Here is yet another Comment of the Day regarding climate science, junk science, propaganda…you know: “Climate change.” It is also yet another excellent entry by Sarah B. Here is her Comment of the Day on the post, “From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis” but it applies equally well to this one (from today), this one, and this one too:
Many people who question anthropogenic global climate change have good reason to do so. Here are a few of the facts that make believing the anthropogenicity of climate change difficult for me.
This “hottest days ever” claim has been shown to be mostly false. For example, the Rome data point was from a model, not actual data. Indeed, while the temperature measured was almost two degrees Celsius below what the high was claimed to be, that high was under previous highs from the last few decades recorded in Rome. The actual temperature of the day in question was 40C, measured at the Urbe airport, not 41.8. Rome’s highest temperature ever recorded is not 40.8C as claimed, but instead 42C. This high temperature was recorded at the Ponte di Nona bus station in 2005.
Other high temperatures predicted were followed by actual data anywhere from 8-20C lower than the predictions.
In the few instances of recorded temperatures being high, they were pulled from small towns that have no historical data and sometimes do not have the highest quality thermometers, but places that have previously been used for this data have not shown any kind of real jump.
Finally, in the (very) few instances of recorded data from a standard site with proper measurement, the temperatures in question were almost exclusively land temperatures (taken on ground level). We have never used land temperatures in this capacity before, because they are affected by too many variables and can give false data depending on a great many factors. Instead, we have always used air temperature (measured at two meters above the ground). The idea that these new land-based temperatures are hotter than the previous air-based temperatures should be no surprise. Reflected heat of concrete will make these higher, if nothing else will.
When lies like these are spread, rather than providing us with unfalsified data, it is hard to take this seriously.
Ethics Alarms 
Thanks Sarah.
I dropped AP Physics (and AP Calculus) my senior year of high school, but I have a hard time believing a naturally occurring, inert gas comprising .04 percent of the earth’s atmosphere is having any effect on anything.
The problem I had with the tweet by Omar (yes, a Representative for the State that Mondale Won (see a pattern? Actually, that’s an unfair insult to Mondale)) is that she complained about global temperatures. To say that the earth had the hottest temperature has to mean that it is the hottest “mean” temperature.
What else could it mean (if it means anything)? On any given day (except maybe on the equinoxes), the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are on different seasons. But, even within the hemispheres, Antarctica and Alaska are colder than the Equator, even at the Equinox.
So, how do you measure a hottest day on earth without having a GLOBAL mean temperature?
That sort of thing could probably be done, but not on a daily basis.
I would trust “science” to say that the mean daily global temperature in the ice age is 2 degrees lower or that some dinosaur era is 3 degrees higher. But , the Twin Cities are in the midst of a 3-5 day temperature spike (and I have to wear a suit every damn day), but that spike tells you nothing about global temperature, because it does not take into account the rest of the planet.
Am I missing something?
-Jut
No…I wrote “average”; and I should have used “mean.”
I was not complaining about anything you said, Jack.
I went back to her tweet.
To make sense of her tweet, I would think you would have to make that logical jump.
Sometimes that jump seems okay, like when there was a global ice age, or when the dinosaurs roamed around a globally “tropical” world.
But those timeframes are millions or even billions of years in the past. Those can be easier to explain or justify.
120,000 years ago?
Far more difficult.
-Jut
Thank you, Jack. However, I must confess that I got this data from a website called notalotofpeopleknowthat.
He had a great deal of data on this topic and I just summarized some points briefly. The credit should truly go to Paul Homewood.
Homewood is a retired accountant. What are his qualifications to analyze climate change?
An alternate perspective on Homewood and the veracity of his claims can be found here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/climate-change-deniers-trying-to-fool-the-public-again-about-extreme-weather/
Masked Avenger,
First, what claims were made here that require a climatologist? It is simple to compare numbers and see what is true or false. If someone claims that today was the hottest day ever and they choose a ”hottest temperature” from a model, not real temperature data, AND that number is below a previously experienced high, how is that requiring more than the common sense of an average person to say it is false. If I tell you that today’s 24 inches of snow is the largest snowfall ever at a place and you learn that not only did 18” fall instead of the two feet I predicted, but on this date 20 years ago 30 inches fell, doesn’t that show that I am manipulating data?
An accountant knows how to look at publicly available data and see when the books are being cooked. That is an essential skill for that profession. These books are cooked. Data is data. It does not matter that it was a child who proclaimed that the emperor was naked. That knowledge is available for anyone who knows to look.
I was working on a doctorate in chemical engineering, specializing in energy technologies, when my research was shut down by people who believed ludicrous claims from climatology. We were not climatologists, but for energy technology, we have a requirement to study certain facets of climatology. I can tell you that the claim made that temperatures considered for climatological data should be taken at elevation. Everyone knows that temperatures at ground level are too susceptible to other factors.
I can assure you that there is great reason to question the climate models. Modeling best practices was a huge focus of my work and, having had the modeling practices explained to me as well as reading the peer reviewed papers on climatological modeling “proving” that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of anthropogenic climate change, I can tell you that none of the best practice techniques are being used.
I can also tell you that no where near as many scientists sign on the the current overarching theory of anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) as the media and establishment claim. I, and my research group, actively opposed only one small portion of the claim, and we were shut down. Our funding, promised under a variety of grants, was suddenly denied as not energy-related. We were working on using previously developed technology with proven results in a new field and in new combinations to provide 200+ years of low emission (mostly sulfur, mercury, etc, but we had a CO2 plan in place too) energy independance for the US, based on fossil fuels. The people who got our “energy grant” were working on if paramecium used herd behavior. As we dug in to our ridiculous denial, we were told behind closed doors that it was because we weren’t approved by the AGCC crowd.
Now, here is the problem. The true argument of the AGCC crowd is that the globe is experiencing climatological change and extreme weather events driven primarily by human action and specifically by the emmissions of Carbon Dioxide coming from fossil fuels. I disagree with this philosophy. Now, if you want to argue over whether or not there is an anthropogenic component to climate change, I’ll certain consider that argument, as long as you are willing to admit that the globe is still coming out of an ice age which is a main (note I do not say THE ONLY) driver of climatic change and sun spot activity has a huge effect on this as well. If we want to discuss the manmade effects of chlorofluorocarbons, I am all about that. Acid rain is a huge anthrogenic climate effect, even if it is not considered in the general paradigm. I will certainly agree that poor treatment of wild lands (rain forest and forests, of course, but even plains and steppes) is modifying, even drastically, at least local weather patterns, if not the global climate. Urban expansion is causing great man-made effects. However, the belief that carbon dioxide is the primary (and in many circles, only) driver of global climatic change is what I deny. The issue is that without specific claims, if someone asks me if I support climate change, because I am aware of the enterity of the paradigm put forward, I will deny it, as I do not believe in the whole paradigm. The argument often comes down to shorthand.
The climate change argument generally comes to a motte and bailey approach. Nearly everyone agrees that the climate is changing. This is a reasonsble claim that most climate scientists as well as other scientists will support. Maybe even 97%. The anthropogenicity of the climate change is in debate. People do debate how much of the change we see in the climate is caused by man. People also debate how much CO2 affects things.
Global weirding, the idea that carbon dioxide is causing unexpected weather events either incrementally or in totality, has been pretty much completely disproven at this point. My studies into the carbon dioxide driver suggest to me that it is false.
There are other issues with the AGCC approach, and that is that no one has come up with a solution to this problem that does not cause more damage to the earth than any supposed climate change may cause. Any actual solutions to AGCC would kill billions of people as well, making them wholly unethical. (Whether or not you think my background makes me able to handle climate data, this part here IS my wheelhouse). I can, and have, waxed eloquent on these.
There are also other problems with AGCC. It’s strongest proponents behave as though it is false. The people who are tasked with providing data, as I mentioned above, falsify the data in many ways. As one more example of this, a few years back, we had a claim that a month was the hottest yet. This was not based on high temperatures, which were colder than many years, as had been previously used in the calculations. No, this drastic declaration, on one of the cooler years in recent history, was because daily low temperatures were warmer on average. Basically, despite years of established protocol, we suddenly decided that nighttime temperatures were more important than day time temperatures. Someone could have tried to convince me that this was significant, but instead, this was lied about and covered up, and called a conspiracy theory.
Another issue is that people who question AGCC at any point are criticized and shut down. This flows with my final point. AGCC is called settled science and any attempts to recalculate this is consideted a waste if time and money and condemned. Science is NEVER settled. Newton’s laws are perhaps some of the best understood and most completely accepted explanations of our world. A 26 year old patent clerk proved them to be fundamentally false around 200 years later, for a large portion of reality. Because most of us work in the scales that Newton’s laws apply to, we still follow them. Today, we still test those laws on a daily basis around the world. No one calls those tests a waste. Anything else automatically drives derp suspicion. Remember that all previous scientific patadigms to those we current hold have been proven false. All science REQUIRES continual doubt and testing. If AGCC is as accepted as it claims, it should, and indeed MUST, welcome attempts to disprove it as that is how “science” works.
Riotous applause. Thanks Sarah. You are the man.
It’s no fun being a heretic in a religious age.
Nicely done.
jvb
Homewood has pretty much the same qualifications I have as a computer scientist and you have doing whatever you do. I can read, you can read, so can Homewood. All of us can write. All of us can think. All of us can reason and look at reality and think something is crap, whether or not our names are followed by a bunch of letters.
Appeal to authority and pedigree is always a risky thing. Sometimes those who appear foolish shame those who appear wise.
“Homewood is a retired accountant. What are his qualifications to analyze climate change?”
Who must he be? What credentials must a person possess to dispute a scientific theory?
The answer … none whatsoever.
Whatever notions this person puts forth must comply with the scientific method. Then all anybody needs to do is to demonstrate, experimentally or observationally, is that the consequences of the stated theory are wrong, or, as in the case of religious beliefs, or their like, unprovable.
Perhaps the emanated credentialed individual presented below better explains this:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?
&q=richard+feynman+what+is+science&view=detail&mid=57DAC5B38E9A740B26F257DAC5B38E9A740B26F2&FORM=VDQVAP&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Drichard%2Bfeynman%2Bwhat%2Bis%2Bscience%26FORM%3DHDRSC4&rvsmid=D636596894820F2C1FC8D636596894820F2C1FC8&ajaxhist=0
i don’t know what happened, but here the link https://www.bing.com/videos/search?&q=richard+feynman+what+is+science&view=detail&mid=57DAC5B38E9A740B26F257DAC5B38E9A740B26F2&FORM=VDQVAP&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Drichard%2Bfeynman%2Bwhat%2Bis%2Bscience%26FORM%3DHDRSC4&rvsmid=D636596894820F2C1FC8D636596894820F2C1FC8&ajaxhist=0
I hear a sea lion…
You were a terrific messenger. If he wants proper credit, he should come to Ethics Alarms.
Congratulations, Sarah. I always enjoy your thoughts and this COTD is well-earned.