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Climate Change Debate

As long as they can justify the adjustments that's fine.
 
The problem is that denialists just say that adjustment is bad, rather than address why that is. If they think you shouldn't adjust for variable satellite altitude, fine, but at least make an argument, rather than whinge because the adjustments don't go your way.
 
so if one group adjusts the data to suit their arguments, it's the ones who say that doctored data doesn't prove anything that's in the wrong? Interesting.

I have some data that's not strictly according to the actual results that proves global warming is a load of crap. If you disagree with it, does that make you a whingy denialist?
 
Premier Quality said:
So this is the kind of thing that makes normal people (as in non scientists) wonder if the whole climate change thing is made up...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.
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What you "normal" people need to know about us "scientists" is that we look for evidence that is validated in some way or other. I looked at the article you quoted, but didn't read it. The reason I didn't read it was it didn't reference the source material. If I can't see the data or the conclusions he is referring to in the words of the person who came to those conclusions, how do I know he's not making them up or, as a history graduate, unable to understand the science presented.
 
Doctor Doog said:
What you "normal" people need to know about us "scientists" is that we look for evidence that is validated in some way or other. I looked at the article you quoted, but didn't read it. The reason I didn't read it was it didn't reference the source material. If I can't see the data or the conclusions he is referring to in the words of the person who came to those conclusions, how do I know he's not making them up or, as a history graduate, unable to understand the science presented.
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That's probably here - as linked in the article?

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wor...tampering-with-temperatures-in-south-america/
 
Yes, I saw that. Show me the original data and the original conclusions. The reason why non-scientists like Homewood and Booker (and Delingpole for that matter) aren't credible is that their methods don't have the rigour required. You have to argue based on all of the data using established (by which I mean accepted by the experts) protocols.
 
Like I say, I'm not a scientist so i would have to take your word for it. However, you're arguing that you - and i don't know you, you could be Stephen hawking for all I know, or the guy who dances puppets outside of primark - know better than the guy who publishes in the telegraph.

No offence but I'd probably believe him ahead of you. On balance though, my view is that there's no concensus so it's probably unproven.
 
What I think about global warming isn't important, in fact I haven't expressed an opinion. What is important is that opinions such as those published here http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article must have more worth than those of a history graduate writing for laymen in a non-scientific publication backed by those who have an interest in preventing tighter emissions legislation. The article indicates that there is an overwhelming consensus.
 
Doesn't that state that two thirds of their submissions don't conclude if global warming exists either way, so they ignore those and only take the ones who have a definitive opinion?
 
No, it just says they don't express a position, only 0.3% say they are unsure. The two thirds are likely to cover some other aspect of climate science. You see my point that the data has to be included, because they will have studied those abstracts, they can't then just discard them. I haven't looked at the whole paper but I imagine they will have chosen the bounds of the study systematically i.e journals x,y,z from the years 20xx to 20yy. The size of the sample will be important and defined by some basic principles of statistics. It's difficult to explain scientific rigour to the non-scientist, but it's at the heart of what we do.
 
Been too long since I've put a real research paper together... I must be getting rusty.
 
That doesn't make sense - why would they mention them, then exclude them? My reading of it was that they couldn't be sure either way, so they've only taken those with a firm view, which is wrong.

My original point still stands though - if articles are appearing in the more respectable of normal people's newspapers stating the case for global warming has had the data altered/made up to fit the argument, then non scientists can easily conclude the case is unproven?
 
Premier Quality said:
That doesn't make sense - why would they mention them, then exclude them? My reading of it was that they couldn't be sure either way, so they've only taken those with a firm view, which is wrong.

My original point still stands though - if articles are appearing in the more respectable of normal people's newspapers stating the case for global warming has had the data altered/made up to fit the argument, then non scientists can easily conclude the case is unproven?
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If what Doctor Doog is saying about the use of data is correct, then isn't your second paragraph more to do with failings in the reporting of the science rather than the science itself?
 
Possibly - but as a non scientist I have no idea if he's right or not. I have to take my steer from somewhere, and some of my steers say it's real and some say it's not. That's my whole point, that there isn't consensus so that for non scientists, there are contradictory views being published, so articles saying the pro global warming side are fudging their evidence makes me less likely to believe them.
 
Wouldn't it be better to take your steer from scientists as opposed to newspapers with their own agenda?
 
Premier Quality said:
Possibly - but as a non scientist I have no idea if he's right or not. I have to take my steer from somewhere, and some of my steers say it's real and some say it's not. That's my whole point, that there isn't consensus so that for non scientists, there are contradictory views being published, so articles saying the pro global warming side are fudging their evidence makes me less likely to believe them.
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What about the evidence that the denialists are talking bollocks? Does that count?
 
Premier Quality said:
Possibly - but as a non scientist I have no idea if he's right or not. I have to take my steer from somewhere, and some of my steers say it's real and some say it's not. That's my whole point, that there isn't consensus so that for non scientists, there are contradictory views being published, so articles saying the pro global warming side are fudging their evidence makes me less likely to believe them.
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You're an intelligent bloke, surely you can sort the wheat from the chaff.

To use Sir Paul Nurse's analogy (again), you wouldn't think twice about having a cancer treatment that 97% of scientific papers agreed was effective. You wouldn't hold off treatment or think homeopathy was the way to go because 3% of the evidence pointed in a different direction. Or you might, but you'd be an idiot and you'd probably die of cancer.
 
Visage said:
What about the evidence that the denialists are talking bollocks? Does that count?
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That's the thing for me. The data may be manipulated by those that are proving man made climate change exists but the pure fact that the denialists (for want of a better word) proof is rubbish is the clincher.
 
Visage said:
What about the evidence that the denialists are talking bollocks? Does that count?
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Absolutely - I think both sides are exagerating the strength of their claim. However, as in the politics discussions - one side talking bollocks doesnt automatically make the other side correct.

So Long Architect said:
You're an intelligent bloke, surely you can sort the wheat from the chaff.

To use Sir Paul Nurse's analogy (again), you wouldn't think twice about having a cancer treatment that 97% of scientific papers agreed was effective. You wouldn't hold off treatment or think homeopathy was the way to go because 3% of the evidence pointed in a different direction. Or you might, but you'd be an idiot and you'd probably die of cancer.
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True - however, cancer is something that would affect me as an individual that I as an individual can do something about. Global warming is not something that I as an individual can do something about really - so I have no other input other than recycling and bits and pieces that have really minescule affect on it. What that means is that I find I dont really have much of an investment in whether one party is wrong or right, or whether they're both just competing for funding.

in my list of priorities, global warming is down the bottom. the contrasting views just make me less engaged.

One question for you scientist guys - do you actually disagree, that if the evidence was so self evidently strong as you are all saying, that not changing the data would provide less arguament about something you feel is obvious anyway? Surely if its so clear, not fudging the issues yourselves (The scientists, not posters on here) is just common sense? Why do this stuff, and give ammunition to the people you're arguing against?
 
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