IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0.
By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Unquestionably, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to build the scientific case for humanity being the primary cause of global warming. Such a goal is fundamentally unscientific, as it is hostile to alternative hypotheses for the causes of climate change.
The most glaring example of this bias has been the lack of interest on the IPCC’s part in figuring out to what extent climate change is simply the result of natural, internal cycles in the climate system. In Chapter 9 of the latest (4th) IPCC report, entitled “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”, you would think the issue of external versus internal forcing would be thoroughly addressed. But you would be wrong.
The IPCC is totally obsessed with external forcing, that is, energy imbalances imposed upon the climate system that are NOT the result of the natural, internal workings of the system. For instance, a search through Chapter 9 for the phrase “external forcing” yields a total of 91 uses of that term. A search for the phrase “internal forcing” yields…(wait for it)…zero uses. Can we really believe that the IPCC has ruled out natural sources of global warming when such a glaring blind spot exists?
Admittedly, we really do not understand internal sources of climate change. Weather AND climate involves chaotic processes, most of which we may never understand, let alone predict. While chaos in weather is exhibited on time scales of days to weeks, chaotic changes in the ocean circulation could have time scales as long as hundreds of years, and we know that cloud formation – providing the Earth’s natural sun shade – is strongly influenced by the ocean.
Thus, small changes in ocean circulation can lead to small changes in the Earth’s albedo (how much sunlight is reflected back to space), which in turn can lead to global warming or cooling. The IPCC’s view (which is never explicitly stated) that such changes in the climate system do not occur is little more than faith on their part.
The IPCC’s pundits like to claim that the published evidence for humanity causing warming greatly outweighs any published evidence against it. This appeal to majority opinion on their part is pretty selective, though. They had no trouble discarding hundreds of research papers supporting evidence for the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age when they so uncritically embraced the infamous “Hockey Stick” reconstructions of past temperature change.
Despite a wide variety of previous temperature proxies gathered from around the world (see figure below) that so clearly showed that centuries with global warming and cooling are the rule, not the exception, the Hockey Stick was mostly based upon some cherry-picked tree rings combined with the assumption that significant warming is a uniquely modern phenomenon.
As such, they rejected the prevailing “scientific consensus” in favor of a minority view that supported their desired outcome. I suspect that they do not even recognize their own hypocrisy.
As I have discussed before, the IPCC’s neglect of natural variability in the climate system ends up leading to circular reasoning on their part. They ignore the effect of natural cloud variations when trying to diagnose feedback, which then leads to overestimates of climate sensitivity. This, in turn, causes them to conclude that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations alone are sufficient to explain global warming, and so no natural forcings of climate change need be found.
But all they have done is reasoned themselves in a circle. By ignoring natural variability, they can end up claiming that natural variability does not exist. Admittedly, their position is internally consistent. But then, so is all circular reasoning.
Our re-submitted paper to the Journal of Geophysical Research entitled “On the Diagnosis of Radiative Feedback in the Presence of Unknown Radiative Forcing” will hopefully lead to a little more diversity being permitted in the global warming debate.
I don’t think the IPCC scientists are as opposed to this as are their self-appointed spokespersons, like Al Gore and numerous environmental writers in the media who get to over-simplify the climate issue without ever being corrected by the IPCC. Natural climate change continues to be the 800 lb gorilla in the room, and I suspect that some within the IPCC are slowly becoming aware of its existence.
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Strange things do happen when the climate changes NATURALLY.
For eg the sea levels around Australia were so low at the end of the last ice age that you could walk to Tasmania, but within 8,000 years the sea level exceeded the present level by about 1.5 Metres ( 5 feet).
From that period ( 4,000 years ago ) we have lost 1.5 metres, so just what NATURAL mechanisms are in play to bring this about.
To find this search ABC Catalyst Narabeen Man, a very interesting story.
“You imagine that we live in an age of reason… and the global warming alarm is dressed up as science but it’s not science. It’s propaganda.”
–Paul Reiter,
Pasteur Institute, Paris, France
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia, USA
“Let us always remember that he does not really believe his own opinion, who dares not give free scope to his opponent.”
~Wendell Phillips
The mechanisms for the large time-scale changes plotted in the final graph of the entry by Bill Ellis “Searching the PaleoClimate Record for Estimated Correlations: Temperature, CO2 and Sea Level” published on this blog on 10/16/09 remain to this date unfathomable as far as I can tell. Find those answers first so the fine detail might make more sense.
So now we’re playing the terminology cherry pick game.
Page 667 of the chapter in question: “Climate change may be due to internal processes and/or external forcings … A key objective of this chapter is to understand climate changes that result from anthropogenic and natural external forcings, and how they may be distinguished from changes and variability that result from internal climate system processes. ”
If you search for “internal processes” (a more generic term than “internal forcing”), “natural climate processes”, etc., you’ll find that, in fact, the IPCC does not pretend that these processes don’t exist.
Spencer uses the terms “natural, internal workings” to contrast against external forcing. Substitute “processes” for “workings” and you’ll find discussion of that in the IPCC chapter.
The IPCC is “totally obsessed’ with external forcing because they find evidence for it.
I know Spencer has a paper in the works on this topic; let’s see it.
Thank you Dr Spencer for a short clear and sober article. Lets hope that such messages cut through the hysteria now rising on both sides, so as to seed some doubt in the minds of those good people who have previously deferred to the authority of the experts in this complex field of science.
BCC (22:25:37) :
So now we’re playing the terminology cherry pick game.
——————
Yes BCC, you are. Mr. Spencer did not say what you portray.
You must have read this, didn’t you? :
The most glaring example of this bias has been the lack of interest on the IPCC’s part in figuring out to what extent climate change is simply the result of natural, internal cycles in the climate system.
So I ask you : have you ever heard any emphasis put on natural variability in any public statement of the IPCC — ever? And if not then what would be some reasons for that?
Mr. Spencer also says this :
…will hopefully lead to a little more diversity being permitted in the global warming debate….I don’t think the IPCC scientists are as opposed to this as are their self-appointed spokespersons
Did you see that?
The IPCC itself is being demonised more than necessary. The summary (lead author Pachauri (I think)) explicitly says that it is “very likely” that greenhouse gases influence the climate. Very likely is carefully defined as greater or equal to 90 percent probable. As an earlier commenter said, it is the self appointed spokespeople, not the IPCC, who are using words like “certain”.
Proponents of immediate action on CO2 should be asked what they will do if the agreed 10 percent chance that CO2 is innocent turns out to be true. Do Cap and Trade Bills include some form of repayment if CO2 is found to be innocent?
BCC (22:25:37) :
BCC,
I get the impression from people like you that you just want to tear down the reputation of people like Roy Spencer. Or, at the very least create doubts about them.
“…The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.”
~John Adams
BCC (22:25:37) :
So now we’re playing the terminology cherry pick game.
Uh huh….and I see you are very good at that game as well….by leaving out more of the salient points of his article.
Let me help by picking a few big fat ripe juicy [and important] cherry bunches from this article for everyone to enjoy and digest:
“They [IPCC] had no trouble discarding hundreds of research papers supporting evidence for the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age when they so uncritically embraced the infamous “Hockey Stick” reconstructions of past temperature change.”
“As I have discussed before, the IPCC’s neglect of natural variability in the climate system ends up leading to circular reasoning on their part. They ignore the effect of natural cloud variations when trying to diagnose feedback, which then leads to overestimates of climate sensitivity. This, in turn, causes them to conclude that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations alone are sufficient to explain global warming, and so no natural forcings of climate change need be found.”
MMM… I love a big football-field of Cherry Pies.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
One can argue that the IPCC science strategy itself is set up so as to lead inexorably to this kind mischief. The IPCC set out to show that, since we can’t do experiments on the climate over reasonable time frames, we must approach the problem by testing the hypothesis that natural effects cannot account for observed climate change. Once that is done, we are left with, “It must be greenhouse gases, especially CO2.” This does two things:
1. It lets them off the hook on the scientific method, which requires prediction and the opportunity for falsification.
2. It generates a huge confirmation bias, which leads in turn to the kind of things Roy observes.
Once the determination that natural effects are too small, despite the superficiality of that ‘determination,’ infalliblity sets in. Isn’t it amazing that a field in which results depend so critically on subtleties in data gathering and choices; in data processing methods; and on assumptions and parameter choices in models, not a single piece of science has ever been acknowledged to be wrong.
The hockey stick is a good example. No objective person can accept the validity of this work which is draped in statistical errors and choices that shout confirmation bias. Yet it continues to be treated and defended in ever more shrill and ever less technical ways.
Or the refusal to simply acknowledge that models did not predict the last decade or so of temperature flat line. Instead we get bogus statistical arguments and more recently an explanation in terms of — guess what — natural cycles. But those cycles did not contribute to warming when they were in their warm phase. And just you wait, in a few decades it will really get warmer. And this time we mean it.
Someday we will look back on the period as the time that science went off the rails. Hopefully somehow we will get back on track.
BCC (22:25:37) :
So now we’re playing the terminology cherry pick game.
Page 667 of the chapter in question: “Climate change may be due to internal processes and/or external forcings … A key objective of this chapter is to understand climate changes that result from anthropogenic and natural external forcings, and how they may be distinguished from changes and variability that result from internal climate system processes. ”
If you search for “internal processes” (a more generic term than “internal forcing”), “natural climate processes”, etc., you’ll find that, in fact, the IPCC does not pretend that these processes don’t exist.
Spencer uses the terms “natural, internal workings” to contrast against external forcing. Substitute “processes” for “workings” and you’ll find discussion of that in the IPCC chapter.
The IPCC is “totally obsessed’ with external forcing because they find evidence for it.
I know Spencer has a paper in the works on this topic; let’s see it.
—…—…—…
Er, uhm, no. Firmly, most definitely, “No.”
The IPCC has found NO actual evidence of man-caused forcings. They have found an increase in CO2 from natural causes (95% of the CO2 present) + (man-released CO2 (5% of the CO2 present.)
So, they are selectively blaming ALL of the temperature changes they can find (40% manually created by manipulating surface temperature records!) on the 5% of the CO2 that is present.
Further, the IPCC (and their political allies who want 1.6 trillion extra tax dollars) are blaming ALL of the long-term temperature increases that have been going on from 1650 through 2010 on 50 years of man-released CO2 from 1950 through 2000.
(Sicne 2010, they CAN”T really blame man-released CO2 for any temperature increases because there have been no temperature increases. Now, they ARE blaming man-released CO2 for these nonexistant temperature increases, but that also is part of their lie.)
Please show the actual “evidence” for these external (man-released CO2) forcings, and the actual evidence for any relationship between CO2 and temperature:
From 1905 – 1940, CO2 constant, temperature rose 4/10 of one degree.
From 1940 – 1975, CO2 constant, temperature fell 3/10 of one degree.
From 1975 – 1998, CO2 rose, temperature rose 5/10 of one degree.
From 1998 – 2009, CO2 rose, temperatures fell 2/10 of one degree.
You CANNOT use flawed and approximate computer simulations as “evidence” because I can also (and at much less cost than 79 billion dollars!) create a computer program that clearly proves 1+ 1 + 1 = 5.
Most of the people out there are indifferent on the subject of man-made global warming. A very small minority of us geeks, scientists, big business, and political types obsess about it. Maybe 12% of the population. We’re doing a good job waking the sheeple up. The sheeple could go either way on the subject, but now the people are going our way because we got the message out. Power is a funny thing. When you really don’t have the people on your side, the thing they worked their whole lives to achieve, can collapse in a very short period of time. Watch them panic.
Well, if you have a problem (or can convince people that there is a problem) then you can create an entire new UN agency to staff with your pals in order to “manage” the problem forever. You want to be careful not to actually solve it, though, because then a lot of people lose their jobs.
And, the politicians of the world’s countries would gladly turn over responsibility of the problem to the UN because the UN can’t be held accountable. We don’t vote for them. Nobody does. If the UN proposes some “regulation” the politicians of any given country can say “hey, not the fault of my administration, the UN did it, it is ‘international law'”. So the politicians can’t be held responsible and the UN can’t be held responsible. What … are they going to be “kicked out” of office? Heck no. It (the UN) provides jobs for academics and cronies who can’t get work anywhere else.
It is sort of like “middle east peace negotiations” that serve to provide perpetual jobs for the graduates of “middle east studies” academics without actually accomplishing anything. It is about the process for them, not about the result. Endless process is the desired result. Solving the problem would ruin a perfectly good process and paycheck.
Its funny I posted this just a wee while back here :
Joel Shore “..explain to me this: .. Given that the most direct effect of there being no “hotspot” is that the models have a negative feedback, the lapse rate feedback, that is not justified if no hotspot exists, why do you think the lack of a hotspot means the feedbacks are more strongly-negative?”
Joel Shore…. I cant be bothered trying to explain why exactly the hot spot is not there. I am pointing out that the models show it and the observations show it is not there. The theory says it should be. The theory is wrong here and in many places.
There are more things in the atmosphere and on earth than are thought up by you or the IPCC. That is what I am trying to get you to understand.
The lapse rate is not the only negative feedback one can think of. If warming causes more water vapour, it is conceivable that more water vapour can cause more clouds. More low clouds can be a negative feedback. There are somethings that keep our climate stable within certain bounds and it fluctuates naturally between those limits. So far we are within those limits.
Find out the facts and then theorise why this is so. Do not try and fit the facts into the hypothesis.
CO2 may cause a slight additional warming to any natural warming taking place. But CO2 is not a driver of our climate, just an impotent follower of the natural processes. It has consistently failed to stop the earth cooling when it has cooled repeatedly during the ice ages and the cool periods in between, like the little ice age.
Why cant you understand these simple things?
RACookPE1978 (23:25:37) :
1+ 1 + 1 = 5
As an engineer I have known for a long time that 1 + 1+ 1 = 5, for extremely large values of 1.
Maybe the IPCC have been dealing with engineers too much >.>
“Admittedly, we really do not understand internal sources of climate change. Weather AND climate involves chaotic processes, most of which we may never understand, let alone predict. While chaos in weather is exhibited on time scales of days to weeks, chaotic changes in the ocean circulation could have time scales as long as hundreds of years, and we know that cloud formation – providing the Earth’s natural sun shade – is strongly influenced by the ocean.”
How refreshing to see a scientist admit that we still know little about how our multi-connected, dynamic chaotic Earth system works.
We also only have a primitive understanding of the effects of the solar system on our climate, and beyond that virtually no knowledge of galactic effects.
All these elements are part of one huge chaotic system and at the moment mankind does not have the intellect to even start to understand it or make meaningful predictions about the future.
It’s time the IPCC and the politicians understood this too.
BCC (22:25:37) : So now we’re playing the terminology cherry pick game.
If you search for “internal processes” (a more generic term than “internal forcing”), “natural climate processes”, etc., you’ll find that, in fact, the IPCC does not pretend that these processes don’t exist.
Spencer uses the terms “natural, internal workings” to contrast against external forcing. Substitute “processes” for “workings” and you’ll find discussion of that in the IPCC chapter.
The IPCC is “totally obsessed’ with external forcing because they find evidence for it.
1. I think “natural climate processes” would be different from “internal forcings”. Natural processes could include solar, volcanoes and in fact anything that is not Anthropogenic.
2. There are exactly 6 instances of “internal processes” and these are dismissed perfunctorily.
3. Is “”internal processes” the same as “internal forcings”? Is it just a matter of terminology?
If so how may times does IPCC use “external processes” in the document? After all this could be used interchangeably with “external forcings”, if they were equivalent.
Answer 0
No, BCC is right. That was a silly and useless example of bias, using the term “internal forcings” in a search. Really, it’s like Dr. Spencer didn’t even read the IPCC report. Which is a ridiculous notion, I know … but it’s also ridiculous to ignore the actual terms the IPCC uses.
Hell, just search for the term “internal” (115 hits) vs. “external” (144 hits). Frankly, I don’t even think “forcing” would be the proper word to describe an endogenous effect. And the authors do distinguish between natural external forcings and man-made ones, so even the term “external” doesn’t capture the impression Dr. Spencer creates; i.e., “external” forcings are all man-made.
Anyway, I completely agree with Dr. Spencer’s general argument. All the chicken littles out there drive me nuts with their thoroughly bad science and spurious attacks.
And others have mentioned the tendency – either by “spokesmen” or in the IPCC “summary for policy makers” – to overstate the actual report. What this work actually says is “Greenhouse gas forcing has *very likely* caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.” Translation: there’s a 90% chance that 51% or more of the warming in the last 50 years (so, about 1/3 of a degree C) was caused by man. That’s not a very strong statement, actually. But you’d never know how weak it was when all these wankers go on about “It’s worse than we thought!” and “We’re all gonna die!”
Anyway, my point is: don’t use careless examples, such as the bogus search term “internal forcings.” This just undermines the argument being made. It gives the warmists something to latch onto, and allows them to ignore the bigger issues.
We’re the ones with the good science and sound logic, remember? We can’t afford to give the bastards an inch.
Was the crushed truck in the cash for clunkers program?
You’ll find that this is a feature of many parts of society right now, not just ‘global warming’.
For many years now, ALL mainstream politicians in the UK have maintained a policy of laxity with regard to EU movement of peoples. This is fine if things remain in balance, but cause hardship, stress and strains if not. With the opening up of the EU to Eastern Europe, balance has not been present.
This has effects on local services, be that affordable housing, schools, antenatal care etc etc. It has been indisputable fact that heads buried in the sand would accurately describe the politicians’ response to that.
Now we have an odious bunch of toerags who call themselves the ‘British National Party’ gaining popularity as they believe in ‘repatriating foreigners’. Racist little shits would describe them pretty accurately, but they have been winning some local government officer seats and, horror of horrors, two seats to the European Parliament.
Ah: so now the politicos see THEIR gravy train threatened. So we have the army generals reeling off a round of automatic political vitriol, to which the BNP minded them to consider their role in Iraq and what happened to Nazi soldiers who followed orders in WWII. Very unpleasant.
We have the Labour Party saying the BNP is ‘unconstitutional’ as it won’t allow blacks to join, so they can’t go on television having crossed the threshold of voting popularity which the BBC uses as its test of ‘national appeal’. The BNP response is to say that they are going to change the constitution, no doubt in the expectation of large numbers of Jamaicans signing up immediately. Ho hum…..
What ordinary voters would prefer of course is for the politicians to develop an adult approach to immigration. Nothing to do with skin colour or language. More to do with ‘available places to live’.
Sounds just like what sentient folks think about ‘climate change’. By all means recycle goods, by all means diversify energy supplies, by all means introduce energy efficient construction practices.
But for gawd’s sake, do shut up about this claptrap on carbon dioxide, human footprints and carbon trading. It’s all nonsense.
And the fact that the ecowarriors have targeted youth does make a comparison with the Nazis apposite.
Because the way to change opinion for good is to brainwash the young.
@BCC: I think that you are right in pinpointing at this sentence about the search for internal forcing in the IPCC report. It is a nonsense argument that weakens the overall logic of this piece. Dr Spencer would make a stronger statement without it in my view. But that is because I am allergic to demagogic language, probably also why I have become a climate sceptic.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/climate/images/ipcc_global_temp_1906_2005.gif
If the bottom blue line shows their idea about natural effects, IPCC authors have no clue:
1) they somehow admit that 1910-1940 warming might be caused by the Sun; but the strongest 19th cycle peaked in 1960, so natural trend should not peak in 1950, but in 1960
2) even PDO/AMO have been defined in early 2000s, it somehow did not find the way into IPCC 2007 climatic models, obsessed with radiative forcing and aerosols
3) IPCC models need just two ingredients – CO2 causing the temperature to rise exponentially, and aerosols ad-hoc input, explaining the inconvenient drop of global temperatures between 1950-1980. But there is no reasonable explanation of recent cooling – no volcanos, no aerosols. As some climate scientist from MetOffice told recently “we have no explanation for recent cooling”. [snip] climate scientist? Sad to say, but today, amateurs have often better grasp of reality than those fossils at governmental institutions.
RACookPE1978 (23:25:37) :
…..
From 1905 – 1940, CO2 constant, temperature rose 4/10 of one degree.
From 1940 – 1975, CO2 constant, temperature fell 3/10 of one degree.
From 1975 – 1998, CO2 rose, temperature rose 5/10 of one degree.
From 1998 – 2009, CO2 rose, temperatures fell 2/10 of one degree.
What is the source which leads to this conclusion: “From 1998 – 2009, CO2 rose, temperatures fell 2/10 of one degree”