Guest post by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
UPDATE: A new condensed rebuttal from Monckton for easier reading is available below.
Once again I have much to thank Anthony Watts and his millions of readers for. My inbox has been full of kind messages from people who have now had the chance to dip into my point-by-point evisceration of Associate Professor Abraham’s lengthy, unprovoked, and widely-circulated personal attack on me.
Latest news – sent to me by two readers of Anthony’s outstanding blog – is that Abraham, inferentially on orders from the Trustees of his university acting on advice from their lawyers, has (without telling me) re-recorded his entire 83-minute talk to take out the very many direct accusations of “misrepresentation”, “complete fabrication”, “sleight of hand” etc. etc. that he had hurled at me in the original version of his talk. For instance, he now seems to have appreciated his unwisdom in having accused me of having “misrepresented” the work of scientists I had not even cited in the first place.
Taking out his direct libels has reduced the length of his talk by 10 minutes. To my own lawyers, Abraham’s retreat will be of interest, because it is in effect an admission that his talk is libelous, and that he and his university know it is libelous. Though his new version corrects some of the stupider and more egregious errors in the original, many crass errors remain, including errors of simple arithmetic that are surely disfiguring in a “scientist” presuming to correct mine.
At several points in the new version, Abraham rashly persists in misrepresenting me to third-party scientists, getting hostile quotations from them in response to what I had not said, and using them against me. He thus persists even though – having received my long letter detailing his defalcations a month ago, long before he recorded the new version of his talk – he can no longer legitimately maintain that any of his numerous remaining libels is a mere inadvertence.
Plenty of libels indeed remain in the new version of Abraham’s talk: he has even been imprudent enough to add quite a new and serious early in his talk, having failed yet again to check his facts with me. In the new version of Abraham’s talk, every remaining libel will be regarded by the courts as malice, because he was told exactly what libels he had perpetrated, and was given a fair chance to retract and apologize, but he has wilfully chosen to persist in and repeat many of the libels. And when the courts find that his talk was and remains malicious, then he will have thrown away the one defense that might otherwise have worked for him – that in US law a public figure who sues for libel must be able to prove malice. I can prove it, in spades.
Several of you have posted up comments asking to see the full (and entertaining) correspondence between me, the professor, his university, and its lawyers. The ever-splendid Joanne Nova is kindly hosting the correspondence, so that we can spread the word as widely as possible across the Web to counter the malevolence of the many climate-extremist websites that are now ruing their earlier and too hasty endorsement of Abraham’s libels. Not one of them contacted me to check anything before describing me as “the fallen idol of climate skepticism”, “a sad joke”, etc., etc.
May I ask your kind readers once more for their help? Would as many of you as possible do what some of you have already been good enough to do? Please contact Father Dennis J. Dease, President of St. Thomas University, djdease@stthomas.edu, and invite him – even at this eleventh hour – to take down Abraham’s talk altogether from the University’s servers, and to instigate a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct, particularly in the matter of his lies to third parties about what I had said in my talk at Bethel University eight months ago? That would be a real help.
It is sometimes a cold and lonely road we follow in pursuit of the truth, and the support of Anthony and his readers has been a great comfort to me. Thank you all again.
====================
See also: A detailed rebuttal to Abraham from Monckton
And
A new condensed rebuttal for easier reading is here
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Sorry Christoph, I did misread the date, however, as you point out, so far nobody has put up any arguments as to why Quentin Wallace’s comments are wrong. If Quentin is correct then Monckton is in error. If Monckton is wrong on this point, how many of his other points are wrong and why?
Paul Pierett talks about ozone being produced at ground level.
“Ozone production is dropping off to safe levels, probably causing a hole in the ozone layer in the near future.”
As far as I know the ozone produced at ground level cannot reach the ozone layer because it is so unstable.
I thought that ozone in the ozone layer was the global warming gas and that it is produced by UV light reacting with oxygen in the upper atmosphere. Is ozone in the lower atmosphere a green house gas or just a pollutant? Are there two ozone levels that can contribute to warming?
Paul, have I misunderstood something in your post?
I applaud this statement. Hopefully the next reply will take up where Quentin Wallace or I left off. Fact-based discussion is rather lacking on this thread.
Here is my reply to you, Dirk. Continue when ready.
Perhaps we’ll receive a 600-question rebuttal about why we’re wrong to press Monckton for an answer to Wallace’s “on point” critiques.
JohnR
Good Question,
It wasn’t stated in the research.
I will find the resource again and see which one it influences. I left the reading with the understanding it was one-in-the-same.
Paul
Paul Pierett also talks about carbon dioxide and asks “How much does it take to make acid?”. An answer is as soon as CO2 dissolves in water it forms an acid. The more that dissolves the lower the pH of the water becomes. This is the basic chemistry that causes some scientists to worry about ocean acidification.
Carbon Dioxide is a liquid at about 800 psi (in USA units) and is sold in steel pressure cylinders in this liquid form.
It is a solid at -78C and atmospheric pressure (dry ice).
It is called a greenhouse gas because, as I understand the process, it allows short wave length radiation through from the sun but reflects some of the longer wave lengths back to earth. I’m not a climate scientist just a retired chemist so I am not entirely up to speed on all the warming debate. However, I worked on the old ozone layer debate on the side of the refrigeration industry. Back then we claimed that chlorofluorocarbons didn’t degrade the ozone layer so I have some understanding of that process. It is interesting to note that after all our hard work trying to prove mankind was not destroying the ozone layer; it was later proved conclusively that we were wrong and manmade chemicals were depleting the ozone layer. These chemicals were then banned. I think the ozone layer is still recovering.
That’s not necessarily true. Short-term cooling periods can still occur with general warming, just as the share market can dip for a few years, but over the long-term has risen and will almost certainly continue to do so.
But in fact, it has been warming since 1999 according to the temperature records. The same is true since 1998. One has to pick an even shorter period now (2002 – present) to find a cooling trend, and one that is even less statistically significant. Just to make things more confusing, you can start from 2006 and find we’ve been warming again.
Likely in a few months, it will no longer be ‘cooling since 2002’. Two of four temp records (one satellite, one surface) are already showing a positive slope, and a couple more warm months will bring the others into the positive.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/trend/offset:-0.075/plot/uah/from:2002/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/trend/offset:-0.1/plot/rss/from:2002/trend
Next cherry-pick for cooling will be 2005, I guess.
Monckton cherry-picks such short records, too. When NCDC put out their monthly anomalies, they don’t call them climate trends.
Thank you JohnR,
I greatly appreciate a good chemist setting me straight… Too often, one gets beat up in these blogs but with no real answer. That is what I am digging for.
I appreciate the input. I remember as a teen having to pull certain cans off the shelf at a drug store as the newly born EPA began to send out memos.
Here are some web sites, three sources on Ozone.
The first favors a marriage between lower and higher levels of our atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer favors that all ozone tends to combine
The next two favor a separation.
http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/ozone.htm
How it works, Science.
In all my readings, there is nothing that tends to block that from the lower to reach the higher in terms of these chemicals other than weight and gravity and air currents.
Thanks again, JohnR.
Paul
I’m in no position to answer questions regarding Monckton’s sea ice data, but he showed a graph- that we all realize he didn’t make up- that showed growing extent of sea ice. He also stated (correctly) that ice has been growing in the Antarctic. He also stated (correctly) that hunting has been the major threat to Polar Bears.
And I never said there were Polar Bears in the Antarctic. Only that their population has grown approximately five-fold over the past 50 years. If you have data to counter this, please cite it.
I’m also interested in your take on CERN’s CLOUD experiment and the theory that sun-solar wind-cosmic ray-clouds is what is driving climate. It seems pretty obvious to me that you can feel a real difference when the sun goes behind a cloud- considerably more so than when you release some CO2 into the atmosphere.
Dirk, regarding the amount of ice in Antarctica, I found this information on another web site.
http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/increasing-rates-of-ice-mass-loss-from-the-greenland-and-antarctic-ice-sheets-revealed-by-grace.pdf
It is supposed to show Antarctica was losing ice (total mass) at an ever increasing rate.
I am not familiar with this type of measurement.
Can anybody give me any further information on the accuracy of these (GRACE) measurements?
Dirk says: July 19, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Dirk:
At no point in my previous posts did I say the graph was wrong or that it didn’t show a growing extent of sea ice. But the graph shows other things as well. I was criticising the way Monckton used the graph in his presentation.
It’s all to do with context, interpretation, and some blatant inconsistencies between what the graph show’s and what Monckton say’s it show’s, both in his public presentation and in his response to Abraham.
I also criticise the way he uses the graph to answer the polar bear issue.
At no point do I say that Monckton is wrong in general about Arctic sea ice or Polar Bears. I am only addressing these specific points. The evidence Monckton presents to support his claim.
JohnR says: July 19, 2010 at 11:50 pm
JohnR:
The point you make about ice mass is an important one.
If someone presents you with a graph that show’s sea ice extent is growing you might be tempted to think everything is fine and there is no overall ice loss.
But ice thickness and density are also important measurements.
It is only by looking at all these measurements together that we can see if there is ice growth or loss.
This may seem obvious and I not saying here that anyone is actually using this trick, but we can be easily fooled by such things.
As he gives no reference for that graph (it doesn’t come from the Monnett paper), we have no way of checking it’s validity. This is the point Abraham made. He wasn’t referring to the provenance of the graph when he said, “he’s not making this up.” He was referring to a claim Monckton made.
I assume we’re agreed that we don’t know where the data from that graph comes from.
John R, there is often confusion between Antarctic sea ice, which has increased slightly over the last 30 years, and Antarctic land ice, which appears to have decreased.
barry says: July 20, 2010 at 7:43 am
Hi Barry,
I did actually post a link to the paper that Monckton failed to cite in one of my previous posts –
Trends in the draft and extent of seasonal pack ice, Canadian Beaufort Sea – Humfrey Melling and David A. Riedel 2005
http://www.spaceweather.ac.cn/publication/jgrs/2005/Geolphsical%20Research%20Letters/dec/2005GL024483.pdf
Although I do agree with you about the point Abraham made.
I missed your earlier post, Quentin. Thanks. I’ll check back on your comments and the paper after work tonight.
With regards to points 338 and 339 in Christopher Monckton’s rebuttal, an increase in CO2 from 0.03% to 0.04% can be expressed either as an absolute increase of 0.01% or as a percentage increase of 33% since 33% of 0.03 is 0.01. Christopher Monckton has decided to express it as 0.01%. The reply of John Abraham is allegedly: “And let’s help him with his math.” 0.04% – 0.03% DOES equal 0.01%.
In general, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt if something is alleged to have been said or implied. And with a video, it is sometimes hard to remember an exact wording and it is harder to check than something in print. However in my opinion, the above statement by a professor crosses the line and severely taints everything else he says. To err is human, but it also taints a university that does not have it removed once the error is pointed out.
Werner Brozek says: July 20, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Werner:
I think you are misinterpreting what has been said here. Maybe on a strictly semantic level Abraham could be accused of lacking in clarity with his wording.
Abraham does not accuse Monckton of being mathematically incorrect.
As you hint at in your post above, there are different ways of representing, mathematically, the amount of a constituent part in a larger body.
Monckton uses – pecentage of the atmosphere by volume. This gives a figure of +0.01% change. Which is correct.
If this is presented to an audience, as the headline figure, they might be tempted to think – oh that’s tiny, there hasn’t been much change, what’s all the fuss about ?
But a small increase of a constituent part of a larger body can have a big effect. As an example – I weigh around 60kg. If I were to ingest 600g of arsenic (a +0.01% change in Arsenic as a percentage by weight) this would probably kill me.
Monckton did not choose to use the above mathematics as an alternative to – “or as a percentage increase of 33% since 33% of 0.03 is 0.01.” as you suggest.
This is the alternative Abraham uses –
“If we look at the math, the current level is 390 [parts per million by volume], the pre-industrial level is 280 [ppmv], that’s a 39% increase in carbon dioxide, not a 0.01% increase. A significant increase…”
Saying that the headline figure of 39% could be a better representation of what he describes as a “significant” increase.
So Abraham is not accusing Monckton of mathematical or scientific error on this particular point. It could be argued that Abraham should of stayed away from this one. But it is about the way figures and mathematics are presented can be used to manipulate an audience.
Well, I checked the paper and your comments, Quentin, and it’s all solid. As others are concerned that Abraham has cherry-picked a paper to prove his point, I searched google scholar for papers I could find on Beaufort sea ice. Without fail, when a long-term period is assessed, particularly for summer sea ice, whether extent, draft or thickness, the results corroborate Abraham’s take. I limited the publication dates to 2008 – 2010.
Search terms:
Beaufort sea ice
In terms of sea ice extent, the paper Monckton chose considered a period of 10 years that shows negligible trend. Extend 5 years either way, and the trend is significantly downward.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure3.png
The last link is a time series of Arctic sea ice extent for the satellite period. Not to be confused with Beaufort sea ice. You need to examine the studies for that.
Here’s a quote from the paper Monckton used, but did not reference, on the time period they were assessing.
http://www.spaceweather.ac.cn/publication/jgrs/2005/Geolphsical%20Research%20Letters/dec/2005GL024483.pdf
No wonder he didn’t give the reference!
This is another quote from the paper.
This is followed shortly by;
To recap, Monckton used an unreferenced graph that examines a single site over a short period, accounting for annual sea ice trends instead of summer sea ice, which is the season that impacts most on ice-land swimming for Polar Bears. Monckton’s header for the slide with the graph describes it as a a decrease in sea ice extent, even though the study is mainly concerned with ice draft (thickness under the water), and even though the trend of sea ice concentration (which refers to sea ice coverage) in the graph shows a slight increasing trend.
Any which way you look at it, Monkton has completely misrepresented data from a paper he failed to cite.
It seems there is no one left in the pro-Monckton camp willing to continue a fact-based discussion of the contretemps between Abraham and Monckton. It was difficult to get any participation on that level to begin with, and now that it is clear on this particular issue that Monckton was in the wrong, it’s disappointing, if not unexpected, that people siding with Monckton have backed away.
Re. Quentin Wallace says: July 21, 2010 at 3:26 am
I withdraw the paragraph that states –
“Monckton did not choose to use the above mathematics as an alternative to – “or as a percentage increase of 33% since 33% of 0.03 is 0.01.” as you suggest.”
I don’t know that. Apologies.
A few questions came up since JohnR’s clarification on CO2 in water and they are:
1. The amounts of CO2 released from glaciers, Ice Packs, Arctic, Antarctica, and other CO2 holding Ice?
2. The amount of Carbonate or carbon by-products are released by both ocean and freshwater plants?
3. How much of man made CO2 reaches the oceans?
4. How much of this CO2 is being released into the atmosphere?
5. How much is being retained in the atmosphere? It appears to be what is measured by observatory in Hawaii.
6. How much is cycling back to the oceans, rivers, lakes, glaciers and Polar Region Ice Caps.
I don’t think we are getting a whole answer on this from global warming alarmists or deniers.
For those who have been told this is the warmest year to date, I ran the numbers off of the NOAA. The Earth continues to cool.
They are as follows:
2010 USA Average Temps based on 1885 to 2010:
Jan. Rank 55, 30.96 degrees
Feb. Rank 30, 32.47 degrees
March, Rank 85, 44.46 degrees
April, Rank 103, 54.30
May, Rank 52, 60.89
June, Rank 109, 71.41
In the last 30 years of temperatures, the last 12 months ranks 9th.
If one looks at the 30-year chart or the larger one (115)years closely, the last 10 years has a downward trend.
If Earth’s heat was based on man-made global warming, the trend should be going up. The downward trend reflects the lack of sunspot activity.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett