A guest post by Roy. W. Spencer
While a politician might be faulted for pushing a particular agenda that serves his own purposes, who can fault the impartial scientist who warns us of an imminent global-warming Armageddon? After all, the practice of science is an unbiased search for the truth, right? The scientists have spoken on global warming. There is no more debate. But let me play devil’s advocate. Just how good is the science underpinning the theory of manmade global warming? My answer might surprise you: it is 10 miles wide, but only 2 inches deep.
Contrary to what you have been led to believe, there is no solid published evidence that has ruled out a natural cause for most of our recent warmth – not one peer-reviewed paper. The reason: our measurements of global weather on decadal time scales are insufficient to reject such a possibility. For instance, the last 30 years of the strongest warming could have been caused by a very slight change in cloudiness. What might have caused such a change? Well, one possibility is the sudden shift to more frequent El Niño events (and fewer La Niña events) since the 1970s. That shift also coincided with a change in another climate index, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
The associated warming in Alaska was sudden, and at the same time we just happened to start satellite monitoring of Arctic sea ice. Coincidences do happen, you know…that’s why we have a word for them.
We make a big deal out of the “unprecedented” 2007 opening of the Northwest Passage as summertime sea ice in the Arctic Ocean gradually receded, yet the very warm 1930s in the Arctic also led to the Passage opening in the 1940s. Of course, we had no satellites to measure the sea ice back then.
So, since we cannot explore the possibility of a natural source for some of our warming, due to a lack of data, scientists instead explore what we have measured: manmade greenhouse gas emissions. And after making some important assumptions about how clouds and water vapor (the main greenhouse components of the atmosphere) respond to the extra carbon dioxide, scientists can explain all of the recent warming.
Never mind that there is some evidence indicating that it was just as warm during the Medieval Warm Period. While climate change used to be natural, apparently now it is entirely manmade. But a few of us out there in the climate research community are rattling our cages. In the August 2007 Geophysical Research Letters, my colleagues and I published some satellite evidence for a natural cooling mechanism in the tropics that was not thought to exist. Called the “Infrared Iris” effect, it was originally hypothesized by Prof. Richard Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
By analyzing six years of data from a variety of satellites and satellite sensors, we found that when the tropical atmosphere heats up due to enhanced rainfall activity, the rain systems there produce less cirrus cloudiness, allowing more infrared energy to escape to space. The combination of enhanced solar reflection and infrared cooling by the rain systems was so strong that, if such a mechanism is acting upon the warming tendency from increasing carbon dioxide, it will reduce manmade global warming by the end of this century to a small fraction of a degree. Our results suggest a “low sensitivity” for the climate system.
What, you might wonder, has been the media and science community response to our work? Absolute silence. No doubt the few scientists who are aware of it consider it interesting, but not relevant to global warming. You see, only the evidence that supports the theory of manmade global warming is relevant these days.
The behavior we observed in the real climate system is exactly opposite to how computerized climate models that predict substantial global warming have been programmed to behave. We are still waiting to see if any of those models are adjusted to behave like the real climate system in this regard.
And our evidence against a “sensitive” climate system does not end there. In another study (conditionally accepted for publication in the Journal of Climate) we show that previously published evidence for a sensitive climate system is partly due to a misinterpretation of our observations of climate variability. For example, when low cloud cover is observed to decrease with warming, this has been interpreted as the clouds responding to the warming in such a way that then amplifies it. This is called “positive feedback,” which translates into high climate sensitivity.
But what if the decrease in low clouds were the cause, rather than the effect, of the warming? While this might sound like too simple a mistake to make, it is surprisingly difficult to separate cause and effect in the climate system. And it turns out that any such non-feedback process that causes a temperature change will always look like positive feedback. Something as simple as daily random cloud variations can cause long-term temperature variability that looks like positive feedback, even if in reality there is negative feedback operating.
The fact is that so much money and effort have gone into the theory that mankind is 100 percent responsible for climate change that it now seems too late to turn back. Entire careers (including my own) depend upon the threat of global warming. Politicians have also jumped aboard the Global Warming Express, and this train has no brakes.
While it takes only one scientific paper to disprove a theory, I fear that no amount of evidence will be able to counter what everyone now considers true. If tomorrow the theory of manmade global warming were proved to be a false alarm, one might reasonably expect a collective sigh of relief from everyone. But instead there would be cries of anguish from vested interests.
About the only thing that might cause global warming hysteria to end will be a prolonged period of cooling…or at least, very little warming. We have now had at least six years without warming, and no one really knows what the future will bring. And if warming does indeed end, I predict that there will be no announcement from the scientific community that they were wrong. There will simply be silence. The issue will slowly die away as Congress reduces funding for climate change research.
Oh, there will still be some diehards who will continue to claim that warming will resume at any time. And many will believe them. Some folks will always view our world as a fragile, precariously balanced system rather than a dynamic, resilient one. In such a world-view, any manmade disturbance is by definition bad. Forests can change our climate, but people aren’t allowed to.
It is unfortunate that our next generation of researchers and teachers is being taught to trust emotions over empirical evidence. Polar bears are much more exciting than the careful analysis of data. Social and political ends increasingly trump all other considerations. Science that is not politically correct is becoming increasingly difficult to publish. Even science reporting has become more sensationalist in recent years.
I am not claiming that all of our recent warming is natural. But the extreme reluctance for most scientists to even entertain the possibility that some of it might be natural suggests to me that climate research has become corrupted. I fear that the sloppy practice of climate change science will damage our discipline for a long time to come.
Roy W. Spencer is a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. His book, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor, will be published this month.
Neil Gibson says, “Now I am not a climatologist but a retired electronics engineer but simple temperature graphs are easy to read and this is the type of empirical evidence that is hard for anyone to refute.”
I totally agree. What needs to happen is for empirical data of this kind to find its way into the mainstream media. Unfortunately news media (and their readerships) seem to thrive on the kind of disaster scenarios peddled by the IPCC and consequently a balanced debate will probably have to wait until the gulf between the AGW hypothesis and the actual recorded data reaches scandalous proportions……..Given that the planet itself is, unsurprisingly, a passive supporter of the empirical evidence, I don’t think we have much longer to wait!
Remember y2k anyone?
I have a book on my shelves which I bought 25 years ago. In it a learned man from the UK met office declared that man may be heating the planet through the discharge of CO², I did not believe then and I don’t believe now. 2 physics degres and multiple engineering qualifications later.
Any system that is at all very sensitive, and all systems are naturallly sensitive / unstable, will demonstrate high volatillity without some negative / damping feedback. This planet has remained within + or – 5 – 10 °C (probably) for about 3000,000,000 years. The ice ages appeared with the change in configuration of the land masses when Antactica arrived at the south pole and the north pole was blocked in by the continents. There absolutely has to be some major feedback mechanism(s) which has maintained our climate within these confortable bounds.
We are a miniscule gnat on the backside of a massive beast which we will NEVER control but will surely bites us back every so often.
“And after making some important assumptions about how clouds and water vapor (the main greenhouse components of the atmosphere) respond to the extra carbon dioxide, scientists can explain all of the recent warming.”
Actualy, dr Spencer, they can’t (I know you know that, my comment is not intended to inform you).
They need a third basic component to slow down the high sensitivity of their GCMs: aerosol!
OzDoc,
Perhaps because the media has been reporting it that way
Even the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers that gets reported on in the media focuses almost exclusively on human induced and ignores most natural causes.
I seem to recall an editor for a major science journal (I can’t remember the name, perhaps Anthony knows) saying that all skeptical research of human caused global warming would not be published.
We see time after time these so-called skeptical scientists running into resistance when trying to publish. A recent article about a NASA scientist that quit when he tried to publish his research that showed that the basic greehouse equations were wrong (A huge discovery, if correct). He had to publish his research in his own countries science publication.
It’s easy to understand Dr Spencer’s frustration.
Although I respect what he’s tried to do with this article, I believe Spencer needs to study sunspots and how well solar activity has tracked, and continues to track earth’s climate. AGW is utter garbage, nonsense, which he doesn’t seem to quite get. Man’s effect on climate is more of the local variety, as in the urban heat island effect, and from deforestation. His effect on global climate is negligible.
These are strange times. I’m a sceptic who takes Arrhenius’ original view that increased Co2 and a warmer climate is beneficial to humanity and the planet as a whole, but now find myself counting sunspots and checking ENSO websites in the hope that a signifcant cooling trend will appear that might then derail the AGW train, whilst I have no doubt that the AGW community, who claim to want a colder world, instead of celebrating the recent decline in global temperatures, are desperately hoping in fact that the warming trend will reappear.
As I shiver through a bitterly cold Easter here in the UK, I dread the thought of another LIA, but unfortunately can’t see any other way that the AGW juggernaut can ever be brought to a halt.
What is this! A cry for pity and sympathy? A Good Friday eulogy?
I’m so disappointed.
1.
“Politicians have also jumped aboard the Global Warming Express, and this train has no brakes.”
C’mon, cheer up a little. There is no reason to be so down. It’s just a matter of time before these hasty lunatics overplay their hand. They already are.
It’s all built on a house of cards. This train is going to derail.
2.
“I predict that there will be no announcement from the scientific community that they were wrong. There will simply be silence.”
You’re right. But not silence from us! I’m looking forward to rubbing their smirky smart-ass faces IN IT day after day after day after day, for years and years to come.
3.
“It is unfortunate that our next generation of researchers and teachers is being taught to trust emotions over empirical evidence.”
I predict many of these young scientists are going to wake up and see how they were duped and manipulated, and cross over to our side. When you put a bunch of charlatans in one room, it’s just a matter of time before they start
turning on each other. We are only about 0.5°C away from that.
4.
“I fear that no amount of evidence will be able to counter what everyone now considers true.”
Ohhhhh…it’s all so hopeless, sob sob sob…
Sorry for being so mean today. But c’mon.
Anthony,
In the future, please find someone who can deliver something other than just a we’re-all-beaten-and-there’s-no-more-hope sob story. I you ask this as a charitable donater to your cause.
Mr Spencer,
With all due respect, you do need a long vacation, or a new line of work.
And I do hope your new book does not have the same eulogy in it.
Have a nice Good Friday.
randomengineer: I don’t think it was debunked. Didn’t the correction just reduce the cooling? I don’t believe it eliminated it. See link. That correction was made to data that ended in 2005. I believe the report the sonic frog is referring to is more recent.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=eta16q&s=3
OzDoc — (I would ask him to find a scientist who does not recognise underlying natural causes. )
He’s correct. The general position is that GW is unnatural and caused solely by human emissions, which is why the correlation is made between CO2 and fossil fuels in the first place. A great deal of time and effort has been spent claiming that the sun (via measurement of TSI) is relatively constant and not a factor. It’s why GW is generally referred to as Anthropogenic as in AGW. It’s why the GCM’s are created to model the effects of CO2. Meanwhile, James Hansen of NASA/GISS says that it’s all human created and just floated a paper suggesting that we’ve already exceeded the “safe” CO2 concentration and we must NOW work to back CO2 down to < 350 ppmv (it’s now at 385 ppmv.)
About the only thing supporting your contention is that there are *some* official positions that reference GW as “substantially” or “largely” human caused rather than solely, which essentially is weasel-wording; when you read these position statements (like TWC’s) you come away with the distinct impression that they really think it’s “solely” but carefully wording it so as to hedge the bet slightly. They’ll then claim this is due to the 2 sigma error of the predictions (95%) being the source of “substantially” as opposed to the slam dunk of “solely.” If the predictions had tighter error bars nobody would bother with the weasel wording.
Some people read the weasel wording and conclude that “largely” translates to “mostly human but with some natural.” Nope.
So make no mistake. The general position is “solely” even if decorum and tradition requires them to say “largely.”
Bob — (randomengineer: I don’t think it was debunked. Didn’t the correction just reduce the cooling? )
What I was referring to was a tidbit at CA where there was a flurry of *recent* activity to “debunk” the cooling contention. Note the scare quoting please. 🙂
AGW Scoffer — (“It is unfortunate that our next generation of researchers and teachers is being taught to trust emotions over empirical evidence.”
I predict many of these young scientists are going to wake up and see how they were duped and manipulated, and cross over to our side. )
I think you’re not only incorrect but you missed his larger point. Crichton in one of his essays tracks the decline of scientific rigour and the advent of quasi-religious zeal in some quarters and reckons the Drake Equation (early 1960’s) as being the point where this change became visible.
Drake’s “equation” is mere speculative nonsense and it’s not science. The problem is that you have at least a generation who presume that it is. I’m sure that Dr Spencer’s comment is influenced, if not by the essay, by at least the same recognition of the underlying problem — which is that the next generation is being taught by the generation who failed to put a halt to Drake and those like him.
Thought this might be of interest – it’s an article about the flatline temperature of the oceans.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025&sc=nl&cc=es-20080323
AGWscoffer (05:49:30) :
“Mr Spencer,
With all due respect, you do need a long vacation, or a new line of work.
And I do hope your new book does not have the same eulogy in it.”
Don’t be so hard on him – his scientific work will be worthy of a Nobel prize if nature proves him right. I get pretty discouraged too because it is unlikely there will ever be enough cooling to unambiguously debunk this AGW catastrophe BS. As long as there is some crumb of warming the Hansen’s of the world will cling to it and the best we can hope for is that the politicians will limit themselves token gestures on CO2 that don’t harm the economy.
randomengineer and sonicfrog,
Bob Tisdale is right. First, the NPR story was old and outdated (sept 06), they printed a retraction after it was revealed that a portion of the ARGO instruments were giving some faulty readings. However after removing the ARGO data from the study and relying on the older existing XBT instruments (which are faulty themselves), the authors of the study produced an update in which they state that “most” of the cooling indications were a result of the faulty equipment, indicating there was still some cooling, just not as much as was in the original report. Regardless, it does not show the oceans are warming, as the alarmists would have us believe. Over at http://www.climate-skeptic.com there is a bit of an exchange between some of the commenters on this.
Couldn’t agree more, AGWScoffer (today, 05:49:30).
The consensus appears to be that the AGW-ers can’t be stopped. Although not wishing to appear a “Contrarian”, might I suggest that the consensus view – even of experts – isn’t always the correct one?
Anyone who tells you that the science is settled, and that they know WITHOUT DOUBT what is causing Global Warming, is digging a hole for themselves. The AGW-ers are going to wake up one day, and find themselves buried. Hubris is a fatal flaw which is inevitably punished, and that’s what will get them in the end – unless they learn to distinguish between science and dogma.
And it’ll be no good, if they do turn out to be wrong, to claim that Global Cooling is the new Global Warming. They’re staking their reputations on the absolute CERTAINTY of CO2 driven warming. If they turn out to be wrong they will be well and truly – how can I put this politely? – up the creek without a paddle.
The NPR story I read is from March 19th 2008
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
Retraction? Was it a real retraction or an “Oh my god, I’ll never get another grant in my life if I say the ocean is cooling” retraction?
If you check out the “Directors Corner” section on the ARGO website, http://argo.ucsd.edu/, you might guess there are no open minds allowed.
TR — (…the authors of the study produced an update in which they state that “most” of the cooling indications were a result of the faulty equipment, indicating there was still some cooling, just not as much as was in the original report. )
The recent CA post I’d tried to recall from memory (and alluded to earlier) had the point of there being corrections based on faulty equipment thus suggesting that these cancelled out the cooling. Silly me, I thought this was the latest word.
In which case, I stand corrected (and gladly so.) Thanks!
Does this place rock, or what?
Oop. The newer ARGI website has a www in front:
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
“Politicians have also jumped aboard the Global Warming Express, and this train has no brakes.”
What? At least in the U.S. we have the opportunity to fire the the politicians every 2, 4 or 6 years. Just wait until they really start to reach into our pockets for this stuff. All we need is the will to toss ’em all out and start over.
Raven,
Having read what I wrote, maybe I was a little too hard on him.
Randomengineer,
Again, we only need a few cold years, and the phonies will be bolting for the exits. Science goes in cycles, reason to madness, madness to reason. We’ve seen it with eugenics, lobotomy etc. It’ll be the same here with GW.
from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339831,00.html
“Just this week the Environmental Protection Agency issued its economic analysis of the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill that is being considered by the Senate. The EPA projects that if the bill is enacted the size of our economy as measured by its gross domestic product would shrink by as much as $2.9 trillion by the year 2050.”
Never underestimate government’s ability to be stupid.
I think that those who are saying that the Argo findings are “debunked” are confusing a well-publicized correction that occurred a couple of years ago, when there appeared to be a significant cooling in the ocean heat content from 2003 – 2005. Roger Pielke Sr. highlighted the original data, before it was revealed that a error was found that removed all of the cooling, but still showed no warming in that period.
This is new (2008) data, that incorporates the correction, and is based on what is now 5 years of buoy data (from 2003 to 2008). That is why it is coming out now. And it is showing a slight cooling over that 5 year period.
“Remember y2k anyone?”
I remember. And that’s part of the odd thing about CAGW. There are tons of reasonably smart laypeople who are not experts at anything, but have lived long enough to know the warning signs of a scam.
Meanwhile, a lot of the scientists have a lot invested in CAGW being true and their judgment has been corrupted.
So many people have told me that I’m not qualified to criticize these scientists.
We shall see.
What is the difference between the WEST and the EAST?
In the EAST you get fake gurus who lie to the people.
In the WEST you get fake scientists who lie to the people.
Only difference? YES!!
Because both groups do it for the MONEY!!!
Just as you get fake gurus (there are real ones also, but not many) going around spreading their ‘message’ and collecting money from stupid people because they dont have a real job or any income at all, you also get fake scientists creating a financial income from ideas they get from God knows where, unleashing it onto unsuspecting public who is minding its own business anyway.
“A stupid man can ask more questions a wise man can answer”
Thank you Mr Spencer
eklagvirjulle@live.co.za