Friday
Sep092011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Make haste more slowly
Sep 9, 2011 Climate: Models What fun - readers point out that some revisions are to be made to the Dessler paper in the light of comments made by Roy Spencer. I wonder if Steve M's comments will have an effect too?
Reader Comments (289)
"Does this mean that John Abrahams comments, reported in the Guardian and Daily Climate, about Dr. Spencer constantly having to correct errors and revise work, are in fact correct?
Just not in the way Abrahams originally intended?"
Chuckles, inspirational observation, my hat is tipped.
I posed a question to Richard Black on the BBC as to why the author of a sientific study should have his religious beliefs highlighted. The article was titled "Journal editor resigns over 'problematic' climate paper"
Mr Black replied to me highlighting this statement as being important, and relevant to the article.
"We believe Earth and its ecosystems-created by God's intelligent design
and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence -are robust,
resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for
human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is
no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of
warming and cooling in geologic history."
I am now waiting, more in hope than anticipation, for Mr Black doing a further item on the BBC website discussing the developments since his article here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14768574
I did reply that Dr Spencer is not the only famous scientist to believe in God, although I personally don't have any religious beliefs.
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html
Shub
It depends on what you imply by 'damage'. Arguing that the worst we could do is trivial on a geological scale is not engaging with the questions I asked earlier.
Which were:
Pharos
There are hundreds of studies that show that many plants grow faster when there is more CO2 in the atmosphere. True.
To my knowledge, there are none that say increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patters will result in a global increase of 30-50% in crop yield.
In fact almost all studies suggest that while there will be regional winners, there will me a net increase in regional losers.
If I am wrong, please put me straight with a link.
What do I mean by 'damage'?
Well, you made the claim that man is going to damage the earth. More accurately, you said that Spencer's faith prevented him from believing that man could damage the Earth.
You say what you mean by 'damage' first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:God_the_Geometer.jpg
Shub
You're being nit-picky. Please stop.
We can, it appears, royally bugger up the ecosystem by warming up the planet. Laughlin appears to accept this, but waves it away:
But as Laughlin redundantly points out, the Earth doesn't care. But we do, because we have to live on it. And we are pragmatic monkeys, are we not?
So the smart money is on examining the problem, rather than obscuring it as Laughlin does.
Re BBD
That's the problem with trying to bring religion into science. Much of the climate debate revolves around a modern interpretation of Pascal's Wager which has been re-imagined as the precautionary principle. Reality is what it is. What exactly it is we're not entirely sure about, hence the uncertainty around climate sensitivity and other aspects of climate science.
People are taking Spencer or Bickmore's religious beliefs and trying to suggest that affects their approach to science. Neither of them have mentioned their religious beliefs wrt to the science in question so that's irrelevant, unless people are trying to score cheap points. Dessler seems stuck in the middle but seems willing to ignore the religious aspects of the climate debate and look to the evidence, which is what scientists should do. Not all do that, but then beliefs are powerful emotions and climate scientists are only human. Theologians have been debating the nature of religion for thousands of years, but hopefully climate sensitivity can be resolved somewhat faster.
Re BBD
Remarkably adaptable to. Benefits of a large brain pan and opposable thumbs I suppose. Adaptation is less profitable than attempts at mitigation though.
Atomic HD
Opposing thumbs, pragmatism, what's missing?
An open mind.
Like yours about Spencer's motivations perchance? Talk about projection...
"what's missing?"
Humility? An understanding that your “ignorant” fellow man may well be trying very to aid you?
Opposing thumbs, pragmatism, what's missing?
Sep 10, 2011 at 12:19 AM | BBD
---------
BBD,
Trernberth's heat.
John
John
:-)
Warmer Zombie Operations Rule #1: When you've lost the climate science argument, argue about something else, like...pragmatic monkeys or something similarly irrelevant. ;)
Andrew
How to avoid being sidetracked by trolls:
Type your response, look at it, say out loud "is this response on topic for this thread?": if the answer is no, delete your typing.
I'm just going to break the rule this once... and post this comment.
It sees likely Andy Dessler is the son of Alex Dessler, check former's home page at TAMU with his interview in Nature. No harm in that, as Alex is no longer editor of GRL, but it does begin to look like the Dessler house journal!
@BBD
Hmmm ... "probable", eh?! Actually, from my recollection of his article, Laughlin was extremely frank about any possible effects. But then, my impression was also that Laughlin lacks your faith in the tenets of the IPCC - not to mention the faith and certitude of its leading lights, lesser lights and acolytes.
By all means do feel free to consider yourself a "pragmatic monkey", BBD. As for me, I'm more inclined towards the view that we (well, most of us) are rational human beings capable of thinking for ourselves - and making our own decisions rather than acting upon the edicts of self-appointed prophets of doom (some of whom have been called "climate scientists").
But speaking of prophets and pragmatic monkeys ... maybe as a "pragmatic monkey" you could explain why these prophets so frequently and conspicuously fail to follow their own edicts.
BBD,
Your series of obfuscatory posts are symptomatic of the climate debate. Ask a question of them - they give a different answer, lob an insult and move on.
You made the unsolicitied claim, with no evidence whatsoever, and purely based on your own compulsion, that Spencer's religious beliefs made his write his SG11 paper. Yet, today the same religious Spencer is seen correcting, a paper that attempted to "debunk" his own results - pointing out the imminent publication of which, a clown editor resigned from his post.
Spencer himself is suggesting corrections/changes to a paper which was supposed to debunk his own paper, which was supposedly so bad that Richard Black, Keith Kloor, Andrew Revkin and whoever else geniuses wrote articles about it? The Gods must be crazy.
Each and every one of you look foolish - you, Trenberth, Dessler the Debunker, and Wagner. Anyone with half a brain can understand it.
Those who offer complex arguments against SB11 prove that Wagner's resignation was a stupid move. So it was not a slam-dunk 'flawed' paper after all then? So the choice of the datasets is a question of judgement and argument then?
And yes, if you think that man's activities will damage the climate in such a way so as to make it uninhabitable for humankind, then, say that.
Don't say - "man will damage the Earth".
That is what you said. It takes about 200 posts to point out simple things to you because you are so good at evasion, and ducking and weaving.
If the burning of fossil fuels - which is the foundation of modern human prosperity - will make the future Earth uninhabitable, then please remember, the not-burning of fossil fuels will make today's Earth uninhabitable for its billions.
And, without a today there is no tomorrow.
Shub
"It takes about 200 posts to point out simple things to you because you are so good at evasion, and ducking and weaving."
Then why feed the troll?
@PFM
I wouldn't presume to speak for Shub, but BBD has been around here for quite some time - and has only (relatively and/or virtually, take your pick!) recently shown his true colours - including in his interactions (for want of a better word) with Shub a few that are remarkably "Kloorish", IMHO.
My own interactions with BBD have been quite limited, but sufficient to conviince me he has far more skills (as Shub has noted) than the run-of-the-mill trolls to which our host's parishioners have become accustomed.
So I, for one, respect and support Shub's successful smoking-out of BBD's pseudo-sophisticated tactics.
Josh @ 10:47,
Thanks for the kind words Josh, glad someone liked it :)
Shub @ 5:46,
Shub, I think you also need to note the statement (repeated several times in variations) that it is necessary for Spencer to 'muster up convincing proof' of a low sensitivity for climate.
He needs do no such thing. No-one has any idea what the sensitivity is, so there is no specific onus of proof on Spencer, that does not equally apply to all practitioners of climate studies.
PFM: BBD isn't what I would call a troll, he bases his replies on those scientific papers that he believes support his views. We could argue as to whether he's read them or not, but he does seem very knowledgeable, so if he hasn't then it's a good act. Having said that I too wrote to Roger Black who wrote back informing me that Spencer was a member of a Christian sect that believed in the creation, and, bizzarely in my view, that they believed that the world's climate was behaving perfectly normally. I say bizarrely because I wouldn't put climate change, or lack of it, inside Christ's teachings. However this has become the meme off the warmists, that Spncer's science has been distorted by his religious beliefs and has dutifully been pcked up by BBD and others.
As for being a creationist, I'm not one myself and haven't been since the "proof" of the creation was explained to me by taking me back in time to just before the supposed creation and coming up with the logic that there is no other explanation, so it must have been God. The paucity of this proof left me profoundly skeptical of the creation. Approximately 50 years later I hear the same logical paucity from the IPCC, some of the warmth is natural, but we can't explain the rest so it must be caused by CO2. Those who have doubts about this explanation are treated to exactly the same arguments as we see from the warmists on these threads. "How do you have the gall to challenge all those scholars of divinity/climate scientists who have studied this in detail and come to the conclusion there was a creation/CO2 is the cause global climate change?" Or. "If you don't believe in the creation/CO2 is causing climate change, then what explanation do you have for it?" Strangely enough failure to believe in them both results in much the same punishment, we will burn in hell.
Spencer's religious views do influence his views, but I doubt his science would stand up to scrutiny if he based it on those views.. As Dessler is finding Spencer is a civilized scientist quite willing to take and make criticism of his and others work in the furtherance of science and Black and BBD are failing to grasp that they are as religious as he is about climate change. It was ever thus with religion outright intolerance by the fundamentalists of others of a different religion.
Just a final point I'd be the first to admit that believing the world was made by God in six days six thousand years ago puts you in a special category of loopiness, believing in God making the earth doesn't. None of us know what happened before the Big Bang, personally I don't believe some omniscient being made the universe, but if others believe there was, then their views are no more intellectually bereft than mine, Black's and BBD's, and the implication from the likes of Black and BBD that they are is arrogance personified.
Rather than concentrate attention on various author's religious beliefs and thus neatly drive the post into the wilderness, may I re-draw attention to what Pete H says above.
"By the way Dr Spencer, we all realise that this is just puff stuff from them over AR5
David Holland nailed it over at your place with his comment....
"David Holland says:
September 5, 2011 at 3:18 PM
"For those who may not know the IPCC process, you should be aware that it begins with a “zero draft”. Those for AR5 WGI are now completed, but despite European law saying they should available to the public and despite the IPCC Principle of openness and transparency, British public authorities are planning to block requests for their disclosure. The Met Office has already refused even to name any authors or reviewers of these zero drafts. "
This is the way they treat taxpayers? Now, who was on here the other day begging to us to await AR5 Richard? Shame on you for being involved with this con! Maybe you should ask Dr Spencer first!
Sep 9, 2011 at 4:13 PM | Pete H "
Please could Richard Betts comment on this?.
There is an important "detail" about Spencer's "creationism". He's stated that he's fine with natural selection as a way of modifying the characteristics of a species. He's just not convinced natural selection can explain how one species turns into another.
Having found the current theories (eg Stephen Jay Gould's "punctuated equilibria") rather lacking, Spencer has decided creation by an intelligent designer is just as good an explanation and, from his point of view, more convincing.
Note that speciation is non-trivial, open issue in evolutionary biology, so all attacks we have recently heard against Spencer's take on the topic are rather baseless and mostly political. Straw men and all that.
ps FWIW I do hope any intelligent designer would be intelligent enough to find a way to do speciation without having to intervene every time. Call me a Gouldist...
Two papers on cloud feedbacks discussed in the framework of regious affiliations and associated motivations. Par for the course in climate science blog waffle. But as BH says - what fun!
I've got a few peer reviewed physics publications. Not a lot and thankfully I didn't own up to being a pantheist at the time or I might have had less.
As James Delingpole did a piece on the original resignation by Wolfgang Wagner ('Obscure editor resigns from minor journal: why you should care' - Sept 6th) - will he do a follow-up, I wonder, in terms which the Great British Public will understand..?
Be nice if he did - another nail in the coffin of 'peer-reviewed climate science'...
Shub
Unlike you, I am not in the habit of making unsubstantiated statements.
Spencer is an advisor to, and supporter of, the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. This is a fundamentalist religious organisation which believes that:
Spencer is, effectively, a religious and a politcal activist, as is evident from his continued attempts to justify his belief in a low climate sensitivity with various flawed studies. He also promotes his beliefs via his books and his blog.
To argue, as you (and others) do, that his views have no impact on the direction of his research is naive. Likewise it is naive to pretend that this is not the reason he obtains the conclusions he wants rather than those the data provide.
Spencer is spinning his exchanges with Dessler with everything he's got. The Bickmore piece I linked right at the start of this exchange illustrates this clearly. Try reading it. "Anyone with half a brain can understand it".
The general idea is to displace coal from baseload electricity generation with Gen III nuclear. Your hysterics illustrate that you do not understand your own argument, let alone mine.
[I'd like to thank geronimo both for having his eye on the ball and for exhibiting some restraint. Shub - look and learn.]
PFM, obviously, as you would know, BBD is not a troll.
I think BBD's main point/conundrum is that, if there is an IR-opaque gas permanently hanging around in the atmosphere (as opposed to water vapour which is always rising and falling), where is all the excess energy going to go? From this gestalt mental summation, arises the entire sequence of being able to attribute "recent warming" to the said IR-opaque CO2. You can't get away from that question - you explain everything, but this question doesn't go away. So, you finally cave in.
All this activity however, belongs in the hierarchical arranging of known explanations into a 'body of science' (a form of ikebana if you will), rather than in the realm direct science itself. The CO2 people want us to believe their CO2 worldview and wave away small question marks and niggles as minor details.
What they want you to accept therefore, is not really the science, but a science-worldview (or paradigm) in which they have arranged the science components in the way they have. They want you to approve of their arrangement. If you don't like their arrangements (upto 1940-solar, upto 1970-sulphuric acid, upto 1998 CO2 upto 2011 sulphuric acid), they accuse of not accepting science.
In science, you are obliged to accept or reject testable hypotheses, but you are not obliged to swallow paradigms.
Hilary
A few things.
First, I have been commenting at BH for at least two years. Somewhat longer than yourself, I think. During this time, I have revised my position from that of lukewarmer to that of consensus understanding of likely climate sensitivity.
This is not a crime. I am not a troll. I just disagree with most commenters here. I try do so with civil, well-supported argument. I routinely get pissed on, but do my best to ignore it.
Shub is a waffle-merchant of the first order. He has 'smoked out' nothing.
By the by, how can I go from possessing 'far more skills than the run-of-the-mill troll' to employing 'pseudo-sophisticated tactics'? These statements appear contradictory.
I'm going to say this again: I am not a troll. I disagree with most of you, and you are trying to delegitimise me for it. This is weak and betokens weakness.
Perhaps worse, it is a poor show when contrarians cannot tolerate a contrarian in their midst.
BBD's logic will be useful for decades to come. All we need is figure out who Dear Kev, Gavin, Mickey and the lot voted for, and spend some time to figure out how to connect their ideas to their "scientific" work. Then we can dismiss it. End of science.
ps would anybody thinking like BBD please switch off all their electronic devices? You know, they are easy to link to racist, eugenicist William Shockley. Every transistor device is a symbol of dysgenics!! Destroy them all!!
Maurizio
That's right, increase the volume of nonsense in the room and hope for the best. It isn't going to work. Sure, you'll drown me out, but you won't be right.
I wonder if, in your heart of hearts, you know this?
Funny, BBD...I wonder the same about you.
Dude,
The fact that a discussion is going on, Bickermore et al, shows to me that there is a question to be answered and an idea to be discussed. It shows that Spencer had a point to make with his paper and the idiotic resignation was just climate-political theatre. You don't have anything to answer to that.
Since Spencer's paper is spawning so much discussion, you don't have the locus standi to claim that his religion made him write his paper.
I know of your nuclear fantasies. The burning of fossil fuels, is, on the other hand, the foundation for modern prosperity - i.e., it is reality. You don't have anything to answer to that. At the chemical realm, nothing expect fossil fuels provides the portability, control, storage, density and energy intensity as carbon-based fossil fuels can. Take the periodic table and string up any compound you like, and in any configuration - it will not have the properties that carbon-compound fuel will have. Just as only a diamond is a diamond, only petrol is petrol. There are real reasons for why there are no alternative fuels.
Asking people not to burn fossil fuels, is a violation of natural law. It is like asking your body's cells not to metabolize glucose.
You, Trenberth, Dessler etc are more religious that the the religious Spencer. The cult is called the IPCC. Only, it provides 'scientific proof' for its beliefs. I don't think the members of one cult convince me any more than the other, purely based on their holier-than-thou attitude.
The theological worldview of the earth and nature - that it is all in place to facilitate and nurture the growth all animals and plants - is common to the Bible and the modern science of ecology. Why, your own admission that, 'we' as 'humans' should collectively care for what we 'do to the earth' (vide supra) - is a deeply theological worldview that infects almost all of modern environmentalist, and indeed it seems all political thought.
So I am not disturbed by Spencer's religiousity. As was pointed out earlier, it is an ad-hominen point. I could easily argue that the religious adherence to the opposing view has shut the eyes of Trenberth and Dessler and made them do, even more damaging things, as we have all seen.
I still can't believe that BBD raised the religious beliefs of Spencer as a point.
Shub: Sep 10, 2011 at 2:29 PM, an excellent point very well expressed - that's a keeper.
BBD - gosh, of course not a troll in any shape or form - many of us here appreciate your comments and links. I found the Barry Bickmore link especially interesting.
If BBD used civil well-supported arguments as he claims, there would be no problem. But he doesn't, he changes the subject, introduces irrelevant points, disrupts the thread and uses "argument by weblink", a lazy and pointless form of argument.
anymouse
Thank you for your closely reasoned and exhaustively referenced contribution.
Bickermore's confused ramblings are completely rebutted by Spencer's latest updated post. Why don't you go and read it and learn something BBD.
Shub
Actually Shub, it was you who introduced this to the the thread, and you who has been going on and on and on about it ever since.
And I see that you have now moved from your incorrect statement:
To this:
Presumably you have had to do so in the face of the evidence. It's only a small step now to accepting that Spencer is, at heart, a religious and political activist who has fooled you most effectively.
This is a fine example of your method: introduce some mix of truths and half-truths, then force a conclusion from them hoping that your interlocutor is now too confused to notice the logical failure.
From now on, I'm going to call this sort of thing Shubfuscation, in your honour.
What is fantastical about displacing coal from baseload generation? Most studies agree that about 40% of global electricity generation could be nuclear by 2050 if we get on and build the plant. Are you anti-nuclear, on top of everything else?
Or are you using your favoured mix of ad-hominem and untruth to make a non-point to kick off the rest of your misdirection?
Which continues with a succinct and accurate statement of the unique properties of hydrocarbons as fuels. By now, we are supposed to have forgotten that there's nothing inherently fantastical or improbable about using nuclear as a major tool in decarbonising electricity supply.
I know you know what you are doing. I'm illustrating this so that others can see it too.
anymouse
I see you haven't understood Bickmore's piece. Never mind.
Maurizio
No. I only felt that nagging doubt when I was trying to convince myself that there was a good scientific case for low climate sensitivity.
Also, there's another difference. In debate with you, I wouldn't create a nonsensical comment as you do at 2:39pm above in order to get the words 'BBD', 'racist' and 'eugenicist' in the same paragraph. No doubt you think this is clever and subtle delegitimisation. As opposed to transparently weak and entirely contemptible.
BBD, what did you think of Willis post ages ago about his Thermostat hypothesis?
I did a cartoon at the time which he helpfully amended see here.
http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/josh_temperometer.jpg
Surely something big and clever is going on?
And it isn't huge sensitivity to CO2, no?
Hey BBD there's a world out there and not just you, remember this small truth please. The comparison was of course Spencer:creationist=Shockley:eugenicist. So whomever rejects Spencer, should reject Shockley. And the transistor.
At most, Dr Roy might have something to complain about my text....
If you really think I was trying to "delegitimise" you by putting "BBD" and "racist" in the same comment, I shall refrain from further contact if only to avoid being blamed when things get fully unhinged on your part.
Josh
If WE thinks that thunderstorms can regulate the Earth's temperature sufficient to offset increased RF from CO2 then he has to answer the same question we all do:
How did enough energy accumulate in the climate system under relatively weak Milankovitch forcing to terminate the last (or any) glacial?
Low climate sensitivity means effective energetic loss to space (eg per WE's thunderstorm hypothesis). This means that the climate system cannot heat up. So once it has entered a glacial and ice-albedo feedback has become dominant, there is no way out.
I say: WE is wrong, or we wouldn't be here to have this argument.
Maurizio
Since your last was not an apology, and you are now calling me unhinged, then yes, why not refrain from further contact.
BBD, clearly you don't understand Spencer's arguments at all. Go and read his posts and McIntyre's and see if you can learn something.
How do you like the taste of your own medicine?
anymouse
You really aren't landing any punches. Why not go to the pub or something?
BBD
I can't go looking that post of yours but you were the first one to bring in Spencer's Christianity in. There was no no need to go there.
Along the lines of Bad Andrew's 'Attribution is activism', let me add, 'Decarbonization is misanthropy'.
There is nothing instinctually acceptable or desirable about 'decarbonization'. 'Carbon' is the stuff of life - its quantum in the circulation will not kill life. 'Carbon', is the path to nuclear energy, if you will.
Shub
Normally I would agree with you completely, but not in this case.
This is because you don't accept that Spencer's beliefs influence his insistence on a low climate sensitivity.
Spencer is a signatory to the Cornwall Alliance's An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming.
This document contains the following statements. Read them carefully:
There it is. Clear and indisputable. Man cannot cause dangerous alteration to the climate because the Earth is designed by God as 'admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory'. This is Spencer's belief system. How can it not influence the nature and direction of his work?
[How do we know Spencer is a signatory. Follow the link and scroll down to 'scientists and medical doctors'. Spencer's is the first name listed.]