Is global warming denial all about noise?

Question

I was reading a really good interview with Gavin Schmidt, and he made an interesting comment toward the end.

"This leads to maybe the final question that I think about, which is, "how do you increase the signal-to-noise ratio in communication about complex issues?" We battle with this on a small scale in our blog's comment thread. In un-moderated forums about climate change, it just devolves immediately into name-calling. It becomes very difficult discuss science, to talk about what aerosols do to the hydrological.

The problem is that the noise serves various people's purposes. It's not that the noise is accidental. When it comes to climate, a lot of the noise is deliberate because if there's an increase of noise you don't hear the signal, and if you don't hear the signal you can't do anything about it. Increasing the level of noise is a deliberate political tactic. It's been used by all segments of the political spectrum for different problems. With the climate issue in the US, it is used by a particular segment of the political community in ways that is personally distressing. How do you deal with that? That is a question, which I am still asking myself."
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schmidt09/schmidt09_index.html

All the bickering and noise distracts from the science. This also reminds me that deniers are constantly focusing on short-term data, which are the noise, while the long-term trends are the signal which usually get overlooked. Or instead of looking at what glaciers are doing on a global scale, they'll choose to focus on what's happening with a single glacier. And so on.

Is global warming denial all about noise - an inability to see the forest for the trees?

Answer 1

Yes, going with the squeaky wheel gets the grease, the more "denialbots" they can enlist, the better. These people rarely understand enough of the science to make an informed decision, or choose not to understand it. Couple that with intense lobbying pressure, and they can create a false sense of doubt that bogs down congress.

Answer 2

Unfortunately my friend, we humans in the west have become accustomed to our cars and the fuel that runs them, our air conditioners, our plastic toys, mobile phones, computers, fossil fuels for our energy and our wealth. etc. Personal comfort comes first these days - don't worry about the comfort of our diminishing wildlife and fish stocks - of course we all continue to think on a daily basis that all is ok and the world is so big that we couldn't possibly cause the changes that are predicted. We trust scientists with our lives when we get sick or have an accident. Scientists were key in inventing all of the things that we have to keep us comfortable in our own little world. Yet now when scientists tell us that we have a major problem on our hands - no one wants to listen to them because it may mean that we have to give up some of our comforts or pay extra for carbon credits or similar. We will no doubt be giving up comforts and no doubt paying extra for fuel and energy - once the effects of us trashing the Planet start to hit (as it has already in many countries) then the costs will really start to rise - in ways we probably can't even imagine. I think debate is healthy and it is right to question what is put before us, but now I think it is too late and there is too much evidence to keep denying we have a problem. The sceptics are threatening the future of my children - It is an urgent matter - so I wish they would all just piss off.

Answer 3

You are probably right, but some of those agreeing with you cloud the issue further.



For example, one poster makes a good argument about the economic impact on rural communities, but because he is so busy defaming the people who put bread on his table, his point is lost in the insults he hurls. Far from looking smart, he looks elitist and isolated. Many of the farmers I grew up with, the "bumpkins" disparaged in that answer, are some of the most fervent ecological warriors you'll ever come across. It's hard not to love the land where your father, you and your children were raised. It makes me wonder where exactly did his arugula come from? A loft apartment in stylish Soho, perhaps?



I appreciate your questions because you back up your claims with links to science and thoughtful discussion. Please beware of being drawn into the name calling. It adds to the very noise you decry.

Answer 4

Sure it is! The louder the noise, the more people listen to them. Their strategy is the same one that Hitler used for the Big Lie. Say it loud enough and often enough, people start to believe you.



I've always said that the louder a person's voice is, the less evidence they have to back them up.



That's why I never listen to talk radio.

Answer 5

As is common with you Dana, this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.



What you seem to be trying to suggest is that no Global Warming Alarmist has ever said anything alarmist, which is clearly ridiculous.



It would appear that what Gavin “liar” Schmidt is actually talking about is the thinly veiled suggestion that all sceptics should be censored. Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t freedom of speech quite an important idea in the U.S.A.? (And rightly so!)



What I don’t understand is; if the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is so obviously true, because (as you’re so fond of pointing out) “the science proves it”, then just show everyone the empirical evidence that proves mankind was the main cause of the recent warming and be done with it.



There’s very little “noise” regarding such things as the Sun being 93 million miles away, or why the sky is blue, because the evidence is there. So, if you and Schmidt don’t like the “noise”, simply provide the long asked for empirical evidence and silence all the “noise” at a stroke.



The best you’ve managed is “The evidence is in the IPCC report. Read it yourself, lazyass.” But that’s like a Christian saying the same thing about proof of God and the bible – it proves nothing. The truth is, of course, there is no empirical evidence in either book.



You also say “...they'll choose to focus on what's happening with a single glacier.” What? So no Global Warming Liar has even done that? How about Senator Kerry’s panel at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing? They wittered on about the Wilkins Ice Shelf melting as evidence that the U.S. is facing a National Security issue as a result of Global Warming.



National Security? Are they serious? Of course, Kerry is one of Gore’s cronies, so we should expect it I suppose.



As ever with Global Warming - Don't believe the hype.









:::EDIT:::



In response to Paul's question regarding why I call Schmidt a liar...



I’ve considered him a liar ever since the first “refutation” he did of Christopher Monckton’s work.



Schmidt said in his blog...



“First off, an idealised 'black body' (which gives of radiation in a very uniform and predictable way as a function of temperature - encapsulated in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation) has a basic sensitivity (at Earth's radiating temperature) of about 0.27 °C/(W/m2). That is, a change in radiative forcing of about 4 W/m2 would give around 1°C warming.” Followed by: “The second thing to know is that the Earth is not a black body!”



Monckton responded...



“My article and the supporting calculations took full and explicit account of the fact that Earth/troposphere emissivity is not 1 (for a blackbody) but ~0.6 (the Earth being a badly-behaved greybody). Schmidt had seen the supporting calculations, because he later mentions the “M climate model”, to which my article did not refer by name. Schmidt ought to have known that the Stefan-Boltzmann radiative-transfer equation, often miscalled the “blackbody” equation, is in fact capable of representing not only blackbodies (emissivity 1) that absorb and, by Kirchhoff’s law, emit all radiation, but also whitebodies (emissivity 0) that reflect all radiation, and all graybodies in between. Schmidt here erroneously implies that this fundamental climate equation applies to blackbodies only. A fourth-rate zoologist in the UK lifted this unfortunate implication from Schmidt’s blog without checking it, and repeated it in a UK newspaper, which was obliged to print an article correcting this and other schoolboy errors arising from Schmidt’s blog on the following day.”



At this point Schmidt *should* have held his hands up, admitted his mistake and issued a correction (as The Guardian newspaper did). Instead, he edited his original blog post to completely remove his embarrassing error and pretended it never happened.



I think we would all have to agree that this is dishonest behaviour and makes Schmidt a liar.



Later, Schmidt actually criticised Monckton and claimed he was wrong, when Monckton was simply recreating the claims of the IPCC and arriving at the same values as the IPCC in exactly the same way as the IPCC. Schmidt didn’t realise this and claimed Monckton was wrong – thus effectively claiming that the IPCC were wrong also! Did he acknowledge this mistake and correct it? What do you think?



Monckton, on the other hand, admits to his mistakes. In the second of two articles in the Sunday Telegraph back in November 2006, Monckton said the following...



“Here's how an apology is done. Last week I said that James Hansen had told the United States Congress that sea level would rise several feet by 2000, but it was the US Senate, and by 2100; I added a tautologous "per second" to "watts per square metre"; and I mentioned the perhaps apocryphal Arctic voyage of Chen Ho. Sorry.”



So, we have one man who makes mistakes and then covers them up, and another who makes mistakes and then openly, and publically, apologises for and corrects them.



I am at a loss to understand why people would continue to trust the one that lies!



Is it, perhaps, as simple as: the strength of a person’s belief in Global Warming is inversely proportional to that person’s honesty?



Could it be that simple?

Answer 6

For the pros who make up the false arguments, perhaps.



For the people who accept pseudo-scientific reasoning without ensuring that it has any actual merit (such as peer-reviewed papers documenting it as a valid, prorerly vetted theory), it's probably more about feeling good about our lifestyles in spite of killing our childrens' chances of survival.

Answer 7

based on this statement "This also reminds me that deniers are constantly focusing on short-term data, which are the noise, while the long-term trends are the signal which usually get overlooked." syas that the long term data shows no change, so by his admission, there is no GW.

Answer 8

The majority of those who are labelled "deniers" do not "deny" the existance of global warming, they merely question the cause.



But theres no science in the debate now.

Answer 9

There are many people with various points of view, and the facts don't arrange themselves toward one obvious conclusion. It is simply arrogant for one group to label their case as "signal" and everyone else's as "noise."

Answer 10

Why do the global warming scientists use the unuasual noise in the late 90's to show a spike in their graph?

Answer 11

There's a lot of paranoia out there. Many people don't know what to believe. They don't trust the scientists anymore.

Answer 12

When I use the term noise I always put it in quotation marks, because basically I am quoting alarmists. Last year when we had a La Nina and a drop in temperatures, the alarmist were claiming that it was just "noise". This year we have had a couple of hot months due to El Nino, but that is not "noise", that is global warming. But of course if we use a particular year to draw a cooling trend line, you claim we are being dishonest because we are using the "noise" of an El Nino.



Edit: Relish all you want. But next year when temperatures fall, (after every single El Nino they do fall), don't become frustrated when people talk about global cooling.

Answer 13

Actually it's all about trying to talk the price of gasoline down.



If there's no global warming, or if it's not manmade then we can burn up all the gas we can find and it doesn't hurt anything. So, there should be no taxes on gasoline, that way country folk can get it cheap, which they need to get to work and have a profit at the end of the day.



If there is global warming then Al Gore might be allowed to raise the taxes on gasoline, so it's not worth trucking your turnips to market, and your farm gets repossessed by the bank.



It all comes down to extremely rural backwoods people and their fantasy which is that if they all deny manmade global warming, maybe 50 million of them will be able to keep the price of gas down.



Cherchez la Monnaie --- or in latin Qui Bono? Who benefits?



This whole thing comes down to nickle and dimey issues that affect nickle and dimey people -- little farmy munchkins. But they are organized. So denial is a grassroots bumpkin initiative for their bumpkin farm economic well being. It hasn't got one thing to do with science, or with any fact related to the actual issue. It's kneejerk economics. The Sot Weed Factor at work.

Answer 14

It is alarmists that ignore long term trends. The long term trend indicates it has been warming for 300 years generally since the end of the Little Ice Age unless you believe noise like that coming from Mann et al.

Answer 15

Lot's of noisy answers here. The conservatives are practicing their noisy tactics, or "tea bagging", at every political function these days. They remind me of people who want to "get a word in" even when they don't know what is being discussed. It just shows their level of immaturity.

Answer 16

It's quite clear. Believers apparently think noise is all anyone says that they don't agree with.



Just what is the purpose of chosing a word with hateful undertones like "denier" to label people you don't agree with? Wouldn't that be considered "noise."

Answer 17

You are the one I hear all the noise coming from! So to answer your question I would say no! What you call denial (and insult and cuss at people about) is simply me saying "I have yet to see any proof that man is the cause". I understand Green house gases, I dont deny warming trends, I do however state that I have never seen any proof that man is the cause. So go ahead and put your links about "maybe" or "possibly" or "it could be" man causing it and shout your insults and we will continue on as we always have!

Answer 18

lol i didn't read your hole thing but i think you need an answer to your question, but i dnt have one so what i think, is that people are bugging to much over global warming, there is nothing we can do to stop whats going to happen alll were doing is slowing it down, it hink we shouldn't be forced to live in a worl where we cant drive suv's, and coal trains, and why were forced into small cramped hybrids its terrible

Answer 19

In a perfect alarmist universe, only their propaganda would be heard. Unfortunately for you, the obvious truth contradicts your silly propaganda.