Tim Blair picks up a New Scientist story about how weather and climate forecasts aren’t looking so solid:
Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world’s top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.
It seems there’s one forecast that Mojib Latif was spot on about, though:
“People will say this is global warming disappearing,” he told more than 1500 of the world’s top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN’s World Climate Conference.
Some of Tim’s commenters certainly read it that way. The Australian seems like it takes a similar view:
Those sneering at Fielding because of his position on climate change may be disturbed by a report by Fred Pearce in New Scientist on September 4
But if you read the article it becomes clear that Latif is not arguing against global warming (“I am not one of the sceptics”, he says). Instead, he is suggesting that short- and medium-term phenomena will override the long-term effect of global warming at times; a position not so different from the authors I discussed here, whose work was also distorted into an anti-global warming argument.
Blair even helpfully bolds certain phrases to emphasise the points that help his “argument”, like this:
Another favourite climate nostrum was upturned when [UK Met Office representative Vicki] Pope warned that the dramatic Arctic ice loss in recent summers was partly a product of natural cycles rather than global warming. Preliminary reports suggest there has been much less melting this year than in 2007 or 2008.
Again, the fact that the recent low levels of Arctic sea ice extent are “partly a product of natural cycles” doesn’t even imply, let alone establish, that global warming is not causing a long-term trend in sea ice decline. The latest update from the National Snow and Ice Data Center confirms that the August 2009 sea ice extent was higher than the previous two years, but also notes that:
Arctic sea ice extent for August 2009 was the third lowest August since 1978, continuing the downward trend observed over the last three decades. Only 2007 and 2008 had lower ice extent during August. The long-term trend indicates a decline of 8.7% per decade in August ice extent since 1979.
The scientific debate is focused on improving our understanding (and prediction) of how much effect human greenhouse gas emissions will have on climate, and how to account for other weather and climate factors. But every time that debate is reported in the media, it is hijacked in an attempt to deny the effect is happening at all.
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The scientific debate is focused on improving our understanding (and prediction) of how much effect human greenhouse gas emissions will have on climate, and how to account for other weather and climate factors. But every time that debate is reported in the media, it is hijacked in an attempt to deny the effect is happening at all.
I’m reminded of how the media is trying to get a *debate* going about the stimulus windback. no credible economist or business leader is musing about such a thing, yet apparently there is this debate going on (somewhere) about how the economy doesn’t need any more propping up.
Just like with AGW: no credible climate scientist is arguing there is no need for action on climate change, but there is this fringe minority claiming the greenhouse effect isn’t real, which sections of the MSM have taken to mean there is still genuine *debate* over AGW.
I love the way one scientist pops up with a different take on AGW, and he is of course to be believed implicitly according to the Blairoids, but the other 45,000 AGW scientists are all just scammin’ and after Gummint grant money.
I wonder what other parts of science these folks question. Basic physics? Astronomy? Chemistry? How do they think their little computer communicates with all the other pooters, via two tin cans with a string between them?
Bertus, Bolt has made a fool of himself many times on the subject of astronomy in relation to AGW. Here’s a typical example. (My responses are under the name of ‘willt’).
Off topic but this Mojib Latif may be right (he’s not the first to make the point); now also they’ve discovered another huge oil reserve under (I think) the Gulf of Mexico – 36,000 feet down, the same distance into the earth that a jumbo jet flies above it. And they think there may well be other huge reserves down that deep.
This in many ways is the worst thing that could happen, in both cases. IMO, we should be developing sustainable technology NOW, while conditions are relatively benign. It really doesn’t matter whether The Crunch comes in 20 years or in 200 years (might matter to us individually I suppose, but it doesn’t matter at all to the species). Unless you completely believe in fairytales, the Crunch will come. All we are doing is delaying the moment of impact, handing the calamity to future generations, who will be less prepared and have more problems on their plate. What will they think of us?
Bertus @ 2–
I love the way one scientist pops up with a different take on AGW, and he is of course to be believed implicitly according to the Blairoids, but the other 45,000 AGW scientists are all just scammin’ and after Gummint grant money.
Ah, because even though often commentators on the subject may not have any formal training or experience in climate change science, they all implicitly understand the importance of publication bias?
(But even then, I’d suggest that cooling isn’t exactly confirming a null hypothesis of no temperature change, but it depends on what commentators think the null hypothesis is. And if they’re looking for climate change or global warming.)
No, not publication bias. Confirmation bias is much more apt to describe tim and his sheep’s interpretation of science because it is imminently provable.
Unless you can prove that journals are only publishing scientific modelling *sympathetic* to AGW (which i know you can’t because I can think of several outside that category just off the top of my head), I wouldn’t be bandying that term around quite so loosely. Seeing conspiracy theories in scientific process is the terrain of the loony delusionists.
Ah, but Confessions, they believe that it is publication bias more than it being confirmation bias. This perceived publication bias means that it is a conspiracy of scientists who don’t want to truth about global warming to come out. It also lends a more noble aspect to what they’re doing: they’re righting the biases of academia, ie. not them.
Confirmation bias, however, moves the critical gaze to the commentators, as it means they’re the ones with the faulty logic. And you can’t have that! They’re trying to reveal the truth!
Seeing conspiracy theories in scientific process is the terrain of the loony delusionists.
No, seeing conspiracy theories in the scientific process is the terrain of those who don’t understand how scientific method works. If you mistake ‘global warming is a lie’ articles being knocked back as proof of an agenda, instead of the article itself being scientifically dodgy, then it is easy to fall into that trap.
(I should have said perceived publication bias before, sorry.)