Talk:List of climate change controversies/Archive 6

message: Recently - on PBS or CSPAN - I saw a show with a young Danish guy ( he spoke excellent English )( don't remember his name but he must be will known. His show more than easily shots down most of the pro-global warming science. It was kind of embarrassing to listen to him - his mastery of the details - a regular trivia champion. Things like the fact ( unknown to me before ) that the sea has been rising for more than a century 1 foot in 150 years I believe he said. Cutting co2 will save 1 polar bear a year ( we hunt and shoot 1000 every year ). If we do all we could - no co2 etc etc etc the temperature will reach the same level very soon after the year 2100 that it would if we do nothing ( a few years 7? ). His point was that spending the money on preparing for what was going to happen anyway was a lot smarter than supporting your local climate scientist. It appears, as I thought, that the scientists jumped onto a wagon they already knew about in order to suck some money from the public - with Al Gore as their leader. Good job if you can get it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.181.165 (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Apart from the fact that "a recent show on PBS or CSPAN" is not really a verifiable source, and that it is very easy to raise scepticism about complex topics on TV, where you can throw around unsourced soundbites and out-of-context quotes with impunity, your statement is not even self-consistent. If the unknown Dane (I suspect it was Bjørn Lomborg - see the image in his article) "shot down most of the pro-global warming science" (amazing feat that, refuting just the thousands of pages of text in the IPCC reports in a single TV show, not to mention the thousands of papers these are based on), how would reducing CO2 (to what level?) delay the warming even a few years? Of course, if adaption or mitigation is a better course of action is a valdid discussion. But neither of the positions rejects anthropgenic global warming. --Stephan Schulz 11:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TV shows 

message: I will trim much.  As it stands, its undue weight and it is not factual in the sense that I recall Crichton misrepresented the paper cited. Brusegadi 02:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it still in? Some mention might be made of it, because it was an issue, and even sourced Crichton as a populariser of it could be fair. BTW, the sea ice section is currently weird - there is an "antarctic" section that is mostly about the arctic, and doesn't tell you what is actually happening William M. Connolley 09:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: fixed.  I think it was a confused header. Brusegadi 23:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Q Science brought up a good National geographic link that actually calls the whole thing a controversy.  This takes care of some of my WP:SYN concerns.  I will try to build a subsection in this page around that source.  Brusegadi 23:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

text: By "this", Brusegadi means that he deleted the entire section rather than edit it. Most of the information is now being discussed at Antarctica cooling controversy where Brusegadi is trying to have the  entire page deleted because he claims that "There is no controversy". Q Science 21:46, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  I claim the controversy is so small that it does not merit an article.  Hell, I thought it did not merit a section here.  If you think it merits a section here go for it.  If someone had reverted my edit I would not have gone back without first getting opinions from others here.  Finally, you are taking the AFD too seriously.  Its not like I deleted the article.  I know you probably put a lot of work into that article, but I have doubts it belongs and I want others to take a look.  Well within my rights as an editor. Brusegadi 22:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I used "108" to source the word 'controversy'.  I thought it was important to show the reader that someone has referred to this in such terms given the researches have not really indicated that what is happening is rare, regarding Antarctica the consensus seems to be that better data would be awesome! (I thought this sounded cool, but I am a strange geek, so laugh with me or at me!) Brusegadi 02:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antarctica 

message: I just watched What is Normal?. It makes some good points but I wonder if anyone has tried to refute this video yet? Is it accurate? Should some of the points be listed in the controversy article? I would appreciate a response. --Jayson Virissimo 20:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a video summary of this which deals with most of the main AGW issues. We would have to find other sources though to include in the article as this is self-published. There is another good video on youtube by Bob Carter Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause?. Iceage77 13:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh dear. The "theory" section is especially troubling. It would be helpful if they actually read some articles on the topic, instead of just making things up. Raymond Arritt 14:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

text: ...except that the statement about the asymptotic effect is wrong, of course. Not supringly, since the quote a Motl.... --Stephan Schulz 18:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Food for Thought 

message: From the article:
Stephen McIntyre analyzed Peterson's raw data. He claimed to find "actual cities have a very substantial trend of over 2 °C per century relative to the rural network - and this assumes that there are no problems with rural network - something that is obviously not true since there are undoubtedly microsite and other problems." [85] McIntyre has not published his results in a peer-reviewed journal.
The source cited (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1859) is self-published (a blog).  This appears to violate Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable_Sources.  Comments?  Leehach 03:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In this case one could say that it is a primary source because Stephen McIntyre's opinions and ideas are a large part of what this controvery is about. What matters is if the source gives relevant information regarding the controversy, not whether the information is correct from a scientific point of view. Count Iblis 22:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urban Heat Island 

message: Under "Political, economic, and social aspects of the controversy", the quote by Kevin E. Trenberth starts
:The SPM was approved line by line by governments
Having recently reviewed IPCC AR4 WG1 Summary for Policymakers Second Order Draft Comments and Final Draft Comments, I agree that the summary was reviewed line by line, but there is no way to conclude that it was approved line by line. I suggest a modification to make this clear. Q Science 20:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't modify Trenberths quote, obviously. If you can find someone to disagree with him, you could put that in. What are you proposing? William M. Connolley 21:46, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was the IPCC Summary really "approved line by line"? 

message: I've suggested in Talk: Moral Panic that public perceptions of the science and predictions of AGW constitute a moral panic. In particular-
* sensitivity to and tendency to accept suggestions of risk
* diminished capacity to assess risk
* acceptance of the thesis of 'human hubris'
* Projection of indeterminate or unconscious fears onto external phenomena - eg., fears of the 'other' once focussed during the Cold War on anti-community ideas, now focussed on terrorism, islamic fundmentalism, illegal immigration, drugs and underclass, environmental disaster, epidemic etc
[Sorry, not sure how to cite: Culture of Fear Revisited, Furedi, Continuum Press, 1997]
If this is accepted as a suitable example of moral panic I would like Global Warming Controversy or a more suitable Global Warming subsection to include a link to moral panic.
As far as AGW is concerned, this is intended only to illustrate the perception framework already in place before, and developing during, the epoch of the AGW issue. Commentary on and analysis of the media's role in transmitting the substance of public perceptions will be examined. Are public perceptions accurate? If not, what mechanisms might operate in this case?  Thx. BadCop666 (talk) 10:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This sounds like WP:OR to me. --BozMo talk 10:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  negative. Without actually writing the whole thing what do I do, summarise? And so it looks like WP:OR because...you haven't heard of it before? Please illustrate your suspicions. Thx. BadCop666 (talk) 10:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This article by Benny Peiser seems relevant. Iceage77 (talk) 11:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the article doesn't have a "Humor" section yet. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps we should create one, as an antidote to the doom and gloom of the IPCC :) Iceage77 (talk) 17:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good! This article is a mess anyway, so a few good chuckles would help to redeem it. ;) Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:40, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

text: humor? chuckles? dismissivness is only slightly below sarcasm as a shallow veneer on ignorance, in my opinion. No, the suggestion of Moral Panic is quite separate from the debate(s) around the science of GW. If people are living in fear due only to perceptions rather than reality, then it is a blight on their enjoyment of life, and if their ability to assess risk objectively is reduced, then they can be prayed on and manipulated simply through the suggestion of risk. This is a serious suggestion. Serious suggestions only in this section please. Humor it is not. BadCop666 (talk) 22:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, it's hard to take anything with the word 'Peiser' in it seriously in light of his track record on global warming-related work. Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:28, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar with his work, but a Social Anthropologist is more closely aligned with this topic (Morality, Social Psychology) than a climate researcher. Mainstream media coverage of GW comprises largely morality drenched, unspecific, Ad nauseam. Thanks for drawing my attention to him though. I struggle to find credible coverage of scientific debate around GW in mainstream media - and I contend that this is because the media is less interested in accuracy than the sales potential of sensationalism [cite: Robert Park, Voodoo Science, OUP, 2000]. This, of course, does no-one any good. Scientists, policy makers, the general public, are all swayed by sensation to some extent. Hence Moral Panic. BadCop666 (talk) 00:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You certainly won't get any disagreement from me with regard to the poor coverage of GW (or science generally) in the mainstream media. The issue may be worth discussing in the article but you'll need a more credible source than Peiser; there are plenty of people who have looked at the intersection of science, the media, and public attitudes. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, from a brief survey of Monsieur Peiser, his efforts re' Oreskes were clumsy to say the least. And it is hardly surprising that Oreskes found agreement amongst the papers she reviewed. In terms of the social mechanisms fueling the ascendancy of Climate Science currently, the science is less interesting and relevant than the social history of perceptions of risk, and the decline in rational thinking, and it's affect on society generally, not excluding the scientific community itself. Against an ideological background of doom and gloom, it is no surprise that AGW is intersecting so dynamically with the political needs of the western powers and the UN. Several million people will die of poverty, disease and US military barbarism while AGW researchers 'tune' their climate models over the next decade. Harsh, brutal realities much worse than those 'predicted' by the IPCC, have been the day to day reality for several billion people for decades, and, if you could get a few of them in a room and tried to tell them about how bad things are going to get, they'd look at you sideways and probably wonder if everyone in the west is mad. Didn't THAT turn into a wee diatribe! Later. BadCop666 (talk) 09:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global Warming and Environmental Catastrophe and Cataclysm as Public [[Moral Panic]] 

message: I am reinstalling a link in the "evolving position" section that Stephan Schulz removed saying "Reference has nothing to do with the claims".  The entire paragraph that the link was added to discuss the Bush Administration's push to eliminate discussion of mitigation in favor of simply adapting to future climate change.  The link states that U.S. officials again "toned down" the language, this time for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report specifically with regards to this very issue.  Sorry Steve, I'm not sure how it can be any more pertinent.  
"In the course of negotiations over the report by the second working group of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.S. officials challenged the wording of a section suggesting that policymakers need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because countries will not be able to respond to climate change simply by using adaptive measures such as levees and dikes.  In that instance, the original draft read: 'However, adaptation alone is not expected to cope with all the projected effects of climate change, and especially not over the long run as most impacts increase in magnitude. Mitigation measures will therefore also be required.' That second sentence does not appear in the final version of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers". 63.196.193.97 (talk) 17:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, maybe my edit summary should have been clearer. The paragraph is talking about the 2005 COP 8 climate talks in New Delhi. The WashPost article talks about negotiations about the 2007 IPCC synthesis report. I don't think this fits in. I can see the point of mentioning this source, but not in an off-hand comment in the middle of a different topic. Maybe you can expand it to a full sentence or two further on? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reinstalling Link 

message: The section 'attribution to greenhouse gases' states in its first bullet-point:
* ... Furthermore, if greenhouse gases were causing the climate warming then scientists would expect the troposphere to be warming faster than the surface, but observations do not bear this out [64]. Satellite temperature measurements show that tropospheric temperatures are increasing with "rates similar to those of the surface temperature," leading the IPCC to conclude that this discrepancy is reconciled[65].
Isn't this a contradiction? How does the fact that 
'tropospheric temperatures are increasing with "rates similar to those of the surface temperature,"' reconcile the discrepancy, when the whole point is that the troposphere should be warming faster than the surface? ---Vladimir V. Korablin (talk) 16:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Partly its the long history of the subject. Mostly its that the trends in the upper air have a lot of uncertainty in them William M. Connolley (talk) 21:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction? 

message: Dr. Craig Loehle has come out with a new 2,000 year temperature reconstruction.  It does not use any of the problematic tree ring data such as the strip bark bristlecone pine series the NAS panel said should not be used. His reconstructions is here.   His reconstruction is starting to get media attention.  RonCram (talk) 15:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We have discussed the paper here. The paper was rejected by GRL and published in E&E, hence its very dubious as a reliable source on the science. But if it gets some traction in the popular press, it would be reasonable to cite it here. Since it's only been out a few days, I would wait a bit, though.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ron, at a minimum you'll need straight news reporting and not partisan editorials. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:56, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I sometimes get the sense that this talk page is more or less a global-warming-skeptic blog, since every low-impact dissenting study is immediately presented for comment (particularly if critical of Michael Mann) without context. As far as the media attention, it appears that the first word in the linked URL is "blogs", which suggests that we're not quite at the WP:V/WP:RS/WP:N level yet. MastCell Talk 17:52, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: MastCell , with all due respect, while you might be right about the talk pages related to the topic seem to serve as a skeptic's blog, the actual wiki entries actually read as a proponent blog. See my comment on the inclusion of the whole 'related controversies' entry, where the 'link' used for an elaborate 'ad hominem' is established through an obviously partisan publication Vidstimac (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy over paleoclimate studies 

message: The image Antarctic temperature trend shown in the article while dramatic shows a range from -0.1 to 0.1 oC/year, however the uncertainty (from the image's description) is between 2 and 3 oC. Are any conclusions from this image actually valid considering that the maximum difference is less than the uncertainty by and entire order of magnitude?65.75.110.90 (talk) 23:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The color shows the trend per year over 26 years, not a total range of 0.1 degrees. The uncertainty, on the other hand, is an absolute value. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Valid Image 

message: On the section "Funding for scientist", it list the two subcategories as scientists who don't acknowledge man-made global warming & those who do. Now, as Global Warming, contrary to what it may appear, is still under heavy debate, I suggest we change the word "acknowledge" to some other term, perhaps "beleive in"Revengeofthenerds (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You're getting cleverer, Obedium. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Funding for Scientists 

message: This is my first Wikipedia discussion\edit so please excuse any protocol lapses or errors.
The global warming controversy is a dispute regarding the nature, validity and (if true) consequences of global warming. The disputed issues include the causes of increased global average air temperature, especially since the mid-20th century; whether the increase is real or partially an artifact of poor measurements; whether this warming trend is unprecedented or within normal climatic variations. Additional disputes concern estimates of climate sensitivity; predictions of additional warming; what the consequences are; whether the cause of any change is natural or man-caused (anthroprogenic) and what action should be taken (if any). Individuals, corporations, and political organizations are involved, so the debate is vigorous in the popular media and on a policy level.
Asmith909 (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 23:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit to opening paragragh 

message: Our section on "pressure" speaks only of scientists allegedly pressured to support the (current US administration's) anti-manmade position. Where are all the reports of scientists pressured to support the manmade position on GW? --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Any reliable sources? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Politicization of science]] 

message: I hope I'm not drawing attention to a link that someone else has already kindly included on these pages somewhere? Anyway here it is; . This would be a worthy article to include somewhere in the main article. If anyone agrees, then let me know. --Cantsi Wontsi (talk) 06:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It has been discussed.  It is only useful to look for possible additions to List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming.  Other than that, it is too partisan to serve as a reliable source.  Before jumping on this, please read some of the discussion here.  Brusegadi (talk) 06:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Government Online Resource 

message: ... the following to the first section, just ahead of "Petitions"
or to the near universal belief in a luminiferous ether (even the scientists who are today given the credit for disproving it,  Michelson and Morely, actually set out to "prove" it, and in their original report claimed to have seen a "slight effect" and concluded that they had made some fundamental error).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Normxxx (talk • contribs) 19:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if you are right, it would be undue weight and POV .  You are trying to discredit the idea of consensus with one example, when there are many more when consensus was right or was in the "right direction".  Brusegadi (talk) 21:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please Add 

message: The article needs to address the fact the media is beginning to look at scientists efforts at forecast verification.  Earlier predictions about global warming (Hansen in 1988 and the IPCC in 1990) have not done well.  They dramatically overpredicted temperatures, indicating they really do not understand how much of recent warming is natural and how much is from rising atmospheric CO2.  Forecast verification is an important part of science and an important part of this scientific controversy. Gavin Schmidt seems to be particularly upset that people would dare to attempt a verification - "What?  Don't you trust us???"  Hardly a scientific attitude.  
:Ron, first of all this article should only represent what is actually a controversy. And this isn't. Climate is not determined by inter-year variations - as you should know. Lots of blogs - nothing substantial. Certainly not enough for a complete section. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Pielke is embarassing himself William M. Connolley (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forecast verifications and the failure of global warming predictions 

message: In Regards to "Citation Needed" in:
"Skeptics contend that stations located in more populated areas could show warming due to increased heat generated by cities, rather than a global temperature rise.[citation needed]"
Perhaps this site could be used as a reference?  Specifically the NASA GISS data at the bottom.
http://www.surfacestations.org/  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrick Snyder (talk • contribs) 07:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:SPS. It would be better to have something from a good newspaper or a scientific journal, or at least the website of a published scientist. Raymond Arritt (talk) 07:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

text: And, are they admitting to be skeptics? I thought they were at least pretending to be neutral William M. Connolley (talk) 20:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urban heat island;  citation resource 

message: is there any userboxes relatedto this topic?  --FW07 (talk) 20:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  userbox 

message: This section reads like original research WP:SYN, but the problem I have is that the sources are unverifiable, and are actually personal attacks on news articles, and not serious studies on the real situation on the denial of passive smoking risks.
ref #207 (for Steve Milloy)  "Later that spring, he authored another smoking-related piece for FoxNews.com. In that one, he cast aside two decades of research on the dangers of exposure to secondhand smoke and concluded, [cites Milloy's assertion] You might chalk it up to Milloy’s contrarian nature. Or to his libertarian tendencies.
An example of WP:OR and non-WP:RS. The text claims that TASCC is an astroturf group by joining an article by Monbiot  and a list of donations from Exxon . Turns out that Monbiot's article is especulation based on the list of donations, and that the donations that he gives sources to verify amount to 30.000$ on 2001,2002 and 2003, and an unknown amount on 1995 or 1996. For all we know, TASCC may have an anual budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that donation would amount to a very small percentage of its budget. The way the citation is done is also OR, since it says "[TASCC], an astrotruf group [reference on donations by Exxon]"  since it's a source for the fact that TASCC received certain amounts from Exxon at given times, and not at all a proof of astroturfing. Monbiot's article claims TASCC got bigger donations from Phillips Morris ($200,000), but provides no source for its statement, thus making it unverifiable (I could find sources about it somewhere else, but the Monbiot's article is unverifiable by itself as it stands).
While the statements may be right, please find better and more verifiable sources and make a redaction that relies more on what the secondary sources instead of sounding as reaching conclusions from primary sources and linking tofether secondary sources. Also don't use primary sources to illustrate points, find a secondary source instead 
I suggest starting by sources like this , which refers this article  on a journal that claims to be peer-reviewed (as oppossed to an opinion article on the Guardian, as Monbiot's article is) --Enric Naval (talk) 22:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good suggestions, which I've implemented.JQ (talk) 04:29, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Passive smoking section 

message: An editor has deleted the following reference which he claims was not peer reviewed and "ranting and raving."
Accuweather columnist
While the website is hardly an academic journal, the column has been reviewed by the publishers of accuweather. So it is not exactly a blog either. The columnist is a meteorologist, a weather scientist. While this might not cut as much ice as a political scientist, it should have some value. I realize that meteorologists have been somewhat slow to accept the "truth." On the other hand, I can remember the 80s and the prediction of incipient global freezing which in one famous Newsweek issue (since dissavowed - no longer party line) was devoted to that cause and insisted that anyone who wasn't a true believer was crazy. Maybe back to that again if this columnist is correct. Student7 (talk) 12:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You wrote "Accuweather columnist questions global warming. Suggests that global cooling might be the next threat". But for this to be relavant for the Global Warming Controversy, it must be a more wideheld opinion than just this columnist. Another thing is that you could include some claimed fact by a single person, provided that it is written down in some scientific peer reviewed journal.  Count Iblis (talk) 13:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah, the old touchstone of global cooling. Wrong decade, though William M. Connolley (talk) 15:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accuweather 

message: New to this article. Do the theories take into account local phenomena like having to grow oranges in Florida further and further south with time? Before 1900, farmers were able to grow oranges in south Georgia, USA. Frosts stopped that and have moved the "line" further and further south each decade, most prominently in 1985-6 when groves were killed in Lake County (central Florida). Growing was prominently "moved" to counties south of there where they are today. Student7 (talk) 11:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Global" warming means, er, global. Local changes can differ substantially from global ones.  Raymond Arritt (talk) 14:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

text: I nominate this for the second-worst anti-global warming argument ever, after Louis Hissink's claim that climate is determined primarily by Earth's internal heating.Brian A Schmidt (talk) 14:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be quite right about the "Hissink claim," the specifics of which I am unfamiliar, but isn't climate regulated in part by the Southern Oscillation, which I understood resulted from the release of heat (underwater volcanoes?) under the Pacific near Chile? I assume you concur but disagree that this is "primary." Student7 (talk) 18:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh dear. Please see El Niño. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahhhh!  Its "the logic"! Brusegadi (talk) 20:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Case of the orange groves 

message: A number of global warming skeptics, such as the following, assert that grant money is given preferentially to supporters of global warming theory. Atmospheric scientist Reid Bryson said in June 2007 that "There is a lot of money to be made in this... If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'"[139] Similar claims have been advanced by climatologist Marcel Leroux,[140] NASA's Roy Spencer, climatologist and IPCC contributor John Christy, University of London biogeographer Philip Stott[141], and Accuracy in Media.[142]
Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, makes the specific claim that "[in] the winter of 1989 Reginald Newell, a professor of meteorology at [MIT], lost National Science Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net warming over the past century." Lindzen also suggests four other scientists "apparently" lost their funding or positions after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming.[143] Lindzen himself, however, has been the recipient of money from energy interests such as OPEC and the Western Fuels Association, including "$2,500 a day for his consulting services",[144],  (this link does not even lead to an article, only a rather bias environmentalist home site, the content is also false) as well as funding from federal sources including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and NASA.[145](this one is actually a reputable .gov/.edu site)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.125.93.162 (talk) 00:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The link has been corrected - i have no idea how the Sierra Club link crept into the article - i very much doubt if it can be considered a WP:RS.  Unfortunately the content isn't incorrect. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:49, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Regardless of whether the content is correct, it's not relevant to this section. It boils down to "Lindzen, a skeptic, gets money from both sides". If anything, that info would belong in the prior section - it adds nothing to the topic "Funding for scientists who acknowledge anthropogenic global warming". --Blogjack (talk) 05:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Funding for scientists who acknowledge anthropogenic global warming (source correction) 

message: The following was immediately erased after being inserted by someone. The edit line said "rv sock" apparently saying that since it was a sock puppet this cast aspersions on the national academy of science reference? Huh?
* Research by NASA climate scientist James Hansen indicates the 0.75 degree rise in average global temperatures over the last 100 years has been driven mainly by greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide.http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/18/9875
I've edited out the footnote part to avoid confusion. My question is, why was this erased? Student7 (talk) 11:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: First, because it's been inserted by a sock of a banned user. Secondly, because it is wrong, even in asserting that it is a statement from the National Academy. It goes back to a paper by James Hansen et al, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a respected scientific journal, with independent editorial oversight and peer review process. It is not a statement by the NAS, or even endorsed by it. As for the factual issue, the claim completely misrepresents Hansen et al. They point out that the negative anthropogenic forcing, in particular due to sulfate aerosols, is of about the same magnitude as the positive forcing from CO2 alone, so the remaining net warming corresponds to about the effect of the (anthropogenic) non-CO2  greenhouse gases and black soot. This does not deny the warming due to CO2, nor does it assign the blame elsewhere. It also is only a momentary snapshot, as aerosols are a strong negative forcing, but have a short lifetime, while CO2 is a moderate positive forcing, but has a very long lifetime. Thus the initial cooling after about 1945 (aerosol effects dominate) followed by the later increase (aerosols essentially plateau, but CO2 continues to accumulate). If you want more details, I suggest you read the full paper, which is available in full and nicely written.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Erasure of referenced remark 

message: Use this section to make a valid case for deleting the paragraph.  86.160.35.152 (talk) 22:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually the one arguing for inclusion, bears the burden of convincing others. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jones et al. 

message: I came to this article hoping to get some skeptics arguements evualated, but they are simply abesent from the article.  
To begin with, if CO2 is only in the hundreds of parts per million in the atmosphere, how can it produce such massive effects?
Isn't water vapor a green house gas?  If so, why isn't it being portrayed as a big factor?  
Is it possible that the historical correlation between CO2 and global temperature could be explained as being a consequence of global temperature changing CO2 levels, as opposed to visa versa?
These are just few of the arguements forwarded by semi-sophisticated critics, and it would be nice if we got some replies to these allegations.  The internet, media, and other main information ways, have not done a good job of explaining science.  Frankly, this article should be twice its size.  The human mind is more creative than you give it credit for.-Jared
:For answers to most of the questions, see Talk:Global warming/FAQ. The CO2/temperature link is also discussed in Global warming controversy#Attribution_to_greenhouse_gases. The other arguments are extremely stupid ("how can a few ounces of lead have such a massive effect on the life of an Elephant"?), and I have not seen them outside internet blogs and similar unreliable sources. That's why we don't have them in the main article. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See also here Count Iblis (talk) 01:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a couple of good resources here and here. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:29, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing contestations 

message: I went ahead and merged global warming wager to this page per the talk there.  I also tried to remove the use of the neologism "global warming wager" entirely.  I don't think the text as-is is great and I wouldn't be opposed to stripping or rewriting some of it. Oren0 (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I do believe that Pascal died more than a century before Marx was born. How then can Pascal's wager be based on Marxist economics? Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't look at me, I didn't write it.  I just didn't like it having its own article so I copied it here.  Pick it apart for all I care. Oren0 (talk) 17:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure. I was just wondering if there was something that I missed. Appropriately cleaned up, this material will be useful in the present article. The merge was good -- there are way too many global warming articles floating around here, and a lot of them are of mediocre quality at best. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global warming wager merged here 

message: This is a big part of the controversy, as framed by J. Scott Armstrong.  Scientific forecasting is evidence-based forecasting.  Armstrong claims the "projections" of experts are no better than the projections of non-experts.  Armstrong refers readers to the research of Phil Tetlock and his book "Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?"  Tetlock looked at thousands of projections made by experts and non-experts over a twenty year period.  One reviewer of Tetlock's book writes:
:"Before anyone turns an ear to the panels of pundits, they might do well to obtain a copy of Phillip Tetlock's new book Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? The Berkeley psychiatrist has apparently made a 20-year study of predictions by the sorts who appear as experts on TV and get quoted in newspapers and found that they are no better than the rest of us at prognostication."--Jim Coyle, Toronto Star 
When Armstrong writes that experts are no better at predicting the future than non-experts, he has good research to back up his claim. There is no reason to prevent Wikipedia readers from having access to this information. RonCram (talk) 05:03, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO the first part of this is correct (lots of things like the oil price are notorious for experts always being worse than tealeaf readers) and probably belongs in some WP article on the philosophy of science. However I think what goes here should be stuff which WP policy says goes in which should (to prevent the article being 500000 pages) be specific not general scientific process stuff. However flawed expert opinion is, that is more or less what WP says it gives.  --BozMo talk 07:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Seems to be called Expert Political Judgment. I suggest you take this to the Politics page and see if they like your spam over there William M. Connolley (talk) 07:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: William, the fact experts are no better at predicting the future than non-experts is true in every field.  Politicians must deal with experts in many scientific fields, including earth sciences.  Politicians are certainly involved in assessing the claims of climate scientists. Perhaps you should read the book before criticizing the relevance of the book to this article.RonCram (talk) 17:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How reliable is expert opinion on the future? 

message: Not in the scientific community, because as pointed out above they are not taken seriously there. If there are many skeptics who use their arguments, then we could still write about it. But I think that the controversy is limited to this wiki page  :)  Count Iblis (talk) 13:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonsense.  A&G are taken very seriously in the scientific community.  A has co-founded two journals on scientific forecasting and the International Institute of Forecasting.  Forecasting should be evidence-based, the science way.  Climate scientists are conducting computer models which have absolutely no predictive power. RonCram (talk) 18:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonsense. Armstrong has done work in economics. There is no sign at all that anybody takes his claims about physical sciences serious.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Funny you should say that, Stephan.  The State of Alaska takes them seriously.  Alaska commissioned A&G to audit research done to support the US Department of Interior's decision to list polar bears on the endangered species list.  A&G audited the research and found it to be wanting.  A&G's paper has been accepted for publication in the management science journal Interfaces. It is the only peer-reviewed paper on polar bear population forecasting that has been accepted for publication in an academic journal. If there is something wrong with A&G's research, you are free to post in the article any published criticism of their approach to scientific forecasting.  What you cannot do is decide who can criticize climate researchers. RonCram (talk) 05:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What's A&G?--BozMo talk 05:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: J. Scott Armstrong and Ksomething Green[e]. See the above sections. And Ron, quite apart from the qualification of the state of Alaska on scientific issues, analyzing the population of polar bears is not exactly a physical science... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Stephan, I understand that but the reason the policymakers in Alaska asked them to audit the polar bear issue is because it is related to global warming and they knew A&G had audited global warming. In fact, the polar bear paper depends in large part on the conclusions drawn from the global warming paper. If you have not read the polar bear paper, you should. I was also pleased to see that one of the named reviewers on the polar bear paper was Orrin Pilkey.  A&G have now published two papers in peer-reviewed journals using the principles of scientific forecasting to criticize global warming.  Your claim they have not picked up any scientific support is simply not true. RonCram (talk) 13:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ron, the study you have cited by A&G cites another study for the claim that many climate scientists do not believe models can accurate predict future climates.  The study cited in the paper is a survey done by Bast and Taylor and published by the Heartland Institute.  One look at it makes it clear that it's full of unclear, loaded questions, similar to what Milloy tried to do recently .  There are many ways the statement "Climate models can accurately predict future climates." can be taken.  Based on this, I am reverting this part of your addition. (Looks like WMC already took care of your entire addition.) Jason Patton (talk) 22:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Jason, I did not know about the polling issue.  I am willing to take your word for it for the time being.  A future entry will use a different interesting bit from the same paper. At least you were reasonable. RonCram (talk) 01:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is A&G part of the controversy? 

message: Stephan, thank you for adding something constructive to the article.  I had completely forgotten about this piece written by Trenberth.  Obviously, I knew about it at the time because my comment on the page is dated July 27, 2007.  But this piece did slip my mind or I would have added it myself. RonCram (talk) 23:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just read Gavin Schmidt's take on G&A for the first time.  It was the best writing I've seen from Gavin, which is not saying much. Apparently, Gavin is trying out for Saturday Night Live.  Calling Bob Carter a "rejectionist rump" is funny mainly because of the alliteration, but it is still an ad hominem attack.  He also attacks G&A using "guilt by association."  If Carter is an RR, then G&A must be too.  It is too bad Gavin did not attempt to deal with any of the criticisms raised by G&A.  That would have been more interesting to readers.  Can anyone find some better bit of criticism of G&A than this tripe? RonCram (talk) 00:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You forgot the actual info Gavin included about Carter's apparent disbelief in anthropogenic CO2.  I believe Carter was recently peddling long-refuted satellite data as well.  More generally, this seems like another "no such thing as average temperature" canard, a pseudo-scientific show trotted out so people can continue to believe what they want to believe.Brian A Schmidt (talk) 06:19, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I have invited James Annan to explain why certain principles of scientific forecasting do not apply to physical sciences.  If he decides to post something on his blog, we can use that as an answer to G&A. RonCram (talk) 03:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it does not look like James is going to post on this subject in his blog.  After I issued the challenge, he basically picked up his marbles and went home. It was almost comical. RonCram (talk) 05:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of Green and Armstrong 

message: In the section Changing position of some skeptics could someone add the year for Ronald Bailey's book, Global Warming and other Eco Myths?  I think it could be done as: "Ronald Bailey, author of a 2002 book called Global Warming and Other Eco Myths, now says..." this would help to make clear that there was a time period from the publication of that book to "now", and, depending on when someone is reading the Global warming controversy article, what that time period is. 4.246.205.162 (talk) 02:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Sorry, but if it helps: I self-debated intensively for nearly 5 hours. I'd send you my brain-recordings, but I suspect you don't have an ACME Brain-O-Buster 880 Exa yet - they  will only go on sale early  next century in this reality plane. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually, I self-debated between your first post and the implementation, of course. I had to ask Altavista to find anything about Google. Hmmm, seems to  be a mono-continuum archaic web database thing. Well, yes, you won't find transdimensional equipment there.  As for the issue: "Now" is deprecated, as it is correct only, well, now. See Wikipedia:MOS#Precise_language. I'll try to smoothen things out. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Date? 

message: The info in the History of public opinion section about the 15-nation poll conducted in 2006 by Pew Global could be misleading. The proportion of people who "worry a great deal" about climate change is reported as a proportion of people who have heard about the issue. It does not say whether the opposite answer is a proportion of the total number surveyed or the number who had heard about the issue. This should be clarified. Also the other options in the question should at least be made known if not the proportions involved.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.103.251 (talk) 08:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pew Global's 2006 - 15-nation poll 

message: Regarding Heartland Institute's list of 500 scientists, I'm amused to see that User:Oren0 tried to replace my quote-unquote "out-of-context" quote from Heartland Institute's 5 May statement, with an out-of-galaxy quote from an earlier, different statement. Bi (talk) 04:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad that it amused you that I used a quote that is quoted in the statement you're talking about (third paragraph).  All I did was trace that quote back to its original source.  I don't mind the current revision, however, since their position is actually explained, rather than the previous rv that contained only a quote that did nothing to illuminate HI's position. Oren0 (talk) 04:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heartland's 5 May statement on "Heartland 500" list 

message: I do not understand what that's doing here. DavidOaks (talk) 21:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL, join the crowd. It's loony to be placed in this article72.134.41.242 (talk) 06:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Passive Smoking? 

message: Can someone explain why the statement "The majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is primarily caused by human activities such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation" is supported by three links that do not support the contention, and one of which actually says "Indeed, a recent Gallup poll of climate scientists in the American Meteorological Society and in the American Geophysical Union shows that a vast majority doubts that there has been any identifiable man-caused warming to date"?
Sure, one says "a worldwide network of 2,500 scientists sponsored by the United Nations, said there is 'new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.'", and another refers to "a document drafted by hundreds of scientists representing 113 governments"; but none of them speak to what percentage of climate scientists agree.
It seems to me citations are still needed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.90.251 (talk) 06:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Climate Scientists' Consensus 

message: This is a "skeptics" page? It seems to have been edited by those who believe in global warming. I think if this page is to detail the skeptics arguments, than it fails miserably. signed by Chiefsalsa 03:00, 13 May 2008
:This is an article about the controversy about global warming, not a propaganda article arguing against AGW. Count Iblis (talk) 13:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a wiki article that deals with both sides of the controversial issue. For skeptic propaganda goto http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/skeptic-organizations.html, and for alarmist global warming propaganda goto Global warming. 72.134.41.242 (talk) 00:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skeptics page 

message: This page has had a toolong template on it for a while.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't like cleanup templates on the tops of pages I watch.  Let's see if we can get rid of it.  The relevant questions would be:
# Do we think that the article is too long?  If not, let's remove the template. Oren0 (talk) 16:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oren, I agree it is too long.  Wikipedia already has an article on Politics of global warming.  Much of the material here could be merged into that article.  This one should focus on the controversy around the science. RonCram (talk) 19:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree William M. Connolley (talk) 21:16, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long? 

message: On the subject of the article being too long, the external links section has spun out of control.  What types of links do we believe actually belong here?  I think that about 90% of what's there (material from both sides) should go. Oren0 (talk) 16:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't say that i disagree completely. Start by cutting the whole section on Printed Media - i can't see any of those resulting in improving the article (ie. by turning into a reference there). There are some of the references that might end up in the article though, if it wasn't already bloated. But since it is - its mostly a link-farm. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  What Printed Media section :-)? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't keep up with this article too much, given that it has always been a dumping ground for POV assertions. But cleaning up the refs couldn't hurt. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links section out of control 

message: No.  Working Group 1 placed a deadline on scientific papers.  For inclusion in the AR4, papers must be in by May, 2006.  Conclusions from papers published after May, 2006 are not included in the AR4.  
In 2007, Roy Spencer and co-authors published a report on their observation of a new negative feedback over the tropics.  They identified this feedback as the “Infrared Iris”effect hypothesized by Richard Lindzen. Spencer concludes:
Since these intraseasonal oscillations represent a dominant mode of convective variability in the tropical troposphere, their behavior should be considered when testing the convective and cloud parameterizations in climate models that are used to predict global warming.
Since the GCMs did not include the Infrared Iris negative feedback, it is possible other forcings and feedbacks may also be missing.
::Completely original research. Spencer et al. does not identify it as the Iris effect. And the connection to the WG1 is again a synthesis. Strike 2. Try to at least reflect secondary sources. This is once more not your personal playground for venting your personal views and original research. Other papers have come out since the AR4 deadline - and cherry-picking a specific paper, is undue weight (as usual). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, read Spencer's abstract (at least) where he specifically identifies this negative feedback as the Infrared Iris effect.  How is the relationship to WG1 WP:SYN?  I am showing readers the IPCC has a clear reason why Spencer's feedback is not taken into account.  Do the dates not mean anything to you?  Yes, other papers have come out.  What is your point?  This paper is notable and speaks to the scientific controversy.  Why not try WP:IDONTLIKEIT next? RonCram (talk) 16:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ron - i suggest instead that you read Spencer's abstract again - until you finally grasp what is written. He does not identify it as the Iris effect. Hint: He does mention the Iris effect, he also mentions that it could potentially support this effect. Try to actually read things - and not interpret it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Another hint: in the paper Spencer states: "The decrease in ice cloud coverage is conceptually consistent with the ‘‘infrared iris’’ hypothesized by Lindzen et al. [2001]" - he then continues on to caution that the effects measured are on a too short timescale. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, you are expert at identifying distinctions without a difference.  Science is always subject to new information, confirmation or revision and so publications are necessarily conservative in wording.  There is no question Spencer has identified his observations as supporting Lindzen's hypothesis. This semantic argument is meaningless anyway as it does nothing to support your charge of OR and SYN.  I really think you have a Random Objection Generator so that when you push a button some Wikipedia policy pops out like {WP:OR]].  You are never able to prove your charges. To prove your charges, you have to point to specific statements and explain how the statement violates the policy.  Just making assertions does not make them true. RonCram (talk) 19:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ron, its very simple... If you actually try to understand the paper. What Spencer has discovered, is consistent with the Iris Effect - but he also writes very specifically why it cannot be identified with it.... Spencers paper is about very short term variations, while Lindzen's is about long term climate ones. All it can ever be is a result that might indicate that there is an iris-effect. Its like rolling a die, and getting a 6. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the die has 6's on all sides. But that simple test, can neither identify or show it. All it can do is potentially support the hypothesis. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ie. you are putting meaning into Spencer's paper that isn't there. You may believe that Spencer' has made the first detection of the Iris-effect - and you may even be correct. But belief is not relevant here, we need to reflect what the sources actually say - and not speculate on it. That is something that you can do on blogs - but not in an encyclopedia. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, even if I were to grant your point, and I am looking for ways to compromise here, I cannot see how deleting the entire entry is helpful to readers who want to know about the scientific controversy around global warming.  How can you justify that?  Why not change a few words and leave what is unassailable? RonCram (talk) 15:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Do the models used by AR4 include all of the forcings and feedbacks?

message: Computer models have been making projections for 18-20 years.  Do those projections match with observations?  The IPCC says yes:
Model global temperature projections made over the last two decades have also been in overall agreement with subsequent observations over that period (Chapter 1).
Some scientists answer No.  Demetris Koutsoyiannis compared climate models to historical climate, looking largely to the hydrological cycle (which also affects temperature).  Here are select conclusions from his presentation:
:
:• GCMs generally reproduce the broad climatic behaviours at different geographical locations and the sequence of wet/dry or warm/cold periods on a mean monthly scale.
:• However, model outputs at annual and climatic (30 year) scales are irrelevant with reality; also, they do not reproduce the natural overyear fluctuation and, generally, underestimate the variance and the Hurst coefficient of the observed series; none of the models proves to be systematically better than the others.
:• The huge negative values of coefficients of efficiency at those scales show that model predictions are much poorer that an elementary prediction based on the time average.
:• This makes future climate projections not credible.
:• The GCM outputs of AR4, as compared to those of TAR, are a regression in terms of the elements of falsifiability they provide, because most of the AR4 scenarios refer only to the future, whereas TAR scenarios also included historical periods. 
Other scientists and statisticians have blogged on the issue of validation and verification of GCMs looking mainly at temperature.  Roger Pielke Jr.   William Biggs  and Lucia Liljegren  have all reached similar conclusions about the GCMs ability to match observations over the last 20 years.RonCram (talk) 15:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Very nice Ron. Now where are the secondary sources that makes your above conclusions? Or is it the usual WP:OR/WP:SYN, by cherry picking various papers and comments? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, there is nothing different about this than any other part of this article. Read the article.  It is full of citations of scientific papers and blogs.  This is an article about the scientific controversy.  It has to represent the views of scientists. This not WP:OR/WP:SYN or cherry picking.  I have not distorted anyone's views. RonCram (talk) 15:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've commented on two sections. Try to at least read what original research and synthesis is. I have to say that i've given up on you ever understanding those. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ron, if you want this to be anything other than an unfunny joke, you're going ot have to learn to take out things like Lucias blog as a bare minimum William M. Connolley (talk) 16:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: William, Lucia is very bright.  She has been praised by climatologists better than you. RonCram (talk) 17:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

text:  I don't think this section (ignoring some other parts for now) is far from being includable with a minor rewrite.  I think the section should flow like this: "Some GW skeptics have questioned the predictive ability of climate models...The IPCC says X about this.  Person A says Y about prediction.  Person B says Z about validation and verification.  Etc."  I don't see a WP:SYN issue if it's written in that way. Oren0 (talk) 16:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oren0, I am having a hard time seeing any of Kim's points.  Perhaps I am not giving him a fair chance.  I would like to compromise where it would make the article better.  Can you point out any objection of Kim's with which you agree?  If so, I will take another look at it. RonCram (talk) 01:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure.  My big complaint about the other sections is that they're not written encyclopedically.  It's written like an FAQ in parts.  A section header that's a question and then "No." as the beginning of the section?  Where else on Wikipedia main space have you ever seen this?  That's why I suggested the refactoring as I mentioned above.  There's nothing wrong with presenting both sides of an issue provided that each is well sourced.  In fact, I'd agree that the accuracy and principles of GCMs could use more discussion in the article.  However, you're synthesizing your own conclusions from the points both sides make to form your own conclusions.  For example, you claim that because Spencer's Iris effect (which hasn't really gained traction as far as I know) isn't included in the GCM, that they don't "include all of the forcings and feedbacks" and that "it is possible other forcings and feedbacks may also be missing."  Did you make this up or is there a source for it?  This is the kind of thing that Kim and others are objecting to.  But that's not to say that there isn't savable material here. Oren0 (talk) 15:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the input.  Any improvements you can make to the wording would be much appreciated.  I agree that the FAQ format is not good.  I was trying to finish up in a hurry and that is sloppy.  I was not trying to synthesize my "own conclusions from the points both sides make."  I am not sure what I wrote that made you write that.  I may be doing without realizing it, but if you could point to something specifically it would be helpful.  What I was trying to do is let both sides speak for themselves, so readers could understand exactly where the controversy lies.  I thought quoting the IPCC and then quoting scientists who disagree (skeptics or not) would be the best way to do this. My statement that "other forcings and feedbacks may also be missing" is a weaker statement than the one by Pielke who stated they were missing.  Pielke did not identify which forcings or feedbacks. RonCram (talk) 18:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oren0, to make it easy I put the original entry into a Sandbox.  You can play with it there, make it better.  Perhaps we can improve it to the point it will be accepted by everyone. The Sandbox is here.  Other editors can join this effort as well. RonCram (talk) 20:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Raymond, feel free to change the wording.  Roger was formerly listed on the "Lists of scientists who disagree..." page because he had agreed to be so listed.  For some reason, his name has been removed. Roger has a nuanced position on climate change.  He feels humans are partially responsible for warming but disagrees with the IPCC that rising CO2 is the main problem or will be catastrophic. It is never my intent to mischaracterize anyone's position. RonCram (talk) 18:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Raymond, I don't think you doubt that skeptics believe the confidence is not earned.  Perhaps the best correction is to say "Skeptics and some climatologists believe the confidence is not earned.  For example, Roger Pielke..."  Is that okay? RonCram (talk) 18:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not good on many levels. It combines the two groups, while contrasting "skeptics" with "climatologists." (By the way you needn't explain Roger's perspective to me; I'm very familiar with Roger's position across a range of issues related to the topic.) Raymond Arritt (talk) 19:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just wanted to set the record straight on Roger.  Other editors may read your comment that he "isn't a skeptic" and think he agrees with the IPCC right down the line.  Roger has been very outspoken and lucid in his criticism of the IPCC.  How about this then: "Certain scientists, both skeptical and otherwise, do not feel the IPCC's confidence in the GCMs has been earned.  For example, Roger Pielke..."  How is that? RonCram (talk) 19:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I hadn't realized what a dodgy source he was using (though I should have expected as much). No, conference papers won't do. I did read it, and all I can say is "ouch"... verifying AOGCM projections against point data???  Raymond Arritt (talk) 20:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: William, this is an article about the controversy. The article is full of blog citations.  A poster is at least as good a source as a blog posting.  Raymond, I just put an entry on your Talk page about the Douglass paper.  I think you will be interested in reading it. I assume you have already read Douglass paper itself. RonCram (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you ever heard of WP:WEIGHT? We are not here to record every instance of someone saying or presenting something that you feel is controversial. What we present, are the notable controversies, that have received an impact. And that decision is left to secondary sources. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, this is a notable controversy.  You really should know that by now.  This article is full of peer-reviewed articles and blogs by scientists.  You might want to read the recent article by Pat Frank published in Skeptic magazine.  Pat is a regular contributor to ClimateAudit and is a researcher at Stanford.  Find it here.  RonCram (talk) 20:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  If its notable, you should be able to find something better than a conference pre-print as your main source William M. Connolley (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: William, perhaps you can bring Ron with you when you go to a conference. He may learn something :) Count Iblis (talk) 21:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: William, DK is not the main source but one of many.  Pielke and the Douglass paper, the validation and verification work by Pielke Jr, Briggs and Lucia are also important.  I haven't added the article by Pat Frank, yet but I think it is notable as well. And Count, I have been to a conference before.  I know exactly what they are like.  Again, a poster presentation at a conference has to be as good as any blog posting. RonCram (talk) 21:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ron, you use DK for more than 50% of your text. All that has to go. Lucia is a joke, albeit not a very funny one, as is anyone relying on her. Pielke Jr has done no validation work on GCMs - he is a political scientist, not a physical one William M. Connolley (talk) 21:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: William, it gets a little confusing because Kim commented in the midst of my entry here but Pielke Sr. is about 30% of the text, Spencer about 20%, David Douglass about 20% and DK (along with Pielke Jr, Briggs and Lucia) about 30%.  You can see it here more clearly. RonCram (talk) 21:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Do model projections match observations over the last two decades?

message: I added this section.  I'm certain the section can be improved, but I'm also certain it is valid part of the controversy that readers would like to know about.  If you think I have misquoted someone, please correct it.  I want to maintain good faith but it is difficult to do so when people throw out a series of Wikipedia policies without describing why the entry violates any of them.  Please edit in good faith.RonCram (talk) 12:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is already discussed above. — Apis (talk) 13:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The discussion above was not adequate to delete the entry.  And you added nothing to the discussion. If you think the entry should not be a part of the article, please state why. Because you did not state a reason, I am restoring the entry.RonCram (talk) 13:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Weird, I thought I did... yup here it is: "Please continue the discussion instead. You are giving a single blog post to much space". I even replied here as well. And, no, I didn't take part in the discussion because I see no point in repeating what others have already said. Starting a new thread about the same subject doesn't mean we have to discuss it all over again. — Apis (talk) 16:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Skeptics believe this confidence in the models’ ability to predict future climate is not earned.  Roger Pielke points out a mistake common among climatologists: This is a typical mistake they are making; a model is itself a hypothesis and cannot be used to prove anything! is gobbledegook. In this instance RP doesn't know what he is talking about. We don't report him just cos you know his name William M. Connolley (talk) 19:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  With all due respect, you seem to fairly often claim that climatologists more notable than yourself "don't know what they're talking about."  Not that your opinion of what he says means anything until and unless it's attributable outside of Wikipedia anyway.  And not to mention that he's right about models in general, especially those with as poor a predictive track record as the IPCC's climate models (how many of them from TAR are even in the ball park for the last decade, or in the ball park of the "cooling until 2015" that we're now told to expect?).  But I digress: Pielke's opinion is notable and relevant and "he doesn't know what he's talking about" isn't a reason for excluding it. Oren0 (talk) 20:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There's just one trouble with that.... Pielke doesn't say this. As i pointed out in the above discussion, Pielke is specifically talking about realclimate and not climatologist in general. And the second quote is cherry picked from the comments part of a blog article. Combined with the "Sceptics believe" part (which is purely invented by Ron - and not supported by any references). Its about as pure WP:SYN as one can get.  --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, hogwash.  The fact Pielke was talking about RealClimate does not change the fact he writes: "a model is itself a hypothesis and cannot be used to prove anything!"  Don't you see how both IPCC and RealClimate have that mistake in common? Everyone else can see it. I am not twisting Pielke's words at all. Regarding the use of "skeptics," I do not see this as WP:SYN at all.  Pielke wrote in his blog that he wanted to be listed on Wikipedia article on "List of scientists who disagree..."  And he was listed for a time.  I do not know why he is off now.  But just to please you, I would be happen to change the wording to "Certain scientists, skeptics and otherwise, do not believe this confidence is earned." Kim, also for an entry to be WP:SYN, the entry has to promote some opinion that is not found in the published sources.  I quoted from IPCC and Pielke directly and not to make a point they were not trying to make themselves. And William, of course Roger knows what he is talking about.  Scientists line up to co-author articles with him. RonCram (talk) 04:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Roger knows what he's talking about, but you don't know what Roger's talking about. Are you at all familiar with his publication record?  Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Raymond, there you go showing how interested you are in what I know.  I am somewhat familiar with Roger's publication record. What's your point? Oh, BTW, did you ever visit the t test calculator I showed you? RonCram (talk) 05:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

text:  I fear that in this case, I'm going to have to disagree with RA. RP doesn't know hat he's talking about in this context. OrenO: you don't defer to my authority on modelling, why do you expect me to defer to what you consider RP's? William M. Connolley (talk) 06:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's take this one section at a time 

message: The IPCC states it has increased confidence in forecasts coming from General Circulation Models or GCMs.  Chapter 8 of AR4 reads:
There is considerable confidence that climate models provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. This confidence comes from the foundation of the models in accepted physical principles and from their ability to reproduce observed features of current climate and past climate changes. Confidence in model estimates is higher for some climate variables (e.g., temperature) than for others (e.g., precipitation). Over several decades of development, models have consistently provided a robust and unambiguous picture of signifi cant climate warming in response to increasing greenhouse gases.
Skeptics believe this confidence in the models’ ability to predict future climate is not earned.  Roger Pielke points out a mistake common among climatologists:
 This is a typical mistake they are making; a model is itself a hypothesis and cannot be used to prove anything! The multi-decadal global model simulations only provide insight into processes and interactions, but we must use real world data to test the models. 
Pielke also writes:
As a necessary condition for global climate models to even be claimed to have predictive skill, they must have each of the first-order climate forcings and feedbacks that are overviewd in the Summary. At present (2005) none of the models do.
If a global model claims predictive skill yet does not have all of the important direct and indirect radiative, and non-radiative forcings, as summarized in the Report, the model results must be interpreted as a process study, and not be communicated to policymakers as predictions (projections). They can be used to express concern that each of the first-order climate forcings are altering our climate, but to transmit results from the models as forecasts in planning is overselling the capability of the models. RonCram (talk) 12:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is already discussed above. — Apis (talk) 13:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The discussion above was not adequate to delete the entry.  And you added nothing to the discussion. If you think the entry should not be a part of the article, please state why. Because you did not state a reason, I am restoring the entry.RonCram (talk) 13:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Weird, I thought I did... yup here it is: "Please continue the discussion instead. You are giving a single blog post to much space". I even replied here as well. And, no, I didn't take part in the discussion because I see no point in repeating what others have already said. Starting a new thread about the same subject doesn't mean we have to discuss it all over again. — Apis (talk) 16:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Skeptics believe this confidence in the models’ ability to predict future climate is not earned.  Roger Pielke points out a mistake common among climatologists: This is a typical mistake they are making; a model is itself a hypothesis and cannot be used to prove anything! is gobbledegook. In this instance RP doesn't know what he is talking about. We don't report him just cos you know his name William M. Connolley (talk) 19:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  With all due respect, you seem to fairly often claim that climatologists more notable than yourself "don't know what they're talking about."  Not that your opinion of what he says means anything until and unless it's attributable outside of Wikipedia anyway.  And not to mention that he's right about models in general, especially those with as poor a predictive track record as the IPCC's climate models (how many of them from TAR are even in the ball park for the last decade, or in the ball park of the "cooling until 2015" that we're now told to expect?).  But I digress: Pielke's opinion is notable and relevant and "he doesn't know what he's talking about" isn't a reason for excluding it. Oren0 (talk) 20:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There's just one trouble with that.... Pielke doesn't say this. As i pointed out in the above discussion, Pielke is specifically talking about realclimate and not climatologist in general. And the second quote is cherry picked from the comments part of a blog article. Combined with the "Sceptics believe" part (which is purely invented by Ron - and not supported by any references). Its about as pure WP:SYN as one can get.  --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kim, hogwash.  The fact Pielke was talking about RealClimate does not change the fact he writes: "a model is itself a hypothesis and cannot be used to prove anything!"  Don't you see how both IPCC and RealClimate have that mistake in common? Everyone else can see it. I am not twisting Pielke's words at all. Regarding the use of "skeptics," I do not see this as WP:SYN at all.  Pielke wrote in his blog that he wanted to be listed on Wikipedia article on "List of scientists who disagree..."  And he was listed for a time.  I do not know why he is off now.  But just to please you, I would be happen to change the wording to "Certain scientists, skeptics and otherwise, do not believe this confidence is earned." Kim, also for an entry to be WP:SYN, the entry has to promote some opinion that is not found in the published sources.  I quoted from IPCC and Pielke directly and not to make a point they were not trying to make themselves. And William, of course Roger knows what he is talking about.  Scientists line up to co-author articles with him. RonCram (talk) 04:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Roger knows what he's talking about, but you don't know what Roger's talking about. Are you at all familiar with his publication record?  Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Raymond, there you go showing how interested you are in what I know.  I am somewhat familiar with Roger's publication record. What's your point? Oh, BTW, did you ever visit the t test calculator I showed you? RonCram (talk) 05:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

text:  I fear that in this case, I'm going to have to disagree with RA. RP doesn't know hat he's talking about in this context. OrenO: you don't defer to my authority on modelling, why do you expect me to defer to what you consider RP's? William M. Connolley (talk) 06:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Confidence in GCM forecasts

message: While I did not see anything wrong with the previous version, I have decided to rewrite the section attempting to address the issues raised.  However, I do not think I can address WP:IDONTLIKEIT]. Here it is:
===Confidence in GCM forecasts===
The IPCC states it has increased confidence in forecasts coming from General Circulation Models or GCMs.  Chapter 8 of AR4 reads:
There is considerable confidence that climate models provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. This confidence comes from the foundation of the models in accepted physical principles and from their ability to reproduce observed features of current climate and past climate changes. Confidence in model estimates is higher for some climate variables (e.g., temperature) than for others (e.g., precipitation). Over several decades of development, models have consistently provided a robust and unambiguous picture of signifi cant climate warming in response to increasing greenhouse gases.
Certain scientists, skeptics and otherwise, believe this confidence in the models’ ability to predict future climate is not earned. Pat Frank writes:
The claim that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically insupportable because climate models are unreliable. 
Roger Pielke believes computer models do not have predictive power:
A model is itself a hypothesis and cannot be used to prove anything! The multi-decadal global model simulations only provide insight into processes and interactions, but we must use real world data to test the models.
RonCram (talk) 04:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite of the Section 

message: The IPCC states it has increased confidence in forecasts coming from General Circulation Models or GCMs.  Chapter 8 of AR4 reads:
There is considerable confidence that climate models provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. This confidence comes from the foundation of the models in accepted physical principles and from their ability to reproduce observed features of current climate and past climate changes. Confidence in model estimates is higher for some climate variables (e.g., temperature) than for others (e.g., precipitation). Over several decades of development, models have consistently provided a robust and unambiguous picture of signifi cant climate warming in response to increasing greenhouse gases.
Certain scientists, skeptics and otherwise, believe this confidence in the models’ ability to predict future climate is not earned. Pat Frank writes:
The claim that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically insupportable because climate models are unreliable. 
Roger Pielke believes computer models do not have predictive power:
A model is itself a hypothesis and cannot be used to prove anything! The multi-decadal global model simulations only provide insight into processes and interactions, but we must use real world data to test the models.
RonCram (talk) 04:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Confidence in GCM forecasts

message: (1) We don't need a blog post by a chemist working far outside his sphere of expertise (e.g., he makes it clear he doesn't understand the difference between weather and climate). (2) Roger's quote was made in the context of a somewhat nuanced discussion of nonlinear dynamics. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Raymond, you are wrong on three points.  First, Pat Frank's quote is not from a blog post but from the highly respected magazine Skeptic. You can learn more about the magazine here.  It would help if you would actually read the links before you delete a well-sourced entry.  Second, chemists are involved in the atmospheric studies.  The highly respected Senior Scientist of Brookhaven National Labs' Atmospheric Science Lab, Stephen Schwartz, began his career as a Assistant Professor of Chemistry.  Third, the context of Roger's quote does not change the meaning of his words. Your somewhat obtuse statement might lead readers to think the context makes a difference in this case.  It does not. RonCram (talk) 06:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Assuming you mean "sensitivity" Schwartz, he's wrong and has admitted as much . Not that will stop you quoting him William M. Connolley (talk) 06:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: William, you don't need to assume.  I provided a link to his webpage.  I glanced at Schwartz's paper and noticed that his numbers are still far below the IPCC.  Thank you for the link, however your comment has nothing to do with this discussion.  Raymond was trying to make the claim chemists are far afield the arena of climate.  It simply is not true. Atmospheric chemists play an important role in understanding climate. Whether Pat Frank is involved in atmospheric chemistry or not, I don't know.  It does not matter.  The thesis of Pat Frank's paper is that the physical uncertainty accumulates year after year.  When calculated in the right way, the rapid growth of uncertainty means the GCMs cannot predict either warming or cooling.  The author of such a paper does not need to be an expert in atmosphere or climate.  He only needs to understand how science is done.  Pat Frank points out the IPCC is not doing it right.RonCram (talk) 14:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Raymond was trying to make the claim chemists are far afield the arena of climate. Do you seriously think that I'm that stupid???  I never said any such thing.  I made a specific remark about the views of a specific person. Please stop doing this.  I've always thought that your errors arose simply from an absence of scientific background rather than willful misrepresentation, but I'm becoming less and less certain. Raymond Arritt (talk) 15:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Raymond, do you really know that much about Pat's area of expertise?  I doubt it.  You didn't even read the article he wrote.  You thought the link went to a blog posting.  Pat's views on uncertainty accumulation in the models, as published in Skeptic magazine, are notable.  There was no reason to revert the entry about this important controversy. I am restoring it.RonCram (talk) 16:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Once again you are leaping to unjustified conclusions. I did read the article, and that was the basis of my comment. Yes, I misstated that it with a blog, though I am familiar with Skeptic (presumably you have never made such a casual error yourself). And I googled Pat Frank to read up on his background. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I make mistakes all the time, but I've never referred to a magazine article I just read as a blog posting nor tried to convince people it was not RS for that reason.  If you had read Pat's article, then you would know his argument does not depend on his expertise in climate or atmosphere.  It has to do with how science properly deals with uncertainty.  Nothing you wrote indicates you had any familiarity with the subject matter of his article. My conclusion was hardly unjustified. It may have been wrong, but it was certainly justified as none of your reasons for reverting have held up under scrutiny.RonCram (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest revert 

message: Alright, I was trying to figure out where to post this, which is hard since someone has split up the discussion in 3 different threads. Anyway, I fail to see why the fact that "Certain scientists (...) believe this confidence in the models ability to predict future climate is not earned" is notable. That is hardly a surprising fact, one would assume, given enough scientists, that there would always be a few who didn't agree with the majority. I am very curious what makes this particular chemists views so interesting that it should be included in the encylopedia? — Apis (talk) 00:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Apis, this is an article about global warming controversy.  Readers want to know what aspects of the science around global warming are controversial and why.  Lots of scientists are of the opinion the IPCC's confidence in the GCMs is not earned, but most have not published their views.  Pat Frank's opinion is notable because he is an established researcher at an elite institution (Stanford) and his views were published in a notable magazine.  Your viewpoint that it is not surprising that some scientists would feel this way is reasonable, but not particularly common.  Let's say you were a student who read this article for a paper, would you be satisfied with the article if it did not discuss Pat Frank's views and you learned about his views later?  I don't think so.  I think you would be very dissatisfied with the article.  If this were not an article about the controversy, Pat's views would not be notable.  Since the article is about the controversy, why pretend there is no controversy around the GCMs?  Is reverting the entry really providing a service to readers who want information about the controversy?  How does that help or inform readers?RonCram (talk) 03:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Apis, I just looked at the article to see what the entry looks like now.  I see that you had deleted everything but the IPCC view. That is hardly NPOV in an article about the controversy. Then you allowed in the bare statement that some people disagree, but you left the statement without any citation to either Pat Frank's view or Roger Pielke's view. I am restoring the citations, at the very least.    I am willing to wait to see what Oren0 or other editors may think about the necessity of the quotes. RonCram (talk) 03:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously quoting the IPCC only was unacceptable, and I suspect that Apis realized this which is why he reinserted all but the quote.  Obviously we can't provide every quote and link every article that comments on this issue.  Our goal should be to try to reflect the most common arguments on both sides.  The problem is that some of the editors of this page will call OR/SYN if we try to draw any conclusions from anything, so all we can really do is quote people.  I think the reasonable thing to do is to quote the IPCC and then try to find one or two quotes from dissenters that summarize the general points we're seeing.  I'd like to point out in terms of weight concerns that the previous revision had a much longer quote from the IPCC than from the skeptic side. Oren0 (talk) 03:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad you noticed that I put that section back in, If you check carefully you will see that I didn't remove the other items you mentioned either. I only removed the reference to the text by Pat Frank that was inside the block quote, since it was a reference to the quote. I'm not sure the references indicate fully what the sentence is saying though. I have only had time to check the article by pat frank, but I presume the other source also refer to a reliable source by a credited scientist who express concern about the validity of the IPCCs confidence in the GCMs. As you suggest, lets say I was a student who read this article for a paper, would I be upset if it didn't mention Pat Frank? Well that depends. Lets say I read an article about the Earth, would I be upset if it didn't mention the flat earth society's opinion on the shape of the earth? No, most likely not. I would however be very upset if it did indicate that some scientists believed the earth was flat, and I later found out that the flat earth society's opinion only reflect a tiny minority view. What I am concerned about here is that we invent a controversy that don't really exist (except for a tiny minority). That would be very misleading, don't you agree? — Apis (talk) 01:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just looked at the other reference in the article, and it appears my assumption was incorrect. It looks like it refer to a blog about climate science discussing a website called "RealClimate". I don't think that is relevant at all in this case. I think it would be appropriate to have a reference that somehow show that the IPCCs confidence in GCM is indeed a notable controversy, and not the opinion of one (or a small minority) of scientists. — Apis (talk) 02:01, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Lets say I read an article about the Earth, would I be upset if it didn't mention the flat earth society's opinion on the shape of the earth? No, most likely not." - This isn't the global warming page.  Just try adding anything there that diverts even 1% from the consensus and see what happens to your edit.  This is a page about the controversy, and as such controversy belongs.  If you were a student who wanted to read about global warming, you'd check out global warming or scientific opinion on climate change.  If you wanted to read about the controversy, I think that leaving out controversy regarding models would be a noticeable omission.  I would also say that there is no evidence that doubting the accuracy of GCMs is a "tiny minority" view.  Especially, again, given the rather awful predictive performance of these models to date. Oren0 (talk) 02:20, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Its about the controversy... yes. But its about the part of the controversy that is notable - its not just a page collecting quotes from individuals. I have nothing against a section on Models and the public controversy about it - in fact i agree that there must be meat to be found here. What i am against is cherry-picking primary sources to generate a completely original take on it. The correct way to do it, is to find some reliable secondary sources, and then flesh it out with primary sources. (as for the IPCC quote - i frankly don't see what it does on the page - except as the only part of Ron's addition that survived.... get rid of it (imho). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:23, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Basically I agree with what Kim is saying here. I'm not convinced there is any "meat" to be found though. To me it seems rather ridiculous to question the IPCCs faith in models, "because they are only models". I mean, there might be some argument on what should go in to the model and what not, but the use of models should not be an issue (i would have thought). Whats important in this case though is getting some reliable sources for the claim that there is controversy about this (if there is, it shouldn't be hard to find), and then we can discuss exactly what it should say. I agree that only having the IPCC quote is rather silly and pointless which is why I put back some of what I originally removed. It would probably be better to simply remove the entire section but I didn't want to be overly confrontational about it since it is constantly being reinserted. (It is generally better to discuss changes on the talk page instead of reverting back and forth). (As for what Ron originally put into the article, that was obviously wp:syn as was said to begin with.) — Apis (talk) 16:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well 5 minutes of Googling points me to David Douglass's paper in the International Journal of Climatology: "Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean" .  This was also picked up in other sources/media:    .  I could also point to other stories/articles:   but I think this is "meaty" enough to start. Oren0 (talk) 17:22, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Those are basically rewrites of the same press-release (some are even verbatim). I was looking for something a bit more substantial. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:24, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, indicates that the "current climate models exaggerate the impact of carbon dioxide on temperature because of a poor understanding and representation of the feedback effects due to clouds and water vapor.” Professor Lindzen further states "Attributing global warming to the rise in greenhouse gases has been reduced to an issue of religious faith modulated by policy relevance." 
How much of this is usable? Oren0 (talk) 04:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pat Franks opinion 

message: Blow for the skeptics  :)
Upper troposphere is warming after all, research shows
Research performed in the US has helped lay to rest one of the lasting controversies surrounding climate models: whether or not the upper troposphere is warming. 
Climate models have long predicted that the upper troposphere — a region of the Earth’s atmosphere that lies beneath the stratosphere at an altitude of 10–12 km — should be warming at least as fast as the surface. However, since the 1970s temperature measurements carried out by weather balloons have found the lower-troposphere temperature to be fairly constant. This conclusion was backed up in 1990, when researchers used data taken from satellites to measure temperature changes in the troposphere. 
For a while climate scientists have known that weather-balloon instruments are affected by the warming effect of the Sun’s light. They have also struggled to interpret the extent to which the satellite data of the troposphere could be influenced by the stratosphere. But the awareness of these uncertainties has not made it any clearer as to what temperature changes, if any, are taking place in the upper troposphere. 
Now, Robert Allen and Steven Sherwood of Yale University have used wind data taken from weather balloons as a proxy for direct temperature measurements to give the first conclusive evidence that the upper troposphere has been warming after all. Although they are an indirect measure of temperature, these wind records can be backed up by satellite and ground instruments, making them more reliable than existing direct temperature measurements (Nature Geoscience doi: 10.1038/ngeo208). 
‘Put the controversy to rest’
Allen and Sherwood took wind data from 341 weather-balloon stations — 303 in the northern hemisphere and 38 in the southern hemisphere — covering a period from 1970 to 2005. To covert the data to temperature measurements, they employed a relationship known as the thermal-wind equation, which describes how vertical gradients in wind speed change with horizontally varying temperature. They found that the maximum warming has occurred in the upper troposphere above the tropics at 0.65 ± 0.47 °C per decade, a rate consistent with climate models. 
“This research really does show the tropical troposphere has been warming over the past three decades,” says Benjamin Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “And it will, I hope, put this controversy of weather balloon and satellite data to rest.” Santer, who was one of the lead authors of the 1995 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, thinks the next step is to confirm Allen and Sherwood’s findings with direct temperature records. These, he explains, must be taken with advanced weather-balloon instruments that can be calibrated against older models to remove biases. 
“The approach by Allen and Sherwood is a promising start,” says John Lanzante of Princeton University. “But more confidence can be established as other investigations further scrutinize the wind data and method used to translate winds into temperature-equivalent measures.”
Count Iblis (talk) 13:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New research on upper troposphere warming 

message: The link to the Scientific American article "Skeptisizm about Sceptics" appears to be a dead link.  Can someone please fix this? I can't seem to find the article.  Maybe one needs to subscribe to Sci. Am. Mag to get it.--CurtisSwain (talk) 10:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Dead link, but still on web.archive. --Van helsing (talk) 10:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnote 52 

message: In science it is normal for people to put forward different hypotheses and debate their merit back and forth - often for a long time - this is not a controversy, this is how it works.  That thousands, possibly tens of thousands of uneducated idiots who spout ill informed opinion based on emotion still doesn't mean there is a controversy. To keep this article with this name is like having a "evolution controversy" - which doesn't exist either. --IceHunter (talk) 02:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree if you interpret "controversy" as "scientific controversy". I think we should make this clear in the lead of the article. We should mention that in the scientific community global warming is not controversial, that the controversy is political in nature. Count Iblis (talk) 02:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that sounds like a good idea. —Apis (talk) 11:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't meant sound rude, but I do mean to sound blunt- don't you all read? There is plenty of controversy, even among scientists (and reputable scientists). It's merely discounted because it isn't alarmist and because many people simply don't want to hear it.
I would give you links, but I'm not sure you all would take them seriously.
- Pop6 (talk) 14:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Give the links to peer reviewed publications in the top journals like Science or Nature. Also back up your statement that "It's merely discounted because it isn't alarmist". I.e. give links to statemnts of scientists who claim that their articles have been unfairly rejected, preferably with links to the Referee reports. Count Iblis (talk) 15:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is no controversy 

message: Since the WP:OWNers of these pages seem to be sensitive to someone being WP:BOLD I thought I would ask here first.  Is there some (legitimate) reason not to add something along the lines of:
In Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills Stewart Dimmock sought to prevent the educational use of An Inconvenient Truth within the UK on the grounds that schools are legally required to provide a balanced presentation of political issues.  The judge in this case ruled that the global warming research presented in the film was used to make a political statement and to support a political program.
in the litigation section?  I have tried to condense the summary material found at Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills and An Inconvenient Truth to make this as short as possible while still providing a reasonable overview.  --GoRight (talk) 15:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not an owner - does that mean you do not care for my opinion? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Dang, you didn't fall into my little "trap"!  :)  (Disclaimer: That was a joke.)  Sure, even as an acknowledged non-owner please feel free to weigh in here.  I feel it is a fair summary.  I have tried to make it as small as possible but have it be self-contained.  --GoRight (talk) 17:26, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

text:  P.S. In the event that you are not generally opposed to including it, but have problems with this specific wording, please feel free to propose an alternative.  --GoRight (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Somehow you fail to miss some other observations of the judge: The movie "is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact" and "Dr Stott, the Defendant's expert, is right when he says that: 'Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate'". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

text: You have my permission. Just make sure that didn't come from an advocacy group. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT TALK 17:04, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Litigation