Scott Barrett: Climate change is so profoundly important and complex. It is the challenge of our generation. It is a global challenge. Can the world learn to cooperate on this challenge?
Scott Barrett is an economist at Columbia University. He’s referring to the Copenhagen climate summit, scheduled to begin on December 7th. At the summit, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to try to craft an international climate treaty. Barrett, an expert on such treaties, said that, to tackle global warming, nations need more than just target dates and timetables for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Scott Barrett: What would be a successful treaty would be if the agreement changed the way that countries behaved – if it stimulated a technological revolution, if it made it possible for greater reductions to be achieved for the future.
Barrett suggested looking at the lessons learned from an earlier international treaty. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol banned ozone-depleting chemicals, worldwide. But those same chemicals were later found to also be greenhouse gases. A study published by the National Academies found that banning ozone-depleting chemicals had the effect of cutting about 10 gigatons of CO2 each year. That’s roughly a third of yearly global emissions.
Scott Barrett: It is astonishing and one of the greatest successes of international cooperation in human history. And I think we could provide some leverage off the success and achieve even more.
Barrett said the Montreal Protocol worked so well because it addressed the problem of ozone chemical by chemical. He proposes that, in Copenhagen, agreements be made on individual greenhouse gases like CO2, and also on sectors such as energy and agriculture, and research and development.
Scott Barrett: As the world is focused on Copenhagen and how to craft an agreement on climate, focusing on targets and timetables and so on, almost without anyone noticing it, a different approach has succeeded much better. And I think that part of the lesson of that is that we can provide some leverage off of this success and achieve even more.
Dr. Barrett spoke more of why targets and timetables to reduce greenhouse gas emissions haven’t been successful in changing people’s behavior.
Scott Barrett: Targets and timetables themselves won’t do the job. We’ve had two decades of experience, in which countries have sincerely pledged to reduce their emissions to meet targets and timetables. And over and over again, these same countries fail to do this. And most recently we’ve seen this in the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. So just agreeing to pledge that you’re going to change behavior is not enough. You actually have to create incentives so that countries actually want to behave differently.
There are three basic elements needed, said Barrett, in an effective climate agreement.
Scott Barrett: You really need a climate agreement to do three things. The first thing is, you need it to encourage, promote, full participation by countries. Second thing is, you need the countries that are parties to the agreement to actually comply, to do what they pledged they would do. And finally, you need the obligations in the treaty to demand the countries change their behavior substantially. Now the focus on the current round of negotiations has been on the latter, it’s been on the setting of targets and timetables. It’s not been on the first two points. And that’s where I think the real problem is.
EarthSky asked Dr. Barrett whether the world really needs a climate agreement.
Scott Barrett: I’m glad you asked that question. The answer is a very loud, “yes.” Now the reason it’s a good question is that people are frustrated. We’ve been working at this for a very long time, and all the negotiations so far have produced so little fruit. So I understand why people are frustrated. But that frustration tells us that this is a colossal collective action problem. It doesn’t tell us that there is a better way to address the problem.
Dr. Barrett pointed to the connection between policy action on the ozone problem and on climate.
Scott Barrett: Most people who work in the climate area know an awful lot about climate, and they don’t necessarily know a lot about other global challenges and the ways in which we address them. And what we’re all desperate for, really, are some signs of real success. And the Montreal Protocol is a good source of inspiration. There are aspects of the problem of ozone depletion that are very similar to climate change. They’re both global problems. They’re both problems involving the atmosphere. And they both require world-wide action to be addressed in a fundamental way. So from those perspectives they are very similar problems, and then you start to probe more deeply and realize that they’re very different. And probably the best way to think about this is that the benefits of acting to address ozone depletion are huge, and they’re huge because ozone depletion would cause cancers.
Dr. Barrett spoke more about the study that found that the Montreal Protocol actually helped reduce global warming.
Scott Barrett: The ozone problem and the climate problem are interrelated in very complex ways. Ozone itself, in the stratosphere, is a greenhouse gas. The chemicals that deplete ozone in the stratosphere are greenhouse gases. And the chemicals that substitute for those ozone-destroying gases are greenhouse gases. So it’s a very complicated matter to work out the effect of addressing ozone depletion on climate change. But scientists have done the calculations, and their results are astonishing. It is astonishing and one of the greatest successes of international cooperation in human history.
The 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen could have lasting effects, said Barrett.
Scott Barrett: I think the lesson for Copenhagen, by all means, if you can and want to negotiate targets and timetables, do it. But in addition, negotiate specific agreements on specific sectors and gases that we know can be enforced more effectively than a comprehensive agreement on targets and timetables. These are not mutually exclusive proposals. You can do both. But if you only pursue the targets and timetables – that’s where almost 95 percent of the attention has been, if you only address that approach, we’re not going to address the problem of how do you address behavior. So, it’s great to have goals, but let’s also create the incentives for change to behavior.
I wonder if the emails from the climate lab with fudge numbers showing GW will be looked at.
In light of the absolute fraud having been made public, articles like this bring Hitler’s fascism to mind. Particularly, one quote: “If you tell a lie often enough, long enough, it will become the truth.”
There is no agw. Climate change is a constant. The Copenhagen deal is simply more socialism masquerading as science. The collectivists need a new boogey man. This one is dead.
Ben, I have not seen evidence of ‘absolute fraud.’ Have you? Please share it with us. What I’ve seen so far are many opinion pieces from right-wing non-experts on climate – people with political agendas – shouting that fraud has occurred. But as for actual fraud … again, please send us a link that shows the evidence.
Thank you,
Deborah
Am I missing something… There’s pollution at various levels agreed but continuing to push this AGW nonsense is beyond pale. If you were a true believer in ‘science’ you should be outraged by what AGW has not only become but what it has always been. Politics and money and nothing else.
It clearly hasn’t occurred to anyone here yet that money is now going to a non problem with real problems having real effects…
Can we get some integrity?!
There is one thing that this article is proof of – that science and government funding leads to disaster. Your unwillingness or inability to see plant food for what it is, the basis of life on this planet, tells me that the time for listening to the ‘experts’ is over. When you so eagerly reject the premise of honest debate set by Galileo, I can only weep for what was once a jewel.
Follow the money for reasons why GW hysteria.
Deborah
Actual fraud..(?) I’m going to assume from your comment that you haven’t spent much time looking at some of the analysis regarding those emails and documents. Fraud would be polite.
There are emails that discuss how to use ‘tricks’ to generate certain results, there are fortran code comments that actually describe the manipulation of the code, communications that discuss the suppression of dissenting papers, and the list goes on.
What it boils down to is that assertions have been made regarding warming patterns on false and manipulated data. The earth has not been warming any more or cooling any less than any other time. As in nothing extreme despite our putting more co2 into the atmosphere. Natural fluctuations.
Correction to my earlier post – I meant to say that money is not being spent where real problems exist.
Regards, Orion
Deborah,
I’ve had copies of these documents when they were liberated on November 19. Since then, I’ve been spending time looking over these e-mails and parsing code.
Is there some alternate meaning to “change the definition of peer-review” that doesn’t mean stop the publication of contrary opinions by any means necessary?
Perhaps you could explain to me, and every other programmer analyzing this code (whose commentaries I have been reading) how hard coding alterations to data series that produce nothing but ‘Hockey Sticks’ isn’t at all suspicious.
You want links? Let’s start with some of these:
http://camirror.wordpress.com/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://di2.nu/foia/HARRY_READ_ME-0.html
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php (searchable database of the e-mails)
While the first three address the technical side of things, the explanations are clear enough that you should be able to follow them. The last one allows you to search all of the e-mails. Some fun searches include “delete the data” and “peer review”.
Deborah ~ the \”trick\” referred to is hiding the marked decline in temperatures revealed by tree-ring proxies after 1960, by substituting real data from Met service thermometer measurements. The reason this was done was to hide the unreliability of the proxies. Clearly there is a significant divergence between proxies and instruments in some part of the 20th century and the CRU boys are trying to hide this from the public because it damages the credibility of their reconstructions.
See this excerpt from the CRU code file osborn-tree6/briffa_sep98_d.pro , used to prepare a graph purported to be of Northern Hemisphere temperatures and reconstructions, revealed in the CRU leak. The commenting is in the original:
;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,’Oooops!’
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)
I report, you decide.
Boyd, science is a process. It’s a human process. This just looks like a part of a process to me.
Deborah
I can’t disagree that science is a human process. However, hiding inconvenient truths is dishonest science, hiding your raw data from critics is not science at all, and trying to prevent critics from participating in the peer review process or voicing their objections violates the whole spirit of scientific endeavour.
The graphs published based on this data of Keith Briffa’s eliminated any evidence that his tree ring data indicated a decline of 0.4 C in temperature between 1961 and 1990. But just eliminating the data created a gigantic discontinuity in the graph that had to be covered-up ~ that’s what the “VERY ARTIFICIAL correction for decline!” accomplished. You can see this very clearly on the graphs at http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Climategate/hide-decline.htm.
The reason this is not “science as normal” is that Briffa’s contention that our century is the warmest ever is based on his analysis of proxies to reconstruct the temperature regime for previous centuries. His proxy data for 1961 to 1990 contradict instrumental measurements taken during the same period. The obvious question anyone would ask is “If the proxy data for 1961-90 diverge from the instrumental data, how can we trust them to reconstruct ancient climates?”
The scientific thing to do in a case like this would have been for DR. Briffa to say openly to his critics and his colleagues “Look boys, I seem to have a problem here. Have a look through my raw data and see what you think. How can we deal with this?”
But he doesn’t do that; he absolutely refuses to release raw data to anyone critical of him, and generally only releases intermediate data to anyone (as far as I can tell) ~ then he applies a very artificial correction to his data to smooth the graph. But the significance of the graph depends on the accuracy of his proxies to demonstrate that we are indeed warmer than we were in 1000 AD. And he has had to eliminate his proxy data after 1960 because they are demonstrably inaccurate.
And if anyone questions the manipulation of data the he and his colleagues (Mann, Jones etc) , as MacIntyre and McKittrick have done, they are subjected to a mountain of ridicule and invective and mean-spirited vitriol. Such an approach is not science. If you review the objections of MacIntyre at http://www.climateaudit.org/ you will quickly discern how even-handed and generous he has been in the presentation of his objections. Almost gentle :-).
The response of the “Hockey Team” has been disgraceful on every level and that becomes especially clear in the mean-spiritedness of the leaked e-mails. The fear, the self-doubt, the furtive attempts to destroy evidence, the plotting to attack all who disagree with them and the scurrying you see to try to find an answer to M & M (as the Hockey Team calls them) are plainly evident in these e-mails ~ it is a very sorry sight. Have you not read any of them? Check this out as an example of the behind-the-scenes scurry: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024995.php
Boyd, there has been extreme mean-spiritedness and inappropriateness on both sides of this issue. I’ve heard Al Gore called some awful names, for example. And I do agree with you that what these scientists did was not in the best spirit of science. However, I have yet to see that what they did means all of global warming data is a “fraud.” I do not believe it is a fraud. Until I see strong evidence to the contrary, I’ll continue to believe that global warming is indeed occurring on our world, and that it is human-caused.
All the best,
Deborah
All … after watching the data on global warming emerge for 30 years, I can only tell you that it is not a fraud. The word “trick” for example – so much has been made of that word, but I believe these British scientists may have used the word “trick” to mean “method” – not to indicate something secret or fraudulent. These scientists were surely beleaguered – surprised, I’ll bet, by the huge reaction against the data they had spend decades accumulating and about which (IMHO) they were too conservative in announcing … they waited too long to become vocal about the issue of climate change. Then when the huge reaction against their data began, it seems they became a bit too “tribal” about it … not wanting to share their data, etc. All very human. But it doesn’t make the data any less true.
Actual fraud? Although the story is still unfolding, I’m still not convinced of fraud here, although I would change my mind if one of several things happened:
1. If those scientists themselves admitted to fraud – have they done that?
2. If their students or assistants admitted they saw fraud occurring – has that happened?
3. If other scientists at other climate institutions around the world stepped forward and admitted to collusion – has that happened?
4. If an ongoing investigation by the British government found evidence of fraud – I know they have not yet. By the way, they are also investigating the email hacking itself. That’s illegal, you know.
Until this story unfolds further, then all we have here are just a lot of emails being scrutinized for damning statements – a lot of sentences taken out of context to prove a political agenda.
The human mind, after all, looks for patterns. We look in the sky and see constellations – patterns of animals and giants among the stars – wholly imaginary. So surely it’s possible to look at emails from scientists and imagine you see a pattern of fraud, if fraud is what you’re looking for.
I’m sure I can’t convince any of you. But, likewise, you haven’t convinced me.
Deborah
Ms Byrd:
With respect your Nelsonian Eye is failing to see the deliberate corruption of the peer review process revealed by the hacked (?) emails from CRU.
I suspect that the most damning email may turn out to be one from me.
While examining the leaked mails Willis Essenbach has uncovered and circulated an email I sent 6 years ago but I had forgotten. I copy it here and following that I explain its significance. Please note its original circulation list and contents, especially its final sentence.
The email was:
From: RichardSCourtney@aol.com
To: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk, m.allen1@physics.ox.ac.uk, Russell.Vose@noaa.gov
Subject: Re: Workshop: Reconciling Vertical Temperature Trends
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 18:42:59 EST
Cc: trenbert@cgd.ucar.edu, timo.hameranta@pp.inet.fi, Thomas.R.Karl@noaa.gov, ceforest@mit.edu, sokolov@mit.edu, phstone@mit.edu, ekalnay@atmos.umd.edu, richard.w.reynolds@noaa.gov, christy@atmos.uah.edu, roy.spencer@msfc.nasa.gov, benjie.norris@nsstc.uah.edu, kostya@atmos.umd.edu, Norman.Grody@noaa.gov, Thomas.C.Peterson@noaa.gov, sfbtett@metoffice.com, penner@umich.edu, dian.seidel@noaa.gov, trenbert@ucar.edu, wigley@ucar.edu, pielke@atmos.colostate.edu, climatesceptics@yahoogroups.com, aarking1@jhu.edu, bjorn@ps.au.dk, cfk @lanl.gov, c.defreitas@auckland.ac.nz, cidso@co2science.org, dwojick@shentel.net, douglass@pas.rochester.edu, dkaroly@ou.edu, mercurio@jafar.hartnell.cc.ca.us, fredev@mobilixnet.dk, seitz@rockvax.rockefeller.edu, Heinz.Hug@t-online.de, hughel@comcast.net, jahlbeck@ab
Dear All:
The excuses seem to be becoming desperate. Unjustified assertion that I fail to understand “Myles’ comments and/or work on trying the detect/attribute climate change” does not stop the attribution study being an error. The problem is that I do understand what is being done, and I am willing to say why it is GIGO.
Tim Allen said;
In a message dated 19/11/03 08:47:16 GMT Standard Time, m.allen1@physics.ox.ac.uk writes:
“I would just like to add that those of us working on climate change detection and attribution are careful to mask model simulations in the same way that the observations have been sampled, so these well-known dependencies of nominal trends on the trend-estimation technique have no bearing on formal detection and attribution results as quoted, for example, in the IPCC TAR.”
I rejected this saying:
At 09:31 21/11/2003, RichardSCourtney@aol.com wrote:
“It cannot be known that the ‘masking’ does not generate additional spurious trends. Anyway, why assume the errors in the data sets are geographical and not?. The masking is a ‘fix’ applied to the model simulations to adjust them to fit the surface data known to contain spurious trends. This is simple GIGO.”
Now, Tim Osborn says of my comment;
In a message dated 21/11/03 10:04:56 GMT Standard Time, t.osborn@uea.ac.uk writes:
“Richard’s statement makes it clear, to me at least, that he misunderstands Myles’ comments and/or work on trying the detect/attribute climate change.
As far as I understand it, the masking is applied to the model to remove those locations/times when there are no observations. This is quite different to removing those locations which do not match, in some way, with the observations – that would clearly be the wrong thing to do. To mask those that have no observations, however, is clearly the right thing to do – what is the point of attempting to detect a simulated signal of climate change over some part of (e.g.) the Southern Ocean if there are no observations there in which to detect the expected signal? That would clearly be pointless.”
Yes it would. And I fully understand Myles’ comments. Indeed, my comments clearly and unarguably relate to Myles comments. But, as my response states, Myles’ comments do not alter the fact that the masked data and the unmasked data contain demonstrated false trends. And the masking may introduce other spurious trends. So, the conducted attribution study is pointless because it is GIGO. Ad hominem insults don’t change that.
And nor does the use of peer review to block my publication of the facts of these matters.
Richard
The context of the email may not be clear so I explain that as follows.
Climate change ‘attribution studies’ by CRU and IPCC use computer models to assess possible causes of global climate change. Known effects that cause climate change are input to a computer model of the global climate system, and the resulting output of the model is compared to observations of the real world. Anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) is assumed to be indicated by any rise in average global temperature (mean global temperature, MGT) that occurred in reality but is not accounted by the known effects in the model.
Clearly, any error in determinations of changes to MGT provides incorrect attribution of AGW.
The various determinations of the changes to MGT differ and, therefore, there is no known accurate amount of MGT change. But the erroneous MGT change was being input to the models (garbage in, GI) so the amount of AGW attributed by the studies was wrong (garbage out, GO) because ‘garbage in’ gives ‘garbage out’ (GIGO). The attribution studies that provide indications of AGW are GIGO.
I and others attempted to publish a discussion paper that attempted to explain the problems with analyses of MGT.
However, the compilers of the MGT data sets frequently alter their published data of past MGT (sometimes they have altered the data in each of several successive months). Hence, my paper on these matters was submitted for publication but always contained incorrect MGT data because the MGT data kept changing. The MGT data always changed between submission of the paper and completion of the peer review process. Thus, the frequent changes to MGT data sets prevented publication of our paper.
Whatever you call this method of preventing publication of a paper, you cannot call it science.
But the blocking of publication happened.
1. I can show the work was presented to journals for publication.
2. I can show it was rejected by the journals.
3. I can show some rejections were for silly reasons
(e.g. Nature “we publish original data and do not publish comparisons of data sets”.
4. I can show that strange coincidences prevented publication
(e.g. each time the work was submitted for publication the MGT data sets changed so the paper
(a) was rejected because it analysed incorrect data
or
(b) had to be withdrawn to correct the data it contained.)
But I cannot say who or what was behind this.
It should be noted that the AGW attribution studies are wrong in principle for two reasons.
Firstly, they are ‘argument from ignorance’.
Such an argument is not new. For example, in the Middle Ages experts said, “We don’t know what causes crops to fail: it must be witches: we must eliminate them.” Now, experts say, “We don’t know what causes global climate change: it must be emissions from human activity: we must eliminate them.” Of course, they phrase it differently saying they can’t match historical climate change with known climate mechanisms unless an anthropogenic effect is included. But evidence for this “anthropogenic effect” is no more than the evidence for witches.
Secondly, they use an attribution study to ‘prove’ what can only be disproved by attribution.
In an attribution study the system is assumed to be behaving in response to suggested mechanism(s) that is modelled, and the behaviour of the model is compared to the empirical data. If the model cannot emulate the empirical data then there is reason to suppose that the suggested mechanism is not the cause (or at least not the sole cause) of the changes recorded in the empirical data.
It is important to note that attribution studies can only be used to reject hypothesis that a mechanism is a cause for an observed effect. Ability to attribute a suggested cause to an effect is not evidence that the suggested cause is the real cause in part or in whole. (To understand this, consider the game of Cludo. At the start of the game it is possible to attribute the ‘murder’ to all the suspects. As each piece of evidence is obtained then one of the suspects can be rejected because he/she can no longer be attributed with the murder).
But the CRU/IPCC attribution studies claim that the ability to attribute AGW as a cause of climate change is evidence that AGW caused the change (because they only consider one suspect for the cause although there could be many suspects both known and unknown).
Then, in addition to those two pieces of pure pseudo-science – as the paper I attempted to publish demonstrates – the attribution studies use estimates of climate changes that are known to be wrong! And – as I explain above – it proved impossible to publish the paper.
So, I think there is clear evidence that the CRU clique has corrupted the peer review and publication systems for scientific papers that dispute their claims.
Richard
Richard, I regret you feel your voice was not heard. The scientific process, like all human endeavors, is imperfect. Just this morning, another science educator mentioned to me that she had been “blocked” by one of our colleagues – someone in competition with her (and me) for the grant funding that enables websites like this one to exist – during a peer review process at the National Science Foundation. I suspect this sort of behavior goes on wherever there is peer review.
I’m sorry, but I do not have the expertise to judge the content of your email. I can only say I regret very much that people are so divided on this critical issue.
You and your ideas are always welcome at EarthSky’s website.
Deborah
Deborah,
And I need to see strong evidence that AGW exists. Everything I come across says it doesn’t or at the very least certainly isn’t the ‘influencer’ its being portrayed as. To this pt all I’ve seen simply fits into ‘natural’ fluctuations in our climate. There is no spike in temps which is not to say we haven’t warmed but then we’ve also been in a 8-9 yr cooling trend as well despite increased co2. That co2 is NOT the driving force and closer scrutiny of the IPCC’s own charts show this. Furthermore, that even some of the IPCC group is acknowledging that this cooling trend will continue for 15-20 yrs, other estimates are up to 30.
Perhaps you should contact the above poster – Richard S Courtney – as it sounds like he’s had first hand [negative] experience in dealing with some of the IPCC group. The same group being called into question. It also sounds like he has differing opinion [science based] regarding AGW.
I didn’t come on to argue the science in detail rather I came here because it seems to me that an extremely unbalanced approach is being taken on the issue of AGW. The whole, “the science is settled”, attitude is a frightening one and it reaks of bad science – that IS a travesty.
I haven’t read any mean spirited comments here regarding Gore. So I’m not sure why you mentioned that. This is about all aspects of the science process being hi-jacked at the highest and most influencial levels. The data and models I’m sure have been used as a base line via many. It also sounds like dissenting opinion where ever they emerged was quashed, striking a blow to any ‘peer reviewed’ claims.
If someone destroys data [please tell me you know this HAS occured as it has been written about], holds back data until their hand was forced by laws, omits data…That tells me someone is trying to hide something.
What all this boils down Deborah is that you and others within your circles need to put your objective hat back on. Because it sounds to me like you’re sitting in the ‘science settled’ camp and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Truth is what we’re about here.
Regards, Orion
Orion, we agree on many things. It’s wrong to destroy data, or hide data, or refuse to share data. It’s my understanding that the British government is investigating and I’ll wait to hear the results of that investigation rather than jump to a conclusion about what these scientists did. But – no matter what they did – that fact does not make global warming a fraud.
I’m curious to understand how you know what “natural fluctuations” are at work. I wonder why you aren’t considering that both natural fluctuations and human activity might be at work in our time.
I’m not sure how long you’ve been following the issue of global warming. I’ve been following it for over 30 years … the first article I wrote about it was in the 1970s. During the 1990s, from my chair as senior editor at EarthSky, I saw hundreds of studies that all indicated the same thing – that Earth was getting warmer. Not just air temps, but also animals shifting their ranges, earlier snowmelts … all sorts of things … from scientists around the globe. From my chair as a science editor, over the decade of the 1990s the studies became quite alarming. The real travesty here is that scientists did not speak up more loudly then – and voice their findings in a way that people could understand. If they had, perhaps this confusion about global warming would not have occurred. As it was, Al Gore’s film (Inconvenient Truth, which personally I never saw) did not come out until 2006. That’s when the uproar began. Since then, I admit, I am baffled about the response of Americans against the idea of global warming. I don’t know how people in other countries feel, but the American response has both surprised and amazed me. I suspect scientists were also surprised, amazed, and very much taken off guard.
Data from NASA on global temps does not show any sort of ‘cooling trend’: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt
Now please share. I would like to see your evidence to the contrary.
Thank you for this discussion.
Deborah
http://www.prisonplanet.com/bombshell-un-documents-outline-plan-to-use-climategate-crooks-in-end-run-around-national-sovereignty.html
“Deborah Byrd
Ben, I have not seen evidence of ‘absolute fraud.’ Have you? Please share it with us. What I’ve seen so far are many opinion pieces from right-wing non-experts on climate – people with political agendas – shouting that fraud has occurred. But as for actual fraud … again, please send us a link that shows the evidence.”
I hardly think George Monbiot is a “right wing non-expert,” and he at least has the intellectual honesty to recognize fraud as fraud. Come on Deborah. Wake up and smell the emails. They stink.
There was a deliberate and clear conspiracy to destroy those scientific journals and individuals who held legitimate opposing opinions, original data was destroyed leaving only dubious much-manipulated data, there was documented in those emails a clear conspiracy to violate the Freedom of Information act and to cover their own tracks, and the net result was receipt of grants of public money for research that were fraudulent in their justification. I call that absolute fraud. Try reading something other than your own echo-chamber website.
Criminal Fraud is something that will have to be proven in a court of law, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, and smells like a duck’s rear end, it’s most likely a duck.
Try the Climate Skeptic website…Here is an excerpt:
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
Claim A: Nearly every scientist, skeptic and alarmist alike, agree that the first order warming from CO2 is small. Catastrophic forecasts that demand immediate government action are based on a second theory that the climate temperature system is dominated by positive feedback. There is little understanding of these feedbacks, at least in their net effect, and no basis for assuming feedbacks in a long-term stable system are strongly net positive. As a note, the claim is that the net feedbacks are not positive, so demonstration of single one-off positive feedbacks, like ice albedo, are not sufficient to disprove this claim. In particular, the role of the water cycle and cloud formation are very much in dispute.
Claim B: At no point have climate scientists ever reconciled the claims of the dendroclimatologists like Michael Mann that world temperatures were incredibly stable for thousands of years before man burned fossil fuels with the claim that the climate system is driven by very high net positive feedbacks. There is nothing in the feedback assumptions that applies uniquely to CO2 forcing, so these feedbacks, if they exist today, should have existed in the past and almost certainly have made temperatures highly variable, if not unstable.
Claim C: On its face, the climate model assumptions (including high positive feedbacks) of substantial warming from small changes in CO2 are inconsistent with relatively modest past warming. Scientists use what is essentially an arbitrary plug variable to handle this, assuming anthropogenic aerosols have historically masked what would be higher past warming levels. The arbitrariness of the plug is obvious given that most models include a cooling effect of aerosols in direct proportion to their warming effect from CO2, two phenomenon that should not be linked in nature, but are linked if modelers are trying to force their climate models to balance. Further, since aerosols are short lived and only cover about 10% of the globe’s surface in any volume, nearly heroic levels of cooling effects must be assumed, since it takes 10C of cooling from the 10% area of effect to get 1C cooling in the global averages.
Claim D: The key issue is the effect of CO2 vs. other effects in the complex climate system. We know CO2 causes some warming in a lab, but how much on the real earth? The main evidence climate scientists have is that their climate models are unable to replicate the warming from 1975-1998 without the use of man-made CO2 — in other words, they claim their models are unable to replicate the warming with natural factors alone. But these models are not anywhere near good enough to be relied on for this conclusion, particularly since they admittedly leave out any number of natural factors, such as ocean cycles and longer term cycles like the one that drove the little ice age, and admit to not understanding many others, such as cloud formation.
Claim E: There are multiple alternate explanations for the 1975-1998 warming other than manmade CO2. All likely contributed (along with CO2) but it there is no evidence to give most of the blame to Co2. Other factors include ocean cycles (this corresponded to a PDO warm phase), the sun (this corresponded to the most intense period of the sun in the last 100 years), mankind’s land use changes (driving both urban heating effects as well as rural changes with alterations in land use), and a continuing recovery from the Little Ice Age, perhaps the coldest period in the last 5000 years.
Claim F: Climate scientists claim that the .4-.5C warming from 1975-1998 cannot have been caused natural variations. This has never been reconciled with the fact that the 0.6C warming from 1910 to 1940 was almost certainly due mostly to natural forces. Also, the claim that natural forcings could not have caused a 0.2C per decade warming in the 80’s and 90’s cannot be reconciled with the the current claimed natural “masking” of anthropogenic warming that must be on the order of 0.2C per decade.
Claim G: Climate scientists are embarrassing themselves in the use of the word “climate change.” First, the only mechanism ever expressed for CO2 to change climate is via warming. If there is no warming, then CO2 can’t be causing climate change by any mechanism anyone has ever suggested. So saying that “climate change is accelerating” (just Google it) when warming has stopped is disingenuous, and a false marketing effort to try to keep the alarm ringing. Second, the attempts by scientists who should know better to identify weather events at the tails of the normal distribution and claim that these are evidence of a shift in the mean of the distribution is ridiculous. There are no long term US trends in droughts or wet weather, nor in global cyclonic activity, nor in US tornadoes. But every drought, hurricane, flood, or tornado is cited as evidence of accelerating climate change (see my ppt slide deck for the data). This is absurd.
Doug, I agree with Jorge … I’m not sure we can base a case for fraud on illegally hacked emails. These scientists were clearly beleaguered and perhaps acted in ways that were not in their own best interest, or the best interest of the world. I do not know if that’s true, because all I’ve seen are sentences from the emails, taken out of their context. But I know that – as a science editor – I have felt beleaguered myself on the subject of global warming – a subject that I have followed, written about, edited others articles about, spoken to scientists about, for more than 30 years. The strong reaction against the data on human-caused global warming has been really really surprising to many of us in the science community.
Is global warming real? The majority of evidence over the past several decades has said that Earth is warming, and that humans are the cause. I often hear from skeptics that “science does not operate by consensus” but it’s been my experience – after decades in the science world – that indeed it does operate that way, across all fields of science. There are always dissenting voices in any human endeavor.
In my heart of hearts, I hope the skeptics are right. It would be grand if climate were not changing, or if that change were not an effect of our large human presence on this planet.
But the so-called “evidence” on the side of the skeptics seems to come from people who are not scientists, or who do not have a clear understanding of how science operates. You are an exception to that, I know, and we welcome your voice in this conversation.
I’m at a loss. This issue is so critical. We disagree. Time will tell.
Deborah
To be honest, I would hate to base a case for fraud on solely on evidence from illegal hacking of private correspondence, which is a federal crime in this country. The jury is literally still not out on whether there was any wrongdoing by Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The investigation is underway, and I have a feeling there will be more to this case than meets the eye. I invite people to read an open letter in defense of Dr. Jones by Ben Santer, a research scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, at this link http://bit.ly/7bzZ8n .
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on claims of climate change. To be clear, the author of climate-skeptic.com does not appear to be a climate researcher, and I’d be interested to know the source of the claims.
Starting with Claim A, that warming from anthropogenic CO2 is small. This much is true, today, where we sit at about 387 parts per million atmospheric concentration. For some historical perspective, atmospheric CO2 is estimated to be about 280 ppm at the time of the industrial revolution, when there were only about 1.2 billion people on Earth, most living at a lower standard of living enjoyed by the majority of the nearly 7 billion people today. The problem, something that climate scientist James Hansen has warned of, is what happens when that CO2 concentration reaches 450, 500, 600+? Carbon dioxide builds up and persists in the atmosphere for about 100 years. The warnings are that by the time we have a problem, from average global warming of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, we’ll be stuck with it for a very long time.
Now one of the things that is hopeful, aside from the possibility of a miraculous restraint in usage of coal and petroleum products, is new technology being developed to bury CO2 underground, called carbon capture and storage. The problem is that it’s expensive to develop for widespread use, and where’s the incentive to do that if we deny the problem that’s coming down the road?
Deborah,
Well if we agree that falsifying data in various ways is wrong then I’m entirely surprised by your initial reactions to the emails and documents hacked. And please don’t tell me they’re being taken out of context because that’s just insulting and that doesn’t strike me as your style. With all due respect I suggest you not wait for “investigation results” but rather do some fact checking on your own.
Lets be clear on what we’re discussing here – we’re not saying ‘global warming’ is a fraud. We HAVE warmed – although relative to what levels and when are the real issues that are being highlighted by this hacked information (see falsifying data above). The fraud is relative to ‘anthropogenic’ warming. It’s the ‘A’ in GW that skeptics have a problem with and the part that has so much money tied to it with its taxation via draconian policies and funding of studies to perpetuate a self fulfilling prophecy, et… Fraud and or conspiracy to commit – for the hair splitting legalities.
“I’m curious to understand how you know what “natural fluctuations” are at work. I wonder why you aren’t considering that both natural fluctuations and human activity might be at work in our time.” Deborah
I will state immediately that man’s impact on warming is negligible. I’ve come across several studies in the past that look at various carbon sinks – land, vegetation, and OCEANS. My take after reading various materials is that to put it succinctly, our planet inhales and exhales. That from a carbon sink perspective the oceans easily consume what ever we produce – less than 1% (wish I could find the link).
Other influencers would be ocean oscillation, water vapor and the sun (I see other posters have mentioned these). I’ve seen much written that criticizes the AGW group and models for not properly accounting for these variables – and I’ll assume its because the relative immaturity of climatology can’t truly assess their enormity. An immaturity that’s also been criticized by some very well respected scientists who feel that the science does not adequately utilize other disciplines. Much has been written. I wish I could find one article that interviewed a retired and highly respected Australian scientist that has all the awards you folks like and was very clear on what was wrong with what he was seeing as in exclusion of disciplines.
As a result of what I mention above, one of the common themes I’ve seen over the yrs – and it’s a theme that’s continually growing – is that the IPCC group has become more of an island with the waters around it rising with what seems to be BIG MONEY acting as a levee (sorry couldn’t resist the ironic pun).
NASA and Cooling/Warming
I checked your NASA txt file and with all do respect it’s a bunch of numbers that don’t really mean all that much because showing numbers like that in a scenario as complex climate change does not tell the story. It’s that kind of presentation of data that comes from the AGW group that bothers me because there’s very little or no context and the complexity requires context. Here’s a link that I like and if you’ve got issue with Dr. Spencer’s data analysis I’m all ears. He discusses the satellite data you mention in detail and it’s perpetually updated. He’s ex NASA and a climatologist.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
Purely on cooling but I prefer the above.
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
Also, not all that comes out of NASA is necessarily agreed with. Here Hansen’s old boss doesn’t agree with his protégé.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/27/james-hansens-former-nasa-supervisor-declares-himself-a-skeptic-says-hansen-embarrassed-nasa-was-never-muzzled/
Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/no-smoking-hot-spot/story-e6frg73o-1111116945238
Arctic Ice – You can go ahead and contact him to get further clarification.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/REQUEST_TO_THE_IPCC.pdf
Glacial Melt (just one of many)
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2009/090828india_warming_fraud.html
Another
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF18/1890.html
This could go on ad nauseum. Maybe some of what I’ve posted doesn’t fit into your opinion of what stands for true science information and its peer review processes but there’s enough sources out there to do multiple comparisons. I’ve come across some pretty damning quotes from some pretty respectable scientists that head up some well-known orgs.
Please do not use Gore’s fictional depiction of doom as any kind of validation for AGW or its movement – it is so full of misinformation I’m not sure where to begin. Perhaps the core one being that upon closer scrutiny of his so highlighted graph (Mann’s I believe) is that co2 does not precede warming rather it follows warming.
Here’s some other folks that might not agree with AGW.
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/
“The real travesty here is that scientists did not speak up more loudly then – and voice their findings in a way that people could understand.” Deborah
The real travesty is that there are many scientists that are speaking up but their voices are clearly being trumped by money and politics.
Regards, Orion
Link on co2 concentration levels not following AGW prescribed logic.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2469
To summarize there are yrs beyond 2000 where levels actually go down. The article discusses carbon sinks – primarily the ocean.
Orion
Good morning;
It seems no one has answered my question on how much the ‘Global War Machine’ adds to the equation,that has been going on forever but lets just say from the first world war..All those ships cruising around the worlds oceans,about 60 years worth.
Eco Expert, ‘Fred Pearce’ says, “16 ships cause as much pollution as ALL the Worlds cars”. I believe he, is just refering to trade ships carrying goods to the different countries (not including the War Machine ships)He goes on to say that there are about 100,000 ships on the oceans as of now.Spewing lung clogging sulphur into the air. James Corbett,University of Delaware is an authority on ship emissions,he calculates a world total of 64,000 related deaths due to this.
For decades the IMO has rebuffed attempts to clean up this pollution.
169 Governments allow these ships to burn bunker fuel (the worst kind)
OK,169 Goverments do not care about the enviroment,its no emergency,they know what they have been doing for years/DECADES
We are talking about just one contributor here to climate pollution….ships .
It seems the ‘Agenda’ used to be the coming ice age, Pretty sure John Holdren science czar was, in on the coming ice age thing ,then pollution,then,global warming,now climate change.
Climate change is a broad brush,climate change has been going on since the beginning of the Earth and will continue, to the planets ultimate end I,suppose.
If we cared about the real issue, being pollution of the planet and atmosphere then something not only should have been done long ago but Governments do not really seem to care in the background.Why would we stop manufacturing and send all the work overseas ?
Lost jobs,,more ships going back and forth.Send materials over there to have them build it, then ship it back to be bought ?
Insanity at its finest! So The Governments and Eco Terrorists need to stop blaming the people and families for the worlds misfortunes , furthermore ..NO.. the people should not have to pay for this B.S.
Mr Salazar mentioned,Hacking being a Federal crime in this country.Agreed but so is the Rippoff of the American public buy letting to big to fails not fail and the constant looting by’The Fed’
and even though hacking is illegal, at least it usually exposes the truth.The Fed is doing everything they can to HIDE the truth Do you read me ? The Fed ,you know the ones running the planet.
With tarp money being used for bankrupt big banks to buy smaller banks up and then use the rest for bonus and stock market speculation is FRAUD on the american public …nobody is going to jail though! if the hacker is caught,see what happens. the ‘Climate change Emergency’ is a smokescreen for what is really going on.
It is to cover up the FACT that the climate change mantra, Eco Terrorists religion is ochestrated by the Banking cartel,Wall street,Washington,the UN and the Global elites plan for their, and I, quote them “NEW WORLD ORDER’ Hey ,its their words not mine.
Another way to get even your childrens money before they are born.The people cannot pay for a giant tax on something that all of the sudden is an emergency,especially when its an obvious hoax.
Obvious..why? well look at just what ships are contributing,has anyone done anything…no.
War Machine ..always started over lies, carried on for decades to acheive what..? democracy,freedom,thats laughable.
War on drugs ..I never saw the borders locked down.
Illegal immigration..never saw the borders closed down.
Pandemic.. never saws the borders closed down.
The rulers say we need to do this, while they do the opposite behind the scenes. It is this that, makes the people want to puke,
Quit putting the blame on the people, Im sick of it. Its only a small number of humans doing the most damage to the enviroment This administration was hired to give transparency,there is no transparency. Its about global domination.
Your going to let Copenhagen and the UN dictate to you,how much you can drive ,how much you will have to PAY to LIVE , can you have a garden with non GM seeds and product?.
A little research on world history and bloodlines of the elite are a great way to get at truth, after all, Is not that, what Science is really about….Finding the truth?
My apologies;
I ,meant to thank Earthsky, for a forum for, open discussion with the public and the comment posters also.
A link to the article on ’16 ships cause as much pollution as all the worlds cars’ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html
You’re welcome Rob! EarthSky does work hard to provide an open forum for discussions such as this, and all thoughts are welcome as long as civility reigns.
Thank you all.
Best to all,
Deborah
Deborah:
I am not a lawyer and, therefore, I am not willing to discuss whether or not the generation of data sets includes a “crime” or not.
I raised two issues; viz,
(a) the corruption of the peer review system
and
(b) the changes to the estimates of mean global temperature derived from surface stations.
On the basis of (b), you ask me a series of questions; i.e.
“No matter how important this institute may be, wouldn\’t other scientists around the world have to be complicit in the corruption? Because don\’t other data sets from other organizations throughout the world also show warming – and human input? Why aren\’t a few scientists – or students or administrative assistants – now stepping forward and \’fessing up to the crime, if indeed a crime occurred? All they all in on it?”
I answer each in turn in so far as I can. But most of your questions can only engender request for clarification if I am to try to answer them.
Q.
No matter how important this institute may be, wouldn\’t other scientists around the world have to be complicit in the corruption?
A.
What “corruption”? Are you are suggesting that adjustment of one data set has to be coordinated with adjustment of other and similar data sets? Each of the data sets is generated by a different team. There is no need for one of these teams to be “complicit” with another in anything.
Q.
Because don\’t other data sets from other organizations throughout the world also show warming – and human input?
A.
They all show warming. But I know of nobody who disputes that warming has been happening for the ~300 years since as recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA). And none of them shows “human input” as part of that warming: they only show the warming and are incapable of showing the cause of that warming. Simply, there may or may not be a “human input” to the warming but evidence of the warming is not evidence of its cause.
Q.
Why aren\’t a few scientists – or students or administrative assistants – now stepping forward and \’fessing up to the crime, if indeed a crime occurred?
A.
What crime are you asserting they should be “fessing up” to?
Q.
“All they all in on it?”
A.
“In on” what?
Your questions imply that you fail to understand the important issues concerning the data series of global temperature. So, I provide a brief explanation.
Mean global temperature (MGT) is the average temperature of the air near the surface of the Earth derived from measurements mostly made at weather stations using thermometers. The paper I and others were unable to publish called for a revision to MGT procedures and titles and for the results of that revision to be published.
One could imagine an instantaneous value for MGT but there is no method to determine it. Therefore periodic, individual measurements (mostly made at weather stations) are used to determine an average MGT for periods of time such as days, months or years. Determination of the annual MGT has particular importance because historic data is utilized to compile time-series of MGT since ~1880 and, thus, to gain an indication of the change in MGT since then. The paper I with others tried to publish commented on the several reported cumulative data sets for these annual values of MGT.
Three different research teams provide values of MGT that are widely used (e.g. Jones et al., GISS, GHCN). They present their results as ‘anomalies’ from a set value (usually the average MGT of a specified period of years e.g. 1961-90). The ‘anomaly’ is obtained by subtracting this average temperature value from the determined MGT. Use of anomalies permits direct comparison of the results between teams, because temperature subtractions can be used to adjust the start points of the data sets for comparison.
There are significant variations between the results of MGT calculated by the different teams that compile them. The teams each provide 95% confidence limits for their results. However, the results of the teams differ by more than double those limits in several years, and the data sets provided by the teams have different trends. Since all three data sets are compiled from the same available source data (i.e. the measurements mostly made at weather stations using thermometers), and purport to be the same metric (i.e. MGT anomaly), this is surprising. Clearly, the methods of compilation of MGT time series can generate spurious trends (where ‘spurious’ means different from reality), and such spurious trends must exist in all but at most one of the data sets.
Furthermore, the teams often change the value of data points in their data sets for MGT. No reasons for these changes are stated. But the changes are very strange. What possible reasons could there be for changing a value of MGT for a year decades in the past? And how can those reasons be evaluated when those reasons are not explicitly stated? But the trend differences have reduced over time because the data sets have been adjusted for unknown (and unpublished) reasons and in different ways. There is no calibration against which the data sets can be compared, so it seems they have been repeatedly adjusted to agree with each other.
This does not give confidence that any of them provides a true and accurate quantification of the amount of warming that has happened.
Noting the importance of MGT time series for bodies such as the IPCC, our paper suggested that each team, and others who refer to their data, should use a unique title for the metric that they provide (e.g. ‘GISS Surface Temperature Index’ and ‘GHCN World Warmth Index’). And other changes to the determination of these time series are warranted also, against two different understandings of MGT. Either:
(i) MGT is a physical parameter that – at least in principle – can be measured;
or
(ii) MGT is a ‘statistic’; i.e. an indicator derived from physical measurements.
These two understandings derived from alternative considerations of the nature of MGT:
1. If the MGT is assumed to be the mean temperature of the volume of air near the Earth’s surface over a period of time, then MGT is a physical parameter indicated by the thermometers (mostly) at weather stations that is calculated using the method of mixtures (assuming unity volume, specific heat, density etc). Our paper determined that none of the MGT data sets is a useful metric for global climate change when MGT is considered as a physical parameter.
Alternatively:
2. If the thermometers (mostly) at weather stations are each considered to indicate the air temperature at each measurement site and time, then MGT is a statistic that is computed as being an average of the total number of thermometer indications. Our paper concluded that if MGT is considered to be a statistic then it can be computed in several ways to provide a variety of results, each of different use to climatologists but it cannot be used as an indicator of global climate change until each team states explicitly what its data set of MGT purports to be monitoring. (In such a way, the MGT is similar in nature to a Retail Price Index, which is a statistic that can be computed in different ways to provide a variety of results, each of which has proved useful to economists.)
Our paper evaluated MGT determinations according to each of these alternative understandings. It concluded that MGT is not a useful metric for assessment of global climate change. And its publication was blocked as I explained in my first post (above).
Richard
Thank you Richard!
I’ve come across articles that have further criticized MGT for several reasons. Could you comment/clarify on the below…
1. Some are located in terrible locations with heating vent near by – I thought that was a joke until the article showed it.
2. Many are in city centres that are already subject to warmer conditions
3. Some of the stations were found to be in disrepair (equipment)
Orion:
Thankyou for your interest in the subject, but your questions are not best placed at me. My analysis was of the data sets and what they purport to show.
Anthony Watts has conducted a study of measurement equipment in the USA and his analysis can be seen at his excellent web site:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Photographic evidence indicates that his study does show what you suggest. There is no reason to suppose that measurement equipment is better in other countries.
Richard
Richard, respectfully … I believe many here have assumed you are a climate scientist, and yet this link (http://www.desmogblog.com/richard-s-courtney) suggests that – in a search of 22,000 publications – you have never any research in the area of climate change. This link also suggests that you have ties to the coal industry. Is this true?
Deborah:
Thank you for your kind response to my contribution.
I cannot agree that malpractice in one place is justified by evidence that malpractice also occurs in another place.
The leaked emails demonstrate that the (self-described)Team has deliberately acted to usurp and corrupt the peer review process. Please do not take my word for this but check it for yourself.
I gave an example that I had forgotten until someone else circulated an email from me that is among the leaked files from CRU. It is an example of actions that prevented a paper being subjected to refereed publication by means of alteration of data sets. However, the incident is fully documented.
Also, how can anybody frequently alter data from decades in the past for no stated and/or obvious reason then call the result a scientific data set? Surely you do “have the expertise to judge” that.
Richard
Richard, I welcome this discussion because perhaps you can explain something to me. Let’s suppose data from this one institute were corrupted. No matter how important this institute may be, wouldn’t other scientists around the world have to be complicit in the corruption? Because don’t other data sets from other organizations throughout the world also show warming – and human input? Why aren’t a few scientists – or students or administrative assistants – now stepping forward and ‘fessing up to the crime, if indeed a crime occurred? All they all in on it?
Deborah
I’ve just come into this discussion, and as I’ve been reading the comments to catch up, one thing kept occurring to me that was not addressed until just now, by Deborah. Everyone has been acting like this group in Britain is the only group scientifically studying global warming, and if they were fraudulent, then the WHOLE issue of human global warming impact is fraudulent. Scientists are studying global warming all over the world. They are not all part of a conspiracy to defraud the world on global warming. Whatever data was put forth by the British group (regardless of what they suppressed) would have to be independently verifiable (and verified) by other scientists. That’s how the bogus claims of cold fusion at Texas A&M were debunked several years ago: no one else was able to reproduce their purported results. Like Deborah, I’ve been looking into GW for over 30 years. I was introduced to the concept with a simple physics lab experiment in 1969: put an enclosed flask of air under a light and let it stabilize. Measure the temperature. Then insert some CO2 in the flask, and let it re-stabilize. The temperature will be higher. Period. How much higher depends on how much CO2 you insert.
Some of you may want to argue about how much effect humans may be contributing to GW. The fact is that ANY amount we’re contributing is making the matter worse. The one thing we are NOT doing is having NO effect. If a building is burning down, pouring ANY amount of gasoline on the fire will make it worse. We are pouring billions of tons of CO2 on the GW fire every year, and anyone who thinks we can continue doing so without very bad consequences is seriously delusional.
–Charlie
Charles Wallace:
You assert:
“Some of you may want to argue about how much effect humans may be contributing to GW. The fact is that ANY amount we’re contributing is making the matter worse. The one thing we are NOT doing is having NO effect.”
Sorry, but No!.
Firstly, humans do alter climate in many ways. For example, the temperature of each city is warmer than the temperature of its surrounding countryside. But the specific issue being considered is the hypothesis of anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW).
The AGW-hypothesis says increased greenhouse gases – notably carbon dioxide (CO2) – in the air raise global temperature, and anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing the carbon dioxide in the air to overwhelm the natural climate system.
The hypothesis is founded on three assumptions: viz
(1) It is assumed that the anthropogenic CO2 emission is the major cause of the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration
and
(2) It is assumed that the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is significantly increasing radiative forcing
and
(3) It is assumed that the increasing radiative forcing will significantly increase mean global temperature.
There are reasons to doubt each of these assumptions. But if any one of them were known to be false then the entire AGW hypothesis would be known to be false.
Think about it.
The hypothesis is that a trace atmospheric gas which is the very stuff of life itself may – if it increases its atmospheric concentration – become Shiva, the Destroyer of Worlds. In fact, it’s worse than that. Nature emits 34 molecules of CO2 for every molecule of CO2 emitted by human activities so AGW suggests that a minute increase to the annual emission of this essential trace gas could cause Armageddon. Furthermore, in the geological past and during ice ages the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been more than ten times greater than it is now.
If you had never heard of AGW and somebody came in off the street and tried to sell it to you would you say, “Oh dear! Of course, we must change the economic activity of the entire world”?
However, implausible things do happen and, therefore, scientists need to investigate each of the three parts of the AGW hypothesis.
And, importantly, it is not true that “ANY amount we’re contributing is making the matter worse”. Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration enhances plant growth (and, therefore, crop yields), and slight warming would provide net benefits. Indeed, cooling is much more problematic than warming.
So, there are two important questions.
a.
Has there been recent global warming? And the answer is almost certainly, yes.
b.
How much recent global warming has there been? And our assessment of the MGT data sets says we do not know
(c).
Are anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions enhancing the warming? And the answer is, nobody knows.
It is often asserted (by use of circular reasoning) that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions must be enhancing the warming because the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration must be significantly increasing radiative forcing. But the error of this argument is clear from consideration of a similar hypothesis that I will call the Hotter Up Hypothesis (HUP).
Everybody agrees that warm air rises, so the HUP says that temperature must increase with increasing altitude. But observation says it is colder (not hotter) at the top of Everest than at the bottom. Clearly, the HUP is wrong although everybody agrees that hot air rises.
You see, one known and agreed mechanism cannot be said to provide a certain outcome in a complex system such as the climate. All the pertinent, interacting mechanisms must be understood before the outcome can be confidently predicted. But the effects of increased radiative forcing on, for example, cloud cover is not understood.
So, everybody agrees that increased greenhouse gases in the air increase radiative forcing but that does not mean there will be a certain outcome in a complex system such as the climate.
Hence, I think it should be clear why it is important for scientists to investigate with a view to obtaining correct answers to the questions I list as (a) (b) and (c) above.
Richard
Richard, in the above comment, again you have portrayed yourself as being extremely knowledgeable about climate. And yet this link (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Courtney) suggests that you are in fact a technical editor for CoalTrans International (journal of the international coal trading industry) and that you have no academic credentials at all, much less expertise in climate science.
I can understand why the coal industry would want us to believe that global warming is not occurring, when in fact the bulk of scientific evidence points – solidly – to the fact that global warming is occurring and is human-caused. As Charlie said above, scientists all over the world have been studying global warming for decades. The fact that one group in the UK may (or may not) have acted wrongly does not – by any means – negate the overwhelming scientific evidence from all around the globe for human-caused global warming.
Clearly I intended to write “three important questions” and not “two important questions”. Sorry to all.
Richard
Interesting link here: http://www.desmogblog.com/elizabeth-may-informed-look-east-anglia-emails
Elizabeth May read ALL the leaked climate emails. Her conclusion? It was all a trap set by “contrarian propagandists.” She writes, “The scientists at East Anglia, plus colleagues around the world, are being hung out to dry as though they did something wrong. I did not want to spring to their defence until I read all their emails. Yes, all 3,000 or whatever of them…. Starting from 1996, these good and decent scientists write to each other on email …”
Worth checking out.
Richie (if you’re going to call me Charles, I get to call you Richie):
There is a fallacy in your Hotter Up Hypothesis (HUP?) logic. It’s based on the tacit assumption that hot air will always remain hot. Everyday experience shows us that that is not true. So there’s no reason to believe that the air MUST be hotter the higher up you go, just because hot air rises. The hot air would cool over time, anyway. The fact is, there are other effects in play. For example, rising air expands, and expanding air cools. (That’s why, when you use your hot breath to inflate a balloon, it nevertheless comes out cool when you let the air out of the balloon.) That’s why you don’t treat a hypothesis as the absolute truth. You TEST the hypothesis to determine the truth.
By the way, your HUP doesn’t really compare to the Higher the CO2, the Higher the Temperature (HCHT) observation. HUP is a thought exercise, while the HCHT is an experimental observation. It’s something that anyone can verify. Physics students have been doing it for decades. And, if you doubt that humans can really have a global effect on the Earth, I remind you of the case of chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) gases from aerosol sprays and their global effect on the Earth’s ozone layer. When I was a kid in the 50′s, we could swim all day without worrying about getting sunburned. Try doing that for a couple of hours today without sunscreen. The ozone layer is much thinner now. So you can deny the human contribution to GW all you want. That doesn’t make it untrue. After all, the Catholic Church refused to believe in Jupiter’s moons for decades after Galileo used the telescope to reveal them. They used all kinds of thought exercises to show how those moons just could not exist. Because everybody knows that everything revolves around the Earth, and that the Earth is the Center of the Universe.
Just do the math, Richard. We know how much CO2 our cars, and power plants, and forest burning, etc., produce each year. Multiply that by 30 or 40 years, and you’ll get a significant amount of CO2: one that can easily effect global temperatures.
–Charlie
Deborah,
I’ve been following this discussion. I must say I am quite surprised that you didn’t take the time to look past SourceWatch to check Dr. Courtney’s academic credentials, which you seem to be saying don’t exist.
Dr. Courtney’s academic accomplishments encompass social sciences with a focus on dynamic systems [read analytical and statistical prowess here], geography, earth sciences, and geology. It looks to me like he could have been a climatologist without much of a course change.
His academic accomplishments and subject matter expertise do certainly qualify him to perform qualitative analysis of data sets, which was the basis of his paper. Since when does one need to be a climatologist to perform data analysis?
Your diminution of Dr. Courtney’s objectivity because he might have had some association with an energy (coal) periodical is equivalent to a diminution of Jones, Ammon, Mann, Schmidt, and their close knit network of 42 for taking money from government grants, insurance companies, and carbon trading brokers that wouldn’t be doled out if they deviated from the AGW narrative. The sword cuts both ways and if we apply it both ways, then virtually nobody is qualified to speak to the science today. It’s a tired and overplayed argument that avoids the real discussion.
The crux of Dr. Courtney’s issue is he attempted to publish a paper which does statistical analysis of mean global temperature data sets – a statistical (not climatological) work. He is qualified to perform such analysis. It is evident in the e-mails that abstracts that didn’t hold to the alarmist narrative (his paper being specifically targeted) would not be published. So, to say Dr. Courtney is not published in one of the journals under the thumb of the gatekeepers ignores the sad travesty of how peer review became nothing more than an exclusive media outlet that served a clique. That he wasn’t published says nothing about his work and says more about the good ole’ boy club that wouldn’t accept outsiders.
With the above said, I agree with you that none of this falsifies the AGW hypothesis as much of it is based on a broader scope of data and research. However, it does call into question the works of certain individuals, the CRU’s TS2.1 and TS3.0 data sets, and GISS data products (claimed by CRU to be inferior), all of which does affect a broad scope of pivotal studies. As a luke warmer, I remain convinced that human activity has affected climate but as a researcher, I am appalled by the shoddy methodologies, absolutely abysmal data handling policies, thwarting of FOIA law, and collusion of the peer review process as evidenced by these scientist’s personal conversations.
Hank, thank you for commenting. I’m always glad when you join the conversation. Yes, emotions are running high this week as Copenhagen approaches.
I don’t know anything about Richard Courtney’s credentials, other than what I’ve read on the Internet. I don’t think he is a “Dr.” by the way, but he should tell us if he is or is not. I googled his name, and those links were the first to appear. If they’re untrue, perhaps, instead of commenting here, he should be focusing on those websites, trying to clear his good name …
At any rate, I don’t buy the argument that grant funding “wouldn’t be doled out if they deviated from the AGW narrative.” That argument suggests a worldwide conspiracy to promote an idea that is false. While I know false ideas in all areas of human endeavor are being promoted as we speak, all around the world – and while I believe that some grant-giving organizations do look for specific results – I just don’t buy the scale of corruption being suggested here. Scientists are not perfect. But they’re not dupes either.
Courtney labeled me as a “global warming alarmist.” But in fact we at EarthSky question ourselves constantly on this subject, and we read and hear lots and lots of different perspectives. The ones from the skeptics often turn out to be false, or misleading. Mostly, they just don’t seem to come from the real world of science. The perspective of the skeptics seems to originate more on the pages of blogs, often from right-wing think-tanks. It doesn’t seem like science to me.
The so-called “climate debate” (which was never a true debate among climate scientists, anyway) has left the realm of science now. It’s in the realm of politics. Clearly, the gloves are coming off … I suspect what’s happening on this website is happening on websites all over the world this week. As I said, emotions are running high. Next week will probably be worse.
Thanks for your perspective, Hank.
Deborah
Deborah Byrd:
Whomever or whatever you may be, I object!
I post information here because another poster pressured me to present information concerning an email from me I that was leaked as part of the scandal under discussion.
I answer specific questions you ask me here.
Then you post lies about me and provide a link to a web site (whose owner is in jail for fraud) that only exists to present lies and defamations climate realists.
I do not work for the coal industry (but would if they were to commission my work), I last worked for CoalTans International over a decade ago. And my qualifications are superior to yours.
Like all climate alarmists, you discuss no evidence but smear those who do.
Apologise.
Richard
Richard, you are welcome to continue commenting here if you like. When I googled your name, the pages I linked to were the first things to pop up. Perhaps you should address those websites directly, to discuss your reputation. For now … it’s tough to believe, for example, that the owner of one website is in jail for fraud … while the site itself was allowed to remain public.
This subject is vast, and words are limited.
Again, you are welcome at this site. It’s just that now we know each other better.
All the best,
Deborah
Deborah Byrd:
I reply purely as a courtesy. We certainly do “know each other better”.
You think that is an apology?!
I shall not post anything else here and I shall not visit this web site again. Instead, I shall take a bath because I made the error of immersing myself in this web site. It took three requests before I agreed to do it, and the result is plain for all to see.
And it is also clear why you fail to recognise the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from CRU.
Richard
Richard, I don’t intend to apologize for asking you a question about publicly posted information. I haven’t labeled you as anything … I’ve only tried to ask about links describing you, readily available (in the first two positions in my google search) to anyone who googles your name.
If you change your mind … all perspectives are welcome here.
Best,
Deborah
Deborah,
I don’t personally know Richard S. Courtney and I’m not familiar with his work other than what was posted here. When you called his academic credentials into question, like you, I went to the Internet to find any references to his educational backgound. This is what I found in the third google response that came up:
http://faculty.kutztown.edu/courtney/bio.html
If the above linked bio on Dr. Richard S. Courtney is a different person then it was an unintentional mistake on my part. Perhaps Mr. Courtney could clear this up. Irrespective, the gist of my views expressed remain valid as they equally apply to other fully credentialed scientists.
Yes, emotions are running high. I am presently taking an advanced statistics course and was surprised that discussion was raised concerning the scandal with a focus on statistical implications. The discussion was lively to say the least. So, it is certainly making its rounds in academia as well as the general public.
“At any rate, I don’t buy the argument that grant funding “wouldn’t be doled out if they deviated from the AGW narrative.” That argument suggests a worldwide conspiracy to promote an idea that is false.”
My comment was an attempt to point out that most everyone at the profile of the people we speak of works in the pay of big financial players. It aimed at pointing out that under this argument nobody is qualified to speak to science, underscoring that this is an argument that cannot be generally applied unless the intent is to say a worldwide conspiracy exists amongst all pro-AGW and con-AGW voices. Unless professional impropriety is proven to be true, it is an argumentum non sequitur. I was attempting to make a point by contrasting the extremes and perhaps it came out wrong.
“Courtney labeled me as a “global warming alarmist.” But in fact we at EarthSky question ourselves constantly on this subject, and we read and hear lots and lots of different perspectives.”
From my own personal experience, I will say that I have known you to be fair and open to discussing other views – even mine :-) You have your views built on your professional experience and it is appropriate that you articulate and defend them and respectfully challenge the views of others (mine too). You and I have respectfully disagreed in the past on certain conclusions but, if I can characterize our disagreements, they were always objective and respectful. I hope you see it the same way.
“The so-called “climate debate” (which was never a true debate among climate scientists, anyway) has left the realm of science now. It’s in the realm of politics. Clearly, the gloves are coming off …”
I must respectfully disagree with you here. Let’s be clear that nobody debates the fact that our climate has been warming on a centennial scale. However, I read many of the abstracts and commentaries by leading climatologists and I must conclude that there is a debate. There is much to debate concerning the paleoclimate record and the reliability and spatial application of sorted proxies in temperature reconstructions, on the predictive skills of the various GCM models, on climate sensitivity and even its sign under different climate scenarios, on best methods and variable selections for principal component analysis in reconstructions, on the importance of low frequency components of climate reconstructions, the degree of influence of the milankovitch orbital cycles on climate change, how the magnetosphere may modulate feebacks, and why current temperature trends have not stayed inside the error bands of previous IPCC predictions, to name a few. On the contrary, there is much to debate. All climatologists, statisticians, geologists, physicists, biologists, and other related physical sciences should be invited to the debate, not just a close knit clique of thin skinned climatologists who seem to think any challenge to their work is an act of heresy and must be met with ridicule and blackballing.
Taking off the gloves may well be the best thing to happen to climatology for decades. Being journal published, perhaps this is my “hot button.” Peer review and publication is the proper debate forum. I have for a long time questioned why highly accomplished climatologists can’t get their papers published. I’ve found it highly unusual and inexplicable that the climatology literature is almost completely void of any papers critical of the findings of the Team when all other sciences and their journals contain a good mix of critical papers. The recent release of e-mails wherein the authors talk about boycotting journals that allow a (one) critical paper to be published, getting publishers fired, hand selecting reviewers, colluding to even change the definitions of peer review are very telling. There is no debate because there is no debate forum.
Regarding politics, I am concerned that science has become the home team and away team on the field in a winner-takes-all battle that was and is highly political. This is a real problem of the post-modern science method. Much of the global warming rhetoric tossed around these days by both teams doesn’t align well with the conclusions of the actual science. There is an equation that expresses it appropriately: R – S = P where R is the rhetoric, S is scientific conclusions and P is politics.
Hank, tell me what you think. It looks to me as if there are two Richard S. Courtneys who come up quickly in a google search. Both are involved in science. One is the person you found at this link: http://www.globalwarmingheartland.com/expert.cfm?expertId=135 He is an Earth scientist, was born in the U.S., specializes in “urban system dynamics” and says on that page that his “current research interest involves the quantitative study of racial segregation.” It looks to me as if human populations – not climate studies – are his field of research.
Here is another Richard S. Courtney. This is the fellow who was commenting here: http://www.globalwarmingheartland.com/expert.cfm?expertId=135 He doesn’t mention any advanced degrees, because I don’t think he has any – he sounds British – and he admitted his history is in working for the coal industry.
If you’ll go to this page (http://www.kutztown.edu/acad/geography/faculty.html), you’ll see that the U.S Richard Courtney seems to be a lot younger than the British fellow. I can see why people would confuse them. But it doesn’t look to me as if they’re the same person.
I need to run, but I do appreciate your comments here. All are welcome to comment here, even Richard S. Courtneys from both sides of the Atlantic. But it’s difficult when people try to pass themselves off as “scientists” when they’re not … it confuses everyone.
All the best,
Deborah
“They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent… Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…. We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now…”
- Winston Churchill, November 12, 1936
Perhaps time is just about ready to tell all.
Steve, thank you. Yes, it does seem that way.
Deborah
a voice crying in the wilderness, deborah!
i have ploughed through all of these comments till i am up to here with confusing contentions. but thanks to you for posting everything in a free and open way, and i am sorry for all the hostility surrounding this subject. hey, i am an english major, but i now that prince phillip said years ago on the german press agency that if he dies, he hoped to be reincarnated as a virus so he can help control overpopulation. this man’s wife, the queen of england, made a special plea for global warming at the trinidad summit. global warming is a financial hoax. by last count there are 1.444 quadrillion dollars of derivative debt in the international monetary system which demands to be paid by looting the productive, real economy which by last count was worth only 35 trillion dollars. look at that ratio of illegitimate debt to real economic value! the purpose of global warming idelogy is two fold: 1. to divert funds that would go into industrialization to pay off debt and 2. to cull back population from the present 6.7 billion people to two billion or less that these financial speculators deem appropriate for their notions of economy. if global warming legislation is made mandatory it will be the end of human progress; it is as simple as that. i refer everyone to a new web site http://www.copenhagenscandal.org for more information and ideas. many regards to you deborah, and i feel sorry for you getting caught in this controversy when all you want to do is have a clear voice for science.
Hello Julian, thank you for your comment and for dropping by. Of course, I disagree with you. What purpose would be served – to anyone – by ending human progress? Could scientists really have been so thoroughly duped in this process all this time? They’re pretty smart guys. You’re telling me not one scientist came forward to speak of this conspiracy? It took the right-wing press to bring it to light?
I don’t believe the conspiracy theories. I believe in people of good will working together to solve legitimate problems – like global warming. Could the data be false? Sure, science can always do a 180, even though decades of data are overwhelmingly pointing toward a human-caused warming at this point. Things could still change, because new information can always come to light, and because climate is exceedingly complex.
But an actual conspiracy? Nah. I don’t believe it for a second.
Thanks Julian!
Deborah
Deborah,
“Hank, tell me what you think. It looks to me as if there are two Richard S. Courtneys who come up quickly in a google search. Both are involved in science… ”
Dr. Richard S. Courtney does teach Earth-Atmosphere Systems, energy flow, atmosphere, weather, and climate too. Look at his GEG 010 Introductory Physical Geography course description:
http://faculty.kutztown.edu/courtney/courses.html
For this reason I thought the two were one in the same. Nonetheless, I have become convinced you are right and I merely stumbled upon a coincidence (a good one I might add). See, I will admit when I am wrong.
Cheers!
Hank, I admit I was wrong, too, about the American Richard Courtney’s climate and weather knowledge! :-)
But I do believe there are two Richard Courtneys. Yes, a confusing situation. I’ll bet this confusion happens a lot …
Take care Hank!
Deborah
Perhaps the last act of the last week of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is the last, best chance for the leaders of the human community to save a good-enough future for the children, life as we know it, the Earth and its environs from the ravages of global human overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities that can be seen with the naked eye engulfing the surface of our planetary home, irreversibly depleting its resources and recklessly degrading its ecosystem services. If ever there was a time for action, that time is presented this week.
A truthful, reliable, complete, useful, significant, timely, fully funded and legally binding international agreement is required. What are the chances that the right thing will be done?