Saturday, May 17, 2014

Propositions and Dots

A bit of a while ago Eli pointed out that much of the attack on Mike Mann, John Cook, the IPCC, Al Gore and others to be named later were about the inconsequential. 

A friend of the blog pointed to the perfect illustration of this



Thanks to Pinko Punko for finding the source.  Breen is quite far on the right side of political cartoonist.  This was from 2010

38 comments:

  1. Steve Breen, Creators Syndicate.

    http://m.theweek.com/cartoons/index/200802/examining-the-evidence-for-climate-change

    Someone cropped the signature.

    ReplyDelete
  2. the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow....and the fragmentation of west antarctic ice sheet goes on and on at least for 20 or 30 years...or more

    or less

    ReplyDelete
  3. OK,

    Global Warming has been less than expected not 'worse' than expected.

    Global warming has been decelerating, which it should because radiative forcing has been decelerating.

    Absolute temperature is not a determinant of atmospheric motion and most atmospheric processes.

    Sea level rise attributable to global warming is about 2mm per year.

    Tropical cyclone energy shows no significant trend.

    Strong tornadoes have been declining in the US.

    As have droughts.

    Indeed, our national assessment assesses:

    “There has been no universal trend in the overall extent of drought across the continental U.S. since 1900″
    “Other trends in severe storms, including the intensity & frequency of tornadoes, hail, and damaging thunderstorm winds, are uncertain”
    “lack of any clear trend in landfall frequency along the U.S. eastern and Gulf coasts”
    “when averaging over the entire contiguous U.S., there is no overall trend in flood magnitudes”

    So, ya, I think there are a couple of undotted is.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Attributed to Churchill, and probably slightly misremembered...

    'Ending a sentence with a preposition in a grammatical error, up with which I will not put.'

    ReplyDelete
  5. A better copy of the cartoon:
    http://www.gocomics.com/stevebreen/2010/03/12

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anymouse @ 17/5/14 8:55 PM

    A Pielke Jr Poe perhaps offered this cherry pick:

    'There has been no universal trend in the overall extent of drought across the continental U.S. since 1900'

    Now I invite readers to turn to page 75 of that report and read that in context.

    Even Judy Curry topped her article on this with this quote:

    'Climate change, once considered a problem for the distant future, has moved firmly into the present. Climate change is already affecting the American people. – U.S. NCADAC'

    Anymouse you have chucked all your dots into the rising sea, so there is little point in exploring the remainder of your idiotic post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous @ 17/5/14 8:55 PM

    "So, ya, I think there are a couple of undotted is." Well there's one of your problems, no hanging apostrophe! You mean "undotted i's". And with that sentence, I've confirmed what the cartoon is highlighting in its satirical way - the nitpicking which is the forte of the Never-Ending Auditor, McSomething-or-Other.

    Another problem you've got is that, in your pedantry, you've overlooked that you're discussing a satirical cartoon on the basis that it's somewhat lacking as an academic piece. Which is over the top as the cartoon is meant to be humorous and not meant to be didactic or pedagogical. And the cartoonist can't be faulted as cartoonists usually complete a brief given to them by an editor or such.

    As for the "couple of undotted is", that's the nature of science, e.g. there's a "couple of undotted is" concerning gravity - wave or particle or …? There's a "couple of undotted is" with lots of science stuff so don't be a pedant, chill (while you still can).

    ReplyDelete
  8. > the nitpicking which is the forte of the Never-Ending Auditor, McSomething-or-Other.

    The Auditor is not alone in nitpicking.

    Here's another one:

    > I don’t know what sort of hack they had investigate the supposed hacking, but this is silly. There was no hacking involved. The material was gathered in a perfectly legal way. I could easily prove that.

    http://hiizuru.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/my-hundredth-post-cant-be-shown/

    So Brandon's arguing that an URL injection is not really hacking. An audit can be recognize when it comes to an ontological argument. What is hacking? What is censorship? What is the meaning of "all"?

    Kid auditors entertain the darnedest semantics.

    ReplyDelete
  9. We don't have to know the exact nature of gravity to know where it comes from and how it works.

    So go ahead, asshole, jump.

    And as far and duality is concerned, it's both and neither. We are starting to get the idea that spacetime is a low energy emergent superfluid and we've got a good theory for that already.

    Bosons and fermions, moron. And there are enough exoplanets out there to be able to tune the models to a high degree of certainty. I can see why you and your ilk are so dead set against anything that might be newish.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Tol, Lucia and Mosher are going right out on a limb with Brandon. It will end badly.

    ReplyDelete
  11. > It will end badly.

    Audits never end, Eli.

    ReplyDelete
  12. "A bit of a while ago Eli pointed out that much of the attack on Mike Mann, John Cook, the IPCC, Al Gore and others to be named later were about the inconsequential."

    Repeated assertions do not constitute arguments, and "much" does not constitute "all". What about the (1 - much) part, what do you have to say about that?

    ReplyDelete
  13. My own answer, Jim, is that the (1 - much) was suboptimal, like RyanO said of his own behavior in the Antarctica episode of ClimateBall (tm).

    This might not be Eli's answer. For instance, I recall when he was talking of circular firing squad:

    http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/climate-science-scientific-method-skeptics-not/#comment-13435

    I too would like some clarification from Eli.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Lionel -

    "Climate change is already affecting the American people."

    As long as we can agree that it's not from storms, floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, or most anything else that's measurable.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous, even Bush 41's science advisor noted Christopher Columbus' assertion that deforestation by the colonists he dropped off was drying out local climate in the Americas.

    ReplyDelete
  16. > no universal trend
    Who sold you that bridge to nowhere, anony?
    You could have looked it up for yourself.

    "Very heavy precipitation events have increased nationally and are projected to increase in all regions. The length of dry spells is projected to increase in most areas, especially the southern and northwestern portions of the contiguous United States."
    p. 70, Climate Change Impacts in the United States, CHAPTER 3, WATER RESOURCES

    http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/water

    So, anon, you copypasted someone's mistake, uncritically, rhetorically, without checking the claimed source, eh?
    Try, try, to remember: "Trust, but verify." -- R. Reagan

    Unless -- is it possible that you believe that more heavy precipitation and longer dry spells averages out to no problem?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Repeated assertions constitute introductions. Jim you ever read a scientific paper??

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thomas Lee Elifritz @ 18/5/14 8.04 AM

    "So go ahead, asshole, jump." (And here he split the verb and adverb, forgot to use an exclamation mark, !, and used a vulgar term!)

    Well there's your problem! You've confused the fundamental nature of gravity with the tractable behaviour of gravity. Speaking of the Blessed Trinity - "Gluons and fermions, moron", morons are the glue that holds the pseudo-skeptic universe together.

    ReplyDelete
  19. morons are the glue that holds the pseudo-skeptic universe together.

    And borons are the mediators of pseudo-scientists like yourself, who pick nits in blog comments with the enlightened, thereby revealing your deficiencies in critical thinking. Go ahead, you've got the perfect excuse to not address the science and the issues derived from that science.

    Wigner crystal, or fermi liquid, that is the question. But you've got more important issues, like educating us in epistemology and proper grammar. You're so special.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thomas, I think that George was agreeing with you...

    ReplyDelete
  21. "I too would like some clarification from Eli."

    Don't hold your breath Willard. Eli has assertions and heroes, and you don't get blood from rocks.


    ReplyDelete
  22. When I see Brandon and troops endlessly going after Lewandowsky & co, I'm distantly reminded of Wilde's description of a fox hunt:
    the unspeakable in full pursuit of the inedible

    ReplyDelete
  23. ...or uneatable, as the case may be ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thomas Lee Elifritz @ 18/5/14 8.04 PM

    "pseudo-scientists like yourself, who pick nits in blog comments with the enlightened, thereby revealing your deficiencies in critical thinking. … the perfect excuse to not address the science and the issues derived from that science. … like educating us in epistemology and proper grammar."

    Which is exactly the point being made about 'skeptics' in the cartoon.

    ReplyDelete
  25. 'As long as we can agree that it's not from storms, floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, or most anything else that's measurable.'

    But we don't agree on that anymouse, not by a long chalk. Trust you to avoid the connections between extreme weather events and climate change. Could you not take in the meaning of ALL those other words in that document?

    Training, boxers & punches and all that.

    Maybe you skipped comprehension classes.

    Besides, there is much more to the world than the US of ******* A. Apologies to all you other Americans here but sometimes some of your people need reminding.

    Maybe you are oblivious to extreme events elsewhere in the world like in Asia, Australia, Europe, the UK and now most recently the Balkans.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Looks like someone needs a Sandy there.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "Maybe you are oblivious to extreme events elsewhere in the world like in Asia, Australia, Europe, the UK and now most recently the Balkans." [Lionel A].

    Tunnelvision: see one thing at a time and simultaneously see nothing else, or: one swallow makes no summer so a million swallows CERTAINLY make no summer.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I assure you George and I are not in agreement on the state of science and the state of the world.

    Read his first comment over again, if you think you can parse crap.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Lionel A:

    "A Pielke Jr Poe perhaps offered this cherry pick: 'There has been no universal trend in the overall extent of drought across the continental U.S. since 1900'. Now I invite readers to turn to page 75 of that report and read that in context."

    indeed, it's amazing how careless some people are with their cut and paste fingers. though this little bunny wonders what the quote-mining index for those little nuggets might now be.

    ReplyDelete
  30. "troops endlessly going after Lewandowsky & co"


    The fascination (obsession?) with Lewandowsky (on both sides) is a very curious phenomenon.

    Outside the climate blogosphere (which makes up a tiny fraction of the population) the vast majority undoubtedly don't even know (or care) who "Lewandowsky" is.

    ReplyDelete
  31. For explaining the attacks on Al Gore, what better than the Daily Howler, but, of course, Eli has on occasion had a word

    ReplyDelete
  32. Hank Roberts:

    Wrong and wrong.

    You responded to "“There has been no universal trend" which is a reference to droughts with:

    "Very heavy precipitation events have increased nationally and are projected to increase in all regions. The length of dry spells is projected to increase in most areas, especially the southern and northwestern portions of the contiguous United States."

    Projections, under no circumstances are observations.

    There is a rational basis for expecting heavier rain fall with temperature increase - water vapour capacity in the atmosphere increases with temperature, but the rational would also ask to what extent? Certainly the expected difference is much less than the seasonal difference we experience from winter to summer. And while heavy rainfall is much more likely for most locations in summer than winter, we do not go into panic when summer comes.

    One cannot make the same case for drought, or at least the most important aspect of drought - precipitation. Drought increase imagined from decreasing precipitation has become one of the travelling falsehoods of 'global warming' ( perpetuated by the media ). Drought periods tend to be hotter ( because the heat capacity of dry soil is much less than the heat capacity of moist soil ) but the corollary of global temperature is quite unfounded.

    Precipitation results from transient dynamic events which are not resolved by climate models. These events are
    mostly frontal passages, either directly in the mid-latitudes or indirectly in the form of tropical waves and the ITCZ.



    Mousey

    ReplyDelete
  33. a_ray_in_dilbert_space19/5/14 12:44 PM

    It would appear Mousey has not looked into this much. The following study predicts worsening drought due to higher temperatures and lowered snowpack:

    USGCRP (2009). Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States . Karl, T.R., J. M. Melillo, and T. C. Peterson (eds.). United States Global Change Research Program. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, USA.

    Reality's a bitch, ain't she?

    ReplyDelete
  34. " The following study predicts..."

    No, you see, predictions are what we test.
    Observations are what we test with.

    You can predict Santa Claus is coming this year, but until then, we'll go with the most recent observation of las Christmas ( when all you got was pajamas ).

    ReplyDelete
  35. SANTA CLAUS OR KLAUS IS RIDING THE ARKSTORM VON BOSNIAN TIMES?

    ReplyDelete
  36. mousey: "One cannot make the same case for drought, or at least the most important aspect of drought - precipitation. Drought increase imagined from decreasing precipitation has become one of the travelling falsehoods of 'global warming' ( perpetuated by the media ). Drought periods tend to be hotter ( because the heat capacity of dry soil is much less than the heat capacity of moist soil ) but the corollary of global temperature is quite unfounded."

    Drought periods may tend to be hotter (a cite would be nice), but hot periods definitely tend to be drier, because a higher temperature means a greater rate of evapotranspiration. Thus warming leads to more severe drought even when precipitation doesn't change. That was observed during the massive die-off of pinyon pine in N. New Mexico in the early 2000s. Precipitation wasn't less than during the drought of the 1950s, but temperatures were higher, thus tree mortality was greater and reached higher elevations.

    ReplyDelete
  37. "but hot periods definitely tend to be drier, because a higher temperature means a greater rate of evapotranspiration"

    That's what alarmist would like you to focus on.

    But of course, precipitation is more significant, and temperature shares a secondary role along with wind and sunshine.

    Nevertheless, even with increased temperature, the PDSI trend does not indicate more drought.

    ReplyDelete
  38. a_ray_in_dilbert_space20/5/14 7:06 PM

    And anonytroll wins the Orwell award for doublespeak:

    "Nevertheless, even with increased temperature, the PDSI trend does not indicate more drought."

    PDSI=Palmer Drought Severity Index.

    Kudos

    ReplyDelete

Dear Anonymous,

UPDATE: The spambots got clever so the verification is back. Apologies

Some of the regulars here are having trouble telling the anonymice apart. Please add some distinguishing name to your comment such as Mickey, Minnie, Mighty, or Fred.

You can stretch the comment box for more space

The management.