Many wondering what happened to Europe's winter.
Jan 15th 2005 | 10:54 pm
#1
Guest
Posts: n/a
Many wondering what happened to Europe's winter.
About concensus, one need to understand that there is an
"establishment", which controls the scientific media. It is rather bad
for your carier as scientist to write anything against the
"established" consensus. Even if you find something that questions the
consensus, one need to add some phrase that you believe in the
consensus, although your data don't support it. Otherwise you have the
risk that it is not published at all...
Consensus also depends of the question posed. I do believe in global
warming, be it almost natural and with a small influence of humans.
Thus if the question is: "do you believe in man-made global warming",
I will respond yes. If they offer some grades, I will take the lowest
grade. That is what happened with a questionnaire, sent to climate
scientists world wide with the question: 'To what extent do you agree
or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic
causes? A value of 1 indicates "strongly agree" and a value of 7
indicates "strongly disagree".'
The result can be found at "RealClimate" (
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=80#comments comment #80) :
Frequencies:
1 strongly agree 50 (9.4% of valid responses)
2 134 (25.3% of valid responses)
3 112 (21.1% of valid responses)
4 75 (14.2% of valid responses)
5 45 (8.5% of valid responses)
6 60 (10.8% valid responses)
7 strongly disagree 54 (9.7% of valid responses)
Which makes the "consensus" rather moderate...
Further about the latest scare about "global dimming" in the Horizon
program:
The theory behind the program, that more sunlight is reflected due to
(sulphate) aerosols is proven false.
As you may know, we have some satellites flowing around out of the
atmosphere, which measure reflected sunlight (SW reflection) and heat
(LW emission) from below.
For the (sub)tropics, in the period 1985-2001 the amount of sunlight
reflected by clouds reduced with ~2 W/m2. (see:
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/csrl/publi...et_al_2002.pdf
, confirmed for the 30N-30S (sub)tropics in
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2002/...enCarlsonD.pdf )
In the same period, there was a loss of cloud cover, both in the
tropics and sub tropics (and even up to 60N-60S).
If there is global dimming at the surface, the only explanation
possible is that more sunlight is retained in the atmosphere. Which is
(only) possible with (dark brown and black) soot particulate.
If soot particulate is to blame, then a reduction of them would have a
cooling effect, not a warming effect!
See also the amount of reflected sunlight from earth on the moon
("eartshine"), which parallels the "global dimming" trend, while it
should have opposite trends, at:
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/science_may28.html
Ferdinand
"establishment", which controls the scientific media. It is rather bad
for your carier as scientist to write anything against the
"established" consensus. Even if you find something that questions the
consensus, one need to add some phrase that you believe in the
consensus, although your data don't support it. Otherwise you have the
risk that it is not published at all...
Consensus also depends of the question posed. I do believe in global
warming, be it almost natural and with a small influence of humans.
Thus if the question is: "do you believe in man-made global warming",
I will respond yes. If they offer some grades, I will take the lowest
grade. That is what happened with a questionnaire, sent to climate
scientists world wide with the question: 'To what extent do you agree
or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic
causes? A value of 1 indicates "strongly agree" and a value of 7
indicates "strongly disagree".'
The result can be found at "RealClimate" (
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=80#comments comment #80) :
Frequencies:
1 strongly agree 50 (9.4% of valid responses)
2 134 (25.3% of valid responses)
3 112 (21.1% of valid responses)
4 75 (14.2% of valid responses)
5 45 (8.5% of valid responses)
6 60 (10.8% valid responses)
7 strongly disagree 54 (9.7% of valid responses)
Which makes the "consensus" rather moderate...
Further about the latest scare about "global dimming" in the Horizon
program:
The theory behind the program, that more sunlight is reflected due to
(sulphate) aerosols is proven false.
As you may know, we have some satellites flowing around out of the
atmosphere, which measure reflected sunlight (SW reflection) and heat
(LW emission) from below.
For the (sub)tropics, in the period 1985-2001 the amount of sunlight
reflected by clouds reduced with ~2 W/m2. (see:
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/csrl/publi...et_al_2002.pdf
, confirmed for the 30N-30S (sub)tropics in
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2002/...enCarlsonD.pdf )
In the same period, there was a loss of cloud cover, both in the
tropics and sub tropics (and even up to 60N-60S).
If there is global dimming at the surface, the only explanation
possible is that more sunlight is retained in the atmosphere. Which is
(only) possible with (dark brown and black) soot particulate.
If soot particulate is to blame, then a reduction of them would have a
cooling effect, not a warming effect!
See also the amount of reflected sunlight from earth on the moon
("eartshine"), which parallels the "global dimming" trend, while it
should have opposite trends, at:
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/science_may28.html
Ferdinand
Jan 16th 2005 | 3:24 am
#2
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Many wondering what happened to Europe's winter.
in article [email protected], FerdiEgb at
[email protected] wrote on 16/01/05 12:54:
> About concensus, one need to understand that there is an
> "establishment", which controls the scientific media. It is rather bad
> for your carier as scientist to write anything against the
> "established" consensus.
What establishment? The scientific community is not ran
by a dictator or a group of them.
Whatever, this is not how the publishing "game" works.
The thing that damages your career is NOT publishing or not
much at all. What also will damage it is not doing new, good,
and unusual work. Doing the "same old" thing as everybody
else will damage a researcher. You won`t get funding.
This means that if you take a position which is against the mainstream in
your field
you better be able to prove it. Carl Sagan once said that
"exceptional claims require exceptional proof".
If you are a biologist and you are going to shoot down
the theory of evolution (which is a consensus position among
scientists in general and biologists in particular) you are
going to hae to come up with extraordinary proof. You can be
a renegade biologist who claims "God did all of this in one
instant". Creation theory won't fly. It is not a scientific
alternative.
> Even if you find something that questions the
> consensus, one need to add some phrase that you believe in the
> consensus, although your data don't support it. Otherwise you have the
> risk that it is not published at all...
Show some examples! I have published over 100 papers in my scientific
field. The only difficulties I have every had were do to weaknesses
in my papers. The faults were mine. Rejected papers
can be reworked, new results added meeting the objections of the
referee. My experience also indicates that it is more likely that
poor work is published than that good work is rejected. The
"establishment" is more permissive than restrictive.
> Consensus also depends of the question posed. I do believe in global
> warming, be it almost natural and with a small influence of humans.
> Thus if the question is: "do you believe in man-made global warming",
> I will respond yes. If they offer some grades, I will take the lowest
> grade. That is what happened with a questionnaire, sent to climate
> scientists world wide with the question: 'To what extent do you agree
> or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic
> causes? A value of 1 indicates "strongly agree" and a value of 7
> indicates "strongly disagree".'
>
> The result can be found at "RealClimate" (
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=80#comments comment #80) :
The site, www.realclimate.org is interesting but I automatically
distrust any climate group which is not .gov or .edu.
Basically, however, the issue scientifically is not a question of
general opinion but opinion based on one`s knowledge of the field
by people working in it.
> Frequencies:
> 1 strongly agree 50 (9.4% of valid responses)
> 2 134 (25.3% of valid responses)
> 3 112 (21.1% of valid responses)
> 4 75 (14.2% of valid responses)
> 5 45 (8.5% of valid responses)
> 6 60 (10.8% valid responses)
> 7 strongly disagree 54 (9.7% of valid responses)
>
> Which makes the "consensus" rather moderate...
I would put that poll at 60%, responses 1-3.5.
What I don`t know is how accurate the statement is
that these were all people active in climate research.
`
I note that
"In an article recently submitted but not accepted by Science
I reported the results of survey of climate scientists conducted in 2003"
What were the objections of the referees? .
If one is goiing to this much trouble to contact a lot of people
the survey should have a large number of questions which would
probe deeper. I would also like to know the median publication output
of the people questioned in the climate area.
> Further about the latest scare about "global dimming" in the Horizon
> program:
>
> The theory behind the program, that more sunlight is reflected due to
> (sulphate) aerosols is proven false.
First there is no drop in solar radiance hitting the atmosphere.
That is "easy" to measure. What is hard to measure is reflected
radiation, which varies from spot to spot and reemitted IR.
I have worked with the radiometers necessary to measure incoming
light although in another type of situation. Measuring the amont
of light impinging on an object is easy. This can be done with
about a 1% absolute accuracy. But measuring the total
reemitted light is a bitch, the errors are much higher, in the
order of 10% if not more. That is the order of difference found
in the "global dimming" hypothesis. Having done this kind of work
under controlled conditions in the lab I would say that the
it is not done more accurately in nature.
Earl
[email protected] wrote on 16/01/05 12:54:
> About concensus, one need to understand that there is an
> "establishment", which controls the scientific media. It is rather bad
> for your carier as scientist to write anything against the
> "established" consensus.
What establishment? The scientific community is not ran
by a dictator or a group of them.
Whatever, this is not how the publishing "game" works.
The thing that damages your career is NOT publishing or not
much at all. What also will damage it is not doing new, good,
and unusual work. Doing the "same old" thing as everybody
else will damage a researcher. You won`t get funding.
This means that if you take a position which is against the mainstream in
your field
you better be able to prove it. Carl Sagan once said that
"exceptional claims require exceptional proof".
If you are a biologist and you are going to shoot down
the theory of evolution (which is a consensus position among
scientists in general and biologists in particular) you are
going to hae to come up with extraordinary proof. You can be
a renegade biologist who claims "God did all of this in one
instant". Creation theory won't fly. It is not a scientific
alternative.
> Even if you find something that questions the
> consensus, one need to add some phrase that you believe in the
> consensus, although your data don't support it. Otherwise you have the
> risk that it is not published at all...
Show some examples! I have published over 100 papers in my scientific
field. The only difficulties I have every had were do to weaknesses
in my papers. The faults were mine. Rejected papers
can be reworked, new results added meeting the objections of the
referee. My experience also indicates that it is more likely that
poor work is published than that good work is rejected. The
"establishment" is more permissive than restrictive.
> Consensus also depends of the question posed. I do believe in global
> warming, be it almost natural and with a small influence of humans.
> Thus if the question is: "do you believe in man-made global warming",
> I will respond yes. If they offer some grades, I will take the lowest
> grade. That is what happened with a questionnaire, sent to climate
> scientists world wide with the question: 'To what extent do you agree
> or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic
> causes? A value of 1 indicates "strongly agree" and a value of 7
> indicates "strongly disagree".'
>
> The result can be found at "RealClimate" (
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=80#comments comment #80) :
The site, www.realclimate.org is interesting but I automatically
distrust any climate group which is not .gov or .edu.
Basically, however, the issue scientifically is not a question of
general opinion but opinion based on one`s knowledge of the field
by people working in it.
> Frequencies:
> 1 strongly agree 50 (9.4% of valid responses)
> 2 134 (25.3% of valid responses)
> 3 112 (21.1% of valid responses)
> 4 75 (14.2% of valid responses)
> 5 45 (8.5% of valid responses)
> 6 60 (10.8% valid responses)
> 7 strongly disagree 54 (9.7% of valid responses)
>
> Which makes the "consensus" rather moderate...
I would put that poll at 60%, responses 1-3.5.
What I don`t know is how accurate the statement is
that these were all people active in climate research.
`
I note that
"In an article recently submitted but not accepted by Science
I reported the results of survey of climate scientists conducted in 2003"
What were the objections of the referees? .
If one is goiing to this much trouble to contact a lot of people
the survey should have a large number of questions which would
probe deeper. I would also like to know the median publication output
of the people questioned in the climate area.
> Further about the latest scare about "global dimming" in the Horizon
> program:
>
> The theory behind the program, that more sunlight is reflected due to
> (sulphate) aerosols is proven false.
First there is no drop in solar radiance hitting the atmosphere.
That is "easy" to measure. What is hard to measure is reflected
radiation, which varies from spot to spot and reemitted IR.
I have worked with the radiometers necessary to measure incoming
light although in another type of situation. Measuring the amont
of light impinging on an object is easy. This can be done with
about a 1% absolute accuracy. But measuring the total
reemitted light is a bitch, the errors are much higher, in the
order of 10% if not more. That is the order of difference found
in the "global dimming" hypothesis. Having done this kind of work
under controlled conditions in the lab I would say that the
it is not done more accurately in nature.
Earl
