On Fri, 19 Oct 2018 16:19:30 +0100, Java Jive
wrote:

On 19/10/2018 02:42, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Thu, 18 Oct 2018 13:57:43 +0100, Java Jive
wrote:

On 18/10/2018 03:45, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 17 Oct 2018 14:08:07 +0100, Java Jive
wrote:

On 17/10/2018 11:43, Eric Stevens wrote:

That's all very well but the BBC in particular are notorious for
selecting only one side of the argument.

The people who make such claims nearly always turn out to have a
denialist agenda unsupported by any science. The BBC have had a
long-standing policy of impartiality on this as on other issues:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_w...artiality.html

p40 reads: "Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be
unpopular. There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate
change is definitely happening, and that it is at least predominantly
man-made. But the second part of that consensus still has some
intelligent and articulate opponents, even if a small minority.

You should also read
https://www.carbonbrief.org/exclusiv...ampaign=buffer
or http://tinyurl.com/y9nzrxwe

I did, and it's a very good read which entirely corroborates what I have
already linked above, so I wonder why you thought I needed to read it.
There is absolutely *nothing* there to support your assertion that ...

Its very much open to interpretation as I wrote below.

The problem with the BBC (and others) is that they keep on asserting
that various things are 'proved' and no counterbalancing opinions need
be cited. They may be honest according to their lights but to others
they seem to be one eyed.

Only to those who hold an irrational, quasi-religious contrary opinion
that is not based on nor will be swayed by science.

Hmmmm.

I referred to Watts. He doesn't write much of this stuff himself but
has many contributors.

I refer you again to Watts' lack of scientific credentials:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthon..._%28blogger%29

"Watts ... attended electrical engineering and meteorology classes at
Purdue University, but did not graduate or receive a degree.[2][15]"

It is the exception for an essay to be published without a link to a
source paper or to the data set that has been used.

How many links have you actually followed and checked their scientific
provenance?

Most of the technical ones. I tend to ignore the political or
stonethrowing articles.

How hypocritical! Above you condemn the BBC for, thankfully in most
people's opinion, not wasting its audiences' time by feeding them a load
of unscientific bull, but you refuse to read similar bull yourself if
you think it goes against a belief that you appear to have adopted on a
quasi-religious rather than a scientific basis.

You are confused. The so-called 'bull' that I read is at a technical
level which I would not expect to be presented by a popular
broadcaster. The so-call 'bull' that I read contains all kinds of
technical information which I variously reject, accept or put in
abeyance for further judgement. I pay little attention to opinion
pieces with no checkable theory or data.

but are by no means one-sided. It's as good a source
as any to track down

mis-

information

Misinformation is everywhere. To deal with it you need good dritical
faculties.

Time you started to acquire them.

Correctly, they waste a lot of everyone's time, as you are doing here.

I'm not just writing for your benefit.

You are wasting *everyone's* time here, including your own. When you're
in a hole, stop digging.

Even CERN has to be careful how they
present information in some areas. There follow up on Svensmark is a
case in point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark

That's because Svensmark has yet to prove that his mooted cause of
global climate change accounts for anything more than a small fraction
of the observed changes - the fact that the controversy has persisted
so long with neither side producing data that unambiguously clinches it
either way, while the correlations that have been given are very low,
suggests that if any effect occurs at all it is very small and
insufficient to account for observed global warming, and insignificant
compared with the effect of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

Read the source
http://www.dtu.dk/english/service/ph...blicationquery

Which one? Every single publication listed there could have some
relevance to your specious argument, and I'm certainly not going to wade
through them all looking for an effect that I already know to be small
compared to that of CO2.

There you are then. Who is it who has the closed mind now?

How are your statistics?

My degree was originally going to be in Maths and Physics, and as such I
completed a Statistical Physics course without any difficulty.

Mine are my mathematical weak point.

Ah! Why am I not surprised?

I was referring to statistics.

I know, and I wasn't surprised.

My engineering degree was a four-year full-time course of study. Apart
from physics I had three years of engineering mathematics, two years
of pure mathematics, two years of applied mathematics and three years
of thermodynamics culminating in a cloud of simultaneous partial
differential equations. The only statistics I encountered was when as
an ofshoot I took the first year course in psychology.

Outside of my mainstream studies, I also took a unit in each of
Astronomy, Geology And The Environment, Psychology, and Music. So what?

I was merely explaining my mathematical background.

Have you even bothered to *look* at the graphs on the Berkeley page that
I linked? How can you possibly claim that the long-term trend is
confused, when the upward trend is unmistakable?! For example, it is
noticeable that whereas before about 1920 short to mid term oscillations
such as El Nino produced several significant periods of cooling, but
since then gradually these have become so much shorter and less
pronounced as to be now almost non-existent, and instead have been
replaced by occasional periods of standstill (as in the most recent case
which denialists latched onto as 'proving that global warming was a lie'
which, of course, all came tumbling down when warming recommenced, as
inevitably it was bound to do). And again, note the good correlation
with CO2 levels.

I note that you do not reply directly to this obvious point, and instead
try to raise doubts about what you yourself have already acknowledged to
be the 'best generally available data', or some such similar phrase, as
in ...

Have you discovered how the graphs were produced? Data and methods?

... the implication being that there might have been something wrong
about either their data or their techniques, 'something' which I note
that you do not name specifically, thus proving that like all denialists
that you have nothing scientifically credible to say, and that you're
just trying to sling mud.

I was merely checking on your willingness to accept unverified data.
I've been following this field for long enough to have learned tat you
should accept no data without learning more about it.

But, yes, I read it all up about 5 to nearly 10 years ago, I can't
remember exactly when, but it was after Berkeley decided to audit the
available data after so-called ClimateGate, and produced their first
findings having done so. It seemed to me then, and I have had no reason
since to change my mind, to be a good, solid, piece of science.

I'm glad you have done that. But I don't know that Berkely ever got
access to raw undigested data.

I agree but it would take me a long time to list even the high points
of 30 years of reading on the subject.

It wouldn't take you a minute, because it's obvious that there aren't
any. I have known about anthropogenic global warming, although then it
was usually called something like the 'greenhouse effect', since the
late 1960s/early 1970s, and in all the time since I've never seen a
piece of opposing 'evidence' that withstood any scientific scrutiny, and
often the effort required to knock it down has been minimal, so minimal
that it was obvious the people putting these ideas forward had no real
understanding of Earth or Planetary Science, and/or almost certainly had
a political or personal agenda.

You must have first taken an interest in it in the dieing years of
when climate fearmongering was centered on the immenent ice age.

I note that you do not attempt to refute my point, but instead try to
move the goalposts, a typical denialist ploy, and I'm not falling for it.

That's not a point but a cloud which there is no point trying to
refute.

Apart from that chris has shown
no interest to the sources to which I have already referred him. He
lacks 'the curious mind' which is so essential for this kind of
ferreting.

I don't blame hime, time on this earth is limited, and it is pointless
waste of it endlessly to go over the same old ground because others
can't accept the simple scientific truth that they're wrong.

How do you explain the changes shown in
https://realclimatescience.com/histo...re-corruption/

It would be more to the point if the writers of such articles asked NASA
& NOAA for an explanation ...

What makes you think it hasn't been done?

... and/or gave them a chance to comment before
publishing such an attack, but because they had an agenda and were only
interested in devaluing the science of climate change, rather than
getting to the truth, they didn't perform such an exercise of basic
fairness, and the opportunity to learn something was missed. Nor is it
possible to reconstruct anything useful by auditing what they've linked,
because they do not link to whole reports, only sections and diagrams
from them, and thus the all-important context has been lost, and, again,
this is a well known tactic of denialists. (It's rather like, in Jane
Austen's novel 'Pride & Prejudice', Mr Whickham tells Elizabeth that Mr
Darcy had failed to honour his father's will in leaving Mr Whickham a
living, but fails to tell her that by his own request he had accepted
the sum of £3,000 pounds instead of the living, information which
completely changes her opinion of both when she eventually discovers
it.) Consequently, neither you nor I can know the truth, and can only
offer guesses.

I agree.

Mine would be that the differences reflect improvements
both from auditing the data and the subsequent modelling from it.

You don't alter data as a result of modelling it! Surely not!

That's making the data fit the theory instead of vice versa. Mind you,
they have been accused of that.

You
yourself have claimed that the early data was flawed, should then they
not improve it? But then when they do, they get accused of
inconsistency and fraud!

The basic data is what you have got and it is abhorrent that it should
be tinkered with. If the data is bad in one way or another you build
that into the error margins and uncertainty. But you leave the data
alone. Surely you were taught that in Stage 1 physics? I certainly
was.

No, there are links supplied to relevant sources. Or just read the
*entire* article about Svensmark that I've linked, which makes it clear
that these effects are as yet controversial and unproven, and at best
can only account for a very small fraction of the observed warming.

Its an ongoing work but Svensmark claims to have found the mechanism
which enhances the generation of cloud forming aerosols. You will find
his recent papers at the link which I have already given you
http://www.dtu.dk/english/service/ph...blicationquery

Yes, but the point is that even if he is entirely correct and his theory
stands, according the figures already published it can only account for
a very small percentage of the total warming, you still need CO2 to
explain it all. And there's still the possibility that increased cloud
cover would actually overall cause some cooling by reflecting the sun's
radiation back into space, rather than warming by absorbing radiation on
its way out from Earth's surface!

You may be interested in:
https://mailchi.mp/071cef970071/invi...3?e=99957e2afe
or http://tinyurl.com/ydx6ozhd

In short, no!

You don't think any problems would arise if their flow of funds was
threatened?

Only for the worse in our ability to predict the future, and, anyway,
how would that change global warming itself? Do you seriously believe
it will suddenly stop just because no-one is investigating it?

But they are not investigating global warming. They are investigating
anthropogenic global warming almost to the exclusion of all else. It
is the exponents of the all else who are being described as deniers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism#Climate_change

"Some international corporations, such as ExxonMobil, have contributed
to "fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies" that claim that
the science of global warming is inconclusive, according to a criticism
by George Monbiot.[9] ExxonMobil did not deny making the financial
contributions, but its spokesman stated that the company's financial
support for scientific reports did not mean it influenced the outcome of
those studies."

Oh yeh! So why did they fund them then?!

If yyou are concerned you will have to ask that question of all
persons and organizations who finate climate research.

It would be more the point if denialists such as yourself asked
themselves that question, and stopped being the unpaid employees of big oil.

Do you know who Exxon is currently funding to the tune of
$100,000,000?

I know that in the past they and Koch brothers have funded well-known
denialist organisation such as The Heartland Institute.

Answer: Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Project

--- long tail snipped ---
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens