Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Don't call it a consensus

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  • Russell Brown,

    Just a quick comment to get this onto PA System, given that the RSS feed funning into the System home page is broken today. (And I'm not going to drag Matt away from his new baby to fix it either.)

    Please note the part addressed to people who think they've discovered the identity of the phantom Wikipedia editor. It's not. He's the IT guy, okay?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • insider outsider,

    Why did matt and Catherine add an indefinite article to their daughter's surname? Stutter? Uncertainty?

    nz • Since May 2007 • 142 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Why did matt and Catherine add an indefinite article to their daughter's surname? Stutter? Uncertainty?

    No that was me leaving the last two letters off Matt's surname. Told you I was tired.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    although most of the bits in between were crap, the stage performances were brilliantly produced

    Agreed. The set design for some of those performances was just awesome. I was also pretty thrilled by the Arctic Monkeys' incredibly drunk antics at the podium. Instead of doing all that bullshit agent-thanking, one of them just raised a wooden duck aloft and blew a whistle. It made much more sense than a lot of the other acceptance speeches...

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Graeme Edgeler,

    Just a quick comment to get this onto PA System, given that the RSS feed funning into the System home page is broken today.

    If believe the obligatory opening comment is supposed to be something like:

    First!

    And people think you know something about teh Internet :-)

    Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Darlington,

    identity of the phantom Wikipedia editor. It's not. He's the IT guy, okay?

    As an IT guy, I can only agree.

    On a vaguely related Telco note, Cunliffe has turned down Telecom's operational separation plan. That's good news for the rest of us as there was still far too much of the dark hand of Satan wrapped up in their proposal.

    Finally, Hot Chip. They really are pretty good.

    Nelson • Since Nov 2006 • 949 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    It's not. He's the IT guy, okay?

    I knew it all along! :)

    OK, Ok, i'm stopping.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • insider outsider,

    "identity of the phantom Wikipedia editor. It's not. He's the IT guy, okay?"

    Yes but he probably appreicates the interest. They usually don't get to speak to real people very often....(or at least about anything vaguely intelligible)

    nz • Since May 2007 • 142 posts Report Reply

  • James Bremner,

    It seems Mr Romm hasn't caught up with this, rather solid looking data. Doesn't fit in too well with his rather definitive statements that the world is warming up.

    Maybe instead of whining about all those nasty "deniers" he should be out picking up a few winter woolies?

    Honestly, who the f%$k knows what is, or is not, happening with the climate? I think anyone who claims to have a complete handle on it and is able to forecast with any degree of precision into the future is fooling themselves or trying to fool others.

    NOLA • Since Nov 2006 • 353 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    They usually don't get to speak to real people very often....(or at least about anything vaguely intelligible)

    Are you meaning IT people? Or anyone who works at Parliament?

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • A S,

    Are you meaning IT people? Or anyone who works at Parliament?

    Is this a trick question? :-)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2007 • 269 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Are you meaning IT people? Or anyone who works at Parliament?

    Everyone's nice to the IT guy.

    Hardly anyone is nice to people at parliament.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    It seems Mr Romm hasn't caught up with this, rather solid looking data. Doesn't fit in too well with his rather definitive statements that the world is warming up.

    How helpful that that blog post should trumpet its scientific illiteracy right there in its subhead:

    **Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming**

    Duh.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    I was thinking that Elliot was a kind of unusual name for a girl (I say this as someone who has been called Mr Robin Gallagher), but then it clicked.

    Speaking of women with men's names - Barack Obama's mom's first name is Stanley.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • George Darroch,

    And this is what the report actually says - NCDC Jan 08 report. January was significantly colder than the last few years, but it is still well above the long term average.

    The graphs show what you'd expect from a La Nin~a. A lot of the earth much (3-5 degrees) warmer than usual, and a lot of the earth much cooler.

    The report does not say that Jan 08 "wipes out a century of global warming".

    As always, breathless reporting using particularly events as proof one way or the other of long term trends is misleading.

    WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report Reply

  • Terence Wood,

    Russell,

    I am, right this moment, laughing with you. First sentence:

    Over the past year, *anecdotal* evidence for a cooling planet has exploded.

    And this from the same people who won't accept mounds of *scientific* evidence that AGW is real.

    Since Nov 2006 • 148 posts Report Reply

  • Terence Wood,

    George,

    Thank you. You just saved me 5 minutes. Perhaps we should coordinate? I'll mark Poneke and you make sure the ball doesn't get to James :)

    Since Nov 2006 • 148 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Here's the 2007 record from the GISS group, one of those cited in that blog post, James. It begins:

    The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the "El Niño of the century". The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle.

    Then observes further down:

    **Global Predictions**

    The quasi-regularity of some natural climate forcing mechanisms, combined with knowledge of human-made forcings, allows projection of near-term global temperature trends with reasonably high confidence. Prediction for a specific year is a bit hazardous, as evidenced by an incorrect prediction of record global warmth made by the British climate analysis group for 2007. Such speculations are useful, as they draw attention to the mechanisms, and allow testing of understanding. Presumably part of the basis for their prediction was an assumption of a continued warming contribution from the 2006 El Niño. However, evidence of El Niño warmth disappeared very early in 2007.

    Solar irradiance will still be on or near its flat-bottomed minimum in 2008. Temperature tendency associated with the solar cycle, because of the Earth's thermal inertia, has its minimum delayed by almost a quarter cycle, i.e., about two years. Thus solar change should not contribute significantly to temperature change in 2008.

    La Niña cooling in the second half of 2007 (Figure 2) is about as intense as the regional cooling associated with any La Niña of the past half century, as shown by comparison to Plate 9 in Hansen et al. (Hansen et al. 1999) and updates to Plate 9 on the GISS web site. Effect of the current La Niña on global surface temperature is likely to continue for at least the first several months of 2008. Based on sequences of Pacific Ocean surface temperature patterns in Plate 9, a next El Niño in 2009 or 2010 is perhaps the most likely timing. But whatever year it occurs, it is a pretty safe bet that the next El Niño will help carry global temperature to a significantly higher level.

    Competing with the short-term solar and La Niña cooling effects is the long-term global warming effect of human-made GHGs. The latter includes the trend toward less Arctic sea ice that markedly increases high latitude Northern Hemisphere temperatures. Although sea ice cover fluctuates from year to year, the large recent loss of thick multi-year ice implies that this warming effect at high latitudes should persist.

    Based on these considerations, it is unlikely that 2008 will be a year with truly exceptional global mean temperature. These considerations also suggest that, barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years.

    Short version: we wouldn't be at all surprised if 2008 was a cool year.

    The post you linked to has been replicated verbatim across dozens of similar sites. I'm not even remotely inclined to regard it as a reliable assessment.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Thanks for that link, James. It has prompted an extremely useful demonstration of how the denialisers* aproach science.

    * I'm experimenting with the new word denialisers, to see if it mollifies people who absolutely insist that "deniers" is an explicit reference to Holocaust denial. (Poneke did that recently, but the effect was rather spoiled by her comparison of the AGW side to Goebbels.)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • linger,

    *denialisers*!? Uggggh...nconvinced of the need for that term.
    If you really want to avoid deniers, then denialists would be better. Or you could try any of a number of existing synonyms: naysayers? doubters? ostriches...

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • Evan Yates,

    denialisers.... nice.

    Though I think Denialators has a better ring to it. (Ya know?... Denialator / Terminator )

    To paraphrase Mr. J. Cameron "They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you admit they are right.".

    Hamiltron, Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Nov 2006 • 197 posts Report Reply

  • andrew r,

    meanwhile - two recentish releases I have been lovin lately are the two most recent albums by The Fall - Reformation TLC, and the album before that Heads Roll . Having off and on tuned in and out of the Fall over the passed 25 odd years , it seems right now they are firing - on all cylinders . Go Mr Smith .

    auckland • Since May 2007 • 100 posts Report Reply

  • Jo S,

    I think one of the problem with talking about concensus is that it is practically impossible to get scientists to _absolutely_ agree about anything. It is in fact their job to question stuff and say "Maybe, but I'd really like to actually see the raw data on this".

    Unfortunately this can also be a problem when trying to get scientists to talk to the media. You'll never get a scientist to call anything "safe" or "definite". There's no such thing as safe. There is always a risk even if it is 0.00001% likely to ever occur. But this refusal to label anything safe can lead to panic "Medicine/Food/Bicycle/Process type X is UNSAFE!!!!"

    Hmm, I think I got slightly off topic. One of the issues I have is that people are using the "consensus" or lack of one amongst scientists to try and prove a point about global warming. As long as the scientists are doing their jobs and investigating data, there probably should not be a consensus in either direction. I think it is a bit naive to expect one.

    (There was contention about the purpose of DNA for many years after its discovery and the publication of its structure).

    is it autumn yet? • Since May 2007 • 80 posts Report Reply

  • samuel walker,

    "call out the denialators
    cos' there's something in the air....."

    Since Nov 2006 • 203 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    damn evan beat me to it.

    "denialators", nice.

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

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