Who should I believe, AGW/ACC advocates, or deniers?

You're not 100%? 90%? You're absolutely confident in your position? I'm just trying to get a feel for your confidence. Not that I need to know that.

 

I will agree with you that with this subject, when two who profess to be versed in science are debating, it should be on how the data is interpreted, not relying on appeals to authority.

 

I'll use some numbers relevant to the science and the consensus science in the debate. One of the most relevant pieces of data is the solar constant and its value is 1367 W/sqm. The IPCC AR5 discussion regarding how much of this reaches the surface of the Earth versus how much is reflected into space is non-existent other than the second sentence in section 8.4.1 which seems to indicate that about 78% of this makes it through the atmosphere to the surface. It's poorly written and the entire rest of the section goes into great minute detail discussing whether the value that the report uses of 1360 to 1362 W/sqm is accurate to a variation of about 0.15 W/sqm. The third sentence offers a brief statement that there is low confidence in this value, and by that I now assume that this is their brief concession to having low confidence in the 78% value mentioned in the previous sentence.

Now, at the time that I looked over this section of the AR5 because, Bowerbird recommended it to me, I eventually came to find the total amount of "forcing" that Section 8 estimates to be the net man made component that all the fuss is about, buried down in the report in Table 8.6 and its value is 2.3 W/sqm.

So, if I have to put a numeric value on my confidence level that this is not science at all and is in fact an environmentalist agenda disguised as science I will say my answer is (1367-2.3)/1367, or according to my trusty HP 48 GX PC program it is 99.831748354%.

 

The above calculation is wrong. You have to divide 1367 by 4 and multiply that by 0.7 to get the average amount of total solar irradiiance that is absorbed by the earth which is close to 240 watts per square meter. The albedo of the earth is about 0.3. The albedo is the fraction of solar irradiance that is relected by clouds, aerosols, and the Earth's surface. You have to divide the total solar irradiance by 4 to take into account the fact that the sun's rays are perpendicular to the Earth's surface at the equator only and the perpendicular component diminishes to zero at the poles, plus the fact that only one-half of the earth's surface is illuminated by the sun.

An amount of human caused radiative forcing that is 1% or greater than the amount of solar forcing is significant. 2.3/240 is about 1%. If 2.3 is multiplied by
0.8 (climate sensitivity) that would result in about 1.8 degrees C of global warming after equilibrium is established. A reasonable scenario is the RCP 4.5
one which would result in 3.6 degrees C. warming above 1750 levels in the early
22nd century.

The graph is the measured global albedo anomaly measured by CERES from 2000 to 2011.
Measuring Earth’s Albedo (nasa.gov)
"Taken across the planet, no significant global trend appears. As noted in the anomaly plot below, global albedo rose and fell in different years, but did not necessarily head in either direction for long."

 

You need to re-read the post apparently. I said that I would use some numbers relevant to the science and the consensus science in the debate. 1367 W/sqm is a fixed constant, not in dispute by anybody. And 2.8 W/sqm is the end result of all the estimation and manipulation of the consensus science about the man made CO2 effect.

I made no claim that I was using the estimated transmitted solar radiation value and attempting to compare it because my intent was to come up with a number very close to 100% that represented my confidence that it's all a bunch of bs.

Like I said, I think you should re-read the post and the context of the post I was responding to:

So, if I have to put a numeric value on my confidence level that this is not science at all and is in fact an environmentalist agenda disguised as science I will say my answer is (1367-2.3)/1367, or according to my trusty HP 48 GX PC program it is 99.831748354%.

Noteworthy is that for all of your assertions about how to do a real calculation with whatever point you have in mind to make, let me just point out that my use of these two numbers versus what seems to be your final answer of 1% differs by only 0.831748354%. Since you actually do bring some science based debate to the discussion I'll change my answer to 99%.

 

Would 'improbable' be more accurate? Or 'it is likely' or what is the way to express it that would comport to your understanding of it?

 

I'd rather not, but feel free to do so, if you choose.

 

Well, we need to know, as a society, what path we are to take. I.e., 'do something' or 'do nothing'.

 

Okay, I can't fault you for answering question. Your as sure as you can be, in other words.

 

Work to adapt. We will never stop climate from changing. Some think the next glaciation could happen in ~400 years. That would be much more devastating than a little warming.

 

I think you have missed my point completely. On the one hand they claim that the science is accurate because it is only based on dealing with long term averages. So they have no basis to make any claim at all about current meteorological events because their models are not sufficiently advanced to offer any proof of this. Therefore they are not doing science, they are engaging in propaganda.

 

I agree. Over the past year, however, science has told uslist far from complete)
1. virus not transmissible to humans
2. Oops, it IS transmissible to humans
3. it's no worse than a seasonal flu
4. It's way worse than a seasonal flu
5. If we just shutdown for two weeks we'll bend the curve and all well be well
6. We don't need masks
7.we DO need masks, maybe more than one
8. Bats caused the virus
10. Wrong again on that "bats" thing
11. All's when forget the masks
12. Not so fast on the "no masks" thing
. . .

All allegedly derived from science.

 

You were not making a fair comparison by comparing the total solar irradiance to the amount of anthropogenic forcing in the IPCC AR5 report.
The anthropogenic forcing occurs over the entire surface of the earth in equal amounts that were given as 2.3 watts per square meter. The total
solar irradiance does not occur over the entire surface of the earth in equal amount of around 1365 watts per square meter. It only occurs at that level
for the equatorial regions facing in the direction facing the sun. The total solar irradiance striking the earth's surface at an angle that is perpendicular
to the surface is equal to the cross-sectional area of the earth which is pi times the radius of the earth squared divided by the entire surface area of the
earth. So that 1365 number is divided by 4. Then, you have to subtract out the reflected solar irradiance from the clouds, aerosols, and surface.
That reduces the effective total solar irradiance by a factor of 0.7. A fair comparison would be the IPCC AR5 total anthropogenic forcing of 2.3 to
240, which is about 1% and that is significant.

These graphs below are projections not made by climate models, but they are the result of using anthropogenic forcings and the most likely
climate sensitivity of 3 degrees C. for a doubling of carbon dioxide. The point of all of this is to show that climate projections into the future
can be made from anthropogenic forcings and they are fairly accurate if the climate sensitivity is correct. Skeptical science plotted other
graphs using lower and higher climate sensitivities. This process can be used to model the paleoclimate and it works well enough to match
the past climate fluctuations. This shows one aspect (global mean temperature changes) of climate that is predictable.


A Glimpse at Our Possible Future Climate, Best to Worst Case Scenarios (skepticalscience.com)



Figure 5: Estimated expected warming for each RCP scenario in a most likely case world with 3°C equilibrium climate sensitivity.

 

The most likely climate sensitivity is no more than 1.5 degrees C.
My experience at the German Bundestag's Environment Committee in a pre-COP24 discussion
". . . Any attempt to explain the 20th century warming should therefore include this large forcing. When doing so, one finds that the sun contributed more than half of the warming, and climate has to be relatively insensitive. How much? Only 1 to 1.5°C per CO2 doubling, as opposed to the IPCC range of 1.5 to 4.5. This implies that without doing anything special, future warming will be around another 1 degree over the 21st century, meeting the Copenhagen and Paris goals. . . . "

 

Okay, so what I'm getting from you is that, given the limitations of current methodology, all models are useless, so why bother? Is that it?

 

Ahh, so you are using the 'anti-Fauci' anti-science defense, ignoring the fact that this virus is brand new, and the data on it was shifting rapidly, and here right wingers are holding the fact against against Fauci, against science where they should be joining hands to work together instead of whining and grasping at straws to further a diminutive right wing agenda.

 

No, it is Fauci who is unreliable, he has flip flopped many times on Masks, death rates, vaccines and so on.

 

I "ignored" nothing. Try reading first, THEM commenting.
Do you deny any of those items I list were at one time or another "settled science"? Got nothing to do with right wing or left wing. Maybe you overlook that my list supports exactly what you say: New virus, data shifting rapidly, the "science" changes.

 

No. I am referring to the specific article I cited from William Connolley'g blog/website www.realclimate.org. In a previous post in this thread skepticalmike posted another article from realclimate.org in which Connolley coauthored an article claiming that reliable decadal models are possible because they only predict averages and they do so with near absolute certainty. In the comments section of that article is a reliable climate scientist,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke, who pushes back on this assertion sharing his professional opinion that Connolley and his coauthor are incorrect about the reliability of the models.

You can Google the differences of each man and determine for yourself whether the life long meteorologist and climate scientist or the mathematician with a lifelong commitment to the Green party who was relieved of his responsibilities at Wikipedia for abusing his position to quash any dissent to articles or edits regarding climate science that would challenge his agenda. Wikipedia remains imo a bit biased on the general topic.

Guys like Pielke and many others are simply pursuing knowledge to understand longer scale patterns that will make it possible to have more accurate and longer real weather forecasts, as well as some I assume are attempting in vain against the consensus team to obtain funding to eliminate or at least to address and incorporate portions of the model that are nothing more than fixed assumptions known not to be true. These are often justified in modelling because otherwise in many cases the modelling becomes too complex. One example of this that you will find mention of is a term that goes something like this "assuming a well mixed atmosphere." How well mixed is the atmosphere? I haven't had any haze here from the Western wildfires, have you? So there is plenty of room for improvement and for those who do so truly as scientists I will not libel their chosen profession because of the unfortunate environmentalists and government interests that have made their jobs much more difficult.

Think about this, where is the Intergovernmental Panel on Water Resources, the IPWR? Or the Intergovernmental Panel on International Arms, the IPIA? Or a host of other challenges that the world faces that should be of interest to the UN?

And why, if this is so very critical, with the tipping point likely to occur any moment, has it taken them more than 10 years to complete a revision to the last assessment? It appears it has now slipped another year, out to 2022.

And why is there no working group 4: clean energy research and development? Seems like that would be a part of the solution worth funding some research on, doesn't it?

 

On item #1, the science was largely settled on this by January 14, 2020 that human-to-human transmission was occurring. So you are wrong about item #1.
WHO 'No Transmission' Tweet Posted to Promote Findings From China for 'Balance' (businessinsider.com).
" It emerged this week that by January 14, officials in China already knew that the virus could spread between people — and would likely become a pandemic. They waited for a further six days before making that information public"

You are wrong on item #3. I can recall reading about the severity of covid-19 in February of 2020 and the symptoms were much more severe than
that encountered by the typical seasonal flu and the fatality rate was much higher, first reported to be around 3% and it was later lowered to about
1% and that is still 10 times higher than the seasonal flu. It was also known to be very contagious than the seasonal flu, partly because it was a
novel virus.

Coronavirus vs. flu: How to tell the difference (medicalnewstoday.com) May 19, 2020

According to the WHOTrusted Source, around 15% of COVID-19 cases are severe, and 5% are critical. Those in a critical state require a ventilator to breathe. The chance of severe and critical infection is higher with COVID-19 than the flu.

COVID-19 is also more deadly. According to the WHO, the mortality rate for COVID-19 appears to be higherTrusted Source than that of the flu.

Compared with the flu, research on COVID-19 is still in its early stages. These estimates may change over time.

5) what is your source of information and what is meant by "shutdown"? I don't believe there is any scientific source that made that claim.

6) masks were worn by people in many Asian countries that had more experience in dealing with viral pandemics and they were successful
in limiting the spread of the virus. The science was not settled on the benefit of wearing non N95 masks. You are confusing public policy
with science.

"Bats caused the virus" was never a scientific conclusion. Scientists believe that there must have been an intermediate host that
was infected by a bat that had the virus RaTG13. The virus most likely spread from this intermediate host to humans.

7 facts about the origin of the novel coronavirus | Live Science

The March 2021 WHO report concluded that a spillover from wildlife through an intermediate host was the "likely to very likely pathway" for the original transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans. Many experts agree; after all, other recently emerged human coronaviruses, including the viruses that cause SARS and MERS, originated in animals.

"While both lab and natural scenarios are possible, they are not equally likely — precedence, data and other evidence strongly favor natural emergence as a highly likely scientific theory for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, while the lab leak remains a speculative hypothesis based on conjecture," Kistian Andersen, a professor of immunology and microbiology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, told the Times.

The closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus first identified in horseshoe bats in Yunnan province, China, in 2013, according to FactCheck.org. This virus, known as RaTG13, shares 96% of its genome with SARS-CoV-2. However, RaTG13 has certain genetic sequences that mean it could not have jumped directly from bats to people.
pangolins, dogs and even snakes — have been suggested as possible intermediate hosts, but none have been proven.
It's also possible that there was not an intermediate host, and the virus jumped directly from bats to people, but to support this theory, researchers would need to find a virus in bats that's more closely related to SARS-CoV-2, according to FactCheck.org.

 

Your opinion that the most likely climate sensitivity is no more than 1.5 degrees C. is way outside of the mainstream and is not supported by most
of the research. The IPCC has 1.5 degrees C. as its minimum climate sensitivity in a range from 1.5 to 4.5. I am using 3.0 degrees C. which is the most
likely value for climate sensitivity based on numerous studies using a variety of methods. The Carbon Brief article on, "How scientists estimate climate
sensitivity", has a graph showing many studies done from the year 2000 to 2020 and the mean value is 3.0 degrees C.
Explainer: How scientists estimate climate sensitivity (carbonbrief.org)

 

You stated that science representatives in the media were 'flip flopping' (a fair inference drawn from your 'list' ) which connotes 'incompetence' and the characterization isn't just, given the virus is new and data is rapidly shifting, changing all the time. It's not the data you listed, it is what you were implying and you know damn well that is true, so quit denying it.

 

Here is the problem for the layman policy/lawmakers.

for us, consensus is all we have.

Now, science can assert consensus is irrelevant until kingdom come, but since we are not scientists, we don't now, so from our vantage point, all we can do and must do place our policy bets. It's betting for us, because we can't tell which group has it right.

We look at it two ways:

1.

Question: Which group of scientists, the 'do nothing, nothing to worry, or or worry but nothing can be done, it's natural' (henceforth the 'non alarmist') crowd, or the 'alarmists, better to do something than nothing' (henceforth the 'alarmist' ) crowd, so which group should we, as policy/lawmakers place our bet?

Answer, well, playing the odds, the bigger crowd has it. Who is that? We are told it's the Alarmists, we are told it's 97% of climate scientists.

Now, is that the greater crowd, the number 97% is that number under dispute? If so, what is your input on that?

Okay, if the 97 number is under dispute, and one side is not particularly bigger than the other, we move to the second approach:


2. Question: With which group should we err, if err we must? The non alarmists, or the alarmists?

If we go with the alarmists, and we err, we have wasted perhaps a lot of money and effort but we don't lose a habitable planet.

If we go with the non alarmists, and we err, we have not wasted money and effort, but we could possibly lose everything, a habitable planet.

Can you see what I mean? From our vantage point ( that of the policy/lawmaker ) the prudent path is to go with the alarmists.

Now, you might argue that the sky will never be falling on other side of the argument, but as policy makers, the sky could fall, there is that possibility if a chain reaction occurs. It has happened on Mars, right? Could it not happen here? So, in order to play it safe, we think in terms of worst case scenarios. Isn't that prudent?


Put yourself in the layman's lawmakers shoes, ignore your knowledge ( because the lawmaker doesn't know and can't tell ) and ask yourself, whom would you go with, if you were the lawmaker?

Remember, whether you are right or not is not the point.

 

Not just my opinion, it is the clear trend of research.
Recent CO2 Climate Sensitivity Estimates Continue Trending Towards Zero

By Kenneth Richard on 16. October 2017
Updated: The Shrinking CO2 Climate Sensitivity A recently highlighted paper published by atmospheric scientists Scafetta et al., (2017) featured a graph (above) documenting post-2000 trends in the published estimates of the Earth’s climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentrations (from 280 parts per million to 560 ppm). The trajectory for the published estimates of transient climate response […]

 

Averages and absolute certainty?

What a dead give-away.

Yes, the models are fallible.

They're fallible because they're designed to skew the data to achieve a predetermined/intended result and because the data record itself is insufficient, inadequate and unreliable.

You ask for a scientifically valid experiment to prove global warming and they give you models. Wrong answer, because the models are invalid.

That is not to say models can never be valid. One reason the US agreed to a nuclear weapons test ban is because the US had a Cray Super-Computer and the Soviets did not, and then in the early 1970s, the US had the second incarnation, the Cray Super II which can perform billions of calculations per second.

The Soviets had nothing comparable, because they were still using CPM.

The US could design nuclear warheads using the Cray Super II and have no need to test them, because they knew they would function. Some warheads would be the 8"/203mm 1 kt ERW (neutron), Lance 10 kt ERW (neutron), Pershing II, 0.3-80 kt air-launched cruise missile warhead, 0.3-100 kt ground- and sea-launched cruise missile warheads, and retro-fits for the B-60 gravity bomb and some of the SLBMs.

The US could do that because it's understanding of the nuclear fission and fusion processes were total and complete. Even the probabilities were calculated, because a neutron can do one of four things:

1) zip through a mass of Pu239 and never strike a nucleus, thus no fission;
2) have an inelastic collision with a nucleus, which case the neutron ricochets and there is no fission;
3) have an elastic collision with a nucleus, in which case Pu239 instantly converts to Pu240; or
4) hit the sweet-spot and fission the nucleus.

The data is reliable because a variety of sensors were used to collect data during the dozens and dozens of weapons tests, plus to get the US onboard with the test-ban treaty, Britain and France agreed to share all of their data collected during their weapons tests (and they got unlimited access to a Cray Super II to design their own warheads.)

Climate data is anything but complete and reliable. The claim is temperature data for 140 years, but that is a lie of omission, because that only covers Western Europe, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Temperature data from Africa is only for select coastal port cities. Europeans didn't penetrate the interior of Africa until the 1890s, and they weren't setting up temperature sensors. That didn't happen until after WW I. Same with the Middle East.

There wasn't anyone collecting temperature data in the Amazonian Basin 140 years ago, or in the Andes.

There's no reliable record for the South Pacific until after WW I, and no real reliable data until WW II when the Navy and Marines desperately needed it.

The record for ocean temperatures is largely incomplete until after WW II when it was realized that subs could hide in temperature gradients to mask their engine noise and skew sonar data.

There was nobody at the Poles until the early 20th Century.

The claim that CO2 levels in ice core data proves global warming is a circular argument.

Worse still, the CO2 data from EPICA A Dome Ice Core Data shows temperatures were 7.5°F to 15.3°F warmer than present at a time when CO2 levels never exceeded 290 ppm.

So even if we reduce CO2 levels from 410 ppm back to 290 ppm, no one can state with absolute certainty that temperatures won't rise another 7.5°F to 15.3°F anyway.

It's been long known that the Climate Police review all topics about global warming and censor what they don't like.