Disagreements over the Science Behind Global Climate Change

[Chris]

Perhaps the scientists amongst us should get a glimpse of the history of this whole thing. Make a cup of tea or coffee, put a good hour plus aside for the main article alone, and a substantial number of more hours for the supporting and side articles, and enjoy.

From the American Institute of Physics -
Simple Models of Climate

(Oops, are they also part of the conspiracy and members of the New Church?)

This information is also contained in a book published in 2003 : BiblioVault - The discovery of global warming

Bibliovault describes it as follows: (bolding mine)

"In 2001 a panel representing virtually all the world's governments and climate scientists announced that they had reached a consensus: the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The consensus itself was at least a century in the making. The story of how scientists reached their conclusion--by way of unexpected twists and turns and in the face of formidable intellectual, financial, and political obstacles--is told for the first time in The Discovery of Global Warming. Spencer R. Weart lucidly explains the emerging science, introduces us to the major players, and shows us how the Earth's irreducibly complicated climate system was mirrored by the global scientific community that studied it."

Again, this is not material for a casual browse although it is written very well and easy to read. But you actually have to settle in and read it.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Chip

Scientifically speaking, what is lacking to make this "global warming" theory valid is sufficient support from peer review. It fails repeatedly when put to the test.

The technical reports have an extensive, transparent, and iterative peer review process, much more than that required from usual scientific journals.
- The work starts with using already peer reviewed work.
- Then, the work is distributed to expert reviewers - over 2,500 reviewers from a cross section of disciplines for the last report.
- The Lead Authors of a specific section is required to pay attention to every review comment and answer it.
- Then, the work goes to two review editors per chapter.
- Every section has two lead authors.
- All review comments are available upon request, together with the authors' responses.
- Then, if there are differences, the lead authors go back to work for meetings with both the contributing authors and review editors
- The revised draft then goes to the government review stage. Each government is entitled to organize any type of review that it wants or deems appropriate.
- Each working group prepares an in-depth technical report, a technical summary, and a short summary for policymakers.
- Each working group has a plenary session to reach final approval of every word in its documentation - governments, ngo's, scientific community.

The Peer Review process is exceptional. Here is the complete process. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Originally Posted by Chip

Also problematic is the "sample" from which the test is taken, which is the time period of the analysis. Honestly, speaking on pure statistical terms, no definitive answer should be postulated because the sample period is just to small when compared to the total existence of the earth.

What time period do you think they are working with? The time spans to my knowledge are vast.

Originally Posted by Chip

I'm surprised that real scientists would compromise the scientific method, but then again everything is political and if these guys get to do what they love to do for a living(research) and get handsomely paid in the process and maybe some fame thrown in. I think one can see how opinions can be "swayed" so that the scientist reports what his finacier wants.

That may happen, sure, but the sheer number of scientists involved mitigates against that I would think. Not everyone sells 'even their mother' for a buck or two ... do remember that the first reports from these groups of scientists were suppressed by the Governments, edited severely and the scientists themselves were treated abominably. No-one really wanted to hear about this stuff for the longest time.

The first three sections of the current and 4th report were already published at intervals earlier this year. The individual reports have already had extensive peer review this year, before publication of the synthesis report. The synthesis report is simply a synthesis of already published and thoroughly peer reviewed work. There has been so much water under the bridge over the past 20 years, that this 4th report is generally considered confirmatory .. i.e., validity and reliability bears out - it measures what it is expected to measure and it does so consistently. So, in a sense, moving toward 'observable science' and away from the realm of purely 'theoretical'. But I think it is very early days for that.

[bob saunders]

RealClimate

[bob saunders]

Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi and other proponents of the theory that global warming is man-made use the term “consensus” as a primary argument for their hypothesis. Inconveniently for them, truth is discovered from credible scientific finding, not consensus. Furthermore, as a former atmospheric physicist, I can vouch that there is nowhere near a consensus for this hypothesis among the community of credible scientists who study our planet.

Repeated scientific verification supports the theories of relativity, the double-helix structure of DNA and even the theory of natural climate change, providing indisputable proof that these theories are in fact the truth. Nowhere in thousands of climate studies is there an instance of incontrovertible evidence that global warming is driven by the activities of humans. If there was even one, it would be widely cited and referenced. We would know the scientist’s name as we do Hubble, Einstein and Crick.

A mere 10,000 years ago, the Rochester area was encased beneath thousands of feet of glacial ice. Global warming is a truth. The hypothesis that it is driven by human activity is false.

JOEL WOJCIECHOWSKI
HENRIETTA
The writer has a master’s degree in atmospheric physics and a doctorate in biophysics.

[Chip]

Chris

With regard to temerature changes, all we can really be sure of is the last 100 or so years, which even though it may show a rise in temp. it is not enough time to accurately postulate a tendency. Sure some scientistists will say they can calculate the earths temp 2 billion years ago, but that is highly unlikely given the poor evidence for such a claim. The fact is global warming is great for the research industry, there is a glut of money to be made by universities to find the smoking gun and this bias is apparent. Don't believe me, just read the enormous amount of dissenting scientists who have refuted the idea that humans are the sole cause for this recent trend in high temps. I believe cobraboy tried to post some links, but they were summarily deleted.

[cobraboy]

Consensus?

Multi-scale analysis of global temperature changes and trend of a drop in temperature in the next 20 years

Peer-reviewed global cooling

The Ruskies Aren't Convinced

NASA pleas "Mea Culpa", Sorry for the bad data...

Peer Review? What Peer Review?
(I guess Chris and Keith sorta kinda just ignored this little piece of contrarian data. I know, I know, it goes against the IPCC "consensus" and "arduous" Peer Review that Chris so detailed, I had to do Peer Review stuff in grad school, granted it was in economics, but still; I'm sure Chris and Keith had to do the same thing in their respective grad schools, too, a common experience we share . I'm doubting the True Believers will read the entird .pdf document, so I'll just c/p the conclusion. Enjoy: )

Part 7 - A Final Word

The IPCC states clearly that it undertakes no research of its own but merely relies on published papers for its information. A team of editors assesses those papers and writes the drafts of the various report chapters. While minor corrections are welcomed the overall assessment is strongly defended against challenges.

On the surface this looks not unreasonable but scratch a little deeper and the self-sustaining nature of the claim of a human influence on warming becomes visible.

Unlike other high-profile scientific fields, these reports by the IPCC are almost entirely responsible for determining the direction of climatology and how the research funding will be spent.

The IPCC's Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001 showed that 8 of 11 climate factors were poorly understood but despite this it claimed that humans were responsible for rising temperatures.

As a consequence of the TAR the majority of funding for climatology research went to projects that assumed a human influence on climate.

Not surprisingly this caused the papers taking this position to significantly out-number the papers that rejected this hypothesis. But as the responses to reviewers' comments show, the number of papers supporting a certain argument is a critical factor in determining the content of the IPCC reports.

It is not merely the weight of numbers that tilts the balance but also the leanings of the editors. The content of the reports rests with the teams of editors but if those editors are actively engaged in research then it is likely to be on projects which assume a human influence on climate and this will make those editors susceptible to being predisposed to view climate in that light.

There is not the evidence to claim deliberate bias but logically the "anthropogenic warming" argument will be very familiar to many editors and the tendency will be that papers following that line will receive less intense scrutiny than papers that don't only challenge that argument but also challenge the editors' own beliefs. If an editor took the position that the human influence on climate is negligible or non-existent on anything but a small and localised scale then that person's research opportunities are likely to be few.

The same potential conflict of interest arises with the reviewers, many of whom are authors of papers related to climatology and are quite possibly still involved in research projects. The reviewers have the added problem that the IPCC practice is to make all reviewers' comments available to other reviewers. Reviewers cannot hide behind some kind of editorial team "group think" but are exposed to individual scrutiny and that can put reputations and research opportunities at even greater risk.

The problems continue into the authorship of these reports. According to IPCC documents, scientists are nominated by governments or explicitly invited by scientists who were already associated with the IPCC. What a wonderful way to position scientists who support a government agenda on climate and then fill out the IPCC with like-minded individuals.

The bigger picture is that research funding indirectly determines the content of the IPCC assessment reports, and those assessment reports play a very significant role in determining the direction and funding of the research.

Who would be a reviewer when many chapter authors will be likely to defend the beliefs and reputations they have established via research projects funded by government money on the supposition that anthropogenic global warming is a fact? Few researchers who are funded by the anthropogenic warming gravy-train are likely to review IPCC chapters with the intent of identifying flaws only those sceptical of the claims, and have little to lose in the way of reputation or funding, will make the effort. Several recognised sceptics of man-made warming failed to take part in the review but who can blame them when the exercise is so evidently futile.

In the long term this perpetual and increasing marginalising of contrary viewpoints is extremely detrimental to the science because it will produce a supposed scientific "truth" based on little more than the emphasis of the funding and the domination of certain opinions.

(Sounds properly "Peer Reviewed" to me... )

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by bob saunders

RealClimate

Certainly we can agree: There is Consensus within the scientific community that scientists disagree with each other on the subject of anthropologic cause of Global Warming.

I mean Climate Change.



Is there consensus on even what we call it?

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Chip

Chris

With regard to temerature changes, all we can really be sure of is the last 100 or so years, which even though it may show a rise in temp. it is not enough time to accurately postulate a tendency. Sure some scientistists will say they can calculate the earths temp 2 billion years ago, but that is highly unlikely given the poor evidence for such a claim. The fact is global warming is great for the research industry, there is a glut of money to be made by universities to find the smoking gun and this bias is apparent. Don't believe me, just read the enormous amount of dissenting scientists who have refuted the idea that humans are the sole cause for this recent trend in high temps. I believe cobraboy tried to post some links, but they were summarily deleted.

Chip, my understanding is that they are using stuff like tree rings, ice cores, corals and sediments of oceans and lakes. I learnt that this is what they call paleoclimatology. I know very little about this, but I know that I can look at a tree ring and can figure how old the tree was, and which years were drought and which years had a lot of water and warmth. But this is just for fun that I learnt this one time and pure luck that a knowledgeable person was present. I do not have knowledge here, but I can accept that a lot can be gleaned by these methods in the right scientific hands.

I've not found anything to solidly contradict this as a methodology. If we can carbon date successfully, then this body of knowledge must have some value.

What I've learnt, is that no matter which of the methods the paleoclimatologists used, the pattern remained consistent.

I do not worry about Cobraboy's posts. I don't read them and have no idea what the Mod may have deleted. This conversation needs to happen on our board. It is within bounds of the board, and of concern, and I don't like it that all the previous conversations had to be closed. To say a funny thing .. even if this global warming thing is a hoax (which I don't think it is), it would be fine for us to examine our way of living and figure out right living, despite differences.

I'm just happy that there seems to be a conversation developing.

[Keith R]

Originally Posted by bob saunders

Repeated scientific verification supports the theories of relativity, the double-helix structure of DNA and even the theory of natural climate change, providing indisputable proof that these theories are in fact the truth.

Actually, a physicist recently said to me that that there are parts of the theory of relativity still under debate and parts we suspect are true but cannot fully verify. Also, my father, a retired MD, frequently tells me that many of the things he learned in science & medicine as "absolute, verified truths" several decades ago have since been found wrong.

[Keith R]

Originally Posted by Chip

I believe cobraboy tried to post some links, but they were summarily deleted.

Wrong. Most of his substantive links, if not all, have stayed. He just wants you to think he has been more censored than he has.