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.)
Even if all the data can be trusted and the warming as presented in the graphs is 100% correct, it doesn’t follow that CO2 is the culprit. I am still waiting for the proof.
Dr. Hansen, explain to me why the warming after 1975 is largely man-made and the warming between 1910 and 1945 largely natural? That’s all we are asking: any feature in the temperature data or any other climate feature in the last 3 decades that is specific for CO2 forcing. I am willing to become a AGW believer, even an alarmist, if you could present me with a plausible answer. To make it even easier on you, it doesn’t have to be a proof, just sufficiently plausible.
Wow, Hanson has no shame. HE is the guy advising Energy company execs be tried for crimes against humanity… and he has the gall to claim skeptics are politicized?
The problem, Jim is not so much in the data adjustment, but in the alteration of the original data, which is then portrayed as the real deal.
If the original data has not been altered, it has been lost or removed.
It is substituted with FILNET.
Emails to the agency who should know where to find the missing original data reveals that the Station History list refers to a lot more data than is found in the set of Observers Reports.
Checks with archives and societys where summations of meteorologic conditions of the past are kept reveals a lot of original data is missing, but was once collected.
Checks with local newspapers reveals large discrepancies in some of the digital copies of the Observer’s Forms, which are not signed or are marked ‘late report’ and bear other signs that they have been placed there recently.
Bottom line, Jim, is that too much liberty has been taken with the records.
Data that should have been treasured was not.
The end result is that the meteorological data record proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming is based upon doctored records.
I see it. So should you.
Hansen complains of “death threats” emanating from Breitbart after he says, on June 24th of last year, “In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.” A pox on both their houses, but it seems like the pot calling the kettle black.
Until Dr Hansen PROPERLY compensates for the huge enrichment of urban sites and dropout of rural sites in the 1990s (USSR collapse), also makes a PROPER adjustment for the ongoing UHI effect, which, by the way, increases every year, and undoes the spurious adjustments done to so many site datasets, his temperature graphs will never match reality.
Failing to do so and then claiming that we are warming when rural sites consistently, around the world, show cooling, means that he, like his CRU Team friends, has an agenda.
CO2 is a trace gas, water vapor is huge negative feedback factor, and the solar irradiance is not the point – it is the periodicity and the solar wind strength. He needs to drop the “solar irradiance is the only way the Sun affects us” routine.
“Here are key excerpts from the press release posted by Marc Morano (HT Watts Up With That via Tigerhawk; bolds are mine):
NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009.
….. “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.
….. Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results.”
http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/01/28/former-boss-rebukes-nasa-global-warming-alarmist-hansen-is-agw-skeptic/
Hansen’s boss says they do not forecast and why they don’t. Hansen can’t stop himself for some reason. Why would Hansen’s boss know climate models are useless? Is he referring to Hansen’s models?
Who offered a sunspot model that predicted today’s solar activity?
nanuuq (23:38:36) : “It saddens me to see the politization of science, but this is not new, just ask Galileo. PLEASE sit back and think a bit instead of behaving like a religious revival.”
One simply has to go back to those immortal words of the Rev Algore:” The science is settled”. This is where is started. The whole science has been hijacked by he and those like him for political and personal enrichment reasons. We can never sit back and allow this to happen.
What no one has addressed is the possibility that Hansen is being paid to promote global warming extremism. No scientist with an ounce of self respect would shoot off his mouth in the lunatic ways he has.
Soros is one of the top hedge fund managers on Wall Street and stands to make a large profit from the multi trillion dollar carbon trading derivative market. Which is designed to replace the dearly departed mortgage derivative market
***
The biggest lobbying group at Copenhagen was the International Emissions Trading Association which was created to promote carbon trading more than ten years ago.
Its members include :-
BP, Conoco Philips, Shell, E.ON AG (coal power stations owner, EDF (one of the largest participants in the global coal market), Gazprom (Russian oil and gas), Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley..
http://www.ieta.org/ieta/www/pages/index.php?IdSiteTree=1249
There was a little debate of Sunspot number versus SST [anomalies].
This page has some nice rolling average graphs about sunspot numbers:
http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/sunspot-update-february-2009/
My personal feeling is the guy who said the correlation between sunspot number and SST anomaly has broken down after 1980 is wrong. Unfortunately i don’t find any newer version of that correlation… Anybody know one?
I didn’t read a word, just scanned it and immediately noticed the TSI graph has been “adjusted”.
Sound and Fury…
I saw one point raised by Dr. Hansen and others who support Hansen’s method. It was that the trend in temperature record is more important thus the urban effect is expected to be small. It is just not true. The reason is simple enough. Cities undergo huge changes in time. The energy use, the number of people who live there, the surface type change etc all have rich history. To say looking at the trend can eliminate much of the urban effect is just ridiculous.
I also encourage people to go back to Hansen 1981 and 1987 papers to study themselves what his method is really working on. Then you can criticize or support Dr. Hansen with more confident. Meanwhile, read papers by others who disagree with Hansen as well.
Hansen is a victim, so are Mann, Gavin etc… please Ladies and Gentlemen, your generosity will save you from certain oblivion by rising oceans, droughts and unprecedented storms, and green little deathsquads… show some compassion.
NK
“Hans,
You miss the point. Hansen is telling us in advance that according to the “instrument data” 2010 will be warmest. GISS controls the data FROM ‘instruments’ and adjusts and “extrapolates” the temp record. Hansen is telling us he will make damned sure that 2010 comes out warmest, because GISS will rig the result. Outrageous.”
Thank you,
That’s exactly how I read it.
Of course Theon said the climate models are useless: Thier biggest feature is a crystal ball factor based on thin air, which is then used to blow smoke up a tailpipe.
And his entire last paragraph is a bald faced lie;
If the data were available, why are they telling us it’s been lost?
I am assuming the data he refers to at GISS is the adjusted data, which is available, but somewhat dubious. Raw data and the adjustment method used counts, adjusted data does not count.
To his final point; every time a skeptic gets ahold of the data and process, the peer reviewed article is torn to shreads (as in MBH 98). That’s why they are withholding the data and code. That’s why the documents and code released in FOIA are the real gem, and a very real threat to his career. To say this hasn’t happened is just a flat out falsehood.
Hansen is certainly aware of this. That makes him a liar.
Cheers!
In an earlier post in this thread (GaryPearse (01:59:37) :
Excuse me but wasn’t this man the one who was calling for imprisonment or the death penalty … )
I recalled Hansen talking about having dissenters severly punished: here is an August 2008 article of the Heartland Institute on the subject:
“NASA astronomer James Hansen, one of the most visible and vocal proponents of alarmist global warming theory, has called for criminal trials against scientists, corporate executives, and public policy advocates who disagree with him.
Saying skeptics of global warming alarmism are guilty of “crimes against humanity”–the same charge leveled against notorious mass murderers Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and high-ranking Nazis in the Nuremburg trials–Hansen bemoaned the “natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process.”
Hansen made his remarks, quoted in the UK Register, a day before he appeared at an informal Capitol Hill briefing and addressed a media event hosted by the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental activist group……..
….At the June 23 Worldwatch Institute event commemorating the 20-year anniversary of his first appearance before Congress, Hansen made several scientifically dubious predictions he alleged were more than 99 percent certain to happen. Disagreeing with Hansen on any of these would apparently justify criminal prosecution and a potential death sentence.”
http://www.globalwarmingheartland.com/Article.cfm?artId=23544
I hope gentle folk like nanuq (various tirades against posters in this thread) will be shocked to learn of Hansen’s prescription for posters in this thread. Hansen would apparently use the police not just for self protection but to round the dissenters up and have them eliminated.
After climategate, the usual harassment squad that polluted WUWT topics was conspicuous by their absence. I see they are trickling back spouting the nonsense that it took the “fiddlers three” and others on the hockey team a month to generate after the email conspirators were outed .
Posted by Chris Schoneveld ‘Dr. Hansen, explain to me why the warming after 1975 is largely man-made and the warming between 1910 and 1945 largely natural? That’s all we are asking: any feature in the temperature data or any other climate feature in the last 3 decades that is specific for CO2 forcing. I am willing to become a AGW believer, even an alarmist, if you could present me with a plausible answer. To make it even easier on you, it doesn’t have to be a proof, just sufficiently plausible.’
I agree, the rate of increase in the temps for both warming periods looks very similar. If this increase was due to CO2 then wouldn’t the slope of the increase steepen to match the rate of increase in the CO2 in the atmosphere, much like the dreseded Hockey Stip graph.
That it doesn’t just shows there is something else causing the effect, could be man made but it isn’t CO2.
Very interesting program on UK CH4 last night, Man on Earth, it was looking at the effects of Climate change over the last 200 years and focused on 3 civilisations, Mayan, NA Indians in Colorado and Norse in Greenland. The civilisation that survived was the one that adapted eg the NA Indians, they reverted from an organised society to hunter gatherers. Also of interest was the use of Tree rings to show waterfall and no mention of temps. This was archaeologists research so they use tree ring data differently, have the Climate bods asked them for their info?
So let me get this right:
Hansen thinks that the sceptics think that he hacked and pirated the e-mails after removing any that mentioned him? Presumably in an attempt to undermine the CRU’s work.
Were the police escorting him wearing white coats?
This meandering whine of Hansen’s would have had some merit if he had honestly reviewed his own behavior some. An apology from him for calling for war crimes, and an admission that is apocalyptic clap trap, and over the top failed predictions about Manhattan flooding, etc. etc. etc. were ill advised.
Instead we get a rambling whine that is only deserving of cheap cheese.
Tom in Chilly Florida,
Do you have a link to Gore’s specific quote on that? AGW true believers are claiing he never said it. I think he did, and that his pals at google are indulging in a bit of Orwellian historical rhetoric control.
Hansen again blames global warming on CO2.
Do a simple experiment:
I think even non scientists can understand my thinking.
Experiment 1
We have a glass vessel, about 1000 liters, flushed and filled with 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, representing the earth and its atmosphere at the beginning.
We have a probe on the side, in the middle, connected to a thermocouple and a temperature recorder. We have a large heating element in the middle of the vessel. The vessel is closed from the outside. The outside temperature and humidity is kept constant, at all times.
A measured amount of energy is released into the vessel. The resulting increase of the temperature in the vessel is recorded until it falls back to the base line. The area below the curve is measured. The measurements are repeated until a constant result can be reported. (A)
We now double the amount of energy released into the vessel, this increase representing the doubling of energy released by human activity on earth from 3.5 billion people in 1960 to 7 billion people in 2009. The area below the curve is measured. The measurements are repeated until a constant result can be reported. (B)
In the case of this first experiment, the result is predictable i.e. if you double the amount of energy released in a vessel you should find close to a doubling of the area under your graph. This already proves that Henry’s theory rather than a 25% increase since 1960 in carbon dioxide may have some bearing on global warming. (For the time being Henry’s theory is still that global warming is caused by people releasing energy when flying, moving, cooking or just wanting to stay warm or cold)
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 is exactly the same as experiment 1, but now the vessel is filled with 80/20 N2/O2 + 350 ppm CO2. The results are C en D. What would be interesting for us to know is the difference between A and C and between B and D – in other words: if we release similar amounts of energy into the vessel, what effects, if any, does the carbon dioxide have on temperature retention inside the vessel?
From my investitagtions I have come to learn that the 350 ppm CO2 added in this experiment would aparrently be too small to have any effect on heat retention. In other words: there is no measurable difference between A and C and between B and D.
So now, from these simple thought experiments I have made the following conclusions:
a) the 70 ppms of CO2 added to the atmosphere since 1960 have had no measurable influence on heat retention (in this experiment)
b) if we add another 70 ppm’s (on top of the 350) it is doubtful that this will show any effect at all on same measurements , i.e. still no measurable heat retention in this experiment.
C) if anything, assuming the atmosphere is indeed a greenhouse, the result from experiment 1 must mean that global warming is caused by humans releasing energy in the atmosphere. That means: only that energy that we steal from nature is green (solar, wind, gravity, tidal etc.). Nuclear is not green, H2/O2 combustion (rocket fuel) is not green, fossil fuel is not green.
It seems that CO2 is just made a major culprit because it suits certain interest groups. “What else can it be?” let us have planet, add some CO2, see if the temperature goes up, it did, so that must be it.
Unfortunately, I think some decent testing would reveal that the CO2 is not to blame, at least not at current concentrations. What I found is: they used experiments with 100% CO2 and then extrapolated the results to smaller concentrations. You cannot do that. You always have to do your measurements at relevant concentrations, i.e. 0.02 – 0.05% (200-500 ppm) CO2
I have now proven to you and Mr Hansen that CO2 is not to blame. If you don’t believe me, do your own experiment (like I described), and please do report your results to me.
Wow, lots of detailed responses to such a simple article. My observations:
The paper seems only to address the validity of “his temperatures”. It didn’t seem to make the case properly but that’s just an opinion. The paper barley mentioned CO2, gave a brief reference to solar activity and summed it up by stating he doesn’t know the impact it has. He didn’t address many of the other issues (such as whether warming may have a positive or negative effect on the earth.) He admitted to several errors in his body of work, (“Another lesson learned.”) but won’t say that he may make more mistakes. In other words, this article avoids addressing his personal and professional history. It seems he wishes us to believe he is acting as a disinterested scientist, only reporting his findings. In other words, “don’t shoot the messenger.” Any one that has followed this issue for any amount of time, knows he is much more engaged than he would like us to believe. He is being disingenuous. Further, he expresses alarm as to the vitriol which surrounds this issue, and yet, he uses the words “deniers”(as if they equate to Holocaust deniers), “swift-boating”, and “character assassination” when he refers to climate skeptics. He himself has used these tactics very successfully. You have NOT made the case we should alter our energy and food sources in a dramatic, life changing manner to avert from some contrived looming disaster.
In other words, Mr. Hansen, nice try. You wrote an article that used yourself as a reference. You didn’t address any issues surrounding the topic of AGW. You only defended the temperatures you’ve “cleaned”. (All the while ignoring all the work done at WUWT as if none of it ever happened.) I’ll be waiting with baited breath for the time when you have the courage to address the concerns climate skeptics have with the “science” of AGW.
It is unfortunate if Hansen has reason to ask for police protection. However, remember the theatrics of his performance in a Congressional hearing in 1988 when they picked the hottest day and left the windows open all night to heat the room so everyone would be sweating. I would not put it past him to ask for police protection as a publicity stunt, to help them portray skeptics as a bunch of mobsters.
Perhaps Dr. Hansen needs a little chat time with his grandson to explain the difference between a “never give up attitude” and “bullheadedness” related to perceived ownership of a topic that is far bigger than even his apparent inflated opinion of his self importance regarding the matter. To employ the term swift boating would imply Dr. Hanson is feeling victimized and not properly loved and respected for his ability to procure grant funds.
Jim Hansen and his ilk have helped create this political mess. The team was perfectly content to sit quietly on the sidlines while the media and politicians hyped AGW. Where was Dr. Hansen when Al Gore released “An Inconvienent Truth”? Why wasn’t he speaking out when Al flattened the Medevil Warming Period? Now that the tide has turned against him, he is scrambling for cover. Whatever credibility he had left after claiming in the late 70’s that the globe was headed for another ice age has been shot to hell.
Dr. Hansen, your position is that CO2 is the main driver of global temperature, therfore, if we control CO2 we can control temperature correct? Also, you want us to believe that sometime during the last 100 years the globe was at it’s optimum temperature and this temperature must be maintained at all costs because any deviation is risking a catastrophic runaway scenario where the earth will fry. In order to believe this, we would have to ignore almost everything that we know about the earth’s past and current climate. You are completely ignoring any feedback mechanisms ( i.e. clouds) that would keep the temperature in check. You are simply speculating that, because CO2 concentrations are increasing and you have detected a warming pattern in YOUR data, the earth will eventually heat up and we will all sizzle. Whether you know it or not, this is your position.
DirkH,
Breibart was mocking the other side. Treason is usually a captial offense and the global warming alarmist had already proposed that “deniers” be treated as criminals.
For example:
Krugman: Republicans’ Climate Change Denial Amounts To Treason
It’s kinda funny actually. Funnier still that Hansen thought it was serious. Still funnier that the actual people he was being protected against were a mob of alarmists who thought he was the leaker.
Hansen is the jerk who supported mobs trespassing on energy plants and destroying equipment.