176 replies to this topic

[Little Fish]

shaddow134, on 02 March 2013 - 03:08 AM, said:

http://phys.org/news...mped-earth.html

Is it possible for Mother Nature to balance things out or will she just be overwhelmed in the end ?

that study is based on a climate model simulation, it's largely conjecture.
at least they appear to admit there has been no global warming for the last 17 years.

[Doug1o29]

Little Fish, on 02 March 2013 - 10:52 AM, said:

the poll is skewed to illicit a yes vote, but this is what i have come to expect from the alarmists.

You say you are not flame-baiting and posting insults, but you use the word "alarmists."  Some people find that insulting.  How would you feel if I called the denialists "idiots"?

If you don't want to collect insults, please quit handing them out.
Doug

Edited by Doug1o29, 02 March 2013 - 04:02 PM.

[Frank Merton]

I think "alarmist" is a descriptive word, and not an insult, but "idiot" is something else.  I would rather like being an "alarmist" like, say, Paul Revere.

[Little Fish]

Doug1o29, on 02 March 2013 - 04:02 PM, said:

You say you are not flame-baiting and posting insults, but you use the word "alarmists."  Some people find that insulting.  How would you feel if I called the denialists "idiots"?

If you don't want to collect insults, please quit handing them out.

alarmist is not a pejorative, you seem to be ok with the word "denialist" which is a pejorative, as is "idiot".

what word would you prefer instead of "alarmist" as a shortcut to "the position of those that think agw is a problem"?

the vast majority of the abuse comes from the side that takes the position of those that think agw is a problem - it doesn't quite roll of the tongue does it.

[Doug1o29]

Little Fish, on 02 March 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

alarmist is not a pejorative, you seem to be ok with the word "denialist" which is a pejorative, as is "idiot".

what word would you prefer instead of "alarmist" as a shortcut to "the position of those that think agw is a problem"?

the vast majority of the abuse comes from the side that takes the position of those that think agw is a problem - it doesn't quite roll of the tongue does it.

I think I see one of our problems:  we don't speak the same language.

There are a few alarmists out there - people who are terrified of climate change without understanding what the possibilities are, someone who is out of touch with the science, someone who believes in climate change as a "religion," as you would say, without knowing what they're talking about, often with connotations of "nut job."

A denialist is somebody on the opposite end of the spectrum, somebody who thinks climate change isn't happening, but bases their beliefs on pseudo-science, especially on stuff put out by people who are being paid by polluters to misrepresent the science and mislead the public.  Again, the term carries connotations of "nut job."  Both terms are pejorative.

I have used the term "denialist" simply for lack of a better term.  Can you suggest one?  What's a word for someone who honestly believes that the climate isn't changing and honestly believes he has something to support his views?

But there are plenty of sober scientists who study one aspect or another of climate change, who base their understanding on solid research.  Every week somebody in my department presents a lecture on what they're doing.  Last week's lecture was on the effects of climage change on long-eared bats; this week's is on changes in winter storm patterns.

And there are legitimate differences of opinion within the scientific community.  Just how warm was the Medieval Warm Period? These are being amplified by opponents of regulation to leave the public with the impression that the science isn't settled.


One thing that very much annoys me is when someone is presented with references to peer-reviewed papers that explain things like human-causes of global warming and refuse even to look them up, when someone continues to demand "proof" even after good evidence has been given to them.  Such actions indicate a naivete in regard to science, which never "proves" anything in the deductive sense.  As I noted above, writing a comprehensive study just so some denialist (I mean that pejoratively.) can trash it is something no scientist is going to do.

But a literature review is another thing.  If you want to know where the research on human causes of global warming stands at the moment, I suggest looking up some literature reviews.  Because this is a huge subject, each review will deal with a portion of the topic, such as the affects of climate change on human health, or CO2 releases from different tillage systems, or the physics and/or chemistry of carbon, or how ice storms affect trees, or changes in isostatic sea level, or the shift of "Tornado Alley" to "Dixie Lane."

If you want to learn something about global warming, so we can discuss real issues, I'll be glad to help.  And if you can produce some scientific research that refines some aspect of warming, I'll be glad to read it and comment.

But this mindless bickering based on nothing but hot air, flame-baiting and insults is leading us nowhere.  How about it?  Shall we bury the hatchet?
Doug

[Little Fish]

Doug1o29, on 01 March 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

I note that in both graphs, the greatest number and intensity of severe storms occurred during periods of greatest increase in global temps.  Both seem to be related to the DERIVATIVE of temperature, rather than to temperature itself.  

no, that doesn't look right to me, there is no correlation between the peaks in the storm intensity graph below and the rate of change of temperature. the main peaks that stand out in the storm intensity data are 1973, 1993-4, 1998, 2006



1993-4 and 2006 do not stand out as temperature increase peaks:
http://www.woodfortr...om:1972/to:2013


similarly with number of storms, the peaks that stand out are 86,91,93,94-95, 97


again, there is no correlation between temperature upticks in 86, 93, 94-95
http://www.woodfortr...om:1978/to:2013

Quote

What would that mean? When the rate of warming increases again, the number of severe storms will go up.  These make a good case for severe storms being related to warming.  And that begs the next set of graphs showing the relationship between storm numbers and intensity and the RATE of warming.  How about posting them?

it's not for me to go digging to support or disprove your contentions, however you can see from the temperature graphs your contentions are not true. those who assert have the burden of proof. if you think you have graphs to support your contention then post them.

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I also note that in my own research involving storms in the interior of North America, the number of SMALL storms has increased significantly since 1965, while the number of SEVERE storms has actually fallen off, particularly large winter storms.  The total amount of energy in the system has increased.

this is an appeal to your own authority, show a peer reviewed paper that claims the total storm energy has increased.

Quote

Showing just large storms is cherry-picking the data; although, I doubt you were aware of doing it.  I suspect that the source you are using didn't show the small storms.

the data is for all hurricanes globally and the ACE index which measures the total storm energy
http://en.wikipedia...._cyclone_energy

if you have something which shows your contentions then show it, otherwise you are appealing to the invisible and conjecture, furthermore, "small storms" is a subjective term, how small do you go before it becomes irrelevant, what matters to people are large storms, not small ones.

the data shows the perception that storms and hurricanes are getting worse is wrong.

Edited by Little Fish, 03 March 2013 - 12:01 PM.

[Doug1o29]

Little Fish, on 03 March 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

no, that doesn't look right to me, there is no correlation between the peaks in the storm intensity graph below and the rate of change of temperature. the main peaks that stand out in the storm intensity data are 1973, 1993-4, 1998, 2006

Interesting choice of years.  The operative word here is DERIVATIVE.  The temperature change in 1992/1993 was +0.19 degrees C.  In 1992/1993 it was zero, but in 1993/1994 it was +0.09 degrees C.  In 1997/1998 it was +0.20 degrees and in 2005/2006 it was -0.06 degrees (The following year it was +0.07 degrees.).  With the exception of 2006, which may be nothing more than a misalignment of the graph, these are all pretty high rates.  These numbers are the amount by which globally averaged mean temperatures rose or fell over the course of the year, not the temps, themselves.  I'd want to check it out in more detail before I went much farther, but you may be on to something.  There does seem to be a link.

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1993-4 and 2006 do not stand out as temperature increase peaks:
http://www.woodfortr...om:1972/to:2013

The link does not have a label, so I'm not sure exactly what it is showing, but it seems to be a chart of globally averaged mean temperatures, not globally-averaged mean temperature CHANGES.  What I think I'm seeing is a link between storm number and temperature CHANGE.

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similarly with number of storms, the peaks that stand out are 86,91,93,94-95, 97

The temperature changes for those years are:
1985/1986:  +0.09 degrees
1990/1991:  +0.01 degrees (nothing unusual about that)
1992/1993:  0.00 degrees (nothing unusal about that, either)
1993/1994:  +0.09 degrees
1994/1995:  +0.16 degrees
1996/1997:  +0.10 degrees

Quote

again, there is no correlation between temperature upticks in 86, 93, 94-95
http://www.woodfortr...om:1978/to:2013

Be careful of the word "correlation."  It has a very precise meaning.  And I have all the statistical programs I need to check it out myself.  The hard part is getting the data from a printed form to a digital form so the machine can read it (I've been having some trouble with the import function.).

Quote

it's not for me to go digging to support or disprove your contentions, however you can see from the temperature graphs your contentions are not true. those who assert have the burden of proof. if you think you have graphs to support your contention then post them.

If you're interested in furthering your own education, you will need to do some digging, either to support your contentions, or to refute mine.  Screaming "does not," does not further either side.

Quote

this is an appeal to your own authority, show a peer reviewed paper that claims the total storm energy has increased.

How about that?  You will have to wait until it comes out, but I have just had an extended abstract accepted by the 17th Biennial Southern Silviculturists Convention for inclusion in their proceedings.  It is a history of severe winter storms on the Ouachita National Forest since 1745.  There has been a decrease in the number of severe storms in the last thirty years.  The paper has already been peer-reviewed.  And nobody else has a record that extensive or that far back for that region.  I AM the authority.

I also have two unpublished manuscripts which I will be submitting to the "Bulletin of Tree Ring Research" within the next two or three months.  The first is a shortleaf pine chronology of the Ouachita and the second is a description of the process used in identifying severe storms in tree ring data.  I also have another dozen winter weather chronologies for that area, one of which goes back to 1667 (There's a not-real-reliable one going back to 1649.).  These calendars are more-accurate and more complete than those available from the National Weather Service or NCDC.  If anyone wants one, PM me with the name of a town in west-central Arkansas and I'll send you a copy of the nearest calendar (It's in EXCEL.).

Quote

the data is for all hurricanes globally and the ACE index which measures the total storm energy
http://en.wikipedia...._cyclone_energy

If you want peer-reviewed research, don't bother with Wikipedia.  Their stuff isn't peer-reviewed.  It's a good place to start looking, but you woiuldn't want to be caught using it as a source in a technical paper.

Quote

if you have something which shows your contentions then show it, otherwise you are appealing to the invisible and conjecture, furthermore, "small storms" is a subjective term, how small do you go before it becomes irrelevant, what matters to people are large storms, not small ones.

I used barometric pressure to indicate a storm.  I divided the pressure readings into percentiles (5% increment) and ran a schedule for each.  Using those tables you can define "small" for yourself (Same with "large" or any other category you feel like using.  Data is for Ft. Smith, Arkansas because no closer station has barometric readings going back very far.  PM me; I'll be glad to email you a copy.

Quote

the data shows the perception that storms and hurricanes are getting worse is wrong.

I am not debating that.  What I am saying is that there's a link bewteen temperature change and number of storms shown on your graph.  Send me the data used in making those graphs (actual storm counts, not pictures) and I'll run the analysis and post it here.

I will be gone for most of the week, beginning Monday.  I'll have to run it next week.
Doug

Edited by Doug1o29, 03 March 2013 - 08:02 PM.

[Br Cornelius]

Doug1o29, on 01 March 2013 - 01:51 PM, said:

Chill out, Bro.  This is UM!  Insults and flame baiting are a standard part of the "debating" strategy here:  make the other guy mad so he quits thinking.  I've been on sites where the kind of stuff you see here would get one banned for life.  The tactic worked quite well on me until I figured out what was going on.

Little Fish is not interested in what is actually happening with climate.  Her entire thing is antagonizing people.  All you have to do is refuse to take the bait.  I know it's sometimes tough and sometimes I still fall into the trap.

Face it:  nothing you can do, say or post are going to make a believer out of Little Fish.  Facts are irrelevant to her.
Doug

Thanks Doug.
I have stepped back from this because your assessment is spot on and I did loss my cool.

I think you are wrong in your assessment of Little Fish, he believes what he say to the extent that he cannot be objective about the validity of evidence and will deny anything which contradicts his bigger narrative arc. I genuinely think Little Fish has a very delusional view of the world and that is why evidence is wasted on him and why my time is wasted here.

Br Cornelius

Edited by Br Cornelius, 03 March 2013 - 08:51 PM.

[Doug1o29]

Br Cornelius, on 03 March 2013 - 08:51 PM, said:

Thanks Doug.
I have stepped back from this because your assessment is spot on and I did loss my cool.

I think you are wrong in your assessment of Little Fish, he believes what he say to the extent that he cannot be objective about the validity of evidence and will deny anything which contradicts his bigger narrative arc. I genuinely think Little Fish has a very delusional view of the world and that is why evidence is wasted on him and why my time is wasted here.

Br Cornelius

Thanks.

Maybe I'm wrong about Little Fish.  At any rate, I'm going to try to tone down the antagonism and see if we can carry out a constructive discussion.

That meeting I told you about went quite well.  I listened to one of Mann's lectures, then met with him for a brief discussion.  We had dinner together afterward, along with about 30 other people.  Mann and I are not collaborating on the papers in Post 157, but we are keeping open the possibility of working together on a future project (I'm thinking about a regionally standardized shortleaf pine chronology for the Ouachita.  I am sort of thinking about trying a temperature-change study using it, but I've heard that's not easy to do with shortleaf pine.  There's also a loblolly chronology based on some sawlogs we found in an old pond.  They're branded with the brand of a lumber company that went out of business in 1910, so they've been down there awhile.  One problem, though:  the guy who found them put them up on the bank to dry out and they all got dry rot.  If I figure out how to solve this problem, I may get a paper out of that, forget the chronology.

At any rate, I have a meeting this week and will be gone until next Monday.  Have fun.
Doug

[Little Fish]

Doug1o29, on 03 March 2013 - 07:58 PM, said:

Interesting choice of years.  The operative word here is DERIVATIVE.

that is what i was referring to - the rate of change of temperature, not the absolute temperature, please don't pretend otherwise.

"The temperature change in 1992/1993 was +0.19 degrees C.  In 1992/1993 it was zero, but in 1993/1994 it was +0.09 degrees C.  In 1997/1998 it was +0.20 degrees and in 2005/2006 it was -0.06 degrees (The following year it was +0.07 degrees.).  With the exception of 2006, which may be nothing more than a misalignment of the graph, these are all pretty high rates.  These numbers are the amount by which globally averaged mean temperatures rose or fell over the course of the year, not the temps, themselves.  I'd want to check it out in more detail before I went much farther"
you have provided no reference or context to those numbers, so no one can verify anything.
the graphs i gave you are the ones the ipcc use - hadcru3 and one can easily see where the main upticks are, and can see there is no obvious correlation.

"There does seem to be a link."
no there is no link. the storm data is from ryan maue. if you contact him as i did he'll tell you the same - there is no anthropomorphic signal in the storm data. if you think you have found a link, then get it published or write a response to Maue et al, but i seriously doubt he or his reviewers overlooked something as simple as temperature rate of change (deriviative).

"The link does not have a label"
yes it does, it is hadley cru3, which is used by the ipcc

"so I'm not sure exactly what it is showing, but it seems to be a chart of globally averaged mean temperatures, not globally-averaged mean temperature CHANGES.  What I think I'm seeing is a link between storm number and temperature CHANGE."
I WAS referring to rate of change of temperature, and no there is no link between storms and global warming as i demonstrated with peer reviewed published paper in the previous post.

"Be careful of the word "correlation."  It has a very precise meaning."
yes i know what it means-  there is obviously very little correlation between rate of change of temperature and storm intensity/number of storms, which is as good as none.

"If you're interested in furthering your own education, you will need to do some digging, either to support your contentions, or to refute mine.  Screaming "does not," does not further either side."
I did not scream "does not". if you claim something, then you show the evidence in the peer reviewed literature.

"I have just had an extended abstract accepted by the..."
this tells us nothing about global storms.

"I AM the authority."
and yet you don't show the evidence or even recognise the graphs as coming from Maue et al. authority is not science.

"If you want peer-reviewed research, don't bother with Wikipedia."
i did not use wikipedia for peer reviewed literature, i used wikipedia so you could grasp that i was talking about the ACE index, you seemed to be confused since you were under the impression that I was only showing number of hurricanes.
the storm graphs are from ryan maue's peer reviewed and published paper, not wikipedia as you imply.

"What I am saying is that there's a link bewteen temperature change and number of storms shown on your graph."
saying is not showing.

[Little Fish]

Doug1o29, on 03 March 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

I listened to one of Mann's lectures, then met with him for a brief discussion.

was it this one where he was hiding the decline again?
http://climateaudit....ikes-agu-trick/

did you ask him why he chopped off the last 8 years of temperature data?

Edited by Little Fish, 03 March 2013 - 11:53 PM.

[Little Fish]

Br Cornelius, on 03 March 2013 - 08:51 PM, said:

I think you are wrong in your assessment of Little Fish, he believes what he say to the extent that he cannot be objective about the validity of evidence

you did not show any evidence.

"I genuinely think Little Fish has a very delusional view of the world and that is why evidence is wasted on him and why my time is wasted here."
and your mum smells of wee and buys scratchcards in her slippers with her welfare check...but what about the evidence for dangerous AGW?

[BFB]

Little Fish, on 04 March 2013 - 01:12 AM, said:

you did not show any evidence.

"I genuinely think Little Fish has a very delusional view of the world and that is why evidence is wasted on him and why my time is wasted here."
and your mum smells of wee and buys scratchcards in her slippers with her welfare check...but what about the evidence for dangerous AGW?

It would be a very hard task to come up with evidence for dangerous AGW given at the current state GW is not dangerous for us humans.

The only thing we can do is to use our logic and predict what might happen. If you want peer-reviewed paper's on what might happen in decades time it would be possible to deliver some to you.

[Doug1o29]

Little Fish, on 03 March 2013 - 11:44 PM, said:

that is what i was referring to - the rate of change of temperature, not the absolute temperature, please don't pretend otherwise.

Sorry about the mistake.  Let's try to tone down the hostility or we'll never get anywhere with this.

Quote

you have provided no reference or context to those numbers, so no one can verify anything.
the graphs i gave you are the ones the ipcc use - hadcru3 and one can easily see where the main upticks are, and can see there is no obvious correlation.

The data I used came from the NCDC list of globally averaged temperature anomalies.  The Hadcrut3 shows much the same thing.

Quote

"There does seem to be a link."
no there is no link. the storm data is from ryan maue. if you contact him as i did he'll tell you the same - there is no anthropomorphic signal in the storm data. if you think you have found a link, then get it published or write a response to Maue et al, but i seriously doubt he or his reviewers overlooked something as simple as temperature rate of change (deriviative).

Please provide his address.  You don't seem to undertsand that the purpose of a reference is to HELP THE READER find your source.
Like I said, I will run the stats and post them here.  You can then decide for yourself how good those links are or aren't.  Neither of us can tell just by looking at a graph.

And while you're at it:  did MAUE say there was no link between rate of change and storm numbers, or is this an invention of yours?

Quote

"The link does not have a label"
yes it does, it is hadley cru3, which is used by the ipcc

But that label does not tell exactly what the dataset is.  I had to assume that it was temperatues.  And BTW, those are not the same as the rate of temperature change.  That chart was irrelevant to your contention.

Quote

"Be careful of the word "correlation."  It has a very precise meaning."
yes i know what it means-  there is obviously very little correlation between rate of change of temperature and storm intensity/number of storms, which is as good as none.

I'm sorry.  I must have missed where you posted the correlation coefficient.  What was it?

Without posting the numbers that back your your claims, you have nothing.  And without the dataset they're based on, you have given me no way to check your work.  In short, you are providing no support for your claim.

Quote

"If you're interested in furthering your own education, you will need to do some digging, either to support your contentions, or to refute mine.  Screaming "does not," does not further either side."
I did not scream "does not". if you claim something, then you show the evidence in the peer reviewed literature.

Your choice.  But if you even want to learn about climate, you're going to have to do some reading.

Quote

"I have just had an extended abstract accepted by the..."
this tells us nothing about global storms.

I'm glad you recognize the difference between storm systems over the interior of a continent and global ones.  That's progress.

Quote

"I AM the authority."
and yet you don't show the evidence or even recognise the graphs as coming from Maue et al. authority is not science.

There are something like 7000 professional journals (Check the list of ones available from Elsevier and Ingenta.).  I don't even read most of them, let alone all of them.  And like I said, you'll have to wait until they publish it.  That part is out of my hands.  BUT:  I have unpublished versions of several pending papers, several of which have already been through a peer review.  I offered to make them available above and I am repeating that offer.

One does have to be careful about papers one intends to publish as there are potential copyright problems.  Example:  the journals won't print something that has appeared in a proceedings.  You don't want to preempt yourself.

Quote

"If you want peer-reviewed research, don't bother with Wikipedia."
i did not use wikipedia for peer reviewed literature, i used wikipedia so you could grasp that i was talking about the ACE index, you seemed to be confused since you were under the impression that I was only showing number of hurricanes.
the storm graphs are from ryan maue's peer reviewed and published paper, not wikipedia as you imply.

Doesn't change my comment.  Wikipedia is not a professional source.

Quote

"What I am saying is that there's a link bewteen temperature change and number of storms shown on your graph."
saying is not showing.

Applies to your post, too.

But I need the data to confirm or reject this and you didn't post it.  How about a little help here?  Only when I test the data are you demonstarted to be right, wrong, or (most likely) something in the middle.  That data IS the evidence for your contention.  Without it, your post is just hot air.
Doug

[Doug1o29]

Little Fish, on 03 March 2013 - 11:51 PM, said:

was it this one where he was hiding the decline again?

We have been over the temperature problem with the Medieval Warm Period before.  The data you are so eager to claim as accurate is based on a free-hand drawing by Lamb done many years ago.  I posted the reference in a previous thread and don't have time to look it up right now.  Mann's analysis disagreed with that, so the whole lunatic fringe (Sorry, but you haven't given me another term to use.) is up in arms.  Use your heads:  a model based on real data, even low-quality data, beats a free-hand drawing EVERY time.

Quote

did you ask him why he chopped off the last 8 years of temperature data?

My extended abstract ended in 1982.  My ice storm signature paper is based on a dataset that ended in 2007.  So why did I chop off the last five years?  Because there is no data for them.  Yes, I could go out and collect more cores, but by then it would be 2017 and I'd still be five years behind.  You analyze the datasets you have.  Sometimes you have to make a choice bewteen what's current and what's accurate.
Doug