Topic: Map Makers Admit Mistake in Showing Ice Cap Loss in Greenland - page 8. (Read 20332 times)

A scientific consensus on what? Not your definition of AGW. What that article claims is in agreement with what I said earlier. Read your own link.


I am not confused, rather I see two aspects to this as a scientist but non-expert:

1) What exactly is there consensus on?
- This is what I am looking for answers to right now.
2) What are the sources of uncertainty, and are these scientists properly assessing and quantifying all sources of uncertainty?
- This is where most science goes awry. Ascertaining this requires extensive reading and probably consulting/questioning of the experts once I have some understanding of the models (I expect this will take a lot of time).

It sounds to me like you're having a very difficult time in determining the difference between the existence of a scientific consensus and your own personal opinion about climate change. The scientific consensus on the subject does not care about your own personal views. It is a large set of data and participants that operates independently of your views.

Let me help you out. Reread everything I posted in this thread and the relevant links, and then you'll understand that the information presented to you serves two purposes:

1. To demonstrate that there is a scientific consensus. Read this: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full . It is not difficult to determine this.  Keep in mind that a scientific consensus on the subject is not the same as your own interpretation of the scientific data.

2. Your own personal views are less interesting than what is said in the scientific literature.

Carry on.

My point is to find out if there is consensus about this:

As of right now I don't think so. A huge factor (clouds) is basically an unknown, and they have only a short timeframe for which there is good data. But I am not that well read on this topic yet, so maybe there is some trick. We will find out.

Do as you wish. A solid summary of your views and logic behind them would be helpful, because right now they're not so clear.

Ok, since for whatever reason you don't want to cooperate, I will use my own definitions. I predict we will observe that you move the goal posts though.

Most Credible= IPCC report
Semi-Credible= Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Not-Credible= everything else

Against is actually kind of tough. Lets say that,

"Against AGW"= the discussion includes a statement of doubt that


I don't think we are ready to talk about "Serious damage" and "huge economic damage". That belongs more in the discussion about the cost-benefit of do nothing, mitigate, or adapt. Instead, I will use a rise of 2-4 K or more from current temperatures in the next two hundred years as a proxy for damage. This seems to be the temperature change consistently associated with big problems by the IPCC. Correct me if I'm wrong here...

To demonstrate how pointless and annoying your line of attack is:

Please define what "differrent" means in your first sentence above. What do you mean by "mixed up" in the second sentence above.

Also, in the first sentence above, you used the term 'believe'. How do feel a belief system taints one's line of thinking?

Well, it isn't.


No, I won't define "against". You may use an online dictionary. As for the other terms, if you had greater information to back up whatever it is you believe, then you wouldn't resort to such parsing. And no, I won't define the term "greater" for you as used in the last sentence. 

Ok, well I believe your definition is different from that of most scientists. I think you have mixed up the definition with a few of the possible outcomes. Anyway, in doing this you added in a couple new terms we need to define. My next question was going to be:

What is your definition of credible?

Also:
What is your definition of "Serious Damage"?
What is your definition of "Huge Economic Damage"?

Once you define these, I will try to find credible science that is "against" AGW.

Actually can you also define "against"? I think I know what you mean but I don't want any disagreement once I do this.

The economy of humanity is raising the average global temperature at a rate which will cause:

1. Serious damage to our ecosystems, and the productivity of our ecosystems.
2. A sea level rise which might cause huge economic damage.

I think your problem is you don't know enough about ecosystems. You might want to learn about ecology, trophic cascades, natural capital, and other topics within that framework. Let me know if I can recommend any reading material to you that will serve as a both a primer and catalyst.

What is your definition of AGW?

1) That the earth has warmed since 1900.
2) That the earth has warmed since 1990 due to CO2 emissions.
3) That the earth will continue to warm.
4) That the earth will continue to warm until catastrophic events occur.

Every time we get one of these climate change threads, I ask for the deniers to post some credible science against AGW, and it never materializes.

Furthermore, there's a definite split, and it goes like this:

1. Those who use their political beliefs to guide what scientific results they're looking for.

2. Those who use the results of science to guide their political beliefs.

If you're in camp #1, you've got problems.

I would like to demonstrate this argument in the form of a video.

http://youtu.be/PGuD9ru27d0?t=36m13s

I was replying to P4man who seemed to think that questioning peer-reviewed literature was nonsense.

I've already explained this here in this thread quite clearly. I'm surprised that you think your statement actually explains anything.

There are those who allow their political desires to decide when science is telling the truth. You're almost certainly that type. And there are those who allow the results of science to influence their political beliefs. I'm definitely the latter.

Look up the funding sources and their history.

I fail to see your point.

Those who disagree with AGW do not lack 1, 2, 3 or 4. Big Oil sees to that. Unfortunately for them, they often lack credibility, which is why journal reviewers probably don't favor them. Really, try not to be so obtuse. Quite simply, the money is there in massive quantities to support science against AGW. The problem is, there just isn't good science against AGW. Ever thought of that? If there was indeed good science against AGW, then why would individuals find the need to produce quack documents such as the Oregon Petition?

Science isn't magic, anyone can do it under the right circumstances.

Here is how science works *in general:
1) Scientist #1 reads peer-reviewed literature
2) Scientist #1 comes up with an idea based on this literature
3) Scientist #1 uses a small amount of funds they have to generate preliminary evidence. Thus indicating their idea has merit, and they are capable of performing the experiment.
4) Scientist #1 writes up a grant proposal and submits it to funding agencies
5) Other scientists (usually 2-4) review this proposal (along with many others) and score it based on funding agency guidelines and their subjective criteria
6) Grants with the best scores get funded with large amount of money.
7) Scientist #1 uses grant money to perform larger scale experiment
8) The data generated by the larger scale experiment is analyzed and interpreted by scientist #1
9) Scientist #1 writes a report describing how the data was analyzed, what previous publications say about related data, and his/her interpretations of the results in light of other work and general knowledge about the world.
10) This report is submitted to various peer reviewed journals
11) Other scientists (usually 2-4) review this report (along with many others) and critique it according to journal guidelines and subjective criteria.
12) Scientist #1's report meets the subjective criteria of the reviewers and is published
13) Scientist #2 reads this report (along with many others)
14) Scientist #2 comes up with a new idea based on the now updated literature. This can be either an alternative to scientist #1's conclusions or supporting them.

....Cycle repeats, etc.

So what is stopping "just anyone" from being a published scientist?
1) The ability to come with an idea considered worth studying by funding agencies and other people in the field
2) Access to the equipment and technical expertise to generate preliminary data.
3) The ability to come up with money to generate preliminary results.
4) The ability to convince funding agencies that your work has merit, your experimental design controls for confounds, and you are the best suited to perform the work.
5) The ability to interpret your results in a way that satisfies journal reviewers. (account for confounds, etc)

Edit= I have emphasized the steps most vulnerable to political contamination with italics.

You think that a single paper published in PNAS represents the views of the NAS??? There is more misunderstanding here than I thought.

Do you have any idea how unearthly desperate you sound, trying to come up with "alternative interpretations"  to refute the NAS' conclusions while using the very same NAS data from the very same report? What on earth do you expect to achieve?

Honestly, there is a limit to how much nonsense I can cope with.

How I wish there was an unsubscribe button, cause Im done here.

Here is the entire paper(only 3 pages):
http://www.mediafire.com/?74pd5d74l3uuo08