Questionable "Scientific" Papers - 2

Fig. 1 The science is obvious

A paper posing as a scientific effort, rather than a paid political ad, was discussed at Central Hopium recently (Hopium Study Sees Possible Stuff).

The sarcastic title I gave the piece came after reading the author's fumbling explanation of the basis of the data upon which the pseudo "scientific" paper rests.

In the olde pre-hopium days, actual measurements were the source of robust scientific reporting, but, if the paper I am criticizing is any indication, real science is "so yesterday" to the hopioids.

Evidently the stuff some people call science, in this new age of messy-guessy, is understanding that the most important part of it all is the check from Oil-Qaeda.

Check out the language used by the science challenged crew I am criticizing:

... we estimate that the growth in global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production will be near or slightly below ... 2015 ...

Fig. 2  Anti-hopium Bummer Stuff

our method contains several assumptions and large uncertainties that could influence results beyond the given range ... Our 2015 estimate for China uses ... apparent consumption ... estimated using production data from the National Bureau of Statistics, imports and exports of coal from China Customs Statistics ... and from partial data on coal stock changes from industry sources ... apparent consumption ... from the National Energy Administration ... and production of cement reported ... We then assume that the changes during the first 6-8 months will persist through the end of the year ... The main sources of uncertainty are from the incomplete data on stock changes, the carbon content of coal, and of assumptions of persistent behaviour for the rest of 2015.

(Nature Addendum, emphasis added). This reminds me of the effort by the Alchemists to turn gold into lead.

The authors of the subject paper are conflating an imagined decrease in growth rate with an actual case of a total decrease in annual quantity of CO₂ being deposited into the atmosphere, then concluding erroneously that "slowdown in growth = (no more growth) decrease".

Or perhaps that is what they want us to do, bolstered by hopium.

I wonder how they would do their kid's growth rate charts over the years (assuming they ever discover sex) ... "honey I shrunk the kids" ... merely because the kid's growth rate decreased for a spell?

The stock market and industry assertions do not trump (even if they do donald trump), the actual readings at Mauna Loa and elsewhere (Fig. 1, Fig. 2).

"Hard cases make bad law," and desperation mixed with hopium makes bad "scientific" papers.

The previous post in this series is here.