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.
Sorry, another retiree article on AGW, my my, will that ever see mainstream news. Nope. Nice to read it, but the alarmist are regrouping for an counter attack.
The myth must be shattered decisively. We must choke off their flow of money. We must demand that both sides must receive the same share of Government monies into climate change research. We must put pressure on business that support networks that peddle this hoax that it is in their best interest to support media that are willing to give a balanced account of the science.
A movie on climategate or a series on HBO or some other cable mainstream provider.
Unlike Y2K we don’t have a count down date to expose this hoax, we need to shove harder. Unfortunately the Canadian Government has decided that whatever the U.S. government decides is what Canada and other nations will be compiled to do or face trade sanctions.
It really is an American game, you have the ball now, push, push hard.
I can tell Neil Frank has been dealing with relaying ideas to the public for years.
He is easily understood.
Mike, that’s a problem of interpretation. I just watched an episode of Wallander, the Swedish detective. He is struggling with himself because he has the impression that the criminals are dark and foreign, but he is trying to ignore this impression because he is worried that it may just be a product of his own racism. I’ll not say how the story ends.
Sure, you can draw an interpretative parallel with Big Tobacco. But if anything, Big Tobacco illustrated that science can be corrupted. So how do you tell the real culprit? Carbon trading is a potential corruption. How would you make that judgement? How are we to interpret you, when you claim that the preponderance of evidence is in your favour, whilst people here are left scratching their heads over how the evidence could make any sense? Do you always trust experts? Do you trust the scientists who say there is no evidence that genetically modified food is unsafe? Do you support genetically modified food?
I refer you to David Ball’s question:
What kind of world do you want to see? Where do you see mankind in the future?
photon without a Higgs (13:59:37) :
Mike (11:00:17) :
The big problem is coal.
You’re right. There isn’t any where near enough of it being used!
This is a big problem.
=====================================
this discussion reminded me about acid rain, i haven’t heard much about it in the last decade. did we fix it?
I’m thinking we are over the target once again.
Roger, you are doing yourself no favors in ignoring ClimateGate and the hockey stick. They tell us exactly everything we need to know about climate science. The lead scientists admit they “can’t balance the energy budget”. They attempt to keep skeptic studies out of journals. Why would they do that? Finally, they “hide the decline” in order to put forth an invented view of historic temps. In other words, to create a hockey stick. What’s so important about that. Why did they think they needed a different history?
You will find that the reason is the entire science crumbles without it. GCMs that are forced to acknowledge the MWP and Roman optimums must provide natural climate sources for those times or they can’t hindcast. When those factors are combined with huge CO2 positive feedbacks the models fall apart. You don’t even need to understand models to see the problem.
So, the small, most likely beneficial, 1C rise per doubling of CO2 is not really what you need to focus on. The vast majority of skeptics already accept something in that range. In fact, they look forward to increased crop yields and expanded farmlands. The fact that most of that increase is in cooler northern climates makes it even more beneficial.
My advice to you is to do just the opposite of what you stated. Dig in and understand exactly what ClimateGate means and why the scientists were so keen on changing history.
“Roger (12:01:23) :
…Somebody please tell me their thoughts?”
Roger, I am a now retired R&D chemist. When I looked at the experiment you mentioned the first thing I saw was the warmer line on the graph corresponded to the bottle containing the most mass (mwt CO2 = 44; av mwt air is approximately 29). Thus for an interesting ‘like vs like’ experiment you might (carefully) pressurise the bottle full of air to 1.5 bar, and leave the bottle of CO2 at atmospheric pressure. The mass in each bottle would then be similar, but then the graph would be different, possibly with the relationship reversed.
My point is that arguably both experiments are in theory equally valid, but give quite different results. It would be hard to extrapolate either to the real world.
Roger (12:01:23) :
> http://www.picotech.com/experiments/global/globalwarming.html
> Somebody please tell me their thoughts?
My mild concerns center around three things:
1) The experiment is too small to allow convection to occur.
2) H2O is an extremely important GHG.
3) The experiment is too small to allow clouds to form.
In addition, Kevin Kilty’s http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/24/bbc-botches-grade-school-co2-science-experiment-on-live-tv-with-indepedent-lab-results-to-prove-it/ explores several other issues.
However, my greatest concern centers around the heat source. The issue is long wave IR absorption by GHG. The wavelengths we are concerned about are those radiated by Earth, at say 280K – 300K, not by incandescent lights at 3000K or light fistures at lower temperatures, and not by sunlight (5600K or so? I forget).
Look at the wavelengths emitted by the Earth and by the Sun, and compare that with the absorption curves for CO2 and H2O, my http://wermenh.com/climate/science.html has one that I think is good. Trying to build an experiment that measures heating under more realistic conditions would be a substantial effort, but it’s the sort of experiment that provides better data. Unfortunately, I’ll be sure to pipe up with “What about convection?” “What about clouds?”
The bottom line is that reality is far too complicated, otherwise, we’d have our answer by now.
“DirkH (14:20:04) :
Roger, of course there is feedback! But beware! Water vapour gives birth to more watervapour! Of course! But the gain is extremely weak as in a near-saturated absorption it is a very flat part of a logarithmic function – whether we talk about CO2 or water vapour. ”
And to bring this into the context of Ferenc M. Miskolczi’s just so its complete: Right after this feedback has increased water vapour a tiny bit – near the surface where water can evaporate – we should see a drop in the temperature higher above, reducing the water carrying capacity of the air above as it gets colder and probably some of it will rain down.
Also, pondering further, it is never explicitly mentioned in the greenhouse-effect-for-schoolkids grafics, all this GHG of course also reflects some of the incoming IR right back into space. Half of it.
“photon without a Higgs (14:37:28) :
DirkH (11:58:13) :
I think he meant denial and not cognitive dissonance.”
That makes sense. We’re Global Warming Deniers so there’s a lot of denial here. I can relate.
dekitchen:
“it means nothing unless we know what their PhD was in”
What part of this did you not understand?:
“Ph.D. from Florida State University in meteorology”
Frank has been a top-notch weather expert for decades, as you or anyone can look up.
photon:
“The earth has been cooling for years”
Couldn’t agree more. I was anticipating the “weather is not climate” argument and ridiculing it in advance.
Look at this arctic sea-ice graph, for example:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
25% MORE (at minimum) since 2007!
Mike (11:00:17) :
> “skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil”
> Coal is a much bigger CO2 problem than oil.
There’s a Big Coal corporation? I thought coal companies were not the behemoths
like Exxon-Mobil are.
Who do they fund and how do I get a piece of the action?
(Yes, I understand coal is dirtier and overall has a larger carbon footprint. you responded to a corporate/political statement, not a scientific one.)
Woo Teva (13:04:12) :,
You need to understand the free markets. If/when fossil fuels starts to run out the price will naturally increase. At this time other sources of energy will become more competitive and replace oil/coal/etc. There is no need for anything beyond the free market to take us into new energy sources.
So, relax, the world will get along just fine. Don’t let the uneducated doomers convince you with mythical stories. Check the facts for yourself.
It’s smashing to see that this site is attracting a healthy crop of new people who believe that MMGW is a problem.
This is a good thing! WUWT made me question my beliefs, took a while, wasn’t easy but I thank Anthony and team for their efforts.
Welcome folks and may the journey be as beneficial for you as it has been for me!
As far as oil (more specifically, hydrocarbons) running out: I can tell you that everybody with a coast (except West and the East Coast US) is hunting offshore for (and finding) same. In the US and abroad, black marine shales like the Bakken, Barnett and Marcellus are quietly producing more and more natural gas and sweet light crude.
The amount of hydrocarbon reserves has just exploded. Oil companies won’t provide details for competitive reasons. It is probable that a century would not exhaust said reserves.
Doubt me if you must, but those last three letters on my ID do not stand for geometry. I know whereof I speak.
Wrt politicization of science, I read that Dr Miklos Zagoni has been sacked from his job with the Hungarian Government. The ostensible cause is his support of Dr F. Miskolczi’s work “Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres” published in Idojaras — the Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, 2007, Vol. 111, No. 1 (see http://met.hu/idojaras/IDOJARAS_vol111_No1_01.pdf).
Dr Zagoni’s web site is at http://miskolczi.webs.com, and his letter is at: http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P6105/#13018.
***************
Roger (12:01:23) :
http://www.picotech.com/experiments/global/globalwarming.html
Somebody please tell me their thoughts?
***************
Hi Roger,
Here is a much better experiment. Here the physicists explains why the experiment is justified.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/
******************
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, not on facts or scientific evidence. Meanwhile, those who accept the preponderance of scientific evidence for AGW are derided as “believers”. The cognitive dissonance is loud and not so astonishing. The parallels between the way Big Tobacco fought science and the current “debate” are deep and significant.
*****************
Obviously, you are a Climategate denier.
Dr. Neil is a man of the highest integrity.
It was my pleasure to watch him over many years.
What the AGW hack promoters are going to do to him now is only indicative of how corrupt the AGW community is.
All that “fast food delivery paid science” should be question and put under the peoples´scrutiny.
royfomr,
You can snidely pretend you are arriving at belief in AGW after reviewing the facts, but you are only fooling yourself.
Roger, I am by training and inclination an engineer, not a scientist. I am also getting close to sixty years old. Throughout my life, I have been threatened with imminent disaster nearly every single year that I have been alive.
One of my earliest school memories is being shown how to “duck and cover” to protect ourselves from a nuclear explosion. Even in grade school we all knew how stupid that was. If you read about Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts, it was flying glass that did much of the damage to human beings. We had one wall of our room that was all windows. If that wasn’t bad enough, we were going to have nuclear winter even if the bombs didn’t kill us.
Then there was DDT, followed by lead paint, followed by something being sprayed on apples. I also remember that the first astronauts might bring some space pathogen back with them. Then there was genital herpes, which couldn’t be cured, but you didn’t die. This was trumped by HIV, which couldn’t be cured, but you died. The ozone hole was going to give us all cancer, if the asbestos didn’t do that first. Aluminum cans and pans were giving us Alzheimer’s. Lack of fiber was giving us cancer (there have been a lot of cancer scares). Living near power lines was giving us cancer, which has now become using cell phones will give us cancer. We could be hit by an asteroid at any time. We’ve also hit peak oil at least three times during my life.
And, before I forget, there was the possibility that we were going into an ice age.
It appears that none of these terrible things had much basis in fact, and in many cases were based upon some ulterior motive, and played upon the fact that many people seem to like to become emotional and upset.
We could argue the finer points of climate science (which is done very well on this and other blogs), but on the basis of my engineering training, and having lived nearly six decades, I would boil it down to one question: Would you buy a used car from these people who advocate that people are causing the earth to warm catastrophically? Would you trust the word of people that need to use unscientific terms to describe their research? Look at the source, and follow the money. It is also politics, but you asked to keep that out of the discussion. So, who is getting rich from this? Who is gaining power and political influence?
I’m still waiting for my check from Big Oil, and my heating bill is going up every year. I am a skeptic about everything, having been buffeted by disaster stories all my life. I refuse to be afraid anymore, just based upon the disaster-of-the-month. I will base my fears upon real and tangible events, such as the bear that wandered into my yard a few months ago. That heated up the area pretty well.
Roger, two problems right away are the pop bottle has far more CO2 than the atmosphere and worse, the bottle is under pressure which raises the temperature (all other things being equal).
As for the amount of warming from CO2, it is real but small. Here are some graphs showing different estimations of the amount of warming from CO2 doubling http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/co2greenhouse-X2.png There is some controversy about those charts, but no quantitative argument that it is much more than shown.
The real controversy comes from water vapor feedback, otherwise known as weather. It boils down to a few simpler questions, if tropical convection becomes more concentrated in the tropics after the slight warming from CO2, then there will be negative feedback. If not, there will be positive feedback. Also the height of the tropopause will matter and the boundary between tropical and temperate zones. Weather features such as convection are extremely poorly modelled in the climate models (inadequate resolution).
The real world measurements of water vapor feedback have been measure and argued in both positive and neutral or negative directions. The resolution of the feedback question is far more important than any effect of CO2 itself.
Woo Teva wrote
“Even if you distrust the treehuggers, the fact remains: The Oil Will Run Out!”
Yes…and so will the coal…most of the world is digging out their last morsels with the the notable exceptions of US,Russia,China,India,Australia,Ukraine,Kazastan and South Africa.
For the other 184 countries in the world a legitimate national debate is whether they should invest in coal based technology where they will be reliant on one of the ‘Big 8’ for supplies or some other method for energy production.
If I was a leader of one of the 184 countries without significant coal reserves I would try to find a way to avoid becoming dependent on one of the “big 8”..as dependency means a loss of sovereignty.
Once I had chosen to forego the cheapest method of electricity production I would of course attempt to influence the ‘Big 8’ to do the same…because if they have an energy cost advantage they will prosper and I won’t.
Hence Kyoto was a flop..China’s GDP skyrocketed as did it’s use of coal..now 42% of world consumption while those nations that chose to forego coal had little or no economic growth.
Another interesting thing happened on the way to world ruin however. China’s coal use now exceeds it’s ability to mine it. In terms of growth of coal, it is now an importer..and thinks more like the other 185 countries that don’t want to be dependent on someone else for coal.
Hence China is now willing to make concessions it was going to do anyway for it’s own internal reasons. Whether the science is real doesn’t matter to them…their national independence does.
“westhoustongeo (15:27:26) :
The amount of hydrocarbon reserves has just exploded. Oil companies won’t provide details for competitive reasons. It is probable that a century would not exhaust said reserves.”
Do you mean in-situ hydraulic crushing of shale to extract shale gas? That was already in the news. In Lower Saxony in Germany where i live Shell (i think) will start some tests this year AFAIK, we probably have a lot of that.