Posted on 02/02/2011 1:07:18 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
From his blog http://www.drroyspencer.com/ which Im repeating here to help get wide exposure.
A Challenge to the Climate Research Community
Ive been picking up a lot of chatter in the last few days about the settled science of global warming. What most people dont realize is that the vast majority of published research on the topic simply assumes that warming is manmade. It in no way proves it.
If the science really is that settled, then this challenge should be easy:
Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.
Studies that have suggested that an increase in the total output of the sun cannot be blamed, do not count the sun is an external driver. Im talking about natural, internal variability.
The fact is that the null hypothesis of global warming has never been rejected: That natural climate variability can explain everything we see in the climate system.
bttt hee hee hee
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cochrane says:
I was having a discussion by email with a professor of astronomy, I had read his review of Heaven and Earth by Ian Plimer. This appeared in the Australian some years ago, but I didnt get round to reading it until recently. The review was so totally biased and so utterly unfair that I could not resist sending an email to the author.
One thing I said was science in never settled, I quoted the issue of peptic ulceration. Two doctors in Western Australia produced the idea that peptic ulceration was due to infection rather than gastric acidity. The overwhelming consensus at the time was that acid, or acid plus certain enzymes, caused ulcers. The West Australian doctors were laughed to scorn. They now hold a Nobel Prize.
The astronomy professor replied thus. This is not verbatim, but the sense has been retained.
Science is science. And good science will always triumph over bad science. There was no evidence whatsoever to support the acid hypothesis. The West Australian doctors did an experiment which proved that the rubbish their peers believed was wrong. They were quite rightly awarded a Nobel Prize.
The level of consensus within the climate science community is much stronger than that within the medical community. Because of this, climate science is more soundly based than medical science.
This is good thinking from a professor of astronomy. I dont think that even a professor of theology could have done any better.
Lets us look at the man- made global warming hypothesis from the point of view of medical science
The system which almost all doctors accept today is the Cochrane system. Briefly, the Cochrane system works as follows.
The strongest level of evidence is level one.
Level one evidence consists of randomised controlled trials under extremely stringent conditions.
The next level of evidence is level two.
Level two evidence again consists of randomised controlled trials, but under less stringent conditions.
Next comes level three.
Level three evidence consists of observational studies.
Even if the series studied is large and the correlation is tight, an observational study can never prove a hypothesis. Correlation does not prove causation. An observational study might suggest that a hypothesis is reasonably likely But the proof lies in the randomised controlled trial. Preferably this trial will have reasonably large numbers of patients and have the tight parameters of level one.
Consensus gets low marks under Cochrane. Cochrane is about evidence rather than opinion. A single opinion has an evidential value of zero. Consensus might represent the opinion of 3,000 people. Multiply zero by 3,000 and the answer is still zero.
Now lets look at man made global warming.
We cant have a randomised controlled trial. We have one patient (planet earth). We dont have even one single other planet to put in the control group.
So lets do an observational study.
An observational study with one patient is not an observational study. It is an anecdote, or at best a case report.
OK, lets be practical. We only have one planet earth, so our single patient is very, very important to us.
Since planet earth is so precious to us, we are prepared to accept an observational study with a tight observed correlation as being evidence enough to act on.
We have to look at the degree of correlation over four time periods.
There is the period 1900 to 1945. During this period the planet warmed.
Compared to today, there was not much in the way of heavy industry. There were very few cars on the road. Not a lot of CO2 was produced
But the planet warmed. 1938 may not be the hottest year ever recorded, but it fits comfortably into the top 10. I think that it is very reasonable to say that the warming seen from 1900 to 1945 was not due to carbon dioxide. We were coming out of an ice age.
Now lets look at the period from 1945 to 1975. We are in the era of post war recovery. More cars are being built. More electricity is being generated. More heavy industry is starting up. More CO2 is being produced. But the temperature is in fact going down. How do we explain this? The IPCC says pollution with substances such as sulphur dioxide were the cause of the fall in temperature over this period.
Now this is an assertion. There are no quantitative measurements of all the aerosols and other pollutants and computer models of how each pollutant would affect the climate. But lets be generous. Lets say that there is a seventy five per cent chance that this explanation is correct.
Now we move on to the period from around 1975 to 1998. Her we have a period when a further rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide is associated with a further rise in temperature. There arte alternative explanations. It could be the sun. It could be something that we havent thought of yet. But let us be generous and say we are 90% certain that global warming from 1975 to 1998 was caused by man made carbon dioxide.
Then we reach the period 1999 to 2010. We continue to produce lots of carbon dioxide. There is no statistically significant rise in temperature during this period.
But the warmists say that this 11 year period contains three, or five or six of the warmest years on record.
Well the temperature has been rising by fits and starts for about 150 years. We are on a high plateau, so it is not surprising that some of the temperatures we see are record ones. But are we going to stay on that plateau? Are we going to start moving gradually downwards in terms of temperature? Or are we about to take off with the climate getting warmer still?
Well, of course, there is no way in which this question can be answered with any certainty. But lets be generous again. Let us say that the fact that several of the years of the last decade are in the top 10 ever recorded means that there is a 70 per cent chance that this period of time supports man made global warming.
OK the global warming hypothesis rests on three lines of evidence.
The first line of evidence has a 75% chance of being correct.
The second line of evidence has a 90% chance of being correct.
The third line of evidence has a 70% chance of being correct..
If you roll a dice once, the odds against guessing the right answer are six to one.
If you roll the dice three times the odds against you getting the right answer three times running are six to one multiplied by six to one multiplied by six to one.
The odds against you are 216 to one.
The odds in your favour are the reciprocal of this. They are 0.00463.
Now we have three lines of evidence for the man-made global warming hypothesis.
The odds in favour of each piece of evidence are, respectively 75%, 90%, and 70%
Multiply 0.75 by 0.9 then by 0.7 and you get 0.475.
There is a 47.5% chance that the hypothesis is correct.
Does this show that the science is settled? Dont make me laugh.
I have no idea what the temperature will be like in 100 years time. Neither has the IPCC.
At one time ice covered what is now inhabited central Europe. There have been many ice ages. Another one is coming. Nothing any human can do will stop it.
Only a fool would deny that the mechanism that causes ice ages has stopped working.
fyi
Why is it that seemingly intelligent people give credence to a nutcase like Gore, who is no scientist and who knows nothing of climatology? Gore is no scientist but a idealogue out to make a quick buck.
The answer, of course, is that no conditions would disprove it. Anything that happens proves "climate change."
That's not science. That's a cargo cult with a "science" sign taped onto it.
But he won he NoBull prize!!
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Arno Arrak says:
Here is the question to put to the warmists: why are you guys still using global temperature curves of questionable and secretive origin if accurate satellite temperature measures have been available for thirty one years? They cover the globe and both hemispheres uniformly, are not affected by the urban heat island effect, and have been calibrated against radiosonde values. You will get a variety of answers but the real answer is this: they use their own secretive sources because their temperatures are cooked. As in falsified. I will be specific: what these secretive curves from NOAA, NASA, and the Met Office show is a period of warming in the eighties and nineties that is not present in the satellite record. Why is this so important? you may ask. The answer is that in 1988, right smack in the middle of this period, Hansen stood up in front of the Senate and testified that global warming had started. That was simply a lie as satellite temperature records show but his testimony became the founding event of the global warming movement we have today. If they admit the truth they will have cut the legs out from under this founding event of their religion. To find out how these temperatures were faked, get my What Warming? (second edition) and check out figures 15, 24, 27 and 29.
What Warming?: Satellite view of global temperature change [Paperback]
Arno Arrak (Author)
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There is a hockey stick - straight down.
Real scientist are not going to go away. And neither is the increasing volume of measurements from different means that show there really is no warming trend of any significance. And most likely the opposite. A slight cooling trend, globally.
If the global climate is so sensitive to CO2 levels, why don't we see global climate change from every large volcanic eruption? That Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name that disrupted air traffic from Europe last year injected more CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than would have been saved by 50 years of following Kyoto accords. Yet where is the global warming that we are told will happen if the delicate balance is disrupted?
I am sitting here in Connecticut with nearly four feet of snow on the ground. From my viewpoint, it is entirely possible for an ice age to begin in a matter of a year or two. More snow => more sunlight reflected => colder temperatures => more snow
“Gore is no scientist but a idealogue out to make a quick buck.”
I believe he is simply a frontman. A relatively popular politician, who was chosen to be the “voice.” Al oGre has never impressed me with his intelligence. Come on! Just listen to him talk! He’s a dim bulb! That’s why his handlers never let him debate anyone. He just can’t do it. He has to be fed everything he says. His bosses are quite content to let him make as much money as he can, but they are in control of that too. Anything al makes is just chump change to the higherups. He’s just well known, so he makes the perfect stooge for them.
Al oGore has, to be very, very kind to him, maybe an average IQ. But I doubt it!
This ones good too:
AGW/Climate Change is not science but alchemy. An endeavour to turn CO2 into Au.
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