BS: Climate Change Again - New Report

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 04:51 PM

"statistics and art as 'products of the mind' and not as science."
I believe the quoted "Popper" was a philosopher, not a scientist. Many see philosophy more as an art , than a science -with products (assessments) of the mind-as with statistics.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 01:29 PM

So PeeDee- you got a problem with the reality that 95%-plus of climate scientists disagree with your idiocy?

You one of the few, the proud, the brain-dead?

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 01:15 PM

Well, at least pdq, I don't the works of Karl Popper as a sort of 'get-out-of-jail-free-card' every time I'm in a hole!

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: pdq
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 01:10 PM

Once again, ShamRude shows that constant exposure to disinformation and propaganda web sites will cause personality disorders and eventually cause debilitating mental illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 12:22 PM

Climate change denial all becomes clear when you factor in the influence of 'free-market' dogma. In a recent edition of the 'Independent' newspaper (UK) there was an interesting letter from a correspondent named Steve Edwards. He wrote:

"The deniers are nearly always comfortably off, or supported by billionaires such as the Koch brothers. In their arguments they are wrong about almost every detail except the truth which really haunts them. It is that that their free-market model, based on unfettered pillaging of our planet's resources, has to end if climate change is to be checked.
If not we are headed for the greatest extinction of species (including our own) since the Permian era. However, like all religious fanatics, the deniers would no doubt consider that a small price to pay to protect the sanctity of their dogma."

Yes, the free-market 'notion' is a sort of quasi-religious dogma but it's not based on faith (i.e. fervent, unquestioning belief in something invisible for which there is no evidence) but insatiable, limitless greed. I strongly suspect that they couldn't give a flying f**k about the future as long as they get super-rich now, now, now! God (who probably doesn't exist) help us!!

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 11:35 AM

PeeDee, see 13 Apr 14 - 11:03 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: pdq
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 11:32 AM

"Empiricism has stood in contrast to rationalism, the position originally associated with Descartes, which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect, not by observation. Critical rationalism is a contrasting 20th-century approach to science, first defined by Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper. Popper rejected the way that empiricism describes the connection between theory and observation. He claimed that theories are not generated by observation, but that observation is made in the light of theories and that the only way a theory can be affected by observation is when it comes in conflict with it. Popper proposed falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories, and falsification as the empirical method, to replace verifiability and induction by purely deductive notions. Popper further claimed that there is actually only one universal method, not specific to science: the negative method of criticism, trial and error. It covers all products of the human mind, including science, mathematics, philosophy, and art."


Note: statistics and art as 'products of the mind' and not as science.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 11:13 AM

What Is Statistics?

Statistics is the science of learning from data, and of measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty; and it thereby provides the navigation essential for controlling the course of scientific and societal advances (Davidian, M. and Louis, T. A., 10.1126/science.1218685).

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 11:03 AM

Actually, PeeDee, YOU (and your fellow deniers) are a joke to real scientists.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: pdq
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 10:45 AM

Here are the first few paragraphs from the above link:


The study, published online April 6 in the journal Climate Dynamics, represents a new approach to the question of whether global warming in the industrial era has been caused largely by man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Rather than using complex computer models to estimate the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions, Lovejoy examines historical data to assess the competing hypothesis: that warming over the past century is due to natural long-term variations in temperature.

"This study will be a blow to any remaining climate-change deniers," Lovejoy says. "Their two most convincing arguments - that the warming is natural in origin, and that the computer models are wrong - are either directly contradicted by this analysis, or simply do not apply to it."

Lovejoy's study applies statistical methodology to determine the probability that global warming since 1880 is due to natural variability. His conclusion: the natural-warming hypothesis may be ruled out "with confidence levels great than 99%, and most likely greater than 99.9%."

To assess the natural variability before much human interference, the new study uses "multi-proxy climate reconstructions" developed by scientists in recent years to estimate historical temperatures, as well as fluctuation-analysis techniques from nonlinear geophysics. The climate reconstructions take into account a variety of gauges found in nature, such as tree rings, ice cores, and lake sediments. And the fluctuation-analysis techniques make it possible to understand the temperature variations over wide ranges of time scales.

For the industrial era, Lovejoy's analysis uses carbon-dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels as a proxy for all man-made climate influences - a simplification justified by the tight relationship between global economic activity and the emission of greenhouse gases and particulate pollution, he says. "This allows the new approach to implicitly include the cooling effects of particulate pollution that are still poorly quantified in computer models," he adds.


This guy is a statistician and seems to have no idea what science is.

He uses only one factor to base his number-twisting around: CO2 concentration.

"This study will be a blow to any remaining climate-change deniers," Lovejoy says.

No dude, it is a joke to a real scientist. So are you.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 09:37 AM

Odds that global warming is due to natural factors? 

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 01:56 AM

I remember a newspaper photograph from 2011. It was of a street in the North African city of Tripoli, during the Libyan civil war. The whole street was flooded from a burst water-main and there were several, bullet-riddled cars half submerged in the water. All of the building in the street were wrecked and a couple had huge holes punched through them. I remember the hairs standing up on the back of my neck as it occurred to me that the photo showed what the near future will probably look like!

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 06:25 PM

You bet, Walrus. Of course, walruses will be in deep trouble as the polar ice melts.... enjoy extinction, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: GUEST,I am the walrus
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 06:16 PM

"The polar bear is us," says Patricia Romero Lankao of the federally financed National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Federally financed. Says it all. To institute a new tax you first convince the people of the need for the tax. Not convinced.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 09:56 AM

Albedo, not abedo.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 09:28 AM

BBC treatment of climate change is really appalling. I'm talking about Radio 4's Today Programme here, because that's my main interface with BBC news.

The main cause of complaint is the way the programme makers have always set up a combative for-and-against model, as if it were the school debating society. (I suspect that's cos the programme's producers are probably all ex-public-schoolboys, but that's just my pet theory). It's always one "climate change is real" spokesperson (usually a climate scientist) and one "climate change is a balderdash!" spokesperson (usually not a scientist, and often Nigel Lawson).

It's stupid to begin with: why can't they have two climate scientists if they really must fly in the face of scientific opinion and treat it like an "is it real or not?" question?! They could have one of the 3% of cimate scientists who are sceptical about it duking it out with one of the 97% that acknowledge it's a terrifying problem!

Instead it's always a rather boffinish, reticent, softly spoken scientist, who is often not the best public speaker, debating with someone like Nigel Lawson, well-versed in public speaking, super-confident, arrogant and great at conveying information he has either totally misunderstood or is cynically peddling.

The crazy thing is that now the BBC will, one day, have one of these "impartial" for-and-against debates about whether climate change exists. And the very next day, have one of these "impartial" for-and-against debates about whether it is even possible to mitigate climate change's catastrophic effects!! It's insane.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Stu
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 12:05 PM

What Greg said but with added vested interests such as the hydrocarbon industries, the every industries, politicians of every ilk the world over (with a special disdain reserved for those in the 'developed' world) and the media, whom appear to be working for the 100% almost exclusively now, with some of the worst science reporting I've ever witnessed (I'm looking at you BBC).

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 11:13 AM

Do you think the report will finally convince the deniers that the problems are real, and dire, and immediate?

No. No more than will facts change the minds of creationists, fundagelicals, Holocaust deniers and ignorant, mindless idiots of all sorts.

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 11:06 AM

I have noticed there are more news items where people are at last saying "Global Warming is real, now lets talk about how we cope with it" rather than the alarmist (to skeptics) reports. Though alarm is about right if you want your grandchildren served up boiled or fried.

It is a step in the right direction. But I personally won't hold back when people ask why there are forest fires raging, or hurricanes are increasing in intensity, or migrating birds now overwinter in the UK. It all could be the natural results of sunspots, the earth's orbit ovality, precession and wobble on the earths axis, the magnetic field doing strange things lately, or little green men form Mars returning our visits. But I say "OK prove it", there are real effects up there (in most cases).

I always remember the suggestion that we should paint our rooves white to mitigate global warming (from a "let's do something about it" scientist) - is was met with howls of laughter. Abedo is not a word the average schmuck understands. On reflection!

Subject: RE: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 01:59 AM

Do you think the report will finally convince the deniers that the problems are real, and dire, and immediate?

Subject: BS: Climate Change Again - New Report
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Apr 14 - 07:46 PM

Those interested will likely already know that the UN Panel on Climate Change has issued a new report that looks at a little different part of the puzzle than earlier ones. Earlier reports looked mostly at whether or not global warming is real. The subgroup producing this report was tasked with looking at the effects warming is having, and will have.

A report on the report is fairly brief and will give an idea of the widespread effects of change. There has been piecemeal discussion of some of these effects, but this report attemts to put it all together. The picture isn't pretty:

Climate Report: Warming Is a Big Risk for People
Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
First published March 24th 2014, 11:27 am

[Brief Quote]

If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you're mistaken. That's the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming.

In fact, they will say, the dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human.

"The polar bear is us," says Patricia Romero Lankao of the federally financed National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., referring to the first species to be listed as threatened by global warming due to melting sea ice.

She will be among the more than 60 scientists in Japan to finish writing a massive and authoritative report on the impacts of global warming. With representatives from about 100 governments at this week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they'll wrap up a summary that tells world leaders how bad the problem is.

The key message from leaked drafts and interviews with the authors and other scientists: The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought. It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants. It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse.

"The polar bear is us."

The report says scientists have already observed many changes from warming, such as an increase in heat waves in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Severe floods, such as the one that displaced 90,000 people in Mozambique in 2008, are now more common in Africa and Australia. Europe and North America are getting more intense downpours that can be damaging. Melting ice in the Arctic is not only affecting the polar bear, but already changing the culture and livelihoods of indigenous people in northern Canada.

Past panel reports have been ignored because global warming's effects seemed too distant in time and location, says Pennsylvania State University scientist Michael Mann.

This report finds "It's not far-off in the future and it's not exotic creatures — it's us and now," says Mann, who didn't work on this latest report.

The United Nations established the climate change panel in 1988 and its work is done by three groups. One looks at the science behind global warming. The group meeting in Japan beginning Tuesday studies its impacts. And a third looks at ways to slow warming.

Its reports have reiterated what nearly every major scientific organization has said: The burning of coal, oil and gas is producing an increasing amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. Those gases change Earth's climate, bringing warmer temperatures and more extreme weather, and the problem is worsening.
The panel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, months after it issued its last report.

Since then, the impact group has been reviewing the latest research and writing 30 chapters on warming's effects and regional impacts. Those chapters haven't been officially released but were posted on a skeptical website.

War, poverty and famine

The key message can be summed up in one word that the overall report uses more than 5,000 times: risk.

"Climate change really is a challenge in managing risks," says the report's chief author, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution of Science in California. "It's very clear that we are not prepared for the kind of events we're seeing."

Already the effects of global warming are "widespread and consequential," says one part of the larger report, noting that science has compiled more evidence and done much more research since the last report in 2007.

If climate change continues, the panel's larger report predicts these harms:

VIOLENCE: For the first time, the panel is emphasizing the nuanced link between conflict and warming temperatures. Participating scientists say warming won't cause wars, but it will add a destabilizing factor that will make existing threats worse.

FOOD: Global food prices will rise between 3 and 84 percent by 2050 because of warmer temperatures and changes in rain patterns. Hotspots of hunger may emerge in cities.

WATER: About one-third of the world's population will see groundwater supplies drop by more than 10 percent by 2080, when compared with 1980 levels. For every degree of warming, more of the world will have significantly less water available.

HEALTH: Major increases in health problems are likely, with more illnesses and injury from heat waves and fires and more food and water-borne diseases. But the report also notes that warming's effects on health is relatively small compared with other problems, like poverty.

WEALTH: Many of the poor will get poorer. Economic growth and poverty reduction will slow down. If temperatures rise high enough, the world's overall income may start to go down, by as much as 2 percent, but that's difficult to forecast.

According to the report, risks from warming-related extreme weather, now at a moderate level, are likely to get worse with just a bit more warming. While it doesn't say climate change caused the events, the report cites droughts in northern Mexico and the south-central United States, and hurricanes such as 2012's Sandy, as illustrations of how vulnerable people are to weather extremes. It does say the deadly European heat wave in 2003 was made more likely because of global warming.

[end quote – additional at the link]

The complete report, still considered a "final draft" and subject to possible change, was posted "for publication" a day or two ago (31 March 2014) at:

Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

Approximately 34 "Chapters" are posted (PDF) but so far as I could see they must be downloaded/saved one at a time. A quick look indicates about 2,669 pages and around 96.5 MB. It's suggested that one shouldn't try to read it all at one sitting.

Chapters are named descriptively, so one might read a chapter and comment on effects it discusses.

John