House climate science showdown set
A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel will wade into climate science Tuesday against the backdrop of accelerating GOP efforts to scuttle Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases.
The committee released details Friday of the March 8 Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on climate science and EPA rules, a session that committee Democrats requested.
Witnesses invited by the Democrats include Richard Somerville, who is an emeritus professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego.
…
More recently, he published an essay in the journal Climatic Change late last year that called for scientists to offer the public “guidelines” on climate.
Among them: “The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm. The world is warming. There are many kinds of evidence: air temperatures, ocean temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, and much more. Human activities are the main cause,” he writes.
Witnesses invited by committee Republicans include researchers who have criticized mainstream scientific views on climate change and proposals to require carbon emissions cuts.
One is the University of Colorado’s Roger Pielke, Sr. He agrees that humans are having a significant effect on the climate, but claims there’s an overemphasis on the role carbon emissions among the various human “climate forcings.”
Also testifying is John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. He told the House Ways and Means Committee in 2009 that models and data showing warming are off-base.
“We have found that climate models and popular surface temperature data sets overstate the changes in the real atmosphere and that actual changes are not alarming,” he said in testimony submitted to that panel.
The names are familiar in climate policy circles. “Climate change deniers have a short bench, so we were not surprised at their witnesses,” said a Democratic aide.
Full story here:
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/147729-climate-science-showdown-set
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I should mention that our own Willis Eschenbach had been considered to testify, but he choice ultimately went to Dr. John Christy. Willis would have been an excellent choice, and I could see him picking apart Waxman, who wouldn’t know what hit him.
I’d LOVE to see the fast-thinking and uncompromising Willis in that situation. Too often the scientific side has been represented by cautious “gentlemen” who were unwilling to use every available weapon against the apocalyptic and genocidal Carbon Cult.
People who are experts at winning popularity contests trying to make a world changing decision based on popularity? I have my doubts.
GPlant
Hmmm, what I’d like to know is why couldn’t it have been both John Christy and Willis. The Dimocrats seem to think that we skeptics have a short bench, which if it was ever true is certainly not so now.
I fail to see why the enquiry should not be lengthy. After all, a lot is at stake.
Then we could have our cake (The Drs) and eat it (Willis).
Bring it on.
Willis would have been an excellent choice, and I could see him picking apart Waxman, who wouldn’t know what hit him.
================================================
I agree. While the views of Christy and Pielke, Sr. being included in the hearings are a welcomed occurrence, sometimes their explanations are a bit too cerebral for laymen. Given the audience they will have, Willis would have been the better choice. Willis has a unique ability to explain rather complex thoughts and ideas in a rather clear fashion. If he speaks anything like he writes, he should be at the forefront.
Back in the 1990’s when we were having some problems with some uppity democrats here in NH trying to pass some really crazy gun control laws, the state legislative committee dealing with their bills would allow a lot of public testimony, anybody could come and sign up to testify for or against a given bill. The dems were always trying to get military veterans, cops and scientific “experts” to testify on their side to build their credibility. A friend of mine, the late Colonel Robert “Bob” Barker (USAF ret), former head of the USAF shooting team, former intelligence officer, etc, showed up one time and volunteered to testify for the Dems, telling them who he was.
So eventually his turn to testify comes up and he sits at the microphone and starts talking first about when he was stationed in Korea, where he found that it was common for Korean criminals to sneak into peoples homes at night to burgle them, since most people there were unarmed, and how one burglar tried to burgle his home when he was asleep, but being a combat veteran, he was a light sleeper and kept a knife by his pillow, with which he was able to stick in the face of the burglar, who jumped out of his sandals and high-tailed it out of there. Bob got those Korean sandals bronzed and kept them on his desk for many years.
This obviously got the dems sweating with worry, and they had reason to worry, the next thing he talked about was a bombshell: He had been an intelligence officer, and after retiring, worked for the South Korean CIA, one time questioned a North Korean Commissar who had been caught sneaking across the border. He asked the Commissar if people in the North were allowed to own guns to protect themselves. The Commissar replied, “No, we found that once we took away peoples guns, taking their money was REAL easy.”
This caused a huge ruckus in the Committee hearing room, the Dems were really upset claiming the Republicans snuck him into the hearing, etc. when in fact he had just shown up of his own accord and hadn’t talked to anybody about being there or what he was going to say.
Thus, I am not surprised that there are very strict limitations on who gets to testify before this congressional committee, what we see in Congress really isn’t real democracy in action, its a duopoly that runs a fake democracy as a PR exercise but has election laws rigged to prevent any third choices for voters from getting on ballots or getting any fair public exposure.
What is equally, if not more so, important is how well prepared the anti-AGW politicians will be when question the Dem’s “experts.” If the they show up with “weak kung-fu” then this will be an embarrasment. The witnesses will do fine for the anti-AGW forces as they are well versed in the arguments and counter-arguments, I just don’t have faith in the politicians being equally versed, overall.
No offense, but Willis is not the right choice for a hearing. Remember that when going against lawyers or judges, you simply have your prepared answers to every question. This is a job for someone knowledgable but not prone to any ad hoc statements.
““Climate change deniers have a short bench, so we were not surprised at their witnesses,” said a Democratic aide.”
I wish the GOP would call a large number of scorcher-scoffers as witnesses. This would show that it’s not just a few cranks who are opposed to the scorcher scam, but lots of responsible and informed scientists.
Kevin,
Some politicians, like Inhofe, are pretty well versed, and their staffers are definitely well versed, these are youngsters who were debating stars at Harvard, Yale, etc. so they study up on their stuff. What matters is that the important facts and evidence get into the proper hands to do the best damage with.
Getting any of the Hockey Team members to testify for the Dems will be a golden opportunity to grill them under oath about a number of topics.
About the supposed short bench:
While the number of people willing to assume that CO2 has a big effect on the climate is huge, the number of people doing work that tries to prove or disprove that assumption is not quite so imbalanced. From http://www.co2science.org , we have the following:
The warmistas claims are based on proving:
1 – Modern warming is unprecedented
2 – We are approaching a tipping point caused by positive feedback
3 – The climate is non-linear and crossing the tipping point will cause a sudden and irreversible warming by about six degrees.
Of course, the existence of a Medieval Warm period with temperatures higher than today’s gives us serious reason to doubt that we are approaching any kind of tipping point. My impression is that the number of scientists doing work to prove or disprove positive feedback is actually quite small. In other words, both sides have a short bench.
I don’t think the Democratic aide was lying I just think he/she had no clue about what he/she was talking about.
Don’t forget that the opinions of congress are driven by each member’s staff. Members don’t have time or the expertise to select their staff. Many members of congress have no clue at all about science/economics/ etc. Yet we trust them to make policy for our society. The true policy makers are the special interests who pay senior members on both sides of the aisle to recommend/provide staff for junior members of congress. In this way, special interests maintain control over their flock. Control the thoughts, control the debate, control the policy.
The Republican should have called in a whole lot of talent, not just the egg heads with PhD’s.
This ceased to be a scientific debate in 1988, when Gore announced the debate was over.
willis has lots of cred with us but would be eaten up by the “peer review” clan.
Congressional hearings are stage-managed theatre. No more, no less. The real work goes on behind closed doors. Contacts with staff make a difference. Dancing with the stars not so much.
Shouldn’t there be proof? Like where is Al Gore’s warm swaddling blanket of CO2 when you need it.
That’s proof enough.
This makes me think fondly of Frankie Pentangeli. It’s a shame that elected officials in our country are allowed to never look the fool.
For maximum credibility I would like to have Prof Richard Lindzen testify. I’ve always liked his quote:
The head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department speaks with unassailable authority.
The short bench extends all the way out into most of the public. The catastrophic manmade global warming claims just don’t hold water. The simplest counter-argument, that carbon dioxide is a trace gas, man contributes a miniscule amount of it, and doing anything about it is pointless and actually economically self-destructive is the best one. KISS off the enviro-left by boiling everything down to brass tacks. Make them explain their “nuance” in public as the impact of green policies start to hit people in the pocketbook. People won’t be so quick and lazy-minded to defer to scientist-activists.
“Mike Lorrey says:
March 7, 2011 at 6:41 am
Kevin,
Some politicians, like Inhofe, are pretty well versed, and their staffers are definitely well versed, these are youngsters who were debating stars at Harvard, Yale, etc. so they study up on their stuff. What matters is that the important facts and evidence get into the proper hands to do the best damage with.
Getting any of the Hockey Team members to testify for the Dems will be a golden opportunity to grill them under oath about a number of topics.”
In the end they are politicians and if they begin to believe any of the doctored polls then they will pull their punches and not push futher and harder, add to that the false call of civility after that idiot in Tuscon and it does not bode well since Republicans in general have shown a willingness to “castrate” themselves. Should the hearings show that Inhofe and others like him are on their game and aren’t afraid then I will proudly be wrong, but I am not holding my breath.
I would have thought that Willis would have been an ideal person to present ‘our’ side of the case as he has a gift for clear and unequivocal presentation of complex concepts. While ‘our’ selected reps are well known and respected and will no doubt do a good job, Willis’ gift for communication could win the day dealing with politicians, who are not always impressed with very cerebral expositions.
As to ‘the Deniers having a short bench’, the turkey who made that comment obviously believes that there are only a few ‘deniers’, no doubt propped up by Big Oil.
Where do they find such numbskulls?
Some signs of hope from the Eastern side of the Atlantic:
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/2591-helmut-schmidt-calls-for-ipcc-inquiry.html
It is appropriate to submit written statements to the committee amicus legis lator. (no Latin lessons, please) I hope every scientist who posts here will do so. CC your local press.
@Mike Lorrey: You are one cynical son-of-a-gun. Good on yer, mate. The Barker testimony is indicative of the ease with which the Dems can be penetrated.
On a related note, the 3 children of the head of the OISM Petition project are being threatened with expulsion, organized by Democrat Party officials: click
At least the skeptics now have a voice. I would be interested in the list of other witnesses though. The public opinion is turning and this is all good. Slowly catchee monkey.
Skeptics have always “gotten a seat”. The problem is the best they could offer are the likes of Christopher Monckton (see this detailed sham-revealing evisceration of Monckton’s May 2010 testimony by climate scientists => http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-response.pdf BTW, this is a “must read” as I’m convinced that some here at WUWT do not understand the position of climate scientists on individual climate issues) and bought-and-paid-for lobbyist Pat Michaels (view his intentionally misleading Nov 2010 testimony, along with Dr. Santer realizing his “temptation”, here => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a4R1bKGsN8&feature=related )
… now we have the likes Sen. Inhofe and Rep. Hall playing significant roles on key congressional committees, with support by the likes of Rep. Rohrabacher. (view how Rep. Rohrabacher fared in his Nov 2010 challenge of Dr. Alley’s testimony, here => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2m9SNzxJJA )
… Good luck, and may our very best understanding of climate science rise to inform our national policy …. on this, color me skeptical.
As G. Beck says, Truth Has No Agenda.
Unfortunately, the Democrats, especially those at the EPA, do!
Unfortunately, these hearings are likely to be meaningless.
The MSM will only show the general public one side of the debate and ignore the other side, just as they have a along.
Beyond that, this administration seems to think it’s part of a Monarchy, they can just do as they please ignoring court orders or the publics desires.
And just cutting off EPA funding may not help. It appears that after FL turned down the $2.4 BILLION for high speed rail, the administration is going to shovel those funds to other states. Since the administration doesn’t seem concerned that the funds were to be spent on FL, and not elsewhere, who knows, they may funnel those funds to the EPA. The rule of law does not seem to get in their way.
Why not Monckton?
It is like trying to discuss the issues with a barroom brawler. While the Republicans witnesses are knowledgeable they should have at least one knowledgeable outspoken witness willing to speak as unreservedly as the Democrats witnesses. There is such a thing as being too reserved with the facts considering the audience.
Smokey says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:31 am
On a related note, the 3 children of the head of the OISM Petition project are being threatened with expulsion, organized by Democrat Party officials:
click
———
I clicked.
Quite a story! Sure shows their lack of ethics. There may be some help.
Both democrats and republicans have already decided how they are going to vote and this hearing has little to do with science but more about EPA not following Clean-Air-Act procedures in finding CO2 as a pollutant that could harm health and welfare. CO2 is not a health hazard and welfare effects are required by the act to be evaluated with respect to both costs and benefits, including control costs. This was not done and by using the IPCC report as justification, they did not do what the law requires. Let’s hope the republicans know the right questions to ask the “experts”.
They should have called Alan Carlin.
Smokey, was just reading your (jaw dropping) link when Anthony, thankfully, published a full post about this.
This crap has to stop.
The current administration is working a lot like the early Caesars. Lots of edicts to end-run the legislature.
w.r.t. OSU, this echos of the 60s/70s in the Eastern Block. When members of a family succeeded in fleeing to the West via Yugoslavia in 1970, their siblings were immediately expelled from the University. It happened to close friends from Czechoslovakia. This puts the Stalinistic/Statistic nature of the “Liberal Left” in sharp relief. NoCal & Oregon are fully functioning dictatorships of the proletariat. I suspect they will shortly rethink their stand on capital punishment for heretics.
Smokey says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:31 am
On a related note, the 3 children of the head of the OISM Petition project are being threatened with expulsion, organized by Democrat Party officials: click
I don’t see the relationship at all. The story was written by Art Robinson, a candidate who lost an election for HR. in Oregon, claiming that his kids had their graduate studies cut short at OSU by the actions of two professors there.
http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=19658&posts=1
Where is the relationship to climate change or even the Oregon petition. Neither of these are mentioned in Robinson’s story.
I haven’t seen any independent confirmation of this story by any real journalists yet. Robinson is planning to run again in 2012.
REPLY: Eadler, clueless as usual, political retribution is real. $27 million gravy or boot kids of your opponent. Do the math – Anthony
Dr. Christy is one of the best choices with impeccable credentials,
John R. Christy, B.A. Mathematics, California State University (1973), M.S. Atmospheric Science, University of Illinois (1984), Ph.D. Atmospheric Science, University of Illinois (1987), NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1991), American Meteorological Society’s Special Award (1996), Member, Committee on Earth Studies, Space Studies Board (1998-2001), Alabama State Climatologist (2000-Present), Fellow, American Meteorological Society (2002), Panel Member, Official Statement on Climate Change, American Geophysical Union (2003), Member, Committee on Environmental Satellite Data Utilization, Space Studies Board (2003-2004), Member, Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the last 2,000 years, National Research Council (2006), Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville (1991-Present), Director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville (2000-Present), Contributor, IPCC (1992, 1994, 1996, 2007), Lead Author, IPCC (2001)
“I’m sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see.” – John R. Christy
You can hear his position on climate change in this presentation,
Global Warming where is the alarm? (Video) (36min)
I am very relieved to hear that him and Pielke Sr. will be there.
I don’t see the point of these hearings. Both sides already know how it’s going to go.
Politicians like to run in circles. How about if the stop the money printing presses that will be running until we run out of trees? Or how about they begin cutting spending? America will fall into a greater depression than 1929-34 if Washington stays on this path. But maybe there are people that want that.
But they aren’t focusing on that. Instead they hold more meetings where the outcome is inevitable. What will be next, more baseball players talking about how they never used steroids?
There’s nothing to deny. No warming the last 10 years, no massive sea level rise, no extraordinary temperature rises, no catastrophic melting of sea ice or glaciers.
The Arctic and the Antarctic are still as uninhabitably cold as they ever were. Greenland is popsickleland. The Northern Hemisphere had a very cold & rough winter, as S. Hemisphere had an Antarctic blast get loose up S. America. Hurricanes are conspicuously thin.
Nothing to deny.
So, what is this big shindig all about?
Roy Spencer has complained that warmist climatologists have a habit of ignoring skeptical papers, and that he hasn’t been able to get them to notice his recent paper about the negative-feedback role of clouds. So here’s a suggestion: The GOP should ask the alarmist scientists what their defense is against a it and a dozen other (say) scorcher-scoffer critiques of the case for CACA (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism). Since the warmist cult is rather ingrown and hasn’t engaged in debates or discussion with the other side, it’s possible that some of them haven’t heard of some of these criticisms and would be baffled for an answer, or could provide only a feeble response. That would show that the consensus is not robust. It might embarrass the other side, the way an EPA official was recently embarrassed by a question she couldn’t answer.
Let’s be generous and say that there are 400 PPM of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. That means that there are 40 CO2 molecules per 100,000 molecules of other gases, almost all oxygen and nitrogen. Of those 40 molecules of CO2, being generous again, 2 molecules are human-caused. 2 molecules of CO2 among 100,000 other molecules, how dreadful – NOT.
Instead of these philosophers, who obviously have little knowledge of the fundamentals of chemistry, have a few professional chemical engineers testify, people who know how to “do the calcs”. I am not exactly a “skeptic”, but one who knows the fundamentals of both chemistry and physics and how to do the calcs, and the philosophy that human-caused CO2 is harmful in the least, or that human-caused CO2 has any significant effect on either weather or climate is pure bilge.
Circa 1950, a bumper crop of corn in NW Iowa was a yield of 60 bushels per acre. If planted in a modern way, could be 90 bushels per acre. Presently, a yield of 140 bushels per acre is common, due to increased levels of CO2. I guess all that extra food is harmful to health.
Environmentalists have unfortunately undermined the case against real, smog-creating pollution by equating it to benign (or at least completely different in nature) CO2 emisions.
Fred Singer would be a great choice. I like a lot of what Willis writes, but Singer has the credentials. Richard Lindzen would also be excellent.
Steve McIntyre would also be a logical choice as a reasoned, published critic, plus Anthony for his work on Surface Stations and WUWT.
Both the Labour Government and Liberal opposition, in AUS, tell us that they believe in man made climate change and that they can control climate using tax dollars.
The first independent that disagrees with this, will get an enormous amount of support from the electorate.
“Climate change deniers have a short bench, so we were not surprised at their witnesses,” said a Democratic aide.
Doubtful a “short [sceptic] bench” having an implied ~ “uncredible or few witnesses”, since it appears that the, ergo, Climate change “believers” ride only on the Short Bus; because by way of their brilliant Climate Science Propaganda Op., they have likewise finally managed to define “climate change” as something which has never happened before and can’t happen unless it’s caused by Humans, because according to them, “climate change” = “CO2=CAGW”.
This is a House Committee, so the Chair is now a Republican. The Chair controls the number of witnesses, etc., and so it is quite odd that only John Christie and Pielke Sr are called. Both are well-published/credentialled and good presenters, but RP Sr (like son Jr) is too quick to talk about “decarbonization” of the economy. I don’t doubt the Pielkes’ sincerity but I think their concern over the logarithmic absorption effects of a trace gas is misplaced. Just a geologist speaking here.
RP Sr is not the preferred voice of the skeptical side when the matter of EPA control of carbon emissions is on the table. Roy Spencer would be more effective – he’s got the testable hypothesis (negative cloud feedback) that puts the AGW house-of-cards right in the cross-hairs.
Saving energy is good conservative strategy, whether household or national in scope.
Stopping carbon emissions to Save The Planet is stupid and economically disastrous.
Jack Greer says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:46 am
Skeptics have always “gotten a seat”. The problem is the best they could offer are the likes of Christopher Monckton (see this detailed sham-revealing evisceration of Monckton’s May 2010 testimony by climate scientists => http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-response.pdf
Detailed–yes–it was far far longer than I have time to read. Evisceration it was not. I was struck by the total lack of scientific references.
Highly intelligent people can abuse their minds to create reasons for believing anything, so yeah, there were some smart statements. But reliable or believeable, it was not.
Monckton wins again.
Poptech says:
March 7, 2011 at 9:58 am
“Dr. Christy is one of the best choices…”
Best choices if you intend on selecting a scientist who built much of his career on screwing up UAH’s analysis. Left it for mears et al and santer et al to clean up his mess. How hard is it to check one’s data for a simple sign error?
As usual, Republicans are going to put on a bit of a show for their base, but, afraid of being called “mean” by the MSM, are going to back down from their position. Nothing will change.
First the CAGW warmers said snow will be a thing of the past, and earlier Springs, too. Then we had heavy snows, and some CAGWs said
global warmingclimate change caused the snows.Now, I expect the CAGW warmers, maybe even those testifying to the Congressional committees, that the late Springs we’re having are
global warmingclimate change, too.I wonder how many gaffes will be said under oath?
Tony says:
March 7, 2011 at 12:56 pm
“As usual, Republicans are going to put on a bit of a show for their base, but, afraid of being called “mean” by the MSM, are going to back down from their position. Nothing will change.”
That’s my bet too. Too many of them still fear the media and try to suck up to them for favorable press. The simply have not learned that the media will never give them a decent shot as they are all liberals deep down. When the econazis try to turn the lights on or turn the heat up, or start their cars and nothing happens, then things might change.
Tony says:
March 7, 2011 at 12:56 pm
“As usual, Republicans are going to put on a bit of a show for their base, but, afraid of being called “mean” by the MSM, are going to back down from their position. Nothing will change.”
That’s my bet too. Too many of them still fear the media and try to suck up to them for favorable press. They simply have not learned that the media will never give them a decent shot as they are all liberals deep down. When the econazis try to turn the lights on or turn the heat up, or start their cars and nothing happens, then things might change.
Jack Greer says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:46 am
(see this detailed sham-revealing evisceration of Monckton’s May 2010 testimony by climate scientists => http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-response.pdf BTW, this is a “must read” as I’m convinced that some here at WUWT do not understand the position of climate scientists on individual climate issues)
Jack, suppose you instead first try to get the CO2=CAGW Climate Science Propaganda Operation, to operate according to the principles of real science instead of intentionally avoiding them? First things first, Jack.
rbateman says:
March 7, 2011 at 10:35 am
There’s nothing to deny. No warming the last 10 years,
1} no massive sea level rise,
2} no extraordinary temperature rises,
3} no catastrophic melting of sea ice or glaciers.
The Arctic and the Antarctic are still as uninhabitably cold as they ever were. Greenland is popsickleland. The Northern Hemisphere had a very cold & rough winter, as S. Hemisphere had an Antarctic blast get loose up S. America. Hurricanes are conspicuously thin. Nothing to deny. So, what is this big shindig all about?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What are you saying? If you don’t see “catastrophic” melt within five or ten years you won’t believe it?
Don’t these documented trends mean anything to you?
1} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
2} http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
3} http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
3} http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110121144011.htm
Where in that information indicating a moderating of the observed increasing global temperatures trend… and proxy indicators? (heck even UAH’s graph shows a steady uphill trudge)
~ ~ ~
As for “Hurricanes are conspicuously thin.”
Actually it was an active hurricane season in the Atlantic, check it out at: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2010atlan.shtml. We just got lucky with the landfalls. Yes the Pacific was calmer, but the La Nina has plenty to do with that. And there seems to be some decent action around Austrailia http://www.australiasevereweather.com/cyclones/
Roger Knights says ~ March 7, 2011 at 10:55 am:
Since the warmist cult is rather ingrown and hasn’t engaged in debates or discussion with the other side, it’s possible that some of them haven’t heard of some of these criticisms and would be baffled for an answer, or could provide only a feeble response.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
RK, Could you give a list of these criticisms, the ones backed up with science?
Robert says:
March 7, 2011 at 12:51 pm
How hard is it to check one’s data for a simple sign error?
Any math is pretty damn hard according to ipcc CO2=CAGW Climate Science, whose no doubt “unprecedented” peer-review process producing the SPM4 was still unable to result in correctly adding up each of two columns having only 4 numbers each in its Table involving alleged contributions to recent sea level increases, getting it wrong in both cases in a way which favored its CO2=CAGW “science”.
It’s apparently amost impossibly tough out there for ipcc CO2=CAGW Climate Science to get anything right, especially its predictions, judging by the fact that it hasn’t.
But, fortuneately, the UN ipcc Climate Science process, enc., did allow countries containing about 5 billion of the Earth’s 6.5+ billion people to not have to adhere to their stringent Kyoto Protocols alleged cure to their alleged disease, thus earning them at least some cred for being “precautionary”.
Perhaps they could subpoena Al Gore and have him testify under oath!
citizenschallenge says:
March 7, 2011 at 2:04 pm
What are you saying? If you don’t see “catastrophic” melt within five or ten years you won’t believe it?
Strawman fail, citizen = no cred. [Or are you actually “hearing voices”?]
citizenschallenge says:
March 7, 2011 at 2:09 pm
RK, Could you give a list of these criticisms, the ones backed up with science?
What seems more important, citizen, why don’t you instead try giving one successful CO2=CAGW Climate Science prediction uniquely attached to that “science”, backed up with real science, but not counting what “the voices” might be telling you?
And, btw, since Anthropogenic Climate Disruption is now postulated by CO2=CAGW Climate Science to be whatever it chooses as allegedly “unprecedented” weather events, but which in each case so far have subsequently been shown to have not been proven to have occurred as unprecedented, regardless, is the “climate” apparently pertaining to ACD and thus CAGW now “weather” according to CO2=CAGW Climate Science?
Lady Life Grows says:
March 7, 2011 at 12:37 pm
“Skeptics have always “gotten a seat”. The problem is the best they could offer are the likes of Christopher Monckton”
Roy Spencer’s “The Great Global Warming Blunder” has been out for well over a year and makes an excellent case that the Warmista do not have physical hypotheses which could explain or predict the forcings, as in cloud behavior, that must exist if CO2 is to cause a dangerous temperature rise. Not one Warmista has addressed Spencer’s main thesis. In fact, not one Warmista will address any question about physical hypotheses at all. Why is that? Because they have no reasonably confirmed physical hypotheses about the behavior of clouds or similar phenomena. They are not physical scientists. All they have are computer simulations. All they are willing to talk about is computer simulation. They are not just computer nerds but idiot savants. As with all idiot savants, their special expertise is worthless to them and to everyone.
Congress should lay down the law that computer simulations cannot be used as evidence in any form or fashion and that Congress will not consider computer simulations when making decisions about climate science. Congress should create legislation to force EPA to follow suit.
Will you address this matter of physical hypotheses, My Lady?
citizenschallenge says:
March 7, 2011 at 2:04 pm
“What are you saying? If you don’t see “catastrophic” melt within five or ten years you won’t believe it?
Don’t these documented trends mean anything to you?
1} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
2} http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
3} http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
3} http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110121144011.htm”
Who are you to assign homework? If you cannot explain the matter in your own words then you do not understand it.
I don’t buy the argument that nothing will change. It has already changed.
The number one issue for the electorate right now is the economy, jobs, deficit…
The electorate is slowly becoming aware of how much global warming policies are costing them. That’s the backdrop of this particular hearing which hasn’t been the case in the past. If the Republicans have any brains (and I’m not saying they do) they’ll spend more time on how mitigation policy affects jobs than on the science.
The warmists have abandoned science in favour of alarmism in the form of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. They are vulnerable to their own game.
How much will personal income tax rise to pay for program X?
How many people will lost their jobs if we implement program X?
Will we have to abandon health care initiatives in order to afford program X?
How many teachers will have to be laid off to pay for program X?
How many people on fixed income will fall under the poverty line because of program X?
How much will welfare benefits be cut to pay for program X?
If we run a deficit to pay for program X, what will China take as collatoral? Texas?
Ask the right questions and the MSM, defenders of the weak, the unemployed, the downtrodden masses, will have little choice but to at least think about it.
Maybe the heat should shut off and windows opened. LOL
davidmhoffer says:
March 7, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Very well said. In addition, they should hold up Britain as a royal example of the disaster that Warmista bring upon a nation. We are fortunate that Britain has gone over the edge of the cliff and is in free fall. The Brits never had much wealth and now Warmista policies have doomed them with a return to the Great Depression. That little object lesson should be held in the face of the Warmista daily.
Doug in Seattle, “The Republican should have called in a whole lot of talent, not just the egg heads with PhD’s.”
That is a very bad idea, anyone without credentials will easily get dismissed for this reason.
David S, “Why not Monckton?”
He does not have the credentials (No science degree, no publication history, no climate science position held ect…).
Hu McCulloch, “Steve McIntyre would also be a logical choice as a reasoned, published critic,”
Only if the issue is on one of the subjects he has explicitly published on. Otherwise on all other issues he will defer or not comment on. With the right questioning they might even get him to indirectly concede things that would not be helpful.
The best credentialed skeptic choices are still, Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, Singer and S. Idso. They are the most versed on the science and have credentials that cannot be argued. Lindzen and Idso have extensive publications and are both ISI Highly Cited researchers, so is Pielke Sr.
There are others to choose from but those are still the best.
Theo Goodwin says:
March 7, 2011 at 3:26 pm
citizenschallenge says:
March 7, 2011 at 2:04 pm
“What are you saying? If you don’t see “catastrophic” melt within five or ten years you won’t believe it?
Don’t these documented trends mean anything to you?
1} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
2} http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
3} http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
3} http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110121144011.htm”
“Who are you to assign homework? If you cannot explain the matter in your own words then you do not understand it.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
TG, What is this misdirection all about?
Rbateman made the claim and I was disputing it with science, not opinion:
1} no massive sea level rise,
2} no extraordinary temperature rises,
3} no catastrophic melting of sea ice or glaciers.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And I presented factual evidence that all of his three items are indeed heading the wrong direction. What’s wrong with looking at evidence?
It seems to me ‘coolistas’ are the ones that constantly resorting to hyperbole. Emotionalizing the issue is a great tactic, but it does not honestly tell us what the scientific community is observing and reporting.
But, also let’s not forget Einstein’s observation that “the greatest force in the universe is accumulating interest”. A millimeters on top of millimeters become a meter, the same with melting of glaciers and rising of sea level.
Folks, oil closed at a two-year high of $106/barrel. I really don’t think many political actions to stem fossil fuel production will be popular up on Capital Hill for either party.
Between gasoline approaching $5.00 per gallon, and NASA blowing up $0.5 billion climate-change satellites, climate disruption doesn’t sound like a politically defensible position anymore. Just sayin’.
Poptech;
The best credentialed skeptic choices are still, Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, Singer and S. Idso. They are the most versed on the science and have credentials that cannot be argued. Lindzen and Idso have extensive publications and are both ISI Highly Cited researchers, so is Pielke Sr.>>>
These are public hearings, reported on by media reporters who can’t differentiate the difference in expertise between a philosopher and a physicist. Its all just strings of letters behind a name. The best candidate is the one who can articulate the issues in sound bytes that reporters can understand, and understands that the dumbest question at just the right time scores more points than the most rock solid science.
“I’m sorry Mr Hansen, I’m confused. You said that global warming would cause massive crop failure, and then you said we should fight it by switching from oil to ethanol from corn, I really would like to understand this better, you’re saying we can stave off hunger by burning the food?”
“I’m sorry Mr Hansen, can you explain why your temperature record and the one from Britain don’t agree again, the part about you use land temperatures over the ocean and they use ocean temperatures over the ocean is where I’m sort of lost.”
etc etc
commieBob March 7, 2011 at 6:42 am says: “The warmistas claims are based on proving: “1 – Modern warming is unprecedented
2 – We are approaching a tipping point caused by positive feedback
3 – The climate is non-linear and crossing the tipping point will cause a sudden and irreversible warming by about six degrees.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
First off, can you define “Warmistas” I don’t understand what you mean?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Seems to me you got some straw men there. Shouldn’t the first order of business be getting a clearer picture of what is going on within our atmosphere… and how that relates to weather patterns, etc. which over the long term is categorized as climate?
Your above three points mischaracterize the basic understanding we must achieve.
I would suggest the following list of questions are more appropriate:
1 – Does CO2 (along with other GHGs) influence our atmosphere? 1a – Is there physical evidence to suggest CO2 has thermo properties… have those properties been quantified?
1b – Is there evidence that atmospheric CO2 (& GHG) levels are increasing due to human activity?
1c – Is there evidence to suggest real-time effects of CO2’s atmospheric thermo properties is being witnessed on the planet?
2 – Beyond that: Are our oceans drivers of warming/cooling or do they merely circulate warmth according to the atmosphere’s thermo condition and their interface?
3 – Is the sun, {or Earth’s orbital variations}, acting in a manner that is meaningfully increasing or decreasing current insolation (incoming sun’s energy)?
4 – Which temperature reconstructions can we trust?
5 – Where is the IPCC claiming tipping points, or imminent catastrophe?
I mentioned one, Spencer’s cloud-dynamics analysis, which has had threads here devoted to it, and is described in his book The Great Global Warming Blunder, listed on the sidebar here. That seems to me to be the strongest criticism. Most of the others can be found in the NIPCC report, and in books like Steve Gorham’s Climatology!, which contains lots of citations. (I think there have been a few other compilations of criticisms published recently too.) And of course there are lots of critical threads here that are science-based–i.e., not just arm-waving–such as Willis’s.
I dunno if they’re all peer-reviewed, but that stamp-of-approval is the mark-of-the-beast where climatology is concerned.
RockyRoad says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:46 am
As G. Beck says, Truth Has No Agenda.
Unfortunately, the Democrats, especially those at the EPA, do!
—————————-
Om a skeptic on CAGW. I still think Beck is the biggest moron of all… A moron with
A moron with an agenda.
davidmhoffer, “These are public hearings, reported on by media reporters who can’t differentiate the difference in expertise between a philosopher and a physicist. Its all just strings of letters behind a name. The best candidate is the one who can articulate the issues in sound bytes that reporters can understand, and understands that the dumbest question at just the right time scores more points than the most rock solid science.”
If your purpose is not to convince anyone in Congress or anyone who is unfamiliar with the debate then that sounds like a good strategy because as soon as they hear “he is not a scientist” they will ignore everything he has to say.
Poptech says:
March 8, 2011 at 9:51 am
davidmhoffer, “These are public hearings, reported on by media reporters who can’t differentiate the difference in expertise between a philosopher and a physicist. Its all just strings of letters behind a name. The best candidate is the one who can articulate the issues in sound bytes that reporters can understand, and understands that the dumbest question at just the right time scores more points than the most rock solid science.”
“If your purpose is not to convince anyone in Congress or anyone who is unfamiliar with the debate then that sounds like a good strategy because as soon as they hear “he is not a scientist” they will ignore everything he has to say.”
You are vastly over estimating the intellectual capacity of the members of congress. Just recently one of them in a conversation with a US Navy Admiral conjectured that if more troops were put on an island it might capsize!! And he was not kidding, either!
citizenschallenge says:
March 7, 2011 at 2:09 pm
“RK, Could you give a list of these criticisms, the ones backed up with science?”
You really do not have a clue about scientific method. It is by its very nature critical. Good critical work on a scientific theory stands on its own. To think that you must then supply a theory to replace the one criticized is to reveal a misunderstanding so basic that it could only be characteristic of a teenager.
Scientific method is not about choosing among lots of apples. It is about pruning the tree of science to remove the dead wood. That is criticism, and you have no clue what the word means.
Here’s the archive of the testimony video:
http://energycommerce.edgeboss.net/wmedia/energycommerce/energy/ep030811.cut.wvx
I should also have mentioned the list, maintained originally by Inhofe, of hundreds of papers whose findings cast doubt, to some extent, on various aspects of Warmism. (I can’t find the link–maybe someone will post it. It’s probably on Morano’s site.)
Our side isn’t organized, as I’ve mentioned in my little article, “Notes from Skull Island,” here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/17/climate-debate-rages-in-the-australian/#comment-556455
We ought to have a site that is a counterpoint to the Skepticalscience site, containing bite-sized summaries of our position, supplemented by links. I.e., a sort of giant FAQ. Lucy Skywalker has been pleading for support for such a venture for years, but her check from Big Oil keeps getting lost in the mail.
Roger Knights, that list of papers is maintained by poptech who posted above. I agree that a counterpoint to SS would be useful to debunk the CAGW pseudoscience. But it’s a big task and it’s hard to get agreement of principles among skeptics. Some will want to critique GW or AGW instead of properly focusing on CAGW.
Eric (skeptic) said March 9, 2011 at 9:29 am:
“Roger Knights, that list of papers is maintained by poptech who posted above. I agree that a counterpoint to SS would be useful to debunk the CAGW pseudoscience. But it’s a big task and it’s hard to get agreement of principles among skeptics. Some will want to critique GW or AGW instead of properly focusing on CAGW.”
Exactly! Y’all look like a bunch of Keystone Cops individually flinging spaghetti against a wall, much of it very petty spaghetti (e.g. local/regional weather reports) … scientifically, it ain’t stickin’.
citizenschallenge says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Theo Goodwin says:
March 7, 2011 at 3:26 pm
citizenschallenge says:
March 7, 2011 at 2:04 pm
“And I presented factual evidence that all of his three items are indeed heading the wrong direction. What’s wrong with looking at evidence?”
Please learn the English language. You presented TESTIMONY. Testimony is all the Warmista know. Not one of them has EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. Don’t know the difference do you? Testimony is a report by another person of their experiences that you are using because you have not experienced the phenomena in question. When you report your own experiences, you are reporting empirical evidence.
citizenschallenge:
At March 7, 2011 at 2:09 pm you ask;
“ Could you give a list of these criticisms, the ones backed up with science?”
A list is not necessary because only one significant item of empirical evidence is sufficient to disprove a scientific hypothesis. So, I will provide one such item.
The ‘hot spot’ is a unique effect of global warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. This ‘hot spot’ is a rate of warming at altitude in the tropics that is between 2 and 3 times the warming at the surface in the tropics.
The fact that the ‘hot spot’ is a unique effect of global warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations is clearly stated in the most recent report of the Scientific Working Group (WG1) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The matter is explained in Chapter 9 of their Fourth Report (AR4). The entire Chapter can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html
The explanation is spelt out in Section 9.2.2 of the Chapter which is titled “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of the Response to Different Forcings and their Uncertainties” and is at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-2.html
The explanation is summarised by Figure 9.1 of that Section. Its title is
Figure 9.1.
Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999 (°C per century) as simulated by the PCM model from
(a) solar forcing,
(b) volcanoes,
(c) well-mixed greenhouse gases,
(d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes,
(e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing and
(f) the sum of all forcings.
Plot is from 1,000 hPa to 10 hPa (shown on left scale) and from 0 km to 30 km (shown on right). See Appendix 9.C for additional information. Based on Santer et al. (2003a).
Only Figures 9.1(c) and 9.1(f) show the ‘hot spot’. So, according to the IPCC,
1.
the ‘hot spot’ is a unique ‘fingerprint’ of warming from “well-mixed greenhouse gases”(see Figure 9.1 (c))
and
2.
the warming from “well-mixed greenhouse gases” is so strong an effect that it overwhelms the combined effects of all other forcings ”(see Figure 9.1 (f)).
But the direct empirical evidence shows the ‘hot spot’ has not occurred: it is missing. The greater warming at altitude than at the surface in the tropics. Indeed, measurements indicate slightly less warming at altitude than at the surface in the tropics.
The missing ‘hot spot’ is indicated by the independent measurements from radiosondes on weather balloons conducted since 1958 and by microwave sounding units mounted on satellites since 1979. Please note that the IPCC Figure 9.1 provides estimates for the period from 1890 to 1999 but more than 80% of the increase in “well-mixed greenhouse gases” was after 1940 and, therefore, the measurements should have detected a greater ‘hot spot’ than was predicted by the IPCC.
Hence, the empirical evidence disproves the anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) hypothesis promoted by the IPCC.
Richard
Richard S Courtney is right.
From Ross McKittrick’s peer reviewed paper: click
How do you explain that, citizenschallenge?