“As far as the possibility that something may backfire”

angech says:

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“As far as the possibility that something may backfire”
“I’m not actually a fan of the tone of Harvey et al. I think they could have presented it in a way that may have resulted in less backlash”
Dr Mitchell Taylor, booted off the board of the PBSG after 20 years of service, ” If you don’t believe that climate science is settled, you can’t be a member of the PBSG,”‘
has some interesting things to say.
I did write over at Bart’s that this article should backfire.
not least because of this pertinent comment by Taylor.
“I have been active in polar bears since 1978. I didn’t recognize 12 of the 14 names on the paper written criticizing Susan for publishing an article about polar bears because she does not have any direct experience in polar bear research or management.”
Thank you for raising the matter again.
I feel the paper goes strongly against a lot of the things that you stand for as a scientist and I am sorry you have to defend it,

angech says:

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Put this up at Tallbloke’s.
Happy with my rationalization so thought I might share it here as well. Older blog post and out of the way. ATTP might appreciate it as some thoughts on Solar system evolution, or not.
Cheers.
“Planet surface temperature is dependent on pressure and solar distance.
The third component * is the actual physical makeup of the planet and its atmosphere in in question.
This seems to be partly ignored by N and Z which PM is quite right to question.
Both views are mostly right and actually support each other.
E.M.Smith rightly asks about using the earth as a laboratory. “We have a natural lab here, use it.”

We are stuck with a 14 billion year old universe in which a 4.2 billion year old solar system has recently evolved.
It is highly likely that solar system accretions throughout our known galaxies are of varying ages from just forming to perhaps 8 billion years old ending when the sun blows up.
Accretions have inbuilt heat without suns, they are not cold dead lumps of rock. Jupiter for instance would still have a reasonable temperature at the surface without the sun, as would the earth at depth.
As EM Smith implied we do have a laboratory. It is a gigantic centrifuge whose spun components have temperatures depending not only on solar, pressure and internal heating [*composition] but also on the other component of physical makeup, what materials are in the planet and it’s atmosphere*. This is determined by the age and origins of the solar system accretions.

So we have the old earth, pre stromatolites with? a CO2/N atmosphere changing to an O2/N atmosphere for instance. Did the old earth have the same temperatures as the new earth?
We have the molten earth cooling down theory. Was the earth surface 4.2 Billion years ago the same as it is now? This is the nub of the question for Tallbloke et al. Do they believe in one temp for one planet same gravity, same insolation for ever or do they agree that the evolution/age/composition of the planet can affect these figures?

Once, if we admit that composition plays a part we could go on to the admittedly small but relevant role of GHG, both water and CO2 and elsewhere others .Which exist in wildly varying amounts on different planets. I am quite happy with the concept of gravity, mass, friction and normally more temperature at depth. We have the confounding effects of Oceans being colder at depths, not hotter due to the difficult nature of defining a surface. Very easy for gas/solids only. This makes temperature determination on the earth even more difficult.
Due to the variability in the main GHG, water vapour and its role in albedo control* [a third component not considered there is room for temperature variation due to GHG including and amplified by CO2 which could theoretically move the expected temperature a few degrees away from N and Z reasonable average estimate.

The two theories complement each other. If you take the Solar, add in the Gravity and then look at the actual physical composition of the accretion [if it has a surface in the first place -definition please]. It’s own internal temperature [and how it gets out to the surface], the makeup of the planet surface [All white chalk for instance compared to black or red ferrous compounds], and the albedo and GHG effects of the gases in or not in the atmosphere [and no oceans of whatever substance please] will all modify the expected result.
PM right.
N and Z right.
In parts.”

angech says:
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April 17, 2018 at 11:26 pm
Willard
“The topic of this thread is not H17. Nor is it SusanC. The topic of this thread is about why it matters to describe and to try to explain how contrarians megaphones operate.”
Some may have missed that.
The ends may justify the means but as ATTP says in discussing truth as your goal it does not help to move away from the the other values associated with truth to prove your point.
Twister is a good game played with people you like but it is a hard way of defending the undefendable.
Give Joshua some carte blanche.
Several comments in an oppositional vein.
Thanks for the graphs and explanations by the way. Your point is well made.

Tamino good argument on his part
The 1880 to 2018 graph NASA is a compilation of different and changing temperature measuring devices, many different and changing sites and one presumes multiple adjustments to the original raw data. Zeke has explained in the past that current NASA etc anomaly graphs have built in TOBS etc adjustments that cool the past.
Still, if that is what we have that is what we have.

Secondly the amount of variation given that a yearly annual change can be as large as 0.1C [Guess only] is actually not that impressive over 138 years, or is it not that significant?
The figures could really be absolute, not anomalies and in Kelvin to give an idea of the real overall change.

Thirdly they do suggest the presence of the little ice age and presumably there was a fall from previous moderate levels.

As with all these arguments you might at times have used similar presentations to argue for your points while knowing that a slightly different picture would be available on a bigger/smaller/different graphing scheme?
Again this is all part of the arguing but if the skeptics, or you, use facile reasoning at times how do we get to the actual truths, such as they are?

There is a WUWT post on Greenland temps as we speak. Is it possible for you to contrast it’s results with yours or take it down.
The reasons for a flat shaft,
“PAGES2K
“many proxy records spanning the last 2000 years are not annually resolved, and in some regions, most of the available records of any length lack annual resolution. The mean resolution of non-tree archives is 11 years, the median 1 year. For sedimentary archives the mean and median resolutions are 25 and 18 years, respectively.”
are easy to see.
Going back in time smooths and flattens the trend.
Observations ten million years ago [as an example of the overall not the immediate problem] May have a change in temperature resolution of a thousand years. Observations a thousand years ago can have a resolution of 11 years. Annual data such as tree rings in some long lived species struggles to reach 600 years but provides a crucial overlap between thermometers and more esoteric proxies. At a cost of smoothing out changes.
Hence the ability to see warming and cooling trends of up to 2 degrees over 100 years is lost as one goes back in time.
Here is the conundrum. One did not even need to use tree ring proxies to get a flat shaft. It is a natural occurrence of using dating temperature proxies.
But we have another proxy method of temperature reconstruction. History via written languages and history of agricultural practices and living styles by archeology. These can give an indirect record of past temperatures, but only locally. Such records indicate that Temperature changes equivalent to the modern 150 year warming have happened a number of times in the past 3000 years.
The two results can coexist happily along side each other.