It's probably not surprising that the last post lit a fuse. But there are some bigger, non-political questions behind my mocking of a Fox News commenter's declaration that big snows in the South have destroyed global warming claims. His claim brings to mind absurdist theater.
And indeed, posting about such things and looking at comments becomes an exercise in absurdist theater itself. I tend toward liberal politics more or less, though not entirely. But that doesn't matter–at all–when it comes to the real underlying question: why is there such a strong anti-science bias in America? How is it possible that such crazy claims result in anything but laughter, no matter where they air?
These trends are fostered and exploited by politicians, but it's an already extant phenomenon. We've arrived at a new era much like some older eras, a time in which belief comes first, and facts are discarded or embraced for how they fit into one's belief system. As is often observable, that manner of acquiring positions is so commonplace that many people can't comprehend that anything else exists–they only accuse everyone else of doing the same thing, which ends up fostering an endless uproar that can never, ever get anywhere useful. There are other ways, but they're mighty hard to engage.
When it comes to global warming and quantum mechanics alike, the scientific consensus is just that, a consensus reached by people who participate in the science full-time. I give the ideas of peer-reviewed science far more weight than I do the belief-based notions of people who disagree with the consensus and cannot deliver on the actual territory that matters: peer-reviewed studies. I tend to trust the system by which science operates. That is not a political position. It is, rather, the basis of the modern world. Heck, if people had succeeded in slowing down scientific inquiry in the past, you might not be able to sit at a screen at the location of your choice and read these words.
Extraordinary claims–like, say, that the scientific consensus is wrong–require extraordinary evidence. Politics really can't change that.
Some truly interesting stuff has arrived on the actual topic of global warming science, but that is a subject for addressing after the lunch run…
ADDITIONAL: You know, broccoli can be well-disguised enough that it almost becomes good. But about that climate science.
Our regular commenter Eric posted an interesting story indeed. Some quotations from that Daily Mail story:
Professor [Phil] Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now–suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no "statistically significant" warming.
The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.
Compare to the BBC interview that Daily Mail piece is based on:
Q: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?
A: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
Q: There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?
A: There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.
We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.
Q: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?
A: I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.
Q: When scientists say "the debate on climate change is over", what exactly do they mean – and what don't they mean?
A: It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.
It's clear that climate science, like most every branch of science, is a complicated endeavor with ever-evolving conclusions, not quite ready for those bullet points. (It's also clear that Jones is not doing a bang-up job of making these matters easy for non-scientists.)
If new data and new studies end up changing the consensus of most climate scientists, well, for the record: I'll be just as willing to believe that new scientific consensus as I am the current one.
Hard to fathom how that's considered a political position. Science isn't supposed to be liberal or conservative. It's endlessly annoying that people keep trying to turn it–and pretty much everything else–into politics.
I wonder–is broccoli liberal?
And lastly, here's a fascinating BBC article by the same writer who conducted the above interview. It addresses–wthout caring for an instant what American political camps think–the many issues raised by the "Climategate" furor.
Some quotations:
In some circles, every single [Climate]-gate "relevation" has been followed by a ritualised fanfare claiming that the picture of climate warming through rising greenhouse gases concentrations has now been "fatally undermined", or some similar phrase. …
How scientists and the institutions of science behave is an important issue, no doubt about it – for evidence, look no further than the latest developments on the MMR saga, which sees The Lancet retracting the decade-old paper that sparked all the fuss …
But what matters far, far more than the nuances of climate scientists' behaviour is whether the climate is warming, and if it is, what is driving that warming.
Those are questions crucial for humanity's future, because if the IPCC's projections become reality, substantial swathes of the global population will find themselves living in much more straitened circumstances than they face at present.
I'll go with that approach…
