Well, now there will never be any question about whether Scripps is political or not. They even made up a graphic to go with the story here. When a prominent scientific organization allows a member to resort to name calling on an issue in an official communications on their website, it cheapens the whole organization.
This appears to be a response to John Coleman’s hour long video special. It was dated the same day as the video release, Jan 14th. Of course, when you read his website at richardsomerville.com you may come to understand that he may not be speaking for everyone there at Scripps. Here’s his page at Scripps. Perhaps the UCSD President might benefit from some communications about the use of his institute to label people with differing views on science.
A Response to Climate Change Denialism
Richard Somerville, a distinguished professor emeritus and research professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, issued the following statement in response to a recent request to address claims recently made by climate change denialists:
1. The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm. This is solid settled science. The world is warming. There are many kinds of evidence: air temperatures, ocean temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, and much more. Human activities are the main cause. The warming is not natural. It is not due to the sun, for example. We know this because we can measure the effect of man-made carbon dioxide and it is much stronger than that of the sun, which we also measure.
2. The greenhouse effect is well understood. It is as real as gravity. The foundations of the science are more than 150 years old. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat. We know carbon dioxide is increasing because we measure it. We know the increase is due to human activities like burning fossil fuels because we can analyze the chemical evidence for that.
3. Our climate predictions are coming true. Many observed climate changes, like rising sea level, are occurring at the high end of the predicted changes. Some changes, like melting sea ice, are happening faster than the anticipated worst case. Unless mankind takes strong steps to halt and reverse the rapid global increase of fossil fuel use and the other activities that cause climate change, and does so in a very few years, severe climate change is inevitable. Urgent action is needed if global warming is to be limited to moderate levels.
4. The standard skeptical arguments have been refuted many times over. The refutations are on many web sites and in many books. For example, natural climate change like ice ages is irrelevant to the current warming. We know why ice ages come and go. That is due to changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, changes that take thousands of years. The warming that is occurring now, over just a few decades, cannot possibly be caused by such slow-acting processes. But it can be caused by man-made changes in the greenhouse effect.
5. Science has its own high standards. It does not work by unqualified people making claims on television or the Internet. It works by scientists doing research and publishing it in carefully reviewed research journals. Other scientists examine the research and repeat it and extend it. Valid results are confirmed, and wrong ones are exposed and abandoned. Science is self-correcting. People who are not experts, who are not trained and experienced in this field, who do not do research and publish it following standard scientific practice, are not doing science. When they claim that they are the real experts, they are just plain wrong.
6. The leading scientific organizations of the world, like national academies of science and professional scientific societies, have carefully examined the results of climate science and endorsed these results. It is silly to imagine that thousands of climate scientists worldwide are engaged in a massive conspiracy to fool everybody. The first thing that the world needs to do if it is going to confront the challenge of climate change wisely is to learn about what science has discovered and accept it.
— Robert Monroe
Jan. 14, 2010
h/t to WUWT reader Skepshaka
Doesn’t Mr Someville’s 1 to 6 points just beg to be answered in the same fashion? I can hardly contain myself! All I can do at this stage is shake my head in disbelief that he would be so silly as to say some of those things.
Thanks for the story and for showing us how the roots of the Climategate scandal go into our best research institutions!
I will be forever grateful to Anthony Watts, Steve Mosher, and others for exposing Climategate scandal.
As the truth about the unholy alliance of politicians, scientists, and publishers unfolds, I finally realized that my 34-year battle with NAS (the National Academy of Sciences) was actually a battle with INAP (the International Academy of Propaganda).
[snip]
That’s just the way it is,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Emeritus Professor of
Nuclear & Space Sciences
His diatribe sounds like the writings of a juvenile.
How does CO2 trap heat?
BTW, who are these “thousands of climate scientists worldwide”?
Somerville, in his 6 part summation, is regurgitating all the old garbage the AGW proponents have stated. Part 1 – the science is settled… NOT; Part 2 – Greenhouse effect is well known… NOT; Part 3 – Climate predictions are coming true… NOT… apparently he hasn’t been reading the news about the US’s and Europe’s nasty winter; Part 4 – Man made greenhouse gases overwhelm natural climate variations… NOT; Part 5 – (Climate) science has it’s own high standards… NOT… he obviously hasn’t seen surfacestations.org; Part 6 – Leading scientific organizations (CRU, NOAA, GISS)… NOT… he obviously has ignored Climategate.
In his fifth point he talks about how other scientists examine the research, repeat it and extend it. Yes, in real science. However when the original scientist in question refuse to release their original data, replacing it with modified numbers and refusing to reveal their algorithms and code, well… repeating it is difficult. Who’s in denial now? We won’t talk about “carefully reviewed research journals” since the CRU letters have shown that that is theater. As for item 3, wow… time to step away from the bong.
Robert Gibbs had the same disdain for those “creepy anti-progressives” in Mass until the vote results were tabulated last night. (I can’t wait to see the responses to this Mr. Somerville from some Climate Realists/Dissidents here.)
the most embarrassing about this is, that even applying AGW standards, this opinion is of an EXTREMELY poor quality.
just one of several nonsense quotes:
“We know this because we can measure the effect of man-made carbon dioxide and it is much stronger ”
Scripps, how do you MEASURE the effect of the man-made global warming contribution ? the answer should easily be rewarded with a nobel price (disclaimer: only, if the answer is compliant with models)
Someone drank a whole bucketload of kool-aid.
I guess, then, that Prof Somerville didn’t get Gavin’s memo:
I have never heard any scientist say this [“the science is settled”] in any general context . Gav continues: “– at a recent meeting I was at, someone claimed that this had been said by the participants and he was roundly shouted down by the assembled experts”. Let’s wait for the chorus of experts in this case, eh?
Go to the Scripps website. They aren’t just drinking the CAGW koolaid, they are swimming in it.
That response looks like a copy and paste job from some global warming propaganda sheet from 2001. It makes you wonder if they really believe what they are saying anymore. It’s like they’re living in an echo chamber.
How about the 5-8 inches of rain yesterday and today in southern California. Droughts and fires forever.
Look outside and explain the rain in California.
Science has its own high standards. ……. It works by scientists doing research and publishing it in carefully reviewed research journals.
Damn right they’re carefully reviewed.
“…All I can do at this stage is shake my head in disbelief that he would be so silly as to say some of those things….”
In a later news release, Head of Scripps Institution of Oceanography explains why man will never venture underwater, into the air, or travel faster than 30 MPH….
To some extent I feel sorry for the guy. He put together his piece when he had absolute faith in the IPCC, and the IPCC began to let him down just as he released it…
1. IPCC science is settled, but not correct.
2. No one knows the sensitivity of the climate to CO2. Many have guessed.
3. Predictions of the Global Circulation Models have not come true.
4. Natural processes have frequently acted as quickly before as they have this time.
5. Yep, science is self-correcting, as we see happening now.
6. It is clear that the claims of the climate alarmists have not been carefully studied and criticized. Witness the glacier bit.
Even for a climatologist, Somerville has revealed himself as remarkably ignorant and/or disingenuous. You pick.
================================================
“The warming is not natural. It is not due to the sun, for example. We know this because we can measure the effect of man-made carbon dioxide and it is much stronger than that of the sun, which we also measure”.
Does this mean there are historical proxies identified for solar activity? I would be interested to know if that were the case.
OK, that was the non-snarky reply. My gut reply is: “[snip] Has this guy never sat in the sun on a clear day??”
CO2 is stronger than the sun? Who knew my last “sun”-burn was actually caused by CO2?
Ah, but water vapor is an even stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. We know this because we can measure it. Maybe I got a waterburn?
I love good scientific explanations.
A stiff uppercut to the skeptics would have been to boldly take on climategate and show that all these highly decorated scientists that warmers are relying on have been wrongly shafted. The fact that he doesn’t even mention this glaring anti-science, even though it was the central message of Coleman’s report, shows that Dr Somerville is guilty of anti-science himself. Vacuous regurgitation of the dated and falsified AGW mantras with no acknowledgement of climategate shows that the shell-shocked AGW cult gives full meaning to the “D” word.
Perhaps Mr Somerville should spend less time overstating our confidence about climate processes and utilizing appeals to authroity and more time trying to figure out why the observed warming over the industrial era is less by almost a factor of three from what was exepected due to GHG’s, and then try to reconcile that fact with his statements that “Our climate predictions are coming true” and “The greenhouse effect is well understood”.
Blimey, I think I could do better than that.
For example, natural climate change like ice ages is irrelevant to the current warming.
And?
Prof Somerville clearly needs to get out more – or at the very least, get his head out from where the sun don’t shine…
His point 5 is my particular pet hate; it shows up all the time. No one EVER needs to know anything at all about any particular field to be entitled to expose an error.
I’m not a nuclear scientist but I vividly remember hearing the first gushing news reports about Fleischmann and Pons’ cold fusion claims, and turning to my wife and saying, “I’ll believe it the moment they drop dead from radiation poisoning.”
According to RIchard Somerville I should actually have been obliged to believe it all and keep my trap shut (and possibly invest my savings in it too).
He says: “This is solid settled science.”
Is Dr. Judith Curry aware of this? Or bender? Or Moshpit?
She was asked about this very issue here in this thread:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/18/curry-reviews-lindzen-and-choi/#comments
.
.
Another article based on the GIGO principle.
Somerville was one of the warmists who participated in the NPR IQ² debate in 2007 with gavin and eckwurzel against stott. lindzen and crichton. Somerville & Co. got their clocks cleaned in short order. He’s another distinguished climate loser that can be simply ignored.