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Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) has sent letters to universities requesting information on the sources of financial support of seven climate researchers. A few of these might well have some portion of their funding come from energy companies, I don’t know.
The implication, of course, is that research money from fossil fuel companies to any skeptics is bad, even though much greater amounts of fossil fuel money goes to Green organizations.
Can you spell “hypocrisy”?
One of the biggest misconceptions about climate research funding is that government funding is unbiased. That is, the belief that government funding does not favor one outcome over another.
This might be true for benign research projects, like the mating habits of the Arctic sea slug, but when it comes to research topics with massive political and economic implications, nothing could be further from the truth.
Government funding programs are, in part, formulated by government political appointees who prefer research with outcomes that support their government programs.
Similarly, university research scientists who provide peer review of proposals for funding favor those proposals which offer to make findings that everyone knows will help to perpetuate funding. After all, it is difficult to get Congress to agree to fund non-problems, and yet climate research funding has to continue in order for the current marching army of lifelong climate researchers to have jobs.
Furthermore, in my experience both government employees and university researchers tend to have a distorted view of where research money comes from, and how prosperity (which is necessary for us to afford scientific research) is achieved. Government managers call their research budgets “funny money”, as if its value did not derive from actual work performed by actual taxpayers.
For many years now, government funding of climate research has been infamously resistant toward any theories that climate change isn’t primarily human-driven. I am not aware of any NSF, NOAA, NASA, DOE (or any other funding agency) request for proposals (RFPs) that offered funding to investigate alternative theories of climate change.
This is an unfortunate situation that continues to astonish me, given the immense human cost of proposed energy policies.
I also believe this situation is not what a majority of taxpayers (who foot the bill) would want. The disparity in government funding is not easy to remedy. We have told Congress for years that a Red Team approach to climate research funding is needed, but government funding agencies (which fall under the Executive Branch) would just put the foxes in charge of the hen houses when it came time to form the Red Teams.
The fact that the agencies which fund climate research are technically part of the Executive Branch of government means that the White House has considerable control over outcomes. The recent WH release of what amounts to a directive to go after “climate change deniers” (who the hell denies that climate changes?? Sheesh!) seems to have been the start of an orchestrated effort to shut us down.
That Roger Pielke, Jr. is one of the current ‘Skeptical Seven’ targets is especially troubling. Roger is quite green and hardly considers himself a skeptic. In fact, he largely agrees with the IPCC. All he asks is that people stop making demonstrably incorrect claims that “climate change” is causing greater damage today than it ever has. (Total monetary losses due to weather rise as prosperity and infrastructure increases, even if weather becomes somewhat less severe). Yet, Roger is now backing out of climate change related research due to the current witch hunt.
I’ll leave it to others to decide whether McCarthyism is a good description of the current situation.
Due to a lack of funding for alternative theories of climate change, a handful of skeptical researchers have turned to private funding from time to time to help keep their research going. Now, I personally don’t care where people get their funding. Their published research must stand on its own merits. And if government refuses to fund both sides, what choice is there other than find a new line of work?
So, will Congressman Grijalva also make similar requests of warmist researchers whose universities took money from energy companies? Does he really think everyone will be blind to the naked hypocrisy of such a move?
What is ironic is that it is the fossil fuel companies which have given money to both sides of the global warming debate. Their giving to Big Green groups has far exceeded their giving to any skeptics. In contrast, government has been the most biased source of funding, refusing to fund virtually all research that might in any way cast doubt on humans being the cause of “climate change”, since it would jeopardize energy policy changes which some politicians and environmentalists have been lusting after for decades.
I suspect my current views on climate change happen to be consistent with what most of the CEOs of coal and petroleum companies would like to hear. But even if they all decided tomorrow that the IPCC is correct after all, and they even offered to pay me to go along with them, I would not change my mind. In my opinion, the bulk of evidence suggests more CO2 in the atmosphere will be good for life on Earth, and in any event there is nothing substantial we can do yet to prevent steadily increasing CO2 without causing immense human suffering.
If we could, then fine, do it as an insurance policy. But no one in their right mind buys insurance that costs more than the payout.
In fact, if government pressure on energy companies continues, I fully expect most CEOs will decide to go along with the government’s desires. They know they are going to get paid anyway, because humanity for the foreseeable future will continue to run on ~85% fossil fuels. They probably will expect to get additional government subsidies to “reduce their carbon footprint”, or some such nonsense.
Follow the money, folks.
So, while we wait to see just how the current witch hunt plays out (which I am told has now been extended to some skeptical-leaning think tanks), let me ask:
1) Are you OK with the fact that U.S. energy policy has been informed by an international scientific organization (the IPCC) whose outgoing chairman this week admitted that global warming is his “religion“? Or that others in the IPCC have admitted their goal is global income redistribution? Is this the “unbiased” source of scientific information you want your government to rely on for energy policy?
2) Are you OK with the fact that U.S. government funding for research into natural sources of climate change has been almost non-existent?
The governmental Goliath is coming after David. It will be interesting to see what happens.
I have to admit, “Further research is needed” is also my favorite line.
But couldn’t agree with you more.
Perhaps Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ)could look at where all the taxpayers’ money has gone; since the “Science is Settled” the money has obviously been misappropriated.
Since, according to the Secretary-General of the United Nations,
“Science has spoken”
why are we still paying for more speech-writers?
But green groups aren’t publishing in the scientific literature, which typically require financial disclosure, which Soon hasn’t always done. It some cases his contract with SCS even specified he could not do so.
But testimony to Congress does (or should) require disclosure. It’s a definite double standard when Climate Progress — a blog from the Center for American Progress — criticizes Soon for not revealing its funders, when CAP themselves won’t reveal their funders. Joseph Romm of Climate Progress even testified to Congress in 2010 and did not reveal his funders, saying only he worked “at the Center for American Progress Action Fund:”
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/2010apr14_romm_testimony.pdf
So CAP is in effect a shell company Romm used to hide his funding. Romm also wrote a Comment in Nature in 2011 and did not reveal his funding:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7370/full/478450a.html
so, Soon might not have disclosed properly. But neither did James Hansen, who could have been fired for it as a government employee (I know, I was also a NASA employee at the time, and he broke the rules…not to mention the Hatch Act).
So, should all government climate researchers be investigated, since Hansen “erred”?
What particular Hansen incident are you thinking of?
I don’t know about investigating every government researcher, but it might be a good time for upper management to review the ethical guidelines given to government researchers, have every group supervisor communicate them to his/her group and, and, if there are quesions, review their past work for violations, and make sure all grants awarded by governments communicate ethical guidelines thoroughly and set up a system to see that published work adheres to them.
oh, wow, where do I begin? Here’s one rundown of the infractions:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/
When you are a NASA employee, you cannot accept outside money for anything that might even give the appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest. We had yearly ethics training drilling that into our heads.
Then, he campaigned for John Kerry, in clear violation of the Hatch Act.
I resigned NASA partly because the rules were so restrictive. I was even leaned on regarding what I could and could not say in congressional testimony. Jim said whatever the hell he wanted to because he knew Big Green would come to his defense if anyone complained. Which is what happened when the White House asked NASA to start enforcing their own rules. That started Jim’s “muzzled” claims.
The hypocrisy in this business simply astounds me.
The lack of mainstream journalists with the cajones to draw attention to it is just as bad. David.
Keep in mind Appell on his little blog demanded that skeptics be prosecuted for Thought Crime. If he could stab you in the eye and get away with it, I expect nothing would give him greater pleasure.
Another careless reader. My preface was, “You can’t simply claim that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas.”
Should that fall in the same category as
“I don’t believe that nicotine is addictive.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUNk5meJHs
For a clown who goes around calling everyone a “denier” if they don’t believe in the coming end-of-the-world, you sure are an expert in denial. As in denying your own beliefs when it suites you.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/20/climate-craziness-of-the-week-bizarre-appellation/
You’re a sleazy liar too, because Anthony Watts, Marc Morano, Tom Nelson and even Steve Goddard accept that CO2 is a green house gas. But you would still want to see them put in prison.
You really are pathetic.
Does a day go by, Will, in which you don’t stalk me and then mendaciously twist my words into something I never said?
All with zero science input?
Anyone can follow the links and see exactly what you wrote. If you’re saying your words got “twisted” you’re obviously a liar. You could say, hey I was wrong, I was an idiot, I’ve since changed my mind. But no, it’s easier to keep lying and claim other people are misrepresenting you.
What’s amusing about all this is that you now seem to be distancing yourself from yourself.
@Roy…don’t worry about it Roy, some fine scientists have been badgered over the years by clowns like this Democrat.
Linus Pauling was brought before the McCarthy Inquisition for claiming that nuclear radiation was dangerous to humans. The US Army was broadcasting that it was harmless. There are videos of Army personnel brushing dust off soldiers with a whisk broom as they emerged from areas in which an A-bomb had been tested.
Greens are the modern version of the McCarthyist.
I laugh at one outcome. The FBI visited Pauling to ask how he knew so much about nuclear weapons. In the style typical of Pauling, he claimed something like, “Oh, I worked it out”. Pauling is classified as one of the top chemists of all time.
Pauling finally won his point when he announced that babies could be born with defects due to nuclear radiation. Once he got the mothers onside the rest were toast.
In HIV/AIDS research, Dr. Peter Duesberg had his career ruined for claiming that HIV could not possibly cause AIDS. He claimed it was a passenger virus and that AIDS was caused by lifestyle.
Recently, the scientist who discovered HIV, Dr. Luc Montagnier, who won a Nobel for his work, claimed that HIV could not harm a healthy immune system. His implication is clear, that AIDS is a lifestyle issue. Montagnier stated that in as many words, claiming the immune system has to be compromised before HIV can attack it.
Duesberg is no lightweight. He was inducted into the National Academy of Science for his work on retroviruses and he won the California Scientist of the Year Award. For anyone not familiar with NAS protocol, only brainchilds get inducted, the rest get in a long line to apply.
Unfortunately, NAS made the mistake of allowing one alarmist climate scientists in the door. Like the vermin they are they proliferated and have taken over NAS.
Duesberg is not shy about claiming that the people who hounded him, like former friend Robert Gallo are now driving around in BMWs due to their profits from HIV tests, which Gallo patented.
Gallo was forced to share the profits from HIV tests with Montagnier.
Science is obviously corrupt and any scientific body connected to politicians is equally corrupt. We saw that in Climategate and now with Pachauri.
What goes around comes around. I am sure this witch hunt will come back to byte the Democrats in the butt. When you interfere with affordable energy you wont be in power long.
Gordon Robertson wrote: “Science is obviously corrupt and any scientific body connected to politicians is equally corrupt.”
No, but science, like any activity involving humans, is corruptible.
Dr. Spencer, I have been reading your blog for a while now. I also follow you on WUWT. I would like to commend you on your work. You are a voice of reason in an otherwise insane world. Thank you so much for the climate info you publish. As I am a non scientist, you make the reading sensible and easy to digest. I have an open mind on AGW but at this point in time I don’t see the proponents proving their case. Seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors to me. May God bless you and your family! Thanks again!
George Schultz
Scientific literature .. typically require(s) financial disclosure .. testimony does (or should) require a disclosure. Give us hard facts, David, not weasel words.
I call to your attention a fact that barackobama.com just started a campaign to “call out the climate change deni_rs”. Is the timing a coincidence, a coordination, or a conspiracy?
C George, You may be sure anything BObama attaches his name to is intended to hurt those he claims to be helping. But consider this, if the science were actually settled, why worry about those who differ?
The problem, as Dr. Spencer points out, is the deniers are getting in the way of the political goals of the alarmists. Their goal is to control the economy – see EPA, FCC, Keystone veto, Dodd-Frank, NLRB ad nauseum.
“Their goal is to control the economy – see EPA, FCC, Keystone veto, Dodd-Frank, NLRB ad nauseum.”
The US has had a cap-and-trade program for 20 years. Please specify h0w this has “controlled the economy?”
David,
You explain why the actions of the agencies cited have not had a deleterious effect on the economy and the actions of individuals and businesses first. You always refuse to answer and yet demand another answer your imbecilities first.
The same way you refuse to note the 18 years of NO temperature changes which prove the IPCC is wrong.
The entire ostensible goal of cap and trade is supposedly to reduce GHG’s ( not that any actual measurable achievement in that area has been made now that CO2 stands around 400 ppm ) and they can only do that by in some way controlling human behavior as regards the planets hydrocarbons which by any measure must impact the economy! Please read:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/reduce-emissions/regional-cap-and-trade.html#.VPDUbXzF9WI
Please explain how this DOES NOT control the economy?
Have a great day!
P.S. – Just the energy equivalent of a 42 gallon barrel of oil:
While the 25,000 man hour of labor equivalent has been made the following claims seemed interesting:
“The 5.8 million Btu figure was established by the IRS for energy tax purposes and is called a Barrel of Oil Equivalent, or BOE. One barrel of oil has the same energy content as 5,800 cubic feet of natural gas. A cubic foot of natural gas contains about 1,000 Btu. For electricity, 1 barrel is 1,700 kilowatt hours.
So, is oil really worth $100 a barrel? Another way of looking at it is to compare oil to a horse. A horse laboring a standard 40-hour work week (eight hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year) would have to labor for more than one year to produce the energy in a barrel of oil. Do you think a horse could be fed and maintained for a year for $100? Not likely.
Human labor is even worse. A fit human adult can sustain about one-tenth of a horsepower, so a human would have to labor more than 10 years to equal a barrel of oil.
Oil and oil products have the advantages of being easily combustible with high energy content. Additionally, oil is widely available and is easily transported through ocean tankers, tank trucks and pipelines. Gasoline and diesel fuel are easily and safely dispensed into our vehicles, and heating oil is similarly delivered to our homes.”
David Appell,
But Green Groups DO fund researchers and climate chair positions and educational programs and political ads, etc., etc. And they have LOTS of money. And they get a lot more money from fossil fuel interests than do the lukewarmers.
So, that big oil money should be just as much of a problem to you when it goes to green groups. Just because the money is “laundered” by funneling it through a green group does not remove the potential for a conflict of interest – at least as defined by you and yours.
This would all be quite alarming, if it were actually true. Roy likes to repeat his mantra that no mainstream scientist ever even considers the the impact of natural factors on climate change. In fact, the entire sub-area of “attribution” is devoted to determining how much of the change we observe is due to carbon and how much is due to other factors both man-made and natural. What Roy really objects to is the conclusions the scientists come to. Since most all of them don’t come to the conclusions he wants, he pretends they never did the research in the first place.
Here is a direct quote from the last IPCC report (i.e. those people who never even consider the role of anything except carbon on the climate, geesh!)
The observed reduction in surface warming trend over the period 1998 to 2012 as compared to the period 1951 to 2012,
is due in roughly equal measure to a reduced trend in radiative forcing and a cooling contribution from natural internal
variability, which includes a possible redistribution of heat within the ocean (medium confidence). The reduced trend
in radiative forcing is primarily due to volcanic eruptions and the timing of the downward phase of the 11-year solar
cycle. However, there is low confidence in quantifying the role of changes in radiative forcing in causing the reduced
warming trend. There is medium confidence that natural internal decadal variability causes to a substantial degree the
difference between observations and the simulations; the latter are not expected to reproduce the timing of natural
internal variability. There may also be a contribution from forcing inadequacies and, in some models, an overestimate of
the response to increasing greenhouse gas and other anthropogenic forcing (dominated by the effects of aerosols). {9.4,
Box 9.2, 10.3, Box 10.2, 11.3}
Anybody is free to go and read the full report to see the citations of research that was conducted to come to these conclusions.
Skippy, just because they looked at a small number of factors (e.g. ozone, total solar irradiance) doesn’t mean they covered all of the known unknowns.
They didn’t.
For example, our 2014 APJAS paper addressed only ONE of them (the effect of persistent El Ninos), and it reduced the diagnosed climate sensitivity by 50%! How many other known unknowns haven’t been investigated?
And how many unknown unknowns are lurking out there?
Half truths like yours are rampant in these discussions.
At least they admitted this, which I agree with, but most people don’t understand the full implication of the admission: “There is medium confidence that natural internal decadal variability causes to a substantial degree the difference between observations and the simulations; the latter are not expected to reproduce the timing of natural internal variability.”
That’s what our paper addressed.
Yes, the key point regarding natural variability is that for every factor we think we might know and roughly quantify, there are probably at least 2 others that we don’t know and can’t quantify.
When you have the amount of warming well within the range of natural variability as well as knowing all the natural forcings, it makes attributing any amount of the change to man basically impossible.
The only think the so-called CO2 or GHG warming theory says is it should push the climate in warming direction, among all other pushes, warming and cooling, natural and anthropogenic. While we can be fairly sure there is some anthropogenic influence, I argue it is not known whether that influence is net cooling or net warming.
….as well as not knowing all the natural forcings…
It is not enough to just assume unknown unknowns are contributing to climate change. You have to actually SHOW what they are. That’s called “doing science,” which is the opposite of faith.
Climate change isn’t just an abstract science — it’s one that has huge implications for society, if its lower order expectations are close to being right. It’s about managing risk. Do we wait around forever while scientists dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s? Given theoretical calculations (models) and paleoclimate findings for climate sensitivity, we can expect at least a couple degrees C of warming by the end of this century. So it doesn’t seem we can wait around.
No, it’s not perfect knowledge. We will have to decide what to do in the face of uncertainty.
Remember Dick Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine?
“If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis … It’s about our response.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent_Doctrine
“Given theoretical calculations (models) and paleoclimate findings for climate sensitivity, we can expect at least a couple degrees C of warming by the end of this century.”
********
What is you personal goal, David? To spout at least one highly stupid thing a day?
Appell is currently peddling the idiocy that climate models don’t “predict”. So they can’t make be wrong. QED.
It was pointed out to him that AR4 climate model evaluation uses the word “predict” over 40 times in just one assessment chapter alone. The brilliant response of this nitwit was to complain that the AR4 report was cited, not the latest AR5 report. Of course, the AR5 report also uses the word “predict” over 40 times in it’s equivalent chapter.
You can’t really make up stupid like this.
geran: how about answering the question?
“It is not enough to just assume unknown unknowns are contributing to climate change. You have to actually SHOW what they are…”
I would characterize this statement as a brain fart.
Physicists have to SHOW what Dark Energy is, otherwise they are not doing science?
Psychologists have to SHOW what consciousness is, otherwise they are not doing science?
Biologists have to SHOW how to create life in a test tube, otherwise they are not doing science?
It’s fine for a scientist to say “we don’t know” but then hope to solve the problem eventually. Only religious cranks must have an answer right away, and even if the answer is wrong, the wrong answer is better than no answer. Because the religious crank can never live with doubt.
geran, I wrote nothing that isn’t mainstream climate science. Do you want to address the theoretical calculations and paleoclimate results for climate sensitivity?
“geran, I wrote nothing that isn’t mainstream climate science. ”
**********
That’s your problem, David. “Mainstream climate science” is NOT science. It is agenda-driven propaganda. You cannot see that because you have been corrupted.
Just consider the GOV agencies, NOAA and NASA, that just reported that “2014 was the warmest year on record”. Then, a few days later, they announced that there was less than a 50% chance that was true. The “caveat” was necessary so that they could not be charged with fraud. But, they do not deal in truth, they deal in “spin”. As you do.
“You have to actually SHOW what they are.”
Given the climate is always and has always been changing naturally, you don’t have to actually show what the natural forcings are that are changing it. The burden of proof is on those who claim the recent change is mostly due to man. The problem is they really don’t know, because there are probably many natural forcings which are yet unknown and unquantifiable.
“Do you want to address the theoretical calculations and paleoclimate results for climate sensitivity?”
Yes, please address them as this frequented claim is nonsense that needs to be debunked.
“Remember Dick Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine?”
1% is huge. The risk of CAGW is no where near that high.
@RW…”…you don’t have to actually show what the natural forcings are that are changing it”.
There is no such thing as a natural ‘forcing’ The term forcing comes from mathematics and is a product of differential equation theory. A ‘forcing’ function is an input to a differential equation to determine an output. For example, a square wave, or impulse function, can be applied to a differential equation to predict the output of an electric circuit.
The difference is that you can build the circuit and test it. In climate science, that is not possible. The atmosphere is far too complex to be modeled in a computer using differential equations and forcing functions.
The notion of forcing comes from climate modelers.
Referring to solar energy as a forcing in a real atmosphere is ridiculous, or CO2. You can’t even call either a driving force since electromagnetic energy is not a force, nor is CO2. Only in the virtual world of models does a forcing make sense.
The problem I see with AGW is a distinct lack of precision with half-baked theories stolen from physics and applied inappropriately.
@David Appel ..”Climate change… It’s about managing risk”.
CRAP!!!
Climate change is NOT A SCIENCE!!! Climate change is an expression manufactured by propagandists to scare people into thinking there are risks.
The scare word used to be global warming but as time went by people began to see through the fear-mongering. So the eco-nuts changed the focus from warming to a nebulous notion like a global climate.
There is no such thing. Anyone who speaks of climate change in terms of global disaster is generally an idiot. Obama just revealed himself as an idiot with the crap posted on his site.
Climatology is a science. Maybe not a very good science, but hey, medicine wasn’t a very good science when it first got started either.
The people who claim the end of the world is coming aren’t doing science. They are doing something else. Apocalyptic religion, maybe.
David,
You state:
“It is not enough to just assume unknown unknowns are contributing to climate change. You have to actually SHOW what they are. That’s called “doing science,” which is the opposite of faith.”
No assumption made. If we NEW everything contributing to climate change and the extent of impact (hence all factors) false predictions would be impossible. On the contrary, not only do climate modelers continually fail in that respect the continually fail in favor of WARMING!!!
True scientists do seek to DISCOVER more FACTS about the climate, include them in any models used to help explain the phenomenon, and hopefully arrive at a clearer understanding but if one doesn’t find all the answers at any given moment in time it doesn’t follow that one’s search would not be scientific. If however, knowing one doesn’t have all the answers one proceeded to claim they did have all the answers and quiet or dismiss other theories one would be imo an intellectual FRAUD!
Btw, it takes a great deal of faith when doing scientific research to believe one will find any answers at all.
“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
One should be careful about claiming too much logical certitude on anything in this mutable world.
“Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.” G.K. Chesterton – Orthodoxy
Have a great day!
David,
Thanks for your reasonable posts and exchange
with Roy above. Many skeptics are also skeptical
of foreign intervention and of stupid things that
Bush and Cheney said and did that Obama has continued.
@Skippy ” Since most all of them don’t come to the conclusions he wants, he pretends they never did the research in the first place”.
The may have done research but as science goes it was extremely poor research. Climate models don’t have the ability to predict future climate states and the IPCC admitted that in TAR (2001). Most of the research you are talking about is in a virtual world with machines that cannot meet the requirements of the scientific method. Therefore climate model based science is a science of consensus with the scientific method abandoned.
Roy works in a science based on real data from state of the art satellites. He and his colleagues at UAH don’t have to fudge their data like their counterparts fudging the surface record.
The real investigation should be into the scientific misconduct of climate modelers and those fudging the surface record.
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/bond_updated.png
This is the reality.
CO2 or GHG effect is a product of climate(oceans) the environment (forestation) and biological activity.
CO2 is governed by the above.
Fact -Total human contributions to greenhouse gasses account for only about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect.
THE WITCH HUNT – It is taking place in order to propagate their scam for as long as it possible. Time is running out, witch hunt or no witch hunt.
Before this decade ends the AGW nonsense should be on it’s way to being obsolete, not that it has not already been proven to be just that , from the data alone.
Still as is evidenced by this Witch Hunt the AGW enthusiast, (that is the nicest word I can come up for them) are going to try to do whatever it takes to keep this hoax alive.
“Fact -Total human contributions to greenhouse gasses account for only about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect.”
That’s just completely wrong, Salvatore. You should be ashamed for even trying that.
“Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature,” Andrew A. Lacis, Gavin A. Schmidt, David Rind and Reto A. Ruedy, Science 2010 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.abstract
@David A “…Salvatore. You should be ashamed for even trying that”.
And you should be ashamed of citing Gavin Schmidt, a mathematician.
SKIPPY – mainstream climatologist are in denial of the data and do not know what they are talking about.
“…here is my prediction for climate going forward, this decade will be the decade of cooling.”
– Salvatore del Prete, 11/23/10
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/andrew-dessler-debating-richard-lindzen/#comment-8875
1) November 2010 thru January 2015 does not equal a decade. The clock is still ticking. The verdict is not in.
2) So how much warming, so far, from November 2010 thru January 2015?
3) How much warming comparing the period December 2000 thru November 2010 (Decade A) VS. the period December 2010 thru January 2015 (partial Decade B)?
I guess I’m confused as to what your response to Salvatore is suppose to suggest. Seems we don’t have enough definitive data to say Salvatore is wrong.
Phyte,
David picks and chooses to suit himself and ignores those things which make him uncomfortable (point out his hypocrisy)
1) Salvatore said “going forward.”
2) How do you want to define “warming,” over such a short, unclimatological period?
You are the one who poked fun at Salvatore. I just don’t see your point. Your #2) point above only makes your response more of a mystery. It looks to me like that short period from November 2010 to January 2015 appears to be cooling. Agree, it’s too short but only makes your response even more unintelligible.
2014 was one of the warmest years on record? That’s cooling?
The (top half of the) ocean is warming steadily, year after year. That’s cooling?
‘2014 was one of the warmest years on record?’
Only according to suspect surface data which were all within the ‘margin of error’. Satellites show a different story.
David, what do you call the ‘top half of the ocean’?
ARGO data:
0-500m: Dec 2004; ~12.90, Dec 2014; ~12.92
0-1000m: Dec 2004; ~9.46, Dec 2014; ~9.48
0-1500m: Dec 2004; ~7.57, Dec 2014; ~7.59
0-2000m: Dec 2004; ~6.37, Dec 2014; ~6.39
Or in real terms, ~0.02 C/decade at all measured ARGO depths.
Tell me David, who many ‘Hiroshima’s’ (or lightning strikes or kitten sneezes) does it take to increase the global oceans by ~0.02C over 10 years?
The linear trend of GISTEMP from Nov 2010 to Jan 2015 is
(a) a ridiculous thing to talk about in the context of climate change
(b) +0.44 C/decade, from ordinary least squares, with a statistical 95% confidence limit of 0.23 C/decade. Warming.
5 years is ridiculous but 10 years isn’t? Weren’t you in denial over ‘the pause’ a few topics back and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening by carefully selecting a 10 year start point for your trend?
I realise you are not as bright as you imagine you are, but even you knew what you were presenting was completely bogus. I ignore the Doug Cotton’s of this world because they are crazy in a sincere way. You’re crazy but also a conscious liar and deceiver.
Will, he is a liar and only tries to be a deceiver. The problem I have is that he doesn’t add anything to the conversation, and, more importantly, he demands of others things he refuses to do himself. Typical hypocrite.
We appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the world” to redress this corruption in high places, for “the battle is the Lord’s”.
Great article!
Hypocrisy, yes, but it is hidden by the massive corruption.
Corruption is like a cancer, it spreads until it is cut out. No one wants to take that drastic action….yet.
https://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/md99-2275_jiang2015_1.png
More data which shows since the Holocene Optimum from around 8000BC , through the present day Modern Warm Period( which ended in 1998) the temperature trend throughout this time in the Holocene, has been in a slow gradual down trend(despite an overall increase in CO2, my first chart ), punctuated with periods of warmth. Each successive warm period being a little less warm then the one proceeding it.
I will send data showing this next
My reasoning for the data showing this gradual cooling trend during the Holocene ,is Milankovitch Cycles were highly favorable for warming 10000 years ago or 8000 BC, and have since been in a cooling cycle. Superimposed on this gradual cooling cycle has been solar variability which has worked sometimes in concert and sometimes in opposition to the overall gradual cooling trend , Milankovitch Cycles have been promoting.
Then again this is only data which AGW enthusiast ignore if it does not fit into their scheme of things. I am going to send just one more item of data and rest my case.
http://www.murdoconline.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gisp2-ice-core-temperatures.jpg
Since Doug Cotton will be here any second with another 50 posts or so, here is a report on direct measurement of the radiation coming back to the earth’s surface from CO2 in the atmosphere (i.e. the “green house effect”)
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
Not that it will have any affect on DC . . .
Cheers,
Glenn
Quote from the article:
“Both series showed the same trend: atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 Watts per square meter per decade.”
Whoa, I’m really shaking in my boots. 0.2 W/m^2 per decade. At this rate, it would take more than a century to warm a couple tenths of a degree.
0.2 W/m2/dec is the INCREASE in CO2’s forcing, not its forcing.
NOAA found CO2’s 2013 forcing was 1.88 W/m2, and the net GHG forcing to be 2.90 W/m2.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html
Please elaborate, David, as I have no idea what you mean here.
0.2 Watts per meter per decade will be 2 watts by 2015. That’s significantly smaller than the 3.7 watt increase projected by the IPCC for a doubling of CO2- the threat is a lot less serious than previously projected.
Glenn, that link is a perfect example of the corruption Dr. Roy mentions. When you have an agenda, and funding, you bring back the required report.
I chose to confess to Rep. Grijalva before I got hauled in, lol. I feel much better. My letter to the Congressman:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/02/wherein-i-come-clean-to-representative-grijalva.html
Warren your letter is a classic! Great site too.
I suppose I should sit down and write my own letter disclosing all the money I’ve forked over at the gas stations over the years, part of which was for federal and state taxes, just in case someone declares a conflict of interest as I’m so heretical to AGW.
If that happens, I’ll say, “But I pay THEM, not the other way around…, and the oil companies still keep supporting you warmists in spite of my status as a non-believer in your new state-sponsored religion called AGW”, and see where that gets me!
Really, it’s not laughing matter, but your levity helps.
“The governmental Goliath is coming after David. It will be interesting to see what happens.”
Roy, I can’t tell you much I appreciate your push back on the alarmists. At the end of the day, you and I and a bunch of us skeptics all we want is TRUTH. We want science to prevail and let the chips fall as they may.
However, I am pessimistic about the politicizing of this topic. There is a lot of vested interest by statists who want to see the advancement of more centralized government in their life. This is a generational zeitgeist, if you will. And the big government folks have tapped into this. This is about political power. Catastrophic AGW is the perfect “Trojan Horse”. The masses blindly follow the meme that those who question or challenge CAGW are “climate change deniers”. The strategic branding of this message and a gullible generation that unquestioningly buys into this meme will make it virtually impossible for TRUTH to win in the end. The government stakeholders will continue the dishonest spin and the masses will conform and comply.
I am very pessimistic. Even if we saw cooling happen over a decade or two it would make no difference. The Ends Justify The Means. That is what is unfolding right before our eyes. Lying for a good cause is perfectly acceptable with the left and the progressive ruling class.
But let’s keep up the good fight until our last dying breath. May truth prevail in the end.
“There is a lot of vested interest by statists who want to see the advancement of more centralized government in their life.”
What a convenient rationalization. It unburdens you from having to understand or disprove ANY of the science. It’s all a big conspiracy!
James Hansen, AGU Meeting Fall 2013, San Francisco, CA:
Any carbon tax needs to be distributed 100% back to Americans, because “Democrats can’t keep their hands out of your wallet.”
Can you provide the scientific evidence that California’s Cap & Trade Regulatory Scheme has any measurable, discernible impact on the climate?
I am a citizen of California and I have the right to ask that question and make that challenge to the ruling progressive class in the state of California!!!
Where is the scientific basis behind California’s Climate Cap & Trade Regulatory Scheme that regulates carbon dioxide emission and the measurable, accountable benefits to the climate?
Use any measure you like. SLR, Global Temperature, Extreme Weather, Arctic Ice Caps, etc.
I would like to see the cost benefit analysis for California Citizens that is accountable and specific and measurable over the next 10 to 20 years.
Phyte: First you can provide evidence for your big conspiracy theory.
“There is a lot of vested interest by statists who want to see the advancement of more centralized government in their life. This is a generational zeitgeist, if you will. And the big government folks have tapped into this.”
A bit like the big oil conspiracy theory you peddle every 5 seconds.
Looks like have another stalker.
Sorry, people.
If you want to genuinely apologise stop flooding the comments sections with your asinine comments, name calling, and junk science babble. You’ve made 23 comments in the comments section so far, which is about 30% of all comments to date, and about 23X more than the the average person. Nobody would even mind, if your comments weren’t so stupid.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414526/shameful-climate-witch-hunt-rich-lowry
And in addition to the above, California’s Progressive Ruling Class has put in a Cap & Trade regulatory scheme to regulate CO2, ostensibly to reverse climate change. Zero scientific evidence of efficacy.
Now that is a howler!
There ya go..evidence that the Progressive Ruling Class is using Climate Change to expand the statist power of progressives.
You are purposely being dense. Good bye and good day!
First they try to ignore you, then they try to ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. We are at stage three.
A “Must Read”
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/02/wherein-i-come-clean-to-representative-grijalva.html
I for one am really, really tired of the Funded by Big Oil smear tactics.
Perhaps it is time for all us skeptics to send Representative Grijalva a similar letter with copies to Senator Inhofe.
http://www.inhofe.senate.gov/contact
Office Locations….
Washington, DC:
205 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-3603
Main: (202) 224-4721
Fax: (202) 228-0380
By all means write, and maybe it is time for a scientists to ingest a dose of old fashioned solidarity.
In a nutshell, governments everywhere have failed to pay due diligence in checking the claims of climate scientists. This very matter was discussed last night where I spoke to a group calling themselves the “Climate Realists of Five Dock” at a meeting which lasted four hours. I was impressed with the knowledge and understanding of the group, some with a background in physics. In general they could see the validity in my hypothesis which is the only one in the world which uses valid physics to explain, not only the temperatures in all planets and moons above and below any surface, but even more importantly, the heat transfer processes that ensure there is energy balance.
Their group had long ago realized that carbon dioxide does no warming at all, and neither does the most prolific “greenhouse gas” water vapor. If water vapor did warm by at least 15 degrees for each 1% in the atmosphere above, as the IPCC claim, then rain forests with 4% would be 45C° hotter than similar but drier regions with only 1% of water vapor above them.
Another glaring error is the fact that in Pierrehumbert’s “gold standard” climatology book he determines that 255K figure for an Earth without water vapor, carbon dioxide etc by using 30% albedo instead of about 10% as the albedo would be without clouds that reflect 20%.
But of course the biggest mistake of all is to assume that water vapor and carbon dioxide cause the surface temperature to be warmer (despite a study showing the opposite) by sending radiation which supposedly helps the Sun to raise the surface temperature each morning. If a temperature is rising (as happens each morning for the surface of every planet that has one) then there must be an input of thermal energy. But all the radiation between the atmosphere and the surface only causes a loss of thermal energy from the surface to the atmosphere and Space.
So the whole paradigm that radiation is the primary determinant of a planet’s surface temperature is wrong. The Sun’s direct radiation into the surface is nowhere near enough to explain the observed temperatures.
Only the new 21st century paradigm in climate change science explains how the required thermal energy actually gets into a planet’s surface, and it will blow your mind when you realize that is what correct physics tells us.
It’s all at http://climate-change-theory.com and there’s an email address there to which you may send any questions, as I will not respond here, and nor will I respond to alternative suggestions that are probably already refuted in our group’s website now being visited by over 800 per week.
I like Warren’s letter.
As the current administration follows through with their decree to name and shame, the need for an organized response is greater than ever. It is becoming obvious the full propaganda push is on for the December meeting in Paris.
Single voices together will become a chorus! Please consider joining.
http://theoas.org/
Bold in the quote below is mine:
“Today the IPCC’s role is as defined in Principles Governing IPCC Work, “…to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_history.shtml
Insofar as the “human-induced” part is a given there is not need for more research or attribution work. Humans are the cause – so pay up.
Here’s an honest fair question to the scientist, David Appell. I am not a scientist. But nonetheless I understand basic logic. Here’s my question:
Using Roy’s monthly UAH Global Temp Update/Graph, what if the period January 2010 thru January 2020 resulted in the following monthly measurements (1 simple decade scenario):
1) No month goes above +0.60 degrees C.
2) The range of monthly data points for the period (Jan 2010 through Jan 2020) are between -0.1 degrees C to +0.60 degrees C.
3) The average for the 10 year period is +0.40 degrees C.
Would you question at all or have any doubt that Carbon Dioxide emissions are the primary cause of recent warming from 1980 through 2020? (Given the 1 scenario I listed above)
If your answer is NO. Then is there any tipping point, any scenario of observed global temperature that might cause you to question that global warming is primarily anthropomorphic?
There is no point in answering ridiculous hypothetical questions. Your figures are completely made up. Imaginary.
Let’s deal instead with the real data. It’s 1970. Someone comes to you and says his calculations show the globe will be 0.7 C warmer by 2015. What might you have said at that time?
I’d say at the time your guess is as good as anyone elses. Easy enough to go back to the ’70’s and look at a hundred different theories by researchers, all claiming the planet would have warmed or cooled by some amount. By random chance alone, some theories had to have scored close. The same sort of ignorant reasoning is behind the beliefs in alternative medicines.
I doubt many of today’s contrarians would have said, in 1970, the global temperature would be 0.7 C higher in 2015. On what basis?
http://www.davidappell.com/EarlyClimateScience.html
So you’re saying nobody had theories of climate back in the 70’s? Or the only people who had them calculated exactly 0.7C? On what basis?
@David A….”I doubt many of today’s contrarians would have said, in 1970, the global temperature would be 0.7 C higher in 2015″.
Higher than what?
We had a mini ice age for several hundred years that ended only in 1850. During the Little Ice Age, global temps were 1 C lower on average. That 0.7C does not even make up for recovery warming.
During the LIA, glaciers expanded on a large scale. One glacier near Chamonix, France expanded across a valley and wiped out a town. Now that the glaciers are shrinking back to a normal size alarmists are blaming it on man-made global warming.
Your IPCC propaganda source lists the LIA back in 1990 then denies it circa 2001 when they slobbered all over Mann’s hockey stick. In the Climategate email scandal there is evidence that certain parties wanted to get rid of LIA and the Medieval Warm Period, a period of warming similar to today that preceded the LIA.
Mann obliterated both the LIA and MWP in the hockey stick.
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick
In the 2007 review, the IPCC abandoned Mann’s hockey stick and replaced it with a concoction called the spaghetti graph. In that graph, thet LIA and MWP are apparently back. However, the IPCC fails to acknowledge the re-warming since it ended.
It was foolish of the IPCC to give Mann’s study such prominence when it went so directly against so much established research. I suspect they didn’t have to go work with, and Mann’s study told them what they wanted to believe and promote.
“It’s 1970. Someone comes to you and says his calculations show the globe will be 0.7 C warmer by 2015”
Well, I would say that was pretty good and nobody would have panicked. But that was not what was said was it David? In fact in 1970 they were predicted the coming ice age.
Thereafter we heard alarming things like….
James Hansen said, in 1986, that temps would rise by 2 to 4 degrees from 2001 t0 2010 due to greenhouse gases
50 days to save the world
There will be 50 million climate refugees by 2010.
Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012
All that, and talk of catastrophe and tipping points, has been proven wrong.
Fight all you like Phyte On.
As you are not a scientist you don’t have a hope of understanding the relevant thermodynamics. But I guess you could get an idea of how complex it is by starting with this comment, then reading our website and the linked papers.
At least you might then realize that atmospheric physics cannot be simplified in the way that ignorant climatologists do, and nor can the laws of physics be so totally disregarded as is the case with their fictitious radiative greenhouse garbage.
Is the warming effect of the most prolific greenhouse gas by far (namely water vapor) making rain forests 45 degrees hotter than dry deserts?
Absolutely everything regarding temperatures on all planets and moons is explained in our group’s website – how the energy gets to the surface – evidence from experiments that support the hypothesis – analysis of natural cycles and predictions until the year 2200 based on planetary orbits. It will blow your mind what is on http://climate-change-theory.com where you’ll find out how thermodynamics works and what really helps the Sun’s radiation, what keeps the core of the Moon at over 1300°C and much more. Join more than 800 others who are visiting each week, because the word is getting out and valid physics exposes the scam.
Terrorists with a nuke vs commercial airline design
The idea that ONLY a 1% chance of a nuke, say a dirty bomb, in the Bos-Wash Corridor is cool is insane. Cheney should have specified 1:100 million.
The population of the Bos-Wash Corridor is what, 50 million? If an airline offered you a 99% chance of flying from NY to LA, how many takers would they have? The answer, of course is zero including David Apple. Some one needs to teach Fault Tree Analysis 101 with application to public safety.
Cheney said nothing about a nuclear bomb going off anywhere, even in the US. He said, “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent_Doctrine
Cheney was talking about risk. Manmade climate change is also about risk — about how to deal with it in the face of uncertainty. Do we wait forever until the science can predict climate to 10 decimal places?
A worthwhile read is
“Uncertainty and Climate Change Policy,” Stephen H. Schneider and
Kristin Kuntz-Duriseti.
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ch02ClimatePolicy.pdf
We have been waiting for 3 years for a correction of an up-to 3% error in CAM 5.1 model, regarding a latent heat of water vaporization. Still counting ..
I too am disturbed by Roger Pielke Jr. withdrawing from climate research because it isn’t worth these sorts of hassle. I don’t criticize him, and more likely agree with him. At least he has other science to interest him.
I hope we get through this phase of cognitive dissonance in a few more years. It’s not just congressional witchhunts and the principals involved, disagreements are spilling into my personal friendships too.
Excuse me while I go practice biting my tongue.
> That is, the belief that government funding does not favor one outcome over another. This might be true for benign research projects, like the mating habits of the Arctic sea slug.
Roy, I think you understand global warming better than what you wrote.
Turtles’ mating habits protect against effects of climate change
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_175617_en.html
Global Warming is Doubling Bark Beetle Mating,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/30/446908/global-warming-is-doubling-bark-beetle-mating-boosting-tree-attacks-up-to-60-fold-study-finds/
Flamingo mating
http://www.flamingos-world.com/flamingos-and-global-warming/
kitty breeding habits
http://life.gaiam.com/article/raining-cats-and-more-cats-how-global-warming-affects-kitty
and it goes on and on..
Good points. Take a tour around Rocky Mountain National Park, where the pine beetles are stripping the forest.
This is a good example of risk and unexpected surprises — no one had thought that pine beetles would double their reproduction rate. So, if you are going to fault climate models for this or that, let’s also fault the models for never seeing this development. Uncertainty cuts both ways.
There is a whole website now dedicated to absurd climate change predictions.
http://climatechangepredictions.org/
You don’t even understand the point — the altered reproduction of pine bark beetles is an example of what scientists (or contrarians) *DIDN’T* predict.
Jeez.
No you misunderstood the point I was making. In the natural world there are an infinite numbers of possible predictions and because of this don’t be too surprised if the first half contract the second half. It’s just fashionable to pretend you understand this massively complex processes. People understand very little. It’s convenient to blame whatever ideas are popular at the time.
Altered reproduction of pine bark beetles is a fine example of what greens predicted won’t happen.
Because “we change the nature too fast” while “evolution takes millions of years”. I remember that narrative clearly. I was calling bullshit since the first moment.
So, first it was a disaster because organisms can’t possibly adapt, now it’s a disaster because organisms are in fact adapting? Come on.
David;
I have also visited and observed the damage that the Pine Beetle has caused in that region of the US. It makes me sad to see it happening, one of the most pleasurable things I have experienced in my life are hikes through high mountain pine forests.
BUT, this is the emotional piece that needs to be removed from the equation. We can lament what is happening, but there is no proof that the current warming isn’t anything other than natural variability. No proof. Unfortunately, our planet isn’t static, so what we have grown used, and fond of, isn’t permanent.
I smile when I read all this …. all the squawking is moot. We are not moving away from fossil fuels until there is a suitable substitute. Solar and wind are not suitable substitutes. Buy into 4th generation nuclear reactors, we have a substitute. Hope that at home fusion becomes a reality, we have a substitute. But David, we are not going to move away from fossil fuels … unless you prefer anarchy.
My guess is that you wouldn’t survive anarchy. And if you are capable of that, then you will be one of the few with the benefit of cheap, affordable energy. And that would make you a hypocrite.
@David A “…the altered reproduction of pine bark beetles is an example of what scientists (or contrarians) *DIDN’T* predict”.
Poor example. I live in BC, Canada where the pine tree beetle infestations are going on. The problem got out of control because our right wing government was too cheap to go after the beetles in the early stages.
If it’s warm weather causing the infestation then why have the beetles survived extreme winters? We had brutal, cold weather in 2008 and it did not bother them.
Like any other claim about climate change there is no proof to connect the infestation to warmer weather. The climates in the regions where the infestations are taking place have not changed significantly. It’s warm and wet in the summer/spring and cold, dry in the fall/winter.
You can drive through the infested regions and see the browning of the trees yet the highway conditions have not changed. We still get the same amount of snow and cold weather.
OH, how I love the “pine beetle” hoax! David have you ever heard of DDT? Do you know that pine beetles were under control when DDT was used?
David has a deadly fear of DDT. It selectively targets progressive thinking transgender animal rights activist types. Once exposed they become depressed and are more likely to slip on banana peals and get hit by cars as they cross the road. However the group is agitating for more government regulation to protect themselves. Keep in mind they are already an endangered species as they are not particularly well coordinated to begin with, especially when they get up from their keyboards and do risky things like go outside. The last thing David needs is exposure to DDT.
🙂
Pine beetles thrive when forests are deprived of fires. Rocky Mt. NP isn’t warming.
“Mesoscale climate model simulations, using the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), projected that modifications to natural vegetation in the plains, primarily due to agriculture and urbanization, could produce a regional cooling effect expressed as lower summer temperatures in the mountains (Fig. 1). We corroborate the RAMS simulations with three independent sets of data: (1) climate records from sixteen weather stations, which showed significant trends of decreasing July temperatures in recent decades; (2) the distribution of seedlings of six dominant conifer species in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, which suggested that cooler, wetter conditions occurred over roughly the same time period; and (3) increased hydrologic runoff, normalized for changes in precipitation, during the summer months in four river basins, which also indicated cooler summer temperatures and lower transpiration at landscape scales. Combined, the mesoscale atmospheric/land-surface model, short-term trends in regional temperatures, forest distribution changes, and hydrology data indicate that the effects of land use practices on regional climate may overshadow larger-scale temperature changes commonly associated with observed increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Regional model simulations on monthly time scales demonstrate a significant sensitivity of regional weather, and therefore, climate to land use change. For more information see Pielke et al. 1994, 1997, Stohlgren et al. 1997b.”
http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/biology/rmnp/
Post-fact-check correction: Prescribed burns alone are apparently NOT effective in controlling pine beetles.
Appell, do alittle research and common-sense thinking. Pine-beetle infestations are a result of forestry and fire-control practices. Those practices over many decades has resulted in vast mono-stands of lodgepole pines that are ripe for massive infestations.
Nothing to do w/CO2 or warming.
Dr Spencer,
Did you come out against the Joe Barton fishing expedition in the waters of Mann, Bradley and Hughes?
@David A “Did you come out against the Joe Barton fishing expedition in the waters of Mann, Bradley and Hughes?”
There was good cause to investigate the trio for scientific misconduct. They used “the trick” on MBH98 when tree ring proxies were showing declining temperatures. The solution? Clip off the offending data and splice in real data.
The investigation that took place by a watered-down NAS and statistics expert Wegman basically quashed their study. NAS told them they could not claim 1000 years of unprecedented warming and limited it to 400 years. They also told them they could not use pine bristle cone proxies, effectively wiping out the study.
Wegman lambasted them for using bad math and for their association with Chapter 9 in the IPCC review. He claimed a nepotic relationship between the members of Chapter 9, in which the solely quoted each others’ work.
In response, Bradley of MBH went after Wegman for plagiarism? Plagiarism??!! He was investigating Bradley. If there was anything illegal in what Wegman claimed about MBH they could have gone after him for libel. However, there was nothing wrong with his critique so they tried to subvert the process using a red-herring argument like plagiarism.
There’s a huge difference between investigating scientists for fraud and harassing scientist over their funding.
Skeptic Patrick Michaels has no problem admitting he was funded by Western Fuels. They approached him and offered to fund him, he did not seek funds from them.
In the 1980s, Michaels was single-handedly trying to counter the propaganda of James Hansen, who was funded by US government sources, not to mention NASA. Michaels needed the support.
Alarmists are demonstrating ignorance with their implications that scientists funded by oil companies are working on behalf of the oil companies. There is no conflict if the scientists report the truth and the oil companies do not put pressure on them to bend the truth.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with oil companies funding research that exonerates them. Using funding to bribe scientists is another matter but no alarmist can prove that. Alarmists are content to smear good scientists over alleged impropriety.
“There was good cause to investigate the trio for scientific misconduct.”
And, to me there might be just as much good reason to investigate those skeptical scientists for same. You even admit that no respected scientific organization like NAS has found any hint of scientific misconduct. The only ones who have thrown garbage at them are people like Wegman, who were chosen and commissioned by Barton et al. to get the result that he was looking for.
And, as Michael Mann has pointed out (http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/democratic-congressman-draws-backlash-over-climate-funding-probe-20150225), what Congressman Grijalva is asking from these researchers pales in comparison to the invasive nature of Barton and Cuccinelli’s inquiries:
“The difference being that they were demanding materials that are protected under principles of academic freedom—private deliberations between academics or scientists, unpublished manuscripts, raw source code that was written, stuff that’s intrinsic to your work as a scientist.”
(Barton’s was so bad that even the Republican Chair of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, lambasted him for it. Of course, Boehlert is no longer in the House, given that such sanity seems like a big disadvantage in the National Republican Party.)
I admit that Congressman Grijalva has gone too far in his inquiries but I also find it amusing to see skeptics who were happy to endorse (or at least not rebuke) McCarthyesque tactics when it served their purposes now whining about witchhunts when the tactics employed are far less invasive.
And, by the way, speaking of scientific misconduct: Willie Soon was involved in an episode that Bob Park, a straight-shooter if ever there was one (meaning he criticizes attacks on science whether from the Right or the Left), called “a dark episode in the annals of scientific discourse”
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn080803.html
From your straight-shooter’s website: “Both authors are associated with the conservative George C. Marshall Institute, known for its Star-Wars believers and warming deniers.”
An apt description, no?
If you search the archives for “Harkin”, you will find that he has also been unremittingly to the liberal Democratic Senator for supporting the creation of NIH’s Office of Alternative Medicine.
Like I said, he criticizes attacks on science whether coming from the Right or from the Left. Admittedly, there’s been more fodder provided by the Right than the Left lately, but when the Left provides fodder, he goes after it.
Joel, straight-shooters don’t have to call other people deniers. He was extremely impolite at least. I surely detect a substantial bias.
Hi Roy,
In my Britannica I read: “A definite turning point in scientific attitude occurred in 1926 at an international symposium held in New York. After this symposium, continental drift suffered a widespread loss of support and, ceasing to be a subject of serious investigation, became instead a source of amusement and derision.” Most all now know that continental drift (plate tectonics) has become the foundational theory of earth science; but I wonder how many know what the proponents of continental drift had done that caused continental drift to suffer a widespread loss of support and to cease to be a subject of serious investigation and to become instead a source of amusement and derision?
While they had identified an abundance of evidence that the pointed to the reasonable conclusion that continents had drifted, they tried to explain to how (the cause) continents had drifted? They evidently had not read what Newton had written near the end of his classic, The Principia. He had written (as translated by A. Motte): “But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. Thus it was that the impenetrability, the mobility, and the impulsive force of bodies and the laws of motion and of gravitation, were discovered. And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.” So, when challenged as to what could be the cause of this possible drift, they tried to explain what they could not.
Newton stated: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Reading your posts and the comments of your respondents, it is hard to see on whose shoulders you and your respondents are standing.
January 23, 2015 you posted How the Climate System Works (for dummies). You wrote: The atmosphere is complex enough that from time-to-time, I try to explain the average operation of the climate system in as simple terms as I can muster. It’s actually quite difficult to simplify it. … What follows is the “global average” climate system.”
Einstein stated: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand if well enough.” But he added: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Copernicus stated (as translated by someone): “Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.”
My novel and absurd view is the “global average” climate system does not exist. That is possibly why “It’s actually quite difficult to simplify it”.
But you attempted to as you began: “The source of energy for the climatic system is the sun, primarily in the form of visible sunlight.” Immediately, if I am a serious student trying to understand this “global average” climate system I am confused. For Figure 2.10 of C. Donald Ahrens textbook Meteorology Today 9th Ed. indicates that 44% of the energy that the sun radiates is found in the region of visible light and that 48% of this energy is found in the invisible IR regions termed the near infrared and far infrared. But now, relative to the greenhouse effect which you will eventually address, in Ahrens’ Figure 2.9 I find information that I had never before comprehended, if I had looked at it as a serious student should. The caption beneath the figure tells the story better than the figure itself. “The hotter sun not only radiates more than that of the cooler earth (the area under the curve), but it also radiates the majority of its energy at much shorter wavelengths. (The area under the curves is equal to the total energy emitted, and the scales for the two curves differ by a factor of 100,000).” While it is a fact that the sun ‘radiates the majority of its energy at much shorter wavelengths’ than the wavelengths of radiation emitted by the earth at 288K, it is difficult to imagine what the area under the curve of emission by the earth would be if the two scales were not different by a factor of 100000. Because I am confused by what I am just learning, I turned to Figure 2-8 of Meteorology 3rd Ed. by S. A. Ackerman and J. A. Knox. In this figure, which has a single scale, one can see that the energy in the radiation from the sun exceeds that the energy (at all wavelength) emitted from the earth at 290K and greatly exceeds that strongly absorbed by water vapor in the near IR region.
So, as a serious student I cannot go further until I hear the explanation of how the temperatures as observed by atmospheric soundings during the afternoon before sunset and the adjacent morning before sunrise can often be so similar and in some cases the nighttime temperatures greater than the adjacent daytime temperatures.
Have a good day, Jerry
@Jerry “Most all now know that continental drift (plate tectonics) has become the foundational theory of earth science;”
It’s not the only theory, it has become a paradigm (popular theory).
There is still no proof that continents drift on plates. No one has witnessed such movement. No one has witness plates butting against each other, the basic explanation for earthquakes.
In fact, when you look at it, earthquakes have epicentres…they emanate from one locale. If a plate hundreds of miles wide is sliding under another plate, surely thousands if not millions of earthquakes would occur at once, right across the face of the plate.
There is another theory that is not pushed by universities. The planet is under immense stress due to gravitational forces from the Sun and Moon. The forces from the Sun draw the planet into an oblate shape, like a pumpkin. As the Moon moves in it’s orbit, the planet is subjected to tidal forces that raise the oceans and the land.
As the planet travels in its orbit, it is subjected to such tidal forces that flex the surface. It is theorized that the flexing causes faults to move and that would better explain why earthquakes emanate from an epicentre.
The point is that several explanations can be offered for physical phenomena and in good science they are all investigated. Enforcing paradigms is not good science.
Yes Gordon, in science there is always some doubt. And yes you can ignore the evidence that is and point to evidence that isn’t. But my point in referring to continental drift was one should not ignore the evidence that is nor pretend that it does not matter because one cannot explain the consequences to which the evidence seems to point. The fact no respectable scientists dared to publicly scholarly explore the possibility that continents could drift for some time is clearly related to the topic of Roy’s post.
Scientists not only have the right to study whatever scientific topics they choose, they have the responsibility to pursue whatever studies they conclude might lead to progress. And it does not matter from where their funding, if they can secure it, comes. No, this does not imply inhuman activities are permissible.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Roy and any others who read my comment of Feb. 26 at 10:08 PM,
In this previous comment I had made a serious blunder, but a serious student knows enough to check his work. Clearly it would have been better before I submitted wrong comments, but better latter than never. The magnitude of the solar radiation is that emitted by the sun and not that received at the top of the earth’s atmosphere. So the overlap of the calculated (and actually observed from satellite platforms) magnitude of the solar radiation received at the top of the atmosphere and the calculate magnitude of the terrestrial blackbody radiation being emitted from an earth surface at a temperature of 288K are never shown in a figure in either textbook. And upon checking online I have not found any figure which I can with confidence conclude is done. But it seems it can be concluded with some confidence that the overlap of the two radiations is marginal. And it is a fact that the invisible IR portion of the solar radiation would be absorbed in certain water vapor absorption bands which would never absorb a significant portion of the radiation being continuously emitted by the earth.
So my concluding issue–as a serious student I cannot go further until I hear the explanation of how the temperatures as observed by atmospheric soundings during the afternoon before sunset and the adjacent morning before sunrise can often be so similar and in some cases the nighttime temperatures greater than the adjacent daytime temperatures–remains. For clearly water molecules should absorb more energy, seemingly significantly more, when there are two sources of radiation (energy) during the daytime then when during the night there is only one source of radiation.
Have a good day, Jerry
There seems to be an effort by Obamabots to attack “deniers,” as seen here…
https://www.barackobama.com/climate-change-deniers/#/
Roy, I don’t find McCarthy to be a good metaphor for this sad episode in the history of science. Rather this attack on the Seven and the other dissidents reminds me of Lysenkoism (with a McCarthyian twist due to the fact that politicians are driving this attack rather than a scientist).
David Appell,
What exactly is your purpose in visiting and commenting on this site, as you obviously are of a differing religion. Is it your purpose to proselytize? Do you think to change minds? Are you here to deride?
From what I can gather, you attempt these things and accomplish none. People find you only slightly amusing and you have changed no minds. Why? Because your attitude and method tend to leave others with distaste for your religious beliefs, and people will not convert to a belief which make s them uncomfortable.
Personally, you seem to be a nice enough person, if a bit egotistical and eccentric. But most of all, you are of a different religion, and this blog is generally one of seekers of truth, not fear. Examine yourself. Does your religion serve you well? It seems not. You are too unhappy. You should come and join US, be not afraid. The truth will set you free.
Lewis,
If this blog is for’ seekers after truth’ as you grandly imagine yourself to be, then it is important to see different views. There is no point in preaching to the converted.
David Appell’s views tend to be well informed, in comparison to most, especially that fool calling himself PlanetaryPhysicsGroup.
You will learn nothing listening to only those who agree with you.
Mike B, grandly is not the term I would use, but you obviously miss the entire point of the post.
To make a point to you – about me – whom you know nothing about. A few decades ago I was with the IPCC crowd. In fact, in college, I found the Club of Rome pronunciations worthy.
In those, and in numerous other cases, I have changed my mind. It is open to be changed again. Which is all an aside.
You, however, used the term fool in describing PPG. Please, pray tell, what puts you so high on the pole that you can dismiss me for taking exception to someone, then call one with whom you disagree a fool? Methinks you need to clean the mirror.
At Lewis says: Well written. So many eloquent posts on this sight. It makes me wish I had paid more attention in my creative writing classes. Cheers.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_January_2015_v5.png
If I look at the above chart and late 2010 and early 2011 – it sure looks to me like “cooling” since then. Of course, it is way too early! And of course the time period is too short to evaluate. And of course it is not definitive.
But to make a stupid mocking comment (by he who shall not be named) that some other scientist (Salvatore) predicts cooling in the coming decade (2010 to 2020 range) when the data is not conclusive strikes me as stupidly snarky. And I’m not even a scientist.
Certainly, I can say without hesitation that there hasn’t been all that much additional warming for the past decade or so. Looks like a “pause” to me. Wonder how long the “pause” lasts?
Thanks, Dr. Spencer.
Not only I can spell hypocrisy, I can see it at work in this horrible anti-science and anti-human cult of CO2.
Patchy will be canonized as a martyr, Dr. Soon will burn at the stake, unless we stop subscribing and reading their writs.
Have you seen the latest National Geographic?
wow its amazing how the decision to go after scientists in a new witch hunt has brought out the Trolls and AGW true believers in earnest on this site and others. Dave Appell you need to go home and take a time out from petulant “show me” nonsense while the rest of us get on with demanding that congress not conduct itself as another inquisition. That’s what is important about Roy’s Blog today. Planetary Physics you also need to take a time out from promoting your theory when its off topic especially when the topic is one such as this.
Hi JERRY L KRAUSE (and others with pretty empirical minds).
If you haven´t seen what follows yet, please have a look at it.
Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14240.html
Hi Rafael,
Yesterday, when I discovered we could not continue our conversation I was quite disappointed. So I am happy you have continued the conversation as you could only do. But I did not expect you would have such current information to share. And it has profited me by causing me to see that it seems possible that water vapor can absorb near IR radiation but not emit the same near IR wavelengths that it absorbs. This because its (water vapors) temperature is not great enough. I saw this possibility because the minimum wavelength that the AERI instrument is capable of detecting is 3.3µm, if I have converted wavenumbers to wave lengths correctly. For when I saw this I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the water vapor near IR absorption bands were being wrongly ignored. But then I recognized that, according to the S-B Law, a body at 288K could emit almost no photons with shorter wavelengths. So it seems to follow that water molecules could not.
Which seems interesting as there are many near IR photons with wavelengths less than 3.3µm which the water molecules could absorb. Interesting because I had previously imaged that a water molecule, which absorbed a photon (energy), first had some increase in internal movement of some sort and that this increased internal movement, did not increase the temperature (translational kinetic energy) of that or another molecule. So there were two options for this ‘excited’ molecule. One was to reemit a photon similar in energy to that just absorbed or to collide with any other molecule and as a result of the collision transfer this excess internal energy to the other molecule as an increase in this other molecule’ translation kinetic energy which increases the temperature of the gas. Etc. etc. until this increase in kinetic energy is distributed, via collisions among several of the other molecules with the result that the other molecules become eligible to emit photos and so begin to cool the gas.
But more immediately interesting, are some of references to studies of the observation the downward longwave emissions from the atmosphere which were reported in 2008 and 2009. For this seems to be the type of observation I make in my backyard. So I want to read about the results of these studies, of which I was previously unaware. So thank you for calling attention to the article and reconnecting with me.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Rafael,
I waited until I was ready to submit this to see if anyone else had responded to your very excellent heads-up. You seem to have verified that many are not interested in empirical facts.
Empirical Minds??? Now, I am not offended by your reference but every once in a while it seems some imply the word empirical has a negative context (implication). So I decided to check what its dictionary definition might be. Empirical: originating in or based on observation or experience; relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory; capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Now, I cannot imagine an empiricist would ever ignore system. So, I considered my definition of empiricist might be different from an accepted dictionary definition. So I looked for the definition of empiricist and my computer dictionary referred me to empiricism. Empiricism: the practice of relying on observation and experiment especially in the natural sciences. The reason I cannot imagine an empiricist would ever ignore system is because that is where we must start. We must first define the total system which we are going to observe (study) as completely as possible. Yes, to study this defined system without prejudice one must disregard any existing theories. For this reason Louis Agassiz and Richard Feynman discouraged their students, if they wanted to discover something new, from reading the literature.
Hence, the article provides a good focus for discussion. To understand the implications of the observations referred to one must first understand what is being observed and how it is being observed. It is being observed by an instrument. The instrument appears capable of ‘looking at’ a very small portion of the radiation being emitted by, or from, the atmosphere by all the GHG molecules. And it seems this small portion is of certain photons being emitted by carbon dioxide molecules in a wavelength region (seemingly about 4+µm) where other GHG molecules are not emitting such photons. How does the instrument see (detect) these, invisible to our eyes, photons? UV and visible can be detected by photocells (photo-electric phenomenon). I copied the following from the Infrared Laboratories website.
Bolometers are detectors used to measure incident Infrared radiation. They are very sensitive to thermal radiation and are predominantly used in the infrared spectrum between 10 to 5000µm (30THz to 60GHz). The detector element is an extremely sensitive thermistor that is cooled to LHe temperatures in order to decrease the thermal background. Any thermal radiation that impinges upon the detector will cause a temperature change. This will cause a change in resistance which is amplified and measured as a voltage difference.
Because bolometers measure a change in temperature, the incident radiation must be modulated. This allows the bolometer to excite and relax, thus a measurement of the change in resistance is made that corresponds to the energy of the incident radiation. The speed at which the bolometer reacts to this temperature change is dependent upon several factors that can be altered, if desired, at the time the system is ordered.
The range of the instrument used in the article’s observations was sensitive to wavelengths shorter than 10µm, so I do not know with certainty if a bolometer was used to detect the ‘flux’ of the photos being emitted by carbon dioxide molecules. But I suspect it was. And because the longest wavelength being detected by the instrument being used in the case of the article was only 25µm, the detector element probably did not need to be cooled to near LHe temperatures. My point in reviewing this is to establish that the flux of IR photons being likely observed was observed by the observing the temperature of something. And the temperature of an absorbing-emitting (a-e) surface is how I observe the flux of the downward radiation being emitted from the atmosphere with my simple radiometer which designed and constructed much like the upper-half of the SSK net radiometer, which I think I have referred to in the past.
And I review this to say I have agreed from the beginning that the observation of downward radiation from is irrefutable evidence of the concept of the greenhouse effect. But the controversy involved is about how much this downward radiation influences the air temperature as observed 1.5 or 2.0 meter above the earth surface. And, what is reported in the article is only different from what I observe in my backyard in that that their instrument can differentiate between wavelengths of the downward emission and my simple a-e surface cannot.
And if I rightly understand what they report, it seems they are reporting they have observed a correlation between the changing observed flux and the changing concentration of carbon dioxide. Between sunset and sunrise, given clear sky condition, I routinely observe a several degree decrease in the temperature of my radiometer’s a-e surface. I attribute this decrease of temperature to a decrease of the atmosphere’s temperature during this period and not necessarily to any change of GHGs’ concentrations.
So I ask: how do these scientists separate the possible changes of temperature from possible changes of concentration? Of course, the change in concentration is expected to produce a change in temperature according to the GHE. But now the temperature factor in question is not only that of the air as observed 1.5 or 2.0 meters above the surface, it is of an ever-changing vertical distribution of temperatures in the lower layer of atmosphere of some indefinite extent (thickness). Recognizing this fact is what I consider a defining of the system being studied.
The observations used in the study were made during ‘clear sky’ conditions a. Because I have only be able to read an abstract of the article, I don’t know how the times of the ‘clear sky’ observations were determined, or even if it was reported what criteria was used to determine these ‘clear sky’ times. A fact which I know is that the automated weather instruments used by the weather service at USA airports do not commonly report the presence of clouds above 12000 feet. And of course, the reason for the clear sky condition is to eliminate any possible influence of clouds upon the temperatures which our instruments observe. And I know I can easily observe the presence of clouds about 10000 feet which are reported at my local airport.
And you know I am not a big fan of averaging empirical observations for such a process immediately removes the empirical character of the empirical observations. And unless one is an empiricist, one might not know how rare a clear sky for a consecutive 24 hour period can be. So I come back to the fact I do not know the criteria used to select the ‘clear sky’ data analyzed.
The articles I am really interested in and will, God willing, study are the three 2008 and 2009 articles 5-7) referenced. For it seems their authors claim have observed the total downward emission from the atmosphere as I have. So I am interested if they saw what I have seen. I must quickly acknowledge that the ‘quality’ of my efforts are somewhat lacking, but I know what I routinely observe is reproducible. Just as the temperature differences between the high and low temperatures for each of the ten consecutive days in January 2015 were similar to each other and similarly there were ten consecutive days in the previous July when the temperature differences between the high and low temperatures for each of ten consecutive days were similar to each other. But more important was the fact the differences between high and low temperatures were similar during ten clear sky days in January and in July even though the high and low temperatures of these two months were considerably different. Which fact you seemingly did not see, or if you saw, did not seem to appreciate.
I have before and I urge you and anybody else who has not read Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences by Galileo to find a copy and read it. Galileo is the founder of the science we still try to practice. One portion with which I console myself because my seemingly lack of success in being understood follows. Galileo has Sagredo state: “My reason for saying these things has been rather because I wanted to learn whether I had correctly understood Salviati, than because I thought Sinplicio had any need of a clearer explanation than that given by Salviati which like everything else of his is extremely lucid, so lucid, indeed, that when he solves questions which are difficult not merely in appearance, but in reality and in fact, he does so with reasons, observations and experiments what are common and familiar to everyone. In this manner he has, as I have learned from various sources, given occasion to a highly esteemed professor for undervaluing his discoveries on the ground that they are commonplace, and established upon a mean and vulgar basis; as if it were not a most admirable and praiseworthy feature of demonstrative science that it springs from and grows out of principles well-known, understood and conceded by all.”
Have a good day, Jerry
Roy,
Maybe it is time to ask Congress to reduce the budget for those funding agencies that aren’t more even in their RFP requests.
-Mike