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Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
You readers here at Watts Up With That have been very kind to me during my guest-blogging stint here, and I’d like to express my thanks for the cordial reception I have found, especially since I’m well aware that my views are not really congruent with those of many viewers. You all are certainly more open-minded and accommodating than the audience at many other internet locations. (Okay, enough sucking up–get on with it!)
However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science. Well, touche and all that, my dear sir, but well, I’m not a scientist.
We are not really at the point where only scientists can say intelligent things about climate change.
Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.
Second, the controversial part of the discussion is not going to be settled any time soon. We really do not know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. We are not likely to know for at least 30 years–and that’s if we’re lucky, according to Judith Curry.
To offer the extreme and absurdist example, as Roger Pielke Jr. points out on his weblog, we could achieve our emission reduction goals overnight, by switching from BP’s estimate of our 2009 emissions of CO2 to the IEA’S estimates of the same. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty out there.
So, despite their protestations, climate scientists at this point have about as much ‘clout’ in deciding what we should do as anybody else. So your comments and my guest posts here are not automatically dismissable as coming from the rabble. What we write on this weblog and others should be evaluated on the merits of what we say. Of course, people who have been studying the biology, chemistry, geology and ecological interactions of this planet should be treated with quite a bit more respect, and many climate scientists got their start in one of those fields–by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
It is my own belief that other things we do here on this Earth have an impact on this planet, and that we should be aware of the impacts and in some cases work to lessen them. It is a happy coincidence that lessening these other impacts may also serve to reduce the impacts of whatever climate change we may be causing with CO2.
In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate. It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this. As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.
We have cut down forests, and not only for agriculture. They’re recovering in the developed world, but not in the emerging nations that still need the wood for fuel and the land for space. And again, this has affected the entire ecology and that does include climate.
(Digression–with the increasing urbanisation of this planet, some of these effects will lessen. More of us will live in cities, occupying a smaller space. Technology will reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, despite our growing population. Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.)
I could go on, but the point is clear enough for you to either agree or disagree. We are changing our planet, and one poorly understood change is the composition of the atmosphere.
Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable.
Instead, they focused on CO2 and treated all who disagreed as the rabble I mentioned before. What they wanted was a rabble alarmed. What they got was a rabble in arms.
We Talk About Politics Because The Science Is Uncertain
You readers here at Watt’s Up With That have been very kind to me during my guest-blogging stint here, and I’d like to express my thanks for the cordial reception I have found, especially since I’m well aware that my views are not really congruent with those of many viewers. You all are certainly more open-minded and accommodating than the audience at many other internet locations. (Okay, enough sucking up–get on with it!)
However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science. Well, touche and all that, my dear sir, but well, I’m not a scientist.
We are not really at the point where only scientists can say intelligent things about climate change.
Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.
Second, the controversial part of the discussion is not going to be settled any time soon. We really do not know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. We are not likely to know for at least 30 years–and that’s if we’re lucky, according to Judith Curry.
To offer the extreme and absurdist example, as Roger Pielke Jr. points out on his weblog, we could achieve our emission reduction goals overnight, by switching from BP’s estimate of our 2009 emissions of CO2 to the IEA’S estimates of the same. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty out there.
So, despite their protestations, climate scientists at this point have about as much ‘clout’ in deciding what we should do as anybody else. So your comments and my guest posts here are not automatically dismissable as coming from the rabble. What we write on this weblog and others should be evaluated on the merits of what we say. Of course, people who have been studying the biology, chemistry, geology and ecological interactions of this planet should be treated with quite a bit more respect, and many climate scientists got their start in one of those fields–by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
It is my own belief that other things we do here on this Earth have an impact on this planet, and that we should be aware of the impacts and in some cases work to lessen them. It is a happy coincidence that lessening these other impacts may also serve to reduce the impacts of whatever climate change we may be causing with CO2.
In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate. It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this. As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.
We have cut down forests, and not only for agriculture. They’re recovering in the developed world, but not in the emerging nations that still need the wood for fuel and the land for space. And again, this has affected the entire ecology and that does include climate.
(Digression–with the increasing urbanisation of this planet, some of these effects will lessen. More of us will live in cities, occupying a smaller space. Technology will reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, despite our growing population. Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.)
I could go on, but the point is clear enough for you to either agree or disagree. We are changing our planet, and one poorly understood change is the composition of the atmosphere.
Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable.
Instead, they focused on CO2 and treated all who disagreed as the rabble I mentioned before. What they wanted was a rabble alarmed. What they got was a rabble in arms.
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Tom Roche
September 5, 2010 4:17 am
In 1900 my farm had 15 cows, 10 sows, some geese and hens, in 2000 the same land supports 80 cows with 10% of their diet imported. Better grass varieties, better management, granular fertiliser, etc, are the diference. We also have 80 acres of trees where 100 yrs ago was cutaway bog. One tractor has replaced 3 horses. The % of land used for agriculture in 100 yrs has decreased across the developed world, who has reliable stats on other areas.
Dave Springer
September 5, 2010 4:29 am
@Fuller
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate.”
That effect is debatable. First of all the climate is controlled by the ocean not the land and the ocean is 70% of the surface. So in effect what you wrote (and I’m not sure of the accuracy of 33%) is that humans have gone from using less than 1% of the earth’s land surface for agriculture to more than 9%.
Given that the land used for agriculture was not barren beforehand then it becomes a matter of the effect of changing over from wild plants to domestic plants on that land surface. While there is a large effect on local biota and some small effect on local weather there shouldn’t be much if any effect at all on global climate – the tail does not wag the dog. That’s the problem with most of the anthropogenic climate change mythology – it’s largely based on the false premise that the tail wags the dog. Except for the effect of continental land masses forcing ocean currents to take detours around them then you can essentially discount the land from having any large effect on global climate. And one thing is for sure, there is nothing anthropogenic about the configuration and movement of tectonic plates.
Joel Shore says:
“You can believe what you want to believe but it might behoove you to understand why the scientific community as a whole has indeed bought the theory and why people like Tom Fuller are struggling (what seems to be a losing battle) trying to make the “skeptic community” at least marginally relevant to the discussion.”
Wrong as usual. It is the cognitive dissonance-afflicted true believers like Joel Shore who project their strange and scientifically unsupportable world view onto everyone else.
A large part of the scientific community mouths the words that they know will take the heat off them. Words like “AGW,” “”robust,” etc. But even though the people being paid off, like Mann and Schmidt, are currently the source of a large part of the noise coming from that quarter, they are in the minority. The OISM Petition proves that conclusively; no alarmist petition has been able to round up more than a small fraction of the OISM’s numbers.
Money has corrupted science. Scientists have been trained with grant funds the way Pavlov’s dogs were trained with dog biscuits. That part is understandable. What is harder to understand are the useful fools who, without grants or other payola, try to make a case that CO2 will drive the climate into runaway global warming. Joel Shore falls into that category — to the point that he has stated: "…the problems lie not with the models but with the observational data itself." Of course, that is completely backward. The problems lie with the models, not with the reality they are failing to emulate.
And regarding the fact that human CO2 emissions constitute less than 3% of total CO2 emissions, Joel has said: "if you don’t want to be taken seriously by any real scientist, I strongly suggest that you continue to repeat the 3% nonsense." But that 'nonsense' comes out of the UN/IPCC that Joel worships.
An interesting facet of human nature is the fact that some folks who get no monetary reward for spouting pseudo-science still do it. I can understand payola, even though I don’t condone it. But True Believers are another matter. They have a martyr complex, and they will go up in flames before they admit to being in error. They are a perfect example of Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance: if the flying saucers don’t arrive on schedule, that doesn’t mean there are no flying saucers, it just means they will arrive later.
Gaia herself must be laughing at the hubris of the CAGW believers; as the harmless and beneficial trace gas CO2 becomes a tiny bit less of a minor trace gas, the planet is not behaving correctly in the eyes of the true believers. Temperatures are normal, nothing is running away or tipping, there is no tropospheric hot spot, global ice cover is completely normal, hurricane activity is less than usual, glaciers have been receding since the Holocene began, and the current climate is right in the middle of its past parameters of natural variability. Nothing extraordinary is occurring. CAGW is a figment of the fevered imaginations of the true believer — as opposed to corrupt scientists taking payola; they are merely dishonest, having sold their professional ethics for what amounts to bribes.
We would do well to keep in mind President Eisenhower’s prescient warning in his farewell address on January 17, 1961:
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
We as a society can heed Eisenhower’s wise counsel — or we can listen to the bedlam of the true believers shouting about imminent climate catastrophe, disregarding the common sense advice of the Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius:
The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Ziiex Zeburz
September 5, 2010 5:12 am
Gnomish (Sept. 4 2010 937 am )
Water, Water, everywhere and not a drop to drink,
Water, Water, everywhere and all the boards did shrink,
Water, Water, everywhere and Joel Shore is away out of his depth !
Gail Combs
September 5, 2010 6:01 am
Smokey,
Joel reminds me of the computer geek in the world trade tower on 9/11. They were trying to evacuate the building but he kept saying not now, now now as he furiously kept pounding away at his keyboard. His computer world was much more important to him than the imminent reality of certain death. The news bite showing that was almost as shocking as the whole 9/11 incident. (I think it may have been part of a reenactment but I can not remember)
Joel Shore’s statement: “…the problems lie not with the models but with the observational data itself.” As you pointed out this shows he has his “realities” switched.
You say “For me, an interesting facet of human nature is the fact that some folks who get no monetary reward for spouting pseudo-science still do it. I can understand payola, even though I don’t condone it. But True Believers are another matter…..”
I am not sure if the “True Believers” actually believe in CAGW or if they see their version of utopia, that the low CO2 age was supposed to usher in, slipping away and therefore feel obligated to defend it.
Lenin once said, “Promises are like pie-crusts–made to be broken.” If a lie is in the best interests of Communism, then it would be morally right to lie.” This philosophy, that lies to advance “the greater good” are morally correct, places those who hold truth and honesty supreme at a great disadvantage. This is especially true if you are not aware that the other person’s basic philosophy condones dishonesty.
It was the same point I tried to make on the other thread about the Israeli-Palestinian talks. If you do not understand the basic philosophy the other person is bringing to the table you are at a great disadvantage. I did the digging in self-defense after every single one of my business contracts with Muslims was broken, yet I never had the problem with anyone else in 21 years in business.
Both sets of people consider it morally ethical to “lie to the enemy” if it advances their cause. Our only defense is to keep uncovering the lies and bring them to the light of day.
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 6:47 am
Blade says:
Never has anyone said so little with so many words! With the exception of your mega-FAIL condescending pseudo-lecture on Exponential/Logarithmic functions (you really think people here do not understand this?) you appear to have no focus.
My focus has been responding to some of the incorrect things that people have posted here in the comments. If you feel the topics were off-track, then you ought to blame them for raising them. As for the logarithmic function explanation, it was clear that the two commenters who I quoted indeed did not understand this.
Question to Joel Shore: if the CO2 concentration doubles from the current 390 ppm to 780 ppm, what will happen to the temperature?
I don’t claim to have any special knowledge above and beyond that of the climate science community who estimate the likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity to by 2 to 4.5 C. Higher or lower values than this cannot be ruled out but they do not appear to be consistent with our current understanding of most of the empirical data.
Dusty
September 5, 2010 6:52 am
Dave Springer says:
September 5, 2010 at 4:29 am
@Fuller
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate.”
That effect is debatable. First of all the climate is controlled by the ocean not the land and the ocean is 70% of the surface. So in effect what you wrote (and I’m not sure of the accuracy of 33%) is that humans have gone from using less than 1% of the earth’s land surface for agriculture to more than 9%.
—–
It’s not 33% of all land. That was corrected as a misstatement. And it’s not 33% of arable land as he corrected it to in the comments. According to the UN FOA: http://faostat.fao.org/Portals/_Faostat/documents/pdf/world.pdf
the percent of arable land that used is just under 9%, as of 2006.
Mr Fuller hasn’t provided any source for his revised assertion that 33% of Arable Land is used as Permanent Cropland.
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 7:14 am
Smokey says:
The OISM Petition proves that conclusively; no alarmist petition has been able to round up more than a small fraction of the OISM’s numbers.
Almost nobody in the scientific community takes such a petition seriously and I am surprised that you do. It is strange that someone of your political persuasion endorses a petition run like an old Soviet style election: bombard people with propaganda and then only allow them to vote YES.
Of the signers, how many of those have any sort of real qualifications in the field? Polls of scientists, taken using serious statistical polling methods, show something entirely different than the self-selected petition that you site.
Joel Shore falls into that category — to the point that he has stated: “…the problems lie not with the models but with the observational data itself.” Of course, that is completely backward. The problems lie with the models, not with the reality they are failing to emulate.
It is a bad habit to quote people out of context. If you look at the full context, you will see strong reasons to believe that in this particular case that there are serious problems with the data analysis…not the least being that different analyses of the same data set get very different results. And, it is never smart to abandon your model when it works well with the data that you know to be reliable and only works less well with the data that you know to suffer from artifacts.
And regarding the fact that human CO2 emissions constitute less than 3% of total CO2 emissions, Joel has said: “if you don’t want to be taken seriously by any real scientist, I strongly suggest that you continue to repeat the 3% nonsense.” But that ‘nonsense’ comes out of the UN/IPCC that Joel worships.
Most greenhouse gases have both natural and human-made emission sources. There are, however, significant natural mechanisms (land-based or ocean-based sinks) for removing them from the atmosphere. However, increased levels of anthropogenic emissions have pushed the total level of greenhouse gas emissions (both natural and anthropogenic) above natural absorption rates for these gases. This positive imbalance between emissions and absorption has resulted in the continuing growth in atmospheric concentrations of these gases.
And, on p. 7 they say:
Natural processes — primarily, uptake by the ocean and photosynthesis — absorb substantially all the naturally produced carbon dioxide and some of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide, leading to an annual net increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of 11.4 to 12.2 billion metric tons.
In other words, there are large exchanges back-and-forth between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and mixed layer of the oceans, but the anthropogenic emissions are taken stores of carbon long locked away from these reservoirs and adding it to the system. The emissions that we add to the atmosphere rapidly partition between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and ocean mixed layer because of the fast exchanges. However, the CO2 concentration in all of these reservoirs rises as a result. The notion that our additions to the atmosphere are an insignificant contribution to the rise in CO2 is wrong, wrong, wrong. They are in fact responsible for essentially all of the rise…and, in fact, the rise in atmospheric CO2 would be about twice as large if not for the biosphere and ocean mixed layer’s ability to absorb some of what we have emitted.
HR
September 5, 2010 7:22 am
Wow 850,000 dams. We should have one giant party when we hit 1 million.
Gary P
September 5, 2010 7:22 am
Joel Shore, September 4, 2010 at 7:22 am: These are not empirical models…They are mechanistic and there is way more data to compare to than there are “free parameters”.
I do not have the models in front of me and would not understand the code anyway. However, many have noted how the models do not do clouds properly and their effect is estimated by “parameters”. (personal observation: cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds have a strong net cooling effect.) There are ongoing discussions about CO2 feedback and I believe the models include positive feedback as another parameter. The IPCC uses a long atmospheric lifetime for CO2. This is contrary to all other estimates. http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a5e507c9970c-pi Is this not another parameter in the models?
You may be right about the radiosonde data for the tropical atmosphere being questioned. The data became controversial as soon as people noted that it was contrary to the models. Kind of like how the Argo data had to be corrected as soon as it showed a cooling of of the oceans. I also believe the sun has been set as a constant with no variability. Why is NASA wasting all this money for satellites to investigate something that is just a constant?
Dr. Dave
September 5, 2010 8:33 am
My favorite line in Joel’s last comment was 0.5 deg C of temp increase “in the pipeline”. Yeah, that’s the ticket…hidden heat lurking somewhere we can’t see. Of course the “models are right, the observational data are wrong” argument should get honorable mention.
Last week I submitted an article to another site where I argue that no conspiracy is required for the AGW fraud. All that is required is human nature. The AGW activists always point out how many “climate researchers” agree with the AGW meme. Well, duh… Climate researchers are funded by governments (who want to tax CO2) to study the “problem” of AGW. No problem, no funding. If the problem goes away, so does their job. Human nature trumps scientific objectivity, enlightened self-interest kicks in. This isn’t a process of absolutely corrupting each individual researcher. It’s an atmosphere that promotes less than objective results. In virtually every field of science the author(s) of the paper conclude with “more research is necessary…” This keeps the grant spigot open.
I don’t think the climate scientists are necessarily practicing their craft solely for money. I think the system has been rigged in such a way that they will naturally do so. Again, no “problem”, no funding. Hell, the folks who fund them (governments) WANT there to be a “problem”. You don’t need to be a rocket surgeon to figure this out.
In fact, I think surprisingly few of the power players on the AGW activist side actually believe this crap. They see the payoff. Politicians lust for tax revenue and political control. Bankers and traders are drooling over the prospect of a commodities market that consists of nothing but “good ideas and thin air”. The “scientists” are just protecting their turf. The saddest cases are the “true believers”. These are the folks who are so personally, emotionally or professionally invested in the concept of AGW that any facts or reasoning to the contrary are anathema.
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 11:46 am
Gary P says:
There are ongoing discussions about CO2 feedback and I believe the models include positive feedback as another parameter.
The feedback is not a parameter. It is an emergent property from the physics that goes into the models. Of course, some feedbacks are better understood than others…and it is the uncertainty in the cloud feedback that is responsible for most of the range of climate sensitivities among the different models.
As Willis Eschenbach (a skeptic who has written many posts here) would tell you, you are confused on this point…Perhaps you have been misled by people who want to confuse you. The lifetime of an individual CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is not the same as the lifetime for a perturbation of CO2 level of the atmosphere. The former is controlled by the fast transfers back-and-forth between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and ocean mixed layer while the latter is controlled by the slow transfer of CO2 from the mixed layer to the deep oceans (after the additional CO2 has rapidly partitioned itself between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and ocean mixed layer reservoirs). You might ask yourself why some people who really do (or should) know better are purposely trying to mislead you on this point!
You may be right about the radiosonde data for the tropical atmosphere being questioned. The data became controversial as soon as people noted that it was contrary to the models. Kind of like how the Argo data had to be corrected as soon as it showed a cooling of of the oceans.
That is how science works…Data analysis is done and then the data is compared to theory. There are often discrepancies and scientists work to resolve them. Sometimes that involves modifying or discarding the theory but, more often, especially once a theory is well-established, problems are found with the data or the analysis of the data.
I also believe the sun has been set as a constant with no variability. Why is NASA wasting all this money for satellites to investigate something that is just a constant?
To the extent it is known, the forcing due to the historical variability of the sun is included in the climate models. However, the future variability of the sun is not very easy to predict and hence it is indeed ignored (although some models may try to put in an 11 year solar cycle; I don’t know). Since the observed solar variability and hence forcing are quite small, there is not a big error introduced in doing this, at least over the period of a few decades or longer.
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 at 7:14 am
If this were a court of law and Iwas called to testify as to relative guilt of anthropogenic emissions in increasing CO2 levels , I would have to say that the lab screwed up the analysis with some poorly founded assumptions. The earth has never been in some kind of dynamic equilibrium that could be upset with the addition of a relatively small amount. My analysis of the CO2 data indicates that about two thirds comes from inorganic sources such as carbonacous rocks on the bottom of the oceans and about one third from organic sources such as decaying plant material as well as anthropogenic emissions. The atmospheric amounts of both have been increasing at about the same rate. The rate of increase for the inorganic carbon is the results of natural changes in source and sink rates. So you, Willis, and the IPPC are wrong, wrong, wrong. http://www.kidswincom.net/climate.pdf.
Change “IPPC” to IPCC in my last. With respect to water in the atmosphere as a feedback. Water is the climate thermostat and CO2 is going along for the ride. http://www.kidswincom.net/CO2OLR.pdf.
Eric Anderson
September 5, 2010 5:09 pm
Sheesh, lots of comments, and someone else has probably already pointed this out, but 33% of the land for agriculture? That’s not even in the realm of reality. Maybe in Iowa, but Russia, Canada, Brazil? There is no way we are even close to having put 1/3 of the earth’s land to agricultural use.
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 5:35 pm
Fred,
I am sure you are a very smart fellow but usually claims of “I’m right and the entire scientific community in this field is wrong” require a significant standard of evidence. Does the possibility occur to you that they might be correct and you might be wrong in your analysis?
By the way, what does it mean to have a cycle of period 308 years in data that only goes back a little over 50 years?
Girma
September 5, 2010 6:08 pm
SKEPTICISM OF MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING BY THE CLIMATE SCIENCE COMMUNITY IN PRIVATE
When the climate science community is skeptical about catastrophic global warming in PRIVATE, why not everyone?
Here is what they say in private:
1) “Be awkward if we went through a early 1940s type swing!” http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=927&filename=1225026120.txt
2) “I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability–that explanation is wearing thin.” http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=947&filename=1231166089.txt
3) “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.” [This statement was made 5-years ago and the global warming rate still is zero] http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=544&filename=1120593115.txt
4) “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple.” http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=138&filename=938031546.txt
5) “IPCC is not any more an assessment of published science (which is its proclaimed goal) but production of results” http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=186&filename=968705882.txt
If the climate science community itself is allowed to be skeptical about man made global warming in private, why can not everyone in PUBLIC?
With all this skepticism about the theory of man made global warming by skeptics and by the climate science community, in private, a trillion dollar policy is not justified until this theory is validated.
Here is how we validate:
Year=> IPCC Global Mean Temperature Anomaly (deg C)
2005=>0.5
2010=>0.6
2015=>0.7
2020=>0.8 http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo1.jpg
Year=>Global Mean Temperature Anomaly based on natural patterns (deg C)
2005=>0.5
2010=>0.4
2015=>0.3
2020=>0.2 http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png
If the observation matches the IPCC projections then we may have man made global warming and we may need to do something. However, if the observed temperatures match the natural pattern, then we must reject the theory of man made global warming.
We only need ten more years for the validation.
Validation of theory is the kernel of science!
Michael Tobis
September 5, 2010 9:07 pm
Over on my blog, Joel Shore has been nominated for a medal for his patience and diligence on this thread. I’m here to second the nomination.
The smugly confident confusion that everybody else here happily exudes would be funny were it not for the consequences.
To Tom Fuller’s question, the reason we find ourselves arguing about well-constrained science is to avoid the abyss of reconsidering our confused and dangerous policies. In other words, his argument is completely backwards. Climate science is the best understood part of the puzzle, and we should really be hashing out policies to support sufficient mitigation and adaptation to minimize the chances that civilization will be overwhelmed by environmental stresses.
But we need people who are less quick to latch on to half-baked ideas than most who hang around here, and who are more willing (and dare I say, better able) to test their own beliefs against evidence. REPLY: Stay tuned for Fuller’s reply, and open a can of half baked beans for yourself too. 😉 Anthony
Blade
September 6, 2010 12:05 am
Joel Shore [September 5, 2010 at 6:47 am] says:
“I don’t claim to have any special knowledge above and beyond that of the climate science community who estimate the likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity to by 2 to 4.5 C. Higher or lower values than this cannot be ruled out but they do not appear to be consistent with our current understanding of most of the empirical data.”
My emphasis there in your quote I will infer as your knowledge being less than or equal to the knowledge of the climate science community, so for the sake of argument let’s assume your knowledge is equal. Now having said that, why can’t you (climate science) answer that simple question? The taxpaying public wants to know! You give us literally a +/- of 250% in units of degrees, and then you take this and wrap undefined error bars around it: “Higher or lower values than this cannot be ruled out …”.
You must have pressed the big red climate alarm button for some reason, and I want to know what it is. After spending millions of our dollars climate scientists must expect something to happen during the next doubling of CO2? Anyway, that leads me to another question which should be simpler to answer.
Question to Joel Shore: during the last doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration from 195 ppm to 390 ppm (currently), what did happen to the temperature?
Blade
September 6, 2010 12:07 am
Michael Tobis [September 5, 2010 at 9:07 pm] says:
“… The smugly confident confusion that everybody else here happily exudes would be funny were it not for the consequences.”
Finally someone smart enough to set us straight! Joel Shore wouldn’t. So PLEASE Michael, do clear up the confusion:
Question to Michael Tobis: if the CO2 concentration doubles from the current 390 ppm to 780 ppm, what will happen to the temperature?
I think the title would be more accurate if it said:
We talk about the science because we dislike the policy implications.
Because indeed, as Michael Tobis said, “the reason we find ourselves arguing about well-constrained science is to avoid the abyss of reconsidering our confused and dangerous policies.”
I had an interesting conversation with Tom Fuller on this before (which he kindly cross posted on his examiner site):
( http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/my-next-generation-questions-on-climate-change/ )
Let’s distinguish the following main issues:
– To what extent is climate change occurring, and to what extent is it man-made?
– To what extent is that (going to be) a problem?
– What can or should we do about it?
The first questions are strictly scientific; the middle has a judgment value to it, and the latter is primarily a political/moral judgement (and has more to do with technology than with climate science).
(As a tangent, it is therefore also logical that scientists have the lead in answering the first question, and that the resulting knowledge is ideally used as a basis for society to answer the third question, on which scientists have no special standing (except perhaps their safeguarding of the scientific knowledge as one input variable for tackling that question)
Science has made much more progress in addressing the first question than society has in addressing the last one.
As Herman Daly noted: “If you jump out of an airplane you need a crude parachute more than an accurate altimeter.”
Blade: Check out http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-is-3c.html
Joel Shore has been unable to offer empirical evidence in answer to the following questions, which are vital to the integrity of the concept of AGW and have been asked of Joel by others on this blog.
1/does increasing ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere precede an increase in atmospheric temperatures?
2/ does an increase in ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere follow an increase in atmospheric temperatures?
3/, if ppm of CO2 in the last 15 years has increased, why has there been no significant rise in atmpospheric temperatures during that period?
Only proper, peer-reviewed references, please. No ‘Most Climate Scientists say…’ types of answers will suffice.
Thanks, Joel, in anticipation,
Alexander K
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 at 5:35 pm
I’m not alone in questioning the scientific objectivity and truthfullness of a group of subjectively motivated “what if” modellers. The IPCC was set up to do subjective research. The data reveals the truth if analyzed objectively. A big mistake the team has made is to just look for data and statistical techniques that support their beliefs and reject any probility that does not. A prime example is the belief that atmospheric CO2 levels will continue to rise following the exponential rise in anthropogenic emissions leading to an unstable global environment. The earth is not Venus. The ice core data clearly shows that climate change as defined by changes in average global temperature goes in a combination of cycles of many wave lengths. These cycles are expected to continue into the future. The question should be “Do anthropogenic emissions change the parameters of those natural cycles?”
This is where the unbiased use of statistical techiques is a valuable tool. Least squares curve fitting of accurate data is a good tool. The amount of data and it’s accuracy as well as the shape of the assumed curve affect the goodness of fit. In the case of fitting a segment of a 308 year cycle defined by three parameters versus an exponential curve defined by two pararameters to over 20,000 relatively accurate points of data, the cycle segment is a statistically better fit. Time will tell which is a better predictor. If the slope of the CO2-time curve does not continue to increase, the curve is not exponential.
Keith Battye
September 6, 2010 9:22 am
I would like someone with two or more greenhouses growing the same crop under the same conditions of humidity etc. to do me a favor. I suggest greenhouses because it is a large but simple enough environment to control the parameters.
In one greenhouse keep the atmosphere “natural” and have a continuous temperature record kept over , say, a growing season.
In a second greenhouse keep the atmosphere topped up with CO2 to , say, double our current standard. Keep a continuous temperature record over the same growing season.
Then get back to us here at WUWT with your results. This isn’t high tech or difficult to do. I would do it myself but I don’t have greenhouses and I don’t know folk out here who do. This CO2 meme is so central to this whole debate that it must surely be possible to carry out such a simple experiment.
To my engineering brain this would really settle this whole “CO2 drives the temperature” thing once and for all. Once we have done this we can get along to figuring out the “forcings” if it is shown to be necessary.
Dave Springer
September 6, 2010 10:41 am
Joel Shore says
September 5, 2010 at 7:14 am
re; your response to 3% fossil CO2 and other stuff
Below comes latest IPCC 4. I don’t bicker with these. In the interest of brevity do you accept these or not?
The evidence accepted by IPCC is 97% natural CO2, 3% anthropogenic, and 1.5% actual annual rise.
Per doubling of CO2 absent feedbacks global average 1.1C temp rise.
Feedback is where I start having a major problem.
There has never been a runaway greenhouse episode in earth’s history. The best evidence from the geologic column shows temperature maxes out about 6-8C warmer than today while CO2 has been at 10-15 times higher concentration. These periods lasted for millions of years without end and the earth was green from pole to pole.
Historically we are in a rather unproductive epic for the biosphere. Speaking in geologic time frames CO2 concentration is (still) very low and so is global average temperature. That’s because we are in a brief (10-20ky) interglacial period in the midst of an ice age.
The average temperature of the global ocean is 4C which is rather chilly and to get that cold it seems reasonable to assume that is the average temperature of the ice age epic over the glacial and interglacial cycle – 100,000 years seems like enough time for deep water to take on the average surface temperature does it not?
I can only conclude that anthropogenic CO2 is largely beneficial and, moreover, there isn’t enough fossil fuel available for anthropogenic emissions to ever make it a problem. There is a lot to be said for using fossil fuels more efficiently and even more to be said for finding an even more economical alternative.
In the meantime energy consumption goes hand in hand with economic growth. Economic growth is needed to fund research, development, and production of new and improved technologies of all kinds. As far as I’m concerned the CAGW crowd wants, unwittingly or otherwise, to kill the goose that’s been laying the golden eggs.
There is indeed a tipping point but the tipping point going from interglacial back to ice age conditions. I’m pretty sure we all agree that the cold side of ice age conditions would not be good for civilization and it would drastically reduce the productivity of the biosphere.
There is no historical case for positive feedbacks.
In 1900 my farm had 15 cows, 10 sows, some geese and hens, in 2000 the same land supports 80 cows with 10% of their diet imported. Better grass varieties, better management, granular fertiliser, etc, are the diference. We also have 80 acres of trees where 100 yrs ago was cutaway bog. One tractor has replaced 3 horses. The % of land used for agriculture in 100 yrs has decreased across the developed world, who has reliable stats on other areas.
@Fuller
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate.”
That effect is debatable. First of all the climate is controlled by the ocean not the land and the ocean is 70% of the surface. So in effect what you wrote (and I’m not sure of the accuracy of 33%) is that humans have gone from using less than 1% of the earth’s land surface for agriculture to more than 9%.
Given that the land used for agriculture was not barren beforehand then it becomes a matter of the effect of changing over from wild plants to domestic plants on that land surface. While there is a large effect on local biota and some small effect on local weather there shouldn’t be much if any effect at all on global climate – the tail does not wag the dog. That’s the problem with most of the anthropogenic climate change mythology – it’s largely based on the false premise that the tail wags the dog. Except for the effect of continental land masses forcing ocean currents to take detours around them then you can essentially discount the land from having any large effect on global climate. And one thing is for sure, there is nothing anthropogenic about the configuration and movement of tectonic plates.
Joel Shore says:
“You can believe what you want to believe but it might behoove you to understand why the scientific community as a whole has indeed bought the theory and why people like Tom Fuller are struggling (what seems to be a losing battle) trying to make the “skeptic community” at least marginally relevant to the discussion.”
Wrong as usual. It is the cognitive dissonance-afflicted true believers like Joel Shore who project their strange and scientifically unsupportable world view onto everyone else.
A large part of the scientific community mouths the words that they know will take the heat off them. Words like “AGW,” “”robust,” etc. But even though the people being paid off, like Mann and Schmidt, are currently the source of a large part of the noise coming from that quarter, they are in the minority. The OISM Petition proves that conclusively; no alarmist petition has been able to round up more than a small fraction of the OISM’s numbers.
Money has corrupted science. Scientists have been trained with grant funds the way Pavlov’s dogs were trained with dog biscuits. That part is understandable. What is harder to understand are the useful fools who, without grants or other payola, try to make a case that CO2 will drive the climate into runaway global warming. Joel Shore falls into that category — to the point that he has stated: "…the problems lie not with the models but with the observational data itself." Of course, that is completely backward. The problems lie with the models, not with the reality they are failing to emulate.
And regarding the fact that human CO2 emissions constitute less than 3% of total CO2 emissions, Joel has said: "if you don’t want to be taken seriously by any real scientist, I strongly suggest that you continue to repeat the 3% nonsense." But that 'nonsense' comes out of the UN/IPCC that Joel worships.
An interesting facet of human nature is the fact that some folks who get no monetary reward for spouting pseudo-science still do it. I can understand payola, even though I don’t condone it. But True Believers are another matter. They have a martyr complex, and they will go up in flames before they admit to being in error. They are a perfect example of Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance: if the flying saucers don’t arrive on schedule, that doesn’t mean there are no flying saucers, it just means they will arrive later.
Gaia herself must be laughing at the hubris of the CAGW believers; as the harmless and beneficial trace gas CO2 becomes a tiny bit less of a minor trace gas, the planet is not behaving correctly in the eyes of the true believers. Temperatures are normal, nothing is running away or tipping, there is no tropospheric hot spot, global ice cover is completely normal, hurricane activity is less than usual, glaciers have been receding since the Holocene began, and the current climate is right in the middle of its past parameters of natural variability. Nothing extraordinary is occurring. CAGW is a figment of the fevered imaginations of the true believer — as opposed to corrupt scientists taking payola; they are merely dishonest, having sold their professional ethics for what amounts to bribes.
We would do well to keep in mind President Eisenhower’s prescient warning in his farewell address on January 17, 1961:
We as a society can heed Eisenhower’s wise counsel — or we can listen to the bedlam of the true believers shouting about imminent climate catastrophe, disregarding the common sense advice of the Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius:
Gnomish (Sept. 4 2010 937 am )
Water, Water, everywhere and not a drop to drink,
Water, Water, everywhere and all the boards did shrink,
Water, Water, everywhere and Joel Shore is away out of his depth !
Smokey,
Joel reminds me of the computer geek in the world trade tower on 9/11. They were trying to evacuate the building but he kept saying not now, now now as he furiously kept pounding away at his keyboard. His computer world was much more important to him than the imminent reality of certain death. The news bite showing that was almost as shocking as the whole 9/11 incident. (I think it may have been part of a reenactment but I can not remember)
Joel Shore’s statement: “…the problems lie not with the models but with the observational data itself.” As you pointed out this shows he has his “realities” switched.
You say “For me, an interesting facet of human nature is the fact that some folks who get no monetary reward for spouting pseudo-science still do it. I can understand payola, even though I don’t condone it. But True Believers are another matter…..”
I am not sure if the “True Believers” actually believe in CAGW or if they see their version of utopia, that the low CO2 age was supposed to usher in, slipping away and therefore feel obligated to defend it.
Lenin once said, “Promises are like pie-crusts–made to be broken.” If a lie is in the best interests of Communism, then it would be morally right to lie.” This philosophy, that lies to advance “the greater good” are morally correct, places those who hold truth and honesty supreme at a great disadvantage. This is especially true if you are not aware that the other person’s basic philosophy condones dishonesty.
It was the same point I tried to make on the other thread about the Israeli-Palestinian talks. If you do not understand the basic philosophy the other person is bringing to the table you are at a great disadvantage. I did the digging in self-defense after every single one of my business contracts with Muslims was broken, yet I never had the problem with anyone else in 21 years in business.
Both sets of people consider it morally ethical to “lie to the enemy” if it advances their cause. Our only defense is to keep uncovering the lies and bring them to the light of day.
Blade says:
My focus has been responding to some of the incorrect things that people have posted here in the comments. If you feel the topics were off-track, then you ought to blame them for raising them. As for the logarithmic function explanation, it was clear that the two commenters who I quoted indeed did not understand this.
I don’t claim to have any special knowledge above and beyond that of the climate science community who estimate the likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity to by 2 to 4.5 C. Higher or lower values than this cannot be ruled out but they do not appear to be consistent with our current understanding of most of the empirical data.
Dave Springer says:
September 5, 2010 at 4:29 am
@Fuller
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate.”
That effect is debatable. First of all the climate is controlled by the ocean not the land and the ocean is 70% of the surface. So in effect what you wrote (and I’m not sure of the accuracy of 33%) is that humans have gone from using less than 1% of the earth’s land surface for agriculture to more than 9%.
—–
It’s not 33% of all land. That was corrected as a misstatement. And it’s not 33% of arable land as he corrected it to in the comments. According to the UN FOA:
http://faostat.fao.org/Portals/_Faostat/documents/pdf/world.pdf
the percent of arable land that used is just under 9%, as of 2006.
Mr Fuller hasn’t provided any source for his revised assertion that 33% of Arable Land is used as Permanent Cropland.
Smokey says:
Almost nobody in the scientific community takes such a petition seriously and I am surprised that you do. It is strange that someone of your political persuasion endorses a petition run like an old Soviet style election: bombard people with propaganda and then only allow them to vote YES.
Of the signers, how many of those have any sort of real qualifications in the field? Polls of scientists, taken using serious statistical polling methods, show something entirely different than the self-selected petition that you site.
It is a bad habit to quote people out of context. If you look at the full context, you will see strong reasons to believe that in this particular case that there are serious problems with the data analysis…not the least being that different analyses of the same data set get very different results. And, it is never smart to abandon your model when it works well with the data that you know to be reliable and only works less well with the data that you know to suffer from artifacts.
You really ought to look at the larger context from which you cherry-pick what you link to. Here is the full report that you grabbed that table out of: http://books.google.com/books?id=fsgyFcihB8AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=emissions+of+greenhouse+gases+in+the+united+states+2003&hl=en&ei=KKKDTOLkC4T7lwfVn9ChDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false On p. 5, they say:
And, on p. 7 they say:
In other words, there are large exchanges back-and-forth between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and mixed layer of the oceans, but the anthropogenic emissions are taken stores of carbon long locked away from these reservoirs and adding it to the system. The emissions that we add to the atmosphere rapidly partition between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and ocean mixed layer because of the fast exchanges. However, the CO2 concentration in all of these reservoirs rises as a result. The notion that our additions to the atmosphere are an insignificant contribution to the rise in CO2 is wrong, wrong, wrong. They are in fact responsible for essentially all of the rise…and, in fact, the rise in atmospheric CO2 would be about twice as large if not for the biosphere and ocean mixed layer’s ability to absorb some of what we have emitted.
Wow 850,000 dams. We should have one giant party when we hit 1 million.
Joel Shore, September 4, 2010 at 7:22 am: These are not empirical models…They are mechanistic and there is way more data to compare to than there are “free parameters”.
I do not have the models in front of me and would not understand the code anyway. However, many have noted how the models do not do clouds properly and their effect is estimated by “parameters”. (personal observation: cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds have a strong net cooling effect.) There are ongoing discussions about CO2 feedback and I believe the models include positive feedback as another parameter. The IPCC uses a long atmospheric lifetime for CO2. This is contrary to all other estimates. http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a5e507c9970c-pi Is this not another parameter in the models?
You may be right about the radiosonde data for the tropical atmosphere being questioned. The data became controversial as soon as people noted that it was contrary to the models. Kind of like how the Argo data had to be corrected as soon as it showed a cooling of of the oceans. I also believe the sun has been set as a constant with no variability. Why is NASA wasting all this money for satellites to investigate something that is just a constant?
My favorite line in Joel’s last comment was 0.5 deg C of temp increase “in the pipeline”. Yeah, that’s the ticket…hidden heat lurking somewhere we can’t see. Of course the “models are right, the observational data are wrong” argument should get honorable mention.
Last week I submitted an article to another site where I argue that no conspiracy is required for the AGW fraud. All that is required is human nature. The AGW activists always point out how many “climate researchers” agree with the AGW meme. Well, duh… Climate researchers are funded by governments (who want to tax CO2) to study the “problem” of AGW. No problem, no funding. If the problem goes away, so does their job. Human nature trumps scientific objectivity, enlightened self-interest kicks in. This isn’t a process of absolutely corrupting each individual researcher. It’s an atmosphere that promotes less than objective results. In virtually every field of science the author(s) of the paper conclude with “more research is necessary…” This keeps the grant spigot open.
I don’t think the climate scientists are necessarily practicing their craft solely for money. I think the system has been rigged in such a way that they will naturally do so. Again, no “problem”, no funding. Hell, the folks who fund them (governments) WANT there to be a “problem”. You don’t need to be a rocket surgeon to figure this out.
In fact, I think surprisingly few of the power players on the AGW activist side actually believe this crap. They see the payoff. Politicians lust for tax revenue and political control. Bankers and traders are drooling over the prospect of a commodities market that consists of nothing but “good ideas and thin air”. The “scientists” are just protecting their turf. The saddest cases are the “true believers”. These are the folks who are so personally, emotionally or professionally invested in the concept of AGW that any facts or reasoning to the contrary are anathema.
Gary P says:
The feedback is not a parameter. It is an emergent property from the physics that goes into the models. Of course, some feedbacks are better understood than others…and it is the uncertainty in the cloud feedback that is responsible for most of the range of climate sensitivities among the different models.
As Willis Eschenbach (a skeptic who has written many posts here) would tell you, you are confused on this point…Perhaps you have been misled by people who want to confuse you. The lifetime of an individual CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is not the same as the lifetime for a perturbation of CO2 level of the atmosphere. The former is controlled by the fast transfers back-and-forth between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and ocean mixed layer while the latter is controlled by the slow transfer of CO2 from the mixed layer to the deep oceans (after the additional CO2 has rapidly partitioned itself between the atmosphere, land biosphere, and ocean mixed layer reservoirs). You might ask yourself why some people who really do (or should) know better are purposely trying to mislead you on this point!
That is how science works…Data analysis is done and then the data is compared to theory. There are often discrepancies and scientists work to resolve them. Sometimes that involves modifying or discarding the theory but, more often, especially once a theory is well-established, problems are found with the data or the analysis of the data.
To the extent it is known, the forcing due to the historical variability of the sun is included in the climate models. However, the future variability of the sun is not very easy to predict and hence it is indeed ignored (although some models may try to put in an 11 year solar cycle; I don’t know). Since the observed solar variability and hence forcing are quite small, there is not a big error introduced in doing this, at least over the period of a few decades or longer.
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 at 7:14 am
If this were a court of law and Iwas called to testify as to relative guilt of anthropogenic emissions in increasing CO2 levels , I would have to say that the lab screwed up the analysis with some poorly founded assumptions. The earth has never been in some kind of dynamic equilibrium that could be upset with the addition of a relatively small amount. My analysis of the CO2 data indicates that about two thirds comes from inorganic sources such as carbonacous rocks on the bottom of the oceans and about one third from organic sources such as decaying plant material as well as anthropogenic emissions. The atmospheric amounts of both have been increasing at about the same rate. The rate of increase for the inorganic carbon is the results of natural changes in source and sink rates. So you, Willis, and the IPPC are wrong, wrong, wrong. http://www.kidswincom.net/climate.pdf.
Change “IPPC” to IPCC in my last. With respect to water in the atmosphere as a feedback. Water is the climate thermostat and CO2 is going along for the ride. http://www.kidswincom.net/CO2OLR.pdf.
Sheesh, lots of comments, and someone else has probably already pointed this out, but 33% of the land for agriculture? That’s not even in the realm of reality. Maybe in Iowa, but Russia, Canada, Brazil? There is no way we are even close to having put 1/3 of the earth’s land to agricultural use.
Fred,
I am sure you are a very smart fellow but usually claims of “I’m right and the entire scientific community in this field is wrong” require a significant standard of evidence. Does the possibility occur to you that they might be correct and you might be wrong in your analysis?
By the way, what does it mean to have a cycle of period 308 years in data that only goes back a little over 50 years?
SKEPTICISM OF MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING BY THE CLIMATE SCIENCE COMMUNITY IN PRIVATE
When the climate science community is skeptical about catastrophic global warming in PRIVATE, why not everyone?
Here is what they say in private:
1) “Be awkward if we went through a early 1940s type swing!”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=927&filename=1225026120.txt
2) “I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability–that explanation is wearing thin.”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=947&filename=1231166089.txt
3) “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.” [This statement was made 5-years ago and the global warming rate still is zero]
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=544&filename=1120593115.txt
4) “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple.”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=138&filename=938031546.txt
5) “IPCC is not any more an assessment of published science (which is its proclaimed goal) but production of results”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=186&filename=968705882.txt
If the climate science community itself is allowed to be skeptical about man made global warming in private, why can not everyone in PUBLIC?
With all this skepticism about the theory of man made global warming by skeptics and by the climate science community, in private, a trillion dollar policy is not justified until this theory is validated.
Here is how we validate:
Year=> IPCC Global Mean Temperature Anomaly (deg C)
2005=>0.5
2010=>0.6
2015=>0.7
2020=>0.8
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo1.jpg
Year=>Global Mean Temperature Anomaly based on natural patterns (deg C)
2005=>0.5
2010=>0.4
2015=>0.3
2020=>0.2
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png
If the observation matches the IPCC projections then we may have man made global warming and we may need to do something. However, if the observed temperatures match the natural pattern, then we must reject the theory of man made global warming.
We only need ten more years for the validation.
Validation of theory is the kernel of science!
Over on my blog, Joel Shore has been nominated for a medal for his patience and diligence on this thread. I’m here to second the nomination.
The smugly confident confusion that everybody else here happily exudes would be funny were it not for the consequences.
To Tom Fuller’s question, the reason we find ourselves arguing about well-constrained science is to avoid the abyss of reconsidering our confused and dangerous policies. In other words, his argument is completely backwards. Climate science is the best understood part of the puzzle, and we should really be hashing out policies to support sufficient mitigation and adaptation to minimize the chances that civilization will be overwhelmed by environmental stresses.
But we need people who are less quick to latch on to half-baked ideas than most who hang around here, and who are more willing (and dare I say, better able) to test their own beliefs against evidence.
REPLY: Stay tuned for Fuller’s reply, and open a can of half baked beans for yourself too. 😉 Anthony
Joel Shore [September 5, 2010 at 6:47 am] says:
“I don’t claim to have any special knowledge above and beyond that of the climate science community who estimate the likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity to by 2 to 4.5 C. Higher or lower values than this cannot be ruled out but they do not appear to be consistent with our current understanding of most of the empirical data.”
My emphasis there in your quote I will infer as your knowledge being less than or equal to the knowledge of the climate science community, so for the sake of argument let’s assume your knowledge is equal. Now having said that, why can’t you (climate science) answer that simple question? The taxpaying public wants to know! You give us literally a +/- of 250% in units of degrees, and then you take this and wrap undefined error bars around it: “Higher or lower values than this cannot be ruled out …”.
You must have pressed the big red climate alarm button for some reason, and I want to know what it is. After spending millions of our dollars climate scientists must expect something to happen during the next doubling of CO2? Anyway, that leads me to another question which should be simpler to answer.
Question to Joel Shore: during the last doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration from 195 ppm to 390 ppm (currently), what did happen to the temperature?
Michael Tobis [September 5, 2010 at 9:07 pm] says:
“… The smugly confident confusion that everybody else here happily exudes would be funny were it not for the consequences.”
Finally someone smart enough to set us straight! Joel Shore wouldn’t. So PLEASE Michael, do clear up the confusion:
Question to Michael Tobis: if the CO2 concentration doubles from the current 390 ppm to 780 ppm, what will happen to the temperature?
I think the title would be more accurate if it said:
We talk about the science because we dislike the policy implications.
Because indeed, as Michael Tobis said, “the reason we find ourselves arguing about well-constrained science is to avoid the abyss of reconsidering our confused and dangerous policies.”
I had an interesting conversation with Tom Fuller on this before (which he kindly cross posted on his examiner site):
( http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/my-next-generation-questions-on-climate-change/ )
Let’s distinguish the following main issues:
– To what extent is climate change occurring, and to what extent is it man-made?
– To what extent is that (going to be) a problem?
– What can or should we do about it?
The first questions are strictly scientific; the middle has a judgment value to it, and the latter is primarily a political/moral judgement (and has more to do with technology than with climate science).
(As a tangent, it is therefore also logical that scientists have the lead in answering the first question, and that the resulting knowledge is ideally used as a basis for society to answer the third question, on which scientists have no special standing (except perhaps their safeguarding of the scientific knowledge as one input variable for tackling that question)
Science has made much more progress in addressing the first question than society has in addressing the last one.
As Herman Daly noted: “If you jump out of an airplane you need a crude parachute more than an accurate altimeter.”
Blade: Check out http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-is-3c.html
Joel Shore has been unable to offer empirical evidence in answer to the following questions, which are vital to the integrity of the concept of AGW and have been asked of Joel by others on this blog.
1/does increasing ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere precede an increase in atmospheric temperatures?
2/ does an increase in ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere follow an increase in atmospheric temperatures?
3/, if ppm of CO2 in the last 15 years has increased, why has there been no significant rise in atmpospheric temperatures during that period?
Only proper, peer-reviewed references, please. No ‘Most Climate Scientists say…’ types of answers will suffice.
Thanks, Joel, in anticipation,
Alexander K
Joel Shore
September 5, 2010 at 5:35 pm
I’m not alone in questioning the scientific objectivity and truthfullness of a group of subjectively motivated “what if” modellers. The IPCC was set up to do subjective research. The data reveals the truth if analyzed objectively. A big mistake the team has made is to just look for data and statistical techniques that support their beliefs and reject any probility that does not. A prime example is the belief that atmospheric CO2 levels will continue to rise following the exponential rise in anthropogenic emissions leading to an unstable global environment. The earth is not Venus. The ice core data clearly shows that climate change as defined by changes in average global temperature goes in a combination of cycles of many wave lengths. These cycles are expected to continue into the future. The question should be “Do anthropogenic emissions change the parameters of those natural cycles?”
This is where the unbiased use of statistical techiques is a valuable tool. Least squares curve fitting of accurate data is a good tool. The amount of data and it’s accuracy as well as the shape of the assumed curve affect the goodness of fit. In the case of fitting a segment of a 308 year cycle defined by three parameters versus an exponential curve defined by two pararameters to over 20,000 relatively accurate points of data, the cycle segment is a statistically better fit. Time will tell which is a better predictor. If the slope of the CO2-time curve does not continue to increase, the curve is not exponential.
I would like someone with two or more greenhouses growing the same crop under the same conditions of humidity etc. to do me a favor. I suggest greenhouses because it is a large but simple enough environment to control the parameters.
In one greenhouse keep the atmosphere “natural” and have a continuous temperature record kept over , say, a growing season.
In a second greenhouse keep the atmosphere topped up with CO2 to , say, double our current standard. Keep a continuous temperature record over the same growing season.
Then get back to us here at WUWT with your results. This isn’t high tech or difficult to do. I would do it myself but I don’t have greenhouses and I don’t know folk out here who do. This CO2 meme is so central to this whole debate that it must surely be possible to carry out such a simple experiment.
To my engineering brain this would really settle this whole “CO2 drives the temperature” thing once and for all. Once we have done this we can get along to figuring out the “forcings” if it is shown to be necessary.
Joel Shore says
September 5, 2010 at 7:14 am
re; your response to 3% fossil CO2 and other stuff
Below comes latest IPCC 4. I don’t bicker with these. In the interest of brevity do you accept these or not?
The evidence accepted by IPCC is 97% natural CO2, 3% anthropogenic, and 1.5% actual annual rise.
Per doubling of CO2 absent feedbacks global average 1.1C temp rise.
Feedback is where I start having a major problem.
There has never been a runaway greenhouse episode in earth’s history. The best evidence from the geologic column shows temperature maxes out about 6-8C warmer than today while CO2 has been at 10-15 times higher concentration. These periods lasted for millions of years without end and the earth was green from pole to pole.
Historically we are in a rather unproductive epic for the biosphere. Speaking in geologic time frames CO2 concentration is (still) very low and so is global average temperature. That’s because we are in a brief (10-20ky) interglacial period in the midst of an ice age.
The average temperature of the global ocean is 4C which is rather chilly and to get that cold it seems reasonable to assume that is the average temperature of the ice age epic over the glacial and interglacial cycle – 100,000 years seems like enough time for deep water to take on the average surface temperature does it not?
I can only conclude that anthropogenic CO2 is largely beneficial and, moreover, there isn’t enough fossil fuel available for anthropogenic emissions to ever make it a problem. There is a lot to be said for using fossil fuels more efficiently and even more to be said for finding an even more economical alternative.
In the meantime energy consumption goes hand in hand with economic growth. Economic growth is needed to fund research, development, and production of new and improved technologies of all kinds. As far as I’m concerned the CAGW crowd wants, unwittingly or otherwise, to kill the goose that’s been laying the golden eggs.
There is indeed a tipping point but the tipping point going from interglacial back to ice age conditions. I’m pretty sure we all agree that the cold side of ice age conditions would not be good for civilization and it would drastically reduce the productivity of the biosphere.
There is no historical case for positive feedbacks.