Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry

[Ricter]

Quote from jem:

we are not in a lab... were are in a dynamic environment.
there are papers which speculate that gases which cause warming the greenhouse effect (through infrared radiation) do not heat the ocean. Sunlight does that.

There are others who speculate there could be a thin layer of ocean warming cause by IR but then things get really complicated with up welling and down welling.

you also have the idea the oceans may be warming a bit locally because of underground volcanoes.

What I can say... is that we know as oceans warm they release co2.
So I think it would be very hard for co2 to then lead ocean warming.

And finally we have the recent study ( i have posted many times) which shows the change in ocean temps lead changes in co2.

This is scattershot.

The entire exposed surface of the world's oceans are in contact with the atmosphere (which contains CO2), so conduction will occur between them everywhere. That warming oceans release CO2 (some, not all, see also: ocean acidification) does not mean conduction will stop.

 

[jem]

scattershot... is the state of the science because our environment is a complex dynamic system.

What we do know virtually for sure is that change in temp leads change in co2.

whether additional greenhouse gases net warm or cool is the scattershot because science does not know.

Quote from Ricter:

This is scattershot.

The entire exposed surface of the world's oceans are in contact with the atmosphere (which contains CO2), so conduction will occur between them everywhere. That warming oceans release CO2 (some, not all, see also: ocean acidification) does not mean conduction will stop.

 

[Ricter]

Quote from jem:

scattershot... is the state of the science because our environment is a complex dynamic system.

What we do know virtually for sure is that change in temp leads change in co2.

whether additional greenhouse gases net warm or cool is the scattershot because science does not know.

Yes, we know that before Man temperature changes affected CO2 levels. And we know that increasing CO2 in a system will also raise its temperature (see science.nasa.gov). As I said previously: because before Man only lightning started fires does not mean that Man cannot start fires.

 

[jem]

Quote from Ricter:

Yes, we know that before Man temperature changes affected CO2 levels. And we know that increasing CO2 in a system will also raise its temperature (see science.nasa.gov). As I said previously: because before Man only lightning started fires does not mean that Man cannot start fires.

we absolutely do not know that increasing co2 raises temperature.
if you knew that you would have a Noble prize on your door step the next day.

what we know is that even in current times... change in ocean temperature leads change in co2 levels.

you can download the data from noaa and analyze it yourself
if you do not believe the peer reviewed paper I have linked to many times.

 

[futurecurrents]

Quote from jem:



whether additional greenhouse gases net warm or cool is the scattershot because science does not know.

Total, absolute, complete, mindbogglingly stupid, thorough bullshit.

You are a joke. I'm trying to not go apoplectic here but your abject stupidity makes it difficult.

Do I have to start quoting the position statements of all the world's science organizations again?

Do we have to go over the definition of greenhouse gas again?

 

[Ricter]

Quote from jem:

we absolutely do not know that increasing co2 raises temperature.

Yes, we do. Just like adding a layer of glass to a greenhouse raises the greenhouse's interior temperature. What we don't know for sure is the sum of all the effects of other variables inside the greenhouse, but all other things being equal...

But don't take my word for it, look again at the statement on the matter from science.nasa.gov.

 

[piezoe]

Quote from futurecurrents:

You must not have read much about the state of the science today. There certainly IS consensus on the basics of AGW. To say otherwise is simply wrong. The consensus among climatologists is that man is responsible for most of the warming over the last forty years. The importance of man's contribution is very high.

This chart shows clearly the result of man's CO2 emissions. It is charts like this one that has led to that consensus. The science is so obvious a ten year old can see it.

I think we are not communicating clearly, probably my fault. My point wasn't that there is no consensus, it was that the consensus doesn't determine the science. The Consensus can be right, the consensus can be wrong. The science is the same regardless. The Science is independent of the "consensus".

That's why I maintain that all this talk of a consensus, unless its purpose is political, is rather pointless.

Einstein used applied mathematics to explore the concept of relativity. From the mathematical results alone he predicted the behavior of light in a gravitational field. At that time the consensus was that he must be mistaken. Later, when his predictions were shown to be correct by actual observation, the consensus changed.

The danger lies in assuming that if consensus is based on observation, then the interpretation of the observation must be correct, because a consensus was formed in its favor. But of course this is a circular argument and faulty reasoning.

 

[futurecurrents]

Quote from piezoe:

I think we are not communicating clearly, probably my fault. My point wasn't that there is no consensus, it was that the consensus doesn't determine the science. The Consensus can be right, the consensus can be wrong. The science is the same regardless. The Science is independent of the "consensus".

That's why I maintain that all this talk of a consensus, unless its purpose is political, is rather pointless.

Einstein used applied mathematics to explore the concept of relativity. From the mathematical results alone he predicted the behavior of light in a gravitational field. At that time the consensus was that he must be mistaken. Later, when his predictions were shown to be correct by actual observation, the consensus changed.

The danger lies in assuming that if consensus is based on observation, then the interpretation of the observation must be correct, because a consensus was formed in its favor. But of course this is a circular argument and faulty reasoning.

I see what you are saying. But for practical purposes, determining what the science is requires determining the consensus. Science text books are not written according to what the minority of the experts think, even though they indeed may be right. Most of the time most of the experts are right.

In the case of AGW, the science is so robust, the principles so simple and the logic so inescapable that the consensus can safely be accepted as correct.

 

[piezoe]

Originally I thought I agreed mostly with your first paragraph, but not with the second. But when I read the first over a few times, I had more and more trouble agreeing with much of it. You made the argument that most of the time most of the experts are right. Well I suppose that could be true, as long as we limit topics to well established science-- the kind that appears in textbooks. Indeed the AGW topic now appears in some undergraduate texts, mostly texts for non-science students, and then too, there are quite a few books from the popular presses that include mention of AGW. But the topic is far from being standard fair in undergraduate texts for science majors, because it is increasingly in flux. When it does appear, usually in an "enrichment" section that nowadays incorporates opposing points of view -- in unmistakable recognition of the confused state of the topic. We will eventually figure it out, I'm quite sure of that. But I may not be here to see it. There is never any question regarding the greenhouse gases and why our planet is not bitterly cold at night and blazing hot during the day. Why it is habitable. But when we come to the topic of AGW, there is now more uncertainty than ever, since Hanson first raised the issue in the 1980s, and young, science hobbyist, Albert Gore was there to listen..

I have no problem at all, however, accepting that we have a modest disagreement on this topic. Let's leave it at that.

 

[futurecurrents]

Quote from piezoe:

Originally I thought I agreed mostly with your first paragraph, but not with the second. But when I read the first over a few times, I had more and more trouble agreeing with much of it. You made the argument that most of the time most of the experts are right. Well I suppose that could be true, as long as we limit topics to well established science-- the kind that appears in textbooks. Indeed the AGW topic now appears in some undergraduate texts, mostly texts for non-science students, and then too there are quite a few books from the popular presses that include mention of AGW. But the topic is far from being standard fair in undergraduate texts for science majors, because it is increasingly in flux. When it does appear, usually in an "enrichment" section it nowadays incorporates opposing points of view -- in unmistakable recognition of the confused state of the topic. We will eventually figure it out, I'm quite sure of that. But I may not be here to see it. There is never any question regarding the greenhouse gases and why our planet is not bitterly cold at night and blazing hot during the day. Why it is habitable. But when we come to the topic of AGW, there is now more uncertainty than ever, since Hanson first raised the issue in the 1980s.

You were doing sort of fine until the last sentence which is total bunk and in fact the opposite is true. Why would you say such a thing? Involuntary Republican emission?