In response to a paper in Nature that argues that global warming may be entering a lull, the RealClimate blog is extending a friendly wager offer to the authors of the paper, and inviting them to guest post on the blog. I hope the authors (Keenlyside et al.) take RC up on this, as it’s a great idea and very much in the spirit of open scientific debate. As the RC folks put it,
Framing this in the form of a bet also helps to clarify what exactly was forecast and what data would falsify this forecast. This was not entirely clear to us just from the paper and it took us some correspondence with the authors to find out. It also allows the authors to say: wait, this is not how we meant the forecast, but we would bet on a modified forecast as follows… By the way, we are happy to negotiate what to bet about – we’re not doing this to make money. We’d be happy to bet about, say, a donation to a project to preserve the rain forest, or retiring a hundred tons of CO2 from the European emissions trading market.
We thus hope that this discussion will help to clarify the issues, and we invite Keenlyside et al. to a guest post here (and at KlimaLounge) to give their view of the matter.
RC presented their own scientific case and critique of the Nature paper to clarify exactly where they disagree. This promises to be genuinely informative and rigorous.
In related news, John McCain is distancing himself from the Bush Administration on global warming and presenting his own plan, which includes mandatory limits on greenhouse gases. His campaign website has an entire section devoted to it. His plan is not as aggressive and ambitious as that of either Clinton or Obama, and he seemed confused about his rivals’ commitment to the issue:
Asked at his news conference why voters who are concerned about the environment should support him over Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton, Mr. McCain said that his proposal was “doable†and that his rivals “have never to my knowledge been involved in legislation nor hearings nor engagement in this issue.â€
He did not mention that in 2007, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama were co-sponsors of an emissions-curbing bill that he introduced with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut. In addition, Mrs. Clinton went with Mr. McCain and other senators on a 2004 trip to Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago, to see the effects of global warming. Mr. McCain mentioned that journey in a speech Monday on climate change, but he did not mention that Mrs. Clinton was one of those who went along.
An honest lapse in memory, I am sure. We must be forgiving of these from him, given his age. Anyway, McCain deserves sincere credit for bucking the conservative, anti-science trend.
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 We must be forgiving of these from him, given his age.
So what’s Obama’s excuse for believing America has 57 states?
And McCain is much younger than your hero Jimmy Carter.
Shades of Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon?
The problem with any bet on future temperature change is, how is it measured and more important, who measures it?
The surface temperature averages are Godless farragoes of dodgy statistical methods. Every time someone takes a close look at some aspect of them, he sees things that shouldn’t be there. And I flat don’t trust the people who maintain them.
The satellite tropospheric temperatures maintained by Christy and Spencer would be OK if the surface types would stop forcing Christy and Spencer to adjust their results to more closely match the inferior surface averages. But (a) they won’t and (b) they would never accept results they don’t control.
The RealClimate bet would be like betting on the outcome of an offensive in Iraq and letting the New York Times decide what the outcome was.
Anyway, McCain deserves sincere credit for bucking the conservative, anti-science trend.
I am conservative but certainly not anti-science and I also don’t know of any anti-science trend among the vast majority of conservatives. I, and most conservatives, simply want the focus to be on legitimate science and not quasi-science rhetoric.
Anyway, McCain deserves sincere credit for bucking the conservative, anti-science trend.
Does McCain deserve sincere blame for buying into the politicized, junk-science, globaloney promoted by the left?
HB
OK, let me get this straight: (1) I have a Ph.D. in physics. (2) I think a lot of the global warming hype is balderdash. Does this make me anti-science? Conservative? If not, are you contrasting conservative anti-scientific trends with liberal anti-scientific trends? Personally, I fear liberal anti-science trends more than conservative ones. At least the conservatives don’t try to pass garbage legislation based on their fantasies.
Aziz sometimes feels the need to make provocative statements for no good reason that I can see. I don’t think he really believes that the left has a monopoly on science.Â
Although, if he does, I would love to see the argument presented just for humor’s sake.
Presumably because Sen. McCain didn’t recognize the incident from Sen. Clinton’s accounts of it—landing under hostile fire, dodging a hail of bullets, and so on. ;-)
Aziz sometimes feels the need to make provocative statements for no good reason that I can see.Â
He’s a bomb thrower, aren’t you Aziz?
I did say that the anti-science trend was conservative, but not all conservatives (by a longshot) are anti-science. Though there are a lot of conservatives who are quick to play the victim card when someone points out that some conservatives do wrong.. just like there are some muslims who play the victim card when someone points out some muslims do wrong. Its when someone argues that all conservatives, by virtue of their conservatism (or muslims, by virtue of their religion) that outrage is justified. I have never made such a claim against all conservatives, just as very very few here (and *none* among the frontpagers) have said as much about muslims. That I bring up the muslim-conservative analogy here shoudl be evidence of my sincerity, but probably wont be.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..Pipes’ dream
Dave, good one :)
Hank, he’s the Republican nominee, like it or not. He just validated the concensus view on global warming. I think that we can safely call it a bipartisan political concensus in favor of global warming being real and requiring urgent action, now.
There’s an Overton Window here and it is moving leftwards.
bobhawkins, the details of the bet are with regard to very specific, testable *short-term* predictions. As you already know, since you read the links in detail.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..Pipes’ dream
Hank, he’s the Republican nominee, like it or not. He just validated the concensus view on global warming. I think that we can safely call it a bipartisan political concensus in favor of global warming being real and requiring urgent action, now.
Oh, what horseshit (forvive my French:)
First, go look up the word "consensus". It doesn’t mean what you think.
Second, science doesn’t work by consensus or validation. Get a clue.
Third, How on God’s green earth can you have a consensus about global warming, when you have very good scientists (Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer) disputing the cause of global warming?
Fourth, although McCain is a great guy, he is also a politician. Some brilliant wonks on his staff have figured out which way the political (not scientific) winds are blowing on this issue, and have acted accordingly. Nothing more. I’ll vote for him, inspite of this nonsense.
If elected President, the first thing McCain should do on this issue, is request the National Academy of Sciences to hold a public, televised, scientific debate on C-Span between the 2 most prominent proponents of
globaloneyglobal warming and Lindzen and Spencer. Surely, Dr. Aziz,  you would not object to this, right?Also, he should fund a few million dollars for dissenters of the "consensus" to test this hypothesis. Testing and falsifying hypotheses is what makes good science.
HankBÂ
<i>I think that we can safely call it a bipartisan political concensus in favor of global warming being real and requiring urgent action, now.</i>
Since when did partisanship have anything to do with scientific fact?
"If elected President, the first thing McCain should do on this issue, is request the National Academy of Sciences to hold a public, televised, scientific debate on C-Span between the 2 most prominent proponents of
globaloneyglobal warming and Lindzen and Spencer."Ain’t no way in hell this would ever be allowed.
It would be, just too honest, and in all likelihood change very few minds.
When presented with the exact same evidence, there is a tendency for contrary opinions to diverge even more.
But, that is a good idea Hank. Just a little too optimistic, I’m afraid.
Hey Rodger v. Rossman,
You sound like a court case — who won, Rodger or Rossman:)
But, that is a good idea Hank. Just a little too optimistic, I’m afraid
I am chock full of good ideas rejected by most folks!
But seriously, my number 1 indicator for scientific quackery is this:
1. Highly credentialled, highly articulate doctor strongly asserts scientific Proposition A.
2. Since scientific proposition A is so well-established, Highly credentialled, highly articulate doctor sees no need to defend Proposition A or debate Proposition A or review any critiques of Proposition A or review Proposition B.
That Al Gore won’t publically debate, say, Lomborg at some University should speak volumes.
It might be something, but it ain’t science.
HankB
Aziz:
Speaking of "anti-science" trends, why don’t you go take a poll of which political party members are more likely to believe in astrology, mysticism, homeopathic medicine, crystal energy, pyramids, Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot… Oh heck I could go on for hours.
I don’t think there is any DOUBT which side of the aisle has fundamental problems with science.
Next we can talk about things like Math or Accounting…
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Edwards to endorse Obama tonight in Michigan
Aziz,
So far you’ve just reasserted your assertion in a different way. Care to elaborate on your proposition that there is an anti-science trend that is so obviously the political property of the conservatives? Or is it just a convenient slur that allows you to (in your own head at least) not have to provide any evidence?
Or could it be that, there are just some partisans on both sides who selectivey ignore science simply because it serves their political agenda of the moment?
I just don’t see why you would muck up a good post with such pseudo-clever nonsense.
*shrug*
Two words – Trofim Lysenko
There were lots of accusations of anti-science trends about the Clinton administration, they just fade from memory and/or never got quite so much attention. There was a long, long fight over some archaeological stuff that they cooperated in destroying basically to soothe some Native American groups, for example. There were also accusations that they were pumping up the Global Warming stuff despite doubts of scientists working on climatology efforts.
There is no new thing under the sun, as the saying goes.
But I will say that it’s pretty obvious that conservatives do occasionally use non-scientific hokum to push their own agendas. Abstinence-only education minus proper sex and prophylactic education comes to mind…
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