Global Warming For Dummies Pt II: Denialist Fallacies 5-10

It’s about time I got off my bum and wrote the second part in the blog series which I started back on ‘Bruce’s Rave and Rant‘ in December of last year. So here it goes with 5-10. This has been fun. Maybe I’ll do a 1-10 of dramatist fallacies some time.

6. Weather isn’t climate people!

The work ‘Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal‘ by Dr David Legates and Willie Soon (et al) is central to common denialist arguments; although their co-authors in . You can read their report here as a pdf (firefox users right-click and save target as.)

Legates, Soon (et al) claim that they have found evidence for a global medieval warm period; using dubious supporting evidence. How dubious? All of their data for any one period is regional. During a any period, you can have warm regions in areas that should be cool (take the effect of the Atlantic thermal currents for example) and vica versa. During a warm period, you can find cool regions and during a cool period, you can find warm spots. Legates, Soon (et al) found some warm spots in the medieval and hooray! Mission accomplished!

It irks when either a denialist claims regional cooling as falsification of the Callendar Effect and when dramatists claim a regional hot summer as confirmation. It’s not just parts or all of the atmosphere either; you have to take into consideration the temperature of the ocean which acts as a kind of heat sink. When someone is pointing towards a localised piece of evidence, be sure to check over your shoulder to see what evidence they are distracting you from seeing.

And Legates had the gall to get up and accuse Mann of presupposing the truth. Tut, tut.

7. “…the sun is like a light bulb that has recently heated up…” – Freeper ‘Blind Eye Jones‘ (2006)

Wrong as of the past couple of years. Anyone paying attention to solar cycles (aka Schwabe cycles) knows that output peaked in 2001 & 2002, dropped in 2003-2005 and bottomed out in 2006-now. As of writing this, we are in a solar minimum! Indeed, the new cycle (which starts during a minimum) is expected to start in this month!

The next time a denialist says that the sun has been putting out more heat of late (or less heat in future), point them in this direction.

In all fairness, “Blind Eye Jones’ was citing ‘…a French speaking prof (probably from Quebec) at the University of Toronto who I’ve see on Cpac…’, and “Blind Eye” didn’t tell us when he heard this source of information. I have however, come across this fallacy elsewhere on the Internet and abroad in discussion and it’s something that you have to be wary of. The usual manifestation of the argument is to say that a solar maximum occurs during a period when climate or local weather isn’t rising particularly fast. The more honest (but still wrong) manifestation is when the solar maximum is used to explain warming periods, the corresponding solar minimums not having equivalent effect in these “models” (ie. downturns in climatic temperature should be larger during solar minimums if solar cycles are the cause of upturns.)

8. “…the high point of global warming took place in the 1920s before any emissions and now the temperature is on the decline…” - Freeper ‘Blind Eye Jones‘ (2006)

“Blind Eye” must have turned that blind eye towards the facts. The peak in the 1940’s was larger and so was the peak in 2003. In fact, at no point since the 1920’s has a yearly climatic average been less than the high point of the 1920’s.

Have a squizz at this. Southern hemisphere figures are factored in as well.

9. “…Precipitation has increased on the poles! The ice sheets are getting thicker! Global Warming projections say other wise!”

Wrong. I’ve called Andrew Bolt on this straw man before and I’m calling Robert Matthews on it now (belatedly.)

The current IPCC model (upon which the Mann Hockey stick and other mainstream models are based) predict that oceanic temperature will rise. This sees increased precipitation at the poles (leading to thicker ice sheets), greater melting at the periphery (which is happening) and sea level change driven by thermal expansion (not by an ice-cap melting Waterworld scenario.)

You will notice that Matthews, in his article references the work that shows an increase in precipitation, but singularly fails to reference work by those he criticises (wrongly) as predicting that precipitation won’t increase. But hey, when you learn at the school of presuppositionism, who needs to do homework; don’t bother to research what your opponents are actually saying and make it up for them!

“For more than a decade, scientists have been developing sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s climate, in an attempt to forecast the impact of alleged global warming. While these models differ in their fine details, they all agree on one thing: that global warming caused by man-made pollution should strike the polar regions first.

(Robert Matthews, 2003)

When he does make reference to the IPCC generally, it’s only to misinterpret them;

“The 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – regarded as the scientific consensus on global warming – predicts that snowfall levels in the Northern Hemisphere should decline as the planet warms up.“

(Robert Matthews, 2003)

Matthews, the report says Northern Hemisphere. It doesn’t say norther polar region. Hint: Most of the Northern Hemisphere isn’t a polar region!

He’s cited Moore, he’s cited Polyakov, why hasn’t he cited the scientists and their computer models? Go over to the IPCC and have a look at what they are actually saying.

10. “The Temeprature of the Stratosphere is Falling!” – Paraphrasing Andrew Bolt.

This is another one of those “evidence for global warming is evidence for no global warming” stuff-ups of Andrew Bolt’s. Let’s explain; light from the sun passes through the atmosphere, where some is absorbed as infra-red in the atmosphere. The light is then re-emitted from the Earth’s surface as infrared light (heat). If this heat is captured by green house gasses, less heat makes it up into the stratosphere, not more! The callendar effect predicts a decrease in the temperature of the stratosphere, not an increase.

Seriously, this is a junior high exam question. Anyone who knows the basics of how greenhouse gasses trap heat can predict what happens to the stratosphere. So how did Andrew stuff this one up? Presupposition? Maybe? Doesn’t understand the theory he criticises? Perhaps? Outright black propaganda? An outside chance. Hanlon’s razor says he just plain stuffed up, so that’s what I’m going with.

Credit goes to John Quiggin for catching this boo-boo.

Conclusion

Global Warming Denialists have repeatedly dubbed themselves as global warming skeptics, but it’s as plain as the nose on the Mona Lisa’s face that they have chosen their conclusions first and cherry picked the evidence afterwards. It becomes all the more obvious when instead of cherry, they end up picking dingleberry for their evidence.

Skeptic Marcello Truzzi said it best with the words; “Since “skepticism” properly refers to doubt rather than denial–nonbelief rather than belief–critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves “skeptics” are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label.” (Marcello Truzzi, Zetetic Scholar, 1987.)

They deny facts, logic and reason. The only thing you need deny is their status as skeptics.

~ Bruce