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Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by Steven Mosher

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“Over on climateaudit Nic said that “Some of the modelling groups will no doubt be loathe to accept Stevens’ findings.” For what reason? What are the main arguments that can be expected as to (a) why the paper is weak or unconvincing, or (b) why Nic’s additional analysis is not convincing?”

Go to climate audit. ask the person making the argument. Don’t make other people do the work for defending or explaining Nic’s speculation.
It’s unreasonable, unfair, and generally annoying.


Comment on On the social contract between science and society by Joshua

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Danny –

I mistakenly posted this on the other thread…. Re-posting here: Judith, if you read this please delete the other comment:

==> “Curious of your defintion of “activist” and if there are those on the AGW side who might fit the bill?

I think that an activist is someone who is “active” on one side or the other of an issue, in particular a controversial issue, and in particular a controversial issue that has significant societal implications.

As such, most scientists are “activists” in support of the hypotheses they are trying to prove. Further, scientists who are heavily engaged in the public sphere w/r/t the science of climate change are activists.

One of my main beefs with Judith’s argument and that of many others w/r/t the question of activism and science is that the way that “activist” is defined is usually arbitrarily determined (arbitrary in the sense of objectively, not in the sense of randomly). Thus, we get often get is functionally “They are activists (and thus can be discounted) and we are not.”

IIRC, you mentioned something about RPJr. recently? I think that he has a much less arbitrary view of the nexus between “activism” and science than we see with Judith’s approach – which seems to me to largely employ a circular, double-standard in a self-serving manner.

I also think that in balance, activism is a positive force in our society. I look at our history of social change, and while there has certainly been much activism that I would not support or that I think was counterproductive in effect, I think that we all have benefited from living in a society were activism on social issues was a protected right. I look at the work of someone like Amartya Sen, and I think that the combination of civil society activism along with governmental infrastructure that supports that kind of activism is the single most important influence on enhancing standards of living for a broad cross-section of society.

I don’t think that all activism is alike. The temptation is to judge “our” activism as good and “their” activism as bad – but as someone who recognizes the importance of activism, I try to avoid such a subjective calculus. I try to use other measures to evaluate the value of activism – primarily, the integrity of the reasoning behind the activism. In that sense, I agree with the piece of Judith’s “activism” w/r/t prioritizing the engagement with uncertainty – even as I strongly disagree with what I see as her double-standards w/r/t how she engages uncertainty related to climate change:

I think, however, that the very existence of activism tells us nothing definitive about the quality of reasoning that underlies that activism. For example, MLK Jr. was an activist, who relied on the highest quality of reasoning. Thus, I view his activism in a positive light. Of course, it gets tricky because poor quality activism (based on unsound reasoning) can have, IMO, beneficial societal influences and good quality activism (based on sound reasoning) can have, IMO, destructive societal influences.

At any rate – from what I’ve seen Nic is an activist. As such, I note that the value of his work cannot be reverse engineered on the basis of him being an activist. We might try to evaluate probabilities related to the quality of his work on the basis of the quality of his activism (which I think is not based on particularly good reasoning), but always with the knowledge that doing so is based in an intrinsically flawed model (his work on climate change does not necessarily reflect the quality of his activism). What I find unfortunate is that while Nic apparently thinks that his work should not be judged on the simple fact of whether or not he is an activist, he doesn’t extend that same logic when he evaluates the work of others (which is one of the reasons why I don’t think his activism is of a high quality).

==> “It seems that a label (Name + activist = skepticism) yet I see nothing w/r/t quality of “merits of work”.

I couldn’t follow that.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by Danny Thomas

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Steven,
Thank you for that. Re:”people keep on thinking in terms of some piece of data that will make AGW go away as a theory” I personally have no expectation of this, but only that further discovery will lead to better understanding and that good old mother nature is gonna do what she’s gonna do in response (or in spite of) our contribution as she doesn’t care from where warming comes just that it does and she’s gonna address it at least in part (and may already have). But I’ve got lots of learning yet to do.

Comment on On the social contract between science and society by Danny Thomas

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Originally posted on the Lewis post, but will respond again here and hope Dr. C will delete over there.

Joshua,

Sorry this wasn’t clear. It applies to both sides. ““It seems that a label (Name + activist = skepticism) yet I see nothing w/r/t quality of “merits of work”.

I couldn’t follow that.”

Michael Mann (name) + activist (considered as such) = no consideration of the work (just the labels). And I fear you’ve done much the same by
Nic Lewis + activist (your labelling) = led to no evaluation of this work.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by Lucifer

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<i>What is the source for the diagram in that post?</i> <a href="http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/sm6401.pdf" rel="nofollow">Manabe & Strickler 1964</a> Early work using the 1D models. The convection ( and lapse rate assumptions ) are of low fidelity, but the principles remain.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by curryja

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The integral of all the feedbacks, after fixing incorrect aerosol forcing, may be surprising (all this is not linear), and it may be pretty much zero.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by stevefitzpatrick

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Steve Mosher,
“people keep on thinking in terms of some piece of data that will make AGW go away as a theory. That won’t happen. What happens is that theory gets modified to include the observation. There is no final nail in the coffin.”

Of course there is no final nail in the coffin; GHG driven warming is fundamentally true, and rising GHG concentrations in the atmosphere must raise surface temperatures, all else being equal. But I think it is important to draw a distinction between the legitimate scientific arguments (of which there are many) and the consequent policy arguments. I suspect most who participate here are primarily motivated by concern for how the scientific issues impact policy choices. If analyses like Nic has been doing accurately reflect reality, and if the true aerosol influences are substantially lower than has been assumed (the Stevens paper, and arguments by some aerosol specialists) then justifying immediate reductions in fossil fuel use, independent of cost, as some argue for, becomes nearly impossible. So in a sense, the science could well generate nails which will close the coffins of certain policy responses to GHG driven warming, not AGW. If Nic’s TCR and ECS probability curves above reflect reality, then I doubt the voting public will accept draconian policy options.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by Joshua


Comment on On the social contract between science and society by jim2

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To what “clear indications” of Nic’s do you refer?

Comment on On the social contract between science and society by Joshua

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steven –

“weird definition. How would someone be inactive?
a) they are dead.
b) they never speak.”

It’s a fairly low bar. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be. I agree with RPJr. to some degree in this respect. Of course, there can be degrees of activism. A scientist who is not engaged at all in the public sphere w/r/t climate change would be, relatively speaking, not much of an activist on the social issues – even if she is actively engaged in advocating on behalf of her own science.

==> “If I say “we have a race problem in america” I am engaged in a verbal
action. By your definition I would be an activist.”

Sure, a relatively inactive activist.

==> “I would say that to be an activist one has to go beyond this “being active””

You’re applying the term as a binary condition. As a prescriptivist, I point out how useless that is in the real world. The real world is not binary. The binary condition of “activism” is part of what allows for Judith’s: “They” are activists but “we” are not.”

==> “So to get at a good operational definition you might consider some clear exemplars: What is CLEARLY being an activist. What is CLEARLY being an in-activist”

So here you are arguing against a binary standard. I agree.

Your definittion comes close to making everyone an activist which empties the term of its differential meaning.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by Joshua

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2

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Joshua, “==> “1920-1950 is a period that is particularly uncertain in the observational record, ”

Yet another factor that leads to a bag o’ unintentional irony in the “skept-o-sphere.””

The shift from buckets to intake likely didn’t have that much impact on surface station measurement. BEST, GISS and Hadley seem to have a good deal of confidence in their land based records which show about the same shift as SST. Those land based measurements with estimated uncertainty limit how much SST can be adjusted so with quantifying “. is particularly uncertain..” Dr. Kennedy’s comment is very constructive is it?

Comment on On the social contract between science and society by Joshua

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Danny –

It looks like Judith Zambonied my previous response?

I’ll try again…

Michael Mann (name) + activist (considered as such) = no consideration of the work (just the labels). And I fear you’ve done much the same by
Nic Lewis + activist (your labelling) = led to no evaluation of this work.

That seems to be a misunderstanding of my view.

Most people seem to follow the following path: “I don’t like that scientists conclusions, and so I’ll deem him/her an “activist” (arbitrarily) and as such, dismiss his/her scientific conclusions”

I can’t evaluate Nic’s science. I don’t have the intelligence, and accordingly the technical background, to do so.

But I can evaluate Nic’s activism – which is poor quality, IMO (it is based on flawed reasoning). The poor reasoning associated with his activism can help inform me about some probabilities with respect to the technical merits of his work (if he allows his activism to bias his reasoning in one context, he might be more likely to do so in other areas as well). But that is a flawed/limited model. The fact of him being an activist, per se, tells me nothing about his work.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by Wagathon

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None of this is something that 30-50 more years of dedicated, public-funded research cannot get to the bottom of…

Comment on On the social contract between science and society by Joshua

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???

==> “I REALLY DONT WANT A DISCUSSION OF ACTIVISTS TO CONTINUE ON THIS TECHNICAL THREAD!

Did you post that comment on the wrong thread?

If not, please specify what comprises a technical thread.


Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by ristvan

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Nic’s post and B. Steven’s new paper provide an additional example of ‘consensus’ bias/momentum in AR5 WG1 chapter 7 (clouds and aerosols). Figure 7.19 and Table 7.4 both show that the CMIP5 models examined have net aerosol forcing greater than -1, while all the model/ satallite at least partly observational methods are less than -1. In fact, the two different papers deriving estimates just using Ceres/Modis satellites got -0.67 and -0.45, closely bracketing Steven’s new inferred best aerosol estimate of -0.5.
Rather than question the CMIP5 models despite the by then evident pause/hiatus that AR5 obscured elsewhere (essay Hiding the Hiatus), the lead authors went with an expert judgement that including the model range of values. In other words, even tho the chapter clearly shows a model/observational aerosol discrepancy, nothing was made of it.
Nor was any mention made of Chylek et. al. 2007 J. Geophys Res. paper that showed if observed aerosol forcing trend 2000-2006 was combined with the observed GHG forcing trend (mainly CO2) then climate sensitivity would be halved. Which is what Nic about calculated in Lewis and Curry, and recalculates more exactly here.
Both the aerosol information and the sensitivity consequences were in plain view to AR5, but ignored.

Comment on On the social contract between science and society by fizzymagic

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<i>I’ve never met one who can’t see the strengths of the other two. </i> I guess our experiences are different, then.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by David Springer

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Wow. Mosher doesn’t know the definition of climate sensitivity. Nic Lewis does. So do I.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6.html

“Climate sensitivity is a metric used to characterise the response of the global climate system to a given forcing. It is broadly defined as the equilibrium global mean surface temperature change following a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration”

Read more and comment less, Mosher. Or maybe go get a science degree of some sort.

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by ordvic

Comment on Implications of lower aerosol forcing for climate sensitivity by ordvic

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