Why 2014 Wasn't the Hottest Year on Record, and How we Knew Before 2015

[Explorer]

It's not a logical fallacy. It's about the distinction between dogmatic belief and a conclusion based on evidence. Further evidence allows one to change a conclusion. A dogmatic belief is not open to change.

You made a claim about facts, specifically, that there is no scientific consensus on global warming.

If you have a rational reason for concluding so, then that rational reason is based on facts which led you to that conclusion.

If so, then further facts to the contrary would allow you to rationally change your mind.

So, I'm curious as to whether your claim about the facts is actually based on facts, and thereby capable of changing.

What evidence would it take for you change your mind about what you claim (a lack of scientific consensus among climate scientists), and convince you that the majority of climate scientists (more than 90%) agree?

 

[ThatCanadianGuy]

Another fallacy. This time, a Red Herring, good choice, sir!

 

[Explorer]

Hardly a logical fallacy. It's a question I use as a tool to test my own logic: Do I believe this based on facts, or just because it feels right?

If I can't come up with something which would make me change my conclusion, I know the conclusion isn't based on facts.

If someone can't come up with evidence which would make them change their conclusion, that conclusion isn't based on facts.

What evidence would it take for you change your mind about what you claim (a lack of scientific consensus among climate scientists), and convince you that the majority of climate scientists (more than 90%) agree?

 

[celticelk]

This is funny now. It's pretty common knowledge that CO2 isn't what's believed to be the actual problem. The climate models predict that the real problem is CO2 driving a heating system that evaporates water (water vapour is, by definition, a greenhouse gas) and heats up the earth more, evaporating more water, so on and so forth. The problem is that the water vapour is forming clouds, which are reflecting the sun's energy back into space, cooling the earth.

If you don't understand the theory, why are you arguing it?

No: What is the net feedback from clouds?

 

[celticelk]

Moreover, concerning Spencer: Roy Spencer's paper on climate sensitivity

 

[asher]

About that supposedly non-existent consensus:

The 97 percent: Three key papers quantifying scientific concensus on climate change Journalist's Resource: Research for Reporting, from Harvard Shorenstein Center

 

[ElRay]

Moreover, concerning Spencer: Roy Spencer's paper on climate sensitivity

Here's the other page that addresses the "temperature readings are inaccurate" myth: Are surface temperature records reliable?

OP is just spewing more denialist tripe. Anything that agrees with his pre-conceived notions is valid, and anything that disagrees is flawed. neener-neener-neener-deny the consensus-neener-neener-neener-deny-deny-deny. Typical cherry-picking, taking things out of context, hypocrisy and arrogance due to ignorance.

One dead give-away is talk about a single year, day, weather event, etc. If you narrow your range down, you'll always be able to find a range that gives the illusion you want. It's the trend that needs to be followed.

​

Even if you allow for measurement error, there's a painfully obvious trend that only irrational deniers can't see:

There are no climate change skeptics, because skeptic requires rational thought, valid data, etc. 99.9999% of the so-called skeptics are just flat-out willfully ignorant deniers. No different than the anti-vaxers, flat-earthers, birthers, Creationists/ID, moon landing deniers, 9/11 was an inside job nuts, etc., etc.

OP, we'll make it easy for you, cite your sources that prove there's no consensus. And I mean real sources, not tin-foil hat, conspiracy theory, religious nut, hard-line GOP, etc. YouTube rants, blogs and gotta-make-me-some-money-vanity-published books -- actual peer reviewed journal articles. Prove that the following organizations don't support anthropogenic climate change:

• NASA
• NOAA
• The Pentagon
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Chemical Society
• American Institute of Physics
• Australian Institute of Physics
• American Geophysical Union
• American Meteorological Society
• American Physical Society
• European Physical Society
• The Geological Society of America
• U.S. National Academy of Sciences
• Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
• The Royal Society of New Zealand
• The Royal Society of the United Kingdom
• African Academy of Sciences
• European Academy of Sciences and Arts
• European Science Foundation
• InterAcademy Council
• International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
• {{{OK. This is boring now. It's trivially easy to prove that there is a consensus. Any rational thinking adult and many rational thinking children would understand this by now.}}}

and these are some of the ones that don't have anything to bank, existence to depend upon, etc. for anthropogenic climate change to be real. Oh, here's another list of 197 organizations: Office of Planning and Research - List of Organizations

I honestly welcome you all to research it. I hate seeing politics get in the way of science.

It's actually trivially simple to see the longer term trend. CO2 levels actually track very well with long term average temperature levels:

and before you pull-out the denier "lag" whine, read this: CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean?

EDIT: I originally had the graph showing CO2 vs. temperature graph showing how much warmer it was back to the time when all the coal and oil we're burning was plants and the CO2 in the coal and oil hadn't been sequestered yet, but I know the OP would sherry-pick and deconstruct other portions of the graph.

Ray

 

[Explorer]

Aw... I went out for a bit with friends, and was hoping that there would be something from Guy to demonstrate that he had a rational reason for his current conclusion.

There's no shame for him to admit that he just believes something because it feels right to him, and that no amount of evidence would convince him otherwise. It's okay to have dogmatic beliefs which are impervious to actual evidence and rational thinking, whether motivated by religion, politics or other emotional factors.

It's when Guy is making a claim about factual things, and wants his claim to be accepted as equal to rational, falsifiable beliefs, that he goes wrong.

Guy, in case you missed the question on the last page, I'll restate that I am hopeful that your claim about the lack of consensus is actually the result of reason, and not just a dogmatic and unfalsifiable belief.

That's why I'm asking for a simple answer, assuming that your claim is falsifiable, on how to do so.

What evidence would it take for you change your mind about what you claim (a lack of scientific consensus among climate scientists), and convince you that the majority of climate scientists (more than 90%) agree?

Of course, you can just state that your claim has nothing to do with evidence pro and con. Unfortunately, that would also be an admission that you're not really looking for discussion, but are just looking to express yourself.

In that case, I'm sure that SS.org members would be able to suggest resources for blogging, so that you wouldn't be challenged to defend something which isn't actually based on facts.

I'm looking forward to the proof of your being rational!

 

[Explorer]

(wow, i couldn't find the link to like the post of... El Rayo!)

 

[ThatCanadianGuy]

Even your own listed source (why you listed two points from the same source and believed them to be true simply because they agreed with each other, I'll never know) agrees that we have no certain ideas about what clouds do to heating (although none of the predictions by people claiming the earth is significantly warming came true, showing their climate models are inaccurate), not to mention your second article is basically stating "his climate model isn't as good as ours" when his has shown more accurate heating data.

 

[ThatCanadianGuy]

Aw... I went out for a bit with friends, and was hoping that there would be something from Guy to demonstrate that he had a rational reason for his current conclusion.

There's no shame for him to admit that he just believes something because it feels right to him, and that no amount of evidence would convince him otherwise. It's okay to have dogmatic beliefs which are impervious to actual evidence and rational thinking, whether motivated by religion, politics or other emotional factors.

It's when Guy is making a claim about factual things, and wants his claim to be accepted as equal to rational, falsifiable beliefs, that he goes wrong.

Guy, in case you missed the question on the last page, I'll restate that I am hopeful that your claim about the lack of consensus is actually the result of reason, and not just a dogmatic and unfalsifiable belief.

That's why I'm asking for a simple answer, assuming that your claim is falsifiable, on how to do so.

What evidence would it take for you change your mind about what you claim (a lack of scientific consensus among climate scientists), and convince you that the majority of climate scientists (more than 90%) agree?

Of course, you can just state that your claim has nothing to do with evidence pro and con. Unfortunately, that would also be an admission that you're not really looking for discussion, but are just looking to express yourself.

In that case, I'm sure that SS.org members would be able to suggest resources for blogging, so that you wouldn't be challenged to defend something which isn't actually based on facts.

I'm looking forward to the proof of your being rational!

I'm trying to be rational, but it's like trying to convince a five year old that the news isn't evidence that Santa Clause isn't real. It's terrifying how much misinformation is being spread while the media pushes everything else under the rug.

Explorer, I get that you have a vested interest in your political beliefs. Cool, I think everyone does. But misrepresenting numbers to claim a consensus to show your confirmation bias isn't cool either.

 

[ThatCanadianGuy]

Wow. It's honestly horrifying how many of you agree that the science is wrong.

 

[Danukenator]

Why should I believe that over this:

http://www.wijstoppensteenkool.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/20150116_Temperature2014james-hansen.pdf

So, I'm currently studying climatology at university. Why does it matter that the EXACT effects of clouds are not understood?

Also statements like this are hard to follow:

In the meantime, the alarmists will continue to use the outdated, spotty, and heavily-massaged thermometer data to support their case.

How was the data massaged? Was it manipulated to adjust for a known trend? Did someone just add +1 degree C and call it a day? Without context that's just a meaningless, scary statement.

It’s the amount of temperature rise that matters. And for a planet where all forms of life experience much wider swings in temperature than “global warming” is producing, which might be 1 deg. C so far, those life forms — including the ones who vote — really don’t care that much.

What?

There is plenty of evidence that links population decline to rising temperatures. In the Australian tropical forests, modeling suggests that a change will produce 1 extinction out of the 65 modeled and reduce the biodiversity significantly as populations decline [1]. Climate change has reduced the area of environments critical to sustain various species. 67% of the harlequin frogs, an amphibian genus, have disappeared in the past 30 years throughout South and Central America [2]. Thomas et al. (2004) modeled the expected number extinctions given a range climate predictions for 2050 by estimating the total number of extinctions that will occur within sample regions. The computer model predicted a ~18% of species included win the study would become extinct using a low-end prediction of future climate change. The high-end predictions, the worst-case scenario for climate predictions, saw ~35% of the included species becoming extinct. This paper doesn't even have the most recent (worse) predictions as it is from 2004.


1. Climate change in Australian tropical rainforests: an impending environmental catastrophe
2. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6970/full/nature02121.html
3. JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

 

[eaeolian]

Wow. It's honestly horrifying how many of you agree that the science is wrong.

That's an interesting conclusion to draw from this thread, since there seems to be a small mountain of evidence posted from climate scientists in here.

 

[Danukenator]

That's an interesting conclusion to draw from this thread, since there seems to be a small mountain of evidence posted from climate scientists in here.

It doesn't even matter. This is why climate scientists can act so frustrated.

One ....ing joke of a BLOG post comes out and all the skeptics claim it's been debunked. He just asserts you can't use thermometers. Why? WHY? WHYYYYYY?

If I document a range of factors (Elevation, absolute humidity, relative humidity, wind speed) in addition to temperature, how is that useless? Why couldn't it be used? He just says:

The thermometer network is made up of a patchwork of non-research quality instruments that were never made to monitor long-term temperature changes to tenths or hundredths of a degree, and the huge data voids around the world are either ignored or in-filled with fictitious data. - See more at: Why 2014 Won

What studies used this data? One, ten, one hundred? Does the ENTIRE IPPC report use them? Yes? No? It's an assertion that is sooooo baseless and yet skeptics eat it up because they lack critical thinking skills. They aren't stupid, they just can't critically think beyond their bias.

EDIT: I'll stop posting because I'm ranting. It's frusturating because people dedicate decades doing the grunt work for studies only to have them dismissed by idiots. These are some of the most honest and hard working people in the world.

 

[celticelk]

Wow. It's honestly horrifying how many of you agree that the science is wrong.

Citation needed.

 

[celticelk]

Even your own listed source (why you listed two points from the same source and believed them to be true simply because they agreed with each other, I'll never know) agrees that we have no certain ideas about what clouds do to heating (although none of the predictions by people claiming the earth is significantly warming came true, showing their climate models are inaccurate), not to mention your second article is basically stating "his climate model isn't as good as ours" when his has shown more accurate heating data.

I listed two articles from the same source because they both deal with the points you're making, and have "basic" versions that don't assume that the reader is well-versed in climate science. Your assertion that Spencer's model shows more accurate heating data (whatever that means, exactly) needs a citation, as does your claim that "none of the predictions by people claiming the earth is significantly warming came true."

 

[ToS]

Wow. It's honestly horrifying how many of you agree that the science is wrong.

Well, so far you have been presented a lot of credible (read: peer-reviewed studies published in relevant journals) evidence that doesn´t support your hypotheses. Yet you arrogantly refute all of this evidence and claim to be the one who´s "right".... that´s not how science work (and btw., science is never wrong - but it can be good or bad; and from all I´ve seen so far, Spencer's science falls mostly in the latter category)

 

[Explorer]

I'm trying to be rational, but it's like trying to convince a five year old that the news isn't evidence that Santa Clause isn't real. It's terrifying how much misinformation is being spread while the media pushes everything else under the rug.

Explorer, I get that you have a vested interest in your political beliefs. Cool, I think everyone does. But misrepresenting numbers to claim a consensus to show your confirmation bias isn't cool either.

Okay. I originally gave an example of what could make me change me mind about my conclusions on AGW. You're even trying an accusation against others about being dogmatic instead of rational.

Yet you refuse to even consider and give an example of evidence which could prove your numeric claim wrong.

So far, you're only showing yourself to be irrational, by not having a conclusion based on, or which can be disproven by, any possible evidence.

Since you seem to have as shaky a grasp on the definition of dogmatic as you do of a strawman argument, let me show you what intellectual rigor and openness to evidence looks like, using an example *you* suggested.

What would it take to convince me that Santa Claus is a real, physical entity, if only for one Christmas Eve?



For me, strong proof would be that all children in the world would receive the gifts they want on Christmas Eve, with said gifts appearing where they live, regardless of the parent(s)' income level, based on that child's actual naughty/nice level.

Since especially wanted gifts would suddenly appear regardless of a shortage at stores, even the poorest children would have them.

Such a miraculous occurrence across all nations where children worship the Santa Claus would be a story resulting in international attention.

I'm assuming that you were asking what kind of thing could convince at least one adult to change his current conclusion. That previously absent entity would still have to be explained in terms of the previous decades of failure to bring presents to the children whose parents couldn't afford it, but at least one year had some entity which filled the role.

See? I have a conclusion (there is no independent entity acting in the role of Santa Claus), based on evidence like: only parents and concerned parties who do what they can with their resources (especially when parents don't have the financial resources like more affluent parents). There's also the evidence that even the most spoiled child who is badly behaved gets far more gifts claimed to be from the Santa entity than a orphan 7-year-old in Brazil or India who is doing all he or she can to keep a younger sibling alive.

Dude, I came up with evidence which would convince a lot of people, at least for one Christmas Eve, that an independent entity magically acted as Santa Claus.

Fvcking Santa Claus.

You, on the other hand, can't present anything at all which would convince you that your very specific claim about the numbers could be wrong.

What evidence would it take for you change your mind about what you claim (a lack of scientific consensus among climate scientists), and convince you that the majority of climate scientists (more than 90%) agree?

 

[Explorer]

Wow. It's honestly horrifying how many of you agree that the science is wrong.

This from the Guy who can't think of a single way to falsify his conclusions....

So, we can add scientific method to the list, already containing dogmatism and strawman argument, of things which you toss out but don't really understand?

Good to know!