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
So, let me get this straight— the main difference between those who are skeptical of the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming and the proposers of the hypothesis is causation. There is general agreement that warming has occurred over the past two centuries.
The proponent’s argument rests entirely on the belief that increased levels of a known greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from human industrial activity has caused the observed rise of temperatures.
The skeptics do not agree that carbon dioxide is the cause of the observed rise of temperatures but have not proposed an alternative explanation.
I’d like to see a link to the original. I’d like to get a screencap of it, so that I have physical evidence.
If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, this shows once again that climate researchers are more like political advocates than they are about actually trying to find out what is happening with the world’s climates.
I don’t get it. Two or three clicks re. point 3 and anyone can see for themselves that not only is he wrong, but he’s a liar too.
Never mind. I found it. http://sio.ucsd.edu/Announcements/Somerville_denialists/
Henry you obviously are confusing weather with climate.
I have just sent this – and am not holding my breath for the reply!
Dear Sir,
I have read your statement regarding the above, and hope that you intended it to be funny – because it certainly would be. If it is serious, then you have succeeded in putting yourself so far out along the anthropogenic global warming plank that you will fall, along with the likes of Mr Gore and Hansen, into the abyss of ignominy.
1. Science is never settled – you reveal yourself to be bigoted and unscientific through this statement.
2. ‘The greenhouse effect is well understood’ – oh no it isn’t – if you don’t know that you should not pontificate.
3. Sea levels are not ‘rising at the high end of predictions’. Check your facts then you won’t look ignorant.
4. ‘For example, natural climate change like ice ages is irrelevant to the current warming.’ Er no, actually, it is very relevant as any look at graphs showing temperatures and changes in CO2 levels in the atmosphere will show you – not hard to find. It would also show you that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature – they do not cause them – but somehow I didn’t expect you to know that.
5. ‘Science has its own high standards.’ You are living proof of the falsity of this statement (see 1 above).
6. ‘…to learn about what science has discovered and accept it’. Absolute dictatorship then – no questioning, no challenging. By your standards, Galileo should have been executed for challenging the orthodoxy of the day (he nearly was actually).
I do not expect an answer to this as you are obviously so entrenched in your views; I still fell the need to stand up for intellectual freedom and scientific honesty.
Yours sincerely,
David Leigh
“4…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.”
Uhm, for major ice ages yes…but what about smaller ice ages? And what about solar variation rather than distance? He’s assuming the output of the sun never changes, and yet we haven’t had any significant solar activity in sunspots or flux in how long now? This coming after some of the most active cycles observed?
Somerville has been bitter, angry, and in denial every since he and Gavin Schmidt utterly failed to convince a liberal Manhattan audience that global warming was a crisis. This amazing and highly engaging debate was (predictably) ignored by the mainstream media and only NPR covered it any detail, see here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9082151
I have filed a written complaint to UCSD based upon their Principles of Community
“We affirm each individual’s right to dignity and strive to maintain a climate of justice marked by mutual respect for each other.”
http://blink.ucsd.edu/HR/policies/POC/principles-of-community.html
I have taught the history of genocide at two colleges and know full well what Holocaust denialism is. To use such a term in a formal, posted expression of the Institute’s view is inexcusable. I would hope that there are repercussions.
Richard Somerville is, himself, in denial.
1. No, the science is NOT settled. Claiming it is is nothing more than an amateur and arrogant attempt to stifle dissent. That’s not working anymore, stop playing that game.
2. Nobody is disputing that there is a “greenhouse effect”, in spite of its woefully poor name. The claim that any recent increase is demonstrably due to human influence is childishly naive.
3. “Our climate predictions” are doing everything BUT coming true. Rising sea level is occurring at the LOWEST end of even cyclical changes, and is in fact stalled. Melting sea ice is just not happening no matter how much you pretend it is.
4. The standard “warmist” arguments have been refuted many times over. Your nice shiny hockey stick is tarnished and broken. “WE” most certainly do NOT “know” why ice ages come and go, although there are very probable theories.
5. This was my favorite: “Science has its own high standards. It does not work by unqualified people making claims on television or the Internet.” Yes, indeed, that is how Science SHOULD work. “Climate science”, however, is somehow exempt. The claim that those not “in the club” are “not doing science” makes me wonder if he actually knows what Science is.
6. Doesn’t even merit a response, it’s just too stupid.
Richard Somerville, I hope you follow the link here and read this, because you need to understand just how childish, arrogant, and downright STUPID you sound. No branch of Science has ever successfully shut down dissent as “climate science” has so far done. You are wrong. Your entire discipline is wrong, it is built on a shaky foundation that has already proven to be wrong.
There is no consensus other than in your little echo-chamber world. Outside in the real world, physics work differently than your models, and your hippy-era idealism. No, there’s no “massive” conspiracy, like all conspiracies it is just small enough to completely fall apart once it’s exposed.
Any time ANY “scientist” pushes this “you have to do this to avoid certain doom” way of thinking, that person ceases to be a scientist and becomes a political activist.
Haha – a while back I ran across a series of comments on RC that implied that the “science is settled” comment was made up by the denialists and no pro-AGW scientist had ever really used it.
Maybe the ownership of the term “settled” can be settled now 😀
OH MY GOD.
I can no longer tolerate the absolute stupidity of these alarmists.
“Our predictions are coming true.” Yeah? Like James Hansen predicting that Manhattan’s West Side Highway will be underwater by 2008? Or the completely far-fetched IPCC predictions of expected temperatures? Or that cold and snowy winters will become a thing of the past? Or that we will have an abnormally warm Autumn in 2009?
I truly believe that alarmists are anti-intellectuals. They are wholly incapable of thinking and processing data for themselves. The are weak cowards that would rather “bow down to the professionals” instead of actually looking at and examining the data themselves.
They are weak minded followers. Ugh!
I’m going to Australian venacular here, mainly because if you understand it, it fits perfectly. If you don’t understand it, Maaaannn your missing out 🙂
If this bloke was standing in the middle of the MCG (100,000 seat sporting arena) and announced this 100,000 people would ask in curous “Is this bloke fair dinkum”?
He really is the stone age backwater of current knowledge isn’t he?
This has to be the weirdest piece of writing ever to come out of what I was led to believe was a reputable scientific institution.
Richard de Sousa sums it up succinctly [though quoting the recent European weather as an argument does not help – PLEASE, weather is not climate!].
I’m particularly concerned at 3 and 4 where Somerville trots out ‘factoids’ that are known to be incorrect like increasing rate of sea-level rise and ice melt and apparently is quite happy to ignore evidence that the warming “over a few decades” is not out of line with the warming “over a few decades” that took place at the beginning of the last century and at various times in the past two millenia.
The explanation usually put forward for warm-mongers talking like this is the need to keep on-side with the grant factories but I can’t see anyone at Scripps being out of work just because global warming isn’t happening.
What’s the axe he’s grinding?
I think it is totally appropriate for Somerville to use the “D” word. Denialists deny that the world is warming despite hard evidence showing it to be a proven fact (e.g. even DR Spencer admits the world has warmed). Sceptics, on the other hand ,are sceptical about the extent and cause of that warming. Most of the contributors on this blog fall into the category of Deniers refusing to accept that any warming has taken place –often resorting to juvenile arguments that a couple of cold weeks in the U.S and Europe prove global warming to be false. Note Henry Chance above now goes as far to use a rainy day in California to support his denialist stance. He is not alone. Earlier this week it was a snowy day in the Australian alps that had everyone talking. Such comments (while getting alot of airtime at the moment) are very damaging to the cause of legitimate sceptics who have a valid claim that we need to investigate the claims surrounding AGW more closely.
REPLY: Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the associations of the word with the holocaust. -A
I can see who the real deniers are in this piece. This is a line-by-line political reassertion of the alarmist arguments that real science is currently tearing apart.
Important Question: How much funding of Scripps is tied to AGW research, as in confirming AGW and providing endless and more-terrifying catastrophic consequences to push political agendas?
Recent papers including Mr Somerville:
Rahmstorf, S., A. Cazenave, J. A. Church, J. E. Hansen, R. F. Keeling, D. E. Parker, R. C. J. Somerville, 2007: Recent climate observations compared to projections. Science, 316, 709 (2007); published online 1 February 2007 (10.1126/science. 1136843).
Le Treut, H., R. Somerville, U. Cubasch, Y. Ding, C. Mauritzen, A. Mokssit, T. Peterson, and M. Prather, 2007: Historical Overview of Climate Change. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H. L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, R. B. Alley, T. Berntsen, N. L., Bindoff, Z. Chen, A. Chidthaisong, J. M. Gregory, G. C. Hegeri, M. Heimann, B. Hewitson, B. J. Hoskins, F. Joos, J. Jouzel, V. Kattsov, U. Lohmann, T. Matsuno, M. Molina, N. Nicholls, J. Overpeck, G. Raga, V. Ramaswamy, J. Ren, M. Rusticucci, R. Somerville, T. F. Stocker, P. Whetton, R. A. Wood and D. Wratt, 2007: Technical Summary. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group[ I] to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H. L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H. L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
Jouzel, J., et R. C. J. Somerville, 2007: Le groupe intergouvernemental d’experts sur l’evolution du climat: le consensus a l’échelle planétaire. Comprendre le Changement Climatique, Odile Jacob (Paris), J.-L. Fellous et C. Gautier (eds.), pp. 27-44.
Somerville seems to be a preferred contact of the French IPCC mafia Jouzel, Cazenave and Le Treut… Flush.
Prof. Somerville “Si tacuissesphilosophus manisses” or for people not familiar with Latin. if you didn’t say anything about climate you might still be a philsopher. Sorry me english iis not so good.
Somerville has his own high standards.
His irrational trust in and and admiration for Mann, Schmidt, Hansen, Jones, el al, have him speaking in middle school depth.
It’s quite astounding that a person of his supposed stature would write and release such a rudimentarily shallow piece.
He must have been targeting journalists to provide them with easy bullets to repeat without any scrutiny.
Who is a climate change denialist?
One who says, that climate has always been stable, just now runs away because of man-made CO2?
Or us, saying climate change is the most natural thing ever, changing all the time between warmer and colder periods, under different influemcimg forces.
It’s getting bizare, even language-wise.
My jaw is on the floor. This man is very very VERY unwise.
“The skeptics do not agree that carbon dioxide is the cause of the observed rise of temperatures but have not proposed an alternative explanation.”
Multi-decadel pacific oscillation(the favorite of Dr Roy Spencer formerly of NASA), Solar Variability, CO2 fails to explain the Middle Ages Warm period, Cloud Dynamics ….the degree of the observed rise in temperature does not co-incide with satellite tempurature measurements.
Then there is the fact that temperatures have been rising in fits and starts since the last ice age.
How many alternative theories does one need?
From the man’s web-site:
“The role of scientists is to help assess the science and present it in an intelligible way that is policy relevant.”
Now you know, you duff scientists out there who aren’t finishing the job and making policy recommendations, you’re not fulfilling your role. Get better at it.
Someone needs their research funding requests reviewed.
Can’t be giving out money to false prophets, nutters or members of the “settled Science” club
I am now getting tired of this. These statements by professionals must be seen as “on record – as testimony” to be included as evidence in possible future trials. In my opinion information given as fact intended to persuade and guide public as well as governmental opinion and spending is subject to laws covering fraud, incitement, and perhaps terrorism. I am sure the legal egales here will come up with a multitude of additional felony charges. On their advice I bought a solar panel, then returned it, now I have to go back – come on!! (nudge nudge, wink wink)