The 4th International Conference on Climate Change – Chicago, Il., USA
Consensus? What consensus?
by Roger Helmer MEP
I’m writing this in the Marriott Hotel in Chicago, where I’m attending the Heartland Institute Climate Conference (and I’ve just done an interview with BBC Environment Correspondent Roger Harrabin).
Ahead of the interview, I thought I’d just check out the Conference Speaker’s list. There are 80 scheduled speakers, including distinguished scientists (like Richard Lindzen of MIT), policy wonks (like my good friend Chris Horner of CEI), enthusiasts and campaigners (like Anthony Watts of the wattsupwiththat.com web-site), and journalists (including our own inimitable James Delingpole).
Of the 80 speakers, I noticed that fully forty-five were qualified scientists from relevant disciplines, and from respected universities around the world — from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Norway, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
All of them have reservations about climate alarmism, ranging from concerns that we are making vastly expensive public policy decisions based on science that is, to say the least, open to question, through to outright rejection of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) model.
Several of these scientists are members or former members of the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But how do 45 sceptical scientists stack up, you may well ask, against the 2500 on the official IPCC panels? But of course there aren’t 2500 relevant scientists on the IPCC panel. Many of them are not strictly scientists at all. Some are merely civil servants or environmental zealots. Some are economists — important to the debate but not experts on the science. Others are scientists in unrelated disciplines. The Chairman of the IPCC Dr. Ravendra Pachuari, is a Railway Engineer.
And of the remaining minority who are indeed scientists in relevant subjects, some (like my good friend Prof Fred Singer) have explicitly rejected the IPCC’s AGW theory. Whittle it down, and you end up with fifty or so true believers, most of whom are part of the “Hockey Team” behind the infamous Hockey Stick graph, perhaps the most discredited artefact in the history of science. This is a small and incestuous group of scientists (including those at the CRU at the University of East Anglia). They work closely together, jealously protecting their source data, and they peer-review each other’s work. This is the “consensus” on which climate hysteria is based.
And there are scarcely more of them than are sceptical scientists at this Heartland Conference in Chicago, where I am blogging today. Never mind the dozens of other scientists here in Chicago, or the thousands who have signed petitions and written to governments opposing climate hysteria. Science is not decided by numbers, but if it were, there is the case to be made that the consensus is now on the sceptical side.
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davidmhoffer says:
May 19, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Wren;
What I found is average global surface temperature rose by 0.7 C or 1.3 F from 1980 to 2009 while CO2 concentrations rose from about 340 ppm to 380ppm. I calculated the absolute increases in temperatures from the anomalies in the linked source>>
Well why not go from 1917 to 1937 instead and only in the NH? That way you get an even bigger temp rise against an even smaller amount of CO2. You just aren’t very good at warmist strategy, are you Wren?
====
I’m trying to be good at being objective and even-handed, the way a skeptic is supposed to be. It’s a struggle.
“The idea that there are only 50 scientists who believe that human activities are influencing our climate is a joke.” Why is the argument FOR always using this notion and never specifics? Might as well toss up a consensus statement that 100% of nutritionists agree “Food is good for you!” and hang that sign above the golden arches. Its every bit as accurate as the blanket statement about an agreement that man’s existence alters his surroundings hands the ball into the alarmist camp. May as well toss out there that “The vast majority of nutritionists agree that without at least bi-weekly visit to what the golden arches represents, an untimely death is assured.” and let the panicked public suckle on that.
In 2007 the American Physical Society (chief organization of professional physicists) published a statement that was quite alarmist and claimed
Such a statement was embraced by the CAGW crowd, but was yet another example of Conquest’s second law of politicsAny organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing
There was an almost immediate backlash from some of the physics membership, since the APS leadership didn’t actually bother to poll its membership before issuing this statement on their behalf. One of the key physicists in opposition was Willie Happer. More than two years later a supplemental commentary was finally issued.
A cursory reading of this commentary may still come across as alarmist, but keep in mind that this was put out by the same leadership that issued the original statement. However, a careful reading is much more qualified. It states in part:
Translation: the science is not settled.
“Mike says:
May 18, 2010 at 2:39 pm
You will at least admit that among climate scientists the “skeptics” are in the minority.”
I would be happy to admit that among “scientists” whose livelyhood depends on global warming hysteria; (a large number) there is a strong consensus. Among the crumudgeons who have positions not dependant on the funding provided to promote AGW the “consensus” doesn’t do very well at all.
Smokey: “The consensus issue has appeared again within the first dozen comments in this thread.”
Check again, and you will see that consensus is the subject of this post, and the word appears in the heading.
“I came to the party late, but no one has been able to refute the fact that the OISM Petition swamps the impotent efforts of the alarmist contingent to try and show they have the consensus on the AGW issue.”
The deciding factor is the work carried out in climate science, and the consensus there is with AGW. In addition, the vast majority of scientific societies support AGW.
“…scientists and science professionals in other fields, who are not a part of that small climate clique, resent their own lack of funding — and that is where much of the consensus against AGW comes from.”
Professional jealousy is not an adequate justification for scientific scepticism.
One of the most noticeable features of climate scepticism is the constant re-tread of faces. The same old, same old keep cropping up, and this has been a feature of climate scepticism for a good number of years.
On the warming side, however, studies supporting warming often reveal new and younger faces, for example as we have seen recently with the Lake Tanganyika study. They are the future of climate studies.
Despite the novels Barefootgirliegirl writes in this thread, and despite being asked at least twice, I am still waiting for Barefootgirl to answer Theo Goodwin’s question (in comment May 18, 2010 at 6:49 pm):
“So, please barefootgirl, tell me, are there empirical hypotheses that can be stated as universal generalizations and used to explain forcings and predict their behavior?”
should be easy for her and obviously readily available to her, given the fact that she is an esteemed climate scientist (and so in the know, right?) and a big supporter of the conclusions that are based (and heavily depending on) the answer to this question. Right?
Still waiting (in my case for a year or two already)…
Wren says:
May 18, 2010 at 11:13 pm
The world’s water supply is fixed at 332.6 million cubic miles, according to the source below. I’m sure that’s an estimate that could be off a little, but it seems likely the supply of water is fixed :
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesummary.html
Of course water affects climate, but the question is how can a fixed supply of water cause long-term warming?
Wren, during the 90-100k yr active-glacial periods, the world’s rain-forests shrink dramatically into pockets of forest surrounded by savanna or tropical dry-forest. Deserts and savannas expand elsewhere. A few regional areas get more rain (like the US west) due to jet-stream changes, but overall precip decreases significantly. This is due to increases/decreases in the overall hydrological “machine”.
So the precipitable water in the atmosphere, from this empirical evidence, changes significantly w/the glacial/interglacial temperature changes. The water vapor isn’t “fixed”. This is the water vapor positive feedback, which I believe exists, but, like CO2, has a complementary effect on changing temps, but not a dominate one.
Also, tho it’s true that water-vapor doesn’t significantly “accumulate” like CO2 does, changes can affect local areas. Creation of lakes/impoundments of significant size certainly affect the nearby areas w/more greenhouse effect (especially in deserts). And elimination of moist, transpiring forests or fields in favor of concrete/asphalt does too — the UHI effect. But I don’t think those changes are of a big enough scale to have any global effect yet.
Brendan H,
I see you’re repeating the latest talking point of the alarmist contingent: “studies supporting warming often reveal new and younger faces.” Cognitive dissonance makes the climate alarmist crowd march in lock-step.
And note that skeptics are by definition immune from CD: skeptics question, while true believers wait for the flying saucers to appear on the appointed date. When they don’t show, the believers simply shrug and re-set the date. They never wonder if maybe there never were any flying saucers.
The true believers in CAGW also point exclusively to the Arctic, while studiously ignoring the Antarctic. Since the alarmist contingent makes a point of saying that CO2 is evenly distributed around the globe, why isn’t the Antarctic losing ice? The answer, of course, is that the Arctic is simply a local climate, influenced primarily by ocean currents. But the question has always be about global warming.
And as the article here points out, science is not decided by numbers, but if it were, there is the case to be made that the consensus is now on the sceptical side. Despite all the frantic handwaving by the losing side of the argument, the fact remains that the alarmist crowd has been trying for at least thirteen years to collect petition signatures — far longer than the OISM Petition Project — and they still don’t have even 20% of the OISM numbers, in all their various petitions added together.
The fact is that among professionals in the physical sciences, the consensus, for what it’s worth, is heavily on the side of skeptics.
Smokey writes:
The true believers in CAGW also point exclusively to the Arctic, while studiously ignoring the Antarctic. Since the alarmist contingent makes a point of saying that CO2 is evenly distributed around the globe, why isn’t the Antarctic losing ice? The answer, of course, is that the Arctic is simply a local climate, influenced primarily by ocean currents. But the question has always be about global warming.
Smokey, time to get your facts straight. It is the Antarctic that is primarily influenced by ocean currents as it is surrounded by the ocean, whereas the Arctic is surrounded by land. There are many studies and I have on several occasions given you the references on those studies that discuss the Antarctic sea ice and what is driving the observed changes. It appears that you have never bothered to read a single one of those papers. Because if you did, you would see the foolishness of your statements.
Wijnand says:
May 20, 2010 at 9:22 am
Wijnand, you seem to have missed barefootgirls last entry which said she was doing this blogging to learn more about how the skeptics try to argue their points. She’s probably sitting on the beach right now having a good laugh.
Wijnand May 20, 2010 at 9:22 am,
And I am still waiting for BFG to explain why she fabricated her malicious story about “crazy skeptics” making death threats.
Until/unless BFG responds with reasonable, verifiable explanations, she has no credibility. And why should anyone believe anything she says about her claimed qualifications?
I have a feeling we won’t be hearing much more from barefootgirl.
It is interesting that the trolls are back … wonder what has got their knickers in a knot?
jeff brown May 20, 2010 at 10:25 am,
Classic misdirection. Make no mistake: the alarmist claim is that a rise in human produced CO2 will cause catastrophic runaway global warming… even though human emitted CO2 is a tiny fraction of that tiny trace gas.
But if a rise in CO2 only causes slight to moderate warming, as appears to be the case, or if other unknown feedbacks nullify the effect of CO2, then the best course of action is to do nothing, because doing the wrong thing can easily cause more harm than a slight rise in temperature. So the alarmist position must be that a tiny, harmless and beneficial trace gas will cause a climate catastrophe. Climate alarmists cling to that evidence-deficient belief and feed off it.
OTOH, if you agree that we currently know too little to take action, or if you agree that the planet is not responding as predicted by CAGW
theoryhypothesisconjecture, or if you agree that a small increase in the global temperature will free up immense tracts of land for farming in Mongolia, Siberia and similar locations, and increase rainfall, and on balance would be beneficial to life on Earth, then we have no disagreement.But if you’re going to continue pushing the model based CO2=CAGW conjecture, then expect pushback, because you lack testable, verifiable, replicable facts based on empirical data; you’re asking us to buy a pig in a poke.
In that case, no sale.
Smokey, interesting how you avoid what my comment was in reference to. You should do your own background research/reading before making foolish statements about Antarctic sea ice. It’s the same with Arctic sea ice. You need to take the time to understand the processes that control the ice extent in both hemispheres.
I do agree with you that we don’t know enough yet to be alarmists about future catastrophic changes. I am no alarmist. But I do see the changes happening on the Earth today and while we can argue non-stop about what is causing those, they are nevertheless happening. So science that continues to try to understand the processes at work is important. And most scientific papers are exactly about that, process studies. I do think the Arctic Ocean is going to see ice-free summers in my lifetime. This is based on the fact that the changes happening today do not appear to be explained by natural variability. Seems it doesn’t matter what type of weather patterns you have each year, the ice is still going down. So something different is acting on the system. This extreme negative AO winter is a perfect example of that. And again while we can argue on and on about the causes of the sea ice decline, an ice-free Arctic Ocean will impact weather around the planet, so it’s something of importance to study.
jeff brown:
And there is the problem in a nutshell: even though the Arctic has been ice free many times since the start of the Holocene, somehow, for some unknown reason, this time it’s different?
I look at it from a different angle: from the point of view of a skeptic, according to the scientific method. What I see is simply natural climate variability; the null hypothesis. Everything observed today has routinely happened before.
The climate is well within its historical parameters. In fact, the current climate is almost ideal.
Others look at cyclical events like the Arctic, or other weather events, and get freaked out for no good reason. I don’t mind if they frighten themselves, but the fact is that the CAGW scare is being deliberately promoted by the government in order to jack up taxes and prices across the board. Anyone who doesn’t see that has a large blind spot in their view of reality.
So what if the Arctic melts? It has happened many times before. Sea levels will be unaffected. Ocean crossings will be more efficient. And in time, it will re-freeze again like it always has.
Attributing these events to human activity is pure hubris. The scientific method evolved as a means to advance science. But there is no true scientific method practiced in government funded climate science, or in the tightly controlled climate peer review process. Only those who can rise above the scare tactics being employed will be able to see clearly what nature is doing.
Smokey writes: So what if the Arctic melts? It has happened many times before. Sea levels will be unaffected. Ocean crossings will be more efficient. And in time, it will re-freeze again like it always has.
Smokey, it is not clear if the Arctic sea ice has melted entirely in summer since humans have been on the planet. Current estimates are at least 800,000 years of sea ice present (and the oldest human-linked fossil is 3 million years old). But if humans were here, there were a hell of a lot less of them. The impacts on weather from such a profound shift in the Arctic climate state, will affect us all, not just the folks living in the Arctic. And while sea ice in itself does not affect sea level rise, taking it away does amplify warming which impacts on places like Greenland.
So actually, it is an important issue because everything on this planet is connected. Scientists have a good handle on the causes of past major climate shifts (i.e. glacial and interglacial periods related to the Earth’s orbital variations). Unfortunately, those factors are not in effect right now. So research into understanding why it’s happening now is needed.
And you should be smart enough to realize that even if you don’t believe that we should reduce our CO2 emissions, that we should still be working towards alternative energy sources because there is not an unlimited supply of fossil fuels. I wonder too if you care about pollution from oil and gas industries, oil spills, acid rain, clean water, cancer, etc. etc. There are many good reasons to work towards cleaner energy.
jeff brown says:
May 20, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Well … umm … yeah, it is clear.
Please note that the polar bears didn’t go extinct during this time, the ungrateful wretches …
barefootgirl says:
May 18, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Not sure what your point is here, barefootgirl. I said that the organizers sent out lots of requests for AGW supporting scientists to come and speak. You seem to be objecting to the fact that they didn’t issue a blanket invitation to everyone to speak, but it’s not clear if that really is your issue.
For the record, here are the AGW supporting scientists that were invited, only two of whom agreed to speak.
Phil Jones
Michal Mann
Gavin Schmidt
Alan Robock
James Hansen
Noah Diffenbaugh
Timothy Hall
Steve Running
Brad Udall
Marty Hoerling
Caspar Amman
Rasmus Benestad
Raymond Bradley
Eric Steig
Tom Karl
Tom Wigley
Ken Briffa
Kevin Trenberth
Michael Oppenheimer
Michael Schlesinger
Alison Wise
Scott Denning
Tam Hunt
I’m sorry your name is not on the list … but then when you hide behind the name “barefootgirl”, it’s kinda hard to invite you to anything …
However, drop me an email if you’d like an invitation to speak at the next conference, I’ll see what I can do. I’m willis [at) taunovobay.com
And if you are not willing to speak either, like the others who declined to speak at the conference, what are you complaining about? Here’s your chance to put up or …
w.
Willis…but it doesn’t say completely ice free does it? Could be the ice was located someplace else.
And I’m curious, what makes you believe this study over another? Do you simply chose ones that fit your beliefs?
Oh and I wonder how many people were on the planet 6,000 years ago. Probably not a whole heck of a lot, and most were probably living in Africa.
Here’s a different study for you Willis. BWT, maybe best to use a published paper rather than a meeting abstract to make you point.
Moran et al., 2006
The history of the Arctic Ocean during the Cenozoic era (0–65 million years ago) is largely unknown from direct evidence. Here we present a Cenozoic palaeoceanographic record constructed from >400 m of sediment core from a recent drilling expedition to the Lomonosov ridge in the Arctic Ocean. Our record shows a palaeoenvironmental transition from a warm ‘greenhouse’ world, during the late Palaeocene and early Eocene epochs, to a colder ‘icehouse’ world influenced by sea ice and icebergs from the middle Eocene epoch to the present. For the most recent approx14 Myr, we find sedimentation rates of 1–2 cm per thousand years, in stark contrast to the substantially lower rates proposed in earlier studies; this record of the Neogene reveals cooling of the Arctic that was synchronous with the expansion of Greenland ice (approx3.2 Myr ago) and East Antarctic ice (approx14 Myr ago). We find evidence for the first occurrence of ice-rafted debris in the middle Eocene epoch (approx45 Myr ago), some 35 Myr earlier than previously thought; fresh surface waters were present at approx49 Myr ago, before the onset of ice-rafted debris. Also, the temperatures of surface waters during the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum (approx55 Myr ago) appear to have been substantially warmer than previously estimated. The revised timing of the earliest Arctic cooling events coincides with those from Antarctica, supporting arguments for bipolar symmetry in climate change.
Joel Shore;
The 255 K value is not the temperature at the TOA. It is the effective radiating temperature of the earth, so it already takes into account that some emission from the surface is escaping through the atmospheric window.>>
I just re-read this and realised how misleading it is (not what you said, how the IPCC is modeling things). Modeling the earth system in this fashion may have some value in terms of an over all energy balance discussion, but if you stop and think about it, the original numbers I used (288 K) are the right ones.
By thinking of it as an average from surface to TOA we are confining our analysis to a representation of earth as a black body calculation at some height in the atmosphere at a temperature of 255K and assuming some sort of generalized response (for example CO2 doubling is 1.1 degrees) for the system as a whole. Well stop and think about it for a moment and we see how misleading that is.
The atmosphere does not warm (or cool) in a linear fashion. Even at a new equilibrium point we expect cold regions (high altitudes, arctic regions, etc) to increase temperature more than warm regions. So we are less interested in what the average temperature change is, and more interested in what happens to the gradient. If the average goes up 1 degree, but at earth surface it goes up 0.1 and at TOA it goes up 2.1, I’m not certain we care nearly as much. That said, let’s go back to forcing.
While we might be able to calculate an “average” temperature increase from surface to TOA for a given forcing, each layer must still obey the laws of physics. For the surface temperature of earth, the part where we live, work, play, and grow food, to increase by 1 degree, the additional radiance (from dirt, sea surface, etc) must be calculated against the average surface temperature which is 288 K, not 255. So… if we apply Stefan Boltzman, the surface radiance must increase by 5.5 watts/m2 for a 1 degree temperature increase as per my original comment. It can’t emitt +5.5 watts extra unless we put an extra 5.5 watts into it in the first place.
Since the forcing claimed by the IPCC is 3.7 watts/m2 for CO2 doubling, it is not possible to increase temperature by 1.1 degrees at surface. If we assume that 100% of the forcing arrives at earth surface (ie 0% gets absorbed in the atmosphere which would be near impossible) we get a surface temperature increase of only 0.67 degrees. If say 1/2 of it encountered CO2 on the downward journey, was absorbed and re-radiated back up, we would get a surface temperature increase of only 0.3 degrees. If we scale for 380 ppm that translates to a surface temperature increase of 0.34 (100 % at surface) and 0.15 (50% at surface) respectively. Seems pretty reasonable given that the last 100 years saw a 0.6 degree increase and the previous century was about 0.5 due to natural variability.
So… in addition to the next few hundred ppm of CO2 being almost meaningless because CO2 is logarithmic, it now becomes plain that the IPCC claims of 1.1 degree sensitivity for CO2 doubling are an average from surface to TOA (or perhaps top of Troposphere?) and can’t possibkly support a 1.1 degree temperature increase at surface. If surface temps go up by 0.15 degrees and top of the troposphere 10 kilometers up goes goes up by 2.05 degrees for an average of 1.1, do you really think anyone will care? Will anyone even notice?
There was a statistical analysis on WUWT of the surface temp record concluding that surface temp sensitivity to CO2 was less than 0.2 degrees. The IPCC is not only misleading us in terms of how much additional forcing the next 200 years of fossil fuel consumption will bring, they’ve presented a math calculation that is reasonable in terms of the assumptions used, and completely and totaly useless and astoundingly misleading in determining what increase in temperature we should expect in the part that matters, earth’s surface.
All the misleading hooey that I caught them on this last six months and I didn’t twig onto this one until just now. Thanks for bringing it up Joel. Can’t believe I almost let them get that one past me.
nedhead says:
May 20, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Well, it says “the Arctic Ocean was free of sea ice”, which seems clear.
Willis, no it says: dropped boulders indicate that the Arctic Ocean was nearly free of sea ice in the summer at the time when they were formed.
Nearly is not the same as ice free. And it’s not the only study out there looking at the last time the Arctic Ocean was ice-free. There is no consensus right now as to the last time the Arctic was ice free.
jeff brown says:
May 20, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Yeah, peer review has been such an outstanding indicator of good climate science in the past …
How about you comment on their findings rather than where they were published?
In addition, the study was published in EOS, and was cited in the US CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.2, which was peer reviewed.