The Consensus of Plate Tectonics

"If it's consensus, it isn't science .. "

Consensus in science is a contradiction in terms.   Yet in the Earth Sciences the theory of Plate Tectonics is monolithic.  Why?  Advocates will reply "Because it works'.  Yet it is childishly simple to show that it doesn't.   In fact it founders on every one of its three key points - "moving" plates that don't move but grow,  transform faults that don't transform but are simply growth fractures in the brittle crust over a substrate of growing mantle, and so-called subduction zones that plate tectonics itself acknowledges are primarily a "convenient assumption"  and that do not 'subduct' (due to convection), but override (due to crust - mantle decoupling symmetrical with  the Earth's spin).   And this does not take into account all the other points that it founders on consequent on ignoring the first order structure of the ocean floors) .

There are no dissenting  mainstream views.   Why?   How can this be?   Is it not strange that so much of what is written in the Earth sciences is framed in the context of a model that is so manifestly deficient, and deficient on grounds that directly and patently derive from the crux of those "convenient assumptions"? .. that these three simple points of deficit are hardly acknowledged by a worldful of scientists (certainly they are not focussed on as they should be)?   How is it possible that Earth scientists not only resolutely ignore them, but present plate tectonics ("the best model we have") as a "pinnacle of achievement"?    Well, the answer is simple:-

CONSENSUS - From the Latin,  consentire (to feel together), agree.
1a.      Harmony co-operation or sympathy
1b.     Group solidarity in sentiment and belief
2a.     General agreement; unanimity, accord.
2b.     Collective opinion.
3.       Formal statement of religious belief
3-1.    To be in harmony or concord, especially in opinion, statement or sentiment.
3-2.    To express a willingness (to accept a proposition or carry out a particular action); give assent or approval.
[ That's from my Big Webster's Dictionary.]

(No mention of thoughtful deliberation  in all of this, you'll notice. ...It's  'opinion' (read 'bias'), sympathy, belief (of the religious sort), agreement,  harmony and willingness that get the mention. "Feeling together".

... Let's get toge..e ..ther  an' feel .. all right ..."

"In recent years, much has been said about the post-modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. ....These ideas anger ...me...but recent events have made me wonder if they are correct."   ( Michael Crichton Caltech Michelin lecture January 17 2003)

I'm inclined to agree.  Science has lost the plot, since it now has to sell itself in a world of commerce.  Or to put it more exactly (since science is first and foremost an enterprise of the people who do it), the people who do it have to sell themselves in the world of commerce.

The reason science is failing - or at least why in the Earth sciences the model of plate tectonics is failing - (apart from the fact that the psychological makeup of scientists mostly doesn't equip them for being salesmen)  does not lie in the science itself, which is so manifestly deficient, but in the nature of the 'what's-in-it-for-me'  syndrome of the human condition operating within scientific enterprise, which in a civilised society is a hierarchical system of power and status (if not wealth).   That is, the aspirations of career scientists are firstly personal and political,  not scientific - a perversion of their natural make-up if you like, bred of self-interest.

Whenever the finger is pointed at aspects of this it draws claims or accusations of  'conspiracy'.    To call it such however is to misunderstand the nature of what's going on.   Of course there isn't any centralised 'black-hand plot designed to pervert the way of the world', ....it just seems that way.   So perfectly orchestrated,  integrated, accented and interwoven is the complex network of input-feedback self-interest of the operators and operands combining volition with coincidence, understanding and misunderstanding , that it seems as if some intelligence, ...*someone* must surely be behind it all (a bit like believing there must be a 'God' (in the sense of that old time, hellfire-and-damnation religion guy-in-the-sky)  And in a sense,  so there us (sorry, 'typo').  :-)   [see? somebody is messing with my keyboard, or having a go at my computer - or maybe even me!] [and is it coincidence that that youtube video is followed on my computer by "I can see clearly now the rain has gone", .. has google got me fingered?]  :-)   But no single person, ...everyone! ...because what is operating is the self-organisation of consensus within that system of power of academic enterprise and the prestige and social rewards that fall to the career scientists at their various levels.

There are basically three players, 1. the scientists themselves who exchange their research for an income and professional status, 2. prestigious journals, which feed off scientists by functioning as an outlet/ forum where they can publish their work ('advertise') and earn professional credits ('notches on the record of academic achievement' - in exchange for subscription fees generated), and 3. grants committees that fund the work being carried out.

The first-order, high-level system-control is the money, and to a large degree consensus ensures fair distribution.  Committees see consensus as surety for return on investment - "everyone agrees on such-and-such, so it must have value" ("More research needed").   So scientists adopt the consensus voice, talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk in the knowledge that like Lotto, ' if you ain't innit, you won't winnit', and therefore take considerable care to couch proposals in mainstream consensus terms, and write up their results similarly. Indeed, if any hint of controversy arises, they are given considerably reduced prominence, and may even be deleted, especially when results are to the detriment of the funding body (tobacco/ food/ pharmacueticals/ nuclear etc).  ("We are a community of scientists" - "Why would you want to be controversial?").   Where issues are less controversial they may simply be set aside until such time as the direction of the scientific milieu is more receptive.   Controversy, or alternative views, are not in the interest of consensus.

Robyn Williams: "You don't think they're getting the value? Why not?"

Craig Venter: "I think the way science is conducted around the world, we probably waste over 90% of the money. Governments are very risk-adverse in funding new programs. The genome is one of the best examples. We had a $5 billion world program that was set in motion as a large public works program that left little room for innovation. For example, my team had to go outside that program and we converted it into a nine-month $100 million program. So that's a big change because of innovation, and now all those labs around the world use the techniques we developed in that process. So governments aren't good at funding innovation, they're good at funding the next phase once the innovation is done. The irony is people don't want the government to take risks with their money because they can then consider it's a bad investment. In fact they're taking safe bets with the money and we're not moving forward. So instead of being upset that some programs were funded that didn't take us anywhere, they should be upset that most of the programs we're funding have us crawling forward instead of leaping forward."
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2887308.htmhttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2887308.htm  (transcript)

So, .. money endures.  Money ensures.  Consensus.  Scientists, like everyone else, need a job.  And who pays the piper, calls the tune.

This perhaps cynical view from within the profession contrasts with that of the public who see scientific enterprise as carried out by teams in white coats, usually young, good-looking and pursuing truth when not (as a concession to normality) members of the opposite sex, all of them, week after week on the box, on-track and co-operatively 'assisting'.

"....Knights in white satin..nn..nnn, ..Never reaching the en.nn.nd..."

And so long as it stays that way, transmogrified in the collective mind as an ideal, everything's fine. But we see it for what it is when a dissenting voice arises.  It doesn't take much imagination to understand the threat when this happens and there is the potential to turn consensus into controversy, to up-end the applecart.  It's a lesson never learned by hard-line power cliques, because it always plays out the same way in the end with the challenging position being the winner.   Why? because the challenge is centred in the science, where the dominant position of the defence is primarily couched in the power, priviledge and consensus that its once-(but no longer) 'scientific' position entititled it to.

 That 'once-position' (in the case of Plate Tectonics), is the bad science of the "convenient assumption" of subduction and the destruction of an imaginary Panthalassa, which is the crux of the Plate Tectonic model.   In the scientific world where reproducibility of results is everything, Plate Tectonics is very easily tested: simply review the data without the overlay of convenient assumption - subduction, and the convection model that depends on it -  and see which model fits the data best.  In the end Earth expansion will win hands down.

But to get there the politics of the game must first be played out.  Response to the challenge involves a variety of tactics.  The first, using the review medium of the consensus press, is to dismiss the challenge as uninformed.  (e.g Carey.)     "This has already been dealt with",  "...everybody knows" ,  "...well documented, ...go and read books".   The fact that the challenge has arisen again, is not seen as an opportunity to revisit the discussion in the light of new facts that may have arisen, and to restate the consensus view with greater authority in the light of those, but as a clarion call to head-kickers to get their boots on!    Then follows (if that doesn't work) the ad hominem attacks, the demonising, the ignoring.   Then if that doesn't work and the challenger is in a position to be 'got at', there may be more direct attacks by those in a position to do so, such as marginalising, threats of transfer demotion or redundancy, withdrawal of funds or damaging equipment,  ...and just generally making things difficult in whatever ways possible.

This behaviour is from those who feel themselves most representative of the dominant position because of the status they advertise and enjoy.   Those less committed close ranks and impose self-censorship, and say nothing because they are aware of the dangers posed if they do speak out, especially if they happen to agree with the challenging position.  Why should they,  and become themselves a target, when to do so only endangers what security in the community they may already have?

It is here that the issue becomes clearly shown for what it is, nothing to do with the science, but all to do with the underpinnings of priviledge and  power of the dominant group.   In the end, the final scene is where the proponents of the dominant position either retire or die, and everyone else, those less committed, can come out of the closet, change hats, shrug shoulders and carry on as if nothing had happened, often (according to age, experience, and position within the hierarchy) appropriating the views they earlier strenuously rejected, once they see which way the 'wiifm' wind is blowing.

And (cutting a long story short) this is why a dissenting voice virtually never comes from within the mainstream - there is 'nothing in it for me' ('niifm').  And it is why the consensus of plate tectonics is so monolithic.  And why the Earth sciences at the present time deserves  the moniker "Junk Science", based as it is on a consensus of  self-serving interests of a dominant group.

 "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-- science and the nation will suffer."    ( Michael Crichton (above link) quoting Philip Handler, former President of the National Academy of Sciences.)

The above applies to science in general.  Earth Science being at the present time primarily concerned with the interior makeup of the planet is a special case, because it so obviously defers to physics.  To admit the possibility of Earth expansion has serious consequences for understanding models in that field, and no senior figure in the Earth science community will risk their career by overtly engaging the physics community.   But physics is once again genuinely at a crossroads, and won't know which way to turn until it incorporates the fact of the Earth's enlargement, because what is at issue is possbily more than how we understand the connection between the elemental particles of matter, and the electrical forces that bind them, but the very means by which matter comes into being in the first place.   During this time onlookers may be forgiven for thinking that in defending the consensus position in the Earth Sciences we are simply looking at a case of the Emperor's fine clothes, where the status of courtiers is revealed by the intricacy of the warp and weft they can discern in the non-existent weave.

Which (in the story), is the non-existent "convenient fabrication" of subduction [1]  [2]  ... and the hypothetical convection that follows.

See also

[ linked pages (to come) ]

Consensus - the underbelly of science.

"If it's consensus, .. then it is not science. .. "

"Geology is becoming like a puffball; the core of the science is rotting out inside a thin hard shell of the avant-garde and fringe.  There is more than one Professor of Geology who has never made a geologic map, looked down a microscope, or studied rocks, minerals, fossils, or seismic sections, or logged a core. Classic field-based observational geology is being squeezed out. Microscopy and optical mineralogy are being phased out and students are not taught to map properly and make field observations. How can one do serious petrology without optical mineralogy? The Universal Stage is a powerful tool in petrography yet is now scarcely taught or used. Whole departments are ignoring the fundamentals, and undergraduates who want to study geology are being cheated. The future of geology is now at serious risk because the young are not being properly trained in the basics, especially in the field. Francis Pettijohn said "The field is where the truth resides; rocks do not lie, and there is nothing as sobering as an outcrop." Field geology can be intellectually and physically very demanding, sometimes hot and sweaty or freezing and wet but without it, a resulting  map, and observations of rocks, minerals and fossils, nothing much useful can be done.

"To the young, I say "take up the challenge to preserve geology and our universities if you care about them." You have the power through your faculty senate, to take charge. Don't get sucked into the system; remain uncorrupted but remember, ...the ruling clique in the funding system and administrations may try to get you through funding, tenure, and promotion. Your university does not care about scholarship and what research you are doing; they are concerned mainly with the overhead, the number of papers that you have published in refereed journals, and external recognition through medals, awards, and prizes. Your promotion and tenure depend upon these factors while only scant regard is paid to university service, teaching, and serious scholarship."    http://rock.geosociety.org/sgt/2006_Career_Award_Dewey.pdf

("Puff-ball"?   Read more by John Dewey.)
(Make sure you get down to the bit about University slush funds,)

On the face of it one could be forgiven for thinking that consensus is a good thing.  It is after all what everyone professes to think, so surely it must be right - or largely so.  However the above commentary from John Dewey (a dyed-in-the-wool Plate Tectonics advocate) as he retires from the profession implies a less than commendable picture of consensus, one that is far from 'scientific'.

 It is false to think that consensus necessarily represents what is true, it merely reflects what is used - just as elite dictionaries state that their purpose is not to lay down any correctness of meaning, but simply meaning as it is used.  And often what is used as a consensus is quite far from what is correct.  Nor is there necessarily any heroic intention to be correct, in fact anyone pursuing correctness in science gets very short shrift if it goes against the popular consensus.

(Sam Carey) : "Through the 30s and 40s and 50s if you dared to propose this sort of thing [mobility of continents = continental drift = Plate Tectonics]  in America you'd be laughed at, you're a ratbag flat-earther. And there was no chance of getting a job if you had that kind of idea."  http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2002/526793.htm    and click 'show transcript'

It is far more important to the career scientist to be published (and therefore have career options) than it is to assert personal views about what is or is not properly correct.   The career scientist does not hold views about what is correct.  His concept of correctness is far more likely to be coloured by expediency than it is by any commitment to 'the truth'.

"..So I appeal to all of you, as judges at all levels, from what you and others write to whom you support or hire or promote, to recognize that consensus may not define truth. Changes as profound as plate tectonics, and as unanticipated by the majority, likely lie ahead."   (W.B. Hamilton)  ... ?speech>

His interest is career and that means publishing, and publication is most assured by going with the flow of consensus.  If a researcher does have a view about what is correct, and this aligns with consensus then fine, and even better if it returns emotional reward, ..but if his view conflicts with the general consensus then no matter what emotional investment he may have made, or determination he may have to express truth, virtually by definition he does not have a career.  He may have the conviction of 'truth', but the trade-off is antagonistic peer review and either a crippled career or none at all - on a sliding scale according to his degree of dissent.

So who then sets the agenda of consensus?  All other things being equal those who publish most are in the strongest position to win the most prestigious places, and those who publish most do so by remaining within the established consensus position, not through dissecting the roots of consensus and risking controversy in some heroic pursuit of truth.  Controversy implies peer refusal at least fifty per cent of the time and therefore invites a serious reduction in publication rate, ..a severe handicap to any career scientist.   Lowering the bar includes others, but the top layer of consensus amounts to very few people in very few institutions setting the consensus agenda, which others are encouraged to follow (if they know which side their bread is buttered).
Consensus therefore becomes amplified by feedback, generating ever more focus in the interest of those who set the agenda - not through any conviction or substantiation of veracity, but simply because it is consensus.  In the end consensus becomes a solid bastion from which many feed, with the actual science its least (/lesser) consideration.  Whoever - or whichever university - controls consensus, sets the bar for the enterprise, and (in the end) becomes committed to intitutionalised mendacity.

"Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, has said that "The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, naccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong." [11]   ?snip>...

" .....Some sociologists of science argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy.[12] The peer review process may suppress dissent against "mainstream" theories.[13][14][15] Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views, and lenient towards those that accord with them. At the same time, elite scientists are more likely than less established ones to be sought out as referees, particularly by high-prestige journals or publishers. As a result, it has been argued, ideas that harmonize with the elite's are more likely to see print and to appear in premier journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary ones, which accords with Thomas Kuhn's well-known observations regarding scientific revolutions.[16]

"Others have pointed out that there is a very large number of scientific journals in which one can publish, making total control of information difficult. In addition, the decision-making process of peer review, in which each referee gives their opinion separately and without consultation with the other referees, is intended to mitigate some of these problems. Some have suggested that:  "... peer review does not thwart new ideas. Journal editors and the 'scientific establishment' are not hostile to new discoveries. Science thrives on discovery and scientific journals compete to publish new breakthroughs."[17]

"Nonetheless, while it is generally possible to publish results somewhere, in order for scientists in many fields to attract and maintain funding it is necessary to publish in prestigious journals. Such journals are generally identified by their impact factor.  The small number of high-impact journals is susceptible to control by an elite group of anonymous reviewers.[citation needed] Results published in low-impact journals are usually ignored by most scientists in any field. This has led to calls for the removal of reviewer anonymity (especially at high-impact journals) and for the introduction of author anonymity (so that reviewers cannot tell whether the author is a member of any elite).[citation needed]
See article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review#Criticisms_of_peer_review> for citations. [This review by R. Horton has been removed from the wikipedia, but it can be found by googling a wordstring .]

The consensus view is the core curriculum taught in schools and universities.  Teachers complain about web plagiarism but the student is in fact encouraged to be the cut-and-paste regurgitator of consensus.  For example, right now,  at the time of writing (25/12/2007), googling the wordstring "The outward transfer of earth’s internal heat drives convection"  returns 212 word-for-word entries.  These are not students' exam papers, but websites of educational institutions, many of them listing the year's curriculum.  So, ..copying is not restricted to students.  And anyway why should the student labour to construct a new form of wording within a held consensus view, when it is the rote informed phrase that wins favour?


And so we return to the above quotation by John Dewey.  But who today would care what he says?  Is he now only an old man, who can say what he likes because by his own admission it no longer counts?  I don't think so.  In fact I think he's right on the money,...and he has much more experience of academia than me.

See what I mean about the power of consensus and publication and the need for it?.  Even science (especially science) carries the seeds of its own destruction, ...for consensus is its sterile child.

[See also :-
Companion page) ..

Memory Lane

(.."Once upon a time, .. in a galaxy far, far away" .. )

Scale invariance   "From a billionth the size of the atom to the scale of the universe" - difference yet similarity, .. it's the code we have to crack.

"To see the world in a grain of sand" (.. and a galaxy in a sea-shell ..)

Long ago when I was a student we had a visiting speaker at the geological society meeting. It was a talk on palaeontology.  I remember very clearly the old man with a walkin stick who came slowly into the room and sat down in the front row, and who after the meeting  got slowly to his feet and quietly left.   Ninety if he was a day.  Our palaeontology lecturer turned to us and said "That old fellow there, .."  [name, .. I never remembered]   ".. he's come to hear the speaker (meaning that particular speaker).  He was extremely bright in his day, and very highly thought of, but in his later years he lost his mind.  He got this strange idea (laugh) that the reason ammonites and other shells spiral, and that the Earth rotates, are related.   It was a great shame.  He lost all credibility in the profession..".

[Distant connections :- There's another picture I like to illustrate this here   ("The sun and the seed") out of which all of life progresses.  Well, maybe not all, .. but a lot worth thinking about (including the threat of pollution killing it)] .. if one is so inclined - [1] [2] [3]

.................

Strange to think how when young we generally believe in the certitude of knowledge.  When older we brashly question it only (eventually) to realise its possible validity, then when older still and with deeper insight we return to original questioning confirming the truism that the more we know, the more we find we don't.

That's the tremendous advantage consensus has over our own enquiry and understanding, and why there is security and certainty in what others generally believe. That in itself is the reason why consensus  'has to be right'.

What is it then, that turns us aside from the consensus path and question it?, .. Is it just sheer cussedness?  I don't think so.  I think happens when we make a connection on a deeper level than just the intellectual, when something just doesn't 'feel' quite right and common sense is called for, you know, the sense that links the other five.

We make that connection through the power of analogy.  We cognitively register (/re-cognise) that things are "just like", but "different" -  that when Nature finds a successful way of doing something she keeps doing it over and over, .. in different but similar ways.
.......................

Difference - yet similarity.  It's the code we have to crack, and the dichotomy we continually have to weigh in all our dealings.  The +ve and -ve of our neurological system equips us for rationalising self-similar patterns and scale differences.
[note to add]
"Ratio" (ratio-nality) - sense of proportion.   It's the highest functionality we have.  It's the edge we walk every day, in the yes/ no of basic cognition, in the communication of speech and in body language.   Children have it instinctively, and trust it, but we lose it as we grow older, as self-serving 'logic' takes over.   We become less than rational.  We become clever.

"Children have this habit of thinking for themselves, and the point of education is to cure them of this habit"   -  Bertrand Russell

"There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago." ~ Robert Oppenheimer

"I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment" - George Orwell

 (The Goodies, ... the Baddies,...  the Force, ..)

 ...and zombies...

 [See also.]

( So what secret does 'spiral' hold?)  [dna] [atoms] [etc] [etc]

 "Bottomless wonders spring from simple rules repeated without end."

(Beniot Mandelbrot on Youtube @ 16:36mins)

Climate Change

(20170606)

 'Climate' & 'change'.Two hot-button words designed to frighten the public in the name of a good cause (cleaning up the environment).   So say no more?  Only perhaps to say we should encourage it - even if it is a lie.  (Especially if it is a lie.)   Even make it a whopper to make sure the cleaning happens.  Sometimes lies are in a good cause, particularly if they are "MAGA" ones. (Ask Trump). 

 And just look at the positive spin-off.  Not only do we get a cleaner environment, but climate science gets all the research funds it needs well into the future and Prestigious Bodies get to flaunt their kudos like beach babes.   What's wrong with that?

But what's the downside (I mean if it is a lie)?  What if it is all the doings of El Nino, the natural doings of the sun on the oceans and the planetary cycles as some say it is, and we can do nothing about it other than adapt to the change?  What if the whole carbon dioxide story has been greatly inflated?  What if the carbon sinks of the soils haven't even been taken into account?  What if the effects of submarine volcanism haven't been taken into account either?  What if 'leaked emails' are telling a story about an elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about?  What if the whole thing is a HOAX?  And what if it is deliberate?  What then?

Well, we can say a whole lot of things about that, none of them very complimentary, .. so what if we just say, .. "You know what, .. what if we just clean the place up anyway.  Why blame somebody for an El Nino past we can do nothing about?   Why don't we just -  do it because we can.  Not only will everything be much cleaner, it will be much cheaper in the long run too.  What's stopping us? And anyway, .. harnessing such a thing as free power is surely putting us on the right track to maybe even deal with the El Nino in an effective way. 

Technically, nothing is stopping us - other than blockheadedness.  Logistically, nothing much is stopping us either, .. not even any conspiracy.  Any barriers relate to the political juggling of business, scientific, and governmental adaptations around changing energy needs.  Doing it is a no-brainer :-

1.  Nuclear [bad news - High risk & dangerous;  with roots and possible use in warfare]
2.  'Fossil fuels' [Coal, Oil and Gas [Traditional, variably dirty; gas cleaner]
3.  'Eco-friendly /environmental [solar and wind, safe, cheap, soft and cuddly; can wash with nappies.  A no-brainer best catch-all.]
4.  Government trying to keep up and make decisions in the (mostly) public interest.

The whole discussion around climate change is political and academic.  Technology drives.  Cleaner cheaper options are at last available and are obviously way to go -  a.s.a.p.  Blame is gratuitous.  And 'climate' (read 'weather' on the scale of human existence) is always changing (a bit)  anyway - as we see in the El Nino. If it is going to be substantial such as saw the demise of the seas /?ocean(s) on Mars then maybe we do need to "science the shit out of the whole lot of it" and plan for some real estate on the Moon.

 So what are we taking issue with here?

Well, .. it's the "He speaks with a forked tongue", Lone Ranger thing.  (Why is it always the goodies who wear black masks, wear capes and wave blazing guns, .. and ride off into the sunset?).  [It's the only thing Trump didn't do right, I mean wrong, .. I mean - I'm not sure what I mean there, but I'm sure you know what I mean] .. The way there has been a deliberate attempt to divorce climate change from its recognised El Nino roots which we have little or no control over.  Assigning a human cause accrues kudos to the ringmasters of climate science and validates argument from authority ("We are masters of the college .. etc.") rather than the science.

I think that's it.

However increasingly as attention is turned to El Nino the climate 'science' is not stacking up.  Those events are driven by the Sun and the oceans [though might very well have a significant contribution from the ocean floors), they obviously do affect the atmosphere as can be seen on any smoggy sunset - particularly in winter - but they are not driven by the atmosphere (far less by any pollution in it).  Attempts to conflate the two are self-serving and defeating, and lead to a growing distrust in science.  [Check comments in climate models.  Also this populist link provides a number of useful assertions that can be used as a basis for fact checking.]  The idea of the atmosphere heating the oceans, .. well, I don't understand where that one comes from.  I thought oceans lose heat to the atmosphere, which is why we get evaporation, clouds and rain, but the idea is being taken up by the President of the United Nations General Assembly no less (no doubt on the 'best authority').  [The audio is 7Mb -about 8 minutes, check at 2:00, 2:30, 4:18 and 5:00.]

 His point about the oceans.  There's been an obvious need to clean up the oceans as long as I can remember.   I'm just a bit iffy about ocean temperatures and acidification, and the possible role of the mantle in that.  I mean, the whole of the mantle is a great big 'volcano', much of it still a bleeding sore.  My bad plastic cup going into the sea can't hold a candle to even the smallest one (volcano).  But that's not the issue.  It's people, led by industry, not putting them in the bin that is.  I'm not loony about it, but I've got years of plastic bags in keeping till there's a safe place to dump them, or discover if there are any worms that will digest them (as I suspect there will be - they are after all derived from an organic source).  There is no issue there.

So altogether, they way people go on about it, it looks like this "Global Warming" thing could be more of an issue than I thought (like Plate Tectonics?) when it comes to bad behaviour in science.

Methinks all is not well in the State of Climate change and Global Warming .. ..

So, .. that said, (here we go).  I began this page a month ago, knowing nothing at all about the argument, and not caring about it either on account of it being a no-brainer. To me there is no issue; just clean the place up, climate change or no climate change. And there is no reason why "jobs" can't co-exist for a while till a suitable changeover can be made, but responsible decisions have to be taken in the responsible direction of clean, cheap and safe.
 ------------------------

(20170506)
This is an example of venturing where angels fear to tread - and, knowing nothing about the science or the background to it, I should too (fear).  I only have my 'conspiratorial suspicion' that science is no different from other fields when it comes to jobs. (I mean the filthy leuchre behind it all.)  It's a follow-up to an earlier post :-
https://twitter.com/earthexpansion/status/860666560465125376

Begin repost :-

(20170205)

This is where I began
This is a listen (~16Mb download) or just look for me (me.me.me - don findlay) in the comments) :-
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/the-madhouse-effect/8239440

[The geological overlay:- I'm always intrigued when I see pictures of mountains being carved out of flat-lying strata.  How did they get up there to be so eroded without being folded (by colliding plates)?  Just a guess, but it looks to me like the flood basalts of India or maybe Ethiopia, in the background.  What do you reckon?  Can anybody provide me with some 'false news'?   How would I know any different, if they do?"  If they are, then ironically (re. "warming") as one of the largest igneous provinces in geological history (either /both)  there was a whole lot of carbon dioxide extruded with them.]


(20170206)

The following comment was posted to ABC Radio National  but it looks like it might not appear.  Maybe it's a casualty of my slow (shaped) internet speed from TPG limping along at speeds averaging ~5kps (I read 64kps in 2009 was 'normal).  So no email till my next billing period - Ya.a.a.ay.y.y.!!!  :-

It might not appear, so I'm posting it here (you can skip this bit if you went to the ABC link)  (It did get posted after a couple of days but here it is anyway) :-
===================

"I'm not a denier. I think renewables are a really good idea for two obvious reasons (clean and cheap).  But I remember when I was at school (long ago) it was common knowledge that one [serious - I'm adding the word serious] puff from a volcano would put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than humanity ever has.  That was when we had pea-soupers during the winter in industrial cities.

There is substantial volcanic activity in the Galapagos islands causing the el Nino. Geologically too there are good reasons for considering this to have been a bleeding sore in the Earth's crust on a geological time scale.

I also remember hearing on the ABC a number of years ago [you'll have it in your archives] an interview with one of the two gentlemen who wrote the definitive paper who kicked all of this global warming stuff off.  He casually admitted that volcanic emissions were never taken into account.

Further, it is only in the last year that I have heard the scientific community (grudgingly) admit to the el nino being an overlay on all of this "global warming".  From a geological standpoint (considering global extinctions in the past) there are very good reasons for considering volcanic emissions to be far more important than we are being given to think - particularly when it comes to the warming of the oceans (featuring highly in the 'science' of global warming).

I've never looked into the detail of the science, but as best as I can (casually) make out it is very much a case of "correlation = causation", the trap that 'science' can easily fall into, particularly where funding is concerned. 

The last time such a golden egg appeared on the horizon of Earth science it was during the 1960's when Plate Tectonics was formulated.  And it is wrong too.  The Earth is getting bigger. And volcanic extrusions (and global extinctions) feature mightily in that one also. 

Science is great for getting things wrong when it comes to 'hypotheses'.  Of necessity it is always on the look-out for funds.  And there is a lot of mileage in being wrong.  The problem for the public is the way it bleeds over into education.  It's the two steps forwards, one step back thing.  Every week we have new findings in medicine that are contradicted the following week.  Is it any wonder the public get sceptical of all this 'science' and vote for a Donald Trump?  Institutions have only themselves to blame (i.m.o.).  And poor old Donald there cops the flack  :-). "

=================

PS., Yes I see it did after all (post) (header link above), along with comments from others about 'modelling'.  Really stirred them up, did it not.   So watch this space.  

(20170211)

Looks like the ABC did not post my reply though, pointing out to all the naysayers (again) that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation and that an alternative El Nino correlation might have been overlooked.   Mm.m.m.... Will follow up later when I get 'un-shaped'.


(20170212)

As a follow up, Michael Mann was interviewed on ABC's  RN   Late night live
I tried to post a comment there too but got blocked with the big black page :-

I've had it before.  I think this is how you gently get handed the black spot.  No matter how much you persist over the day or days, this one doesn't go away.   Obviously the broadcaster doesn't itself want to get embroiled in controversy after inviting guests on to the program  The odd controversial post is ok, but don't persist, is the message.  ("Trolling").  So I'll do another here-post (adapted 'cos I have more space).
-----------------------------

It's difficult to tell much about El Ninos because they have only been tracked since the 1950's.  Also, anomalies are simply averaged and represented on a flat-line graph, so it doesn't show the exponential shape that the global warming graph does.  And even if it tried, the fractional variations considered significant for global warming (about one and a half degrees in a hundred and forty years)  would be lost against the much greater signal of the El Nino (a fluctuation of about four degrees every ten to fifteen years). 

The information must be there to do it, just that I haven't seen it, looked into it, or heard it mentioned - and just too that it is only very recently that the science community have (grudgingly) admitted that it might fog the global warming data, .. though exactly how much 'fog' is fog I'm not sure, because when I do a search for the word 'Nino' on the wikipedia pages for global warming or for climate change, it doesn't show.  [Neither by the way do the terms "global warming" appear in the body of the wikipedia article on El Nino (though there are heaps in the references) and the term "climate change" only appears once (twice actually, but one of them is an obvious editing glitsch).]

As for El Nino affecting the global climate :-

"El Nino affects the global climate and disrupts normal weather patterns, which as a result can lead to intense storms in some places and droughts in others.^{[66][67] "}

 So what do they mean by "fog"?  Is there FOG (no fog? ..some fog?, .. or is it all fog?  Or what?    Evidently "more research is needed", but I would have thought there might have been some more casual mentions about 'fog', .. along lines of trying to discriminate El Nino from global warming.  But I've casually heard nothing about that until only the last year or so.  Of course the El Nino is not a controversial (/political) issue because the seasonal warming of the oceans is well known as having a effect on weather, and since it only has been tracked since the 1950's it isn't easily compared with that J-curve of Global Warming as presented in the same time. (Besides, the El Nino hasn't been touted as a political issue.)

But let's try.  Here's a typical El Nino graph :-

http://tinyurl.com/j99n7h3

Notice it's plotted as a flat-line graph and ranges up and down periodically by ~4 degrees over the forty-fifty years it's been measured. 

And here's the global warming graph. Notice it's plotted against a vertical axis in temperature of only about about one and a half degrees in about a hundred and forty years.  In other words the El Nino makes a lot of superimposed noise on it.  I'm not quite sure what the "annual mean" and "smoothing" mentioned on the face of the second graph are about (bounding the red line) but the coincidence at the top end of the rise on the right seem to me to suggest some fudging - like, to do with the El Nino.

... From which see 1.  the flat-line depiction for El Nino, [because "currently, each country has a different threshold for what constitutes an El Niño event, which is tailored to their specific interests." (link)]  [addendum (20170506):- I see I overlooked this link, but you can search the string.] and 2.  that the temperature range of 4 degrees for El Nino every five to ten years is the 'noise' against which the signal of global 1.4 degrees of global warming in a hundred and forty years has to try to make itself heard. 

Seems to me the view expressed on the same page that ...

 "There is no consensus on if climate change will have any influence on the occurrence, strength or duration of El Niño events, as research supports El Niño events becoming stronger, longer, shorter and weaker" (link) 

... is round the wrong way and that stretching that left-hand side of the graph to make one and a half degrees look precipitous is stretching the long bow - (i.m.o.)  A degree or so (-0.4 to +1  in a century is nothing to write home about outside of a nearly 4 degree fluctuation every ten to fifteen years).

Seems to me that the noise *is* the signal and that when it comes to sea-surface temperatures El Nino (/La Nina) is a very possible candidate for 'all fog'.  Further, so far as the atmosphere heating up the oceans goes it also seems to me that a billy of tea is far better made by sticking a red-hot soldering bolt (namely the Galapagos volcanoes) into it to heat it up ...

 ["The chain of 13 islands and 17 islets, which sits about 1,000km (621 miles) off the coast of Ecuador, is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world."] 

... rather than trying to warm it up with your CO2-laden breath.  In fact come to think of it, it's how I cool my tea down, not heat it up, .. so I don't know who's coming the raw prawn here.
[20170910 :- Deep heat? - From the atmosphere???]
[20190210 :- Mermaids reveal secrets ,,  ]
[20190219 :- Undersea gasses heating the planet ] [alt :- https://tinyurl.com/y646bd7z ]

Sea-surface temperature and location of the Galapagos Islands. [ And of course we should remember that volcanoes heat the water on the sea-floor first, with westwards drift before it rises and gets to the surface, .. so, ...]

[Yeah, so, .. Let's hear it for Volcanic Carbon Dioxide. 

| Islands | (Don't yer plants just luvvit?) [Google's changed this link from islands to animals.]
| Volcanoes-1 | (How we measure it - on land at least)
| Volcanoes-2 | (Underwater - the best-kept secret of Global Warming)
| Volcanoes-3 | ( How we measure them?  With difficulty. )
| Volcanoes-4 | (Probable oceans of the stuff) => (scientists *know* this) 
| Volcanoes-5 | (Some can, some can't)(vegetate)
| Volcanoes-6 | ("Where there's SO2, there's CO2")
| Volcanoes-7 | ( Some ocean chemistry and comments.)
| Requiem for Dunces | (Big Hand) 
 

( The Sun of course is a different matter.  It solely heats the surface. So there is (or could well be) a combined effect - solar and volcanic. [ Solar for surface thermals; volcanic for gravitational /rotational effects on the mantle.]

Video (No3 added 20170517)

Wind dragging the oceans is one thing, heating them with the sun and the mantle is another.

[(Added 20170514)  Recently there have been attempts to conflate sea-surface temperature with global warming and climate change (and thereby Industrial CO2; check the above comment about making tea with a soldering bolt in the context of underwater volcanism) :-

".. Geologists have identified more than 5,000 active underwater volcanoes, which account for more than 75% of the total lava that erupts every year. Most of these are located along the mid-ocean ridges, where the Earth’s tectonic plates are spreading apart. Most of these are very deep underwater, and difficult to study, but some are located in more shallow water. " [1] [2]). 

" .. These sea surface temperature maps are based on observations by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The satellite measures the temperature of the top millimeter of the ocean surface."   [Link] 

See also http://www.geologypage.com/2016/09/undersea-volcano-eruptions-caught-video.html

... And chilling them by evaporation and winds (on that one millimetre) is another. [How much heat is lost to making rain?  What assumptions would be made to measure it?  And how would you?)
(Added 20180929) :-

Equatorial heating from the sun :=: Mantle splitting (Galapagos) component on the left

[20181010 .. or, .. ]

Source  https://earth.nullschool.net/about.html

And so how much heat and carbon dioxide from underwater volcanoes is going into the oceans compared to 1. on-land volcanic emissions, and 2. atmospheric (industrial /human) CO2 emissions?   And what is melting the ice at the poles then mostly due to, the atmosphere or the oceans?  And why at the same time has Hawaii, the biggest volcano on the planet recording the transition from latitutinal to longitudinal opening of the crust, been spectacularly erupting since May?

Of course, in a context of volcanism the Galapagos connection only shows correlation, not causation. [See video link above.]  However the Galapagos 'plate' is closely connected to the equatorial offset ruptures of the Atlantic Ridge.  The entire equatorial zone has been a very special zone of mantle rupture from way back (geologically speaking), .. so, .. heat from above (sun) and heat from below (mantle)?

Added 20190730  - See also https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10206-z
Added 20190731 :- See also https://twitter.com/NikolovScience/status/1156414112634511362

Plate Tectonics quite happily moves plates around on convection currents [but only Earth expansion mentions the equatorial connection as tectonically significant].  So what's wrong with mantle convection providing heat to move some water around too?  There are heaps of volcanoes down there - probably leaking far more than acknowledged by Noaa or Nasa  And anyway, where did the CO2 for all those animals making limestones in the geological record come from, if not from volcanic CO2? [i.e., Where did the CO2 in the atmosphere come from?]  Certainly not from the Romans polluting the atmosphere by smelting stuff.  Fair go and get real! 
_________________


It also seems to me all this is not a science issue.  It's a funding one, relying heavily on the politics of consensus. And that bugs me.  Not for the funding, which science needs, so all power to it, but for the politics in it which I detest.  So I'm conflicted. It shouldn't be an issue.  Are we to think that that the human factor that's behind global warming is the same as that behind Plate Tectonics?  [Selling your soul - "The oldest profession in the world".]
===============
Reposted from e-book first edition :-
Consensus 1.
Consensus 2.
===============

I don't mind in the least when it comes to cleaning the place up ('sustainable energy').  In fact I'm all for it.  It's just that, well, .. Plate Tectonics just bugs the hell out of me when it is so manifestly a consensus of ignorance. Surely the world can put up with one stupid person (me), but when they get themselves into positions of educational and electoral power ... that's a different thing.

I've never particularly looked at the evidence for climate change.  A degree in a century doesn't seem to me to be much of an issue, and besides, the industrial revolution started a long time before that J-curve, so the correlation is not quite as they say. [Oh, but of course there is an issue.  Weather forecasts don't work further ahead than about three days. What's the point about extrapolating them fifty or a hundred years in advance?  Weather forecasts are predicted on models of the sun and the oceans, not on the atmosphere and CO2 pollution.  Even climate scientists would think you were nuts to try. (notwithstanding "cloud feedback")]

So as usual when I want to know a bit more about things I know nothing about I google it up.   I'm curious, because today (20170212)  ) on the other side of the country it's the hottest February day on record, while over here in wild west it's been decidedly chilly for about the last four days and raining constantly, and showing not much sign of letting up. [added 20180929 :=: usually in Perth W.Aus. we've been getting a hot spell in September in recent years, but it's been wet and freezing cold - though drought on the other side of the country continues.]  Before there was all this ruckus about climate change such weather would be all over the news as an El Nino event, but nobody seems to want to talk about El Nino any more.   I would like to hear more than we do about the comparison with the El Nino.  It seems to have fallen off the radar.  Here's the global warming data from that linked site :-  (editing glitsch here; link overlooked; I thought it was Noaa but it is Nasa.)

Hey!!  hang on, .. fair go!! .. Mr. Earth Science Communications Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory /California Institute of Technology, ...   How do you do that?  Apples-with-apples and all that.  Are you comparing CO2 in ice cores from fossil weather in Antarctica for hundreds of thousands of years with CO2 measured from around two of the most active volcanoes in the world today (for the last fifty)?   Are you kidding?   And besides the atmosphere, what about all the CO2 from the millions of blips of 'volcanoes' leaking CO2 into the oceans and bubbling up to the atmosphere that's not being measured?   The much vaunted limit of 440ppm used to galvanise the Gummint Gullibles into action is only 0.044%.  Vegetables would be terrified if this was their assigned long-term lot.  They - just the scrawny hangers-on we have today - need *at least three times that* for optimum health.  By that measure they're limping along today on the verge of extinction.  The lucky ones are nurtured in greenhouses which are kept about 1500ppm.   And casual reading of geological history will probably tell us CO2 levels have never been less.

XXXXXXXXX  That J-curve is just the El Nino data the've stuck on the end of the ice core data, methinks. (Remarkable - trying to slip that one past schoolchildren.)     [Origins of CO2 in the atmosphere - another apocryphal urban myth needing pinned down.  (Why not volcanoes?) ]

Anyway, forgetting the massive disparity in the vertical axis showing the temperature variation, why would you want to be taking readings of CO2 levels in the vicinity of the most active volcanoes in the world unless elevated readings were exactly what you wanted.? [Because it's convenient to use as it was set up for another purpose and Hawaii is a holiday destination anyway? (good for surfing and generally hanging out)]  CO2 is heavier than oxygen too, so what's that mean for an ambient air-mix (on Hawaii)?   A better, and more convincing place would surely be just about anywhere else in the world, other than around two of the most active volcano on it.

" In May 2013, it was reported that readings for CO2 taken at the world's primary benchmark site in Mauna Loa surpassed 400 ppm." (Wikipedia.)

"Mauna Loa is among Earth's most active volcanoes, having erupted 33 times since its first well-documented historical eruption in 1843. Its most recent eruption was in 1984. Mauna Loa is certain to erupt again, and we carefully monitor the volcano for signs of unrest.Jan 10, 1985" (same link)"

"Kilauea is one of the world's most active volcanoes. It is a shield-type volcano that makes up the southeastern side of the Big Island of Hawaii.Sep 16, 2014 "

[Something here too about living with the smell of the place (since we're talking about ambient air mixes).]
(20170530)   Also  [ https://twitter.com/geolsoc/status/869516417980395523
   =>  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08t0d3w  [21:50 :-

"Well again we're looking to satellites more and more. So we can't measure carbon dioxide from volcanic plumes.  There's so much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere already [Oops check av. 0.04% - d.f]  it's really hard to pick out a small plume but sulphur dioxide there's not much sulphur dioxide in our atmosphere so we can actually peer down through our atmosphere and see these plumes of sulphur dioxide.  So again we're pushing the satellite technology to try and see if these small emissions of sulphur dioxide so that we can see when the volcanoes switch on and switch off."

(So what's the proportion of sulphur dioxide to carbon dioxide from volcanoes  / industry then??)

"About 99% of the sulfur dioxide in air comes from human sources. The main source of sulfur dioxide in the air is industrial activity that processes materials that contain sulfur, eg the generation of electricity from coal, oil or gas that contains sulfur. Some mineral ores also contain sulfur, and sulfur dioxide is released when they are processed. In addition, industrial activities that burn fossil fuels containing sulfur can be important sources of sulfur dioxide.  Sulfur dioxide is also present in motor vehicle emissions, as the result of fuel combustion. In the past, motor vehicle exhaust was an important, but not the main, source of sulfur dioxide in air. However, this is no longer the case." http://www.environment.gov.au/protection/publications/factsheet-sulfur-dioxide-so2

See also :- http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/04/22/change-of-direction-do-so2-emissions-lead-to-warming/

http://esseacourses.strategies.org/module.php?module_id=168

Sulfur dioxide comes from both anthropogenic (related to human activities) and natural sources. Burning coal and other fossil fuels is the largest source of sulfur dioxide from human activities. Volcanoes and forest fires are the major natural contributors.

Whatever the intention, it's ending up in that graph, leaving us to make of it what we will despite Mr hang-on Global Climate Change Earth Science Communications Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory /California Institute of Technology (and something more about consensus politics, bad science, fake science, and scientists generally behaving badly.) [Nothing like putting your medals on before fronting up to the press, is there..]

I don't know.  Never looked at it beyond for this page.  But on the face of it, it looks awfully suss to me.

More research (mine?) is obviously needed.

====================
Note in the blue Nasa graph above that the kick in the graph that everybody is talking about (the 'J-curve', the "hockey stick") is where the info for the El Nino kicks in - which as its actually named historical self climate-science has been ignoring (till now).  (The video clip is a very good example of the case for consensus and argument from authority by the way.)

[ (20170507) Holy Moley - I hope that bit of the graph, the ("J-curve" /"hockey stick"), 1950 => onwards is my misread, and not their mistake.  And god forbid it be an honest one!  Hell's Bells! ] [No, .. not an honest mistake.  That is sheer bad science - of the worst fiddling sort!  The crux is in the conflation of the two scales used, which are vastly different vertically and orders of magnitude vastly different horizontally.  Astounding, i.m.o.]

Heads will roll, .. as colleagues turn against the ringleaders and make them sacrificial lambs because they will not want to be included when the repercussions all hit the fan.  Do you hear the enthusiasm for it from the audience?- the public willingly being led up the garden path?  Even the El Nino gets a mention from the moderator. as a possible mitigating escape, but is not taken up (but should be).  The El Nino has historical roots, but they go much further back than the industrial revolution - or probably the Romans for that matter, and it is to do with the sun and the oceans vis-a-vis the Earth's wobble, .. maybe even to do with the planet as a whole and right back to the dawn of geological time.  As for the atmosphere. If anything heat transfer is the other way :-  (Sun =>) oceans lose heat to the atmosphere, .. makes clouds and rain.  [And is carbon dioxide a poison?  Could be why we keep breathing it out.  All the time.]

.................................

Bloody rabbits, with their whistles and lanyards and measuring tapes, trying to model geology and climate change.  Just watch them try to blame the warming of the oceans on people too.

What agenda does science journalism have, promoting that guff, .. talking up "teams of researchers" and /"new" and /"for the first time" as if they might benefit from some sprinkly stardust?

[20170519 - This one was hiding.  I discovered it by accident when I cleared the screen and found youtube had clicked over to the next item without me noticing. It's an oldie (2013), but since the one above is (2016), it's worth repeating.]
[And some more links.]

What about :-
Bruce Wielicki on fact and fiction and "cloud feedback"    Mm.m. He's a fast talker (beware the fast talker) I need to listen again. What is it he says(?), .. "If I warm the climate by just 1degree C,  I change global cloud cover by just 1% ..", ... In other words, sounds to me like he's got his dominoes round the wrong way, and worse, got them in a feedback-stutter.  [Is it just me? .. or, .. ]  How do you warm a global climate?  Is there such a thing as one? Is the climate in the tropics going to act in concert with the climate at the poles?  Make a cloud => make things warmer => makes another cloud => runaway cloud and rain?  How come it doesn't get darker and darker so we get a 'nuclear winter', and washed away with rain?  Well, after it rains, the clouds go away.  And the sun comes out.  It does in Walt Disney's films anyway.  Does that cool the climate?  We could do with some rain down here in this big brown land. And right now (after some), when the wind gets up, it's bloody freezing.

 Here's global temperature readings distribution :-

Worldwide Distribution of Temperature Stations (Source) 

 Notice the massive disparity between northern and southern hemispheres (Antarctica with 8). (How big is Antarctica?), and that the wind patterns of the two hemispheres essentially don't much mix anyway.  What is he skating over, there?  (The thin ice of "cloud feedback"?)  (Warning again - Fast talker. Look out.  You can do funny things with numbers depending on the "let this be that and that be this" assumptions you put at the top of the page.) (And the things you omit.) ["Biggest lies are lies of omission" ~ George Orwell.]

".. According to NOAA data, the global average temperature for 2016 was 1.69°F (0.94°C) above the 20th century average and 0.07°F (0.04°C) above the previous record set last year. In NASA’s records, 2016 was 1.8°F (0.99°C) above the 1951-1980 average."  [Link]

 Stack the votes (or in this case thermometers) and your chances of election obviously go up.  They do themselves no favours, (i.m.o.) introducing such imbalance in the data, and against which such phrases as "above the 20th Century average", are meaningless (also i.m.o.)

" .. Each agency has slightly different methods of processing the data and different baseline periods they use for comparison, as do other groups around the world that monitor global temperatures, leading to slightly different year-to-year numbers.  But despite these differences, all of these records “are capturing the same long-term signal. It’s a pretty unmistakable signal,” Arndt said. Or as he likes to put it: “They’re singing the same song, even if they’re hitting different notes along the way.” [Same link as last.]

In other words, they're all out of tune but think it's the same song.  (So you have to laugh) (at the dissonance.)

==================

"We know exactly how much Carbon Dioxide is coming out of the volcano on Mauna Loa that the tourists on Hawaii have to put up with.  In fact we correct for it every day at twelve o'clock sharp.  We fire a gun just to let everybody know we're doing it."
"Oh yeah?  Well what about all the submarine volcanoes getting mentioned?"
"Yep. Them too.  We have any amount of algorithms already we can use to keep track."
"Jeez!  How much ignorance are you guys able to publish?"
"Heaps. It's the maths.  We're good with numbers. Show the public an equation or a graph and they think you know what you're talking about."
"And you don't?"
"Nah, .. we don't have a clue.  We just stick any old  'Let this be that and that be this' guff at the top of the page.   Doesn't matter, .. You can always fudge that. We just deal with manipulating the numbers."
"Crikey!"
"Hah, .. you think we're bad, you want to see what geophysicists do with Plate Tectonics.  They frankly admit they don't have a clue."
"Terrifying."
"Really?  Just get a few high profile names behind you, .. institutions and journals, .. It's easy.
 
(Isn't that what they say?) 

"If it's consensus it's not science." 
"It doesn't matter how smart you are " [+video clip]
( The case for consensus and argument from authority )[ Q&A video-clip]
[Added 20190202. Nice little vignette to emphasise the point :-  Compare that Q&A video clip (posted in August, 2016) with this interview  posted yesterday as a comment on the difference the intervening years make, and make your own assessment on who has the force of argument, and what it says about science, modelling v. reality, and argument from authority.  And who's being led up the garden path. And why.]

========================

Anyway, the point is not whether the climate is warming or not (that's a scale thing).  It's been getting warmer ever since the last ice-age with some natural fluctuations (including El Nino) along the way - though likely others too) (check sunspots).  The question is whether or not we want to take advantage of advances in science that dirty industry has given us, that have taken us to a point where we can now clean up our act.

And surely, the sooner the better.  According to David Bellamy, Plants grow greener when there is CO2 around (and he should know), .. but then, ..green just fouls the pristine built environment, doesn't it (Plant-rust.)
_________________

 (20170519) When I came to Perth (W.A.) there were some Moreton Bay Fig trees in the square outside the Central Post Office.  Two as I remember, .. maybe just one.  But really nice to sit under on a hot day (even with all that concrete)  I looked in vain for a picture of them on google images.  I would like to include them to give the gist of my gripe, but there's nothing there.  Right now in writing I thought to open up the search but I get a blizzard of pdf's from the council, none of which are an answer.  Strange I cannot find any record of them being cut down, .. what would have been for many people back then a momentous event (not for me except for a tinge of disappointment because I was virtually just passing through at the time).  They were the centre of the town, the place where the old folk would congregate and exchange the time of day - before eventually being marked by their absence.  But those trees like their 'children' are now ghosts in older people's memory, all there is of a time that got shocked in the electric chair of the nickel boom, and replaced with twee little Noddy Trees in a Bucket to augment a 'Shopping Precinct'.

[It was the early seventies, and the tail end of the 1960's nickel boom riding on the back of the Vietenam war.  Poseidon share prices peaked at $280 in February, 1970.  Can you imagine , .. the excitement, .. back then?   Maybe it's just the rosy glow of retrospect, but things have never really been the same since. Will Trump give us another one?  Oooh, .. there could be a few rubbing their hands on that one, I think..]

Their function (trees) would later be replaced with facebook and twitter and a rush of multi-tasking to hurry the economoney (for some) along, while everybody else does the treadmill except for those who fall off it.  And those who would have once made their slow way to see even slower friends, now sit at home, stuped and duped by 'entertainment', till, like so much hospital garbage, they go up the chimney.

But the council cut them down.  Correction. One person on the council would probably have pulled weight and others would have gone along with it in fear of being blackballed.  I can hardly believe it was a unanimous decision. [Make a note to check the record. Interests involved etc,]   (ends gripe.) (sort of.)
__________________

20170510 - The further point is that the above is not about climate change.  It's about science and the trap of consensus, and how science should *always* be under review as a guard against corruption.

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." ~ George Orwell

[An example that comes to mind (as I write) is the shuttle disaster of 1986. Reprise and remember. And reflect, [also].. on what amounts to institutional malpractice, which is a corruption that continually contrives to raise its head (for bonking) that no government seems to have the power, or the persuasion, or the inclination to do.

 And certainly consensus (of itself) should never be claimed as Authority. But there's nothing like intellect for having a go - as science scholars prove regularly

I claim my misread (in red above)  until somebody convinces me otherwise. In principle I don't defer to consensus (as some who manifestly and shamefully do - and should know better).

A whole roomful of them, going by that Q&A video on /consensus and argument from (/Nasa) authority video above.  And worse, mostly yung'uns.  Ah well, .. they'll learn, ..  hopefully, .. about the need for independent thinking.

So, .. you want to do science.  Then beware the trap of consensus, or you too could end up a populariser of it, and promulgating what it is *NOT* about.  Mathematics (/modelling) is useful but it is not, by itself, science.  Science is the journey towards what in simpler terms is common sense - which it becomes, once it is reached.  Science is about context, .. 'finding out', ..  getting your 'dominoes' (/'ducks') in the right order and at the right scale, which is the antithesis of science ('reductionism').  Taxonomy is necessary, but call it like it is.  (Or you end up with Plate Tectonics.) (And maybe some climate change - the human part anyway.)  (And maybe quantum physics.)    Geologically speaking, climate changes all the time - as does the number of particles that keep getting invented to keep it on track.  (Of what?)

"Wherever there is the potential for some leuchre, some smack, .." ..   [Why is it such a popular word?  Where does it figger in this enterprise of living?]

"What was that?  It's really what it's all about? .."
"Yeah, .. fair exchange (a measure of).

So what is it?  Altruism? (you're a mug)(?).  Barter? (entices the strong to exploit the weak)(?).  'Interest'? (entices the criminal)(?)   Derivatives? (encourages and applauds the worst of the worst)(!)  So, then, which way round does our economy function? What's the answer, .. fair exchange?  What's that?

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(20170520) came up with these (on climate change) exactly the same views as above - except they are nobel prize winners.  Does that mean something about arguing from authority, .. or the facts?

1.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXxHfb66ZgM   (Ivar Giaever)
2   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk60CUkf3Kw  (same Giaever, a bit older)
3.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljUg2D-vBak    (Ian Plimer + UK Government)

4.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Smhn1gL6Xg  (Patric Moore)

5.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiKfWdXXfIs&t=36s
6.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBjtO-0tbKU&feature=youtu.be
7.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2iggJN4Etw
8.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owm25OHGglk
9.  And one more time   https://tinyurl.com/y74gjxkv 
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So what happened to El Nino (/Latino)?  We hardly hear it mentioned these days...

"In American Spanish, the capitalized term "El Niño" refers to "the little boy", so named because the pool of warm water in the Pacific near South America is often at its warmest around Christmas. The original name, "El Niño de Navidad", traces its origin centuries back to Peruvian fisherman, who named the weather phenomenon in reference to the newborn Christ.^] "La Niña", chosen as the 'opposite' of El Niño, literally translates to "the little girl".

And so thus it would appear that the origins of concern over "Climate Change" (that everyone appears to have forgotten about) (to such an extent that this is no longer mentioned), are to be found in El Nino, and is a classic example of rebranding and self-inflicted amnesia and generational change) (just like "Plate Tectonics" appropriated 'Continental Drift').  And an indictment of older generations too.

"The major 1982–83 El Niño led to an upsurge of interest from the scientific community. The period 1991–1995 was unusual in that El Niños have rarely occurred in such rapid succession.[39] An especially intense El Niño event in 1998 caused an estimated 16% of the world's reef systems to die. The event temporarily warmed air temperature by 1.5 °C, compared to the usual increase of 0.25 °C associated with El Niño events.[40] Since then, mass coral bleaching has become common worldwide, with all regions having suffered "severe bleaching" .[41]  "   [Link]

If the oceans heat up (for whatever reason) then there's more cloud cover /rain


So (just to repeat), .. despite the currently politically popular "climate change" and "global warming" having their origins sourced in unusual El Ninos, the wikipedia article for both C.C and G.W. do not mention El Nino, and except for one instance (as highlighted above), neither does the article on El Nino mention C.C. of G.W..  Such has been the determination to divorce Global warming /Climate Change from its El Nino roots.  [However, common sense is fighting back :-
http://www.geologypage.com/2016/06/how-el-nino-impacts-global-temperatures.html  ]

 If that's not 'party-political bias' I don't know what is, unless it is the media in general giving absolutely no coverage to the sceptical side of the debate in order to meet their own agenda - which is (first and foremost) 'Wowserism" in order to sell, .. which is all about $$$$.  However some, seeing which way the wiifm wind is blowing, are laying the groundwork for returning the debate to its El Nino roots. 


 Which returns me to that black refusal image at the top of this page, and considerations about where that $$-domino should go in the relentless, pre-ordained grand plan of cause and effect. ( Right up-front - or very close.)  [Before or after "The oldest profession in the world"?]

 El Nino?  Nobody talks about it because there is not a lot can be done about it other than to fight a rearguard action as best we can.  Adapt, in other words.  Anyway, there is a lot of mileage in doing the hubristic thing (and playing God) to sort it all out. Keeps everybody happily worrying.

 I don't think there is much to be gained by furthering this page, .. not on account of the 'science' anyway.  The bones of it appear to be laid bare.  Besides, they seem to be getting there as the importance of underwater volcanism is being increasingly recognised (although this is quietly by the side-door with not a lot of mention in the popular media because of the potential for egg-on-face of the perpetrators and their cheer squads).

 Ah, .. the "hockey Stick".
What NASA did was to take the historical data of long term changes in the Earth's climate from ice cores in the Antarctic, stick the data from El Nino of the last 50- 60 years on the end of it (omitting to mention the historical and oceanic origins of El Nino) (as well as at the same time omitting to mention the contribution that heat and pollution from volcanoes are also making (to the oceans mainly) and say, "Look what atmospheric pollution is doing to our oceans - so give us more research dollars so we can frighten the b'jazus out of you. We've got the very medium to help us too, who will willingly chip in their two cents worth too, coz they think we're special. They like the stardust rub-off to be got from talking about us."

And so they are (special), .. just that they don't do themselves any favours by prostituting themselves to the Almighty, and are not always up-front about societal benefits that accrue from their enterprises when people have to take matters into their own hands to recycle coke bottles to give light and power to their mudhuts.  (20181003 - And would rather eat mars bars, than work out how to biodegrade their wrappers in an acceptable way. )

 Will all this 'science' behind global warming turn out to be another example of institutional bad behaviour?  If Nobel Prize winners making their views public don't cut it (even if their views *are* the same as mine above) :-))  I don't see that me making any noise on the issue is going to make any difference.  Besides, as I said at the start, I'm not a climate change denier, it's what climate does all the time, and is the whole story of geology.  Particularly as it is revealed in "The Relentless Imperative of Flatness" - for if there wasn't flatness, there would be no geology, .. no history of the Earth to be unravelled.  I just suspect it's in the same anti-science vein as Plate Tectonics, and has the same homocentric misconceived attributes of correlation = causation all over it. ('Dominoes', .. how big they are and what order they are in.)

P.S.  Here's Scientific American [page-search "hoax"] also promoting 'Argument from Authority'  ["Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations."]  Less than a degree and a half in a hundred and forty years?   Who are they trying to kid?  And measured exactly how?  In ice cores?  Or on the summit of Mauna Loa, the second most active volcano in the solar system next to Olympus Mons on Mars and probably the largest emitter of corrected-for CO2 too.  How does climate change globally in the face of trade winds?  Is homocentric man with his god Mammon challenging the sun globally?  The term 'El Nino' does not occur on the page despite its credentials as the source of "climate change" (&search for term 'original').  What they are trying to do is put as much space as possible between its El Nino origins and its rebranding as climate change.  Why?  Because they smell a "share in the treasure" to be got by exploiting reputation for all it's worth, which by the end of this page is (in my book) quite  a lot (as measured by egg-on-face).  Anyway, as mentioned above (somewhere) cleaning the place up, particularly the air going by some places, is a no-brainer.

http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/2010/NCGTARCH.pdf

So, Earth expansion.  Where shall we begin?  ( => ) (Gravity, flatness (/roundness?) - and fractures? .. and maybe have look in at climate change as we go.  Or with => volcanoes and that pesky problem of scale.. .. [Note in the video they don't say it *will* (have an effect) they say "could" (with emphasis)]   It's called 'Dogwhistling'.  You're not supposed to hear the inflexion.
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Climate change and usefulness; (i.e., furthering an agenda /means to an end).
Meaning whether the science is right or not doesn't matter, it's the usefulness that counts, .. e.g., Linking climate change to sovereignty and land rights ("I also want to do it in a really superpolitical way" (@5:00mins) (So, .. better get the science right.  But what if it is the science itself that has an 'extra-curricular' agenda, and the whole thing is being used in a super-political ways.

Adani Coal in Queensland being used deliberately as a stranded capital asset to offset solar development in India (link) ("Well, you Green People don't want development..")  And anyway, robotic trucks and software do all the work.

And so on.  =>Taming the wild horse of humanity's self interest. It's a scale problem, that begins with education (by peers).  And that means us.


 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#Impact_on_plant_growth 
(Underwater volcanoes)