Comments rcglinsk has made

Consensus is as dangerous as Iraq's WMD's

Of all the silly arguments for global warming consensus is the same thing as truth simply takes the cake.  Remember how everyone agreed Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction?  How'd relying on that consensus turn out for us?  

Breaking news: "A survey of people who get paid by governments to do climatology research shows that 95% of people think climatology reasearch is totally awesome and should receive even more public funding."  On 'Consensus is collusion'--Is climate science maturing, or should we reach for our tinfoil hats? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 8 Responses

checking models with past data

Carboncat is making a good point.  The climate models all base future projections on past data, it would be silly and irresponsible not to.  However, having your model predict that past data you based it on is only really a check of how well you did your math when coming up with the model, not a check of how good future predictions will be.  

The problem with the response to this argument is it paralels a sceptic claim about the problems with the global warming theory.  Sceptics would say there's no real evidence any of this warming was not due to natural causes.  The response to the argument about mid century cooling takes the form of: there's no real evidence any of this cooling was not due to natural causes.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.  On 'What about mid-century cooling?'--No one said CO2 is the only climate influence posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

reliable temperature measurement

Very old average temperature reports tended to be taken from once a day readings of a maximum/minimum thermometer.  That's not a great method.  The average score on a class' math test would only be the mean of the highest and lowest scores by lucky coincidence.  Also, outliers in data sets are by definition always maximums or minimums; so that method is what statistics calls highly "biased."  

The newer non-thermometer temperature measurements are far more reliable.  However, the new methods have not been in use for all that long, and you can't discern any long term warming trend just from them.  And there's not a scientifically principled way to negotiate any middle ground between the various methods, favoring one over others will always be a game of chance at some level.  A lot of hard working people have done their best to navigate these issues, but there's no real guarantee that their best was good enough.  

 On 'The temperature record is unreliable'--But temperature trends are clear and widely corroborated posted 1 year, 8 months ago 8 Responses