Nope. I’m merely convinced that the existence of the hiatus in the measured temperatures isn’t very strong evidence of anything beyond itself. Very similar effects can be produced by noise; therefore seeing such an effect isn’t good evidence of anything more than noise. Of course it might have some more interesting cause, but if want to see better evidence to be convinced that it does.
Eh?
The trouble with merely pointing at things and saying “Behold!” rather than making an actual argument is that teen your readers need to guess what argument you’re hinting at. In this case the best guess I could come up with seemed unlikely, which is why I wrote “I take it you’re saying something more sensible than …, but what?”. Perhaps you might explain what you did have in mind?
I’m merely convinced that the existence of the hiatus in the measured temperatures isn’t very strong evidence of anything beyond itself.
So, in this thread, who are you arguing against? Did someone say “this hiatus certainly means X”?
The trouble with merely pointing at things and saying “Behold!” rather than making an actual argument
If you were to bother looking at the start of this subthread, you would have seen that the original issue was
the disagreement was just over the existence of a recent hiatus in land-ocean surface temperature warming
Questions about existence are adequately answered by merely pointing at things and saying “Behold!”
I have a feeling you are searching for an opponent who would claim something along the lines of “The hiatus is a incontrovertible proof that global warming isn’t happening” and are disappointed that such an opponent is unwilling to present himself.
who are you arguing against? [...] just over the existence of a recent hiatus in land-ocean surface temperature warming
OK, so let’s try to be really clear about this. I suggest that there are three possible claims here. GRAPH: “if you look at the temperature graph, its gradient is lower circa 2005 than circa 1990”. SIGNIFICANT: “GRAPH, and furthermore the difference in gradients is too large to be adequately explained by noise”. MECHANISM: “SIGNIFICANT, and furthermore the best explanation is that something has changed in whatever underlying warming phenomenon may have been going on”.
What were the original questions at issue? Well, in passive_fist’s comment three papers (one “pro-hiatus”, two “anti-hiatus” are cited. The first argues for SIGNIFICANT and suggests two possible explanations, one of which is MECHANISM. The second argues both against GRAPH (it claims that the data need adjusting) and against SIGNIFICANT (it points out that the reduction gets smaller if you include the latest data, including the very warm 2014, and if you don’t start at the cherry-picked El Niño year of 1998). The third argues against SIGNIFICANT on the basis that if you do the statistics right there isn’t actually evidence for a reduction in warming, and explains that the question is important because of possible implications for MECHANISM.
So it doesn’t look to me as if the question was only ever about GRAPH.
Now, perhaps you were only ever talking about GRAPH. But if so, your comments were (I’m sorry to have to say) entirely irrelevant to the points actually at issue.
I have a feeling [...]
Nope, nothing of the sort. Sorry to be less made-of-straw than you might like.
Nope. I’m merely convinced that the existence of the hiatus in the measured temperatures isn’t very strong evidence of anything beyond itself. Very similar effects can be produced by noise; therefore seeing such an effect isn’t good evidence of anything more than noise. Of course it might have some more interesting cause, but if want to see better evidence to be convinced that it does.
The trouble with merely pointing at things and saying “Behold!” rather than making an actual argument is that teen your readers need to guess what argument you’re hinting at. In this case the best guess I could come up with seemed unlikely, which is why I wrote “I take it you’re saying something more sensible than …, but what?”. Perhaps you might explain what you did have in mind?
So, in this thread, who are you arguing against? Did someone say “this hiatus certainly means X”?
If you were to bother looking at the start of this subthread, you would have seen that the original issue was
Questions about existence are adequately answered by merely pointing at things and saying “Behold!”
I have a feeling you are searching for an opponent who would claim something along the lines of “The hiatus is a incontrovertible proof that global warming isn’t happening” and are disappointed that such an opponent is unwilling to present himself.
OK, so let’s try to be really clear about this. I suggest that there are three possible claims here. GRAPH: “if you look at the temperature graph, its gradient is lower circa 2005 than circa 1990”. SIGNIFICANT: “GRAPH, and furthermore the difference in gradients is too large to be adequately explained by noise”. MECHANISM: “SIGNIFICANT, and furthermore the best explanation is that something has changed in whatever underlying warming phenomenon may have been going on”.
What were the original questions at issue? Well, in passive_fist’s comment three papers (one “pro-hiatus”, two “anti-hiatus” are cited. The first argues for SIGNIFICANT and suggests two possible explanations, one of which is MECHANISM. The second argues both against GRAPH (it claims that the data need adjusting) and against SIGNIFICANT (it points out that the reduction gets smaller if you include the latest data, including the very warm 2014, and if you don’t start at the cherry-picked El Niño year of 1998). The third argues against SIGNIFICANT on the basis that if you do the statistics right there isn’t actually evidence for a reduction in warming, and explains that the question is important because of possible implications for MECHANISM.
So it doesn’t look to me as if the question was only ever about GRAPH.
Now, perhaps you were only ever talking about GRAPH. But if so, your comments were (I’m sorry to have to say) entirely irrelevant to the points actually at issue.
Nope, nothing of the sort. Sorry to be less made-of-straw than you might like.
Irrelevant to the debate you were having inside your mind, probably. Unfortunately, I was not part of it.
Do you, seriously, think you are being reasonable in this discussion?
I am the very embodiment of reasonableness, am I not? :-P
OK, tapping out now. (By the way, none of the downvotes you’ve received in this thread come from me.)