Today is a day I got not one thing done for myself due to the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature release sucking all the oxygen out of the climate debate with their pre-peer review release shenanigans. Tonight was no different, as I spent it watching Dr. Ben Santer give a presentation at Chico State University. I had a front row seat, as you can see below:
First I’d like to say that no, he didn’t try to make good on the famous Climategate email line about Pat Michaels. Both he and the host, Jim Pushnik were quite gracious, with both of them talking to me personally. I was prepared to stand up and argue the use of the word “denier” should Dr. Santer have used it, fortunately he did not. I was surprised that Dr. Santer recognized me when I asked a question (I talked with him afterwards), unfortunately, I didn’t phrase the question well enough, and I should have brought a printout of the graph I was thinking of with me. More here.
Here’s the program, video follows.
From CSUC
Dr. Ben Santer Speaks on Climate Change, Oct. 20
Please join us October 20th for an important climate event!
Dr. Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will speak on “The causes of recent climate change: Separating fact from fiction”
Date: Thursday, October 20th
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Place: Colusa Hall Conference Center, Room 100
Cost: Free and open to the public, seating may be limited.
Climate scientist Ben Santer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), shared in the Nobel Prize awarded to the IPCC and has received a Distinguished Fellowship from the American Geophysical Union, and MacArthur Genius Fellowship for his research on human‐induced climate change (read full story).
Dr. Benjamin Santer is currently a atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). His research focuses on such topics as climate model evaluation, the use of statistical methods in climate science, and identification of natural and anthropogenic “fingerprints” in observed climate records. Dr. Santer’s early research on the climatic effects of combined changes in greenhouse gases (GHGs) and sulfate aerosols contributed to the historic “discernible human influence” conclusion of the 1995 Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Santer, is considered an expert in the climate change research community, has worked in the Laboratory’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Inter-comparison (PCMDI) for nearly 20 years, and is a frequent contributor to congressional hearings on the science of climate change. He credits his success to the exceptional scientists he collaborates with at LLNL.
Presented by The Institute for Sustainable Development, the Rawlins Endowed Professorship for Environmental Literacy, and the Gateway Science Museum.
==============================================================
Part 2 – only 3 minutes of Q&A and then my battery died, there was about 5 minutes of questions after that.
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Could you paraphrase the 2 questions in the Q&A? Couldn’t pick them up.
I’d have loved to follow-up on the human sourcing of CO2, in the form: “Why does the Mona Loa record not show any fluctuations in trend corresponding to significant variations in human CO2 output that occurred since record-keeping there began?”
If it doesn’t fluctuate, it’s not measuring anthro-GHG contributions. Period.
REPLY: Turn up your volume, and sheesh I’ve spent my whole day servicing people and the cause of skepticism on my blog, I’ve taken abuse of all sorts, got no work done for myself, and now you want me to spend time to transcribe and paraphrase questions for you? And you still haven’t figured out from the several blog posts I’ve written and my about page that I’m hearing impaired and couldn’t hear the questions, much less Dr. Santer talking to me directly and I had to ask him to speak up? 24 hours timeout for you – Anthony
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories?
If I remember correctly, back in the 80’s they were the backbone of the USA effort, led by President Reagan, to develop the “Strategic Defence Initiative” (a.k.a. the “Star Wars”).
They were working hard to develop laser beam guns, A-bomb activated neutron beam weapons, and other stunny weaponry devoted to fight (and perhaps to win…) WW III against the former Soviet Union.
In the same manner, a lot of people at NASA (born as NACA, we should remember…), was working for the US military (any aviation entusiast knows that most US combat aircraft (F14 Tomcat, F16 Viper) have been developed, at least in the early stages of their R&D history, in the NASA laboratories).
So, it really seems that we are just facing a lot of orphans from the Cold War, jobless after the collapse of the USSR in the early 90’s and desperately searching for funding…
I also remember a statement from the ancient Roman Emperor Tito Flavio Vespasiano, after issueing a “tax” on public toilets (after that, the Romans had to give a coin to use them): he put a coin under the nose of a senator that was “skeptical” about the new “tax”, and he simply stated: “non olet” (in latin: “it DOES’NT smells”).
After that “tax”, here in Italy public toilets are also referred to as “vespasiani”….
Just my 2 cents
Dario
When it is all said and done, it is this man who will go down in history as the most important actor at a pivotal moment in the history of the whole extraordinary story in the history of science. December 1995. IPCC SAR Ch 8. Ben Santer. Study him well. He is the man.
” … identification of natural and anthropogenic “fingerprints” in observed climate records”. To save having to listen to all his nonsense, in brief, what does he claim man’s elusive “fingerprint” on climate to be ?
Santer’s reply to the first question in Part 2 is completely unsatisfactory. He basically says: “Look at the photographs of the things we’ve changed. Clearly we’ve changed them. So man has got to be the cause of the climate change.”
What kind of argumentation is that! He wasn’t lying when he said that answer “came from the seat of his pants”.
What Santer and his group have done is that they took the murder weapon, wiped off all the fingerprints, asked CO2 to hold it for a minute, and now insist CO2 committed the murder because its fingerprints are on the only ones they can see on the weapon. It amazes me how the sun drove the climate on earth for 4.5 billion years, and now they expect us to believe that it stopped 100 years ago and that everything has since been taken over by man-made CO2.
Puny muons can’t change the system, by puny CO2 does it all?
Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of having 90 minutes to waste watching Santer spill from the seat of his pants.
Dr Santer is obviously a man of great intellect and, I have no doubt, integrity, but he seems to have had his “Great Idea” when he was young and now spends his life trying to protect the Plinth that his statue will eventually stand on.
Anthony: thanks for this and the many other excellent posts of late. It certainly has been a busy day and I don’t know how you get so much done. Particularly when your patience must be tried by incompetence (or worse) on the part of others. The shenanigans of the BEST people being only one example. Keep up the good work, please!
jonova does a good write up on the missing fingerprint in her sceptics guide
Based on a Press release at the BBC, the following is claimed:
1. The temperature index since about 1800 produced by CRU is broadly similar to that produced by a group of independent evaluators.
2. According to those evaluators, rises in temperature in urban areas are mimicked by those in rural ones.
3. There has been a rise of about 1 degree Celsius since 1940.
Based on the story there, there is no discussion whatsoever about what caused the temperature modulations. Nothing to do with carbon dioxide at all. Nothing.
What is also clear is that the records being discussed are only since the Little Ice Age. There is no discussion about the climate optimum which preceded the Little Ice Age.
The implications of this work, if true, are the following:
1. It’s a good idea for multiple independent verifications to take place.
2. It’s a good idea for objections to be examined thoroughly, scientifically and objectively.
3. It’s also advisable to suggest that you don’t have to question the temperature record to question the cause of the change. The implication of the story is that ‘deniers’ claim that the temperature records are definitely wrong,rather than skeptics implying that the reasons for temperature oscillation may not be driven by carbon dioxide.
4. It is good to circulate results widely prior to publication to allow thorough discussion in the scientific community of results prior to publication.
I still await a satisfactory explanation from CRU as to how the Romans could possibly grow grapes in Lincolnshire if carbon dioxide levels are the sole driver of temperature. They quite clearly aren’t unless all the data over one hundred thousand year studies correlating temperature and carbon dioxide are wrong.
I’d also like scientists to start discussing the relationships between oceanic SSTs, land-based SSTs and stratospheric/atmospheric temperature. Because land temperatures are but one subset of the whole, yet they have produced this frenzy of the past 20 years wholly discrediting the scientific method in the process.
Climate science is still in the understand phase, yet what we have are a bunch of primary school children preaching the Word of God.
A little humility, a little more caution and a lot more openness is what is required.,…….
They all have the same kind of beard.
Anthony, for whatever it’s worth, I hope I can ask you to have a little patience with any comments about volume – many of us have volume problems. I typically use a laptop with the volume at max, AND plug in a set of speakers because that’s slightly louder than the in-computer speakers, and STILL far too often streaming video volume is so low that it’s very difficult to hear, particularly any of the softer speaking that occurs. Not to mention that some folks out here also have hearing problems also. I gather laptops are rather notorious for low volume problems.
Please don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting you transcribe etc… just trying to point out that there can be very legitimate issues with volume on the Internet all depending on one’s system and personal hearing issues. Shoot, I can watch the exact same video file on two different players (e.g., VLC vs. Quicktime or vs. GOM or vs Windows Media Player or vs. Realplayer), and on one barely be able to make out anything people are saying, but on the other be able to hear them fine – all with the exact same computer settings (usually max volume!). So there’s got to be issues even within the programs we use to listen to things that affects how well we can hear things, even with the volume at max level.
I also suspect digital compression and/or signal saturation issues may be playing a part in why it seems all too often anymore TV, movie, etc., background music tracts may sound loud enough or too loud, but the speaking can barely be made out. I may be wrong about that, but it’s my suspicion. There’s no question it’s happening with music. This short video is a real eye opener:
And an article explaining the issue more (primarily about music): http://www.dr-lex.be/info-stuff/loudness_wars.html
“When it is all said and done, it is this man who will go down in history as the most important actor at a pivotal moment in the history of the whole extraordinary story in the history of science. December 1995. IPCC SAR Ch 8. Ben Santer. Study him well. He is the man.”
Really?
Seems to argue strawmen and is boring.
Do anyone think the sun is only cause temperature change?
It’s beyond obvious the Sun is main driver of temperature, but that not
same as only cause. I think all people including 5 year olds have notice things like clouds, and basically the chaotic nature of weather and climate.
And what is this nature vs Man thing. Isn’t human a natural creature?
Doesn’t life have a “fingerprint” on climate. It’s silly, Life transformed Earth’s climate.
And our atmosphere has .03% CO2 which around 3 trillion tonnes of CO2- and we suppose to believe 80% of it is from humans. I wouldn’t care if 100% was from humans, what I care about is wasting my time listening to an idiot.
Oh dear, hear I go again, & I am sorry for this, but UNIPCC SPM reports, “we don’t know exactly how Element A (Sun), affects element B (Earth’s Climate), but we know for certain that it has been overpowered by Element C (manmade CO2)! Now that’s pure logic – NOT! Apparently a 1/10th of 1 percent change in TSI & a 6-8% change in UV/EUV in somehing that contains 99.9% of the mass of the Solar Sytem (the clue is in the name – it’s not called the Solar System for nothing), 332,290 times the mass of the Earth, doesn’t affect Earth’s Climate at all today (just the winter weather in the Northern Hemishpere according to The Wet Office – UK), although it has done for billions of years beforehand as they readily admit! Makes sense? I don’t fink so!!!
I think our leader is grumpy today after being pretty near “used up”. How he carries the load he totes is a mystery to me, but that’s why he’s our leader in this battle against abject foolishness. We “weekend warriors” should all keep that in mind.
Of AGW and Mastodons: Extinct.
Going quietly into that dark night of extinction.
…-
Mastodons:
“Old American theory is ‘speared'”
“”You know, the Clovis-first model has been dying for some time,” he finished. “But there’s nothing harder to change than a paradigm, than long-standing thinking. When Clovis-First was first proposed, it was a very elegant model but it’s time to move on, and most of the archaeological community is doing just that.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15391388
…-
AGW:
“Terence Corcoran: Climate issue off the agenda”
“On eve of UN meeting, reports reveal an overwhelming urge to do nothing
It’s been 23 years since I first wrote about the greenhouse effect and climate change for the Financial Post, on June 29, 1988. The column began:” […]
“As a result, climate-change policy and carbon-emission controls are rapidly moving off the policy agenda. Benign neglect appears to be back in vogue.
In the United States, a New York Times environment writer last Sunday lamented the fact that global warming has lost momentum. “America has turned agnostic on the issue,” it said. The article quoted Andrew J. Hoffman, director of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainable Development: “In Washington, ‘climate change’ has become a lightning rod; it’s a four-letter word.””
“A lot of policy and science talk but little action has marked the greenhouse gas issue since 1989. As economic turmoil and sovereign-debt crises spread, no government or politicians can seriously entertain major carbon adventures. Having made a mess of economic intervention, governments are not yet ready to do it all again over climate.”
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/10/20/terence-corcoran-climate-issue-off-the-agenda/
Odd the Youtube video I posted seems to have simply displayed a blank area… trying again (re digitial compression and effect on sound quality):
Or if that doesn’t work again, try: http://tinyurl.com/2qm83b
Disko Troop says:
October 21, 2011 at 2:09 am
Dr Santer is obviously a man of great intellect and, I have no doubt, integrity, but he seems to have had his “Great Idea” when he was young and now spends his life trying to protect the Plinth that his statue will eventually stand on.
berniel says:
October 21, 2011 at 1:22 am
When it is all said and done, it is this man who will go down in history as the most important actor at a pivotal moment in the history of the whole extraordinary story in the history of science. December 1995. IPCC SAR Ch 8. Ben Santer. Study him well. He is the man.
Let me see if I can help you out. He may have intellect, but if so it is of the type most focused on the methods of deceit and dishonesty. berniel, you may be right on that one, even if you didn’t mean to use the /SARC tag. It was an extraordinary moment indeed, one that too many have forgotten. He alone reversed the science of the time, concluding a discernible human fingerprint on climate, when the agreed expert opinion was the opposite. Presto! No evidence required.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Ben_Santer.pdf
He’s the man alright. If you don’t really care what scientists think.
Mods – I’m submitting twice, is something wrong with wordpress?
[REPLY: Sometimes at night you have to wait. Sorry for the delay. -REP]
This was an excellent presentation. The slides were clear and concise (great format, not too busy but powerful info presented). The speaker was a top-notch climate scientist in the field. More postings like this, please. Attend more events like this. It seems folks in attendance kept an open mind, and I hope everyone learned quite a bit.
To those commenters that are refusing to watch it all, I beseech you all to clear your head of expectations and watch it.
So, essentially, the logic is it has to be like so or everything falls apart. But the only thing that seem to be missing is that little evil overrated thing called proof. If he’s going to go on and on about something shouldn’t there be a point to the whole point?
A tip? Isn’t there a digital knob on the digital cameras today to crank up the recording volume. It used to be you had to record at twice the volume to get somewhat good audio at normal listening levels.
So I guess this is the new Ben Santer 2.0 ™ … Warm, cuddly, won’t beat you up, refrains from his usual nasty commentaries about scientific rivals and “den!ers”…
And did anyone ask him about the Power of Poop video?
Anthony
Just a simple thank you for your efforts. My days would be much emptier if I was unable to check your website for all of the interesting posts and commentary.
thanks again
Ed
Anthony:
Concerning your hearing difficulty, two things:
1. I worked as a technician one summer for a hearing aid maker. This was during the ’70’s. Can you believe that even with the 10 transistor “descrete” circuits we were CUSTOMIZING the amplification curves based on the hearing loss profile given by the audiometer test? Pretty sophisticated stuff, and to the point of why a decent hearing aid, back then, cost $400, which is equivalent to $3000 now. (So I agree that one does just not buy a “dumb amplifier” and call it adequate, it isn’t.)
2. My best in-line skating partner, (for racing skating training) is severly “hearing impaired”. She has <10% and it's all in the 16 to 400 cps range. She lost her hearing during her teen-aged years. So she can speak, quite clearly. She lip reads extremely well. Yet, to really communicate there are a variety of "factors" one has to be careful with. She could NEVER come close to what you still can do with a "live speaker". But dealing with the protocols of communication inherent with her loss, I think I have a "clue" as to what you struggle with. I want everyone to know that in NOT retreating to a corner, and dealing with just friends and family, you have more "guts" in your little finger, than I think I've got in my whole body. Feel free to grouse a bit. Doesn't bother me!
Thanks for attending this presentation. I wouldn't have the time nor patience, despite my (alleged, sometimes I wonder!) normal hearing. Your efforts are greatly appreciated. That's something I wouldn't deny.
Max
Anthony
Thank you for all of your efforts. Your extraordinary efforts have illuminated many here. The presentation of this video of Dr. Santer is very interesting in that he makes a very sharply shaped arguments to defend his positions. He seems to without exception avoid comparisons that would cast any doubt on his earlier pronouncement about human caused global warming. When I went to engineering school we were taught to present the results of an experiment and our conclusions. It was required to present the best arguments as to why those conclusions might be wrong. Quite often the apparent conclusion was overturned by the argument against the conclusion. In the video Dr. Santer slides between very short term time scales and then moves to long term conclusions. In general he speaks as a advocate not a scientist. The “we know” certainty is the revelation.
If public figures wish to improve their communication ability to the public, they need to present their public forum argument with all the necessary accommodations the public needs in order to be informed. These regulations, especially related to hearing, are not only necessary for our aging society, it is just good business. Mr. Santer, take a consumer course in accommodations technology and then make sure your staff put these accommodations into place when you speak in a public forum. To not do so is bad form, bad form.