Aug 08 2008
The Anatomy of a ClimateAudit Post
McIntyre notes something explained by MET101. In this case, why the northern hemisphere is warming faster than the southern hemisphere.
Commenters provide possible reasons - most of them wrong:
- This proves CO2 isn’t a well-mixed gas!
- The RSS values have more data in the northern hemisphere.
- I have an interest in paleoclimate.
Then McIntyre provides his own explaination:
The N-S delta is very interesting in terms of historical fluctuations. The earth has small but interesting asymmetries in its poleward heat transfer, with a slight bias towards the north. In entropy terms, if the energy can find a pathway to be slightly biased north, then that’s a more efficient solution. With the same T^4 average and somewhat more efficient poleward distribution, you can increase the T^1 average, which is what we measure. A line of reasoning suggests that the ITCZ was further north in the MWP and south in the LIA.
If there was some mechanism whereby stochastic variations in poleward heat transfer could occur in an order of 5%- which might be larger than makes sense- you could impact N vs S temperatures. Just a thought.
Others join in on the excitement:
- It’s the Milankovitch cycles.
- The warming in the arctic. (partially right)
- Related to Atlantic [ocean] circulation [oscillation, AMO], and differences in NH and SH landmass (almost… except for that first part)
The first mostly right answer comes in comment#9. “This is likely due to the fact that the northern regions are majority land surfaces and the southern regions are mostly ocean,” although the reason why this matters isn’t explained.
Another commenter points out that “[a]s any sailor knows, air over land is heated more than air over water.” This is quickly refuted in the next comment by another sailor that basically calls all us landlubbers idiots. Steve readily points out that this commenter must be insane (my paraphrase).
The discussion quickly turns to other “failings” of the IPCC. Although there is a one-post interlude for a rational post agreeing with the commenter that was right (#9).
The first link to Watts Up comes in comment #19. CO2 still isn’t well mixed… I guess. Their plot of CO2 concentration (for one month) show variations ~5%., which seems pretty well mixed to me, especially compared to non-well mixed gases such as H2O.
Svalgaard jumps in to point out that there has been no evidence for solar forcing. The it-must-be-solar crowd ignore him, but conveniently accept his that cosmic rays cause clouds “theory”.
The discussion goes back to the distribution of CO2 concentrations. But takes a quick turn to all those parking lots in the northern hemisphere! The same ones that are contaminating GISTemp… which happens to show the same rate of warming as satellite measurements. No mention is made if the satellites are also positioned in parking lots, but one must assume so.
Next the first graph is posted showing a remarkable relationship between the AMO and the NH-SH temperatures. Both data have been smoothed using the same filter.
Comment#29 brings the first comment about “The Team”. Although by this time, McIntyre had already edited his original post to include mention of “them”. He says, “[s]eems to me like I’ve seen a plot like this somewhere before and it caused apoplexy in Team-world.” I have no idea why this would cause apoplexy since, as a latter commenter points out, it’s mentioned in the TAR. And probably AR4 as well (I still haven’t read the thing).
More graphs in comment#31… although I have no idea what they show. Something about the Southern Ocean being a greater heat sink. Greater than what isn’t specified, and neither how it is related to the graph.
Comment#39 brings the first mention of Pielke Sr! I had confidence he’d get a mention before too long.
The first mention of aerosols follows shortly. With a link to Daily Tech no less! It’s those damned dirty aerosols. No mention of why there wasn’t a cooling caused by the aerosols in the first place. Just that their absence creates a warming.
Comment#47 is the obligatory trackback from Watts. He posts the original CA graph and McIntyre’s “theory” about it being caused by a shift of the ITCZ. Since it’s that time of the month, he rolls in his usual comparison of UAH temperature last month to the previous month. For those interested, the average change from one month the the next (UAH) is 0.0001 +/- 0.1199 C. Other temperature metrics have similar statistics (mean of zero with a large standard deviation). This months change was +0.162. I look forward to next months edition!
McIntyre remarks in comment#52, “I’ve added a graphic showing the GISS differential. Again remarkable looking results. This is a pretty elementary calculation. Surely it’s discussed in the literature and I’d appreciate any references.” Surely it is. The first reference I found was from 1952. It’s probably not what he really wants. Although if you’re looking for something from the web-era, this site has the description. During this process, the “source” of the first graph changed from the RSS website to the UAH website. It still shows the RSS temperature anomaly.
The rest of the discussion gets hijacked by talk of the AMO, and is as wrong as the first time it was proposed.
Why is the northern hemisphere warming faster than the southern hemisphere? The NH has a higher percentage of land. Water has a higher specific heat than the land, and thus warms slower than the continents. This is the same reason there is a land/sea breeze. And it is taught in an introductory meteorology class.
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Well done, Atmoz… I suppose it would be helpful if CA postings were more clearly marked (colors?) to show which ones are in Steve’s core competency areas and which are simply curiosity.
(This is the downside of open ended online discussion: the conversation can be WAY off topic, WAY off base, for a very long time. Then again, I suppose that’s true in other arenas as well. It all depends on who gets listened to and when…)
So Atmoz, does MET101 explain why the regional warming in the Northern Hemisphere today is called “Global Warming” but similar warming patterns 1000 years ago are called “Local Warming”?
Raven on 08 Aug 2008 at 5:42 pm — Because the warming a thousand years ago was not, in fact, similar. However, there is a recent book which demonstrates that the so-called MWP did occur at many locations around the globe.
So the SH land should show warmer land than ocean?
How would you explain the data in this comment at
CA? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3405#comment-286405
SH land trend: 0.05
SH ocean trend: 0.07
SH Extr. land trend: 0.03
SH Extr. ocean trend: 0.07
As far as CO2 goes that was a single data point and the comment was a question. And has that difference been a constant or are the amounts diverging? The effect of CO2 has been related to doubling of the pre-industrial amount which I believe was 280 ppm and we’re now at 380. 20 ppm out of 100 seems to be a significant amount. Depends how you slice and dice it.
does MET101 explain why the regional warming in the Northern Hemisphere today is called “Global Warming” but similar warming patterns 1000 years ago are called “Local Warming”?
It does. It explains this thingy called scale.
“Your” “argument” would be not embarrassing and ridiculous if you replaced “similar” with “lesser in extent than today’s more widespread”.
As it is, you just look - again - like you have no clue about what you act like Galileo about.
Anyway, this fish-in-a-barrel exercise is simply a little fun for you, eh Atmoz?
Best,
D
This post helped me understand the Climate Audit culture a bit better. Thanks.
It’s not quite that the oceans have a greater heat capacity, it’s a bit more complicated. For one thing, the heat capacity of land is basically controlled by the amount of moisture in the soil. Sand and rock have REALLY low heat capacities which is why sand on the beach can get so hot above the water line and are so cool below it.
For a second thing, the depth of the surface that is available to exchange energy with the atmosphere is very thin (among other things related to the ability to move soil moisture up/down. )
[Reply: Of course it's more complicated than just heat capacity. And the 1952 paper I link to does discuss some of this too.]
OTOH, turbulent mixing in the oceans moves heat efficiently some distance, so energy absorbed at the surface quickly gets mixed into a large volume. Note that mixing into/out of the deep ocean is VERY slow owing to the thermal structure of the oceans, but still there is a large volume near the surface that is essentially in contact with the atmosphere because it turns over so rapidly.
Another thing is that there is a lot of spray, which distributes large amounts of aerosol some distance into the atmosphere and quickly returns it to the water. This provides a rapid mechanism for adjusting the temperature of the ocean and the surface layer of the atmosphere to each other, as well as for setting the vapor pressure of water vapor in the atmosphere besides which there is a hell of a lot of interesting chemistry in the atmosphere/aerosol exchange in that marine boundary layer.
[Reply: And thank god, otherwise I might not have funding.
]
But surely the one you should have commented on is the recent discussion of Wahl and Amman’s supplementary materials? Now, that one is really interesting.
Svalgaard doesn’t believe the “cosmic rays cause climate change” theory.
Yes Brian, CA is a blog with a large peanut gallery who are happy to interact on the discussion of the day.
As I noted above, when the topic is on something Steve is asking (rather than expositing), you’ll see a lot more response, varying from informed to uninformed.
When the topic is hard core stats or high end math, very few are even able to understand what is being said, let alone comment intelligently.
Such are the ways of the web. A learning process for all of us
MrPete,
Hard core stats? High end math? Please provide examples. (We know that few of the CA regulars are capable of understanding either, which is why they are so easily misled.)
TrueSceptic, here’s a recent posting still on the CA “front page.”
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3364
YOU figger it out ;)… it’s about multivariate calibration. The subsequent post applies this to MBH99… and there’s more to come.
Pretty serious stats/math.
TrueSceptic, you’re just wrong. Along with Lucia, CA is the most serious technical discussion place of this stuff on the Web. I find it more serious, more considered, and more balanced than RC. Where else do you find large chunks of R code posted so readers can duplicate results? You can’t read CA or you would know this.
A much more typical and interesting discussion has been of Wahl and Amman’s recently revealed supplement. Go over, check it out, see what you think about it. Atmoz has had some innocent fun, and one could have the same innocent fun with lots of stuff on AGW sites. Though, there isn’t much of this stuff on CA.
But the meat is in the stuff like the Wahl and Amman material. If you want to get a feel for the culture of CA, read this, and also work through the recent stuff on Briffa and Tornetrask. It will surprise you.
TrueSceptic, even this “fish in a barrel” exercise, as Dano has termed it, is not quite as lightweight as Atmoz suggested. Our furry Rabbett friend has noted as such, and others are weighing in as well over on CA.
Perhaps Atmoz has learned something along the way too. Amazing how easily we assume that our 101 classes can explain everything.
All I ever needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten?
Perhaps. Me, I’m a bit more cautious about assuming that the answers are so obvious.
Mr. Pete, textbooks are real thick these days and you are supposed to chew a few carrots while you think about what it all means in light of eternity before blurting.
atmoz you owe Dr. Svalgaard a correction. I know All those scandanavian names sound similiar but as far as I know he doesnt ascribe to the cosmic ray nonsense. Seriously, son. I like your attention to detail so you need to correct this. no harm, no foul; but you need to correct it.
Fixed.
OT: Why is it that posts like this seem to be the most active?
Why is it that posts like this seem to be the most active?
Because the ‘tubes are tribal? FWIW, I enjoy the posts I don’t comment on more than the ones I do, as a general rule.
In all seriousness, I think that this post in particular is getting more comments, because CA is pretty much ignored by the mainstream crowd and seen as above-board fair and honest by the skeptic crowd.
When someone turns the harsh spotlight of reality on it, you’ll get comments from those who feel that such is long overdue and comments from those that view CA as gospel.
Frankly, I am a bit puzzled as to why anyone would consider CA to be worth their while after it quite publicly and embarrassingly screwed the pooch on the Hansen ‘88 projection or Loehle recon topics. And that is completely ignoring the Watts backslapping.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, it seems sad in a way that he’s choosing to go this route rather than shaking off the contrarian trappings and attempting to contribute.
cce and Mosh,
Thanks for setting the record straight.
Leif
I second Eli’s comment.
In addition, Mr Pete’s argumentation presumes that no one talks to each other in the hall, over lunch, on the phone, after work, after reading a passage, after reading a paper, after an e-mail question, after reading a draft prior to submission.
That is: the argumentation presumes no one asks another whether an idea is OK.
Whoops. I’d say ‘nice try’, but it wasn’t.
Best,
D
[...] Why the northern climate is warming faster than the southern. [...]
One other point… the RSS data is for the troposphere; not the surface. I’ll leave others to sort out how much that matters.
You can get the data direct from RSS here: data description. I’ve linked to the description, not the data set itself, because too many credulous simpletons like the merry band at Climate Audit don’t bother with background. Finding the data from this point should be easy. The plot at the top of the CA blog is simply the TLT series, using a straight difference of two columns in the ascii dataset.
For comparison, I looked at the standard HadCRUT3 data, for the northern and southern hemispheres. Just to put some more numbers on the N/H S/H difference… here are the trends, in C/decade, over 1979-present
+0.29 — TLT from RSS, N/H from lat 20 to 82.5
+0.32 — ?adCRUT3, N/H above lat 30
+0.22 — HadCRUT3, N/H total
+0.06 — TLT from RSS, S/H from lat -20 to -70
+0.07 — HadCRUT3, S/H below lat -30
+0.10 — HadCRUT3, S/H total
When you claim that GISTEMP tracks satellite measurements, doesn’t it ever occur to you that it is earth based temp measurements that the satellite system was validated against??
Y’all don’t remember back when the you got a knot in your knickers by the satellites showing no warming and forced a change based on ERRORS in the satellite systems??
You know, kinda like the sea level measurements and now the ARGOS data??
Amazing how the errors always have the data showing cooling and the fixes always increase the warming!!
And then there is Mauna Loa which throws out 20 days of data because it doesn’t FIT their standards and then decides to INFILL the data based on HISTORIC TRENDS!!!
You catching on to anything yet??
KuhnKat’s claim (that the satellite LT temp data are somehow artificially forced to match the surface temp data) is silly, but it’s been popping up a lot lately.
I first noticed this back in March. On Watts’s blog, several posters (Raven, Evan Jones, etc.), began suggesting that the surface data were used to calibrate the satellite data, and one linked to a similar comment at Climate Audit.
We argued back and forth a bit, before I got annoyed and wrote:
“The MSU/AMSU radiometers are not calibrated using weather stations, and their decadal trends are not adjusted to match the weather station trends. [....]
“To be perfectly honest, If I were a lawyer rather than a scientist, I’d have kept my mouth shut and let you guys go on your merry way. There’s a reason why, for example, Steve McI has begun censoring discussion of things like the pre-1960 chemical CO2 measurements cited by EG Beck on CA. He realizes that when people make prima facie crackpot claims, it reduces the credibility of his blog.
“Well, this is basically the same thing. If you guys want to use Anthony’s blog to promote these kinds of claims, go right ahead.
“Argh, what the heck, I’ll give you one more piece of advice, then I’m out of here. Why not call up [Christy] and inform him that his data set is invalid due to UHI and microsite contamination of the surface temp record? If he doesn’t agree with you, he’s either (a) too dimwitted to get your point, or (b) part of the conspiracy himself.”
Watts must have felt the need to intervene at this point, for he added the following comment:
“REPLY: I agree with what you are saying about discussing such things such as the Beck measurements, which are terribly fraught with variance. Actually I’m in touch with Christy and Spencer regularly, so I’ll pose the question and post it to settle the issue.”
So, Watts wrote to Christy:
“I’ve had some queries on my blog recently that are suggesting that the UAH and RSS satellite data is somehow “tuned” to the surface data, or that the surface data is used to provide some offset function. [...]“
and Christy replied:
“No other data are used in the construction. That is why we can do comparison studies without any interdependence.”
Although Watts is often less than diligent about correcting errors on his blog, for once he actually was quite reasonable, and posted a notice with this email exchange. I still find his blog worse than useless (it’s mostly a vehicle for disinformation and propaganda) but he deserves credit in that instance.
See
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/a-look-at-temperature-anomalies-for-all-4-global-metrics-part-2/#comments
and
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/putting-a-myth-about-uah-and-rss-satellite-data-to-rest/
Yeah. You have a serious case of conspiracytheoryitits.
You catching on to anything yet??
I caught that tear in your tinfoil hat - big enough to allow words to leak out into the atmosphere.
Or perhaps you have collected data on the ground, analyzed it, then published it in the journals for the world to see. In that case, may I have your autograph?
Best,
D
Atmoz:
I’ve probably read more of Steve’s older posts than anyone except JohnA. I went back and read every single one, when I first found his site. I’ve tried to come to grips with the vast majority of his posts–only the very very linear algebraish (with matrix notation and such) have I stayed away from.
I was sympathetic to the idea of GW not happening. Am politically conservative (well to the right of Steve). And am fascinated by science and complex phenomena. Am very sympathetic to a viewpoint that noodles in details, wants proof, etc. However, I stopped looking at CA much for last several months as it was low signal to noise and I gave up on it changing. But my basic point is that I’ve followed and thought about most of his commentary way more than his hoi polloi (Ken and such).
Steve’s is extremely poor in terms of exposition and analysis of multi-factor problems. He will change two input variables in a comparison (2 equations, three variables) and then make comments about the factor impact (although logically he has not made a full factorial. When called on it, he notes that an effect remains when controlling for the confounder…BUT HE CITES the NUMERICAL impact of the non-controlled sitatuation which OVERSTATES impact…and thus is unfair. Best example here is the “off-center/centered” and “correlation/covariance matrix”. It’s not really clear to me how much of this is bias versus cluelessness. I think the consistent pattern of which way the errors go, what gets written about implies that it is bias (conscious and just internalized) to “get the other guy”.
Also, he usually when faced with a choice, he picks tests that make things look worse than they are, without clearly explaining to the audience what is going on. For example “red noise” which is WAY OVERMODELED and is much too representative of the source data itself rather than “random noise”). Of note, he also almost only cites tests that show something that makes the Team look bad. Of course this is notable, but Steve does it to an extent that it almost looks like cherrypicking of flaws! (I think it’s really eggregious when he looks at isolated cases, etc. And gets his little hornets all stirred up by non-representative cases…sometimes he never even goes back and does the meta-analysis.)
He also mixes in a lot of gratitious (not even relevant to the post at hand) comments about the Team’s sins. He also just segues topics and cites things that may/may not be issues but are not supportive of his thesis. In particular, he tends to write at length about why he decided to look at something…rather than about the thing…and he has what Bender calls a “mystery story style” of presentation.
In addition, he writes with a sort of flowery pompous style. I have usually found that people with this style think they are smarter than they are. To give Steve credit, he’s smart. But it’s still a needlessly stick up the ass style. Read essays by Feynman for contrast. Read Volokh.com. When I see some of the hoi polloi even “allied” hoi pollo like Watts doing the same it just pisses me off.
Actually that gets me to his associations. He tries to avoid too much of the idiot fever swampers like the sun worshipers, but basically takes a much more tolerant attitude to their overstatements than the reverse. He’s also associated himself with bad work/workers like Watts, Chefen, etc. When Loehle had issues with his work, Steve’s commentary was NOT to point out the mistake, but to say that “if it’s a mistake, it’s one that Moberg got away with”! That’s a second order point! Steve had already said that he disagreed with Moberg. But he phrases his comment with Loehle in such a way as to avoid directly commenting on the matter at hand and annoy one of his allies.
In several cases, definitive tests for suppositions that Steve has have been suggested by myself or people like JohnV or Zorita. But Steve avoids doing them (in some cases for years). Instead he does sort of half tests that make his “opponent” look bad, but don’t really isolate issues.
He complains about time, but then spends time recycling old posts, moving on to new areas of skeptic fun, comments on popular media shenanigans (films). I just don’t buy that time argument. If he is going to raise issues like that, he needs to finish them (or be dismissed, which is basically what I’ve done.)
Often there are just MISTAKES (axes, words, notation, pictures messed up, side bars floating etc) in Steve’s posts that makes it distracting to read and think about the subject. He’s also really bad about putting in reference note citations. Although he has very little science writing experience (and I think his co-authors have carried him a bit), he’s still just READ a lot of literature, so he should understand the importance of clear references (NOT “Mann04″, but volume number and journal name and all that.)
He also sometimes writes rather fast and assumes that he has referenced a POINT that he has not. IOW, there’s something clear inside his head…but it never hit the paper…and then he assumes that he has referenced it when he hasn’t. Someone trying to read that type of exposition gets frustrated–the reader starts to wonder how much of the problem comes from complex issues and how much from poor explication…and feels inclined to give up. Or just to go to lowest common denominator stuff like whining about the Team.
The electronic nature of the blog is a huge concern. Look at Chefen’s skeptic blog which disappeard. Chefen had made critical commentary and analysis, got cited on CA, had some mistakes in his work pointed out to him, said he would look into it more…and then the blog went away. I don’t know if he just got sick of having a blog (fine) or if he didn’t want to admit error. More likely the former, but no matter…how can one engage in a debate of science with that sort of ephemeral product? Why would one bother?
Another problem is that Steve’s blog (both in head posts and comments) is revised and that the original copies are not maintained. This is generally not dastardly…but it’s still not properly noted (other blogs make comments that edits have been done). Also in several cases where Steve overstated something or was personally distasteful, he eliminated the evidence of his transgression in the process of apologizing. Engaging with that behavior is also difficult/annoying.
Steve also puts on a bit too much of airs with his comments about financial auditing and prospectus writing and such. He has experience at Canadian shell companies. The amateur legal discussions are also rather pointless given his level of legal knowledge and rather persnickety, but indicative of something about him that he does that.
Steve has also been extremely evasive when questioned about areas where he did something wrong or might have done something wrong. I’ve seen this with the Huybers work, with his red noise. Have also seen it with the Arizona airport fiasco and with others pinning him down. He avoids answering. Wriggles. Gives non-responsive answers. Gives non-explicit corrections. (Usually with Bender blustering in the background and being allowed to do so as sort of a McIntyre’s bulldog.)
I was blown away when Steve suggested that science paper authors should be using Google to search for his writings on papers before submitting articles and then citing him. That reading his “journal” was something a scientist should be required to do. He can publish. Reading Steve’s work is tedious in terms of extracting points. It’s not even up to the standard (a low one) of “econ white paper” or “arxive physics paper”. It’s also reasonably upsetting to have to weed through all the sturm and drang of commentary on his “opponents” (for those opponents…or even with sympathizers of his who value fair play).
***
Generalizing, Steve does two things that cause most of the problems. First, he sees/calls CA a “scratchpad” when in the gunsights, but then expects people to take it as serious contribution when he wants that. This is a “cake and eat it too” attitude. Second, he mixes science analysis and reporting (what “real papers” do) with blogger PR/argumentation/advocacy/game-playing. He does that to such an extent that it’s actually distracting, not merely annoying. I think it even muddles his own thoughts/work.
This is not to say that he’s “all bad”. The problems he noodles into are themselves fascinating. He also deserves credit for writing code (at his age!) and for reading a heck of a lot of literature. And for finding the Hansen code mistake and some MBH non-documented algorithm details. But that blog of his is a MESS in terms of thinking through and documenting analysis.
Fred: I looked at a bit of the Wahl and Amman stuff. It looked like there was over 50% content that was either rehash or complaint about the slow release of the info. Not really that much stunning info or analysis of the revealed info itself. And the passion-stirred bunch is getting exercised by the former, not the latter.
I could be wrong…I find it really tedious to read Steve’s long and gratitious preludes and mystery style postings and analyses with a “tada” at the end (but no clear assertion of point). Maybe there is something stunning in there. I got the impression he was just getting started looking at it. If that’s the case, how can it be so noteworthy, yet?
The idea that he could resolve his and W&A analyses to each other is neither new nor noteworthy (the important issue in W&A is pointing out some of the unfair non-disaggregated issue analysis that Steve does, not the code of MBH). That Steve has now condensed and synthesized the algorithm (descriptively and mathematically is nice I guess). Something he could have done a while ago. And something he should do more of. He’s generally bad about clear issue analysis. Burger and Cubasch and Zorita are much better. But that’s good that he got a single line to describe a multi-step algorithm.
I make a motion to make TCO’s ‘reason’s why Stevie Mac is full of hooey’ comment on 12 Aug 2008 at 10:40 am a standard referent.
Best,
D
I’m looking at the sharpshooter thing. All the blather about shooting and voting (shooting voters?) kinda distracts from looking at the analysis. I guess Steve’s main point is that this conservative ratio was not disclosed in the paper itself, but only the SI? Sounds reasonable crit by SM of WA.
But not clear to me NUMERICALLY how much the “vote throwing” out changes things. Does it make 98% go to 99%? Or 50% go to 99%?
Mr. Pete tries to engage with (restate and clarify) the post at hand. Other just throw chit-chat chaff up. They evidently don’t follow the commentary either, but just want to join in on the general stoning. Steve also joins in and makes some general “Team is evil” chaff type remarks. Very few of the comments explore the science ideas–well under 50%…maybe under 10%. They even go back and make the trees moisture confounding debate (and Steve participates).
TCO, the questions raised by the post are very simple ones. The math is quite complex, but its details are in a way incidental. The detail had to be done, and it is excellent that it is publicly verifiable. But at a macro level, if the accuracy of the detail is given, there’s a basic question.
What is the evidence for the validity of the method of using a screen of a ratio of 0.75 between the calibration RE and verification RE statistics? Is this method in fact valid, is it documented and argued for anyplace?
The post and discussion is typical of CA in many ways. Yes, there is some mildly irritating material in terms of style. But at the bottom of this is a properly worked out and documented fundamental issue. One would welcome your, Dano’s and Atmoz’ views on this issue. Not on your feelings about Steve M or posters on his site. On this specific issue: is he right or is he wrong?
There is also a macro level issue: why the supplementary material was not made available on time. Why the results of the investigation have been so optimistically (for the HS) spun. But the central issue is one of the validity of the paper, and this turns on the screen. So lets start discussing the issue instead of having a lot of self indulgent expressions of everyone’s feelings about various personalities, which are completely uninteresting to those of us who are interested in climate.
I’d add that John Goetz’ two recent posts are also typical of CA. We are finding out specific quantitative things about the GISS modifications to the surface temperature readings which I at least did not know before and have not come across in the literature. Its a work in progress, it is not a finished paper, and its significance is not clear. That is blogging for you. But it is interesting and thought provoking, it seems to have been carefully done, and its new. This is the kind of thing we only get from CA and a couple other places, including Lucia. Its very valuable.
Once again, the core issue is not, do we like Goetz, do we approve of his writing style…etc The issue is, whether this is the way the algorithm works, and is it legitimate to be revising the historical temperature readings record in this way?
I totally agree with Fred’s last two posts. It seems odd that Atmoz ignores all the substantial points made on the CA site but pounces on a side issue when he thinks he sees a weakness in it. Does that mean that he has nothing to say about the key issues on that site?
As for TCO, well his tortuous arguments and prolonged personal obsession with the faults of Steve McIntyre are probably of more interest to a psychologist than someone concerned with climate science.
I, personally, don’t go there anymore but when I did, if there were accusations that may have had substance, it was hard to find supporting evidence among the chimp chatter and self-congratulatory puerile frat-boy flatulence at that site.
And I suspect that I’m typical. So what value is there in the two or three tiny substantive advances when no one doing the work has the time to wade through the idiocy to find the tiny nugget in the vast pile of tailings? Look at how Judy Curry was treated. Please.
This is all about the ants finding a crumb and declaring a picnic, then ululating victory cries and calling them beautiful arias. People aren’t that stupid. No amount of assertion that the ululating is beautiful opera can make folk believe dissonance is harmony.
Best,
D
Thanks Atmoz.
Dr. S does a fine job of running a thread and donates
an incredible amount of time to public education. He’s very patient with solar nuts ( my apologies to the nuts). He’s a good role model. drop in and read him.
Interesting post and discussion… I have to agree with a lot of what TCO said. Steve McIntyre has quite a few qualities that would make him a respectable scientist - should be ever bother to read the 101 stuff in meteorology, or stop assuming that he knows everything there to know about the climate of the past millennium.
Unfortunately he hides those qualities behind a bruised ego in desperate need of international recognition, culminating in the past few weeks with pathetic complaints for not having been invited at a meeting focused on hi-resolution paleoclimate data.
That’s where I stopped taking him seriously altogether : one can’t simultaneously throw shit at climate “scientists” (the quotes are his) in every post, write papers with confessed AGW-fighters like Pat Michaels, consider econometrics as an appropriate substitute for climatology, act like a douche-bag with everyone he requests data or code from, and expect to be flown to international meetings to talk about stuff he never bothered to read (geochemistry).
Here comes a guy who’s got no concept whatsoever about how a coral or foram calcifies, and we should invite him to talk ???
My department Chair Judy Curry, animated by a deep belief that you’ve got to fight climate skeptics on their turf, is the one who enticed me to check out CA and see if his arguments had any validity. *Some* of them sure do, but the basic problem is an abysmally low signal-to-noise ratio, to quote TCO. I have challenged him personally to change that ratio by actually writing *papers* : self-contained material that gathered the outcome of his reflections and highly skilled mathematical forays.
He had NO interest in it ; now that he has established himself on the blogosphere and with his GRL 2005 paper, he considers himself an “expert” (no less !!) and finds it superfluous to listen. My personal psychoanalysis of him is that after having to leave academia very young for personal reasons, he finally found in Climate Audit a way to get his long-awaited intellectual recognition. He has found in his blog readers a community of faithful fans continually stroking his ego, complimenting every single of his actions (however insignificant they may be), and - most annoyingly for us scientists interested in a debate - ready to smother any challenger in a textual diarrhea of ignorant comments. Sure, there are a few sharp dudes amongst CA regulars (Mosher is one of them), but their delicate voice is lost in the guttural roars of an army of idiots.
So every sane science-minded person (like Atmoz,Tim Lambert or Eli Rabett) only drops in once a while, only to see (with high probability) a nonsensical post followed by an endless trail of misinformed comments . It is then tempting to tear it apart (a guilty pleasure that I have succumbed to a few times ;-). This only further increases his bad blood, so you can expect more outpours of gratuitous sarcasms.
Out of his thousands of posts, i’ve found maybe 10 that had real ideas and substance (granted, I don’t spend all day ready CA, i’m not retired yet). I doubt he’ll ever read this, but I’ll say it again : Steve, no-one in the climate community will ever take you seriously until you stop indulging in lynch-crowd pleasing and put your sharp mind to interesting questions.
In the meanwhile, Climate Audit gives us much to chuckle about. Steve McIntyre likes to remind the world that he has a “good mind” (the quote used to be on his wikipedia page as attributed to him). It’s high time he wrote a piece of science to prove it.
El Nino
Please provide a reference for the Michaels/McIntyre collaboration.
I guess you’ll have to add Roger Pielke Jr. to your enemy’s list too.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/the-hockey-stick-debate-as-a-matter-of-science-policy-4511
So tell me again, now all you climate scientists have got your deep personal feelings off your chests:
1) In Wahl and Amman, is the ratio of calibration RE to verification RE a legitimate test, who else has ever used it, where does the 75% level come from?
2) Is Goetz right about how the algorithm works, and if so, do you think it legitimate to change the past like this, and if so, why?
Because so far your posts have more resembled rambling monologues in a therapist’s office than a discussion of any issue to do with climate. Not untypical, but very tedious and a total waste of time.
Fred:
1: I don’t know, and quite frankly I don’t care. The statistics of millennial reconstructions does not interest me.
2: I don’t know. But looking at the code it appears that it was a) unintentional, and b) results in a very little change in the temperature data (~2%).
See, Fred’s widdle deal is a good example of the nut of the issue.
Fred has foregone choosing his own identity, and instead has gone all in on having someone else’s identity stand in for his. Now, the cards are being turned and his hand isn’t going to make it, but he has to try to bluff his way to save his chips.
Trouble is, we all have one of those little camera thingies and we know what is the winning hand.
Fred’s trying to bluff his way into a winning hand while holding a Jack-3, and the turn is a bummer off-suit for him.
After we take your chips, Fred, you’ll have time to read. Maybe you want to join the vast majority in trying to find societal solutions for adaptation and mitigation.
Best,
D
Fred: I’ve read that blog and commented on it extensively. You don’t need to ask me to give it a try. I have.
Fred: I already said that the 75% thing sounds strange both in concept and if it was not documented in the paper itself. If you want to do something useful, go calculate the numerical impact of the procedure. Beyond that, it’s hard (tedious) to read through more of the paragraphs of snark. And I’ve already experienced how it will be unrewarding to engage in pinning down extents. (And people like Zorita and Burger have had the same experience.) With all due respect, it’s not worthwile time spent to dig through that stuff. (Note that 90% of the comments don’t engage in considering the phenemon itself either…the cheering squad either huffs and puffs about evilness or wanders off topic to discuss confounding factors in temp-sensing trees.)
I’m not reading Goetz. Have tried before and it was even lower S/N than SM…and he’s not as bright as SM.
>> El Nino
>>Please provide a reference for the Michaels/McIntyre collaboration.
(googling…)
Hmmm… maybe it did not pass the review process , then. I heard from a colleague they had submitted something somewhere, and given their tenacity I thought they had managed to push it through. Apparently not. I’ll have to take that back, as there is no written record of it, at least not on Michael’s page, and I have no time to go scouring the web for something do not suspect to be a good read.
OK, you want other shady collaborators ? McKitrick is disturbing enough. While McIntyre claims that his motivations have no political underpinnings, the same could hardly be said of this professor of economics who thinks himself qualified to make commentaries to the Australian government about the physical role of CO2 in climate change.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/australia.pdf
Pearl of wisdom (page 1) : ” there are clear indications that a warmer climate is a more stable climate”. Yeah, right
If you have time to waste, you may examine his track record to see how objective and scientific the guy is :http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/papers.html.
That McIntyre would choose him a his favorite sidekick is more than a little disturbing for someone who claims neutrality.
>> I guess you’ll have to add Roger Pielke Jr. to your enemy’s list too.
No way, Pielke Jr is a skeptic ? What a scoop ! Look, i have no enemies. There are people whose scientific reasoning I value, others I don’t really have time to read. The Wonderful World Wide Web shows a bottomless reserve of skeptics, unfortunately their arguments rarely amount to much.
Steve McIntyre is a big reason why I said “rarely” and not “never”. I just wish he chose a different mode of communication , because despite all his good work, his manners have successfully alienated him from much of the climate community (even those who had nothing to do with the Hockey Stick). It should be no surprise that he receives little recognition in return for insults . It is too bad , but neither him not the proverbial “Hockey Team” seem likely to change course at this point.
Atmoz wrote:
OT: Why is it that posts like this seem to be the most active?
From reading this long discussion I would say obviously because it gives people the opportunity to take shots at CA and Steve McIntyre. The usual cast of characters such as TCO can always be counted on for some derogatory comments (minimum a few thousand words) towards SM. The venom of some others (such as JEG) was a bit more unusual but this looks to have been an opportunity for him to vent as well. Interesting.
The question of why posts like this seem to be the most active reminds me of a Howard Stern line: Lesbians equal ratings!
The same principle applies - take a public shot at a very public blogger and in this WWWorld the usual characters will come out to join in with their own shots.
Re the asymmetry of the warming: what Eli said, plus a lot of it is due to evaporation. See Rowan Sutton: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028164.shtml
JEG says:
“Steve, no-one in the climate community will ever take you seriously until you stop indulging in lynch-crowd pleasing and put your sharp mind to interesting questions.”
I found this comment to quite illuminating and explains a lot of the actions within the climate science community. I would have to agree that Steve Mc has not helped his case by refusing to ‘join the team’ and play by team rules. I can also understand why reasonable people would be put off by his approach.
OTOH, it takes two to tango. I find it hard to believe that the team could not have brought Steve Mc onside if they had wanted to. For example, I suspect Steve’s posts on W&A would have taked on a much more gracious tone if Amman had taken the time to tell Steve that it was available.
Frankly, I find the arrogance of many in the climate science community to be insufferable. If the public are being told that they need to make major social changes based on the say-so of a bunch of self-appointed experts then the public has a right to question these experts and demand openness and transparency. If these experts close ranks, refuse to provide reasonable access to data and refuse to acknowledge mistakes when they are made then these experts should not be surprised to see the public react negatively.
The bottom line is politicians learned a long time ago that it is not enough to be right - it is necessary to be perceived to be trustworthy. If people in the climate science community really believe that climate change is a serious problem then they will have recognize that sceptics are not going to go way and more and more people will start listening to them once they realize that doing something serious about GHGs will require some major economic sacrifices. Persuading people to make these sacrifices will take a lot more than conscending rhetoric and vitriol.
There’s no point in trying to engage Steve. Really top guys like Zorita and Burger have…and SM blows off engagement on the actual math. He’s more interested in playing to the crowd of hoi polloi.
On post 126 of the Sharpshooter thread, Hal McCullough (a math astute econ professor and ally of SM’s) asks basic questions to engage on the phenom itself (how much the “sharpshooting” changes the number). But McIntyre blows him off. And it’s not lack of time. SM has time to engage on OFF-TOPIC generalist discussion in the comments thread of that post.
“the opportunity to take shots at CA and Steve McIntyre”
No.
See thingsbreak’s, TCO’s and El Nino’s comments.
They want Steve to contribute than waste his talent on feeding the groupies. It leaves the protagonist drained, stale, and dishonest, it is the single worst mistake in creative activity.
I like Steve McIntyre, I think he’s a nice guy, and smart. I would be happy for him to do fair, accurate audits, even if it’s only of science that supports the ‘consensus’, even if he only reports the ‘bad’ results.
But you groupies will be his downfall, e.g. for your ’support’ he has twice recently conflated weather with climate.
If the public are being told that they need to make major social changes based on the say-so of a bunch of self-appointed experts then the public has a right to question these experts and demand openness and transparency. If these experts close ranks, refuse to provide reasonable access to data and refuse to acknowledge mistakes when they are made then these experts should not be surprised to see the public react negatively.
This weak rhetoric was long ago shot down, burned, the wreckage cleaned up, the area replanted, small mammals, reptiles and insects recolonized the area, and ORVs have done doughnuts and left bottles in the area.
This is the best the denialists can do - recycle long ago-refuted arguments over and over again, in hopes that something sticks. Piffle.
———
And if I could nuance Lazar’s They want Steve to contribute than waste his talent on feeding the groupies, what must be emphasized is that there is a major element of ‘put up or shut up’. That crew can’t put up. We see, on Tamino’s site, an actor in the Amen Choir (and commenter in this thread) exiting stage right as soon as they are asked to put up.
Best,
D
There are anger management courses readily available. Here (and it was also true on tamino’s blog) there are many people who would benefit from taking them. Climate science is a science. The venom that disfigures this thread, and that frequently disfigured tamino’s blog, is personal pathology. It has nothing to do with climate or science.
Its basically content free. People are associating their feelings and their expression with climate, but it could be operating systems or religion or politics. It is not making any converts, it is not adding to anyone’s knowledge or understanding. I suspect in fact that it is turning masses of people off both climate science and the environmental movement.
And I note we still have not got to the 75% rule, and looks like do not intend to.
Fred: I did respond to you. And on the 75%. I even repeated myself. Also…go take a look at the comments in that CA thread and see how many of them get into the 75% and see how SM blows off those who ask about extent while spending time on off topic generalist tree ring stuff.
Ah, refuge in projection:
o anger,
o venom,
o pathology,
o People are associating their feelings and their expression with climate,
o turning masses of people off.
I believe the script that fred’s latest is based on was from the RNC mailer #2004-46 (or was it week 16…or week 36…or the third week of 2005…or the 30th week…or the 12th week of 2006…so hard to keep track).
Anyway, I estimate that script has been around so long that it has moldered, added its organic matter to the soil, and has been planted with corn intended to be sold for ethanol.
We could be driving to buy Christmas gifts on fred’s borrowed ideas! Who says the right’s ideas no longer have power?
No word on whether endlessly repeating debunked rhetoric is turning masses of people off.
Best,
D
Fred: The whole point of this post was to discuss the dynamics of posting at CA (the commenters, the screwiness). So you’re actually OFF TOPIC to bring it to 0.75 stuff. Also, there’s an annoying habit of lots of people (but groupies especially) to want to make every discussion about everything (avoid engaging on specifics). But humoring you (which I already did twice and you were to brain dead to notice):
1. I just looked at the WA paper itself. The 0.75 criteria is clearly described in the paper itself. Not hidden in the SI. My bad. Should know better than to read a CA post without looking at the papers. Just makes WA look better and SM look worse though.
2. There are some significant arguments here that SM has avoided discussing (for a long time). Even now with the SI out (and that’s a fig leaf, he could still have engaged on major items without waiting for that…he’s playing a Clinton/Edwards game), his posts are almost comical in bluster versus really adressing the interesting points.
3. For instance, WA talk about the overmodeling of the red noise so that they are actually not random, but are representative of the proxies themselves:
a. take a look at page 7, first burger dot of http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/Ammann_ClimChange2007.pdf
b. Take a look at the discussion in this thread and SM’s evasion of description of his red noise structure and discomfort with examination of how it affects numerical results generated: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=836
4. Just skimming the WA article, it’s got a lot of generalizations and vague terms (”roughly”, etc.). Reads a bit more like an editorial or a review article than someothing with analysis.
Wow that is quite an audit. But you might have saved yourself some time if you had read this post from McIntyre himself back in 2007:
Obviously the quality of comments at a blog go down depending on how widely read a blog is. That is not necessarily a bad thing, it just needs to be recognized.
My block quote on the post above is not displaying properly. The first and last paragraphs are mine, the middle is Steve McIntyre.
The sun set tonight in the west. I encouraged it to do so, and set up a forum by which its setting was enabled.
Best,
D
TCO, thanks for a reasonable reply. I went back over the link you gave. It is understandable that you found the reaction irritating, though its not clear that your account of SM is correct - he seems to be irritated too, at what seems to him to be preoccupation with a peripheral detail, rather than evasive. Maybe it is not a peripheral detail, not sure. In his defence, he has at least posted all his code has he not? So he is entitled to say that if you want to know exactly what I did, just download it, look at it, run it for yourself. He and CA did not come out of that too badly, they may not have given an answer you were satisifed with, but it topic was being pretty reasonably discussed. Within the limits that it is after all a blog.
CA is imperfect, its the nature of all blogs with open comments to be imperfect. This one too. It will sometimes wander over to things the owner has little expertise in. But when its good its excellent. When you disagree, it helps clarify your thinking. Its just part of open discussion of an issue that people are far less settled about in their opinions than the advocates would like them to be.
The thing I don’t understand is the anger that CA and SM come in for. The thing I’d say about the parent post here is that on almost any blog you can pick some post or set of replies which is low quality. But the particular post that Atmoz picked is CA at its most mediocre. There is also CA at its best, and that is much better. Without CA and SM, the data series used in MBH would still be locked in the decent obscurity of an academic archive someplace, and they did us a service by bringing it out into the open.
Lucia’s haiku are entertaining and charming. But it would be a mistake to take a posted haiku and the thread after that as typical of the Blackboard. This would be a bit like taking the current post and treating it as typical of CA.
You have had a different reaction from this, as people do.
CA has had some minor impact. It’s just important that you groupies and hoi polloi understand that SM is disengenous. He tries to inflate the impact. He RUNS AWAY from quantification, where effects are small, preferring to play PR games.
I say this as a far right guy, not a liberal, not an enviromentalist. He’s a sea lawyer. An equivocater and word parser. Just watch out. Get out. Don’t drink kool aid.
TCO: a sea lawyer? Are you a sailor? If SM is a sea lawyer he gives the rules experts a bad name.
Lazar said:
===============
But you groupies will be his downfall, e.g. for your ’support’ he has twice recently conflated weather with climate.
===============
Love the ad-hominem stuff.
Personally, I find the thread on Mandelbrot’s view of climate versus weather to be quite informative. The main problem with any scientific hypothesis are the unstated pre-suppositions that may or may not be correct. I would guess that if the current generations of GCMs are shown to quite inaccurate the next generation will start looking at climate as a bit more similar to weather in terms of the nature of its internal variability. LTP, Hurst, 1/f noise and all that…
Love the ad-hominem stuff.
No.
That’s not ad hom stuff.
Here is Dano’s tutorial on basic usage:
Weak rhetoric tends to use ad hom incorrecty. Generally this is when folks have nothing to say, so they accuse others of name-calling to try to gain advantage.
Best,
D
“you groupies and hoi polloi”
If you mean me, I am not a groupie and its a pity you’ve now descended to the level of personal insults.
I am someone who regularly reads Atmoz, CA, Watts, Real Climate and a variety of other stuff, and agrees with some things in them some of the time and disagree with some things some of the time. CA has added to my understanding as much when I disagreed with it as when I agreed. As to SM’s personality, who cares? Mann’s personality, or Hansen’s, similarly, who cares?
Something wrong with that? What do you expect exactly, that we should stop reading CA? Why?
Re : http://atmoz.org/blog/2008/08/08/the-anatomy-of-a-climateaudit-post/#comment-3349
Raven, you are absolutely right. It does take two to tango. The Climate Blog war wouldn’t even be a tempest in a teapot if both sides hadn’t stubbornly dug their heels into their positions.
This statement of yours is probably the most eloquent summary I have read of the educated Climate Skeptics attitude : “Frankly, I find the arrogance of many in the climate science community to be insufferable. If the public are being told that they need to make major social changes based on the say-so of a bunch of self-appointed experts then the public has a right to question these experts and demand openness and transparency. If these experts close ranks, refuse to provide reasonable access to data and refuse to acknowledge mistakes when they are made then these experts should not be surprised to see the public react negatively.”
I understand your perspective, but here a few things to think about :
(1) experts in any field are ALWAYS self-appointed : it is like a knighting ceremony, a tribal recognition. Go to a random PhD graduation if you don’t see what I mean. It is surprising how few people realize that much of the world actually works by these tribal practices (hiring in banks, religious confirmation, frat houses, party politics, etc…) and the comment has an odd echo of anti-intellectualism. I could cite a few self-appointed experts in statistics that have entered the climate debate. Does that undermine their legitimacy ? No none doubts that Dr Edward Wegman is a reputable statistician ; but what should we think of the CA “statisticians” that do not reveal their identity, much less their degrees ? So please be fair here : you can’t have a cake and eat it too.
(2) climate science is a very young field, and until recently there was no public eye on it. Most of my colleagues come from communities in chemical or physical sciences where the idea of public “responsibility” for their work sounds ludicrous. This is not without reason : in most academic fields that I know of (a notable exception being biomedical research), scientists are supposed to work in their ivory tower . It is their duty to society to do their thing far away from the tumult of the street, because history is laden with examples of political , religious or social pressures that hampered scientific progress. So your reasoning actually applies to a much wider scientific culture than the vilified climatologists.
(3) Climate Scientists are now under public eye. It means lots of media attention to get famous for a flashy article - or infamous for a flashy audit. Obviously, we as a community can’t have our cake and eat it, either : public attention does bring more public monies, recognition, and influence over public life. With great power comes great responsibility, and I agree that the public can expect transparency in return for its investment. Unfortunately this has taken some time to sink in, because of the aforementioned cultural habits (2).
(4) Finally, there is a problem of manners. You find climate scientists insufferably arrogant. We find climate skeptics’ sense of entitlement over our work or the Earth’s resources a tidbit annoying too. It is one thing to comply with congressional inquiries or go serve on expert panels in Washington DC as a means of public service. It is another to be bullied by a Canadian ex-mining executive into turning over all code and data with a distinctly threatening rhetoric.
Unfortunately, Steve McIntyre’s manners lack the elegance of his prose. He shoots first, asks questions later. When charged with that accusation he will flood you with the gazillion emails he has gifted our community with by means of data requests, obviously convinced he was being civil. He cannot begin to see how they are insulting. I don’t think Mike Mann can be blamed for blowing him off the first time.
I, for one, never asked him to play by “Team” rules. All we ask is a little politeness. I also wish some of my colleagues had been a little more gracious with him, because he does have a lot to bring to the scientific debate. Had he been interested in that, he could have decided to play the PR challenge : http://www.pages.unibe.ch/science/prchallenge/index.html
Indeed, what better demonstration of his mathematical superiority than to take climate scientists on their turf and come up with a reconstruction method that objectively beats theirs ? He instead chose to dismiss it as an “indulgence” (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3379)
So yes, after quite a bit of time spent trying to engage with him in a respectful manner (do you want to know how much we went through with for inviting him to give a seminar a GaTech ?), I am a little tired. So is much of the community. Hence the venom, sorry for that.
Besides, claiming to be a climate expert without no training in fluid dynamics, black body radiation, thermodynamics, cloud microphysics or geochemistry is a little arrogant too. Some of us do recognize that climate science is behind the curve on its statistics. It would be nice if some skeptics recognized the need to read Meteorology 101 before reinventing the crooked wheel.
Fred:
I don’t know if you are part of the hoi polloi groupies or not. (Don’t care. You haven’t distinguished yourself to me as good or bad…don’t really know you, other than that you come accross as sort of simple.)
SM can have whatever personality he wants. But there is no reason for scientists to wade through his self-published, personality-added posts as if it were actual archived literature.
TCO,
I asked you elsewhere a while back if you had something personal against SM. You said no.
Having read this thread and the lengths you go to denigrate him, I think you must have been mistaken in your earlier response.
Dave, I’ve never met the fellow. Honest. My issue is with degredation of thinking processes and popularization of said.
P.s. Get a hoot out of that skeptic conference that they got going in Sicily! I want to know who payed for that, if it was non-profit or if people are deducting it from their taxes, etc. Why it’s not advertised. Why he went as a surprise. If there are any mainstream warmers there, etc. Also if he’s meeting Reihle Hunter.
Well, I’m in hopes Steve will meet Andy Revkin at the ‘Skeptic’s Conference’ in Erice, Sicily. That might be historic.
If I were you, JEG and TCO, I’d be ashamed to commit my bitterness to the record. Jealous, maybe?
==========================
Kim: More like I care about truth. I care about (good) skepticism. And…I actually care about you little hoi polloi. I think a drill sergeant reaming your asses to drive the pussy out of them would help you.
TCO,
Your characterisation of the Erice Conference is wide of the mark. They appear to have been going, yearly, for 39 years and below is a description of the 2007 Conference, published in book form and edited by a participant from LLNL
The Science and Culture Series — Nuclear Strategy and Peace Technology
INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON NUCLEAR WAR AND PLANETARY EMERGENCIES — 38TH SESSION
Erice, Italy 19 - 24 August 2007
edited by R Ragaini (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA)
The Erice International Seminars are multidisciplinary seminars attended by over 100 eminent participants from all fields of science. Each year, a few scientific issues are selected and experts are invited to present contrasting views during the plenary multidisciplinary sessions of the seminar, followed by general debates. These sessions offer a unique opportunity for specialists to enlarge their vision of their related fields by being confronted with ideas and suggestions from high-level scientists in complementary domains of science. Associated workshops allow the experts to further refine and process the ideas evoked during the seminar. This year’s topics are all actual. For instance, on climate issues we have focused on the management of a global warming and on new theoretical alternatives to climate modeling. On global monitoring of the planet, we have focused on the US missile defence shield, the energy externalities and waste disposal and the historical dive by Dr Chilingarov on the North Pole shelf. On the medical side, we have investigated the Alzheimer epidemics and the role of infectious agents in cancer.
Contents:
* The Role of Stratospheric Aerosols in Antagonizing the Global Climate Change (Y A Izrael)
* Plenary Session: Policy and Potential for Energy-Efficient Buildings (A H Rosenfeld)
* Tipping Points or Gradual Climate Change? (T M Lenton)
* Energy Transitions (I Bashmakov)
* Adaptation: A Natural Strategy (W Fulkerson & T J Wilbanks)
* Model Limitations (G L Stephens)
* Nuclear Energy and Radioactive Waste Disposal in the Age of Recycling (J L Conca)
* How the Brain Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease (B Ghetti)
* Molecular Links between Inflammation and Cancer (M Locati)
* Permanent Monitoring Panel on Pollution (L Everett)
* and other papers
Let’s Google a little.
1. Erice (Culture section): “Erice hosts important scientific meetings at the Ettore Majorana center, organised by the [b]controversial[/b] astrophysicist Antonino Zichichi.” Emphasis added.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erice
2. From the entry on Antonio: “Zichichi is a global warming skeptic. [1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonino_Zichichi
——————————-
Doesn’t smell as bad as a Heartland Conference with Watts talking about his painted screens that fall down in windstorms. Still smells like a skeptic conference though. Essex chairing the session. All skeptics mentioned in the CA article. No Gavin, Mann types mentioned.
Well…
While the World Federation of Scientists seems to be a reasonable group overall, they made a huge mistake in having Chris Essex, a “Fellow” of the Heartland Institute handle the session in which McI is giving his little talk.
BTW, over at Tamino’s place a couple of McI’s arguments have been demolished. See here and here.
Steve is walking on mighty thin ice at this point.
TCO:
“I want to know who payed for that, if it was non-profit or if people are deducting it from their taxes, etc.”
- What does it matter? How much public money (i.e. my taxes) has gone toward AGW conferences and such in the last decades and how many of the IPCC scientists receive salaries and/or support from public money (i.e. my taxes again)? Maybe you can compare that to the few conferences such as the Erice Conference. Me, I wouldn’t bother. I just earmark 30% of my income to the trough.
“My issue is with degredation of thinking processes and popularization of said.”
- You attribute stupidity to much of what transpires on the sceptic side. Why? There are some smart people who frequent CA, (wheat amongst the chaffe maybe?). Are they being led astray by SteveM, the piper?
I guess I am disheartened by the personality and attribution attacks I have read above. Science is science and shouldn’t have a personality. Remember the following when you attack those at CA: What do they get out of it? Are they evil? Is it hubris? Contrariness? Stupidity? What? Certainly there is very little chance of a career and meaningful monetary gain from being a sceptic. Could they be asking questions because they want to know the answers to those questions? Or maybe they’re all from Missouri…
Puz: Just a tawdry curiosness (on the conference).
On CA: A lot of people there, think they are smarter than they are…and they are being led astray by Steve and are really doing a lot of low-level “brew crew” internet chat. Steve, himself has a very low level of content in his posts and does not run things to ground. Written technical reports are the path forward. Clear writing is clear thinking.
TCO, with regard to your remarks on 19 Aug 2008 at 12:06 pm, the sewer flowed too near to the surface that time, and what it revealed was as ugly as the contents of sewers usually is. And, as usual, it had nothing whatever to do with climate. I shan’t be reading or replying to your stuff from now on.
Atmoz, you are at risk from pollution by something more noxious and stinking than any amount of CO2. Consider moderation. Once this stuff starts, its the only solution.
Atmoz, you are at risk from pollution by something more noxious and stinking than any amount of CO2. Consider moderation. Once this stuff starts, its the only solution.
I think this site is moderated just fine, thank you. I often disagree with TCO and esp his tone, but he certainly is able to dissect a position, which is likely the reason the credulous and gullible Chorus, Amen crowd don’t like him. There is no cultural or social mandate to agree with someone all the time.
Best,
D
I’ve fallen behind on posting and moderation. I do subscribe to my comments RSS feed, but I only skim them to see if they are obvious spam. If you think there is a comment that violates the comment policy and needs to be edited or deleted, please use the contact form linked at the top of the page. Thanks.
Please leave his comment. I actually like TCO but his comment was not unexpected after our last encounter, when he needed instruction on an unscientific matter, about which he did not know the truth. Sadly, I think I failed to persuade him, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
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