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
I’m dumbfounded. And disappointed. I had always thought highly of Scripps. This man speaks as if the country is populated by 5th graders. And maybe that is an insult to 5th graders.
I will never give any credence to anything that comes out of Scripps again.
They join a lot of other places on my list.
Ref – MJK (10:20:21) :
“I think… Most of the contributors on this blog fall into the category of Deniers..
_____________________
You seem to have trouble reading, or perhaps English is a second language?
The fact that the hockey stick graph, the hanno look-a-like, and the Himalayan speculation were included in the IPCC’s ‘science’ disproves point 5 (validation and checking of findings).
Certainly the hockey stick graph and hanno graph (from Wikipedia) were exposed by sceptics in mammoth battles.That is sloppy work rather than painstaking expert work
The refusal to grant FOI requests also shows that there is no desire to have results checked by ‘outsiders.’
Re point 6; no-one is claiming that ‘thousands’ of scientists are in a conspiracy.
Many perfectly honest scientists are working with manipulated data without their knowledge. They can hardly be accused of deliberately conspiring. On the other hand, they have no chance of doing any useful work.
Hi, my name is Scott, and I’m a Denier.
I deny that we have so far contributed significantly to
the temperature rise of the Earth/atmosphere system.
My basic science and logic skills plague me with this
denialist thought.
Here’s why:
Temperature is a measurement of energy, it is not itself
meaningful other than as a way to express an amount of
energy.
A total lack of energy is of course absolute zero, or -273.15
degrees Celcius.
Let’s take at face value that the temperature, i.e. energy,
increased 0.74 degrees Celcius during the 20th century.
The 0.74 is the IPCC claim, which I trust is true.
Let’s assume the temperature at the beginning of the last
century was 14 degrees Celcius, which appears to be around
most estimates. We then ended the century around 14.74 degrees.
So how much energy did we gain?
((273.15 + 14.74) – (273.15 + 14.0)) / (273.15 + 14.74) =
(0.74) / (273.15 + 14.74) =
0.74/287.89 = 0.0026 = 0.26% increase
Yes, this argument is over how much man has contributed to
26 hundredths of one percent to the increase in energy of the
planetary system.
26 hundredths of one percent, which in a system consisting
of a planet, its moon, the planet’s atmosphere, and the planet’s star
has to all but fall totally within the expected natural variance
over 100 solar revolutions of the planet as it tilts and whirls,
and bobs up and down in the plane of the ecliptic.
The only reason the scientists never mention calculating from
absolute zero is an old marketing gimmick. By keeping the
vertical axis of their graphs at terrifically small graduations,
the minor fluctuations can be made to appear alarming.
Plot temperature increases over the last century from absolute zero
on a graph and you get a straight line.
Straight lines won’t sell books or secure grant monies.
Pass the word: ask for graphs from absolute zero.
Yes, I recognize that life is sensitive to minute fluctuations in
temperature, and yet also recognize that doesn’t mean we are to
blame. Our contribution to the 26 hundredths is round off error.
The best answer to a fool is silence.
a climate modeller
Clearly this dude is suffering from the 5 stages of grief. His beloved religion, AGW, is now in it’s death throes. No one should pile on while he mourns.
He says : “Many observed climate changes, like rising sea level, are occurring at the high end of the predicted changes.” This must be their area of expertise, yet it seems to be against the accepted rise at the lower end. Have they published the raw data and the research for true independent verification? [i.e. as in point 5].
Perhaps they measure the sea level from a boat – as the AGW researchers get fatter and more numerous the boat is lower in the water, so the sea level appears to rise!
When proven wrong, just restate the errors you’ve made, and mock the offenders.
1. The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm. This is solid settled science. The world is warming.
Nope. Sorry. World warmed a bit prior to 2000, but has been stable or cooling for nearly a decade since. And the ocean is cooling, as well: not warming as they assert.
http://www.usclivar.org/Newsletter/V6N2.pdf
2. The greenhouse effect is well understood. It is as real as gravity.
Again, no, and no.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
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.
More misleading, at best, and/or false information.
Sea levels aren’t anomalously rising.
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/10/new-peer-reviewed-study-sinks-claims-of-sea-level-rising.html
Sea ice isn’t anomalously melting
http://boingboing.net/2009/01/07/sea-ice-area-returns.html
Nor are glaciers
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/himalayan-glaciers-not-melting
4. The standard skeptical arguments have been refuted many times over.
Another blatantly false assertion.
5. Science has its own high standards. It does not work by unqualified people making claims on television or the Internet.
It also doesn’t work by peer-pressure passing for peer-review, nor by cooking the data. And the internet is just a venue for dissemination of the legitimate information which propagandists like Somerville don’t want us to have.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3308/Ignorant-Skeptics-UN-Scientist-Prof-Trenberth-says-only-poorly-informed-scientists-disagree-with-UN–Appeals-to-Authority-The-IPCC-has-spoken
Just because science has “high standards” doesn’t mean all scientists do, as the CRU-Tape Letters, and John Coleman’s information clearly show.
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.
Appeal to authority – which ignores the massive opposition by the members to the few biased heads of those societies who are pushing their agenda, regardless of the lack of evidence for it and the ample evidence against.
I used to make a wager with people: if they’re so religiously convinced of AGW – have it tattooed on their bodies, preferably where it can be seen in public. That way, decades later, we’ll know who the knuckleheads were way back when.
OH, WAIT! This guy came out and said this publically! I guess this is sort of tattoed on his head already. Yup, smeared right on, his picture is on the page. I can only hope these folks stick around for the “I told ya so’s” down the road. Someone’s archiving all these folks, I hope…
Just noticed another example of AGW blather in high places. If you are interested in being bored stupid by hackneyed mantras, you can download this guff as a PDF from the Royal Society at http://royalsociety.org/Preventing-dangerous-climate-change/
In my view, it’s enough to trash that once-esteemed institution.
That’s true for fools, anon (17:11:54). But then
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
“”When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” (Edmund Burke?)
Point 3: “Many observed climate changes, like rising sea levels, are occurring at the high end of the predicted changes.”
The Marine Room restaurant in La Jolla Shores is a favorite of Scripps Institute and UCSD faculty. It has provided spectacular sea level, ocean front dining…… since 1941. The Marine Room has of course flooded out a few times, particularly during the 1990s, when tide station sea level measurements peaked for San Diego. Dr. Somerville and his associates can easily confirm that their tables at the Marine Room are still there, despite the forecasted sea level changes.
Interesting article. I counted 12 errors in the 1st paragraph. I wonder where he gets his info? From award winning movies, maybe?
greg2213 (17:54:11) :
“I wonder where he gets his info? From award winning movies, maybe?”
…and the TV and the internet?
My response to their article is posted here.
Scientists of honest repute do not make such bold certain statements. They well know today’s theory’s about the workings of physical phenomena may well be disproved tomorrow. Dismiss him – he’s a bully-boy and not credible.
180 comments, support for the statement:none
disagree with the statement:179
the science is settled!
Oliver K. Manuel (09:32:39) : “1. Climate changes and cycles of solar activity are both related to the Sun’s oscillatory motion about the center of mass of the solar system….That’s just the way it is”
I wouldn’t bet on it.
Henry chance (09:43:05) : “Look outside and explain the rain in California.”
Hmm. Maybe it’s due to the fact that it rains in California. Or it could be El Nino, coupled with high Arctic downflow. Or it could be that rain dance I did on New Year’s Eve. It might have been a rain dance. Not sure. Heck, might have been a snow dance. Stay tuned.
@ur momisugly David (09:55:16) :
http://www.johnernst.com/sight_windows_p50.html
Phil. (11:00:17) : “…the San Diego Union-Tribune… writer and reporter, Robert Monroe…used the ‘D’ word.”
True. As near as I can tell, the good Dr. Somerville, despite his numerous logical and factual failures, never once used the word “denialism” in his text. It was, apparently, a slip of the pen on the part of the esteemed Mr. Monroe, who has been hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Graham Dick (17:49:46) :
Spot on!
photon without a Higgs (17:26:18) :
“a climate modeller”
LOL! Sounds like it.
Honestly; this guy is like the Iraqi information minister.
Restating falsehoods make them no more correct.
Anticlimactic (17:32:42) :
Perhaps they measure the sea level from a boat – as the AGW researchers get fatter and more numerous the boat is lower in the water, so the sea level appears to rise!
And their boat is taking on water.
I hope you’re right, but I seem to remember reading that there’s some fancy way of differentiating the manmade CO2 from the naturally produced portion. Is there or not?
Maybe it’s his ghost, the Cheshire Cat.
Refuted by “Cosmic-ray-driven electron-induced reactions of halogenated molecules adsorbed on ice surfaces: Implications for atmospheric ozone depletion”, in Physics Reports, by Qing-Bin Lua
His post is syrup of IPCC, IOW.
MJK (10:20:21): “I think it is totally appropriate for Somerville to use the “D” word. . .”
Douglas DC (10:55:53): “Almost reads like some sort of medieval condemnation of heresy. . .”
Douglas has it right. The reason the Warmists are comfortable with the term ‘denier’ is because to deny the ‘settled’ (i.e. self-evident, revealed) truth of Global Warming is a heresy, a refusal to accept the Gospel according to the cloaked priesthood of ‘Climate Scientists’, whose Oracle is Gore.
We are lucky that this sanctimonious clique has not (yet) risen to the top of a dictatorial theocracy, so have not the power to put the Deniers to the rack and screw and torch. But give them time and unfettered access to power, and they may yet become our oppressors. Already there are murmurs in the Obambi administration of taxes and controls on the free Internet.
Climategate and the failure of Copenhagen are cracks in the foundations of the temple they are building (with our taxes, of course), but the ediface continues to grow. The Goracle and his priesthood and acolytes must not be allowed to repair the damage and enshrine their litany in law. For surely they will conclude that Deniers, those who refuse “to learn about what science has discovered and accept it,” cannot be permitted to roam free in the land.
This screed by one of the minor priests among the Warmists is a warning that they continue to pursue their ambitions for power and control undaunted. Continue the fight!
/Mr Lynn