This is a bit disturbing, though in retrospect, not surprising. One of our local IPCC wonks at Chico State University, Jeff Price, is a biologist, but lectures me about climate all the same. – Anthony
by Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
I had intended to return to this point when I originally posted about this debate last week, but time got away from me. Thankfully, my colleague Roy Cordato brought it up today:
During the question and answer session of last week’s William Schlesinger/John Christy global warming debate, (alarmist) Schlesinger was asked how many members of United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were actual climate scientists. It is well known that many, if not most, of its members are not scientists at all. Its president, for example, is an economist.
Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC – trained initially as a railway engineer
This question came after Schlesinger had cited the IPCC as an authority for his position. His answer was quite telling.
First he broadened it to include not just climate scientists but also those who have had “some dealing with the climate.” His complete answer was that he thought, “something on the order of 20 percent have had some dealing with climate.” In other words, even IPCC worshiper Schlesinger now acknowledges that 80 percent of the IPCC membership had absolutely no dealing with the climate as part of their academic studies.
This shatters so much of the alarmists’ claim, as they almost always appeal to the IPCC as their ultimate authority.
Gary Pearse wrote:
Try typing “climatologist” in Word or looking it up in the on-line Oxford Dictionary. Word underlines it in red and Oxford can’t find the word anywhere on its site! It is new indeed
Not necessarily. My copy of OED has this entry for climatologist:
The next entry being climatology:
Just because you can’t find it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, merely that you have insufficient access to certain resources. Note that it’s defined as a physical science.
Jeff, you must be referring to the carbon 14 isotope of CO2. That is created in a cycle. Can you tell me how it is made and why it cycles? Here is a hint. The production of CO2 from fossil fuels has no affect on the production of CO2-14. And neither does plant growth or decline. Neither is it caused by any source of pollution. There has been only very small differences between the 12 and 13 CO2 isotope concentrations. One more question for you. How many isotopes are there for carbon and therefor CO2?
The bottom line is this, the increase (if you are referring to Mauna Loa data) is not at all made primarily of anthropogenic CO2.
Steve Moore wrote:
“To be “Ad Hominem”, a statement must be BOTH:
A. True
B. Largely irrelevant”
An ad hom is not identical with a spontaneous slam, although it’s beginning to be used in that loose fashion. It is a diversionary response to a claim. E.g.:
Claim: “You don’t know what 2 and 2 add up to.”
Ad hom: “Yo mama wears combat boots.”
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:
“An ad hominem argument … consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the source making the argument or claim, ….”
[i]“Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC – trained initially as a railway engineer”[/i]
A death train engineer perhaps?
Looks like this blog is getting the full court press from the climate cooling deniers.
I guess the “Best Science Blog” award has made WUWT a target.
More questions. How many carbon isotopes are natural? What is the name of the one that hasn’t be found, yet? What is the name of the most recent isotope discovered and what is its atomic weight? What is the hardest natural substance on Earth made of? What is one of the softest natural substances made of? What is the central substance of study in organic chemistry?
More questions. How many carbon isotopes are natural?
I’ve only studied 57, but there are two more I intend to look into when time permits, Alaska, Hawaii, and Cleavland.
What is the name of the one that hasn’t be found, yet?
George.
What is the name of the most recent isotope discovered and what is its atomic weight?
Rosie Odonnell, and the Army Corps Of Engineers is still working on a scale that can handle the weight determination.
What is the hardest natural substance on Earth made of?
The heart of a vengeful woman.
What is one of the softest natural substances made of?
Trick question. A vacuum isn’t made of anything, just virtual particles, but they don’t matter because they aren’t.
What is the central substance of study in organic chemistry?
Home Brew. Well, at least that was MY central substance of study when I was an undergrad. (the lab stores custodian, who gave everyone else a hard time, and I had a good working relationship. I gave him home brew, and I never had a problem getting the chemical or equipment I needed for experiments.)
HasItBeen4YearsYet? wrote:
“Chris Landsea IS a denier, …of sorts…
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=ae9b984d-4a1c-45c0-af24-031a1380121a&k=0”
The next sentence from Chris Landsea’s abstract:
“It is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone peak windspeed has occurred and will continue to occur if the climate continues to warm.”
The anti-AGW bloggers have made Chris Landsea to be something that he’s not.
He’s a “denier” in the sense that his data clearly refutes some of their outlandish claims.
I’m aware of that sentence you seem to think invalidates his science in favor of their hysteria, and that is why I wrote, “of sorts” to indicate he isn’t a hard core ‘denier’ (at least not yet, anyway).
Maybe he’s afraid for his career?
http://nov55.com/firing.html
Intimidation is rampant, which is probably why only those who are honest and whose authority can’t be questioned, or who have retired, etc., have the ability to speak out publicly without fear of reprisal.
One more. Which station, or stations, land or satellite, dedicated to measuring CO2, currently differentiates and measures all 3 naturally occurring CO2 isotopes in the atmosphere?
I am confused. What you just showed here is that neither one of the factors in your little example is strong enough to be the driving factor, so neither one of them has strong correlation. Doesn’t it just illustrates that CO2 is not the driving factor, but just a driving factor, one among many others? Probably minor at that.
It couldn’t have been your intention to do that, right? So, what did you try to say?
David, Roger,
Ad Hominem (Argument To The Man):
Attacking the person instead of attacking his argument.
For example, “Von Daniken’s books about ancient astronauts are worthless because he is a convicted forger and embezzler.” (Which is true, but that’s not why they’re worthless.)
Or,
James Hansen is bald, therefore he knows nothing about climate.
For a good explanation:
http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html
Or,
“Although some faulty arguers may call attention to distasteful features of their opponents in order to manipulate the responses of their audience, most abusers apparently believe that such characteristics actually provide good reasons for ignoring or discrediting the arguments of those who have them. Logically, of course, the fact that any of these characteristics might fit an opponent provides no reason to ignore or discredit his or arguments or criticisms.”
(T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 4th ed., Wadsworth, 2001)
Bradley1 3
So “peer reviewed” is an essentially meaningless term.
Yep. Peer review can be anything. And, as we speak, Climate Audit has a post on this general topic concerning a McKitrick and McCollouh analysis of “due diligence”, which clarifies the situation by focusing on some examples of published work whose sources and methods were not checked by the publisher’s peer reviewers, if any, and were debunked only by interested parties at large doing the checking of things post-publication, sometimes having to go the foi route to get the data and methods.
Steve McIntyre makes the very worthwhile but/and obvious point that peer reviewers really cannot be expected to check everything the authors do to get their results, unless, of course. the peer reviewers and Publication have held out that they do in fact do this. Otherwise, at the extreme, for example, they’d have to do/replicate the whole study, which is rightfully left to other scientists and interested parties post-publication as an integral part of the Scientific Method, that is, if they can get the materials and methods, which has been a persistent problem in the case of “Climate Science”, as nearly everyone around here now knows.
Basically, not many peer reviewers claim that the studies they review and are then published are “true”.
An example related to those described at CA is the case of what Christina Hoff Summers found completely on her own and revealed in her book, “Who Stole Feminism”. She simply went to the sources referenced in support of various “Feminist” claims and found very many cases were the sources did not say what the Feminist claimants said they said, said even the opposite, or simply didn’t even exist. Yet it’s all the rage to repeat these claims incessantly in the media – and everywhere – as propaganda, unfortuneately.
Vangel wrote:
“Please cite the studies that show that the increase is due to fossil fuels and not volcanic activity, forest fires, or ocean degassing. And try citing studies that show that CO2 concentration changes drive temperature changes because the ones that I see show that the hypothesis is not supportable by the science.”
I’ll ask you the same thing. Why don’t you cite studies to show that there has been a 30 percent increase in forest fires in the past 150 years and a 30 percent increase in volcanic eruptions in the past 150 years? And cite a study that shows that the oceans have been “de-gassing” at an increasing rate over the past 150 years (actually, the opposite is true, but I’m too lazy to look up any of the recent news reports about this)?
Plants preferentially absorb lighter Carbon isotopes, so the ratio of Carbon-13 to Carbon-12 is lower in plants than in the atmosphere. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the ratio of Carbon-13 to Carbon-12 in the atmosphere and in the ocean has been decreasing. This implies that the additional CO2 must come from the combustion of plant matter, either living or fossilized (and ruling out volcanos). There are, as you suggested, 2 possible sources: fossil fuels or forest fires. I’m guessing that we can agree that humans have been burning fossil fuels – IIRC, about 500 billion tons worth of Carbon. This amount alone is more than it would take to explain the increase of 280ppm to 380ppm (most of the excess is absorbed by the ocean). If you can come up with a study that documents that there: 1) has been a large increase in the number of forest fires in the past 150 years; and 2) the forests have not re-grown and now hold roughly the same amount of Carbon as they did before the fires, then a case can be made that forest fires are a major contributor to the CO2 increase.
As far as CO2 not being able to drive temperature change, what happens to the additional energy that is absorbed by the increased CO2?
Considering that this is suppose to be the biggest threat to the continued existence of the human race since forever, isn’t that statement a bit like saying,
“approximately 20 percent of the people involved in my open-heart surgery have had some medical experience”?
Joel shore: I agree with you having a degree in a non-climate discipline doesn’t negate a person being expert in climatology. Our views are not shared over on RC however where Gavin refers to non-climate scientific opinion as the opinion of “citizen scientists”.
You are quite right to when you say that the majority of scientists are not climate scientists because they are working on the the effects of AGW and it’s possible mitigation. This leads to the obvious conclusion that the IPCC has pre-adopted the existence of AGW, and continues to do all in its power to stifle scientific debate.
Lastly the IPCC itself has given the impression that a large scientific body of opinion supports global warming by issuing press statements that 2400 sicentists agreed on the issue (any scientist worth his/her salt would, of course know instinctely that if 2400 of them agreed on anything it was bound to be wrong). now you cannot have it all ways, you cannot give the impression that all the scientists working on IPCC are experts in climate science and expect people not to criticise you if that is found to be untrue.
A very interesting new document stating the skeptical position of AGW may now be found at Skeptics Handbook
MikeF (21:21:56) :
You often encounter the argument “Temperatures dropped in the 60s while CO2 increased, therefore AGW is bunk”. I wanted to demonstrate in an example, why this argument is fallacious. Just substitute: “T(t) dropped between t=40 and t=60, while g1 increased; therefore ‘g1 is most important for T(t)’ is bunk”, yet we know that g1 is responsible for about 30% of the change in my example. I have deliberately chosen g1 rather small to make my point.
Now let’s see what happens, if I change parameters a bit, such that g1 is responsible for 70% of the change:
http://i44.tinypic.com/3022hwy.png
The small plot on the left can still be used to slam dunk g1 into the trash bin as a cause for the behavior of T(t).
P.S.: Anyone who is telling you (either explicitly or implicitly), that climate scientists supporting AGW consider solar forcing or aerosols to be negligible, is not telling the truth, for whatever reason.
I have just received a reply from our Energy and Climate Change Secretary Mr Ed Miliband to a letter I sent pointing out much of the evidence against AWG from sceptical scientists. Of course none of these questions were addresed and I was informed: “The most recent report, for instance is the result of six years work by over 1200 leading scientists from 130 countries and reviewed by 2500 scientific experts.” Things never change do they, but I will appraise him of Schlesinger’s remark .
However, surprise, surprise, he did admit that the MWP actually happened and that temperatures had been as high if not higher than today. Of course the 0.13 degrees C per decade over the latter part of the 20th century was quoted. So at least some Mannian science is now unacceptable to some politicians on our side of the pond.
Fred (22:28:38) :
Let’s expand on this analogy a bit. 1 or 2 of the people are indeed heart surgeons. One is doing the anesthesia, but that does not really count as heart surgery. There will be another 5 people assisting, none of whom is a surgeon. Then of course there are the people doing the rehab, which is part of a successful surgery. I have not even included the management here. So what was it about those 20%. Oh, you had watered it down to “some medical training” instead of “heart surgeon”. Why then is “only 20% climatologists” important, while the rest has expertise in economical and ecological impact?
Smokey: First, only those with degrees in the physical sciences are eligible to sign the OISM Petition. That limits it to real players.
Without wishing to get into the semantics of what constitutes a ‘physical scientist’, from the numbers on the Petition website it is demonstrable that over half are actually engineers, (including >2,000 Electrical Engineers) and just under one in ten is a Doctor or a Vetinarian. The combined number of Engineers and Doctors in the US runs to several millions, so this poll actually demonstrates overwhelming reluctance to endorse the propositions in the petition.
It is true that the petition is now mail only, however it has been running for nearly a decade and quality control was not always so rigourous, having been signed in the past by a ‘Doctor’ Geri Halliwell and at one point ‘Doctors’ Pierce and Jones, better known as Hawkeye and Trapper from the TV show M*A*S*H. When Scientific American investigated a sample of 26 signatories with climate science credentials, 6 (22%) said they would not sign the petition today and 3 (11%) of the sample had no memory of signing the petition. A little real scepticism called for here?
As I said: the language is also problematic. What does ‘catastrophic heating’ actually mean? No definition is given and catastrophe is not a word you will find in an IPCC report. Was 9/11 a ‘catastrophe’? Globally, mortality from climatic change is running at the equivalent of one 9/11 every week. Catastrophic for the individuals concerned and those around them but whether this constitutes ‘catastrophic heating’ requires a subjective value judgement on the part of the petition signatory, and who knows what they thought?
Pure hogwash. Unsupportable speculation and extrapolation from statistically insignificant speculation of trends multiplied by large population numbers. Unless you are counting deaths from starvation caused by global warming mitigation policies.
MikeF (21:21:56) :
I wanted to demonstrate that the following argument is wrong: “Temperatures dropped in the 50s/60s while CO2 increased, therefore AGW is bunk”. Maybe I chose the g1 contribution too low to make my point. Let’s change parameters a bit, such that g1 is responsible for 70% of the change, I hope this is “major” enough.
http://i44.tinypic.com/3022hwy.png
From the small plot on the left, where T(t) is plotted over g1(t), you can still make the point that there is no correlation between T and g1. Or if you look at the time series: “T(t) dropped between t=40 and t=60, while g1 increased; therefore ‘g1 is most important for T(t)’ is bunk”. However, in this example we know that g1 is responsible for 70% of the change in T, so the argument obviously leads to the wrong conclusion.
Why is that so? The argument wrongly assumed, that g1 is the only contribution to T, not just one of the major ones. The same goes for AGW and CO2, there are solar and aerosol forcings that need to be considered, too. Keep in mind, the CO2 forcing is still increasing and climate has not even adjusted to the forcing of the current level of CO2.
MikeF (21:21:56) :
I wanted to demonstrate that the following argument is wrong: “Temperatures dropped in the 50s/60s while CO2 increased, therefore AGW is bunk”. Maybe I chose the g1 contribution too low to make my point. Let’s change parameters a bit, such that g1 is responsible for 70% of the change, I hope this is “major” enough.
Click here for the image
From the small plot on the left, where T(t) is plotted over g1(t), you can still make the point that there is no correlation between T and g1. Or if you look at the time series: “T(t) dropped between t=40 and t=60, while g1 increased; therefore ‘g1 is most important for T(t)’ is bunk”. However, in this example we know that g1 is responsible for 70% of the change in T, so the argument obviously leads to the wrong conclusion.
Why is that so? The argument wrongly assumed, that g1 is the only contribution to T, not just one of the major ones. The same goes for AGW and CO2, there are solar and aerosol forcings that need to be considered, too.
P.S.: The forum software seems to eat up my comments today, this is the third attempt at posting this content. Neither of the previous attempts showed up as “awaiting moderation”.
[Reply: For some reason your comments went into the spam bucket. They’re all rescued and posted now. ~ dbstealey, mod.]
MikeF (21:21:56) :
I’m a bit frustrated, as the blog software seems to be playing games with me. This is my fourth attempt to post this content, the comments never showed up as “awaiting moderation”, so there seems to be a glitch somewhere.
Let me change the parameters of my plot a bit, such that g1 is responsible for 70 percent of the rise in T, I hope this is “major” enough:
Click here for the image
You can still make the argument, “T dropped while g1 increased, and have a look at the thumbnail plot on the left hand side, T and g1 are obviously not correlated”. Well, obviously this argument leads to the wrong conclusion.
I expect you to recognize, where this kind of “argument” crops up with regard to AGW. Neglect solar and aerosol forcing, which are included in the IPCC reports and GCMs, and you have a slam dunk case against AGW. A wrong one, but a “convincing” one.
Jeez- the mortality figure is calculated by the World Health Organisation. There are considerable uncertainties in the estimates, but the authors of the study, which was published in Nature, not usually a journal one turns to for hogwash, say their estimates are conservative and the true figure is probably far higher.
More here
John Philip states
Exactly as I stated, statistically insignificant suspected trends extrapolated by multiplying by large population numbers.
Approximately 60 million people die of starvation every year. What is the accuracy of that number? +/- 1%, 2%, 10%, I sure don’t know. So somehow these researchers attribute 1/4 of 1 percent of deaths to climate change, things such as droughts and heat waves. Of course every drought must have been caused by AGW, after all there never have been droughts before. Every heat wave must have been caused by AGW for the same reason. Somehow these researchers managed to tease precision to 3 decimal places out of figures with less than a thousandth of that precision. Someone they know exactly which death was caused by AGW climate change, as if people haven’t been dying from droughts or heat waves for millennia. This is simply a political activism piece, with the standard absurd methodologies commonly applied by public health data mining pronouncements, and unfortunately Nature is not above printing such garbage.
check this: http://www.sourceradix.com/sw3.html
No, Nature is not an unbiased and valid source w/r global warming. Neither is the World Health Organization nor certainly the IPCC – ALL of whose funding, power, and influence is based on furthering the AGW agenda.
For one, warming reduces deaths, increases the growth of food, fodder, and fuel; increases growing seasons, increases areas where plants can grow, and reduces the threat of disease. (Until environmentalists kill millions by banning pesticides and fertilizers.)
In winter, each degree drop in average temperature kills an extra 20,000 people. In the UK alone. Repeat that for the US. Canada. Australia. France. Soviet Union. Germany.
Increased heat (in the summer) has resulted in more deaths – many fewer than by the cold by a factor of 5. And ALL of those deaths through heat in the summer could be stoped by air conditioning and better house and appliance construction. Both of which are PREVENTED by active policies of the environment fanatics.
Your claim is dead wrong.