“I don’t think they were very pleased. I don’t think this sort of thing has been done before in the history of the society.”
Society to review climate message
By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst, BBC News
There is debate over “feedback” effects on the climate
The UK’s Royal Society is reviewing its public statements on climate change after 43 Fellows complained that it had oversimplified its messages.
They said the communications did not properly distinguish between what was widely agreed on climate science and what is not fully understood.
The society’s ruling council has responded by setting up a panel to produce a consensus document.
The panel should report in July and the report is to be published in September.
It is chaired by physicist John Pethica, vice-president of the Royal Society.
Its deliberations are reviewed by two critical sub-groups, each believed to comprise seven members.
Each of these groups contains a number of society Fellows who are doubtful in some way about the received view of the risks of rising CO2 levels.
One panel member told me: “The timetable is very tough – one draft has already been rejected as completely inadequate.”
The review member said it might not be possible for the document to be agreed at all. “This is a very serious challenge to the way the society operates,” I was told. “In the past we have been able to give advice to governments as a society without having to seek consensus of all the members.
“There is very clear evidence that governments are right to be very worried about climate change. But in any society like this there will inevitably be people who disagree about anything – and my fear is that the society may become paralysed on this issue.”
Another review member told me: “The sceptics have been very strident and well-organised. It’s not clear to me how we are going to get precise agreement on the wording – we are scientists and we’re being asked to do a job of public communication that is more like journalism.”
But both members said they agreed that some of the previous communications of the organisation in the past were poorly judged.
Question everything
A Royal Society pamphlet Climate Change Controversies is the main focus of the criticism. A version of it is on the organisation’s website. It was written in response to attacks on mainstream science which the Royal Society considered scurrilous.
It reads: “This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change…”
One Fellow who said he was not absolutely convinced of the dangers of CO2 told me: “This appears to suggest that anyone who questions climate science is malicious. But in science everything is there to be questioned – that should be the very essence of the Royal Society. Some of us were very upset about that.
“I can understand why this has happened – there is so much politically and economically riding on climate science that the society would find it very hard to say ‘well, we are still fairly sure that greenhouse gases are changing the climate’ but the politicians simply wouldn’t accept that level of honest doubt.”
Another society protester said he wanted to be called a climate agnostic rather than a sceptic. He said he wanted the society’s website to “do more to question the accuracy of the science on climate feedbacks” (in which a warming world is believed to make itself warmer still through natural processes).
“We sent an e-mail round our friends, mainly in physical sciences,” he said.
“Then when we had got 43 names we approached the council in January asking for the website entry on climate to be re-written. I don’t think they were very pleased. I don’t think this sort of thing has been done before in the history of the society.
“But we won the day, and the work is underway to re-write it. I am very hopeful that we will find a form of words on which we can agree.
“I know it looks like a tiny fraction of the total membership (1,314) but remember we only emailed our friends – we didn’t raise a general petition.”
much more here at the BBC
h/t to WUWT reader “Sandy in Derby”
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Dr Spencer mentioned his paper showing negative feedback comes out in a few weeks. Hope it’s not too late for this review. Someone should send it.
“This is a very serious challenge to the way the society operates,” I was told. “In the past we have been able to give advice to governments as a society without having to seek consensus of all the members.
Sooooo… the consensus of Scientific Societies could really just be a consensus of non-consensus views?
Well.. I guess we knew that. It’s fun knowing things 10 years before everyone else…
“Royal Society to Review Climate Consensus Position”
I honestly think they’re a few thousand days late and a few million pounds short. Constant review in the search for truth is the life blood of science. To take any position that “all that is knowable is known” and “anyone who doubts is a fool” is truly stupid and contemptable. Yet, what has their “Official” position been? All that is knowable on Global Warming and Climate Change is known! Anyone who disagrees is a fool! They, as a Society, are beneath contempt. Their Royal Charter should be burned. The Society should be disbanded. The fools who are manageing members and responsible for the Society’s “Official Position on Global Warming” should be exiled to St Helena and administered a little hemlock with their dinner wine.
I usually refer to myself as a “climate change heretic,” as I’m firmly opposed to the Church of Infinite Warming and their theological basis for disaster!!
Skeptic? Sure, I paid for that title with my degrees. Denier? I don’t deny anything, I just say “show me the data and prove it.”
Good for the Brits, I wonder how they overcome the influence of Mad Prince Charlie?
The question to me is why does the RS need to have a consensus position at all?
Science has never worked by consensus so why should a society of scientists try to develop one?
A telling quote from one review member mentioned in the article:
“In the past we have been able to give advice to governments as a society without having to seek consensus of all the members.”
So, what is the role of the the RS? My memory is that they were one of the original scientific publication organisations and pretty much invented peer review, but it seems that now – in the view of the quoted member – their role is to give advice to governments.
Fine, but why should that advice have to be a single (over-simplistic) position?
Governments (politicians) want to hide behind scientists when taking unpopular actions. This is an abdication of their responsibilities and quite simply immoral. Scientists should not let this happen. When a body such as the RS plays along with this, they have completely lost their moral standing as well.
Science is not certain, it never will be. Governments have to make decisions based on a multitude of factors, some of them scientific, about which they limited information and almost never any certainty. Leadership is doing just that – making a decision and taking responsibility for the outcome.
I am fed up with governments hiding behind fake scientific certainty – and even more fed up with scientists playing along with it.
Sorry, rant over.
I thought the Royal Society’s motto includes the translated words “on no one’s word.”
Having written to the Royal Society some time ago pointing out that their web site appeared to have the mental level of a child , (and not receiving a reply), I’m interested to see this. Significant result here!.
“To doubt things is the best and only way to know them”
attributed to Agostini Scilla (1629-1700)
“‘Another review member told me: “The skeptics have been very strident and well-organized.”‘
I thought that was the funniest comment too.
I suppose it can look that way to them, but then, they shouldn’t make it so easy. Which they do.
The biggest hurdle they have to get over is still the original hurdle.
Convincing people that weathermen can predict the future.
So a “consensus paper” will solve……what????
Consensus is not TRUTH. It is, by definition, statements or actions “agreed on” by a willingness of all involved in the process to agree that they have reached the “best guess”. It includes the willingness to suspend, for now, disagreements and doubts.
Consensus is NOT NOW AND FOREVER.
They are about to write down the epitaph on UK’s tombstone.
God save the EU!
There are only two facts to consider.
1. There has been a moderate general warming over the last two hundred years as we have emerged from the Little Ice Age.
2. Scientists at the principle institute in the country charged with investigating climate science, the UEA CSU, have been found to have been less than professional in the way in which they and the other major institutes in America have manipulated evidence which has ascribed this warming to a substantially anthropogenic cause.
If the RS wishes to demonstrate that it is the world’s premier learned professional society that it once used to be, rather than the evangelising pressure group that it now appears to be, it must demonstrate this by acting with scientific rigour and declaring that the evidence that exists is contaminated and must therefore be set aside until such a time that it can be objectively reviewed by the wider scientific community and further, until such evidence is reinstated there remains no evidence of an anthropogenic element to recent warming. Alas, I doubt very much that this will be the actual outcome.
Julian Flood
“Is there not a twitch from the deep-down nosiness that every reporter needs if he is to be anything other than a mouthpiece for other people’s press releases?”
The problem for the Press is that they are no longer profitable, as year on year their advertising income falls. Independence and truth with regard to everything must needs be sacrificed in order to keep the revenue streams running, and when that means taking the paymaster’s line that is what they do, willy -nilly.
The reporter at the sharp end cannot question too closely lest that mouthpiece refuses to be interviewed in the future, and thus his teeth are drawn.
The Government takes our taxes and brainwashes our children through shameless manipulation of the education system and brainwashes us by big bucks advertising in the cash-strapped Press.
The three main parties in the recent General Election unbelievably ran a four week campaign without reference to the disastrous financial circumstances we were, and remain, in.
The Press and the TV companies colluded in this for fear of reprisals from the government to come. What a shameful state of affairs!
On the plus side we are, however, well informed on celebrity sexual arrangements, the state of Footballers metatarsals, and which caterwauling recording artist is top of the heap. God help us!
I just hope the Royal Society remembers its motto. Scientists are not sceptics per se; their approach to any solution/theory must be sceptical. In short show me the evidence, show me how this works and now how can we test this?
“‘Another review member told me: “The skeptics have been very strident and well-organized.”‘
Organization is a byproduct of truth.
The Royal Society has now put up a statement about the report:
Royal Society to publish new guide to the science of climate change
Of course, it was planned all along:
And Martin Rees has always had the greatest respect for sceptics:
There’s more linked from that page http://royalsociety.org/Climate-Change/ explaining the process by which the report will be agreed (though not specifying the membership of the various groups).
And while it’s still there, here is the 2005 document
http://royalsociety.org/Climate-change-controversies/
Update – there was another piece on the BBC just now (Radio 4 PM programme)
A guy called Bob Ward spoke and eventually grudgingly admitted that the range predicted by the models was between +1C and +10C. He was very grumpy about not being able just to say that it was between +3C and +6C.
I thought he was a typical shifty and patronising cove from the warmist camp. Did not like at all being put under a wee bit of pressure from Harrabin.
Harrabin had previously payed an old tape from May (ex President of the Royal Society) repeating that ‘there is no room for doubt’ about climate change…and referred to his ‘colourful language’ when discussing anyone who had expressed such doubts.
Overall, the listener was left with the impression that the RS hadn’t known its arse from its elbow and was trying to play catch up.
“”” Ian H says:
May 28, 2010 at 12:39 am
George E. Smith said ”
“I have never experienced any cloud at any height that warmed up the surface in the shadow zone, when it passes in front of the sun; it ALWAYS cools; no matter what.”
And yet cloudy nights are still a lot warmer than clear ones. “””
“”” And yet cloudy nights are still a lot warmer than clear ones. “””
“”” And yet WARMER nights are still a lot CLOUDIER than COLD ones. “””
So which is it Ian ? Are the clouds the reaon for the warmth; or is it that the warmth (and humidity) are the reasons for the clouds. And the warmer it is at the surface, the higher the water vapor has to rise before it reaches the dew point and forms clouds; so the warmer teh surface is the higher the clouds form.
You could do a test on some warm balmy (cloudless day), if clouds start to form late in the day. Start taking the temperature; and keep taking it throughout the night as those clouds form and then tell us whether the temperature rises during the night; or whether it falls.
And for the record I DO BELIEVE THAT CLOUDS SLOW THE EXIT OF LWIR RADIATION.
In fact if you reread my post about the clouds and altitude, you will find this part:-
“”” Now the rest of the ground outside the shadow zone, of course continues in its cloud free state; so its temperature is unaffected by the cloud; as far as solar blockage; BUT the cloud does block a small amount of the LWIR emitted from each surface element outside the shadow zone; which in this example is most of the surface.
So the cloud now intercepts a small fraction of the LWIR surface emission from everywhere outide the shadow zone; and of course at a different oblique angle for each location; so one might need to integrate all of those small contributions to get the total for the rest of the surface outside the shadow zone. “””
That’s the part where I acknowledge that the cloud reacts to LWIR from everywhere outside the shadow zone, to absorb LWIR, and subsequently that slightly warmed blob of atmosphere that is the cloud will itself radiate LWIR back towards the earth (and of course out towards space as well; about half in each direction). And nowhere did I say or intimate, that this process suddenly stops at sunset.
I’m going to assume that you understand how black body radiation works; and that earth radiation at least approximates BB radiation (specially from the oceans which after all are only about 73% of the total surface). Actually the BB result defines a limit envelope within which the real emission must be bounded by the spectral emissiviies of the various surface materials.
Bottom line is that emission is a highly non-linear process; the total energy emitted still varies about as the fourth power of the surface Temperature (K) but the emission spectrum PEAK emittance (Watts/metresquared/micron of bandwidth) varies as the FIFTH POWER of that temperature; and it is that spectral peak region that happens to fall in the ATMOSPHERIC WINDOW between water bands (as well as the CO2 15 micron band)
So what does that mean. It means that by far the most efficient escape of energy and cooling of the earth takes place in the daytime; AT THE TIMES AND PLACES WHERE THE TEMPERATURE IS HIGHEST. The Earth doesn’t lose energy (much) at night; it loses it BIG TIME, in the heat of the day.
So the energy loss during the daytime far outweighs the slower cooling on cloudy nights; and those clouds during the day inhibit a lot moreINCOMING solar energy, than they stop at night.
And reread that part where after I point out that it ALWAYS is colder in the shadow zone (dayitme); and that is true for the shadow zone of every piece of cloud on the day side; all the way up to total dayside cloud cover (which I don’t think ever actually occurs).
So before somebody jumps on me; and says I didn’t compute the downward radiation from the cloud; I DON’T HAVE TO because it is irrelevent; the shadow zone is always cooled no matter how large that shadow zone grows; and that is blockage of incoming solar energy; the rest of it is simply redistribution of some of the energy that is already there.
NOTE: The part of the incoming solar energy that the cloud absorbs (50 % of 50 % in my sample cloud) ends up warming the atmosphere too. It is a NEGATIVE feedback (well cooling) effect; in that it is blocked from the ground; but a positive (or warming) effect; in that that warmer chunk of atmopshere subsequently re-radiates; both towards the ground, and towards space.
Does it sink in; if the cloud wasn’t there to block it, it would reach the ground (or ocean) directly and heat the ground (or get stored deeply in the ocean); but since the cloud absorbed it, and got warmer; it ends up being re-radiated (much of it) BUT in that re-radiation; only half of it heads towards the ground. The rest heads for escape to space (wiht some reabsorption by GHG); so much of the downward radiation from the cloud i actually energy that could have reached the surface directly as solar spectrum energy that is more efficient at warming the surface. Why do I say it is more efficient? Because the LWIR spectrum downward emission, gets mostly absorbed in the top ten microns of the oceans; and does not go deep; and when it warms that thin surface film it causes prompt evaporation that transports massive amounts of water vapor, AND LATENT HEAT, into the upper atmosphere.
So the real net surface heating of downward LWIR is much reduced by evaporation.
So is it warmer at night because of the clouds; or are those clouds there because it was warmer during the late day time; we know for sure it WAS warmer before sundown; because it DOES cool down during the night; clouds or no clouds.
And yes I fully understand that arid deserts get cold very fast at night.
Sorry (typo in my post above) the RS’s Climate Change Controversies dates from 2007 not 2005.
…and my fear is that the society may become paralysed on this issue.
Of course that’s a fear when you pose a poorly constructed political question to a scientific body. The best answer is no answer in such cases.
“”” P.G. Sharrow says:
May 27, 2010 at 10:33 pm
@ur momisugly George E. Smith: George, I liked your argument about cloud thermo effects of shadowing. However you may have over looked the very large energy release in cloud formation. Evaporation and condensation in cloud formation is the heat pump that cools the surface and transfers the energy higher up to be radiated into space. Heat energy and temperature are not always the same thing. This is why the climate models are so crappy, too simple minded about cloud effects. “””
Thanks for the thought P.G. BUT !!!! I didn’t and haven’t “”” over looked the very large energy release in cloud formation. “””
If you read my more recent follow up; you will see where I point out that the evaporation process; which is highly favored by ocean absorption of downward LWIR does in fact transport astronomical amounts of latent heat of evaporation into the upper atmosphere; where yes, as you point out, that heat is dumped out in the formation of the cloud; and even more so in high clouds where you not only get the about 545 Cal/gm LH of condensation; but you then get dumped out another 80 cal/gm LH of freezing when ice crystals form in those high clouds; and all of that heat; deposited up there is then able to be lost to space at those higher altitudes. (well of course it gets distributed in multiple ways).
But the point is; the focus of my first post; was to point out that the existence of those clouds has certain Optical effects which favor cooling. The fact that the very formation of the clouds themselves is an earth cooling phenomenon; is not overlooked; it just wasn’t the focus of the essay.
But your mentioning of it, is indeed useful; because it gives us the opportunity, to futher expand on the role that clouds play in providing a VERY LARGE negative feedback cooling of the planet.
That’s why I keep screaming at the top of my lungs:- IT’S THE WATER!
I am quite certain; beyond any reasonable doubt; that the water evaportion/cloud fomation/precipitation cylce is more than capable of negating any amount of CO2 that humans are ever likely to add to the atmosphere. I do not deny the CO2 atmospheric warming effect; that is a fool’s game; a totally crazy place to make your last stand.
Sadly there’s a few very enthusiastic climate skeptics; who insist there is no such thing as the “greenhouse effect”; and they erroneously drag in the Second Law of Thermodynamics; where it doesn’t apply. I know it drives Joel Shore up the wall; and Joel is quite right to object.
Of course what WE call the “greenhouse effect” is NOT the way real green houses operate; but we know that; and we all know what is meant in climatology by the greenhouse effect; so talking about glass windows is not useful.
But no I don’t ignore any of those other thermal processes that you mentioned; it’s just that if we talk about too many of them all at once; we end up with a picture; which may be quite accurate; but it is too damn complicated to try and understand all at one.
I like to keep it at a level of complexity; where you can make some chicken scratchings in the sand with a stick; and don’t have to delve into higher mathematics, or advanced Physics texts to get an understanding of what is going on.
So don’t assume I’m overlooking something; sure I’m leaving it out to keep things less complex; but by all means feel free to add any of those sorts of things on. The more of this that is made available to others without scientific training to understand; the better off we will all be in the end.
george
PS By the way; since the Hurricane season will soon be officially upon us; it is often pointed out that when a hurrican sweeps through the Gulf of Mexico; it leaves a long trail of cold ocean waters behind it; like a snail lubricating its path across the sand. The news papers almost invariably describe this as a result of the hurricane stirring up the ocean depths and bringind cold deep waters to the surface. Funny thing is they never mention trails of dead fish on the surface destroyed by all that violence in the depths.
I’m sure some such mixing occurs; but the vast majority of that water cooling is what you pointed out; the transport of epic amounts of latent heat energy from the ocean surface waters; which cools those surface waters themselves. In the Florida Keys region for example; there isn’t any deep water to stir up (well I know of a place called the 26 foot hole); but when a tornado water spout goes through there and tears the place up; it too leaves cold water behind it; having sucked the heat out of the warm surface waters. (I’ve watched it happen from close up while Tarpon fishing down there.)
oh for goodness sake
no one is a climate sceptic….
we are man made alarmist, tipping point, catastrophic climate sceptics.
the vast majority people will concede a 1.0C degree of warming should total co2 double is plausible.. then there is negative feedback, vs +ve feedbacks of alarmist computer projections.. yet to say this is to be asceptic/deniar
George E. Smith says:
May 28, 2010 at 10:02 am
Very good George!
Maybe one day, the Gaia people will understand that they have been fooled by Big Government. Fooled to believe that you can trade Air.
hehe.
“”” Joel Shore says:
May 27, 2010 at 7:18 pm
George E Smith says:
So this has generated the legend of low clouds causing negative feedback cooling while high clouds cause positive feedback heating of the surface. That is the standard gospel.
Actually, you are misusing the terminology somewhat: The standard picture is that an increase in low clouds will generally cause cooling in net and an increase in high clouds will generally cause warming in net. However, it is not always straightforward how cloudiness will change in a warming world. (There is more evaporation but only such that relative humidity is expected to remain approximately constant.) Hence, whether low clouds cause a positive or negative feedback depends on whether they decrease or increase, respectively in a warming world. And, similarly whether high clouds cause a positive or negative feedback depends on whether they increase or decrease, respectively in a warming world.
Well of course that defies both common sense and everyday observation. If you are standing out in the sun with a cloud near the sun direction at any altitude; and that cloud then moves across in front of the sun; then observation says that it ALWAYS cools down in the shadow zone.
Not if you happen to be on the half of the planet that is experiencing the phenomenon that we call “night”. “”
Well Joel, I always enjoy your inputs. It would be extremely enjoyable to read your point by point “criticism” of the simple “mental exercise” situation I offered.
It is not helpful to simply re-introduce extraneous materials from some other points of view that do not adress any of the issues pointed out in my example; well unless you can point out to us why that invalidates any parts of my analysis.
I particularly enjoyed this input:-
“”” Well of course that defies both common sense and everyday observation. If you are standing out in the sun with a cloud near the sun direction at any altitude; and that cloud then moves across in front of the sun; then observation says that it ALWAYS cools down in the shadow zone. (my statement)
Not if you happen to be on the half of the planet that is experiencing the phenomenon that we call “night”.
(your response).
Now Joel, try to keep it simple; we aren’t too bright here or we might become Climatologers too. Where (on the surface of the earth) would fall THE SHADOW ZONE formed by the sun shining on a cloud that is on THE NIGHT SIDE
“”” Joel Shore says:
May 27, 2010 at 7:18 pm
George E Smith says:
So this has generated the legend of low clouds causing negative feedback cooling while high clouds cause positive feedback heating of the surface. That is the standard gospel.
Actually, you are misusing the terminology somewhat: The standard picture is that an increase in low clouds will generally cause cooling in net and an increase in high clouds will generally cause warming in net. However, it is not always straightforward how cloudiness will change in a warming world. (There is more evaporation but only such that relative humidity is expected to remain approximately constant.) Hence, whether low clouds cause a positive or negative feedback depends on whether they decrease or increase, respectively in a warming world. And, similarly whether high clouds cause a positive or negative feedback depends on whether they increase or decrease, respectively in a warming world.
Well of course that defies both common sense and everyday observation. If you are standing out in the sun with a cloud near the sun direction at any altitude; and that cloud then moves across in front of the sun; then observation says that it ALWAYS cools down in the shadow zone.
Not if you happen to be on the half of the planet that is experiencing the phenomenon that we call “night”. “”
Well Joel, I always enjoy your inputs. It would be extremely enjoyable to read your point by point “criticism” of the simple “mental exercise” situation I offered.
It is not helpful to simply re-introduce extraneous materials from some other points of view that do not adress any of the issues pointed out in my example; well unless you can point out to us why that invalidates any parts of my analysis.
I particularly enjoyed this input:-
“”” Well of course that defies both common sense and everyday observation. If you are standing out in the sun with a cloud near the sun direction at any altitude; and that cloud then moves across in front of the sun; then observation says that it ALWAYS cools down in the shadow zone. (my statement)
Not if you happen to be on the half of the planet that is experiencing the phenomenon that we call “night”.
(your response).
Now Joel, try to keep it simple; we aren’t too bright here or we might become Climatologers too. Where (on the surface of the earth) would fall THE SHADOW ZONE formed by the sun shining on a cloud that is on THE NIGHT SIDE of the planet ?
As I understand the Science of geometrical optics; it the sun forms a shadow of a cloud that is on the night side of the earth (presumably as a result of sunlight diffracting around the whole planet); then that shadow would be projected somewhere out in space on the night side of the earth. It would not be possible for a person on the earth surface to actually stand in the shadow (of the cloud) zone to experience whether it warms up or cools down.
So I cannot swear what the outcome would be of such an observation since it seems to me that the geometry is impossible to achieve.
Do you ever have any original thoughts of your own Joel that you can contribute to the discussion; or can you only regenerate the arguments or observations of others and never link them to the subject matter under discussion.
And for the record; I have in fact communicated essentiially the same argument as in my above post; to Professor Lindzen; and also to Dr Roy Spencer for that matter. No response from either of course; I suspect both are busy with their own works.
But I would like to read your own analysis; specially where you can demonstrate the fallacies you believe are in my argument; I’m eager to learn.
But please don’t keep drumming up silly comments like solar shadows on the night side of the earth. My explanation of the experimental circumstances (sans drawings) clearly describes a common situation of a cloud in the sky, moving from a non-sunblocking position (for the observer) into a clearly sun blocking position; and the consequences of such an event. Yes I postulated a particular cloud having 50% (albedo) reflectance, and 50% optical absorption; all of which is quite irrelevent to the argument; being merely ONE example of a plausible cloud. Use your own cloud if you like; that would be good; if you can describe a different cloud that causes it to warm up rather than cool down, when it passes from a non-sun blocking geometry, into a sun blocking shadow forming position; have at it Joel.