I look at it in terms of practical outcomes. Science, like most endeavors, is a learning experience. In society, collective learning yields beneficial advances, but not always without cost or unintended consequences. Politically and economically, our collaborative effort to balance individual needs vs. society is perhaps an even better example than science of how we use information and how we adapt as the information available changes. But there are many examples of how science, put to practical use, benefitted us yet as more information became available lead to improvements and refinements and overcame unexpected or unanticipated issues.
I don't see climate change as that different-we are learning about more about weather systems and climate now than at any time in the past and with the great public interest in the issue of AGW that study has accelerated and advanced even more rapidly. The question is whether we have enough solid information to take action to specifically mitigate the impacts of human activity, and if that action will be worth the investment required.
Therefore, it isn't a matter of a certain number of studies being discredited, it is a matter of new information coming to light that will help advance our knowledge of weather and climate and-for now-developing technologies that will have multiple benefits. Everything else is talk/talk. Interesting, and many new ideas are suggested, but anyone who thinks they have it all figured out is pretty much...wrong.
You say to discount AGW vs catastrophic AGW, then say 'significant warming'. How much is significant?
There are many links to a chain. CO2 causes warming. The CO2 comes from man. The warming is 'significant'. The significant warming is not beneficial. Policy X is needed to stop the warming.
In the early parts of the chain, the IPCC made much use of paleoclimate studies to show that modern warming is unusual. Also to get the 'significant' amount of warming, they use climate models.
So you would roughly need to invalidate climate models, or paleoclimate studies, and the chain would be broken. You could also just point out that China's emissions make cap and trade a waste of time, but that is not relevant to your question.
In July 1976 I began work as an analytical chemist in a coal testing laboratory. My primary function was analysis of air and gases in underground mines using a very specialised gas chromatograph. This was not in a major city where I had access to the literature on the subject so I was pretty much on my own. The literature I could get was usually irrelevant to what I needed or kid stuff which wasn't much use. The only reference I had was "Noxious Gases Underground", a pocket book for mine safety officers published by the United Kingdom National Coal Board about 1965.
One of the first things I found was that I was getting higher results for CO2 in atmospheric air than the 0.30% in the book. So by using a version of the method of standard additions and solving a raft of simultaneous equations I came up with 0.032% averaged over a few days. I used this in calibrations for some time until I again noticed it wasn't working. Incidentally methane was not detectable in air but I could pick up a few ppm in ventilated areas of non-gassy mines, more in gassy mines of course. These were always far below the lower explosive limit in ventilated areas.
Over the next 13 years I saw CO2 in the air creeping up. Some time in the1980s I ran the measurement again and got 0.0345% as an average over a few days, rather higher than expected from a measurement several months before. I was somewhat alarmed by this, thinking that perhaps there was some systematic error and contacted the Baseline Monitoring Station at Cape Grim, Tasmania.
They told me that my measurements were essentially correct and a few things that I didn't know, such as CO2 content varying with latitude, that CO2 concentration was lower in the Southern Hemisphere with less seasonal variation etc.
I posted these facts to a question about CO2 in the air some years ago on this site and was told I was a liar by one person and that my instrumentation was old fashioned and faulty by another among other deprecatory remarks.
Any evidence you give is automatically regarded as lies because you are a "liberal". They call you a "liberal" because you present facts that they do not like. This of course is circular, but we are not dealing with rational people.
Excuse me but all Science is an art form, and any and all studies will have faults in them. After all the people doing the study are trying to prove their point of view and they are not perfect either.
The seat belt study in the 1970's is a prime example, state were told to prove that seat belts save lives. In accidents were people walked away from them the records show that these people were wearing seat belt when some of these vehicles did not have seat belts in them, and when people were killed in an accident they were not wearing their seat belts even if they did have them on. I know this for a fact because of was one of the people working on this study and what guide lines we were given. Half the people on the National Safety Co-uncle at that time held stock in the only company at that time that was making seat belts. Facts can be used to prove any thing pro or con just how one chooses to look at the facts and record them.
It has been mentioned here several times that science never proves anything. Therefore there will be no paper that claims such a proof and so none will need to be refuted to disprove any claim.
Anyway, the scientists thought that: "... no study to date has positively attributed all or part of climate change observed to man-made causes.”
This was arbitrarily changed by Ben Santer to: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."
That was the IPCC SAR and shows just how much science needs to be refuted. (I.e. none.)
Denialist "Logic":
If one cherry-picked out-of-context statement by non-scientist Al Gore is later shown to be only 2/3 correct, that is conclusive proof that a century of science accepted by nearly every science academy and Nobel prize winning scientist for decades is the greatest hoax in the known history of the galaxy.
If British Columbia's carbon tax has not yet reduced the province to stone age Stalinism, that proves -even more- that it surely soon will.
CO2 is a GHG and we are releasing CO2. These facts do not have to be discredited in order to prove conclusions made about the effects are wrong or that effects being attributed to our release of CO2 are indistinguishable from what happened in the absense of our releasing of CO2 or what is or will happen will be worse unless we stop using fossil fuels. Even a liar tells the truth sometimes, that doesn't prove he's not a liar.
These liberal arguments advance nothing. Making a truthful statement or twisting the argument into something it's not point doesn't make you right.
I don't know if I could come up with a specific number. But, a study which "disproves" AGW should and would be met with skepticism. But for such findings would have to be confirmed by other scientists who see if they could reproduce such results.
It has been said that an accepted scientific principle to be overturned, the job of scientists is to try to disprove the new hypothesis. If the new hypothesis were to falsify AGW, denialists would call for the scientists who challenge the hypothesis to be jailed, which shows which side is actually threatening our freedom.
All but a very few of the 20,000 studies.
ONE as Albert Einstein said quote "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. Albert Einstein"
Edit. to answer quote This is just about whether there is or is not A. significant global warming, that B. is caused by human activity)
A no there is no significant warming, which makes it difficult to answer B
B Yes humans can or have caused some warming
Scientometrics (the science of science) tells us that in time pretty much everything we currently know will be superseded. In certain branches of science this happens quite quickly, medicine being one example; in other areas such as mathematics, it’s a slower process.
The term “half life of facts” was coined to describe this phenomenon. In medicine it’s about 10 to 15 years, meaning that in 10 to 15 years from now, half of our current medical understanding will have changed.
It’s inevitable that our understanding of the climates will change. If you were to look back at papers published in the past, they contain many examples of what we now know to be errors.
This is normal, in science it’s what we expect to happen. The problem is that some people don’t realise this, or can’t accept it.
A classic example concerns estimating future temperature rises. If you look back at old papers they projected anything from 1°C to 7°C by the end of the century. Five or ten years ago this had been narrowed down to between 2°C and 5°C. More recently we’ve narrowed it further and current projections are in the order of 3°C.
To the scientist or academic, this is perfectly normal and to be expected. To the skeptic this means that climate scientists were wrong and can’t be trusted.
Any study into climate science is likely to contain many hundreds of statements, we already know that within a matter of weeks the first errors are going to come to light. Within perhaps 20 years, half of any such study will be superseded.
This does not mean that the underlying principles are wrong, or indeed, could ever be shown to be wrong, it’s the details that change.
For example, ten years ago anyone would have told you there are nine planets in the solar system. Today we know there are eight. Nothing’s changed, Pluto didn’t disappear overnight, it’s only our understanding of the solar system that’s changed. The same is true across all scientific disciplines.
In answering your question it’s highly likely that upwards of 90% of papers into climate change, that are more than a few years old, can be discredited to some extent. Within a few years many of the most recent papers will also be known to have errors. On that basis, 100% of all papers could be discredited to some extent but it would have absolutely no bearing on the mechanics of global warming. Just because we failed to understand something correctly doesn’t make it disappear.
From my perspective, it wouldn’t be the number of studies per-se, but the content of any new studies. If evidence came to light that revolutionised our current knowledge and showed that one of more of the fundamentals of manmade climate change were wrong, then the whole subject would need to be reassessed from the ground up.
I frequently see posts from skeptics and denialists suggesting that this study, or that report, had some flaw, sloppy science, and/or potential conflict of interest, and concluding from this that AGW is entirely false.
While a new study that showed that there was actually something fundamentally flawed about the previous science would, in essence, discredit (at least that part of) AGW science, merely showing that a given study used sloppy methodology or whatever would only discredit *that study*, not every other study that drew approximately the same conclusions. It's entirely possible to get the right answer by the wrong method.
So, at least to an approximate order of magnitude, how many studies would need to be discredited like that before AGW wouldn't really have a scientific leg to stand on? And, if you had to guess, even if every study they mention here actually is flawed, do the number of "discredited" studies posted by "skeptics" on Y!A more match the pattern of "the science is deeply flawed and doesn't have a leg to stand on", or the pattern of "scientists are human, and will sometimes screw up"? Any other thoughts?
(and please don't get into the AGW vs "catastrophic AGW" debate. Whether AGW will be catastrophic, merely troubling, or simply mildly interesting depends on many factors, including whether or not your personal ox is getting gored. This is just about whether there is or is not A. significant global warming, that B. is caused by human activity)
SIMPLE LOGIC= ICE IS STILL Accumulating today 8/1/2014 in all ICED territories on earth, so dont waste your money. I live in the Northwestern part of America and it's 83 degrees today as it was yesterday. Have a nice day. Mike
This is an area where the unequivocal, full-blown scientific illiteracy of Deniers is obvious for all to see. They may occasionally parrot the dictionary meaning of Scientific Theory in lame efforts to cloak their ignorance, but they cannot copy-and-paste understanding and knowledge.
d/dx+d/dy+d/dz’s answer is interesting because it captures the scientific strength of AGW theory in a way that Deniers will never understand – but will certainly deny. Although AGW theory is based, in part, on physical scientific laws and theories, it is really an empirical theory based on multiple independent data collected, developed, and analyzed over many years.
You can think of AGW theory as a ball of string that is made up of thousands of different pieces of string all tied and intertwined together. Just as the ball was built one piece of string at a time – and can only be deconstructed by removing each piece of string one at a time – AGW theory was built one piece at a time and can only be undone a piece at a time.
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Pindar –
>>, It's very common knowledge that their is no empirical evidence or proof of agw so if I were you I would concentrate upon that before trying the old soldier of shifting the burden of proof.<<
Since there is no concept of “proof” in science, Deniers do not understand the concept of scientific evidence, and the “burden of proof”, as it were, has indeed scientifically shifted to those who disagree with the accepted scientific theory – you have demonstrated the absence of science in everything Deniers believe and say about AGW.
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Ian --
>>AGW is a non falsifiable hypothesis. Glad to see an alarmist actually agrees with me, although methinks he is too stupid to realize that not being able to disprove a theory is a bad thing.<<
Firstly, if you actually believe that then you must believe that every Denier claim of falsifying AGW is a lie – after all, you cannot falsify something that cannot (so you claim) be falsified.
You are confusing the fact that you are too stupid to know how to falsify something with the question of whether the thing can be falsified.
So, tell us this Mr. Philosophy of Science: How do you resolve the problem caused by the fact that since “falsifiability” itself is not falsifiable - by its own definition, it is not scientific.
Methinks you and Pindar are a scientifically illiterate twits who knows about as much science as a 12-year old – and you cannot falsify that because it is true.
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kano ---
Einstein was not making a general comment about science.
Do any of you guys know anything about anything?
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kano ---
>>A no there is no significant warming, which makes it difficult to answer B <<
Oh, yeah? Then show us the mathematical test results.
But first - Why don't you tell us what "no significant warming" means? You are claiming that one thing says something about another thing - although you do not even know what the first thing is and do not know how to study the second thing.
"Significant" in math does not mean the same thing that it does in modern English. Mathematicians adopted the word (based on its original Latin meaning) before the English definition existed.
Why do you think you understand something when you do not even know the meanings of the words you are using. It's like a little boy walking around in his father's shoes pretending to be an adult.
Firstly I have a problem with the the first line of your question,
I frequently see posts from skeptics and denialists
Presumably in your mind a skeptic is someone who can possibly be converted to your anti freedom agenda and a denialist (god do you realise how stupid denier chanters sound?) who totally opposes your political agenda .
Now secondly, if you fancy yourself as a 'realist' , then first you must come back and join us in the real world. In the real world you would need to see proof of agw before thinking how it might be disproved, It's very common knowledge that their is no empirical evidence or proof of agw so if I were you I would concentrate upon that before trying the old soldier of shifting the burden of proof.
40 degree weather in july in the US works very well
God is in control of the weather
C is correct once again when he says "You can't disprove AGW"
AGW is a non falsifiable hypothesis. Glad to see an alarmist actually agrees with me, although methinks he is too stupid to realize that not being able to disprove a theory is a bad thing.
You need to realize that for the AGW deniers, their ox is their wallet,
and 'gored' is someone else even looking at it.
btw, I moved this to global warming, from homework help.
Seems that now that there's no review, y/a gets it wrong most of the time. :(
You are dreaming and hopefully your intellect will catch up with your dreams
You can't disprove AGW
zero when you take the money out of it
