Sunday
Sep252011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill APS: AGW is controvertible
Sep 25, 2011 Climate: Sceptics This appears to be the surprising implication of a statement by the American Physical Society. Hot on the heels of the resignation of Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever from its membership, the society has issued a statement declaring that it has all been a terrible misunderstanding.
The APS says it that its climate change statement does not assert that "anthropogenic" (man-made) climate change is incontrovertible – but that the evidence of global warming is.
Reader Comments (54)
Terry you stated "Now that there are some "Nothing travels faster than the speed of light" contrarians out there do you think that:
1) The APS will issue a statement claiming "Nothing travels faster than light is incontrovertible".
2) The members of the APS would allow them to make such a statement even though they firmly believe that "nothing travels faster than light"
I think the APS will instead issue a statment that only "Man Made neutrinos" travels faster than the speed of light. Since we all know that anything man made violates nature and upsets the balance and natural laws.
Incontrovertible is a very strong word. The Harry-Read Me file from the Climategate emails should give everyone concern about how robust the climate record really is. Although any correction that might be required may not make a great deal of difference, it is interesting that the "adjustments" seem to always make recent years warmer and the past cooler than the original numbers. Does anyone know if public access to the adjustments used by CRU, GISS, or others has been granted? If so, please provide a link. In any case, I think the metadata on things like the rationale for adjustments, site changes, etc. are not available from CRU (they are "lost"). Has anyone seen such records for the other data sets? I wonder if they exist. In any case, when the changes we are discussing in global mean temperature would be regarded as noise around the baseline in any other field of study, the data should be absolutely reliable. I think the case can easily be made that it is not. Therefore, how could it be incontrovertible. In addition, it amazes me that statements like this are made when the last 13 years does not show warming. Santer et al say that such pauses in warming may occur for 17 years, but not longer. So, in 4 years if rapid warming does not commence, will Santer be the first to denounce AGW or at least to say there are important things we do not understand about it? Doubtful. I don't know about you, but if I was in this situation and the data were steadily going against my favorite hypothesis, I would first be quite humble about any conclusions I stated and second I would be looking for a new hypothesis.
I think Giaver's strong objection to the word "incontrovertible" is based on the fact that it's nothing more than a ten dollar word for "the debate is over".
The latter is clearly a term steeped in political rhetoric.
Hopefully, the APS has sense enough to avoid the term in the future, otherwise, they might as well just babble on with "the science is settled".
@RoyFOMR
It's got to be a 'confusion' - judging by the statement.
Note to self: I must brush up on my knowledge of collective nouns.