[lancewiggs]

I have to admit it is quite astonishing to see someone denying climate change is a huge issue on a site dedicated to computer-logic based businesses that are future-focused, a site populated by many under 30.

Climate change is the primary challenge for the next few generations, and once we move on from 'debate' we see that there are a wealth of opportunities in mitigation, reduction of CO2 output and coping with the impact. Just ask Elon Musk.

[guscost]

I emphatically disagree with the "overwhelming judgement of science" when it comes to this issue. And I'm thoroughly disgusted by the profiteering that accompanies the global warming campaign. Let's see who is in denial 20 years from now.

Permalink For Great Justice: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1990/to

[Karunamon]

Which of these scenarios do you think is more likely?

That a group of nonprofits and academic institutions all colluded over a decade or three to make money in a very roundabout way for groups they don't have any direct involvement with?

-or-

That a group of oil industry types, in a nod to the junk science used by big tobacco for years, colluded over a decade or three in an attempt to discredit something that will directly impact their bottom lines in a bad way?

Follow the money. Hell, follow human nature.

[CamperBob2]

Or, that everybody was wrong because they were working from an incorrect or incomplete model.

That's what has actually happened a few gazillion times throughout human history, unlike either of the other two scenarios you posit.

The best thing we can do is force the climate scientists to make specific predictions, then look back in a few decades and evaluate those predictions. Predictive power isn't everything, it's the only thing.

So far, the predictive power of the vaunted "scientific consensus" has been mixed. Personally, I'm not as satisfied with the quality of the models or the data as I would like to be, given the magnitude of the changes to global economics that are being demanded on the basis of those models and data.

[Karunamon]

So I'll ask you the same thing I've asked every other climate change denier:

Show me a critical analysis of the data that wasn't commissioned by or sponsored by the energy industry or any organization or person connected to it.

[guscost]

When you're invoking doomsday to obtain grants or subsidies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof

[Karunamon]

Indeed. Anyone asserting that the current body of science is wrong about climate change should be able to back that up with data from non-questionable sources.

[ZenoArrow]

Permalink for Great Justice? Here's a graph from 1970 (rather than 1990), using a more up to date version of the database you referred to... http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/to Notice the upward trend?

Let's go back even further, to 1900... http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/to The upward trend in temperature is clear, the question then becomes why it is happening. What is your theory on this?

[CamperBob2]

What is your theory on this?

I don't have one, but what is your theory on this?

http://i.imgur.com/5hPqZQh.png

Now, here's the whole 12-hour graph, rather than just a three minute excerpt from the very end:

http://i.imgur.com/npSuZd9.png

Whatever your theory was, does it still hold up?

[ZenoArrow]

What data is plotted on these graphs? Phase difference of what?

[CamperBob2]

In this case, a cesium-beam frequency standard (aka atomic clock.) The specific data source isn't as important as the noise processes that it exhibits -- in this case a combination of white and random-walk frequency noise. The latter noise type alters the phase slope over multiple timeframes at once, even though the slope is accurately known over the long term.

The usual metaphor is a drunk person looking for his lost car keys. He meanders around under the streetlight because that's the only place where he can see where he's going. He won't stray very far from the lamp post, but his direction at any given time has little or no correlation to either his past or future behavior.

It's easy to fool yourself into thinking you understand what's going on based on recent historical behavior, but in reality, the presence of random-walk noise means that it's impossible to infer anything about long-term trends or short-term biases by looking at short-term trends. In climate science, even a hundred thousand years' worth of data is still a "short term" record. We need better data, we need better models, and most important, we need to give ourselves time to evaluate them on the basis of their predictive power.

Based on my own experience watching random-walk processes in real time, someone who expects me to take action based on the last 100 years of data from a multi-billion year timeframe is just going to get laughed at. I've spent so much time fooling myself (that's my software, and my cesium standard) that I probably am erring on the side of too much skepticism.

[guscost]

Why stop there? http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553

For the record, my theory is that "average global surface temperature" has a nonlinear response to various known and unknown forcings.

[ajb]

http://woodfortrees.org/notes#trends

[bitcartel]

Ask Freeman Dyson, he might surprise you.

[1] http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pa...

[sp332]

You shouldn't be too surprised. Odd politics are rampant in computer science. Stallman, Chomsky, etc.