Assessing The Conclusions Of Scientific Papers

[Admiral_Bobski]

I've been thinking about how different people view the science of AGW, and how the conclusions that some people draw are different from the conclusions that other people draw.

I have talked before about scientific papers that seem all good scientifically which then conclude something which doesn't seem to follow from the preceding paper.

This thread is for discussions of those conclusions, to debate whether those conclusions are legitimate and hopefully to gain some understanding of how people's perceptions lead them to either accept or be skeptical of AGW.

The idea is for someone to post a scientific paper (full text, please - an abstract isn't much help by itself!), then everyone who is interested can read the whole paper and we can discuss whether or not the conclusions seem legitimate.

Perhaps a "Pro-AGW" poster could get the ball rolling with a paper which is generally accepted in the scientific community and we can all see what we think?

[Yorkshiresnows]

I've been thinking about how different people view the science of AGW, and how the conclusions that some people draw are different from the conclusions that other people draw.

I have talked before about scientific papers that seem all good scientifically which then conclude something which doesn't seem to follow from the preceding paper.

This thread is for discussions of those conclusions, to debate whether those conclusions are legitimate and hopefully to gain some understanding of how people's perceptions lead them to either accept or be skeptical of AGW.

The idea is for someone to post a scientific paper (full text, please - an abstract isn't much help by itself!), then everyone who is interested can read the whole paper and we can discuss whether or not the conclusions seem legitimate.

Perhaps a "Pro-AGW" poster could get the ball rolling with a paper which is generally accepted in the scientific community and we can all see what we think?

Hi there Captain,

This is a great idea. How's about starting with the 1998 Michael Mann publication ?

The infamous 'hockey stick' paper.

From a sceptics or AGW point of view, this is quite a controversial and key publication. Basically if its correct (accurate), then you would have to conclude that natural cycles do not have any impact on the recent 20th century warming and that human related activities (greenhouse gas emissions) are very very likely to be the cause of an unprecedented warming event.

On the other hand, if you do not believe the findings are accurate (and there is an aweful lot of critisism that it is not), then all of a sudden you see that the medieval warm period and Little Ice age brought about temperature fluctuations of similar or even greater magnitude than what we are currently seeing and natural cycles are likely to be having a major role in what is currently occurring / has occurred.

Unfortunatley although I own the book "The hockey stick illusion" (Yep I guess that puts me in the skeptic camp !!), I have only a paper copy of the paper. The abstract link is below ..... does anybody have free access to the original nature publication ?

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v392/n6678/full/392779a0_fs.html

Y.S

[jethro]

Here's a link

http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/mann1998.pdf

[Yorkshiresnows]

Here's a link

http://www.geo.umass...ey/mann1998.pdf

Nice one Jethro. Thanks.

Y.S