, despite his claims. He has an article on sea level which finds one paper with which to paint the whole field as too difficult…he gives it a few hundred words…all time wasted when he should have been faithfully precising the WG1 chapter on oceans for his readers. He is supposed to be good at getting to the heart of stuff.
@Nick
Why does the Dire Straits song “Industrial Disease” keep revolving in my mind… except the new chorus line is; “Goodness me, could this be, Emeritus Disease?” 😉
@Nick
And…
Denialists can stay irrational longer than you can keep arguing.
Denialists can stay irrational longer than you can keep arguing.
Snake eating its own bullshit.
@Ikonoclast
True…citing Andresen et al 2007 opens a world of exponential nonsense. It’s a litmus test for failed critical faculties. The authors find -amazingly- that using different averaging conventions will generate different results. This is a tautology, but Don thinks it’s a discovery.
@Nick
I certainly hope that climate change “skeptics” take advantage of their superior knowledge and buy cheap land by the sea. They should snap up land in Kiribati or south of Dhaka on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. I hear there will be some great bargains there.
More seriously, in our region planning will have to begin at some point to evacuate some 100,000 I-Kiribati people and settle them, most likely, in Australia and New Zealand.
Looking through the history of Roberts, this man is on a crusade and has been for years. He has an incredible amount of energy, motivation and enthusiasm to promote and advance his denialist cause. He’s willing to affiliate himself to any organisation, group or party willing to accept him to gain greater profile and influence. He’s willing to engage in endless correspondence to media, political and institutional leaders to champion his case. He has no shame – a truly remarkable individual.
Obviously, your typical Q&A viewer is wise enough to see him and his baseless arguments for what they are, the question is though, what fraction of the electorate are susceptible to his BS particularly if the neocons take over the captain’s wheel again?
More climate change deaths and refugees – ignored by our denialists.
John, I think my invitation to you has priority, and I repeat it: here and also on my website set out your view of CAGW and why you hold it.
I should have added, without reference to the views of academies of science, the fabled 97 per cent of climate scientists, or ‘consensus’. What data do you pay special regard to, and why?
Don Aitkin, Neither John Quiggin nor anybody else needs to argue the science with you or any other denialist. The fact is that we, the people, employ scientists and technicians to study the state of the planet and advise us of our risk. They have done that and continue to build upon that knowledge. The news from the scientists is not good.
The news from regions already impacted by destructive climate change is not good. Places such as Louisiana this week being deluged with eight months of rain in one night. Such events are becoming very common.
What is equally concerning are people such as yourself who actively attempt to prevent global efforts to address the causes of the global warming that is driving the climate changes. Personally I think that the types of tactics being deployed by people such as yourself are bordering on criminality. It is one thing to have an opinion, how ever wrong it might be, but it is another thing altogether to actively frustrate efforts to protect the community. Particularly when the sum total of the motive is to encourage the continued resource consumption that created the problem, and to prevent the spending of public funds on active efforts to reduce the risk of further environmental harm.
Having said that, I don’t think that your involvement in the denialist effort has been particularly effective. From read a measure of your “work” I see your arguments as being flimsy, your content sparse, and your writing style docile to boring. Your involvement in this thread has been purely to provide a contrast to the extreme nature Malcolm Roberts.
I hope you get past this delusional phase of your life.
@BilB
“”The fact is that we, the people, employ scientists and technicians to study the state of the planet and advise us of our risk. “”
This is the most concise and cutting rebuttal to the quasi scientific arguments proffered by these so called skeptics.
From a risk management point of view and given the magnitude of the risk involved, how much probability for such event to occur do these armchair academics need to take the risk serious? Do these people really want us all to relax and continue with BAU, just because they, through some rhetorical device, feel that just about everyone who has seriously and professional looked at the matter has got it completely wrong and everything is hunky-dory. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of odds and payout betting on horses is ahead of these intellectual giants.
John, I think my invitation to you has priority, and I repeat it: here and also on my website set out your view of CAGW and why you hold it.
He doesn’t seem to want to and doesn’t have to. Your offer has already been refused and it is impolite to press: it will be refused again, and demanding people re-do stuff they’ve already done perfectly serviceably before is to waste their time. Which they don’t like.
[all right-winger activists without exception display signs of empathy-impairment conditions, even after you’ve set aside the contents of their political positions. This here — a fairly significant misreading of social cues driven by what manifests as entitlement but is probably your plain-old “failure to recognise that people can legitimately want different things to you” — is pretty much on-point.]