Bush bunny:

Thanks for your comment about my earlier request for an explanation of the Little Ice Age.

The reason I keep asking for an 'explanation' is to illustrate how poor the predictive capabilities of climate science are.

The Little Ice Age (LIO) is a well recorded sequence of events roughly dating between 1300 and the early 1800s. Basically, global temperature dropped significantly very quickly and did not return to what it was before until the 1800s.

Through modern scientific measurement techniques, the climatic condition that existed prior, during and after the LIO are well recorded.

Consequently, one would expect, that for a subject that claims to be a science, it should be possible to come up with an explanation as to why the LIO happened when it did, that is agreed to by the mainstream if not all those who claim to be climate scientists! And yet, there is no such explanation. Some say that the LIO was a result of cyclical lows in solar activity, others say that it was due to volcanic activity, others still blame changes in ocean currents etc. etc. What sort of science is that?

And these same people expect the world to believe their long term predictions about global temperature, sea levels etc., which they claim to be accurate!!

In a more serious subject, such as physics, when some phenomenon cannot be explained by current theory, physicists put their minds to revising the theory until a proper explanation is arrived at_ and only then can one proceed to make serious predictions about that phenomenon.

A very well known ilustration of this, was the famous Michelson-Morley experiment, which clearly showed that the then accepted theory about the speed of light etc. did not explain the results of the experiment.

This difference between theory and experiment generated new thinking which ultimately led to Einstein's theory of relativity and which went on to very accurately explain this and other physical phenomena.

To me that is science!

Jedimaster: "For OLO-ers who may be interested in how the debate on this article is shaping up ..."

Jedimaster, that was very useful. Thanks.

Graham Young and Leo Lane

Bob Carter appeared as an “expert witness” for Xtrata in the initial Land and Resources Tribunal hearing … claiming global warming ceased in 1998. Indeed, the president (of the tribunal) was persuaded by Carter’s court room antics, exemplified in the findings (Leo).

However, at the conclusion to the appeal (to those findings) Justice Mackenzie states:

“There was also reference to the period 1998-2006 which the Tribunal’s reasons describe as another example of a period of cooling. The year 1998, selected as the starting point for the period of cooling (in Bob Carter’s graph) was, according to the graph, significantly warmer than any of the years preceding it and any which had followed it up to 2006. Had either of the following two years been selected as the starting point, and the result for 1998 been treated as an aberrant spike, the period to 2006 would have demonstrated an increase over that period larger than the alleged cooling relied on by the President.”

I am bemused that for the last few months, Carter and his cohorts (Leo) now choose 2001 as the year that global warming ceased. It would not surprise me in the least that some will say 2005, or 2010, or 2015, or ...

The simple fact remains, those who are not trained in time series statistical analysis really don’t know what they are talking about when they state global warming stopped in 1998, or that the globe has been cooling since then.

I find it abhorrent that people of the likes of Carter can “spin it” in a court of law with obvious contempt for the real experts in statistics. Thankfully, Justice Mackenzie picked it up.

Graham, yes - the matter was sent back for re-hearing. However, within 4 days of the decision, the Qld government “changed the rules”, effectively over-riding the Court’s decision. Xstrata and the Qld (Labor) government both got what they wanted – it was always going to end that way, imho.

Q&A you wonder why I have trouble taking anything that you say seriously when you do things like this. You refer to Carter being an "expert witness" and his "court room antics". Yet we all have access to the documentary evidence and it is, unlike some of the issues to do with climate change, unequivocal. In his finding the president says:

"The Carter-Byatt critique of the Stern Review was not mentioned at the hearing. I became aware of it a few days later, at about the same time as the IPCC’s 4th Report Summary was released."

No "court room antics". No expert witness. A document that was not even mentioned at the hearing (but that is the reason that the appeal succeeds). In fact XStrata accepted the IPCC view of the world, so why would they have brought Bob Carter in as a witness?

Then you selectively quote from the appeal judgement. It is not Carter that Mackenzie J is questioning, but the president of the tribunal. He goes on to say:

"It is not the function of the present appeal to express a conclusion whether or not the methodology and analysis relied on by the President of the Tribunal is valid or not."

So, no finding that what Carter said was "crap". He explicitly says it is not his role to judge whether Carter is right or not.

Unless you can do better than this you must retract your accusation.

Q&A, you had better retract any accusation that Graham wants you to, the last person I saw who he said that to was hit with the banhammer when they were unrepentant.

He only pounces when he thinks he has a watertight case against you and you happen to disagree with him. It's the Christian way.

Repent now Q&A!

Lato, I may be woefully ignorant about the science of climate change, but I did know quite a bit of the history and philosophy of science--at least I did six years ago.

You say 'In a more serious subject, such as physics, when some phenomenon cannot be explained by current theory, physicists put their minds to revising the theory until a proper explanation is arrived at_ and only then can one proceed to make serious predictions about that phenomenon'.

Scientific procedure is more complex and more tortuous than that. An outstanding example is Newton's theory of motion. After he published the first version of his theory, a number of anomalies were noted. Some of them were resolved by his subsequent work on optics, some by changes taking into account the effects of the planets on each other. But several were not resolved during his lifetime; and the orbit of Mercury in particular was never explained. Yet scientists continued to use the theory, and relied on it in developing explanations of many other phenomena. And yes, they did predict the orbit of Mercury on a statistical basis. It took Einstein's theory to explain it, however.

You are right that serious scientists seek to explain anomalies--and do not hide them. Good explanations have further implications, which enable their assumptions or the new pieces of theory involved to be verified. (An explanation of the orbit of Mercury which relies on the existence of another planet in the same orbit on the other side of the sun implies that we should be able to detect it. When some Monash University scientists thought they had done so, Einstein's theory had a new anomaly. It was soon resolved.)

The process by which one theory is replaced by another, and the principles which should guide those processes have been the subject of extended historical and philosophical discussion. Understandably, the scientists find themselves caught up in the philosophical debate, as well, in arguing their cases.

Mathematics, too, is not immune from methodological dispute. Even arithmetic.