Saturday, August 01, 2015

 

97% Consensus Loon

Here's an article by John Cook which deserves an award for epistemological sleight of hand, but before I get to that, I want to discuss Mr. Cook himself. He credits himself as the author of the completely fraudulent 97% consensus study (as if evidence of scientific truth is ever contained in consensus alone). But I was interested in finding out his educational background. I have three degrees (BA, MA, JD) but none of them are in climate science or any science at all. Still, I can write about climate because of my interest, reading, study and ability to think (like a lawyer). So I'm not seeking to undercut Mr. Cook's knowledge or ability in climate science just because he doesn't have a degree in it. However, it's clear he doesn't. It's actually a little difficult to learn his actual background. There is no one spot that gives a complete picture. That's a little weird. But here is what I found out.



He graduated in 1989 from the University of Queensland with a BS (with honours) apparently in solar physics. So at least he knows the number one driver of climate here on Earth, the Sun. But now, what, 26 years after he graduated in physics, he's finishing up a PhD in cognitive psychology. Hmmm. At one time one of his employers, his alma mater, listed him as a researcher/postdoctoral fellow, but now it just says researcher. Yeah, him and 10 people with actual PhDs.One can't be postdoctoral without the doctorate. He started the Orwellian titled Skeptical Science blog and has written a lot on the subject of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Most of it is crap. Let's look at the latest article.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that humans are causing global warming. Nevertheless, a small proportion of the population continues to deny the science. This can be problematic when the small number denying climate science includes half of the U.S. Senate.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that humans are causing a so-slight-it-is-hard-to-measure increase in global temperature which is sometimes completely overwhelmed by natural temperature forcing factors so that the human caused warming is almost completely benign. There is no consensus among the climate scientists, and no evidence whatsoever, of a killer warming spiral from fossil fuel produced CO2 alone. And the small portion of the population that denies the crisis nature of the warming is well informed by scientific fact--better informed than the alarmists true believers.


Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming. This has been found independently in a number of studies, including surveys of Earth scientists, analysis of public statements about climate change and analysis of peer-reviewed scientific papers. How might one cast doubt on the overwhelming scientific consensus? One technique is the use of fake experts.

We see this in online petitions such as the Global Warming Petition Project, which features more than 31,000 scientists claiming humans aren't disrupting our climate. How can there be 97% consensus when 31,000 scientists disagree? It turns out 99.9% of the petition's signatories aren't climate scientists. They include computer scientists, mechanical engineers and medical scientists but few climate scientists. The Global Warming Petition Project is fake experts in bulk.

EvenI agree that humans are causing some global warming. It's the alleged catastrophic nature of the warming which I rightly deny. Fake experts, huh? You mean guys like Mr. Cook with no post graduate degree at all and none on which he is working in climate science? That kind of fake expert? Here is a real poll of scientists on the subject. Most climate scientists are skeptical of the IPCC AR5 report, which is the latest from alarmist central. A real scientist is always skeptical. A non-skeptic scientist is more properly called an acolyte.

These are computer simulations built from the fundamental laws of physics, and they have made many accurate predictions since the 1970s....
Some people argue that climate models are unreliable if they don't make perfect short-term predictions. However, a number of unpredictable influences such as ocean and solar cycles have short-term influences on climate. Over the long term, these effects average out, which is why climate models do so well at long-term predictions.

What is he talking about? There have been very few accurate predictions by these models (a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while) and their accuracy generally sucks. They are 97% inaccurate, mainly because the world weather system is too complex to be adequately simulated by a computer. The simulations leave out multiple real factors, the most egregious of which is clouds. Nothing can accurately predict cloud formation beyond about 48 hours. Also there have only been computer models since the late 70s at the earliest, and less than 40 years is very short term in climate science. There has no long term testing of model predictions because not enough time has elapsed since the model predictions came to exist. The 20 to 30 years of actual data versus computer prediction indicates nearly universal overestimation of warming. Climate models don't do well at either short term or long term prediction of weather.

Signs of global warming have been observed all over our planet. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are losing hundreds of billions of tons of ice every year. Global sea level is rising. Thousands of species are migrating toward cooler regions in response to warming. The ocean is building up four atomic bombs worth of heat every second.
Each of these supporting statements if completely false. Both Antarctica and Greenland have been gaining ice lately. The natural interglacial global sea rise has not increased with the warming. There is no species migration caused by warming; that's merely speculation. But the last one is the doozie. 4 atomic bombs of warming per second. What could be a more absurd measure of heat? And what is the source of this "climate fact'? Why, it's Mr. Cook himself. He made it up.

The thousands of scientists across the world who develop these temperature records are regularly accused of faking their data to inflate the global warming trend.

Yeah, because they are fraudulently changing the temperature records. See here and here. And that's the most disturbing aspect of this. Cooking the books to cause alarm. That's low.


The guy's biggest sin is conflating the benign slight warming caused by humans with the apocalyptic predictions based on inadequate computer modes. It is stupid to deny that the climate changes. It always changes. Mr. Mann erased the changes that occurred over the last 1000 years in his hockey stick chart. That's real denial. It's probably also stupid to deny that it has warmed up imperceptibly in the last 150 years. But these are different sorts of denial than denying the World is going to warm 3 degrees Celsius in the next 85, or that life on the planet is doomed just because it's a little nicer out some days. It's smart to deny that.

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2 comments. Initially, pigs have very acute senses of smell and find acorns and truffles with it. So I would rather expect that a blind pig would find an acorn most of the time.

Maybe I can no longer read a graph but if I read the first one correctly 65.9% od polled climate scientists believe by a preponderance that human activity is responsible for global temperature increases.

Tony
 
I believe that human activity is responsible for some of the recent global temperature increase. But that's not the question the answer to which would require us to change how we live our lives and what we pay for fuel and electricity. That question is: Is human activity causing a catastrophic rise in temperatures? Read the graphs for the answer to that question.

At 150 ppmv of CO2, plants wither and die. Most of Earth's history has had CO2 levels at 1000 ppmv or above. Most plants that live now evolved in the 1000 ppmv atmosphere. 280 ppmv, which is the recent level of CO2 since the Quaternary and even earlier, is a CO2 drought. If you want to green the planet, and who doesn't?, then we should raise the CO2 level back to normal and do it by the responsible use of life giving (and life improving) fossil fuels. Since CO2 has never driven the climate, the weather will be a little nicer and that's it.

The pig thing was a metaphor, not a scientific evaluation of porcine olfactory.

 
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