Discussion > Why the dishonesty? - Douglas Keenan and Scott Denning
Apr 11, 2012 at 8:44 PM shub
The broad picture (...) depends on two critical things, and not at all on "basic physics" as Denning would have it.1) Climate models
2) Paleoclimate evidence
Yes.
And the models are intrinsically incapable of being validated.
And the paleoclimate evidence requires, as you say interpretation - it's inherently subjective.
Yet, this is science? They even talk about "experiments" with models - to the disgust of Professor Kennedy.
Martin A
Why can't they measure it? Am I as irritating as mdgnn yet? It's a simple question. Why is Denning so patronisingly awful and disingenuous? Why can't they measure it?
Rhoda
Rhoda
I have asked several times for a youtube demo of Arrhenius's results....guess what...I suspect that Arrhenius does not stand up to experimental scrutiny...you nwouod think that there would be a demo of his "experiment"...except he never demonstrated it and the later lab results made hikm change his estimate.
diogenes
I've heard Arrhenius is pretty cranky and doesn't like the internet.
TheBigYinJames
I just looked at Scott Denning's behind the scenes email exchanges with Scott Denning. It is at the Yale Climate Place.
Scott Denning's statement about having 150 years of observational data struck me as dishonest.
It seems to me, that climate scientists like Denning, are battling their own demons, or the skeptics of yesterday. Sceptics like Keenan bring a deeper, robust argument to the table. Scientists like Denning want to present crude syllogisms and hope to make them go away. Partisans like Kloor are only interested in adding fuel to the fire, or playing at fractitious games.
Scientists like Denning like to believe there is a "broad picture" which supports what the IPCC consensus wants to project. Such a broad picture, in any science, let alone climate science, does not exist. Even if it did, it would be composed of smaller parts, the flaws in which would impact the whole.
The broad picture, which in simple terms boils down to a simple attributional statement which the IPCC so unwisely took the plunge in formulating, depends on two critical things, and not at all on "basic physics" as Denning would have it.
1) Climate models
2) Paleoclimate evidence
If "basic physics" proved everything, we wouldn't be playing with GCMs to model the *final total response* of a complex system, to purported changes (like increase in CO2). With this respect, Denning's statements amounts only to propaganda. He should give credit to Keenan's intelligence and stop.
Interpretation of paleoclimate evidence requires scientific integrity - a commodity that is in short supply in the necessary quarters.