Climate change consensus

[sylas]

What do you mean by a "surface station"? Is there another kind?

Satellites, weather balloons, ocean temperatures (surface and depth) etc. There are various ways to look at temperature. Land surface temperature has the best long term record; using conventional (land surface) weather stations. This is often compared with TLT (temperature of the lower troposphere) as measured by satellites. It's measuring a different thing, though there's a strong correlation with surface temperature.

One really useful and important but difficult measurement is heat content of the ocean. It's not a single temperature; the ocean has a temperature profile with depth. This really measures better than anything else how much the planet as a whole is heating up. The surface temperature we experience is something of the wagging tail on the dog; flipping all over the place. The ocean steadily heats up; it has a massive heat capacity and responds much more gradually. It's where all the extra heat Earth absorbs is going. Unfortunately this doesn't have a good historical record; direct measures are still only quite a recent development.

BTW, contrary to what is often presumed, the satellite temperature record is much less reliable than the surface temperature record. The post processing of raw data required for satellites is far more complex and difficult than the post processing of raw surface temperature data (to account for TOBS, MMTS, urban development, etc etc). Satellite data processing has serious unresolved issues; different groups using the same raw data can and do obtain results that have statistically significant differences. It's all still useful scientific data, because knowing temperature profiles of the atmosphere is important in its own right.

I had heard a controversy about MMTS located near heat sources, e.g., this site:

http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm

K54

Yes, that's the group I mention above.

Cheers -- sylas

[sylas]

I assumed Anthony Watts ( http://wattsupwiththat.com ) checked out Steve Goddard's work. I am still afraid the data is somehow doctored or misleadingly presented (remember the hockey stick imbroglio?)

Watts has been critical of Goddard at times, but Watts is himself only very marginally better than Goddard; and is inclined to post all kinds of nonsense from "guest" writers at his blog without taking responsibility for quality (as well as having notoriously bad quality himself).

Not sure what "imbroglio" you mean... the "Hockey Stick" is term used to refer to the sharp increase in temperatures from last century by comparison with previous centuries. This is thoroughly well attested, and widely replicated by many research groups. People are *still* going on about one of the earliest important papers in which the hockey stick shows up, by Michael Mann and colleagues back in 1998. It was not doctored; it was not misleadingly presented. The claims of fraud and error and whatnot surrounding this are utter nonsense; the paper is mainly now of historical interest since there's lots more detailed work done since; scientifically it's just fine.

The only "imbroglio" here is a lot of really nasty, aggressive and utterly baseless accusations at working scientists. The data and the scientific work itself stands on its merits, and continues be extended, replicated, refined, etc in all the usual ways in which science is done, with the Hockey Stick shape as a consistent and robust feature of the data.

Cheers -- sylas

[klaus54]

Satellites, weather balloons, ocean temperatures (surface and depth) etc. There are various ways to look at temperature. Land surface temperature has the best long term record; using conventional (land surface) weather stations. This is often compared with TLT (temperature of the lower troposphere) as measured by satellites. It's measuring a different thing, though there's a strong correlation with surface temperature.

One really useful and important but difficult measurement is heat content of the ocean. It's not a single temperature; the ocean has a temperature profile with depth. This really measures better than anything else how much the planet as a whole is heating up. The surface temperature we experience is something of the wagging tail on the dog; flipping all over the place. The ocean steadily heats up; it has a massive heat capacity and responds much more gradually. It's where all the extra heat Earth absorbs is going. Unfortunately this doesn't have a good historical record; direct measures are still only quite a recent development.

BTW, contrary to what is often presumed, the satellite temperature record is much less reliable than the surface temperature record. The post processing of raw data required for satellites is far more complex and difficult than the post processing of raw surface temperature data (to account for TOBS, MMTS, urban development, etc etc). Satellite data processing has serious unresolved issues; different groups using the same raw data can and do obtain results that have statistically significant differences. It's all still useful scientific data, because knowing temperature profiles of the atmosphere is important in its own right.



Yes, that's the group I mention above.

Cheers -- sylas

Thanks! I had heard of those other measurement techniques. Not sure why I couldn't remember.

But is there anything to badly placed MMTS? Are those photos faked?

K54

[Truthseeker]

Watts has been critical of Goddard at times, but Watts is himself only very marginally better than Goddard; and is inclined to post all kinds of nonsense from "guest" writers at his blog without taking responsibility for quality (as well as having notoriously bad quality himself).

At least one example?

Not sure what "imbroglio" you mean... the "Hockey Stick" is term used to refer to the sharp increase in temperatures from last century by comparison with previous centuries. This is thoroughly well attested, and widely replicated by many research groups. People are *still* going on about one of the earliest important papers in which the hockey stick shows up, by Michael Mann and colleagues back in 1998. It was not doctored; it was not misleadingly presented. The claims of fraud and error and whatnot surrounding this are utter nonsense; the paper is mainly now of historical interest since there's lots more detailed work done since; scientifically it's just fine.

The only "imbroglio" here is a lot of really nasty, aggressive and utterly baseless accusations at working scientists. The data and the scientific work itself stands on its merits, and continues be extended, replicated, refined, etc in all the usual ways in which science is done, with the Hockey Stick shape as a consistent and robust feature of the data.

Watts ran a cartoon based on the "hockey stick" this week or maybe last week. I don't think the cartoon was "really nasty." Was it "utterly baseless"?

[Juvenal]

Another fall out from Anthony Watts and others' fixation with alleged problems with the surface temperature -- and particularly Richard Muller ( a much MUCH better class of skeptic)

He certainly was a skeptic at one time, but he's publicly requested a change of title.

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic

By RICHARD A. MULLER
Published: July 28, 2012

Berkeley, Calif.

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

[sylas]

Replying to two posts here:

But is there anything to badly placed MMTS? Are those photos faked?

No reason to think they are faked; some stations are indeed placed badly. The effects are usually less than you might think; but you still don't really want a weather station too close to other buildings, asphalt roadsurface, or airconditioner outlets.

At least one example?

WUWT has high volume and a lot of blog posts -- many of which are guest posts. And they are really REALLY *R*E*A*L*L*Y* bad, for the most part. I'm not linking to it; but Christopher Monckton is an occasional guest poster and absolutely guaranteed to provide bottom of the barrel stupidity every time.

Watts ran a cartoon based on the "hockey stick" this week or maybe last week. I don't think the cartoon was "really nasty." Was it "utterly baseless"?

No idea; I haven't seen it. The really nasty stuff rounding hockey stick controversy is when it gets to personal attacks; such as death threats.

Some of the other claims are not directly personal -- such as yours that there was any "doctored data". That's not what I call nasty -- just clueless, and without the slightest foundation. There are other claims being circulated that come down to various errors or confusions of real aspects of the hockey stick related work; but the "doctored data" claim is appears to be simply presuming the worst based on nothing at all whatsoever. It's not just you; I suspect you are just repeating what you've heard elsewhere.

Cheers -- sylas

[Jichard]

Since when does science depend on consensus? At one time 99.99% of geologists thought plate tectonics was kook science.

I've never understood the above sort of mentality. It's pure special pleading.

Someone has two main options for understanding science:

1. Knowing the scientific evidence. This involves reading the peer-reviewed scientific literature where the evidence is presented and discussed.
2. Trusting the consensus of reputable experts on the subject.

It's simply not possible for someone to do option for every scientific topic, especially given the specialization of science and massive explosion of scientific evidence in recent years. So much of the time, people have to do option 2.

Does this mean that "science depend(s) on consensus". Nope. Science still depends on scientific evidence, analyzed under the criteria of inference to the best explanation. But that's not too helpful here since, as I just noted, most people don't have time, capability, willingness, etc. to go over that evidence. Hence the AGW denialists who know diddly-squat about the peer-reviewed scientific evidence in support of AGW. So those people instead have to go with option 2.

In fact, everyone uses option 2 at some point. For example, most people (especially people outside the scientific community) don't read the scientific evidence on airline safety, the safety of the food they eat, the materials that make up their buildings, etc. Instead, they just trust the consensus of scientific experts on those topics, where that consensus vetted those airplanes, food, materials, etc. before they went to the public. Similarly, very few people know how to, for example, figure out where a certain star will be in the sky on certain day. But they do trust the consensus of astronomers regarding where that star will be. And people are justified in doing this since that consensus is reached via a reliable (though not perfect) process, a process that includes peer-review. Same point for trusting the consensus climatologists on AGW.

So that leaves you with a dilemma: either trust the scientific consensus on AGW or don't trust it. If you don't trust it, then provide a reason why you don't trust it. Otherwise, you're engaged in special pleading if you then trust the scientific consensus on other topics you're not informed on [informed on by means of option 1], such as the safety of the food you eat, the motion of celestial bodies, and so on. And if you don't trust the consensus, then have fun pursuing option 1, with all the hard work it entails.

[By the way: I've pursued option 1 for AGW. ]

[Jichard]

Why is this article wrong?

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

It isn't wrong. It's in line with a lot of previous scientific research on the AGW consensus.

[jordanriver]

So that leaves you with a dilemma: either trust the scientific consensus on AGW or don't trust it. If you don't trust it, then provide a reason why you don't trust it. ]

capitalism.

money

.....IOW, the same reason not to trust the AGW deniers.

[Jichard]

Why is this article wrong?

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

Thought you might find these papers interesting, since they show much the same thing as that paper:

"The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus"
journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

"There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then (1325).
[...]
The survey identified only 7 articles indicating cooling compared to 44 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations (1331)."

"Citizens’, Scientists’, and Policy Advisors’ Beliefs about Global Warming"
ann.sagepub.com/content/658/1/271.full.pdf+html

"Not surprisingly, scientists working at universities in the United States and who publish research in energy-related areas are far more likely than policy advisors or members of the public to say that global warming is happening (89 percent of scientists, 64 percent of the public, and 71 percent of policy advisors). The strong endorsement of global warming among our sample of scientists comports with data recently released from a panel evaluating levels of scientific consensus regarding climate change among climate scientists for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which reports that 97 percent of climate scientists believe in anthropogenic global warming (AAAS 2014). The slightly lower percent of energy scientists who endorse global warming in our sample—compared with climate scientists’ views—is likely due to the fact that the scientists in our sample are not climate scientists but rather scholars working on energy-related research at universities in the United States.
[...]
Similarly, the energy scientists who completed our survey overwhelmingly attribute the rise in Earth’s temperature to humans’ actions (81 percent of those who believe it is happening) (279)."

"Expert Credibility in Climate Change"
pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html?with-ds=yes

"Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change"
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009EO030002/pdf

"The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited"
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901110000420

"The Structure of Scientific Opinion on Climate Change"
Fourth link at scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=9233470736637128021&hl=en&as_sdt=0 ,26

Of lesser interest are:

"Climate Scientists’ Perceptions of Climate Change Science"
hvonstorch.de/klima/pdf/GKSS_2007_11.pdf

"The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change"
sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full.pdf

[pancreasman]

Thought you might find these papers interesting, since they show much the same thing as that paper:

"The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus"
journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

"There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then (1325).
[...]
The survey identified only 7 articles indicating cooling compared to 44 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations (1331)."

"Citizens’, Scientists’, and Policy Advisors’ Beliefs about Global Warming"
ann.sagepub.com/content/658/1/271.full.pdf+html

"Not surprisingly, scientists working at universities in the United States and who publish research in energy-related areas are far more likely than policy advisors or members of the public to say that global warming is happening (89 percent of scientists, 64 percent of the public, and 71 percent of policy advisors). The strong endorsement of global warming among our sample of scientists comports with data recently released from a panel evaluating levels of scientific consensus regarding climate change among climate scientists for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which reports that 97 percent of climate scientists believe in anthropogenic global warming (AAAS 2014). The slightly lower percent of energy scientists who endorse global warming in our sample—compared with climate scientists’ views—is likely due to the fact that the scientists in our sample are not climate scientists but rather scholars working on energy-related research at universities in the United States.
[...]
Similarly, the energy scientists who completed our survey overwhelmingly attribute the rise in Earth’s temperature to humans’ actions (81 percent of those who believe it is happening) (279)."

"Expert Credibility in Climate Change"
pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html?with-ds=yes

"Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change"
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009EO030002/pdf

"The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited"
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901110000420

"The Structure of Scientific Opinion on Climate Change"
Fourth link at scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=9233470736637128021&hl=en&as_sdt=0 ,26

Of lesser interest are:

"Climate Scientists’ Perceptions of Climate Change Science"
hvonstorch.de/klima/pdf/GKSS_2007_11.pdf

"The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change"
sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full.pdf

I don't need to be convinced. My question was rhetorical and more of a challenge to deniers.