Global Warming: Fact or Fiction?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

You see, you said you weren't accusing them of covering up evidence, but now here you are. That's exactly what the creationists say about evolution! They say they get persecuted for publishing it, even the guy who advocates the stork theory of reproduction says the same thing.

I'm not saying anything about the IPCC covering it up. I was talking about scientists being fearful to publish contrary results for what it may do to their reputation. Unfortunately yes creationists say the same thing about evolution. But it happens in every field to some (very small) extent because sometimes scientists are thinking more about themselves then they are about the science. Its not a conspiracy, it just the fact that they are human with hopes and fears too.

What? If you have results and you don't publish it you are covering it up. That is the definition of covering it up. Do you have evidence of this? I'm really not interested in trying to guess if imaginary data exists to support your points, especially when I have seen so many publications that have data supporting just the opposite.

If you spent time and money (a lot of money) doing research and then end up not publishing, you are hurting your own career. If you fake data, you are hurting your career and if caught, well you're pretty much done for. So if you are going to suppose that these things go on just because you think they do ... I don't see why I need to disregard the data that actually exist because the opposite can just as easily happen.

[Darth]

If you spent time and money (a lot of money) doing research and then end up not publishing, you are hurting your own career.

And yet it's a recognised problem in medical research (both the researchers and the journals are at fault) which even has a term to describe it. See "publication bias"

[pineapplebunnybounce]

If you spent time and money (a lot of money) doing research and then end up not publishing, you are hurting your own career.

And yet it's a recognised problem in medical research (both the researchers and the journals are at fault) which even has a term to describe it. See "publication bias"

Publication bias is when they've found nothing, or think they've found nothing and therefore it's not worth publishing. Not because they're "afraid". I think if someone found opposing data on global warming they wouldn't think they've found nothing.

Opposing evidence shows up in science all the time, people aren't afraid to publish things like that. I'm really not getting this, who are they afraid of? If your data doesn't go along with what other people think is going on what does that have to do with your beliefs? Why would you be a denier if your data doesn't agree with consensus?

ETA: I'm also quite confused what this has to do with global warming. Are you saying because there is publication bias we cannot accept any data on the climate and anthropogenic effects? Because then you have to apply that standard across the board.

[Darth]

I said nothing about being "afraid".

Edit to answer your ETA (edit?): Nope, only saying what I said, that the problem exists in medicine at least (though I see no reason why other fields would be immune) in response to you stating that researchers who don't publish are just shooting themselves in the foot career wise. Just as it doesn't mean all medical research is to be thrown out, it wouldn't necessarily mean all climate research is to be binned. Same standard to all fields.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

I said nothing about being "afraid".

That part's for lemon.

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I've said a few times in this thread that scientists are not split on the issue of climate change. Here's a poll that shows that 97% of climatologists agree that temperature has risen and that humans contributed to it. Majority of the 3 percent are petroleum geologists and meteorologists. You guys might find this interesting.
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0122-climate.html

[Aractus]

Here is the question that bugs me about global warming or especially when it is called climate change. How do we knowthat it is man made? Or even that man has contributed enough that a change in our behavior will make a major difference? Since major climate change proponents have been caught lying in the past, how can I be assured this isn't something people are manipulating for their own benefit?

They've not been caught lying about the accepted science. They've been caught in climategate, they've been caught with other "badly" done studies, etc, but that doesn't mean that the accepted science itself is bad science. The problem is that while the science is accepted, to work out what kind of effect the greenhouse has on the atmosphere you have to do computer modelling, and then from that you have to do further modelling for climate change. What they all do (NASA, et all) is plug in the variables and see what the result is - and with the right variables they can explain 20th century climate change by how the so-called enhanced greenhouse gasses have changed.

The problem is that while the science is accepted, the results are not - and the computer modelling (depending on the studies done by whomever at different times) produces fluctuating results, however they find CO2 to be the biggest contributor followed by Methane followed by particulates (sometimes these are reversed) followed by CFC's/trace GHG's.

What's really interesting is that we call Ozone a greenhouse gas when actually it doesn't help to warm surface temperature (except perhaps in smog), the greenhouse layer itself absorbs some of the UV radiation that would otherwise be absorbed at surface level.

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I never debate the issue with people who do not know what an urban heat island is. If cities expand and get more near the thermometer locations local measurements will not reflect long term global trends. Perhaps researchers have accounted for this.

Well then you don't know how the thermometer measurements are taken then since the measurements are normalized for use taking into account their locations. Any meteorologist would tell you that. For the UHIE to matter in regards to climate-change trends then it would mean systematically deliberately tampering with hundreds of independent whether station data across the globe.

Ergo, a person does not need to know a thing about the UHIE to be able to grasp climate change.

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uhm, ok. Because you said with climategate you couldn't trust IPCC, so I looked that up, that was an accusation that they covered up evidence.

No, it proved that sceptical scientists were bullied, etc, and proved an inherent bias among top climatologists. This bias is the main reason I'm not convinced that anthropogenic emissions alone can account for climate change. If you are a pro-global-warming climate scientist it is easier for you to get funding for your work. For the sceptics, they're paid less and given far less opportunity to pursue their studies (they can't get them backed by beneficiaries as well as the pro-global-warming camp can). And thus, consequently, of course there are much less of them in the field doing studies. It would be easier for any of them to simply give up on disproving climate science and say "hey I want to prove climate science more instead".

Imagine this - the oil companies decide to be a beneficiary to climate scientists... could you imagine the uproar if they dared to give funding to studies run by sceptics?

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Plugged the data into SPSS myself (note that I did 1998-2012 as 2013 is as yet incomplete and the data doesn't exist for december)



Was about to concede the point, but being the good science penguin that I am, rather than just eyeballing the graph and going "yeah theres some warming going on thar", I ran Pearson's correlation:

N: 180 (months)
r = .133
significance = .075

P > .05
Therefore not significant
:3

So yes, quite happy Trend-line schmend-schmine

I'm an SPSS newb though, so chances are I've done something horribly wrong (P < .05).

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Yep, the period 1998-2012 tells us nothing about the climate trend - we could still be warming, but those 14 years do not tell us anything useful about the longer-term trend.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

uhm, ok. Because you said with climategate you couldn't trust IPCC, so I looked that up, that was an accusation that they covered up evidence.

No, it proved that sceptical scientists were bullied, etc, and proved an inherent bias among top climatologists. This bias is the main reason I'm not convinced that anthropogenic emissions alone can account for climate change. If you are a pro-global-warming climate scientist it is easier for you to get funding for your work. For the sceptics, they're paid less and given far less opportunity to pursue their studies (they can't get them backed by beneficiaries as well as the pro-global-warming camp can). And thus, consequently, of course there are much less of them in the field doing studies. It would be easier for any of them to simply give up on disproving climate science and say "hey I want to prove climate science more instead".

Imagine this - the oil companies decide to be a beneficiary to climate scientists... could you imagine the uproar if they dared to give funding to studies run by sceptics?

Most oil companies do not want global warming to be real. They do invest a lot in the propaganda machine.

Not to mention, the result of your study isn't there when you apply for funding. Hypothesis are not treated as biases when you write a grant. Furthermore, just because you want to prove something doesn't mean you'll be able to prove it. That's why religious people to this day do not have proof of god and antitheists do not have proof that there is no god, trust me, both parties would greatly appreciate that. Saying so is directly accusing those who have shown global warming to be making up data. For me to take that accusation seriously you need to show that they have made up data. Otherwise it's just a baseless accusation.

Quote specific climategate emails or link them, because I looked it up, it was just some scientists talking about what statistical methods and tree rings and it got taken out of context by the likes of Sarah Palin.

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I also find it a bit odd that all of you who appear to be so skeptical of global warming science appeared to believe that volcanoes contribute to warming. Where did you get this data from? Earlier in this thread it was cleared up that volcanoes mostly do not even increase the CFC levels around them, meaning they do not emit CFCs comparable to human's emissions. And that CFCs are the one depleting ozone. And then someone brought up that because sulfur aerosols reach stratosphere HCl does, too. Which I explained doesn't work that way. I mean if you're so skeptical of the data I've shown, I would love to know what level of evidence all these studies you've read actually reached that you would believe wrong information. If the tone of some email can put so much doubt on data, then how impeccable are your sources?

[Aractus]

Not to mention, the result of your study isn't there when you apply for funding. Hypothesis are not treated as biases when you write a grant. Furthermore, just because you want to prove something doesn't mean you'll be able to prove it. That's why religious people to this day do not have proof of god and antitheists do not have proof that there is no god, trust me, both parties would greatly appreciate that. Saying so is directly accusing those who have shown global warming to be making up data. For me to take that accusation seriously you need to show that they have made up data. Otherwise it's just a baseless accusation.

Computer climate modelling is made up. And even admitted as evidence, all it shows is a link between climate change and anthropogenic CFC's - well anthropogenic CFC's should make some difference. But then you have claims that the climate is driven by the EGHE, that water vapour "positively reinforces the effect" and nonsense claims about projections which have all failed to pass. There is good climate science, however the theories about how much the earth will warm over the next 100 years are all based on assumptions and unproven facts. Exactly how much of the warming trend is natural is as yet unknown. That's a huge unknown factor since - if we assume that the planet should be in a state of global warming sans human activity (a safe assumption), then it would mean you have to deduct that from the 0.6 degrees of warming.

No one - including sceptics - doubt that the EGHE contributes to global warming, the amount that it contributes is debatable.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Are you going to start showing evidence or are you going to ignore that and keep claiming things? Because you have claimed wrong things in the past and you still haven't acknowledged that. I've asked what source did you use to determine that volcanoes emit CFC, where is it? Link it.

If this is all you're going to do I'm done with this thread. It's like conspiracy theorists, keep claiming evidence is fake while having none of their own.

[Darth]

antitheists do not have proof that there is no god

Strong/positive atheists you mean :3