Arctic Temperature Reporting In The News Needs A Reality Check
Their new articles that claim the Arctic is rapidly warming. These articles are an excellent examples of the cherrypicking of particular published papers to promote the very narrow perspective of the journalists.
These include
An Associated Press news article by Randolph E. Schmid titled “Arctic reverses long-term trend”.
A New York Times article by Andrew C. Revkin titled “Humans May Have Ended Long Arctic Chill”.
The Schmid article has the text
“The most recent 10-year interval, 1999-2008, was the warmest of the last 2,000 years in the Arctic, according to the researchers led by Darrell S. Kaufman, a professor of geology and environmental science at Northern Arizona University.
Summer temperatures in the Arctic averaged 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than would have been expected if the cooling had continued, the researchers said.
The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate. The administration-backed measure would impose the first limits on greenhouse gases and eventually would lead to an 80 percent reduction by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering pollution.”
Revkin reinforces this extreme view in his September 3 2009 article with his figure of 2000 years of Arctic surface temperatures, with each decade having the same temporal resolution as the last 10 years.
The publication of these news articles are clearly meant to influence the political process, as evident in the last paragraph, where Schmid writes “The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate.”
The documentation of their biased reporting is easy to show. For example, they do not report on observational data which does not show this rapid recent warming; e.g. see that the current high latitude temperatures are close to the longer term average since 1958
The Danish Meteorological Institute Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 – 2008 [and thanks to the excellent weblog Watts Up With That for making this easily available to us!]
There are also peer reviewed papers which show that the Schmid and Revkin articles are biased; e. g. see
i) the areal coverage of the coldest middle tropospheric temperatures (below -40C) have not changed radically as shown in the Revkin figure; see
Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update on a proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101, doi:10.1029/2008JD009799.
and
ii) there is a warm bias in the Arctic surface temperature measurements when they are used to characterize deeper atmospheric warming; see
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., accepted.
At least the news Editors of the newspapers are starting to recognize that these journalists are presenting slanted news. The Schmid article appeared only on page 12 of my local newspaper.
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So Mr Mandia, what you mean is that despite now being a believer and the evidence being “overwhelming” you can’t quite say why and that is all I ever see in the AGW argument. AGW is based in the end on politics and predictions from simplistic models that have no predictive capability. Just the same hackneyed peer reviewed papers “proof” and “consensus”. You then come on to this here and you disparage and question the credibility of good honest scientists like Mr Pielke Senior and Ian Plimer and even this board itself. Go and read Plimer’s book (my bet is that you haven’t) and then come back and criticise it. I doubt that you’ll accept the challenge because Plimer falsifies AGW at every step in a reasonable manner. Nobody could read it and stay an unconditional believer.
I believe that there is no real evidence to support the hypothesis that man made carbon emissions have caused the warming observed since the LIA (although I accept that it may have had some influence and I fully support developing credible alternative energy supplies) or that atmospheric CO2 levels cause any threat to mankind or the environment. If I see any evidence to the contrary then I’ll change my mind.
Paul Vaughan (17:49:07) :
‘Clearly there are untold behind-the-scenes politics going on when even right-wing sites like ctv.ca are running this & related stories. (The right-wing forces in Canada wouldn’t let this stuff through ctv.ca to the public unless they believed such scare-mongering would benefit them somehow.)’
CTV right-wing? What planet do you live on? (Or perhaps…only in Canada could such a left-wing organization be considered right-wing?)
Christopher Booker
I still take the Sunday Telegraph because it allows your articles to be seen – a beacon in a sea of falsehoods. However, I no longer buy the weekday Telegraph since their recent introduction of intelligence insulting articles by Geoffrey whatsisname, full of alarmist nonsense and lacking the basic principles of economic and engineering understanding. These are usually accompanied by other unresearched before printing AGW articles, which together spread over a page of what used to be a well respected paper.
Before the recent economic nosedive the consensus of economist said it wouldn’t happen. Now the same ones are declaring it over. The consensus was wrong.
The consensus of scientist clamouring for AGW means absolutely nothing. The consensus is wrong.
Mandia:
You’re not trying hard enough. With just a little more effort you can be really sickeningly condescending.
The entire AGW doctrine needs a reality check:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/making_it_up_in_global_warming.html
This “interrupting the cooling” idea has a considerable amount of genius to it if its objective is to neutralize opponents to AGW. Yes, it is an admission that that the science wasn’t settled and some of the evidence contrary to AGW and that showing the shortcomings of AGW science have been compelling. Now with this new theory, it is safe to let the LIA and the MWP exist, to let the tree rings not be so decisive and I’m sure they will be happy to give up on other hard fought ground because they will still have their AGW cake. Its the same cake – AGW prevented a rise by 2.5C – the fire and floods have been postponed a bit. Now you have to deal with this “new” science to get to the underbelly of AGW.
I think we have strayed from the topic of media coverage and I suppose I drifted as well. BTW, I have the utmost respect for the Pielke, Sr. and have said nothing to the contrary.
In large part, mass media and Internet resources shape the opinions of the general public instead of the scientific literature. For example, there is a large group of parents who believe that vaccinations are linked to autism when the research clearly shows no such link. This mirros the topic of causes of global warming.
48% of Americans think most climate scientists do not agree that the Earth has been warming in recent years, and 53% think climate scientists do not agree that human activities are a major cause of that warming (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009). A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago of 3,146 Earth scientists showed 96.2% of climatologists who are active in climate research believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 80% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Petroleum geologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent believing in human involvement.
Doran and Zimmerman conclude:
Debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.
In another smaller survey via email, Brown, Pielke, and Anaan (2007) contacted 1807 climate scientists and received responses from 140 of those scientists. In the poll scientists were asked to discuss their opion about the role of human-caused radiative forcing of CO2 in climate change and how climate science was represented in the IPCC’s WG1 Report. The response is summarized below:
No scientists were willing to admit to the statement that “global warming is a fabrication and that human activity is not having any significant effect on climate” – [0%].
82% expressed the opinion that the IPCC WG1 Report was accurate [65%] or actually underestimates the consequences of anthropogenic CO2-induced AGW and the associated risks [15%].
The most often chosen response in the survey was “The scientific basis for human impacts on climate is well represented by the IPCC WG1 report. The lead scientists know what they are doing. We are warming the planet, with CO2 as the main culprit. At least some of the forecast consequences of this change are based on robust evidence.”
So why do a majority of Americans believe otherwise? It is because they are NOT getting the correct information from mass media and Internet sources.
Forgot the citations:
Doran, Peter T. & Zimmerman, M. K. (2009, January). Examining the scientific consensus on climate change. EOS 90 (3): 22–23. doi:10.1029/2009EO030002
Brown, F., Peilke, R. Sr., Anaan, J. (2007). Is there agreement amongst climate scientists on the IPCC AR4 WG1?. Retrieved August 27, 2009, from Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News Web site: http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/Brown.pdf
Notice that these are very current.
Anthony,
You state: “Well be assured, starting your web page with a quote from Oreskes is not the way to impress anyone who knows the woman and her agenda. – A”
Even if she has an agenda, her quote still stands because there are few peer-reviewed articles that refute AGW. Her quote:
“Scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social consensus of affiliated experts based on the weight of available empirical evidence, and evaluated according to accepted methodologies. If we feel that a policy question deserves to be informed by scientific knowledge, then we have no choice but to ask, what is the consensus of experts on this matter.”
If you have a medical situation and nine out of ten well-established and well-respected doctors tell you what the cause is and how to cure it and they all agree, do you instead choose to see the one doctor that has a completely different solution? I am certainly not willing to gamble with my life in that medical situation just as not with my children’s future with regard to the impacts of climate change.
Anthony, you can delete this if you want but this is a Blogg from Scott Mandia which speaks volumes about his integrity. Those of us who go to WUWT for data and information strongly disagree with Scotts comments below. Notice that there is no scientific substance to his comments.
Also I went to his site and found links that are absent of fair and balanced.
The scarey part is that he is apparently teaching at a College level and misinforming the students.
“DBA,
Of course, one does not need a degree to be able to read the literature and understand the information. For example, I hold an M.S. of Meteorology (Go Nittany Lions) and I do discuss climate change on my Website and in blogs for the general public but I am certainly NOT an expert because I have no peer-reviewed literature on this topic. However, I have enough schooling to understand and to communicate what the experts are saying in the literature.
This latest post by Watts is fairly typical. He does NOT read the journal article but he still attempts to discredit it. He posts the abstract but then, in his own words with a reply to RW, he states that he is really criticizing the press release of the article where there is an obvious typo (mid 1990’s instead of mid-1900s). Furthermore, his analysis is flawed – a common occurrence on WUWT.
He has no real interest in the truth. Everything Watts does is to promote himself. A perfect example is his surfacestations.org work which has attempted to discredit the global temperature record. NOAA’s analysis of Watts 70 reliable stations even proved that Watts’ claims were false because the rising tide of AGW lifted all boats. Does this NOAA paper appear on on his surfacestations.org site?
Watts is doing is a huge diservice to his readers because the implications of climate change are so immediate and so important. Confusing the public on this matter borders on being “soul-less”.”
Scott A. Mandia (16:45:10) :
I have no idea what personal experience you have with S. Fred Singer, probably none at all, but I first met Singer in 1980 at the University of Utah, where he made a presentation and predictions about future usage of energy and gasoline. This was 1980, remember, and approaching the end of the big energy crisis, although none of the energy experts in attendance that day realized we were nearing the end of the crisis. Singer’s predictions, mocked by the “experts” that day, were absolutely correct for the next 20+ years. You earn no points by cheap sniping at him.
Next, you give far too much credit to the peer-review process. While often helpful, peer review can be exasperatingly unhelpful at times for a variety of reasons which I summarized on another thread some time ago. When it comes to matters of climate science, the Hockey Stick in particular, I have personal experience that journals and reviewers play a game of “defend the fort”.
Accepted methods of testing research climate models is to work out a set of scenario predictions and then correlate with observations. This necessarily means that one must wait to for that final step: comparing a model’s predictions with actual observations. To make policy decisions on predicted scenarios before said scenarios are subjected to the accepted and completed method of research is scientifically unacceptable at best, and utterly irresponsible at worst. Such base behavior in the scientific community is akin to private guards in the theater of war acting irresponsibly (as we have seen in the news lately) and thus placing at extreme risk the very people they are being paid to keep safe.
Dr. Mandia, no offense, but “consensus,” as described by Oreskes, is useless as a basis for science.
To quote the late Michael Crichton,
“Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly….
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.”
Oops…
Meant to post this here but put it on the ‘Solar’ thread instead.
Catlin site has been updated. WWF is pumping in cash to ensure the data is cooked in time for Copenhagen.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/
From Mandia’s blog:
Mr. Mandia, doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that NOAA’s analysis of the 70 said stations yielded a graph which is a virtual carbon-copy of that of the full ~1200 stations? And over such a large and climactically diverse area as the USA?
Didn’t it even raise an eyebrow?
I reckon it says more about their ‘homogenization’ and other ‘adjustments’ of the data than anything else.
Scott A. Mandia
“The real science is discussed in the peer-reviewed literature. During the time frame considered by these studies AGW became increasingly clear in the literature. Since then there are few if any legitimate journal articles that refute AGW.”
AGW cannot be “refuted” because it is a non-falsfiable hypothesis to begin with. By the same token, the warmists cannot provide any serious evidence that the warming after the little ice age is largely caused by CO2. Having said that however, AGW theory does make some predictions.
1) There should be a radiative imbalance. According to Hansen (2001), the forcings caused by CO2 lead to a radiative imbalance that increases each year, reaching 0.85 Watts per metre squared by 2010. This results in “warming the air, melting the ice and warming the oceans.” This prediction has spectacularly failed since there has been no ocean warming since 2003 as measured by the argo network. This “missing” energy is such a problem that Hansen is refuting the data. See link below to the “royal opposition” which explains this in some detail.
http://climatesci.org/2009/05/18/comments-on-a-new-paper-global-ocean-heat-content-1955%e2%80%932008-in-light-of-recently-revealed-instrumentation-problems-by-levitus-et-al-2009/
2) The role of water vapour feedback that is central to the GCM outputs of catastrophic warming predict a temperature hotspot in the tropical mid troposphere. No such fingerprint has yet been found, but there is still time I suppose.
3) The hypothesis has no explanation as to why the warming apparantly stopped in 1998. This would normally be a serious stumbling block in any scientific theory.
“My point is that the coverage of climate change should not present “both sides of the story”
The fact that you even countenance such a view is alarming in itself. What you are saying is that the public should be “shielded” from “heretical” ideas, that is, ideas that differ from your own particular take on truth. This, despite the basic tennet that democracy is founded on debate. You can try and justify your Orwellian stance by saying only the AGWers are in position of the truth, and everyone else is in error if you like, but I will never follow you down that particular road.
“When they put folks like S. Fred Singer on TV or quote him in the press, they confuse the public.”
Same as the point above. The public will be “confused” by hearing “heretical” ideas and this must be prevented at all costs to maintain the illusion of consensus. Goebbels be praised!
“In the years since then, I have been convinced by the data supporting AGW.”
Which data in particular, I would be interested in some references. Do you mean the Mannian Hockey stick? If you have this evidence you say exists, please share it with us, you might even make some converts.
Well said, Paul Manner! As an engineer, It has never occurred to me or any of my colleagues to use the “consensus” argument.
As for Scott Mandia, it seems to me that he is looking for answers. He is not a closed-minded troll and should be treated with courtesy and respect, as Anthony would insist.
I am Canadian, but I would suggest that if a significant percentage of Americans have not swallowed the AGW line, it is simply because the US population remains the most cautious and skeptical on the planet. Australia would be next in line. Canada might come before Denmark.
Thank god there are some people who can resist brainwashing.
Scott Mandia:
I think you’ll find that it was a certain Dr. Andrew Wakefield – a so-called ‘expert’ – who first suggested a link between MMR and autism.
The media simply reported ‘expert opinion’.
“Scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social consensus”
This is not nonsense, this is rubbish.
Dr. Manner, you could add a relatively recent example: until very recently the consensus held that gastric ulcers could only be treated by surgery, and pooh-poohed the idea that they could be caused by bacteria.
Nowadays, ulcers are treated with antibiotics.
Vincent points out the problem that occurs when people like Mandia, who is obviously unaware of how the scientific method works, get their feet tangled up trying to justify the failed CO2=AGW conjecture.
As climatologist Dr Roy Spencer notes, the theory of natural climate variability has never been falsified. That is the hurdle that needs to be overcome by those flogging the AGW conjecture. So far, they have failed to falsify natural variability. The climate is well within its historical parameters. There is nothing unusual happening. In fact, every one of the unending lists of alarming claims [ocean acidification, rising sea levels, the ozone hole disappearing, global ice cover diminishing, glaciers retreating, etc., etc.] has turned out to be a false alarm. None of them need to be explained by anything except natural variability. In any other branch of science, anyone still pushing something so clearly wrong as catastrophic AGW would be laughed out of their profession. But since AGW is politics, not science, and since such enormous dollar amounts are being shoveled out, some folks still talk about AGW with a straight face, as if it’s actually been verified through honest peer review.
According to the scientific method, any new conjecture or hypothesis that comes along is required to prove itself through a means to falsify it, which requires complete transparency — something that is missing from the bogus “studies” of those pushing the hockey stick, etc. The long accepted theory of natural climate change has predictive ability, unlike CO2=AGW. It is the upstart conjecture that must always prove itself, not the accepted theory. So far, CO2=AGW has failed.
Because the climate peer-review process has been so thoroughly corrupted, skeptical submissions have a great deal of trouble getting published, while AGW-friendly papers are simply waved through rigor-free by those pushing their pet CO2=AGW conjecture [see the link above].
AGW is a failed conjecture, at odds with the long established theory of natural climate variability. There is no real world proof of AGW. None. The conjecture comes entirely out of GCMs; computer models that are programmed by people who are looking for a particular result. GCM results are then converted into peer reviewed papers by rent-seeking grant hogs who have both front feet in the public trough. AGW provides grant money, but it isn’t science.
Science requires adhering to the scientific method, which in turn requires transparency of all data and methodologies so the claimed results can be reproduced by others.
But climate ‘science’ is different from real science. In climate peer review, pro-AGW papers need not provide data, methodology, or transparency, even when paid for by the taxpayers. We are expected to accept their results on faith alone.
That is why non-scientists like Mandia hang their hats on “consensus”. It’s all they’ve got. But it’s not science.
Scott Mandia, I understand it can be easy and attractive to go along with the AGW ‘evidence’ and peer-review but scientifically, ideas and observations need to be repeated and repeated until you run out of ways to falsify them before they are taken as ‘fact’. I hope that you already know that. This means doing experiments and getting data. Lots of boring stuff. So if Co2 forcing is real where are all the lab experiments showing it? Where are all the detailed experiments showing how tree rings can tell temperature like thermometers? Where are all the data sets of people repeating key characteristics of AGW not inside a computer. Stuff what the media says, just do the work and see where it leads. I’ve said this before on this site. It’s been over 20 years since Hansen’s idea of forcing and I don’t see anyone doing any experiments on it in a lab. Now that’s something to report about. I mean, testing AGW in controlled conditions isn’t like looking for dark matter, is it.
Mr Mandia, you certainly are straying. You’ve been asked to show credible evidence for AGW to back up its consensus status and the urgent need for drastic action to limit its effects. Please, just one piece of evidence that credibly backs up the hypothesis for us the great unwashed of the climate world.
It is bordering on frightening now that so many people who believe in AGW but don’t know why are in positions where they can spread the propaganda to developing adults. Long live sites like this and books like Plimer’s that will give people a sensible alternative view.
Paul Manner, Ian Plimer’s book references a Soviet Agricultural Scientist called Lysenko who claimed he could double wheat production and he developed a consensus such that anybody in disagreement was fired and sent to the Gulags. The result was starvation and that is where we are at now.
Dr. Manner and others,
You all do realize that when you are treated by a doctor you are being treated with the drug and the method that is the consensus view in the medical literature at the present time. To do otherwise would be unprofessional and unethical. Have mistakes been made? Of course and the scientific method roots them out because it is the job of scientists to prove something is wrong.
Yes, there have been great discoveries by bucking the mainstream (eg. Galileo) but keep things in perspective. For every Galileo that broke with the mainstream and was correct, there are probably thousands who did so and were wrong. We do not recall the wrong ones, of course.