1) Climate science represents a convergence of evidence

Why do so many scientists and scientific organizations accept that climate change is real, human-caused, and dangerous?

It's not because of any single line of evidence or any one prediction. Rather, says Shermer, "there is a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry — pollen, tree rings, ice cores, corals, glacial and polar ice-cap melt, sea-level rise, ecological shifts, carbon dioxide increases, the unprecedented rate of temperature increase — that all converge to a singular conclusion." Scientists call this sort of convergence of independent lines of evidence "consilience." Biologist E.O. Wilson wrote a very good book about it.

Climate denialists — indeed, most people — do not fully grasp the implications of consilience. The strength of consilience science does not issue from the validity of any one set of measurements or any one line of evidence. It's not vulnerable to wholesale refutation if anomalies are found in one data set or another. Even if individual lines of evidence are weak or uncertain, their convergence, the fact that many trails keep leading to the same place, can make consilience science strong.

And the convergence also makes consilience science fecund — it suggests and structures further research.

2) Climate "skepticism" does not
Writes Shermer:

For [climate] skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the data. ... This they have not done.
I'm not sure the disengaged public understands this: Climate skepticism is not an alternative theory. The climate skeptic community is a hodgepodge, a farrago of theories and conspiracies that range all over the map, from sunspots to adjustments in particular temperature data sets to hoaxes by scientists greedy for grant money. There's no shared alternative framework, just a fixed certainty that the consensus must be wrong.

If the mainstream scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change is wrong, then we'll need some other theory that makes sense of present-day changes and harmonizes with data from historical record. Climate skeptics have offered no such theory. Where climate change science is fecund, climate skepticism is moribund, merely destructive.

Lees is losing it! Blithering away about null hypothesis again!

Been through this, Lees.

If you think AGW is true then:

H1: temperatures since mid 1800s have been increasing

H0: temperatures have not increased.

Given the temperatures HAVE increased significantly H0 is rejected and H1 accepted.

Your hypothesis?

"Scientific consensus: Earth's climate is warming "

I thought that a null hypothesis was the commonly accepted hypothesis. In this case pro AGW.

At this point isn't the burden of proof resting with "deniers"?

Arctic winter sees record low sea-ice cover
By Tim Ellis, KUAC - Fairbanks -  March 22, 2017


Ice floes float in Baffin Bay between Canada and Greenland above the Arctic circle on July 10, 2008. A new paper from Arizona State University physicists proposes using sea water pumps to facilitate more ice formation in the Arctic. (Photo by Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
It’s been a chilly winter here in the Interior and elsewhere around the state. But for the Arctic Ocean, it’s been one long warm spell. That’s led to another record-low year for formation of Arctic winter sea-ice cover.

Experts with the National Snow and Ice Data Center say formation of sea ice around the Arctic Ocean probably petered out about two weeks ago. On Wednesday, they finally declared that the extent of sea-ice cover on the Arctic Ocean has grown as much as it’s going to this year.

Mark Serreze is a senior research scientist with the Snow and Ice Data Center.

“What we have now is what we call the lowest maximum on record,” Serreze said.

Serreze said well-above-average warmth over the Arctic Ocean since fall has led to well-below-average sea-ice formation. So much so that the center declared this year’s Arctic sea-ice maximum extent was the lowest in 38 years, since satellite monitoring began.

“Part of what’s going on is it was so darn warm this winter over the Arctic Ocean, especially out on the Atlantic side,” Serreze said.

Center officials say the sea ice probably reached its maximum extent on March 7th, when it covered about 5-and-a-half-million square miles of the Arctic Ocean, including portions of the Bering Sea that lie south of the Arctic Circle. That’s about 470,000 square miles less than the 38-year average. And it’s about 37,000 square miles less than the 2015 maximum extent, the previous record-setting low. 2016 set the third-lowest maximum extent on record.

“This is the third year we’ve seen these extreme low values of sea ice,” Serreze said.

The center said it’s been a warm fall and winter for the Arctic Ocean, with temperatures averaging 4-and-a-half-degrees Fahrenheit above the norm. The air over the Chukchi Sea northwest of Alaska and the Barents Sea north of Scandinavia was even warmer, averaging around 9 degrees above the norm.

“And so that prevented sea ice from growing, in part,” Serreze said. “And it’s looks like we’ve probably got a lot of very thin ice about there.”

Serreze said Arctic sea ice is already beginning to melt and recede, setting the stage for a very low sea-ice minimum extent that the center will declare in September.

“So we’re starting the melt season in a deep hole right now,” Serreze said. “And we’ll see how things work out this spring and summer, but I’m expecting we’re going to have a very, very low September extent.”

Serreze said seasonal weather conditions around the Arctic will determine whether the minimum sea-ice extent will set another record. He said the minimum is the more important and telling metric.

“That’s the one that really matters in the end,” Serreze said. “And what we’re seeing is that September extent is going down quite quickly right now.”

Also, AGW is not the null hypothesis but the alternative hypothesis.

he null hypothesis would be that temperatures are constant ± natural variation.

Does not look like a logarithmic relationship, linear is more like it.

Speaking of manipulating data, please don't cherry pick. Your argument is based on selective observation, a logical fallacy.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 10:52am:

Yes, agreed.

However, it's still just a theory.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 10:52am:

I have no need to put forward any alternative theories.

However, if pressed, I would say that planet Earth's climate is doing what it's done for billions of years: change naturally, without any influence from humans.

Nope, the greenhouse effect has been demonstrated and measured.

I can’t help it if you don’t read. The penultimate paper I posted mentioned variation. ±.1

Find the paper and ask the authors.

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 11:18am:



I don't think ...

Deniers are frightened little people who don’t want to believe AGW is here and is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.

AGW is here. It is warming and drying the southern half of the continent.

On the other hand poor deniers. . .

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 1:04pm:



So it IS regional warming not AGW?

What you are doing is picking 2 data points out of the data supporting a global trend of warming over the last couple centuries to back up a point, and excluding the rest of the data.

Overall, the trend globally is warmer, but this position also explains the crazy blizzards and cold snaps in various parts of the world.

LawfoolNeutral wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 3:02pm:



And of course disregards other periods of crazy weather before AGW. Or don't you think "crazy weather" existed?

rom the first link;
"Please note: the estimate for the baseline global temperature used in this study differed, and was warmer than, the baseline estimate (Jones et al., 1999) used currently. This report has been superseded by subsequent analyses. However, as with all climate monitoring reports, it is left online as it was written at the time."

Did you miss that?

Global warming is. . .global.

Will take me a while to absorb this, your argument hangs on the position expressed in the Spinger published paper, and I'm not sure I am equipped to critique the author (David Legates).

I will say that what I have read of him so far (he appears to be a creationist, and a Scott Pruitt supporter) are ringing alarm bells for me.

I can't post links yet (or I would) to the sources.

LawfoolNeutral wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 3:52pm:



Proof?

LawfoolNeutral wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 4:30pm:


OK NOAA 1997 - 62.45ºF. Now see if you can find what the adjusted temperature is for 1997 in their table data rankings. Tell me if it has changed. Rather hard to be warmest at 62.45ºF and way down the list on the ranking data.

lee wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 4:08pm:


The difference in the available data at those 2 links is extreme. I think you are drawing a long bow to arrive at that conclusion if that is the only data you are using, and the conclusion you have reached is misguided.

That is only cyclones. Plenty of other effects of AGW.

“In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century due to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. Based on updated studies, AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated. However, it is likely that the frequency and intensity of drought has increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa and decreased in central North America and north-west Australia since 1950”

“In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms because of historical data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems”

“In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale”

Southern Australia is drying out. A measured fact.

The radiative forcings explain the warming. Global warming, regional effect.

I noticed you could not offer any other forcing to explain the warming.

What natural forcings can explain the warming, Lees?

Poor desperate Lees.

Natural variation explains the warming.

Can’t explain natural variation. Can’t name a single forcing.

Why not just say: AGW?

lee wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 4:50pm:


Like I said - let me absorb this.

No - what I am saying is that the NOAA is a reputable scientific organisation, and rather than alter previous publications, the have left the original page (annotated) for transparencies sake.

LawfoolNeutral wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 9:38pm:


So why not provide an annotation with reasons for the change? It shouldn't be too hard.

e.g.  "We regret we made an error when we said the global temperature was 62.45ºF. This was due to an error in transcription. The original can be found here (with the link) properly dated so you can see the change. The correct figure should be 58.64ºF."

It is what they do for the satellites to account for the orbital decay.

lee wrote on Mar 24^th, 2017 at 9:29pm:


I'm surprised. So far you haven't turned to personal slurs in our exchanges.

Bad for you.

The only way you can rummage up interest in a dyyyiiiinnng leftist Doomsday prophecy is by baiting Bobby, disguising statements as questions and arguing with yourself. Meanwhile, the rest of us have moved on.

All the science, physics and chemistry, supports the AGW theory.