Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
The latest Science magazine has an extended interview with Dr. Phil Jones. In this post, I’ll keep away from issues related to Climategate, whether this was a softball interview (given that, for example, there is no discussion of deletion of files, if any) or whether, by refusing to share data with skeptics, Professor Jones was undermining the scientific method (because the scientific method relies, among other things, on giving one’s skeptics the opportunity to disprove one’s conclusions). Instead I will focus on phenological arguments that have been advanced to argue that global warming indeed exists.
These arguments are the subject of the second question posed to Dr. Jones:
”Q: Let’s pretend for a second that we threw out the CRU dataset. What other data are available that corroborate your findings about temperature rise?
“P.J.: There’s the two other datasets produced in the U.S. [at NASA and NOAA]. But there’s also a lot of other evidence showing that the world’s warming, by just looking outside and seeing glaciers retreating, the reduction of sea ice … overall, the reduction of snow areas in the northern hemisphere, the earlier [annual] breakup of sea ice and some land ice and river ice around the world, and the fact that spring seems to be coming earlier in many parts of the world.”
I am very sympathetic to PJ’s argument, because, in the past, I have made the same argument. However, over time I have become more skeptical about the extent to which higher temperatures are the sole determinants of either (a) melting of glaciers and sea ice and (b) earlier springs. Accordingly, these phenological arguments have, in my opinion, become less compelling. I would, therefore, add caveats to PJ’s response.
Melting of glaciers and sea ice. It’s possible that higher levels of soot could have contributed to greater melting (see paper by James Hansen, also see here). On the other hand, ice core measurements in Greenland indicate that soot peaked around 1910 (with minor peaks occurring later), consistent with my claim that air pollution from combustion sources in industrialized countries was being reduced long before any Clean Air Act. In addition, a reduction in precipitation would also be manifested as a net reduction in glacier and ice extent, but it is hard to imagine that precipitation changes will only occur in one direction.
Earlier Springs. This suggests that temperatures might have increased, at least around springtime. This, however, is complicated by the fact that human activities have pumped out CO2, and various forms of sulfur and nitrogen into the atmosphere. Each of these acts as a plant fertilizer. This ought to affect the onset of spring. [If anyone has or knows of empirical information on fertilizers and earlier spring, I would appreciate getting details.] Moreover, while there are numerous studies (see, e.g. here) that indicate that spring has advanced, there is a recent satellite based study that indicates no consistent trends in the starat of spring in North America. This paper, Intercomparison, interpretation, and assessment of spring phenology in North America estimated from remote sensing for 1982–2006, notes in its abstract:
”We found no evidence for time trends in spring arrival from ground- or model-based data; using an ensemble estimate from two methods that were more closely related to ground observations than other methods, SOS [start of spring] trends could be detected for only 12% of North America and were divided between trends towards both earlier and later spring.”
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Sure, warmer. But why PJ? Aren’t you curious?
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At first glance I read that as pharmacological arguments.
I guess I subconsciously thought that might be the only sensible or believable reason for this whole thing.
Australia’s Climate Change Minister in defence of the IPCC
This has been today headlined at http://www.climategate.com/the-lies-of-aussie-climate-minister-penny-wong
Please visit and make a comment
The other day it was BBC, yesterday it was Nature, today it’s Science, and what’ll be next?
PJ is now a big figure, which he himself probably did never imagine three months ago.
I don’t buy it.
All observations have been observed log before CO2 could have been a problem.
Jones uses these arguments to cover up is own sloppy work and justify his position.
“look out the window”
PJ you are doomed
Remember, PJ doesn’t actually care what’s going on. He only wants to be proven right.
As I keep repeating all these events from glacier melt, to Arctic ice to seasonal variation, early spring, late autumn, hot summers, and hard winters, are not evidence of anything beyond variations in the weather from year to year and decade to decade.
They have all happened before and no doubt will again, and we know all that from the written record: and indeed the instrumental one. It is just weather.
And we are told weather is not climate which is nonsense, climate is the aggregate of weather in some place over decades and centuries but when it comes to much of globe it is centuries and millenia rather than decades. For again we know that there are short lived, decades, periods of warmth and cold. And have been for centuries: and indeed there have been warmer and colder centuries too.
For we also know too that local climate covering vast regions does change over centuries for reasons we do not understand which is why for instance much of the Sudan is no longer the once fertile and luxuriant area coveted by the Egyptians as it once was three thousand years ago.
And it was not damaged by man but by great changes in the weather system.
Do you think the Antarctic has changed much in the last three thousand years?
And for the whole globe that is not mere thousands of years but tens of thousands.
And everybody gets excited that the snowdrops are earlier or later this spring.
Get a sense of proportion.
The global climate is driven by vast natural forces we barely understand, and whilst we might affect local weather and the micro climates around our cities and our agriculltural lands we could no more affect the climate of the globe than we can change the winds by spitting at them.
Even a tiny volcano does more than all our nuclear weapons could or would do if detonated together.
What arrogance to suppose that we could affect the global climate and what ignorance of the sheer scale of natural forces far beyond our imagining that allows such inanity to flourish.
Kindest Regards
Did he not get the memo? 2nd greatest now extent recorded…
oops .. snow extent
gotta quit clicking so fast
Personally, I am taking their advice, and I am looking out the window. All I see is snow and cold, cold, cold. Using their own methods, this tells me that there is no AGW!
Earlier Spring …. not terribly conclusive.
“Cherry Blossom Festival dates are set based on the average date of blooming (April 4), but nature is not always cooperative. Unseasonably warm and/or cool temperatures have resulted in the Yoshino cherries reaching peak bloom as early as March 15 (1990) and as late as April 18 (1958).”
http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/cms/index.php?id=404
Look out the window indeed. Hopefully pretty soon you and your cabal will only see the sky for one hour per day. The other 23 hrs you’ll get acquainted with your new friend Big Bubba
“It’s possible that higher levels of soot could have contributed to greater melting…”
What about shifting ocean currents reported by this very blog? That sounds more plausible.
a jones (22:47:25) :
“Get a sense of proportion.”
Just some common sense would be a good start…
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/65_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev.jpg
It appears that Jones has taken to studying the Al Gore book of climate science. A person of his position should know that glaciers are a poor indicator of climate change in a relatively short period of geological time. They are too sensitive to regional conditions and temperature is not the only thing which effects them. Most glaciers which are in retreat lost the greatest volume of their ice prior to 1850.
Sea ice…. Is Jones aware that there are TWO polar caps?
Is Jones aware of study after study indicates that wind and ocean currents have been identified as the largest factor in the loss of Arctic Sea ice during the 2007 event?
Onset of spring? There has not been a consistent earlier onset. Further, any timing of the onset of spring must be presented with consideration of the attending state of the Enso and other natural cycles. Nature does not work by mans calendar.
Interpretations of phenological records often raise lots of questions. “Reading” those records usually involves making lots of assumptions, so that two different scientists might arrive at different results depending on how they interpret very ephemeral data.
There have been decimations of honeybee populations across the U.S. But nobody knows why. The global warmers have drawn a number of damning lines of reasoning. But it’s just as easy (probably easier) to see honeybee losses as a result of cooling.
There are thousands of phenological records if PJ wants to engage in historical record-combing: Here’s one interpretation of Japan’s long cherry blossom record. The scientist is Takehiko Mikami, of the Department of Geology, Tokyo Metropolitan University:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120695166/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
There was soot generated in Eastern North America in increasing amounts beginning with the first colonists.
There is a quote that refers to the great eastern hardwood forest, namely,
“A squirrel could travel from Maine to Texas without touching the ground.”
One of the activities of early towns, such as Boston, was to construct canals to facilitate bringing in massive quantities of firewood from greater distances as local sources became exhausted. Alternative fuels as we have today did not exist. Then came the charcoal iron industry:
http://www.oldeforester.com/ironintr.htm
All the while cutting, clearing, and burning of the forest continued. By the 1940s and 50s in much of the East the trend reversed. Farms and fields were abandoned and a new succession of vegetation began.
I find it amazing that Jones appears to have no intuition about how climate works, but still became head of the CRU and one of the key players in the IPCC scam.
None of the things he mentions are other than the natural changes our climate has demonstrated countless times in the past and will do so again in the future.
Incompetent seems to be the word that best sums him up.
When the author wrote “no consistent trends in the starat of spring” I suspect that “no consistent trends in the start of spring” was meant instead.
Look, dood cant even remember
A. we requested the CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENTS FOR 5 COUNTRIES, not the data.
B. He could not tell us what exact stations HE USED. GHCN is a pile of 6000 stations. Question: PJ which ones did you use dood? Answer: I dunno but they are all in GHCN except some which are not.
Beclowned.
if this is all remaining evidence, global warming seems to have happened every 60-70 years and then … just went away.
http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv161/Radiant_2009/popularmechanics1957-2.jpg
Phil Jones is saying one thing to the BBC/Nature and another thing on Real Climate…. On there he basically says that he agrees with that Real climate thought he was trying to say not what he actually said – AGW is real and we are in trouble. Everything has been spun to death over there and in his interview/chat with them he agrees with their outlook on it. Looks like he’s trying to play both sides at the moment.
If Jones keeps this up he’s going to out compete Hansen and Gavin for the climate media whore of the year award.
Next thing you know PJ will be on “The View” with Barbara Walters, giving a tearful blow-by-blow account of his suicidal ideations, Gore fixations, and carbon fraud fantasies. After that maybe he’ll do Jerry Springer with a surprise special guest appearance by Penny Wong as the jilted “climate ho”. The possibilities are endless.
Phil! I looked out the window and saw a PR firm
chasing your reputation.