UPDATE 1/28: Full text of Dr. Theon’s letter has been post on the Senate website and below.
This is something I thought I’d never see. This press release today is from the Senate EPW blog of Jame Inhofe. The scientist making the claims in the headline, Dr. John S. Theon, formerly of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Arlington, Virginia, has a paper here in the AMS BAMS that you may also find interesting. Other papers are available here in Google Scholar. He also worked on the report of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident report and according to that document was a significant contributor to weather forecasting improvements:
The Space Shuttle Weather Forecasting Advisory Panel, chaired by Dr. John Theon, was established by NASA Headquarters to review existing weather support capabilities and plans and to recommend a course of action to the NSTS Program. Included on the panel were representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Air Force, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
For those just joining the climate discussion, Dr. James Hansen is the chief climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and is the man who originally raised the alarm on global warming in 1988 in an appearance before congress. He is also the keeper of the most often cited climate data.
EPW press release below – Anthony
Washington DC, Jan 27th 2009: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! – See: Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom – Get the Facts on James Hansen – UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says ‘lock up the oil men’ – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for ‘high crimes against humanity’ for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 ]
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote of his career. “This required a thorough understanding of the state of the science. I have kept up with climate science since retiring by reading books and journal articles,” Theon added. (LINK) Theon also co-authored the book “Advances in Remote Sensing Retrieval Methods.” [Note: Theon joins many current and former NASA scientists in dissenting from man-made climate fears. A small sampling includes: Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former top administrator of NASA, Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt, Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7, Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor, Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Climatologist Dr. John Christy, Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility]
Gore faces a much different scientific climate in 2009 than the one he faced in 2006 when his film “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. According to satellite data, the Earth has cooled since Gore’s film was released, Antarctic sea ice extent has grown to record levels, sea level rise has slowed, ocean temperatures have failed to warm, and more and more scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made climate fears as peer-reviewed studies continue to man-made counter warming fears. [See: Peer-Reviewed Study challenges ‘notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming’ & New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears ]
“Vice President Gore and the other promoters of man-made climate fears endless claims that the “debate is over” appear to be ignoring scientific reality,” Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee.
A U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008 details over 650 international scientists who are dissenting from man-made global warming fears promoted by the UN and yourself. Many of the scientists profiled are former UN IPCC scientists and former believers in man-made climate change that have reversed their views in recent years. The report continues to grow almost daily. We have just received a request from an Italian scientist, and a Czech scientist to join the 650 dissenting scientists report. A chemist from the U.S. Naval Academy is about to be added, and more Japanese scientists are dissenting. Finally, many more meteorologists will be added and another former UN IPCC scientist is about to be included. These scientists are openly rebelling against the climate orthodoxy promoted by Gore and the UN IPCC.
The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. Reports from the conference found that Skeptical scientists overwhelmed the meeting, with ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ ( See full reports here & here ] In addition, a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.” A November 25, 2008, article in Politico noted that a “growing accumulation” of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the “science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.” More evidence that the global warming fear machine is breaking down. Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists. An International team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices.”
The scientists and peer-reviewed studies countering climate claims are the key reason that the U.S. public has grown ever more skeptical of man-made climate doom predictions. [See: Global warming ranks dead last, 20 out of 20 in new Pew survey. Pew Survey: & Survey finds majority of U.S. Voters – ‘51% – now believe that humans are not the predominant cause of climate change’ – January 20, 2009 – Rasmussen Reports ]
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.”
On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick“; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.
# # #
ORIGINAL FULL TEXT LETTER SENT VIA EMAILS:
From: Jtheon [mailto:jtheon@XXXXXXX]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:05 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:50 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
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“” Glenn (18:11:36) :
No need to worry about there being a consensus, apparently there is a need for more climate modelling:
“not less than $140,000,000 shall be available for climate data modeling.”
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/01/26/stimulus-plan-non-existent-unemployed-climate-modelers-get-140-million/
We’re all gunna die. “”
May I point out again that the $140M is NOT for “climate modelling”; but for “climate data modelling”. In other words; they are going to make up the data too; like more tree rings, ice cores, mud cores, coral reefs, insect migrations; anything other than MEASURING the data; they can MODEL the data to suit their own ends.
Bruce Cobb (08:22:17) :
As I said, there is plenty of evidence proving otherwise.
‘proving’ is a word that does not belong in a serious discussion about this. Nothing has been ‘proven’. I know there is plenty of claims. Give me a link to what you consider to the STRONGEST claim, the one YOU have most faith in.
Moderator: maybe dump my prior post.
Dr. Spencer sums up the situation in which NASA operated in back then very well on his blog. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/another-nasa-defection-to-the-skeptics-camp/
“We seem to be headed for the same cool climate [ and possibly for the next 30 years ]that existed in the period of 1944-1976 due to upcoming similar ocean temperature cycles like PDO , AMO and ENSO.”
I also live on the Canadian schield, about +10 degrees Sout’ a’ Winnipeg.
Being accounted a peer of Hansen, et al., will not be a happy association in the near future.
Ice time thru June, lads. There is no doubt.
TonyB (03:34:25) :
Simon Evans
I replied to your post to Smokey re Ernsy Beck as follows;
“I’m afraid your memory is faulty. Becks data is taken from surviving measurements made by hundreds of scientists- several of them nobel winners.”
To which you replied;
“Be assured that I have no real issue with the accuracy of the measurements taken – my scepticism is to do with the representativeness of what was being measured (and, frankly, with the plausibilty of the results in terms of Co2 flux). I’ll try to write some more tomorrow if it’s of interest, but for now it’s late here! :-)”
Just placing a marker here to continue our discussion as so many other comments have been posted and its very easy to lose trackl! I am British too so hopefully might catch up with you this evening.
TonyB
Hi Tony,
Ok, I’ll run through my reservations with the Beck paper (E&E 2007) (with apologies to others for this being OT in respect of the original post).
1. Beck refers to 90,000 analyses of C02 since 1812. Of these, 64,000 were taken at Giessen (not Bremen, as I mistakenly said last night) over an eighteen month period. So, some 79% of the data from which he draws conclusions about global C02 concentrations over a 150 year period is from one location over 18 months.
2. Beck states that “The longest single time series was determined in Paris’ Montsouris laboratory, and comprises 12,000 measurements over the 30 years from 1876 until 1910”, but we don’t have any detail of these measurements beyond that. He then graphs details for four locations, none of which cover the same periods. I cannot see what validation of one location against another applies.
3. Looking at the Kreutz/Gissen record as an illustration, we see very large variations in C02 measurements from one month to the next, e.g. c.300 to 430 between 9/39 and 10/39, and 340 to 550 over two months from 6/40 to 8/40. If such measurements were indeed representative of global CO2 concentration, then how could such quantities of C02 be moving in and out of the atmosphere at such a rate? This is equivalent to between a third and two thirds of all the CO2 contained in land plants globally. He refers to “monthly cycling” and suggests this is evident in Mauna Loa measurements, but not on that extraordinary scale! We have no evidence from ground observation or satellites to confirm such flux – are we to presume this is something that stopped happening in the 1950s?
4. Seeing, then, the enormous and rapid variations in supposed global atmospheric C02 concentration as measured at Giessen and other locations, he then presumes that this can be fitted to the monotonic annual variation and steady rise in concentrations measured at Mauna Loa from the 1950s. How could this be plausible?
5. Even if the measurement stations were entirely free from any contamination from human influence, and even if they were representative of a geographically ‘averaged’ location (that is, free from natural variability), they would not be able to measure background CO2. You can’t do that reliably close to sea level, owing to variations in atmospheric mixing (consider the build up of smog at certain times), or at least you can’t do it meaningfully without being able to apply corrections for bias.
Beck is concerned to stress the accuracy of the instrumentation. I have no knowledge of that, so will take his word for it. But accuracy is of no use unless you know that you’re measuring what you want to be measuring.
Joel Shore (08:46:57) :
Thank you for the clarification of what you meant and for the link to the Lindzen testimony to the House of Lords.
What is clear from that testimony under the heading ‘Beyond the Basic Consensus’ (pt.5) is that a doubling of CO2 ‘should lead… to a globally averaged warming of 1 degree C …. of which man’s contribution should be 0.76 deg C – which is already more than observed’.
i.e. not supported by empirical evidence
Moreover under ‘Climate Models and Baseless Alarmism’ Lindzen points out that the Climate Models ‘predict a response to a doubling of CO2 of about 4 deg C’ due to the assumed large positive feedbacks from water vapour and clouds.
Clearly this is not supported by empirical evidence.
See this:
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.html
which eloquently points out why the alarmism projected by those who promote the climate models should be questioned. In brief i am not convinced at all by the thesis that we should see CO2 as the problem.
I just need someone to show me that the real world reflects the AGW thesis – at the moment I just do not see it.
I strongly believe in protecting the environment but I fear we have our focus on the wrong issue.
If you can convince me otherwise I do have an open mind but it needs to be an analysis founded on empirical evidence supporting the AGW theory.
“accuracy is of no use unless you know that you’re measuring what you want to be measuring.”
Words to live by. I will try not to unduly prejudice your discussion.
I would agree at the outset from AIRS data CO2 is poorly mixed and I expect carried aloft by H2O owing to mild hydroscopy forming ‘aerial acid’ among other associations.
AIRS measures at 24000 feet below which half the atmosphere resides. Looking at the daily variation at Mauna Loa and AIRS I surmise a daily total flux of 80Gtons into the atmosphere and out again.
That and study of the variance in 13C:12C fraction of the MLO seasonal signal against the long-term trend (by Spencer here at WUWT last Jan or Feb)imply that neither the anthropogenic or biogenic fluences are visible, they are scrubbed and remixed.
Now ultraplinian eruptions demand upto 20% of the ejecta be primarily H20 and CO2 to support the column extending into the atmosphere. Some here have suggested the Soufriere and Mayon eruptions as those preceding Tambora, but the latter, VEI 7, ejected 100 km^3. Visible in the data is a somewhat smaller effect beginning about 1812 with the data.
My calculations do not indicate enough CO2 for a world-wide 450ppm level assuming 300 as the base point. I lack the climate expertise to resolve the issue.
psi (12:11:07) :
Benjamin (10:29:32) :
You know, bottom line
the planet is getting warmer, whatever we can do to curb this trend is a good thing.
So models don’t work, well duh…. the whole of science is a compramise, to fit models.. this is hardly news. The map will never be the territory, but an aproximation is an aproximation….
Seems to me this is just republican backlash or fuel companies etc. and those that are growing fat on contributing to climate change, for example all the Petrolium producers.. Perish the thought that things be made cleaner and more efficient!
Ben –
I sympathize with your confusion, but your sociology is weak. Many, like myself, who are coming to doubt the veracity of AGW theory, are traditional liberals. Things can and should be made cleaner and more efficient. I would hope that informed conservatives will share this view — and I think that more and more of them do. But we should also not be stampeded into taking expensive actions that will have little or no effect to ameliorate a CO2 “crisis” that may not — I believe now *does not* — even exist. We have enough real problems to deal with.
I suggest you review the evidence that is now piling up that AGW warming either does not exist at all or is, at least, very unlikely to produce the catastrophic consequences that Hansen et. al have irresponsibly predicted. Following these threads is a good start. Based on the accumulating data on Solar Sunspot cycle 24, it looks to me that we’re in for quite a cold snap over the next decade, if not longer.
………..
REPLY:
This is all good and well…
the problem is while we’re busy acting like dogs chasing ou own tail
“climate change” is occuring.
You know, we’ve known for decades weather patterns are chaotic and thus highly erratic and not really all that predictable at all…. even with supercomputers.
While it may or may not be likely that AGW is real, it is largely unimportant. Should we as a race, a peoples… carry on as we are? Or should we act like responsible people and actuallly take care of things?
It is almost that if AGW is declared as not real, it can be used to justify carrying on business as normal toward the planet’s resources.
What me worry? as Alfred E Neuman declares. Yes what me worry?
Its a matter of responsibility and choice. We can carry on being selfish or we can change. Of course homosapiens are greedy somma beaches, so this foruma nd the whole climate change debate is largely hot air… a sick person doesn’t get well unless they want to get well.
But everyone seems focused on being right or spending money.
They are not the bottom line… we need to think ahead, not a month, not a year, not a presidency, not a decade, but perhaps beyond our own life times!
Until the majority of homosapiens wake up to this, we may as feel put paper bags on our head and sing…
Joel Shore (06:06:00) :
“It is not GISTEMP which is an outlier in the trends. It is UAH.”
GISTEMP fails only simple plausibility tests, like having more downward corrections than upward due to UHI.
GISTEMP corrections are not well documented.
GISTEMP is close to not maintained.
GISTEMP has frequent data input errors.
That IS an outlier, when we are speaking about data quality.
There is no scientific justification to use “this”.
And even with “this”, (and the help of many El Ninos) Realclimate had to make quite an effort to keep the data above scenario c for some years.
Hello Robert, thanks for replying to my remarks.
This is in reply to your recent comment:
“When I sign off on a budget, I am agreeing that it is reasonable and can be executed. I am not signing off that I think that whatever the budget funds is wonderful.”
Very little of what I sign off is “wonderful”, but I do have an obligation to check that the proposed work will deliver what it claims it will deliver. If I decide, to the best of my judgement, that a proposed project is “useless”, I won’t proceed with it. When someone is given responsibility for a budget, it is their professional duty to verify that the budget is spent wisely – that means ensuring that the deliverables get delivered. If a manager simply rubber-stamps everything that passes under his nose, he’s adding no value, and he is not discharging his professional responsibilities.
John Theon was the man inside the organisation who was responsible for justifying Hansen’s funding, allocating his resources, and evaluating his results. He found that, to the best of his judgement, Hansen’s work was “useless”, but he funded it anyway. If he was just going with the flow and looking for a quiet life, we call that an “empty suit” where I come from.
James Hastings-Trew (09:26:30) :
3) Currently CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is 385 or so parts per million. Therefore, I would imagine that most of the radiated infrared energy from the surface simply escapes into space, with only some of it interacting with CO2 in the atmosphere.
So it seems to me we are talking about hugely diminishing returns. Something along the magnitude of the thermal properties of Moonlight? Or am I confused again?
You are forgetting water, both as vapor and as clouds. Water provides from 60% to 95% of the so called greenhouse effect, which you can roughly see from the link I gave for the sun spectrum. H2O covers much more region than CO2.
But yes, most of the energy fortunately escapes to space, some is stored long term in the oceans, and shorter term in the wind/cloud pattern. What comes in, goes out, otherwise the surface temperature would go up and up until we boiled and worse. Actually this “equilibrium” is what defines the surface temperature. When the stored energy in the oceans is released, we get heating cycles, like the heating pacific decadal oscillation, when more of it is absorbed in the oceans we get a cooling pacific decadal oscillation, as now. Cycles are a more natural alternative to CO2 forcings in explaining the climate, in my opinion.
Do the models work? I believe Lucia has falsified their forecasts, projections, predictions or whatever you prefer to call them, repeatedly…
Based on the smoothed data curve of the HADCRUT3 global air temperature graph [per http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/%5D the temperature increased 0.465 degrees C between 1910 and 1940. This is almost the same as the so ‘called manmade global warming’ period increase of 1976-2007 or 0.491. degrees C. So the claim that the unprecedented warming during the period 1976-2007 could only have been caused by the sudden increase in manmade greenhouse gas emissions levels after 1976 seems false since similar warming have occurred before and this one quite recently when manmade CO2 levels were low .
CO2 could not have been the reason for global warming periods prior to 1945 because the CO2 levels did not increase significantly until after the mid 1940’s.
The past global temperatures seem to rise and fall independent of CO2 levels. Matter of fact there have been at least 10 episodes of past global warming and cooling that cannot have been caused by atmospheric CO2 [refer to the writings of Prof D.J.Easterbrook]
To me it seems that the actual field data does not support IPPC science or claim that manmade co2 is the prime cause of global warming. This graph by Joe D’Aleo
shows it best. It is just not happening. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ CO2 is going up while the temperature is going down. No relationship. It would appear that if co2 does affect the temperatures at all it is so minor that it is dwarfed by much bigger factors such as PDO, AMO, ENSO , water vapor and the sun, factors which IPCC seem to downplay or ignore ]
Perhaps it wasn’t apparent how useless they were until after the funding was approved.
This is the correct 2 nd graph by Joe D’Aleo that I meant to include in my previous post re CO2 VS TEMPERATURES
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/TEMPSvsCO2.jpg
Benjamin (11:20:41) :
psi (12:11:07) :
Benjamin (10:29:32) :
You know, bottom line
the planet is getting warmer, whatever we can do to curb this trend is a good thing.
So models don’t work, well duh…. the whole of science is a compramise, to fit models.. this is hardly news. The map will never be the territory, but an aproximation is an aproximation….
Ben –
I sympathize with your confusion, but your sociology is weak. Many, like myself, who are coming to doubt the veracity of AGW theory, are traditional liberals. Things can and should be made cleaner and more efficient. I would hope that informed conservatives will share this view — and I think that more and more of them do. But we should also not be stampeded into taking expensive actions that will have little or no effect to ameliorate a CO2 “crisis” that may not — I believe now *does not* — even exist. We have enough real problems to deal with.
I suggest you review the evidence that is now piling up that AGW warming either does not exist at all or is, at least, very unlikely to produce the catastrophic consequences that Hansen et. al have irresponsibly predicted. Following these threads is a good start. Based on the accumulating data on Solar Sunspot cycle 24, it looks to me that we’re in for quite a cold snap over the next decade, if not longer.
………..
REPLY:
This is all good and well…
the problem is while we’re busy acting like dogs chasing ou own tail
“climate change” is occuring.
You know, we’ve known for decades weather patterns are chaotic and thus highly erratic and not really all that predictable at all…. even with supercomputers.
While it may or may not be likely that AGW is real, it is largely unimportant. Should we as a race, a peoples… carry on as we are? Or should we act like responsible people and actuallly take care of things?
It is almost that if AGW is declared as not real, it can be used to justify carrying on business as normal toward the planet’s resources.
What me worry? as Alfred E Neuman declares. Yes what me worry?
Its a matter of responsibility and choice. We can carry on being selfish or we can change. Of course homosapiens are greedy somma beaches, so this foruma nd the whole climate change debate is largely hot air… a sick person doesn’t get well unless they want to get well.
But everyone seems focused on being right or spending money.
They are not the bottom line… we need to think ahead, not a month, not a year, not a presidency, not a decade, but perhaps beyond our own life times!
Until the majority of homosapiens wake up to this, we may as feel put paper bags on our head and sing…
You seem to have changed your position….The critical point is that the science supporting AGW theory is by no means settled or supported by a “consensus” of relevant experts. Public policy should not be formulated on the basis of flawed science, and that includes public policy designed to ameliorate environmental problems that extend beyond an individual’s lifetime.
Of course we should be aware of larger time frames. And if you want to put a paper bag on your head and sing, fine. But how a person can shift in less than twenty four hours from flatly declaring that “the climate is getting warmer and whatever we can do to curb this trend is a good thing,” to admitting that “it may or may not be likely that AGW is real” but whether or not it is doesn’t matter because “it is largely unimportant” anyway,” can feel in a position to imply that anyone else has a paper bag over his head, is beyond the reach of my small brain.
Of course it matters whether AGW is real or not. We would not be having this discussion if it didn’t matter.
And I, for one, feel confident in stating that AGW, at least in its alarmist versions, is not at all real.
PaulHClark says:
No problem. However, it isn’t just a matter of what I meant but a matter of how terms in this discussion are generally defined. This whole discussion started because you disputed John Philip’s statement that “The size of the resultant radiative forcing is actually quite well-quantified, within an uncertainty of about 5%.”
As I have shown, this fact seems to be agreed to even by those like Lindzen and Spencer who are at the fringe of the scientific debate in the scientific literature. Those who disagree with this are somewhere beyond the fringe.
You have now gone on to discuss the issue of climate sensitivity and Lindzen’s take on it:
Here is a summary of some of Lindzen’s major errors here:
(1) His idea that we are 76% of the way to a CO2 doubling is obtained by some pretty creative accounting. He adds all of the greenhouse gas forcings together (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, …) to get a radiative forcing due to all of them together and compares this to the forcing from a doubling of CO2 with the other gases at their pre-industrial levels. So, in order to be that far along in practice, we have to assume that we return all the other gases to the pre-industrial levels by the time we double CO2. Still, from the point-of-view of using empirical data to see how accurate the estimated climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 is, this approach is not erroneous. However, his more severe error is that he has added all of the positive forcing contributions but has neglected the negative radiative forcing contribution due to aerosols from air pollution. Unfortunately, this forcing is still not well-quantified but it is almost certainly negative…and quite possibly significantly negative. What this means practically is that much of the warming that would have occurred due to all of the GHGs may have been cancelled out or “masked” by cooling due to our emissions of these particulates.
(2) He has neglected the fact that what we are talking about is EQUILIBRIUM climate sensitivity. Because the levels of greenhouse gases have been rising fairly rapidly and because it takes the climate quite a bit of time to adjust (mainly due to the fact that it takes a lot of energy to heat up the oceans), the climate system is not currently in equilibrium. Hence, we have not yet seen all of the temperature change that we could expect to see from the current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Estimates are that we would see roughly another 0.5 C of warming over the next 50 years or so even if forcings were held constant.
(3) He exaggerates what climate models predict on average. 4 deg c is toward the high end of the predictions. The current best estimate from the IPCC for the equilibrium climate sensitivity is 3 C with it likely being between 2 C and 4.5 C.
The actual truth of the matter is that because of the uncertainties with regards to the radiative forcing due to aerosols and because of the warming that is “still in the pipeline”, so to speak…and also because we don’t know precisely what the climate would have done over the 20th century in the absence of any of the human forcings, the temperature increase during the 20th century does not place very strong constraints on the equilibrium climate sensitivity. Scientists who have analyzed this carefully have concluded that the 20th century climate record is compatible with a large range of equilibrium climate sensitivities from below to above the likely range of 2 to 4.5 C given by the IPCC.
Better constraints are provided by other empirical observations such as paleoclimate evidence (especially, the difference in temps between the last glacial period and now) and by things like the cooling response from the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the early 1990s. And, the best constraints are obtained by combining all of these empirical observations together.
The other approach of cours (and the one you hear most criticized) is the use of climate models, with all understood feedback processes incorporated into them, to directly estimate the equilibrium climate sensitivity. These estimates are only as good as the degree to which one trusts that the models are accurately modeling the climate…But in fact one finds a similar range in climate sensitivities from the models as one gets from the empirically-based estimates.
I would caution against relying on the junkscience site for information and analysis as most scientists in this field (and other fields that are dealt with there) would tell you that it is aptly-named. The proprietor of that site, Steven Milloy, is not known as a scientific contributor in the field, or any field, but is rather a refugee from the tobacco wars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy
re: allister duncan (12:22:21) :
Hi again. I think the Dr. Spencer has explained the situation back then well. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/another-nasa-defection-to-the-skeptics-camp/
I also went and reread the original emails. Climate models are useless appears in the subject of the email. From the email body we see: “Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.” I would suspect that a more accurate subject to the email would be “climate models as they are being used to drive public policy are useless”. I further suspect that when he wrote that email that he did not expect you and me to be parsing the subject line!
I also believe that climate models as they are being used to drive public policy are useless. I would like the field to receive more funding, more attention and more scrutiny from across the spectrum of scientific disciplines.
anna v (12:42:44) :
You are forgetting water, both as vapor and as clouds. Water provides from 60% to 95% of the so called greenhouse effect, which you can roughly see from the link I gave for the sun spectrum. H2O covers much more region than CO2.
Thank you. I was leaving water out of my musings on purpose, trying to visualize the magnitude of CO2’s contributions to retained heat in the atmosphere vs. that of water. I can’t imagine that the contribution of CO2 is very significant, or that doubling it would have much of an effect at all, given that it is such a trace gas.
This is where I found the Gerlich paper most persuasive – Table 7 on Page 10 that compares the thermal diffusivity of the air to a supposed doubling of CO2, and finds the difference negligible. Is that a reasonable “take-away” from that paper?
Joel Shore (14:34:49) said:
“Steven Milloy, is not known as a scientific contributor in the field, or any field, but is rather a refugee from the tobacco wars”
Wow, what an impressive statement!
Joel,
Steven Milloy doesn’t claim to be a scientific contributor, he merely reports junk science as it occurs, which is far more than enough to keep him very busy on a daily basis. It’s saddening that he could make a living doing that, but he’s really only scratching the surface and publishing a few juicy tidbits for closer examination every day. I think he could probably hire a few hundred more people and never come close to getting the job done.
I suppose you think it’s a bad thing to point out faulty science, bad statistics, poor measurements, lack of evidence and over-reaching conclusions. I don’t. I see it as a valuable service and he’s well qualified to do it. Science is getting more corrupt every day it seems, especially since AGW has cranked the floodgates wide open and everyone is noticing how easy it is to mislead the media to get your agenda fulfilled. We are starting to see an ever greater public awareness of this, and that’s a GOOD thing. If Steven shines the light on a subject for further examination, surely the subject science, if worthy, can withstand the examination. To query in detail suspicious or outlandish claims is every scientist’s obligation in my opinion. There’s plenty to look at as anyone on this blog knows. This week alone is chock-full of textbook examples. The evidence and conclusions, once examined, will stand of its own accord (or not).
Thanks to folks like Anthony, we can discuss these juicy tidbits in detail in a cordial forum like this one… Let the chips fall where they may.
matt v. (13:01:00) :
the temperature increased 0.465 degrees C between 1910 and 1940. This is almost the same as the so ‘called manmade global warming’ period increase of 1976-2007 or 0.491. degrees C. So the claim that the unprecedented warming during the period 1976-2007 could only have been caused by the sudden increase in manmade greenhouse gas emissions levels after 1976 seems false
The ingenious argument by AGWers is that the Sun is responsible for the 1910-1940 increase, but since solar activity the past 30 years has been flat or decreasing, the lower solar output should have cooled the Earth, so the effect of CO2 is even bigger than the 0.491 degrees, QED. Now, if we posit that the influence of the Sun is minor, they don’t have that argument and your argument holds…
“” Joel Shore (14:34:49) said:
“Steven Milloy, is not known as a scientific contributor in the field, or any field, but is rather a refugee from the tobacco wars” “”
Are you saying that nothing that is written by anyone who is not known as a scientific contributor in a science field can be depended on ?
One could expand on that, theme and simply say that nothing written by mainstream media reporters is reliable. Usually, these people try to talk to other persons who ARE recognized in the field; to the extent they can locate such people. Yes they can get it scrambled; but; the lay public would have NO information at all, if reporters did not try to get it from people in the field.
Yes Steven Milloy is not known as a scientific contributor in the field of climatology. That doesn’t mean that he simply makes stuff up in his head.
I can tell you that I have essentially absolute zero reputation for ANY contribution in the field of climate science, or meteorology, or climate modeling. Other than trying to contribute anything on forums such as this, I have exactly one letter published in anything that might even imagine itself as any kind of science magazine (Physics Toda); and that letter was roundly ridiculed by purported “experts” who are well known in the climatology field. Nevertheless, a climate related prediction that I made in June of 2004, was actually experimentally verified, as a result of ten years of satellite research by a British/Dutch research team, and published in mid 2006 in a peer reviewed climate journal. That doesn’t make me any kind of expert; and the matter was a question of hich school Physics, and not esoteric Climatology.
I would suggest that attacking Milloy’s arguments, would be preferable to attacking the man. Is your position that weak, that you heve to resort to the ad hominem option ?
George
re Roy Spencer posting confirming ALL of J Theons statements. Please AGW’s don’t try
Since Theon wasn’t Hansen’s direct supervisor, calling him Hansen’s “superior” would be better–much better. “Supervisor,” in casual use, implies direct supervisor.
Anthony wrote:
“I’ll leave it to you to figure out what I’m speaking of, the answers are here on my blog and at CA. Look it up and report back in 24 hours.”
Anthony: When the $10M slice of the recent appropriation for climate research that is earmarked for WUWT reaches you, I suggest the following project: a sister site, or a portion of this site, that contains the best posts, including point/counterpoint exchanges, from WUWT’s threads, organized by topic. Topics would be such things as:
Antarctic
Glaciers
Arctic Ice
Urban Heat Islands
Temperature Records
Siting Problems
Hockey Stick
Sea Level
Ocean Oscillations
Computer Climate Modeling
Hansen’s Intemperance and Crusading
CO2’s posited feedback cycle with water vapor
Etc., etc. This could be a very rough cut, with no segues inserted to smooth transitions between segments within topics, and yet could still be fantastically educational in getting new visitors up to speed. ItAnthony wrote:
“I’ll leave it to you to figure out what I’m speaking of, the answers are here on my blog and at CA. Look it up and report back in 24 hours.”
Anthony: When your $10M WUWT-earmarked-slice of the recent appropriation for climate research reaches you, I suggest the following project: set up a sister site, or a portion of this site, that contains the best posts, including point/counterpoint exchanges, from WUWT’s threads, organized by topic. Topics would be such things as:
Antarctic
Arctic Ice
Glaciers
Urban Heat Islands
Temperature Records
Siting Problems
Hockey Stick
Sea Level
Ocean Oscillations
Computer Climate Modeling
Hansen’s Intemperance and Crusading
CO2’s posited feedback cycle with water vapor
Soot
Etc., etc.
The editing could be a minimalistic rough cut (eliminating small irrelevancies, for instance), and no segues or commentaries need be inserted (at least initially) to smooth transitions between segments within topics, or to provide introductions–and yet the result could still be fantastically educational in getting new visitors up to speed. It would also simplify the task of responding to posts by naive AGW-ers: They could simply be referred to the appropriate thread in the Summary Section (as I hereby dub it).