Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Reality Check]

I reviewed the sequence of exchanges between lomiller and me here. It's not about FOI. It's about access to the raw data. Please read the Climate Audit posts I linked.

You did and the actual post you respond to is about the requests for access to the raw data of the CRU. It's about FOI.
I read the Climate Audit posts you linked and they are crap. They are Steve McIntyre whining about a few examples and fantasizing about this being widespread without any evidence.
ETA: An example of the crap in the blog posts:

In particular, I will assess Thompson’s statement in an email to a CA reader stating:
…our ice core data are archived at the World Data Center NOAA Paleoclimate data base in Boulder Colorado…
Despite Thompson’s claim, no data whatever is archived for many ice cores.

Any time that you see a partial sentence being cited, there is the suspicion of quote mining. The question is what is the context of "our ice cores"? The answer is that no one knows.
If Steve McIntyre was being honest (according to your and his criteria) then there would be a link to the raw data (all of the email text)!

 

[metzomagic]

Folks, don't you realise? Malcolm doesn't care that the remaining 5% of the raw temperature data (that wasn't yet in the public domain) that McIntyre was seeking with frivolous FOI requests wasn't CRU's to hand out, because it was the property of the various national meteorological agencies that owned it. And they had stipulated that CRU were not allowed to pass it on to third parties. How many times do the 'skeptics' need this explained to them?! Seriously, dealing with these people is like a combination of '50 First Dates' and 'Groundhog Day'. McIntyre imagines he was entitled to the data, and that's all that matters to Malcolm.

And now that the data *has* been made available (all except Poland's, I believe), largely through the efforts of Phil Jones, what has McIntyre actually done with the data? That's right. Nothing, zilch, nada. Where's the paper from McIntyre that turns all of climatology on its head because the actual data show no warming? Also, all the BEST data have been in the public domain for, what, almost a year? Where's McIntyre's 'auditing' of the BEST results? Surely, he should be able to show that the .9 deg C we have warmed the planet since just the 1950's is all down to shoddy statistics, or the UHI effect, or *something*? Anything but greenhouse gasses will do nicely.

In the real world, not the one inhabited by the 'skeptics', the man is nothing more than a serial nitpicker with nothing to contribute to our understanding of climate science. I'll grant you that he is fluent in statistics, but the statistical analyses of paleoclimatology need a physical/scientific underpinning to go along with them, and McIntyre has demonstrated on many occasions that he is completely lacking in that area. Again, we come full circle to the horrifically botched hatchet job of McIntyre's that was used as a basis for the Wegman report:

Replication and due diligence, Wegman style

Nothing that Mann ever did can remotely compare with the abuse of statistics on display there.

 

[aleCcowaN]

That is not an example of scientists withholding data. It is impossible to withhold data that does not exist !
That is an example of data storage problems. It could be incompetence if the NSF grant money was supplied with the requirement that this data be archived.

I don't know what is all this foolishness about ice cores that Malcolm-McIntyre are talking about, but the ice bodies from which such ice cores were suposedly taken, aren't they still there? How much could cost to send Malcolm and his themos flask to those areas and bring him back with the samples? They have monitored hundreds of weather stations, couldn't they finance also a couple of trips to a humble mid latitude glacier? Have they analysed ice cores and get a different conclusion in a consistent way?

If it would be the case of someone claiming ice cores have been discarded and no ice body is still available in the face of the Earth, so it implies something fishy is happening and it is no possible an AGW exist, dude, that would be the most ridiculous thing.

 

[CapelDodger]

Explain "potent".

You'll find the word in a dictionary.

You're probably reading it as meaning "strong", which is a common mistake, but this is not in fact the case. It has some power in the relevant context. In this context, we know that CO₂ is a potent greenhouse gas, unlike oxygen and nitrogen. And we know that increasing the concentration by 40% and rising will increase its greenhouse effect on a logarithmic scale.

This goes back to the thought experiment of putting heated BBs in an insulated tank of water. The profile of the response of an immersed thermometer will depend on the temperature of the water, the mass of water, the temperature of the BBs and the mass of BBs. Heating CO₂ can only have so much effect without feedbacks. Pretty much. We don't use "parameter" the same way. Solar flux and CO₂ concentration are variables in models. But that's a small issue over terminology.

Waffle.

 

[CapelDodger]

Folks, don't you realise? Malcolm doesn't care that the remaining 5% of the raw temperature data (that wasn't yet in the public domain) that McIntyre was seeking with frivolous FOI requests wasn't CRU's to hand out, because it was the property of the various national meteorological agencies that owned it. And they had stipulated that CRU were not allowed to pass it on to third parties. How many times do the 'skeptics' need this explained to them?!

I recall one denialist blogger (not McIntyre, the name escapes me for now) who described this as a "flimsy excuse". Property rightas as a flimsy excuse - I don't see that fitting well in Malcom Kirkpatrick's worldview.

And now that the data *has* been made available (all except Poland's, I believe) ...

Yup.

 

[CapelDodger]

You know this, how? You might have an informative argument with lomiller, who agrees that climate scientists withhold data (he approves of their stated reasons, so to him it's the same as not whitholding data). Anyway, McIntyre provides sufficient cites that you can check his assertions about, for example, ice cores that were drilled with NSF money but not archived. Those data are public property.

Imagining for a moment that there is data being withheld, just what do you imagine is hidden in it? You can't imagine it will make any difference to the vast mass of data McIntyre is already ignoring so I'm intrigued as to why this matter has such prominence in your worldview.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

You did and the actual post you respond to is about the requests for access to the raw data of the CRU. It's about FOI.¹I read the Climate Audit posts you linked and they are crap. They are Steve McIntyre whining about a few examples and fantasizing about this being widespread without any evidence.²

1. This digression started when I wrote that climate scientists do not share their raw data. Lomiller disputed this. If it's now about FOI, that's a change of subject.
2. McIntyre supplies numerous instances of unarchived data in the posts I linked. It's clear why you don't use your real name.

 

[Reality Check]

1. This digression started when I wrote that climate scientists do not share their raw data. Lomiller disputed this. If it's now about FOI, that's a change of subject.
2. McIntyre supplies numerous instances of unarchived data in the posts I linked. It's clear why you don't use your real name.

The assertion that "climate scientists do not share their raw data" is obviously wrong because climate sceintists do share their raw data !
If it is not publicly available then it is avaiable on request.

1. The subject did not change. The FOI requests are something that Steve McIntyre has toutes as climate scientists not sharing their raw data.


2. It is a shame that you cannot count. A handful is not "numerous". There are 1000's of climate scientists. Numerous would be a significant fraction of them. Read the posts

• One about AGU policy and Steve McIntyre's unsupported assertion that it is not beeing enforced. All it is about is a crank sceintist being ignored by a journal (I wonder why!)
• One about the 2 Thompsons and his unsupported assertion that their data is not archived.
• Another about the 2 Thompsons!
• Another with no examples of climate scientists withholding raw data!

These 4 blog posts boil down to Steve McIntyre's tantrum demanding that scientists archive their raw data in the databases that Steve McIntyre wants them to archive them !

3. It is a shame that you cannot understand the hypocrisy in the blog posts:

I read the Climate Audit posts you linked and they are crap. They are Steve McIntyre whining about a few examples and fantasizing about this being widespread without any evidence.
ETA: An example of the crap in the blog posts:

Any time that you see a partial sentence being cited, there is the suspicion of quote mining. The question is what is the context of "our ice cores"? The answer is that no one knows.
If Steve McIntyre was being honest (according to your and his criteria) then there would be a link to the raw data (all of the email text)!

 

[a_unique_person]

Just as an experiment, let's see how McIntyre goes with his archiving skills. I am expecting a super auditor like him to show us how to do it right.

How about the link on the CA homepage, on the left hand side, under the "Articles" heading, to his famous 2003 paper with McKitrick,

• McIntyre/McKitrick 2003

.

http://climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.mckitrick.2003.pdf

Ooops.

It is an interesting paper, because he should be red faced at the thought of it now. It dates back to the good old days, when denialists still thought they could say the world was not warming. Instead, the paper claims that any warming is really just a artifact of UHI, and that all the warming can be attributed to the wealthier nations of the world.

 

[a_unique_person]

And McIntyre demands everyone should use "R" to do their stats, because that's what he uses. The world revolves around McIntyre.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Your thought experiment has no relation to the issue at hand.

It does. Suppose those BBs are very small and we heat them with beams of electromagnetic radiation as they fall into the pool. I mean, small as molecules of atmospheric gasses.

 

[lomiller]

It's not about FOI. It's about access to the raw data.

Once again, the CRU doesn't produce the raw data, that comes from various weather services. They talk to the weather services and get the data, why is McIntyre too lazy to do the same and why do you keep insisting the CRU should give away other peoples data?

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

A textbook is normally unable to give the student a proverbial slap when he intentionally misreads the book. In this way JREF is different from better than a textbook.

Fixed that for ya.

 

[Megalodon]

Imagining for a moment that there is data being withheld, just what do you imagine is hidden in it?

The horrible fact that Poland has been at -30°C year round for decades, while being crushed by a kilometer-thick glacier that surprisingly stops at the political borders... it makes my drives to Belarus quite interesting

 

[bit_pattern]

The horrible fact that Poland has been at -30°C year round for decades, while being crushed by a kilometer-thick glacier that surprisingly stops at the political borders... it makes my drives to Belarus quite interesting

#like

 

[aleCcowaN]

It does. Suppose those BBs are very small and we heat them with beams of electromagnetic radiation as they fall into the pool. I mean, small as molecules of atmospheric gasses.

You forgot to say that the whole problem is set in the transporter room of the Enterprise, the original, to judge by the mix of absolute lack of knowledge and abundance of naïvité.

I see there the idea of a calorimetric experiment having a different outcome depending on the way a component got its thermal energy, and BB pellets made from heavy atomic weight elements or polymers having the size of a light molecule. And the gruesome sight of it prevents getting more from it, except for, maybe, the hidden loophole either of a bad double entendre or some irony that is just in your mind and failed to come to light in an articulate way.

Malcolm, the same way you couldn't follow about carbonates or "evolution", you are spamming this thread with your willful ignorance of the physical role of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

To expose more of that to the general public, Malcolm, and playing a fundamental role in the whole discussion you promoted, can you say what is the essential difference between N₂, O₂, Ar, Ne, He, Kr and H₂ on one hand and CO₂, CH₄, H₂O, O₃ and N₂O on the other hand? The difference is not the label "greenhouse gas" nor "trace gas" either, as you like to put it.

 

[uke2se]

You know this, how? You might have an informative argument with lomiller, who agrees that climate scientists withhold data (he approves of their stated reasons, so to him it's the same as not whitholding data). Anyway, McIntyre provides sufficient cites that you can check his assertions about, for example, ice cores that were drilled with NSF money but not archived. Those data are public property.

No they didn't withhold data, nor did lomiller claim they were. You're lying again. What lomiller did claim was that an independent investigation (several, actually) said that CRU could have been more helpful in answering FOI requests, but accepted that CRU is understaffed for the large amount of FOI requests made, and that the FOI requests were frivolous, plus that most of the data asked for wasn't CRU's to give.

In other words, McIntyre sent his goons to bombard CRU with FOI requests and then complained when CRU didn't promptly answer each one. McIntyre is not an honest person. It seems that this is common among deniers.

 

[Halsu]

It does. Suppose those BBs are very small and we heat them with beams of electromagnetic radiation as they fall into the pool. I mean, small as molecules of atmospheric gasses.

I still fail to see how that relates to the question at hand. Unless you're trying to make some kind of an argument against the physics of the greenhouse effect? I thought we were already past that, that you accept the science?

This is somewhat confusing.

In order to make the discussion intelligible i once again ask you to clearly confirm that you understand and agree with each of the below baby steps, or if you disagree with some of them, tell us exactly which ones. That would be very helpful in my opinion, and i'd appreciate it very much if you took the time to tell us.

***

In the light of these clarifications, i would appreciate it if you could confirm you accept the french-lined baby steps, then answer the next two questions?

- You agree that the atmosphere traps heat.
- You also agree that there is a greenhouse effect as described by mainstream science and that changes in the strength of the greenhouse effect can change the temperature on earth.
- You seem to agree that there's an energy balance that will always seek a new equilibrium, when parameters change (this follows from the other points).
- You agree that a change in the composition of gasses (like increasing CO2) in the atmosphere changes the strength of the greenhouse effect.

Here are the next baby steps: Do you, in the light of the above, agree that a rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause global warming? Do you agree that human activity is the main cause for the increase in atmospheric CO2?

 

[CapelDodger]

1. This digression started when I wrote that climate scientists do not share their raw data.

It occyurs to me that you may be under the misapprehension that climate scientists are people who go around taking temperature measurements which is then "their" raw data. They aren't. The data is gathered by various institutions across the world and is then provided to, for instance, the CRU, often at a price (data collection does cost money, after all). The same data is available to McIntyre if he requests it and climate scientists are in no position to prevent that.

2. McIntyre supplies numerous instances of unarchived data in the posts I linked.

You've made repeated reference to archiving, which presumably reflects your guru McIntyre's terminology. Unarchived is not the same as unavailable, but McIntyre assumes (correctly) that the unwary won't register the difference. McIntyre could request the data from the institution which holds it, but of course that would run the risk of being provided it, leaving him nothing to whine about. And if not whining about hidden data what does McIntyre actually have to say?

It's clear why you don't use your real name.

You've picked up some of McIntyre's snide style, I see. You do use what appears to be a real name but have you archived an image of your birth-certificate to confirm it's yours? Absent such evidence I'll assume it's a pseudonym. Heck, for all I know you're a Steve McIntyre sock-puppet.

 

[CapelDodger]

It does. Suppose those BBs are very small and we heat them with beams of electromagnetic radiation as they fall into the pool. I mean, small as molecules of atmospheric gasses.

I think I detect here a dimly-remembered experiment from your General Science classes at school involving a calorimeter, a thermometer and a stirrer. Whatever, it's still gibberish.

This image you have of CO₂ molecules falling into the atmosphere bearing heat from the Sun is, I'm afraid, utter nonsense. Halsu has laid out clearly what the Tyndall effect is and how it relates to CO₂. The size of the molecule is not relevant; what is relevant is its spectrum, which determines what wavelengths it can absorb. (The spectrum depends on the gaps between available energy bands, but I only include that for completeness; you don't really need it but at least you know I'm not hiding anything.)

The spectrum of CO₂ at temperatures and pressures found in the atmosphere were determined accurately by the US military in the '50's so it's possible to determine its Tyndall effect at any given concentration. Not surprisingly, more CO₂ means more Tyndall effect. More Tyndall effect means a warmer atmosphere and ocean, which in turn leads to more atmospheric water-vapour and an increase in its Tyndall effect. The end result is what we can see all around us - a warmer (and warming) world.