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Lennart Bengtsson being bullied by colleagues is only the latest example of bad behavior by climate scientists who have made a deal with the devil. They have exchanged their scientific souls for research grants, prestige, and easy access to scientific journals to publish their papers.
I predict history will not treat them kindly, and the reputation of all climate scientists will be tarnished in the process. As it is, the public who pays our salaries are already laughing at us.
Some of us (Christy, Lindzen, myself and others) have put up with many years of unfair treatment by a handful of activist gate-keeping colleagues who stopped our papers from being published or proposals from being funded, sometimes for the weakest of reasons.
Sometimes for entirely made-up reasons.
What makes the Bengtsson case somewhat unusual is his high profile. A Director at ECMWF. Then Max Planck Institute. He was at ECMWF when that organization became the top weather forecasting center in the world. He knows the importance of models providing good forecasts, with demonstrable skill — exactly what the climate models do not yet provide.
That climate models do NOT provide good forecasts with demonstrable skill should concern everyone. But as Bengtsson has found out, a scientist advertises this fact at their peril.
Bengtsson has always been a little skeptical, as all good scientists should be. After all, most published science ends up being wrong anyway.
But once he became more outspoken about his skepticism, well…that’s just unacceptable for someone of his stature. That his treatment should lead him to worry about his health and his safety tells us a lot about just how politicized global warming research has become.
This bad behavior by the climate science community is nothing new. It’s been going on for at least 20 years.
I have talked to established climate scientists who are afraid to say anything about their skepticism. In hushed tones, they admit they have to skew the wording of papers and proposals to not appear to be one of those “denier” types.
At least in the U.S., politicians are the ones who started this mess — Eisenhower predicted “public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite” — and they have the power to put an end to it.
They started it by purposely funding research that had the ultimate goal of increasing the power and influence of government over the private sector by accomplishing favored regulatory goals. Agency heads who are political appointees installed managers under them who would be team players. I’ve told the story of meeting with V.P. Gore’s environmental science adviser in the early 1990s who confided that, now that they had successfully regulated the manufacture of CFCs, carbon dioxide was next. The IPCC was being formed to make that happen, by enlisting scientists who would be guided by politicians and government representatives.
This is no conspiracy theory. This was mostly done out in the open, for all to see.
Politicians can fix this. Probably not by just calling hearings and witnesses, through, which will admittedly raise public awareness of the problem. But by telling the funding agencies that some percentage (say, 20%) of their climate research funding must go toward studying the 800 lb gorilla in the room: Natural sources of climate change.
As I have always said, if you fund scientists to find evidence of something, they will be happy to find it for you. For over 20 years we have been funding them to find evidence of the human influence on climate. And they dutifully found it everywhere, hiding under every rock, glacier, ocean, and in every cloud, hurricane, tornado, raindrop, and snowflake.
So, just tell scientists 20% of their funds will be targeted for studying natural sources of climate change. They will find those, too.
It’s not like they will have to look very hard. The 17 year hiatus in warming, which no one predicted, and which the climate models can’t even explain, tells us that Mother Nature is also involved in climate change.
If nature can cause enough global cooling to cancel out anthropogenic warming, it can also cause global warming. It must, because natural changes are cyclical.
I think we might be seeing the death throes of alarmist climate science. They know they are on the ropes, and are pulling out all the stops in a last ditch effort to shore up their crumbling storyline.
Since the public doesn’t really care anymore, they have to shout even louder. Exaggerate even more.
The latest example is the highly speculative theory that, after only 40 years of watching an Antarctic glacier, we have a few scientists extrapolating out to 200 to 1,000 years a “collapse” of a portion of the ice sheet. The media presents it as something that sounds imminent and unavoidable. Governor Brown then says it will inundate LAX airport, even though at 125 ft elevation, the greater threat to LAX is probably sliding into the ocean from a mega-earthquake, or an invasion by extraterrestrials.
Unfortunately, now every tornado and El Nino in the coming months will be pointed to as proof positive they were “right” all along….as if those events didn’t happen before we started driving SUVs. The news media, filled with frustrated creative writers who are trying to change the world, will be only too happy to hype a screenplay-worthy storyline around the latest science claim by some obscure activist scientist.
So, be prepared. The climate disruption hypocalypse is coming. True, it’s man-made…but it only exists in our imaginations and on the movie screen.
All bubbles eventually burst when reality finally gains the upper hand, but this movement is embedded so deeply that it’s likely to crumble more slowly than most. Kids still are being indoctrinated and the public still desires preservation and protection of natural environments so the hypocalypse will stretch out in time. If these things weren’t true, it would have come years ago.
I agree.
Roy, Your treatment of the scientific community is appalling. I’d lock you in a closed room with the best with a please explain your very generalized attack on nearly everyone. You sound bitter and twisted. Many of your paper releases & submissions by you were questionable data fitting curve exercises – Your own climate models.
Don’t believe everything that you read in the newspapers if you are already biased:
“As the referees report states, ‘The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low.’ This means that the study does not meet ERL’s requirement for papers to significantly advance knowledge of the field.”
“Far from denying the validity of Bengtsson’s questions, the referees encouraged the authors to provide more innovative ways of undertaking the research to create a useful advance.”
“As the report reads, ‘A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.”
“Far from hounding ‘dissenting’ views from the field, Environmental Research Letters positively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.”
“The journal Environmental Research Letters is respected by the scientific community because it plays a valuable role in the advancement of environmental science – for unabashedly not publishing oversimplified claims about environmental science, and encouraging scientific debate.”
“With current debate around the dangers of providing a false sense of ‘balance’ on a topic as societally important as climate change, we’re quite astonished that The Times has taken the decision to put such a non-story on its front page.”
Now read the full statement to correct Murdoch Empire media bias in this story.
http://ioppublishing.org/newsDetails/statement-from-iop-publishing-on-story-in-the-times
Ross, it is much more likely the journal rejected the very distinguished Bengtsson’s paper in a politically expedient manner. In reality I doubt they ever intended to allow such a publication, but they couldn’t just say.. “Sorry Denier, you are banned from publishing”. They have to gin up some politically correct crap to make it look good.
Ross…you are incredibly naive.
ross, the “scientific community” will reap what it sows.
Deniers shall also reap what they sow. If you deny me I will also deny you before your heavenly Father – Jesus.
Deniers??? What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? So, are you Jesus now? What a load of pompous tripe. I have always had serious questions about the science behind the claims of those who promote catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. From my experience, anytime I try to engage a warmist from a purely scientific basis, this is the sort of nonsense I typically encounter: questioniing the CAGW claims is akin to denying Jesus.
Last time I checked, Jesus was a pretty big fan of the Truth. You wouldn’t be a denier, would ya?
And Ross Brisbane gives the game away with the Bible quote. That is what this apocalyptic spoiled Eden fable is really about, isn’t it? Divine (sorry, “planetary”…sounds more scientific) retribution on a cataclysmic scale for…well, for being human. Abandon all hope of redemption ye who enter the precincts of climate apocalypse denial. We, Gaia’s agents on earth, will seek you out and cast you into the darkness where all sinners belong.
Ross,
All one needs to know about the whole mess is that the climategate emails contain actual, real, evidence of very serious misconduct (including crimes) at the uppermost level of climate “science”.
AND
ALL of the entire climate alarm “scientists” have kept quite about it – in effect they approve of, and are part of, the corruption.
THEREFORE
The entire alarm field is completely corrupted. You cannot believe anything coming from it.
Not to mention the climate models have been dead wrong, the atmosphere hasn’t warmed since the previous century, and evidence of “extreme” weather is almost completely lacking. Other than that, the alarmist cause looks solid.
Very good speech, tkanks, you give us a fresh air breath through the cloud of nonsense.
Joan Carles
Gary, you are so right… Back in the 70s when we had the global cooling scare, papers on warming out numbered those on cooling by a margin of two to one. So AGW isn’t going any where for a while. The concern though is that reality may NEVER burst AGWs bubble. As Dr Spencer has said, we can flip a coin as to whether or not we’ll see future warming. So there’s a good chance AGW will NEVER go away… That’s why we need sound science to counter that actuality.
“The Establishment Academics are becoming just fascist Marxists hell-bent on manipulating society for personal gain and power.”
“Global Warming is another hidden agenda. The politicians are eager to climb on board not to save the world, but to raise taxes. The academics are driven by the money so they can sit in their rooms collect welfare checks for totally worthless nonsense.”
Google:
Global Warming Fascist Movement & Academic Welfare
Obama killed the ‘Constellation’ program and has NASA budget concentrated on proving that AGW exists and ‘Muslim Outreach’.
How come this “anthropogenic OR natural cause” conversation has to be black OR white / one or the other. From where I’m standing (as an information consumer/concerned citizen) it is clear that the anthropogenic factor is throwing off the natural balance of our ecosystem. Now this is due to human behavior that can easily(in perspective) be changed. The natural factors appear to be out of our reach.
Now, most of us would like to leave this planet in a better condition than we found it or at least in a hospitable condition where our children(I personally have none,yet) can live without being subjected to potentaly dangerous geoengineering. If we end up spending the entier world GDP for well forever implementing the changes needed to reduce or eliminate the anthropogenic factor well in the end it was only money.
The point I’m trying to make is, that it’s not an either or situation but we can chage our behavior even if the natural balance of the universe is out of our control so I’m having a hard time understanding the relevance of the debate.
Anyone in the western accedemic community would be telling an untruth that a confirmation biase, somthing one is supposed to be conscience of and avoid, while cunducting there research and peer reviews can be difficult to overcome. When publishing radical findings and new theories the accedemic establishment by it’s nature will challenge it. BUT TO SUPPRESS AND THREATEN if those allegation are true are beyond confirmation biase!
“How come this “anthropogenic OR natural cause” conversation has to be black OR white / one or the other. ”
When “the science is settled” and “the debate is over” and “we have a 97% consensus” and anyone that disagrees is a “climate change denier” then there is not room for a middle ground. Anyone saying anything less than “we must act now to save the children” is firmly rejected and placed in the denier camp.
WITH REGARD TO THE “IMPOSSIBILITY” OF HAVING ROADS WITH SOLAR PANELS, I SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING IMPOSSIBILITY:
1. Don’t put the panels on the road; the key secret to my ingenuity begins there.
2. build scaffolding above the road with platforms across the top of the scaffolding above the road; the road is now shaded from the heat of the day.
3. place the solar panels at a 45 degree angle as usual to the flat platform over the road.
a. aim these panels for best absorbance of light rays which, as I understand varies as per the latitude of the city and roadway.
b. in my mid-atlantic state, I understand that one wants to aim this to the south because even at the height of the summertime, the sun is slightly in the east throughout the day.
Not all roadways will be good sources for solar panels because of their being shaded by trees, hills and buildings. Naturally the more open roadways, not shaded by any nearby obstructions would be chosen.
Roy,
I have several problems with your theory that climate scientists are part of conspiracy to cook the books and create a climate change myth.
1. Outlandish claims like this require outstanding empirical evidence. Where is the evidence?
>>> that time is coming, Nate.
2.PhD scientists are hardly a bunch of lemmings-they are independent operators with their own agendas and projects. It would be amazing if you get them all to agree to some made-up story line to tell- and it has to all hang together and be self-consistent.
>>> It’s not that they are pushing something they know is wrong. Many of them have fooled themselves into believing theirs is the only explanation, because it’s for the “greater good” anyway. Others know it’s sloppy science, but are afraid to say anything publicly. Remember the ClimateGate emails?
3. I think you know well how science works-it is competitive-and everyone is looking to improve on the previous work-there are natural checks and balances on the science, that leads to the right answers in the end.
>>> Yes, I sure hope so. I’m one of those trying to provide the checks and balances.
4. Nature is the final arbiter-scientists hate to be proven wrong-by others or by Nature. It’s also not particularly good for one’s career.
>>> Yup. Unfortunately, in this business most scientists will be dead by the time they are proved wrong.
5. The scientific method works-otherwise we wouldn’t have cell phones, airplanes, and pretty damn good weather forecasts. Is there good evidence that climate scientists are using something other than the scientific method? No.
>>> Don’t confuse scientists with engineers. Big difference. Engineers I have been contacted by who have looked at the climate model failures are appalled. And, I agree that NWP models work pretty well. I hope you understand that climate models forecast are an entirely different ball game than weather forecasts.
Nate;
Haven’t you heard the term “everyone has their price”?
You are painting the scientific community as some sort of Utopia. If there was a place where perfect behaviors exist it should be in science … unfortunately, climate science seems to be exposing the failings of the discipline.
Nate, your restating of Roy’s point is egregiously wrong.
What Dr Spencer said is “you pay for scientists to find evidence of something, they will.”
There is evidence of man-made global warming. Dr Spencer and most here concede that point.
What there is laughably little of is funding to understand the natural variations involved in climate change. So we don’t have a clear picture.
No better proof of this can be found than in Climate Science’s own Favorite Fudge Factor of the moment: Deep Ocean Heating. Apparently, according to themselves, the reason surface temperature models stink is they missed a big huge natural heat sink called The Ocean. Yeah, just that little thing.
Because the natural side isn’t understood, prediction machines are NOT good.
Your point number five is vastly overstated. The Scientific Method had almost nothing to do with the invention process leading to the Wright Brothers’ airplane — for example.
Darren,
“you pay for scientists to find evidence for something they will”.
This is implying they are finding evidence for things that are not really happening.
Science,in general, is not like New Jersey politics- not quid-pro-quo.
The funding in general is for making measurements or making models-it doesn’t specify what the results should be.
Unless the goal is to develop a specific technology,which is also funded, but thats a whole different thing.
As far as I understand, the Wright bros did use the Scientific method-they built the first wind tunnels to test their wing shapes. Still done today-plus with lots of help from aerodynamic models and computers.
Nate,
Science, when it is being done, is rarely black and white, but many shades of grey. If you only wish to find the black, that is what you will find.
I suggest that you are naïve about how research science really progresses. That from a research scientist.
Don,
While I admit their are individual scientists who screw-up or cheat, and while peer-review is far from perfect, ultimately the system works. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have the modern world we have.
I happen to think its the way the enterprise is designed-almost like a free-market system-with many many individual actors with their own somewhat overlapping agendas-it makes it very difficult, at least in a very active area of research, for bad ideas to survive too long. That has been my experience in doing science.
I think on this blog, there is an inclination to see climate science as corrupt, while there is not really a lot of evidence to support that. Unless you focus only on media that pushes this narrative. For example Climate-Gate after much investigating turned out to be a big red-herring, but you don’t hear that on certain media outlets-so the idea that it was massive conspiracy persists.
In my studies into how to research my nursing theories, the most significant factor I found for any research performed by humans is that prior beliefs, desires, opinions about outcomes ALWAYS effect the outcome of the research.
My own experience, the very well funded area of medical research driven by very generous industry funding, makes it clear that the quote is accurate. Scientists have been finding the answers the health industry wants for many decades and more often than not their findings that helped to sell new drugs or procedures are altimately proven wrong or exaggerated, and in many cases have been seen to ignore contrary evidence or xplanations less “helpful” to marketing. Clearly those researchers most helpful to the industry ageda are the best rewarded.
Andy, I agree that is a good example. But then again, as you said you often here about how these studies are later proven wrong by others. That’s how the system ultimately works.
This shows that profit motivated support for research is happening-and is a very strong motivator for corporate some funders. But there are consequences for bad behavior of individual researchers like this.
But again, to equate that situation with govt funded basic science research is not justified.
I think if you look a the entire enterprise of bio-medical research, you would have to admit the amazing advances are worth it.
TO ME, science is a mutable, not immutable thing. I was trained as a chemist and have a BS in chemistry. All chemistry is dynamic. When we mix the exact same two chemicals at the exact same conditions (controlled for by volume, pressure, temperature, etc.) then we get the exact same reaction, and that reaction can usually be described in simple terms with a chemical equation for the reaction.
But, all this occurs in a LABORATORY under highly controlled conditions with the chemical reaction occurring in a microcosm. I then worked in a chemical R & D plant, where we did “impeccable” research, then sent that down for the guys to do the “mock up” or development of that product. Strangely, they ALWAYS got a different product from what we did in the Research Dept. And they always had questions, and we never seemed to be able to answer them as to why they got something different (the wrong thing?) All this, and it didn’t even include taking the product from the R & D factory to the industrial production plant…which likely would have brought in even more variables and factors and led to something even vastly more different (?)
Now look at the entire world. Think about all the chemical reactions. Think about all the variables. Think about all the conditions which are always changing. Think of the size and scope of things. Climate is most definitely NOT the weather. Weather is a microcosm and Climate the macrocosm.
Remember that every scientist after Isaac Newton believed in F = k GM1m2/(R^2) until Einstein came along. And then nobody believed him either. Until Max Planck offered to work with him. Planck’s being the smartest mathematician at the time working alongside the physicists caused more than one eyebrow to raise. Eventually, Einstein turned one opponent after another’s into believers and then followers.
Whether the climatologists will be the next Einstein or the “deniers” is yet to be seen. But the fight for the trophy sure will be interesting. 🙂
Darren or Roy(?): “you pay for scientists to find evidence for something they will”.
Nate: “This is implying they are finding evidence for things that are not really happening.”
I’ve heard that stupid argument a good deal more than once. Don’t you know that there can be evidence for a false proposition?
–As far as I understand, the Wright bros did use the Scientific method-they built the first wind tunnels to test their wing shapes. Still done today-plus with lots of help from aerodynamic models and computers.–
A great thing about **Science** is everyone [who is vaguely intelligent] tend to use Scientific method for everything.
So artist is history have been involved in scientific ideas and methods, that doesn’t make artists scientists.
Wright bros were makers of bikes- high tech of the day- of course they lowered cost [and time] by testing out ideas rather guessing and crashing.
The part of story is there was a government run program to make machines that flew- well funded, and failed.
Nate, follow the money. Climate science has become a very lucrative & crowded field. The recent semi-hysteria over climate has been quite revealing, follow this, originally it was global cooling in the 1970’s, the model changed to warming in the ’80’s, then changed to the neutral, and evasive, climate change, and now has, after several years of moderate if not cooling temps, has miraculously returned to warming.
Underlying it all is government power, expressed in various policies, restrictions on coal, refusal to build the trans-Canada pipeline, etc. But that’s another story.
Several people have made the statement that natural sources of climate change are not being studied. Where is the evidence for this? If you actually read the IPCC reports there is LOTS of detailed discussion and literature on natural climate fluctuations.
“Follow the money”-I know a lot of academic scientists-let me tell you they didnt go into it for the money. If money was their main goal-there are plenty of other places, like industry or Wall street they could have gone. Certainly, availability of funding draws people to study a certain area of science-no doubt about it. But in general most scientists resist attempts to control their findings.
Nate – as you probably know, in academia your success is measured by the number of publications you produce and the amount of funding you bring into your institution (note that teaching ability is secondary). Fail at either of those and you are gone. If I were a young climate scientist at a university, would I attempt to write a proposal or publish a paper which went against (even mildly) the status quo? Or would I conform to opinions of my colleagues?
Also, even though they “didn’t go into it for the money,” most government and academic scientists are making near $100,000 in salary and benefits. Sure they could make more on Wall Street (debatable if they would be talented in the finance world) – but it’s their career choice…
Frank,
Everyone here seems to think they understand the motivations of individual scientists-or they treat climate science like it is an entity that collectively decides things. Thats just not possible, or how it works.
Sure, young scientists need to get funding and publish papers. Probably they are working in some niche of climate science that is a small piece of the larger puzzle. But their piece has to stand on its own as well as fit with other pieces. Their work, if important, gets checked by others.
They are either making measurements or making models. They have every incentive to publish stuff that is both important, and provably correct-if someone determines that their results are falsified-or done poorly-it does happen-their career is over.
John, it actually goes back further than that going way back to the 1938 Callendar paper. (Which was a resurrection of the original theory circa 1850)
‘most scientists will be dead by the time they are proven wrong’.
Not true-predictions of ice-free arctic are going to be tested soon. Many, many more such medium term predictions are made.
I’ll ask you, are there aspects of climate models that have proven correct-that you havent drawn our attention to? For example-the arctic should warm faster than the tropics. That the upper-atmosphere should cool.
It appears to me, that where the models are failing is exactly where you would expect them to-they are not good at predicting the climate noise-like how many El ninos we will have this decade-how strong they will be and when they will happen.
Weather forecasts can predict severe storms, but they will not tell you how many tornadoes will hit, where they will pop up-or how strong they will be. Yet the forecast are still very valuable.
— Nate says:
May 16, 2014 at 9:07 AM
‘most scientists will be dead by the time they are proven wrong’.
Not true-predictions of ice-free arctic are going to be tested soon. Many, many more such medium term predictions are made.–
Not soon, it’s already tested and failed.
We were suppose to have ice free arctic by 2012.
It’s no skill, to say someday one might have an ice free arctic. Given enough time is seem likely to me one will get ice free arctic. Or said differently it seems likely in last interglacial period, there was periods of ice free arctic. Though we might have have ice free arctic during this interglacial- it seems more likely than not. Though what is meant by ice free can be fudged. One could say significantly less ice than 2007 [half as much] is close enough to being “classified” as ice free. Or ice free can mean boats can have a more predictable ice free passage- which largely has to do with which way the wind blows.
The other aspect of ice free, is there is no significant consequent of few days or weeks of completely ice free arctic. Or 10 million square km of arctic water being ice free, is not particularly significant as compared to 5 million square km of open water.
It’s only value is symbolic or as talking point. Though it would be good in terms of economic benefits for some countries if arctic was predictable “ice free” during say couple months of the year.
Sure ice free arctic would be symbolically important.
But there is every reason to think it would impact our climate as well. For example, the positive feedback on temperature of all that open ocean.
One could say, so what if the north pole is warmer, it doesn’t affect me. But consider this: El nino is a rise in temperature of ~ 1 C in a part of the equitorial Pacific. Yet it affects weather patterns (short term climate) all over the world.
The arctic is 4-5 C warmer than it used to be. With it ice-free, there is every reason to think this warming will continue or get worse. Clearly this impacts circulation patterns, and mid latitude climate, e.g. the much-maligned polar vortex.
I don’t think its certain yet what all of the effects a much warmer arctic would be, but to me it is a no-brainer that it could have significant effects on our climate.
But obviously the predictors could be wrong, and arctic warming could be a momentary fluctuation. We will find out soon.
Oh and 2012 ice free-not sure who said that-maybe Al Gore,i.e. not the IPCC.
It is quite simple really.
The scientific theory has, since 1896, loosely quoted, – said, that as the percentage of Atmospheric CO2 increases so the global temperature will increase.
The first “Bout of global warming” – after 1896 – started sometime around 1910 and ended during the early years after 1940. Adolf Hitler found that out, during the Second World War when his soldiers froze to death in Russia, when – if the science had been right – they should not have perished in that manner.
So, by the early 1950s it was concluded that CO2 was not going to save us from the onset of any recurring “Ice Ages” or “Glaciations”.
By the 1970s CO2 was blamed for cooling the planet.
Now – once again it has happened – No, no one’s soldiers are freezing to death in Russia, but people and animals, reportedly – froze to death in parts of Mongolia a couple of winters back and data show that “globally” the warming has, once again, stopped. Yet “Atmospheric CO2” has climbed to new highs.
Therefore there can be no CAGW connected to the incresaing level of Atmospheric CO2.
— Nate says:
May 17, 2014 at 6:51 AM
Sure ice free arctic would be symbolically important.
But there is every reason to think it would impact our climate as well. For example, the positive feedback on temperature of all that open ocean.
One could say, so what if the north pole is warmer, it doesn’t affect me. But consider this: El nino is a rise in temperature of ~ 1 C in a part of the equitorial Pacific. Yet it affects weather patterns (short term climate) all over the world. —
El Niño has to do with the volume of warm warm, not skin temperature. With any warming waters in arctic one dealing the top most layer of water.
So arctic ocean is a relatively small region of the world.
The amount of sunlight reaching the arctic is greatly diminish due to low angle of sunlight. Clear day in arctic during summer is not a good place to harvest solar energy and will solar panel [unlike the ocean] one can tilt the panel so it’s pointed at the sun.
And there is aspect that one does not have as many clear days as some might imagine one would have in summer in arctic. Or it is the cloudiness of Germany during the summer
which one major aspect of why Germany is lousy place to have solar panels.
So the arctic in general is as bad as Germany is in terms of cloudiness during the summer. And even clear skies one get less solar energy than Germany.
It seems if one has a significant amount of warming of arctic ocean skin temperature then most notable effect would increase evaporation, which would increase cloudiness- and snowfall in higher elevations during the summer. So if one makes arctic region have more moisture in air, then one will have more snow in Greenland. So instead losing mass, Greenland could gain [considerable] mass.
But this assuming one does have any significant increase in surface water in arctic by having arctic water more ice free.
So in terms of warming the Earth, an ice free arctic is incapable of doing this.
If the volume of arctic water was warmer, it’s not so much in terms of warming the world but rather it is a warmer world. But warmer water at depth in arctic can not happen in time periods as little as one century.
Or what happening in terms warming the volume of arctic water, is warm water from tropics is transported to this region. So arctic water may warm, but not from solar energy in arctic, and this is slow process, and a slow process which has happened in the past.
So ice free arctic may affect weather, and may affect arctic snowfall, and may even cause some cooling, but it’s more of symptom [if anything] than a cause of warming.
And remember that the Arctic is always going to get 6 months of no sunlight, and so as we have seen, one could more of ice free arctic one summer and increase ice coverage the next year.
Or I tend to think we going to get more ice free summers, but it is possible for records to set for there been summers with more ice than we have yet recorded from satellites.
Of the pre 1990 temperature measurements in the Arctic, one in all of Canada is left (the warmest, near an ocean floor heat vent). And none in the entire expanse of Asia (to the outrage of the Russian scientists who keep submitting readings). Only in the absence of the coldest readings (those at high elevations, most rural readings, most measurements appropriate distances from asphalt parking lots, buildings, tarred roof tops, most in northern climes), could the readings which were left show any warming, even before the solar irradiance dropped drastically enough to show temperature decline in spite of these false data. But justification for the Agenda 21/sustainability/smart growth inventory and control of all energy, water, plants, minerals, construction, manufacturing, education, and people is DEPENDENT upon peoples’ belief in climate change being their fault because they could not control their carbon footprint. Every argument I have seen to this article, and against the carbon “sceptics”, can be found in the written guidelines provided the paid supporters of Regional Governance plans for use on almost every sizable community on the planet.
Nate,
One 2013 ice-free Arctic forecast came from Professor Maslowski. Also, Professor Wadhams. Another forecast time frame that is past came from Olav Orheim, the head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat. A Forecast of the end of Arctic ice sometime between 2010 and 2015 came from Louis Fortier, Scientific Director of ArcticNet. The death spiral of Arctic Ice was forecasted by Mark Serreze, head of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Walt Meier of NASA has pointed to a 2016 or 2017 date.
It is not just Al Gore who have made forecasts about the disappearance of Arctic ice. These individuals are scientists within the mainstream AGW camp. Regarding IPCC, individuals in that organization have said that the IPCC are too conservative — that Arctic Ice will vanish long before.
Nate says:
May 16, 2014 at 7:48 AM
Roy,
I have several problems with your theory that climate scientists are part of conspiracy to cook the books and create a climate change myth.
____
Nate, you need to read more carefully. Here is what Spencer said in the post you are referring to:
>>This is no conspiracy theory. This was mostly done out in the open, for all to see.
Yes he did say that. Which was very similar to saying, ‘with all due respect, you are a D-bag’.
He is not to subtlety encouraging the belief that climate science is corrupt.
He says ‘The IPCC was being formed to make that happen, by enlisting scientists who would be guided by politicians and government representatives.’
And also, “if you fund scientists to find evidence of something, they will be happy to find it for you. For over 20 years we have been funding them to find evidence of the human influence on climate”
Again, here he is making an unproven assertion about how funding works. Agencies fund investigations of climate-again they don’t tell you what the results should be! I’d like to see anybody’s evidence that this is how funding is directed.
Also , just look at Roy’s responses to my initial post to see how he really feels.
As a research scientist for over 40 years, I have observed this kind of bias in other fields, although not as strong. Funding is “ring in the nose”. When a funding agency pulls one way, the nose follows.
Don,
As I mentioned, sure, scientists work in areas where they can get funding. And funding is in areas that are of broad interest, which certainly climate change is. But again funding agencies don’t tell you what your results should be. If they did, most scientists would give up.
Basically what people seem to be claiming here is that the system for supporting climate science, and the participants, are somehow corrupt.
But this is wishful thinking on the part of those who don’t like the results of the science. There is no there there.
“But again funding agencies don’t tell you what your results should be.”
As Dr. Spencer pointed out, the people running the funding agencies wanted certain results. You are right that they don’t “tell you what your results should be”, but the point is that they don’t have too. As he also pointed out, it was all out in the open. EVERYONE (but you apparently) knew what results the funding agencies wanted.
“Basically what people seem to be claiming here is that the system for supporting climate science, and the participants, are somehow corrupt.”
I don’t know if anyone used the word corrupt. But if the shoe fits…
Actually, it does not matter what you call it. It is what it is.
“There is no there there.”
For the willfully ignorant, that is correct. For the rest of us, it is plain to see.
Nate.
please stop being so Naive, and looking through Rose coloured Glasses…
Victor Ninov – Claimed existence of new element – 118
Yet another vaccine researcher caught faking research …
http://www.naturalnews.com/043344_aids_vaccine_research_fraud_sc...
Lab creates fake DNA evidence – Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com › More Science › News Blog
Hwang Woo-Suk
The disgraced cloning expert from South Korea, who had claimed major breakthroughs in stem-cell research, convicted of falsifying his papers and embezzling government research funds.
Top climate scientists admit global warming forecasts were …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk › Earth › Environment › Climate Change
Global Warming Alarmists Caught Doctoring ’97-Percent …
http://www.forbes.com/…/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-perc…
as these examples show all areas of science can be transgressed,even einstein used the “Fudge Factor”
Einstein’s Cosmological Constant, dark energy, dark matter and inflation….
Perhaps Dr. Spencer is being kind. Incredibly stupid may be more accurate in that the alarmist sect of climate science appears to be ignorant of the long and medium term weather history, in every country around the Earth, which points inexorably to the influence of natural climate variability as the main driver of the sort of weather events that they imagine is unique to the post Industrial Revolution world.
It is blindingly obvious to many that “Climate Science” still has many gaps in its understanding of how Earth’s climate system works hence the relevance of Dr.Spencer’s call for some government funding for scientific investigation of natural climate variability.
“Don’t confuse scientists and engineers”
Wow, so you don’t think scientists had anything to do with the development and understanding of semiconductors, EM waves, RF communication, or the fluid dynamics underlying weather prediction?
Not at all Nate. Nobody is looking down on scientists. But the jobs (and outlook on the work) is quite different.
Scientists are concerned with discovery (I think. I’m not a scientist, I’m an engineer). Engineers are concerned with applying scientific and mathematical principles in a methodical way to get predictable, consistent, reliable results. Risk reward curve is much different for an engineer. Take risk and pays off, a nice shiny plastic plaque on your desk maybe. Take risk and fail, death to dozens/hundreds whatever, damage to property, woe misery lawsuit and ruin. Best case career ruin and a nice retirement as a walmart greeter or algebra tutor.
Boil it down, engineers make things work. It has to work and we have to know it’s going to work. Scientists figure out how the world works. We don’t always know if they’re right or wrong, sometimes for a very long time.
Mark: That, exactly, is the reason why Engineers should be the arbiters of public policy on the matter. If we listened to dreamers and advocates and their dreams of windmills and solar driving our future electrical generation, we’d be in the midst of rolling blackouts, instead of the almost constant uptime and low costs for energy that we currently enjoy.
Meh. Politics and power corrupts. Engineers aren’t a special noble breed, we’re just guys. The reason you can trust most engineers is because their livelihoods depend on it. If you make their job policy instead of engineering, you’ve changed the job and will get results similar to the travesty you now see in climate science, IMO. Politics and science mix very poorly.
No professional engineer accepts the claim in climate alchemy that the Earth;s surface emits net IR as if a black body emitter in a vacuum in radiative equilibrium with a sink at absolute zero.
And the reason why is that we have all measured coupled convection and radiation in GHG environments. Look at McAdams ‘Heat transfer’ for the tables of experimental heat transfer coefficients for different conditions.
Far too many physicists even are X-box technicians who have never constructed optical pyrometers or measured mass and enthalpy fluxes.
Nate,
You seem to have an overly idealized view of science, especially climate science, which has politics in its DNA. Have you read The Apocalyptics? Or, more recently, “The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease,” in the WSJ, May 6, 2014? These are examples of scientists who were convinced they were right (confirmation bias). Alas, they were not. Dr. Spencer is not making anyone out to be a monster. The key thing to get a hold of in the climate change circus is that many (not all) scientists are NOT LOOKING FOR THE TRUTH. They are searching for a confirmation of what they believe to be true. These are two different animals. Ask yourself: how likely is it that Michael Mann will ever admit that he is wrong–when his entire career is based on that hockey stick? Remember what the reporter at Newsweek said during the furor of the Duke rape case: “the facts may have been wrong, but the narrative is correct.” That is what is going on in the matter of CO2, the great evil molecule. CO2 is guilty. We are just waiting for the evidence to come in.
OK, perhaps I do. To me, people on this blog appear to have an overly sinister view of science, climate science in particular. While these are opinions, there is not really a lot of evidence for this view.
While there are individuals who have behaved badly, cheated, been wrong, even falsified data. The enterprise as a whole tends to move forward, toward a better and better understanding of nature. The bad ideas tend to get proven wrong, more quickly when lots of people are working on a problem.
History, the track record of the physical sciences, the modern world that has resulted from it, that we all take for granted, is strong evidence for my view.
Nate, you are confusing PhD scientists with climate ‘scientists’. There’s a big difference there. Check it out.
Huh? Climate scientists have PhDs.
Most of the writers of the UN IPCC summaries are politicians. and there has NEVER been one unbiased report to support their “scientific” political summaries, despite, or possibly because of the hundreds of billions of dollars doled out to researchers who would at least state belief in global warming in their research summaries. To america’s shame, our tax dollars paid for this “research”. To greater shame, we also paid for the socialistic planning forced on every community in the United States, justified by the global warming hoax.
But Climate Science isn’t a science; instead it creates its own replacements for standard radiative and IR physics and calls anyone who points this out a ‘denier’.
it is a cuckoo in the nest of real science and to have a PhD in it is a mark of shame for the Scientific Enlightenment.
I suspect the community attitude is, no you’re not getting off the Titanic… When it does sink, captain and crew go down together. Let’s face it. Born-again sceptics are jumping ship only after the research program became completely untenable. Left it a little late didn’t they, to save their skins?
Regarding the cyclical changes – I have an animation that overlays the early 20th century temperatures with the late 20th century changes. At least at the moment history appears to be repeating itself.
http://tinypic.com/r/jjp5ih/8
If the changes in the first part of the century are natural, there is not a whole lot in the later part of the century that needs to be allocated to AGW.
“I have several problems with your theory that climate scientists are part of conspiracy to cook the books and create a climate change myth.”
Nobody is talking about “conspiracy theories” or “myths” except those, I suspect, with an agenda. What Roy Spencer has described is pretty much ‘normal’ modern scientific practice. Unfortunately. If you don’t understand this, a good place to start would be the academic literature classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn.
Yes, I’ve read Kunhn’s book. It’s terrific.
Occasionaly ideas that seem nutty turn out to be right, and then you have a genuine scientific revolution-relativity, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, etc.
Don’t forget, AGW was itself a revolutionary idea at one point.
But just because an idea is going against the mainstream view, doesn’t it right. You don’t often hear about the many, many failed revolutionary ideas.
If all science was destined to be overturned by a revolution, I don’t think we would have all the working technology that we have today.
“AGW was itself a revolutionary idea at one point.”
Evidence that the core science was ever controversial?
The positive water vapor feedback theory certainly remains revolutionary, controversial and likely wrong.
Science doesn’t work in the linear fashion nearly everyone who hadn’t studied the history of science assumes. Freudian psychoanalytics was incredibly influential in and out of the field but today we know it was completely wrong about almost every one if its claims. Behaviourism was incredibly influential, but met the same fate. The cognitive movement has pretty much gone nowhere in 50 years. People seldom understand how difficult science is. They remember the one right idea that lead to progress and quickly forget the thousands of false avenues that came before.
The treatment of Bengtsson is a blight on science and should outrage every true scientist. Given how far in denial Eco-disaster “scientists” live, I doubt many in that cult will ever admit to even being wrong.
This generation of Climate Evangelist “Scientists” could learn a thing or two from studying the sad state of Paul Ehrlich, his failed population doomsaying, and the “sky is red” world in which he now lives. Apparently in his world, most of his predictions came true — when in fact his predictions were, and continue to be, laughably wrong.
There are many pre-Paul Ehrlich’s in today’s Climate Witch Doctoring.
And yet certain factions of the media still run Clown Paul for more “predictions” and label him a population growth “expert”. Oooohhhkaaaay.
When I was a kid, the eco-doomsayers were all over the place telling me when I was a grandpa, there would be no trees left.
Is that even close to true? Of course not.
I would be willing to bet these same “no trees” doomsayers are furiously calling anyone who takes pictures of the forest by my house “tree deniers”.
Voltaire “strikes again,” to wit: “it is dangerous to be right on matters in which the established authorities are wrong.
Abby-normal science lives on.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/that_old_time_religion_that_old_time_science.html
Here is the full review of the paper
http://feedly.com/k/RZcloo
which basically claims the paper should be rejected because the reviewer thinks models trump observations
this seems to be the direction the IPCC is going, too. If the models and the observations disagree, the observations must be wrong.
With the possible additional problem being that the observations are being “adjusted” by GISS & HadCrut. Roy, curious on your views about the UHI and TOBS adjustments
From the review rejecting the paper:
“AR5 has not put so much weight on these satellite observations, due to still persisting potential problems with this new technology”
Paraphrasing, satellite observations are newfangled technology that can’t be trusted, but climate models are golden. Thus, Bengtsson’s paper must be rejected.
Dr S, why are you wasting your time with this problematic newfangled satellite technology?
Hockey Schtick
To see the major divergence between blue and red team models of TSI and GCMs, and the corresponding large uncertainties see:
Scafetta, N., and R. C. Willson, 2014. ACRIM total solar irradiance satellite composite validation versus TSI proxy models. Astrophysics and Space Science (in press). DOI: 10.1007/s10509-013-1775-9. PDF
Is there any statement in AR5 which technology IPCC trusts when it comes to upper tropospheric humidity?
Thank you for posting that link, interesting read.
But by telling the funding agencies that some percentage (say, 20%) of their climate research funding must go toward studying the 800 lb gorilla in the room: Natural sources of climate change.
I don’t understand this statement. Surely virtually all of paleoclimatology is looking almost exclusively at patterns of natural variation, climate monitoring efforts are agnostic of whatever changes might be occurring in that they are simply data-gathering exercises, modeling incorporates natural mechanisms with various degrees of success, and so forth. Attribution studies result in the mainstream views, but not without considering both natural and anthropogenic contributions. Recognizing that funding is constrained, what precisely do you feel is being missed?
For example..what portion of the warming of the last 50 years could be naturally caused? There has been virtually NO research into this. We published a paper last year that suggested 50% of that warming could be natural, due to stronger El Ninos. (And don’t tell me they ruled out natural forcings…all they look at is basically the solar cycle and ozone depletion…NOT internally-forced climate variations)
It has nothing to do with paleoclimate….it has to do with the explanation for recent warming which just happens to be during a period of increasing CO2.
I don’t think anyone would disagree that there is a great deal of work to be done in characterizing ENSO and improving our ability to predict occurrence and weather/climate impacts of such. Whether this matter is receiving the “optimum” level of funding, I couldn’t say.
Re paleoclimate, it represents one basis for estimating climate sensitivity, albeit more equilibrium than transient response, so it’s relevant in that sense.
MarkB
Murry Salby developed detailed equations for CO2 diffusion in ice cores – and found that geological CO2 estimates were underestimated by ~ 10X – and climate sensitivity overestimated. . As “thanks” for his breakthrough discoveries Salby was “fired” – without recourse by the university fudging his contract!
Conversely Michael Mann eliminated the Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age in his “hockey stick”. Correspondingly CO2 sensitivity was overestimated from paleoclimate evidence – and highlighted by the IPCC!
What about what caused the cooling related to Little Ice age, and what caused the Little Ice Age to end.
Generally, one say it’s a cycle, and/or volcanic eruptions, and solar activity.
But how much, and was there other factors. One could even include human activity- what human activity caused cooling and/or end of cooling. But it seems even less likely humans had much to do with it, then any human effect after 1950 or after 2000. So would not get too carried away with humans having much to do with the Little Ice age or it’s ending.
But one would first have start from point of view that there was a Little Ice Age- so have to get over this denial of reality.
Thank-you for speaking out. There are scientists who bend data to meet their preconceptions in all fields, and upright scientists, as well, but I cannot think of any other field of natural science where the upright researchers have been so effectively sidelined. Unfortunately, science’s mainstream voices to the public, the Nature and Science weekly podcasts, have thrown in completely with the catastrophic global warmists, lumping luke-warmists together with outright denialists. As a result, all of science will eventually be tarnished as one of the “pillars of corruption.” I hope that writings on this survive for some future scientific historian to try to understand the mix of herd psychology and intimidating creation of bogeymen that could pervert a discipline founded on the pursuit of truth.
since when has someone saying that they did not want to have their name on the same paper as Bengtsson been considered “Bullying”.
If you think an author of a joint paper with yourself, RS had stated that all RSS measurements were invalid and you were just making up figures, wouldnt you try to distance yourself from that persons ramblings? Do you not have a RIGHT to distance yourself if YOU want?
Oh, I’d be perfectly fine with someone saying the RSS measurements were invalid. 😉 (We are UAH, not RSS). Besides, that’s not what happened. His co-authors were fine with the science…but not with his beliefs. Of course a collaborator has that right. But clearly Bengtsson has had so much pressure that he feared for his health and his safety (!)
This guy is a kind and mild-mannered and polite as they come.
And, being the director at ECMWF and Max Planck, he is no stranger to stress and political pressure. So don’t minimize what he is going through.
Having said my last comment (with extra “t”) You of course may be privvy to more detais of the bullying than Bengtsson has said. In which case then obviously any threats to life and mind are not acceptable – from anyone
1. The fundamental assumption of Climate Alchemy, that a planet’s surface emits to its GHG-containing atmosphere net IR energy at the ‘black body’ rate, is wrong.
2. For equal surface and local atmosphere temperature, there is zero net surface-emitted IR in the self-absorbed GHG bands. Increased GHG ‘forcing’ reduces net surface IR emission.
3. Even if there were any such emission, that IR energy could not ‘thermalise’ in the gas phase (quantum exclusion via the Law of Equipartition of Energy).
4. Lapse Rate warming is caused by Gravity and is independent of 1st order GHG properties.
5. There is no ‘Back Radiation’, no ‘Enhanced greenhouse effect’.
6. Experiment shows there is apparently near zero CO2-AGW.
7. The logical conclusion is strong negative feedback by the atmosphere.
8. The Representative of the People’s Liberation Front for Falsifying Science and Extorting the Taxpayers (Provisional) says all the above is wrong thus justifying the exclusion from the ‘approved’ Literature of papers that contradict Official Diktat.
9. You couldn’t make it up!
I tend to agree.
But what causes Venus to be hot. And how could on make Mars warmer? And if this is unknown or too uncertain, what could be tested to confirm so one might have an idea of why and how to warm a planet?
Lapse rate warming. At 45 km it’s 110 deg C. assume 8 K/km lapse rate and you add 360 deg C, making 470 deg C. The measured temperature is about 462 deg C (Wikipedia)
Ok, and other than solar shade in orbit, and/or removing vast amounts of Venus atmosphere, how could you cool Venus [assuming you wanted to do this]?
Or if one somehow removed the sulfuric acid of the clouds of Venus, does it warm, cool, or make no difference to Venus temperature?
The greenhouse effect on the Earth is presently about 11 K and is regulated by clouds. At the Last Glacial Maximum it was c. 2 K.
The atmosphere’s temperature is anchored at the no GHG base temperature of 4 to 5 deg C plus the GHE, about 15 deg C for Earth at present.
For Venus, its GHE is also a function of its clouds. because they are so ‘reflective’, its GHE is probably very negative. Take out the suphuric acid droplets and surface temperature would increase.
— AlecM says:
May 19, 2014 at 12:51 PM
The greenhouse effect on the Earth is presently about 11 K and is regulated by clouds. At the Last Glacial Maximum it was c. 2 K. —
Does the amount snow staying on surface in Temperate Zone, decrease significantly global temperatures?
One can’t include presence of snow as greenhouse effect- or do you?
I would say greenhouse effect is significantly less than 33 K. And 11 K is significantly less. So it seems about right.
But would agree that without the bulk of atmosphere [non-greenhouse gases] one would have less greenhouse effect
than your number of 11 K?
Or do think that just with H20 vapor and some CO2, and other greenhouse gases [O3], it adds 11 K?
–The atmosphere’s temperature is anchored at the no GHG base temperature of 4 to 5 deg C plus the GHE, about 15 deg C for Earth at present.–
So is this answering my above question- does it mean 4 to 5 C for bulk of atmosphere and 11 C just greenhouse gases.
And if so, one could say with 1 atm atmosphere plus Greenhouses gases, the total atmosphere adds 15 to 16 K.
Which brings me to the question what does transparent ocean covering 70% of earth [in Earth configuration of ocean and land mass] add to average temperature. [Or decrease in average temperature.] Or does it matter in terms average temperature how much ocean and where ocean is relative to planetary land surface?
And does transparency of global oceans over long periods of time effect global temperature. Or most of ocean currently is very transparent, one could imagine a much murkier ocean [various reasons- but biological element may be more plausible] would the murkiness of ocean over long time periods [short periods fairly irrelevant to oceans] have an effect upon average global temperature?
“For Venus, its GHE is also a function of its clouds. because they are so ‘reflective’, its GHE is probably very negative. Take out the suphuric acid droplets and surface temperature would increase.”
Hmm. I disagree. I believe suphuric acid droplets cause Venus to be quite a bit warmer. First suphuric acid droplets
have very high boiling point:
“Boiling point 337 °C (639 °F; 610 K) When sulfuric acid is above 300 °C (572 °F), it will decompose slowly”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid
There is process on Venus:
“Ultraviolet photons of wavelengths less than 169 nm can photodissociate carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and atomic oxygen. Atomic oxygen is highly reactive; when it reacts with sulfur dioxide, a trace component of the Venusian atmosphere, the result is sulfur trioxide, which can combine with water vapour, another trace component of Venus’s atmosphere, to yield sulfuric acid.
CO2 → CO + O
SO2 + O → SO3
SO3 + H2O → H2SO4
Venus’s sulfuric acid rain never reaches the ground, but is evaporated by the heat before reaching the surface in a phenomenon known as virga.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus#Clouds
“The clouds we see on Venus are made up of sulfur dioxide and drops of sulfuric acid. They reflect about 75% of the sunlight that falls on them, and are completely opaque. It’s these clouds that block our view to the surface of Venus. Beneath these clouds, only a fraction of sunlight reaches the surface. If you could stand on the surface of Venus, everything would look dimly lit, with a maximum visibility of about 3 km.”
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/36871/clouds-on-venus/#ixzz32EdpOvyb
Take out all ghgs from the Earth’s atmosphere and the flat plate absorber model thermalises 341 W/m^2. Do the spherical radiative equilibrium calculation and the mean surface temperature is 4 to 5 deg C. Hansen’s 33 K is a clever fraud because there is no -18 deg C upper atmosphere emitter. Instead, -18 deg C is the flux weighted mean of three main emission zones. Take 4 to 5 deg C from the present 15 – 16 deg C and you get 11 K ghe.
Regarding Venus, the sulphuric acid droplets play the same role as convected water droplets in Earth’ thunder clouds: there is a second backscattering process which gives 0.9 albedo. So, no sulphuric acid droplets on venus and albedo would fall to c. 0.5, allowing much more energy to get to the surface.
The oceans do not make the Earth’s surface warmer; they just increase the volume of matter which thermalises the incoming SW.
I actually disagree with Roy on this one I don’t think C02 has a discernible effect on Global TLT/Atmospheric satellite recorded temperatures or thermometersurface temperatures since 1640 CET and Armagh dont show anything rural unbiased sittings. I do agree with Dr Spencer and totally agree that today’s news that the telegraph put this on page ONE is a milestone and that from now on the story is going to be becoming with some time, the “Greatest Hoax in History”. If I was a routine “climate Scientist” I would seriously be considering my future career prospects.
UK government was warned 3.5 years’ ago that this is the greatest scienfitic hoax in History.
Dr. Spencer wrote: “…the reputation of all climate scientists will be tarnished in the process.”
Not just climate scientists. All scientists.
This type of bullying behavior would not be tolerated in any other part of society. Why does it exist in climate science? If someone treated your child this way in school, or a family member at work, they would be fired and brought up on charges of discrimination and oppression. It is time to crowd source legal action against these tyrants!
Ossqss
But it HAS been tolerated! Worse, it was mandated by Lysenko and enforced – by Stalin! See The Disgraceful Episode Of Lysenkoism Brings Us Global Warming Theory
Today’s alarmist “climate science” is repeating that with US presidential political enforcement.
Dr. Spencer,
Do you read the journal Nature Climate Change? It is one of those peer reviewed journals dedicated to hyping climate change. I decided to search for “natural variations” on their journal page. Results:
“Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years”
John C. Fyfe, Nathan P. Gillett and Francis W. Zwiers
Abstract: Recent observed global warming is significantly less than that simulated by climate models. This
difference might be explained by some combination of errors in external forcing, model response and
***internal climate variability*** (*** are mine)
—————————————
“The rate of sea-level rise”
Anny Cazenave, et. al.
Abstract: Present-day sea-level rise is a major indicator of climate change1. Since the early 1990s, sea level rose at a mean rate of ~3.1 mm yr−1 (refs 2, 3). However, over the last decade a slowdown of this rate, of about 30%, has been recorded4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It coincides with a plateau in Earth’s mean surface temperature evolution, known as the recent pause in warming1, 9, 10, 11, 12. Here we present an analysis based on sea-level data from the altimetry record of the past ~20 years that separates ***interannual natural variability*** in sea level from the longer-term change probably related to anthropogenic global warming. . .
(*** are mine)
—————————————
“Communication of the role of natural variability in future North American climate”
Clara Deser, et. al.
Abstract: As climate models improve, decision-makers’ expectations for accurate climate predictions are growing. ***Natural climate variability***, however, poses inherent limits to climate predictability and the related goal of adaptation guidance in many places, as illustrated here for North America. . .
—————————————
“Natural climate variability and future climate policy”
Katharine L. Rick & Ken Caldeira
Abstract: Large ensemble climate modelling experiments demonstrate the large role ***natural variability*** plays in local climate on a multi-decadal timescale . . .
(*** mine)
—————————————
“Nature rules regionally”
Anna Barnett
Uneven warming of the North Atlantic Ocean during the last half-century may be caused by changes in the ***natural climate system***, concludes a new analysis. . .
—————————————
“Inter-hemispheric temperature variability over the past millennium”
Raphael Neukom, et. al.
Abstract: The Earth’s climate system is driven by a complex interplay of internal chaotic dynamics and ***natural*** and anthropogenic external forcing…
————————————-
“El Niño modulations over the past seven centuries”
Jinbao Li, et. al.
Predicting how the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) will change with global warming is of enormous importance to society1, 2, 3, 4. ENSO exhibits considerable ***natural variability*** at interdecadal–centennial timescales . . .
There are many more, but I am tired of cutting and pasting.
This is just one journal too!
Your thesis is just plain wrong.
GW
Mr. Winfeild,
Reading through the beginnings of the abstracts that you provided, I’m impressed with how well they make Dr. Spencer’s point.
Yes, they discuss natural variability, but with few (if any) exceptions, they seem to be discussing it from the point of view that anthropogenic CO2 is (of course) the primary driver, but well, it’s not warming up as fast as we thought it would, so there must be some natural variability as well.
But (in a response above) Dr. Spencer gives this example of the type of question they ignore: “For example..what portion of the warming of the last 50 years could be naturally caused?”
How many articles in that journal can you find that address that question? Or that even critically examine in any way the claim that anthropogenic CO2 is the main source of warming over the last 50 years?
Indeed they admit that natural variation can counteract CO2 (cause cooling), but somehow it doesn’t have any significant contribution to warming, which (they claim) is of course overwhelmingly caused by CO2 from fossil fuels.
A very good summary from Roy.
Natural climate change really does dwarf any effect from human activities to the extent that that the latter becomes insignificant.
Solar and oceanic variations alter the size and positions of Earth’s permanent climate zones on a scale magnitudes greater than anything we could achieve.
In connection with natural climate change it is a shame that Roy and many others cling to the view (false IMHO) that in the absence of GHGs the atmosphere would tend to become isothermal but that is a matter for another thread on another day.
Statement from IOP Publishing on story in The Times
16 May 2014Bristol, UK
Dr. Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director at IOP Publishing, says, “The draft journal paper by Lennart Bengtsson that Environmental Research Letters declined to publish, which was the subject of this morning’s front page story of The Times, contained errors, in our view did not provide a significant advancement in the field, and therefore could not be published in the journal.”
“The decision not to publish had absolutely nothing to do with any ‘activism’ on the part of the reviewers or the journal, as suggested in The Times’ article; the rejection was solely based on the content of the paper not meeting the journal’s high editorial standards, ” she continues.
“The referees selected to review this paper were of the highest calibre and are respected members of the international science community. The comments taken from the referee reports were taken out of context and therefore, in the interests of transparency, we have worked with the reviewers to make the full reports available.”
The full quote actually said “Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.”
“As the referees report state, ‘The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low.’ This means that the study does not meet ERL’s requirement for papers to significantly advance knowledge of the field.”
“Far from denying the validity of Bengtsson’s questions, the referees encouraged the authors to provide more innovative ways of undertaking the research to create a useful advance.”
“As the report reads, ‘A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.”
“Far from hounding ‘dissenting’ views from the field, Environmental Research Letters positively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.”
“The journal Environmental Research Letters is respected by the scientific community because it plays a valuable role in the advancement of environmental science – for unabashedly not publishing oversimplified claims about environmental science, and encouraging scientific debate.”
“With current debate around the dangers of providing a false sense of ‘balance’ on a topic as societally important as climate change, we’re quite astonished that The Times has taken the decision to put such a non-story on its front page.
Please find the reviewer report below quoted in The Times, exactly as sent to Lennart Bengttsson.
We are getting permission from the other referees for this paper to make their reports available as soon as possible.
REFEREE REPORT(S):
COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR(S)
The manuscript uses a simple energy budget equation (as employed e.g. by Gregory et al 2004, 2008, Otto et al 2013) to test the consistency between three recent “assessments” of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity (not really equilibrium climate sensitivity in the case of observational studies).
The study finds significant differences between the three assessments and also finds that the independent assessments of forcing and climate sensitivity within AR5 are not consistent if one assumes the simple energy balance model to be a perfect description of reality.
The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low, as the calculations made to compare the three studies are already available within each of the sources, most directly in Otto et al.
The finding of differences between the three “assessments” and within the assessments (AR5), when assuming the energy balance model to be right, and compared to the CMIP5 models are reported as apparent inconsistencies.
The paper does not make any significant attempt at explaining or understanding the differences, it rather puts out a very simplistic negative message giving at least the implicit impression of “errors” being made within and between these assessments, e.g. by emphasising the overlap of authors on two of the three studies.
What a paper with this message should have done instead is recognising and explaining a series of “reasons” and “causes” for the differences.
– The comparison between observation based estimates of ECS and TCR (which would have been far more interesting and less impacted by the large uncertainty about the heat content change relative to the 19th century) and model based estimates is comparing apples and pears, as the models are calculating true global means, whereas the observations have limited coverage. This difference has been emphasised in a recent contribution by Kevin Cowtan, 2013.
– The differences in the forcing estimates used e.g. between Otto et al 2013 and AR5 are not some “unexplainable change of mind of the same group of authors” but are following different tow different logics, and also two different (if only slightly) methods of compiling aggregate uncertainties relative to the reference period, i.e. the Otto et al forcing is deliberately “adjusted” to represent more closely recent observations, whereas AR5 has not put so much weight on these satellite observations, due to still persisting potential problems with this new technology
– The IPCC process itself explains potential inconsistencies under the strict requirement of a simplistic energy balance: The different estimates for temperature, heat uptake, forcing, and ECS and TCR are made within different working groups, at slightly different points in time, and with potentially different emphasis on different data sources. The IPCC estimates of different quantities are not based on single data sources, nor on a fixed set of models, but by construction are expert based assessments based on a multitude of sources. Hence the expectation that all expert estimates are completely consistent within a simple energy balance model is unfunded from the beginning.
– Even more so, as the very application of the Kappa model (the simple energy balance model employed in this work, in Otto et al, and Gregory 2004) comes with a note of caution, as it is well known (and stated in all these studies) to underestimate ECS, compared to a model with more time-scales and potential non-linearities (hence again no wonder that CMIP5 doesn’t fit the same ranges)
Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.
One cannot and should not simply interpret the IPCCs ranges for AR4 or 5 as confidence intervals or pdfs and hence they are not directly comparable to observation based intervals (as e.g. in Otto et al).
In the same way that one cannot expect a nice fit between observational studies and the CMIP5 models.
A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.
I have rated the potential impact in the field as high, but I have to emphasise that this would be a strongly negative impact, as it does not clarify anything but puts up the (false) claim of some big inconsistency, where no consistency was to be expected in the first place.
And I can’t see an honest attempt of constructive explanation in the manuscript.
Thus I would strongly advise rejecting the manuscript in its current form.
Jenny B.
So are we to dismiss differences between model projections and actuation temperatures?! Where 96% of 34 year model projections exceed consequent temperatures?
In describing the scientific method, Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman had a blunt word for models that did not match evidence – they are WRONG!
For the high standard of integrity essential for science, see Feynman’s 1974 commencement address to Caltech “Cargo Cult Science”.
Today’s “climate science” is an epitome of the problems that Feynman described.
Seventh paragraph from the end of the one published Referee letter. Note: the hilarious slip of the pen! I quote: “Hence the expectation that all expert estimates are completely consistent within a simple energy balance model is unfunded from the beginning.” What a Freudian slip to write “unfunded” instead of “unfounded”.
But, of course, now these scientists in name only claim they didn’t expect any consistency of the models!! No use going farther with this line of thought….
The following is from Weather Cycles who I think has many good insights when it comes to possible solar /climate relationships which are being completely brushed aside by mainstream science.
The focus by mainstream continuing to be almost exclusively on man made global warming due to GHG, despite mounting evidence /data to suggest this is not the correct path to be taking when looking for reasons as to why the climate changes and how it may change going forward.
May 15, 2014 at 11:50 am
Hi Salvatore .Thanks for your comments and critique
Yes . I do believe that cycles account for 100 % of Earths climate and that the AGW contribution is insignificant
and
that the so called’ chaos theory’ often misinterpreted anyway, is not a sole driver of the earths climate.
Firstly as l see it..
The earth is a component of a SYSTEM. The Solar System. It never acts independently of the other parts. The system is a precise and clockwork in nature
The phi/golden number theorem pervades the system completely
Any periods of chaos are only temporary as the cycles align destructively or constructively. Bifurcation theory
I do not consider ANY climate event random as such but periods of chaos intermingled with order.
In fact l believe nothing in the solar system is random but perfectly orchestrated.
Events like an El Nino. Never random but on time as per the’ cog’s within the system.
Volcanoes an intrinsic part of the cycle. For instance. A quiet/slow? sun produce large quakes and volcanoes and feedback mechanism for the cooling phase.
All seismic activity in resonance? with solar system stresses and strains
SSRC Research Report 1-2010 Correlation of Solar Activity Minimums and Large Magnitude Geophysical Events
http://www.spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ssrcresearchreport1-2010geophysicalevents.pdf
Regarding your comments about the’ beginning state of the climate.’ I only understand that concept as a term used in the computer modelling of climate..
so l can’t comment re” cycles
——————————————
and you asked what l thought about
Salvatore asked.
“when do you think a trend in colder temperatures will start in earnest due to the prolonged solar minimum we are currently in?”
On the basis of scientists that analyse cycles. I have seen they all agree a global temp decline until about 2030. From there on . Many cycle scientist seem to diverge in opinion.
Because they haven’t wrapped this up yet.
Archibald likes a deep decline whilst Scafetta has a decline with some AGW modulation
My view
I like the qian and lu 2010 study forecast. They have 4 main cycles having peaked between 1998-2006 ( constructively overlaying and peaking at a sub grand maximum in that period)
Now ALL those cycles are on a downward trend.
So De Vries , the largest of the 4 having the most weighting , is on its way down. That is a ~ 100 yr phase. So l reckon no warming phase until ~2100 onward on the upward phase
However of course expecting some minor upward bumps from the smaller cycles like AMO/~60yr, (schwabe triplets), Hale ~20 and and any overlay from them .
————————
Actually, the mere fact that this is getting coverage in the mainstream media is a sign of the tide changing. Dr. Spencer and others have suffered from this for years. Phil Jones, Michael Mann and Peter Gleick have been operating this way for years. They believe this is the righteous way to do things. When they went to pick on Bengtsson, it was standard operating procedure. They have done numerous times before.
Coverage by The Times of London, the Daily Mail and others is shining a light on their behavior. Mann, Jones and the rest of The Team will have to deal with this issue with others holding their feet to the fire.
Let’s hear it for The Times. Let’s hope the dam is breaking.
I had a professor in the early 70’s who made the statement that the biggest flaw in higher education was the failure to teach students the limits of theory. There is no better example of this than climate science.
The 60 year grand solar maximum combined with the warm phase of the PDO could be responsible for most of the warming that peaked in 1998. It is faulty to state that just because solar output didn’t rise with temperature it couldn’t be the cause. The average solar output was the highest in over 2000 years from 1945-2005. Why this can’t be considered an energy imbalance similar to CO2’s radiative forcing is a mystery to me. The amount each year was small but over a long period of time the oceans were accumulating heat.
There is ample research into the affect of solar cycles on climate. It is a small but measurable contributions. Rather than be mystified, read a book.
Look at Dr. Spencers temperature graphs? Can you see the solar cycles represented in the temperatures? You can’t because their affect is much smaller than El Nino/Nina, volcanic eruptions, and other natural variations.
Across multiple decades and centuries the solar effect is far clearer but is even then heavily modulated by ocean cycles.
I actually have read a lot on the subject and there have been a number of papers that have shown the IPCC reports under-estimate the sun’s effect.
ENSO has immediate effects on temperatures but I haven’t seen a paper that addresses the effects of long term above average solar output. The mainstream position that it couldn’t be the cause because it didn’t increase with temperature is faulty. More heat was going into the system for a long time even tho the extra amount was very small. I’m not claiming it is the only cause, just that it’s effects have probably not been weighted enough.
“There is ample research into the affect of solar cycles on climate”
Only in some areas. Yes, we have a good idea of total solar irradiance variations in the ~11-yr cycle. But we know that UV output varies more than visible; does that have an effect on absorbed energy in the upper atmosphere? How important are clouds, possibly produced by enhanced cosmic ray flux when the Sun is less active? In addition to the ~11-yr sunspot cycles, there are longer, harmonic cycles of the Sun whose effects on output are poorly understood.
The grand solar maximum was one of those longer cycles and could be an area of study that partially explains why climate models have attributed too much warming to CO2.
Matty
The TSI variations have been underestimated (/”suppressed”?).
Scafetta, N., and R. C. Willson, 2014. ACRIM total solar irradiance satellite composite validation versus TSI proxy models. Astrophysics and Space Science (in press). DOI: 10.1007/s10509-013-1775-9.
There are a growing number of papers evaluating solar impacts etc. e.g., Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts
Editor(s): N.-A. Mörner, R. Tattersall, and J.-E. Solheim
Thanks, Dr. Spencer.
Yes, the bullying must stop before science can resume progressing.
While this poisonous intellectual environment exists science will keep declining, turning into politics.
Personal intimidation, thought repression are leaving an ugly mark on the history of our times.
There continues to be a belief by some that scientists are sort of like robots or computers or the scientific version of Mother Theresa………they think with open, objective minds, give very little weight to the material or political world
and are always honest, while being driven with focused honorable intent.
I have news for you. Human beings ALL have MANY cognitive bias’s and that includes ALL scientists.
A scientist with just one cognitive bias can be totally messed up. That last quality, “focused honorable intent” can get so much weight, that ends justify the means.
A scientist living in the material world(as we all do) is likely to strongly consider how their actions and work effect their income or prestige.
A scientist that has been stating a position/belief or has been teaching it for a decade will be subjected to a tremendous amount of bias’s that emanate from human ego.
I can list a dozen different bias’s that effect all humans. We are not robots or computers with no emotions and scientists ALL have MANY bias’s.
We are all aware of the bias in religion and politics that polarizes both sides. If you think that climate science is not the same way because of the word “science” then you don’t understand what it means to be “human”.
Here is evidence of this. One thing that both sides should be able to strongly agree on and build upon is the known and proven law of photosynthesis, with the key role that CO2 and increasing CO2 plays as being indisputable.
Both sides can’t possibly have much to disagree on with regards to plant science and known biology as hundreds of studies have provided powerful evidence to base agreement on.
Yet, this seems to be very important to just one side. The other side, speculates based on the assumption of CAGW that crop yields will plunge from droughts and heat waves or that insect/weed pressure will actually hurt crops more than CO2 will help them or that a few less micro nutrients in these bin busting crops might negate real benefits.
The last 3 paragraphs are not stating anything that you did not already know. However, go to the link below and review the many bias’s and think about the human beings on both sides of this issue. How many do you have?
I will guess that you can find over a dozen that are effecting both sides……….that includes me.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
One key to minimizing the effect on us that bias’s have, is to acknowledging them. BTW, it’s a piece of cake to recognize(perceive) bias in people that disagree with us/you……….which can emanate from our own bias!
See:
“Fundamental attribution error” “Illusion of asymmetric insight” “Trait ascription bias”
It’s worse than that. Climate Alchemy has for 40 years, perhaps more, been based on a failure to understand basic radiative physics. What they do is to add atmospheric IR ‘Irradiance’ to the real Solar SW warming of the surface as if they were the same physical effect.
They are not. It’s because the Earth is at a very low temperature compared with the Sun, so the error made by failing to do the correct radiative sum for the SW is low,
However, for the IR, the error is massive and, with another basic error, they exaggerate heating of the atmosphere by 60%, then cheat in hindcasting. it’s a giant confidence trick to get Obama’s $billions and glory, nothing to do with science.
We’re gradually educating Roy about the Real Physics!
The profound human capacity for rationalization is expanded when money, fame, and acceptance by peers comes into play.
“I have rated the potential impact in the field as high, but I have to emphasise [sic] that this would be a strongly negative impact, as it does not clarify anything but puts up the (false) claim of some big inconsistency, where no consistency was to be expected in the first place.” – reviewer note
Snicker…So the inconsistency is false but totally expected anyways…
Here’s how bias enters science.
Individual research scientist are human and have personal bias in their research. But normally when they present scientific talks or write scientific papers for review, obvious bias is challenged by their peers and lessened or removed. That is usually the power of peer review. It keeps individual scientists “honest”.
But if a journal’s editor and its advisory board, or the organizers for a scientific meeting have collective, personal views, that leaves an opening for some bias in how an individual scientist’s results are treated and disseminated.
And if scientific societies or government funding agencies have strong opinions about the science they are advocating and/or funding, that bias towards particular results and explanations grows.
Further, if government political entities and members of the press have strong ideas about what science is true and only that should be supported, then that bias grows more, even to the exclusion of alternate viewpoints.
That is how science can be corrupted.
Don,
Very interesting. I agree with most of it. I guess the question is whether this ‘collective’ bias effect is important enough to change the results of research, enough to explain AGW. At this it would is an intersting hypothesis. Need some data to back it up.
On there is another powerful force at work that can trump bias and tends to produce good science: competition. It is a very competitive business. Particularly in a hot (no pun intended) area like climate change. Lots of people have good ideas, often the same. Who makes it work first earns cudos and tenure, etc.
But then, as is often the case, the ones who do it second, or third find some problems with the work of the first. There can be a storm blistering critiques, particularly if work has gotten recognition. There are attempts to replicate the work, and differences are often found. Ultimately, it can take a few years, the dust settles, and real story appears. This is healthy.
And this is exactly how it worked in the case of the ‘Hockey stick’. Anyone can read about this history. Basically, many groups were doing reconstructions of past climate. Mann came out with the fist 1000 year reconstruction. Lots of his competitors had problems with it and with how it was done. Maybe his bias played a role, who knows. Then competitors like Moberg came out with their versions, and they were different in many details. As of now there are a couple of dozen versions of the hockey stick. Basically what has survived is the overall shape of the hockey stick, with the uncertainties better understood.
Another example is the satellite record of global temperature. Roy and Christy’s temperature record showed much less GW than other records. This was a big puzzle for awhile. Luckily they had competitors, some which uncovered the correction to the data analysis that was needed. Was it Roy’s bias that caused the problem? I don’t know. But the point is, because this is a competitive business, the truth ultimately emerges.
Nice rant, Roy.
Idiotic comment, RW
I have looked at graphs like this: http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/human-caused/image/image_view_fullscreen and wondered how do they know what the natural component is? How did they come up with that blue line?
Even more puzzling is they give us future projections of global temperature based on various CO2 scenarios yet how do they know what the natural forcings are going to be? Is it supposed to naturally warm or cool in the next 90 years?
And another thing, a few years ago solar scientists began alerting that a prolonged solar minimum might be in the works which could last decades and be similar to the Dalton or even Maunder minimum of the LIA. Frankly, that actually worries me.
However, I believe there might have been one paper and perhaps a few discussions which concluded that such a solar minimum may perhaps reduce CO2 warming by few tenths of a degree so we can all stop talking now about the Sun. I thought WTF? How do you know? That was one hell of a fast brush off.
I’m no climate scientist but for all I know, we might need to pump as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we can just to hold a steady temperature and head off devastating cooling.
mpcraig
You may well be right on needing CO2 to head off major global cooling. see pubs by Don Easterbrook. who began in 1999 to predict reduced warming/pause/cooling.
David, please see “Don Easterbrook’s AGU paper on potential global cooling” (Watts Up With That?, December 29 ’08), at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/don-easterbrooks-agu-paper-on-potential-global-cooling/
Interesting take Roy. Do you think that “Unprecedented weather events” will be proclaimed, in order to bolster the CAGW agenda?
I ask because I live in Escondido, CA on a 400 foot hill overlooking San Marcos, CA where we just experienced a massive fire.
Wednesday morning at 6:30 am “Santa Anna” (from east to west) winds were blowing hot dry air which I guess was at 35 MPH. I had a bad premonition that more fires would start that day. Unfortunately I was correct. At 3:00 pm a new fire started in San Marcos. But by 6 am Thursday morning the smoke had mostly (90%) cleared, the air was still, and there were only a few smoldering embers, but no fire fighting activity was visible at that time.
However, by 11:30 am the fire began to burn again and a new nearby fire (Cocos fire) had started. Fortunately there were no Santa Anna winds though.
Thursday afternoon I was bewildered by comments on national TV concerning the current “Fire Storm” in San Marcos. The commenters, and county representatives repeatedly proclaiming the fire resurgence was being fed by “Unprecedented Santa Anna winds.”
The comments were suspicious because the fire storm on Thursday was fed by south and on-shore (from west to east) winds, which were clearly evident in the background during the press conference.
At the time I was thinking how strange they were attributing the San Marcos fires to “Unprecedented Santa Anna winds.”
I wonder we will soon hear how “Climate Change” is the actual culprit of the “Unprecedented” San Diego fires.
As an aside, There is a very strong suspicion of arson in 8 of the 9 fires that had ignited by Wednesday afternoon. Each fire started on the east side of an accessible open space, and the sequential ignition times fit perfectly with driving time in the San Diego area, implicating a single arsonist. Of course further investigation will be conducted to determine the cause of the various fires.
Dr. Spencer, I enjoyed you on the Stossel show the other day.
Your mere presence scared poor Gavin Schmidt so badly he wouldn’t dare to sit on the same stage with you.
Ideological bias in the scientific community is a topic of deep concern for social scientist Jonathan Haidt, who says that ideological purity within his discipline hurts the science.
I’d say the same sort of thing is happening in the Global Warming debate.
On January 27, 2011 Haidt called out his own discipline in a presentation at at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology,
The full presentation and the reaction to it are available on his web site:
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/postpartisan.html
I know this has nothing to do with global warming per se, but it does appear that the tendency toward ideological McCarthyism is more prevalent on the left than on the right. Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, is an attempt to describe the psychology behind all this. An understanding of Haidt’s work might help in the understanding of what is going on with Global Warming.
==============================================
It used to be that people studied stuff to just find out what is going on to satisfy their own curiosity. Almost as a hobby. They were just seeking to understand what was really going on. Such people are now looked on as “The Father of” this or that field of science or study. Money and profit was rarely an issue or motive (even if at times a necessity) to those now considered as such.
What has “the 97%” learned from our “Fathers”?
Dr. Spencer,
What you and many commenters point out is the politics of the situation. The unfortunate Dr. B. knew what he was getting into just as the writers of The Bell Curve knew prior to publication.
AGW and CAGW is not about climate change it is about power and the intention to use government and its power to control our lives. Get in their way at your own risk. Best to join Al Gore and make money on the deal. Which is what I suspect the billionaire from Ca. who is pushing Obama etc, to stop Keystone etc.
They would have us all in grass huts, but they will continue to live well.
Dr. Spencer wrote;
” As it is, the public who pays our salaries are already laughing at us.”
As a member of the public (who does pay the salaries of climate “scientists”); I used to laugh when I heard about the HUBRIS of folks that INSIST they can tell us the weather in one hundred years.
Then, I did my own research and found that, well, to be polite, the most that the climate science community has is a large, pretty, peer reviewed, and polished collection of conjectures. Nicely worded conjectures, most people on the street are befuddled by the “science” words used, but STILL just conjectures.
There is not a single falsifiable hypothesis among them.
The only thing known for sure is; if you put some CO2 in a glass tube and illuminate it with light of the proper wavelength it warms up.
If anyone pushes against this balloon full of Jello(tm) the Jello simply bulges out on the other side of the balloon; “Did we say that the “GHE” causes warming, no, no, that’s not what we meant, it causes “changes”. And; “look for the heat above the tropics, no, no, above the Arctic, no, no, in the Oceans (the whole reason we bought an otherwise useless ARGO system), no, no, it’s in the deep Oceans, this time we are really, really sure, trust us.
I do indeed respect your work and your openness in hosting this blog. And I do also disagree with you on some points.
At this time I think the only prudent course of action is to issue a “Stop Work” order. All climate science studies should be given 30 days to summarize the data, archive it, write down some “Lessons Learned” (#1 being THE CLIMATE IS TOO COMPLEX TO MODEL), and then go home. Since the operational satellites are already “paid for” (let’s just say we put it on our “TAB” (up to 17 Trillion lately)) we should keep operating them until they run out of fuel and we “ditch them at sea”.
Then, we bring a whole new crew on-board and task them with one simple question; “Can we create a USEFUL understanding of the climate of the Earth”, useful being defined as; does it match observations AND can we do anything with the information to improve things (for the majority of people). Do not be surprised if the answer is; “NO the climate is TOO COMPLEX”
This happens all the time in industry.
The way Dr. Bengtsson has been treated is DISGRACEFUL, and the real climate science community should stand as one against this bullying. We can then count up who is on which side of the line and identify the real scientists, I consider you to be on the scientist side of the line.
Thanks for your time, Kevin
The warming of the tube containing CO2 is not by gas phase thermalisation; that is impossible because of basic statistical thermodynamics.
Instead, it is because the GHG-absorbed IR energy in excess of Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium pseudo-diffuses to thermalise at the walls.
This issue has been completely misunderstood by Climate Alchemy.
Has there ever been an attempt to politically survey in the bluntest simplicity of the “climate science community” in a similar fashion to journalists?;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent-of-journalists-are-republicans-thats-far-less-than-even-a-decade-ago/
I don’t think there is any surprise in the representation of the GOP judging the general MSM product. Why are survey’s like this taboo in science communities and doesn’t that reflect a naive attitude given the policy stakes involved?
This isn’t demanding personal and public disclosure of individual, the phony “McCarthyism” cry is a Red Herring. I’m sure the survey would be attacked because the “consensus” maintains a false credibility in the lack of affiliation disclosure. My bet is GOP representation would be even lower than the media and that has taken decades of coercion and “consensus” tactics in itself.
Would you venture a guess on GOP self-affiliation in the climate science community? 1%, 2% etc.???
With so much of the data that Climate Change believers rely on having been proved comprised, how is this debate still going on? Old climate data reporting stations across the globe are now compromised due to growth of civilization around them. I mean, if a rain gauge ends up under a shed roof, it will “prove” drought conditions where none actually exist. Global Warming (or whatever they’re calling it this week) is nothing more than another way for the government to exert heavy-handed control over its citizens under the guise of “saving” us.
I’m hoping those of us who find it more reasonable to believe weather patterns are a natural phenomena we have little to no affect on or control over can use some of the other side’s tactics to damage their argument of man-made climate disruption. For instance, why not tell people that dumping the day’s ice reserve from their freezers outside at bedtime will help cool the Earth overnight and slow the warming a little the next day. If they’re gullible enough to believe jet-setting, giant carbon footprint leaving Al Gore understands & cares about the climate, they will believe anything!
Nate,
You have suggested a couple of times that the models can’t be expected to duplicate the actual variation in temperatures. But nobody is really suggesting that. The models fail because they are unable to create realistic climate cariability, not a dyplication of the recent history. In addition, it is obvioua that the models rarely (if ever) predict an extendedperiodd of little change in remperature… And the crazier ones with super-high sensitivy never do. The real argument is that there is little reason to believe the models’ diagnosed sensitivity, and that is what they are AWAYS used for, in spite of obvious failings. They are simply not useful to predict the scale of future warming.
The following is misrepresenting the Antarctica climate change reality.
“we have a few scientists extrapolating out to 200 to 1,000 years a “collapse” of a portion of the ice sheet.”
That’s not wholly the range of probability nor do you even correctly reference this very critical important finding on the SPECIFICITY of the area in the Antarctica. You make the scientists look like babbling unsure idiots who are doing serious research. The full findings are yet to be presented and released in journal. Me thinks you follow you follow that herd mentality too much. [Watts Up]
One of these days you will head over the cliff along with the other herd in denial and perhaps the next generation will call you out eventually on your denial mentality.
“This retreat will have major implications for sea-level rise worldwide,” said Eric Rignot, a UC-Irvine Earth science professor and lead author of a study to be published in a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140512-thwaites-glacier-melting-collapse-west-antarctica-ice-warming/
Ross,
“One of these days you will head over the cliff along with the other herd in denial and perhaps the next generation will call you out eventually on your denial mentality.”
Time will tell and if you were an open mind surely you know that it’s “unlikely” to happen 🙂
Massimo,
I suspect Ross is on Soros’s payroll. Else he would actually answer my questions to him: why does he advocate more ice and snow? Who does this benefit? Will more winter give us better more arable land?
The list of idiocies of those who would have us make major changes to our society on the chance the earth may continue, as it has for 25,000 years, melting ice caps, and raising sea levels, is too long to list. We already know we can’t control the weather, much less the climate, and that the idea that we can is another, in a long list of stupidities the left foists on others through, I must add, the force of government.
Yet the left persists in their inane belief they have the answers – no science – but answers – about everything. Towards that end they will sacrifice anyone and anything, especially if she/he/it gets in their way or tries to be rational in the face of their lockstep march. Else why do they avoid the fact of the past 17 years of no change? Their repetitive verbiage would have one think we had continual warming during that time. I HAVE IT: Good is bad; war is peace; cold is hot and stable is change.
Chomsky lives.
@RossBrisbane….according to polar expert Duncan Wingham, it’s far too cold for glaciers to melt in Antarctica. That is, it’s far too cold to have significant global warming that will melt ice sheets.
Anyone who has studied basic geology knows the process of glacier calving. When a glacier flows down to an ocean, and reaches the ocean, it pushes out into the ocean. That ice is unsupported and prone to flexing by the ocean. Eventually, the shelf is going to break off.
In the oceans around Antarctica, severe storms with waves as high as 100 feet are not uncommon. Shelves are generally protected from ocean weather by ice flows, but for whatever reason, sometimes the ice flows disappear, leaving the shelves at the mercy of the wave action.
The recent study on Antarctica that made the ridiculous predictions, is related to the University of Washington. That is the home of Stieg, an alarmist who did a study with Climategater alarmist Michael Mann on Antarctica. They concluded that Antarctica has been warming for 50 years.
Mann can’t seem to keep his foot out of his mouth. One of the stations on which they based their claim was under 4 feet of snow. They obviously did a statistical analysis and we have already seen that Mann is not great with statistics. His hockey stick stats were shredded by McIntrye and McKittrick.
Gordon,
You are correct in that Antarctic glaciers are not melting but flowing and being melted by the sea.
The specific concern in the latest papers (which is not new) is over he giant Filchner-Ronne ice shelf (facing the Atlantic Ocean), which drains a large part of west Antarctica. It is grounded underwater on an offshore ridge and is retreating into more open water close to shore. The specific concern is that in open water the process you describe above will accelerate.
But such things are hard to predict. Will accelerated melting stop when the glacier reaches more shallow water closer to shore? Who knows.
The “concern” expressed is more about what MAY occur at some unknown future time (more rapid loss of west Antarctic ice), and not about any precise prediction.
I find the claim “97% of climate experts agree” ludicrous on it’s face. Ask 100 ‘experts’ if the sky is blue and you won’t get anywhere near 97% agreement. A significant number will say yes, of course, and a few contrarians will say no, but many will fill their response with so many caveats and obfuscations that they aren’t committed to any particular answer. After all, these are smart, competitive people with healthy egos. Admit it, you know the type very well. Does the “97% agreement” claim pass your smell test?
The fact that this “97% of climate experts agree” argument is now once again the absolute discussion-ender for all the non-experts, tells me we have come full circle, and the movement is in it’s death throes, because that argument has been abused to the point that it has lost it’s punch. What’s left? Collapse of some giant Antarctic ice shelf? Do I really look that stupid? What will it be next week?
Not that I was ever very concerned about it. Given human nature and the impossibility of any earth-bound entity exerting any meaningful control over even a small percentage of the planet’s population, and that voluntary masochism is not a prevalent human trait, this was all an exercise in self-inflating hubris on the part of a very few Gaia worshippers and defenestrated commies from the very start.
People persist in calling CAGW a hoax. It’s not – it’s a scam, and not a particularly good one. I ain’t no dummy – I can still spot a scam when I see one.
You warmers out there will dismiss me, of course. But I’m the person you need to convince in order to get your way, right? I’m still waiting. Go ahead, hit me with your best shot. Convince me.
@Milton Hathaway “I find the claim “97% of climate experts agree” ludicrous on it’s face”.
Milton…the joke is that the 97% comes from two studies involving only 3000 people. One of the studies, by Naomi Oreskes, a blatant alarmists who believes consensus is a valid form of science, was targeted at a specific group of scientists. In one of her books she went after scientists who had died.
Apparently it’s now down to 52%:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/
It’s not only skeptical climate scientists who have been the targets of the oddball modelers who run the IPCC, this has been going on in the HIV/AIDS theatre since 1983 when the Reagan administration imposed the viral-AIDS theory on the world WITHOUT PEER REVIEW.
Dr. Peter Duesberg, an outstanding researcher in the field of retroviral theory, has had his career ruined for standing up and claiming that HIV is harmless. Recently, he was vindicated by Dr. Luc Montagnier who discovered HIV, when Montagnier revealed that HIV will not harm a healthy immune system.
According to Montagnier, the immune system has to be compromised before HIV can take effect. He added that a healthy immune system will get rid of it just as it gets rid of any other virus.
I have to apologize for this comment and the length of it because it would seem off-topic. It’s not. My comment is about what Roy is claiming in this article with regard to climate scientists being ostracized. The HIV/AIDS theory has been so pounded into the minds of the public by the media that anyone questioning it is regarded as being several cards shy of a deck.
With regard to the length, it is unavoidable. I don’t blame Roy if he deletes my comment but I think people need to understand that ostracization in science is not limited to climate science alone. I think we need to reveal all forms of ostracization and stamp it out. No scientists has the right to quash the views of legitimate scientists who follow the scientific method.
I am not offering one opinion of my own. Everything to which I refer is the opinions of expert scientists. They just don’t get published much, just as skeptical climate scientists don’t However, the effect is the same when it comes down to ostracizing skeptics in the HIV/AIDS arena.
Recently, the scientist who discovered HIV, Dr. Luc Montagnier, who was awarded a Nobel for his efforts, claimed in an hour long interview for the film House of Numbers, that HIV will NOT harm a healthy immune system. This is the equivalent of Roy, or John Christy, or Dick Lindzen claiming ACO2 is not causing much warming.
Go to the site houseofnumbers.com and look under videos. Montagnier’s video is the top right in the right-hand column beside the main video screen. If you believe what you have heard about HIV/AIDS, prepare to be shocked by this Nobel Laureate and HIV expert.
Please try not to go into denial, there are alligators and hippos in there.
He also revealed that he has never seen HIV, isolated it, or purified it in accordance with the Koch Postulate. Therefore, HIV has only ever been identified indirectly through RNA fragments found in a soup of cells from an AIDS patient. Montagnier BELIEVES that 1 in 1000 particles in the soup are HIV particles.
More than 20 years ago, Dr. Peter Duesberg made a similar claim. He stated that HIV could not possibly cause AIDS. Duesberg is no lightweight, he was inducted into the National Academy of Science and won the California Scientist of the Year Award. He is a brilliant scientist and an expert on retroviruses like HIV.
That did not stop the powers that be from ostracizing him and ruining his career. He lost all his funding and was reduced to teaching lab classes at his university.
The scientist, for the lack of a better word, who popularized the idea that a virus is causing AIDS, Robert Gallo, used to be a friend of Duesberg, until Duesberg claimed that HIV is harmless. As Duesberg points out, Gallo now drives a BMW and he is paid royalties for the two HIV tests used around the world. After a scuffle, Montagnier was let in on the test royalties.
Here’s the comical part. Gallo tried to prove that cancer is caused by a virus. He was proved totally wrong. About that time, Reagan came knocking and helped adopt Gallo’s old theories on the viral-cancer theory, to the viral-AIDS theory. Reagan was under extreme pressure from a homosexual lobby demanding to know why so many young homosexual males were dying.
It should have been obvious why they were dying. Those who got sick were having anal sex with multiple sex partners while doing different drugs, one of them amyl nitrate. It has since been shown that amyl nitrate alone can cause one of the AIDS opportunistic infections, a type of lung cancer.
They had been passing bottles of amyl nitrate around inhaling the fumes. Another Nobel Laureate, Kary Mullis, has theorized that they were also inhaling fecal matter via the steam in steam baths where a lot of this ribaldry was going on in the early 1980s.
Initially, the focus was on lifestyle but that theory was dismissed outright for no known reason. In a similar manner, the natural causes of global warming were dismissed along with the possibility of solar energy having an effect.
If you go to any pharmaceutical site who make the toxic drugs used to treat HIV today, the first think you see is a disclaimer. It states clearly that the drugs cannot cure HIV. How would anyone feel if they were given a drug for high blood pressure and it stated in the drug literature that the drug could not lower high blood pressure?
An expert on these drugs: http://wn.com/david_rasnick
This is no joke. People who test HIV positive are treated with extremely toxic drugs…for the rest of their lives…and the man who discovered HIV claims the virus has never been seen.
What the heck are they targeting with the drugs and why are they using them when pharmaceutical companies claim they cannot cure HIV and that they can destroy livers and kidneys?
Here’s the stunner…the drugs can give you AIDS. They have renamed drug-induced AIDS to IRS, Immune Reconstitution Syndrome. The explanation for it is as comical as the notion that ACO2 can cause extreme warming and climate disaster. According to the pundits, an AIDS opportunistic infection like tuberculosis can go dormant if the immune system fails. Then, when the immune system is supposedly revived with drugs the drug companies claim cannot cure HIV, the TB miraculously re-appears.
Other scientists like Duesberg claim it is “AIDS by prescription” which makes far more sense. When you take a poor soul and feed him/her drugs that interfere with DNA and cells, what do you expect to happen? The drugs used to treat HIV (HAART) were formerly used for cancer chemotherapy. One of them, AZT, was so toxic that it was discontinued for cancer. It was deemed appropriate to treat a theorized viral infection, however.
Roy referred to the gorilla in the room, referring to natural causes for warming. The same applies in the HIV/AID arena. The gorilla in that room is lifestyle. No one has been allowed to study the effect of lifestyle on AIDS. You either propose some cockamamey extension to the current viral-AIDS hypothesis…and it is still very much a hypothesis…or you don’t get funded. In fact, if you propose a lifestyle cause you’ll likely lose your funding and get fired.
Let’s not talk about trying to get published.
Montagnier, the premier HIV researcher in the world, has claimed that AIDS in Africa is related to lifestyle. He spelled it out…oxidative stress due to malnutrition, contaminated water, and parasites. He emphasizes that Africans need clean drinking water.
He does not advocate toxic drugs to treat HIV or AIDS, he advocates rebuilding the immune system with nutrition, especially through the use of antioxidants.
Mainstream HIV research is credible because treatment regimes have been successful. Establishment climate science has not been credible because their predictions have not been successful.
If someone wants to come along and argue that travel to the moon is not possible then that person can be dismissed as a crank because we’ve been there already. Not complicated is it?
Gordon,
Not sure if you are joking or just profoundly disturbed. Either way, it has nothing to do with how climate scientists treat people who disagree with their policy objectives. If you are serious about the content of your comment, then I sincerely suggest you seek professional help.
Yes, we have seen the HIV virus. Here is a scanning electron microscopy image: http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/Researchers-Claim-the-Discovery-of-a-Possible-Cure-for-HIV-2.jpg/.
By the way, I was there, though not working in that particular lab, when a lab at the University I was attending did some of that isolation work using Koch’s Postulates. That lab contributed to the discovery of the virus and yes, electron microscopic images of it were done.
By the way, again, the thought that AIDS was caused by a transmissible agent arose during the Carter Administration. The thinking at the time was along the lines of a herpes virus or a hepatitis virus that had mutated into one that could suppress the cellular parts of the immune system.
I work in the private sector and am involved in the FDA validation process. If I would only have to model my process and then get the OK to proceed into production and sales that be sweet. It appears to me that I am being held to a much higher standard than the AGW science community is.
I’m sorry to say your models are junk if you can’t validate them. If you can’t validate them but continue into production there must be politics and corruption helping you out. Base on my 35 years of modeling and validating processes I would say that politics and corruption are the biggest support in the push behind AGW to ignore the validation process.
AGW needs to get the politics, corruption, university kids and activist out of your validation process for you to save any credibility at this point. The public is catching on quick…
Congress should get together and pass standards on how you guys need to validate your processes, right now you have no type reg body to keep you honest.
The exceptional enshrining of controversial warming theory towards Religion is apalling.
This phenomenum concerns a limited amount of people, split into few categories:
* scientists, because they have te tools to investigate,
* newsmen, who have the power to focus the information projector upon any matter at their convenience,
* politicians, because they handle the funds.
ALL other people in the world have no influence.
What do we see: a closed loop of mutual benefit interlock binding these categories: What says Roy is very true, I have myself be witness of that. In my country, a young graduaded student cannot propose a 3 years subject of research without the reference to global warming…!
Single Religion.
But this damaging phenomenum exists only in the West: China, India, Russia and many more are not scared with these political bla bla and wasted money.
They still run their route undisturbed and they their supposed “scientific lag” down to overtake West.
What we are witnessing, is not a dispute about a theory, it is a far deeper desease: The beginning of Western Civilization Fall. Like those of Hittites, Pharaons, Romanians…
Many are not paying attention. In order for solar to have profound effects on the climate certain parameters need to be attained and have a sufficient length of time. If not the solar effects are to short and counteract one another.
As is the case when the sun regularly undergoes it’s 11 year sunspot cycle.
The criteria
Solar Flux avg. sub 90
Solar Wind avg. sub 350 km/sec
AP index avg. sub 5.0
Cosmic ray counts north of 6500 counts per minute
Total Solar Irradiance off .015% or more
EUV light average 0-105 nm sub 100 units (or off 100% or more) and longer UV light emissions around 300 nm off by several percent.
IMF around 4.0 nt or lower.
The above solar parameter averages following several years of sub solar activity in general which commenced in year 2005..
IF , these average solar parameters are the rule going forward for the remainder of this decade expect global average temperatures to fall by -.5C, with the largest global temperature declines occurring over the high latitudes of N.H. land areas.
The decline in temperatures should begin to take place within six months after the ending of the maximum of solar cycle 24.
NOTE 1- What mainstream science is missing in my opinion is two fold, in that solar variability is greater than thought, and that the climate system of the earth is more sensitive to that solar variability.
NOTE 2- LATEST RESEARCH SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING:
A. Ozone concentrations in the lower and middle stratosphere are in phase with the solar cycle, while in anti phase with the solar cycle in the upper stratosphere.
B. Certain bands of UV light are more important to ozone production then others.
C. UV light bands are in phase with the solar cycle with much more variability, in contrast to visible light and near infrared (NIR) bands which are in anti phase with the solar cycle with much LESS variability.
SDP,
There are things about the Sun not well understood.
There is reasonably good (but not solid) data to indicate that sunspots are a measure of total solar activity. Sunspot data going back ~400 years show an increase since the cold Maunder Minimum ~300 years ago (when sunspots fell to near zero). Estimates of the irradiance change are a few watts/m^2. Measured temperature in England over that time also suggest an increase by a few tenths of a degree. So solar output does seem to influence Earth’s temperature, and not just by total irradiance. The role of UV in ozone and the role of cosmic rays in clouds are two possibilities. But HOW is poorly understood, and until it is understood, we can only speculate on how much decreasing solar activity may lower Earth’s temperature.
“Politicians can fix this. Probably not by just calling hearings and witnesses, through, which will admittedly raise public awareness of the problem. But by telling the funding agencies that some percentage (say, 20%) of their climate research funding must go toward studying the 800 lb gorilla in the room: Natural sources of climate change.”
Good Grief, NO! You identify the problem with government funding and regulation of science and then turns around and suggests that the underlying root cause of the problem should remain in place, but that the political masters should just tweak their command and control formula!
The only solution is to get government completely out of all scientific pursuits. There should be no regulation, no funding, and thus, no possibility of any political agenda driving science research.
I agree the government should not target certain results for basic research. But I don’t know that Spencer’s suggestion is that kind. Research into Natural factors, whatever the findings, is not the same.
The government sponsors most of the basic research. Remove that and the “seed corn” for future new concepts becomes very lean. For example, basic research and applied research (done to expand scientific or technical concepts that might lead to new products, e.g. better medicines) each spend about 0.5% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Development research (done to actually develop a better product) is about 1.5% of GDP. Most of development and much of applied research are done with private funds.
This site has an extensive discussion, with charts, of government vs private research of various kinds.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-sources-and-uses-of-us-science-funding
There was a post that in the early 1970s “they” were blaming that cooling spell on CO2.
It wasn’t CO2 it was C.
Actually, it was James Hansen’s concerns that particulate carbon suspended in the atmosphere was causing the cooling.
Hansen is versatile and so is carbon.
He has been on the warming bandwagon for decades—the cause is particulate carbon.
“Some of us (Christy, Lindzen, myself and others) have put up with many years of unfair treatment by a handful of activist gate-keeping colleagues who stopped our papers from being published or proposals from being funded, ”
Isn’t it odd that out of all thousands of scientists who work as rewievers the skeptics always seem to run across the same “handful of activists” rather than the silent majority they imagine support their cause?
Very odd isn’t it? Roy Spencer is taking a bit licence with the truth. I now know Evangelical Pastors follow him here. Let me remind you Evangelical Pastors that right here is a challenge. See the truth being stretched a wee bit? [In reference to Years of Living Dangerously Part 4]
This will make interesting reading in a history of this field, but if you do indeed consult every alarmist, end of the world is neigh prediction, model or claim, most of the time you’ll be able to trace it back to a very small group indeed; perhaps as little as 10 main players. Lennart Bengtsson’s paper was rejected by Environmental Research Letters. On it’s editorial board: Peter Gleick, Myles Allen, Stefan Rahmstorf. It’s curious how if you do any reading at all in this field, these same names show up literally everywhere.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/page/Editorial%20Board
From Eisenhour’s farewell speech, the famous one, where he forewarned of the military industrial complex: The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
…
Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite
Get beyond the partisanship.
We remember:
Recently, Dr. Tom Crowley died after a struggle with cancer. His personal and scientific impact was best conveyed to me by his dear friend, Dr. Jerry North. Dr. North told me,
“Crowley’s amazing intellectual journey started with marine geology (PhD at Brown University) where he studied cores from the ocean floor. He became very expert in analysis of past climates with climate models. He was extraordinary at dealing with climate data sets where his intuition generated idea after idea. This very unusual instinct for crossing over all kinds of different data (tree rings, ocean cores, ice cores, pollen, etc.) and relating it to the climate signal that was buried in it made him a singularly gifted scientist. He had a talent for looking at a problem, thinking about it and wondering what kind of story could be made of it. What is a significant project leading to an interesting publishable paper and what is not: the very essence of a scientist.”
What was remarkably about Crowley was his diverse and adaptive mind. He made significant contributions in a wide range of sub-disciplines. He was also an active contributor to public discussions of climate science. He excelled at telling the world why we should care.
In my communication with Jerry North, I learned much more about his friend. Tom and Jerry worked on paleoclimate problems years ago. They teamed up with colleagues John Mengel and David Short to develop energy-balance climate models that had the ability to explain important problems. Tom and Jerry used the model to examine all sorts of climate issues such as the importance of seasonal cycles in climate change.
They found that the summer climate controls the initiation of ice sheets. If the summer is cool, the ice will not melt and the sheet will become thicker. They also found that the placement of land and ocean water in the polar region was important in controlling the summer temperatures. North America and Greenland were ideal for ice-sheet growth. Their model showed that Greenland and Antarctica were predicted to ice over – that is, without human-emitted greenhouse gases.
“Their model showed that Greenland and Antarctica were predicted to ice over – that is, without human-emitted greenhouse gases.”
If I understand what you meant (I’m Italian and sometimes I have problems with English), they predicted ice growing with their models, but that ice didn’t grow at all, is that?
Hummm… If it’s that, then how could they falsify that statement?
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Ross,
The concept that warmer temperatures and an ice-free Arctic Ocean produces more snowfall goes back at least to Ewing & Donn in the 1950s. As you say, for that increased snow to produce permanent ice requires a colder Arctic summer. But this is elevation dependent. Summers are much cooler at high elevation, such as Greenland, Scandinavia, and some mountainous regions of the Canadian islands. But most of northern Canada and Asia are not mountainous, and summer temperatures there have to fall appreciably for summer snow not to melt.
An example of the importance of geography of ocean, land, and winds in the growth of continental ice is the fact that Alaska was not heavily glaciated in the last ice age (ending ~20 kyr ago), in spites of its mountainous terrain.
Has no one read of the recent attempt by the State of Nebraska’s offer to the University of Nebraska? They wanted a study to determine if there was a cyclical nature to draught/rain fall in the state so that the farmers could use this to help in their selection of crops, insight into how long a drought could last and planning for alternative actions. NONE of the “scientists” would perform this study. The Nebraska agriculture department and the state representative that suggested this were called “deniers” for even suggesting this study! The argument by “professors” on the house floor got rather heated, and the study was not performed.
Would welcome opinions as to why a true scientist looking for truth and trying to help the farmers would refuse the funds to do this study? I can not imagine why a true scientist would refuse money to perform this study. Is it not cyclical so they “knew” it was a waste of money? (then why not say that?) Or do they know it is related to something that they do not want known? Or worse yet, the idea of this article, are they afraid they will be “tagged” a “denier” if they perform this study?
Rich,
My guesses, in approximate decreasing order of likelihood:
1) They were being funded already for climate change studies and realized the peer pressure toward AWG might create conflict or jeopardize that funding.
2) The “story” has not been reported accurately, and there are factors we have not heard. Given Nebraska’s dependence on agriculture and the state’s interest, I suspect this is likely.
3) The university did not wish to engage in targeted research or possibly anticipated unwanted pressure placed on their school, department, or faculty over such a decision.
4) They were not currently funded but wanted to be. See 1).
5) They fully believe natural climate cycles are not important and did not wish to chase a dead end.
6) Their experience or facilities were not suitable for research in natural cycles, and/or the funding offered was insufficient to switch to this type of study.
I have had a career in basic research in a geo-science field, but I have no specific knowledge about this story.
The Garden of Eden was perfect until Eve bit that damned apple.
Now, according to the true believers, nothing can restore that long gone perfection except the banishment of most of humanity from the face of the Earth.
We are dealing with fanatics who value their belief systems above reality.
Very broad statement. Conclusion false. Reality is climate is shifting. Fanaticism demands denial. Belief is a theological statement where faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for. Climate Change is not belief as global warming is with us already. Even Roy Spencer knows it is not faith based. The words are robbed and twisted. Denial is a religion as you BELIEVE [have faith] it is a complete scam.
“Nate says:
May 16, 2014 at 7:48 AM
Roy,
I have several problems with your theory that climate scientists are part of conspiracy to cook the books and create a climate change myth.
1. Outlandish claims like this require outstanding empirical evidence. Where is the evidence?”
The Australian BOM has systematically revised the 2013 recordings of solar radiation across the nation to remove the inconvenient truth that 2013 set new records for 7 out of 12 months in most cases. Although you might expect at least a passing reference to this natural climate variable in the BOM climate summary for 2013 it was completely ignored.
If the science of AGW is so settled, there would be no need for the BOM to engage in blatant scientific fraud.
Not sure what you mean. I found solar data on the site.
Dr. Spencer, I am having a hard time understanding how this sort of content contributes to advancement in your field. Wouldn’t your time be better spent producing studies that support your assertions? Not when your audience isn’t equipped to interpret them, I suppose. Instead, you’ll use your credentials as a platform from which to lambaste scientists who are too busy actually working to respond in kind.
For those of you who are interested, here I am providing the actual critique of Professor Bengsston’s manuscript–whose rejection is the supposed cause of his defection. It was hardly a source of controversy among scientists in his field, as Dr. Spencer would have you believe. As I pointed out above, they are all too busy working to concern themselves with such things. It is a typical critique of a manuscript submission with deficiencies, resulting in a typical rejection and exclusion from publication. The critique notes the manuscript’s weaknesses and offers suggestions for improvement. The manuscript was rejected based on specific deficiencies, including lack of innovation and ambiguity–not because Professor Bengsston voiced dissent:
“The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low, as the calculations made to compare the three studies are already available within each of the sources, most directly in Otto et al…
Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less than helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate sceptics media side.
A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.
I have rated the potential impact in the field as high, but I have to emphasise that this would be a strongly negative impact, as it does not clarify anything but puts up the (false) claim of some big inconsistency, where no consistency was to be expected in the first place. And I can’t see an honest attempt of constructive explanation in the manuscript.
Thus I would strongly advise rejecting the manuscript in its current form.”
You see, like Dr. Roy Spencer, Professor Bengsston has begun with a conclusion and has worked in reverse to confirm it. And while this method is almost always successful in its aim, it is far from scientific.
Wonderful discussion of the sheer absurdity of the reject can be found here –
http://climateaudit.org/2014/05/16/iop-expecting-consistency-between-models-and-observations-is-an-error/
“Thus, the “error” (according to the publisher) seems to be nothing more than Bengtsson’s expectation that models be consistent with observations. Surely, even in climate science, this expectation cannot be seriously described as an “error”.”
“The publisher also said that the article “did not provide a significant advancement in the field”. However, most academic articles do not constitute “significant advancements” in their field and they still get published.”
“Given the failure of the publisher to show any “error” other than the expectation that models be consistent with observations, I think that readers are entirely justified in concluding that the article was rejected not because it “contained errors”, but for the reason stated in the reviewers’ summary: because it was perceived to be “harmful… and worse from the climate sceptics’ media side”.”
Also interesting to read here –
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/5/16/that-error.html
Which explains how one of the reviewer’s rejected the paper because he was confused and didn’t understand the subject matter.
I fear that Adam Connor will not understand.
To make it easy, Adam Connor is an irrational boring twit.
Well that sounds a bit harsh. But I would make the observation that most climate advocates are generally not very bright. They seem to believe whatever they are told so long as (a) it’s consistent with what they already believe and (b) it’s comes from an approved authority.
(On the other hand, there are a bunch of contrarians who post here who aren’t very bright either. They tend to always believe the opposite of what The Establishment believes, irrespective of the merits of the arguments.)
“Well that sounds a bit harsh. But I would make the observation that most climate advocates are generally not very bright. ”
It seems most climate advocates are lefties and most lefties are identifiable as useful idiots. Not very bright and useful idiots are similar and differ in sense that one is an unpaid slave. And slaves and their masters tend not to be very bright.
–(On the other hand, there are a bunch of contrarians who post here who aren’t very bright either. —
To be clear I have not formed a opinion of whether Adam Connor is a lefty or how bright he may be, but rather it seems your post provided evidence, that he is irrational boring twit.
I didn’t provide evidence of this, but I would have merely pointed to his telling our host, Roy W. Spencer:
“Dr. Spencer, I am having a hard time understanding how this sort of content contributes to advancement in your field. Wouldn’t your time be better spent producing studies that support your assertions?”
As the single strongest proof that Adam Connor is irrational boring twit.
And example is conveniently provided, here:
“Examples of TWIT
Only a complete twit would insult his hosts.”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twit
–They tend to always believe the opposite of what The Establishment believes, irrespective of the merits of the arguments.)–
Sort of like copying our opponent chess moves- useful to learn the game of chess, perhaps.
But I am unaware there is any specific merits of the argument. Perhaps you could mention some of the ones which are worth arguing about?
My favourite quote in the comments so far is –
“simply saying that models should be expected to be consistent with observations doesn’t make it true.”
In terms of pure stupid it’s close to unbeatable. I suppose climate advocates are free to trial this meme out on the public but somehow I don’t see it taking off in a big way. 🙂
“…Professor Bengsston has begun with a conclusion and has worked in reverse to confirm it. And while this method is almost always successful in its aim, it is far from scientific.”
Gasp! Is not that the very same method used to analyze the impact of CO2 on climate in last years?
“…Professor Bengsston has begun with a conclusion and has worked in reverse to confirm it. And while this method is almost always successful in its aim, it is far from scientific.”
It’s remarkable how activists can smear a paper that hasn’t been published and nobody has yet read. I’m guessing such speculations are based on what reviewer comments have been made available to date. (Although it’s also curious that a paper that compares models to observations is rejected, but papers that routinely make speculative assumptions and reach unfalsifiable conclusions, i.e., X will happen to Greenland in 1000 years from now, do routinely get published.)
YOURS WORDS – Not ours. You deniers seize on anything that re-enforces your own sense of bias. THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY TO SILENCE critics.
Ok Ross,
I agree: you continue to repeat yourself conviction.
This way, maybe that one day you’ll convince yourself indeed.
Some people live a very sheltered existence indeed, if they think academic politics is so mysterious that it requires ‘conspiracy theories’ to explain, as opposed to, say, human nature. 😉
Ross,
I ask again, why do you want more snow and ice? Is it to stop farmers from raising food? Are you in the skiing tourist industry? Do you think it helps the economy?
Further to my last post, it seems that the BOM “adjustment” of the records for Sydney Global Solar Exposure extend back to 1 Jun 2011. The average TSI values for Sydney for 1Jun – 31 Dec 2011 were reduced by an average of 1.93 Mj/M^2/day and the 2012 values were reduced by an average of 0.75 Mj/M^2/day.
It seems that the BOM is unwilling to let the facts get in the way of CAGW politics.
Will Nitschke, simply saying that models should be expected to be consistent with observations doesn’t make it true. And, in fact, it isn’t true. To go into why is far beyond the scope of a comment field. But if you are unsure, I suggest you familiarize yourself with some literature on the subject. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/
You seem intelligent enough get your head around that.
I made my comment regarding Professor Bengsston based on the review of his submission. Perhaps it was unfair to have done so without having read it myself, so I will recant that comment.
I maintain that Dr. Spencer ought to be using that big brain of his to support his assertions directly. That the majority of his energy is given to the censure of prevailing science on the subject warrants a great deal of skepticism. This is not behavior typical of objective scientific inquiry.
Adam,
Re: Skepticism and objective scientific inquiry.
I consider myself skeptical of the alarmism of the IPCC (not mild warming). First, I’m skeptical that the earth is a hotbed of positive feedback – it’s been around too long and at times with much higher CO2 than now. To get to their dire predictions, the IPCC has to introduce high positive feedback into their models. Spencer shows me his data and his analysis questioning that (even some negative feedback). Next, the climate has not been cooperating with the models for the past decade and a half. As Spencer endlessly points out, the models cannot even predict the past.
I suspect the objectivity of the IPCC. They were commissioned to find evidence of CAGW. Big Gov research dollars go to find the same – and a gold mine of tax revenue and control for them. It’s what governments crave. As the evidence changes, so does their story (global cooling, global warming, climate change, climate disruption), but the solution never changes (more gov power). Unlike Spencer, the IPCC shows me a typical media/crisis/scare campaign. The East Anglia leak, Al Gore/James Hansen’s Incontinent Truth, and Bengtsson’s comments, show me the alarmists are not above jiggering data and the review process to get the conclusion they want. They constantly claim they have a consensus. Yet, scientists, and even environmentalists, have been disavowing the CAGW story – James Lovelock (Gaia), Robert Murphy (Greenpeace), Roy Spencer (climatologist), Lennart Bengtsson (climatologist), etc. There’s no such thing a settled science with something as complex and chaotic as the climate, and anyone who claims otherwise it trying to deceive.
“simply saying that models should be expected to be consistent with observations doesn’t make it true.”
Very true. Models don’t need to be consistent with observations or facts or experiment. It is enough that they are consistent with one’s beliefs.
Hi Will,
“Models don’t need to be consistent with observations or facts or experiment. It is enough that they are consistent with one’s beliefs.”
Which is why models are not SCIENCE and those who criticize them do not either censure science or contradict it! Great post.
Thank you and have a great day!
It seems that psychic predictions made by scientist should have even less credibility than psychics who were not trained as scientists.
And non-scientific predictions about the future, should not relied upon for matters dealing with public policy.
That government employees can choose to get such things as palm reading is not the issue but rather government should not force those governed to follow the advice of such silliness.
Hi gbaikie,
You wrote:
“That government employees can choose to get such things as palm reading is not the issue but rather government should not force those governed to follow the advice of such silliness.”
Good point. Query: Do we have a government or an asylum? Years ago Woody Allen (despite all his faults) made a movie called Bananas in which South American despots made their soldiers where their under wear on their heads and if I remembered correctly they had to speak Swedish. Increasingly, it seems our government and the climate huxters so prevalent in it just seem to be more deranged than a Woody Allen farce. Hope I’m wrong.
Have a great day!
“Gasp! Is not that the very same method used to analyze the impact of CO2 on climate in last years?”
Massimo PORZIO, you’re begging the question.
Sorry I’m Italian and I don’t understand what you mean with “you’re begging the question”.
Anyways, my own was a rhetoric question of course, is that what you mean?
Jimc, the earth has been around for too long for what?
Please provide me with any compelling studies suggesting net negative feedback, as I have not yet encountered any.
Building positive feedback into our models is prudent based on what we know. Dr. Spencer’s work suggesting the contrary simply isn’t cogent. Methane clathrate release alone presents powerful feedback potential.
Finally, there is an elephant in the room every time someone utters phrases like “big government funding” and “tax gold mine,” and that is the fact that for every government dollar in existence there are several big oil and fossil fuel dollars. If the “right” science is the best funded science, then why isn’t climate change denial more prevalent? If it’s all about the funding, the fossil fuel industry certainly has it–and good reason to use it. Still, there so few scientists who deny anthropogenic climate change. Why?
Adam,
Re: negative feedback.
The earth’s climate has been conducive to life for several billion years and to higher forms for a least half a billion. It hasn’t gone into the ditch on either side of the climate road as Venus and Mars have.
You seem as though you might be familiar with Lovelock’s Gaia hypotheses for example, part of which is his explanation of the stability of the 21% oxygen in the atmosphere. Essentially, a higher percentage is poison to plant life and encourages its destruction by fire. A lower percentage encourages its growth by lessening its poisonous effect. (http://www.panspermia.org/gaia.htm) The result is stabilization by negative feedback. As you depart further form equilibrium, the corrective effects become stronger. But, I sure you have always understood that. I don’t think Spencer claims to have a good handle on the corrective effects on climate temperature, but he points out that there seems to be no inclination to find them either, even though his satellite data shows it’s there and even allows him to estimate its strength. He has avenues he is attempting to explore. If you’re serious, follow the website here.
I don’t think anyone serious denies there is a human effect on climate. The argument is over whether it’s catastrophic or just gets buried in the natural variations that are always happening.
Adam,
“Finally, there is an elephant in the room every time someone utters phrases like “big government funding” and “tax gold mine,” and that is the fact that for every government dollar in existence there are several big oil and fossil fuel dollars.”
Look to who is funding the CRU at East Anglia University (at the bottom of the web page chapter “Acknowledgements”)
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history
In alphabetical order the 2nd founder is “British Petroleum” while down to the “s”, I can read “Shell”.
So, why do you believe that big oil companies are funding in the skeptics side?
Big oil are always on the money, so renewable are good deals for them until government subsides are provided. Here in Italy ENI, which is our multinational oil and gas company, is the most active solar and wind mill farm owner here.
They are pushing the global warming hysteria to sell their new business.
I don’t see any elephant in the room at all… Maybe I’ve some visual issues but I recently renewed my driving license and they told me that I don’t need any glasses. 🙂
Hi Massimo Porzio,
Thank you Massimo for reiterating a point that should be obvious even to Climate Change huxters. While the leftist meme remains that BIG OIL funds all the skeptic crowd, they in-fact spend considerably more time and effort seeking to PROMOTE CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION. Why? Too limit access to competitors, SEIZE AS MUCH UNEARNED CONTROL OVER THE GLOBES HYDROCARBONS AS POSSIBLE and corner the market on energy production of all sorts! A LARGE OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM STOCKHOLDER Al Gore sought to be the gate-keeper for CAP AND TRADE legislation that likely benefited guess which corporation.
A representative from Dutch Shell spoke some time ago in support of legislative changes promoting NATURAL GAS. Guess which company will likely benefit from such legislation. Which companies do you think might have an interest in limiting coal production in areas with abundant easily accessible supplies? BTW, I have nothing against natural gas and/or energy alternatives. Nevertheless, how do any of us and/or the environment we live in benefit by reducing consumer choice as to energy alternatives, affordable access to the world’s resources including hydrocarbons and/or any of the mass of SELF INTERESTED legislation promoted? Given the results of the Kyoto Protocol and the OBJECTIVE FACT THAT NO LEGISLATION HAS BEEN PRESENTED ANYWHERE THAT I AM OF AWARE OF THAT WILL EITHER PREVENT THE CONTINUING INCREASE OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 OR EVEN LIKELY REDUCE IT’S GROWTH!!! If I’m wrong I challenge anyone to identify such legislation and how they expect it to produce such results!!! I’m quite certain my challenge will go UN-MET! Not that I mind they have yet to prove it’s even a good idea at this point to reach the objectives they boast of.
Have a great day!
Hi JohnK,
what worry me much indeed, is the use of mass mind control the big oil companies did in Europe in last decades to push diesel fuel on small vehicles.
For example, here in Italy, when you want to buy a car, in the brochures, you don’t find any info about how many PM10 the car produce but how much CO2 they produce, this despite our main problem is the PM10 pollution in our cities.
Looking those brochures, since diesel engines emit very less CO2 than gasoline engines (lavoisier conservation of mass teaches here), people have been induced to buy diesel cars in last decades, so now we have more diesel cars than gasoline ones. No matter that the WHO finally admitted that the diesel exhausts are effectively cancerogenic, we must save Gaia, not our healt. No matter that a very old gasoline Euro1 class car emits 10 times lesser PM10 than a diesel Euro4 class car (now we stepped into Euro5 and 6, but those new class don’t were checked in the analyses I read, anyways it seems that even these new classes don’t do much).
Of course, it’s my own paranoia that leads me to think that all what it happened it’s because big oil companies were interested to sell the excess of diesel fuel which were stocked in abundance many years ago, just because it is a dirty byproduct of the gasoline distillation tower.
IMHO, this is a good example of how it is easy to convince people to masochism.
Even in my own opinion, that’s very bad.
Have a great day too!
Massimo
Hoops!!
I missed:
“(lavoisier conservation of mass teaches here, less CO2 = more PM10)”
In few words: nothing is created or destroyed, just converted.
“Very true. Models don’t need to be consistent with observations or facts or experiment. It is enough that they are consistent with one’s beliefs.”
Do you want to exchange glib rejoinders, or do you want to have a serious discussion about model/observation correlation?
Adam, glib is a viable option in response to the incredible arrogance of the IPCC. After a long stretch run of the models failing in their predictions a rational organization might respond ….
“Data would seem to indicate that most models designed to predict AGW are overestimating positive feedbacks or underestimating negative feedbacks. While the IPCC stands by AGW, further work on its true impact will be ongoing.”
… while an organization with a well orchestrated agenda instead replies …..
“Data doesn’t respond well to our models, BUT WE ARE NOW 98% CONFIDENT IN AGW”
…. and my response is, you have got to be kidding me.
CONFIDENT is an interesting word.
In Webster’s book it means assured in one’s perspective or ability.
But confidence man has another meaning and is the source of the term con-artist. A confidence man practices confidence tricks (or scams), which are attempts to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence.
======================================================
Remember what you are rooted in.
Stay true.
The best defense in this…PR game isn’t a good offense, it’s the honest truth.
NOAA April temps tie April 2010 for hottest on record. Another note about the NOAA surfaces temps so far. We would have to average about .67 per month from here on out to have the warmest surface record of .66 for 2014. Beating .65 for 2005 and 2010. Right now the year has averaged .64 for the first 4 months.
Although much has been written about Solar Cycle 24 being the lowest in 100 years, the amount of solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere for April 2014 is actually the highest since the SORCE project kicked off in 2003. (http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/data/tsi-data/#summary_table). It should therefore be no surprise to anyone if 2014 turns out to be hotter than 2010 (0.6W).
The AGW lobby are quick to dismiss such variations as insignificant – unless of course they are referring to 0.5 of a watt of “missing” outgoing long wave radiation in which case it is cause for all manner of hysteria.
Should have said 2014 is 0.6W higher than 2010
The evidence that recent solar activity has much influence on global temperature is pretty weak. On the other hand there is an interesting correlation with sunspots and global temperature during the little ice age. So it’s still one of those unsettled issues.
Will,lots of variables but you could say with some confidence that 2008 was cooler in line with low solar activity. We are just coming off the second peak in sunspots for SC 24. The next few years will be interesting.
That’s too simple a correlation to make much of, unfortunately.
Jimc, I’m am fimiliar with Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis. You clearly are not. Lovelock describes this as Earth’s ability to regulate its atmosphere, and this is expected notwithstanding external forces, such as release of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel waste. Nowhere in his work does he ever suggest that the planet’s ability to self regulate can withstand these forces. He compares the earth to an organism, which is capable of regulation of its systems. And suggests that like an organism, it is susceptible to intoxication through introduction pollutants. Lovelock describes this in his Gaia’s Revenge.
It is worth noting that Lovelock later reneged on his views in that book, but not to such an extent as to align himself with deniers. He maintains now that anthropogenic contribution will affect climate change for certain. How much and when, he says, remains to be determined.
We all hope, skeptics included, that “anthropogenic contributions” affect the climate, warming it gradually over the time. This would be a good outcome for the planet, as opposed to the alternative, which is a colder world, which would be more hostile to life. Eco activisits tend to indulge in the naturalist fallacy. That is, whatever nature does is good. Whatever humanity does is bad. It’s their defining fairy story.
Adam,
the Earth has managed to self regulate with CO2 levels that were 10 times higher than present. The current climate is hardly representative of historical norms (if you can even use that term) and moderate additional warming would be far from catastrophic.
Johnki, I am very sorry, but that is all nonsense. And you present vague examples to support that nonsense. It’s easy to to talk. Show me specific examples in which the fossil fuel industry supports findings that climate change is the result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. And then show me that they are the norm and not the result of conditional pragmatism.
I did it before indeed, the CRU at East Anglia University is “supported” by British Petroleum and Shell too.
In Italy, ENI is pushing the AGW for selling their new business in wind farming and solar.
Who do you think have the money to invest in so big enterprises today?
And when they know that pushing the AGW it’s a good choice to get government foundings, they just do it.
Our Italian multinational oil company had built some solar panels plants in the US too, and into a TV advice they are proud to be the funders of renewable research at the MIT.
But that’s not just “conditional pragmatism” that’s just how they behave if the people like you don’t see the true elephant in the room.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Hi Adam Connor,
You may also find the Nation article below of interest. While I have read that the younger Gore dumped the family stock portfolio, one may never no for sure.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071014004205/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000522/silverstein
Hi Massimo PORZIO,
Thank you for the information. The bizarre belief that corporations exist as mere victims of the CLIMATE ALARMIST agenda appears to be only somewhat true. While many useful companies may simply seek to survive in a cut-throat Darwinian economic scramble for whatever one can get by hook or crook, many play offensive seeking advantage and political position to ensure gate-keeper/monopoly fuel supplier status backed by government force and largess. Making contributions to various climate change causes and bankrolling socialist environmental control freaks may pay-off with big political dividends for a few and reduced liberty and economic/legalistic enslavement for the many.
This topic puts me in mind of a few Mencken quotes.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.
H. L. Mencken
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H. L. Mencken
and finally for those destined to define every environmental problem as caused by what they arbitrarily believe to be excess atmospheric CO2…
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken
Hi Adam Connor,
If you’ve perused this blogsite for any significant length of time, you should know I’ve provided EXTENSIVE evidence of my claims. However, in the interests of filling open minds with SCIENCE i.e. the FACTS AND LAWS OF NATURE and NOT SPECULATION I’ll provide a few facts you might find useful.
Pertaining to my previous post, admission has already been made that industrialists and/or self interested financial interests have used bogus scientific claims ( psuedo-science )to support CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION to SUPPORT LARGE FINANCIAL INTERESTS INCLUDING AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS. Please view the article below:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/22/report-al-gore-reverses-view-ethanol-blames-politics-previous-support/
If you need another reference:
http://www.redstate.com/diary/jack_savage/2010/11/25/al-gore-admits-another-lie/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/business/energy-environment/large-companies-prepared-to-pay-price-on-carbon.html?_r=0
Exon Mobil in particular provides
All this corporate hilarity comes at a time when the entire supposed empirical basis for AGW NONSENSE comes under question even by trendy websites:
“The Daily Mail reports that in 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claimed that the planet’s temperature was going to rise 0.2 Celsius every decade, a claim that governments and scientists all across the world have relied on to make their own determinations.
But now the new report says that the climate only warmed at .12 C per decades since 1951, a rate far, far below what everyone was told.
The new report also notes that scientists had to admit that their forecasts were wildly out of sync with the truth.
(See also: Obama To Spend $8 Billion Waging War On Coal)
Some of the findings that the report contains are as follows:
They recognize the global warming ‘pause’ first reported by The Mail on Sunday last year is real – and concede that their computer models did not predict it. But they cannot explain why world average temperatures have not shown any statistically significant increase since 1997.
They admit large parts of the world were as warm as they are now for decades at a time between 950 and 1250 AD – centuries before the Industrial Revolution, and when the population and CO2 levels were both much lower.
The IPCC admits that while computer models forecast a decline in Antarctic sea ice, it has actually grown to a new record high. Again, the IPCC cannot say why.
Further, these UN scientists now acknowledge that there has, indeed, been a “pause” in rising temperatures, just as so many have said.
A forecast in the 2007 report that hurricanes would become more intense has simply been dropped, without mention.
And yet, even though the new report admits so many errors, these so-called scientists still pack their paper with apocalyptic scenarios about how global warming is still going to kill us all.
This on top of the fact that the Arctic ice sheet has grown despite folks like Al Gore that said by now all the ice should have melted.”
“In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” — Al Gore
Will Nitschke, it is absurd to welcome climate change of any kind. Yes, many organisms will benefit from warming. Including pests and plague. Human systems are very fragile and depend on stability in our environment. Sure, it is inevitable that there will be catastrophic events over a span of time. But if we can avoid causing them, we should.
To me, the argument can be compared to a person’s refusal to stop smoking until someone can furnish proof that he has emphysema.
Some people would have you think that we will wake up in an Orwellian nightmare the day after we begin to regulate greenhouse emissions. These are the true alarmists.
The climate has changed in the last century by close to 1C. Well around if not more than 0.7C. Food production has increased globally, regions such as the Sahal in Africa has become more green. In fact sats have recorded an overall greening of the planet too. Cold related deaths have probably decreased slightly around the world. There is no strong evidence for increases in extreme weather. In fact, there is better evidence for decreases. Enjoy it while it lasts. And stop wetting your pants with imaginary fears when our planet has so many real problems to deal with.
The global warming alarmists approach this issue of catastrophic man-made global warming (climate change) as a battle … it has to be their way and only their way!
I cannot see any end to this division within the scientific community unless governments, who are largely to blame for the situation, intervene in this issue and enforce a truce and butt out of science.
Adam Connor says:
May 20, 2014 at 5:53 AM
[“Building positive feedback into our models is prudent based on what we know.”]
Adam, I would be interested in an objective discussion about the science. Could you please clarify exactly what positive feedbacks were inputted, and why?
Regards,
Arfur
“My favourite quote in the comments so far is –
‘simply saying that models should be expected to be consistent with observations doesn’t make it true.’
In terms of pure stupid it’s close to unbeatable. I suppose climate advocates are free to trial this meme out on the public but somehow I don’t see it taking off in a big way.”
If it’s stupid, prove it. If it doesn’t take off, it’s because, unlike the “skeptic” memes, it isn’t tailored to appeal to the sensibilities of uneducated fanatics. I provided in-depth support of the statement, tried to lead you out of your woeful ignorance of the subject. You opted out. I suppose I can summarize, just in case you were turned off by the prospect of possessing depth of knowledge in the very area you presume to:
When scientists create models or make observations, they are aware of their limitations. Most people whose beliefs scientific findings contradicts like to make it seem as though this uncertainty means that scientists are baffled by their own observations. But knowledge of uncertainty helps scientists understand what can and cannot be determined by a given study. You don’t hear of creationists, for example, figuring margins of uncertainty into their predetermined conclusions, do you. Wonder why.
In any case, if a given model’s limitations are understood and it is deemed sufficient for understanding certain features of an area of study, then that model needn’t jibe with given observations to validate its usefulness. Certainly not if said observations have limitations–and they most certainly do–that do not serve the area of interest in said model.
In these cases, no one would expect consistency between said model and said observation. These cases account for the majority of comparisons between models and observations.
Deeming my statement stupid achieves two things for you: first, it demonstrates your ignorance, second, your pretentiousness. If you were suitably qualified to comment on it, you’d understand the subtleties of the issue and would exhibit patience for people not aware of them.
You see, most understanding, beyond the basics, is not intuitive. That I have to explain to you that you should know what you’re talking about before you open your mouth is ridiculous.
Also, your designation of “meme” in reference to a factual statement is literally a meme, and the only meme contained in that pretentious drivel you wrought. Does that strike you as ironic?
Svante Arrhenius sold his scientific soul to start this 118 years ago. His scientific scam has been the most successful and long lasting in history.
Time to go on the offense and start touting the benefits of increased CO2. Very, very few people know that CO2 was at depletion levels until Man started liberating it. I have some slogans for the cause:
Burn baby burn! (fossil fuels)
(cheap) Power to the people!
Release the CO2 1,000! (ppm)
Hola! I’ve been following your website for a while now and finally got the bravery to
go ahead and give you a shout out from Porter Texas!
Just wanted to say keep up the good work!