Thread: Global Bias in Global Warming Science?

Various scientists have been challenging the theory of "global warming" / "climate change" with different views.

Here are some examples.

U.S.: Richard Lindzen, Atmospheric Scientist, MIT

U.K.: Freeman Dyson, Fellow of the Royal Society

Greece: Demetris Koutsoyiannis, National Technical University of Athens

Canada: Steve McIntyre, Geologist, founder of Climate Audit

Australia: Ian Plimer, Geologist

Ethiopia: Messele Zewdie Ejeta, Civil Engineer working in the U.S., uncovered associations between Saros cycles and hydrological conditions on earth while trying to address uncertainties in Global Circulation Model outputs.

Please add those scientists that you know of challenging the theory of climate change or trying to address its uncertainty. It may help to infer if a global bias exists in this pool of scientists?

Originally Posted by GGII

Please add those scientists that you know of challenging the theory of climate change

I am guessing that that list will include no climate scientists (not even Lindzen).

or trying to address its uncertainty

And that list will include all climate scientists.

I'm not sure what the point is.

Climate change is a complex beast. There are so many factors that play in, and some of which, contribute greatly. It's no surprise that specialist, such as a geologist or a person who studys the atmosphere, would seem skeptical or even deny it. However, if you look at all the factors, it doesn't add up by natural causes alone, and it's most definitely a verified issue.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by GGII

or trying to address its uncertainty

And that list will include all climate scientists.

But if a "climate scientist" not only attempts to hinder the effort to address this uncertainty but goes to the extent of retaliating against the effort, it ceases to be science, at least in view of the acts of the particular "climate scientist." Doesn't it?

Originally Posted by EddyBearr

Climate change is a complex beast.

May be not any more.

For GG11. Ozone has been having an effect on our atmosphere through various zones. However the big picture would suggest that climate disturbances are a likely consequence of more severe weather patterns that are being experienced right here and now. Weather changes have been noticable over the last 100 years. They are getting more severe. We should be aware of this, and we are not doing enough or investing enough money concurrently to predict the likely consequences of inaction. I have no doubt that weather events will occur more often worldwide in the coming years. Yes, we can plan better. We have to plan better. This problem is not going to go away. You might poste that Conferences and Debates and collection of scientific information is going on all the time. In all Nations with an interest in Financial Investment in Futures etc. This has to continue and National Politics need to be more proactive and aware of what the mainstream scientific community have to tell them. Failure to do this and Global Distribution of Food Resources will be disrupted, not in the long term, in the short term. Twenty Years is my estimate based on the situation throughout the Planet at this time. Then the belt tightening and concern by the masses will escalate. Sorry about this, I do not want to be alarmist, but I,ve had a long time to make my own observations and, unless there is a turnaround of present trends, it's going to get worse quickly. I'll have another Thread on this Topic when I've had a think about what can be done to cope with this now coming condition. Accelerated Disasters. westwind.

Originally Posted by GGII

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by GGII

or trying to address its uncertainty

And that list will include all climate scientists.

But if a "climate scientist" not only attempts to hinder the effort to address this uncertainty but goes to the extent of retaliating against the effort, it ceases to be science, at least in view of the acts of the particular "climate scientist." Doesn't it?

Most climate scientists I know of are very clear about the uncertainty; they are scientists. after all. It is those with an anti-science agenda that seize on the uncertainty (without understanding it) to push a political agenda. At least, that's been my experience.

Originally Posted by GGII

But if a "climate scientist" not only attempts to hinder the effort to address this uncertainty but goes to the extent of retaliating against the effort, it ceases to be science, at least in view of the acts of the particular "climate scientist." Doesn't it?

Hard to know what you are talking about with such a generic statement. I'm not aware of any examples of scientists (of any sort) trying to stop work to reduce uncertainty. That is a large part of what science is about: understanding that there are uncertainties and doing as a much as possible, through experimentation and improved theory, to reduce them.

Do you have a specific example to make it clear what you are talking about?

Originally Posted by GGII

Originally Posted by EddyBearr

Climate change is a complex beast.

May be not any more.

No, it is. Really.

But if a "climate scientist" not only attempts to hinder the effort to address this uncertainty but goes to the extent of retaliating against the effort, it ceases to be science, at least in view of the acts of the particular "climate scientist."

Physics doesn't fall apart if a physicist mucks something up.

When you talk about "a climate scientist" are you talking about .....
..... a climatologist, an oceanographer, a radiative physicist, a glaciologist, a meteorologist, a paleoclimatologist, a cryologist, a statistician, a fluid mechanics physicist? Someone who specialises in ice cores or clouds or forestry or hurricanes or deserts or corals or tropical soils?

What effect would any possible reprehensible action on the part of one, or even more than one, scientist among the tens of thousands involved in all the relevant fields have on the accumulated body of work of all the rest of them?

Climate science is not a delicate crystal vase that can be shattered by a single person or action.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by GGII

But if a "climate scientist" not only attempts to hinder the effort to address this uncertainty but goes to the extent of retaliating against the effort, it ceases to be science, at least in view of the acts of the particular "climate scientist." Doesn't it?

Hard to know what you are talking about with such a generic statement. I'm not aware of any examples of scientists (of any sort) trying to stop work to reduce uncertainty. That is a large part of what science is about: understanding that there are uncertainties and doing as a much as possible, through experimentation and improved theory, to reduce them.

Do you have a specific example to make it clear what you are talking about?

I agree that science involves understanding uncertainties and reducing them as much as possible. Many of us in the scientific community may have taken that for granted. ... I am talking about a specific case, which is documented and may be taking its course.

Originally Posted by adelady

But if a "climate scientist" not only attempts to hinder the effort to address this uncertainty but goes to the extent of retaliating against the effort, it ceases to be science, at least in view of the acts of the particular "climate scientist."

Physics doesn't fall apart if a physicist mucks something up.

When you talk about "a climate scientist" are you talking about .....
..... a climatologist, an oceanographer, a radiative physicist, a glaciologist, a meteorologist, a paleoclimatologist, a cryologist, a statistician, a fluid mechanics physicist? Someone who specialises in ice cores or clouds or forestry or hurricanes or deserts or corals or tropical soils?

What effect would any possible reprehensible action on the part of one, or even more than one, scientist among the tens of thousands involved in all the relevant fields have on the accumulated body of work of all the rest of them?

Climate science is not a delicate crystal vase that can be shattered by a single person or action.

Who is a climate scientist is a good question. In my earlier comment, I used quotation marks with the term climate scientist for the same reason. I get confused when I read phrases like "98% of climate scientists" and started asking who they are by training. I have yet to get a clear definition of the term somebody coined recently. It turns out that the science itself is an emerging area of specialty. For instance, the Climate Sciences Department at the University of California at Berkeley was formed in April 2007 as the newest department in the university's Earth Sciences Division.

If we try to see climate science and climate change through different crystals, they fall into two categorically distinct but related vases. It is fair to say that a single finding, or looking at an existing science through a different lens, can and has shattered pseudoscience. Nature's law is very powerful.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by GGII

Originally Posted by EddyBearr

Climate change is a complex beast.

May be not any more.

No, it is. Really.

Perhaps, the most important thing that has come out of the whole exercise is our enhanced capability to characterize it; finding simplicity out of complexity, in relative terms. I no longer think that it is what it used to be. May be we needed another Galileo Galilee to get here.

Originally Posted by GGII

I am talking about a specific case, which is documented and may be taking its course.

And ... ?

Or is it a secret? Or should we guess?

Steve McIntrye is not a geologist - he's a mathematician with training and experience in economics, who made some embarrassing mistakes in an analysis of the "hockey stick" graph (probably because he was unfamiliar with the kind of data involved, although his political and economic connections do hint at other factors) : Stephen McIntyre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Lindzen is a genuine scientist in a relevant field, and like all the others agrees that the anthropogenic CO2 boost has a large and inescapable warming effect on the planet - his arguments are against predictions of catastrophe, on the grounds that there are feedback effects that will counter the CO2 warming and limit the temperature rise. These feedback effects have not been demonstrated yet, at the level required (Lindzen's analysis of satellite data that bid to do that was shown to be in error, and no other demonstration has yet been published).

Freeman Dyson is a genuine scientist in a mostly not relevant field, and he fully accepts the demonstrated anthropogenic CO2 boosting and the indicated heat-trapping consequences. His quarrel is not with global warming per se, but with what he feels is an unwarranted confidence in specific predictions and what he objects to as the overtly hostile and politically corrupted treatment of those few scientists who criticize the consensus (IPCC) findings.

And so forth. The OP is garbage.

Originally Posted by GGII

I agree that science involves understanding uncertainties and reducing them as much as possible. Many of us in the scientific community may have taken that for granted. ... I am talking about a specific case, which is documented and may be taking its course.

Moderator Note: This is a science discussion forum. We don't use ESP here. Please state clearly what specific case you are talking about. If this case is sub judice then you should not have introduced the subject at this time.