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.
Smokey: Throwing up a bunch of deceptive graphs, some of which are plain wrong and some of which are conveniently truncated to remove data that would go against your party line, does not constitute a scientific argument. It constitutes an embarrassment.
This is the reason why you have reached conclusions at odds with almost all of the scientists working in the field. (No, it is not because you are smarter or less biased than them.)
Joel Shore (15:56:33) :
How about another option.
The science evolves with open debate and is allowed to “self-correct”, and the policy issues go where they belong—to the political process.
Hopefully, despite what some seem to believe, we can maintain some semblance of democracy while we do this.
Joel Shore
If you want to know about the state of the science, or lack of it, and the famous consensus over AGW I suggest you take a look at the New Scientist’s report on the IPCC Geneva climate change convention.
Note what it says and who it quotes. And remember New Scientist has been pushing the AGW agenda very hard for nearly twenty years.
Is it the road to Damascus do you think? or just reality dawning and everybody running for cover?.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
Kindest Regards
Joel Shore,
As usual, you made a vague, cite-free, drive-by comment, which does little for your credibility. Want to change that?
Then you must refute every chart that shows rising CO2 along with falling global temperatures. Why every chart? Because as Albert Einstein said to the 100 Soviet scientists who signed a letter claiming that relativity was wrong: ”To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.” I’ve provided a lot of facts refuting CO2=AGW in my last post. You need to falsify every one of them — or admit that the ones you can not falsify are correct. Expect pushback on that, in addition to more charts. Cherry-picking one or two un-named charts that you believe aren’t perfect isn’t good enough. You must deconstruct every chart… if you want your side to have credibility. If not, then continue on like you have been.
I’ve posted plenty of CO2/Temperature charts here. They all show exactly the same thing: rising CO2, along with falling temperatures. There is no measurable cause and effect between increased CO2 and rising temps, which is what the alarming CO2=AGW, runaway global warming, climate catastrophe conjecture is based on.
I understand that it makes you very uncomfortable to see what the planet is clearly telling us. Inconvenient, isn’t it? Carbon dioxide does not cause measurable global warming. If CO2 has any effect at all, that effect is so tiny that it can be completely disregarded as inconsequential. Certainly there is no rational justification for spending more tax money on this non-problem, when there are many more pressing concerns.
Rather than taking lazy pot shots from the sidelines like you always do, why not accept Anthony’s offer to write a guest post? Then you can see what real peer review is like — instead of the kissy-face cronyism of climate peer review that you’re used to, where anyone selling the AGW canard is hand-waved through by their fellow back scratching rent seekers, waiting their turn at the grant trough.
John M,
What you propose is essentially what we have now. The only thing that I would argue is that while it may make sense to have the policy issues worked out through the political process, isn’t not still best to have them informed by the science?
Smokey,
I don’t have to refute every one of your cherrypicked charts…and why should I? I’ve explained to you at least 10 times why charts such as #1 are deceptive; you have no counterargument but continue to post them anyway. If you want to continue on in your own little world believing what you want to believe, there is little I can do to convince you otherwise. In the meantime, the real science will march on and you and your “skeptical” friends will make yourselves essentially irrelevant to the scientific debate, which is sad in a way because there are interesting questions that one could be discussing but instead you show no ability to distinguish between real scientific arguments and false ones.
Joel Shore:
No, you don’t have to refute what I’ve posted. In most cases, you can’t. And you’re still being completely vague about which charts you’re referring to. That’s OK, I understand. Really, I do. It stems from the same reluctance to write a guest post: you know you’ll get skewered from stem to stern here… where real peer review takes place. Frankly, you don’t have what it takes. Prove me wrong, and I will stand corrected.
Finally, I notice you’ve cleverly turned the scientific method on its head again, by demanding that I need to counter your wacky AGW conjectures. No, I don’t have to do that; I’m a skeptic. You will have to falsify every chart I cited, from all those different authors and organizations. Maybe they’re all wrong, eh, Joel? Maybe you’re right, and they are all wrong, every one of them. But the fact is you’re trying to prop up and unsupportable conjecture.
You can’t refute all of them, of course, or even a handful, because CO2=AGW is a load of horse manure. I’ve demonstrated that a couple of dozen times here already. CO2 does not cause runaway global warming. And any *slight* warming it might cause is insignificant, and is overwhelmed by many other factors. Also, I have plenty of similar charts. Lots more. When does my posting of CO2/Temp charts stop being ‘cherry picking’? At a dozen? Two dozen? Fifty? A hundred?
You’re supposedly a smart guy, Joel. Show us, by writing an article supporting your CO2=AGW belief system. If you dare. And include the names of everyone here that you’ve converted from being a skeptic, to being an AGW true believer. That would be very interesting, enlightening, and informative.
Note quite. We have it from the highest level of government that “the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear”. (Not to mention “…storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season…”)
That’s not what I mean when I refer to open debate.
He might as well have said “the science is settled”, although I must admit that all but the densest of AGW proponents don’t use that phrase anymore.
Hi Smokey, (@Smokey (16:30:46) 🙂
Check http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/181349/Albert-Einstein/256586/Coming-to-America
Looks like Einstein was responding to a NAZI Threat, as opposed too a Soviet threat.
BTW-1: Agree with your point – just helping out with a reference correction.
Cheers G
Smokey (16:30:46) :
… Because as Albert Einstein said to the 100 Soviet scientists
Best check…
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/181349/Albert-Einstein/256586/Coming-to-America
It was the NAZIs, as opposed to the Soviets.
Cheers G
Dr. Mandia wrote:
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.
The last sentence is where the problem for many of us come in. Many of the climate scientists we question do not seem to operate in this fashion. When a data gathering or statistical problem is pointed out, they either tell the world the problem doesn’t matter, and the science has moved on (Mann’s hockey stick), or they say other independent studies confirm the validity of the studies, even though the studies used for validation use the same data and methodologies that are pointed out to be flawed. Since you bring up, I would like to point out that if we saw this same sort of thing happen in the medical industry, we would still have a drug like Vioxx on the market. or the Taxus stent recall would never have happened, as the manufacturers would continue to churn out scientific studies using the same data sets and flawed methodologies to support the claim that nothing is wrong with the product.
Somewhere along the line, climate science seems to have gone off the rails of the scientific process, because the hypothesis is tied to the goofy environmentalist notion that the Earth’s ecosystem is infinitely fragile and life hangs in the balance, even though paleo-ecological / geological history shows that the organism that is life is a robust thing and most of the fora and fauna on Earth is, with a few exceptions, much more hardy and much more elastic than the neo-environmentalists are willing to admit.
That said, I am one who greatly appreciates that you have been willing to civilly communicate your views here on WUWT.
PS. I wonder if you have read the rebuttal to the 70 sites bit from NOAA. If not, please give it a look and tell us what you think.
Signed:
The slightly above average / non PhD holding / former Geology student Michael J Alexander (calc killed the dream).
“…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.” – Michael Crichton
Any scientist who invokes the notion of consensus and/or ‘settled science’ is in serious need of a science history lesson. And needs to look up ‘hubris’ in the dictionary.
Graeme Rodaughan (17:39:02),
Thanx for the correction. I was going by memory, and you know what they say: three things start to go as you get older. The first is your memory, and, um… I forgot the others.
[Actually I didn’t forget, it’s just too depressing to contemplate.]
John M:
Well, what I think that person is saying essentially is that the scientific community is telling him that there are certain things that we now believe we know with high confidence. He is not mandating that there be no further debate in the scientific community; rather, he is saying that politicians should not be second-guessing the scientists (which can consist of trotting out the few scientists who happen to agree with them and disagree with most of their scientific colleagues).
This is the thing that seems difficult for people to understand: In science, nothing is ever settled with 100% certainty because science is inductive, not deductive. However, if you are going to use science to inform public policy, then scientists have to get together and review the current body of the scientific literature and explain to the policymakers where the science currently stands. There is no 100% money-back guarantee that the scientific consensus is correct; however, history has shown that the scientific process has been our best way of understanding how the world works and that it is much wiser to bet with the current scientific consensus than to bet against it. (This admittedly varies some from field-to-field; e.g., the physical sciences probably have a better track record on this than the medical sciences because the mechanistic understanding tends to be better.)
DaveC:
As often with Michael Crichton, there is a certain bit of trivial correctness behind what he says but the whole crux of his argument is very misleading. Sure, people are going to be most interested in what the consensus is regarding issues closer to the forefront of current scientific study. If the word “consensus” gets Crichton so upset, he can substitute another word or words for it. We could say, “The overwhelming predominant view in the peer-reviewed scientific literature on the subject is that …”
Oh, and by the way, if policymakers want to prepare for the possibility that scientists are underestimating uncertainties and thus are being overconfident in their “consensus” (which I think is a reasonable possible to consider in formulating policies), then you should really do so in both directions. I.e., they should design their policies with the possibility not only that things might turn out to be not as bad as scientists generally believe but also that they might be worse. (For example, that arctic sea ice might disappear faster than the models predict and that the disintegration of the land ice sheets might occur faster than models predicts, as both current and paleo data suggests may be the case.)
It is interesting that those challenging the notion of “consensus” almost always seem to assume that “consensus wrong” equates to “CO2 is not a problem” rather than “Carbon cycle feedbacks will turn out to be worse than we could ever have expected” or “We might cross tipping points that we hadn’t even thought about”!
Extracts from Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads (2006)
By Joel Best (U. of California Press)
p. 4: In our society, most serious intstitution—medicine, science, business, education, criminal justice, and so on—experience what we can call institutional fads.
p. 16: Consider three cases from the 1980s: [the author cites the widespread diagnosis of multiple personality disorder, quality circles, and cold fusion.]
p. 18: While the innovation is spreading, it is easy to believe, to dismiss the skeptics. … Their proponents often are respected figures in their professions, and their claims receive serious, deferential attention in the media.
p. 36: Often there are overtones of urgency—we must act now, we can’t afford to wait, because things will soon get worse and we’ll fall further behind. This is what many institutional fads offer—the promise of a sudden, wonder-working, paradigm-shifting, revolutionary, quantum-leap breakthrough.
pp. 82-83: Fads … can be fun. When people are aware that an innovation is spreading, they often feel excited. There is a widespread sense that being part of a big, important change has something thrilling, even joyful about it.
pp. 84-85: It is easy to find excitement in doing something different, if only because change breaks the boredom of routine. … There is pride in being a pioneer, one of the early adopters—the first kid on your block.
………
This enthusiasm may cause a rush toward wholesale adoption. …
……….
People also find comfort in being part of the in crowd, in joining with other adopters. To the degree that you admire the trend-setters, you will be pleased to join them. … You’re now an insider, a status that is part of the appeal of stylishness. The feeling that you have made the right choice is not just personal (“it’s the right choice for me”) but also social (“Others will see that I’ve made the right choice”).
Pp 88-89: Adopters often also feel a sense of superiority because they have opportunities to exercise power. Once an organization’s leaders have adopted some innovation, they may require their subordinates to get with the program—to attend training workshops, adopt the new lingo, and so on.
…………
[Summing up,] institutional fads spread because individuals within organizations experience boredom, hope, pride, status seeking, status anxiety, and other feelings, and then decide to adopt the novelty that promises to improve things and make them feel better. As a result, members bring their organizations onto the bandwagon …. Organizations experience two sorts of bandwagon pressures, both of which have their parallels among individuals: first, the knowledge that other organizations have adopted a novelty pulls us to think we ought to do the same; second, worries that our competitors may be taking advantage of the innovation to get the jump on us pushes us to act.
pp. 90-92: In addition, they [people] may calculate that adoption [of a novelty] offers advantages to them personally. Consider the plight of Professor Alice, this chapter’s imaginary figure; she has just received her Ph.D. … [but] she will not receive tenure and promotion to associate professor unless she publishes some articles in scholarly journals.
…………..
Scholarly journals won’t publish anything that doesn’t say something new … . But there are already bookcases full of studies of Shakespeare and jane Austen. What’s left for Professor Alice to write about?
…………
Professor Alice has seen an article in a newsmagazine about physicists studying something called “chaos theory.” The name sounds promising. Professor Alice hasn’t taken physics since high school, but she already has ideas for a title—something along the lines of “Kingdoms in Chaos: The Physics of Royal Courts in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.” Professor Alice’s tenure is virtually assured.
Individuals often find advantages in hooking their wagons to some rising enthusiasm. … Becoming associated with a trendy novelty suggests to others that you are with it, on top of things, in the know, progressive, forward-looking—and all of those other chichés that assign approval to pioneers of novelty. Often, there are intimations of generational rivalries: those advocating changes are young lions, willing to stand up against the old guard. Institutional fads offer a rationale for turning the reins over to a new generation that is not mired in the past, one that welcomes the future.
pp. 94-95: Professor Alice … illustrate[s] the importance of careerism—making choices that will advance one’s career—in the spread of such fads.
…………
Whenever an organization adopts an innovation,, there is the possibility that parts of the organization will change. Maybe new jobs, such as director of appraisal planning, will appear. … The organization will be—at least to some degree—in flux, which will almost certainly create opportunities. … And, of course, if a novelty comes endorsed by your supervisors … actively resisting the change may put your career at risk. It can be much easier to go along with the changes.
p. 113: We can think of diffusion—the enduring spread of some novelty—as taking two forms. One form involves the choices of many individuals …. The other form of diffusion involves the establishment of institutional arrangements that make it harder to drop the innovation.
p. 127: People … are much less inclined to publicize their decision to abandon a fad. There are too many embarrassing interpretations. Did they make an unwise choice? Didn’t they know what they were doing? Were they sufficiently prudent, or did they rush into something they didn’t understand?
p. 19: These fads aren’t free. Just as “fashion victims” waste their money on unattractive clothing styles, there are fad victims. … Alternative uses for these resources fall by the wayside. … Alienation and cynicism can result.
3×2 (18:29:53) :
Dear Three By,
Actually they’re called registered warrants, but they commonly referred to as IOU. They’re not being used for salary (although that did happen during Gov. Wilson’s budget stalemate in the 80s)., just reimbursements like travel claims. Vendor’s who supply supplies and services to the state have been getting them to pay invoices. They were to be redeemed after Oct. 2nd with around 3% interest, but last week the state controller announced that he is cashing them as of Sept. 4 because state income has improved. I suspect it has more to do with the California’s bad credit rating and his need to sell billions in bonds. Between our state debt and our federal debt, Californian citizens may not be solvent for generations. And that’s those of us who still have jobs. Neither politicians nor bankers are held in much (any) esteem in these parts. Can you spare a mil or two from your stash?
Your best buddy,
David
Mr Mandia, you posted only the IPCC reports which don’t at any point give credibility to AGW only that we have had climate change (the reason of course why MMGW transformed into Climate change). The IPCC is a political organisation mandated only to prove AGW and its financing depends on that. Increasing CO2 at the same time as increasing teemperature occured is not a causal relationship especially when the relationship isn’t consistent and is often reversed.
Joel, It is far better to give no advice to policy makers rather than give them wrong advice as the AGW influenced scientific community is doing now. I have read the so called rebuttals to Ian Plimers book and they are spelling mistakes and opinion compared with the big message of the book which is that AGW is falsified at every turn. I will asssume of course, as with Mr Mandia, that you haven’t actually read the book. Now, will one of you take up the challenge to write a guest post or otherwise let us people into the secret of why AGW is such a threat outside of model land and why you feel current climatic conditions are different to those seen in the past with massively higher CO2 where the tipping points so beloved of catastrophists didn’t happen and will not happen as beautifully explained by Plimer. I’ve been alive for 58 yearsand there has been no significant change in climate (other than above average temperatures in the late 90’s) in the areas that I’ve lived during that time and no observable rise in sea levels (I’ve been a keen boat owner for that period). Put something down for us to get our teeth into and stop posting links to peer reviewed consensus and organisations that have zero credibility.
When you do your guest articles please address the collapsing pillars of AGW such as no tropospherical hot spot, no temp rise or ice loss in Antarctica, stabilising ice levels in the Arctic and widespread cooling.
Paul Vaughan (15:33:37) :
Re: Lucy Skywalker (12:25:35)
Thanks for this:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm
Now that’s a graph that the MSM should be using; fat chance I suspect…
Great work though, keep it up :o)
Cheers
Mark.
I’ve updated the notes to http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm – thanks for comments. Paul Vaughan, thanks a billion for your work in updating Daly. Can I contact you? Please email me.
Steve (Paris) (10:13:41), Re Catlin:
The ice thickness measurements that Pen Hadow and the Survey team (Ann Daniels, and Martin Hartley) reported during the winter/spring expedition imply that they were travelling predominantly over thicker First Year Ice.
The fact that ice thickness results indicate that they have been travelling over First Year Ice, almost right from the start, indicates that the extent of the multi‐year ice is much reduced
The fact that there is so much first year ice means that it is rebounding “much faster than expected”, and even better, it is “much thicker than expected”
Yay!
Because it is thicker, multi‐year ice is more likely to survive the summer season than thinner First Year Ice, so multi‐year ice extent in the winter gives a guide to the next summer minimum. Ice modellers have recently suggested that winter ice extent is a more influential on the following summer minimum than spring and summer meteorology.
In direct contradiction of the observed facts, of course. And with a blinkered view of the minima when the maxima seem to have little or no trend.
Snow thickness, measured by the team averaged 0.172m, but during the early part of the Survey, in first 2 weeks of March, snow depths averaged around 0.11m.
Snow reflects solar radiation, slowing ice melt. It’s an important factor used in many ice thickness prediction models.
But it does not matter how think the snow is surely? If it is 1cm thick it will reflect just as much as 100 cm, won’t it?
And the real kicker is, however:
One further consideration, when interpreting the
Arctic Survey team, may be navigational bias. Typically, the surface of First Year Ice floes are flatter than that of multi‐year ice floes and because the team systematically seeks out flatter ice which is easier to travel over and camp on, there is a risk that the ice surveyed will not be representative.
So they would have been pretty much forced to stick to this evil ‘first year ice’ (that is really very good news for the polar bears et al).
Also the phrase ‘first year’ turns up 28 times.
Scott,
“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.”
By the time of Galileo, it was obvious the Ptolemic model was wrong. AGW is a hypothesis that initially appeared to be reasonable . Towards the end of the last century and beyond, a vast new array of insrumentation has been deployed, from the argo network of submersibles to radiation balance, altimetry and gravitmetry satellites to enable empirical data to be collected “at unprecendented levels of precision.” Yet the new data has been at variance with the theory. I have already given you two failed predictions in my last post. We are now at the point where Newtonian mechanics was at at the beginning of the twentieth century when measurements of the changes in the perehelion of Mercury was at variance with Newtons laws.
Now here’s the problem. A whole generation of scientists, bureaucrats and journalists have built their careers around this new “industry” and they have to protect their rice bowels. Are they going to risk their rice bowels by telling their paymasters that they may be wrong about CO2 or are they going to say that the theory of man made climate change is broadly correct and everything going forward is about more and more precise measurements?
“Graeme Rodaughan (17:46:29) :
It was the NAZIs, as opposed to the Soviets.”
The Soviets had their problems with scientific consensus too.
I still own a (translated) book by D. I. Blochinzew about Quantum Mechanics (1963). There is a whole chapter comparing probability in QM and certainty that dialectic materialism must win, based on writings by their great thinker Wladimir Iijitsch Uljanow (Lenin, who lived in Switzerland at the same time as Einstein. And they agreed about probabilty).
Joel Shore,
“It is interesting that those challenging the notion of “consensus” almost always seem to assume that “consensus wrong” equates to “CO2 is not a problem” rather than “Carbon cycle feedbacks will turn out to be worse than we could ever have expected” or “We might cross tipping points that we hadn’t even thought about”!
The reason sceptics challenge the notion of AGW (and reject the hypothesis that CO2 is dangerous) is because it is not supported by the current crop of data (they say), and the null hypothesis is not rejected. That is, empirical evidence does not reject the null hypothesis that natural cycles are largely responsible for the twentieth century warming. Now you may disagree entirely with their conclusion but this is basically what they are saying.
Right, so if the null hypothesis is not rejected by data, then the alternative hypothesis, that the warming is largely caused by CO2 warming the planet must be rejected instead. But the alternative hypothesis is saying precisely that CO2 IS a problem and CO2 feedbacks WILL get worse and worse and that there WILL be tipping points. Therefore it is not merely “interesting” that those challenging AGW assume that CO2 will not be a problem, but follows as a logical conclusion to the null hypothesis remaining intact.
Do you see how that works, Joel Shore?
Joel Shore,
“This is the thing that seems difficult for people to understand: In science, nothing is ever settled with 100% certainty because science is inductive, not deductive.”
People on this blog understand that perfectly well.
“However, if you are going to use science to inform public policy, then scientists have to get together and review the current body of the scientific literature and explain to the policymakers where the science currently stands.”
This is the bit that people are having a problem with. Who decides where the science stands? Who decides what the consensus even is? The public are presented with a continual drip feed of articles predicting dire consequences unless we “act now” and endless pictures of melting ice caps and polar bears. They are bombarded by adverts by companies extolling us to buy their products and lower our carbon footprints. We hear every day that world leaders are struggling to nail down an agreement by December that will make us limit our CO2 emissions in order to save mankind. The policy makers themselves are continually cajoled by the IPCC, Ban Ki Moon et al and their own GISS or Hadley centre scientists to act now before it’s too late. Learned societies have also jumped on board with their own doomsaying pronouncements. Given this picture, no wonder the public are all convinced that there is an overwhelming consensus that man made CO2 is leading to a climate catastrophe. That is all they hear. But behind that fascade, all is not as it seems.
The “pronouncement” of so called learned societies are no more than the dogma’s of handfull’s of board members. We know they do not represent the views of their members as witnessed by the rebellions of members of the APS, ACS and others. Meanwhile behind the serene fascade of unity the IPCC tries so hard to maintain, there is open dissent and even revolt among scientists and the elite who sit on the committees. The situation among the big government research institutes is even worse, with so-called scientists continually obstructing the scientific method by refusing to release raw data and algorithms (scientists who work in this new “industry” will do nothing that might jeapordise their livelihoods). Surface data is often manipulated by GISS without explanation in order to make trends appear more pronounced. And while all this is going on, scientist after scientist is publishing papers that call the AGW hypothesis into question.
Yet the myth of consensus remains intact.
@joel Shore (18:29:36) :
” However, if you are going to use science to inform public policy, then scientists have to get together and review the current body of the scientific literature and explain to the policymakers where the science currently stands.”
And, if policymakers want to accept the consensus, they should save the taxpayers’ money and cut off grants for any future research into AGW. After all, the science is “settled.”