Sunday, August 17, 2014

Examining denialist dodges, this time re Dr Mann #2

[new comments added Sunday 8/17 evening]

Here's an update on yesterday's response from my virtual dialogue pal Krischel over at the OurChangingClimate thread "Is Climate Science Falsifiable" - unfortunately I'm stuck working outside all day, so once again don't have the time to compose the post I'd really like to, so here's a quickie instead.

It is intended for folks interested in peaking into the workings of your typical climate science denialist's mind.

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k Says: 
August 16, 2014 at 19:27
@citizenschallenge: “Why not try learning from a wider source pool than WUWT and the Great White Auditor.”

K says: Racist and dodging the issue. Good job! :)
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So sorry, an attempt at levity ... read great white hope ... great corporate free marketeers hope ... 
or perhaps I was thinking of the color of America's right-wing heavy weights.

Either way racism isn't a part of it, but then my intentions won't stop your gross misrepresentations.  ;-}
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k Says:
CC says: “in deep time those climate fluctuations were initiated by the so-called Milankovitch cycles”

K asks: Tell me, what does a milankovich model predict the global average temperature should be next year? When does a milankovich model predict the next trigger that overwhelms CO2’s greenhouse effect, and drives us into an ice age, while CO2 still increases?
Be specific :)
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CC responds: Sure I'll be specific about where you can start learning about this:

Ghosts of Climates Past – Part Two – Lorenz
October 6, 2013 by scienceofdoom

Articles in the Series
Part One – An introduction
Part Three – Hays, Imbrie & Shackleton – how everyone got onto the Milankovitch theory
Part Four – Understanding Orbits, Seasons and Stuff – how the wobbles and movements of the earth’s orbit affect incoming solar radiation
Part Five – Obliquity & Precession Changes – and in a bit more detail
Part Six – “Hypotheses Abound” – lots of different theories that confusingly go by the same name
Part Seven – GCM I – early work with climate models to try and get “perennial snow cover” at high latitudes to start an ice age around 116,000 years ago
Part Seven and a Half – Mindmap – my mind map at that time, with many of the papers I have been reviewing and categorizing plus key extracts from those papers
Part Eight – GCM II – more recent work from the “noughties” – GCM results plus EMIC (earth models of intermediate complexity) again trying to produce perennial snow cover
Part Nine – GCM III – very recent work from 2012, a full GCM, with reduced spatial resolution and speeding up external forcings by a factors of 10, modeling the last 120 kyrs
Part Ten – GCM IV – very recent work from 2012, a high resolution GCM called CCSM4, producing glacial inception at 115 kyrs
Pop Quiz: End of An Ice Age – a chance for people to test their ideas about whether solar insolation is the factor that ended the last ice age
Eleven – End of the Last Ice age – latest data showing relationship between Southern Hemisphere temperatures, global temperatures and CO2
Twelve – GCM V – Ice Age Termination – very recent work from He et al 2013, using a high resolution GCM (CCSM3) to analyze the end of the last ice age and the complex link between Antarctic and Greenland
Thirteen – Terminator II – looking at the date of Termination II, the end of the penultimate ice age – and implications for the cause of Termination II
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Here's another simpler description by another scientist who has studies these matters. 

"Global Warming vs. the Next Ice Age"  Will the greenhouse effect prevent the return of glaciers? 
http://www.technologyreview.com/article/416786/global-warming-vs-the-next-ice-age/ 
By Franklin Hadley Cocks ’63, SM ’64, ScD ’65 on December 21, 2009

Although his estimate of how long it will take the planet to reabsorb anthropogenically produced carbon back out of the air seems quite low compared to other sources I've read in the past.  Also he doesn't seem to consider plausible geophysical tipping points in his assessment - but still, even considering uncertainties - the basic message is one to take seriously - we are radically altering our atmosphere and it will have profoundly damaging very very long lasting impacts on society.

Furthermore in this case K uses the dodge of implying that unless I can produce an absolutely exact description and predictions he can dismisses the phenomena outright.

But that's a strategy dedicated to ignoring evidence, which of course is nothing but a strategy dedicated to remaining ignorant.
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k Says:
CC says: “Thanks for the fodder K, just wish I had time to do a more complete and organized job,”

K's retort: Ah, so you see this as practice for your emotional parody blog :)
Well, you keep on going! I’m sure your blogging has some therapeutic effect for you :) In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll keep misrepresenting the science, demanding that others believe in the same heroes you believe in, and learn very little about what good science looks like :)
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{Note.  Dear student, be prepared in your dialogues - any term you toss at a denialist will be repackaged and tossed right back at you.  Try to anticipate.   Don't allow the tactic to distract you into meaningless diversions.}

Hmmm, my emotional parody blog?  
Here is an example of the contrarian's contempt for everything he/she doesn't want understand.  

My blog is a serious effort to examine the contrarian mind, put together by an individual who has taken learning about his planet very seriously and has done so for over fifty years.  Admittedly it is not highly polished as I'm neither a scholar nor professional  writer, but that does not make it a parody.

Still here we have K demonstrating how to cling to his hostility - K's mind needs to twist every "opponent" into some obscene parody that has no relationship with what the individual, {be it a regular citizen like myself, or an extremely accomplished and recognized world class expert in his field sharing his findings and evidence}, is actually trying to share.

A couple examples just from this most recent exchange? 
K hasn't admitted that trees are only one of several paleoclimate proxies used by scientists, all of which produce a similar 'hockey stick" shaped graph.
K can stare at Dr. Mann's CV all day and still claim "Mann is a nothing."

If K gave it a moments good-faith effort he would discover that my blog is about examining the denialist mind in a sincere attempt to try and understand what makes such minds tick.

Although I have discovered after years of effort that the denialist mind refuses to open itself up to an actual good-faith discussion, one that is dedicated to learning rather than scoring rhetorical debate points.  So I'm left with describing their actions and responses along with offering objective information that experts have gathered.   

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