Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain's Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis.

Now.. We do all recognize that science is not done as a 'response' to a documentary, right? That is, a scientific study doesn't start out aiming to come up with a particular answer.

Besides, it's hardly a general 'favorite talking point'. My personal favorite point is, "you (in the plural) don't actually know nearly the amount you seem to think you know."

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Now.. We do all recognize that science is not done as a 'response' to a documentary, right? That is, a scientific study doesn't start out aiming to come up with a particular answer.

If the pseudo scientists are going public and publicising their junk, the responsible scientists must be at least as public with the real science.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Besides, it's hardly a general 'favorite talking point'. My personal favorite point is, "you (in the plural) don't actually know nearly the amount you seem to think you know."

This is an interesting admission. Yes, I have noted you have stopped pushing the psuedo science. I have noted your objections are no longer supported by any sort of data or theory. I just don't understand how you think you are furthering the discussion with that approach.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Now.. We do all recognize that science is not done as a 'response' to a documentary, right? That is, a scientific study doesn't start out aiming to come up with a particular answer.

Actually, that's exactly how science is usually done, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, so long as the scientist is willing to accept contradictory results if they appear.

If the pseudo scientists are going public and publicising their junk, the responsible scientists must be at least as public with the real science.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

If the pseudo scientists are going public and publicising their junk, the responsible scientists must be at least as public with the real science.

Is it too much to ask that they let at least a plausible period of time elapse before claiming to have "studied" a question? I mean this paper came out seven days after the Teevee program to which it was meant to respond.

Yes, I have noted you have stopped pushing the psuedo science.

Mate, the only psuedoscience in the GW debate is the treating clipped models running on clipped data as if they have anything useful to say about poorly-studied real world systems. And I've never been the one pushing that line.
[/quote]I have noted your objections are no longer supported by any sort of data or theory.[/quote]You Boomers with your insistence on Programs.

I appreciate how uncomfortable it makes you -- children of Aquarius; the Crown of Creation -- to be confronted by your own inherent epistemological limitations. That's the theory I hold. That Magical Thinking changes nothing...

Originally Posted by Finch

Actually, that's exactly how science is usually done, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, so long as the scientist is willing to accept contradictory results if they appear.

See now. This is exactly why it's so important to speak out about the AGW-thumpers. This is what passes for appreciation of the scientific method.

In fact, science sets out to answer a particular question. Not, "I will prove xxx", but "I will try to see if xxx can be disproved". A scientist is happy to get either a positive or negative result to his inquiry. The answer is not the aim -- the goal of science is submitting our ideas to a rational test and seeing what reality can show us about them.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Now.. We do all recognize that science is not done as a 'response' to a documentary, right? That is, a scientific study doesn't start out aiming to come up with a particular answer.

No he was responding to how skeptics abused his earlier data.

http://environment.independent.co.uk...cle2753395.ece

Dr Lockwood said he was outraged when he saw the documentary, because of the way the programme-makers used graphs of temperature rises and sunspot cycles that were cut off in the 1980s, when the two trends went in the opposite direction.

"The trouble is that the theory of solar activity and climate was being misappropriated to apply to modern-day warming. The sceptics were taking perfectly good science and bringing it into disrespect," Dr Lockwood said.

The Royal Society said yesterday: "There is a small minority which is seeking to confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day."

If the "skeptics" really believed the BS they spew they wouldn't engage in academic dishonesty to fool the public.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Mate, the only psuedoscience in the GW debate is the treating clipped models running on clipped data as if they have anything useful to say about poorly-studied real world systems. And I've never been the one pushing that line.

Nobody cares about your pick-and-choose "skepticism."

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Is it too much to ask that they let at least a plausible period of time elapse before claiming to have "studied" a question? I mean this paper came out seven days after the Teevee program to which it was meant to respond.

Where do you get the idea that Lockwood studied the issue for seven days?

I got the impression that the TV program was earlier this year, in 2007. The work Lockwood did that discredits the idea that the sun is responsible for recent warming was done not later than 2002. I myself have used the results from these papers to make the same claim back in late April. I posted the analysis on physicist Nir Shaviv's (a GW skeptic cited here by Justin) Science Bits blog. So far he hasn't responded and its been more than two months.

http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/m...percrcsent.pdf

http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/m...02JA009431.pdf

Originally Posted by Justin '77

You Boomers with your insistence on Programs.

I appreciate how uncomfortable it makes you -- children of Aquarius; the Crown of Creation -- to be confronted by your own inherent epistemological limitations. That's the theory I hold. That Magical Thinking changes nothing...

Here we have another biased values argument. On this thread, it has been alleged that my motives are religious (I'm a member or the Inquisition), political (I'm a Nazi) and now generational (I'm a Boomer). For the record, I believe the primary value set to evaluate global warming ought to be scientific. Newton's Principia Mathematica might stand as the early manifesto of scientific values. At any rate, observation, experiment, theory and calculation are key.

My scientific values take precedence over political, but there are many political questions not resolvable using scientific values. When I step into the political realm, the core manifestos I tend to quote come from Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR. The will of the majority, checked by the rights of individuals, should prevail. I do not see that there is a natural right to pollute that would check a will of the majority to protect the environment. Freedom of speech and of the press should allow scientist and skeptic alike to express their views.

While many have accused me of being religious, fascist and now boomer, I have responded that many global warming skeptics tend towards libertarian small government values. I can entirely sympathize with such values on many issues. The time is returning for Jeffersonian limited government with limited powers. Lincoln and FDR had big jobs to do. These jobs are to a great extent finished. This is a good time for Jefferson's principles to resurface. I can honor in many respects libertarian small limited government values.

I just don't think political values should trump observation, experiment, calculation and theory in questions of physics. Libertarian small government values, no matter how worthy and admirable they might be, should not trump all other value sets by default and without discussion.

Justin, in abandoning and rejecting the approach of Principia Mathematica, in condemning the scientific method as an insane quirk of Boomers, are you fully rejecting reason and logic as applied to global warming? If you are rejecting the scientific method, what values should be used to evaluate the problem of global warming?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Neither should liberal big-government values.

Very true.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Uhhh,,, Justin has been defending the scientific method, not rejecting it. What he rejects, I think, is your demand for "counter-theories" from skeptics.

No. The scientific method involves observation, data, calculation and theory. When Justin abandoned these things in favor of nitpicking with the classic fallacies and misapplying generational theory, he abandoned the scientific method.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

No. The scientific method involves observation, data, calculation and theory. When Justin abandoned these things in favor of nitpicking with the classic fallacies and misapplying generational theory, he abandoned the scientific method.

Really now, think about what you're saying. You want Justin to conduct a scientific study to prove that the motivations of AGW enthusiasts are suspect? Not possible. You're doing some nitpicking yourself here.

No, I'm not really interested in the 'follow the money trail' aspect of global warming, or attempts to associate environmentalists with various vile strawman value systems. (Inquisitor! Nazi! Boomer!) Non-scientific values are not entirely irrelevant, but, I'd be far more interested in seeing Justin attempt to address the science of climate change again. He has been doing science free posts for quite a while now, and does not respond when his older attempts at science posts are shot down.

I'd of course welcome you too to try to address the science of climate change as well, but your posts have always been science free. I'm just vaguely disappointed to see Justin sink to your level. I could counter Justin's old arguments with science. With you or with Justin's new style, it's just snark on snark, which doesn't add anything meaningful to the discussion.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

While many have accused me of being religious, fascist and now boomer, I have responded that many global warming skeptics tend towards libertarian small government values. I can entirely sympathize with such values on many issues. The time is returning for Jeffersonian limited government with limited powers. Lincoln and FDR had big jobs to do. These jobs are to a great extent finished. This is a good time for Jefferson's principles to resurface. I can honor in many respects libertarian small limited government values.

I just don't think political values should trump observation, experiment, calculation and theory in questions of physics. Libertarian small government values, no matter how worthy and admirable they might be, should not trump all other value sets by default and without discussion.

Bob, I know I've said something like this before, but I think America needs a new governmental model going into the next saeculum. Some kind of eco-pluralistic Jeffersonianism, for lack of a better phrase.

Any ideas on how something like this would look?

Originally Posted by Odin

No he was responding to how skeptics abused his earlier data.

Actually, a response is what he is doing now. The document he whipped together in the couple days after the show, however, is being represented as a "study".

Which it isn't.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Non-scientific values are not entirely irrelevant, but, I'd be far more interested in seeing Justin attempt to address the science of climate change again.

What science of climate change? Did the field move out of the realms of natural history while I wasn't paying attention? There's neither the stirrings of action towards a comprehensive theory to underpin the discipline, nor even a real hint as to the direction such a theory might take. Most of what the crowd has done so far is push around a handful of disparate tools and make profound-sounding statements with little foundation. There's value in that as a means of building the basis for a foundation of a serious science. It's a process that humanity had to go through for all the scientific fields; and it's got a lot more potential than did the study of alchemy. But climate change doesn't yet actually have a science to address.

Sorry, Bob. Tilting at windbags isn't really my game.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Actually, a response is what he is doing now. The document he whipped together in the couple days after the show, however, is being represented as a "study".

Which it isn't.

He already did the study, years ago. The response simply reiterates the findings of the earlier study. So yes, it is the results of a study, it simply wasn't done in 2007. You haven't addressed my question. Where does it say this study was performed in 2007 or that it took seven days? Can you give a url and quote the relevant section?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

You haven't addressed my question. Where does it say this study was performed in 2007 or that it took seven days? Can you give a url and quote the relevant section?

My bad; I misread dates. The program came out in March; the "New Scientific Study" (Odin's link, btw) in July.

Some other thoughts, not particularly connected, but all buttressing my main point are worth having:

- It is -- I presume -- fairly uncontroversial that some lag would exist between inputs and outputs in such a system as climate. Given the fact that data shows that global average temp reached a peak in 1998, and has been unmoving (actually a statistically meaningless downward trend) for almost the last decade, no more than two years after cosmic ray activity changed, doesn't that argue in fact that solar activity does correllate not-so-poorly with global temperature?

- How meaningful is this number, "Global Average Temperature"? What is the basis on which its validity is determined? What would be the mode of its invalidation? Upon what quality of data are the correlations being made? How does someone know?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Maybe we're both tired of wasting our breath on a pissing contest.

Well, I quite believe you haven't the energy to do your homework, to research anything factual. You are still pissing, though. You'll swing by for ad-hominum, strawman and snark. Never too tired for snark.

Originally Posted by The Rani

And sorry, but the motives of a "researcher" are absolutely meaningful. The fact that you choose to dismiss them as irrelevant doesn't make it so.

My phrase was "not entirely irrelevant". Thing is, "researching" motivation is uncomfortably close to science via ad hominum attack. Early on in this thread, whenever a 'skeptic' quoted a source, a common response was to the effect of "the source of that data is a member of the Cato Institute, which is financed by Mobile Oil." Following the money trail and looking at the political affiliation of people involved in the discussion is, again, not entirely irrelevant. I'll just leave others to cover that end of things. I'd rather focus on the science.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

What science of climate change? Did the field move out of the realms of natural history while I wasn't paying attention?

I see. When you thought your pseudo science was good, you believed in science? When you proved unable to defend your garbage, suddenly everything is garbage?

I'll take it as a yes, you have renounced science and logic.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

- It is -- I presume -- fairly uncontroversial that some lag would exist between inputs and outputs in such a system as climate. Given the fact that data shows that global average temp reached a peak in 1998, and has been unmoving (actually a statistically meaningless downward trend) for almost the last decade, no more than two years after cosmic ray activity changed, doesn't that argue in fact that solar activity does correlate not-so-poorly with global temperature?

- How meaningful is this number, "Global Average Temperature"? What is the basis on which its validity is determined? What would be the mode of its invalidation? Upon what quality of data are the correlations being made? How does someone know?

You might start with the Wiki entry on the Instrumental Temperature Record. There are a large number of places called 'weather stations' that have devices known as 'thermometers.' These are not evenly distributed. There are more in well settled areas than in mid ocean or near the poles. Thus, climate scientists have to weigh various stations more or less heavily depending on how many stations are in a given region. They did recently change the weights, as they are adding more stations, and have more data than they used to.



At this time scale, there are two notable effects that show up on global temperature: the 11 year sunspot cycle, and the less regular El Nino / La Nina patterns. 1998 hit a strong temperature peak in part as both of these factors hit maximums together.

1998 was at the cusp of a rather spectacular El Nino / La Nina. Yes, there was a significant bump at that point, but the five year rolling averages have been steadily climbing, and nine of the last ten years are the highest recorded. While the rate of increase is not as high as it has been in the not too distant past, this is apt to change as the 11 year sunspot cycle comes back up, and should a major El Nino develop.

In addition to the 11 year solar cycles, many expect the long term solar strength will start to drop in another 40 years or so, but the long term rise visible in the recent record is greenhouse gas. Solar strength, excepting the 11 year cycles, has been fairly steady since 1950.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I see. When you thought your pseudo science was good, you believed in science? When you proved unable to defend your garbage, suddenly everything is garbage?

Hah! It cracks me up to see a worshipper at the Temple of Science-By-Profundity crying, 'pseudo-!'

For starters, Natural History is hardly garbage, and for a field to be identified as in its Natural History stage is hardly an insult (except to a Fundamentalist True-Believer who fears any potential diminishing of his Holy Writ, I suppose). And for seconds, the nice thing about the several hypotheses I tossed up was that they are real science. That is, they are

• Based on fundamental unifying theory-sets
• Generally-applicable
• Falsifiable using variable-controlled, repeatable testing

. (I could also add, 'not reliant on faith to obtain or keep adherents') "Pseudo" would be a thing which calls itself science without those qualities.
It's not what I've been flogging.

You might start with the Wiki entry on the Instrumental Temperature Record. There are a large number of places called 'weather stations' that have devices known as 'thermometers.' These are not evenly distributed. There are more in well settled areas than in mid ocean or near the poles. Thus, climate scientists have to weigh various stations more or less heavily depending on how many stations are in a given region. They did recently change the weights, as they are adding more stations, and have more data than they used to.

So in other words, "I don't know the secret behind how they come up with it, so I'll go with snark instead"

Looking at the actual article you gave (do you actually read these things before posting them? I know they're long by ADD standards, but I hardly see one that comes close to your par post length...)

The Conference on the World Climate Research Programme (1997) reported that in general "the global capacity to observe the Earth's climate system is inadequate and is deteriorating worldwide,"...

Various studies (Davey and Pielke 2005 [19], Mahmood et al. 2006 [20], Brooks 2007 [21]) have documented examples of poorly sited monitoring stations in the United States, including ones near buildings, roadways, and air conditioning exhausts. Davey and Pielke said such sites "are not at all representative of their surrounding region. There may be many factors at such sites that could create artificial climate trends, trends that in reality are not being observed over the region as a whole. As such, it is not advisable to use these sites in the detection of climate trends and development of long-term climate datasets."

Thomas C. Peterson, an NOAA employee, argues that existing empircial techniques for validating the local and regional consistency of temperature data are adequate to identify and remove biases from station records. In particular, he argues that such corrections allow information about long-term trends to be preserved. [23] Pielke and co-authors have responded with two papers disagreeing that such corrections are adequate. [24][25]
In 2007, weatherman Anthony Watts began an all-volunteer effort to document the quality of each USHCN weather station in the United States. [26] The SurfaceStations.org website was launched on June 4, 2007 and more than 125 stations have been documented and photographed. Some of these stations have been found to be in poor quality locations with elements that could create artificial biases, including on building roofs or near trash burning drums and parking lots. [27]

That Surface Stations one is pretty good. Given the quality of the 'defense of ignorance' paper that Peterson put out (and his position in the global temperature collection establishment) I suspect that it's among the only honest efforts to understand and assess the tools that are being used in this whole thing.

And my personal favorite:

NCDC Director Thomas Karl and other have called for fully documenting each observing station and its operating procedures.

(that is, even the guys running the data collection don't have an adequate understanding of the tools they are using.

So ultimately, what we learn is that my questions are well-grounded. And it leaves one of a scientific mindset to wonder, if we cannot verify our tools, what does that say about our data?

Frankly, I come out of this even more skeptical.

I suppose... thanks.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

- It is -- I presume -- fairly uncontroversial that some lag would exist between inputs and outputs in such a system as climate. Given the fact that data shows that global average temp reached a peak in 1998, and has been unmoving (actually a statistically meaningless downward trend) for almost the last decade, no more than two years after cosmic ray activity changed, doesn't that argue in fact that solar activity does correllate not-so-poorly with global temperature?

Solar activity does correlate with global temperature quite well See Fig 7 in my article you are reviewing:



Temperature shows a cycle that correlates well with the solar cycle. The size of this cycle provides a direct measure of the impact of solar activity on global temperature. The size of this effect is about half a degree although only about half of this is manifest because of oceaning damping (its all in my article)

Direct measurement of Cosmic rays show essentially zero trend (compared to the size of the solar cycle) since the 1950's. This is enough to establish that solar activity cannot be responsible for post-1970 trend warming (although it likely IS responsible for cyclical temeprature changes).

In the first half of the 20th century there was a warming trend that cannot be explained by the greenhouse effect. Sunspot number shows a rising trend during this time. A reasonable hypothesis is that changes in the trend of solar activity were responsible for this early 20th century trend via the cosmic ray mechanism. There is no suitable cosmic ray data available for the early 20th century period. Here is where Lockwood comes in. He produced plots of solar magnetic strength, which I copied from one of his figs. This quantity correlates very well with cosmic rays, but extends back in time.

Figure 11 in my article shows plots of two solar proxies, sunspot number and open solar (magnetic) flux, as 11-year averages. I'm stuck using 11-year averages because there was no way I could estimate the yearly OSF data from the tiny graphs in Lockwood's paper--and I have been unable to find tabular data. Anyway here is Figure 11:


The graph is scaled in terms of standard deviations over 1950-2000 so the cycles of the three quantities are scaled to give the same cycle size. Since we know the temperature effect of a cycle, we can obtain an estimate of the trend change in temperature due to changes in solar activity using these two proxies. I did that and get a solar effect that nicely agrees with the size of the early 20th century temperature rise.

Once you have the Lockood data it is clear that solar activity rose substantially over 1900-1950 and then did not rise much after that. If the sensitivity of climate to solar factors were great enough to explain recent warming by solar effects, then the early 20th century warming should have been many times larger than the recent warming because the trend change in solar activity then is many times greater than the trend change now.

IIRC right after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption climatologists used thier climate models to predict the effects on the climate from the eruption. Guess what Justin? The cooling caused by the eruption occurred almost exactly as the model predicted it should.

Originally Posted by Odin

IIRC right after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption climatologists used thier climate models to predict the effects on the climate from the eruption. Guess what Justin? The cooling caused by the eruption occurred almost exactly as the model predicted it should.

Very interesting. What I found on a google search for "Pinatubo" and "climate model" indicated that, while the temperature behavior of the models tracked the post-Pinatubo decade fairly well (only overestimating by 25% the maximum cooling effect), the response time they predicted was a bit off. In fact, I find that it has been argued that a mechanism which could be used to explain the model's flaws is in the proposed "adaptive infrared iris" property of the Earth's cloud cycle.

Thus far, they say that the iris effect has yet to be conclusively proved or disproved, but that it would represent a very significant negative feedback factor in the global climate. As such, the Pinatubo test -- for bringing yet another unaddressed-by-the-models factor to light -- was a very good thing.

I say, bring on more tests! It can only help improve our understanding.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

As such, the Pinatubo test -- for bringing yet another unaddressed-by-the-models factor to light -- was a very good thing.

I say, bring on more tests! It can only help improve our understanding.

Hopefully, you are calling for more academic studies, rather than more volcanic eruptions?

I did note that on the temperature graph, one can see a temperature rise associated with each El Nino, except the 1993 El Nino, which seems to have been countered by Pinatubo. Does anyone know if the models that over predicted Pinatubo's cooling by 25% included the El Nino effects?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Hopefully, you are calling for more academic studies, rather than more volcanic eruptions?

I could go either way (now that I'm not living in the shadow of the Cascades anymore). Evidence is nice, and since a very good test for a model is to 'kick' it and see how it behaves, we really could stand to collect data on more such events.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I say, bring on more tests! It can only help improve our understanding.

THAT I agree with!

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Hopefully, you are calling for more academic studies, rather than more volcanic eruptions?

H-m-m-m. Justin prefers experiement to analysis, so he be awaiting earth's input.