Debunking the climate change deniers

Rather odd of you to come back to this old thread after so long isn’t it? No body else is ever likely to read this thread so perhaps you might as well email me directly.

Your comments are a textbook example of the weaknesses in the soft, social “sciences” – where anecdote rules over evidence.
Over the last decade there have been numerous heat waves in summer, especially but not exclusively in Europe. Does that fact alone disprove you?
Hint: No it does not because you have made the all too frequent error of confusing weather with climate. This is understandable as knowing the difference requires an appreciation of quantitative evidence and basic statistics that is seldom met amongst those with a social science background.

...sunspot activity at lowest level for 70 years.
...solar wind at lowest velocity for 50 years, heliosphere contracting.
...Alaskan glaciers advancing.
...Arctic ice extent back to 1979 mean levels.
...global average temperature below 1983 level when Hansen predicted "runaway global warming"
...snow in October in London for first time in 70 years.
...record low temperatures across USA.
...Alexandra Blossom Festival now leading blossom flowering by 2-3 weeks.Remind me again what the effect of cutting CO2 emissions will be.

Re a tenuous hook:
Above I give simple steps from the fact of ocean acidification to why it is caused by fossil fuel burning.
So go ahead then if it is so simple: explain why ocean acidification is not caused by atmospheric CO2 (or why the atmospheric CO2 does not come from fossil fuel burning). If you can do either you will prove me wrong.
And yet again: What evidence will you accept as proving human induced climate change?

One wonders how Dr Mackie gets on with anonymous peer review when he publishes papers...
Making the link between CO2 emissions and ocean acidification is a fairly tenuous hook to hang one's rabbit on when so much about the processes involved is unknown. There are several events in past history where large amounts of CO2 have been absorbed, which were not caused by human sources.
The argument that you are putting forward is a red herring; some basic Googling reveals the case you have selected as a common one used for "talking to a climate change skeptic" (I can trace this back to 2006 as earliest mention). As a rhetorical device, it is used by the "AGW scientist" who attempts to force the "skeptic" into agreeing with the basic simple chemistry of ocean acidification, makes the link to carbon emissions and then says "TaDa! So you must agree that carbon emissions cause ocean acidification".
The job of scientists is to go out and find answers to unknowns, not set public policy based on what they are not sure about.

One is awed to read such authoritatively anonymous comments about debating tactics not used by me. All the arguments I mentioned in the text and the side box are current arguments made by either Geoff Kearsley, the NZ Climate "Science" Coallition (Augie Auer's lot) or the Lavoisier Group (Bob Carter and Co).
I said that ocean acidification was a falsification test for me regarding climate change. It is. I don't see how sharing that test with the Royal Society invalidates the test.
1. It is proven that ocean acidification is occurring.
2. There are several mechanisms by which a solution like seawater can be acidified. e.g. adding acid or removing base and several subtle but chemically distinct variations on these.
3. I (and the RS) say that the particular mechanism operating is the absorption of CO2 by the oceans. It is a long story but CO2 in the surface ocean is essentially in equilibrium with the atmospheric CO2. (Slight departures from this equilibrium are the subject of current research in the Department and are a function of mixing times etc).
4. I (and the RS) say the extra CO2 being absorbed by the oceans has come from the atmosphere.
5. I (and the RS) say that the CO2 in the atmosphere has come from fossil fuel burning.
6. I (and the RS) say that strong evidence in favour of this hypothesis is that the amount by which CO2 in the atmosphere has increased is less than the amount released by burning fossil fuels and the amount by which the oceans have acidified corresponds to that "missing" CO2.
7. I am proved wrong if a plausible source of the extra CO2 (in either the atmosphere or the ocean) can be suggested or if another mechanism for acidification that does not involve CO2 (whatever the source) is suggested. Indeed I can be proved wrong at points 3, 4, 5 and 6.
I ask sceptics again: How can you be proved wrong?
Doug Mackie

With regard to Dr Mackie's importance of checking journals, with which I entirely agree, it is easy enough to miss things. So I draw to his attention the paper by Essex, McKitrick and Andresen, in J. Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, 2007, Vol 32, No 1., entitled "Does a global temperature exist?"
The paper argues there can be no representation, by a single temperature, of a system which is not in equilibrium, and includes the argument that because temperature is an intensive property, a sum of temperatures can have no physical meaning, so nor can a statistically derived average. The authors liken such procedure to averaging the numbers in the telephone book.
The inference is that it has no meaning to take a statistical average of various temperatures, and claim it represents a system. It follows that an average temperature statistic cannot be used to claim the "global temperature" is changing - whether up or down.
So at last, both sides of the debate appear to have something in common.
I have yet to see the paper disputed, but hope there will be some objective discussion of it.

Doug Mackie is being somewhat disingenuous when he raises his "fossil rabbit" regarding ocean acidifcation and climate change. In fact, he is engaging in a logical fallacy - the "red herring".
He neglects to mention that in 2005, The Royal Society released a policy document outlining the processes of ocean acidification, including historical record, rates of change and future projections. If The Royal Society goes to that extent, one can assume with reasonable confidence that such a phenomenon exists.
The thing is, it does not follow that because this phenomenon exists, that it can somehow be used to prove Dr Mackie's position [on climate change] wrong.
Dr Mackie asserts that ocean acidification is occurring. So does the Royal Society and they provide reasoned scientific assessment of why and how.
Dr Mackie says that if ocean acidification was occurring from means other than absorption of the "missing" CO2, it would prove him wrong on climate change. No, it would prove him (and the Royal Society) wrong on ocean acidification.
It strikes me that both sides of this "debate" continually criticize their opponents for bad argumentation technique and then engage in the same techniques themselves. Both sides are so entrenched in their positions that to resolve the debate will require a revolution in science, not just one or two papers as an author in another discussion on this site suggests.
Here are some of the other logical fallacies:
- the strawman attack (inventing an argument that your opponent did not make, and then showing it to be false)
- the false dilemma (the proposition that there are only two positions - yours and your opponent's)
- the appeal to authority ("Because I said so!", thundered the Professor).
- the appeal to fear ("If you don't do this, such-and-such will happen. And such-and-such is BAD.")
- the appeal to the masses ("More and more people believe this" or "There is a worldwide scientific consensus".)
- the Achilles Heel (Find one flaw in your opponent's argument and then claim that it invalidates their entire position) (In fact, on reflection, Dr Mackie may have invented the "Reverse Achilles", sort of like the George Bush "Bring it on!" school of thought...)
- the ad hominem (attack your opponent, not their argument. Misused by both sides - it's all too easy for some weak personality to claim that THEY are being attacked. It's quite possible to attack something that someone has personally done without attacking them personally, for example.)
- shifting the onus of proof (making a statement, claiming that "everyone knows that" when asked to prove it, thus forcing your opponent to do your research)
- the red herring (shifting the debate to some inconsequential fact or going off on a tangent. In the case above, the oceans will keep absorbing CO2 regardless of where it comes from.)