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Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

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Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#61

Post by gjm11 »

nfnaaron wrote: post #41
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #20

I have spent some hundreds of hours listening to arguments for global warming, er Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change or AGW or ACC (or whatever the PC acronym is this week) The problem that I keep getting back to is best phrased like this: archaeological climate record extrapolation is nowhere near as sure-fire as supporters make it out to be. I have many more problems, but this one addresses the current artic…

"There's also quite a bit of ad-hominem character assassination going on, even in this piece. I find that folks who have to result to labeling and name-calling usually are insecure about their position." Yes, the amount of derision, even targeting scientists who merely hold an opposing interpretation of the data, is troubling.

Many biologists, palaeontologists, etc., apply "labeling and name-calling" to creationists; the person whose blog the original article here is posted on (not, as it happens, the author of the article itself) is a good example. I do not find it plausible that the reason for this is that those biologists are "insecure about their position".

So another explanation for the ad hominems remarked on here would seem to be: many climate scientists think that denying AGW is about as sensible as denying evolution. For what it's worth, this seems to me a more likely explanation than that they're "insecure about their position".

Incidentally, there's not exactly been a shortage of ad hominem attacks going the other way. My impression, of which I'm not particularly confident, is that the density of personal attacks on opponents is higher in the output of AGW disbelievers than in that of AGW believers.

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#62

Post by gloob »

logjam wrote: post #60
gloob wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paranoia and ad hominem don't do your argument much good.

Oh. Asking for someone to actually back up their emotional little assertions with facts, and pointing out the hypocrisy of the obvious axe-grinding which accompanies their fervent assertions that they are unbiased is...."paranoia and ad hominem". And your response was to add nothing except labeling "paranoia", right? Was that before or after you mentioned "ad hominem". Or did you, like him, have any actual science to…

emotional little assertions

The irony of your use of this phrase eludes you, evidently.

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#63

Post by waterlesscloud »

logjam wrote: post #36
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #20

I have spent some hundreds of hours listening to arguments for global warming, er Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change or AGW or ACC (or whatever the PC acronym is this week) The problem that I keep getting back to is best phrased like this: archaeological climate record extrapolation is nowhere near as sure-fire as supporters make it out to be. I have many more problems, but this one addresses the current artic…

>The problem is....archaelogical climage record extrapolation is nowhere as sure fire.... Then pray provide us with some science supporting your point. If you cannot, when you just keep bleating you are "troubled" over and over, you really look like someone just pushing an agenda without any support whatsoever. And oh, what's needed now is a "slam-dunk" on the issue. A "slam-dunk", of course, was never needed when an…

I stopped reading at the word "bleating". Everything you wrote after that was wasted. Think about that before you post again.

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#64

Post by waterlesscloud »

jellicle wrote: post #39

Watching Hacker News argue about climate change is like watching the blind argue about colors. Please stop. In general you have no idea what you are talking about. Again and again and again and again there are comments along the lines of, "I did five minutes of Googling about this issue and I've come up with a fatal flaw in climate science!" Do you really think that the tens of thousands of scientists who do their li…

Are there really 10s of thousands of scientists doing climate work? What is your source for that? It seems like a high number.

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#65

Post by waterlesscloud »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #64
jellicle wrote: post #39

Watching Hacker News argue about climate change is like watching the blind argue about colors. Please stop. In general you have no idea what you are talking about. Again and again and again and again there are comments along the lines of, "I did five minutes of Googling about this issue and I've come up with a fatal flaw in climate science!" Do you really think that the tens of thousands of scientists who do their li…

Are there really 10s of thousands of scientists doing climate work? What is your source for that? It seems like a high number.

Answering my own question, there may in fact be 10s of thousands of "climate scientists", for a very broad definition of climate scientist.

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-many-climate-scientis...

Interesting to note though, how low the number is for scientists actually working on climate change.

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#66

Post by hga »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #65
waterlesscloud wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there really 10s of thousands of scientists doing climate work? What is your source for that? It seems like a high number.

Answering my own question, there may in fact be 10s of thousands of "climate scientists", for a very broad definition of climate scientist. http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-many-climate-scientis... Interesting to note though, how low the number is for scientists actually working on climate change .

See my comment on the WSJ's enumeration of over 5 billion annually spend on this area; I know it was 1 billion not too many years ago. 100,000 per scientist if there's 50,000 of them; play around with the numbers, but "10s of thousands" feeding at this trough is not unreasonable.

There's a reason why my university's president and department's head are big boosters of AGW/CC, even though the former is a biologist and the latter a chemist.

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#67

Post by skmurphy »

logjam wrote: post #36
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #20

I have spent some hundreds of hours listening to arguments for global warming, er Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change or AGW or ACC (or whatever the PC acronym is this week) The problem that I keep getting back to is best phrased like this: archaeological climate record extrapolation is nowhere near as sure-fire as supporters make it out to be. I have many more problems, but this one addresses the current artic…

>The problem is....archaelogical climage record extrapolation is nowhere as sure fire.... Then pray provide us with some science supporting your point. If you cannot, when you just keep bleating you are "troubled" over and over, you really look like someone just pushing an agenda without any support whatsoever. And oh, what's needed now is a "slam-dunk" on the issue. A "slam-dunk", of course, was never needed when an…

Assume that Daniel is rational. If you want to reach him how about focusing on actions that he might agree to? How about:

o increasing funding for monitoring temperatures on a worldwide basis so that we can get a better handle on where we are.

o increasing funding for monitoring CO2 levels (along with other greenhouse gases) to see if can get more data about the here and now.

Certainly we will need better monitoring of both temperature and CO2 gases to understand where we are and to monitor the effectiveness of any interventions that are agreed to.

It's often more effective to work from areas where you may agree and to tell if you are having a values conflict or a disagreement over facts and competing hypotheses for explaining them.

Another way to look at this would be to ask "what would prove to you the reality of both global warming and C02 as it's cause?" Or to answer "what would prove to me that global warming is not taking place is ________" and "what would prove to me that reducing C02 would not have an impact is _______ "

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#68

Post by hga »

skmurphy wrote: post #67
logjam wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is....archaelogical climage record extrapolation is nowhere as sure fire.... Then pray provide us with some science supporting your point. If you cannot, when you just keep bleating you are "troubled" over and over, you really look like someone just pushing an agenda without any support whatsoever. And oh, what's needed now is a "slam-dunk" on the issue. A "slam-dunk", of course, was never needed when an…

Assume that Daniel is rational. If you want to reach him how about focusing on actions that he might agree to? How about: o increasing funding for monitoring temperatures on a worldwide basis so that we can get a better handle on where we are. o increasing funding for monitoring CO2 levels (along with other greenhouse gases) to see if can get more data about the here and now. Certainly we will need better monitoring…

One problem here is illustrated by this (in)famous Stalin quote:

"I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how."

(Note that inside the party there were real votes.)

E.g. we started whole earth satellite monitoring in 1979 as I recall ... but guess what NASA calibrated the raw data against. If you say "real time weather balloons" (if not the first, a later satellite took readings at various altitudes), guess again....

Re: Why climatologists used the tree-ring data ‘trick’

#70

Post by hga »

rms wrote: post #69

If AGW is a vast scientific left-wing conspiracy, I think it's diabolically brilliant. Surely everyone thinks reducing pollution and fossil fuel dependency is important, right?

How important? Look at the arguments of Bjørn Lomborg, "The Skeptical Environmentalist". He says e.g. there are far better ways to spend the world's money to improve lives than e.g. what's being proposed WRT to AGW/CC.
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