Last year a major poll revealed that among high and middle school science teachers, at least a third are skeptical of global warming alarmism. They are teaching the real scientific debate.
Good news indeed!
The poll was sponsored by the National Center for Science Education. They are a mad dog climate alarmist group, so I suspect they were very unhappy with the results, which makes the results that much more reliable. Of course it would be much better if all teachers taught the truth about the climate debate, but given the pressures to teach alarmism a third is a significant fraction.
These pressures are substantial. For example, the liberal media universally reported these poll results as bad news. The Washington Post headline was “How teachers are getting it wrong on climate change.” Telling teachers that they are “getting it wrong” when they teach about the real climate change debate is an absurd bias. It is the ones teaching alarmism that are getting it wrong.
Unfortunately this alarmist bias is not confined to newspapers. The major teacher organizations also share it. The bias came out recently when the Heartland Institute began sending a report — Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming — to science teachers. Their efforts to provide much needed information were denounced by several leading education groups, led by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).
These groups actually sent a joint letter to their members, calling the Heartland information campaign an “attack on reason.” Clearly, given that something like a third of their members share Heartland’s skeptical view, it is this letter that is unreasonable. How can a membership organization attack a position that a third of its members hold? This can only happen if zealots are in charge, for they are well aware of these poll results.
NSTA is also high on my list of 33 websites peddling alarmist classroom materials. Even worse, the enormous National Education Association (NEA) has a site pushing alarmist content to teachers. NEA’s primary function is to lobby for public school teachers and it has over three million members. That it should take the alarmist position on climate change is ludicrous, given that many teachers disagree.
Unfortunately NEA’s website — Climate Change Education: Essential Information for Educators — is completely alarmist. It begins with this false claim: “The effects of human-caused climate change can already be seen.” They also repeatedly use the term climate change to mean human-caused climate change, as though natural climate change did not exist, which is nonsense.
The NEA site provides links to a variety of alarmist teaching materials, going all the way down to 4th grade. It is also worth noting that many of these incorrect classroom materials are provided by Federal agencies, including NOAA, NASA, NSF, USDA and DOE. When it comes to teaching climate alarmism, the Feds are in the forefront.
Given all these pressures it is impressive that many teachers sill want to teach the entire climate change debate, not just alarmism. They need all the help we can give them. Moreover, those who are promoting alarmism need to be called to account. It is time to stand up for skepticism in the schools.
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CFACT Ed
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I’m not sure when I said : you can either teach physics or you can teach AlGoreWarming ; you can’t teach both .
Which is somewhat akin to Cork Hayden’s : climate alarmists are willing to do anything for the cause — except take a physics class .
In fact , you can either teach physics or you can teach the notion that some spectral “green house gas” effect is what causes the bottoms of atmospheres to be hotter than their tops ; you can’t teach both .
Finally, somebody has begun to pay attention and realize that the AGW movement turned the scientific method on its head. Manipulate the data to fit your conclusion does not do it. Calling something “settled Science” does not do it unless it meets the standard of a law of science. AGW is “settled science” only in the minds of those who wish to control and it has nothing to do with science at all.
Teach critical, independent thinking skills. Very important.
Teach quantitative , experimentally demonstrated physics like the PSSC curriculum I had half a century ago . The critical thinking comes from having to warp your mind til it matches classical proven reality .
Bob, as I explain above, climate science is typically not taught in high school physics, and most students do not take physics. The challenge of teaching the climate debate is far more difficult than this.
“most students do not take physics” too bad. The climate nonsense IS pushed in public school classes, physics or not. They manage to wheedle it in any subject they can. The UN gives money to schools, and universities signed an agreement with them that they are not allowed to waver from. There’s a piece on it called “Trendy Demons” that explains it all. Like this article implies, it’s a political thing not a scientific one. That’s why they use non-scientists like Bill Nye the non-scientist guy to promote their nonsense and flim flam.
Had to search for “PSSC curriculum” to find out what it was, exactly. Was not disappointed, several of the films online at archive dot org for free. I remember these dusty (yet fulfilling and interesting as well as educational) films and the fantastic books from my early childhood- then, the dumbing down of US public schools awaited me in later high school years. What a dichotomy- I was introduced to the new, limited education of American schools during “the change” early ’80s and onward. I feel sorry for today’s schoolchildren. They are being ripped off of a good education.
Thanks . PSSC was like post-grad Mr Wizard who also presented brilliantly simple demonstrations of reality . Take a look at http://www.cosy.com/BobA/vita.htm . You’ll see what that did for/to me . I wasn’t a good student because I doing and observing the experiments but hated writing them up . Ironically my adult life has been largely focused on creating the most effective computational “notebook” I could to artificially aid my intelligence .
Bob, to begin with most US high school students do not take physics. They typically have to take 2 out of 4 courses — physics, chemistry, biology and earth sciences. Physics and chemistry are the least popular, being the hardest.
Second, the greenhouse effect will typically not be taught in physics, as that is an earth science topic. (Also, you seem to be referring to the lapse rate, which is not part of the greenhouse effect.) Note too that climate change gets only a few hours of class time a year. The curriculum is specified by state standards and it is very crowded. I call it a marathon of sprints.
Alarmism is very common in both biology and earth sciences. That is where skepticism needs to focus. Especially since these students often do not take physics, so the physics cannot be argued.
Climate science is a fascinatingly difficult topic to teach.
The major point I’m making is that they should be teaching basic classic experimentally demonstrable quantitative physics like they did half a century ago . That would kill this nonscience . That is why I’m promoting a “Ritchie Prize” , http://cosy.com/Science/ComputationalEarthPhysics.html#YouTubePhysicsDemoFund , for “the best “YouTube” quantitative experimental test of any of the non-optional classical physical computations necessary to get from the Sun’s output to our mean surface temperature .”
The “green house effect” is not intrinsically “earth science” . It is a statement that some spectral filtering phenomenon can “trap” kinetic energy , ie : heat , in excess of that determined by object and source and sink spectra . It is absolutely a question of physics and absolutely capable of being handled at the level of , and with the rigor of the PSSC course I had in 1962 .
And what needs to be equally understood is that the force and it’s energy which causes and maintains the “lapse rate” is gravity , nothing to do with spectrum . And that can be computed , and the mathematics requiring a total energy balance presented even at the college prep high school level . Perhaps take some time from orbital mechanics which was a focus in the sixties .
James Hansen’s claim that Venus’s extreme surface temperature is due to a spectral effect should have been laughed out of the room . Yet it has retarded “earth science” , indeed made it a fairy tale , for a generation .
You teach your AP physics classes , and let them experience the experimental demonstration of the validity of the equations , and they will spread the truth , perhaps in a rather condescending way , to their lesser classmates .
At this point tho , the understanding of the physics has become so derelict that the teachers themselves need to learn it .
You seem to have missed my point, Bob. Most high school students do not take physics, and most who do do not take AP physics. It is very important to understand the science curriculum as it is. It is in fact a regulatory regime, determined by state standards. This is the system that skepticism needs to deal with.
I must admit that I went to elite private Culver Military Academy so the average student was above average .
And I’m certainly not denying that the battle is political — at all scales . And must be fought on all .
But I am pointing out that a solid physics curriculum needs to be restored . Yes it’s an enormous task because even the physics teachers have been duped .
And it’s not just at the high school level . I think perhaps the most appalling effects of this fraud is that kids graduate the 8th grade fearing the molecule out of which they are made .
One of my mantras is that the journeyman “climate scientist” literally doesn’t know how to calculate the temperature of a billiard ball under a sun lamp and yet they presume to impoverish the world on predictions of planetary temperature .
Somehow they must be embarrassed enticed demanded —
whatever works — into demonstrating they at least know how to do that .
At which point this AlGoreWarming fraud officially will have been relegated to the ash heap of history .
Bob Armstrong wrote:
“I think perhaps the most appalling effects of this fraud is that kids graduate the 8th grade fearing the molecule out of which they are made .”
People aren’t made of CO2.
Dumb!
Actually they are so made. CO2 is the global food supply. Watching a child grow is watching processed CO2 be reprocessed. I have seen estimates that 97% of the dry mass of a typical plant comes from CO2, that is the C and the O. Only the H and various trace elements come from other sources. And all meat is derived from plants.
Sorry, no — people aren’t made of CO2. They are made of carbon-based compounds — very different.
And nothing in the human body *creates* carbon. It all comes from the environment, and goes back into the environment. People — and all other animals — are carbon neutral, unless they dig up ancient carbon and put it into the atmosphere.
My understanding is that over 90% of the dry mass of most plants comes from CO2. Thus everything we eat comes mostly from CO2. It is the global food supply for almost all living things.
There is even research indicating that a significant fraction of the increase in agricultural productivity that feeds the world comes from the CO2 increase. This needs to be factored into pointless proposals to reduce CO2 levels.
I’ve looked into Bob Armstrong’s “calculations” about a colored ball more than any other person on the planet. They are a joke — and not just because the planet isn’t a colored ball. Armstrong misunderstands Kirchhoff’s law, writes down equations whose units don’t even balance, and applies blackbody equations to objects he explicitly says are not blackbodies.
His “science” is laughable. It’s so bad he’s afraid to even address questions about it.
David: I’ve looked into Bob Armstrong’s “calculations” about a colored ball more than any other person on the planet. They are a joke — and not just because the planet isn’t a colored ball. Armstrong misunderstands Kirchhoff’s law, writes down equations whose units don’t even balance, and applies blackbody equations to objects he explicitly says are not blackbodies.
His “science” is laughable. It’s so bad he’s afraid to even address questions about it.
Not sure why you addressed this to me, David. I do think that many students are being mistaught alarmism, using simple minded physics.
You just lied about the LT warming up to 1997.
Doesn’t lying bother you?
The lower troposphere (which I did not refer to) has indeed warmed during the period 1978-1997, but the total atmosphere has not, so this is just an internal redistribution of heat, not global warming. The amount of heat did not increase.
David Wojick says:
“The lower troposphere (which I did not refer to) has indeed warmed during the period 1978-1997, but the total atmosphere has not….”
Prove it, with data.
PS: The stratosphere is expected to COOL with AGW — that’s one of the best signs of the increasing GHG due to manmade GHGs!
Yes, but if all that increasing GHGs do is rearrange the heat a bit, that is not global warming. Nor do we know that has happened. The stratospheric cooling happened some time ago and has diminished greatly since, while CO2 levels continue to rise steadily. Again no correlation.
Increasing GHGs *DO NOT* just rearrange heat, they trap the heat of the sun. The ocean and surface and troposphere are thus warmer — just what has been observed.
GHGs do not trap heat, they both introduce and remove it. AS I said the heat content of the atmosphere, as measured by satellites, has not increased for 40 years, except once coincident with the giant El Nino. We have no measurements of surface or ocean heat content, just completely unreliable statistical models operating on worthless convenience samples.
“The stratospheric cooling happened some time ago and has diminished greatly since”
False. While it’s only the lower stratosphere, not the stratosphere, UAH LS v6.0 data show that the last 10 years of the LS are 0.10 C cooler than the previous 10 years.
You are confusing cooler with cooling. In the previous 10 years there was cooling, which means the temperature became progressively cooler. For the last 10 years there has been almost no cooling, but of course it is cooler than the previous 10 years, when the cooling occurred. If you stand in the basement you are below the stairs but you are not going down.
Increasing GHGs do “rearrange heat” — they direct more of it downward, and less of it upward. If you don’t know enough science to understand this, you really have no business opining on climate science at all.
Each GHG molecule emits as much energy upward as downward. (They have no preference.) Increasing their number does not change this, so they will not direct more energy (not heat) downward and less upward.
By the way, your debating might be more effective if you used fewer insults. I actually know quite a bit about this stuff.
“Each GHG molecule emits as much energy upward as downward.”
Exactly. And that’s what’s causing global warming.
“Each GHG molecule emits as much energy upward as downward. (They have no preference.) Increasing their number does not change this, so they will not direct more energy (not heat) downward and less upward”
False.
More atmospheric CO2 molecules means more scattered IR radiation which means more downward-directed heat.
“Each GHG molecule emits as much energy upward as downward.”
A non-GHG-molecule does not interact with the photon (energy), so 100% goes upward. On average, a GHG molecule, relative to a non-GHG molecule, cuts the upward energy in half.
Now you’re denying the spectral properties of GHG molecules??
I do not see anyone here doing that, David. But increasing GHG concentrations does not have to cause warming. The climate system is far too complex for that. For example, even though GHGs go up, we could still go into an ice age.
David Wojick wrote:
“I do not see anyone here doing that, David. But increasing GHG concentrations does not have to cause warming. The climate system is far too complex for that.”
What a laugh.
The discussion is about science, not your personal delusions.
See my comment above. So-called climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is an abstraction, not a prediction. The amount of warming is quite small and easily overcome by other factors, which is just what seems to have happened.
This is a common confusion. Many alarmists seem to think that just because CO2 is a GHG, increasing its concentration must cause warming. This is a false simplification.
David Wojick says:
“So-called climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is an abstraction, not a prediction….”
Completely wrong.
I notice you never even try to prove any of your wild claims. Is that typical for you?
This is an obvious observation, so what sort of proof do you need? The explanations of sensitivity make clear that it is just what would happen if nothing else happened. It is like the rate of fall of a feather in a vacuum, which equals the rate of fall of a baseball. In the real world not so much. In fact if the air flow is right the feather might even go up, not down. Thus it is with sensitivity, in that the global temperature can go down while CO2 rises. .
Models calculations of climate sensitivity align with those values derived from paleoclimate data.
There is a huge literature on this subject, but I will give you some papers if you can’t find them for yourself.
“Thus it is with sensitivity, in that the global temperature can go down while CO2 rises.”
When did this ever happen?
This happened just a few years ago. DOH!!!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/04/dr-vincent-gray-on-historical-carbon-dioxide-levels/amp/
Temperature goes up then the warming oceans give up the Co2.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/23/new-research-in-antarctica-shows-co2-follows-temperature-by-a-few-hundred-years-at-most/amp/
Climate sensitivity does not change when either temperature or CO2 changes.
You clearly don’t understand what “climate sensitivity” means.
I think “climate sensitivity” means the change in temperature when the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles from 280 ppm, assuming that nothing else happens (that is, abstractly, not in the real world). What do you think it means?
I have no idea, since we do not know what global temperatures or CO2 levels were prior to around 1979. The point is that it is certainly possible.
David, how can you say such a thing? Science has a very good grasp of atmospheric CO2 levels going back thousands of years. The current level of almost 404 ppm is a level that has not been a feature of the planet’s atmosphere for at least 800,000 years. Please refer to the Scripps CO2 Program and refrain from making misleading statements on such an important topic:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_10k.png
Ian, that ice core data is completely unreliable as a proxy for ambient CO2 levels. In fact there is a large literature on this. For example, in the longer term cores the ice took hundreds or even a thousand years to form, because there is so little snow. Take the 800,000 year core and divide it into 800 segments. Each will be small but it represents 1000 years. There is no proxy record even on the century scale.
Then too there are lots of things that can happen after the ice has formed and the pressure builds as more ice is formed above. The bottom pressures are enormous..
Interesting though, the cores do show significant natural CO2 increases during each inter-glacial, to well above 300 ppm. These might well have exceeded 400 ppm on the century scale. Atmospheric CO2 levels are a strong function of myriad kinds of biological activity (land and ocean) and these all oscillate a great deal. So it is very unlikely that the flat line generated by the ice cores is accurate.
Why are you showing a 10,000 year graph, while making an 800,000 year claim?
“Why are you showing a 10,000 year graph, while making an 800,000 year claim?”
>> Atmospheric CO2 levels over a variety of timescales are available from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography that I provided. Here is a direct link: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/
“…that ice core data is completely unreliable as a proxy for ambient CO2 levels.”
>> According to who? What “large literature” are you referring to? Ice coring has been around since the 1950s and the science is well established. Please see International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) and Climate of the Past/The Cryosphere for current research initiatives:
http://pastglobalchanges.org/ini/end-aff/ipics/intro
“These might well have exceeded 400 ppm on the century scale.”
>> Conjecture on your part, but what is more important is that the CO2 levels have increased over 25% in the past 50 years alone. And regardless, will you please admit that your earlier statement that “we do not know what…CO2 levels were prior to around 1979.” is erroneous? Direct measurements of atmospheric CO2 taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii (the Keeling Curve) have been recorded continuously since the 1950s.
“For example, even though GHGs go up, we could still go into an ice age.”
That hardly means GHGs don’t cause global warming.
Have you ever been trained in any science, like physics? I honestly can’t tell.
To say “GHGs cause global warming” is incorrect. The correct statement is “increasing GHGs can cause global warming, given the right circumstances.” Or perhaps “increasing GHGs will cause global warming if nothing else happens.” Or even “increasing GHGs will try to cause global warming.” The point is that in the climate system a great deal more is happening, so increasing GHGs need not cause global warming. Moreover, it appears that they have not.
I trained in and practiced civil engineering, which is basically applied physics. My Ph.D. is focused on analytic philosophy of science, especially physics, plus the logic of complex issues. As a cognitive scientist I do the science of science.
For the last 25 years my leading case study has been the climate debate. My specialty is identifying concept confusions, which is what analytic philosophy does. The climate debate is full of them.
Here is an article about my early work that explains my background: http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html.
No, not “given the right circumstances.”
I notice you NEVER give evidence for your claims. To me, that makes them worthless. I know and understand the science. So I expect scientifically meaningful answer.
Are you capable of that?
Also SAD is you have what USE TO BE interesting and reliable magazines like Popular Science that NOW spews nothing but climate change BS and propaganda in the magazine from the cover to the back page. ALL the BS charts, claims and other nonsense. I’m cancelling my subscription.
Yes, Pop-Sci, and Popular Mechanics have become horrible examples of what happens to actual science and information distribution resources when such publications become nothing more than just another liberal rag. Time Magazine is another such gruesome example, and even National Geographic has begun a slide into the liberal twilight zone. I no longer subscribe to any of those formerly useful information sources.
National Geo has been alarmist for a long time. So are Scientific American and Discover. Also the technical science mags like Science and Nature. We need to get around these gatekeepers, which is why I want to create a website that provides skeptical material directly to students, parents and teachers–
https://www.gofundme.com/climate-change-debate-education
Science and Nature are the two most prestigious scientific journals around. Nearly all scientists and thousands of peer reviewed articles each year support the scientific understanding of climate change. Science is neither conservative nor liberal. Scientific journals do not support a particular view. They just evaluate and publish science.
First of all, both Science and Nature are mostly magazines, not journals. Each publishes a few journal articles per issue, plus a great deal of news and editorial content, which is highly pro-AGW.
Second if you mean that “nearly all” climate scientists support alarmist AGW then you are factually mistaken. In fact the percentage of scientists that support alarmism is roughly equal to the percentage that are Democrats, which is about 80%..
Wrong — Science and Nature are mostly journals, and the news they cover is very often related to the papers they publish.
I realize these scientific findings are inconvenient for you, but you don’t get to lie about them.
Actually I have studied Science magazine closely as part of my research on the diffusion of scientific thinking. Spacewise less than 50% is journal articles. On a per item basis the articles are only about 10%. In particular they have “perspectives” which interpret the articles. When about climate, these are always alarmist, as typically are the news interpretations, and the articles themselves for that matter. Science publishes a lot of alarmist junk.
Science is one of the best science journals in the world. You just don’t like the science it publishes, so, as a denier, you have no choice but to try to denigrate it.
I don’t see any evidence of your scientific expertise or why I should give any attention whatsoever to your claims.
Science is one of the most highly regarded journals in the world but what it publishes on climate change is typically alarmist junk. This is the direct effect of politicization.
You just try to label t “alarmist” because you don’t like those results, but can come nowhere close to disproving them.
It’s the same with every denier….
The deep criticism of alarmist Science articles by skeptics is there for all to see, but I imagine you do not read or understand that literature. Happily, Science magazine just published another howler: “Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States.”
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362.full
Models predict climate damage. Imagine that! This is not science; it is purely alarmist speculation masquerading as science and published in Science. Model spinning is not science.
I would be happy to do a comprehensive analysis of climate hype in Science magazine, but I would first need funding. There is so much to look at.
By the way, here is a quick study of mine on the absurd way that modeling dominates so-called climate science.
http://www.cato.org/blog/climate-modeling-dominates-climate-science
Why is the model “speculation?”
For lots of reasons. For example they use assumed damage functions that go up to 8 degrees C of warming, which is preposterous. Moreover, these damage functions are based on abrupt extreme events, like heatwaves, yet they are applied to a century of slow warming. Looking at demographics in places that differ this much in climate reveals no such damages. The damage functions also include a lot of speculative tipping points.
More deeply all existing climate models are pure speculation, because they studiously ignore major drivers that we know we do not understand.
From all of your comments here, Mr. Appell, I see far more evidence of Mr. Wojick’s knowledge than yours in statistics, physics and the general history of climate science data. My issues with “climate science” revolve around people like you simply shouting “proof it” and/or calling people names. That’s what happens on the progressive political sites I visit and try to engage. “Prove it!” is a tell for an empty quiver – someone who cannot be bothered to truly engage in a search for truth or is only repeating talking points from far-left sites.. Happens in politics all the time. It should never happen in science. Sadly, as you demonstrate, it does. You have descended to calling people names and insults.
You have stated you had an excellent 1962 physics high school course; so did I. Here, you have not demonstrated any physics knowledge. (I presume you have a Ph.D. in physics; so do I.) You have simply cryptically mentioned other work (without reference) without demonstrating any detailed understanding. Do you speak as an authority who should not be questioned? Are you using “talking points” from Concerned Scientists or the NSTA?
If you know so much, educate me. I work with at-risk kids in middle school. I really want to give them excellent science. If I showed your comments here, to them and told them “This is what climate science is about”, you would not be respected and, indeed, they would even question if you were a scientist. Speak for and about physics, not yourself and your strongly held beliefs.
Would it be possible to change your “debate/argument” style into a dialectic style? The world has gained so much more when the dialectic style is engaged.
If you can’t prove your claims, they are useless, and you should just shut up until you can.
That same advice goes to you. Your claims and those of your ilk have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to any but the warmers. If you folks can’t convince a retired physicist Nobel Prize winner and want government to spend money trying to change the climate, it is you who has a lot of ‘splainin’ to do. It is transparent to almost all who have watched this affair as an outsider for the past 50 years that “climate science” is political — it is not based on irrefutable facts..
I take it you cannot and/or will not change from argument (and put downs and name calling) to dialectic. Why is that? Are you really better than everyone else?
I always provide evidence for my claims. Always.
Until you can do the same, don’t both replying — it will get you nowhere with me.
Not on this thread. Here are two articles that support my suspicions about climate politics. One of them I have watched for a number of years (the “adjustments” of past data and the unavailability of the original data to the general public).
July 16, 2017
Research Team Slams Global Warming Data In New
Report: “Not Reality… Totally Inconsistent
With Credible Temperature Data”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-15/research-team-slams-global-warming-data-new-report-not-reality-totally-inconsistent-
which references this article:
On the Validity of NOAA, NASA
and Hadley CRU Global Average
Surface Temperature Data
&
The Validity of EPA’s CO2
Endangerment Finding
Abridged Research Report
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/ef-gast-data-research-report-062717.pdf
July 11, 2017
“Greenhouse effect” debunked
New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse
Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/New-Insights-on-the-Physical-Nature-of-the-Atmospheric-Greenhouse-Effect-Deduced-from-an-Empirical-Planetary-Temperature-Model.pdf
It will take time for the climate politicians to respond to these peer reviewed studies. How long did it take to modify the past record so that it conformed with climate politics? Several years, if I am not mistaken.
Empiricism seems to be missing from “climate science” as you understand it.
You are also quite aware of the Nobel Physicist that doesn’t believe in “climate science”. Have you no comments about his views?
Adjustments are necessary, as Richard Muller’s BEST project showed.
It’s too bad you don’t understand this.
Suggested reading:
“Thorough, not thoroughly fabricated: The truth about global temperature data: How thermometer and satellite data is adjusted and why it *must* be done,” Scott K Johnson, Ars Technica 1/21/16.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/
There are data collection models and climate models; I’m quite aware of that. I’m quite aware of the necessity of both. The problem we ordinary folks have is that the models are not transparent. It is well known that collecting temp records from oceans is hard. Ship collections are curious because they only traveled plied routes. There is nowhere I can find that displays the temp’s collected before 1970 or so, that represent the actual data collected AND provide the algorithm and justifies the algorithm for changing those temperatures. When it comes to land temperatures, the changes in the surrounding acres have not been documented. I’ve never seen the original data and the justifications for adjustments. Lack of documentation for these adjustments is a serious science faux pas. The earth is 70% water and ocean temps have roughly 1% coverage for the past 2000 years. Satellite measurements show no global temp change for past 20 years.
My problem is that global warming is built on a ladder of “probably’s”; of independent probabilities. Each ‘probably’, each ‘almost certainly’ might have a 90% probability of being correct, the result of 7 such “most likely’s” is chain of independent probably’s; the complete chain has less that a 50% probability of being correct. The theory based on that chain has a less than 50% probability of being correct. That is basic probability theory from Probability 101.
(I’ve read your ARS article before.)
“Climate science” seems to ignore independent probabilities. They seem to embrace a 90% probability (never quantified in any peer reviewed climate paper I have read) as a fact; a foundation upon which they can build a theory. If you build your theory on 7 such 90% independent probabilities, your theory has a less than 50% probability of being correct. Climate folks can’t even give the public the probabilities of correctness the nightly TV Weather man gives us. What is the probability that “tree ring” proxies are correct? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I’m thinking climate science is built on 15 or 20 “most likelY” *independent theories*, all of which must be at least 99% true to reach a 93% probability for their “climate science” theories to be correct. (*Independent theories*: tree rings, ice cores, ocean temperatures (which are far shorter in record), CO2 forcing, land temperature measurements, land station placements, CO2 measurements, geologic proxies, newspapers, …).
I really don’t see how one person could ever defend “climate science”. Geology, tree rings, satellite measurements, land measurements, instrument science, CO2 absorption and emission spectra (indeed, can you explain why 400 ppm is bad, but 800 ppm is 2x bad?), historic sea levels, Greenland being warm enough to have a population, the past ice ages and so much more. I’d have to have a Ph.D. in what to defend the entire theory of global warming?
I was a molecular energy level — ethylene — student; CO2, I didn’t study. I am unfamiliar with absorption and emission spectra of CO2 and the empirical effect on the atmosphere of the earth based on CO2 concentration. Indeed, I have seen no publication that discusses that in any detail. Are you and most other “climate scientists” are building on a ladder of 90% probability foundations. Your probabilities are in series; they need to be in parallel where if any one of them fails the theory is not disturbed. That’s simply not the case with “climate science” as far as I can see. There are serial. If any one of them is proven false, the entire theory falls apart.
The question I ask is how many 90% serial bricks underpin “Climate Science”.
Can you address that?
I am only a student of “climate science”. I ask questions, report the results of others and solicit discussion, explanation, and/or education in public forums including this one. Here you have proved nothing. You might have “always provided evidence” in your publications, but here you have provided no evidence. You do recognize that, right?
I always provide evidence for my claims.
Show me where I didn’t.
I have seen no such “evidence” on this thread. Please show me where you have provided evidence here.
Pay attention and Read harder.
Still no facts or links. It would be trivial for you to copy and paste one link that you have posted in this thread along with your assertion that the link supports. Can you do that?
There are actually tens of thousands of journal articles each year related to climate change and no one has read more than a few each. Some provide evidence that supports skepticism while others may support alarmism. Most are neutral.
If you are in biology you may be being misled by the flood of articles that simply assume dangerously great warming and then explore the possible adverse impacts therefrom. This is not really science, just fancy speculation disguised as science.
Of course scientific journals promote and defend specific views. Planck said famously that one’s new ideas (like his quantum) will be accepted when one’s students become journal editors.
Except when it comes to FAKE warming BS…
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/report-gives-the-truth-about-climate-at-last/news-story/0948f8db78dd1fc628543efcd4657a3f
Pam: Do you think CO2 doesn’t absorb infrared radiation, or do you think the Earth doesn’t emit any?
David: How is your question related to Pam’s comment? I see no logical connection (and logic is my field).
Does CO2 absorb IR?
It seems to me that David Wojick at least offers empirically derived statistics to support his conclusions. David Appell…not so much. Calling someone a liar or saying “prove it” has no statistical validity. When 50% of the so called “scientific community” is comprised of astro physicists deeply knowledgeable about solar influences on our planet’s climate, and uniformly agree on the cause of climate change, then I’ll start listening to alarmists. Until then, I choose skepticism of alarmists. Our sun is moving past the halfway point of Its approx. 9 billion years life span. The incremental warming each decade until our ultimate destiny from a super nova is inescapable. Long before this event, the planet will become uninhabitable.
Does CO2 absorb IR?
(Of course it does. This is basic scientific knowledge.)
“The incremental warming each decade until our ultimate destiny from a super nova is inescapable.”
Sorry, this warming is extremely tiny — about a 1% change in total solar irradiance every 100 Myrs. Do you need me to work that out for you?
I hope that a day will come when people will laugh at how folks were so stupid in the early twenty-first century to believe Michael Moore et al. Climate change will be looked upon by future generations as the swindle it truly is.
Given how deeply entrenched alarmism is with the left, I am inclined to see this fight going on for a long time. Alarmism is a massive political movement. Stopping it will not be easy.
Science is not a political movement. I’ve been an editor or peer reviewer for over 1200 scientific manuscripts during a long career. Not even one of these expressed a political view. As the earth continues to warm, at some point ideology will be abandoned and science will be accepted not just by scientists.
Science per se is not a political movement but climate science has been radically politicized. If your editorial and peer review actions reflect your obvious belief in alarmism then they have most certainly been political.
The earth cannot continue to warm as it is not now warming. Nor has it warmed since measurements began in the late 1970s, except under the influence of large El Ninos.
How has climate science been politicized?
You are kidding, right David? The short answer is by government funding. For example see my analysis here:
https://www.cato.org/publications/working-paper/government-buying-science-or-support-framework-analysis-federal-funding
Alarmism is a political movement, which many scientists have joined. The discussion of politicization is extensive, to say the least.
How does govt funding politicize science?
The study I linked to identifies 15 different ways that govt funding politicizes science. But the simplest is that the govt picks the questions that it funds research on and these questions are defined by existing govt policy. (I call this paradigm protection.)
In the US climate research case these are questions that assume alarmism, because that has been federal policy since 1992. The carbon cycle for example. Proposals for research into questions that might challenge alarmism are not requested. This bias then cascades throughout the funded science system, affecting proposals, awards, peer review, publication, etc.
David Wojick wrote:
“The earth cannot continue to warm as it is not now warming.”
You cannot provide data that shows that.
According to the satellites there was no warming 1978 (when readings began) to 1997 (when the giant El Nino kicked in). There was also no warming after the El Nino-La Nina cycle subsided around 2000. However, the second flat period was a bit warming than the first, no doubt due to the El Nino.
We recently entered another big El Nino-La Nina cycle so it is too soon to tell what will happen. But basically the only warming since 1978 occurred almost 20 years ago and is El Nino driven. There is no GHG warming at all!
Please do not cite the warming in the surface statistical models as that is completely unreliable and probably nonexistent. See my http://www.cfact.org/2017/05/18/fake-temperatures/.
David Wojick wrote:
“According to the satellites there was no warming 1978 (when readings began) to 1997”
Liar.
By 1/1997, UAH LT v6.0 shows +0.16 C of warming, statistically significant.
Clearly you do not have the ability to analyze data.
As I said above, the lower troposphere (which I did not refer to) has indeed warmed during the period 1978-1997, but the total atmosphere has not, so this is just an internal redistribution of heat, not global warming. The amount of heat did not increase.
As to the rate of LT warming, temperature is clearly an oscillator, so the trend estimate should start and end so as to include only whole cycles. If you start or end at a partial oscillation this will skew the trend artificially. As a rule the flattest trend one can find is the most correct one. (Analyzing data is a specialty of mine.)
So I think your +0.16 C is high, not that it matters because the LT is not the issue.
David Wojick wrote:
“As I said above, the lower troposphere (which I did not refer to) has indeed warmed during the period 1978-1997, but the total atmosphere has not….”
No proof of your claim.
But anthropocentric GHGs do cool the planet. That’s why it’s heating up, to restore thermodynamic equilibrium!
Climate science HAS become politicized — by vested fossil fuel interests determined to undermine and lie about the science. Paying off many scientists along the way, like Willie Soon et al.
The small amounts that fossil fuel interests have spent defending themselves from rampant alarmism is trivial compared to the untold billions that have been poured into promoting alarmism by the US and other governments. Skepticism thrives in spite of this endless propaganda campaign, because many people are not stupid.
Billions “promoting??” Promoting what — doing good science.
You just don’t like the scientific results, so you whine and bitch and lie about what scientists are actually doing. Not that you’d know anyway.
Bruce: So do you think CO2 doesn’t absorb infrared radiation, or do you think the Earth doesn’t emit it?
David: How is your question related to Bruce’s comment? I see no logical connection
So you agree that CO2 absorbs IR.
How much?
Sure I agree, but I do not understand what “how much?” means. The question is hopelessly vague.
Simply this: What is CO2’s absorption cross section for infrared radiation, as a function of wavelength?
I have no idea. What difference does it make in the present context?
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?????
This is the singularly most important question in all of climate science.
How can you be completely unaware of that???????????????
Nonsense. This only pertains to the fact that CO2 is a GHG, which is not what the global warming and climate change debate is about. That CO2 is a GHG is just the starting point for the debate, a point accepted by most skeptics and all lukewarmers. Apparently you do not understand this.
CO2 both absorbs and emits radiation, although it does not emit what it has absorbed. Same for H2O. So what? The Earth system also absorbs and emits radiation, in a different sense and on a different scale. The Earth not so much.
CO2 doesn’t emit what it has absorbed?
Wherever did you learn that??????
When a CO2 (or any GHG molecule) absorbs a photon, that energy is immediately diffused to the surrounding air via kinetic collision. This is the basic greenhouse effect. The energy wanders around as heat. From time to time this heat energizes a GHG such that it emits a photon, thus removing some heat. But in almost no case is the emitted photon directly related to an absorbed photon. The frequency of this is negligible.
GHGs dump heat into the atmosphere and they take it out, but both are operations on a sea of heat. CO2 virtually never emits what it has absorbed. Given that this is the fundamental greenhouse physics I am surprised that you do not know about it.
David Wojick says:
“When a CO2 (or any GHG molecule) absorbs a photon, that energy is immediately diffused to the surrounding air via kinetic collision.”
Prove it.
Look it up. This is textbook greenhouse theory. If the GHGs did not transfer the absorbed energy to the surrounding air, but emitted it instead, there would be no greenhouse effect.
The evidence that greenhouse gases, mostly from fossil fuels, are warming the planet was already overwhelming when I was working on my Ph.D. in the late 70s. There was not even a controversy until the late 80s, when fossil fuel interests started spending 100s of millions to confuse the public. What’s with all of these smears against scientists from the US and around the world?
Interestingly, the satellite measurements that began in the late 70s show no GHG warming at all. The only warming to date is tied to major El Ninos. So there is literally no evidence, much less overwhelming evidence, of GHG warming. Perhaps you have been misled by the warming in the surface statistical models, which appears to be a statistical artifact. See my previous posts on this.
There was no warming worries in the 70’s it was all about cooling.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compilation/amp/
Here you go, global cooling BS from the 70’s.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compilation/amp/
Funny there’s no warning on global warming in the bunch liar…