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 This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.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.
Tukka,
You know Dr. Hansen isn’t a ‘climate scientist’ either. He holds a degree in Physics. 🙂
“Indeed. Every time I breath out I change the atmosphere and so have an effect. The key question is how much of an effect.”
Thank you. I was starting to think I was the only person who noticed that all these “consensus” statements are so wishy-washy as to be essentially meaningless.
The hypothesis on the table is that mankind’s CO2 emissions will cause temperatures to rise enough to cause significant harmful effects. (I call this the “CAGW Hypothesis.” Most or all of these “consensus” statements do not endorse this hypothesis.
Put another way: When CAGW is finally revealed to be a hoax, all of these scientific organizations will be able to claim that they weren’t really wrong.
Put another way: There is a massive bait and switch going on here. Claiming that “mankind’s emissions are affecting the climate” is NOT the same thing as claiming that “mankind’s CO2 emissions will cause large rises in temperature and significant harm.”
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.
Bill Marsh, first of all, it’s “Tuukka”.
Anyway, Dr. Hansen publishes several peer reviewed scientific articles every year about climate science. If you have a Ph.D in physics and you study climate you are a climate scientist (if you do it so well that you have published several peer reviewed articles of it).
[…] week a body representing 50,000 physicists has publicly declared the science of Global Warming open for debate and unsettled. The American […]
Well now, that was quick. While Drudge still carries the stories on Pelosi and Gore, the APS bit has already been yanked.
Now let’s see the reaction to the July forum position in its October issue.
“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.
“To argue otherwise, one must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative cause of warming. ”
This quote really gets me.
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.
So the alarmists are demanding of others, a level of proof that they have not reached themselves.
Bloody hypocrites.
“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.
Who was the first ‘climate scientist’, and when?
Arrhenius?
The Science and Public Policy Institute, where Monckton is listed as “Chief Policy Advisor” has issued a press release here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/proved_no_climate_crisis.html
Note that the first sentence claims, “Mathematical proof that there is no ‘climate crisis’ appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports.” This sentence manages to pack in several false claims into one sentence, the first being that his paper constitutes a mathematical proof, the second that it is “a major peer-reviewed paper,” and the third that it appeared in a “learned journal” (rather, it appeared in a newsletter of one of 39 units of the larger society). As a member of the APS’s Forum on Physics and Society, I have written the newsletter editors asking that they take action to prevent such false claims about this paper from being promulgated.
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
“All papers on the subject are simply attempts to quantify this effect, AND THERE IS INADEQUATE INFORMATION TO DO THIS.”
Uhnn, Barbera, why did you not include the second part of my sentence? I’m AGREEING with you! My problem is that I don’t think there is any way to either prove or disprove AGW. There will always be a small amount, but since no one KNOWS how small that is, or what the other drivers may be, it could be estimated to be any figure, up to 100%. I think it’s vanishingly small, but I don’t think there’s any way to PROVE this.
So I don’t think the Physics debate will PROVE anything. We all agree that CO2 can have SOME effect on the atmosphere, we all agree that the atmosphere gets hotter and colder, so man-made CO2 might be driving 98% of this, or 0.00000001%. I don’t think, with our current knowledge, there is any way to find out…..
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?
Would it not be helpful, and fully in the spirit of scientific inquiry, if the APS constructed a questionaire that would attempt to determine the range of beliefs among its members as to CO2-driven AGW?
The American Meteorological Association could then follow suit.
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”.
So the SPP is lying about Monckton’s paper. Interesting.
REPLY: careful
APS has “clarified” and disowned these reported remarks. Check their website or mine.
As a result of “incontrovertible” global warming during the the last 30 years, temperatures are now below the 30 year mean.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
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
It appears that the Physics and Society newsletter, called a “division” of APS, does provide “review” of articles:
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/
“It presents letters, commentary, book reviews, and reviewed articles on the relations of physics and the physics community to government and society.”
“… 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.
Boris says: “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.”
Indeed. In fact, because of the smaller response and the way the contour intervals have been chosen in that plot, it is simply impossible to determine with any accuracy from that figure the amplification factor between the surface and hot spot in the tropical atmosphere. A better figure is given in this RealClimate post: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/ It clearly shows how solar forcing and CO2 forcing give basically the same amplification in the tropical atmosphere, which is not surprising since it is the result of the basic physics of a moist adiabatic lapse rate.
It is also worth noting that the paper by Santer et al. ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;309/5740/1551 ) confirms that the models and the data agree that this tropical amplification occurs for fluctuations in temperature that occur on the timescale of months to a few years. It is only when one looks at the amplification for the overall trends over the multidecadal timescales that (depending on which data set you look at), you see the data diverging from this prediction.
So, the two possibilities are (1) that there is really some physical process occurring on these timescales that the models don’t capture or (2) that the data has errors for trends over these timescales. While (1) is certainly worth entertaining, I don’t know of any proposals for such a process and it seems difficult to come up with one since most of the known processes operate on much shorter timescales and thus would have been expected to screw up the agreement between the models and data on the shorter timescales if they do so on the longer timescales. To many scientists, (2) seems more likely given that both the radiosonde and satellite data have various problems that would tend to not impact the reliability of the fluctuations but would impact the reliability of long term trends. And indeed, the extent to which tropical amplification is present or absent in the data depends strongly on whose data set you believe (RSS or UAH for the satellite data and which version of the RAOBCORE re-analysis for the radiosonde data).
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.