Balance of probablity. 20 years of research by a coterie of internationally renowned climate scientists backed by authoratitive reports weighs heavily against an amateur who has done nothing original. He may have identified a set of mis-measurements (well done) but that doesn’t invalidate the IPCC’s research to any significant extent. He certainly isn’t motivated by science, because he hasn’t done any (stats yes, but not science).

#34
Mr. Tarver,
You do realize that a very large portion of the studies on AGW are statistical exercises, and not empirical science, yes? Statisticians are entirely relevant. Climate scientists should be more likely to discern real-world reasons for various effects, but statisticians help them pin down which ones are real, so they can have a reasonable measure of confidence in their current footing, and going forward; otherwise it is like the IPCCs TAR, where thousands of scientists sat and discussed what it might mean if MHB98/99 were correct, and where Mann was allowed to paste his work all over the document, but no one ever really checked his work. Mann spent 8 years teaching others in the field to use a stupendously flawed statistical method (in addition to other errors)…because no one in climate science checked his math.

Mann’s breakthrough wasn’t his efforts as a data collector, or his determination of a chemical reaction – it was his statistical treatment of existing data collected by others.

Adjusting the temperature records? That seems to be something that would theoretically have its basis in statistics. Does it seem that way to you? If the adjustments are of uncertain accuracy, then epistemologically, how do you get to the point of deciding that they should be the basis for further extrapolation? And how do you determine the accuracy without statistical treatment?

How were IPCC reports obtained? Nothing that isn’t peer-reviewed science gets in.

You are either avoiding my question or are unaware of the details of it. The authors of the IPCC reports (AR4) use terms such as likelihood (very likely, likely, etc.) and levels of uncertainties that are given percentage ranges and explained in the reports. The authors are directed to have constructed a documented and traceable account of how they arrived at the likelihood and uncertainty measures for their conclusions. My question to you was, in effect, do you understand how this was done by each of the authors. My problem is that I do not understand how it was accomplished and that is why I put in a failed request to the IPCC for copies of the traceable accounts.

Regards

did you get B roll of your gig?

I’m sensing a docudrama here. An inconvient bug…

“Nothing that isn’t peer-reviewed science gets in.”

In addition to the selective use of non-published citations mentioned in #54, there are a lot of peer-reviewed studies that didn’t make it into the IPCC reports. And it’s not clear to me that the summary is what one would call “peer-reviewed”. From what I recall, the all-important summary, with some of the most memorable “sound bites”, was more the result of negotiation and bureaucratic rangling than of peer-review.

How were IPCC reports obtained? Nothing that isn’t peer-reviewed science gets in.

is incorrect. The rules allow the authors of a work group (WG) to include unpublished materials. At the time of comments for AR4, there were unpublished, papers have not finished peer-review, papers that were included. In fact, a paper need never be peer reveiwed or published to be included in the IPCC reports. This is in their rules. http://www.ipcc.ch/about/procd.htm if you wish to see the details.