Quote :

"case closed."

Closed case for a closed mind.

Do yourself a favor and never watch the local weather nor read their forecasts. Those dastardly stations that you were hilariously ignorant of provided that data! *gasp*

10/24/2011 10:13:17 PM

keep arguing against a point no one is making

by the way, have you even bothered to read up on Darwin Zero? yeah. a 3C stair-step "correction" over 50 years isn't shady one bit. yep.

[Edited on October 24, 2011 at 10:17 PM. Reason : ]

10/24/2011 10:16:39 PM

Quote :

"^^Well what exactly are climate change denialists (like TKE-Teg and aaronburro in this thread for example) trying to prove when they claim that data stations that are indicating that we are warming do not have accurate data?"

Because natural processes exist that can warm the planet. The only evidence we have that the current warming is mostly man-made is because the rate of warming has been declared too fast to be natural.

Well, if the weather stations are over-stating the warming trend, then current warming is no longer unprecedented and therefore not a slam-dunk indictment of man-made CO2.

10/25/2011 4:32:55 AM

Christ aaronburro, here we go again

Volcanos: http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2001/2001RG000105.shtml

highest estimate out there of of yearly volcano emissions: 320 million tons of CO2

human yearly emissions: 30 billion tons per year

That's a whole order of magnitude. Not to mention that the majority of volcanic CO2 emissions are in water soluble forms that drop right back to Earth as soon as it rains again.

And aaronburro, please explain to me why a cooler sun, and thus less evaporation, leads to increased cloud cover? That link you provided doesn't mention the sun once.


And the 30's were not hotter than the 90's. I believe there was a single scorcher of a summer, but by all means please point me to a source indicating that that the average temperatures were higher for the decade.

[Edited on October 25, 2011 at 1:36 PM. Reason : .]

10/25/2011 1:26:20 PM

^^Except it's not just weather stations. It's also water temperatures, solar measurements, rocks, sediments, ice cores, tree rings, corals, shells and microfossils. Not that I expect any AGW-deniers to know anything about those things.

[Edited on October 25, 2011 at 1:28 PM. Reason : :]

10/25/2011 1:28:08 PM

Quote :

"Because natural processes exist that can warm the planet. The only evidence we have that the current warming is mostly man-made is because the rate of warming has been declared too fast to be natural. "

Except no known natural process causes temperature shift of this magnitude and consistency (a 100 year trend that just happens to coincide with global industrialization), unless you can point one out?

There's also the whole "evidence" that physics itself dictates how CO2 content in the atmosphere affects heat retention. You know, a mechanism.

Quote :

"Well, if the weather stations are over-stating the warming trend, then current warming is no longer unprecedented and therefore not a slam-dunk indictment of man-made CO2."

Well, first you'd have to also prove that satellite measurements, tree rings, ice cores, and the other dozen or so proxy measurements were also over-stating the warming trend, as shrike pointed out



[Edited on October 25, 2011 at 1:29 PM. Reason : credit to shrike]

10/25/2011 1:28:09 PM

I don't know why I even bother, it's clear at this point that anyone still denying AGW is working backwards from their conclusions. Admission of AGW constitutes admission of a 100-year running global market failure, a clear case of a tragedy of the commons, which would require governmental oversight to correct. That's the only way to explain why libertarians, who to their credit are otherwise relatively scientifically minded, are in denial of it.

10/25/2011 1:34:39 PM

y'all are arguing over some dumb shit that some of the brightest minds on the planet can't even agree on

get over yourselves

10/25/2011 1:44:04 PM

Lmao apparently the planetary science community (and particularly those studying climatology) vs. American conservatives who couldn't get published in Hustler let alone a peer-reviewed journal apparently constitutes "the brightest minds disagreeing"

10/25/2011 1:51:55 PM

Well, in the conservatives' defense, I'm not sure if the planetary science community could get published in Hustler.

But I could be wrong. Some of those simulations are awfully sexy

10/25/2011 5:31:51 PM

Quote :

"Except it's not just weather stations. It's also water temperatures, solar measurements, rocks, sediments, ice cores, tree rings, corals, shells and microfossils. Not that I expect any AGW-deniers to know anything about those things."

We do know about those things. We know they all show the 20th century warming far more slowly than the surface data does (with the exception of some hand-picked tree-ring data).

10/25/2011 6:53:10 PM

Quote :

" We do know about those things. We know they all show the 20th century warming far more slowly than the surface data does (with the exception of some hand-picked tree-ring data)."

Lmao source please. This is a new one to me. The part about proxy measurements ALL showing slower warming than the surface data indicates, that is. I've already heard the right wing propaganda machine's gross distortions of the CRU, tree ring data, etc.

10/26/2011 9:25:34 AM

Well, here is ice-core data for you:
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553

10/26/2011 10:31:13 AM

Where's the part that pertains to your statement that "We know they all [in this case Greenland ice cores] show the 20th century warming far more slowly than the surface data does" ? All I see here is an argument that the recent temperature fluctuation in Greenland isn't unheard of if you examine temperature fluctuations in Greenland for the past 100,000 years.


Also, you should know (since this relates to your statement above), that different rates of warming for land vs ocean vs ice is not unexpected. It's almost as though not all materials have the same rate of heat transfer. For instance, if Ocean temperature rise more slowly than the Land temperature, that doesn't mean the land measurements are wrong. It means that the ocean is one gigantic heat sink that has different heat transfer properties than surface temperature (Which is basically atmospheric temperature at that elevation).

10/26/2011 11:53:50 AM

With every passing day fewer and fewer people are buying into the man-made global warming theory. At least the part about catastrophic consequences. It's at the bottom of the list of concerns for most people and that won't be changing. The global average temperature increase over the past 100 years is within the margin of error, winters have been getting colder of late, the global ocean average temperature hasn't risen since 2003 and sea level rise (which was never anything other than normal) has seemingly stopped.

You must be getting pretty frustrated.

10/26/2011 12:26:01 PM

^^^That data has been misrepresented before

http://www.skepticalscience.com/10000-years-warmer.htm

10/26/2011 12:39:55 PM

Quote :

"With every passing day fewer and fewer people are buying into the man-made global warming theory. At least the part about catastrophic consequences.It's at the bottom of the list of concerns for most people and that won't be changing."

Key word, "at least the part about catastrophe". There's actually psychological reasons why this would be the case, no matter how compelling the evidence:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdfs/FeinbergWiller2011.pdf

In either event, public opinion doesn't change facts. It will become a great concern for people as its affects becoming increasingly apparently over time (It's already far higher on people's list of concerns since, say, 1970 or 1980, as global temperatures have climbed higher).

Quote :

" The global average temperature increase over the past 100 years is within the margin of error,"

Lol, citation please.

Quote :

"winters have been getting colder of late,"

Haha, so your counter to a 100 year trend of warming is "But the last few winters were chilly"? First, I'm not sure where you're getting that conclusion, maybe your own back yard? Globally, on the other hand, temperatures have continued to rise...



Top 5 Hottest years on record (in order from hottest first)

By land:
2007
2010
2005
1998
2002

By Sea:
2003
1998
2005
2010
2009

Land & Sea:
2005
2010
1998
2003
2002

Hottest Decades
2000–2009 0.513 °C (0.923 °F)
1990–1999 0.313 °C (0.563 °F)
1980–1989 0.176 °C (0.317 °F)
1940–1949 0.035 °C (0.0630 °F)
1970–1979 -0.001 °C (-0.00180 °F)
1960–1969 -0.014 °C (-0.0252 °F)
1950–1959 -0.02 °C (-0.0360 °F)
1930–1939 -0.043 °C (-0.0774 °F)
1920–1929 -0.175 °C (-0.315 °F)
1890–1899 -0.254 °C (-0.457 °F)
1900–1909 -0.259 °C (-0.466 °F)
1880–1889 -0.274 °C (-0.493 °F)
1910–1919 -0.276 °C (-0.497 °F)

You're going to put yourself in the exact same trap conservatives did for the longest time when they claimed "Herp Derp it's been cooling since 1998", by working from the hottest temperature of that year. That worked until 2010, now I guess 2006 is the new "highest temperature AKA where we start our charts"

Quote :

" the global ocean average temperature hasn't risen since 2003"

Only if you don't count 2009 or 2010

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat

Quote :

"and sea level rise (which was never anything other than normal) has seemingly stopped."

Once again the old trick of beginning your analysis from a single anomalous high, you'll be eating your words in no time.

Oh wait, you already are http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/current/sl_ns_global.jpg

Quote :

"You must be getting pretty frustrated."

Yes, I am extremely frustrated at how simultaneously ignorant but also persistant you are. I'm also frustrated that no matter how many of your supporting claims are proven to be simply counter-factual, your conclusions never budge an inch.

And seriously, Loneshark or aaronburro or anyone else out there, it doesn't make you guys look any better when you let each other make glaringly stupid analyses or even false claims altogether (Volcanos? Seriously?). You're not exactly convincing anybody that you're really looking for the truth when you just silently let the folks on your team spout falsehoods.


edit: Props to TerdFurgusson, quicker on the skepticalscience.com than me this time

Seriously folks, check it here http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php before posting.



[Edited on October 26, 2011 at 1:18 PM. Reason : .]

10/26/2011 1:10:40 PM

Look folks. I know back in the 1980's and 1990's things weren't so clear and it was mostly reasonable to be skeptical about global warming. I know by the end of the 90's it was clear you couldn't deny the warming trend, so you all switched to "Yeah maybe it's warming, but it's not humans, nuh uh!" to save face. You can drop it, you can admit you were wrong and accept that maybe 97% of publishing scientists worldwide might be correct about this scientific matter. Don't fall for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy and double down on your wrongness each year like this.

10/26/2011 1:23:33 PM

Quote :

"Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real WASHINGTON (AP) — A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly. "

http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now-agrees-global-warming-real-142616605.html

10/30/2011 2:29:25 PM

Quote :

"you can admit you were wrong and accept that maybe 97% of publishing scientists worldwide might be correct about this scientific matter."

Once you admit you made up that statistic, then maybe we can talk.

10/30/2011 5:34:18 PM

It took me like 3 seconds to bing this, LoneSnark. You're being obtuse.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

Quote :

"Abstract Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC. A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers. "

[Edited on October 31, 2011 at 9:26 AM. Reason : .]

10/31/2011 9:24:41 AM

And onto the next point, with zero recognition from Lonesnark that he's making factually incorrect claims

It's beyond shameful at this point, it's a streak of dishonesty inherent to your character. 10 years on this board, have you even admitted being factually incorrect once in the millions of times between then and now?

10/31/2011 9:47:43 AM

Now comon disco_stu, that study didn't include a single scientist from the Creation Research Institute. Of course secular scientists are going to cover each others asses when it comes to protecting the sweet Research Industrial Complex. Why, if AGW is exposed as a hoax, surely Biology and its evolutionistas will be next...


edit: To be fair, it's 90% of all publishing scientists across all fields. It's 97-98% of all publishing scientists specifically in the field of climatology

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

[Edited on October 31, 2011 at 9:55 AM. Reason : .]

10/31/2011 9:50:44 AM

Hey check it out, BEST's temperature data from the last 10 years before being "smoothened" over.



And here's another, again using BEST's own data. (I realize the time scales are different, just shows the visual manipulation the Sunday Times was trying to pull).



PS Richard Muller isn't and hasn't been a skeptic.

10/31/2011 2:49:20 PM

That second graph makes no sense at all. It shows pretty much all the temperatures of the last 200 years being about .75 degrees above the average.

edit: Can you post where you got those graphs, please.

doubleedit: NEVERMIND I get it now. That's not really new information that from 2000 to 2010 the temperature anomaly was stable at .75 degrees above average. Regardless, 2000-2010 was still the hottest decade on record.

The graph you posted reads "This graph...hides the fact that global warming has stopped for more than a decade." No, it doesn't, if you look closely and squint you can see the squished up graph there, including the drop at the end of the decade. It's to the exact same data resolution as the rest of the graph as well. I think what the maker of that image wants is for them to just replace that subsection of the graph with a straight, flat line?



Fun fact: Over the course of 2000-2010 China nearly tripled their coal consumption, which pumps sulfur into the air which tends to reflect heat back into space.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/have-chinese-coal-plants-been-keeping-global-warming-in-check

In other words, for about a decade, it's cancelled out the warming effects. It's similar to the cooling in the 60's which ended shortly after pollution regulations were ramped up in the 70's, taking a lot of sulfur-rich compounds out of the atmosphere (and CFC's, leading to the ozone hole stopping growing and recently beginning to shrink back again).

[Edited on October 31, 2011 at 3:49 PM. Reason : .]

10/31/2011 3:24:08 PM

Also the fact that you put "smoothing" in parantheses suggests to me you might not understand what it is and think it's some shady manipulation or trick. Is this true?

10/31/2011 3:48:02 PM

Quote :

"hahaha. too bad we KNOW that the 30s were warmer than the 90s. guess that sums up how shitty that study was."

That was only the US

10/31/2011 4:21:49 PM

Quote :

"In other words, for about a decade, it's cancelled out the warming effects. It's similar to the cooling in the 60's which ended shortly after pollution regulations were ramped up in the 70's, taking a lot of sulfur-rich compounds out of the atmosphere (and CFC's, leading to the ozone hole stopping growing and recently beginning to shrink back again)."

Using the logic you exercised here, we should be due for a massive and quick warming period in the coming decades. As the developing world cleans up Sulfur emissions, the developed world, and notably the United States will be embarking on a shale gas boom, which leads to Methane emissions, which are metabolized quicker in the biosphere, but vastly more potent.

With that logic, warming should hit us like a brick the decades 2020-2040, and maybe earlier.

Of course, I don't fully believe that. Time time delays in real global warming as predicted by climate science are much more complicated than that. Even the hypothesis that Sulfur has canceled recent warming is obviously false. The same group who believes that about Sulfur also believes the generally accepted temperature graph which does show warming through the period in question.

If I instead pretend I'm a climate skeptic, then both Sulfur and CO2 really don't have a significant effect on temperature because they're drowned out by other factors. Maybe I would be forced to admit that eventually they'll have an effect, at which point I would make up a reason to suppose 100s or 1000s of years of delay before the effects matter, although at least if I did that the Sulfur would matter.

Of course, in reality the accumulated CO2 up until this point is what's making the temperature rise and even a constant level of CO2 would make the temperature continue to rise. Derivatives and integrals...

10/31/2011 7:50:44 PM

If you're going to discuss trends in very short time series then you should look at the confidence intervals for the trend:


This is a plot of computed trends in the BEST data with their confidence intervals plotted against the date picked as the start in the series to calculate that trend. The red dashed line is the 1975-present trend. As one would expect the confidence intervals get smaller when more data is include ( 1/sqrt(N)?). The two main points: 1) Looking at ten year trends in climate data isn't meaningful because of the large errors on the trend 2) the ten year trend isn't inconsistent with the longer one either.

[Edited on October 31, 2011 at 9:13 PM. Reason : x]

10/31/2011 9:13:18 PM

No, I don't understand why dT/dt in the year 1975 should have a smaller predicted error than recently.

10/31/2011 9:16:44 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45099973/ns/technology_and_science-science/

High profile skeptic now agrees that hot spots and undeniable station data are not driving the trend in surface temps after extensive study.

MAybe we can talk about something else now? Like how the govt is faking melting arctic ice

10/31/2011 10:31:44 PM

Quote :

"No, I don't understand why dT/dt in the year 1975 should have a smaller predicted error than recently."

rate of change is harder to predict when you don't have future data

10/31/2011 10:58:28 PM

To read the graph: the first point is the temperature trend calculated from 1975-present, the second point is the trend calculated from 1976-present and so on until 2005-present. And the error in the trend is proportional to 1./sqrt(# data you have) .

10/31/2011 11:33:55 PM

Ok, sure

So for a simplified version of that, one could say that a simple backward difference was taken for a recent year, while a more reliable central difference was used for earlier years. I'm sure they used plenty of mathematics and statistics to smooth out the curve.

It does look at least a little suspiciously flat from the outset. One could imagine this is possible by using data over several decades so that the variations are smoothed out... but I'm just not sure if this really fits my mental memory of the temperature graph. It's just a little too smooth to be non-zero and believable.

10/31/2011 11:35:31 PM

Quote :

"That was only the US"

Yeah but did you know MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD GREENLAND VIKINGS GRAPES

11/1/2011 11:58:09 AM

Quote :

"High profile skeptic now agrees that hot spots and undeniable station data are not driving the trend in surface temps after extensive study."

For the last time he's not skeptic but it's nice to see the media paint him as such.

Quote :

""It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic -- only a scientific skeptic," he said in a recent email exchange with The Huffington Post. "Some people called me a skeptic because in my best-seller 'Physics for Future Presidents' I had drawn attention to the numerous scientific errors in the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth.' But I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic.""

From his own mouth, posted on the Huffpost.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1072419

Quote :

"Even the hypothesis that Sulfur has canceled recent warming is obviously false"

Fully agreed

Quote :

"Yeah but did you know MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD GREENLAND VIKINGS GRAPES"

Yeah it was also significantly warmer in the Antarctic then as well. Must be another isolated occurance.



http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/11/latest-research-disproves-ipccs-climategate-hockey-stick-antarctica-was-warmer-during-medieval-perio.html

[Edited on November 3, 2011 at 1:14 PM. Reason : link]

11/3/2011 1:03:06 PM

the medieval warming period was a result of overuse of aerosol flea sprays.

liberals of the time outlawed these sprays and gave them cooler temperatures + the plague.

11/3/2011 1:30:10 PM

^^

Quote :

"The Climategate scandal was the door opening that revealed a cadre of IPCC "scientists" conspiring to push their rendition of crop circle pseudoscience."

Why is a scandal that was universally debunked over a year ago being referenced by people claiming to be credible? Desperate much? Also, whey are they claiming something,

Quote :

"the dataset establishes that the modern warming is not "unprecedented" as the MWP is slightly warmer."

that the original paper never did?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X11002925#sec5 (may not be universally accessible, I got redirected to this via my work's VPN to the University of Utah)

They make absolutely no conclusions in regard to the MWP vs. the global warming trend we're currently experiencing. It's just another attempt at an attention grabbing headline with no scientific basis. Here's what the article actually said,

Quote :

"For the past 200 yrs (Fig. 8c), temperatures in the McMurdo Dry Valleys were on average 2 °C warmer than conditions during the LIA, but 0.35 °C cooler than during the final 150 yrs of MWP. Our dexcess data suggest that SST in the Ross Sea remained relatively cold, which is accompanied by a 50% reduction in snow accumulation in comparison to the MWP (and 24% reduction compared with the LIA). Increased Na concentrations suggest that sea-ice might be reduced in contrast to the LIA; Fe concentrations similar to LIA data suggest continuing strong katabatic flow. Overall, whilst temperatures in McMurdo Sound indicate milder conditions since the termination of the LIA, atmospheric circulation and oceanic conditions appear to be still in LIA-mode."

So basically, environmental conditions match those of the little ice age, not the medieval warm period, yet the antarctic is getting warmer, not cooler. Nice try, but the AGW deniers fail yet again. It's funny that they've gotten so desperate to misrepresent data from actual scientists. Oh wait, that's what they've been doing all along because there is no real science that actually supports their view.

[Edited on November 3, 2011 at 2:22 PM. Reason : :]

11/3/2011 2:20:56 PM

why cant you just trust in jesus to not let it get too hot?

angry little man

11/3/2011 4:33:35 PM

Quote :

"Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases WASHINGTON (AP) — The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming."

http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-jump-ever-seen-global-warming-gases-183955211.html


blame china

[Edited on November 3, 2011 at 4:50 PM. Reason : .]

11/3/2011 4:50:02 PM

So he is not a true skeptic because he is a scientific skeptic? Makes sense to me. I'm glad you admit true skeptics are unscientific :p

11/3/2011 6:24:41 PM

Quote :

"You're going to put yourself in the exact same trap conservatives did for the longest time when they claimed "Herp Derp it's been cooling since 1998", by working from the hottest temperature of that year. "

and you are doing the exact same fucking thing with the graph you posted, showing temperatures from a known low-point.

Quote :

"That worked until 2010"

an El Nino year. AGAIN, who is being disingenuous here?

Quote :

"edit: Props to TerdFurgusson, quicker on the skepticalscience.com than me this time"

Yeah, congrats on linking to a site that actually has the balls to say that Mann's hockey stick isn't a fraud, despite overwhelming proof to the contrary.

Quote :

"Regardless, 2000-2010 was still the hottest decade on record. "

Yeah. After we fuck with the numbers to make the 30s look a whole lot colder than they really were.

Quote :

"In other words, for about a decade, it's cancelled out the warming effects."

and isn't that convenient? A convenient explanation for why predictions were so startling wrong and continue to be so incredibly incorrect.

Quote :

"Why is a scandal that was universally debunked over a year ago"

ummm, maybe because it wasn't actually "debunked"?

11/5/2011 5:55:13 PM

Quote :

" and you are doing the exact same fucking thing with the graph you posted, showing temperatures from a known low-point. "

Haha what? The graph starts in 79. I could have chosen 69. Or 59. Or 49. The trend would be the same: UPWARD FOR DECADES ON END

Quote :

"an El Nino year. AGAIN, who is being disingenuous here?"

And 2009 was a La Nina year. Looks like a wash.

Quote :

" and isn't that convenient? A convenient explanation for why predictions were so startling wrong and continue to be so incredibly incorrect."

It's not really convenience, it's just science. We know for a fact that sulfur aerosols cause cooling. Guess how we learned? A favorite subject of yours: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v310/n5979/abs/310677a0.html VOLCANOS

Sulfur aerosols have a dimming effect, whereby incoming solar radiation is scattered or reflected. The net result is less radiation reaching Earth. It really isn't difficult to understand. CO2 traps heat, aerosols reflect it.

So, if you have an increase of CO2, and an increase of Sulfur, they will cancel each other out to a degree. I know this "science" stuff is very mysterious and probably seems very arbitrary to you, so I'm trying to be patient.

Quote :

"ummm, maybe because it wasn't actually "debunked"?"

All investigations directed at it uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing, all involved parties were cleared of any charges, and the conclusions were found to stand. That's called "debunked", what remains of Climategate is what we call a "conspiracy theory" where all argument is predicated on assuming bad faith on the part of the investigators, speculation about coverups, or simple man-on-the-street interpretations of emails passing between academics.

[Edited on November 9, 2011 at 3:35 PM. Reason : .]

11/9/2011 3:33:27 PM

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/11/fox-news-successfully-creates-climate-confusion-but-only-among-conservatives.ars

Quote :

"A while back, a memo surfaced that reportedly came from a Fox News executive, in which he directed his staff to always present opposing views on something we can essentially regard as a fact: our planet has been getting warmer. There has been plenty of anecdotal indications that this strategy has been carried out, including a truly bizarre incident in which Bill Nye, on the channel in order to discuss volcanic activity on the Moon, was asked if these volcanoes raised doubts about climate change. But it hasn't been clear whether these incidents add up to a clear pattern and, perhaps more importantly, whether they actually caused the Fox viewership to become more confused about the state of climate science. Now, some academics have done an exhaustive evaluation of Fox broadcasts (along with those of CNN and NBC) and demonstrated that there is a systematic bias against presenting the scientific community's conclusions on Fox. And, at least among those with a conservative bent, it works. These viewers are far less likely to understand the state of the science, or even accept the reality that our planet has gotten warmer. [...] Most of the public isn't getting its information on climate change by reading the statements released by scientific societies or reading the IPCC reports. Instead, they're getting it from the media, which brings us back to the possibility of biased presentation mentioned at the top of this article. To determine the degree to which cable news channels are feeding the public an inaccurate picture, a group of researchers looked at transcripts of every news broadcast in 2007 and 2008, searching for keywords like climate on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. With 270 transcripts in hand, they started looking at presentation, coding each show by the degree to which it reflected reality in three ways: the reality of changing climate, its attribution to human influences, and the degree of scientific consensus on the topic. Any guests on news programs were coded in the same way. There was a very clear pattern. "Although Fox discussed climate change most often, the tone of its coverage was disproportionately dismissive," the authors concluded. The dismissiveness was present in almost every category. A third of Fox's broadcasts rejected the reality of climate change, while only 21 percent accepted it (no other network came close to those figures). Almost four times as many broadcasts on Fox claimed there was no consensus as accepted that one existed; the exact opposite was true on the other networks. A similar pattern was apparent when it comes to the issue of attribution. Fox was also selective about its guests, nearly half of which doubted the existence of climate change (about 40 percent accepted it). On CNN and MSNBC, the figures were 9 and 15 percent, which is much closer to the level of acceptance by the scientific community. So, it appears that Fox has adopted a policy of not just ignoring the best scientific information available, but actively attempting to counter it. Neither of the other major cable networks are doing anything of the sort when it comes to the climate. [...] Does this disproportionately biased coverage actually have an effect? Here, the authors turned to survey data, obtaining information from over 2,000 US adults about their political persuasions, viewing habits, and thoughts on climate change. As with other polls, a bit over half accepted that humans were triggering a warming of the climate. But they were even less certain of the state of the scientific community, with less than half realizing that most scientists agreed on the matter. On a superficial level, these numbers matched up well with news viewing habits. People who watched Fox News were much less likely to accept that climate change was happening. In contrast, those who watched CNN or MSNBC were far more likely to accept it. But those who analyze these issues have suggested that there are two possible explanations for this effect. One is causal; getting regularly exposed to a perspective via the media will ultimately lead you to adopting that perspective. The alternative explanation involves selectivity in information sources. Those who are already convinced that climate change is nonsense may choose to watch Fox because it supports their conclusions. As it turns out, the survey contained information that can help address this issue. Over 40 percent of the self-identified Democrats sometimes watch Fox, while 17 percent of Republicans tune in to CNN and MSNBC. When the numbers for those viewers were broken out, two different trends were apparent. Among Democrats, it didn't matter how often they watched Fox; their acceptance of climate change remained roughly steady. Republicans who watched MSNBC and CNN, however, had a much higher acceptance than their peers who maintained a strict diet of Fox. "Democrats are relatively unchanged in their beliefs as a function of cable news use," the authors conclude, "whereas the beliefs of Republicans depend on whether they watch Fox News." The authors looked at some measures of how ideologically committed the Republicans were, and found that this could account for some, but not all of the effect. The authors note that the behavior of Fox viewers is consistent with what they term "biased processing" (which seems to be another term for motivated reasoning), as "Fox News' dismissive view of global warming appears to resonate most with those who share the network's partisan perspective." But that seems to oversimplify matters, as at least a subset of Fox's target audience were open to other ideas, and showed the most dramatic difference in opinion when they were exposed to them (the Republican MSNBC/CNN viewers). At the same time, the experience of Democratic Fox viewers indicates that at least some portion of the population won't simply accept anything the media feeds them. About the only thing that can be concluded from the study is that, when Fox News misinforms its viewers, a substantial percentage of them happily go along with it—as the authors put this, "To the extent that Fox News presents a different view of reality than does CNN or MSNBC, the knowledge and opinions of the networks' respective audiences will likewise tend to polarize." But this isn't the first study to show that (others are cited in the study). The disturbing thing here is that it's not simply a different view of reality; Fox is disputing reality itself. The change in our climate and the scientific community's widespread attribution of it to human influences are both factual, yet Fox has managed to help foster doubts about these facts. This is made even more disturbing by the fact that they didn't actually have to do this. Facts don't necessarily dictate a specific policy response, and there is plenty of ground to argue policy from a partisan perspective. But, rather than focus on the policy, the network has chosen to dispute the facts themselves."

11/9/2011 10:05:03 PM

Republican response: "See!! We've told you all along that CNN and MSNBC have a liberal bias!!!1"

11/9/2011 11:08:25 PM

This pretty much sums up Fox and most conservatives regarding science: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/weathering-fights---science---what-s-it-up-to-

"Peer review? So these scientists' submissions are evaluated for accuracy by....other scientists? Sounds like a conflict of interest."

11/10/2011 10:36:50 AM

Wasn't it this thread where aaronburro called respecting the peer-review process an appeal to authority fallacy?

11/10/2011 11:06:04 AM

Soooo.....just let China burn fuckloads of coal and everything will be OK.

Problem solved. End of thread

11/10/2011 11:43:04 AM

Quote :

"Wasn't it this thread where aaronburro called respecting the peer-review process an appeal to authority fallacy?"

lol

11/10/2011 12:42:57 PM

Quote :

"Haha what? The graph starts in 79."

my point, exactly. a point where there was some foolish talk about a coming ice-age.

Quote :

"I could have chosen 69. Or 59. Or 49. The trend would be the same: UPWARD FOR DECADES ON END"

only, not really. if you go further back, you see a nice 60-year oscillation hmmm....

Quote :

"And 2009 was a La Nina year. Looks like a wash. "

the fuck? you pointed out a year that was specifically warm due to a known weather pattern. jesus, you are being obtuse.

Quote :

"It's not really convenience, it's just science. We know for a fact that sulfur aerosols cause cooling."

nope, just convenience. convenient that the models were so incredibly wrong, but now, I promise you, they are right! we got that final piece of the puzzle!

Quote :

"So, if you have an increase of CO2, and an increase of Sulfur, they will cancel each other out to a degree."

which is the "convenient" part.

Quote :

"All investigations directed at it uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing"

any investigation that looks at an email that says "hey, delete emails related to this FOIA request, k?" and says "heh, nothin wrong there!" is obviously deeply flawed.

Quote :

"Wasn't it this thread where aaronburro called respecting the peer-review process an appeal to authority fallacy?"

i don't know, why don't you find and see?

11/11/2011 7:35:33 PM