The key sentence examines evidence of the link between the sun's activity and climate. It concludes that the link is slightly stronger than previously thought. This suggests positive feedbacks within the climate must make the sun's influence a little larger to fully explain how it affects Earth's climate. Rawls interprets this as an admission that the sun is actually a significant driver of climate change.

Climate scientists are lining up to debunk this claim. "They're misunderstanding, either deliberately or otherwise, what that sentence is meant to say," says Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London, who studies the effect of solar activity on the Earth.

The sun has little effect on global temperatures over human timescales, she says, although – perhaps confusingly – it does have a relatively strong effect on some regions, particularly Europe (New Scientist, 25 September 2010, p 10).

Rawls's would-be revelations actually draw attention away from some much more interesting and surprising conclusions in the draft report.

For one thing, the IPCC has changed its 2007 prediction on droughts. Then, it concluded that a world beset by more intense droughts was "likely". But the authors of the new report have taken heed of recent criticisms that the statistical measure of drought favoured by climatologists is unreliable.

The draft quotes studies that show recent "decreasing trends in the duration, intensity and severity of drought globally".

Another common expectation of a warmer world also bites the dust: more frequent tropical cyclones. In 2007, the IPCC said there had been a "likely" increase in tropical cyclones since 1970, which was "more likely than not" due to global warming raising sea temperatures.

But the new report backtracks. "The assessment needs to be somewhat revised," it says. After a review of past cyclone counts, it concludes that "tropical cyclone data provides low confidence that any reported long-term changes are robust". There is evidence, however, that the average intensity of cyclones will rise in the years ahead.

Elsewhere, the report reassures us that the ocean circulation, and with it the Gulf Stream, is "unlikely" to collapse in the coming centuries – a doomsday scenario that was "too early to assess" in 2007.

Other interesting stuff in there, and obviously climate change is one of the biggest problems facing the world. But surely this means we need to take dire warnings and predictions with a grain of salt, lest they be used to push political agendas that aren’t based on reality at all. For example in this forum yesterday, someone was warning of droughts that could kill billions of people, and yet now the IPCC, the premier body on the issue, says that “decreasing trends in the duration, intensity and severity of drought globally”. This has major consequences for the political debate.

Overall, the thing we have to take from this most of all is that climatology is a very questionable discipline and scientist’s models are very problematic in accurately forecasting what’s going to happen. Perhaps it’s time to show a bit more scepticism.

A draft of a major report on climate change, due to be published next year, has been leaked online. Climate-sceptic bloggers have seized on it, claiming that it admits that much of global warming has been caused by the sun's variability, not by greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the report says nothing of the kind.

The report was leaked by Alec Rawls, who signed up to be an expert reviewer of the next report – something anyone can do. Rawls posted the latest draft of the report's first section on his website. It was swiftly picked up by bloggers critical of mainstream climate science, such as Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That and James Delingpole, who writes for the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper.


Climate scientists are lining up to debunk this claim, and to explain that the bloggers have simply got it wrong. "They're misunderstanding, either deliberately or otherwise, what that sentence is meant to say," says solar expert Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London.

Haigh says that if Rawls had read a bit further, he would have realised that the report goes on to largely dismiss the evidence that cosmic rays have a significant effect. "They conclude there's very little evidence that it has any effect," she says.

In fact, the report summary reaffirms that humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are the main reason for rising temperatures. It goes on to detail the many harmful effects, from more frequent heatwaves to rising sea levels.

"The most interesting aspect of this little event is it reveals how deeply in denial the climate deniers are," says Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia – one of the lead authors of the chapter in question. "If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence."

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

climate scientology

lmao

ggw posted:

You wouldn't call a beaver's dam unnatural. You wouldn't call a bee hive and honey comb unnatural. But they were built and created by the animals.
Humans build industrial machinery and create pollution, etc. There's nothing unnatural about this either.

the only thing I can think of that's unnatural is my girlfriend. A Real Freak. totally out of this world. haha. and I've never seen a press conference about what she did to me on my birthday .

ggw posted:

like that big ass oil spill in the gulf? totally natural

tbf though an oil spill can happen in nature without the help of humans.

deadken posted:

climate deniers lol

Don’t be so messy with language, no-one is a “climate denier”, everyone accepts that there is a climate

deadken posted:

natural is a meaningless term and the fetishism of 'nature' tends to end up being deeply reactionary

neature otoh

Superabound posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:
In light of them backtracking on cyclones, it’s astonishing how many otherwise “rational” people bought into the hype about Sandy being Gaia’s punishment for their environmental sins. Ecological Calvinism for mid-Atlantic liberals


i really am glad they backtracked that tho. the cyclones i mean. i was really worried about those cyclones. im sure the rest of you were too. every day when i was driving my children to school i couldnt help but wonder, "will it be today? is today the day the cyclones finally get me?" but no, no cyclones, just an overblown liberal threat. thank god. load off my mind

Dunno what drivel this is but I saw tons of people from that area back in early November, politicians and regular citizens alike, linking Sandy to climate change.

Goethestein posted:

it will be cool in 20 years when ironic war criminal is in the outback employed as a catamite for Lord Humungus

that stuff is good. too bad it's banned here in the us though