From IEEE Spectrum – How to Fix the Climate-Change Panel
Questions for climate modeler and IPCC insider Kevin E. Trenberth
New Zealander Kevin E. Trenberth has been a lead author in the last three climate assessments produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and he shared in the 2007 Nobel Prize awarded to the IPCC. He is head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. IEEE Spectrum Contributing Editor William Sweet interviewed Trenberth about the impact of the theft last year of climate scientists’ e-mails from the University of East Anglia and proposals for reforming the IPCC.
IEEE Spectrum: You were a lead coauthor with Phil Jones of East Anglia of a key chapter in the latest IPCC assessment, and messages of yours were among the hacked e-mails that aroused such consternation.
Kevin E. Trenberth: One cherry-picked message saying we can’t account for current global warming and that this is a travesty went viral and got more than 100 000 hits online. But it was quite clear from the context that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in terms of short-term variability.
Spectrum: It seems to me the most damaging thing about the disclosed e-mails was not the issue of fraud or scientific misconduct but the perception of a bunker mentality among climate scientists. If they really know what they’re doing, why do they seem so defensive?
The full interview at IEEE Spectrum
h/t to WUWT reader Mark Hirst
Wombat says:
October 29, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Note too, (as the Oxfam case has shown), that people are dying from anthropogenic climate change.
Wrong. People die from, among many things, weather and other naturally-occurring events. Those most vulnerable are the poor, particularly in underdeveloped countries.
Trying to blame those deaths on a myth, anthropogenic climate change/disruption etc., and on “carbon” sidesteps the real issues and actually allows even more people to die. Poverty and ignorance kills. But, AGWs don’t care about that.
Yoo-Hoo, Wo-o-o-o-m-ba-a-a-t!
Still waiting for the names of the folks killed by AGW …S’cuse me, I mean, killed by A-C-C.
While you’re at it, a linked photo showing the coroner’s death certificate showing Cause of Death would help your credibility immensely.
“Cause of Death: Anthropogenic Climate Change.” heh
Ok Phil, since you seems so privy with all of the warmists data, just how much “safety factor” temperature rise HAS been added to the temperature records as a warming “safety factor”? You know, to prevent failure. It’s seem all OK to you. Trenberth is speaking of massaging climate data, i.e. temperatures, not engineering bridges.
And:
Have you taking the time to converse with Dr. Spencer, I thought not. Moving data to correct something scientifically incorrect is not the same as adding a safety factor to climate science data”.
The ruling was pretty clear. There is sufficiently strong scientific evidence to attribute the deaths to anthropogenic climate change.
I’ll have to leave working out their names as an exercise for yourself.
How does he walk upright? The team is great at shooting their own feet off. More interveiws please mr climate scientist. ( a special and outlier branch of science?)
There have been at least seven investigations into the UEA emails. None of those have found any wrongdoing, except that they didn’t respond to the FOI requests.
So a fairer statement would be: “Nearly everyone outside climate science or inside it see absolutely nothing wrong. A few vocal extremists remain hardened against this view.”
That was more or less the claim of the case against Oxfam.
And the ASA found to be wrong.
I believe what the Tacoma Narrows bridge got us was open grating roadways on long bridges.
Wombat says:
October 29, 2010 at 5:01 pm
As Judith Curry says, how’s that working out for you?
ASA’s actual finding:
“We noted that Oxfam’s claim was reasonably restrained in that it stated deaths were occurring at the present time as a result of climate change but that it did not claim specific numbers of deaths were attributable and it did not speculate about future numbers of deaths,” added the ASA.”
1? 10? 15?
In the case of the United States only. Even if you want to argue that the NCDC adjustments are completely wrong/unnecessary/whatever you’re not going to impact the global trend by any significant amount and it’s the global trend we’re all interested in.
What I am arguing is that the NCDC 20C raw trend data per station is +0.14C and that NCDC adjusted data is +0.59. Therefore, it is quite incorrect to imply that adjustments don’t matter. Quite apart from whether those adjustments are justified or not.
You say this is only true for the US? Well, since we can’t even get raw data for most of the world, who knows? Of course, the fact every country we’ve examined so far shows a whopping warming trend adjustment so far should provide a clue as to WHY we can’t seem to get that raw data . . .
Don’t sell me that raw data and adjusted data show anywhere near the same trends since 1900. If there is, as you imply, basically no difference between raw and adjusted data, then fine — make mine raw. Since it makes basically no difference this should be more than acceptable to you.
Personally I’m not convinced by graphs of adjusted/unadjusted temperatures for particular stations/cities along with declarations that their unknown or unexplained. All it tells me is the person writing it doesn’t know why they were adjusted.
“Personally I’m not convinced by graphs of adjusted/unadjusted temperatures for particular stations/cities along with declarations that their unknown or unexplained. All it tells me is the person writing it doesn’t know why they were adjusted upward.”
Fixed your post.
Wombat and Brother Smokes:
Lomborg shed some light on deaths from AGW (with or without the “A”).
He calculated that the temperature rise in recent decades has definitely resulted in quite a few human deaths.
He also calculated that four times as many lives have been SAVED as a result of the rise in temperatures in recent decades.
Doc Goklany will tell you the same story.
I hope this has been helpful.
(I guess that means you were “wrong”, Smokes, and Wombat was “right”. Eh? Nudge-Nudge.)
Wombat:
There is sufficiently strong scientific evidence to attribute the deaths to anthropogenic climate change.
Wombat, since ipcc Climate Science does not follow the Scientific Method, it’s evidence is not “scientific”.
There have been at least seven investigations into the UEA emails. None of those have found any wrongdoing, except that they didn’t respond to the FOI requests.
So a fairer statement would be: “Nearly everyone outside climate science or inside it see absolutely nothing wrong. A few vocal extremists remain hardened against this view.”
No , a fairer statement would be that “they didn’t respond to the FOI requests because, likewise, they were not following the Scientific Method.”
Lucky for you though, Wombat, that your mirror can’t talk back to you. Yet.
Judith Curry has a reaction to the interview
http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/29/uncertainty-and-the-ipcc-ar5/#comments
curryja | October 29, 2010 at 4:21 pm | Reply
The Trenberth interview is a classic example of what is wrong with the IPCC. People have been wondering who my closing message was intended for in the heresy post (“So how have things been going for you lately?”). I didn’t want to name names, but since they have come forward to beautifully to show that the shoe fits, Trenberth is one and Mann, Ehrlich and Rahmsdorf are others.
Further, the letter published by Mann, Ehrlich and Rahmsdorf in Nature is a perfect example of the “merchants of doubt meme” that I referred to in the heresy post. They state “Nature should have pointed out to its readers that Greenberg has served as a round-table speaker and written a report for the Marshall Institute.” Attempting to smear someone who says something you don’t like by inferring that they are in the pay of big oil or brainwashed by right-wing think tanks is the merchants of doubt meme.
L Nettles says:
October 29, 2010 at 10:02 am
Wow just wow!
From the comments to the IEEE interview
“A lot of measurements are actually driven by facts. One of the key facts is Earth was not fit for human dwelling until a lot of carbon has been captured in the fossils.
—–
Ridiculous statement by Trenberth!! My God, man, don’t you know that the earth was populated for millions of years by PLANTS (ferns, conifers etc.) before mammals showed their hairy, vole-like faces??
There is no relationship between the carbon cycle and the evolution of man other than timing. Behold the anti-humanity crux of the warmist argument….man is always guilty, and there’s too many of ’em anyway….what do these folks long for, a planet filled with mammoths and saber-tooth tigers?
I couldn’t read much past massage data.
Perhaps that’s what psientists do, not scientists!
I will go back & read it all tomorrow, after I’ve calmed down,
DaveE.
I can not believe that some are still defending the E-Mail, general falsification of data and destruction of climate data…
They spout the white wash and ignore the faults… I wonder if when I get a speeding ticket the judge will allow me the latitude to determine what evidence and witnesses are relevant before trial?
These guys are so isolated they think they are above any investigation except by their close circle of peer review pals…
Wombat,
This is easy. You made the statement that ACC has been the cause of numerous deaths:
I call BS on deaths due to ACC. I’m a skeptic; I challenge you to produce medical evidence — not UN propaganda — which verifies that human-caused climate change has killed anyone. Keep in mind too that there is zero evidence showing that human activity causes global climate change.
I’ve been wrong before, I’m pretty sure of that. So simply provide us with a citation showing “Anthropogenic Climate Change” as the official cause of just one death. Just one will do, and I’ll concede that UN/Oxfam isn’t spreading its unsupportable scare story for propaganda purposes. Those same UN folks spread climate alarmism to get tax money, you know. They have a self-serving motive for making up stories like this.
“I’ll have to leave working out their names as an exercise for yourself.”
Skeptics have nothing to prove; you cited this claim. But when it comes to verifying it you backpedaled, demanding that skeptics must prove a negative. If your only basis of support is an appeal to a biased authority like the UN, it is simply an unverified conjecture; an opinion.
Where are the bodies?? Just provide one [1] official death certificate stating that ACC was the cause, and you win the argument. Death certificates are in the public record. Should be easy to verify, even for a wombat. ☺
I work in drug development, and I can tell you that if you “massage” data in a clinical trial you’re in a world of hurt (assuming you are found out, which is much more likely than not). The regulatory authorities have extensive rights to examine your raw data and audit your clinical records. There are both civil and criminal penalties for falsifying data. Which is not to say that someone might not try to do this from time to time anyway- there’s a lot of money at stake in this field. However, there is a strong tendency for such things to be revealed at a relatively early time, and severe punishment generally ensues. The slop that passes for climate science could never pass FDA review.
“Prove all odd numbers are prime.”
Mathematician: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is… the hypothesis is false.
Trenberth: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is clearly erroneous data that should be removed, 11 is prime, 13 is prime…
The IPCC “fix” failed. The only thing missing is the truth which has been homogenised beyond all recognition.
@John whitman
‘
My guess is that was nothing quite so fixed. As individuals they had been transformed from relative nonentities to global superstars in their field in a very short time. They were true celebrities.
Some, undoubtedly found the spotlight and the adulation appealing. Their every utterance was seized upon as undoubted truth and their influence could be seen on national and international policies all over the globe.
Collectively they had shared the intellectual intoxication of being in a small tight-knit gang who were the first to know the ‘truth’…the first to decode the runes of climate data and to show that there was a problem. And they all won the f….g Nobel Prize to prove it. Not only were they celebrities they were now prophets…keen to show just how clever they had been. Sharing their data around and graciously condescending to answer some silly questions from the great unwashed.
But wait! The unwashed have done something unexpected! They have looked in detail at the Great Work and found it wanting. Maybe they are just as clever as we are. The gravy train might hit the buffers. We have to stop them.
And since they know in their heart of hearts that the ‘science’ was in fact a bit of a kludge (wilfully or just by happenstance), they can only be stopped by the siege mentality. Use every ‘trick’ that can be found to delay them. And maybe something useful will turn up to save us.
But the sad thing for them is that it was Climategate…and things will never be the same again. The Castle walls are crumbling…the gallant occupants are trying to shore it up by all means they can muster.
But fall it will. The only question is when.
Wombat,
Congrats. You’re probably the highest quality troll I’ve seen here in a bit. Well worded responses using oblique arguments to support adjustment of data, obscure references to vague results from Oxfam studies that require research just to see what you are referring to and have to be debunked on their own merit before tackling the argument you are supporting with it, representation of investigations into the Climategate emails as if they were thorough efforts of any sort to determine the quality of the science. I’m impressed.
The adjustments you speak of invariably result in downward adjustments of temps in the beginning of the temperature record, they keep getting adjusted down and as a consequence the linear trend for the record as a whole increases. Are you seriously taking the position that there is something about the temperature record in 1890 that we just learned about in 2010 that compells 1890 temps to be reduced? Not to mention the anomalous warming trend from the late 1930’s to 1940′ that has slowly been erased, bit by bit, over the last few years. Did we find something out this decade that justifies adjusting data from 70 years ago? If so, what was it?
Oxfam’s stunt is even less credible. The world has extreme weather somewhere on the globe every year, some hot, some cold. There was a heat wave in Europe in 2003 that warmists attributed to 37,000 deaths pointing at global whateveristheterm this month. That’s terrible. Now the winter before, in England and Wales ALONE, 20,000 deaths were attributed to cold according to the UK office of Statistics. No corresponding heat wave in 08/09 but 40,000 people died from the cold snap. 50,000 died in 99/2000. Over that time period, only the one extreme warm event and 4 extreme cold events each of which killed nearly as many or more than the warm even in an aread just a fraction of the size of europe as a whole. So are warm events increasing, or cold? Can you explain how CO2 cause increased cooling events? Why does Oxfam trumpet deaths from warm events while staying strangely silent about the cool ones?
As for your vaunted studies exonerating the scientists at the heart of the the email scandal, those were hardley investigations. The questions barely scratched the surface of the issues and accepted the most see through responses as being adequate. It was like watching a cop passing by a jewellery store with a smashed in window, and a guy leabing through it and scooping out the diamonds. He says “hey, did you break that window?” and the guy calmly says “Of course, that’s how we get into our stores down here on Science Boulevard” Oh says the cop, then let me help you, you might cut yourself.
And I forget if it was Wombat or someone else that complained that all engineers had to do was look up numbers of known properties of materials book, What total hogwash. Two cables rated at one ton each can pick up a two ton weight, What do you suppose happens if the two one ton cables are each attached to the one ton weight at 30 degree opposing angles. You wanna walk under neath them because all the weights and properties can be looked up in a book? You feel safe with that? If you do, get an engineer to explain why that two ton weight is going to snap one or both of those cables.
At days end you can distract, deflect and rationalize but you have no real data to backup your claims. The science comes down to this:
Boss, the data doesn’t quite fit the theory, its out a bit.
So adjust it.
Boss, I adjusted it, but there’s some new data that doesn’t fit at all.
So discard it.
Boss, if I discard it, there will be a big white gap at the end of the graph.
So put something else in there instead.
Boss, I put something else in, but it still looks kinda jagged and stuff.
Well, now its my turn, I’m the scientist, here gimme the mouse, I’ll massage this data. See look, change the scale here a bit, change a color there, these two lines we cut off just in the right spot so that new data you spliced into the graph looks like it is all part of one graph…. and oh yeah, subtract a 1/2 degree or so from the really old temps, no one pays attention to the old temps they are all focused on the new ones so they won’t even notice thats the cause of the increased warming.
Wow boss, you so smart.
Well I gotta tell you Billy, there was a time when science wasn’t this mature. They actually thought that if your data didn’t agree with the theory you shoud drop the theory. There are some relics in other sciences who haven’t got past that yet, but in climate science we already know the theory is correct, so proving is a simple matter of selecting the right data and presenting it properly.
You’re a genius boss.
Yes I am. Now do me a favour and run out to the store and buy us some blankets and heaters and canned food, there’s a wicked winter storm on its way due to that arctice wind reversal thing and we don’t want to be getting any frost burn. You know thats caused by global warming right? Burns in general, that their cause, You probabaly thought it was the winter storm, but nope, its a burn, global warming.
Right off the bat Trenberth lies about his own most famous statement: “One cherry-picked message saying we can’t account for current global warming and that this is a travesty went viral.” Um, no. The message of Trenberth’s that went viral said how it was a travesty that “we can’t account for the LACK of warming at the moment.” [Emphasis added.]
Another example of “hiding the decline” it seems.