Climategate: You should be steamed
By NEIL FRANK, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Jan. 2, 2010
Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by “Climategate.”
If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations.
Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications.
But who are the skeptics? A few examples reveal that they are numerous and well-qualified. Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people’s endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March. They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel’s report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide.
Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to “strongly reconsider” her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS’ true position.
What do the skeptics believe? First, they concur with the believers that the Earth has been warming since the end of a Little Ice Age around 1850. The cause of this warming is the question. Believers think the warming is man-made, while the skeptics believe the warming is natural and contributions from man are minimal and certainly not potentially catastrophic à la Al Gore.
Second, skeptics argue that CO2 is not a pollutant but vital for plant life. Numerous field experiments have confirmed that higher levels of CO2 are positive for agricultural productivity. Furthermore, carbon dioxide is a very minor greenhouse gas. More than 90 percent of the warming from greenhouse gases is caused by water vapor. If you are going to change the temperature of the globe, it must involve water vapor.
Third, and most important, skeptics believe that climate models are grossly overpredicting future warming from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide. We are being told that numerical models that cannot make accurate 5- to 10-day forecasts can be simplified and run forward for 100 years with results so reliable you can impose an economic disaster on the U.S. and the world.
The revelation of Climategate occurs at a time when the accuracy of the climate models is being seriously questioned. Over the last decade Earth’s temperature has not warmed, yet every model (there are many) predicted a significant increase in global temperatures for that time period. If the climate models cannot get it right for the past 10 years, why should we trust them for the next century?
Climategate reveals how predetermined political agendas shaped science rather than the other way around. It is high time to question the true agenda of the scientists now on the hot seat and to bring skeptics back into the public debate.
Neil Frank, who holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in meteorology, was director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–87) and chief meteorologist at KHOU (Channel 11) until his retirement in 2008.
[h/t: Invariant]
Climategate: You should be steamed
By NEIL FRANK
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Jan. 2, 2010, 4:28PM
/*
Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by “Climategate.”
If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations.
Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications.
But who are the skeptics? A few examples reveal that they are numerous and well-qualified. Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people’s endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March. They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel’s report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide.
Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to “strongly reconsider” her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS’ true position.
What do the skeptics believe? First, they concur with the believers that the Earth has been warming since the end of a Little Ice Age around 1850. The cause of this warming is the question. Believers think the warming is man-made, while the skeptics believe the warming is natural and contributions from man are minimal and certainly not potentially catastrophic à la Al Gore.
Second, skeptics argue that CO2 is not a pollutant but vital for plant life. Numerous field experiments have confirmed that higher levels of CO2 are positive for agricultural productivity. Furthermore, carbon dioxide is a very minor greenhouse gas. More than 90 percent of the warming from greenhouse gases is caused by water vapor. If you are going to change the temperature of the globe, it must involve water vapor.
Third, and most important, skeptics believe that climate models are grossly overpredicting future warming from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide. We are being told that numerical models that cannot make accurate 5- to 10-day forecasts can be simplified and run forward for 100 years with results so reliable you can impose an economic disaster on the U.S. and the world.
The revelation of ClimateÂgate occurs at a time when the accuracy of the climate models is being seriously questioned. Over the last decade Earth’s temperature has not warmed, yet every model (there are many) predicted a significant increase in global temperatures for that time period. If the climate models cannot get it right for the past 10 years, why should we trust them for the next century?
Climategate reveals how predetermined political agendas shaped science rather than the other way around. It is high time to question the true agenda of the scientists now on the hot seat and to bring skeptics back into the public debate.
Neil Frank, who holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in meteorology, was director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–87) and chief meteorologist at KHOU (Channel 11) until his retirement in 2008.
Mike: (11:08:42) A cursory examination of this subject would show you to be projecting. You swallowed the green pill.
“Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by “Climategate.”” NEIL FRANK
___________________________
So true! But By Who? (Whom?)
The professional associations? Whose boards sold their souls to the big bidders in spite of the divisions within their membership on the issue?
The politicans? Who sold their souls.. scratch that it doens’t make any sense.
The legal system? Give me a break.
Nope! Can’t think of anyone up to doing what the author is saying needs to be done. The only people who can do anything close to what is being suggested are the membership of the “professional” associations. Now they generally didn’t do anything before Copenhagen, so I guess there’s little chance of them cleaning their own houses after the great debacle.
PS: “When a house of cards gets too big it starts to fall.” (Unk)
Dr. Frank is breath of fresh air.
A few years ago his local weather report on KHOU followed a story about global warming. He was steamed and launched into an impromptu editorial, much along the vein of his above editorial, i.e., we can’t predict the weather a few days into the future, much less develop computer models that will predict climate change years into the future.
It was great.
Mike, I will now pose a question to you that I posed to a poster named Skeptical Skeptic on another thread. What kind of world do you want to see? Where do you see mankind in the future?
Thank you, excellent article.
One of the statements I’ve noticed on this site over time is a comment in response to a post that goes something like this… “He/She is not a climate scientist. Move on.” That statement may have carried some weight before the 11/19/09 release of emails and contorted data from CRU files. Today the last thing I would want to be known as is a climate scientist.
This episode has brought shame to the field of climate scientists. Both Mann and Jones have stepped down, and now I’ve learned that Ripkon has left the NY Times. There will be other disclosures about events and data discussed in the released emails.
My background is civil engineering. Many who frequent this site have far more impressive credentials in wide ranging fields of physics, chemistry, meteorology, oceanography, astronomy, geology, solar physics and palleo aspects of many of these fields. This is a strength of this site. It takes the perspectives of all of these scientific program areas to begin to understand what is occurring that might have some influence on climate. Unfortunately for those caught up in climate gate, they apparently drank the cool aide that allowed them to perch above the overwhelming majority of actual scientists in many fields to preach the gospel of anthropogenic caused climate change, because, it would seem, they were climate scientists. What is a climate scientist? Other than someone caught up in this climate gate mess?
If I considered myself to be one, and I worked with cooked data from CRU and the other US and UK venerable institutions that are now tainted, I would be angry about what has occurred and would want to be in the forefront of the investigation called for by this author.
It was a sad day in Houston when Dr. Frank retired. Always clear headed, minimum of flim-flam, just the facts, and frequently a little dose of additional knowledge for the public.
The Houston Chronical, has largely been a pro-AGW organ. The cracks are appearing in MSM.
@ur momisugly Pascvaks (11:21:24) : I think the professional associations and trade publications need to agree on a set of standards for peer review, etc. Science (GW mostly) has become too politiczed and needs to regain some of its legitamecy.
Mike (11:08:42) :
“There is a lot of talk about what “skeptics believe” in this article. There is truth in that: the so-called skeptics are basing their opinions on belief”
After all of this, you really are a true believer, aren’t you?
Anyone without doubts, and that is not seriously questioning it all, at this point would have to be.
That’s Revkin, not Ripkon….thanks
CLIMATEGATE
THE LEBENSRAUM FALLACY
The Lebensraum doctrine of Green activists rests on three tenets they accept with an act of faith:
• We are running out of space. World population is already excessive on a limited planet and cannot grow without dire effects.
• We are running out of means. The planet’s non-renewable resources are being depleted by consumption at a rate that renders economic expansion unsustainable.
• We shall fry. Carbon dioxide emitted by human economic activity causes global warming that shall make the planet uninhabitable.
When such tenets are quantified, the contrast between true and false stands out sharply.
Is overpopulation a grave problem? The sum of urban areas of the United States is equivalent to 2% of the area of the country, and to 6% in densely inhabited countries such as England and Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas. If comparison is limited to land covered by buildings and pavements the occupied land in the whole world amounts to 0,04% of the terrestrial area of the planet. With 99.96% unoccupied the idea of an overcrowded planet is an exaggeration. Population forecasts are uncertain but the most accepted ones foresee stability of world population to be reached in the 21st century. According to some, world population may begin to decline at the end of this century. With so much elbowroom it is untenable that world population is excessive or shall ever become so.
Strictly speaking, no natural resource is non-renewable in a universe ruled by the Law of Conservation of Mass. In popular form it holds that “Nothing is created, nothing is lost, all is transformed.” Human usage is not subtracted from the mass of the planet, and in theory all material used may be recycled. The possibility of doing so depends on availability and low cost of energy. When fusion energy becomes operative it will be available in practically unlimited quantities. The source is deuterium, a hydrogen isotope found in water, in a proportion of 0.03%. One cubic kilometer of seawater contains more energy than can be obtained from combustion of all known petroleum reserves of the world. Since oceans hold 3 billion cubic kilometers of water, energy will last longer than the human species.
There is no growing shortfall of resources signaled by rising prices. Since the middle of the 19th century The Economist publishes consistent indices of values of commodities and they have all declined, over the period, due to technological advances. The decline has been benign. The cost of feeding a human being was 8 times greater in 1850 than it is today. In 1950, less than half of a world population of 2 billion had an adequate diet, above 2000 calories per day. Today, 80% have the diet, and world population is three times greater.
There is a problem with the alleged global warming. It stopped in 1998, after having risen in the 23 previous years, and unleashing a scare over its effects. Since 1998 it has been followed by 11 years of declining temperatures, in a portent of a cold 21st century. This shows that there are natural forces shaping climate, more powerful than manmade carbon dioxide and anything mankind can do for or against world climate. The natural forces include cyclical oscillation of ocean temperatures, sunspot activity and the effect of magnetic activity of the sun on cosmic rays. All such cycles are foreseeable, but there is no general theory of climate with predictive capacity. What knowledge exists comes from one hundred fields, such as meteorology, oceanography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, paleontology, biology, etc. with partial contributions to the understanding of climate.
Devoid of support of solid theory and empirical data, the mathematical models that underpin alarmist forecasts amount to speculative thought that reflects the assumptions fed into the models. Such computer simulations offer no rational basis for public policy that inhibits economic activity “to save the planet”. And carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is the nutrient needed for photosynthesis that supports the food chain of all living beings of the planet.
Stories of doom circulate daily. Anything that happens on earth has been blamed on global warming: a Himalayan earthquake, a volcanic eruption, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, tribal wars in Africa, heat wave in Paris, recent severe winters in North America, the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, known for five centuries, the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota. Evo Morales blames Americans for the summer floods in Bolivia.
Global warming is not a physical phenomenon; it is a political and journalistic phenomenon that finds parallel in the totalitarian doctrines that inebriated masses deceived by demagogues. As Chris Patten put it: “Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off”. In the view of Professor Aaron Wildavsky global warming is the mother of all environmental scares. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.” Their dream is the hippies’ lifestyle of idleness, penury, long hair, unshaven face, blue jeans, sandals and vegetarian diet, imposed on the world by decree of Big Brother, and justified by the Lebensraum fallacy.
“Mike (11:08:42) :
[…]The cognitive dissonance is loud and not so astonishing. ”
Hey big word. What IS cognitive dissonance?
wikipedia (sorry):
“Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. ”
Care to explain Mike?
rob m (11:39:45) :
@ur momisugly Pascvaks (11:21:24) : I think the professional associations and trade publications need to agree on a set of standards for peer review, etc. Science (GW mostly) has become too politiczed and needs to regain some of its legitamecy.
_____________________
Couldn’t have said it better.
The older I get the more disillusioned and sarcastic I become. Thank you.
I once worked with Dr. Frank with issues coastal erosion while in the NWS at Cape Hatteras NC.
I have studied AGW. I believe that AGW is real, it’s why we have had the recent warming, but that there are other cycles and “natural variation” also occasionally masking the warming. I believe we also have to do something to change our ways but I take no emotional romance to this, though I consider myself to be very green politically. that said I’m after the facts and want to learn from any skeptic that would give me a little of their time and respect and find out exactly where we depart on theory.
I’d like to keep the politics out of it if at all possible – no Al Gore’s, just basic physics and chemistry and why it is that so many on this blog are absolutley certain that CO2 or any chemistry is not the reason for the heating.
forget the hockey stick and the so called climate gate means nothing to me if the basic science is correct starting with this:
http://www.picotech.com/experiments/global/globalwarming.html
Somebody please tell me their thoughts?
Respectfully, Roger
>Coal is a much bigger CO2 problem than oil. Coal, coal, coal – not oil. The big problem is coal.
How is coal a problem? (except for mountain mining). I live in Pennsylvania and we get a large % of our electricity from coal. Our winds are from the west and Indiana, Ohio and Illinois all burn a large amount of coal. Yet, we have no pollution, except for some in the cities, where they burn NO COAL.
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Existing_U.S._Coal_Plants#Statistical_Data_On_Existing_U.S._Coal-Fired_Generating_Stations
Mike:
“There is a lot of talk about what “skeptics believe” in this article. There is truth in that: the so-called skeptics are basing their opinions on belief, not on facts or scientific evidence.”
Kindly point to what, in this article, leads you to this conclusion.
“The parallels between the way Big Tobacco fought science and the current “debate” are deep and significant.”
This statement is for propaganda value only. However, you forgot to include that skeptics are “uneducated, gun-carrying, God fearing flat-earthers”. You need more practice with the rhetoric.
“Believers think the warming is man-made, while the skeptics believe the warming is natural and contributions from man are minimal and certainly not potentially catastrophic à la Al Gore.”
Is this what skeptics think? I am a skeptic, and I say it is not known what the truth is. I could have as a hypothesis that man’s contributions will not lead to catastrophic consequences, but I would hope my fellow skeptics are not so balkanized by the egregious actions of the warmers they leave science behind.
Thank you Mr. Frank, there is nothing to add.
The solution to the energy security problem is simple and doesn’t involve slapping consumers with carbon and other hidden taxes. It would also speed up the task of bringing clean energy and halt this misanthropic carbon cult.
Governments should lower corporate taxes on energy producing companies by at least 20%. The savings the companies make should go directly into a collective fund in which all the companies of the world come together to create an open source project to discover the all the best means to power the future.
Once they have worked out the answer the technology will be 80% owned privately by the consortium of companies and 20% nationalised. The latter will be compensation for the tax breaks they received and all the free public thought they received during the globalised open source project.
Memorise that and spread it, push your governments to think like that, because I can’t think of a better and more fairer solution that serves everyone’s interests.
Looks like our unelected leader of the UK, Mr Brown is going ahead with a £100 billion windfarm plan.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6973943.ece
Scientists and climate scientists should speak out now.
You know the guy we should email? Ralph Keeling – the son of the father of the CO2 is increasing in our atmosphere – the Keeling curve.
CO2 is increasing so it must cause something dangerous. Ok that is a reasonable hypothesis. But does it stack up with the evidence.
He is an honest guy. Email him and ask him frankly does he have doubts that CO2 is a pollutant, if he believes that the scientific case that CO2 will cause harmful Global warming is settled?
Recently James Randi has jumped down from the fence onto the side of the sceptics. If Ralph Keeling were to do so, the authorities would have to take notice.
PS this is what James Randi concluded his thoughts on AGW with:
“From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1891 A Scandal in Bohemia, I quote:
Watson: “This is indeed a mystery,” I remarked. “What do you imagine that it means?”
Holmes: I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts…”
Roger (12:01:23) :
“Somebody please tell me their thoughts?”
_________________________
Fair enough. Take a brief refresher on the Little Ice Age for me. What part of climate change from the beginning of the 14th to the end of the 19th centuries was induced by man? What’s wrong with Global Warming? The dinosaurs didn’t mind. Now the flipside: When was the last time you got frostbite? Hypothermia? Wouldn’t you rather be water skiing in Alaska than freezing in Florida? It ain’t the heat that’s the problem. The problem for me is all the d@ur momisugly#n idiot politicians who’ve been fired up to raise my taxes for something called Global Warming when there’s no problem to solve.
I may sound like one hand clapping, but it’s my hand.
It is fair to assess the outlook of skeptics to read ‘disbelief’. The Believers are the Warmists followers, who are practicing a form of faith. Upon examination, it’s hard to continue blind acceptance when the world around us grows colder.
The science has been railroaded, the record monkeyed with or erased, the predictions pre-determined, the evidence offered cherry-picked, and the storyline monopolized. Collusion was assured by rich rewards or smear threats.
Meanwhile, the Climate did an about-face, backwards march from the warm state it has been in for nearly 3 decades.
It looks like Transylvania out here. What little sun there has been is weak and seen through misty days.
Record snows cover much of the Northern Hemisphere with ever more serious cold snaps in the wings.
It’s very painful to watch the official mainstream forecasts beach themselves in twisted agony. Trapped between climactic reversals and warming-programmed models, the big fish find themselves snared in their own netting.
No exit.
The smart ones stepped away many months ago.
I know Jones has ‘stepped aside’, but is this true also for Mann? It wasn’t my impression, but it would not be a disaster if I was wrong ….
“Roger (12:01:23) :
[…]
Somebody please tell me their thoughts?”
Roger, the basic mechanism of greenhouse gases is not disputed.
But: The greenhouse effect is created by CO2 and water vapour.
These two gasses have a complex interrelationship. It works a bit
counterintuitively:
Earth sends radiation upwards (to cool down).
CO2 and water vapour diffuse this radiation, in the end sending hald of it back downwards and half upwards. due to the physics of absorption and re-radiation, this is always 50:50 !
The greenhouse effect of combined CO2 and water vapour already did this to ALL the IR even before we started emitting industrial CO2!
Now what happens when we increase CO2? Here it becomes complicated.
Basically, the atmosphere becomes optically denser for IR. The absorption and re-radiation happens even earlier – closer to the surface. As a consequence, the higher layers of atmosphere cool down a little and the HUMIDITY DROPS!
When Pinatubo emitted huge amounts of CO2 this was observed!
This means: More CO2 –> less humidity –> same overall greenhouse effect.
It all balances out.
Don’t take my word for it, read this:
http://ker-plunk.blogspot.com/2008/06/saturated-greenhouse-effect-wrecks.html
and for the underlying theory the formulas from:
http://miskolczi.webs.com/ZM_v10_eng.pdf
I know it sounds counterintuitive but there IS NO RUNAWAY FEEDBACK BECAUSE THE ENERGY IS JUST NOT THERE.
Sorry to say this loud but that’s what it boils down to. We already had a maximum greenhouse effect for millions of years.
Here is the question: If within 500 miles, you have places that show warming and places that show cooling, how can it possibly be called global warming? There are a dozen stations in Calif that show cooling, or at least holding, since 1895, at least to my eye… and that is after the data has been homogenized! Explore more at the following link; and for an example, plot the Santa Rosa, monthly temperature vs years, data:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ushcn_map_interface.html
My contention is: since cooling is the normal, natural process and warming is a forced, or external process, if there are places on the globe that are cooling, then the globe as a whole must still be cooling, warming is simply local!
Stephen