May 29, 2017

"Global warming"-- now called "climate change"--revisited

In case you haven't noticed, the Democrat party is still at full-scream on an idea called "global warming"... excuse me: "climate change."

That theory was originally called "global warming," but after several record-breaking cold winters began to make lots of Americans think the claim of global warming was horse-shit, the warmies didn't miss a beat:  they simply changed the name of the alleged crisis from "global warming" to "climate change."

Then a few thousand Americans who knew how to do a thing called "google search" noted that the Earth's climate constantly changed--had always changed--so unless recent changes were way outside of historical norms, getting upset about this was...well, sort of insane.

This shocked the warmies:  They didn't think the sheeple knew that the climate of the planet changed naturally.  The goal of the Warmies was to make the sheeple believe "climate" was constant, so if it suddenly began changing, that was very, very dangerous!

But the warmies had lots more ammunition:  proof that this particular change wasn't natural, but was caused by human activity!

Specifically the warmies noted--correctly--that human activities like driving cars and heating homes and hot water, and making stuff--and breathing--all emitted CO2.  Then they pointed to data showing that between 1964 and 2000, CO2 levels in the atmosphere had risen from 350 parts per million to 400--an astonishing 14 percent increase.  (It's now about 415 ppm.)

They also noted--again correctly--that the use of carbon-based fuel by humans rose exponentially after 1945 or so.  So for the Warmies, the cause was certain:  use of carbon fuels increases, then atmospheric CO2 increases, climate warms.   It was so obvious to them that even a child should be able to see the connection! 

Problem was, Americans didn't realize Earth's climate was warming.  Seemed pretty constant to most of us.  So what the Warmies was needed was for some PhDs to publish a study claiming rising CO2 was causing the climate to warm dangerously.

So now it's time to introduce you to Michael Mann's infamous "hockey stick" graph--which arguably sparked the hysteria of alleged "global warming."  Sorry..."climate change."

Mann is a PhD at U. Penn.  In 1999 he published a paper that included the graph below, which he claimed represented global average temperatures for the last 1000 years.

Mann's "hockey stick" graph (adapted from IPCC's "Third assessment"
Note the alleged steep increase in average temperatures since 1900.  If true--and who could even imagine that a PhD would publish a crap paper, eh?--it looks like the planet is warming dangerously.

"OMB [Oh my Barack!], the end of the world is near!" 

Here was the final link in the chain of absolute proof that CO2--caused by humans burning carbon-based fuels--was causing a disaster.  To review:
  1)  Burning carbon fuels--oil, gasoline, natural gas, jet fuel and coal--produces CO2 (true);
  2)  Beginning around 1945, use of carbon-based fuels has grown steeply (true);
  3)  Atmospheric CO2 increased by about 14% between 1960 and 2000 (true);
  4)  CO2 warms the planet by trapping heat that would otherwise escape (a "greenhouse gas");
  5)  Since 1900, the average temperature of the entire Earth had risen incredibly steeply;

Voila: What more proof could one possibly need?

Which leads us to the final claim, and the warmies "conclusion:"
  6) Surface temperature is higher than ever before, which will lead to "feedback" and "runaway increases" due to positive feedback (instability); and we'll all die.  Or something.

But once again, because of the internet, people who would normally never have seen Mann's paper saw it.  And a few of those folks--with lots of expertise in statistics, among other things, thought "Wow, that claimed exponential increase in temps since 1900 seems to be SO unusual that I wonder if the guy who wrote that paper were...honest." 

And they downloaded the paper and data (rarely posted) and start analyzing.  And you'll never guess what they found.  (Don't worry, I'll tell you in a bit.)

The result was a decade of dueling papers.  Except the people who thought Mann had committed scientific fraud... couldn't get their papers published. 

That's odd, since accusations of scientific fraud are usually extremely attractive to journals.  Drama!

Later we found that the reason for the difficulty in skeptic papers being published was that Mann and his co-conspirators were friends with the editors of practically every scientific journal related to earth sciences--and they leaned on those editors to get them to refuse to accept papers that disagreed with Mann et al.

How cool is that, eh?

Of course you think that simply must be a wacko conspiracy theory.  Couldn't possibly be true.  Cuz a PhD would never do that, eh?   Plus, you couldn't possibly keep that sort of thing from eventually leaking out, eh?

Aaaand turns out that last part was right:  Eventually their lies were exposed.

The UK's main site for climate study is at the University of East Anglia.  In November 2009 someone hacked into that group's email server and copied over 1,000 emails--which were quickly posted on the internet.  And you'll never guess what those emails showed.

The emails showed Mann and one of his friends--a key player in the research group named Phil Jones--discussing ways to "hide the decline"--a reference to the fact that actual *measured* temperatures on earth weren't rising, as Mann et al claimed, but had actually been falling over the last decade.  They also discussed the need to "eliminate the MWP" (medieval warm period)--a period around 1200 A.D.  when Greenland was warm enough to grow grapes.

The emails also showed Mann discussing how to get friendly journal editors to refuse to publish papers critical of Mann's work or GW in general.

And just as happened after the release of the leaked DNC emails, neither Mann nor UEA disputed the authenticity or content of the emails, but simply explained to friendly reporters that the emails simply didn't mean what they clearly said.

Just as the Democrats did after their emails were exposed, eh?

Now let's return to those four links that supposedly prove that global warming, caused by humans burning carbon fuels, is warming the planet by a significant and dangerous amount:

No one on the "AGW-skeptic" side disputes the first 4 links.  The problems are with the last two.

The first thing we need to note is a logical fallacy that used to be taught to virtually every college freshman: "Correlation does not imply causation."  That is, even if temperatures were indeed rising (and as you'll see, they're not) as CO2 rose, it doesn't mean any alleged rise was caused by rising CO2.  Further, while no one disputes that humans have been burning far more carbon-based fuels since 1945--indisputably producing more CO2--that doesn't show that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due mainly to human activity.

Next, about that claimed big increase in temperatures Mann (and others) claimed happened since 1900:  First,  a big part of Mann's conclusions relied on the thickness of tree rings.  They had access to data on over a hundred trees, but only included the 15 or so that supported their theory, ignoring the ones that didn't.

As you might guess, honest science really frowns on that.  It's called "cherry-picking your data."  That alone screams crap paper--i.e. fraud.

Next, Mann linked his crap tree-ring "data" to temps put out by two agencies reporting "official" temperatures.  And guess what:  Those agencies lied--and continue to do so.  The two U.S. government agencies responsible for gathering and publishing temperature data--NOAA and NASA--have systematically changed measured, reported temperatures, both past and present.  In 99% of the cases, those changes reduced past measured temps and increased more recent ones.

The two agencies claim those changes are made not by capricious human decisions but by an absolutely fair, neutral computer algorithm.  So naturally the folks running AGW discussion sites asked for a copy of the computer code allegedly used by the agencies to make those changes.

Astonishingly (or not), the agencies have refused, claiming the algorithm is "proprietary" (i.e. that the agency owns it, so is allowed to refuse to divulge it), even though development of the *alleged* code was clearly paid for with taxpayer money.  So unless it's a national secret, it ain't proprietary. 

I'll try to finish this later.  Meanwhile, here's a good summary of a *few* of the problems with "global warming" by Bill Whittle:



By contrast, here's an article from 2013 on the Leftist site "Slate," purporting to explain the "hiatus" or pause in global warming.  As you read it, keep in mind that most of the warmie crowd has been screaming furiously that there has been NO pause in the increase in global temperature, and that claims that there's been a "pause" are lies by eeeevil Rethuglicans to thwart our Savior Obama's (pbuh) efforts to enact a crucial "cap and trade" law.

But isn't it odd: if CO2 causes global warming, then if there HAS been a pause, we should have seen a corresponding drop--or at least a flattening--in atmospheric CO2 level.  So did that happen?

Why YES, yes it did!  So there ya go!  Proof!  Just like we said to you stupid deplorables!

Just kidding.  No drop or flattening in CO2 was observed.  Which seems to do major damage to the theory that global warming is caused by rising atmospheric CO2.

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