Inaccuracies in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Oh come now, Marc and Gary. You're both mistaking aptitude with arrogance. There's no need to feel intimidated by his obvious expertise in science - just accept that he knows what the hell he's talking about. Getting pissy with him looks like knowledge envy to me.

Want to buy a bridge Steve? You dont even know this fellow! The way you talk, you would think he is your best buddy, sheeesh!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Oh come now, Marc and Gary. You're both mistaking aptitude with arrogance. There's no need to feel intimidated by his obvious expertise in science - just accept that he knows what the hell he's talking about. Getting pissy with him looks like knowledge envy to me.

Want to buy a bridge Steve? You dont even know this fellow! The way you talk, you would think he is your best buddy, sheeesh!

True, so I judge what he's said by its own merit. No need to be envious of his quite obvious intellect and knowledge.

[HAL 9000 96]

Again, its all about comprehending what is written. Or to put it in Al Gore's own terms... "a matter of willingness" [to read].

[no name 1]

Oh come now, Marc and Gary. You're both mistaking aptitude with arrogance. There's no need to feel intimidated by his obvious expertise in science - just accept that he knows what the hell he's talking about. Getting pissy with him looks like knowledge envy to me.

Want to buy a bridge Steve? You dont even know this fellow! The way you talk, you would think he is your best buddy, sheeesh!

True, so I judge what he's said by its own merit. No need to be envious of his quite obvious intellect and knowledge.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Are you a climate scientist? If not then you would know about peer reviews and how studies are authenticated but your opinion on global warming isn't any more valid than anyone elses. True?

I would tend to value a scientist's review of the literature regardless of discipline or specialization. One of the many skills of a scientist--indeed, any academic--is the ability to synthesize information, present evidence, ask questions, and draw conclusions.

Are you suggesting that the view held by a scientist in a field not directly related to atmospheric or climate science is no closer to reality than the position of someone who repairs shoes?

So you would take a physicists view on global warming as one that has relevance? They are all smart people I grant you but if that isn't their area of expertise then there opinion is the same as anyone else's.

So under that criteria we can discount several of the 60 scientists on the article you googled and linked.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Are you a climate scientist? If not then you would know about peer reviews and how studies are authenticated but your opinion on global warming isn't any more valid than anyone elses. True?

I would tend to value a scientist's review of the literature regardless of discipline or specialization. One of the many skills of a scientist--indeed, any academic--is the ability to synthesize information, present evidence, ask questions, and draw conclusions.

Are you suggesting that the view held by a scientist in a field not directly related to atmospheric or climate science is no closer to reality than the position of someone who repairs shoes?

So you would take a physicists view on global warming as one that has relevance? They are all smart people I grant you but if that isn't their area of expertise then there opinion is the same as anyone else's.

So under that criteria we can discount several of the 60 scientists on the article you googled and linked.

Unfortunately that's what makes discussing this topic with a lay understanding of the science rather futile. The arguments inevitably become political.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Oh come now, Marc and Gary. You're both mistaking aptitude with arrogance. There's no need to feel intimidated by his obvious expertise in science - just accept that he knows what the hell he's talking about. Getting pissy with him looks like knowledge envy to me.

Want to buy a bridge Steve? You dont even know this fellow! The way you talk, you would think he is your best buddy, sheeesh!

True, so I judge what he's said by its own merit. No need to be envious of his quite obvious intellect and knowledge.

Clairvoyant now are we? Looks to me like a severe a$$ kissin job to me. A person who studied compuers 40 years ago might look a little ridiculous today. Get it?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Oh come now, Marc and Gary. You're both mistaking aptitude with arrogance. There's no need to feel intimidated by his obvious expertise in science - just accept that he knows what the hell he's talking about. Getting pissy with him looks like knowledge envy to me.

Want to buy a bridge Steve? You dont even know this fellow! The way you talk, you would think he is your best buddy, sheeesh!

True, so I judge what he's said by its own merit. No need to be envious of his quite obvious intellect and knowledge.

Clairvoyant now are we? Looks to me like a severe a$$ kissin job to me. A person who studied compuers 40 years ago might look a little ridiculous today. Get it?

Not if that person worked in the industry for 40 years...

And we're not talking 40 years ago - but rather someone who has a PhD and currently works in the sciences.

[Ban Hammer 13,654]

Oh come now, Marc and Gary. You're both mistaking aptitude with arrogance. There's no need to feel intimidated by his obvious expertise in science - just accept that he knows what the hell he's talking about. Getting pissy with him looks like knowledge envy to me.

kinda like the way people get pissy with me about the military and guns?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Oh come now, Marc and Gary. You're both mistaking aptitude with arrogance. There's no need to feel intimidated by his obvious expertise in science - just accept that he knows what the hell he's talking about. Getting pissy with him looks like knowledge envy to me.

Want to buy a bridge Steve? You dont even know this fellow! The way you talk, you would think he is your best buddy, sheeesh!

True, so I judge what he's said by its own merit. No need to be envious of his quite obvious intellect and knowledge.

Clairvoyant now are we? Looks to me like a severe a$$ kissin job to me. A person who studied compuers 40 years ago might look a little ridiculous today. Get it?

Sounds like intellect envy if you saw it from my POV. Don't be hatin, Marc.

[mendeleev 68]

Earlier in this string, our partisan posed a few challenges for those who understand and support the current scientific consensus that humanity is causing global warming. From time to time, I may reply to some of them. Here is one response.

One of the things our partisan said earlier in this post (quoted below) reminded me of a paper that I knew would be apprearing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A. That article, "Recently oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature", by Lockwood and Frohlich, Proc. Roy. Soc. A., vol 463, 2447-2460, 2007 is now available.

Now, our partisan said:

Global warming stopped in 1998.

Dr. Nigel Calder, co-author with physicist Henrik Svensmark of the 2007 book "The Chilling Stars: A New Theory on Climate Change," explained in July 2007:

"In reality, global temperatures have stopped rising. Data for both the surface and the lower air show no warming since 1999. That makes no sense by the hypothesis of global warming driven mainly by CO2, because the amount of CO2 in the air has gone on increasing. But the fact that the Sun is beginning to neglect its climatic duty – of battling away the cosmic rays that come from 'the chilling stars' – fits beautifully with this apparent end of global warming."

It is perplexing how a claim can be made that global warming stopped 9 years ago, in view of the following chart provided by Lockwood and Frohlich in their Fig 1e, copied into this post. (Similar charts are available elsewhere.)

The chart shows a noisy but steady trend of increase global surface temperature from 1975 to the present time.

Now, the authors were interested in sorting out whether there was a significant solar component to this warming, so they applied sound smoothing techniques but to the temperature data and to various solar parameters that run in a roughly 11-year cycle. (There is some evidence that solar forcing may have contributed modestly to warming in the first part of the 20th century, hence the authors' interest.) They find that solar contribution to climate forcing over the modern period would have tended to cause *cooling* as opposed to the observed warming. In Figure 3f of their paper (which is quite original and which I do not copy here for copyright concerns, although it might be allowed under the fair use doctrine) the authors show that, after smoothing to take into account the solar cycle, a very steady, continually increasing (monotonic) temperature rise up until 2004, the last year they have full data. Interested readers can easily find the journal (I used Google) and the article (following the leads) -- it was available for free on earlier this week. Alternately, most any university research library will have this journal.

The authors conclude, "There are many interesting paleoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified. " (Emphasis added)

The authors also note, at the end of their discussion, "Finally, we note that the cosmogenic isotope record shows that a number of century-scale decreases and increases in cosmic ray fluxes have taken place over the past few millenia. The minima appear to be examples of grand maxima in solar activity of the type seen in recent decades. Extrapolations of solar activity trends into the future are notoriously unreliable. Nevertheless, it is possible that the decline seen since 1985 marks the beginning of the end of the recent grand maximum in solar activity and the cosmogenic isotope record suggests that even if the present decline is interrupted in the near future, mean values will decline over the next century. This would reduce solar forcing of the climate, but to what extent this might counteract the effect of anthropogenic warming, if at all, is certainly not known."

Restated, the authors affirm that humanity is causing global warming and that the recent rapid warming continues unabated. No matter how you slice it, the sun cannot be responsible for warming that has occurred in the past few decades. Our partisan seems to advocate that increases in cosmic ray flux from outside the solar system will cause cooling (he claims, actually, and contrary to fact, that an increase in cosmic ray flux is *already* causing cooling even though the warming continues unabated), and the authors admit that it is conceivable that a decrease in solar activity could have this result. But whether any such forcing can overwhelm the extremely strong anthropogenic forcing that is causing the rapid warming of the planet is 100% conjecture at this time. It is an interesting topic for legitimate research, however.

Climate change is real. The direction is toward warming. People are causing it. In my opinion, we owe it to our descendant to take effect action to remediate the situation -- and the conservative course to take is to decrease global warming emissions that humanity creates.

Edited October 21, 2007 by novotul

[Fandango 1,440]

I wish someone saw the John Stossel 'Give Me a Break' this week!

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Earlier in this string, our partisan posed a few challenges for those who understand and support the current scientific consensus that humanity is causing global warming. From time to time, I may reply to some of them. Here is one response.

One of the things our partisan said earlier in this post (quoted below) reminded me of a paper that I knew would be apprearing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A. That article, "Recently oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature", by Lockwood and Frohlich, Proc. Roy. Soc. A., vol 463, 2447-2460, 2007 is now available.

Now, our partisan said:

Our partisan said? Sir, your just as partisan as your opposite. Besides, why are you studying something that you profess is fact. Hope its not a government funded program your gettin your pay checks from.

[mendeleev 68]

Hope its not a government funded program your gettin your pay checks from.

Nope. I've been working as a scientist in industry for the past 20 years. Nice try try to dismiss me, though. I admit to be a partisan for furthering public understanding of how the scientific process works.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Hope its not a government funded program your gettin your pay checks from.

Nope. I've been working as a scientist in industry for the past 20 years. Nice try try to dismiss me, though. I admit to be a partisan for furthering public understanding of how the scientific process works.

You have already been dismissed! By me anyway.

You mean swaying the public is your job? What you gonna do about china,India, and the rest?