nail in the coffin for climate changers?

[woolfe9999]

I maintain that the consensus argument is only invoked precisely for its ideological convenience, so that studies just such as this can be derided as against the consensus, and conveniently dismissed.

If this study is reflecting what is factually true, then what difference does a consensus make?

I suppose it's not that simple. (not sarcasm. being honest.)

You're right, if the study's conclusion is accurate, and there are no valid criticisms of its methodology or findings, then it doesn't matter that it is the minority opinion. The problem, which I explained and you ignored, is that neither you nor I is qualified to make that assessment. As between the two of us, you're the one picking a side and pretending that you have an intellectual basis to do so even though it is quite obvious you do not. I recognize my inability to compare and contrast the majority and minority view in this highly technical area. Accordingly, I will operate assuming the majority view is correct, for now, unless or until it changes. This does happen in science - a minority view becomes a majority view over time. But lay people have nothing to do with that. That is a discussion within the scientific community. Not one for political discussion boards between people who have no idea what they're talking about.

 

[boomerang]

Looks like a less entertaining spew than Glenn Becks nonsense. I'll pass.

In your case I think that would be best.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Then we modify theories and future models to fit the new data.

scientists != zealots

not all models are being used to fit data, some are being used to make predictions, and you can get a model to make any prediction you want it to given the right inputs.

i can tell you right now that i can have an FEA tell me that the space shuttle is indestructible. it doesn't mean that the model is physically correct though.

 

[classy]

I can't say we are getting hotter or colder, but one thing is for damn sure, our weather is becoming much radical than ever before.

 

[Blackjack200]

Sweet Baby James, this thread is loltastic. OMG, smoking is safe! The Heritage Foundation said so!

 

[First]

In your case

Everyone's case, actually.

 

[NeoV]

wow, surprising that an article from this Institute is trying to make 'climate change' look bad

news?

 

[werepossum]

wow, surprising that an article from this Institute is trying to make 'climate change' look bad

news?

News flash - the study is published in Remote Sensing, a peer-reviewed scientific and engineering journal about the science and engineering of remote sensors. It merely confirms using raw satellite data what has been known for at least two decades - that current computer models do not match measured reality.

 

[jackschmittusa]

The study has already proven to be bullshit! I've read 4 articles already explaining how it is flawed, how variables were contrived to arrive at a conclusion, etc.. It is written by a guy that has managed to publish bullshit before. A guy who also claims that ID is science. A guy whose paycheck comes from Exxon/Mobile. A guy with little or no credibility left with his peers.

Just another straw for some to grasp at.

 

[DAGTA]

Global warming or not, the damage being done to the oceans from carbon and other chemicals is something we should be very concerned about.

 

[monovillage]

The study has already proven to be bullshit! I've read 4 articles already explaining how it is flawed, how variables were contrived to arrive at a conclusion, etc.. It is written by a guy that has managed to publish bullshit before. A guy who also claims that ID is science. A guy whose paycheck comes from Exxon/Mobile. A guy with little or no credibility left with his peers.

Just another straw for some to grasp at.

How about you give us the links to other climate scientists that dispute this peer reviewed paper and why ?

 

[Throckmorton]

News flash - the study is published in Remote Sensing, a peer-reviewed scientific and engineering journal about the science and engineering of remote sensors. It merely confirms using raw satellite data what has been known for at least two decades - that current computer models do not match measured reality.

No model matches measured reality. Models by definition APPROXIMATE reality. The purpose of a model is to predict reality as closely as possible with the data you have.

 

[shira]

I maintain that the consensus argument is only invoked precisely for its ideological convenience, so that studies just such as this can be derided as against the consensus, and conveniently dismissed.

If this study is reflecting what is factually true, then what difference does a consensus make?

I suppose it's not that simple. (not sarcasm. being honest.)

Why are you concluding that "studies such as this" undermine climate change? The Forbes article - characterizing this study as "blowing a gaping hole" in climate change - is grossly dishonest. Nowhere in the actual study do the authors make anything remotely like that point. The study's conclusion is:

http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/

It is concluded that atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in satellite radiative budget observations.

In other words, we don't understand the feedback mechanism involved in climate change yet.

To put this another way, we know from temperature data that warming is occurring, but we don't understand the role that atmospheric feedback plays in warming. That isn't remotely an argument that MMCC isn't occuring.

The Forbes article is analogous to the following argument:

When a person has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), he/she almost always dies within five years.

We don't understand the mechanism by which ALS causes the destruction of the human nervous system..

Therefore, ALS doesn't kill people.​

 

[jackschmittusa]

monovillage

Why bother? There is a large group of people (the internet is abuzz about this) that have jumped on this like it has come down from Mt. Olympus. It is obvious from reading hundreds of their posts that they don't care about the validity of the science. Links won't change their minds and I'm at the point that I don't really care. The same people that scream that they won't let the government leave huge bills for their grandkids to pay don't really seem to care if they leave a habitable world for them to live in.

 

[silverpig]

Why are you concluding that "studies such as this" undermine climate change? The Forbes article - characterizing this study as "blowing a gaping hole" in climate change - is grossly dishonest. Nowhere in the actual study do the authors make anything remotely like that point. The study's conclusion is:

http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/



In other words, we don't understand the feedback mechanism involved in climate change yet.

To put this another way, we know from temperature data that warming is occurring, but we don't understand the role that atmospheric feedback plays in warming. That isn't remotely an argument that MMCC isn't occuring.

The Forbes article is analogous to the following argument:

When a person has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), he/she almost always dies within five years.

We don't understand the mechanism by which ALS causes the destruction of the human nervous system..

Therefore, ALS doesn't kill people.​

That's not it at all. The models say that CO2 is what is causing the warming through this mechanism (and not something else in concert) and that increases in CO2 will lead to further changes in the future through this very feedback/forcing mechanism. Not understanding that mechanism means you can't draw that conclusion and program your models. Have you ever programmed a computer model? I've written a few. I can tell you that if you don't know how gravity works, you can't make your orbital simulator work.

 

[Perknose]

How about you give us the links to other climate scientists that dispute this peer reviewed paper and why ?

Sure. Here you go.

"He's taken an incorrect model, he's tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct," Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said of Spencer's new study.

"I cannot believe it got published," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"If you want to do a story then write one pointing to the ridiculousness of people jumping onto every random press release as if well-established science gets dismissed on a dime," Schmidt [Gavin Schmidt, a NASA Goddard climatologist] said. "Climate sensitivity is not constrained by the last two decades of imperfect satellite data, but rather the paleoclimate record."

"It is not newsworthy," Daniel Murphy, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cloud researcher, wrote in an email to LiveScience.

In the new paper, Spencer looked at satellite data from 2000 to 2010 to compare cloud cover and surface temperatures. Using a simple model, he linked the two, finding, he said, that clouds drive warming. His comparisons of his data with six Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models showed, he said, that the models are too sensitive (meaning some variables, such as warming, increase at the slightest change in other factors) and that carbon dioxide is not likely to cause much warming at all.

However, no climate scientist contacted by LiveScience agreed.

But mainstream climate scientists dismissed the research as unrealistic and politically motivated.

 

[monovillage]

Here's a post by Dr. Curry on the referenced paper.

http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/30/spencer-braswells-new-paper/#more-4279

"So should the paper have been published? I would say yes, although the reviewers and editors should have insisted on more information regarding the climate model simulations that were actually used in their analysis. Was the journal Remote Sensing remiss here? Well no more so than PNAS has been in some recent publications. Remote Sensing is a new open access journal; the only climatologist that I spotted on their editorial board is Toby Carlson. Remote Sensing is a plausible journal to have published this paper, and it seems that Spencer wanted to avoid the possibility of reviews by Dressler and Trenberth. If Roy Spencer didn’t make provocative political statements, this paper would not receive MSM attention and Dessler and Trenberth would probably be less motivated to spend time criticizing his research and wouldn’t be invited by the media to comment on it.

Trying to keep papers from being published isn’t useful (although a good editorial process is extremely useful), and on this particular topic (clouds and climate, comparing models with observations) we need more papers, not fewer. Science proceeds by putting ideas and analyses out there for other scientists to consider and rebut. Add a dose of politics into this, and you exacerbate scientific rivalries into media flame wars. So lets douse the flames and discuss the science."

 

[Perknose]

Here's a post by Dr. Curry on the referenced paper.

http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/30/spencer-braswells-new-paper/#more-4279

"So lets douse the flames and discuss the science."

Agreed. Let's discuss the science! So, what did Dr. Judith Curry herself think of the science in this paper?

From your own linked article, OP:

The paper makes a useful contribution, but in the end they make the same error in interpretation that they accuse others of making. In my opinion it is not correct to infer from their analysis that global temperature variations were largely radiatively forced.

The complexity of the interaction between natural internal variability, surface temperature, clouds and radiative forcing are not adequately sorted out in terms of causal mechanisms to justify such a conclusion, in my opinion.

Ouch!

 

[monovillage]

She still says that it should have been published, even with the included errors. Peer reviewed papers aren't perfect, the aim is to advance the science.

 

[Perknose]

She still says that it should have been published, even with the included errors. Peer reviewed papers aren't perfect, the aim is to advance the science.

Please stop with the BS misdirection straw man argument.

I never said it shouldn't have been published. In fact, not one person in this entire thread said it shouldn't have been published.

YOU asked another poster to link to some respected climate scientists who disputed the findings. I gave you several.

Instead of facing up to this and straightforwardly engaging it, you then started with your BS misdirection.

So, I quoted the author of the very article YOU linked to disputing the findings, which you somehow failed to note.

And all you've done since is continue your straw man misdirection.

That's some weak, fundamentally dishonest BS on your part.

 

[alphatarget1]

not all models are being used to fit data, some are being used to make predictions, and you can get a model to make any prediction you want it to given the right inputs.

i can tell you right now that i can have an FEA tell me that the space shuttle is indestructible. it doesn't mean that the model is physically correct though.

Change all material properties to have infinite strength and stiffness

 

[monovillage]

Perk, i disagree that i threw up a straw man BS argument. It wasn't my intention to, here's Dr. Spencers reply to his critics.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/fallout-from-our-paper-the-empire-strikes-back/

 

[Darwin333]

Sure. Here you go.

Probably a horrible question to ask here but since I don't understand the science behind all of this I'll ask anyway.

Does your post mean most actual scientists in relevant fields think this is good news, bad news, or bullshit? Your post appears to suggest the latter but I figured I would confirm since I don't really understand the very big picture that is the entire friggen planets climate.

 

[sandorski]

Probably a horrible question to ask here but since I don't understand the science behind all of this I'll ask anyway.

Does your post mean most actual scientists in relevant fields think this is good news, bad news, or bullshit? Your post appears to suggest the latter but I figured I would confirm since I don't really understand the very big picture that is the entire friggen planets climate.

Probably: None of the above. It's more just an increase in Data to make their Models work better. If anything, it would be Good News.

 

[Hacp]

They can't use the satellite data to determine how much temperature change is due to radiative forcing and how much is due to feedback because of the random effects of clouds. It sounds like the Forbes rightwing shill read this, thought he understood, then ran off and wrote his paper about "alarmist climate models" with a big gleeful grin on his face.

WTF are you talking about?