APS Editor Reverses Position on Global Warming- cites "Considerable presence" of skeptics

Fractures are beginning to appear. How much press coverage will this get?

Wow–this is great. I believe this is due in part the this and other skeptic blogs. The skeptics have finally begun voicing their thoughts pretty vocally lately.

The Lysenkoists have already “moved on”, as is their way, as they ever have done. It’s no longer a scientific question, but a political question.
*sob*
We can only hope that the questions about the science are able to catch up before anything really stupid happens.

Following on the heels of the Heartland Conference, this may be the break we’re all looking for!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com

But… but… the Consensus! The precious CONSENSUS!

Did I just see a pig fly?

[snip] no slander allowed

Hmmm,
I can only conclude that Anthony cannot tell satire when he sees it.
Bit like the brouhaha over the turban etc in the New Yorker … 🙂
REPLY: equating the president to “a nazi leader” usually doesn’t point to satire, and even if it was satire, I don’t want that sort of commentary on this forum.

Anthony,
That is the sort of over-the-top rhetoric that many in the AGW camp and their fellow-travelers employ …
It was intended as a preemptive strike to demonstrate the sort of statements that we might see coming from the lunatic fringe of the AGW movement.
REPLY: Yes but we still don’t need it voiced here. Let them say it.

*Closes Eyes, Taps Head, Counts to 10*
Just checking I wasn’t dreaming this article up…

Blasphemers!! They have fallen into heresy and shall be dealt with by the inquisition. Hopefully not in the same way that Pope innocent III and Arnaud Amalric dealt with the Cathars.
“Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens” loosely “Kill’em all, God will know his own.”

Wow. This could be hugely important and a major turning point. The APS is a very influential organization. OK, these are only the comments of one journal editor so far, but it can’t be just him on his own. It will be very interesting to see how the APS community responds.

Oh Please. These are just physicists, and like fellow physicist Freeman Dyson, they are not qualified and do not have the expertise to comment on the complex science of climate. Why, the are barely more qualified that the lowly meteorologist!!!!! 🙂

Here is the money line in the article:

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, “I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC’s 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central ‘climate sensitivity’ question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method.” (emphasis added)

Now where have we heard that before?

Does this mean Al Gore will have to give his Nobel Prize back?

“Wow–this is great. I believe this is due in part the this and other skeptic blogs. The skeptics have finally begun voicing their thoughts pretty vocally lately.”
Took the words out of my fingers!

Dishman: “We can only hope that the questions about the science are able to catch up before anything really stupid happens.”
Too late.

In posting the article on another blog i used the terms The APS has or is about to change it’s position on global warming.
Irregardless this is such good news. Maybe now we can begin to focus on real problems and get our economy back in order. First order is to get fuel prices back in line using our own resources. (drill and refine in the US) when that happens you will find great strides in our national health.
I am so trying to stay our of politics.
Bill Derryberry

Boris says “Skeptics are desperate indeed if they are relying on Monckton to save them.”
We are not relying on Monckton. He is one of many messengers. We are relying on the science and therein lies the problem for the believers and alarmists.
Science always self-corrects in the end. As science self-corrects on AGW the alarmist believers will be exposed as frauds and incompetents. Give it up Boris, you’re neo-pagan “science” beliefs have been falsified.

Everyone,
Be sure to take a look at the competing article published in the APS journal, arguing against Monckton. By David Hafemeister & Peter Schwartz, it opens with:
“Put a blanket over a light bulb, and you will have a fire. For the full power of the light bulb to pass through the blanket, the inner temperature must rise considerably. The atmosphere is not a mere thermal resistor, but the analogy is illuminating.”
I think it’s fair to say round 1 in the APS Jounal debate goes to Monckton. Woo hoo!

Slightly OT (since comments are already closed on the last “solar activity” post):
Many people, assuming Cycle 23 has still not reached minimum, have commented on the length of Cycle 23. The cycle started in 1996 and reached maximum in 2000. A still-to-be reached minimum would make Cycle 23 now over 12 years long. Most of the comments in this area work with the idea that such a long cycle is indicative of a reduction in solar activity and a potential weak or very weak Cycle 24.
Less attention has been paid to the length of the half cycles, the rise time and the fall time of cycles. And there are details here that are missed when one only focuses upon the total cycle time.
For example, there is a fairly clear correlation between a rapid rise to maximum in a cycle and the intensity of that cycle. For example:
Cycle 3:
Rise time: 2.9 yrs
Fall time: 6.3 yrs
Sunspot Max: 158.5
Cycle 8:
Rise time: 3.3 yrs
Fall time: 6.3 yrs
Sunspot Max: 146.9
Cycle 19:
Rise time: 3.6 yrs
fall time: 7.0 yrs
Sunspot max: 201.3
and so on. Unfortunately, this isn’t very useful for predicting an intense cycle since you only really see the rapid rise as it’s happening. On the other hand, there are other patterns that are interesting.
If one accepts that Cycle 23 has just reached or is yet to reach minimum then the fall time for that cycle has now exceeded 8 yrs. If one looks at the data for the 24 numbered cycles we see that that has only happened 2 other times:
Cycle 11, ending in 1870
Rise Time: 3.4 yrs
Fall time: 8.3 yeras
Sunspot max: 140.5
And, Cycle 4, ending in 1788
Rise time: 3.4 years
Fall time: 10.2 years
Sunspot Max: 141.2
Compare this to a just ended or soon to end Cycle 23:
Rise time: 4.0 yrs
Fall Time: 8.2 + yrs
Sunspot Max 120.8
Both Cycle 4 and Cycle 11 were followed by 3 significantly lower activity cycles (i.e. around 33 years of time). Cycle 11 was followed by cycles with maximum numbers: 74.6, 87.9, and 64.2. Cycle 4 was followed by the Dalton Minimum with maximum sunspot numbers: 49.2, 48.7, and 71.7. Then the 4th cycle in both cases increased dramatically.
Just an observation.
——
Sunspot cycle data can be found here:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/ftpsunspotnumber.html

From the competing article….
The pre-industrial CO2 level was 280 ppm in 1800. By 1959, the level had grown to 316 ppm. We can estimate total change in concentration by integrating
backwards in time. Using a rate of 0.9 ppm/yr in 1959 and a global carbon rate growth rate of about l = 3%/year, the increase in CO2 concentration between 1800 and 1959 should be about
DcCO2 = (0.9) elt dt = 0.9(e0 – e∞)/l = 0.9/0.03 = 30 ppm. (5)
Subtracting this from the 1959 value of 316 ppm gives a pre-industrial CO2 level of 285 ppm, close to the accepted”
Why are global warming “experts” only looking at the last couple of centruries for C02 levels and temperature correlations / assumptions…? Am I missing something, or are they?

Looks like mainstream Australian media is doing same (U turn on AGW)!
This could be major
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24036602-5000117,00.html
I think this article by the main proponent of greenhouse gases in
Australia David Evans would be very relevant
I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the
Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the
carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance
with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
Full article in Australian Today
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html
—

Note this may be opening the debate as to whether humanity is the major contributor to climate variation, whic is very good news. This position, held by AlleGory and others, is “proved” by the IPCC – but note, the IPCC mission statement says it is to consider anthropogenic effects on climate, not all factors. So it never has, certainly not in its “Climate for Dummies” politician-briefing papers.

Face it, Boris. Socialists and scam artists will continue to scream in their global warming cult and make you feel smart that you choosed the “right side”, but sometime next year our global cooling cult will begin to take over. If, of course. Cycle 23 still hasn’t reached minimum, which I am skeptical of happening.

its gone Jim

Apparently the APS isn’t the only ones to change their mind recently.
The above link is to an article by David Evans in Australia. He is, in his words, ” the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol”.

“I don’t understand why people seem to be so bothered by Monckton. He seems to be doing a solid job of researching stuff before he puts it out”
No he doesn’t. That’s the point. He makes a huge deal out of the “CO2 fingerprint,” but he has merely misread a figure from the IPCC report. Extremely sloppy work.

Gone in 12 minutes. It is supposedly just an editor’s comment, not the stance of the APS.
Never mind the fact that the editor’s comment is stating the stance of the APC in their newsletter. Their stance is that there is “a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion” and so they are holding a debate.
I’ve been through two Wikiwars and they never go anywhere. They’re marvelous for showing off the blind religious fanaticism of the AGW crowd, but the AGW crowd seems to have an unlimited supply of morons who have nothing better to do than play on Wikipedia, so there’s rarely any progress.
While it would be nice to see a bit more accurate info up on Wikipedia, I’m a bit too busy right now. Blessings and condolences to anyone who has some time to devote to it.

Sorry guys until their APS climate change statement changes no one is going to care about one editor.
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

I thought it was, “Surprise, surprise, surpreise!” ;-

Okay, how about…
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning or at least the third quarter of the middle part of the end of the beginning.

Jim B:
I’m not seeing it on wikipedia. Is it gone already or is there a lag before it registers?

Great news! If you listen carefully you can hear Al Gore gulp then clutch that prize a little tighter.

Lord Monckton’s paper has been referred to on a number of blogs and websites over the last couple of days. I don’t know whether his analysis is right or wrong, but it is nice to see that the debate is gathering momentum.
As to his qualifications, or lack of, I fail to see what that’s got to do with the price of fish. If two people put forward opposing but equally plausible points and we have to choose between them their respective paper qualifications might cause us to favour the opinion of the chap with more letters after his name, indeed it would be entirely logical to do so because we have to base our choice on something substantive.
But we are not in a position of having to choose between Lord Monckton and others on the basis of paper qualifications. He has put forward a reasoned case which will stand or fall on its merits once it has been assessed and commented on by others. If his analysis proves to be sound then it is sound, if it proves to be faulty then it is faulty; what letters he has after his name is as irrelevant as the fact that he is Viscount Monckton not Mr Monckton or that he might choose to wear a blue tie rather than a yellow one.
Incidentally, his grandfather was a very good cricketer.

From the AGW “crack-plaster” article:
“Conclusion: Earth is getting warmer. Basic atmospheric models clearly predict that additional greenhouse gasses will raise the temperature of Earth. To argue otherwise, one must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative cause of warming. This has not been done. Sunspot and temperature correlations do not prove causality.”
1) Earth “was” getting warmer. You can only say it “is” getting warmer, if you are talking about the period that involved SS21, SS22, and SS23. Before that it was cooling. This does not give support to AGW, and does support the warming as natural in origin.
2) “The models predict”. The models do not even model clouds, and have a very primative design to represent the oceans. The models do NOT predict anything. They run scenerios that are not relevent to the real world. They model a world that is a simplified version of the one we live in. Do we demonize an essential trace gas, because of models?
3) “Prove a physical mechanism”. In other words: We can’t prove ours, but we reject any other until it is proven. Now there is the scientific method in action. I hate to think of where our society would be, if this was the prevailing thought process for all scientific inquiry.
4) “Sunspot and temperature correlations do not prove causality.” But correlation is still superior to non-correlation. I think most would agree with that, and while it does not prove causality, it does imply a linkage that supports the contention.

Raven,
Did you look at the date on the story in your link?..November 2007.

The original web article at DailyTech which I read about 2 hours ago is now gone.
I returned to print it for a friend and the link is broken!
Very interesting….

“REPLY: like I said in the post and is clear from the Daily Tech article, the EDITOR has changed position.”
A couple of comments by the editor are relevant here: “There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC…
And “Whether or not human produced carbon dioxide is a major cause of impending climate change…”
One of an editor’s responsibilities is to respond to the concerns of its readers. In opening up scientific debate on global warming, Jeffrey Marque is doing just that. However, in the editorial he makes no comment about his own position on AGW. Therefore, the headline: “APS Editor Reverses Position on Global Warming” is not supported by the evidence.

Today, I’m quite proud to be a physicist. But I’m not surprised. Physicists are always the trouble makers. Some may remember that it was Lord Blackett who was among the first to dare present evidence against fixed continents, with his measurements of magnetic field in rocks. That was the first crack that would lead to the plate tectonics theory. Continental drift was anathema at the time, and only his Nobel prize prestige allowed him to publish his findings. By a strange twist of history, he was also among the discoverers of cosmic rays, which some now think may play a role in climate. Funny too that the first major proponent of continental drift was a meteorologist, Alfred Wegener who, by the way, froze to death in Greenland.
I note too that the Canadian Journal of Physics ran an editorial favorable to skeptics, or at least skepticism, a couple of years ago (sorry can’t find the link any more).

Unfortunately this won’t reach the mainstream media . There is too much money at stake , too many corrupt scientists ( 2,000 ?) conspiring with their media cronies. Their ringleader Al has 300 million tied up in it.
The best hope we have is to just keep doing what we’re doing , spreading the real truth by word of mouth, this always prevails. Thanks to Anthony and his blog and his surfacestations.org project. I’m just a self employed ex- pro football player in Canada doing his part to spread the word. I point this blog out to people because I think it points out very critical mistakes about how temperature is measured, and when your only getting 0.5 degree increase in 100 years there’s a lot of room for error. How good is the equipment ? How sober is the reader? How far away is the equipment from an A/C exhaust vent?
Brent in Calgary

Juan (14:05:48) :
RE: Paul Shanahan (10:33:06) :
“Does this mean Al Gore will have to give his Nobel Prize back?”
Remember, the Nobel Prize issued to Gore and the IPCC is a political prize and does not relate to scientific achievement. I do hope if fraud or negligence is established that the political prize is withdrawn.
In a backwards way, Gore & Co have done a lot for Science, after all, if it wasn’t for his Amway style of bring AGW to the table, I doubt we would know as much (or little in the grand scheme) as we do now. I’ll give him credit for that, but I’d still take his prize back! 🙂

Just a thought.
If a “person of stature” such as the head of a prestigious scientific organization or the editor of a scientific journal stated a position on a “controversial issue” and is then proven to have been sucked in by a hoax, his reputation is nothing but do-do. (A scientific term)
If it does turn out that AGW has been a massive hoax, there will be a large number of “scientists” who gave a “learned opinion” about a subject that they knew nothing. And they will be known as little more than hysterical fools.
For Example: Every issue of the National Geographic has a story on “The Horrors of AGW”. If it is a hoax, who will ever again trust the National Geographic or the editor? The main stream media will skate because they are not expected to know anything about anything. They just breathlessly repeat the words spoken by “learned people”.
Any change is going to come very slowly.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack

I sent the APS information to Jon McComb at my local radio station CKNW 98. He interviewed Lord Monckton for approximately 20 minutes this afternoon. You can listen to the interview here:
http://www.cknw.com/StationShared/AudioVault.aspx
Select Thursday July 17 and 3 PM. The interview starts at approximately 35:30.

OK Boris, rather than simply assert, without presenting any evidence that Monkton misunderstood the IPCC. Why not tell us where and how Monkton has misinterpreted?
Otherwise, it just looks the standard AGW believer tactic of making a claim without good or even any supporting evidence.
And no throwing out a bunch of irrelevant links, in the hope people don’t read them or can’t understand them. That’s a cheap and dishonest tactic, and I am thoroughly tired off it.
Give us chapter and verse. A link to a page that does so is acceptable.

The head of the IPCC implied last year that there are only about a dozen skeptics left and compared them to “flat earthers.”
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-2935586_ITM
Is it possible that the highly esteemed Dr. Pachauri may not have been telling the truth?
REPLY: Many of these people live in microcosms and know little of the world outside their area of expertise.

Mr Monckton has been decried in places on this post because he ‘only’ has qualifications in the classics and Journalism and is not a scientist of any kind. In the acknowlegments section of his paper he mentions that he has received much advice from people who he names (and are scientists) and that he was allowed (invited) to ‘present a seminar on some of his ideas to a challenging audience in the Physics Faculty at Rochester University, New York’. What more do these decriers want? Everybody on these posts are putting forward their points of view (In most cases without declaring their qualifications except by the content of what they post!) so why cannot Mr Monckton have a say out there? He is not appearing before congress (at the moment!).

I have never witnessed so many people grasping at so many straws.

Boris, here’s Monckton showing Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate that his science is wrong: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/chuck_it_schmidt_a_science_commentary_on_web_posts_at_realclimate.html. Now this was surely Schmidt’s real big chance to rubbish the skeptics if ever there was one – because this is the scientific heart of the AGW issue. But having examined the RealClimate index, I find no trace of a reply. My conclusion from this and several other pieces by Monckton is that he does know what he’s talking about.
Celebrations: wow! but as some say, the APS hasn’t yet changed official policy… but wow! TWO aussie major posts the same day!…
Anthony and others –
I’ve long longed for a proper science wiki – you know, one not controlled by the likes of William Connolley – a real wiki for real scientists, which as posters here point out, has to do with open attitude and thoroughness, not with degrees or peer reviews. We could do with a decent Online Climate Science Primer, you know, so ordinary people can understand, part of a good future safeguarding against monopolies and other scam in science as crucial as this.
If this really is the beginning of the end regarding AGW, perhaps people can start thinking about redirecting the incredible array of real ability here. I mean, the floor here is strewn with diamonds of good science, bright ideas, courtesy (and the learning thereof), etc…
REPLY: Nice idea, we could revel in our wikiness. 😉

But even if that particular aspect of theory is wrong, it would not mean that AGW is wrong at all.
–Boris
Uh Boris, if this aspect is wrong, then the whole interlocking GCM nest of assumptions is wrong, and it is time to hold off on spending trillions of dollars recreating an energy system that we already have and which is working fine. You know that the whole argument is about CS, and if this aspect is wrong, estimates of CS are probably wrong too. If they are right, they are right by chance alone. And your argument that the data is so bad, and lapses in coverage apply perhaps to the radiosondes, but not to the satellite data. Odd how the two agree with each other, yet can be discarded out of hand because they disagree with a model that performs remarkably poorly. And which only correlates with Hansen’s data set to any significant degree, and Hansen’s data set is shown to correlate highly with UHI.
To use an analogy, if you are living in a perfectly good house, and you tear it down and discard it, and build a new one that is basically the same, you are a lot poorer than you otherwise would be. If the first house had termites, then, well you are still poorer, but justified. But before I tore down my house, I would wan’t proof of termites, and if the “theory that I had termites” was shown to have “incorrect aspects”, I think I would put off tearing it down until I knew more. No matter how many scare tactics used.

Just a thouhgt about the IPCC and their devotion to models. Perhaps they should take over the Olympics. Surely by now every participant in the upcoming Olympics has a clear record of their performance over the last year or two. They could feed that data into their models, adjust for the different locations the events have taken place, adjust for altitude, weather, conditions of the surface used, etc etc. They could then spit out the winner and mail them the gold medals. Cetainly with all that data the concensus would agree with to whom the medals were awarded.

Please: APS Editor
Call;
Dr. James E. Hansen
Columbia University Columbia University
750 Armstrong Hall 750 Armstrong Hall
2880 Broadway 2880 Broadway
New York, NY 10025 USA New York, NY 10025 E.U.A.
Phone: (212) 678-5500 Telefone: (212) 678-5500
I Love…..www.surfacestations.org project
hasta la vista baby.

The following article appeared in the national newspaper the Australian today (18 th July). Another brick falls from the wall
No smoking hot spotFont Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print David Evans | July 18, 2008
I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I’ve been following the global warming debate closely for years.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.
The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.
If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.
Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you’d believe anything.
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.
3. The satellites that measure the world’s temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the “urban heat island” effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.
4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.
None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.
The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician’s assertion.
Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming.
So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.
In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn’t noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.
If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don’t you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.
What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.
The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.
Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.

Alan, I agree, the APS has not reversed their Policy, and Marque did not provide his view nor did his comment claim that any member of the APS has either. What is relevant, and what I think Anthony meant to show by posting this, is the admission that there is not a consensus among scientists, and a willingness, at least for some in APS, to hear both sides. The “position on global warming” is that the debate is over, and that there is a consensus. That is hogwash.

Boris:

“Stratospheric cooling is a fingerprint of an enhanced greenhouse effect…”

Translation: cooling = warming.
And as Patrick Henry noted:

The head of the IPCC implied last year that there are only about a dozen skeptics left and compared them to “flat earthers.”

Dr. Pachauri could possibly be that ignorant. More likely, lacking the science to support the AGW disaster scenario, he may be trying to denigrate the skeptical point of view by his ad hominem attack conflating skeptics with flat earthers. I think the latter.
Mr. Henry also cites a link to Goliath, which states:

US President George W. Bush formally announced in April 2001 that the USA would not ratify Kyoto.

That statement is disingenuous. When Vice President Al Gore presided over the Senate, the United States Senate voted 95 – 0 to reject Kyoto. By implying that President Bush singlehandedly rejected Kyoto, Goliath forfeits credibility.
Finally, it should again be pointed out that organizations such as the APS have not allowed rank-and-file members to cast a secret ballot to determine the organization’s position regarding the AGW disaster hypothesis [and make no mistake, AGW is a disaster/planetary catastrophe hypothesis. If it were not an imminent disaster hypothesis, then AGW would be only a scientific footnote of little or no consequence].
In fact, the executive committee of the APS has unilaterally determined the position that the APS has previously taken on AGW/global warming/planetary catastrophe, not the dues-paying membership. The fact that an APS spokesperson has now been forced to backpeddle, and to tacitly acknowledge that there is no consensus, is a major admission that the APS is out of step with its rank-and-file membership.
When rank-and-file scientist/members of organizations such as the APS are free to voice their opinions in either a secret ballot, or in an anonymous poll by a reputable polling organization, their true positions are revealed: click

Alan J,
This quote which Anthony linked to above, is from the APS web site. Obviously Anthony has been there recently.
There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.
Anthony,
I think you are too forgiving of someone who is head of an “Intergovernmental Panel” and is calling for a radical overhaul of the world’s socioeconomic system. He is legally and ethically responsible for his public remarks, and ignorance is not a legitimate defense. He is not just some nutty professor making off-the-wall murmurings in his office.

Boris, one other thing.
From what I understand greenhouse effect = 80% from carbon dioxide and about 20% from water vapor in stratosphere. If the stratosphere is cooling, then CO2 is not doing a very good job.

(1) climate sensitivity — the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause — has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.
(2) Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate
_____________________
The above 2 statements are NOT inconsistent. Indeed, I would be willing to bet a good amount of money that both are correct.

Jeez: Actually, Toronto … National Post.

Glenn, thanks for the response.
Those points may well have been why Anthony posted this. This wouldn’t excuse DailyTech from telling obvious falsehoods that even a moment’s research would have exposed. It seems very apparent that the editors of DailyTech either didn’t bother to check and see what the APS’s actual position statement was, or simply didn’t care. Either way it doesn’t exactly raise my confidence in the quality of their journalism.

Also, I find it significant that this story is now being trumpeted across the Internet as, “50,000 Scientists Reverse Position on Global Warming!” And i find it more than a little plausible that this was, in fact, DailyTech’s intent in posting it.

I have been conducting a thought experiment. I imagined that I am at a jury trial and I am one of the jurors. The plaintiffs are: Al Gore, the IPCC and Dr. James Hansen. The defendants are all producers and users of carbon based energy. The plaintiffs claim that continued use of carbon based energy will irreperably harm the world by causing Global Warming. I am assuming that followers of this blog are well aware of both prosecution’s and defence’s arguments. Would you convict the defendant based on the evidence presented?

Paul Marek is right. The Canadian press has been forthright and impartial regarding climate articles, unlike in the U.S. mainstream media.
Here’s a typical article written by Monckton: click
Try and find a similar article in the biased U.S. press.

The article states: “The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change…”
Yet, the editor of only one division out of 39 total divisions wants the stance reconsidered. Very big difference.
REPLY: Perhaps, but that it happened at all within the confines of a pre-existing position statement is remarkable. If there wasn’t some agreement elsewhere within the APS higher ups, this would be squelched because it contradicts a previous position.
It seems like APS is testing the waters, and they wouldn’t be doing that on a whim.

“REPLY: The editor has [reversed his position on global warming], and has opened debate on climate change, that is what the article is about.”
In his statement, the editor of the newsletter Physics and Society doesn’t take a position on global warming, so it’s not clear whether or not he has reversed any position.
A history of the Forum on Physics & Society makes these comments:
“One of the most important activities of the FPS has been to sponsor sessions at APS meetings on topical science-and-society issues…
“The goal of Forum sessions is to present both sides of an issue in a no-holds-barred debate.”
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/history.cfm
The editor is acting within these guidelines.
This thread is headed: “APS Editor Reverses Position on Global Warming”, and the lead para says: “The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change…”
The impression given by both headline and lead para is that the APS has reversed its stance that “The evidence [for global; warming] is incontrovertible…”
No such reversal has occurred.

Brendan H:
“REPLY: The editor has [reversed his position on global warming], and has opened debate on climate change, that is what the article is about.”
The original:
“The APS has not reversed its position. http://www.aps.org
REPLY: The editor has, and has opened debate on climate change, that is what the article is about.”
Translation: the *editor* has reversed *its* position. “Its” as in the APS, not his personal position.
Opening a debate is a little like saying “There is no consensus”, don’t you think, Brendan?
No need to go into further analysis of your post or intent.

Alan,
I don’t see where this story is trumpted across the internet with a numerical figure attached to it at all. And the DailyTech author only reported how many were in the APS, not that they all had reversed their positions on GW.
As to your claim about the author telling lies, I’m not sure that assuming an editor would be able to speak for the APS is an “obvious falsehood”. There has undoubtedly been more than a little creative license taken here, and I agree this is bad journalism. But welcome to the world of news. And the editor is an editor of the APS, regardless of which unit he belongs. The higher up response to this today:
“An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.” This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.”
So clearly and APS editor made a statement “at odds” with the official statement made last year. And as I said before, the editor is not an “author”.

Tukka,
You know Dr. Hansen isn’t a ‘climate scientist’ either. He holds a degree in Physics. 🙂

ezlnwv,
It is interesting to note that the APS official position is NOT an endorsement of the IPCC position so ‘CO2 is all’ proponents should not be particularly happy with it (or rushing to its defense for that matter). “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.” is the APS position. It does not endorse the IPCC view, nor does it make any assertion about the state of debate about the issue (like it being over). It does not claim the effect to be even ‘significant’. It’s a pretty innocuous statement that I think even the most die hard skeptic can accept. Human contribution of CO2 IS affecting the climate, what is being ‘debated’ (or not if you accept Dr. Hansen’s 99.9% ‘guarantee’) is extent and impact.

“We know CO2 causes higher temperatures, so it must be that.
All papers on the subject are simply attempts to quantify this effect.”
But the CO2 contribution is really small in proportion to the whole GHE. MMCO2 is a tiny aspect of this small proportion. So wouldn’t you conclude that “it” “must” be caused other things too?
Fixating on MMCO2 really is the equivalent of the medieval debate about how many angels can dance on a pinhead. It’s lost sight of the bigger picture, and resolutely refuses to broaden its perspective because it doesn’t want to lose the pre-eminent position it thinks it has established, even though the result is of no value to anything because it’s based on a false premise.
Abstruse deliberations may be interesting to those doing the work, but they all lose their power when we know (as we do) that the earth was both drastically warmer than today (RWP and MWP) and drastically colder than today (choose your ice age) when, as no-one disputes, MMCO2 CANNOT have been the main driver.
End of.
This whole mess has arisen because people who consider themselves “scientists” have concentrated on one single aspect of an issue over a foreshortened time frame and restricted geological samples, and have adopted an emotional attachment to one particular outcome instead of relying on the scientific method.
They have a herd instinct which is absolutely terrifying.
The new, cooked-up “climate science” did not even look at the enormous body of knowlege amassed by prehistorians and geologists over the centuries before coming up with its own conclusions. It fell in love with itself, stuck its fingers in its ears and went lalala.

“Graph C shows the “fingerprint” if well mixed GG’s cause the warming.”
You are making the same mistake Monckton made. The figure in question is figure 9.1 from the AR4 report. The caption states “Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999.” Solar forcing was not equal to CO2 forcing during the 20th century, so the solar response is smaller. But it still shows a tropical tropospheric hot spot.

Arrhenius?

Mark W says: “Can someone point to me a place where the physical mechanism behind the substantial positive feedback of water vapor has been proven? I know of a number of papers that cast significant doubts on that assumption, but none that support it.”
Well, here are two papers that support this mechanism:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;310/5749/841
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;296/5568/727
There are others out there too. See, for example, the discussion here:
http://sciencepoliticsclimatechange.blogspot.com/2006/08/more-on-water-vapor-feedback.html

Joel, Perhaps you should let Larry Gould know about it as well:
“I am delighted that Physics and Society, an APS journal…”
Or perhaps the Physics and Society unit does do peer-review?

Bill Marsh (03:04:58 ) : It is interesting to note that the APS official position is NOT an endorsement of the IPCC position … It does not claim the effect to be even ’significant’.
Not in the excerpt of the APS official position, but if you read their full statement, you’ll find the following:
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.
It even uses the word “significant”.

APS has “clarified” and disowned these reported remarks. Check their website or mine.

Joel Shore:
Those are interesting, but I see nothing about CO2 inducing the postive feedback from water vapor. That’s the real question, isn’t it?
Scott

“… this blog is just a flyspeck compared to the reach of mass media …”
No no no Mr Watts ! Where else can Americans go to learn about cricket? You are in the very vanguard of civilisation, sir.

While the official APS position first simply states: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate”, it then goes on to state:
“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” Clearly an Alarmist position.
I love the fact that debate is now apparently happening on the APS forum. Hopefully it signals a sea change. Baby steps. A chink here, crack there, and eventually the whole thing comes crashing down. Can’t happen soon enough.

Ok, so an editor may or may not have reversed his position, the APS apparently hasn’t changed their position. What about the other statement, “”There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.” Is he making this up? Are there or are there not a considerable number of physicists in the APS who disagree with the standard AGW position?

Boris, you did not complete the caption. You left out the “as simulated by the PCM model” part. According to the simulations, if GHGs were causing the warming, the observations should show a hot spot. The observations don’t show a hot spot. Where is the misinterpretation you keep claiming?

The contrary argument is entirely double dutch to me – anybody
that can see through this ??
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/hafemeister.cfm

“We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
There are good economic and political reasons for doing just that. That is poppycock, Rob. Attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will not only be hugely expensive, but since our greenhouse gas emissions are doing very little to affect climate to begin with, those huge expenditures will accomplish nothing except wreak an unnecessary economic hardship, particularly on the poor and middle class. It will be especially hard on those in developing countries.
I don’t know what you mean by “political reasons”, but whatever they are, they certainly can not justify causing human suffering.

Talk about a weak affirmation. The APS site merely says: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
Well duh. And of course, that is, by itself, a true statement. Not a particularly meaningful statement in any way, but a true one.

“Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
By Christopher Monckton
This article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions. ”
So is the APS correct in that they have the pro overwhelming opinion or is the editor correct in that there is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion???

“Steve Keohane (11:24:51) :
Boris
You just don’t have it yet. A desk jockey with a PC plugs in the numbers for the model to make the model correlate with reality, but there is no correlation, and no reality, just WAGs. ”
I have to agree with Steve. The way I see the issue is the guys doing the input work has been given a load of data and told to build a model to show XY & Z.
Thats the problem with models, they are built with an end in mind. The rub is, how do you build a model with ALL the data with no pre-conception of what the outcome will be? It’s like being given a tonne of lego blocks and asked to build the model with no instructions or picture on the box to guide you. It’s extremely difficult to come up with what was intended by the original designers. In the case of earth, that designer would be Mother Nature and she’s not going to give us many clues!

Let’s see: appeal to authority, ad-hominem attacks. You can read this in the comments above by the AGW supporters. When I read sonicfrog mention that Freeman Dyson and Lubos Motl are not climatologists, I thought ‘Thank God, they are not so narrowed and blinded by that field but fully understand and reference many aspects of physics.’ And the last I’ve heard is that the climate of the Earth behaves in accord with physical laws and principles. Please correct me if I err here. Also: if the majority of temperature data sets do not show any net or even significant warming (and possible cooling) over the last 2 decades, while C02 has been increased quite significantly, isn’t that the best proof for doubting AGW? Isn’t that just common sense? Maybe climatologists today have developed the unique ability to create tons of C02 models signifying nothing — but impressing the gullible. Sounds all too familiar, no?

” Joel Shore (11:56:22) :
Just to elaborate on Paul Shanahan’s post above…”
Yes, should have made my post a little clearer, Joel is 100% correct – Apologies.

Discussion, yes. Lobotomies, no.
Did you see APS’s posting of the Monckton paper? It starts out with this note:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.

(http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm)
Maybe you’re a bit premature in your champagne cork-popping, Mr. Watts?
REPLY: Maybe you’re a bit premature with saying I’m opening champagne? I provided an excerpt and link to the story on Dailytech, with no commentary in that posting of my own. Where do you get “cork popping” from that?

Boris speculates:

“CO2 contributes around 13% to the GHE.”

That ridiculous figure comes not from empirical data, but from a climate model, which would attribute only 87% of all other climate change to the effects of water vapor, methane, residual radioactivity in the Earth’s mantle and core, the PDO and AMO, El Nino, El Nina, albedo, Solar effects, etc.
Unless Boris was inadvertently at least two orders of magnitude too high when referring to the influence of carbon dioxide on global warming, then I refer him to the article by David Evans mentioned above. Dr. Evans stated:

“I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol…
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None.” [emphasis added]

So Boris continues to claim that CO2 [a small trace gas, which comprises less than .04 – of one percent – of the atmosphere], contributes an astonishing 13% of the GHE — versus David Evans, who states unequivocally that there is no evidence that CO2 contributes anything significant to the greenhouse effect.
And then we have Joel Shore (07:54:57) who joins the ilk of James Hansen and David Suzuki in demanding the silencing of someone he disagrees with. Refuting the science is the proper response, but perhaps Mr. Shore has no adequate refutation, and so prefers to demand the silencing of a different point of view.
The above examples are indicative of the climate alarmists’ hypothesis: click

According to Christopher Monckton, his paper published in the APS was peer-reviewed by Alvin Saperstein, a professor of physics and editor of Physics and Society.
– Jon McComb radio program, The World Today (CKNW 98), July 17, 2008. 3:38 pm PDT

“One of the most disfiguring parts of the deliberations of the UN’s climate panel has been the insistence of the bureaucrats that run it that a particular orthodoxy shall be reflected in the scientific documents it produces. The scientists are not, repeat, not in charge of the UN’s climate panel. It is political representatives who agree the final text and it is bureaucrats who prepare that final text for them after the scientists have all signed off the final version.
And when I got my final version of it and read through it I saw that these bureaucrats had inserted, among many other things, a table of figures in which, by ingenious manipulation of 4 decimal points, they had succeeded in exaggerating the contribution of melting ice sheets and glaciers – the sort of thing that Al Gore is always banging on about – not just a little exaggeration but a ten-fold exaggeration, a thousand percent exaggeration.
And so I, I wrote to the IPCC and said, look, once we’ve signed off on this document it is not for you to insert tables like this without our sanction and without having drawn our attention to it.”
– Lord Monckton on the Jon McComb radio program, The World Today (CKNW 98), July 17, 2008. 3:39 pm PDT

I concluded my post at 9:37 today by agreeing with Bill March that the APS policy statement is hardly a ringing endorsement of the IPCC position. Further confirmation of that is found in a short paper entitled “Climate Change” – published earlier this year (i.e. subsequent to the policy statement). See http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/energy/climate.cfm
Here are some quotations from its Conclusions:
“While the inevitability of climate change is generally accepted, the magnitude and nature of these changes are still uncertain.”
“While anthropogenic climate change has not been unambiguously detected … [the] rate of change is similar in magnitude to natural climate changes but also well within the range of the possible effects of the historical rise in greenhouse gas concentrations.”
“Unambiguously detecting climate change through the record of global mean temperature is not possible at this point …”
“The degree to which the climate will change in the future is still uncertain … and a definitive cost-benefit calculation which compares climate change damages to mitigation costs is not possible at this time.”
“Technological change and a general increase in wealth through economic growth will leave the world better able to deal with this issue in the future. However, some, perhaps small, amount of damage will accrue in the interim. A risk-averse viewpoint argues for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to avoid the possibility of harm. An opposite view advocates waiting until we are more certain about climate change effects (and more able to effect changes). This part of the debate will be better informed, but not solved, by improved science.”
It seems to me that the APS has a sensibly open mind on the matter and that the debate that has caused all this fuss is little more than a continuation of that. Nonetheless, I repeat my comment that a helpful (and interesting) step now would be for them to ballot their members to determine individual views on the matter.

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review.
So? As I understand it, the whole purpose of posting both the articles was to generate debate and to welcome reviews from the community. This sounds like the most open peer review possible.
Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community.
This is irrelevant. Science is not about opinion, majority or otherwise. It’s about facts and the discussion about the facts in these papers hasn’t even begun.
The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.
While they have every right to disagree, this statement is meaningless without detailed rebuttal of the points raised.
The whole tenor of this notice is political rather than scientific. It sounds more like a great pressure was brought to bear to ensure conformance to accepted dogma before the requested scientific feedback was received, which would hopefully appear in the October issue. For it to be done in this fashion, targeting for special attention just the one article, demeans science and is a disgrace.

Rob Guenier says: “I concluded my post at 9:37 today by agreeing with Bill March that the APS policy statement is hardly a ringing endorsement of the IPCC position. Further confirmation of that is found in a short paper entitled ‘Climate Change’ – published earlier this year (i.e. subsequent to the policy statement). See http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/energy/climate.cfm ”
Rob, that was not published earlier this year. That link goes to part of a report called “The Current Energy Situation & Background Papers”, listed here http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/ , which was published in September 1996 (which explains why the latest cite in it is to the Second IPCC report issued in 1995). In other words, that expresses the views of that APS committee 12 years ago. I think that the APS’s current statement on climate change reflects the greater certainty that the APS now feels is warranted in light of the scientific evidence.

Smokey,
David Evans is wrong. He misreads the same figure as Monckton (he likely got the idea from Monckton). In addition, CO2’s contribution to the GHE is known to be between 9 and 26 percent. The exact number is almost impossible to determine, but 13% is a reasonable estimate. (see Ramanathan and Coakley 1978) These numbers are undisputed in the literature–I could find no publications by David Evans on this subject.

The statement that was shown in the index to the July 2008 issue of Physics & Society next to Lord Monckton’s article has now been removed. However, it is still shown within the actual body of Lord Monckton’s article.
I feel for that poor editor. He must be catching all sorts of hell from all quarters.

You don’t have to have a climatology degree, or even a degree in Physics to realize that CO2-caused warming theory has more holes in it than a piece of swiss cheese. All it takes is enough time to study the published articles and criticisms readily available on the internet. Then you have to decide if you are going to rely on what your common sense tells you, or starting baaaa-ing with the rest of the consensus sheep. It’s time for all of us to start contacting our congresspeople and insist that they dry up the funding for these bloodsuckers and get them off the government (our) payroll. If we don’t, they won’t stop until they bring our standard of living down to the level of a third-world country.

Joel Shore, you are doing what I asked someone earlier not to do, which is throw out links claiming they support your position, when in fact they don’t.
I am familiar with the first paper and it shows the only significant measureable effect from a GHG is from methane. The effect from CO2 is so small, it’s less than the error in the measurement, and therefore in all likelyhood just that, measurement error.
The second paper is about a model and therefore not scientific evidence.
I didn’t bother to read the third link.

Go to the web site, they do not agree. They still believe in climate change.
How can this be put up without verification?