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Thread: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

  1. #121
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Is it the climate data that comes from 1000s of scientists? Or, only the publications that are based on the data? My take on this is that for years and years a select group of researchers has had privileged access to global data, in its raw, as-collected state, and have been peer-reviewing each other.
    Well, that's just silly. Here was I thinking you were a sensible person - albeit pointing in slightly the wrong direction - and it turns out you're hanging from a rafter coated in marmalade and singing Danny Boy.

    If you are going to allege that there has been a conspiracy that has led to the current international consensus in respect of anthropogenic global warming, then let's see your evidence. No 'what-ifs'.

    The sort of evidence required is the same sort of evidence that is required to prove the moon landings were fake, that the Royal Family are shapeshifting 12' tall alien lizards and that the World Trade Center was not destroyed nor the Pentagon seriously damaged by idiots flying freshly fuelled planes into the structures. In other words, evidence that shows that thousands of people can be co-opted into extremely risky, career and/or life threatening conspiracies involving wholesale deception, destruction and sometimes bloodshed, and will maintain a studied silence about it for years - not to say the rest of their lives. This is despite the fact that there is clear and cogent evidence that even governments can't keep secrets involving only a handful of people for a few days, let alone decades.

    The world in which large organisations routinely despatch cold-blooded killers to terminate ordinary citizens who are thinking of blowing the whistle on the secret conspiracy that will [topple the government/expose the mad scientist/general/politician] exists only in one place - it's just north-east of Century City and south of Griffith Park.

    And if your geography isn't up to that, it's somewhat north west of downtown LA.

  2. #122
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    It's not exactly a scientific method, but I just used Google Scholar to search for articles, not including patents, and excepting social sciences and medical sciences, with the words 'global warming' in the title.

    There were 48,800 returns. And that would obviously only include articles written or published in, or translated after publication into, English.

    That's an awful lot of conspiracy documents, folks.

  3. #123
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    also, as Rocky pointed out, there is only so much data available. Gathering data is a very expensive and time consuming activity. Hence, many researchers have re-used the same data time and again. The original researchers have total control over the original data. They can decide to release only the data that they used and hide the data they found didn’t fit. Although the publications may be coming from 1000s of scientists the raw data may be coming from far fewer than that.
    All I can say is that if Rocky pointed upward and said “Sky” I’d look for a dictionary. Holding him up as a good source of information, as far as I am concerned, is a bit like using Jordan as an example of motherhood.
    My understanding of this part of your post is that if someone happens to be politically-right-of-centre, American, and a blogger they automatically can’t hold a valid opinion.
    Yes. What’s your point? Have you ever listened to to or read these prats, like Glen Beck, Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, Bill O’Riley? They are a walking anti-advert for freedom of speech legislation.
    Are there any other characteristics that should automatically exclude people from a debate?
    Probably. I’ll get back to you on that.
    How about we exclude everyone from this debate who fulfils this arbitrary set of conditions: aged over 43 years and 5 days, rides a camel, and wears turquoise lipstick?
    Your ambitions are rather modest. I’d cheerfully exclude almost everyone born in middle-eastern oil-producing countries.
    Comment lines in programming code are normally written to avoid the situation where someone has to spend days looking at the code to determine exactly how it works. They are not for general consumption by all and sundry. To the best of my knowledge the leaking of the emails and attachments (including file Data4alps.pro) was the first time that it had become apparent that large amounts of data were being deliberately excluded specifically because the excluded data exposed a significant flaw in the theory.
    I don’t think it is accepted that the data exposes a flaw in the theory, never mind a significant flaw. And only people who aren’t either scientists, or interested in science, or capable of working it out from first principles thinks that every bit of data is published.

    Good grief, didn’t you do science at school? You don’t remember producing a graph of your results and being told that the anomalous data might be unhelpful in explaining the phenomenon? You know, 20 points of data and one was very high and one very low and the other eighteen were pretty much clustered round the straight line? You think that grown-up scientists don’t have to grapple with the same problem?

    Climate change denialists, of course, think that manipulating data or even excluding it is proof of skullduggery. Any person of normal intelligence can see that it is the way we all run our lives. There are gigabytes of data we have to deal with every day and most of it we simply ignore. This is because if we did not do that, we could not get through the day.
    I don’t think the majority of readers of the publications produced using this computer code were aware of these fraudulent exclusions; until now.
    You haven’t demonstrated that the exclusions were ‘fraudulent’, and nor – AFAIK – has anyone else.
    Sorry! I thought that’s what happens on discussion forums. I criticise your view, say ‘what if’, and post my view, with supporting evidence. Then you do the same to me. What needs changing?
    You are free to say whatever you please. I am free to ask why. I’ve not been – unless my memory fails me – positing any ‘what ifs’ at all. I’m pointing to what is.
    In my opinion what is problematical is that rather than trying to iron out the complexities by developing a new/better model they just excluded tree-ring data that didn’t fit the existing model and pushed out publications regardless.
    You seem to assume that all the other scientists are just going – ‘oh great, well they’ve done that so a) I don’t have to replicate it and b) I can use it as the basis for further extrapolation without troubling myself as to its accuracy’. The tree-ring anomaly has been a live topic amongst climatologists. Nobody is hiding it. Just because you and I and climate change denialists are only just hearing about it doesn’t mean it’s being concealed.

    You can talk to your average person in this country or the USA (and for all I know the more advanced non-english speaking nations) and they will probably tell you that their understanding (if they have one at all) of an atom is that the nucleus is like a star with the electrons whirling about like planets. In fact that hasn’t been the prevailing model amongst physicists for about 90 years. It barely outlasted the plum duff model which postulated that the electrons were scattered through the atom like plums in the pudding.

    Most people get along fine without understanding science deeply or well. But that’s hardly a reason for beating the scientists over the head with a club because they don’t necessarily talk and write and communicate amongst themselves in the same way as they would if trying to explain things to the regulars down the pub.
    As I said above, if a small group can control access to data then it’s not so hard to distort an awful lot of research.
    Again, you have not demonstrated that a small group does control access to the data. That’s like starting a sentence: “If the moon is made of green cheese then...” You can go almost anywhere when the initial postulate is outrageous!
    That doesn’t necessarily make 1000s of scientists criminally dishonest; the scientists who receive data from others do so in good faith. They can only assume...
    If there are scientists who are making that assumption then they are bad scientists. Bad scientist!
    [quote]As an example, consider, if you will, the fate of Ian Tomlinson. If no independent video footage had ever become available we’d probably believe an entirely different story from what we now know.[quote]
    Speak for yourself. I was around for the Blair Peach incident and its fall-out.
    [quote]I think Rocky has already dealt with that one quite well. [quote]
    See above for your 'reliability of Rocky' hypothesis.

  4. #124
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    I am all for less smog in the environment. Less polution in the rivers and oceans. Better air.

    If I pay more for that all good.

    What is difficult to comprehend, is a sort of, maybe, weather change, somewhere...

    Seems like a, "jobs for the boys" thing.

    It is amazing that so many people have fallen for it...

    NOONE has picked up on... cows farting, contributes more to the ozone layer than anything else!

  5. #125
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Good grief! What was BS on last night?? I can only assume that the cold weather put every one of his brain cells into cryogenic suspension… I’ve never seen him write such drivel..

    The point that Bubble and myself have made is that because climate science is a very specialized area which requires the use of Global measuring instruments such as weather stations, satellites etc.. it is impossible for the majority of scientists to independently assess this data (unless BS is suggesting that Dr Triffid down the road who is studying the effect of Global Temperature changes on cannabis plants is capable of launching his own satellite..?) Therefore, as proof that there are 1,000’s of scientists out there who are studying the phenomenon of Global Warming, so it can’t possibly be fraudulent, he says..

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    It's not exactly a scientific method, but I just used Google Scholar to search for articles, not including patents, and excepting social sciences and medical sciences, with the words 'global warming' in the title....There were 48,800 returns. And that would obviously only include articles written or published in, or translated after publication into, English...That's an awful lot of conspiracy documents, folks.
    What utter tosh! Firstly, this debate is about man made global warming (AGW) not just ‘Global Warming’ - there is a significant difference here as no-one is disputing that the Earth has become warmer over the last 150 years (and cooled in the last 11..), what AGW sceptics are disputing is the theory that this warming is man made. Secondly, his 48,000 returns are meaningless anyway as he has no way of knowing (without further analysis) how many of those articles are written by the same person or attributed to the same institution or even whether or not the articles actually agree with the concept of GW or not!

    But his biggest problems are that he can’t understand how:

    1.)A number of specialist centres producing data specific results can affect an International consensus.
    2.)The manipulation of data can produce fraudulent results. (Derrr…)
    3.)Why independent scientists aren’t able to verify certain data sets.

    And he wants absolutely proof of skulduggery if it’s going on, because although by his own admission he ‘has not read especially widely on the subject’ he is absolutely certain it isn’t...

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    ..If you are going to allege that there has been a conspiracy that has led to the current international consensus in respect of anthropogenic global warming, then let's see your evidence. No 'what-ifs'....You seem to assume that all the other scientists are just going – ‘oh great, well they’ve done that so a) I don’t have to replicate it and b) I can use it as the basis for further extrapolation without troubling myself as to its accuracy’...Again, you have not demonstrated that a small group does control access to the data.....I don’t think it is accepted that the data exposes a flaw in the theory, never mind a significant flaw. And only people who aren’t either scientists, or interested in science, or capable of working it out from first principles thinks that every bit of data is published.....Climate change denialists, of course, think that manipulating data or even excluding it is proof of skullduggery. Any person of normal intelligence can see that it is the way we all run our lives...You haven’t demonstrated that the exclusions were ‘fraudulent’, and nor – AFAIK – has anyone else..
    Ok, so to begin with we should note that IPCC report presented in 2007 (actually quoted by BS and a number of other people on this thread) has been pretty much accepted by politicians, the media and the majority of pro-AGW scientists as THE De facto document proving a link to man made CO2 and GW. And the reason why this is the case is that the IPCC claims that the report is the most comprehensive synthesis of climate change science to date which includes contributions from experts from more than 130 countries representing six years of work, with 450 lead authors who have received input from more than 800 contributing authors, and an additional 2,500 experts who reviewed the draft documents.

    So, it is a pretty impressive piece of evidence – so I think it’s fair to assume that THIS document and the panel of the IPCC HAS created an International consensus regarding AGW. Therefore, if we can prove that its claims are erroneous and that the data it has used has, in part, been falsified, by definition we can prove the centres providing the base information IS affecting the opinions and research of 1,000’s of International scientists.

    Well, fortunately there is lots of hard evidence to support the fact that the IPCC conclusions were flawed and represented false and inaccurate data. The first cited document with regard to challenging the IPCC report was the U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputing Man-Made Global Warming Claims (HERE). This report followed the IPCC report in 2007 and was considered important because a number of the dissenters were in fact part of the initial IPCC committee. They therefore launched their report to protest at the flawed and inaccurate conclusions drawn by the IPCC from data that a number of them had worked on. This Senate report has since been updated and the latest document, which has now accumulated comments and criticism from over 700 prominent scientists, can be found(HERE).

    So, let’s not assume or have ‘what if’s’ – it’s a matter of published fact that a number of scientists involved in the IPCC report have stated that the data has been manipulated in favour of AGW – we can also easily challenge the conclusions of the report from other Independent sources:

    1.)The role of CO2 as a main driver for climate change can be challenged with evidence that shows that the main drivers, by as much as 95%, are the combined effects of solar activity and cloud formation, as researched by Henrick Svensmark (HERE) and (HERE).
    2.)The role of CO2 as a main driver for climate change can challenged with evidence that shows that Solar irradiation is also of fundamental importance with regard to changes in Global temperatures (HERE).
    3.)The role of CO2 as a main driver for climate change can be challenged with evidence that shows that naturally occurring Ocean currents and warming are also of fundamental importance with regard to changes in Global temperatures (HERE).
    4.)The evidence of ice core samples (considered of primary importance by the IPCC in establishing links with CO2 levels and historic ancient Global temperatures) were considered questionable as they only showed evidence of local atmospheric conditions and in any event were impossible to quantitatively analyse or verify and most importantly do not take account of the problems associated with the solubility of CO2 in freezing water (HERE).
    5.)The evidence of a general trend in rising Global temperatures as significant with regard to AGW can be shown to be false as graphs proving this data only showed relevance over the last 150 years following the dip of The Little Ice Age and did not take into account long term trends in Global temperatures as demonstrated (HERE).
    6.)Claims that both Antarctic and Arctic ice were reducing were also proven to be false as demonstrated (HERE) and (HERE).

    However the largest concerns centre on the pro AGW BS’s statements that 1,000’s of scientists could not be involved in AGW fraud and therefore the overall data must be true. However, the proof that such a deception could (or is indeed) happening can be shown by reference to:

    1.)The recent ‘Climategate’ emails which suggest that data had been tampered with, withheld and adjusted to purposely mislead (HERE).
    2.)The discredited tree ring analysis as used by the IPCC (HERE).
    3.)False and purposely misleading temperature analysis used by the UEA’s CCU (HERE) and (HERE)
    4.)False and purposely misleading sea levels measurements used by the IPCC (HERE).

    And finally…

    For anyone who still doubts the level of fraud conducted by the IPCC, I want to leave you with these two comments (from two of the articles above) relating to (and from) two scientists that have either worked with the IPCC or been approached by them:

    One of his most shocking discoveries was why the IPCC has been able to show sea levels rising by 2.3mm a year. Until 2003, even its own satellite-based evidence showed no upward trend. But suddenly the graph tilted upwards because the IPCC's favoured experts had drawn on the finding of a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise. The entire global sea-level projection was then adjusted upwards by a "corrective factor" of 2.3mm, because, as the IPCC scientists admitted, they "needed to show a trend". When I spoke to Dr Mörner last week, he expressed his continuing dismay at how the IPCC has fed the scare on this crucial issue. When asked to act as an "expert reviewer" on the IPCC's last two reports, he was "astonished to find that not one of their 22 contributing authors on sea levels was a sea level specialist: not one". Yet the results of all this "deliberate ignorance" and reliance on rigged computer models have become the most powerful single driver of the entire warmist hysteria.



    'I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent co-authors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent. The surface temperature data is a contaminated mess with a significant warm bias, and as I have detailed elsewhere the IPCC fabricated evidence in its 2007 report to cover up the problem. Climate models are in gross disagreement with observations, and the discrepancy is growing with each passing year.

    The often-hyped claim that the modern climate has departed from natural variability depended on flawed statistical methods and low-quality data. The IPCC review process, of which I was a member last time, is nothing at all like what the public has been told: Conflicts of interest are endemic, critical evidence is systematically ignored and there are no effective checks and balances against bias or distortion.

    I get exasperated with fellow academics, and others who ought to know better, who pile on to the supposed global warming consensus without bothering to investigate any of the glaring scientific discrepancies and procedural flaws. Over the coming few years, as the costs of global warming policies mount and the evidence of a crisis continues to collapse, perhaps it will become socially permissible for people to start thinking for themselves again. In the meantime I am grateful for those few independent thinkers, like Steve McIntyre, who continue to ask the right questions and insist on scientific standards of openness and transparency. - Ross McKitrick is a professor of environmental economics at the University of Guelph, and co-author of Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming.'

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    ...Global warming is not a fascinating topic for me - so I have not read especially widely...
    Really?? You don’t say…..

    BTW, could someone please copy this post in it's entirety as BS won't see it otherwise. Thanks

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    I don’t think it is accepted that the data exposes a flaw in the theory, never mind a significant flaw. And only people who aren’t either scientists, or interested in science, or capable of working it out from first principles thinks that every bit of data is published.
    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post

    Good grief, didn’t you do science at school? You don’t remember producing a graph of your results and being told that the anomalous data might be unhelpful in explaining the phenomenon? You know, 20 points of data and one was very high and one very low and the other eighteen were pretty much clustered round the straight line? You think that grown-up scientists don’t have to grapple with the same problem?

    Climate change denialists, of course, think that manipulating data or even excluding it is proof of skullduggery. Any person of normal intelligence can see that it is the way we all run our lives. There are gigabytes of data we have to deal with every day and most of it we simply ignore. This is because if we did not do that, we could not get through the day.
    You haven’t demonstrated that the exclusions were ‘fraudulent’, and nor – AFAIK – has anyone else.


    Experiments in schools and experiments in research are worlds apart. Scientific experiments in schools deliberately employ well understood phenomena. Typically the experiment yields data that gives a simple, linear, ‘straight line’ relationship. At more advanced levels the outcome and theory is still well known but there may be a non-linear relationship, perhaps Log or Ln.

    In real research there are some serious challenges to be overcome. First of all there will be more than one variable. That can lead to extremely complex interactions. Some of the interactions may be impossible to quantify/isolate with any certainty. There may also be variables at play that you do not even know about.

    Scatter in scientific data is an unfortunate fact of life when carrying out experiments. The thing that varies from experiment to experiment is how bad the scatter is and whether it is obscuring a measurement. There will be occasions when it is appropriate to edit data to reveal the true picture. However, I do not think the climate scientists have acted legitimately in this respect.

    Take the tree-ring data. They tried to construct a model that takes tree-ring measurements as an input and gives predicted temperature as an output. Once they had constructed their model they tried to verify it by feeding it tree-ring data and checking that the temperature data it generated matched 200 years of ‘real’ temperature records. But they hit a snag, and here’s the evidence of that snag:

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    'Data4alps.pro: '"IMPORTANT NOTE: The data after 1960 should not be used. The tree-ring density records tend to show a decline after 1960 relative to the summer temperature in many high-latitude locations. In this data set this 'decline' has been artificially removed in an ad-hoc way, and this means that data after 1960 no longer represent tree-ring density variations, but have been modified to look more like the observed temperatures'


    Damn and Blast! The model gives unreliable/incorrect temperature predictions if the inputs are from tree-rings from 1960 onwards. So; what did they do? Develop a better model that fitted all the data? Not as far as I can see they didn’t.

    Now, if you do an experiment and 40 out of 200 datapoints are way off the mark due to experimental scatter, that isn’t too good, but, it might be tolerable depending on exactly what you’re doing and how far off the mark the scattered points are. But the tree-ring situation is much worse because it is not experimental scatter that is causing the issue.

    Scatter, as it’s name suggests is a random phenomena. In the case of the tree-ring data they have deliberately discarded a huge block of data at the front end of the time frame, everything from 1960 onwards.

    In case Barry still thinks it’s scatter and can be disregarded, lets calculate the possibility of getting 40 datapoints in a row that are all suffering from experimental scatter. Let’s assume that the possibility of getting a measurement that shows scatter (compared to the model) is one in six, the same as a well made six sided die.

    1 year of scatter, probability of 1 in 6
    2 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 36
    3 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 216
    4 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 1296
    5 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 7776
    10 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 60466176
    20 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 3656158440062980
    40 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 13367494538843700000000000000000
    50 consecutive years of scatter, probability of 1 in 808281277464765000000000000000000000000

    At this point I should say that long odds don’t mean something can’t happen. It just means that the average occurrence rate is very low. Anyway, essentially what these numbers show is only one of two things:
    1. They have been extremely unlucky with scatter
    2. Their model for predicting temperatures using tree-ring data is fatally flawed.

    So, Barry; what’s it to be? Have they deliberately discarded a huge chunk of data because their model is inadequate?, Or, have they legitimately removed scatter/invalid points?

    Now; I know you hate my pesky little ‘what ifs?’ and although I’ve actually raised this one previously it is appropriate to do so again:

    What if history is littered with time periods when the tree-rings ‘didn’t-do-what-they-should-be-doing’ according to the temperature/tree-ring model?

    My answer is that when they collect tree-ring data from trees that are 1000s years old and feed it into the model they will get incorrect outputs (temperature predictions) because the model is inadequate and flawed.

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Well, that's just silly. Here was I thinking you were a sensible person - albeit pointing in slightly the wrong direction - and it turns out you're hanging from a rafter coated in marmalade and singing Danny Boy.

    You’ve been looking through the gap in my curtains haven’t you! I must take more care!

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    If you are going to allege that there has been a conspiracy that has led to the current international consensus in respect of anthropogenic global warming, then let's see your evidence. No 'what-ifs'.


    I would only use the word ‘conspiracy’ in terms of the potential for environmental taxes. I think it probably started off as a situation where a handful of ‘reputable’ academics published a handful of bad papers. There can then be enormous pressure for other findings to conform to those published by the ‘reputable’ academics. Also, as I've pointed out in previous posts, the peer review process can be vulnerable to abuse. The courts system is similar, is it not? A judge gives an interpretation of the law and sets a precedent that may persist even if it is later considered wrong. See also my comments below regarding the relatively small number of scientists working on climate science.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    And if your geography isn't up to that, it's somewhat north west of downtown LA.

    Nope, I’m still lost! Is it Disney Land?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    It's not exactly a scientific method, but I just used Google Scholar to search for articles, not including patents, and excepting social sciences and medical sciences, with the words 'global warming' in the title.
    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post

    There were 48,800 returns. And that would obviously only include articles written or published in, or translated after publication into, English.

    That's an awful lot of conspiracy documents, folks.


    I asked a friend in academia to do some searches on a *proper* database of papers published in scientific journals. They did a title search and:
    The words ‘Global’ and ‘Warming’ in the same title = 1661 results
    The words ‘Climate’ and ‘Change’ in the same title = 4654 results

    Of those that contained ‘Climate’ and ‘Change’ in the same title, a significant proportion were not related to what we are discussing here. Unfortunately there was no way to exclude irrelevant results and they included, for example, medical studies on the effect of climate on health and illness.

    The results of this search suggest that your premise of 1000s of scientists working on climate science is not correct. The only other possible explanation is that they are an unproductive bunch of wasters.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Yes. What’s your point? Have you ever listened to to or read these prats, like Glen Beck, Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, Bill O’Riley? They are a walking anti-advert for freedom of speech legislation.


    There’s a small number of people who obviously hold similar views that regularly post in the Guardian comments sections. Apparently they’re fine about freedom of speech……………………..…..until someone says something that doesn’t fit their ideologies.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Your ambitions are rather modest. I’d cheerfully exclude almost everyone born in middle-eastern oil-producing countries.

    I mentioned ‘people who ride camels’ in my list of three criteria that I jokingly suggested should determine people barred from joining this discussion. Aren’t you going to give me any credit for that?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    You are free to say whatever you please. I am free to ask why. I’ve not been – unless my memory fails me – positing any ‘what ifs’ at all. I’m pointing to what is.

    All of my ‘what ifs’ are criticisms of what I have found wanting while researching the practices of climate ‘scientists’. As you appear to be happy swallowing the ‘official line’ that explains why you don’t have any ‘what ifs’.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    You seem to assume that all the other scientists are just going – ‘oh great, well they’ve done that so a) I don’t have to replicate it and b) I can use it as the basis for further extrapolation without troubling myself as to its accuracy’.

    Scientists must initially take the published work of others at face value. If their own results then show a significant deviation they may have trouble getting their results published. See my other comments on this above and also my comments on the likely number of ‘scientists’ working on climate change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    The tree-ring anomaly has been a live topic amongst climatologists. Nobody is hiding it. Just because you and I and climate change denialists are only just hearing about it doesn’t mean it’s being concealed.

    Excellent, so why don’t they fix the tree-ring/temperature model instead of blithely using it to churn out flawed temperature predictions?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Again, you have not demonstrated that a small group does control access to the data.

    There are plenty of news stories at the moment regarding freedom of information requests for climate data that is publicly held. Just have a read of the stalling tactics used by the custodians of the data. Elsewhere in this thread I also demonstrate through the number of publications that the number of climate ‘scientists’ is smaller than you probably think it is.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    That’s like starting a sentence: “If the moon is made of green cheese then...” You can go almost anywhere when the initial postulate is outrageous!


    If the moon is made of green cheese then…………I’m
    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    hanging from a rafter coated in marmalade and singing Danny Boy


    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    As an example, consider, if you will, the fate of Ian Tomlinson. If no independent video footage had ever become available we’d probably believe an entirely different story from what we now know.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Speak for yourself. I was around for the Blair Peach incident and its fall-out.


    Right, so what does it all mean to you? For me it shows that you have to be careful when presented with the ‘official’ version of facts/events. All may not be exactly as it seems. The same applies to climate science, a critical eye is essential. Instead of approving everything presented some digging would be prudent. Justification for the invasion of Iraq is another good example; you even started a thread on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    @Rocky: doubtless that will be entertaining for those of us who don't have you on ignore..


    Quote Originally Posted by Cruella View Post
    You're talking to yourself, he has you on ignore. He only sees the bit's others quote.


    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    I have Rocky on ignore, I have no idea what he says (except when he's quoted). There are very good reasons for this, anyone can search the forum for the post which made me take that decision.


    Quote Originally Posted by Rocky View Post
    BTW, could someone please copy this post in it's entirety as BS won't see it otherwise. Thanks


    Sorry Rocky, much as I’m tempted to, this situation is not only farcical, but also rather sad.

    Barry; Rocky is a major contributor to this thread and has uncovered some good information and posted it in this thread for all that have been willing to read it. If you want to get the most out of this discussion please can you forgive-and-forget? I’m sure Rocky won’t repeat whatever it was that caused you so much grief in the past. Please, let’s just enjoy having a lively discussion here.

    Right, I’ll be off now. For the reasons above I might not post much more in this thread unless the discussion/interaction improves, or, something really big comes up.

    Thanks to everyone who’s posted.

  9. #129
    Registered User stewart38's Avatar
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    The funny thing with this thread its developing in to who can google the best

    When Shepman talked about melting artic ice , I suggested did he have a clue about artic ice its extent background or anything else.

    His response was a -ve rep The point was he didnt have a clue and then got angry.

    Its turning into my dad can beat your dad contest.

    NOBODY know whats going to happen in the next 20 years. The thread was 'have climate change camp had their fun'.

    The answer is yes , the media circus is coming to an end

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Experiments in schools and experiments in research are worlds apart. Scientific experiments in schools deliberately employ well understood phenomena. Typically the experiment yields data that gives a simple, linear, ‘straight line’ relationship. At more advanced levels the outcome and theory is still well known but there may be a non-linear relationship, perhaps Log or Ln.
    Are you saying you didn't do experiments with complex relationships in school science? Only straight lines? Boy.

    You are picking on the detail and avoiding the overall picture. The fact is that part of the process of interpreting data is being able to identify what data is good, what bad, and what could be either - dependent on unknown factors. Leaving some data out is not sneaky; it's how it's done.

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Take the tree-ring data. They tried to construct a model that takes tree-ring measurements as an input and gives predicted temperature as an output. Once they had constructed their model they tried to verify it by feeding it tree-ring data and checking that the temperature data it generated matched 200 years of ‘real’ temperature records. But they hit a snag

    Damn and Blast! The model gives unreliable/incorrect temperature predictions if the inputs are from tree-rings from 1960 onwards. So; what did they do? Develop a better model that fitted all the data? Not as far as I can see they didn’t.
    The tree-ring data is problematic. But not for the reason you state. The tree ring data in the most recent decades is anomalous. There are two things that follow from that. First, someone should be trying to work out why. (Someone is.) Second, the tree ring data which is not anomalous can still be used in climate research for appropriate purposes, whilst acknowledging that anomalous data exists (until the anomaly is accounted for).

    This is what's happening. (Damn, I didn't want to get bogged down in specifics; this is like the evolutionary biologists having to deal with the same non-science arguments from creationists. Somebody - I forget who, apologies to him - calls these arguments 'zombie arguments'. This is because they are impossible to kill - every time you think you have one nailed, having finally demonstrated that it is nonsense - it pops up again on the next creationist blog...)

    Tree ring data is acknowledged to give good information as to cold vs. warm years; warm years see more growth, cold years see less growth. Recently, there seems to be some evidence of decoupling in restricted ecologies. Research is being carried out to determine why. The vast majority of current data is still supporting the main thesis: tight rings/cold, spread rings/warm.

    To suggest that the CRU is the sole guardian of the information that this anomaly exists, and therefore that decisions taken there to set the anomalous data to one side are of anything other than peripheral importance to all the climate research, is what makes this is a zombie argument.

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    I think it probably started off as a situation where a handful of ‘reputable’ academics published a handful of bad papers.
    I think it probably didn't start off like that. Now we're at a stalemate. I've countered your statement with an equally authoritative statement of my own.

    Cite your evidence.

    It's becoming more and more likely, based on the way you structure them, that your arguments are not good arguments, but constitute merely rationalisations for a view which you hold despite an absence of good reasons for doing so.

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Scientists must initially take the published work of others at face value. If their own results then show a significant deviation they may have trouble getting their results published. See my other comments on this above and also my comments on the likely number of ‘scientists’ working on climate change.
    Where is your evidence to support the assertion in the second sentence of that quote?

    You are making an extraordinary claim; it appears to be something like this: "the real research and the real data contradicts the theory of anthropogenic global warming but despite the fact that the theory is 30 years old none (or no significant amounts of) the contradictory research and data are being published because everyone is scared of a few 'reputable' scientists". Well for that you need good hard evidence. A few 'what if's and 'I think what happened's do not fit the bill.

    Let's have your friend's information on the database he/she did actually search. If we are going to have detailed discussions on such things, the background information is crucial. I gave you all the information as to what I searched and how I structured the search. Your response was 'my friend said...' Sheesh.

    I will bet you a chocolate cake that there are more than 2000 scientists worldwide who have, in the last 10 years, been involved in research into global warming. (They may not be full time climatologists.)

    Wikipedia lists 6 journals with the word 'climate' in the name; there are a further 36 classed as 'atmospheric science' journals and a further13 as 'oceanography'.

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Barry; Rocky is a major contributor to this thread and has uncovered some good information and posted it in this thread for all that have been willing to read it. If you want to get the most out of this discussion please can you forgive-and-forget? I’m sure Rocky won’t repeat whatever it was that caused you so much grief in the past.
    Rocky almost certainly has a cast-iron option of getting his posts read by me (instead of whining for somebody else to interfere in the operation of the Ignore feature. Forgiving and forgetting usually comes after a handsome apology. (Not always, however.)

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post
    The funny thing with this thread its developing in to who can google the best

    When Shepman talked about melting artic ice , I suggested did he have a clue about artic ice its extent background or anything else.

    His response was a -ve rep The point was he didnt have a clue and then got angry.
    Not wanting to second guess him, but I would suspect he acted this way because, whether or not you intended this, your post came across as being needlessly rude.

  16. #136
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat View Post
    Not wanting to second guess him, but I would suspect he acted this way because, whether or not you intended this, your post came across as being needlessly rude.
    The problem is that you have people like that and BS who PAINFULLY hasnt a clue what he is talking about still rant on.

    Time to get the Taxi me thinks.

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post
    The problem is that you have people like that and BS who PAINFULLY hasnt a clue what he is talking about still rant on.
    If you are able to demonstrate that you yourself do, I would be more inclined to accept that judgement.

    Regardless, my point is that if you had expressed your opinion more politely, it would probably have not received the reaction that it did.

  18. #138
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    I really dont have the time to add much more to this thread. I have read some of the links posted, then read the counterarguments on other sites which seem to put them down quite well but havent had time to sit down and really think them through.

    One thing i would say is that there a lot more dating techniques than simply tree rings or ice cores. You can take cores from lakes or oceans that can give info on the plants and animals that lived there. This can both suggest the climate of the place from the animals that were living there and in the case of a kind of shellfish called formainifera, the make-up of their shells can give you an idea of temperature too. You can investigate stalactites and stalagmites to see when they were growing. This gives information on temperatures, both from the gases contained within and the timing of their growth - some exist in places where glaciation occurred and they wouldnt grow when there was no water coming down from the surface due to glaciation or frozen ground. You can use glacial deposits, these give you data on how far advanced certain glaciers were at different time intervals. You can look at ancient sand dunes to get information on aridity and you can look at the direction that they point in to try and get some feel for the wind direction.

    All of these techniques have potential problems as they rely on assumptions. In some cases there may be several possible reasons for a change. A simple case of this is glaciers. Glacial advance could be due to decreased temperatures meaning a decrease in the height at which snow survives the summer, or increased precipitation meaning that more snow falls in the areas that have year-round snow. Or it could mean that there is more precip in the winter giving more snow and less in the summer giving less rain despite an overall increase in temperature. The melting of Kilimanjaro's glacier is an example along these lines - its rapid decrease seems due to decreased precipitation rather than increased temperature.

    Lake cores dont necessarily give a full picture of the climate since among other things pollen data gives more info on what is happening during the growing season than in the non-growing season. Also in more recent times you have to consider the effects of humans chopping down trees or causing fires - some lake cores in australia for instance seem to show a sudden increase in forest fires tens of thousands of years ago, which has been put down to humans arriving.

    All of the other data methods contain assumptions too. However, on occasions when these methods show pretty much the same picture then i think you can say that you think you know what was happening at that time. I suppose going back to the murder analogy, person A may be murdered and person B might have been known to hate them. By itself this does not prove anything even if researchers say that the person who did the murder was likely to have a similar view to person B. However, if person B was the last person seen with person A, had the murder weapon and was seen walking away with blood on them then i think that our view would change


    The way i see it, real global action will only happen when/if the effects of global warming really start to hurt regardless of predictions now anyway so maybe world leaders would be better off concentrating their eco attentions on safeguarding current environments as much as possible.

  19. #139
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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubble View Post
    Right, I’ll be off now. For the reasons above I might not post much more in this thread unless the discussion/interaction improves, or, something really big comes up.

    Thanks to everyone who’s posted.
    Me too... If people aren't prepared to accept direct evidence of the IPCC's manipulation and falsification of data from scientists who were actually on the original panel or have been approached by them, then there's really not much more to be said.

    And pro-AGW debaters say that the anti AGW contingent are blinkered...

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Rocky almost certainly has a cast-iron option of getting his posts read by me (instead of whining for somebody else to interfere in the operation of the Ignore feature. Forgiving and forgetting usually comes after a handsome apology. (Not always, however.)
    Hell's more likely to freeze over... oh, but wait it can't can it 'cos apparently we're all facing Global Warming meltdown..

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    Re: Have the climate change camp had their fun?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Rocky almost certainly has a cast-iron option of getting his posts read by me (instead of whining for somebody else to interfere in the operation of the Ignore feature. Forgiving and forgetting usually comes after a handsome apology. (Not always, however.)
    So what we have is you replying to a thread where you have some of the info, but not all.

    So we can discount your input.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jhutch View Post
    I really dont have the time to add much more to this thread. I have read some of the links posted, then read the counterarguments on other sites which seem to put them down quite well but havent had time to sit down and really think them through........
    So again, no need to read any more...

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