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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It’s refreshing to see engineers responding in the comments section at IEEE. They abide take nonsense very easily.
Phil. says:
October 29, 2010 at 1:50 pm
When building a bridge, the safety factor is generally 3, meaning all structural components are able to withthstand 3 times the maximum expected load. Are you saying that they’ve adjusted the temperatures by a factlor of 3.0, then?
Where do we call the truth cops? Sounds like (if you’re correct) Trenberth has distorted global warming out of all proportion.
Shame on him!
The interesting thing is that the data from satellite-based instruments is “massaged” and some is discarded via the expert judgement of scientists like Dr. Roy Spencer.
Derecho64:
You can ask Dr Spencer to show you exactly how he arrived at his conclusions, step by step, and he will respond. Then you can test his results. That is how the scientific method works.
Try that with Michael Mann. It’s been twelve years since MBH98, and his taxpayer-funded hokey stick methodology still can’t be pried out of him.
For that matter, ask Kevin Trenberth to give you his raw and adjusted data, his methodologies, and his code and other metadata.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for either one of them to share their secrets, because neither one of them follows the scientific method. Is that not a travesty?
I’m way, way, late and tardy about this, but if my memory serves me, Trenberth (no hurricane expert) opined that the busy 2005 hurricane season, including Katrina, was a habringer of things to come. Those statements lead to the resignation of Dr. Christopher Landsea (a genuine hurricane expert) from the UN IPCC. Trenberth’s no powerhouse. He needs to get a new job and not at taxpayer expense.
RE: Derecho64: (October 31, 2010 at 7:16 pm )
“The interesting thing is that the data from satellite-based instruments is “massaged” and some is discarded via the expert judgement of scientists like Dr. Roy Spencer.”
I wonder if this might include discarding data that was “obviously” not from surface thermal sources, and therefore beyond the scope of the greenhouse effect, such as that which could be associated with the thermal shocks of H2O condensation bond formation….
Really, Smokey? Spencer can show me all of his code, algorithms, and expert judgment that are used to take the raw data and transform them into the plots he shows at his website?
Why hasn’t he published the above and made them publicly available? Do you have a website, or, better yet, access to the repository of his code, and are willing to share?
Is Spencer taxpayer-funded? Is MBH98 the last word on paleoclimate reconstructions? Does Trenberth really hide his stuff?
Spector, perhaps the “thermal shocks of H2O condensation” are nearly balanced by the “thermal shocks of H2O evaporation”, so the net effect is practically zero.
Derecho64,
Dr Spencer answers polite, on-point emails, as others here have reported. As for your other questions, I am not a mind reader so I can’t tell you about his publishing plans.
Regarding your other fishing questions, I have no other website, I don’t have a code repository, and I am not the expert on how Dr Spencer is funded.
The IPCC does not abide by the scientific method, and as for Trenberth, I suggest you do a search here on the Climategate emails link, keyword “Trenberth,” and decide his ethics – or lack thereof – for yourself. While you are at it, I suggest you study Judd’s comment above.
Smokey, why should I have to bother Dr. Spencer with emails, or, if that doesn’t work, FOIA requests? Do you know where he publishes all his code that takes the raw data feed and massages it? I want to make plots identical to the ones he shows – I’d like to audit his work. That’s the least we can expect from someone likely taxpayer-funded!
Have you read Edwards’ “The Vast Machine”, Smokey?
RE: Derecho64 says: (October 31, 2010 at 8:12 pm)
“Spector, perhaps the “thermal shocks of H2O condensation” are nearly balanced by the “thermal shocks of H2O evaporation”, so the net effect is practically zero.”
It may be that the thermal shock of evaporation also produces a unique spices of radiation, but the energies escaping to outer space would be additive not subtractive. Most likely, however, I think that evaporation or molecular de-bonding absorbs kinetic energy from the high-speed collision required to knock loose an H2O molecule from any given clump of H2O molecules.
Most people would consider him something of a powerhouse.
Using google scholar, he has an h-index of 54.
Based on his calculations, Hirsch suggests that, for physicists, a value for h of about 12 might be a useful guideline for tenure decisions at major research universities. A value of about 18 could mean a full professorship, 15–20 could mean a fellowship in the American Physical Society, and 45 or higher could mean membership in the National Academy of Sciences. (Rating Researchers )
So 54 is reasonably kick-arse. Certainly its well ahead of the curve for a gentleman with 38 years since his Sc.D. (from MIT.)
The IPCC doesn’t do science.
They report on what science has discovered to interested non-scientist parties.
The scientific method is something applied to research, not journalism.
What do you mean by “greenhouse gas theory”?
From that description I would have thought that you meant the study of the optical properties of gasses.
The atmosphere doesn’t have layers because of the optical properties of the constituent gasses.
Have you tried?
How far out were your estimates?
If you personally can’t estimate the effect of greenhouse gasses, should we assume that there is no cost to greenhouse emissions, or should be consider a reasonably risk-analysis, and try to avoid the greatest expected cost?
Facts: Nitrogen constitutes 78% of the atmosphere, oxygen 21% and trace gases just 1%. Water vapor is the most significant trace gas and the most significant green house gas (GHG). According to IPCC technical reports carbon dioxide is the least significant trace gas both by volume and by Global Warming Potential (GWP).
Question: What are the chances an infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas (CO2), essential to photosynthesis and therefore life on this planet, is responsible for runaway Global Warming?
Answer: Infinitesimal
Discussion: The IPCC now agrees. See the IPCC Technical Report section entitled Global Warming Potential (GWP). And the GWP for CO2? Just 1, (one), unity, the lowest of all green house gases (GHG). What’s more, trace gases which include GHG constitute less than 1% of the atmosphere. Of that 1%, water vapor, the most powerful GHG, makes ups 40% of the total. Carbon dioxide is 1/10th of that amount, an insignificant .04%. If carbon dioxide levels were cut in half to 200PPM, all plant growth would stop according to agricultural scientists. It’s no accident that commercial green house owner/operators invest heavily in CO2 generators to increase production, revenues and profits. Prof. Michael Mann’s Bristle cone tree proxy data (Hockey stick) proves nothing has done more to GREEN (verb) the planet over the past few decades than moderate sun-driven warming (see solar inertial motion) together with elevated levels of CO2, regardless of the source. None of these facts have been reported in the national media. Why?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/meltdown_of_the_climate_consensus_G0kWdclUvwhVr6DYH6A4uJ
Something like that:
Kevin Trenberth (CGD) says that although it’s controversial, he thinks that global warming is in fact creating conditions that are favorable for hurricanes to be more severe. “Global climate change, and global warming in particular, create a different background environment in which the hurricanes are working,” he says. “The sea surface temperatures are a little warmer, the whole environment is a bit wetter, there’s more humidity, and that’s the main fuel for hurricanes.” (http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0410/hurricane.html)
I think that that view is still mainstream. For example:However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6–34%. Tropical cyclones and climate change Knutson et al, Nature Geoscience 3, 157 – 163 (2010)
Trenberth’s energy budget shows 80W/m² raised from the surface to the atmosphere by evapotranspiration. Which (I assume) is condensation in the atmosphere minus evapotranspiration near the surface.
Derecho64 says:
“Smokey, why should I have to bother Dr. Spencer with emails, or, if that doesn’t work, FOIA requests? Do you know where he publishes all his code that takes the raw data feed and massages it? Have you read Edwards’ “The Vast Machine”, Smokey?”
How long do I have to keep answering your endless questions?
Here’s a question for you: can you show any empirical, testable measurements showing the temperature change per X amount of CO2 emitted?
Take your time…
Not unless they’re high profile because of their published work.
That wouldn’t affect the starving people in the Sahel and Asia, because they can’t afford Canadian food as it is.
But a lower incidence of disastrous weather would save more of their lives.
Big call.
What is your evidence “orders of magnitude” claim?
The point is certainly controversial, but the scientific evidence is leaning reasonably strongly to the conclusion that these “other commentors” are wrong about that.
For some examples:
Rainfall anomalies
of opposite sign across the Sahel and in the
equatorial Indian Ocean (Fig. 4C) support the
hypothesis that the oceanic warming around Africa
may indeed have weakened the land-ocean
temperature contrast and consequently the monsoon,
causing deep convection to migrate over
the ocean and engendering widespread drought
over land, from the Atlantic coast of West Africa
to the highlands of Ethiopia. Oceanic Forcing of Sahel Rainfall on Interannual to Interdecadal Time Scales SCIENCE VOL 302 7 NOVEMBER 2003
We have described a global climate model (CM2) that generates a simulation of the 20th century rainfall record in the Sahel generally consistent with observations. The model suggests that there has been an anthropogenic drying trend in this region, due partly to increased aerosol loading and partly to increased greenhouse gases, and that the observed 20th century record is a superposition of this drying trend and large internal variability. Simulation of Sahel drought in the 20th and 21st centuries Held et al, PNAS (2005)
We show that anthropogenic forcing has
had a detectable influence on observed changes in average precipitation
within latitudinal bands, and that these changes cannot be
explained by internal climate variability or natural forcing. We
estimate that anthropogenic forcing contributed significantly to
observed increases in precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere
mid-latitudes, drying in the Northern Hemisphere subtropics and
tropics, and moistening in the Southern Hemisphere subtropics
and deep tropics. The observed changes, which are larger than
estimated from model simulations, may have already had significant
effects on ecosystems, agriculture and human health in
regions that are sensitive to changes in precipitation, such as the
Sahel. Detection of human influence on twentieth-century precipitation trends Zang et al. NATURE (2007).
A review of the literature leads to the conclusion that dry conditions in the late twentieth century were most probably driven by changes in ocean surface temperatures, and in particular a warming of the southern hemisphere oceans and the Indian Ocean, which led to changes in atmospheric circulation.Drought in the African Sahel: Long term perspectives and future prospects Tyndall Centre Working Paper No. 61 October 2004.
The error on that one is still pretty high, but a central estimate is about 3°C per doubling.
It has been constrained to 1.5–6.2°C by considering the past 7 centuries.
(http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/fall2006/HegerletalNature06.pdf)
It has been robustly over 1.5°C over the past 420 million years.(https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/home/droyer/web/climate_sensitivity.pdf)
Empirical testable measurements of 20th Century warming, of Volcanic cooling, of the Last Glacial Maximum, and of modern climatology and the Maunder Minimum also put constraints on the climate sensitivity. (http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d5/jdannan/GRL_sensitivity.pdf)
It has also been measured using the earth’s radiation budget data:
(http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3611.1)
And also by just measuring as best you can the change in temperature and the heat flux of the earth’s surface. (http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442%282002%29015%3C3117%3AAOBEOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2).
There is a much more comprehensive overview in chapter 9 of the the IPCC WG1 report. (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf)
WG1 doesn’t produce findings.
It reports on what has already been found.
The IPCC is not a research body.
I take your point. But significant papers are also good even for the likes of Trenberth. Taking a year or two out of your research career is still a public service more than a self service.
Neither do I, but I don’t think that anyone capable of being an IPCC bigshot would have trouble finding such a niche whether or not they throw a whole lot of time at a community task.
2010 Sahel famine
Nope.
Well, I’ll answer in terms of biodiversity, there is not a optimal temperature, there is a suboptimal rate of change of temperature.
Its warming too fast for the biosphere to adapt or migrate.
Having said that keeping the temperature change below any nasty tipping points is also important. The nearest of these is probably the loss of the Northern Summer Sea Ice, which is probably about 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, ±0.5°C. (That is 0.2°C to 1.2°C above current levels … which should be a concern for those of us who understand that the the climate’s response to an increase in CO₂ takes something in the range 25-50 years to reach 60% of the final level.)
Of the Sahel then. Is semantics all you have to offer?
The tribal warfare is not independent of peoples displaced into their non-traditional lands by climate change making their traditional lands incapable of supporting them.
But certainly there are food supply problems in addition to the failed crops problems.
Well the Patz paper has 52,000 deaths from Malnutrition in 2000 in region D of South East Asia, which was the countries Bangladesh, Bhutan (Democratic People’s Republic of), Korea, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal. At least one of those.
No, your views differ from the scientific one, therefore you are probably scientifically illiterate.
Your propensity to call people who offer a mainstream scientific view “trolls” or other adhominems, also shows your unfamiliarity with the basic scientific idea of “evidence”.
So you think that the increase in CO2 that has coincided with human release of CO2, and has the isotopic fingerprint of fossil fuel CO2, has nothing to do with the human release of CO2?
Or have you simply not heard of the greenhouse effect?
So do proxy based temperature reconstructions. Perhaps, as the IPCC seems to say that the science has shown, they weren’t co-incident across the globe?
Look at this graph from Meehl et al, JOURNAL OF CLIMATE (2004).
See how the Modelled variation is about the same as the measured variation?
Do you want to change your position on that at all then?
Good.
Their forecasting of global mean surface temperatures over the last 10 years has been bang on the nose.
And their hindcasting has been disturbingly good. (see:Why are climate models reproducing the observed global surface warming so well?, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 35, L18704, 5 PP., 2008
If you think it is representative, you should be able to find examples in the randomly selected section.
The context was as a vector for Malaria and Dengue.
No problem.
OK if I call you quack for accuracy?