Co2 Acquittal

[pmaust]

Has anyone read this or commented on it yet? I'd be interested in seeing what you all think.

CO2 ACQUITTAL (Rocket Scientist's Journal)

[InfiniteNow]

Yet another article trying to show that global climate change due to human activity is nothing more than politics. It's bunk, and the claims in this (un peer reviewed / un published journal) that we don't understand the effect of CO₂ on our atmosphere and climate are fallacious.

[Buffy]

Yet another example of the insidious pseudo-scientific method of "teaching the controversy"....

He misses what is meant by epigram - who thinks it only frivolous flimflam,
Buffy

[Zythryn]

He commits a number of false arguments.
i.e. my opponents says this, which is false so my opponents argument is false.
This of course all falls apart when you realize his 'opponent' doesn't claim any such thing

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by pmaust

Has anyone read this or commented on it yet? I'd be interested in seeing what you all think....

I read the article, "Acquittal of CO2" from beginning to end. Most of it made good sense to me, especially the correlation charts, and the solubility chemistry of CO2.

But it didn't make perfect sense. I finished the article with a sense that something was being hidden from me, that my attention was being directed one way, to divert me from... what? I dunno. The article isn't "complete" in a sense that I cannot describe. Perhaps it was the lack of recent CO2 measurements. Or maybe some interpretation of the Vostok data that the author did not wish to unconceal. Again, I dunno. I am left uneasy and dissatisfied.

[pmaust]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Yet another article trying to show that global climate change due to human activity is nothing more than politics. It's bunk, and the claims in this (un peer reviewed / un published journal) that we don't understand the effect of CO₂ on our atmosphere and climate are fallacious.

The problem is that there is always "yet another article" trying to prove a point one way or another. The political aspect of this whole thing is unfortunate. Science shouldn't be political in my view but it is. The author raised several issues. Most of the replies here have been very high level. Can you offer some specific challenges or suggestions that might help me to better understand the errors contained in his analysis? He doesn't seem like a run of the mill dummy and he has some pretty impressive credentials.

Thanks

Paul

[pmaust]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

He commits a number of false arguments.
i.e. my opponents says this, which is false so my opponents argument is false.
This of course all falls apart when you realize his 'opponent' doesn't claim any such thing

Thanks for th reply. Can you provide some specific examples of his false arguments?

Thanks

[pmaust]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

I read the article, "Acquittal of CO2" from beginning to end. Most of it made good sense to me, especially the correlation charts, and the solubility chemistry of CO2.

But it didn't make perfect sense. I finished the article with a sense that something was being hidden from me, that my attention was being directed one way, to divert me from... what? I dunno. The article isn't "complete" in a sense that I cannot describe. Perhaps it was the lack of recent CO2 measurements. Or maybe some interpretation of the Vostok data that the author did not wish to unconceal. Again, I dunno. I am left uneasy and dissatisfied.

As a laymen, I am trying to be fair and open minded in regards to AGW. If I come across something that argues intelligently against it, I am just as interested as I should be for arguments for. It is a very important issue and I am trying to clearly understand the arguements from both sides. I pretty much always feel like there might be something that is being hidden from me.

Thanks for the reply.

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by pmaust

Thanks for th reply. Can you provide some specific examples of his false arguments?

Thanks

Here is an interesting one:

Carbon dioxide, a benign gas, is now the hyper–volatile fuel of public policy, media hype, and world politics. Climatologists, undeterred by their inability to predict even the dominant features of the earth’s climate record – the ice ages and the glacial periods – have nonetheless scored a political coup by cobbling together three selected bits of science into a cataclysmic prediction: man is on the verge of destroying life on the planet.

Rather than a scientific paper, this feels more like someone with an axe to grind. What are all these adjetives doing in an introduction of a scientific paper?
He suggests climatologists haven't been able to 'predict even the dominant features of the earth's climate record'.
Actually, models have been able to predict very accurately global climate. However, I suspect he is right that some of these climate changes events can't be predicted (I don't know that, but I am giving him the benifit of the doubt). But just because cataclismic events aren't predicted, doesn't mean very good predictions of trends aren't.

As for the prediction he attributes to climatologists "man is on the verge of destroying life on the planet" that is patently false. I have never heard of nor read any scientific paper stating that AGW is going to lead to the end of life on our planet.

He seeds the reader with this thought in a very clever way. The reader is lead to think: 'of course, how absurd, this guy must be right if the other guys think all life is about to end'

I do have to say, he does sound very impressive. I am disappointed that he refuses to submit his paper to any peer reviewed journals as I would love to hear the authors of the articles he cites throughout the paper respond to his submission.

[Zythryn]

Here is another one I like:

The author of Figure 1 employs a bit of marginally acceptable, subjective chartsmanship to underscore a point. He selected scale factors and data ranges to emphasize the correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature. The peak to peak swings in the chart traces are arbitrarily made to look alike. This is subjective and artificial, but harmless here.
What is not harmless, though, is climatologists seizing on the lock-step rising and falling of temperature and carbon dioxide as evidence, if not proof, of their greenhouse gas theory: increased CO2 allegedly causes increased temperatures.

Sure, newsweek, time, and other media may offer this irrefutable proof. The scientific papers I have read note a correlation. They do not 'seize' on this as proof and then go home and say job well done. They look for additional information, more correlations and other evidence to support the relationship.

Every time he talks of climatologist he portrays them as incompetant, quick to jump to conclusions and conspiricists.