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
The thing that puzzles me in all of this is that no-one seems to have read Kyoto.
It talks quite clearly about CO2 EQUIVALENT..!
So in fact – CO2 itself is not the ‘bete noir’ (we know that anyway) – its the OTHER greenhouse gases expressed as ‘CO2 equivalent’.
So – why is no-one (on either side) talking about water vapour; methane, etc..? And how can the world reduce these (if that were ever a problem) – by talking all this rubbish about a ‘low carbon’ economy..?
Seems to me its as if rabbits were a problem, but expressed as ‘squirrel equivalent’ – global governments immediately say: ‘Right – we’ve got to get rid of squirrels’…
“It is not due to the sun, for example”
So why does it get cooler at sunset even though the CO2 level doesn’t drop at sunset.
He is distinguished alright. Why is it cooler on a cloudy day even though CO2 remains a constant? He seems to be bound by a narrow dogma.
It is silly to imagine that thousands of climate scientists worldwide are engaged in a massive conspiracy to fool everybody
1. I agree, it is silly. And no one is imagining and asserting it.
2. A strawman has been set up that says this though.
3. But I do assert that some political policy makers, some business men and women, some environmentalists, some scientists, and also some Marxists, are.
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.
Here’s an experiment that proves CO2 does not trap heat for the sum of about $10.
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrreN4aGF8&feature=channel
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xu1DZKlXjU&feature=channel
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyO93i6zhv4&feature=channel
@MJK: “Most of the contributors on this blog fall into the category of Deniers……”
This sort of statement here at WUWT is usually accompanied by data or dismissed out of hand.
JSinAZ (09:48:09) asks “Has this guy never sat in the sun on a clear day??”. If he has, David (09:55:16) explains the fool’s pig ignorance. Geez those gases are hot!
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
I agree!
Science is showing a good chance that there is a cooling coming to the earth for possibly the next 30 years. We should be preparing for the food shortages and higher food prices that would come from it.
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.
I’m sorry, but this just lacks.
Again, casual investigation will show it lacks.
For one example, if co2 increases makes temperatures increase then where is the increase in temperatures? The manmade co2 level in the earth continues to steadily rise but temperatures are going down.
From Richard Somerville’s web site:
http://richardsomerville.com/pdfs/IfIWerePresidentAClimateChangeSpeech.pdf
The largest CO2 growth rate in modern times has occurred in the most recent decade.
—————————————————–
And temperatures have gone down in the same decade.
After being to his web site and seeing these I understand him better:
IPCC, Bali, climate modelling.
“Robin said:
“When the Point of No return has been reached you can be sure that the Bush family and the Bill Gates of the world will be well looked after in shelters built by your tax money but completely off limits to you.”
Ahahahahahaha thanks for the late night laugh, Robin. I just need Batman now to come and save the day.
I just feel sorry for Mr. Sommerville. He must have seen brighter days.
But I don’t feel sorry for SCRIPPS who/which use this old guy (he looks younger than he speaks) as a mine-dog.
Again an example of how to make your point by proving a supposed thesis from the persons critical of your conclusions wrong.
Apart from a handfull of “real denialists” to whom denialism is the same as AGW is for the AGW followers -with some denialists even denying that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas- no sensible sceptic is claiming that the average sealevels have not risen and may likely continue to rise in the forseeable future and that increasing CO2 levels are likely to have some influence on average earth surface temperatures.
No sensible sceptic will claim that early 20th century increases in average global temperatures are related to ice age cycles defined by the earth rotation and orbit. But they do point out that these cannot explain the little ice age and medieval warm period either.
And what are the results of climate science other than a set of models that do not work? Certainly the by now ridiculous Al Gore propaganda picture show does not reflect results of any meaningfull science.
Threatening with such concepts as “severe climate change” is infamous without explaining why climate change is undesireable. All the alarming messages brought to the world lack a basic degree of diligence or scientific sincerity. The claims on antropogenic CO2 being responsible for Kilimanjaro glacier melt have been proven wrong. The claim on Himalaya glacier melt proven unsupported, the claims on ice free arctic ridiculed and so on.
Fact is that we understand very little of the complexity of our climate system and its short term (within a millennium or a few millennia) oscillations, the other fact is that we do not know if there is a serious problem caused by humans and, should there be a problem, if there is anything we can do about it with an acceptable cost benefit balance – very unlikely-.
So if the politicians are impatient, tell them to be impatient for a long while to come until we have sufficient competent data on the climate and its drivers and a more than remote understanding of the mechanisms driving it.
Anybody calling persons, scientist or non scientist critical of one’s own opinions deniers is shooting himself out of the argument driven debate and knowledge enlarging proces.
Ah, things get loopier and more so! Keep the strong faith!
And remember, no one can use the D word, they must use “skeptic”!
RE: Charles S. Opalek, PE (14:31:15)
You’re the Man, Charles!
I don’t know where you came up with your facts, but they are utterly irrefutable! Keep it up!
Good point very well made, David (15:03:38). Nice analogy, too: zapping squirrels when the real problem is squirrel-equivalent rabbits.
My guess is that the answer is found by following the money trail. What else with these AGW carpetbaggers?
Methane is no big $ deal. In Oz you can just shoot a few million wild camels (as proposed the other day by Tony Abbott, Oz Opposition Leader) and/or bag cattle arses.
Water vapour, by some accounts at least, may be the real “rabbit” in the AGW scheme of things. Not even the clowns (apt descriptor Harry (12:19:54)) at IPCC would try to tell us we need less water! Then again, is that their next move? After all, IPCC has perfected the art of irrational thinking.
But a whole trillion dollar worldwide industry – financial and industrial – has burgeoned already to whup CO2. What a bonanza for the “carbon” industry it was when, just pre-Poxenhagen, the EPA identified CO2 as the “rabbit” by declaring that this gentle life-giving gas is a poison!
The world is warming…by about 0.6 C over the past 100 or so years. Can anyone tell the difference with such a tiny temperature rise? My thermometer on the wall can’t even measure to that accuracy. Why are AGW alarmist so stupid?
There are many kinds of evidence: air temperatures, ocean temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, and much more.
Air temperatures = fudged, altered, erased, lost (see ClimateGate)
ocean temperatures = you mean AMO, PDO? those go in cycles
melting ice = http://robertb.darkhorizons.org/WhatGlobalWarming.htm
rising sea levels = http://robertb.darkhorizons.org/WhatGlobalWarming.htm
The ice has stopped melting and has returned.
The N. Pole is the same as it was in 1959. Patches of open water.
The oceans have not risen visibly in my lifetime. The Northwest Passage was open a mind-boggling 1 summer.
What settled science? What evidence?
Wow, what a list of hype by an educated man strictly intended to instill in John Q public, less inclined to follow the details that “there is nothing to see here, move along.
By blogs that support his agenda driven “science” is he speaking of Real Climate, where well written statements from PHD scientist are what is edited or banned. “Real Climate is happy to take uninformed laymen comments and allow them through and thoroughly trash them, it is the informed comments from other scientist which they bann.
Whether this man respects blogs such as “Watts up” or Climate Audit or not is irrelevant. The links contained within are to commentary, and sometimes to peer reviewed articles and publications by very respected PHD scientist I outlined just a few and their credentials, here are some links which were in the blogs http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer_07GRL.pdf http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/ http://www.drroyspencer.com/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/
these links are to their view, not to view of layman or fringe scientist.
Does this man in his Ivory Towerer know of the OISM petition, signed by over 31,000 scientist , circulated just in the USA, with over 9,000 PHD signatories, all disputing CAGW. Has he read commentary by scientist such as Lindzen http://www.openletter-globalwarming.info/Site/Richard_Lindzen.html and many others, highly qualified PHD scientist that state far more then minor differences and subtle changes. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptical scientist. 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. 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. The Russian Academy of Sciences and the US Association of State Climatologists are just two of the scientific organizations that have trenchantly expressed serious doubts about the imagined “consensus” on climate change.
The science is far from settled, his insistance that it is, after being exposed to all of the above that is upsetting, not if he agrees, disagree, or does not care about the subject. Ivory towers are real, perhaps nowhere more real then in the field of climate research.
http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lindzen-talk-pdf.pdf
There are real and very serious problems in the climate science community within the IPCC and that the recently released e-mails from very key scientist within that community are confirmation, not revelation of the problems. Has this man been provided you with access to the full summary, and the full technical report, which decimated to the point of withdraw from the IPCC publications, what was their most prominently displayed study; this was not as some say, a few minor statistical problems. Perhaps he would read a quick summary from one of the authors who wrote wrote the paper exposing fmajor, not nuanced flaws in Mann’s IPCC report which uncermoniusly withdrawn from IPPCC reports… http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=789 Does he know that McIntyre’s and McKitrick’s paper was upheld by three independent reviews as reported to the United States congress. Does he know that within that review was a detailed study of the problems of peer review within climate science. Has he read statements from IPCC scientist such as this Mike Hulme. listed as the 10th most cited author in the world in the field of climate change. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/uea-climate-scientist-possible-that-i-p-c-c-has-run-its-course/ and this http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/zorita-calls-for-barring-phil-jones-michael-mann-and-stefan-rahmstorf-from-further- as just a small sample of what is available, reflecting the growing awareness of the problems confirmed in climate gate. Has he even read a quick summary by Lindzen which barely touches the problems mentioned or the science referred to… http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lindzen-talk-pdf.pdf
This Scripps man commentary is full of one straw man after another. The IPCC itself admits it understanding of medium term, short term, and long term affects on the climate from the oceans is low. They admit there underswtanding of cloud formation is low. The observation have only met the lowest sensitivity estimates of global warming if you ignore known 30 year cysles and do charts from trough to peak, not from peak to peak as any unbiased anaylsis would do. Really, the man speaks to people as if they were idiots. Ugh, very distatesful, very elitist, very Ivory tower.
‘5. Science has its own high standards. It does not work by unqualified people making claims on television or the Internet.’
Then you won’t mind removing the pedestal from the likes of Gore and Pachuri.
Graham Dick (15:07:12) :
JSinAZ (09:48:09) asks “Has this guy never sat in the sun on a clear day??”. If he has, David (09:55:16) explains the fool’s pig ignorance. Geez those gases are hot!
——
Reply: Well, sure, he’s sitting in a convection oven; there’s no other explanation. Now, if we could just convince him that the broiler was burning a hole in his head, maybe he’d come around.
The good doc needs to get in his delorean. 1996 arguments don’t pack quite the same punch in 2010…
My message to Richard Somerville who’s e-mail is [snip]
Sir,
As a scuba diver, I held Scripps in some esteem. Now, it has just become another Natural Climate Change Denying Organization.
What a shame
I would never advocate torturing the Scripps folks for their unkind remarks towards those of us with questions. That would be bad.
Perhaps they could be stress tested though.
OK :^) you can just go to the Scripps Institute web site and search and his e-mail address will pop up