A look at Scientific Consensus, by Dr. Keith Strong

   
I like to think I get around YouTube pretty good, until I get reminded of just how narrow my bandwidth is.  Last week while researching some project I stumbled onto the YouTube channel drkstrong and a totally new collection of refreshing climate science enlightening videos and he's been producing a lot of them.  An accomplished scientist himself, he brings that expert's ability for level headed clear explication to these videos.  My kind of roll model for what serious teaching and learning is all about.

He's actually been around for a few years, near as I can tell he joined YouTube 2010, though his first videos were in 2012.  But, it seems like in the past year or so he's refined his technics and caught fire.  With nearly three million views to his credit, I hate admitting I'm late to the party.  I hope to make up for it by featuring some of his videos since they fit right in with what I'm trying to convey with my parade of blog posts.  I follow the video with my usual notes and I finish up with the text of the April 20, 1998 National Academy of Sciences statement regarding Fredrick Seitz's Oregon Petition cover "paper" fraud.   

The scientific method and scientific consensus what's it mean?

THERE IS NO CONSENSUS 

Dr. Keith Strong  |  10:24 min  |   Published on Feb 23, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGV7Su4Q_pg

What is the scientific consensus?  

A LOOK AT WHAT CONSENSUS MEANS

0:25  -  The Scientific Method

A review of the Scientific Method

Easy reference guide to University of Queenslands' DENIAL101x videos

UQx Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

I wanted a quick reference to the various Denial101x videos I watched as I took the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) of the University of Queensland in Australia (in their joint effort with John Cook, Bärbel Winkler and the volunteers at SkepticalScience.com).  

I know these videos are listed at YouTube, but it's all so clunky that I decided to put together my own single sheet linkable list of all the videos.  First the course videos for each of the six weekly installments, followed by a listing of the complete interviews with accomplished scientists and other experts.  

Considering the malicious slander many climate scientists must endure, this is a gold mine of insights into who these scientists actually are and how they've arrived at their conclusions.  (Please note I've linked scientist's names to accessible internet bios, for a bit more background.)

It took some time and effort so I figure I may as well share it - as a public service and also my way of saying thank you to John Cook and all the hard working very smart people over at SkepticalScience.com who put in countless hours of effort to make this course such a success.

An excellent antidote for all the disinformation being posted on the internet. 
Feel free to copy and pass along.

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Denial101x - Week 1

by UQx Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial April, 2015

Asking the questions: 

Why is climate change so controversial among the general public when there’s no controversy among climate scientists?
With all the evidence, resulting in a consensus, what is driving the rejection of climate science

Whatever happened to Dr. Mann's "hockey stick graph"?

{Sorry about the typos, I'm no professional writer.
I did polish it up a bit Tuesday evening.}

Though I don't have enough spare time for working on Ridley's folly, I needed to take the time to share this because it's both a good assessment of the state of understanding and because it underscores What A Scientist Sounds Like.  

I'm talking about Peter Sinclair's recent post featuring an excellent talk by Professor Richard Alley PhD.  

(After this intro, I repost the video along with some time signature notes for the interested student)

The Weekend Wonk: Richard Alley on Climate History and CO2 

Peter Sinclair | Weekend Wonk | August 1, 2015 

http://climatecrocks.com/2015/08/01/the-weekend-wonk-richard-alley-on-climate-history-and-co2/

At 3:50 a graph caught my eye because it dawned on me that in a way I was basically looking at "Mann's Hockey Stick" 15 years later.  That is, after 15 years of accumulating data from all sorts of teams studying all sorts of proxies.  This graph includes additional important information, such as solar irradiance, volcanic forcing, other 'forcings' among other information.

Recall the story?  Back in the late 1990s a group of researchers lead by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes were studying tree rings and glacial ice cores and using them as a proxy for establishing a paleo-temperature record for the past couple thousand years.

A high school student explains global warming for the curious.

I've watched a lot of climate videos, some are good, many are mediocre and too many are awful.  A month ago I came across this video which does a nice clean job of describing the scientific understanding regarding global warming.  When I noticed it was put together by a couple high school juniors, the unfortunates who will inherit this monstrosity our complacent self-centered society is creating, I was impressed enough to ask Emily permission to mirror her video.  It took a month, but a few days ago I received her permission, so here it is.  

THIS IS WHAT SCIENCE SOUNDS LIKE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-sy6rPJBj4

The Science Behind Global Warming (Documentary)

by Emily Blegvad

my notes of highlights followed by her citations:

Null Hypothesis101 #3 drifting off topic

{last edit evening 8/5/14, as usual, damn those typos.}

Here's the latest installment in my dialogue with K over at the "Climate Science Falsifiability" comments thread at OurChangingClimate, though he's drifted quite far from his alleged interest in examining his take on the "null hypothesis" and it's use in climate science.  

It seems to be the one thing I can depend on when dialoguing with such characters, they will try every trick in the book to distract the attention away from the question at hand and waste our time and available space with off-track extraneous nonsense.

Skim through this to see how it works.

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citizenschallenge Says: 

July 31, 2014 at 19:56

Krischel claims that ” In the case of AGW, our null hypothesis is natural climate change”.

K still hasn't faced the fact that there is nothing “unnatural” about current climate change. Huge increases of CO2 has always warmed our planet!

CO2 has always had it’s insulating properties, nothing has changed about those physics!

Today’s “climate change” is a natural result of greatly enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations.

Senator Whitehouse schools Sen. Inhofe on climate change

As Republican Senators continue to cling to the 'script' handed them by their self-obsessed corporate sponsors, Senator Whitehouse makes a valiant attempt to acquaint them with what we are actually doing to our planet.

Please consider some of the lessons our Republican/Libertarian friends should take into consideration when clinking to their faith that global warming is some elaborate hoax ! 

I tip my hat to SkepticalScience, Phil Plait, and ThinkProgress!

Posted on 31 July 2014 by dana1981

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) throws down an epic schooling of Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) on global warming after Inhofe blocked a resolution from Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) simply acknowledging that global warming exists and poses a threat to the interests of the United States.  Whitehouse makes several points that seem to originate from Skeptical Science, like The Escalator steps.  Well worth taking 7 minutes to watch - hat tip to Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy.

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Whitehouse schools Inhofe on climate change

 ThinkProgress Video

Published on Jul 29, 2014

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) rips into Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) 

for blocking a resolution that would have acknowledged the reality of climate change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDL4Bs3NbB0
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complexity and confusion, and the public's Need To Know

As part of my 'process' I find good YouTube lectures to listen to and make short notes, listed by time signature, both for learning and as a nice relief from trying to communicate with contrarians -  also hopefully as a study aid for the curious.  Usually I post them over at citizenschallenge.blogspot.

In any event, I've been going through Professor Alden Griffith recent talk at Wessesley College and he said something that tied right into this dialogue with Ridley and his basic implication that the scientific community of experts should not be trusted and that somehow there needs to be some civilian scrutinizing of scientific claims and details. {yea, Ridley you never said it in those exact words, but buddy, that's what I'm hearing you say.} 

29:50 - complexity and confusion. . . "public should not have to know everything about climate science, just as we shouldn't have to know everything about medicine. We have doctors, we have people that we trust to do this, …"

Prof. Alden Griffith on Climate Change as a Perfect Storm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj0kWcurtOI

WellesleyCollege

Published on Jan 14, 2013

Alden Griffith, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Wellesley College

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We have a global scientific community of people who got into science because they wanted to understand how things really worked in the world around them.  They have dedicated their lives to learning about our planet and it's biosphere and the geophysical processes that operate our biosphere and drive our climate system. 

Throughout the scientific community we have smart, skeptical, ambitious people who's work get's looked at by a whole community of other smart, skeptical, ambitious people… experts in their respective fields.

Precision and accuracy and clarity of description is prized and failures get discovered and outed.

Contemplating the Contrarian Mind in Action #2

{edited 5/30, AM}

So it continues, Krischel has responded to my last response.  
For the rest of the story see my previous post "Contemplating the Contrarian Mind in Action" 
Other than that, not much going on writing wise, clients are cracking their whips so I have other work to soak up my time for a while.  But I'll be back.  ;- )

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krischel Says:  

May 29, 2014 at 16:37 @citizens challenge:
K-1) A set of google search parameters isn’t a citation. If you have a paper, or set of papers to cite, *specify* them.

(http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/is-climate-science-falsifiable/ )

~ ~ ~ 
CC says: You act like you don't appreciate that scientists have been looking at climate changes in deep time long and hard - and they have learned a great many things, that you wouldn't know about if you aren't interested in learning from them.  For example:

Neoproterozoic 'snowball Earth' simulations with a coupled climate/ice-sheet model
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6785/full/405425a0.html
A 'snowball Earth' climate triggered by continental break-up through changes in runoff
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6980/abs/nature02408.html

For a realistic review of climate models and how they are used by scientists here's an informative review written by a real climate scientist. 

On mismatches between models and observations 

Gavin Schmidt climate modeler NASA GISS @ 13 September 2013 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/on-mismatches-between-models-and-observations/

Contemplating the contrarian mind in action

{I did some clean up editing Friday morning - OK, time to call it done 10:00 mtn, got a fence to get back to building.
Did some more clean up editing, clarifying, added some links - 5/28 morningish - the fence is done, looks great :- )  
K's reply, with my response was added 5/28 evening, tad late, what can I say.}

There's an interesting article by Jos Hagelaars over at MyViewOnClimateChange.wordpress
"Is Climate Science falsifiable?"  It led to a dialogue that I've participated in, the most recent comment was too ripe not to pick and too long not to share over here.  K seems to think things should be argued to death and that the vaguest suggestions deserve more attention than learning about the basic fundamentals.

Worse K just seems to be tossing out headlines from denialist websites, but there's no indication that K has spent anytime seriously trying to learn about the underlying issues of these various topics.  Something that's all too common among the "science skeptical" crowd.

Open letter to Judith Curry, a basic climate lesson.

{In the previous post, I offer the background to understand why I feel justified writing this letter.
For the record final edits noon-ish May 9, 2014 - then sent to Dr. Judith Curry at Georgia Tech.}  

Dr. Judith Curry, 

Why do you ignore the most important basics?  Why do you expect every distal detail to be quantified before we can draw critically important conclusions from the core of what scientists have learned?

Why your focus on uncertainties that amount to inconsequential minutia when placed next to the big certainties and the looming threat to society, to say nothing of our biosphere as we've come to love it?  

Why did you devolve into this mesmerist intent on distracting your audience from the critically important lessons without which none of the rest of climate can make any coherent sense?  

We have a planet that is nearly a closed system!
It is a heat distribution engine composed of oceans, land, ice and atmosphere.

Years of Living Dangerously - facing what's happening

There’s a new documentary series out that has traveled the world to chronicle the dramatic changes upon our planet and the cascading consequences of those changes to age old climate patterns.  It's not about models or forecasts, it's about impacts happening today.  It's called Years of Living Dangerously.

Being of the generation who learned about this global warming science and atmospheric observations in the early 1970s, it is indescribably heartbreaking to see those fearful, yet sober, projections from way back, {when the science of climatology was young}, being played out in real time and real life.

Every bit as heartbreaking has been witnessing the escalating war of dirty-tricks and lies the Republican/Libertarian powers-that-be have waged against a rational sober understanding of the science.  

I’ve watched as decade after decade passed with increasing indications of the reality of our impact upon our one and only home planet.  And rather than rationally learning about our planet and the reality of the impacts that increasing billions of resource hungry humans were having upon our finite planet - 

Prof. Inez Fung: "Anatomy of a Climate Model" the video

Climate models are constantly being misrepresented and the public has been sold impossible expectations by folks more interested in power-politics than learning about our planet.

Climate models are tools.  Tools to help scientists understand dynamics in action.  No one has ever pretended they could accurately prediction the future.  They inform us about dynamics and trends.  We human minds need to figure out the rest.  

One of the slickest, and sickest, tricks folks like McIntyre, Sen. Inhofe, Morano, Heartland, and pals have pulled off, is misleading the public into believing that if climate models weren't perfect they deserve ridicule.  

Sadly the folks that attack climate models the most, are least interested in learning about them.  But, there must be people who do want to learn, 
I tell myself.

That is why I'm sharing this excellent talk by Professor Inez Fung.  

Anatomy of a Climate Model: How Robust are Climate Projections?

Presented by Prof. Inez Fung, UC Berkeley.

GoogleTechTalks  |  February 8, 2011  |  55:30 minutes

The first successful numerical weather forecast was made on the ENIAC (with fewer than 10 words memory) in 1950.  This talk traces the development of atmospheric General Circulation Models (GCMs) for weather forecasting, to Global Climate Models (GCMs) and Earth System Models (ESMs) to illustrate the guts and gore of the huge codes.  

If we cannot predict the weather beyond 2 weeks, what do we mean by climate projections for the next century?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Professor Inez Fung takes us on a fast paced tour of the complexities of climate models.  Along the way, she conveys the why and how of scientists figuring out the challenges of describing our global heat distribution engine mathematically.

Professor Inez Fung is speaking to a university audience so perhaps at moments she talks just at, or barely above, the heads of us regular folks.  Still, for those familiar with the basics of the science and a curiosity to learn more, you'll find this expert's talk fascinating and worth paying attention to.  

As part of my own learning process for especially good talks I make a rough time signature log for later reference and so I'll share that also.