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
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“and when the draft goes out for expert review, it might get 1400 to 1600 comments. Every comment goes into a huge Excel spreadsheet, and every comment is explicitly addressed”
Presumably all the “experts” are pre-committed warmists, with no chance that the draft might be sent to any sceptic scientists for their comments. Asking for sceptic scientists comments on the draft is surely the only way that a true scientific assessment could be achieved if it claims to represent the wider scientific community on a subject where the science is increasingly being seen to be far from settle.
Wombat says:
October 29, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Volunteering to the IPCC … detracts from your career
I’m not surprised.
Steven Mosher says:
October 29, 2010 at 1:45 pm
The point about the bunker mentality which was the focus of our book was this.
The bunker mentality drove the scientists to misconstrue steve McIntyre as a SKEPTIC backed by OIL, rather than a watchdog driven by his love of puzzles. Further, the bunker mentality drove them to change from being people who shared data (Jones gave Mcintyre data in 2002) to people who Fought the release of data.
So you don’t think the fact that the release of the relevant data (Briffa’s Yamal subset, Mann’s hockey stick code, temperature manipulation code etc ) would have blown them and their dumb climate theory out of the water might have had something to do with them blockading FOI’s? Just that they suffered from a ‘bunker mentality’?
I think if that’s your position, you are down there in the bunker with them.
Wombat says:
October 29, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Earth to Mr Trenberth, if Engineers massage their data, people die.
Engineers look up material properties. They don’t have to measure them.
Clearly Bamwot knows as much about engineering as he does about climate science.
I wonder if Trenberth’s missing energy might be due to the unusual radiation emitted from H2O molecular aggregates (clumps) that have been shock-exited by initial formation or condensation bonding. I suspect that this unusual radiation may have a free, clear-air path from top of convection columns to outer space by not coinciding with the absorption spectra of CO2 or simple free H2O molecules in the atmosphere. Even the simplest H2O molecular aggregate is much more complicated than a single H2O molecule and thus it has many additional special vibration modes.
So far I have not found any data available to the general public that purports to represent the typical emission spectra of the components of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Robert Kral says:
October 29, 2010 at 10:06 pm
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.
Precisely because there is such a lot of money involved the FDA have been willing to let such fraud pass, see here for example:
Yet despite the irregularities and red flags, clinical trials at the Vivra Tucson facility which still appear in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Annals of Internal Medicine, were not stopped by the FDA, institutional review boards, trial sponsors, contract research organizations or the Justice Department. Nor was the facility’s clearance to conduct trials revoked.
In fact FDA inspections were actually delayed to facilitate the new drug applications the studies were for-like clearing a plane with mechanical problems for takeoff to not hold up travelers. This “safety last” policy is a expected outgrowth of the 1992 Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) that allows drug companies to pay the FDA to accelerate approvals, says Davidson.
“It takes time to obtain a properly administered, formal informed consent with full disclosure of risks and benefits and that slows study-subject recruitment and ultimately, delays the time to obtain market approval from FDA,” says Davidson. “It is virtually certain that there have been deaths of US citizens because of the fraudulent or seriously-flawed clinical research PDUFA encourages. Nor is FDA likely to revoke expedited market approvals because that would be tantamount to admitting that they ‘goofed.'”
[Try again, without calling people “denialists.” Read the site Policy for further 411. ~dbs, mod.]
I think his measurements of outbound radiation are from satellites, so they’re pretty much all-inclusive.
I find that ad-hominem is mostly utilised by people whose position lacks logical, non-fallacious support.
Do you?
“Wombat” must be of the northern hairy nosed species. Yes, sadly, the True Believers are going extinct, no longer being supported by their shrinking habitat of post normal pseudo-science and lies. The fact they still exist is an amazing testament to their hardiness against the harsh realities of science and truth.
I cite the findings of the ASA. About 0.2% (2004 estimate) or 0.3% of all deaths. (2000 estimate).
That 100,000 or 150,000 thousand annually, since 2000.
Oh, dear, mate.
I’m not sure how far back we need to go if you don’t have a grasp on this one. I guess there’s two parts:
1) Human activity has increased the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses, and
2) Increased greenhouse gas concentration increases the greenhouse effect.
Which part are you having the most trouble with?
Wombat says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 30, 2010 at 5:52 am
John M says:
October 29, 2010 at 5:49 pm
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?
Wow, you went and looked up the report, and then you cherry picked the second last paragraph of the Assessment section.
And then you claim it as the “Actual finding”.
For the reader, the paragraph before the quoted one:
“We noted that Oxfam had supplied a WHO fact sheet which had been published in January 2010 and which stated “Globally, the number of reported weather-related natural disasters has more than tripled since the 1960s. Every year, these disasters result in over 60,000 deaths, mainly in developing countries” and confirmation from WHO that that position still, in June 2010, reflected WHO’s assessment of the situation. We noted that that statement reflected findings set out in more detail in WHO’s publication “The World Health Report 2002 Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life”, which stated “Climate change was estimated to be responsible in 2000 for approximately 2.4% of worldwide diarrhoea, 6% of malaria in some middle income countries and 7% of dengue fever in some industrialized countries. In total, the attributable mortality was 154 000 (0.3%) deaths …” and WHO’s 2009 publication “GLOBAL HEALTH RISKS – Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks”, which stated “Climate change was estimated to be already responsible for 3% of diarrhoea, 3% of malaria and 3.8% of dengue fever deaths worldwide in 2004. Total attributable mortality was about 0.2% of deaths in 2004; of these, 85% were child deaths”. We noted that those statistics were broken down in more detail according to cause and region in WHO’s 2004 publication, “Comparative Quantification of Health Risks.” We also noted that the IPCC Report’s position was that changes in weather trends had led to increased disease.”
Also note the slant that these counter-scientific climate ideologues put in their posts approaches dishonesty.
The irony is heavy in a thread in which they are decrying the methods of a scientist as renowned as Trenberth.
Oh, dear, mate.
I’m not sure how far back we need to go if you don’t have a grasp on this one. I guess there’s two parts:
1) Human activity has increased the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses, and
2) Increased greenhouse gas concentration increases the greenhouse effect.
Which part are you having the most trouble with?
Wombat says:
October 30, 2010 at 5:56 am
I find that ad-hominem is mostly utilised by people whose position lacks logical, non-fallacious support.
Yes, that would explain why you just had a post snipped I agree.
@ur momisugly Phil:
““Bridge engineers almost always have to massage their designs, exercising judgment about what might be defective and best disregarded”.
Yep that’s why they don’t build bridges like this one any more! Safety factors are added into designs to allow for a margin of error, that’s ‘massaging the data’.”
Uh, no… “massaging the data” would be taking a reading from the support pillars, realizing that the instrumentation says that they’re bending, and declaring it impossible so it must be wrong.
What you’re describing would be closer to “refining the model” which is totally different.
———————
Wombat,
In the context of all of mankind’s existence and the earth’s existence before mankind’s existence, your items 1) and 2) do not appear to be important; even if substantially correct.
In addition, the play out of climate science the late 20th century and early 21st century does not support a significant and negative impact on the Earth Total System and mankind. Catastrophic AGW-by-CO2 ‘settled/consensus science’ supporter views to the contrary notwithstanding.
The current obviously advancing reformation /renaissance in climate science (replacing the problematic climate science of the last >20 yrs) is showing us a more balanced and reasonable perspective. That is something the public can appreciate.
John
Hey, how come the 13th tree data wasn’t “massaged out” but the late 20th century tree proxy data was because it disagreed with the instrument record? (how about that temperature record folks!) A hockey stick is what Mann wanted and so a hockey stick he got. I have a dream of a huge shredder where all these ” studies ” and ” experiments ” get fed into and produce little hard bricks of knowlege that I can heat my house with.
RE: Wombat: (October 30, 2010 at 5:54 am)
“I think his measurements of outbound radiation are from satellites, so they’re pretty much all-inclusive.”
Perhaps so, however, I have not seen any public information identifying the radiation that is emitted by the atmosphere alone. I do not think we can create a valid theory of upper atmosphere cooling if we do not know this. I also have not seen any public discussion of the special radiation created by the shock of H2O condensation. Perhaps this is a minimal issue, but I am bothered by the fact that this is never even mentioned.
Wombat;
1) Human activity has increased the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses, and
2) Increased greenhouse gas concentration increases the greenhouse effect.
Which part are you having the most trouble with?>>
The part where you fail to provide evidence to support your conclusion. The introduction of additional greenhouse gases has both a direct effect in terms of retaining energy, and multiple indirect effects usually known as positive and negative feedbacks. Any conclusion in regard to the effects on the planet as regards temperature must include the sum of the feedbacks. To date we have a temperature record of questionable accuracy which none the less shows global temperature increases of about 0.6 degrees over the course of time during which CO2 emissions were rising. There is no statistical correlation between the two, and the period of highest CO2 concentrations (the last 15 years) exhibits no significant warming. If we were to put aside those facts for a moment and still accept the position that the entire increase recorded is a direct result of CO2, we would still be left with the inevitable conclusion that both sensitivity of the climate to direct inputs from CO2 AND the sum of the feedbacks is well under the range predicted by the “settled science” and natural variability is in excess of the oberved changes, suggesting that attributing the entire change to CO2 makes little sense and the sensistivity is consequently even less. This is supported by the temperature record which shows warming of 0.5 degrees in the 90 years before CO2 increases started to become measurably higher in 1920 versus the 0.6 degrees recorded in the 90 years since, suggesting that the planet is in a long term natural warming cycle of which CO2 and associated feedbacks MIGHT account for 0.1 degrees. The notion of the planet being in a natural long term warming cycle is further supported by the historical record which suggests warming has been occurring for the last few centuries, and this is confirmed by proxy studies of many sorts. While the esteemed Mann, Briffa and Jones triumverate has attempted to construe a handfull of proxy studies to show flat temperatures over those same centuries, these lost all credibility when close examination revealed computer codes that biased the results by increasing the weight of data that matched the theory, and the Yamal tree ring series which relies on 7 tree in Siberia with 50% of the data attributed to just one of them. In the meantime the historical record stands, and at last count there were 51 peer reviewed proxy studies using multiple types of proxies distributed around the world showing that the natural warming since the Little Ice Age is in concert with the historical record.
So what part of there being no evidence don’t you understand?
I didn’t see much on the great “Fix”. Are these people paid union wages to write this stuff for the IPCC? Do they get UN retirement packages and hospitalization too? Like what we pay members of congress? Do they also get diplomatic immunity from parking and traffic tickets?
Oh wombat, you actually want to talk about the numbers in the WHO report (which somehow were what got Oxfam off the hook because they didn’t use them in the ad.
Ok, take a look at what an expert in the field has to say about the numbers.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/10/if-it-is-not-true-and-not-flase-then.html
I guess your credulity with regard to climate science extends to number games from UN organizations as well.
Wombat,
You claim the additional paragraphs from the Oxfam report posted by you show that they have been misrepresented in order to slant perception. OK. Let’s work our way through that report paragrpah you posted:
<<We noted that Oxfam had supplied a WHO fact sheet which had been published in January 2010 and which stated “Globally, the number of reported weather-related natural disasters has more than tripled since the 1960s.<>Every year, these disasters result in over 60,000 deaths, mainly in developing countries” and confirmation from WHO that that position still, in June 2010, reflected WHO’s assessment of the situation.>>
Interesting to note that developing countries are mostly equatorial, the region of the planet that has shown the LEAST amount of climate change according to the temperature record, but have experienced the MOST deaths because of it. From what? Why from those severe weather events that have been declining in frequence for the last 30 years. Is this still adding up for you Wombat?
>> We noted that that statement reflected findings set out in more detail in WHO’s publication “The World Health Report 2002 Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life”, which stated “Climate change was estimated to be responsible in 2000 for approximately 2.4% of worldwide diarrhoea, 6% of malaria in some middle income countries and 7% of dengue fever in some industrialized countries. In total, the attributable mortality was 154 000 (0.3%) deaths …” <>and WHO’s 2009 publication “GLOBAL HEALTH RISKS – Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks”, which stated “Climate change was estimated to be already responsible for 3% of diarrhoea, 3% of malaria and 3.8% of dengue fever deaths worldwide in 2004. Total attributable mortality was about 0.2% of deaths in 2004; of these, 85% were child deaths”. We noted that those statistics were broken down in more detail according to cause and region in WHO’s 2004 publication, “Comparative Quantification of Health Risks.” We also noted that the IPCC Report’s position was that changes in weather trends had led to increased disease.”<<
Well that's pretty much the same thing as the previous section except that they threw in the heart string tug of "85% were child deaths". Yes, children are more susceptable to disease than adults, in countries with poor health care in particular, which are mostly developing countries, which are mostly equatorial, which according to the same IPCC report to which is referred to at the end, have shown the least change in temperature over the last two centuries.
Of course I for one believe that Oxfam and the developing countries have faithfully reported the facts accurately, the notion that a UN agency funded to supply aid to developing countries would never produce a report with slanted statistics to try and get their budget increased, would they? And the developing countries who get the aid, they would never slant the statistics in order to be elegible for more aid would they? Odd isn't it that the countries reporting the least impact from increased disease aren't recipients of Oxfam aid, yet they are mostly located in the parts of the world that have experienced, according to the IPCC, the most warming. Because things like Oil for Food scandals where dictatorships and beauracrats conspire to fleece the first world while lining their own pockets would never happen at the UN. Oh, wait, it did. And you'd never have the lily white UN create a world human rights body chaired by the worst human rights violators in the world so that they could exonerate themselves. Oh wait, they did. You'd never have someone like the UN accounce that they had come to an agreement to save the whales by prohibiting whaling world wide with the only countries that actually do any whaling exempted. Oh wait, they did.
You don't see any "slant" in any of that? I do. Its a slippery slope that the alarmists have set foot upon, and they are now sliding down it completely out of control, screaming "SEE! i TOLD you this road would take us to the top of the mountain, can't you see the evidence?" as they fall into the quicksand at the bottom.
I’m very proud of my fellow engineers for delivering such a delicious slapdown in the comment section of the Spectrum article. We don’t have to call them fools, just let them speak and they demonstrate their foolishness all on their own.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978648297
Stop arguing with the little fuzzy animal—we dealt with such blabbering years and thousands of postings ago.
Focus on the criminal Trenberth and his self-admissions of guilt, and his fellow-travelers and kingpins of criminal Climategate fame, and the whitewashing “inquiries” by his peer-group “investigators”.
As for Millikan:
1) He wasn’t funded by you and me
2) He did not try to use his experiment to tax anything on the planet that generated light
3) He did not advocate that people, especially in the developing world, should be forced by exploitation to live in perpetual darkness
re previous post, I really gottal learn this html stuff because I’ve wound up snipping some of my own rebuttal. Missing from the previous post:
REPORTED increase in extreme weather events since 1960. Better news coverage accounts for almost all of that, and the satellite record shows extreme weather events have been in decline for the last 30.
Why the selective use of disease profiles? Diorrhea in developing countries, malaria in middle income and dengue fever in industrialized. One would think that ALL diseases that thrive in warmer temperatures would increase in ALL countries. One would think that industrialized countries in temperate zones where the temperature record has shown the most change would be the hadest hit, and equatorial zones where developing countries are concentrated and which have had the LEAST temperature increase would have seen the LEAST increase in disease.
Wombat:
There is sufficiently strong scientific evidence to attribute the deaths to anthropogenic climate change.
There is very strong evidence that total world population has increased over the “AGW climate change” period in question. Wombat, your general claim as to the net ill-effect of “AGW climate change” is false.