The Temperature of Science (PDF available here)
James Hansen
My experience with global temperature data over 30 years provides insight about how the science and its public perception have changed. In the late 1970s I became curious about well known analyses of global temperature change published by climatologist J. Murray Mitchell: why were his estimates for large-scale temperature change restricted to northern latitudes? As a planetary scientist, it seemed to me there were enough data points in the Southern Hemisphere to allow useful estimates both for that hemisphere and for the global average. So I requested a tape of meteorological station data from Roy Jenne of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who obtained the data from records of the World Meteorological Organization, and I made my own analysis.
Fast forward to December 2009, when I gave a talk at the Progressive Forum in Houston Texas. The organizers there felt it necessary that I have a police escort between my hotel and the forum where I spoke. Days earlier bloggers reported that I was probably the hacker who broke into East Anglia computers and stole e-mails. Their rationale: I was not implicated in any of the pirated e-mails, so I must have eliminated incriminating messages before releasing the hacked emails.
The next day another popular blog concluded that I deserved capital punishment. Web chatter on this topic, including indignation that I was coming to Texas, led to a police escort.
How did we devolve to this state? Any useful lessons? Is there still interesting science in analyses of surface temperature change? Why spend time on it, if other groups are also doing it? First I describe the current monthly updates of global surface temperature at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Then I show graphs illustrating scientific inferences and issues. Finally I respond to questions in the above paragraph.
Current Updates
Each month we receive, electronically, data from three sources: weather data for several thousand meteorological stations, satellite observations of sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research station measurements. These three data sets are the input for a program that produces a global map of temperature anomalies relative to the mean for that month during the period of climatology, 1951-1980.
The analysis method has been described fully in a series of refereed papers (Hansen et al., 1981, 1987, 1999, 2001, 2006). Successive papers updated the data and in some cases made minor improvements to the analysis, for example, in adjustments to minimize urban effects. The analysis method works in terms of temperature anomalies, rather than absolute temperature, because anomalies present a smoother geographical field than temperature itself. For example, when New York City has an unusually cold winter, it is likely that Philadelphia is also colder than normal. The distance over which temperature anomalies are highly correlated is of the order of 1000 kilometers at middle and high latitudes, as we illustrated in our 1987 paper.
Although the three input data streams that we use are publicly available from the
organizations that produce them, we began preserving the complete input data sets each month in April 2008. These data sets, which cover the full period of our analysis, 1880-present, are available to parties interested in performing their own analysis or checking our analysis. The computer program that performs our analysis is published on the GISS web site.
Responsibilities for our updates are as follows. Ken Lo runs programs to add in the new data and reruns the analysis with the expanded data. Reto Ruedy maintains the computer program that does the analysis and handles most technical inquiries about the analysis. Makiko Sato updates graphs and posts them on the web. I examine the temperature data monthly and write occasional discussions about global temperature change.
Scientific Inferences and Issues
Temperature data – example of early inferences. Figure 1 shows the current GISS
analysis of global annual-mean and 5-year running-mean temperature change (left) and the hemispheric temperature changes (right). These graphs are based on the data now available, including ship and satellite data for ocean regions.
Figure 1 illustrates, with a longer record, a principal conclusion of our first analysis of temperature change (Hansen et al., 1981). That analysis, based on data records through December 1978, concluded that data coverage was sufficient to estimate global temperature change. We also concluded that temperature change was qualitatively different in the two hemispheres. The Southern Hemisphere had more steady warming through the century while the Northern Hemisphere had distinct cooling between 1940 and 1975.
It required more than a year to publish the 1981 paper, which was submitted several times to Science and Nature. At issue were both the global significance of the data and the length of the paper. Later, in our 1987 paper, we proved quantitatively that the station coverage was sufficient for our conclusions – the proof being obtained by sampling (at the station locations) a 100-year data set of a global climate model that had realistic spatial-temporal variability. The different hemispheric records in the mid-twentieth century have never been convincingly explained. The most likely explanation is atmospheric aerosols, fine particles in the air, produced by fossil fuel burning. Aerosol atmospheric lifetime is only several days, so fossil fuel aerosols were confined mainly to the Northern Hemisphere, where most fossil fuels were burned. Aerosols have a cooling effect that still today is estimated to counteract about half of the warming effect of human-made greenhouse gases. For the few decades after World War II, until the oil embargo in the 1970s, fossil fuel use expanded exponentially at more than 4%/year, likely causing the growth of aerosol climate forcing to exceed that of greenhouse gases
Flaws in temperature analysis. Figure 2 illustrates an error that developed in the GISS analysis when we introduced, in our 2001 paper, an improvement in the United States temperature record. The change consisted of using the newest USHCN (United States Historical Climatology Network) analysis for those U.S. stations that are part of the USHCN network. This improvement, developed by NOAA researchers, adjusted station records that included station moves or other discontinuities. Unfortunately, I made an error by failing to recognize that the station records we obtained electronically from NOAA each month, for these same stations, did not contain the adjustments. Thus there was a discontinuity in 2000 in the records of those stations, as the prior years contained the adjustment while later years did not. The error was readily corrected, once it was recognized. Figure 2 shows the global and U.S. temperatures with and without the error. The error averaged 0.15°C over the contiguous 48 states, but these states cover only 1½ percent of the globe, making the global error negligible.
However, the story was embellished and distributed to news outlets throughout the country. Resulting headline: NASA had cooked the temperature books – and once the error was corrected 1998 was no longer the warmest year in the record, instead being supplanted by 1934.
This was nonsense, of course. The small error in global temperature had no effect on the ranking of different years. The warmest year in our global temperature analysis was still 2005.
Conceivably confusion between global and U.S. temperatures in these stories was inadvertent. But the estimate for the warmest year in the U.S. had not changed either. 1934 and 1998 were tied as the warmest year (Figure 2b) with any difference (~0.01°C) at least an order of magnitude smaller than the uncertainty in comparing temperatures in the 1930s with those in the 1990s.
The obvious misinformation in these stories, and the absence of any effort to correct the stories after we pointed out the misinformation, suggests that the aim may have been to create distrust or confusion in the minds of the public, rather than to transmit accurate information. That, of course, is a matter of opinion. I expressed my opinion in two e-mails that are on my Columbia University web site
Click to access 20070810_LightUpstairs.pdf
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2007/20070816_realdeal.pdf.
We thought we had learned the necessary lessons from this experience. We put our
analysis program on the web. Everybody was free to check the program, if they were concerned that any data “cooking” may be occurring.
Unfortunately, another data problem occurred in 2008. In one of the three incoming data streams, the one for meteorological stations, the November 2008 data for many Russian stations was a repeat of October 2008 data. It was not our data record, but we properly had to accept the blame for the error, because the data was included in our analysis. Occasional flaws in input data are normal in any analysis, and the flaws are eventually noticed and corrected if they are
substantial. Indeed, we have an effective working relationship with NOAA – when we spot data that appears questionable we inform the appropriate people at the National Climate Data Center – a relationship that has been scientifically productive.
This specific data flaw was a case in point. The quality control program that NOAA runs on the data from global meteorological stations includes a check for repetition of data: if two consecutive months have identical data the data is compared with that at the nearest stations. If it appears that the repetition is likely to be an error, the data is eliminated until the original data source has verified the data. The problem in 2008 escaped this quality check because a change in their program had temporarily, inadvertently, omitted that quality check.
The lesson learned here was that even a transient data error, however quickly corrected provides fodder for people who are interested in a public relations campaign, rather than science.
That means we cannot put the new data each month on our web site and check it at our leisure, because, however briefly a flaw is displayed, it will be used to disinform the public. Indeed, in this specific case there was another round of “fraud” accusations on talk shows and other media all around the nation.
Another lesson learned. Subsequently, to minimize the chance of a bad data point
slipping through in one of the data streams and temporarily affecting a publicly available data product, we now put the analyzed data up first on a site that is not visible to the public. This allows Reto, Makiko, Ken and me to examine maps and graphs of the data before the analysis is put on our web site – if anything seems questionable, we report it back to the data providers for them to resolve. Such checking is always done before publishing a paper, but now it seems to be necessary even for routine transitory data updates. This process can delay availability of our data analysis to users for up to several days, but that is a price that must be paid to minimize disinformation.
Is it possible to totally eliminate data flaws and disinformation? Of course not. The fact that the absence of incriminating statements in pirated e-mails is taken as evidence of wrongdoing provides a measure of what would be required to quell all criticism. I believe that the steps that we now take to assure data integrity are as much as is reasonable from the standpoint of the use of our time and resources.
Strong correlation of global SST with the Nino index is obvious. Global land-ocean
temperature is noisier than the SST, but correlation with the Nino index is also apparent for global temperature. On average, global temperature lags the Nino index by about 3 months.
During 2008 and 2009 I received many messages, sometimes several per day informing me that the Earth is headed into its next ice age. Some messages include graphs extrapolating cooling trends into the future. Some messages use foul language and demand my resignation. Of the messages that include any science, almost invariably the claim is made that the sun controls Earth’s climate, the sun is entering a long period of diminishing energy output, and the sun is the cause of the cooling trend.
Indeed, it is likely that the sun is an important factor in climate variability. Figure 4 shows data on solar irradiance for the period of satellite measurements. We are presently in the deepest most prolonged solar minimum in the period of satellite data. It is uncertain whether the solar irradiance will rebound soon into a more-or-less normal solar cycle – or whether it might remain at a low level for decades, analogous to the Maunder Minimum, a period of few sunspots that may have been a principal cause of the Little Ice Age.
The direct climate forcing due to measured solar variability, about 0.2 W/m2, is
comparable to the increase in carbon dioxide forcing that occurs in about seven years, using recent CO2 growth rates. Although there is a possibility that the solar forcing could be amplified by indirect effects, such as changes of atmospheric ozone, present understanding suggests only a small amplification, as discussed elsewhere (Hansen 2009). The global temperature record (Figure 1) has positive correlation with solar irradiance, with the amplitude of temperature variation being approximately consistent with the direct solar forcing. This topic will become clearer as the records become longer, but for that purpose it is important that the temperature record be as precise as possible.
Frequently heard fallacies are that “global warming stopped in 1998” or “the world has been getting cooler over the past decade”. These statements appear to be wishful thinking – it would be nice if true, but that is not what the data show. True, the 1998 global temperature jumped far above the previous warmest year in the instrumental record, largely because 1998 was affected by the strongest El Nino of the century. Thus for the following several years the global temperature was lower than in 1998, as expected.
However, the 5-year and 11-year running mean global temperatures (Figure 3b) have continued to increase at nearly the same rate as in the past three decades. There is a slight downward tick at the end of the record, but even that may disappear if 2010 is a warm year.
Indeed, given the continued growth of greenhouse gases and the underlying global warming trend (Figure 3b) there is a high likelihood, I would say greater than 50 percent, that 2010 will be the warmest year in the period of instrumental data. This prediction depends in part upon the continuation of the present moderate El Nino for at least several months, but that is likely.
Furthermore, the assertion that 1998 was the warmest year is based on the East Anglia – British Met Office temperature analysis. As shown in Figure 1, the GISS analysis has 2005 as the warmest year. As discussed by Hansen et al. (2006) the main difference between these analyses is probably due to the fact that British analysis excludes large areas in the Arctic and Antarctic where observations are sparse. The GISS analysis, which extrapolates temperature anomalies as far as 1200 km, has more complete coverage of the polar areas. The extrapolation introduces uncertainty, but there is independent information, including satellite infrared measurements and reduced Arctic sea ice cover, which supports the existence of substantial positive temperature anomalies in those regions.
In any case, issues such as these differences between our analyses provide a reason for having more than one global analysis. When the complete data sets are compared for the different analyses it should be possible to isolate the exact locations of differences and likely gain further insights.
Summary
The nature of messages that I receive from the public, and the fact that NASA
Headquarters received more than 2500 inquiries in the past week about our possible “manipulation” of global temperature data, suggest that the concerns are more political than scientific. Perhaps the messages are intended as intimidation, expected to have a chilling effect on researchers in climate change.
The recent “success” of climate contrarians in using the pirated East Anglia e-mails to cast doubt on the reality of global warming* seems to have energized other deniers. I am now inundated with broad FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests for my correspondence, with substantial impact on my time and on others in my office. I believe these to be fishing expeditions, aimed at finding some statement(s), likely to be taken out of context, which they would attempt to use to discredit climate science.
There are lessons from our experience about care that must be taken with data before it is made publicly available. But there is too much interesting science to be done to allow intimidation tactics to reduce our scientific drive and output. We can take a lesson from my 5- year-old grandson who boldly says “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit!”
Click to access 20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf
There are other researchers who work more extensively on global temperature analyses than we do – our main work concerns global satellite observations and global modeling – but there are differences in perspectives, which, I suggest, make it useful to have more than one analysis. Besides, it is useful to combine experience working with observed temperature together with our work on satellite data and climate models. This combination of interests is likely to help provide some insights into what is happening with global climate and information on the data that are needed to understand what is happening. So we will be keeping at it.
*By “success” I refer to their successful character assassination and swift-boating. My interpretation of the e-mails is that some scientists probably became exasperated and frustrated by contrarians – which may have contributed to some questionable judgment. The way science works, we must make readily available the input data that we use, so that others can verify our analyses. Also, in my opinion, it is a mistake to be too concerned about contrarian publications – some bad papers will slip through the peer-review process, but overall assessments by the National Academies, the IPCC, and scientific organizations sort the wheat from the chaff.
The important point is that nothing was found in the East Anglia e-mails altering the reality and magnitude of global warming in the instrumental record. The input data for global temperature analyses are widely available, on our web site and elsewhere. If those input data could be made to yield a significantly different global temperature change, contrarians would certainly have done that – but they have not.
References
Frölich, C. 2006: Solar irradiance variability since 1978. Space Science Rev., 248, 672-673.
Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, 1981: Climate
impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Science, 213, 957-966.
Hansen, J.E., and S. Lebedeff, 1987: Global trends of measured surface air temperature. J.
Geophys. Res., 92, 13345-13372.
Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, J. Glascoe, and Mki. Sato, 1999: GISS analysis of surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res., 104, 30997-31022.
Hansen, J.E., R. Ruedy, Mki. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl, 2001: A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 23947-23963.
Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, R. Ruedy, K. Lo, D.W. Lea, and M. Medina-Elizade, 2006: Global
temperature change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 103, 14288-14293.
Hansen, J. 2009: “Storms of My Grandchildren.” Bloomsbury USA, New York. (304 pp.)
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nanuuq (23:38:36) :
Let’s put it this way. We’re sick and tired of being belittled, talked down to, accused of being in the pay of oil companies, of being scientifically illiterate, locked out of commenting on warmist sites, and generally pissed on.
We’re tired of respected scientists being confined to shadowy corners of the internet because a few arrogant scientists who exert control over the peer review process as well as the IPCC will brook no dissent and accept no data or analysis which contradicts their own views.
And what do you know, look what has dropped into our laps. Proof that this CRU crew and cohorts, among other things, have perverted the scientific method and taken control of the peer review process thus showing the world what we’ve known for a very long time–the debate is NOT over, it has merely been squelched.
We’ve been proven right and you have the nerve to say we are gloating?
I’m sorry you’re saddened to see the politization of science. We all are. I suggest you ask al Gore about that! The moment he claimed ‘the debate is over’ the activists took over and the science no longer mattered.
I understand why you’d publish rubbish like this here; it’s important that we understand all sides (something of which the other side has never understood.)
But why no context, preamble, or warning. If I smoke cigarettes, I get a warning, and this tripe is possibly worse for the earth than cancer.
Hansen wrote, “The GISS analysis, which extrapolates temperature anomalies as far as 1200 km, has more complete coverage of the polar areas. The extrapolation introduces uncertainty, but there is independent information, including satellite infrared measurements and reduced Arctic sea ice cover, which supports the existence of substantial positive temperature anomalies in those regions.”
If one compares UAH MSU TLT anomalies over continental land mass with the GISTEMP land surface temperature anomalies, the GISS 1200km smoothing can introduce a significant upward bias in areas where there are few temperature measurements, such as Africa, Asia, and South America. This was discussed and illustrated in a June 26 2009 post “Part 2 of Comparison of GISTEMP and UAH MSU TLT Anomalies”:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/06/part-2-of-comparison-of-gistemp-and-uah.html
Hansen wrote, “However, the 5-year and 11-year running mean global temperatures (Figure 3b) have continued to increase at nearly the same rate as in the past three decades. There is a slight downward tick at the end of the record, but even that may disappear if 2010 is a warm year.”
But Hansen, like many others, fails to acknowledge that strong El Nino events can have multiyear aftereffects that are responsible for much of the additional rise in global temperatures following the 1997/98 El Nino. This was discussed in numerous of my guest posts here at WUWT over the past year. My most recent post on the subject “Climate Studies Misrepresent The Effects of El Nino and La Nina Events”…
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-studies-misrepresent-effects-of.html
…includes links to many of the WUWT posts. It also includes a two-part video posted on YouTube. A Link to the first part of the video:
Jim it’s dead (AGW), go back to solar science.
Mr Hansen, the clock has struck thirteen, and neither its past nor its future pronouncements can be trusted. The best you can do is get some much-needed rest, dry your tears and try to get used to the fact that it’s over.
Hansen says:
****
Unfortunately, I made an error by failing to recognize that the station records we obtained electronically from NOAA each month, for these same stations, did not contain the adjustments. Thus there was a discontinuity in 2000 in the records of those stations, as the prior years contained the adjustment while later years did not. The error was readily corrected, once it was recognized.
****
I wonder what made him track down this error? ;-(
Conspiracy theory time (part 2)
Lets just say you get a hold of a batch of documents that incriminate you and many of your colleagues.
You are aware that these documents are soon to become public information under the Freedom of Information Act.
In order to deflect attention away from yourself, you remove any documents that you wrote or that references you and you find a way to early release the rest of the incriminating documents to the public. Thus you are not a part of the initial firestorm and you have time to work on survival strategies.
I have found over the years that 95% of conspiracy theories are bogus. Never the less, this one should be checked out.
I thought this was going to be a science-based discussion from the James Hansen. Then I read his tripe about “intimidation”. What the hell does he think sceptical scientists have had to put up with for years? Doesn’t like a taste of that particular medicine? Tough – he and his acolytes have been caught out lying and defrauding the public and the public got angry. Best thing to do is for those with dirty hands to slide out of the public eye and let clean hands take over.
Mr Hansen claims his data shows AGW. Big deal. We know global temps will show warming and we know it will show AGW. Its called “urban heat island effect” and it is indeed man-made, so all those claims are true. It has little to do with CO2 in the atmosphere. Hansen’s data does not demonstrate any causality – only increased human activity results in increased measured temperature, increased UHI and increased CO2. We just can’t tell what causes which and even if we could we have absolutely no way of telling from this data if it really matters. So far the temperatures since WWII have been rising in the record – but where is the ACTUAL damage done to planet earth over those years? Looks much the same to me.
nanuuq (23:38:36) :
Here we find a good analysis from the side of those worried about global warming, and the effects it has on the future of our world. I expect the usual crap from the usual commentators here who in no way try to really analyze the data or results.
It is not a good analysis. It is an analysis with faults. The crucial faults are painfully gathered in the data of the http://www.surfacestations.org/of the host of this blog.
Only a small percentage of US temperature records are really within the norms quoted by the analysis of Hansen ( at some obscure reference), the US has the best records, and if they are so faulty one cannot take world records in grids of thousands of kilometers on trust, to get global values as the analysis does. He just ignores the errors.
EVEN if humans are not responsible for global warming, how are we to minimize the effects of the REAL TRUE WARMING we are currently seeing? Even if CO2 is not the main culprit, could reducing the emiision reduce the overall warming going on?
Please tell me how much has the west suffered from this tiny increase of temperatures over the last hundred years and the increase of CO2? By larger productivity? More livable conditions?
Look what is happening in the US and particularly Europe with this sudden cold influx to see how much more one suffers from a bit of cold than a bit of heat.
Why should we minimize a bit of warming? If it keeps on at this 2 degrees per century and if some low lying regions have problems there is a lot of time to solve them without destroying the western economic fabric.
I would like you to study the following http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
fully documented series of global temperatures and come back and tell me if in the grand scheme of things we should be wary of heat, ( the tiny red line in the last figure) or of cold.
I return your comment to you:
PLEASE sit back and think a bit instead of behaving like a religious revival.
Alleagra 01:20:28
Me too!!
Nice to see Suzanne voice an honest opinion. I am amazed by Hansen’s admission, only two errors were made by this wonderful team of dilligent and much maligned saints. The nasty people who discovered these errors splashed them all over the main stream media and bathed in the blood of the faithfull. I trust he is regurgitating a media managed spin and does not actually believe this missive.
Me too!
for Willis and the scientists sacrificed for Hansen’s beliefs
Our Gav says at UnReal Climate:-
Response: People are free to clutter up all manner of bulletin boards and forums and threads elsewhere with repetitive, oft-debunked random talking points. Just not here. If you want to have a dialog about science then we’re good, but if you want to insult scientists, insinuate wrong-doing or post random links to the same, then that isn’t going to work. Feel free to try again. – gavin”
Modest you are Gav to a fault. Now Gav you mustn’t get upset no one is trying to rubbish scientists only self named climate scientists who:-
1 Conspire to prevent publication of other scientists work.
2 Conspire to pervert the democratic process.
3 Distort and delete data to arrive at an answer they want to suit their political ends.
4 Destroy public property
Give my love to your mates, naughty little boys see.
I think he has been copying Professor Hansens syntax.
The disturbing thing about Hansen is that when NASA tried to shut him up, the forces behind him were stronger than both NASA and the US government. I assume it was Soros and Gore. Soros is arguably the most successful criminal in human history and Gore the luckiest.
The problem with scientists getting involved in politics is that they are more often than not (seriously) stupid, childish and ill mannered. Realclimate is like a a reality TV version of ‘The Lord of the Flies’ novel by William Golding.
Hansen has made a lot of apocalyptic statements, all of which he knows to be lies. He appeared in a UK court case comparing coal trains to Auschwitz. Even although that displays an incredibly immature mind, it is difficult to have any sympathy with his complaints of intimidation and harassment. His use of the ‘swift boating’ phrase puts him right in the firing line, like a kid shouting at a bear.
He is Gavin Schmidt’s boss at NASA GISS and is therefore l;ikely to have been the real driving force behind Realclimate and climategate. His name being protected for political reasons.
“There is a slight downward tick at the end of the record, but even that may disappear if 2010 is a warm year.”
“there is a high likelihood, I would say greater than 50 percent, that 2010 will be the warmest year in the period of instrumental data.”
Promises, promises.
Time to take the thermometer out of your …..
nanuuuq: You wrote, “EVEN if humans are not responsible for global warming, how are we to minimize the effects of the REAL TRUE WARMING we are currently seeing?”
Sorry to answer a question with a question, but why would you want to minimize the effects of “the REAL TRUE WARMING we are currently seeing?”
@nanuuq
As you’ve characterised the mentality of others, please could you put your cards on the table and describe your own views?
You’ve mentioned worry about global warming. Do you also worry about:
– poverty in the third world?
– resource depletion?
– nuclear proliferation?
– greed?
– consumerism?
– nationalism?
– tribal genocide?
– resurgence of tribalism in the first world?
– the clash of civilisations?
– other science gone bad, like genetic modification?
– overpopulation?
– underpopulation?
– AIDS? and would you advocate mandatory testing of everyone to establish whom has AIDS, to protect the general population from its silent spread?
Do you think that consumerism is leading to disaster and we need a moral revival along the lines of Zen Buddhist selflessness, letting go of attachment to material desires, and dissolution of the normal identity with self, family, and nation?
Would you advocate that nation states be abolished (“imagine there’s no countries”) and that every human on Earth have equal access to the same education, materials, and open information?
You’ll forgive me asking all this, but whilst we’re on the topic of “mentality”, I agree with you that there is a big problem with people’s mentality and that is what is driving a great deal of the controversy. But, and this is the big but, we all have a mentality, we all have a mental point of view, a perspective, a belief in values and principles, and it is the clash of those values and principles that is what is underneath the seeming clash between “sceptics” and “environmentalists”.
You might find many of the items I listed objectionable, or perhaps you like some of them. I dunno. I have my opinions, you have yours. But please say something about your mentality, your point of view, your politics and principles and in short, what you think is “healthy”. See, different people have a lot of ideas about what is “healthy”, many people disagree profoundly on their definitions of “healthy” (“aggressive” vs. “compassionate”, for example) and so I proposed that list above, to start to explore specifics.
Personally I’m quite worried about resurgence of tribalism in the first world, as that would really destroy the environment. I’m also all for Zen Buddhism spreading as people need to learn some detachment from their egocentric and nationalistic viewpoints, and their belief that “rationality” is the best way even when practiced without self-questioning (I’m sure Hitler thought he was right). And I’m all for eating meat as the best diet, until someone can find a better alternative that doesn’t involve covering the globe with unhealthy grain crops. I could go on, but I think perhaps you could say something about your view of the world. I’m trying to be playful here. 🙂
Read his press releases.
Poor Jim. He has called for people to be jailed. He has whipped up hysteria.
GISS is his responsibility. He has had the clout for decades, to make sure his measuring stations were measuring ambient ie land based temperatures.
He is at best guilty of incompetence.
We need the code, and we need answers why the USA (Ignoring Alaksa and Hawaii) is a global hotspot.
Those are his stations, are they not.
Not urban heating.
Somewhere the world’s smallest violin is playing a sorrowful tune.
Hansen can go suck eggs. NOBODY who pushes or pushed the hockey stick will ever have any credibility or sympathy from me. That thing was so obviously corrupt that only a knave or fool would promote it. Mr Hansen has convinced me that he has enough education to not have been fooled by it. That leaves him a knave.
I don’t care what anyone says about him, false or true. Prosper by the lie, see your career die by the lie.
Faster, please.
Hansen says the perceived cooling is due to the exceptional 1998 El Niño.
But what would have been the global temperature if this El Niño had not occurred ?
From 1988 to 1998, the global temperature was pretty stable !
Thought this was interesting:-
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll after “climategate.” Scientists “significantly” losing credibility with the public:
“Scientists themselves also come in for more negative assessments in the poll, with four in 10 Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment. That’s up significantly in recent years. About 58 percent of Republicans now put little or no faith in scientists on the subject, double the number saying so in April 2007. Over this time frame, distrust among independents bumped up from 24 to 40 percent, while Democrats changed only marginally.
So its not just Republicans that don’t believe AGW anymore. Floating voters have thrown in the towel too. Only Democrats seem totally unmoved by the daily controversy. You get the impression that even the beginning of the next ice-age wouldn’t shift a Democrats opinion on the matter. At least both the Republicans and the floating voaters have shown themselves to be open-minded to a degree. The CRU emails have blown the consensus nonsense out the water and all but the Democrats have responded to the new reality.
Jim Hansen :How did we devolve to this state? ( of angry personal threats )
Answer : Because in 1988-89 you were expounding AGW alarminist statements such as
“The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water in 2008. ”
$ Billions have been diverted to your false alarm, money that should have been spent, amongst many other essentials, on health care. It is a terrible dis-service to the people you are paid to serve.
It’s a case of the old childrens moral story – ‘the boy shepard who cried wolf’.
Now your pretending you don’t know why the people are angry?
You are a ruthless evil man.
Nanuuq has an interesting approach. Seems to run like this:
For decency’s sake, let’s cut the schoolyard bullying, settle down, open our hearts and minds and look long and hard at the science. Loooong and haaaard…
Okay, your five seconds are up!
Dear Dr. Hansen:
Catastrophists have always been popular. Now they produce fake documentaries (which, although exagerating by far the “consensus” IPCC figures, are not discredited by scientifics like you) and receive the Nobel prize.
How can you think we should take you seriously? How can we take seriously Dr. Pachauri when he pretends to expel skeptics out of the planet?
Please, stop stealing money from American taxpayers and leave the rest of mankind alone.
There once was a shepherd boy (who worked for NASA GISS) who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, “Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep! A new ice age is coming.”
The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.
“Don’t cry ‘wolf’, shepherd boy,” said the villagers, “when there’s no wolf!” They went grumbling back down the hill.
Later, the boy sang out again, “Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep! The planet is heating catastrophically and we will all die.” To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him drive the wolf away.
When the villagers saw no wolf they sternly said, “Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don’t cry ‘wolf’ when there is NO wolf!”
But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.
Later, he saw a REAL wolf prowling about his flock and giant asteroid which was hurtling towards the Earth. Alarmed, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, “Wolf! Wolf!”
But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn’t come.
At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn’t returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill to find the boy. They found him weeping.
“There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out, “Wolf!” Why didn’t you come? The asteroid is but moments away.”
An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.
“We’ll help you look for the lost sheep and the asteroid in the morning,” he said, putting his arm around the youth, “Nobody believe….”
Anthony,
I’m sorry. I try to never post more than a couple lines at a time. Please trim, snip, or edit as you fell necessary.
I take it that Mr. Hansen’s “refereed papers” were actually “peer reviewed”. Saying “peer reviewed” gets you a horse laugh right now… so I guess we’ll go with his terminology.
For years Jim Hansen has screamed at the top of his NASA-sponsored lungs that floods, famine, drought, deglaciation, etc., were just around the corner. These very vocal pronouncements were based on his “adjusted” and projected warmer temperature reports. Now he’s astounded that people previously excited by his exhortations, might momentarily believe he had something to do with the leaked East Anglia CRU e-mails:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php
and react in a negative fashion. Does he really feel his lack of inclusion in the CRU e-mail release sheds suspicion of him as the source? If such fanatical true believers yell at him behind police lines or express their chagrin by e-mail, such is life in the real political world. If one can’t handle the results of your own political activities, why whine about it and slip in backhanded blame non-believers or rumormongers for the panic ?
Unless the material was “snipped”, I don’t recall anyone making a serious connection between Jim Hansen and the release of the CRU data and e-mails on this blog. Perhaps he’s just embarrassed by not being in “the Team’s” loop.
There are several non-mutually exclusive theories involving solar output, sun-earth magnetic fields, orbital mechanics, cosmic ray level variations causing changes in cloud formation, and greenhouse gas emissions explaining in whole or in part, fluctuations in regional and global air, land, and sea surface temperatures.
Mr. Hansen appears to equate some of those individuals advocating greater scientific weight be given solar output theories with rude, foul or threatening language. This observation appears to be a strange aside within a referenced report like this one. His observation does not strengthen or weaken the validity of the evolving alternative propositions.
When discussing using reporting stations 1,000 miles apart I’m not sure why Mr. Hansen’s example involves New Your City and Philadelphia. The distance between these two cities is about 94 miles. Des Moines, Iowa, is about 1,000 miles west of New York City. Sadly Mr. Hansen’s logic was used not only at the poles to calculate anomalies but for Australia, with those results used to extrapolate many of the temps for the southern hemisphere. Mr. Hansen’s method of research covered a similar situation for large swatches of land in the Soviet Union (until 1991) when it all fell apart. Those anomalous calculations continued despite mass confusion in the steppes and gulags.
He opines that “Care must be taken” to control the data, raw, half-baked or well done, and not let it out into the public domain before… what? These folks are supposed to the THE experts, but they can’t be relied upon to get their reports right the first time? If you catch their mistake, they may just ignore you. If you have an audience you are excoriated for your audacity in questioning their methods and reports.
Mr Hansen complaints about FOI and passing along copies of the data he might be currently working. Providing such information does not deprive the researchers of any measure or bit of the information.
By U.S. law, if you work for the government, or are in a program directly funded by the government, ANYONE can make a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for your data, copies of your e-mails, programs, meta-data, and land-based correspondence. It is our RIGHT to ask for general or specific information, and by accepting your government job, you automatically agreed to play by the rules of engagement.
I agree with Mr. Hansen that nothing in the “E-MAILS” (emphasis added) can be seen as “altering the reality and magnitude of global warming in the INSTRUMENTAL (emphasis added) record.” Bad sensors, decaying orbits, rotten station citings, inexplicable adjustments to temperature reports, improper underestimation of the persistent effect of urban heat islands on instrument readings, etc. aren’t directly reported in the e-mails. That the results of such accidental or intentional defects are glossed over by both CRU and GISS personnel is there for everyone to see.
But wait.. what about all that DATA and the PROGRAMS that escaped with the leaked e-mails? Uh, well, uh, umm.
How much whale drek can Mr. Hansen float together to say, “It’s not my fault.” ?