midwest1

jhan -

If you calculate a linear trend from subsets and get largely different results, a linear trend though the entire data set is only meaningful if you have several cycles of data. I would argue we do not have several cycles of data.

Allow me to point you to a climate scientist (who does not deny global warming). Her site is quite comprehensive. Avoid the comments section.

www.judithcurry.com

To be fair, the chances of those events increasing in that way are pretty slim, even according to climate science.

I wouldn't pay much mind to the public positions of governments, particularly when there's money on the line. Nothing is simple in geopolitics.

You could just as well throw your money at any other group of advocacy scientists... say creation scientists.

Of course, I am not an actual creationist, so dont throw any money at my belief that the world is billions of years old.

Did a scientist tell you this? That is not how science works. You cannot attribute events around you to some notion of obviousness. That reasoning would not pass any physicist's approval.

Climate science is predicated upon a proper understanding of physics. Any scientist who tells you that worldwide evidence is obvious should be treated with the same level of respect as Dr. Oz.

The typical response would be that the physics is proven. Well, AFAIK, yes, at least to the degree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it has SOME effect on climate. The magnitude of contribution to toal effect by various sources and sinks seems far from certain.

To draw a parallel, which a physicist (scientist) would do when instructing - this is like saying salt makes blood pressure go up, so it's bad for you... And ignoring all the ways the body can come to equilibrium. Stop eating salt, today, or you'll burst.

So if a physicist calls it bullshit, that's pretty much your trump card. Which is why people put so much stock in Dysons opinion, because he was an expert in properly using the tools that most climate scientists are not experts in.

Were you to go study physics at a masters level for a bit, and then read scientific studies yourself with a critical eye, you'd learn how much of what we call science is grade A bullshit.

Until then, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to debate with you. It's kind of like me arguing American football with John Madden.

Many of the sciences do suffer from systemic incompetence, if not fraud.

There is evidence that dissent in climate science is punished. That alone is enough for me to pull out the microscope and take the words of minority researchers seriously.

Is this a typical thing on HN in election years? This is where I come to escape, dammit! :)

I would give a finger to have an entire forum of people from various technical backgrounds who could have intelligent conversations about various topics without the bumbling interference of the devoted true believers of whatever creed.

I used to evaluate the work of scientists for the US government. You would be surprised at the rampant amount of fraud in science.

To answer your last question, job security. Many other reasons... adulation, professional competition. Generally the types who go into environmental science are true believers to begin with.

In rare cases, there is some money to be made by whoring yourself out.

How do you know they are sure? Last I knew the only real certainty was that CO2 was a greenhouse gas. Anything after that is still not certain at all.

The egg-yolks-are-bad-for-you crowd said the same thing for decades. And now we know that the consensus was wrong.

It always matters when minority scientific opinion is ignored, or worse, silenced.

If medical science gets it wrong, how much greater is the possibility of being wrong when trying to find tenths-of-a-degree difference over decades with a margin of error at least as great?

Rather than take someone's word for it, its quite easy for anyone to verify for themselves that the Cook study is flawed.

Read the abstract, and understand the premise... As was explained in the above postlink. Then visit web of science and verify that claims are true, which you can do yourself.

If you do this, you'll note that the skepticalscience website is misrepresenting the Cook study, whether on purpose or by accident.

Just because someone says that a thing is solid does not make it so.

I am always willing to change my mind, but not on anyone's say-so. Particularly given giant red flags such as the Cook study.

It's also quite easy to verify for yourself by visiting the web of science search. Then one can be assured it isn't a devious lie from the Koch brothers. ;)

I would be interested to know why Duarte feels the correct number is 80, and which IPCC model, if any of them, that consensus includes. I'm going to have to catch up on his blog.

I believe the number is somewhat less than 99 percent. If you are referring to the Cook study, the study borders on fraudulent, to be kind. Hard to type using my phone, I have a couple of posts from 70 days or so ago explaining my problem with that study.

No one really knows how big that consensus is, or what the consensus even is. Too much noise in the way.

Forgive me, I'm doing my best to stay above board. This is not an attack...

You misunderstand me.

I think that 11944 was too many papers, and should be narrowed down to papers by hard scientists. I'm saying out of those 11944, a potentially huge number were social studies, news studies, and other fields that have nothing to do with climate modeling. When you remove those from the 11944, what do you have? 10000? 5000? 1000?

It's completely negligent, at the least.

So, how big is that majority, really? And how many of them agree with the IPCCs more conservative estimates vs the scary, less likely ones?

It's really hard to say with noise like this. And no, this doesn't mean I get my science opinions from Rush Limbaugh. That's noise, too.

I read this study earlier.

Searching the Consensus Project from Skeptical Science shows papers such as:

"Gruber, E., & Brand, M. (1991). Promoting energy conservation in small and medium-sized companies. Energy Policy, 19(3), 279–287."

"Boykoff, M. T. (2008). Lost in translation? United States television news coverage of anthropogenic climate change, 1995–2004. Climatic Change, 86(1-2), 1–11."

I am concerned that this paper qualifies social scientists, psychologists, and other soft scientists as hard science climate researchers capable of deducing the possibility and cause of global climate change. What the fuck do they know?

I'm all for believing that there are a majority of hard-science climate researchers who agree that there is human-caused global warming. This study; however, gives nothing close to a true number.

The term consensus seems... polluted.

The scientific consensus refers to the number of scientists that believe in anthro-climate change, but not the number of scientists who actually study climate change detection and its relation to greenhouse gases.

In other words, the opinion of a natural scientist, who relies on models developed by scientists who study climate change detection and attribution, does not matter at all. In the same way my opinion on relativity, as an engineer, means nothing about the consensus of people who can say relativity is an accurate theory.

I believe there is definitely a majority. But the oft-mentioned studies mentioning 97% consensus are highly misleading.

I used to agree with your characterization. Most global warming deniers do not understand the nature of climate change. I do like to get all sides of a debate, unless of course the debate includes your average Trump voter.

There are a minority of climate researchers who are not certain our level of CO2 emissions warrant any action. I understand that this is not the climate-scientist-majority position; however, I've seen so many red flags from the majority over the past few years that I've re-evaluated my position that deniers are all either morons or evil.

Perhaps Judith Curry is a soulless leach paid off by powerful polluting interests, I do not know. In the absence of evidence for her corruption, applied with a neutral judging eye (i.e. applying the same standard to both sides) I'm going to assume she has something valid to say.

And she's a climate modeler, not a statistician, or a reporter, or Breitbart.

Judith Curry had something to say about the NASA data as well. I find her analysis quite level-headed.

http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/16/warmest-year-pause-and-all...

I think it's difficult to assess the opinions of subsets of either major party. There are a large number of Republicans who believe in moderate regulation of industry, reducing the size of the defense industry, vaccinating our kids, and the possibility of anthro climate change. Depending on your news sources and breadth of political exposure, you'd never know this.

I vote Republican, but love net neutrality. This issue will pretty much guarantee I stay home in 2016.