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Next argument?
Apr. 8th, 2008 10:08 amThe usual suspects who have been denying with increasing shrillness over the years that Anthropogenic Global Climate Change, in the form of Global Warming, exists, and have come up with a couple of potential kinks in the various theories put forward into precisely how and why it is happening, and what can be done about it.
One of these theories was that Solar Output was a significant driving factor, that solar wind has been increasing to coincide with increasing temperatures (thus explaining those temperature increases), and that the output was cyclical, and about to start dropping, thus the global temperatures were about to start dropping, thus no anthropogenesis, thus no problem, and anyone who ever hinted otherwise is an ALARMIST!!1! SCAR1nG teh CHIlDernz!!1eleven for n0 REEZNZ!.
(And I don't think that this was an unfair characterisation: those who made the first part of the argument (why solar output means no anthropogenesis) almost universally went on to make the second (Greenies suxx0rz!).)
Except for a few actual scientists, who thought ‘you know what? This is a hypothesis, which can be tested against the evidence. Does the evidence support the hypothesis or not? It turns out, no it doesn't. There is no connection between solar wind and cloud cover, which disproves the thesis that there is a strong causal link, which disproves the hypothesis, thank you for playing.
The actual scientists thanked Dr Svensmark for coming up with the hypothesis so that it could be tested, and another potential distraction removed from the models. Dr Svensmark displayed his credentials as a fully-paid-up Denier by refusing to accept science that disagrees with him. “Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds”, he said. What he means, I think, is that Dr Sloan was looking at the wrong type of clouds. These are special, invisible clouds, which can't be detected and measured, but change the temperature anyway. They are also inhabited by invisible unicorns who shit fairy floss and rainbows.
This is how Science is supposed to work: Evidence is gathered, and a theory extrapolated. Other people try to prove how much more clever they are than the original hypothesisors, by coming up with reasons why the theory isn't true. Everyone goes away and gathers evidence to test all these claims. Then the theory is modified, or redone from scratch, if necessary, redo from start.
Invisible Unicorns are sometimes an unavoidable part of early theories: they indicate ‘we don't know how this bit works, so assume that it does and figure out the rest’. The idea is to eliminate the unicorns. Not just saying ‘you don't understand unicorns like I do, so your evidence is wrong!’
This doesn't eliminate solar output as a factor in global warming, but it does mean that there are limits as to how much can be explained by it. Oh, and use of the solar output argument against anthropogenic global warming is explicitly an argument that global warming exists, just disagreeing over the cause. So if you are going to argue with the solar output line, that means you can't also claim that there is no warming (it's all instrument error, you know), the two arguments neuter each other. Hey, doesn't this mean that Ray Evans and the Lavoisier Group are not actually arguing any cogent position, negating any particular argument by claiming that all of them are true? I'm shocked. Shocked beyond words. It almost sound like they are ignoring inconvenient Science for partisan political Denialism. But I couldn't say that. It's insultingly accurate, and might hurt their feelings.
One of these theories was that Solar Output was a significant driving factor, that solar wind has been increasing to coincide with increasing temperatures (thus explaining those temperature increases), and that the output was cyclical, and about to start dropping, thus the global temperatures were about to start dropping, thus no anthropogenesis, thus no problem, and anyone who ever hinted otherwise is an ALARMIST!!1! SCAR1nG teh CHIlDernz!!1eleven for n0 REEZNZ!.
(And I don't think that this was an unfair characterisation: those who made the first part of the argument (why solar output means no anthropogenesis) almost universally went on to make the second (Greenies suxx0rz!).)
Except for a few actual scientists, who thought ‘you know what? This is a hypothesis, which can be tested against the evidence. Does the evidence support the hypothesis or not? It turns out, no it doesn't. There is no connection between solar wind and cloud cover, which disproves the thesis that there is a strong causal link, which disproves the hypothesis, thank you for playing.
The actual scientists thanked Dr Svensmark for coming up with the hypothesis so that it could be tested, and another potential distraction removed from the models. Dr Svensmark displayed his credentials as a fully-paid-up Denier by refusing to accept science that disagrees with him. “Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds”, he said. What he means, I think, is that Dr Sloan was looking at the wrong type of clouds. These are special, invisible clouds, which can't be detected and measured, but change the temperature anyway. They are also inhabited by invisible unicorns who shit fairy floss and rainbows.
This is how Science is supposed to work: Evidence is gathered, and a theory extrapolated. Other people try to prove how much more clever they are than the original hypothesisors, by coming up with reasons why the theory isn't true. Everyone goes away and gathers evidence to test all these claims. Then the theory is modified, or redone from scratch, if necessary, redo from start.
Invisible Unicorns are sometimes an unavoidable part of early theories: they indicate ‘we don't know how this bit works, so assume that it does and figure out the rest’. The idea is to eliminate the unicorns. Not just saying ‘you don't understand unicorns like I do, so your evidence is wrong!’
This doesn't eliminate solar output as a factor in global warming, but it does mean that there are limits as to how much can be explained by it. Oh, and use of the solar output argument against anthropogenic global warming is explicitly an argument that global warming exists, just disagreeing over the cause. So if you are going to argue with the solar output line, that means you can't also claim that there is no warming (it's all instrument error, you know), the two arguments neuter each other. Hey, doesn't this mean that Ray Evans and the Lavoisier Group are not actually arguing any cogent position, negating any particular argument by claiming that all of them are true? I'm shocked. Shocked beyond words. It almost sound like they are ignoring inconvenient Science for partisan political Denialism. But I couldn't say that. It's insultingly accurate, and might hurt their feelings.
