Viscount Monckton gives a presentation during the 2007 Conference on Climate Change
From Mike Asher at the DailyTech:
The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming “incontrovertible.”
In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,”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.”
The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that 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.
Complete article here
(h/t Fred)
UPDATE: 7/18/08 9PM PST It appears there is some discord at the APS over the issue.
The higher ups at the American Physical Society, apparently do not agree with the editor that made the initial post and reaffirms the statement on human caused global warming, posting this statement on their web site www.aps.org:
The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:
“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
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 This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.
There has certainly been a lot of argument and rhetoric surrounding this issue, and I’ve taken a fair amount of criticism for even posting it, with one commenter exclaiming that I was “popping champagne corks” while another said that “I couldn’t wait to talk about it as a major hole in the case for doing something to clean up air pollution.” which is curious, since I never made any comments about “celebrating with champagne”, “air pollution” or “major hole in the case”.
What this story does is demonstrate how politically and emotionally charged the issue has become. And when politics, emotions, and science mix, the outcome is never good.
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
—
Locri,
Your criticism is valid. I use the term neo-pagan to indicate that there is a religious component to belief in AGW. AGW is science, politics and religion. The science has been falsified but the politics and religion are still very powerful. That won’t last much longer.
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.
Mark Nispel:
You are missing one: Solar Cycle 13. It ramped to max in 3.8 years and dropped down to minimum in 8.1 years. Solar Cycle 14 followed with max smoothed sunspot number of 65 and coincided well with a global cooling episode from 1900-1912 (sunspot minimum). And we all know what happened in 1912-Titanic.
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.
ok I added it to Wikipedia on 1:33PM MTS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Statements_by_dissenting_organizations
Lets see how long it lasts!
Two points:
1) The APS policy statement says that AGW evidence is ‘incontovertible’, and urges physicists to investigate ways to ameliorate the problem. Now, one of the forum editors says that agreement amongst physicists is not total, and invites a debate. I can see no incompatibility between these two statements – the APS can reasonably make a policy, note that many physicists do not agree, and ask for debate before (possibly) changing their position. We will have to see what comes out…
My suspicion is that the actual physics of CO2 radiation absorption in the wild is too complex for current theoretical physics to handle, so the debate will be inconclusive. Nonetheless, it is good to see debate being called for rather than suppressed.
2) Viscount Monckton has published similar papers before. There is a rebuttal of an earlier paper of his at Real Climate which claims that since the Earth is not in a state of thermal equilibrium, the assumptions he makes to deduce the forcing sensitivity are incorrect. I have heard no response to this, but equally, I wonder how the AGW supporters work out THEIR forcing sensitivity if this is the case…..
“Quatuor vero sunt maxima comprehendendæ veritatis offendicula, quæ omnem quemcumque sapientem impediunt, et vix aliquem permittunt ad verum titulum sapientiæ pervenire: videlicet fragilis et indignæ auctoritatis exemplum, consuetudinis diuturnitas, vulgi sensus imperiti, et propriæ ignorantiæ occultatio cum ostentatione sapientiæ apparentis.” [Roger Bacon. (1267). Opus Maius.
Reid,
Yeah, I figured it was something like that. I definitely concur that AGW has become more of a religion than a science. In particular, it seems like people believing in AGW must believe in some sort of temperature status quo which we know to be false. Just like most religions contain some sort of belief that the world has been created the way it is and any deviation from that created existence is therefore bad.
Thankfully, we know that temperature has changed in the past and will continue to do so. Yay, natural processes!
its gone Jim
update: it was on wikipedia 12 minutes
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”.
Boris: If you’d bother to check Moncton’s acknowledgements at the end of his paper you’d see that reputable scientists approved of his work.
David Douglass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Douglass
Robert Knox http://spider.pas.rochester.edu/mainFrame/people/pages_old/Knox.html
David E. Evans, professor of Matematics, University of Wales
Joanna Haigh
http://www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~joanna/
“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.
Jim B,
That change lasted all of 12 minutes.
Try changing it in the middle of the night maybe it will last longer?
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.
Jim B says “Lets see how long it lasts!”
It’s gone.
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 don’t know why you bother with that troll’s nest (thank you Beowulf for le mot juste) over at Wikipedia.
I thought it was, “Surprise, surprise, surpreise!” ;-
WOW!!! Rock on, APS! Debate away! Look forward to follow up on this one!
Jim B:
I’m not seeing it on wikipedia. Is it gone already or is there a lag before it registers?
This is one of those rare occasions when I feel like standing up and cheering:
Hooray for Lord Monckton!
Yes bring on the debate! Let there be a real public debate between climate experts, both pro and con.
Great news! If you listen carefully you can hear Al Gore gulp then clutch that prize a little tighter.
Re: Jim B
Connoley rules the wiki pages on climate with an iron fist. This will never appear for more than a few minutes in Wikipedia.
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.