From New Zealand Climate Change, this goes beyond “noble cause corruption”. This is outright malicious interference with the scientific process, and it’s damned ugly. I can’t imagine anyone involved in professional science who could stand idly by and not condemn this.
– Anthony
Climategate 2 and Corruption of Peer Review
The post here is a follow-up from my last post on some Climategate 2 emails, which I have tied together into a kind of narrative. Why should you read this? It is very simple. There are plenty of articles, views etc. out there claiming that the climategate 2 emails are being taken out of context. I have also seen Phil Jones has been saying that it is just the normal ‘to and fro’ of normal scientists going about their business etc. etc.
This is most certainly not the case in the emails that follow. There really is no hiding place for the authors, and no ambiguity. The emails will track how annoyance at the publication of a ‘contrary’ article in a journal develops into an attack on the editor, Chris de Freitas, an accomplished scientist. The attack includes a plot to see if they can get him sacked from his job at University of Auckland. Within the story, it is evident exactly what kind of ‘scientists’ the key authors are. The word scientist applied to these people has denigrated the meaning of the word.
Amongst those involved are Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Jim Salinger, Tom Wigley, Barrie Pittock, Mike Hulme + others. In addition Pachauri, the head of the IPCC is copied into many of the emails, meaning that he was fully aware that some of the key scientists in the IPCC were effectively out of control.
The post is very long, but please stick with it. The story unfolds, and is worth the effort if you really want to see what is going on. When quoting the emails, I do so minus annoying symbols such as >>>. Where I am commenting within the email text, I place the text as [this is my comments], and any bold text is my emphasis.
The starting point is email 2683, from 12 April 2003 when there is grumbling about a paper by Soon & Baliunas (S&B) published in the journal Climate Research (abreviated to CR in the emails). There is some discussion of the S&B study, and Mike Hulme discusses the potential of the paper on the thoughts of policymakers with Barrie Pittock:
Yes, this paper has hit the streets here also through the London Sunday Telegraph. Phil Jones and Keith Briffa are pretty annoyed, and there has been correspondence across the Atlantic with Tom Crowley and Ray Bradley. There has been some talk of a formal response but not sure where it has got to. Phil and Keith are really the experts here so I would leave that to them. Your blow by blow account of what they have done prompts me again to consider my position with Climate Research, the journal for whom I remain a review editor. So are people like Tim Carter, Nigel Arnell, Simon Shackley, Rob Wilby and Clare Goodess, colleagues whom I know well and who might also be horrified at this latest piece of primary school science that Chris de Freitas from New Zealand has let through (there are a good number of other examples in recent years and Wolfgang Cramer resigned from Climate Research 4 years ago because of it).
I might well alert these other colleagues to the crap science CR continues to publish because of de Freitas and see whether a collective mass resignation is appropriate. Phil Jones, I believe, is already boycotting reviews for that journal.
The first point to note is their concern is as much about the impact upon policy as it is about the science. This will become important for setting the context for the progressive process in which they eventually seek to destroy the career of the offending editor.We then get a response from Salinger, in response to Pittock’s call for someone to ‘take up the gauntlet’:
Dear Mike, Barrie, Neville et al
Saturday morning here and thanks for all your efforts. I note the reference to Chris de Freitas. Chris writes very voluminously to the NZ media and right wing business community often recycling the arguments of sceptics run overseas, which have been put to bed.
I, personally would support any of these actions you are proposing particularly if CR continues to publish dishonest or biased science. This introduces a new facet to the publication of science and we should maybe have a panel that ‘reviews the editors’. Otherwise we have the development of shonkey editors who then manipulate the editing to get papers with specific views published. Note the
immediacy that the right wing media (probably planned) used the opportunity!
Your views appreciated – but I can certainly provide a dossier on the writings of Chris in the media in New Zealand.
There are several points of note here. First of all, the positioning of de Freitas as being part of a right-wing, and there is even suggestion of a conspiracy. Finally, just to demonstrate that de Freitas is an ‘outsider’, Salinger will produce the evidence. Having a different view, it seems, is condemnation. Pittock then responds to Salinger:
Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I hope the co-editors of ‘Climate Research’ can agree on some joint action. I know that Peter Whetton is one who is concerned. Any action must of course be effective and also not give the sceptics an excuse for making de Freitas appear as a martyr – the charge should surely be not following scientific standards of review, rather than publishing contrarian views as such. If a paper is contested by referees that should at least be stated in any publication, and minimal standards of statistical treatment, honesty and clarity should be insisted on. Bringing the journal and publisher into disrepute may be one reasonable charge.
‘Energy and Environment’ is another journal with low standards for sceptics, but if my recollection is correct this is implicit in their stated policy of stirring different points of view – the real test for both journals may be whether they are prepared to publish refutations, especially simultaneously with the sceptics’ papers so that readers are not deceived.
On that score you might consider whether it is possible to find who de Freitas got to review various papers and how their comments were dealt with. I heard second hand that Tom Wigley was very annoyed about a paper which gave very low projections of future warmings (I forget which paper, but it was in a recent issue) got through despite strong criticism from him as a reviewer.
Here we have our first indications that de Freitas may be about to face problems.
Excerpts:
People with bona fide scientific background should not review articles, as they might actually accept them for publication.
…
… is it not partially the responsibility of climate science to make sure only satisfactorily [agreeing with their views] peer-reviewed science appears in scientific publications?
…
We Australasians (including Tom as an ex pat) have suggested some courses of action. Over to you now in the north to assess the success of your initiatives, the various discussions and suggestions and arrive on a path ahead. I am happy to be part of it.
Again, good science is the science that agrees with their own views. Bad science is to take an opposing view. ‘Purity of science’ is taken to mean ‘agreeing with my views’. Again, this is disturbing, but more disturbing is the moral righteousness that leads towards the comment that Salinger is happy to be part of it.
…
Also assessing copyright as the ‘other’ Soon/Baliunas paper in Energy and Env. is essentially the same as that in CR. Hans wanted to try this first, but didn’t want to tell all what he was doing. Fears a backlash if de Freitas gets removed without due cause. So let’s all try and keep the emails down, and hope we can report something to all once the correspondence Hans initiates gets replies.
Here, they are trying to get de Freitas through other means, which is copyright violation.
…
This is all very tragic. I will, if I have time, try to finish the story, or others may want to take it forwards if they have the time or inclination. What I do know is that this particular case appears to be one of the most clear and damning I have yet seen with regards to the ‘team’ seeking to stifle debate, and ultimately destroy the scientific process. It is just all the more shocking for the tribalistic hounding of Chris de Freitas.
Read the full article here.
If you would like to see the next section of the story, it can be found here. It is even more damning, an excerpt:
email 4808.
Phil Jones is following up on the email of Mann, in which he proposes writing a letter to the other editors of Climate Resarch, asking for the editors to resign in protest at de Freitas being an editor.
Did anything ever come of this? [the email to the CR editors]
Clare Goodness was in touch w/ me indicating that she had discussed the matter w/ Von Storch, and that DeFrietas would be relieved of his position. However, I haven’t heard anything. A large segment of the community I’ve been in contact with feels that this event has already done its damage, allowing Baliunas and colleagues to attempt to impact U.S. governmental policy, w/ this new weapon in hand–the appearance of a legitimate peer-reviewed document challenging some core assertions of IPCC to wave in congress. They appear to be making some headway in using this to influence U.S. policy, which makes our original discussions all the more pressing now.
In this context, it seems important that either Clare and Von Storch take imminent action on this, or else actions of the sort you had mentioned below should perhaps be strongly considered again. Non-action or slow action here could be extremely damaging.I’ll forward you some emails which will indicate the damage that the publication has already caused.
Thanks very much for all your help w/ this to date, and for anything additional you may be able to do in this regard to move this forward.
UPDATE: Dr. Chris de Freitas has responded here, well worth a read.
The funny part is that de Freitas still has his job at Auckland University, while it was Salinger who was sacked from NZ Met Service.- for making unauthorised public comments
Well I had the good fortune to get hooked up with Dr Chris de Freitas, when I first returned to my alma mater in March 2004. a friend in the Business Finance Department, arranged the private meeting for me, and we had a good discussion of a number of climate related issues. Chris is a straight shooter, and I wouldn’t give Phil Jones and his cronies a snowball’s chance in hell of submarining him with their childish vendetta.
Besides that, we Kiwi take a dim view of some limey trying to tell us what is proper. We tend to have minds of our own.
And my apologies to the real Limeys, for associating Jones with them.
I’m glad this is being covered.
In Climategate 1 this is story that we largely passed over.
I talked a bit about it to frame the story of how Mann’s response to the Soon paper was to look for traitors. Glad to see somebody pick up the thread and delve deeper
Any doubt now that this is not about science and never has been. CAGW is just a pretext to cause fear so that the ignorant willingly accept the Marxist world envisioned by our betters.
Makes it even more obvious that there is a prima facie case to answer with regard to Wolfgang Wagner’s departure from Remote Sensing over the Spencer & Braswell paper.
Is there anyway to get this stuff to ATI and Dr. Schnare? Maybe the judge would be interested, given the references to U. S. politics.
The funny part is that de Freitas still has his job at Auckland University, while it was Salinger who was sacked from NZ Met Service.- for making unauthorised public comments.
Yes, but even this year there was another round of media stories attempting to blacken de Freitas’s name.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10738739
Starts with ludicrous weather anecdotes, gives de Freitas some time in the middle, then slags him utterly at the end. Balanced, my foot!
“Victoria University’s Manning disagrees: “I think Auckland University does have a bit of a problem with a course looking like it is taking one side of the story and a minority view of that.” Yes, he believes in freedom expression and that it should be deeply ingrained in the structure of the university. “The right to have individual views is something that’s preserved because it is important – but there does become a point when you have to ask should you be teaching that?”
There’s also an amusing bit about how de Freitas is wrong to not teach the IPCC version, but no questions are asked about believers who don’t ever teach the sceptical viewpoint.
Another classic black=white, war=peace post from WUWT.
The corruption of peer review happened under de Freitas’s watch – he passed papers that reviewers had recommended to be rejected essentially unaltered into the journal (ref. Wigley comments). Even Hans von Storch agreed that the S&B paper made claims that were not justified by their analysis. The corruption here is all on the skeptic side and the natural reaction to a disfunctional journal is to abandon it.
Though it’s not clear if he did or not let us hope that Kevin Trenberth got an apology from deFreitas.
I’ve said before that the Soon and Baliunas paper was actually a very good paper. All they did was gather up all the previous studies on the historical climate that they could find (some of which was just anecdotal since thermometres were not invented in 900 AD) and show that there was, indeed, a MWP and LIA.
Just read it carefully and read every word and review as many of the reference papers as you can stand and you will see they are not biased.
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/soon+baliunas.cr.2003.pdf
All they did was show that Michael Mann and Phil Jone’s tree-ring reconstructions were not accurate. Well, if anyone today thinks that the tree-ring reconstructions are accurate, they should put their hand up now and out themselves for being so gullible. Soon and Baliunas were just trying to fix the science.
Some of the ClimateGate emailers have shown themselves to be “extremely” paranoid (a psychologist could easily diagnosis this from the emails alone). They went on the attack since it disputed the Mannian Math and they had to do away with the MWP.
It is a very sad example of what the climate scientists became around this time and what they have been ever since.
JPY says:
November 27, 2011 at 5:22 pm
“he passed papers that reviewers had recommended to be rejected essentially unaltered into the journal”
You forgot to name the papers and the reviewers. “(ref. Wigley comments)” doesn’t cut it. Try agin please.
JPY:
Have you read the whole post – can you not see the context – I mean the exact context of it all….this is what the ‘team’ all talk about in climategate 1 – the context.
In this case, somebody publishes a paper which questions the Mann thesis of no MWP, and lo and behold, the person allows this is apparently a corrupt editor. Read Mann’s own words on this….look at the whole story, look at each part of the story in context.
I’m afraid to say, when I have seen comments on this story from those who are not close followers or invested in this debate, they draw the same conclusion as I have. This is the point. Any ordinary person, seeing the whole context, will interpret the events the same way. Only somebody blinded by their own investment in a particular position can see it the way that you have presented here.
I wonder if anyone really understands the depths of “global warming” scientific and political corruption.
A trilion dollars has been squandered on inefficient, ineffective wind and solar power scams. One wonders how long our politicians and business leaders will continue as collaborators in this huge misappropriation of scarce global resources.
Some “skeptic” scientists have received death threats, and one had a pet taken from the yard and killed.. Sorry, no names, but this is reliable information, received first-hand from the victims.
One hopes the warmist scientists are a modest lot – they have much to be modest about.
Nothing surprises me anymore. At what point do we get to a modern “Senator McCarthy Moment?”
Actually, all I could see was that ONE reviewer recommended rejecting the paper. Do we know what the other reviewers recommended? From ancedotal stories, it seems it’s not that uncommon to have a reviewer reject a paper, but other reviewers to accept it and recommend it be published. I’m not sayng that’s the case here, but I didn’t see any evidence as to what the other reviewers thought about the paper in question.
Or do you believe that revewers should have the right to veto any paper? That the editor isn’t allowed to take conflicting opinions and make a decision as to whether a paper should be published?
JPY:
Ahem……if you can’t see the buildup in this…..then you are blind as a bat with no radar.
ONLY a denier would not be able to see this. The true colors are becoming more apparant each and every day. The deniers have absolutely nothing of substance to prove that AGW is beyond certainty. It is so far from certainty that it isn’t funny……and one can only wonder…..wonder…….How someone is so blind.
I know….you were on OJ’s Jury……..phewwwwwwwww……that explains it.
james makes it into WSJ:
28 Nov: WSJ: by James Delingpole: Climategate 2.0
A new batch of leaked emails again shows some leading scientists trying to smear opponents..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204452104577059830626002226.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
We need a chart of these frauds.
Many little connections, some larger connections. Where to start,,, seems there may be some of the failed ice age global freezing ones at the head of this long snake.
Big job but seems it can be done. These e-mails could be a starting point.
One chart of the elected ones, one on Universitys, one on the grant money people, one on the hands on fraud infomation people, one on the go along make it seem real media types.
Then it would not such a problem to recreate how this lie/fraud came into being via the above enablers.
What is clear is that the elected ones and their justice system can not be trusted to indict the ones who sign their pay checks and dole out the retirement moneys.
Right wing media…any mention of drug use in these emails?
The corruption here is all on the skeptic side and the natural reaction to a disfunctional journal is to abandon it.
Intriguing! So why did they have to do it all in secret?
If a journal passes rubbish, then it is ridiculed in public. If it continues to do so, it will no longer be read. None of that requires any secrecy at all.
That the Team were doing this in secret strongly suggests that they knew they were doing wrong. Or do you believe that the methods used by the Team were acceptable?
And when a pro-AGW journal publishes rubbish (say on Antartic warming). Do the Team go into over-drive then to sack editors? Or is this saved only for opponents?
Not sure if this has been covered at WUWT, http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/11/study-of-the-last-glacial-maximum-suggests-lower-climate-sensitivity.ars
It seems to be a reasonably good partial view, it is good to see more work on the actual effects of the CO2 forcings, there might be hope yet for us all.
Archant Press (UEA-connected Board) weighs in:
27 Nov: Norfolk Eastern Daily Press: Tom Bristow: UEA’s Tyndall Centre rejects Mail on Sunday claims over influencing BBC policy
And a spokesman for the Tyndall Centre said: “We infrequently provide advice to media programmes for effective science communication when requested.
“We promote accurate information on climate change research, and will speak up against attempts to confuse the public with obscure, unsupported, or unbalanced reporting of the available evidence on climate change.
“The Tyndall Centre supports and encourages society to debate its options to manage our future climate. There is overwhelming evidence that the world is warming because of greenhouse gases.”
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/environment/uea_s_tyndall_centre_rejects_mail_on_sunday_claims_over_influencing_bbc_policy_1_1138178
JPY “he passed papers that reviewers had recommended to be rejected…”
Which is an editor’s prerogative.
If Soon & Baliunas’ paper was so easily proved wrong then all the Team had to do was demonstrate how it was wrong.
That’s what real scientists are supposed to do – not conspire to get people fired.
Your attempts to defend the indefensible would be funny if the subject wasn’t so tragic.
Sooner or later, the “fire the traitors” philosophy will backfire – someone will decide that a leak came from a grad student they don’t like too much, and they’ll blackball that student. Who will immediately release all of the dirt they’ve accumulated over the years.
JPY says:
November 27, 2011 at 5:22 pm
I really have to ask what color is the sky in your world? Just because you disagree with something is no reason to start a witch hunt prove it wrong with real science instead of political machinations………..OH that’s right these fools can’t prove someone wrong with science because they have forgotten what science is.
JPY, your comment misses a glaring weakness in these alarmists posts about peer-review and sceptical research. And the glaring weakness is in a foundational precept of good science. I don’t think these folks are caught up in criminal acts. I think they are caught up in their “we are right” blindness and fear of the absolutely necessary search for disproof. Contrary research MUST be allowed to run apace and be published along side the alarmist view. Let me say it again, it MUST be allowed, even if it proves to be bad science. Do you get that? And do you understand how extremely disturbing the attempt to thwart that process is?
Bristow, the writer of the Archant piece, looks [like] it’s this guy:
Tom Bristow, Climate Change University of Edinburgh
http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/climatechange/people/tom_bristow.htm
click on pic and compare with the Edinburgh Climate Change pic…
Tom Bristow, EDP and Evening News reporter
http://twitter.com/#!/tomsbristow
JPY:
I can see why you are posting anonymously. If I engaged in your sort of mendacityI wouldn’t want my family, friends and colleagues to see what a dishonest slime-mold I was either. I can’t tell from the article if Wigley was one of the reviewers for S&B or some other papers that also got accepted, but no where is there any indication that all of the reviewers rejected the manuscripts and they were accepted anyway. Indeed the tenor of the e-mails is concerned that DeFrietas is selecting reviewers who woould accept such papers.
Again, there is nothing in the article suggesting that von Storch had “agreed that the S&B paper made claims that were not justified by their analysis”… rather the quote was “…discussions I had with Hans last week in the US. I think he is now convinced about de Freitas and is drafting a letter with Clare to go to the publishers and to de Freitas…” It doesn’t sound like he had even read the paper.
Sorry, JP, but read the article again and hone your comprehension skills. The corruption is on the alarmist side, and your pitiful attempt at spin is just one more example of the sort of muck that needs to be cleaned out from our society.
Where did these people get their philosophical and ethical educations from? A glib answer would be something like a cereal box. That would simply devalue all the neat, if useless, stuff we got from them when we were children. They learned from two highly reliable teaching sources in western culture. The great religions and any politician you can find. This behavior raises “the ends justifying the means” to a level even Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli would need to work at conceiving.
These men have violated the one component of the philosophy of science that is necessary for it to even operate. That is Trust. I can accept their work even if they have no honor or shame but I can not, and never will again, accept anything they are involved with for they can not be trusted. Trusted to do what? Trusted to adhere to the most basic principals of science as described by Karl Popper and others.
At the very least this behavior is unethical and immoral, not things science is equipped to deal with. These are subjects that fall outside the philosophy of science, questions the scientific method and its attendant logic are not equipped to address. (I have written a number of essays about Trust and Ethics in science, all posted on my blog.)
What to do? 1. Refuse to read or submit papers to any journal that would use these men as reviewers. 2. Refuse to be a member of any organization that would allow any of them to hold any office.
This kind of thing does great harm to our profession and I am angered, disappointed and hurt by it. They have dishonored all of us who would use the name scientist. Being a Geologist I have a back up, Natural Philosopher, others do not.
For those who have never seen him, this is Chris de Freitas, with a viewpoint on Al Gore that I more than agree with:
JPY says:
November 27, 2011 at 5:22 pm
The corruption here is all on the skeptic side and the natural reaction to a disfunctional journal is to abandon it.
No worries, I swore off Nature and Science quite a while ago for not employing the “corrupt” sceptical principles and method of real science.
Galane says:
Actually, none of the team wrote that. It was a manufactured “paraphrase” by the author of the longer blog post that Anthony excerpted this from: http://newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-and-corruption-of-peer-review/ Here is what was actually said:
If a paper is contested by referees that should at least be stated in any publication,
Was he as concerned that a referee should have contested the Mann Hockey Stick?
Galane says: November 27, 2011 at 4:47 pm
“People with bona fide scientific background should not review articles, as they might actually accept them for publication.”
Which one of The Team wrote that? He ought to be shunned for life in scientific circles for that. People with bona fide scientific backgrounds reviewing and fact checking each others work anonymously is what peer review is supposed to be!
Uhhh…. Galane, that was newzealandclimatechange‘s commentary on the e-mail, not a direct quote.
“…I heard second hand that Tom Wigley was very annoyed about a paper which gave very low projections of future warmings…” circa 2003
Oh, the horror!
DesertYote says:
November 27, 2011 at 5:05 pm
“Any doubt now that this is not about science and never has been. CAGW is just a pretext to cause fear so that the ignorant willingly accept the Marxist world envisioned by our betters.”
I think it is neoliberalism we have to fear, not Marxism. The Thatcher Government invented global warming to go after the coal unions. You can call old Margaret many things, but “Marxist” is not one of them.
I am hurt that nobody mentions my paper “The IPCC Future Projections: are they Plausible?” which was published by Climate Research Vol 10 pages155-162 in 1998. My paper was mentioned in Climategate 1 as an additional reason to be dissatisfied with Climate Research. Of course, I showed that the projections are not plausible, when you compare them with what actually happens and I elaborated this further in my book “The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of Climate Change 2001” where I showed that the currect IPCC projections cannot even predict the past, let alone the present or future.
Pamela Gray says:
Are you suggesting that there ought to be some sort of “affirmative action” (in the most extreme sense of this word) for such papers … Or, do you think that there should essentially be no peer review at all and all things, no matter how bad, be allowed to appear in the journal?
Basically, it seems like the “skeptics” want to have it both ways: They want to be able to wave around peer-reviewed papers that do support their point of view to non-scientists as evidence that there is not a scientific consensus AND they want the scientific reviewers to allow the papers through no matter how atrocious the science is.
Frankly, I think the “skeptic” community is to blame for the extent to which the larger climate scientific community has become concerned with having bad science published in the journals. In a scientific field that has not been politicized in the way that the “skeptics” have politicized climate science, the solution to having a few bad papers make it through peer review comes about naturally: They just tend to be ignored by scientists working in the field.
In climate science, the same thing would essentially still happen within the scientific community; however, in the larger society, through the echo chamber of the various political and ideological groups that oppose action on AGW, these papers are trumpeted to a public who generally do not have the background to distinguish bad science from good science. The natural reaction of scientists has then been to become more concerned than they normally would be with bad science getting into the journals because in this case their journals are not just serving as the place that scientists in the field go to read articles but are serving another, much more political, purpose.
If you read the full e-mails, rather than just selected parts and poor, even deceptive, paraphrases of what the e-mails actually say, that this is the basic concern of the scientists is quite clear.
FOIA only released 6,000 out of 126,000 emails. So we are working with about 3% of the material.
A few hours ago Willis pieced together emails that demonstrated that Phil Jones a serial liar.
Now this evidence that Phil jones tried to get others sacked for not enforcing a ban on other scientists questioning his settled view of climate change science.
Two silver bullets handed to the UEA on a plate. Are they just going to sit there and wait for the other 97% of the evidence to emerge before getting rid of this silly man who brings disrepute to their university?
Not sure whether these have been seen but try:
2563
0332
3052
That’s about the size of it. The team was on record as saying they needed to get rid of the MWP. Now this paper shows up and says not only that there WAS a MWP, that “the hockeystick” was wrong, too. Turns out that Briffa himself apparently did the same thing McIntyre did with random sequences of numbers and got a hockystick result. The hockey stick is bunk, everyone knows it, members of the team say it should have never been published but they won’t say so in public yet they have no problem saying it in private.
A lot rests on that hockey stick because if that is wrong, people start to wonder how much ELSE is wrong. It is sort of a crack in the whole foundation that could lead to the whole house of cards, flimsily built as it is, to come crashing down around them. So they had to fight tooth and nail even though the papers were correct and the team was wrong and they KNEW it.
It is all so very sick.
On the same issue, here’s email 3052- an example ( from Salinger 24/04/2003) of conspiring(?) to put pressure on the VC of University of Auckland re having De Freitas on staff, perhaps implying he should be sacked.
Content of Salinger’s email:
“Dear All
For information, De Freitas has finally put all his arguments
together in a paper published in the Canadian Bulletin of Petroleum
Geology, 2002 (on holiday at the moment, and the reference is at
work!)
I have had thoughts also on a further course of action. The present
Vice Chancellor of the University of Auckland, Professor John Hood
(comes from an engineering background) is very concerned that
Auckland should be seen as New Zealand’s premier research
university, and one with an excellent reputation internationally. He
is concerned to the extent that he is monitoring the performance of
ALL his senior staff, from Associate Professor upwards, including
interviews with them. My suggestion is that a band of you review
editors write directly to Professor Hood with your concerns. In it
you should point out that you are all globally recognized top
climate scientist. It is best that such a letter come from outside
NZ and is signed by more than one person. His address is:
Professor John Hood
Vice Chancellor
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland, New Zealand
Let me know what you think! See suggested text below.
Regards
Jim
Some suggested text below:
*** he even provides a suggested letter to write for those in The Cause who are too intellectually challenged.***
Good hunting!
Ken
My husband is a chemist with over 25 years of experience in industry. He says the AGW “scientists” have the same level of maturity and grasp of reality as 5-year-olds. I thought he was exaggerating…but after reading this stuff, I see he’s right on target.
My problem with all of this, since the days of FOIA 2009, is this: the average person, with a strongly post-modern mindset, who takes the Team’s statements about the poor quality of the SB paper as factual, may see the Team’s behavior as a bit over the top, but understandable. Starting with the assumption that the paper was truly bad, allows them to forgive the Team (the Good Guys) their anger. Especially where something so important as climate policy is involved.
That’s how most honest people with no real exposure to the details of the situation probably see this, so I somehow think we won’t see any journalists interested in the story. Which is sad – this exposes the attitudes of the Team so clearly for all to see.
In a larger sense, that’s what’s always been the main problem. IF you assume the Team are on the side of the angels, and IF you assume that all sceptics are science-hating idiots, then much of the behavior of the Team can be explained away as justified. It’s very frustrating.
NOTE: 4241.txt is where Briffa apparently believes he recreates what McIntyre is talking about the hockey stick showing up no matter what data you feed into it. Briffa creates randomly generated time series, feeds them in to Mann’s maths and bingo … out pops a hockey stick.
Also, anyone with access to Quaternary Research can find articles over the years referencing a warm period of time corresponding in time to the MWP in the Southern Hemisphere, too. There are several such papers. They seem to be more geology related, though, and not so much “climatology” so people in the climate field might have missed them.
3265 de Freitas’ defence :
” The criticisms of Soon and Baliunas (2003) CR article raised by Mike
Hume in his 16 June 2003 email to you was not raised by any of
the four referees I used (but is curiously similar to points raided
by David Appell!). Keep in mind that referees used were selected in
consultation with a paleoclimatologist. Five referees were selected
based on the guidance I received. All are reputable
paleoclimatologists, respected for their expertise in reconstruction
of past climates. None (none at all) were from what Hans and Clare
have referred to as “the other side” or what Hulme refers to as
people well known for their opposition to the notion that humans are
significantly altering global climate.”
The horror expressed by some climate scientists at the publication in a peer-reviewed journal of papers contradicting their position is based on the silly idea that (a) there ever is or could be certainty about a “scientific fact,” and (b) a peer-reviewed journal properly managed is a sure mechanism for ascertaining what is a “scientific fact.”
Both assumptions are based on bad epistemology.
Any fact that is beyond challenge is not a “scientific fact”. It is either an article of faith or a product of deductive reasoning, which by definition, is not a “scientific fact.”
No peer-review process is capable of distinguishing a true fact from a falsehood, a mistake, or a reasonable observation which is not what the observer thought it was.
Moreover, peer-reviewers are typically as fallible as authors of peer-reviewed journals. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be peers. Thus, peer-reviewed journal articles typically contain multiple errors and false inferences. This is a “scientific fact” derived from empirical research on peer review.
Of course, a scientist may not like a particular journal editor, or have much regard for the contents of a particular journal. But so what. There are plenty of other journals. Go publish there and leave it to the community of scientists as a whole to make up there mind which journals do a good job of sifting worthwhile contributions from the dross.
Joel Shore says:
November 27, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Oh, it’s the skeptics who have caused the politicization of climate science. If we skeptics had just kowtowed to the so called experts on the team and minded our own business, other asture members of the team or members of the climate community at large would have detecteded the gross errors in the hockey stick reconstruction in short order. But before they could clean their own house, we skeptics pushed them into circling the wagons. We forced them into the mode of reprehensible behavior represented in the climategate emails. Alas, Joel Shore, but that is just unmitigated and perverse nonsense that will not wash when billions of dollars and people’s lifestyles are at stake.
Joel, seriously? You think the Climate Science community is awash in skeptic papers that should never have seen the light of day? Really?
Shall we each start a list? You list-off all the nonsensical skeptical papers that have been published in the past 20 years and I’ll list the absolute crap that has come out of the warmist publications. Would that be an exercise you’d like to see published? Heck, get some help because I’m sure this forum can list at least 20,000 idiotic essays from the who’s-who of Climate science. How are Hansen’s sea level predictions panning-out? And the “Ice-Free Arctic”? Ready to go walk that beach?
Vincent Jappi says: “Yeah, right! No result of arithmetic calculation qualifies as a “scientific fact”.
Exactly right, Vincent. The result of an arithmetic calculation is a deduction, not a scientific fact.
Mathematics is a system of tautologies so that any true statement in mathematics is logically certain, but it is not a scientific fact.
A scientific fact is something inferred from observation. No observational statement is logically necessary, or ever conclusively verifiable. Science tends to advance by the refutation of previously accepted scientific facts.
Hope that helps clear up your confusion.
“Any fact that is beyond challenge is not a “scientific fact”. It is either an article of faith or a product of deductive reasoning, which by definition, is not a “scientific fact.”
Yeah, right! No result of arithmetic calculation qualifies as a “scientific fact”.
Joel Shore believes that allowing skeptical scientists to submit papers is akin to “affirmative action”. As a confirmed “team” Kool Aid drinker, I would expect no less from the blinkered and partisan Joel Shore. The CAGW scales appear to be attached to Shore’s eyes with Gorilla Glue. But the road to Damascus is long, so there’s still hope.
[snip. Try again, without the d-word. ~dbs, mod.]
I actually had to walk away from my computer and take a breather before commenting on this disgusting conduct. I absolutely cannot abide the bullying cowardice that is made more and more evident with every e-mail I read from these so called scientists. These people simply must be held to account for what they have done. The question is how?
Come on, dbs, it was parody.
Have a look at 1353.txt from Mann to Jones re “Wally” (Wallace Broecker) “Was the Medieval Warm Period Global” and basically Mann is doing his best to dispel the notion. I noticed that Broecker finds a piece of information I found several years ago on a site dealing with glacial retreat in the Alps of Switzerland. That being that as the glaciers retreat, they are exposing wood. This would indicate that the valleys that are now glaciated were once forested
So apparently there hasn’t been any forestation of those valleys since roughly 4000ya. That would seem pretty consistent with long term temperature proxy records I have seen that show we have been in a long gradual cooling trend with some ups and downs but overall gradually cooling for about the last 2500-3000 years or so. We have warm periods but they tend to be cooler than the previous warm period. Cold periods tend to be colder than the previous. The LIA was a 500 year long cold period coldest in the Holocene since the Younger Dryas. If you cool a body of water for 500 years, it can take a while for it to warm back up. I personally believe the oceans are still recovering from the LIA and it will take them a long time to fully recover.
Take an insulated bucket of water, put a thermometer at the bottom, and chill the surface with something … say a piece of dry ice. The thermometer at the bottom will drop pretty quickly. Now heat the surface with a heat gun. It takes that thermometer a much longer time to rise because to warm that bucket from a change in surface temperature you are working against convection. To cool it you are working WITH convection. It takes longer to warm it than it took to cool it. I believe oceans can cool quickly but warm only gradually.
What “the team” has done is quite subtle and has really nothing to do with the MWP. What they are trying to get across is a notion that climate was stable and has all of a sudden become unstable and only started changing recently. They are attempting to get across the notion that “climate change” of any sort is our fault. They want people to believe that climate is inherently stable until disrupted by humans. This goes directly counter to the historical and geological record. We know that climate is NOT stable. There is no sense in “fighting” “climate change” because climate is always changing and never really stable. It is always either warming or cooling, humans notwithstanding. An article in the Guardian (UK) is an example of this mindset. It says “Margret Thatcher would fight climate change”. This must be some attempt to get buy-in from Conservatives. But the point is that nobody can “fight climate change” because change is the very nature of climate. We can waste or money ATTEMPTING to fight climate change, but we can’t stop it from changing and we can’t control it. Think about it. Somehow we have apparently been making the climate warm for 100 years and exerting no effort at it. Now we exert tremendous effort and expense … and have so far zero measurable impact. Amazing.
Joel Shore said
Oh, bullshit.
So this is really where the team cut their teeth, later to be used with far more precision against Wolfgang Wagner at Remote Sensing.
“”””” I have had thoughts also on a further course of action. The present
Vice Chancellor of the University of Auckland, Professor John Hood
(comes from an engineering background) is very concerned that
Auckland should be seen as New Zealand’s premier research
university, and one with an excellent reputation internationally. “””””
Unmitigated BS.
The Vice Chancellor of the U of A is Professor Stewart McCutcheon; and has been so for quite a few years.
Dr John Hood on the other hand; who was the previous Vice Chancellor of the U of A; and who came out of Industry (paper products) (Fletcher Industries as I recall) Vincent Gray could confirm or correct that: can be found these days, at a place called Oxford University; which is supposed to be somewhere in the UK. He is either the Chancellor, or Vice Chancellor of that obscure Institution. And by the way; Dr Hood is nobody’s patsy either. And yes, he did as VC of the University of Auckland seek to try and align the research at the UofA to be more responsive to the kinds of job openings that businesses in New Zealand would need. This is supposed to have some relevence to the economic well being of the New Zealand economy. It has been some years since NZ had a ready market for its food production specialty as a major supplier to the UK; even during WW-II.
Now since the former Great Britain joined those Euro-Socialists, it no longer looks to New
Zealand for food, so the Kiwi have had to realign their whole economic strategy towards a knowledge based economy. Ideas are easier to ship, over vast distances, than mutton. Their excellent wines also now out produce mutton as an export industry.
As for Dr de Freitas, I believe he also teaches some sort of Geography, and his climate specialization, might be better characterized as “micro-climate”, at least it seemed that way, when we spoke back in March 2004. And that was micro-climate in the sense of where plants (aka food) grows.
So possibly Chris does have a different view of climate science from those who believe it all happens up in the stratosphere.
There must be some significance to the fact that a country as small as New Zealand, has at least two eminent scientists; Dr Vincent Gray, and Dr Chris de Freitas, who aren’t at all wowed by the promise of endless research grant funding; by hitching their wagons to the climatism gravy train.
Chris de Freitas isn’t liked amongst the NZ AGW/CC Alarmist ‘Chicken Littles’.
Frankly, I think the “skeptic” community is to blame for the extent to which the larger climate scientific community has become concerned with having bad science published in the journals. In a scientific field that has not been politicized in the way that the “skeptics” have politicized climate science, the solution to having a few bad papers make it through peer review comes about naturally: They just tend to be ignored by scientists working in the field.
NIce try. Don’t like what your camp is doing, so blame it on the other side. Like any sceptic has forced an editor to retire!
You have a major timing issue though. These are old e-mails.
The Team have been bullying opponents and trying to cut off their oxygen from well before the sceptic camp got really going.
How did they react to McIntyre at the start? With open arms? Or were they concerned from the very get go that he might prove them wrong?
The Team started this well before any real sceptic camp got going.
JPY says:
” de Freitas’s watch – he passed papers that reviewers had recommended to be rejected essentially unaltered into the journal …”
JPY, you are wrong. The Soon and Baliunas paper (SB03) was recommended publication by all four reviewers at Climate Research.
Email 4241.txt on replicating McIntyre’s criticism of random inputs generating hockeysticks is by Rob Wilson, not Keith Briffa. Keith Briffa is on the CC list. The email is a response from Ed Cook to Rob Wilson. Cook’s comment on Wilson’s experiment with Excel is
********
Hi Rob,
You are a masochist. Maybe Tom Melvin has it right: “Controversy about which bull caused
mess not relevent. The possibility that the results in all cases were heap of dung has been
missed by commentators.”
*********
I don’t where the Melvin quote comes from. Search of CG1 and CG2 reveals nothing. In CG2 email 5263.txt Melvin is called a “loose cannon” by Tim Osborne. More at CG1 1254345174.txt
“”””” Joel Shore says:
November 27, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Pamela Gray says:
Contrary research MUST be allowed to run apace and be published along side the alarmist view. Let me say it again, it MUST be allowed, even if it proves to be bad science. Do you get that? And do you understand how extremely disturbing the attempt to thwart that process is?
Are you suggesting that there ought to be some sort of “affirmative action” (in the most extreme sense of this word) for such papers … Or, do you think that there should essentially be no peer review at all and all things, no matter how bad, be allowed to appear in the journal? “””””
Joel,
I suggest that you are effectively self raising your stature to that of sainthood; somewhat akin to “Emperor” Napoleon, placing the crown on his own head; when you imply that Dr Sally Baliunas, and Dr Willie Wei Hock Soon, need some sort of affirmative action dispensation to have their papers published in peer reviewed journals.
Each of them has a well deserved bibliography of pertinent papers and other writings.
I have not read this paper at the center of the latest donnybrook, but I have read an earlier paper by the same authors, in which they reviewed about 200 independent studies from all over the world (peer reviewed materials) and concluded that those papers clearly showed that the MWP and the LIA WERE global climate events; in stark contrast to Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick graph which asserts right on the graph that it is simply a local northern hemisphere anomaly.
Frankly Joel, I had come to expect better of you.
…why are these fraudsters not doing hard prison time?
if they were just ranting on a street corner no one would care but they are spending taxpayer money and lying to the taxpayer …that is criminal fraud.
Pfft, you guys call this a long post? I’ve read longer 🙂
Thanks for doing this. Now if we can only get the media to do their job…
So RealClimate keeps saying this is just how science is done, so is there any evidence that members of the team tried to communicate with Soon and Baliunas to discuss the actual science?
Maybe I’m naive, but discussing the science would be what I would expect scientists to do.
Climatebeagle said:
:So RealClimate keeps saying this is just how science is done … Maybe I’m naive, but discussing the science would be what I would expect scientists to do.”
Beagle, I think you are a little naive. In my experience, scientists are no less partisan or any more honest than any other group of professionals.
The value I see in Climategate is that is reveals to the public what all scientists know, which is that scientists can be fiercely competitive and seriously lacking in objectivity and are not immune to the temptation to fiddle their results (remember Einstein’s fudge factor, the cosmological constant, or Newton’s “crassity of the particles”, a fudge factor to conceal a discrepancy between his calculation of the speed of sound and the measured speed.)
The thing is, it all comes out in the wash. Or should do. Mistakes and fakes cannot be concealed for ever in an observational science where others can repeat your observations and experiments.
Trying to get a journal editor fired because you don’t like what he publishes is nasty, but Newton was about as unscrupulous in his dispute with Leibnitz.
The real danger in climate science is that the public may fail to understand the frailties of scientists or the potential for science to be skewed by outside forces: not only by powerful individuals like Al gore but by governments and international organizations such as the UN. You have enough of such interference and science will be corrupted, as it was corrupted in the Soviet Union during the era of Lysenkoism.
“Maybe I’m naive, but discussing the science would be what I would expect scientists to do.”
Indeed. Science should be an open debate and points won on merit not via control of the message.
In this case, uncertainty is so high points cannot be won on merit thus a mass turn towards manipulating the message. Its an identical situation to when one turns to ad hominems and attacking the debate opponent as opposed to the message of the opponent.
This is somewhat old news isn’t it? As it all was part of the 2009 Climategate release, and there is a rather long Wikipedia article on this general issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy
Now with all of these emails revealed, all of the potentially wasted tax dollars, wasted natural resources and time lost that should have been spent on the development of feasible energy and technology to help humankind…will anyone make the connection of this with the goals of the “United Nations Agenda 21 for Sustainable Development”?
The World continues to collapse as trillions of dollars are spent on unsustainable “green” energy. Current science has shown that “wind and solar” cannot support the needs of humans today, and is not projected to capable to do so long into the future, if at all. They continue to waste tons of natural resources that should be used to the benefit of the world, not to bankrupt it.
After all these years, I finally read the S&B paper to see what the hullabaloo was about. Totally bizarre attack on a review of the literature paper. I found it very interesting and the msg. IMO was that, yes, there is evidence for the MWP, however this is not a simple system. There is not a step-wise increase in temps worldwide then a step-wise decrease to ‘normal’. Patterns, that is all. Irregular both temporal and regionally.
And some half-wit talks about legally actionable? Huh? Obviously they bitterly clung to their iconic ‘hockey stick’ because it told a great story…something that the peasants could understand. If you read Bradley’s 2003 paper and look at the figures you begin to see what thin ice they are on
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Bradley.pdf
Take away the framing devices (like the instrument line in Fig 1) and you see even with Mann there’s a weakness. Look at Fig 2, again see how they use the instrument record as a device (in this case only 30 years). Up to 1980 the instrument stuff agrees with S&B….so they are down to 30 years to make their case.
It is very sad indeed. And, no, this is not science we see, it is managing the message.
Joel Shore — Are you suggesting that there ought to be some sort of “affirmative action” (in the most extreme sense of this word) for such papers … Or, do you think that there should essentially be no peer review at all and all things, no matter how bad, be allowed to appear in the journal?
Strangely enough in your juvenile attempt at rhetorical snark you have inadvertently stumbled upon something useful. On the other hand even broken clocks are correct twice a day, so don’t get ahead of yourself.
There have been serious calls for FUNDING agencies to devote a minor percentage of research budgets to contrarian views. e.g. LENR (sometimes called cold fusion) is a real and reproducible effect, but overreliance on consensus science in funding approach denies realistic investigation since “real” physicists vying for such funding would see their careers damaged. On the off chance that the contrarian view is correct, science is advanced. Otherwise, the funding isn’t wasted as it serves the purpose of having had a serious look at everything, and careers aren’t ruined.
R. Gates says:
November 27, 2011 at 10:25 pm
This is somewhat old news isn’t it? As it all was part of the 2009 Climategate release, and there is a rather long Wikipedia article on this general issue…
——————————————————–
As a house-organ of the warmunists, Wiki is hardly the last word.
Here was my take on the original revelations of Climategate 1 concerning Soon and Baliunas. when this story broke a couple of years ago. To put it bluntly… They got hose by the Team. And I document how Mann, since his initial criticism of S & B, has done some of the exact same things he so vigorously chides them for doing.
Joel Shore says:
November 27, 2011 at 7:12 pm
==========================
Evidence of extreme cognitive dissonance.
Joel Shore — “Are you suggesting that there ought to be some sort of “affirmative action” (in the most extreme sense of this word) for such papers … Or, do you think that there should essentially be no peer review at all and all things, no matter how bad, be allowed to appear in the journal?”
Joel Shore, you are, in the above post, degenerating from some one educated and honest, to a troll with this inane comment. Gail made a simple point, only someone blind with prejudice could build or credit your strawman as she never remotely said anything like your piss poor represention.
Her point was that when scientific journals publish papers which other scientist think are poor science, the dispute is best conducted IN THE OPEN by showing why the science is bad, as in M&Ms sucessful destruction of the original hockeystick. In this way the bad science is laid to waste OUT IN THE OPEN, wheras if subterfuge and backdoor methods to discredit a person are conducted, then the percieved bad science continues to thrive, as only a person was defeated, and not a scientific perspective.
Yet CAGW fanatics continue to make such comments, unaware of how their obvious show of unreasoned emotion and bias is pushing people away from them as much as the reasoned arguments of sceptics is pulling unbiased researchers to a sceptical pov. The best bet of fanatics would be to never comment here as many of their comments, like their hidden emails, are counterproductive to their objective.
These are the exact same tactics that evolutionary biologists and paleontologists have been using against any scientist who doesn’t make the proper obeisance to the godless narrative of mud-to-man evolution. The climate change worshippers are cut from the same cloth and use the same playbook.
This stopped being about science a long time ago. This is simply the latest front in the culture wars. The zealots on the hockey team know this and they also know all’s fair in love and war. They see nothing wrong with anything they’ve done. Zealots are like that.
Hey REP – where’s that equal treatment for all you were talking about? Joel Shore is the object of a lot of ad hominem abuse in this thread. Do your duty or be found guilty of saying one thing and doing another. I don’t like a hypocrite. Fair warning.
Tribalistic?!
‘Tribalism’, i.e. like minded people grouping together, as a rough concept is not a bad thing: not doing bad things, as a group, is hardly bad.
So how is that the MOTIVING PRINCIPLE behind the behavior of the warmists? Mmmm? ‘Tribalism’ merely says they are ‘a group’, which is something everyone pretty much already knew.
Clearly these people are motivated by their liberal humanist ideology: i.e. saving the planet. It is, clearly, their motivating ’cause’. Just as was the case with Stalin and Mao. Just as was the case with the total DDT ban – with its TEN OF MILLIONS of (dead) victims, mostly children.
Calling this ‘tribalism’ is incorrect: it is in fact so very incorrect that it clearly begs a question. The time of granting the presumption of honesty and integrity upon any and all who would lay claim to it is over. And about time too: the missing voices of those dead children cry out against THIS.
Pamela Gray says: “I think they are caught up in their “we are right” blindness and fear of the absolutely necessary search for disproof.”
I’ve kept up with all of the various CG2 releases and so far have seen no EVIDENCE that will bring their towers down. But I do see plenty of evidence of bias – but that’s there for all to see on both sides – and an absence on the AGW side of the enthusiastic transparency, the pursuit of objectivity, and desire for challenge to their hypotheses, that characterise the very best science.
I have to agree with Pamela, and I believe that the cause of the problem is that the field has been overrun by second rate scientists at best. The very best minds on the planet probably can’t do more than guess at the future of Earth’s climate, and they’ll be honest and able enough to recognise that. Average minds, such as those which have coalesced around the IPCC’s products simply aren’t capable of appreciating how complex the problem is imv . . . .
More on the charming Jim Salinger
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/10/one-mans-mission/#more-11719
Will NIWA ever be free of Jim Salinger? What will it take to rid the organisation of his pervasive influence? He was fired long ago for his maverick media mouth, but his spirit never leaves, and the bright ideas of his younger self, not good enough to attract other scientists, still torment NIWA’ management as they strive to defend them. Salinger’s youthful enthusiasm for the then-radical crisis of man-made global warming, hatched by his mates in his old stamping ground at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, has crippled New Zealand with a “scientific” temperature “record” that shows remarkable warming — a feature we now know is entirely reliant on fiction, not on fact. – RT
@crosspatch
There are actually quite a few S. Hemisphere studies which show a MWP. Granted, not nearly as many as in the N. Hemi., but still a fair number. You’re likely already well aware of that and were just under-emphasizing in your statement, but just in case, see: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/
re post by: Joel Shore says: November 27, 2011 at 7:12 pm
I have to say that this post rather appears to be a case of willful misunderstanding on your part, so you can move into logical fallacies of generalization and straw men. That or just a very poor understanding of the peer review process and how science itself progresses.
Peer reviewers are only supposed to evaluate and find any substantial flaws in the application of the scientific method, and pick up trivial items such as typos too of course. They are not supposed to decide if the results and conclusions are “correct” or not based on what they happen to think the ‘right’ answer ‘ought’ to be. A paper is only “bad” if the researcher(s) improperly applied the scientific method or have mathematical/statistical flaws – not because the results happen to be contrary to the general view or preconceptions of the peer reviewer. This means that there will be papers that have contrary research results to whatever the general or more common results in the discipline happens to be. What point would there be in having all papers be basically clones of each other for years on end? Then if other scientists find flaws in the logic or application, or take issue with results or conclusions, they publish commentary or their own research showing how the original work was in error or flawed – or how a different hypothesis fits the data better. This is how science progresses.
The “Team,” however, wants to label papers as “bad” or “flawed” not because of any misapplication of the scientific method or actual flaws, but simply because the work doesn’t happen to agree with their agenda and desired outcome. When they dislike a paper, rather than openly rebutting it scientifically, they delve into these behind the curtains campaigns and conspiracies to try to attack the researcher’s reputation, pressure them out, pressure journals to turn down their papers, etc. That’s NOT how science works – it’s pure agenda driven politics, dirty politics at that.
Frankly, this behavior by at least some of these ‘scientists’ is so egregious that I believe it reaches the level that the universities conferring their diploma’s ought to revoke them for the unethical and unscientific behavior. There ought to be some very serious professional consequences for this sort of underhanded inappropriate skulduggery.
R. Gates says:
November 27, 2011 at 10:25 pm
This is somewhat old news isn’t it? As it all was part of the 2009 Climategate release, and there is a rather long Wikipedia article on this general issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy
==================================================
Additional evidence. None these new emails are mentioned in the wiki article. If there was any lingering doubt about the depth of the conspiracy to exert political pressure to get people fired instead of the normal response of scientific refutation there should be less doubt now.
The poltical response by these scientists cum energy policy advocates is just more evidence, like any objective person needs more evidence, that the climate science community has morphed into the energy policy community, or at least has designs on dictating energy policy. Investigators and policy makers shouldn’t be the same group. This is simple separation of powers. This is basically expressed in the negative, proverbial English idiom of one person being “judge, jury, and executioner”. This is diametrically opposed to traditional American political culture and practice. So don’t be surprised when it’s met with passionate resistance by the American electorate who’ve sacrificed an immense amount of blood and treasure over the last 250 years to establish and safeguard our heritage against any and all usurpers.
pat says:
November 27, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Bristow, the writer of the Archant piece, looks [like] it’s this guy:
Tom Bristow, Climate Change University of Edinburgh
http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/climatechange/people/tom_bristow.htm
click on pic and compare with the Edinburgh Climate Change pic…
Tom Bristow, EDP and Evening News reporter
http://twitter.com/#!/tomsbristow
—- I clicked, compared, and come to the conclusion you are stirring the pot or visually impaired. Totally different people of a completely different age!
Anthony
One point you haven’t addressed is that they also plotted to bring down the publication after Dr de Freitas is exonerated.
Mann says we won’t review we won’t publish there and it will wither on the vine.
Vincent Jappi says: November 27, 2011 at 8:07 pm:
Yeah, right! No result of arithmetic calculation qualifies as a “scientific fact”.
Everybody knows that.
R. Gates says: November 27, 2011 at 10:25 pm This is somewhat old news isn’t it? As it all was part of the 2009 Climategate release, and there is a rather long Wikipedia article on this general issue:
With Connoley or whatsisname and a few others patrolling wikipedia, I certainly wont waste my time reading it. It’s as good as RealClimate. And it’s the reason I stopped contributing.
Hmm, I don’t see much to complain about here in terms of their treatment of these journals. They get somewhat emotional about their messianic belief in AGW but that’s to be expected. Sure it exposes severe confirmational bias because they are not open to opposing views, and obviously this is a religion to them. This we knew. I’m a sceptic and feel this is being overly weighted here – there are other stronger concerns exposed by the emails.
I would point out one thing – Team AGW are obviously all left-wingers, and know each other to be left-wingers. If this was not the case they would hardly start a discussion by dismissing someone as a “right winger”. The politics feeds into the “science” here for sure.
Wow one really gets the feeling now that it is actually going to be the end of AGW quite soon, these email are 100% damming thanks foia
@joel Shore
“…Are you suggesting that there ought to be some sort of “affirmative action” (in the most extreme sense of this word) for such papers … Or, do you think that there should essentially be no peer review at all and all things, no matter how bad, be allowed to appear in the journal?..”
Joel, you really still don’t get it, do you?
Nobody said all skeptical papers should be published. What was said was that such papers “should not be disallowed”.
Of course all papers have to compete for limited journal space. But they should compete on whether they are good or not – NOT on whether they toe the party line or not.
You are deliberately misconstruing what was said for debating purposes. It looks as if you really don’t care about good science….
fobdangerclose says:
November 27, 2011 at 6:10 pm
We need a chart of these frauds.
… Where to start,,, how this lie/fraud came into being via the above enablers. “”
They meet every year at least once. They invite guests, including politicians, and they get their story straight.
They are doing it again soon. I would suspect anyone who goes to that meeting.
fobdangerclose says:
November 27, 2011 at 6:10 pm
We need a chart of these frauds.
Many little connections, some larger connections. Where to start,,, seems there may be some of the failed ice age global freezing ones at the head of this long snake.
Big job but seems it can be done…..
_____________________________________________
It has been done and was posted over at Joann Nova’s site after Climategate 1.0 You can dig it out from there or the guy who created it, who sometimes comments here might give you the link.
pat says: November 27, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Archant Press (UEA-connected Board) weighs in:
27 Nov: Norfolk Eastern Daily Press: Tom Bristow: UEA’s Tyndall Centre rejects Mail on Sunday claims over influencing BBC policy
And a spokesman for the Tyndall Centre said: “We infrequently provide advice to media programmes for effective science communication when requested.
“We promote accurate information on climate change research, and will speak up against attempts to confuse the public with obscure, unsupported, or unbalanced reporting of the available evidence on climate change.
“The Tyndall Centre supports and encourages society to debate its options to manage our future climate. There is overwhelming evidence that the world is warming because of greenhouse gases.”
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/environment/uea_s_tyndall_centre_rejects_mail_on_sunday_claims_over_influencing_bbc_policy_1_1138178
_______________________________________________
OH, I see the fact that you are bias, politically motivated and suppress opposition is proof that you “promote accurate information on climate change research” NOT.
This statement might make it if there was not clear evidence of the political agenda behind the research they consider “accurate” and the fact that the promoters are set to make trillions off the misery of the poor.
#3049
—–Original Message—–
From: Mike Hulme [REDACTEDREDACTED]
Sent: 14 January 2004 10:21
To: Curran, James
Cc: REDACTED
Subject: Re: “Bad Scientists”
James,
Thanks for this. Unfortunately Wogan isn’t the only one! Melanie Phillips in the Daily
Mail (it would be!) wrote an even more vitriolic attack on climate science, and Sir
David King in particular, just this week. And then just last night on Radio4, the
Climate Wars programme drew attention to a controversy that has blown up over the warmth
of the last millennium with powerful USA vested interests. This is one where we have
taken a stand and several senior climate scientists, myself included, have resigned from
the disputed journal.
We will certainly consider your suggestion; how much energy we – Tyndall – puts into
these types of responses is a tricky Q for us; one person could almost be employed
full-time. But it is also an issue I intend to raise at the new climate science-policy
forum DEFRA are convening later in January with Hadley, Tyndall, UKCIP, etc.
Best wishes for the New Year,
Mike
—————————————————————
UKCIP is hosted at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI), University of Oxford.
And paid for by the UK taxpayer
One question, if the Team did send a letter to the UA VC, would it constitute
defamation. In academia, ones personal reputation is quite important and
as a consequence defamatory statements have a larger potential impact than
in other occupations.
Dennis Nikols, Natural Philosopher says:
November 27, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Where did these people get their philosophical and ethical educations from?… They learned from two highly reliable teaching sources in western culture. The great religions and any politician you can find. This behavior raises “the ends justifying the means” to a level even Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli would need to work at conceiving.
These men have violated the one component of the philosophy of science that is necessary for it to even operate. That is Trust. I can accept their work even if they have no honor or shame but I can not, and never will again, accept anything they are involved with for they can not be trusted. Trusted to do what? Trusted to adhere to the most basic principals of science as described by Karl Popper and others.
At the very least this behavior is unethical and immoral, not things science is equipped to deal with…..
What to do? 1. Refuse to read or submit papers to any journal that would use these men as reviewers. 2. Refuse to be a member of any organization that would allow any of them to hold any office.
This kind of thing does great harm to our profession and I am angered, disappointed and hurt by it…..
__________________________________________
I agree that this does great harm to Science.
However the rank and file of the religious esp Christians are taught honesty and to tell the truth. The ten commandments and all that. (This from an atheist BTW) Were religions corrupt at the top and used to control the masses? Of course. As I said Maurice Strong got his idea for NGOs after working for the YMCA.
Where did they get the bone deep mind set that allowed them to be so dishonest??? They got this from the education system.
See:
http://www.ordination.org/dumbing_down.htm
http://www.khouse.org/articles/2001/365/
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message744652/pg1
http://ldolphin.org/humanism.html
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0804/0804textbooks.htm
http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/125329
Drugging the gifted child:
http://borntoexplore.org/gifted.htm
http://www.srmhp.org/0201/adhd.html
http://www.yourspine.com/Chiropractic/Ritalin+May+Cause+Longterm+Brain+Damage.aspx
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37134858/The-Hand-That-Rocked-the-Cradle-Rockefeller-Funding-1920-60
http://www.whale.to/b/ruesch.html
http://www.ritalindeath.com/education/school-violence.htm
With those as pointers you should be able to follow the thread. As usual Money, Power and Control are at the center of the story.
Religion is old news and with the splintering of the Christian churches on top of the First amendment religion got “out of control”. Therefore the churches were muzzled so Education and the News Media could do the brainwashing with no dissenting voice.
“…Prior to 1954, churches and non-profit organizations had no such restrictions on their freedom of speech or their right to speak out in favor or against political issues or candidates.
The history of Johnson’s IRS gag order is instructive…..” http://firebuilders.org/JAmCEC.htm
If you do not believe our civilization is “Guided” from behind the scenes read the well researched article that finally woke me up: http://www.opednews.com/articles/History-HACCP-and-the-Foo-by-Nicole-Johnson-090906-229.html
and the final nail in the coffin: http://www.whistleblower.org/storage/documents/Shielding_the_Giant_Final_PDF.pdf
This will not be the end of the team or agw hysteria, in the best case it will go away slowly over the next 10 years. As far as I can tell they can get away with anything.
Dodgy Geezer says:
November 28, 2011 at 3:45 am
You wrote:
“Joel, you really still don’t get it, do you?”
“You are deliberately misconstruing what was said for debating purposes. It looks as if you really don’t care about good science….”
Or, he may very well be terrified of what good science says
.
I would take the AGW proponents ‘concern’ over the quality of papers seen in journals more seriously if they actual raised this ‘concern with the rubbish the team and friends have managed to get published . As it is everything supporting AGW as been treated as its the ‘word of God’ no matter how awful and scientifically worthless its been .
KnR says:
November 28, 2011 at 6:48 am
They’re completely ignorant of the fact that if their argument actually had merit and was demonstrable, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
Perhaps an unplanned result of the modern activist movement to protect the environment from human encroachment has been a de-facto push to “Occupy Climate Science” by that group. While intending to beneficial, they may have led the whole discipline into a dogmatic swamp.
crosspatch said:
“Also, anyone with access to Quaternary Research can find articles over the years referencing a warm period of time corresponding in time to the MWP in the Southern Hemisphere, too. There are several such papers. They seem to be more geology related, though, and not so much “climatology” so people in the climate field might have missed them.”
In the FOIA 2011 dump there are references to Oroko Swamp in New Zealand.
Two from Ed Cook in 2000
3759.txt
“Hi Keith,
Here is the Oroko Swamp RCS chronology plot in an attached Word 98 file and actual data values below. It certainly looks pretty spooky to me with strong “Medieval Warm Period” and “Little Ice Age” signals in it. It’s based on substantially more replication than the series in the paper you have to review (hint, hint!).”
1039.txt
“Hi Keith,
Here is an updated Word 98 file with the Oroko Swamp chronology plot and overlay plots of Urals, Tornetrask, Mt Read, and Oroko (AD 1000-1980) transformed to z-scores and smoothed to emphasize centennial-scale fluctuations. All 4 show somewhat synchronous warm periods (ca. AD 1300-1500) and cool periods (ca. AD 1550-1650). Urals and Oroko are reasonably similar most other times as well. So, there appears to be little evidence of anti-phasing in these data. “
Alex says:
November 28, 2011 at 6:19 am
This will not be the end of the team or agw hysteria, in the best case it will go away slowly over the next 10 years…
_____
Not likely. You are confusing personal and professional politics and science– which is of course exactly what the Climategate 1.0 and 2.0 emails display to one level or another. However, this does not change the fundamental science and research done by thousands of scientists from around the world who have no relationship at all to Climategate that supports the basic tenets of AGW. Mann, Jones, Trenberth, etc. are not the only ones doing climate research, and while I don’t happen to think they are as corrupted as many here on WUWT believe (though certainly all too human), I do look at the full spectrum of research done by all the scientists in the field, and draw my opinion of the human effects on Earth’s climate from the total sum and weight of evidence.
Joel Shore,
“How to deal with this is unclear, since there are a number of individuals with bona fide scientific credentials who could be used by an unscrupulous editor to ensure that ‘anti-greenhouse’ science can get through the peer review process ”
So, if I am reading this correctly, if a bona fide scientists okays a paper AND the paper is “anti-greenhouse science” (whatever that means), THEN the editor responsible is unscrupulous?
Taxpayer1234 says:
November 27, 2011 at 7:42 pm
My husband is a chemist with over 25 years of experience in industry. He says the AGW “scientists” have the same level of maturity and grasp of reality as 5-year-olds. I thought he was exaggerating…but after reading this stuff, I see he’s right on target.
I found this yesterday while looking at the information NewZealandClimateChange had put together as I didn’t know anything much about de Freitas – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2003/aug/16/comment.weather
I was delighted to find de Freitas to be a level-headed adult scientist..
And just for interest now, I looked up Palutikof in the Climategate emails and found this [0748]:
In one e-mail Pittcock says:
“minimal standards of statistical treatment, honesty and clarity should be insisted on”
All skeptics concur. Too bad they didn’t insist on this before publishing Mike Mann’s garbage.
mfosdb says:
November 27, 2011 at 7:57 pm
“3265 de Freitas’ defence :”
Not to be the thread’s Donnie (‘The Big Lebowski’), but de Freitas’ defense of his editorial conduct suggests topics that just beg to be discussed, topics underlying the main event of climate crew collusion. I’ve got two questions —
1. Is the Soon CR (or EAE) paper solid?
2. Was the CR paper given proper peer review?
Negative answers to these questions don’t excuse, of course. The e-mails regarding the de Freitas fracas paint Mann et al as Torquemadas just looking to put the screws to apostates. Maybe worse is their retreat to the default position that publication of an article contrary to their views means ipso facto that the peer review process has been juked by a conspiracy. (Projection, much?)
But their fervor seems a bit more… reasonable if the paper is actually junk, and if the peer review process was actually compromised. On the latter, de Freitas defends himself as quoted by mfosdb. In the few e-mails that I’ve read, I don’t see any accusations that de Freitas lied about the four reviewers’ recommending publication (with revisions). But the Wikipedia article asserts that all four reviewers recommended rejection. The claim’s source is a couple of lines from a Guardian article, which overall takes a disfavorable view of Mann et al: “But many on the 10-man [CR] editorial board agreed with Mann. They concluded that their colleague de Freitas had ignored the anonymous advice of four reviewers to reject the paper.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/02/hacked-climate-emails-flaws-peer-review)
Which is it? Otto Kinne’s CR editorial on the imbroglio says little about the Soon paper itself, focuses mainly on the aftermath, and does not rise above typical damage control boilerplate. Thoughts?
The de Freitas e-mail (3265) also contains some defense of the paper’s contents and methodology. Can anyone speak to those? I haven’t gotten my hands on the rebuttal Eos paper, but I assume it goes after both tooth-and-nail. Does anyone have any insight on the fact (per Wikipedia) that scientists cited in S&B claim that paper commits major errors of fact and interpretation concerning their work? The Wikipedia article cites books that sound, well, screedy. Is the Eos paper discussed in any of the Climategate e-mails?
Again, apologies if I’m out of my element here.
Hello All
See copied email below:
Thu, 3 July 2003 12:42:48 +0200
To CLIMATE RESEARCH
Editors and Review Editors
Dear colleagues,
In my 20.06. email to you I stated, among other things, that I would
ask CR editor Chris de Freitas to present to me copies of the
reviewers’ evaluations for the 2 Soon et al. papers.
I have received and studied the material requested.
Conclusions:
1) The reviewers consulted (4 for each ms) by the editor presented
detailed, critical and helpful evaluations
2) The editor properly analyzed the evaluations and requested
appropriate revisions.
3) The authors revised their manuscripts accordingly.
Summary:
Chris de Freitas has done a good and correct job as editor.
Best wishes,
Otto Kinne
Director, Inter-Research
————————————————-
Inter-Research, Science Publisher
Ecology Institute
Nordbuente 23,
D-21385 Oldendorf/Luhe,
Germany
Tel: (+49) (4132) 7127 Email: ir@int-res.com
Fax: (+49) (4132) 8883 http://www.int-res.com
Dave Springer says:
November 28, 2011 at 12:54 am
These are the exact same tactics that evolutionary biologists and paleontologists have been using against any scientist who doesn’t make the proper obeisance to the godless narrative of mud-to-man evolution. The climate change worshippers are cut from the same cloth and use the same playbook.
____________
You’re overgeneralizing. Conway Morris’ nonstandard take on evolution (in “Life’s Solution”) has been generally well-received. (e.g. from Nature: “I recommend this book to anyone grappling with the meaning of evolution and our place in the Universe …) One reason for this may be that, unlike the ID’ers, he tries to give an account of the mechanisms involved.
George E. Smith; says:
November 27, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Sorry to contradict you but we still get quite a bit of “New Zealand Lamb” and Butter in the UK.
We get very little Lamb from the rest of the EU as Wales produces quite a bit.
Some here are defending the Team for trying to get de Frietas sacked because it is “bad science” but my dear friends the literature is FULL of bad science. Have the team ever gone on the war path about alarmist bad science? Did they protest when Gore’s film shows NY city going under water, along with half of Florida, a scenario which the IPCC does NOT suggest at all? Did they write letters to Gore’s publisher? No, because Gore had good motives (in their eyes) and motives matter more than facts…but that is not science, that is post-modernism.
Joel Shore is the object of a lot of ad hominem abuse in this thread.
Abuse, perhaps. Ad hominen, no.
Nobody is much getting stuck into irrelevant details of him or his family. They’re not even, which a few commenters here are often guilty of, accusing him of particular political views. Not all attacks are ad hominen.
Funny you think that a bit of, erm, “vigorous” on-topic discussion is an issue, but The Team trying to get a reputable scientist sacked for doing his job is worth passing over.
And how about this, for a corruption of peer review. Phil Jones reviews a paper by Prof Courtillot, that criticises his own work, and so he writes a terrible review and gets the rival paper rejected. Now that is not simply unprofessional, it is almost criminal:
email number {120,042,656} .
Here, Phil Jones is complaining (again) about Professor Courtillot from France, who criticises his data and his computer simulations. So Phil Jones says:
“”
From: Phil Jones
To: Gavin, Mike
Subject: Re: Edouard Bard
Date: Tue Jan 15 14:49:24 2008
Cc:
I know all this is a storm in a teacup – and I hope I’d show your resilience, Mike, if this was directed at me. I’m just happy I’m in the UK, and our Royal Society knows who and why it appoints its fellows! In the Science piece, the two (Prof) Courtillot papers are rejected. I have the journal rejection emails – the other reviewer wasn’t quite as strong as mine, but they were awful.
Cheers
Phil””
R.Gates.
However, this does not change the fundamental science and research done by thousands of scientists from around the world who have no relationship at all to Climategate that supports the basic tenets of AGW. Mann, Jones, Trenberth, etc. are not the only ones doing climate research,
Is this true? Once you strip out all the findings of The Team, and those that rely on them, how much is actually left? How many papers based on original data are there?
I’ve looked around and seen satellite data that is unconvincing, sea temperature buoy data that is unconvincing, radio-sonde data that is unconvincing, sea level data that is unconvincing. However I’ve seen evidence for the MWP that is extremely convincing and quite a lot showing CO2 lags temperature. Even assuming the “greenhouse effect” I’ve seen lots of papers that show sensitivity to CO2 has been wildly over-estimated by the alarmists.
We know its warming. I want to see evidence that CO2 is causing this, and that it is catastrophic. Start naming these “thousands” who support this based on hard evidence!
http://pjmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2009/10/07/tribes-2/
A great read for those who do not grasp what is meant by tribal.
re post by: Nate_OH says: November 28, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Nate, you’re right, it’s a great read (for anyone/everyone actually) – thanks for posting the link!! It’s one I’ll forward along to friends.
DesertYote says:
November 27, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Any doubt now that this is not about science and never has been. CAGW is just a pretext to cause fear so that the ignorant willingly accept the Marxist world envisioned by our betters.
——————————————–
Exactly right, DesertYote.
Realising that may lead people to the further realisation that CAGW is just one amongst several current and ongoing pretexts designed to cause fear.
What should be becoming clear to folks is that the CO2 reduction plan (for western economies only) is going ahead no matter how much corruption is exposed. It only matters if the corruption infests the public conciousness through the TV/radio, which it mysteriously never does. Such things are not reported. The MSM is completely controlled. Compliant, obsequious to its masters; like the BBC in the UK.
Only what Crosspatch calls the “pull media” reports this stuff. Therein lies the problem, i.e people (perpetrators) get to feel they are above the law because they never get hauled up for anything. The public doesn’t care because the public simply doesn’t know about it, despite being able to tell you who won the last five XFactors/American Idols/Superbowls (bread and circuses). At all levels and in all areas, this leads to increasing corruption, which, as every historian knows, eventually leads to collapse (generally not pretty).
The media should absolutely be held to account for their failure to properly investigate any of these issues. Don’t you call it the “Fourth Estate” in the US, aren’t they meant to play some unwritten part in the “checks and balances” leading to good governance? The “journalists” sold out a long time ago. Journalists are just as cowardly and without moral principle as the so-called scientists exposed further by their own words in this latest release of emails. Complicit, that’s the word I’m looking for.
But what can the poor folks at the BBC do when uncle Chuck has made it plain that he’s four square behind the good old boys at the CRU and the vital work they are doing?
Modern day journalists should watch a collection of John Pilger documentaries, to learn what it really means to be a journalist. You know, a person of integrity, determined to report the truth, whatever the consequences. Bygone era, I suppose.
R. Gates wrote:
There’s a logical error deep in the physics. It’s so deep that most people have even forgotten the logic.
Remedy the logic, and the whole thing collapses.
Clouds are important. Rain is vastly more so.
Vince Causey:
Not even close. I might recommend a remedial reading comprehension course.
R. Gates;
However, this does not change the fundamental science and research done by thousands of scientists from around the world who have no relationship at all to Climategate that supports the basic tenets of AGW. Mann, Jones, Trenberth, etc. are not the only ones doing climate research>>>
The ones that Mann, Jones, Trenberth et all didn’t get fired you mean? Or are you talking about the ones who didn’t get fired but couldn’t get their papers published because Mann, Jones, Trenberth et al got editors who would dare to publish their work fired? Which ones are you talking about?
Joel Shore;
Basically, it seems like the “skeptics” want to have it both ways: >>>
C’mon Joel, you’re taking one comment from one person and applying it out of context with a brush so broad you could paint a barn in a single stroke! Both sides!
I don’t speak for all skeptics anymore than anyone else does, but I’m pretty certain that the consensus would be that we want to see good science published, regardless of the results.
Even as someone with a confirmed bias toward the AGW “consensus”, you must be very uncomfortable with the clear evidence showing that good science was in fact suppressed and bad science was frequently given a free pass. As a skeptic, if there is a skeptic paper that was known to be bad science and managed to get published anyway through political hyjinx, then I want to know about it and I’ll be just as unhappy as I would about a warmist paper guilty of the same sin.
crosspatch says: November 27, 2011 at 7:50 pm
NOTE: 4241.txt is where Briffa …. ….
Wilson, crosspatch, not Briffa
Q. Daniels says:
November 28, 2011 at 2:52 pm
“There’s a logical error deep in the physics. It’s so deep that most people have even forgotten the logic.”
____
There can be no logical error “deep in the physics”, but only in our understanding of the physics, which I presume is what you meant to say. And if this is what you meant to say, then to that I say “hogwash”. There is no logical error in our understanding of the basic physics of how CO2 operates in relationship to electromagnetic radiation, and its related greenhouse properties. It is even known that CO2’s greenhouse properties operate on a logarithmic fashion, but if this is all there was to the matter, this discussion would have ended years ago and could have been understood by any average high school physics student, as a doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm would lead to at most a 1C global temperature swing. But as we all know, (or certainly should know), that is not all there is to it, as there are multiple feedback processes, both negative and positive, and both slow and fast, which alter the trajectory of how much warming a doubling of CO2 might bring about. These feedback processes involve everything from water vapor and clouds to dust and sea ice, and vastly complicate exactly how much warming really does occur. One recent study seems to suggest it might be as low as 2.4C for a doubling, (though I happen to think this study is skewed to the low side in a significant fashion, but even if its not, it still shows the effect of doubling of CO2 is not just logarithmic). Other studies seem to show 3C or more from a doubling. Part of the issue is the speed at which the CO2 will have doubled. It is hard to find analogs to this, and the rapidity of the doubling could well have an effect of the nature of the feedbacks, such that a doubling over 10,000 years behaves far different in terms of temperatures and feedbacks than a doubling over a few hundred years.
But your general notion that there is some fundamental flaw deep in our understanding of the greenhouse properties of CO2, and all the other greenhouse gases of our atmosphere is simply incorrect. The only real unknown is how sensitive the climate is to a doubling of CO2 over a relatively short time frame. We know it will make things warmer, but what we don’t know how all the feedbacks will interact, and so we just don’t know how warm it will get.
Finally, please note: there is nothing “catastrophic” in anything I said. I simply know that the science behind CO2’s basic greenhouse properties is not in question. The real issue is one of sensitivity and the effects of fast and slow feedbacks– these are the big unknowns.
R. Gates;
The real issue is one of sensitivity and the effects of fast and slow feedbacks– these are the big unknowns.>>>
But R. Gates, that’s the whole point! If sensitivity is HIGH, then we would have seen substantial changes in global temps by now…. but we haven’t. If sensitivity is low…. we have nothing to be concerned about. If feedbacks are fast…we would have seen substantive changes in global temps by now, even if sensitivity was farily low… but we haven’t. If feedbacks are slow… they appear to be so slow then that they will take centuries to become significant. I think we can adapt to a degree or so in a few centuries time, don’t you? After all, we survived from the last ice age until now….
R. Gates, you say “There is no logical error in our understanding of the basic physics of how CO2 operates in relationship to electromagnetic radiation, and its related greenhouse properties.”
Could you please explain what greenhouse properties are.related and how they are related to electromagnetic radiation?
davidmhoffer says:
November 28, 2011 at 8:09 pm
R. Gates;
The real issue is one of sensitivity and the effects of fast and slow feedbacks– these are the big unknowns.>>>
But R. Gates, that’s the whole point! If sensitivity is HIGH, then we would have seen substantial changes in global temps by now…. but we haven’t. If sensitivity is low…. we have nothing to be concerned about. If feedbacks are fast…we would have seen substantive changes in global temps by now, even if sensitivity was farily low… but we haven’t. If feedbacks are slow… they appear to be so slow then that they will take centuries to become significant. I think we can adapt to a degree or so in a few centuries time, don’t you? After all, we survived from the last ice age until now….
———–
Yes, the whole point is about the unknowns of sensitivity, and also about the differences on sensitivity that may exist between rates of change in CO2. But you seem to be making an error in your view on fast and slow feedbacks. Some feedbacks are slow and some are fast, and so it is a quality that goes with the feedback, not with the nature of the sensitivity of climate to any given forcing over a period of time. In respect to a doubling of CO2, which is the current benchmark for understanding the sensitivity of the climate to this particular forcing, it could well be the case that the climate displays a different kind of sensitivity to a doubling over 10,000 years versus a few hundred. As far as humans surviving a doubling, let’s say even if the temperatures went up 3C on a global basis. I have no doubt in the ability of humans to adapt to change. So long as it doesn’t adversely affect our ability to grow the enormous amount of grains that it takes to feed 7+ billion of us, or hit our food and water supply in some other adverse ways, I’m sure we’ll find a way to adapt. Overall, the ocean food chain would be my biggest concern I suppose. But I’m not currently believing a catastrophe would be inevitable from even a 3C rise in temps.
BigWaveDave says:
November 28, 2011 at 10:35 pm
R. Gates, you say “There is no logical error in our understanding of the basic physics of how CO2 operates in relationship to electromagnetic radiation, and its related greenhouse properties.”
Could you please explain what greenhouse properties are.related and how they are related to electromagnetic radiation?
———
Suggest you start here, and read all 8 parts:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/12/23/understanding-atmospheric-radiation-and-the-greenhouse-effect-part-one/#entry
Sorry, Gates, your link is just BS, and the question was directed to you, Could you please explain what greenhouse properties are related to electromagnetic radiation.
R Gates, Joel Shore
From de Freitas’ reply thread,
How do you defend an obvious conspiracy to smear the character of somebody, apply pressure to them to alter the way they are doing their job, and try to get them fired all for publishing a paper after a fair review process that disagrees with you?
Here too is simple evidence in disproof of your attitudes
Taxpayer1234 says: November 27, 2011 at 7:42 pm
My husband is a chemist with over 25 years of experience in industry. He says the AGW “scientists” have the same level of maturity and grasp of reality as 5-year-olds. I thought he was exaggerating…but after reading this stuff, I see he’s right on target.
How do you two manage to keep coming here and not change, not show growth through interaction? You know how many times you get answered. I don’t think you are just attention-seeking. But what are the core stumbling-blocks wrt scientific attitude and findings, with the skeptics’ position, for each of you? Not the periphery, just the core.
Enquiring minds would like to know.
Email 4993.txt – May 12, 2003
See the P.S. at the email of this email string.
How did Mann know Chris de Freitas was going to be dismissed?
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 11:41:55 -0600
From: Jerry Meehl
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Harvard-Smithsonian Climate study]
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-7.1 required=5.0
tests=FWD_MSG,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES,SPAM_PHRASE_02_03,
USER_AGENT_MOZILLA_XM,X_ACCEPT_LANG
version=2.41
X-Spam-Level:
Mike,
Thanks! It never ceases to amaze me what tactics the naysayers come up
with–this latest, using what would appear to be a quasi-legitimate
“journal” to publish results that they then claim are peer-reviewed and
mainstream to launch a disinformation campaign, is very devious. Plus
it appears they have won–the current administration is on their
side–but they keep it up anyway. Bizarre.
Johannes Loschnigg (the AMS congressional fellow I mentioned) may
contact you directly if he needs more ammunition in his capacity of
climate person assigned to deal with these issues in Liebermann’s
office.
Thanks again!
Jerry
“Michael E. Mann” wrote:
>
> HI Jerry,
>
> This is crap of the worst kind–it was written explicitly for
> political purposes; there is no science there at all–the mainstream
> media completely ignored it, having figured that out, but various
> right-wing groups (such as “Western Fuels Association”) have continued
> to try to promote this in fringe media circles and through political
> channels within washington DC (so the story continued to appear on web
> sites like “Techcentralstation” and Murdoch-supported newspapers).
>
> I’ll forward a whole bunch of emails (in confidence) that should
> clarify the situation. We’ve all decided that this is so bad a direct
> response cannot even be made. Phil Jones and I, and Ray Bradley, Henry
> Diaz, and Malcolm Hughes are writing two review papers which will
> dismiss much of what they’ve said.
>
> please feel free to contact me for more information,
>
> cheers,
>
> mike
>
> p.s. NYT, Scientific American, and a few other journalists are working
> on exposes of Baliunas and co., and those should appear soon. It
> looks like Chris Defrietas, the editor at “Climate Research”
> responsible for publishing the Baliunas et al piece, and numerous
> other dubious other awful articles by “skeptics” over the past couple
> years, will be dismissed as a result of this latest act.
>
[snip . . unnecessary abuse]
BigWaveDave says:
November 29, 2011 at 12:32 am
By reading what R. Gates wrote, it seems that what the warmistas propose is that if a molecule of CO2 absorbs a photon it will lose that photon plus another thereby increasing the temperature of the air. Simple quantum mechanics would saythe molecule would absorb a photon and emit a photon as it returns to a lower energy state. I do believe what they propose violates the Conservation of Energy principle. There are no known mechanisms by which you can get more energy out of a system than is introduced into it.
BigWaveDave says:
November 29, 2011 at 12:32 am
Sorry, Gates, your link is just BS, and the question was directed to you, Could you please explain what greenhouse properties are related to electromagnetic radiation.>>>
And while you are at it R. Gates, could you explain your comment on another thread that the globes in the Al Gore experiment were superflous? Or why it was you were willing to bet that if the experiment were carried out as illustrated they would show the results as illustrated? Can you explain where, in your supposed understanding of the physics, you went totaly and completely wrong?
Babsy;
By reading what R. Gates wrote, it seems that what the warmistas propose is that if a molecule of CO2 absorbs a photon it will lose that photon plus another thereby increasing the temperature of the air>>>
R. Gates can rather eloquent, but his grasp of the actual physics is pretty weak. There are warmistas who spout propoganda and repeat things that they believe to be true without understanding them. Then there are warmistas who have a real grip on the physics and can give you an actual explanation of what they believe to be true that has some actual scientific value. R. Gates is not, in my opinion, in the latter group.
Babsy says:
November 29, 2011 at 6:40 am
BigWaveDave says:
November 29, 2011 at 12:32 am
By reading what R. Gates wrote, it seems that what the warmistas propose is that if a molecule of CO2 absorbs a photon it will lose that photon plus another thereby increasing the temperature of the air.
_____
Where would you get this rather odd idea? I never wrote such nonsense, nor believe such nonsense. Greenhouse gases absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation at specific wavelengths based on the unique characterisitics of each type of molecule. Suggest you visit:
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/db_intensity.php
To see all the various absorption bands for different molecules yourself. No energy is created in this process, and as far as each individual molecule is concerned, it is a zero-sum game. The net result however, in terms of the Earth’s climate is that because more net energy (primarily solar in origin) stays in the system because of the greenhouse gases, we enjoy a much much warmer world then we would have without them. Take them away, and we get cooler, increase them and we get warmer. Very simple. What is not so simple is how sensitive the climate is to increasing CO2 in a geologically rapid way from human activities. CO2 increases naturally as oceans warm during the upswing of Milankovitich cycles when coming out of a glacial period into an interglacial, and this release of CO2 becomes a positive reinforcement to the Milankovitch forcing, but this is a gradual process. The spike in CO2 from human activities can be likened to a human CO2 volcano, and what we don’t really know is how sensitive the climate will be to this spike. Anywhere from 2C to 4C warming for a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels seems a very reasonable estimate.
Lucy Skywalker says:
November 29, 2011 at 2:03 am
R Gates, Joel Shore
How do you two manage to keep coming here and not change, not show growth through interaction? You know how many times you get answered. I don’t think you are just attention-seeking. But what are the core stumbling-blocks wrt scientific attitude and findings, with the skeptics’ position, for each of you? Not the periphery, just the core.
Enquiring minds would like to know.
_____
Not sure the context of your question. Has someone proven that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? Abosolutely nothing revealed in any of the Climategate 1.0 or 2.0 emails has brought into question any of the actual science. Revealing that scientists are also “all too human” with egos just like the rest of us is hardly a revelation to me.
But in terms of my attitudes changing about AGW since coming to WUWT several years ago…absolutely they have. I’ve also learned a great deal about solar influences and the MWP, and cosmic rays, etc. that I might never had an interest in otherwise. But of course I am still a “warmist” in the sense that I believe that humans have and are altering the climate through our activities, as it is obvious on the micro-scale and macro-scale. Whether this will be “catastrophic” or not, is an entirely different matter…
R Gates
Thanks. Appreciated. As to CO2, that takes a lot of explaining, because so many factors have IMHO conspired to make it look as if we are to blame for rising CO2, and as if this will cause and has caused rising temperatures. Have you read my primer (click my name)? Easier to digest, re CO2, is to view my more recent presentation (find in the top RH corner of my opening page).
R. Gates wrote:
You are correct on this point. I did not intend to suggest that we live within a simulation (which could contain logical errors). Proving the statement as originally written would be very interesting indeed.
I have said nothing regarding CO2. That is your choice of concepts, not mine.
I also note that I have offered no evidence to support my assertion, nor do I offer any credentials.
R. Gates;
The spike in CO2 from human activities can be likened to a human CO2 volcano, and what we don’t really know is how sensitive the climate will be to this spike. >>>
Based on the last century of human CO2 emissions and the global temperature record, we know this: sensitivity is very small.
R. Gates;
Anywhere from 2C to 4C warming for a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels seems a very reasonable estimate.>>>
Given that the pre-industrial era ended in 1920, we can observe that the temperature record prior to the pre-industrial era shows a general warming trend nearly identical to the post-industrial era. Given the logarithmic nature of CO2, whatever actual sensitivity really is, over half the effect you be happening right now based on the 40% increase in CO2 since 1920. That makes a sensitivity of even 2 degrees highly unlikely.
R. Gates says:
November 29, 2011 at 11:28 am
Sure it is. I know of a guy in California who owns a toll bridge. I can put you two in touch…
davidmhoffer says:
November 29, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Babsy says:
November 29, 2011 at 3:33 pm
=======================================
You’re forgetting that R. Gates is from the Trenberth school of data analysis and null hypothesis interpretation.
davidmhoffer said:
” That makes a sensitivity of even 2 degrees highly unlikely.”
____
Interesting opinion, but the science would say differently. I’ll trust the science….thanks.
Lucy Skywalker says:
November 29, 2011 at 1:39 pm
R Gates
Thanks. Appreciated. As to CO2, that takes a lot of explaining, because so many factors have IMHO conspired to make it look as if we are to blame for rising CO2, and as if this will cause and has caused rising temperatures. Have you read my primer (click my name)? Easier to digest, re CO2, is to view my more recent presentation (find in the top RH corner of my opening page).
_____
I find your page interesting, but hardly convincing of anything. For example, the graph you display which (correctly) shows temperatures falling while CO2 has risen the last 10 years is hardly scientific proof of anything. As you must well know, the flattening of temperatures over the past decade have been (and are being) studied by many groups worldwide, and their analysis leads some pretty interesting conclusions…none of which in any way dispute the long term warming that will result from the continual inceases in CO2 levels. There are just a few big things that control climate over the long-term such as Milankovitch cycles, greenhouse gas levels, and really big and thankfully very rare mega-volcanic eruptions or meteor strikes. There are a few things that control climate over the medium term such as solar variations, ENSO, etc. Everything else that is short-term can be considered “background” noise, or natural variations. You really can’t even start seeing the effects of CO2 through this shorter-term noise until at the minimum of 17 years. So to show a graph of the past 10 years and ask “where’s the warming?” displays a certain level of ignorance of the science behind CO2, and perhaps more so, behind the multiple factors that go into making up the climate over very short time frames.
R. Gates says:
November 29, 2011 at 6:20 pm
davidmhoffer said:
” That makes a sensitivity of even 2 degrees highly unlikely.”
____
Interesting opinion, but the science would say differently. I’ll trust the science….thanks
=====================================
Your idiotic science maybe, but not the science of real scientists.
Tell us, in your own words, with math not links, why you think you’re right about 2 – 4 degrees, based on the data.
…. and, while you’re at it answer David Hoffer’s question from what, a month ago, about the dumbass Gore experiment ? Or pay up on his bet.
Don’t go hiding now, or posting your usual passive aggressive crap.
Tell us which science YOU trust, with math please.
Also, why don’t you tell us why you say “I had scientific training” and why you don’t say “I’m a scientist” ?
You remind me of a guy who lasted one day in my lab. I’m guessing that’s the answer.
What I would like to see is a mechanism. When I was in grad organic mechanisms and structure we had to draw all the reactions out on paper. With the warmistas, it’s all about “You’ll just have to believe us”. The truth is, they don’t have a mechanism by which increases in CO2 cause the temperature of the atmosphere to increase. If they did, they’d be screeching at the top of their lungs for all the world to see. But they don’t.
davidmhoffer says:
November 29, 2011 at 3:25 pm
R. Gates;
The spike in CO2 from human activities can be likened to a human CO2 volcano, and what we don’t really know is how sensitive the climate will be to this spike. >>>
Based on the last century of human CO2 emissions and the global temperature record, we know this: sensitivity is very small.
_____
We know nothing of the sort. The past century of CO2 emissions and temperature records can tell us very little or next to nothing about the sensitivity of the climate to the geologically speaking rapid spike in CO2 levels caused by human activity. The effects of this spike are still being processed throughout the system, and even in the very unlikely event that CO2 levels would stop rising right now and stay around 390 ppm or so, the final temperature effects will take decades to fully translate throughout the climate system. Given that CO2 levels will probably continue to rise for many more decades, the final temperature effect (everything else staying the same) is not known, but 3C for a a doubling from 280 to 560 ppm is quite within both model estimates and the paleoclimate record.
Gates replies to Lucy:
“I find your page interesting, but hardly convincing of anything. For example, the graph you display which (correctly) shows temperatures falling while CO2 has risen the last 10 years is hardly scientific proof of anything. As you must well know, the flattening of temperatures over the past decade have been (and are being) studied by many groups worldwide, and their analysis leads some pretty interesting conclusions…none of which in any way dispute the long term warming that will result from the continual inceases in CO2 levels.”
Down is up, ignorance is strength, temperatures falling while CO2 has risen, and warming will result from rising CO2. …Not.
But even if it were CO2, and not the natural and unchanged warming trend from the LIA, it’s all good. CO2 is harmless and beneficial. That is a real, testable, falsifiable hypothesis: just show empirical evidence of global harm, and it’s falsified. But neither Gates nor anyone else has been able to show global harm from human CO2 emissions. Their belief system is the only basis for presuming that the [beneficial] global warrming trend from the LIA is caused by human CO2. People like Gates lack any testable evidence to support their belief. It is enough for them that Algore demonizes “carbon”, making their belief akin to religious dogma. Thus, their belief is not science – it is religion.
R. Gates;
Well, I had an excellent riposte to your last reply, but Philincalifornia kinda took the wind out of my sails. So…
Excellent points Philincalifornia! R. Gates, could you respond to Phil’s questions as well as mine?
This post:
Babsy says:
November 29, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Was in reply to this post:
philincalifornia says:
November 29, 2011 at 6:45 pm
Just so everyone is on the same page.
Babsy says:
November 29, 2011 at 7:09 pm
What I would like to see is a mechanism. When I was in grad organic mechanisms and structure we had to draw all the reactions out on paper. With the warmistas, it’s all about “You’ll just have to believe us”. The truth is, they don’t have a mechanism by which increases in CO2 cause the temperature of the atmosphere to increase. If they did, they’d be screeching at the top of their lungs for all the world to see. But they don’t.
======================
This is actually not such an unusual problem in real science, i.e. where the consensus turned out to be totally wrong. A really great example is the upside down methotrexate in the crystal structure of the dihydrofolate reductase/methotrexate complex circa 1980. I’ll post links upon request. Usually though, the scientists, and in that case Nobel prizewinners, would say, well I’ll be damned, didn’t expect that.
There’s another one too, much more recently in the human hereditary emphysema field, but I’ll wait ’til that one plays out.
The consensus that “carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas so therefore it must cause global warming”, is turning out to be equally silly based on the data that people other than R. Gates look at.
Meanwhile it looks like this one is also apprioriate as a reference to this incident:
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=5595
“…I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more
to do with it until they
rid themselves of this troublesome editor. A CRU person is on the
editorial board, but papers
get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
Cheers
Phil”
re post by: philincalifornia says:
November 29, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Phil, I’d be very interested in the cutting edge emphysema info you mention – my father was a lifelong smoker who finally stopped about 8 years ago, and has fairly severe emphysema as a result.
Babsy says:
The mechanism of the greenhouse effect is well-understood…and has been for decades. The radiative forcing of a certain fractional change in CO2 concentration (such as a doubling) can be calculated to a precision of about 5-10%. We know what sort of warming that radiative forcing will cause all else being equal.
We also know that all else isn’t equal: A warmer world will have more water vapor in the atmosphere and water vapor is a greenhouse gas, thus magnifying the warming. That the water vapor feedback is occurring and is of roughly the expected magnitude is now well-verified (particularly for temperature fluctuations, such as those occurring with ENSO, where artifacts that can affect long term trends are not an issue).
A warmer world will also have less ice and snow and since ice and snow have much higher reflectances than water and land surface, that is another positive feedback that will magnify the warming.
Finally, in a warmer world, cloudiness may change. How this might happen is the biggest source of uncertainty in determining the climate sensitivity. However, both physical models and empirical observations (e.g., of paleoclimate changes) suggest that the climate system is quite sensitive to small forcings…and thus that it is unlikely that clouds will miraculously save us. At best, they will probably be about a wash, and at worse they may amplify the warming.
Joel Shore says:
November 30, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Like I said, you really have no idea. Clouds are formed by cooling, not by heating.
Babsy: For a post barely over one line long, you certainly got a lot wrong. For one thing your statement doesn’t even address anything that I actually said, I didn’t make a claim that warming would necessarily cause more clouds. I just said, “cloudiness may change”. I could have meant that cloudiness would be reduced for all that you know.
In reality though, how cloudiness changes is complex: A warmer world has both more water vapor in the atmosphere and a higher saturation point for water vapor to condense into clouds. (Interestingly, many “AGW skeptics” seem to ignore the second point, whereas you have ignored the first.)
How clouds affect climate is also complex, since clouds can increase both the reflection of incoming solar radiation and reduce the outgoing terrestrial radiation. In general, for low clouds the former effect dominates and the clouds have a net cooling effect, whereas for high clouds the latter effect dominates and the clouds have a net warming effect. (Although these two effects partially cancel, overall the net effect of clouds is to cool the earth. However, despite the confusion that sometimes occurs, this does not tell you that clouds are a negative feedback because to determine that you need to know how cloudiness will change in a warmer world.)
There is no doubt that clouds are the biggest source of uncertainty in predicting the effect of increasing levels of CO2. However, this does not mean that we know nothing or that we don’t have a mechanism for how increasing CO2 levels leads to warming. The mechanism is very clear and well understand even if the details for how all the feedbacks play out for determining the magnitude accurately are quite complex.
By the way, you are in poor scientific company for your claim that there is no known mechanism for something that most scientists would say the mechanism is clear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNwJFlTFeMg
Joel Shore says:
November 30, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Your claim is that if the concentration of CO2 in a parcel of air increases, then there is an increase in the temperature of that parcel of air SOLELY from the introduction of the additional CO2. I see no reason to accept your argument at face value.
Babsy: No…The claim is that the additional CO2 changes the radiative balance between the sun, earth, and space so that the average surface temperature of the earth is then higher.
In particular, when the CO2 concentration increases in the atmosphere, the effective height from which radiation is escaping to space increases. Since the tropospheric temperatures are a decreasing function of height, that means that the radiation is escaping from colder parts of the atmosphere…and, as a consequence of the dependence of the intensity of thermal radiation on the temperature, the intensity is lower. As a result, the earth finds itself out of radiative balance: It is emitting into space less energy than it receives from the sun. This causes the earth to warm until it reaches a temperature where it is again emitting back out into space the same amount of energy as it receives from the sun.
This is a claim that all serious scientists, be they skeptics or adherents of AGW agree with. People like Lindzen, Spencer, and Eschenbach are just arguing about what the final change in temperature is once all the feedbacks are included, not the basic mechanism of the greenhouse effect.
I see NZ AGW/CC Alarmist blog Hot Topic, the defenders of Climategate are responding with this spiel:
Put it there pal: the real story of Chris de Freitas and Climate Research
Introducing a post copied from a New Zealand sceptic blog, given the headline The tribalistic corruption of peer review – the Chris de Freitas incident — Watts adds:
This is outright malicious interference with the scientific process, and it’s damned ugly. I can’t imagine anyone involved in professional science who could stand idly by and not condemn this.
Unfortunately for Watts and the anonymous (and low profile) NZ blogger who wrote the article, a new analysis by John Mashey of 700+ papers published at Climate Research reveals that the tribalism on display came from a cabal of sceptical scientists, with Auckland University academic Chris de Freitas safely shepherding their papers — however poor the science they contained — through peer pal review.
“Unfortunately for Watts and the anonymous (and low profile) NZ blogger who wrote the article, a new analysis by John Mashey of 700+ papers published at Climate Research reveals that the tribalism on display came from a cabal of sceptical scientists….”
Hey, you’ll get what for saying that ‘ere. It’s only them arlarmist what engage in all kinds of propaganda an’ skulduggery. Them skeptics is as pure as the driven snow. Ask Smokey, he’ll tell ya.
Oops. Sorry. Couldn’t resist that.
CanSpeccy,
We didn’t really require verifiable proof that you’re a water carrier for the evidence-free, pseudo-scientific alarmist tribe. But thanx for confirming it. Oops, Couldn’t resist that.
Note that CanSpecy and Marian can post on this censorship-free site – while even the most polite, on-point and factual comments from scientific skeptics [the only honest kind of scientist] routinely get censored at alarmist blogs. The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
And anyone desiring a textbook case of psychological projection [imputing your own faults onto others], a glance at Marian’s cognitive dissonance above will fit the bill.
Rational Debate says:
November 30, 2011 at 1:52 pm
re post by: philincalifornia says:
November 29, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Phil, I’d be very interested in the cutting edge emphysema info you mention – my father was a lifelong smoker who finally stopped about 8 years ago, and has fairly severe emphysema as a result.
======================================
OK, just found this.
Actually, it probably has no bearing on your father, although you might want to have him tested for alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, as there are replacement therapies that could help. If it’s “normal” smoking-related COPD, the best bet is to use the really good therapeutics out there (Spiriva, Advair)
The change in the consensus was all about a certain structure that was assumed for 20 years regarding the mutant protein and how it polymerized causing the disease. It turns out that it wasn’t so.
The scientists weren’t being nefarious, and they performed some ultra-sophisticated studies that appeared to confirm the prevailing view, but it was all wrong as it turned out.
My point was related to the common statement “CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so therefore it must cause global warming”. It’s a non-sequitur when taking into account the multitude of other factors involved …
…. as we are seeing.
Wow, Smokey. You work this blog 24/7. Are you a bot? With a dodgy logic chip, it would appear, plus a complete incomprehension of humor.
Smokey says:
December 1, 2011 at 8:42 pm
And anyone desiring a textbook case of psychological projection [imputing your own faults onto others], a glance at Marian’s cognitive dissonance above will fit the bill.
Smokey.
I don’t have anytime for Hot Topic.
To Joel Shore,
You said:
“In particular, when the CO2 concentration increases in the atmosphere, the effective height from which radiation is escaping to space increases. Since the tropospheric temperatures are a decreasing function of height, that means that the radiation is escaping from colder parts of the atmosphere…and, as a consequence of the dependence of the intensity of thermal radiation on the temperature, the intensity is lower. As a result, the earth finds itself out of radiative balance: It is emitting into space less energy than it receives from the sun. ”
My questionsl are:
How is this effective height measured, or calculated?
Why is higher necessarily colder?
Don’t temperatures increase again at even higher altitudes?
When has the Earth been out of balance with the Sun?
How long did it last?
You further said:
“This causes the earth to warm until it reaches a temperature where it is again emitting back out into space the same amount of energy as it receives from the sun.”
What “temperature”, specifically?
Does the “effective height” change when this “temperature” changes ?
Does this happen during the day, at night, or both?
Is it seasonal?
Does it vary with latitude?
Is this like the way a greenhouse works?
Whether Lindzen, Spencer, or Eschenbach believe in magic or the Easter Bunny seems immaterial. tI don’t recall ever seeing anything from any of them that explained or validated any part of your hypothesis in a verifiable or quantifiable way . If you are aware of something, please cite it.
Thank you.
Joel Shore says:
December 1, 2011 at 2:07 pm
If. Only. I. Would. BELIEVE!!! Here’s a little exercise for ya. Find a gas rack, and put some sea water in it. Close it off from the ambient atmosphere. Get a sample of the air in the rack above the sea water and determine the CO2 concentration in ppm. Record the temperature. Then introduce more CO2 to double the ppm concentration in the test apparatus. After a suitable period of time, record the temperature and report your findings back here to us of the increase in temperature. OK? Have a great weekend!
CanSpeccy says:
“Wow, Smokey. You work this blog 24/7. Are you a bot?”
Give that boy a Participation Trophy.
No, I’m not a bot, I fill out CAPTCHAs all the time. It so happens that Mrs Smokey has had five hip replacements, one total knee replacement, and broke her other knee two months ago. Fortunately I am retired, so I can get my wife around in a wheel chair, fix her meals, take her to the doctor, etc. In between taking care of her I follow the conversation on WUWT, and contribute often. Especially when someone posts nonsense. I don’t want new readers to get the idea that anything unusual is happening to the climate, because it’s not. Or that humans have any more than a minuscule effect [and that effect is primarily from land use changes, not CO2]. I am simply correcting the misinformation that the alarmist crowd constantly posts.
I retired from a career in designing, testing, calibrating and repairing weather related instruments in a large [140+ engineers & techs] metrology lab. One of the biggest in the country, and we received all the scientific literature gratis from various instrument manufacturers. Over thirty years we could see the global winter narrative morph into the runaway global warming narrative, then when the planet refused to cooperate, the narrative morphed into climate disruption, then climate change. I don’t recall one person in our lab believing a word of the CO2=CAGW nonsense. That belief is reserved for two kinds of people: those cashing in on the scare, and Algore’s True Believers.
Any questions?
Babsy says:
You can’t simulate the atmosphere, with its lapse rate, the thickness of its atmosphere, etc. in a table-top apparatus. This is like arguing against evolution by demanding that the scientists produce in the laboratory the phenomenon of a fish evolving into a horse!
However, the various pieces of the theory can and have been tested: Tabletop experiments do give you accurate determinations of the absorption spectra of CO2 and can be used to demonstrate the basic phenomenon of warming that can occur via CO2’s absorption of infrared radiation. And, the theory of radiation transfer is well-tested both in the laboratory and in the atmosphere (e.g., in the field of remote sensing).
BigWaveDave says:
Joel Shore says:
December 3, 2011 at 6:14 am
You wrote: “You can’t simulate the atmosphere, with its lapse rate, the thickness of its atmosphere, etc. in a table-top apparatus.”
Really? There has been much work done in physical chemistry with a ‘table top’ gas rack. Al Einstein thought that a photon ( a massless particle, btw) would change its flight path in the presence of a massive body which was later confirmed by experiment. Do you have experimental data that confirms your model(s)? I didn’t think so. And I so wanted to BELIEVE!!!
Babsy,
Disregard Joel Shore. He is just a water boy for the runaway global warming clique. The fact that the planet repeatedly falsifies his belief system means nothing, due to his incurable cognitive dissonance. The scientific method is totally alien to people like Joel Shore. Thus, their beliefs are tantamount to a belief in astrology.
With a 40% rise in [harmless, beneficial] CO2, the global temperature has not followed as predicted. But don’t expect Joel Shore to accept reality. His belief system trumps that.
Dear Smokey,
I knew that. In a way, I feel sorrow for these people because they are so scientifically illiterate. No matter whose fault it was that they’re that way now, it’s their fault, and their choice, to remain so. It’s been 34 years since I was in P Chem and Mathematical Physics and I would like to think that i still have a pretty good grasp of quantum mechanics so that if he/she/it decided to really do some good explaining about how AGW ‘works’, I would be all ears, even thought there wasn’t a snowball’s chance that would happen. I read about your wife’s orthopedic problems. I wish you both the best on that. Take care.
Joel Shore,
Thank you for your reply.
You say “The easiest way to get the average height is to consider at what height in the atmosphere is the temperature on average equal to about -18 C, since the earth emits an amount of radiation equal to a blackbody at that temperature (although the spectrum is not that of a blackbody because of the strong dependence of the absorption lines of the greenhouse gases on wavelength).”
So, in other words, you can’t say what the altitude that you claim is getting higher, is, but the temperature will be at about -18°C?
You then add; ” However, this is just an average…In reality the height at which radiation is likely to escape to space without being absorbed varies strongly with wavelength. So, the correct way to quantitatively calculate the effect of adding greenhouse gases is using a line-by-line radiative transfer code.” , which seems to negate your first answer, but still provides nothing that can be verified..
Your answer “Because the environmental lapse rate in the troposphere is about 6.5 C per km.” is approximatly correct for the vertical temperature profile in the moister regions of the tropical troposphere,” fails to address why this is so.
You had said “As a result, the earth finds itself out of radiative balance: It is emitting into space less energy than it receives from the sun. ”, which prompted me to ask:
When has the Earth been out of balance with the Sun?
How long did it last?
to which you replied:
“I don’t really understand the question. It depends on how out-of-balance you are talking about. And, as I explained, once it is out-of-balance, it works its way back into balance again by warming up or cooling down. The timescale for return to equilibrium, however, is not too fast mainly because of the large thermal inertia of the oceans.”
So, how out of balance were you talking about?
Then you say:
“This causes the earth to warm until it reaches a temperature where it is again emitting back out into space the same amount of energy as it receives from the sun.”
So when has the Earth actually been out of balance?
You finish with an appeal to authority and and ad hominem attack, suggesting that you think that you and the rest of the gang of people you call climate scientists,who share your view that anthropogenic CO2 is causing warming, know something about the physical behavior of the atmosphere.
But, considering that you all think that pressure has nothing to do with the temperature lapse rate, and the naive ways you treat such things as water’s phase changes, I am confident that I have a much better understanding of it than you. Am I smarter? Likely, but intelligence isn’t knowledge.
Babsy says:
Do you not have any clue? Try looking up the word “remote sensing” and read what that field is all about. You might even want to take a look at a few spectra of the terrestrial radiation taken from satellites.
You might want to investigate before your throw around adjectives like “scientifically illiterate”. Unlike you, I am posting under my real name and it is not too hard to find my contributions in the physical sciences over the last ~25 years. And, I’ve actually read textbooks on climate science and on atmospheric radiation. Have you?
You don’t have any data, do you? Sad.
BigWaveDave:
How hard is it to understand that there is not simply one altitude but it depends on wavelength…very sensitively in fact. And, even then, of course, what you have is a probabilistic distribution function showing the probability vs. height of emission (and angle of emission…unless you integrate over angle) that a photon could escape to space without being absorbed again.
That said, a number often quoted to give you a sense of a rough average value is 5 km (which is the height at which, given a typical environmental lapse rate of 6.5 K per km, you would be ~33 K cooler than at the surface).
Actually, my vague impression was that 6.5 C is a compromise value between the moister and drier regions of the atmosphere. The reason the lapse rate is at such a value is that the troposphere is strongly heated from below and cooled from above as a result of the solar radiation and of greenhouse gas absorption and emission in the atmosphere….This would tend to produce an even larger lapse rate except that the adiabatic lapse rate (moist or dry, depending on whether the air is saturated or not) is a stability limit, beyond which the atmosphere becomes unstable to convection, which tends to transport heat up until the lapse rate is brought back down to the appropriate adiabatic lapse rate.
An instantaneous doubling of CO2 would leave the earth out of balance by about 4 W/m^2. With the current rise in CO2 levels (and with the complicated issue of aerosols)…and the earth continually trying to get back into balance by warming, it is believed to be out-of-balance by something on the order of 0.5 – 1.0 W/m^2.
Well, if you want to believe that you are so freakin’ brilliant that you understand the atmosphere better than people who have actually put some real effort into studying it, just don’t expect us to all go along with your delusions of grandeur. Some people seem to think that the fact that “appeal to authority” is strictly speaking a logical fallacy means that their woefully uninformed opinion is just as good as any other. That is just silly.
Also, it is not “ad hominem” to point out that your posts here have not exactly demonstrated you to be a great expert in the field…and to suggest that perhaps the opinions of experts (even experts who are strongly inclined to your point of view on the broader issue of public policy in regards to AGW) might be more worse listening to than your opinions.
And, you expect to demonstrate that with such nonsense?
(1) The argument is not over what sets the lapse rate. As I have noted, in practice the lapse rate is set by the fact that the troposphere is strongly heated from below and cooled from above (partly due to where most of the solar energy is absorbed and partly due to the warming and cooling effects of the greenhouse gases) coupled with the fact that a lapse rate greater than the adiabatic lapse rate is unstable to convection. Hence, the actual (average) lapse rate in the troposphere tends to be a compromise between the moist and dry adiabatic lapse rate.
(2) Invoking the word “pressure” does not get you around having to satisfy conservation of energy. The earth’s surface can’t be warmer than basic energy balance dictates (in the absence of IR-absorbing elements in the atmosphere) because of pressure. That makes no sense…It violates energy conservation, which is a pretty fundamental physical law. Yes, the adiabatic lapse rate itself is not determined by the greenhouse gases, but the adiabatic lapse rate does not the surface temperature. To put it in the most simple mathematical terms: If I tell you a straight line in the x-y plane has a slope of -6.5 and then ask you to tell me what y is at, say, x = 1, you can’t do it because you need to know something else: the value of y for at least one particular value of x. A slope alone does not unique determine a line.
(3) In what ways exactly do you think that water’s phase changes are treated naively?
Joel Shore said
Ah…The curse of homophones. Of course, that should be
although you might prefer the first one.
Joel Shore said:
“How hard is it to understand that there is not simply one altitude but it depends on wavelength…very sensitively in fact. And, even then, of course, what you have is a probabilistic distribution function showing the probability vs. height of emission (and angle of emission…unless you integrate over angle) that a photon could escape to space without being absorbed again.”
Hard enough that not you or anyone else has been able to explain how ten, one hundred, one thousand, or even >900, 000 ppm additional CO2 in a planet’s atmosphere will predictably and, measurably affect its surface temperature.
Regarding lapse rate, you are the ones who are violating energy conservation by starting your hypothesis by assuming there would be an isothermal troposphere absent radiative forcing.
The incomprehensible garbage you offer to explain lapse rate is where you and your
AGW cohorts, be they PhD’s or preschoolers, demonstrate some of your most arrogant ignorance of the the physical behavior of gasses; particularly the inseparable interdependence of their pressure and temperature, and the distribution of pressure and temperature that results when gas molecules are pressurized by acceleration. While this may be rocket science, it is not at all new, and also unlike your hypothesis, it has been demonstrated to be true. I suggest you try looking into some fundamental physics, particularly fluid mechanics.
BigWaveDave says:
I have made no such assumption. I am not even sure what you mean about “absent radiative forcing”. If you mean that there is an assumption that there would be an isothermal atmosphere if the earth was in radiative balance (e.g., greenhouse gas concentrations and other forcings had been constant long enough for the earth to be in balance), nobody would make such a stupid assumption.
If you mean that there is an assumption that the troposphere would be isothermal if the atmosphere did not have any components in it that absorbed some of the IR radiation emitted from the earth’s surface, what the temperature distribution of the atmosphere would be in this case is irrelevant. The average surface temperature would be constrained by the condition that the surface would have to radiate back out into space only as much radiation as it absorbs from the sun, which means it would be at least 33 C colder. That’s true regardless of the temperature distribution of the atmosphere that would result.
You descend into utter nonsense here. There is no unique relationship between temperature and pressure. The ideal gas law for a fixed number of molecules of gas involves 3 variables, pressure, density, and temperature. You can’t uniquely determine the temperature from the pressure. If you want to assume that the bottom part of the atmosphere is at the (appropriate) adiabatic lapse rate, that still does not get you the surface temperature, it only gets you the DIFFERENCE in temperature between two heights in this lower region of the atmosphere (which, in practice, we call the troposphere).
If you claim to be able to uniquely calculate the surface temperature on the basis of such simple thermodynamics / fluid mechanics, without reference to the radiative properties of the atmosphere, then by golly, why don’t you just do it (or at least describe in detail the method about which one goes about doing it in a way that makes it clear that it will give a unique answer)?
Joel Shore,
You say:
“f you mean that there is an assumption that the troposphere would be isothermal if the atmosphere did not have any components in it that absorbed some of the IR radiation emitted from the earth’s surface, what the temperature distribution of the atmosphere would be in this case is irrelevant. The average surface temperature would be constrained by the condition that the surface would have to radiate back out into space only as much radiation as it absorbs from the sun, which means it would be at least 33 C colder. That’s true regardless of the temperature distribution of the atmosphere that would result.”
The question is what is the reason for the temperature lapse. I’m saying it is because the atmospheric pressure is highest at Earth’s surface. The average surface temperature has nothing to do with that.
“There is no unique relationship between temperature and pressure.”
I never said there was. did I? What I’m saying is that pressure affects temperature and temperature affects pressure, and both depend on the energy content.
I’m also saying that “Climate Science” has developed in ignorance of Fluid Mechanics.
I have explained above the reasons that the environmental lapse rate would be close to the adiabatic lapse rate in the bottom part of the atmosphere (i.e., that the adiabatic lapse rate represents the largest lapse rate one can have without becoming unstable to convection). So, now the answer to your question is to look at what determines the adiabatic lapse rate…and, indeed, it is determined by the fact that as a parcel of air rises up adiabatically through the atmosphere, it expands because the pressure decreases and as it expands its temperature drops (because by expanding it does positive work on the surrounding air). So, yes, the fact that pressure increases with height at a certain rate is what causes the temperature to decrease with height at a certain rate when the lapse rate is equal to the adiabatic lapse rate.
And, in doing so, you are betraying only your own ignorance about this field of science. Climate science is not ignorant of this…far from it. The adiabatic lapse rate is discussed in Chapter 2 of Ray Pierrehumbert’s “Principles of Planetary Climate” (and Chapter 2 is in some sense the first chapter since Chapter 1 is an overview of “The Big Questions”). It is in Appendix C of Dennis L Hartmann’s “Global Physical Climatology” and in Chapter 2 of Richard Goody’s “Principles of Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry”. These are the 3 textbooks that I happen to have…but if you can find a textbook covering the basics of climate science that does not have a discussion of the adiabatic lapse rate, I’d be quite surprised.
Joel Shore;
The pressure does not increase with height.
Are you totally ignorant the atmosphere, as well as fluid mechanics?.
Pierrehumbert in my humble opinion is a just another commie. Sad to see he’s at UC. Dennis L Hartmann is a lead IPCC author at the Durban meet, appears to be a kisser. In Goody’s book “All aspects of the lower and middle atmospheres, except for large-scale dynamics, are treated in a connected account as ultimate consequences of the solar radiation falling on the planet”, according to Amazon’s book description.
Any discussion of lapse rate that claims the lapse rate in the troposphere is due to radiative forcing as opposed to the pressure distribution by gravity in a compressible fluid is baseless.
I have found reasonable explanations of the physics in “Elementary Fluid Mechanics” by John K Vennard, “Handbook of Physics” by E. U. Condon and “The General Circulation of the Tropical Atmosphere and Interactions with Extratropical Latitudes” Vol.1 and Vol. 2 by Reginald E. Newell, John W. Kidson, Dayton G. Vincent and George J. Boer, to name a few.
Oh come on…That was a typo as is clear from the sentence before where I said it correctly in the context of a rising parcel of air. Don’t be ridiculous.
I personally am not interested in your opinions of every textbook author’s ideology or any other such thing (although the fact that you hold views to consider someone with views within the normal sphere of U.S. political discussion to be a “commie” goes a long way to explaining why your strong ideological viewpoint has distorted whatever scientific judgement you might have). That is not what we were addressing here. What we were talking about is whether climate textbooks discuss what sets the adiabatic lapse rate. You may a statement about climate science that was clearly wrong and based on your own ignorance of the subject.
Your statement is clearly too strong to be correct (especially if you are using “radiative forcing” to mean all radiative effects). How then do you explain the lapse rate in the stratosphere? As I have explained above, the adiabatic lapse rate is set by what you describe but the adiabatic lapse rate is only a stability limit on the adiabatic lapse rate. Depending on the vertical distribution of radiative heating and cooling, the actual lapse rate may be anything lower than the (appropriate) adiabatic lapse rate.
But, this does not put us in any particular disagreement about what determines the lapse rate of the troposphere, say, under an increase in greenhouse gases: Since the troposphere is strongly heated from below and cooled from above, the lapse rate does tend to be at the (appropriate) adiabatic lapse rate…and the role of increasing greenhouse gases is, to the first approximation, not to change the lapse rate at all but just to warm the entire troposphere uniformly. (To a better approximation, it turns out that on a global scale the effect of increasing greenhouse gases is to cause the lapse rate to decrease a bit because in the tropics the lapse rate tends to be close to the moist adiabatic lapse rate (MALR) and the MALR decreases as the temperature increases.)
Just to be clear, when I say, “the actual lapse rate may be anything lower than the (appropriate) adiabatic lapse rate”, I mean that the temperature can decrease with increasing height more slowly than the adiabatic rate…or it can even increase with height, as it does in the stratosphere.
Joel Shore:
I thought it was clear that we were both discussing the temperature lapse rate in the troposphere.
You say: “What we were talking about is whether climate textbooks discuss what sets the adiabatic lapse rate”
Your textbooks, whether written by political activists, or not, are all relatively new, and I’m curious why there has been an abandonment of known principles.
What do your textbooks say is the reason for the lapse rate?
Do they discuss a relationship between gravity and the adiabatic lapse rate, or not?
You say: “But, this does not put us in any particular disagreement about what determines the lapse rate of the troposphere, say, under an increase in greenhouse gases: Since the troposphere is strongly heated from below and cooled from above, the lapse rate does tend to be at the (appropriate) adiabatic lapse rate…and the role of increasing greenhouse gases is, to the first approximation, not to change the lapse rate at all but just to warm the entire troposphere uniformly. (To a better approximation, it turns out that on a global scale the effect of increasing greenhouse gases is to cause the lapse rate to decrease a bit because in the tropics the lapse rate tends to be close to the moist adiabatic lapse rate (MALR) and the MALR decreases as the temperature increases.)”
About half the atmosphere is, at any time, being heated directly by the sun, so what do you mean by “the troposphere is strongly heated from below”? Are you saying the atmosphere gets warmer at night?
BigWaveDave says:
I thought I made this clear. Yes, the textbook discusses what everybody agrees determines the adiabatic lapse rate. There is no argument on this. It is accepted science by everyone.
Yes, the solar heating does disappear at night…and as a consequence of that you can get what is called a “radiation inversion” or “night inversion” at night: http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter3/rad_invers.html and http://www.forestencyclopedia.net/p/p443 , where, near the surface of the earth, the lapse rate is nowhere near the adiabatic lapse rate…and, in fact, the temperature even increases with increasing height.
Joel Shore saie: “I thought I made this clear. Yes, the textbook discusses what everybody agrees determines the adiabatic lapse rate. There is no argument on this. It is accepted science by everyone”.
I’m not sure what you are calling accepted science by everyone. Could you please explain what this is?
“Yes, the solar heating does disappear at night…and as a consequence of that you can get what is called a “radiation inversion” or “night inversion” at night: http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter3/rad_invers.html and http://www.forestencyclopedia.net/p/p443 , where, near the surface of the earth, the lapse rate is nowhere near the adiabatic lapse rate…and, in fact, the temperature even increases with increasing height.”
But what you had said was “the troposphere is strongly heated from below and cooled from above, the lapse rate does tend to be at the (appropriate) adiabatic lapse rate” So do you agree that the atmosphere is heated by the sun during the day?
As I said in a previous post (with corrected typo in brackets): The adiabatic lapse rate is “determined by the fact that as a parcel of air rises up adiabatically through the atmosphere, it expands because the pressure decreases and as it expands its temperature drops (because by expanding it does positive work on the surrounding air). So, yes, the fact that pressure [de]creases with height at a certain rate is what causes the temperature to decrease with height at a certain rate when the lapse rate is equal to the adiabatic lapse rate.” I’ll add that, in particular, the dry adiabatic lapse rate is given by g/c_p where g = gravitational acceleration and c_p = specific heat at constant pressure.
Yes…but I am not sure what you point is.
Joel Shore says:
.
Isn’t the positive work being done on the parcel that rises? Won’t surrounding air descend to fill the void left by a rising parcel? What happens to the temperature of air that descends?
What is it the “greenhouse effect” is supposed to be doing?
BigWaveDave says:
The air that descends warms. (But, no, this fact is not going to get you around having to satisfy energy conservation as some people seem to believe.)
It is warming the entire troposphere (and also raising the tropopause as it turns out). To first order it is not changing the lapse rate. (I’ve already discussed this above.) To second order, there are some small changes in the lapse rate, primarily because the moist adiabatic lapse rate is a decrease function of the temperature.
Joel Shore,
Isn’t energy conservation covered in this context by the earth losing all the heat it receives from the sun?
It sounds like you are saying is that CO2 is doing all sorts of bad things, but you don’t know what, or how much CO2 is doing.
BigWaveDave says:
December 7, 2011 at 1:54 am
The Earth has been the recipient of some ginormous number way beyond quadrillion (> 10^16) watts of energy in its lifetime of 4.5 X 10^9 years. Seems strange to me that the Earth wouldn’t be viewed as the perfect black body radiator because if it isn’t, we couldn’t be having this conversation as the Earth would still be a glowing ball of molten rock as it was in its infancy. CO2 isn’t a problem. I like CO2. It makes plants grow which cows eat. That makes them taste good to me. YUM!
BigWaveDave says:
Yes…But my point is that any claims that the earth’s surface could be warmer then 255 K even in the absence of an IR-absorbing atmosphere because of pressure or something of that sort violate energy conservation. (I don’t know if you are making such a claim because you haven’t really been forthcoming on exactly what your point here is in this discussion, but you seem to be hinting at it.) The reason it violates energy conservation is that an earth with a surface temperature of greater than 255 K is emitting more energy than it receives from the sun. The only way for such a situation to be sustainable is if the atmosphere absorbs some of that emitted radiation, so that the earth/atmosphere system as seen from seen from space is only emitting as much radiation as a 255 K blackbody (albeit with a different spectrum from such a blackbody)…i.e., there is a greenhouse effect.
Babsy says:
The Earth’s surface is very close to a perfect blackbody radiator (emissivities generally within a percent or so of 1 over the relevant spectral range). However, that surface is at an average temperature of ~15 C (298 K), which turns out to mean it is radiating ~390 W/m^2. This is in fact far more than the amount that the Earth system (both surface and atmosphere) are absorbing from the sun, which is a bit under 240 W/m^2. So, in fact, the question, given the Earth’s empirically-measured surface temperature, is not why the Earth isn’t continuing to heat up but rather why it is not rapidly cooling down.
And, the answer is that the Earth’s atmosphere is not transparent to the IR radiation emitted by its surface. So, a lot of that radiation ends up being absorbed by the atmosphere…and while the atmosphere also emits radiation, it emits less radiation back into space than the surface emits. (In particular, the Earth emits the same amount of radiation as a blackbody at 255 K would emit…although the spectrum is not really that of a blackbody of that temperature but rather closer to the spectrum of a blackbody at the 298 K surface temperature with “bites” taken out of it at the wavelengths where the radiation is most strong absorbed: http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/userimages/MODA.jpg ) This is what we call “the greenhouse effect”.
Joel Shore says:
This is false. Earth’s surface isn’t a black body, and it isn’t radiating directly to space. If there were the same mass of atmosphere with no IR absorbing gasses in the atmosphere, Earth’s surface temperature would still be higher than the equilibrium temperature.
Part of your greenhouse fallacy appears to be rooted in a tacit assumption that the atmosphere is like a static bubble, and radiation is the only means of heat transfer, since the two primary means, conduction and convection , aren’t even mentioned..
Another part is that all matter radiates at its temperature.
A third part is that trapping IR is a square peg in the round hole of how a greenhouse works; which is by trapping convection,
re post by: Joel Shore says: December 6, 2011 at 4:32 pm
It strike me that you are talking about these issues as if your points were well established science, when in fact the issue is vastly more complicated and not well understood at all.
As to BigWaveDave’s first point in this particular post and Joel’s reply – obviously energy conservation has to be satisfied – but any discussion of this issue must include not only the uprising air, but also the dynamic flow as Dave states, e.g., you can’t ignore the fact that as air rises and cools, other air moves in to fill the vacated spot, which means air is also descending and warming.
On the second issue, it appears that real world data shows that changes in tropopause height is primarily a function of a cooling stratsophere, and not a warming troposphere. For example, see: Variability and trends in the global tropopause estimated from radiosonde data[PDF] DJ Seidel… – JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH- …, 2006 from noaa.gov http://tinyurl.com/c5owcsv
It ought to also be noted that with the exception of the tropics, there are commonly more than one tropopause, especially around the subtropical jet. See: Observational characteristics of double tropopauses [PDF] WJ Randel, DJ Seidel… – J. Geophys. Res, 2007 – arl.noaa.gov http://tinyurl.com/7r6kcpf
@joel Shore
It also seems that far too many people conveniently forget that the Earth itself constantly generates heat – and this internal heat gets utterly neglected in ‘climate science’ hypotheses, models, and arguments. Obviously it radiates towards the surface and then is transferred into the atmosphere also – and it’s not insignificant. Occasionally we get a few visual reminders – such as Eyjafjallajokull (and activity at Katla has experts worrying that we may soon see the largest volcanic eruption in a century), Mt. Saint Helens, Pinatubo in 1991, or Krakatoa back in 1883. Those are just the spot visual reminders, however. The entire crust is heated from within.
Quite simply, even absent atmosphere and sun, our Earth wouldn’t be just a cold ball of rock with a temperature equivalent to that of space.
BigWaveDave says:
Like I said above, emissivities of terrestrial surfaces in the infrared are so close to 1 that treating the earth as a blackbody is a very good assumption. It is off by at most 1 or 2%, not nearly enough to explain the discrepancy that I speak of between ~240 W/m^2 received and ~390 W/m^2 emitted by the earth’s surface. (Furthermore, to the extent that the earth’s surface temperature is not uniform, it will actually emit more than a uniform surface of the same average temperature would.)
And, the only reason that the earth’s surface isn’t radiating directly into space is that the atmosphere contains IR-absorbing gases. As for your statement that the Earth’s surface temperature would still be higher, that notion violates energy conservation to have the earth emitting significantly more than it receives from the sun for any significant period of time.
No…I don’t assume that at all. But unless you are proposing that convection and conduction transfer heat from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface, in violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, considering conduction and convection just makes the discrepancy that I spoke of above between what energy the earth’s surface receives and what it emits even worse. Or, are you proposing that in the absence of IR-absorbing gases, the Earth’s atmosphere is warmer than the surface and it supplies the missing energy via conduction and convection and, if so, what causes it to be warmer?
Symmetric diatomic molecules like O_2 and N_2 are not electrically-polarized and do not have any vibrational or rotational excitations that are electrically-polarized and, as a result, they do not couple to the electromagnetic field at infrared frequencies of relevance. This means that they do not emit or absorb infrared radiation. (You can sort of think of them as having emissivity of 0.) There can be some emission and absorption via collisions between molecules but this is much too small to be of significance at the earth’s atmospheric pressures. So, for all intents and purposes, they are not absorbers of terrestrial radiation.
This is the only thing that you have said that is not incorrect., However, it is also well-known that the analogy between the greenhouse effect and an actual greenhouse is limited. Both work by preventing some thermal energy from escaping but the mechanisms by which they do this are, as you note, different since a greenhouse works mainly by preventing convection of heat out of it.
Rational Debate says:
All the basics that I am talking about here are well-established science.
Like I explained to BigWaveDave, unless you are proposing there is significant heat transfer FROM the atmosphere TO the earth, this is only going to increase the discrepancy between what the earth surface receives and what it emits…And, now that I think about it some more, I realize that such a statement is in fact too kind: The 240 W/m^2 represents all the solar energy absorbed, be it absorbed by the Earth or by the atmosphere. So even, if by some magic, all of the energy that the atmosphere absorbed were transferred to the Earth’s surface, you still have the 240 W/m^2 vs. 390 W/m^2 discrepancy!
Really, if one wants to consider the surface energy balance and assume that there is no net transfer of energy FROM the atmosphere TO the surface, then you have to explain the discrepancy between the ~161 W/m^2 that the surface absorbs from the sun and the ~390 W/m^2 it emits radiatively.
Yes…It is insignificant. It is a small fraction of a W/m^2, which puts it way smaller than anything we are discussing here.
re post by: Joel Shore says: December 3, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Just to pick a nit – “worse” and “worth” aren’t homophones. Homephones are words that sound alike but either mean or are spelled differently. “One” and “won” for example.
Worse & worth would appear to simply be a mental slip, Freudian perhaps, but they’re sure not homophones by a long stretch.
Joel Shore says::
The discrepancy you speak of is a fiction created by your unphysical calculation of 390 w/m^2 radiation leaving Earth’s surface based on a fictitious average surface temperature. . The surface radiates only a small portion of of its energy directly to space. Earth’s surface is primarily cooled by convection in the atmosphere which carries the heat to where it radiates to space,. It also doesn’t radiate uniformly. Much of the radiation emits from the poles, far from where it is received.
BigWaveDave says:
(1) I am not sure what basic piece of physics you are confused about here. The earth’s surface is, for all intents and purposes, a blackbody in the relevant part of the spectrum at which the emission occurs. Hence, it does emit ~390 W/m^2 on average. ***That is independent of convection.*** Radiative emission is based on the temperature of the surface…It is not based on what other heat transfer processes may be occurring (except in so far as that heat transfer process affects what the surface temperature is). And, yes, only a small portion of that escapes directly to space, but that is because the greenhouse effect exists, i.e., because the atmosphere contains elements that absorb the terrestrial radiation. If it didn’t, then the whole 390 W/m^2 would be emitted directly out into space. Where else could it go?
(2) Where the earth emits from is not relevant. If the average temperature of a blackbody is 298 K, then it will emit AT LEAST 390 W/m^2. The more non-uniform the surface temperature is, the larger the emission will be above the value that is derived from applying the S-B Equation using the average temperature. The reason is that for any distribution of temperature T, the average of T^4 is greater than (average T)^4. This is the result of a basic mathematical theorem that makes use of the fact that the graph of T^4 vs. T is a strictly increasing function and is concave up (i.e., has positive second derivative).
Joel Shore’
It is you who are confused by making the absurd assumption that Earth’s surface loses heat by only radiation at a rate equivalent to its average temperature. The Earth loses heat to space at a rate equal to the heat the Earth with its atmosphere receives from the sun. The atmosphere is heated mostly by the sun and a little by the surface. There is no physical basis for your S-B mathematical construct at the surface.
@BigWaveDave:
I’m coming to this conversation a bit late, but: it’s pretty simple to show that the SURFACE temperature IR doesn’t matter much to earth cooling. What matters is IR dump from way high in the air. (Surface IR gets absorbed pretty quick… that whole ‘greenhouse gas’ thing 😉
BUT, once absorbed, it turns into convection that strongly dominates. Air rises to altitude and dumps heat inside of HOURS, not days and certainly not decades…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/ignore-the-day-at-your-peril/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/does-convection-dominate/
that references http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/31/68/93/PDF/angeo-19-1001-2001.pdf
which is well worth a read…
Basically, the notion that SURFACE IR matters is completely daft.
RE: BigWaveDave: (December 8, 2011 at 4:22 pm)
“The atmosphere is heated mostly by the sun and a little by the surface. There is no physical basis for your S-B mathematical construct at the surface.”
While it may be true that a large portion of the long-wave energy radiation from the Earth actually originates from the atmosphere, I think you are ignoring the fact that the atmosphere is being heated by surface contact and convection as well as by greenhouse gas absorption of surface radiation.
The Stefan Boltzmann law is only limited by surface reflectivity, (albedo) if you ignore the energy that is being returned from the air by back radiation (B-R). In one typical fixed-temperature example, MODTRAN shows 428.61 W/m² flowing up (S-B) and 365.496 W/m² flowing down (B-R) for a net 63.114 W/m² flowing out at the surface, but at 18 km up, we see 292.993 W/m² flowing up and 9.433 W/m² flowing down for a net 283.56 W/m² flowing out. Since the atmosphere cannot support, by solar energy absorption, the radiation of this much energy, it must cool and eventually drop down to the surface or mix with rising air to be re-heated.
BigWaveDave: I can’t even understand what you are arguing for anymore…but whatever it is seems to bear little resemblance to actual physics.
Joel Shore;
In your description of the process, you are calculating an energy flux from an average surface temperature. This by itself is invalid, as the average temperature will not yield the same result as the integral over Earth’s surface of all or the fluxes from individual temperatures.
Further, by presuming that the temperature is controlled by radiation, you are ignoring the transport of heat by convection, of which a significant portion is the convection of latent heat.as water vapor evaporated at the surface, which condenses and releases heat at higher altitudes.
Nice try to invert reality, Anthony.
The truth is that the “tribalistic corruption of peer review” happened at the hands of de Freitas.
Soon and Baliunas is only one of the scientifically flawed papers de Freitas managed to channel through the peer-review process (not to mention his ability to block scientific rebuttals to these papers). There are another 14 cases of “Pal Review at Climate Research” verifiably at the hands of Chris de Freitas. Here is the 21 page summary, explaining in excruciating detail how de Freitas executed “pal-review” at Climate Research in favor of “skeptic” papers :
http://www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-prefer-pal-review-over-peer-review-chris-de-freitas-pat-michaels-and-their-pals-1997-2003
Now, I understand that I am posting on WUWT, and that many of you do not like to see that the title of Anthony’s post turn out to be inverted reality. So if you reply to this post, please address the facts presented in John Mashey’s research paper (and present disputing facts), rather than handwaving at emails and ad hominems. Thank you !
Rob Dekker said:
So, he’s not an idiot.
The emails clearly state that the issue is bad science and terrible peer-review standards, and that this has allowed shonky work to get into the literature.The ‘interpretations’ given by the author of the above article are fabrications made out of whole cloth.
I can’t understand why anyone would think the emailers are not genuinely disgusted by the quality of the science. Here are some excerpts.
barry’s tribalism is on display. He continues to carry water for his mendacious tribe of scientific charlatans.
Instead of complaining to each other in emails that someone else has a different point of view, those faux scientists should submit comments to the journals that published Dr de Freitas’ papers. Then Dr de Freitas could respond. That’s how it’s supposed to work in honest peer review.
But in climate “science”, it’s not peer review, it’s pal review, and the Mann/Jones clique has perverted it through scientific misconduct. There are literally hundreds of emails verifying that fact. Unfortunately, that disclosure has no effect on cognitive dissonance-afflicted water boys, who see only what they want to see.
I was just thinking, Smokey, that each time I read an email, then a skeptic review of it, there is this huge leap of logic and an alternate reality is formed. This is what happened with climategate 1. Couple that with a visceral desire amongst skeptics to torch climate scientists and the strange reality being created makes sense.
I’m pleased to see my ‘tribalism’ term is being lobbed back at me. Must have hit a nerve. As I’ve said before, I don’t care about Mann or Briffa or whoever, and I don’t think it matters whether the MWP was warmer than today or not. The only dog I have in this race is a love for proper skepticism and critical thinking. Consequently, your criticism is ad hom, because you characterise me in order to refute my points.If you refuted my points and then characterised me negatively as a result, that would not be ad hom.
Have you noticed that I don’t call people names here? Name-calling is a strong sign to me that the commenter probably got nothing more worthwhile to say.
barry refuses to face reality: the climate pal review system has been corrupted, as hundreds of Climategate emails show. That’s barry’s tribe, so no matter how much barry’s tribe engages in scientific misconduct, he has no choice but to carry water for them. But where does that leave honest science?
*****
BigWaveDave says:
December 8, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Joel Shore;
In your description of the process, you are calculating an energy flux from an average surface temperature. This by itself is invalid, as the average temperature will not yield the same result as the integral over Earth’s surface of all or the fluxes from individual temperatures.
Further, by presuming that the temperature is controlled by radiation, you are ignoring the transport of heat by convection, of which a significant portion is the convection of latent heat.as water vapor evaporated at the surface, which condenses and releases heat at higher altitudes.
*****
Exactly. The heat-engine that is the weather has its temp mostly controlled by convection & Hadley circulation, and radiation at the TOA (and atmospheric lapse-rate) is controlled by that, not the other way around.
Cause and effect.
BigWaveDave says:
I’ve clearly explained this to you multiple times: The integral over the Earth’s surface necessarily leads to an equal or higher value than using the Earth’s average temperature…for ANY temperature distribution that you might imagine. If you don’t believe this, try to come up with a distribution that violates this mathematical theorem.
I have also clearly explained this to you multiple times: Other methods of heat transport away from the surface only increase the difference between what the earth absorbs and what heat is being transferred away from the surface. So, the violation of energy conservation only gets more severe.
Joel Shore said:
Really? Where? Wouldn’t this be also true for the upper atmosphere temperature? How do the correct values of the two compare?
What mathematical theorem are you talking about?
What violation of energy conservation?
Are you saying that unless the Earth’s surface temperature averages -18°C, there is a violation of energy conservation?
BigWaveDave says:
Mentioned here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/the-tribalistic-corruption-of-peer-review-the-chris-de-freitas-incident/#comment-822395
More detail here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/the-tribalistic-corruption-of-peer-review-the-chris-de-freitas-incident/#comment-823177
The ~240 W/m^2 number is obtained as the amount of radiation that the Earth system absorbs from the sun…Then the fact that this corresponds to an effective blackbody temperature of 255 K is calculated from that. And, actually, for the Earth the distribution in temperature is narrow enough on an absolute temperature scale that the difference in radiative emission between considering the full distribution and using the average temperature to determine the emission amounts to only a small error (about 5 W/m^2, as I recall from Trenberth & Kiehl).
According to Gerlach & Tscheuschner (one of the few useful things in their nutty paper), it is a special case of Holder’s Inequality ( http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf , p. 64), although I think it could probably also be proved from simpler considerations.
Yes…For the Earth with its current albedo (so that it is absorbing ~240 W/m^2) and emissivity near unity in the infrared, the average temperature would have to be -18°C or colder if the atmosphere of the Earth were transparent to the radiation from the Earth’s surface. Otherwise, the Earth would be emitting back out into space more energy than it and its atmosphere receives from the sun and it would rapidly cool down. (There are other caveats…If the there were other sources of energy, such as if the Earth were generating significant internal heat or if the Earth and/or its atmosphere were undergoing continual gravitational collapse, then it could be warmer…but these don’t apply.)
Joel Shore,
Perhaps if we were dealing with linear heat to temperature relationships there might be enough validity to use your method as an estimate, but we shouldn’t bet our lives on it.
You also say:
and had said:
So, If the temperature at the surface of an Earth with the same amount of atmosphere, but no “GHG’s” were -18°C, then the upper troposphere would be at ~-51°C, right?
Also, with or without Holder’s formula ; an estimate can’t be valid without having all of the temperatures for each of all equal fractions of the total surface.
But, no average temperature works for Earth because water content in air varies. And, water has enormous heats of evaporation (1000’s X) and solidification (100’s X) in addition to its generally 2 to 4 times the specific heat of air..
BigWaveDave says:
You are just floundering here. I have explained to you very clearly what the bounds are on the emission given the average temperature and roughly how much things change if you do take into the actual temperature distribution. You are just desperately trying to grasp onto anything you can to deny reality. That is not skepticism.
None of this changes the fact that an Earth with an IR-transparent atmosphere would have to be at least 33 C colder to satisfy energy conservation. To the extent that such an earth had larger temperature swings, then that would only increase the 33 C difference, i.e., the average temperature would have to be even colder than 255 K.
Where the troposphere ends is not simply determined by the amount of atmosphere. So, offhand I don’t know what the temperature of the upper troposphere would be. In fact, an atmosphere without GHGs would be much different because such an atmosphere wouldn’t have any way to shed energy to space. Some have argued that the atmosphere would tend toward a nearly-isothermal state. I would have to think more about this to have an informed opinion. However, the temperature at the earth’s surface can be determined unambiguously because that is what would be set by simple global energy balance considerations.
Joel Shore said:
No, I’m just pointing out how unphysical and unscientific it is to be using S-B and and average temperature from a sparse sample of measurements taken near the surface of a 25% to 30% fraction of the of the surface that is land, to calculate energy flux; when the variation in energy flux is dominated by the transport of water, not radiation.
The lapse rate will be -g/Cp whether the atmosphere is transparent to IR or not. But, the fact is that no components of the atmosphere are completely transparent to IR, and the atmosphere is mostly heated from above.