Home/Blog“The American Geophysical Union plans to announce that 700 researchers have agreed to speak out on the issue. Other scientists plan a pushback against congressional conservatives who have vowed to kill regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.”
A new article in the LA Times says that the American Geophysical Union (AGU) is enlisting the help of 700 scientists to fight back against a new congress that is viewed as a bunch of backwoods global warming deniers who are standing in the way of greenhouse gas regulations and laws required to same humanity from itself.
Scientific truth, after all, must prevail. And these scientists apparently believe they have been endowed with the truth of what has caused recent warming.
The message just hasn’t gotten across.
We skeptics are not smart enough to understand the science. We and the citizens of America, and the representatives we have just elected to go to Washington, just need to listen to them and let them tell us how we should be allowed to live.
OK, so, let me see if I understand this.
After 20 years, billions of dollars in scientific research and advertising campaigns, cooperation from the public schools, TV specials and concerts by a gaggle of entertainers, end-of-the-world movies, our ‘best’ politicians, heads of state, presidents, the United Nations, and complicity by most of the news media, it has been decided that the American public is not getting the message on global warming!?
Are they serious!?
Americans — hell, most of humanity — have already heard the 20 different ways we will all die miserable deaths from our emissions of that life giving — er, I mean poisonous –gas, carbon dioxide, that we are adding to the atmosphere every day.
So, NOW it no more mister nice guy? Give me a break.
Finally Time for a REAL Debate?
Actually, this announcement is a good thing. There has been a persistent refusal on the part of the elitist, group-think, left-leaning class of climate scientists to even debate the global warming issue in public. Maybe they have considered it beneath themselves to debate those of us who are clearly wrong on the global warming issue.
A complaint many of us skeptics have had for years is that those who constitute the “scientific consensus” (whatever that means) will not engage in public debates on global warming. Al Gore won’t even answer questions from the press.
This is why you will mostly hear only politicians and U.N. bureaucrats give pronouncements on the science. They are already adept at weaving a good story with carefully selected facts and figures.
Why has the global warming message been presented mostly by politicians and bureaucrats up until now? Probably because it is too dangerous to put their scientists out there.
Scientists might admit to something counterproductive — like uncertainty — which would jeopardize what the politicians have been trying to accomplish for decades — control over energy, which is necessary for everything that humans do.
Scientists Ready to Enter the Lion’s Den
The LA Times articles goes on to explain how there will be “scientists prepared to go before what they consider potentially hostile audiences on conservative talk radio and television shows.”
Gee, how brave of them.
Kind of like when I went up against Henry Waxman? Or Barbara Boxer?
I can sympathize with Republican’s desire to have hearings to investigate how your tax dollars have been spent on this issue. But I will guarantee that if such hearings are held, the news media will make it sound like Galileo is being tried all over again.
As if climate scientists are objective seekers of the truth. I hate to break it to you, but scientists are human. Well..most of us are, anyway.
Most have strong personal, quasi-religious views of the role of humans in the natural world, and this inevitably guides how they interpret measurements of the climate system. Especially the young ones who have been indoctrinated on the subject.
Those few of us who are publishing climate researchers and who are willing to take the risk of speaking out on the biased science on this issue are now late in our careers, and we have seen the climate research field be transformed from one where “climate change” used to necessarily imply natural climate change, to one where nature does not have the power to cause its own change — only mankind does.
I have repeatedly pointed out how virtually all global warming research funds either (1) build the case for humanity as the primary cause of recent warming, or (2) simply assume humans are the cause.
Virtually NO funding has supported research into the possibility that warming might be mostly part of a natural climate cycle. And if you give scientists enough money to find something, they will do their best to find it.
Politicians have orchestrated and guided this effort from the outset, and scientists like to believe they are helping to Save the Earth when they participate in global warming research.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is a Hypothesis, Nothing More
What the big-government funded climate science community has come up with is a plausible hypothesis which is being passed off as a proven explanation.
Science advances primarily by searching for new and better explanations (hypotheses) for how nature works. Unfortunately, this basic task of science has been abandoned when it comes to explaining climate change.
About the only alternative explanation they have mostly ruled out is an increase in the total output of the sun.
The possibility that small changes in ocean circulation have caused clouds to let in more sunlight is just one of many alternative explanations which are being ignored.
Not only have natural, internal climate cycles been ignored as a potential explanation, some researchers have done their best to revise climate history to do away with events such as the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. This is how the ‘hockey stick’ controversy got started.
If you can get rid of all evidence for natural climate change in Earth’s history, you can make it look like no climate changes happened until humans (and cows) came on the scene.
Bring It On
I look forward to the opportunity to debate a scientist from the other side who actually knows what they are talking about. I’ve gone one-on-one with some speakers who so mangled the consensus explanation of global warming that I had to use up half my speaking time cleaning up the mess they made.
Those few I have debated in a public forum who know what they are talking about are actually much more reserved in their judgment on the subject than those who the pop culture presents to us.
But for those newbie’s who want to enter the fray, I have a couple of pieces of advice on preparation.
First, we skeptics already know your arguments …it would do you well to study up a little on ours.
And second, those of us who have been at this a long time actually knew Galileo. Galileo was a good friend of ours. And you are no Galileo.
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Scientists are known to be superhuman except when their emails become publicly available.
“Global warming” is just a theory.
“Global warming doesn’t exist” is also a theory.
“Smoking causes cancer” is a theory (and it kills 1,500 Americans every day.)
Human evolution is a theory (unless you believe women came from a rib.)
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is a theory (but I still get my electricity from a nuke.)
Folks who live on Pacific islands watch their world get smaller every year. (They’re very worried.)
Personally, where the potential extinction of mankind is concerned, I’d rather err on the side of caution.
Deny GW (theory) all you want. Big Oil and Dirty Coal are in your corner, but they’re keeping all the money for themselves. And there’s a lot of it. In fact, some of it used to be yours. We’re just pawns to these people.
You should research how much money is going to funneled through the global carbon exchange. Using the power of derivaties. (financial weapons of mass destruction) They are going to turn a few trillion into tens of trillions of dollars. The amount of money at stake here dwarfs global oil revenues, and when its a tax, you have no overhead. You just rake in the money, and of course we’re going to have rigorous controls and accountability on exactly where all that money is going. This is the biggest scam the 1% have ever cooked up
700 researchers !
Wow!!
That is a target rich environment.
This should be fun. Their plan reeks of the desperation of True Believers.
Roy
…”A complaint many of us skeptics have had for years is that those who constitute the “scientific consensus” (whatever that means) will not engage in public debates on global warming. Al Gore won’t even answer questions from the press.”….
Well expressed, but what makes you think that the IPCC establishment intends to have open frank debates?
I read their statement as meaning they should do even more of what they already do.
Lobbying,networking,media briefings and for sceptics continued isolation and denial of the oxygen of publicity.
Incidentally I am well to the left of most people.
Sarah Palin wont invite me to her next tea party.
However folk of all political persuasions must support open free honest science
We are past debate now. We need class action lawsuits. They can’t lie in a court of law, and will be subject to withering cross-examination and forced to answer. Making them pay for their lies is the only thing that will stop this
What I would like to see is for the “consensus” scientists to engage their serious critics. I have heard countless times explanations of the physics of Greenhouse gases and evidence that the earth is warming. I have heard very little response to the types of arguments made by you, Richard Lindzen, Roger Pielke, Sr. and most recently, Judith Curry.
Given the flax the Dr. Curry is receiving, it doesn’t appear to me that a certain segment of the climate science community is getting it.
Here is my “one page” (ok, both sides of one page) guide to climate and energy used here in “evergreen Charlottesvile, VA. Use as desired.:
The “One Page” Guide to Climate and Energy Issues
Charles Battig, M.S.,M.D.
Charlottesville, VA October 29, 2010
• These issues are more than about traditional science; they combine political/sociological belief systems, dogma, and one-sided government funding; proper caring for the environment does not equate with radical environmentalism/climatism.
• Club of Rome 1991: “in searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming…would fit the bill…the real enemy then is humanity itself.” The one-world-government, U.N. agenda has employed manmade global warming scares as its political tool for wealth redistribution.
• Scientists have biases/ agendas: climatologist Stephen Schneider: “we have to offer scary scenarios… decide the right balance between being effective and being honest.” The 2009 “climategate” scandal exposed the scientific misconduct of those involved as they sought academic notoriety, governmental grant funding, while they promoted fears of manmade climate change to build support for imposed political solutions of wealth redistribution via control of energy and its cost.
• Since the “little ice age” (A.D. 1300-1800) ended, global temperatures have risen about 1.5 F; the exact amount and causes are in doubt because of numerous reinterpretations of the raw temperature data; the major increases are in cities (urban heat islands); satellite temperature data covers only the last 30 years; surface stations cover only 30% of the earth’s surface…modest global warming is beneficial to society and nature; cold is the historical killer, not warmth.
• The warmest recent year is 1934; the Medieval Warm Period (A.D. 900-1300) was warmer than now; carbon dioxide levels were much lower then…the more recent temperature record shows an average 30 year cycle of cooling and warming. Since 1998 the earth has been in a cooling trend, even as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. There is no valid “carbon dioxide up/temperature up” proven correlation.
• Climate models and computers cannot predict the future climate; no one knows all the variables and their interactions; evidence of global warming does not prove it is manmade; any human component is buried in the massive effects of nature.
• Carbon dioxide is absolutely essential to your life; it is not a biological pollutant; it is necessary for plant life, which produces oxygen and food for us carbon-based humans. Atmospheric carbon dioxide increases have fed the re-growth of the Amazon and eastern U.S. forests. Water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas.
• In 2007, a British court ruled that 9 out of the 12 catastrophic climate events in Mr. Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” were unfounded; the film was judged “political propaganda”, and had to be so announced, if shown in public schools.
• Petroleum oil, natural gas, and coal are the original “bio-fuels” and are plentiful; the only shortage is the one imposed on their use by the government. Present governmental policies aimed at restricting domestic energy production send “green jobs” overseas; we are forced to import more foreign oil rather than develop our own plentiful resources with American labor. The U.S. gets most of its petroleum oil from Canada and Mexico. China is drilling for oil off the U.S. coast in areas prohibited to U.S. companies. The eastern U.S. is the new “Saudi Arabia of natural gas.”
• Corn ethanol gasoline is more polluting and less efficient than basic gasoline; it carries a 45 cent tax cost and a 54 cent import duty on Brazilian sugar cane ethanol…a boon to Iowa mega-farm interests at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.
• China is set to build 100 nuclear plants over the next 20 years, even as they add one new coal-fired plant each week; they control the rare earths needed for electric cars and solar panels. Sweden and Germany are planning new nuclear power plants.
• Wind turbine and solar energy are not “free energy”…they require huge land areas, destroy large areas of native habitat, and consume disproportionate amounts of concrete and building resources for the amount of energy produced; they require the construction of additional conventional power plants to produce electricity when the wind stops or the sun sets…they survive only because of massive governmental subsidies and costly, imposed-mandates for their use…solar and wind receive about 20x the subsidies for nuclear, for the same energy produced. Wind turbine power farms are more polluting than conventional gas power plants.
• Read the “2010 Virginia Energy Plan” to see how your VA taxes fund these projects. “Renewable resources” depend on governmental subsidies, and mandates for their use; these are monies borrowed from China as the U.S. Treasury is broke. Since 1989, over 79 billion dollars of governmental subsidies have been the new “green” for industry, federal bureaucracies, universities, and Wall Street “cap-and-tax.”
• The Federal EPA bureaucracy is imposing energy destroying policies by edict.
• Our local government has signed on with the “International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives” (ICLEI),now “Local Governments for Sustainability”…this activist group has entrée to your local government via a$1200 yearly fee, and has an effective seat in county government deciding your energy/property/freedom rights. Your county government has funded the population control group ASAP.
“• The warmest recent year is 1934; the Medieval Warm Period (A.D. 900-1300) was warmer than now; carbon dioxide levels were much lower then…”
Actually CO2 has been much higher in the past, during most of the last 600 megayears, and higher than now during three periods of the last 200 years, most recently in the 1940s. (E Beck’s 200 years of chemical bottle CO2 data)
The concept of historically low CO2 was from Callendar’s cherry-picked data, ignoring most of the values which were higher. (One of the requirements for the IPCC’s case is low CO2 unitl recently. It is ingenuous to think that anything like CO2 would be ever constant.
Also, biofuels are worse than you depict as they have driven up the cost of basic foods stuffs by 3-fold in recent years, starving people in other countries. It is dumbass to convert food to fuel and equally dumb to convert crop detritus to fuel as these materials should be reintegrated into the soil, decreasing the need for fertilizers even in modern managed fields. Biofuels are evil and intended to cause starvation as the radical environmentalists see starvation as an acceptable cause of death. Old age is bad.
see http://judithcurry.com/
After reading what Judith Curry is saying on her blog it is interesting to read what other ‘scientists’ are up to.
I have just, yet one more time, read the Royal Society’s “Summary of climate change theory” as it was published in September 2010. What I found very interesting was, among other things, the following:
“Aspects that are not well understood:
46 Observations are not yet good enough to quantify, with confidence, some aspects of
the evolution of either climate forcing or climate change, or for helping to place tight bounds on the climate sensitivity. Observations of surface temperature change before 1850 are also scarce.
47 As noted above, projections of climate change are sensitive to the details of the representation of clouds in models. Particles originating from both human activities and
natural sources have the potential to strongly influence the properties of clouds, with consequences for estimates of climate forcing. Current scientific understanding of this
effect is poor.
48 Additional mechanisms that influence climate sensitivity have been identified, including the response of the carbon cycle to climate change, for example the loss of organic
carbon currently stored in soils. The net effect of changes in the carbon cycle in all current models is to increase warming, by an amount that varies considerably from model to model because of uncertainties in how to represent the relevant processes.
The future strength of the uptake of CO2 by the land and oceans (which together are currently responsible for taking up about half of the emissions from human activity –
see paragraph 26) is very poorly understood, particularly because of gaps in our understanding of the response of biological processes to changes in both CO2 concentrations and climate.
49 There is currently insufficient understanding of the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica to predict exactly how much the rate of
sea level rise will increase above that observed in the past century (see paragraph 45)for a given temperature increase. Similarly, the possibility of large changes in the
circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean cannot be assessed with confidence. The latter limits the ability to predict with confidence what changes in climate will occur in
Western Europe.
50 The ability of the current generation of models to simulate some aspects of regional climate change is limited, judging from the spread of results from different models; there is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change, except at continental scales.”
———0———
All the above should be enough even for them to understand that they do not understand “Climate Change” any more than I do and it is beyond me how anyone writing the above, can be serious about putting the blame for any changes in the climate squarely on 0.01% (100 ppm) of our atmosphere. So go on Dr. Spencer; Take them on as there is none so blind as ——.
Roy,
Please don’t stoop to using strawman arguments like: “we have seen the climate research field be transformed from one where “climate change” used to necessarily imply natural climate change, to one where nature does not have the power to cause its own change — only mankind does.” If you really think that statement typifies a common position among climate scientists, please identify the prominent ones who support it and provide references.
What do you mean Jeff T?
I think the statement “We have seen the climate research field be transformed from one where “climate change” used to necessarily imply natural climate change, to one where nature does not have the power to cause its own change — only mankind does.” is a perfectly valid one.
If you think it is a strawman argument, whatever that is or means, then: please identify the “prominent ones” (whosoever they are) who support your point of view and – do provide references.
Well said, civil and cogent. Thank you Roy for reminding us what we who would call ourselves scientists are truly about.
I am less sure that these guys coming down from the Ivory Tower is a good thing than you are, Roy, since they seem to be coming down armed with political bazookas.
Nothing good can from the fact that this group thinks that it is their job to dictate policy, that their field has suspended all the laws of normal logic and economics and justifies ignoring history’s lesson to institute onerous totalitarian controls to save the world. Nothing good can come from the fact that these people will continue to say that we “must” engage in disastrous policies because “the science says so”. And for sure, nothing good can from a bunch of college professors vigorously campaign against who they have inexplicably deemed the enemies of reality and humanity: the GOP. These people still continue to poison hard science with their disgusting ideology and get away with it. Infuriating!
Olav at 9:14,
Roy made the assertion; he should support it. Here are two papers you should read: W.S. Broecker, Science vol. 189, pp. 460-463 (1975); and G.A. Meehl et al., Journal of Climate vol. 17, pp. 3721-3727 (2004). Broecker uses both natural and anthropogenic effects to predict temperatures through 2010. Meehl uses both natural and anthropogenic forcings to model 20th century temperatures.
Roy,
I wouldn’t hold out too much hope of these people taking part in fair and open-minded debate on the subject. It is clear that they all have closed minds and that their only interest will be in attempting to ridicule any alternative opinions. I think there tactics might be to confront non-scientist politicians etc, and bamboozle them with science and statistics. There was a time when being sceptical was a sign of a good scientist, but that no longer seems to be the case. Also, I think that those of you who are challenging the accepted theories need to organise yourselves more, instead of giving the appearance of a group of renegade individuals.
Who would the open debate be between I wonder? The ´natural climate change deniers´ and the ´all kind of climate change deniers´? Maybe some open minded sceptical scientist, like Roy, could act as mediator?
Will these 700 claim to speak for the 58,000+ members of the AGU or will they have to provide a disclosure that their opinions are theirs alone?
Secondly, they have invested so much effort into portraying skeptics as climate denying flat earth sub-human pigs, that their sudden desire to jump into the pig sty to wrestle with pigs (metaphor alert), can only be seen as a case of prestigious ivory towered climate scientists lowering themselves to the level of pigs at this point in time. The corollary of this, which would be that the 700 will elevate the status of the skeptics by engaging them, is also in play now.
Lastly the 700 are making several scientists who argued for open discussion in the past, but who were ignored and vilified, look like geniuses and sages when compared to them. I won’t mention those geniuses and sages by name. ;*)
It seems the debate has been cancelled.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/08/agu-backs-away-from-climate-rapid-response-team-citing-faulty-reporting/
Dr. Spencer, what you’re totally missing here is the well-known datum that the global warming skeptic propagandists like Marc Morano (from whence I came finding your link) have been much more effective at convincing the convinceable (mostly right-wing conservatives) that this is a) a political issue, not a scientific one, b) that most climate scientists are either doing something negligent or criminal if their results support AGW, c) that scientific understanding of climate doesn’t increase over time, and d) that putting money into an issue to sway public opinion isn’t an effective tactic.
Oh, and by the way: the battle against scientific creationism proved time-and-time again that a skilled debater can convince a susceptible audience that pure hokum is just as valid as actual scientific data. Look up the “Gish gallop” if you haven’t heard of it.
MOre later.
And in the Scopes Monkey Trial a slick lawyer left the implication that the actual winner of the trial was the loser and the press and academia has been spreading the lie ever since. If you actually read the trial transcripts you will find the defense actually plead guilty before allowing the Prosecution the chance to examine his opponent, leaving only the questions and arguments of the Defense attorney and replies of the Prosecutor, on the record!! If you read the paper reports from the time you will find that it was a carnival atmosphere NOT a bunch of closed minded haters as portrayed in the movie. Yet, most people think the Defense won the trial and there were a bunch of hating Church People running around ranting against evolution!!
The problem with your position is that Evolution is only a hypothesis that has no experiments or data to support it. Again, you really need to study the FACTS.
I have been told that the human foetus has gills and a tail. That is incorrect. The so called gills are the early growth of glands in the neck that are part of the control system for the growth of the body. The so called tail is the faster development of the spine that must be there to support the nerves, blood vessels, musculature and bones that grow attached to it later (building a bridge you don’t start with the road bed).
You would probably trot out any number of skeletons that “prove” that one animal descended from another. Unfortunately modern genetics has shown that many animals similar in looks to each other are NOT similar at the genetic level and probably could NOT be related much later than fish!! Basically it is all smoke and mirrors. There are numerous claims of veracity and evidence and it simply isn’t there.
Remember Neanderthal?? Much has been written about that branch mostly on thin evidence and imagination. Again, genetics show that Neanderthal is actually within the range of modern humans!! But it gets much worse. A couple years ago an archaeologist recovered relatively intact protein from a dinosaur bone alledgedly a few hundred thousand years old. The genetics are “similar” to chickens. When allegations of contamination were reasonably refuted it turned out that evolutionary scientists are more willing to believe that proteins can last for hundreds of thousands of years rather than the dino bone being only a few thousand years old!! With that kind of mind set what can be done??
In the fossil record there are no long periods with slow changes in organisms. There are two periods when huge numbers of species simply appear in the record with no immediate precursors. That is the driver for the Punctuated Equilibrium hooter of a Hypothesis!! When you are desperate to make your theory fit the facts instead of coming up with a new theory the results can be pretty amazing.
Sorry, the propaganda never stops and you really do need to improve your education. It is similar with the IPCC’s faux pas. They stuck their necks out for whatever reason and are now stuck with trying to fit actual data to a theory that has been falsified by their own incorrect predictions.
Jeff T
I have read W.S. Broecker, Science vol. 189, pp. 460-463 (1975). Don’t know much about G.A. Meehl et al. But I am well acquainted with the theories of Svante Arrhenius, Joseph Fourier and John Tyndall. Theories – upon which most modern climate science seems to be built.
And yes, I am impressed with their work. That however does not mean that I blindly believe they were 100% right. After all they had only just discovered past “Ice Ages”, or maybe just one of them
Modern Ice-core graphs and other evidence from paleoclimatoligy show that in the distant past, at times, or even every time, during interglacial periods when CO2 was at its maximum peak the temperature dropped and sent the Earth back into glaciations.
Why was that happening if CO2 was driving temperature?
None of the afore mentioned scientists/writers (apart from G.A. Meehl et al 2004) had the benefit of ice-core graphs at their time of writing. Even 1975 is too early for that.
Also take note of what Dr. Spencer writes: “First, we skeptics already know your arguments …it would do you well to study up a little on ours.”
Then again as you say, an answer to you is up to Dr. Spencer,
Yes, AGU sent a press release clarifying that they’re not putting such “rapid response team”, that they’re not an advocacy group but a scientific society, etc. Which means they are still not prepared to engage in actual debate with fellow scientists who don’t believe the AGW hypothesis. They only wish to deal with media, especially with the UN FCCC meeting in Cancun less than 3 weeks from now.
Dr. Roy Spencer,
One of the requirements for such a public debate should be for the opening up to the public of ALL their data, code, internal work related correspondence and emails, and the original raw temperature data sets. Other scientists who are objective need to go through these things (and anything else I forgot to list) first, and then let the debate begin.
The way I look at it, if we are going to get integrated into a $20 trillion dollar/year carbon trading market (where will will be mostly trading cash and technology to developing nations for the right to emit CO2), then I need to know that ALL of their work has been thoroughly checked by independent and objective scientists and that no fudging or data massaging has been done.
I have one simple request. A Chart of the green house gases and their importance in the warming. A chart with the amount separated natural versus anthropogenic. Totally absent on any Pro Warming sites.
I have found only one source and would like to see what both sides put up for numbers. If Anthropogenic is less than 10%, and of that 10% less than 2% is CO2 then I’d have a had time understanding how that is so critical to cut back.
Paul
That’s a wonderful essay, Dr. Spencer. Thank you.
Are the GSU getting their talking points from the White House?
To hear the latter tell it, the reason they suffered a resounding repudiation 2 Nov is because they didn’t communicate their programs or goals effectively. This despite the fact that their policies have been under siege from an irate electorate since the summer of 2009.
Perhaps it’s because the crackpots in the AGW leadership suffer from the same delusions that the crackpots in the White House political leadership do.
It really doesn’t matter anyway. The AGW crackpots have spent the last 20 years indoctrinating grade schoolers. As long as they have control of the message at that level, they’ll win and the West will destroy itself persuing fanciful schemes ostensibly to save the planet, but in reality to render Social Justice to the 5th world states who now cannot fairly compete with the West in the prosperity stakes. We’ll fall on our swords economically so Zimbabwe can have Mugabe can provide all of his butchering army with hd tvs and BMWs as they travel from farm to farm to sieze the productive land and the UN can brag about what a great job it’s done to equalize incomes world-wide.
Sorry for the digression, Dr. Roy. I’ll have more commentary tomorrow.
For kuhnkat:
You’ve provided a perfect example of reality vs. unreality. Similar to the grasping-for-mechanistic-straws of global warming skeptics.
So, explain these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoceti
Wikipedia? Really, you LYING son of a bitch?
You know full well that your hero, william connolley, fudged everything he could in the Climate section of Wiki. That he altered over 5000 documents to support AGW, blocked over 2000 people from fixing the errors in their OWN work, which connolley built into them, and that now that bastard is himself banned.
And you have the GALL to quote distorted documents from that site?
I thought Martin Luther was the new denialist hero. Oops, wasn’t he the one who called on the German landowers to slaughter rebellious peasants? Better go back to Galileo, who at least was a scientist.
It is clear that a new round of McCarthyite witch hunts are going to start in Congress. It is wise to be prepared.
Dr. Spencer
This is a golden opportunity that should be acted on as soon as possible. Please don’t wait for an invite but take them up on the word and arrange for a debate initiated by the skeptical side. I’m sure you know people with resources to arrange that or at least on of the bulldogs like Marc Morano that can make a debate happen and see that it’s reported on in mainstream media. This is gold if they show up and gold if they don’t. I’m sure you or your contacts know people that can make this happen, with good moderators and all. Please do.
If the skeptic side act on this and drag the other side out in public, it could, if done cleverly, bury this debate once and for all, or at least have an impact on their slowing momentum.
“those of us who have been at this a long time actually knew Galileo”
But Dr Roy, you look so young in your photo….
Keep up the fight. The Skeptics are clearly making an impact. I suspect we’ll never convince the true believers of the error of their ways, so we should move ahead with building a new theory of climate without them. A lot of their endlessly ‘adjusted’ data are worthless anyway.
A very well written piece … and the more opinion pieces we have like this, by scientists such as yourself, the greater the pressure will be on warmist scientists who have committed their reputation and credibility to the “Church of Man-Made Global Warming”.
Today, for the first time since it first aired on TV, I watched Martin Durkin’s 2007 documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. This documentary will one day come to haunt all the warmist-alarmist scientist … they might even ask themselves “How could we have been so stupid?”
I have a dream… that a day is coming when we will be seeing the OSCAR for “An Inconvenient Truth” being withdrawn, and an OSCAR being issued to Martin Durkin for “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.
I have a dream… that a day is coming when we will be seeing the Norwegian Nobel Committee withdrawing the Nobel Prize to Al Gore and issuing one to Martin Durkin for his contribution in exposing to the world the Great Global Warming Swindle.
Science, of which you worship, is dead.
Those of you who pretend to take some higher moral or intellectual ground under the guise and banner of SCIENCE are no more enlightened than the common savage worshipping a graven image, awashed in fear and ignorance.
However, at least with the savage he finds some PURPOSE for his existence. Your Science provides no such answer.
Divine the entrails that is “AGW” if you will, and debate this issue ad nauseam, for those of a religious and philosophical bent, we are already having the last laugh.
How dare they defend themselves and their science. Surely the floor should be left to the likes of Monckton and Coleman.
Roy,
are you going to add an update given the fact that the AGU has produced a press release calling the LA Times article a misrepresentation of the AGU program?
From the AGU press release via Judy Curry,
‘An article appearing in the Los Angeles Times, and then picked up by media outlets far and wide, misrepresents the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and a climate science project the AGU is about to relaunch. The project, called Climate Q&A Service, aims simply to provide accurate scientific answers to questions from journalists about climate science.’
then,
‘“In contrast to what has been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, there is no campaign by AGU against climate skeptics or congressional conservatives,” says Christine McEntee, Executive Director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union. “AGU will continue to provide accurate scientific information on Earth and space topics to inform the general public and to support sound public policy development.”’
I wonder if jumping on this idea from a journalist, a group who have shown a complete inability to effectively communicate any specifics about climate science, was not the best idea. I would have thought that since the AGU had just last year invited you, a self-proclaimed skeptic, to give a talk on your feedback models and explanations of natural variability playing a larger role in the observed warming would give you pause before making some of the connections you made above.
Again, this post, like the last I commented upon, lacks the rigor that brings many physical scientists to this site and your books. If your complaint against the scientific community is that their own conclusions lack rigor, then I’d say you had better make sure that your own do not suffer the same problem.
Better luck next time.
Hi Roy,
The AGU has corrected the LA Times article. The scientists are only there as an information source, not as a front guard in some kind of attack (see recent AGU press release). The LA Times wanted a saucy article, and didn’t bother with strict fact checking. I hope you will find the time to correct this misinterpretation of the AGU group.
Take care,
Christian
Scientists have always been ready and eager to rebut the skeptics for journalists. Witness Andy Revkin in the Climategate emails asking (I think it was Ben Santer) for a “scrub” of Douglass’ latest paper on the upper tropical hotspot. Do you really think Revkin went back to Douglass or Christy of a response to criticisms of his work? Why didn’t Revkin consult someone who wasn’t directly involved in the controversy?
All the AGU wants to do is anoint some highly qualified activists as official spokesmen for the AGU to make divergent opinions look less credible. How about a qualified group that represents both sides of the issue? Oh no. Too much weight for minority views!
Not to worry about the latest news from AGU, we still have our friends at the Union of Concerned Scientists……. oops, wait, they are still on their campaign to be sure debate doesn’t happen. Please see “Silencing global warming critics” http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/08/silencing_global_warming_criti.html
While I’m at it, I should add that it isn’t merely the Union of Concerned Scientists who’ve made efforts to suppress skeptic scientists, the efforts are much more widespread… but originate from one central place, which I suggest is worthy of a House committee investigation next year. Please see see my article at Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism.com: “How an Enviro-Advocacy Group Propped Up Global Warming in the MSM – A Nov 2 Election Connection” http://bigjournalism.com/rcook/2010/11/02/how-an-enviro-advocacy-group-propped-up-global-warming-in-the-msm-a-nov-2-election-connection/
Dr. Spencer,
One area of the CO2 levels that hasn’t been discussed that much publically, is the CO2 concentration that’s in the oceans resulting in acidification. The absorbtion of CO2 taken in by the oceans is purported to be high enough to cause significant alterations to the biological food chain. In addition, the increased bleaching of the world’s coral reefs. Have you done some probing into this phenomenon? Do you think it’s something to be concerned about? If it’s a natural or in part man-made occurence, it is likely to be of great significance to the planet’s health if C02 acidification continues to rise.
Regards,
Chris S.
Dr. Spender – as usual, stellar piece.
Oakden Wolf and all who believe similarly:
1) you’ve done nothing more here than suggest that “our” side has been more effective at persuasion. (It has, despite the billions your side has poured into Thermageddon theory.)
2) I’ll take Spencer, Christy, Lindzen, Soon, Baliunas, Shaviv and a player to be named later. You can have the entire IPCC group of scientists who support the Thermageddon hypothesis. All 2,500, or 25,000, or the “97% of scientists supporting the ‘consensus’ AGW theory.
We’ll give you 10 strokes a side, we’ll play the back 9 left handed, and we’ll kick off from our own goal line.
And when history records the outcome of this scientific controversy, I’ll bet good money your side is going to look like the Catholic Church in the flap with Galileo. Nothing against Catholics or the Catholic Church. In this example, they simply represent a belief system rooted in religion, not in scientific fact. Just like your belief system.
See you on the other side of scientific history.
Dr. Spencer – One more note (plus sincere apologies for the typo in spelling your name…UGH…., very sorry!)
Setting aside the levity in my previous post, I do want to thank you most sincerely for one very, very important, big-picture aspect of your work and that of Dr. Christy as well.
Thank you both for standing up for the 1-2 billion people on this planet living off less than $1/day, without access to clean water, basic sanitation, using wood and dung for fuel, without enough food to eat, etc., who are being used as pawns in a sickening political game under the auspices of “saving the planet” from something for which the planet does not need saving.
The poor in the developing world have no voice in this debate. Nobody asks about their preferences, what would make their lives and the lives of their children better.
It is ironic and sad that the very people who are portrayed as being protected “from the ravishes of ‘climate change’ ” are those who will suffer the most by virtue of the policies of the anti-human development, anti-population growth, anti-capitalism, anti-fossil fuel energy AGW political scientists and propagandists.
IMO, if the Nobel committee had any integrity and sense, they’d take back Gore’s Nobel prize and give it to you and Dr. Christy.
If only the poor in the developed world knew what a friend and advocate they are fortunate to have in you and in people like you.
I hope John sees this post.
And I hope that when both of you put your heads on your pillows tonight, you sleep soundly with the knowledge that your efforts could be the difference some day between the poor in the developing world achieving improved living standards, life expectancy, and quality of life that we in the west have achieved.
God Bless you both.
Good story, just think of the heat and the co2-emission these 700 will bring up. Scientific truth seems to have become a democratic issue(as in most votes count and not the party)
Chris Sharp @ November 9, 2010 at 10:45 AM
The claim that CO2 is causing acidification of the ocean is nonsense. The ocean is buffered by enormous amounts of solid calcium and magnesium carbonates. The pH of the ocean can not drop below ca 8 as long as these carbonates are present.
Some of these oceans scientists are claiming they can measure pH to +/- 0.01 of a unit. This is more nonsense. It is quite difficult to measure pH to +/- 0.1 of a unit in the lab let alone the open ocean. pH measurements are quite sensitive to temperature, pressure, salinity, the influx of fresh water, and local biological activity, etc.
Otter:
The Wikipedia article about archaeocetes (ancient whales) was merely easy to find and a comprehensive guide.
If you wish me to provide 100 or so other references, and you promise to read them all, I will. But the existence of ancient whale fossils has nothing to do with references in Wikipedia about climate and their editors. Your attempt to shoot the messenger is well wide of the target.
Harold Pierce Jr.
I expect that Dr. Spencer will not welcome an explication of ocean acidification unless he posts an article about the topic. Briefly, neutralization of the currently increasing acidity by sedimentary carbonates will take 1000s of years. Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are causing a shift in the oceanic carbonate system now, due to absorption of CO2 (caused by a shift in the air-sea flux rate of CO2 due in increased atmospheric pCO2) that is resulting in measurably decreasing pH in surface waters. The current state-of-the-art in seawater pH measurements uses long pathlength spectrophotometry and pH indicator dyes, making precise measurements to 0.0001 pH unit possible.
I recommend doing a bit of Google searching and refernce reading before making claims that something is “nonsense”.
Despite differing viewpoints on the subject of climate change, I have over the years admired your ability to maintain both your viewpoint and the integrity of your climate research and data analyses. Not an easy thing to do, I believe.
I particularly liked a final statement from you from a 2005 column:
“On the positive side, at least some portion of the disagreement between satellite and thermometer estimates of global temperature trends has now been removed. This helps to further shift the global warming debate out of the realm of “is warming happening?” to “how much has it warmed, and how much will it warm in the future?”. (Equally valid questions to debate are “how much of the warmth is man-made?”, “is warming necessarily a bad thing?”, and “what can we do about it anyway?”). And this is where the debate should be.”
Many of your readers might still question if warming is happening, particularly those still hoping for a short-term downtrend in your data due to La Nina. As I think you know, it’s unlikely for this to persist over several years. We might disagree as to why, but we both still know the upward trend is real.
Now, the main thing that I wanted to continue to comment on was this idea that “debate” can settle anything in the public mind. My choice of creationism and Duane Gish was deliberate, because Mr. Gish was adept at deceiving audiences at debates with scientists (generally audiences favorable to his position) that the tenets of Scientific Creationism possessed equal scientific validity to the understanding of Earth’s geological and biological history ascertained by scientific inquiry. Mr. Gish was particular effective if the scientists were poor communicators and debaters, because he was quite skilled and practiced; he had a set of counterpoints for many of the examples and arguments the scientists were likely to make. Many times the scientists in those debates — who may have judged him to be intellectually inferior, were surprised by his skill to dissuade their learned arguments and also his skill to make them look foolish — to the delight of the audience. In the process he effectively supported the beliefs of the audience, “cementing” their validity and making it even harder to convince them of the validity of established scientific knowledge (if there was truly a reason to have to do that).
In this case, there was. The purpose of Scientific Creationism was to masquerade a religious-based viewpoint as a viewpoint on equal footing with science. This is not the case — the knowledge and insights of religion are gained differently and used differently than those acquired by the practice of science. Court cases brought to completion and the work of a few adept communicators, plus increasing evidence from many different fields, eroded the Scientific Creationism effort. But this example demonstrates that a few clever counter-arguments, no matter how far removed they are from truth and reality, can be used by a skilled debater to undermine a strongly-supported scientific position, PARTICULARLY IF THAT IS THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE DEBATER. I.e., if the goal is not to seek truth, but to defeat it.
So the call to “debate” global warming and climate change, and its causes, manifestations, impacts, and future course, is a sham. It has already been demonstrated numerous times that skilled debaters, propagandists, and hucksters can easily “defeat” scientists in a debate setting — in so doing, they mislead and lie to their audience, creating confusion where a better grasp on the actuality of facts is necessary.
Scientific factuality, as you know, is not established by debates. That is also not how the public should assess the validity of climate change science. How it should be done is to present the phenomena under investigation, the applicable data, the uncertainties, the alternative explanations and the data that might support them — and then the synthesis in which the support for one explanation and lack of support for the alternatives emerges. This is a slow, deliberate, “boring” process. But what emerges from it is increased ACCURATE knowledge in the minds of the public that are affected (all of us) by this critical issue. With all the relevant information “on the table” as it were, then valid opinions can be formed and decisions made on the basis of them.
But if the choice is between an accomplished purveyor of falsehoods against a legitimate and honest scientist, and the liar is better at convincing the audience of his position than the truthteller, what will be accomplished except that a debate or two will be “won” by a liar, and his lies will be believed and promulgated by those who listen (particularly by those who are partial to the underlying motivations of the liar)?
Should we decide the future path of our planet and the human race on the basis of who can provide the best sound-bites and comebacks in a debate setting?
I hope you would prefer a better way, Dr. Spencer. And I believe that you are one of only a few who are qualified to participate in this process in a more productive, truth-seeking manner than useless “debates”.
I like to check out the latest global temp data at Dr Spencer’s site. Why does it look like temps have been trending toward an increase over the last ten years or so?
And if according to Wolf’s post, the oceans are not absorbing the atmospheric carbon but acidifying the C instead, don’t we have evidence of a problem? I’d like to hear Dr Spencer’s response to this and not some yahoo with an agenda.
Whatever one thinks about the science or about the politics, there can be no longer any doubt that science IS political. And that is why the public has come to regard science as just another special interest. How self destructive… and they do not realize it.
Oakden Wolf:
Debates may be useless, as you say, or very much informative. It depends on how you arrange it.
So far, what we have been told by IPCC is: science and consensus. This is quite uninformative, since you are not talking about this particular science context, and it wouldn’t be the first consensus big fail. Not all sciences have the same level of maturity, the same record of known good predictions.
I think the best way for a layman to decide whether IPCC is presenting a good case, or a very weak one is, precisely, debates. The layman shouldn’t even begin to listen, if the proposition is provided without the counterpoint of a qualified devil’s advocate. It’s obvious that the better the case, the harder the devil’s advocate task. Yes, you may get a particular debate with a speechless scientist, and a great devil’s advocate. That’s part of the game, and the public understands it. But in the long run, debates properly set do clarify the questions. It’s a very old technic; nothing new. And it’s known to work.
Hey All, what do you think about his idea?:
On a crowdfunding site (say like kickstarter.com), start a crowdfunding drive to raise USD1,000,000 in prize money. This prize money will be awarded to the first person or team that can provide conclusive empirical proof showing manmade CO2 is responsible for global warming. This competition will run for 2 years. All submissions will be checked and verified by statistical experts.
Once and for all, let’s settle this global warming argument. At the end of the competition, we will get a conclusive answer one way or the other.
If one million people contribute $1 each or 100,000 people contribute $10 each, we will have the needed prize money.
Roy,
You write:
“I have repeatedly pointed out how virtually all global warming research funds either (1) build the case for humanity as the primary cause of recent warming, or (2) simply assume humans are the cause.”
This is just silly. For my entire postdoctoral period in the 2000’s, the cutting edge of atmospheric dynamics research was all about the alphabet soup on interannual variability: ENSO, PDO, AMO, NAO, AO, etc. It’s gotten tons of funding. A lot of the leading people in our field (Mark Cane, for example) cut their teeth of interannual variability. There are whole research institutes (e.g. IRI at Columbia) devoted to understanding the role of interannual variability in climate.
Here’s a quote from the NSF’s research agenda:
http://www.nsf.gov/geo/adgeo/geo2000/ideas_society.jsp
Longer-Term Variability
The historical and paleoclimatic records contribute strong evidence of variability on decadal to century time scales, including abrupt climate transitions on time scales of one to ten years. Tree rings, ice cores, corals and lake sediments provide a rich record with the potential to help define the nature of global and regional variability. These longer records help define the nature of the sensitivity of the coupled Earth system. Remarkable progress has occurred over the last decade in developing coupled Earth system models. These models, constrained by global-scale observational records, are helping to document the mechanisms of Earth system variability.
Can you substantiate your claim that interannual variability has been neglected in climate research?
I hope that Dr. Spencer can bear with me on this.
With regard to the DNA in dinosaur bones: Citation here –
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/dinosaur-dna
Having worked in Nuclear power for 20 years, and being completely well versed in radiation health physics, I would quickly offer this: Base cosmic ray rate about 500 Milli-rad per year.
Amount of “hard radiation” (and cosmic is usually pretty “hard”, i.e. well above 100,000 KeV per particle or ray) to make a sample of organic matter (NOT INORGANIC, such as bone constituents) into mush or CO2, H2O, SO2, NOx… about 100,000 RAD.
Thus the bones found, have DNA which must needs be less than 200,000 years old. (If anyone struggles with that math, then they shouldn’t be discussing these matters to begin with!)
Let’s see, 200,000,000 years (standard assesment of age for the bones found…) versus 200,000 years. Factor of 1000 error.
Something to be concerned about.
M.H.
While that will be a delight to a television company and to many its viewers — to see once and for all which side of this so-called debate has to shut up and tuck their tail, and which side gets to pop the champagne bottle. No, what’s needed, is awareness.
It would be nice if such a conclusion be established irrefutably to the cause of rising CO2 could come so swiftly, but if you’re one seriously researching this phenomenon, it must take quite a long time to retrieve reliable and replicable data that’s consistent to one’s climate model. It just isn’t that simple given only two years. C’mon! Even Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity is still ruthlessly tested. It’s such a complex phenomenon that we may never fully understand; and by then the earth will not really care whose side ‘wins’. Nevertheless, we are going to be living in a very different world and will be leaving it to our children. The change is happening everywhere and it isn’t just the issue of GW, but this is where it is the most politicized. That isn’t good because other environmental issues that need our help, aren’t given the light of day.
If the conclusion that anthropogenic airborne pollutants (not just CO2) is a not only a legitimate candidate as a contributor to global warming but that humans actually could do something to curb the trend of environmental degradation, that would be a swift call to action. Scientists doing good, I feel, don’t want to further anger the anti-alarmists, but what they’re now finding hasn’t been such good news. They’re simply telling it like it is. Climate researchers are trying their hardest to do the same – to present the finding through science so that we can take action. We can be stewards of the earth or….. Well, Smith said it best to Morpheus.
Sorry, but my post was a follow-up to Peter P. and not the last two posts that followed his.
Chris Sharp,
You are expanding the issue from “climate change”, to the general effect of humankind on the planet. The latter is not in doubt (at least to me), but it is a separate issue to that of “climate change”. The fact that we are damaging the planet in other ways does not prove that “climate change” exists, and much of what is attributed to “climate change” is environmental damage by other means. As you say, “other environmental issues are not given the light of day”. That is partially due to the attention which has been given to “climate change”. It has reached the point where the main argument for not destroying the rain forests is the effect it has on climate. In the future, I believe that “climate change” will be seen as a side-issue, which distracted our attention from the real environmental problems. Even if temperature does rise by a few degrees over the next 100 years, that will be nothing, compared to the other effects of unsustainable population and economic growth. I don’t believe that there is the slightest chance of the politicians doing anything about CO2 or general environmental damage because they are obsessed with economic growth and their own political future.
AGW as a “fact” depends, in the public mind, on the integrity of three men: Hansen, Schmidt and Gore. The IPCC is a mouthpiece whose authority or ability to influence depends on the credibility of those inter-twined three. Their integrity depends on two things: 1) the trustworthiness of the global temperature record as provided by NASA/GISS, and 2) the correlation between the temperature record (1) and the IPCC projections. All other issues (except acidification of the oceans) are incidentals, though used as either support for AGW or alarms for the AGW crowd.
The GISS temperature record is the key. We know that there are great “corrections” in the official record. We know that the GISS record is diverging from the UAH/RSS satellite record and the SST record. We are suspicious of both corrections and data de-selection since 1990, as positive and negative biases are easily seen in time plots and location plots. The effect has been on the global network, however, where currently the New Zealand, Australian and British records are being “reviewed” for accuracy and precision. Any attack or qualification of the currently promoted record through local revisions will be only against the magnitude of the rise, though, not of the rise itself: the warmists will dismiss the challenge as one that complains that the rifle pointed at us is only a .303 and not the 45 as stated. Irrelevant, in other words. What any reduction in the temperature record or certainty in the record does, however, is change CAGW into perhaps just AGW. And it is the catastrophic aspect that “demands” action.
The correclation of the temperature record with the IPCC projections will suffer with any reduction or qualification in the official NASA global record, but again more to the C-portion than to the AGW-heart. The offical temperature record MUST stay high. Everything depends on it.
I seriously doubt that any significant public warmist will argue with a significant public skeptic as warmists speak of effects – droughts, storms, sealevel rise, species extinctions, while skeptics speak of fundamental errors of evidence. Warmists, being conclusion driven, are highly susceptible to disputes with the data. They are not influencial with data, but with their conclusions (and projections). On the other side, the skeptics are highly susceptible to attacks based on conclusions and projections: only a life-hating individual would say that protecting the weak and cute is a bad or unnecessary thing. To keep anuy debate at the data level will be extremely difficult for the skeptic side, but very damaging to the warmist credibility if it is. Warmist anger will be recognized as righteous indignation in a land where such emotions are applauded up to the Presidential level, while skeptic anger will be recognized as the selfish affront to personal profit-making. Calm rationality, on the skeptic side, will be seen as arrogance and cold-heartedness. As emotion in argument trumps on the stage, any warmist-skeptic debate will be difficult to control, let alone “win” on the skeptic side.
Gore has already shown the way: there will be no signicant debate. The closest we got was the Cameron-Morano challenge called off at the last minute. There will be no others, I believe. What would make a difference would be the resignation of Hansen, as long as someone like Schmidt doesn’t replace him. Only then could the agency and the federal management begin to distance itself from the subject by “reviewing” the public temperature data. Gore could then slip into a David Suzuki-like role of global-health speaker, continue to make money and become a “consciousness-raiser” and retire his rabble-rousing.
Interesting times are ahead. All of which are dependent on how successful Hansen et al are at maintaining the current global temperature record and its correlation to at least some of the more alarming IPCC projections. But as for a debate? A serious one, with a moderator and focus on data?
Not on this planet (which right now is Planet Gore).
Roy,
First, loved your 1st book and it opened my eyes to the truth.
Second, can you get your ‘web person’ to make these pages have a ‘print’ function. It’s hard for me to read and I like to print as a pdf and read on paper.
Thanks.
Roy – It’s too bad you choose Galileo as your patron saint, in as much as he wasn’t completely innocent in the matter of his trial. He went beyond the bounds of science in 2 ways. First, his heliocentric theory failed the best scientific tests of his day, yet he still insisted on presenting it as fact. Second, he started interpreting scripture publicly, which was not exactly his forte. All of this is not to say whether or not his trial was justified, but the fact is, had he acted strictly scientifically, there would have been no trial. But I agree the editted version of his trail makes an excellent icon for the unjust persecution of science.
That’s impressive that you knew Galileo too. Of course, Galileo was no Guo Shoujing who was fortunate to be able to practice his science in China where “consensus” on the Earth’s position in the universe was reached centuries earlier – unhampered by the constraints of people who felt their beliefs and way of life would be destroyed through new understanding. Did you know Regiomontanus too? While academics and politicians/theologians of the day were still debating the merits of Ptolemy’s versus Copernicus’ constructs of the Universe, navigators – including Christopher Columbus had to be more pragmatic. They abandoned the Alfonsine tables based on Ptomey’s view for the simple fact that they were inaccurate and forced to fit the Ptolemy world view by torture mathamatical constructs. Like sunspots causing global warming, the Alfonsine tables simply adopted a new special formula to adjust to each situation where the observations departed from the conclusions. Those seafaring adventurers were forced to decide what they were going to believe. Fortunately, they unwittingly chose science over doctrine for the simple reason that the Regiomontanus’ ephemeris tables actually worked. They best fit all the data, not just cherry picked data like whether there has been cooling since 1998 – but not since 1997 or 1999.
For Doug Proctor:
Why is the NASA/GISS data set so important, when the satellite data set for lower tropospheric temperatures, one version of which is presented by Dr. Roy Spencer, shows a similar trend (with caveats, due to the fact that one is based on surface temperature stations and the other on microwave brightness temperatures?)
Dr. Spencer,
“Anthropogenic Global Warming is a Hypothesis”. Fair enough. So let’s lay out the upcoming debate: what evidence do you see that directly refutes the hypothesis that global warming of the last 100 years is caused largely by human activities?
Ted, this is a joke of course, but what evidence do you see that directly refutes the hypothesis that global warming of the last 100 years is caused largely by natural events? 🙂
The GISS global anomaly for October, which has just been published, shows an increase from a revised figure of 0.54c, to 0.62c.
This increase is mainly due to an increase in the NH anomaly from 0.63c last month, to 0.83c, whereas the SH anomaly has fallen slightly from 0,46c to 0.41c.
The increase in the NH anomaly follows a general downward trend since April, and is contrary to the fall in the UAH NH anomaly for October.
Give em hell, Roy! There’s too much at stake here economically not to speak out against the climate change people. The cost of imposing carbon emission restrictions on poor, developing economies will cripple their struggle against poverty. We have an obligation to them to do the right thing and stop this train before it gains any more momentum.
Sean,
I’m glad you care about poor nations, but this is a red herring. Poor nations contribute very little to greenhouse gas pollution. Africa and South and Central America combined emit less than 8% of total emissions. Africa has abundant Uranium and hydropower resources (and South Africa’s coal production is likely at or near its peak), so its future emissions aren’t likely to be very large, even under an optimistic economic development scenario. All measures being discussed to address global warming involve significant subsidies of poor nations by rich nations, in order to allow the poor nations to develop in a lower carbon manner than at present.
If you’re arguing that measures to reduce greenhouse emissions will slightly reduce the growth rate of rich nations and that this reduction will trickle down to poor nations, then you’ve got to explain why there’s been such an enormous disconnect between growth in the world economies and growth in Africa and other poor economies, and why you think that disconnect will be different in the future.
If you’re arguing that China is going to be harmed by greenhouse gas reduction agreements, then you’re arguing that China isn’t capable of looking after its own interests in these negotiations. Is that really your position?
Cheers,
Dan Kirk-Davidoff
For O. Wolf (h/t the Bishop)
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/acid-oceans-and-acid-rain
Massimo Porzio,
Not being an atmospheric scientist I would hesitate to offer my own explanations for why natural causes don’t largely account for the warming we’ve seen in the last 100 years. There are many sources from atmospheric scientists you could check, although I suspect that you’re already familiar with many of the arguments. But, since you asked (even if it was intended in jest), you might take a look at NOAA’s FAQ page:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/faqs/climfaq15.html
Still awaiting a response from Dr. Spencer to my inquiry…
Ted
I could not help but clicking on the link you supplied in your answer to Massimo Porzio.
Most of what I found must be seen as a statement of “hearsay” as, to my knowledge, all the “evidence” talked about are other theories and various models which may have had faulty data and assumptions as part of their data input.
If the talked about evidence was present ant correct then there would be no argument or discussion.
As for answers to most of your link I believe “The Royal Society” (RS) which up until a few short months ago was an ardent supporter of AGW but which by now, after many complaints from their members seems to be changing their tack. So let us look at what they say at the moment. (I have posted some of their latest offerings earlier, or above ‘November 8, 2010 at 7:32 AM’) but below I will repeat a few extracts from some of the paragraphs. (Just to save you the bother of looking it up):
“46) Observations are not yet good enough to quantify, with confidence, some aspects of the evolution of either climate forcing or climate change, or for helping to place tight bounds on the climate sensitivity. Observations of surface temperature change before 1850 are also scarce.
47) ….. Current scientific understanding of this effect is poor.
48) …… Is very poorly understood, particularly because of gaps in our understanding of the response of biological processes to changes in both CO2 concentrations and climate.
49) …. There is currently insufficient understanding of the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica to predict exactly how much the rate of sea level rise will increase above that observed in the past century
50) ….. The ability of the current generation of models to simulate some aspects of regional climate change is limited, judging from the spread of results from different models; there is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change, except at continental scales.”
I do not believe my many letters with “scientific ramblings” to The Royal Society has helped them to change their tack but a petition urging them to look more closely at the science behind “Global Temperature Changes and its skeptics” signed by 43 of its own Fellows or esteemed members may have done the trick.
I have so far not encountered anyone who has got any proof that Carbon Dioxide is a major driver of global climate.
If the bi- product of The Industrial Revolution (Anthropogenic CO2) helped the Earth to emerge from The little Ice Age before and after 1850 then you and I and a few billion other people most likely owe our lives to it and the CO2 released into the atmosphere deserves a Medal!!!!
Hi Olav,
I already posted my reply, but it is still awaiting moderation since I placed a couple of links which (at least) demonstrate that the NASA “large body of evidence” is not so “large” and “evident”.
Living in Italy I can testify how here these arguments are untold by the press which is always ready to attribute any climatic catastrophic event to the AGW instead. The “climate gate” and the Copenhagen ’09 debacle have just been ignored.
This to say how people who didn’t take a look to the “other side” could be really convinced that the “science is settled”.
Massimo
A climate realist D day is coming.
http://notrickszone.com/2010/11/13/d-day-invasion-by-climate-realists-coming/
Hi Massimo
Sorry if I was too quick off the mark. I didn’t want to intervene but I will read your answer and look at any links too
Olav
No you don’t need to be sorry of course, I just wrote my reply to you because my reply to Ted is still “under moderation”.
My links were to Steve McIntyre statistician blog which criticize the “tree proxies” and the surfacestations.org which demonstrated how the temperature anomaly showed by NOAA as a “fact” is at least disputable.
Since in Ted’s link to NOAA they seems to suggest that the solar activity has no link to Earth climate I also added a link to an article were NOAA itself shows a graph of the quiet good correlation between the sea surface temperature and the sunspots number between 1860 and 1985… Thus the science is settled eh?
Maybe the NOAA scientist believe that the sea temp could rise and the atmosphere stay cool and vice versa.
Massimo
Olav,
Thank you for your interest in my message and the link I provided to Massimo Porzio.
I question your characterization of the website’s information as “hearsay”, since NOAA scientists are responsible for much of the research that was behind the summary provided on the specific page to which I pointed. Information does not become hearsay simply because it is a summary of data.
On the other hand, I checked the Royal Society’s website today (royalsociety.org) and found a front page article titled, “Cooling the world with crops”. It went on to say, “Europe and North America’s massive agricultural plantations could be harnessed to cool the globe in the face of global warming according to Dr Joy Singarayer, speaking at the Royal Society’s Discussion Meeting: Geoengineering – taking control of our planet’s climate.”
That hardly sounds like an organization that has “changed its tack.” Now, admittedly, that article doesn’t say anything about global warming being due to humans, so I searched their website on “global warming” and turned up this page: http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/
There’s a link there to a PDF file dated September 2010 containing the organization’s view (hearsay?) on climate change science. At the beginning of that document is the following statement:
“There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes
in land use, including agriculture and deforestation. The size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still
subject to uncertainty. Nevertheless, the risks associated with some of these changes are substantial.”
So is there a question that humans are causing global warming? Of course, because nothing is science is ever settled once and for all. But the doubt is small.
Is there still doubt about the magnitude of future warming? Yes, especially at the regional level.
But even with that doubt, is there a risk? Yes, the risks from some of the changes are “substantial”.
Okay, so there are members of the Royal Society who don’t agree with their organization’s stance on this issue. There will always be those who disagree with a particular scientific position, especially a new one, and often because of an underlying prejudice. Einstein never bought into the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, largely because he wouldn’t believe that chance could exist at such a fundamental level in the universe. Yet the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is now a foundation of modern physics.
Still waiting for a reply to my original question…
Thank you Ted
Ok you are right. What I my call “hearsay” you may be free to call truth and I suspect only time will tell which one of us is right.
However I do not accept as truth what may be seen as the truth by others, which on this occasion are things like:
1) There may be proof of global warming but that does not therefore prove that the recorded rise in CO2 caused that warming. – There is no proof positive anywhere that CO2 ever caused warming. – Paleo-climatology (ice core graphs) shows the opposite to be the case.
2) Just because somebody says there is a consensus of thousands of scientists (and even if there is such a consensus) in favour of AGW does not prove AGW to be factual.
3) Just because climate modellers cannot make their models reproduce the recent temperature rises unless they add in extra CO2 may just as well mean that the rest of their “natural data” are inadequate. I.E. things like geothermal effect and variation in cloud cover + many other unknown or missing data.
So maybe we shall have to agree to disagree on what hearsay is.
However to carry on a bit further to why I said “The Royal Society” (RS) SEEMS to have changed their tack;
If you did not understand what I wrote in my comment then try looking at Page 11 of “The Royal Society’s” PDF which you downloaded earlier. That page (11) is entitled “Aspects that are not well understood” and consists of paragraphs 46-47-48-49 and 50.
These kind of aspects have never, to my knowledge been admitted by RS before because those 5 paragraphs, more or less negates anything else they may be saying. Hence “the seemingly change of tack”
But as ever, remember: as far as I am concerned, hard data and known facts are not in dispute. Assumptions and theories may be.
And I am off to bed now.
Olav
It is quite funny what the AGW crowd will accept from the mad scientist(s) without any questions i.e.: As reported by The Royal Society in an article called “Cooling the Earth with Crops” (Ted brought it to my attention)
“Dr Singarayer, Research Fellow, and Professor Andy Ridgwell, Royal Society University Research Fellow, both at the University of Bristol, have assessed the potential for the use of large-scale planting of crop varieties with increased reflectivity to incoming solar radiation (due to variation in leaf glossiness or canopy structure) and found that it would have a significant cooling effect.”
And what are these very “sunlight reflective crops”? –
Oh, easy: “The scientists’ initial assessment of the potential of crop biogeoengineering used a global climate model (the UK Met Office’s HadCM3) to suggest that an increase of 20% in crop canopy albedo (reflectivity) could provide Europe with an average summertime cooling of over 1°C.”
And there was I thinking we planted “crops” to grow food, – not just for the hell of it.
So Barley, Oates and Wheat, and don’t forget the Hops are going to be subjected to many years of “biogeoengineering”, – lovely! – We need some more funding here as this is really important! The public will of course not object to eating “daisy bread”
Dr Singarayer said: “Our current studies on crop reflectivity are at an early stage, but our initial results are really encouraging, as they suggest that simply by choosing to plant specific strains of crops, we could alter the reflectivity of vast tracts of land and significantly reduce regional temperatures. The concept of using increased reflectivity to manipulate our climate is, in fact, an ancient one – humankind has for centuries painted settlements white to reflect the sun and keep cool. We could now realise the opportunities to do this on a much bigger scale via our agricultural plantations.”
Let me, if I may, isolate one sentence here: – “humankind has for centuries painted settlements white to reflect the sun and keep cool.” – Correct!! But they paint (still) the outside of their houses white as/in an effort to keep cool(er) inside —Just like I may choose to wear a white suit while in the tropics – If anyone thinks that is going to reduce “global temperatures” then I will admit: — It’s time I give up —- After all, according to AGW law, incoming/ outgoing sunlight is not an issue, CO2 is.
Hi Olav,
Wow, I missed this gorgeous research (sarcastic).
So now we know that they believe that all the absorbed light energy is converted to heat. Should someone teach them that exist a biochemical process called “chlorophyllous photosynthesis” which is endothermic (so it catch the heat and convert it to chemical energy freshening the environment).
I also wonder how they planned to allow their “biogeoengineered” plats to grow if they can’t absorb energy from the Sun!
Are they trying to create a new class of darkness-growing-vegetables?
Uhmm, maybe they “just” want to help Mother Nature optimizing those wavelengths which are not currently converted to chemical energy.
Ok Olav, prepare yourself to see new strange color plants!
Massimo
First I would like to know who the 700 climatologists are, that plan on lying for them. Second, we cant underestimate the importance of defeating these propagandists. The very credibility of science is at stake. Do you think they would be pooring billions into this from foreign benefactors if it wasnt absolutely critical to defeating Democracy. We need to fight this like we are fighting a war but without actual weapons.
If these vile traitors can suceed in peddling climate snake oil they will have gained signicant control of the scientific dialogue and be able to sell any scientific bufoonery they choose to gain a political goal
Its absolutely critical that we hire a team of investigative journalists, etc to ferret out where the money comes from and where it goes, then expose this on as many media outlets as possible. We will lose the war if we dont play by the same rules of engagment as the opposition.
So far they win because they have been able to conceal the evil agenda behind a fascade of pseudo credibility. We absolutely must rip this fascade completely away; climategate wasnt enough.
Just as in boxing championship between equally matched fighters, one punch is not enough; attrition is what wins the fight.
Dr. Spencer,
I’ve read before that some research funds actually require a finding of CAGW. Is this your assertion also? Can you comment more on this? If true, this should be a valuable argument in any AGW debate.
In recent posts I’ve asked some questions of Dr. Spencer that, so far, have gone unanswered:
Could you explain the history of the UAH satellite temperature readings from a decade or so ago that others discovered were being misinterpreted? Why were the erroneously low temperature readings not recognized sooner?
Why did the temperature anomaly of 0.72 degrees C in January 2010 disappear from every subsequent monthly chart in your data set? Was it a mistake? Was it changed when you recalibrated your system earlier this year?
What evidence do you see that directly refutes the hypothesis that global warming of the last 100 years is caused largely by human activities?
Target rich environment. Sounds like fun.
“Global warming” is just a theory.
“Global warming doesn’t exist” is also a theory.
“Smoking causes cancer” is a theory (and it kills 1,500 Americans every day.)
Human evolution is a theory (unless you believe women came from a rib.)
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is a theory (but I still get my electricity from a nuke.)
Folks who live on Pacific islands watch their world get smaller every year. (They’re very worried.)
Personally, where the potential extinction of mankind is concerned, I’d rather err on the side of caution.
Deny GW (theory) all you want. Big Oil and Dirty Coal are in your corner, but they’re keeping all the money for themselves. And there’s a lot of it. In fact, some of it used to be yours. We’re just pawns to these people.
Not sure Big Oil companies are on “our corner”, at least they are not only there.
See here:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
Read the name of the second funder and of others into the “not fully exhaustive” list of their funder.
I read “British Petroleum” and “Shell”.
Uhmm…
I guess that they just stand behind any business, the AGW
scare is a good business too for them.
Massimo
Why nobody are itrested about how termosphere cooling and collapse affects solar irradiation balance, and does it affect oskillaton. Because I believe that sun’s spetrographical movements have made significal canges to climate allready. The other thing is CME’s how those affect when there is tons of particles or there is none. Anyway there is more important enviromental issues than CO2.
Dr Roy,
I agree, bring on the debate!
“Greenhouse effect”? Prof. Wood showed that dog didn’t hunt by using glass that was transparent to LWIR.
Albedo is a Constant? Project Earth Shine (NJIT BBSO) is some good work in that area.
CO2 blocks LWIR? Actual transmittance data might be good to look at.
Heat flows from cold to hot without adding energy?
If that was true, then our problems are solved.
I’m afraid the damage is already done by “good intentions”
Laws reflecting bad science are already on the books and are already showing unintended consequences. It will take a long time to undo the damage.
So, bring on real debate, not the standard “Martha Mitchell”/or “Gaslighting” treatment.
I have always just accepted, the earth is getting warmer. but now I know why. We are at the climax of a climate change cycle unlike any known to modern day humans. Keep panties on it will be cold soon enough. What are we going to do when solar panels do not get enough sun, or nuclear waste is contaminating the atmosphere? Oceans are near their peak,life is just the way God planned. Let’s worry about what we can do. Instead of trying to change something we cannot change, adapt to our ever changing climate.
The next ice age is looming–we have no where to go.
So true. We are either warming or cooling full stop. Heading to a 9 billion population you better hope we are warming. Shorten the growing season by a few weeks and we will be in real trouble
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Hi everyone, I think the fractal is the telescope of our age: it, if handled right should end all this.
http://www.fractalnomics.com/2010/11/breaking-carbon-climate-spell-with.html
thanks for that dude! awesome idea and thoroughly interesting read. i been trying to convince my mates that we should have a guys curry night-in instead of going out every week, and actually did it last week. superb success, i can tell you! i found a tasty chicken and vegetable and a few others from this curry recipes site, and even makde the naan meself too. who said guys cant cook!
Although I may agree with your general point, you need to differentiate between hypotheses and theories
that’s a reply to Samuel Sobart
Another crackpot point in the AGW theory. Pacific islanders are watching their world shrink. Notably, the Maldives, which average a few inches above sea level. Which is has where it’s been for centuries. Was it my idea for people to choose to live on an island that is mere inches above sea level? Certainly not. One might as well blame me for the plight of a crack addict, even though he’s the one that decided to try that stuff in the first place. Well, the current administration would like to make me responsible by making me pay more for healthcare and let the crack addict continue to live on his crack and have disposable income by means of healthcare. Now, he can go and get meds at my expense and sell them on the street (engaging in capitalism, by the way) and have an easier time getting his crack. No work, other than making it to the ER of the local hospital.
Maldivians are free to live there. Or, move, if necessary. By the way, the sea level has not risen there in spite of 20 years of fantasy. If it had, the people would have moved, by hook or by crook. It’s a convenient straw boss when a person can’t actually refute the science that disputes CO2 AGW. Makes about as much sense as carbonic acid, which bonds with calcium in the ocean to create calcium carbonate, the base of reefs, but first we have to be “scared” about CO2 getting into the ocean. Actually, let’s get more CO2 into the ocean around the Maldives and allow a barrier reef to form which will protect the islands from monsoons and it will also provide habitats for creatures that live on reefs.
It seems to be an assumption that all of the “feedback” effects of an el Niño event can be calculated simply from knowledge of the land-sea surface temperature. Why bother to study and learn the facts and principles of meteorology if things are that simple?
No. Things are not that simple. The el Niño is a phenomenon with many aspects and components, in the atmosphere and in the sea. It is not simply a change in the land-sea surface temperature. To calculate its “feedback” effects, one will need to take into account all those aspects and components; easier said than done. Really, feedback will manifest itself from many aspects and components of the phenomenon, not just from the land-sea surface temperature. It is a pollyanna simplification to suppose that the land-sea temperature will be a sufficient informant for the feedback.
Christopher Game
Ahh… well let’s suppose we were demonstrably cooling right now and fears of a new ice age popping up. How many of these 7000 experts on global climate would be telling us we need to build as many coal plants as possible and drive SUV’s to warm this planet up, and if they did how many would believe them?
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