Guest post by Michael Lewis, Ph.D.
The current issue of the elitist “science” journal, Science, contains an article in its “Perspectives” section (not in the “Research” section): Earth’s hot past could be prologue to future climate | UCAR. Here’s a video from that page:
Author Jeffrey Kiehl, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), speculates on relationships between CO2 levels and average global surface temperature 30 million to 100 million years ago, and currently observed CO2 levels. To no one ‘s surprise, Kiehl assumes, without evidence, that atmospheric CO2 drives global average surface temperatures, and includes this bias in climate models, projecting an increase of atmospheric CO2 to 1,000 ppm by the end of the 21st Century, with temperatures soaring tens of degrees above the 20th Century average (whatever that means).
Since Science requires membership or hefty fees to access their publications, the average interested person cannot access the original article to verify the conclusions described in the “Perspectives” article.
However, it is clear from the tone of the article on the NCAR web site that this is ideologically driven publication, not scientific research. “If we don’t start seriously working toward a reduction of carbon emissions, we are putting our planet on a trajectory that the human species has never experienced,” says Kiehl. Thus government funded research is used to advance a political agenda.
The research cited in the article was funded by the National Science Foundation, which has a large Climate Change and Paleoclimate program. Researchers shopping for grant opportunities can go to the NSF web site and browse through the many funding programs, find one that fits and submit an application, or, as usually happens, many of them.
There’s nothing wrong with funding your favorite research with government grants. However, when that funding is used as a basis for political propaganda, such as advocating for political responses to climate change, a significant line has been crossed by the researcher, his or her employers and the funding agency itself. The researcher becomes a pawn in the interplay of government agencies, private research firms and economic interests, the science suffers from distorted interpretation and the public ends up with little or no understanding of the reality of the world around them.
Science must be conducted in the confines of the ivory tower, then released, naked and uninterpreted, into the clear light of day.
Mike says:
January 14, 2011 at 9:58 pm
You smug arrogant [self SNIP
The nearest university library to me is 20 miles. On public transport that is some journey!
DaveE.
davidc says:
January 14, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Bill Illis:
If your graph is correct then over the period 25Mya to 35Mya temperature is falling while CO2 is rising. So CO2 is innocent.
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All these contradictions are well known by the researchers working in the area. They try their best to ignore it.
If they write a paper about this period, they will select a single date (like Kiehl did) and try to say “see, CO2 is driving the climate”. If look at 27 Mya to 25 Mya, the declining CO2 line crosses the temperature line. You can say 3.0C per doubling works in that period. You can take one spike estimate at 20 Mya or 5 Mya and say 3.0C per doubling works.
It doesn’t work in the 12,000 other data points over the rest of the period but it works in 20 of them so that is the ones they use. The trends, however, are nearly completely independent of one another and one has to be blind to see 3.0C per doubling in the numbers.
Now if one views the continental alignment and ocean current changes over the period, one has much more complete picture and a better explanation for what happened.
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/695/tempgeog45m.png
I note this view more closely matches what used to be known as the drivers of Earth’s climate (before the CO2-domination view took over).
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm34/cruiser_naz/Models/DSCN0727.jpg
onion says: January 14, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Kiehl’s talk is obviously aimed at those like me who accept the significance of the CO2 rise and it’s interesting to hear that the longterm climate sensitivity might be much greater than the short term sensitivity.
Thus proving that you can fool some of the people ALL of the time.
Mike says: January 14, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Hey, let’s take a bunch of bloggers and form a basketball team and watch what happens when they try to play any NBA team. Oh, and in NBA games they use real referees.
Hey, I’ve got a better idea, let’s take a bunch of climate scientists and form a basketball team. Let’s see how well they do against an NBA team.
Don’t you just love the logical capabilities of some people. Of course, scientific types will have no chance against athletic types. You could also take a group of baseball players and pit them against science bloggers playing basketball and the baseball players would win.
The problem with your idiotic attempt at an analogy is the bloggers here are composed of scientific types and many have as good, if not better, scientific training than the climate scientists you believe are infallible.
I think the poor logic used by Mike is just one more example of the lack of critical thinking abilities displayed by most warmists.
Mike says: January 14, 2011 at 10:01 pm
I love to watch the free enterprise types get all upset when they have to pay for something!
Another example of poor thinking. Nowhere did the person state they believed in “free enterprise” yet Mike assumes he does. Now, one question to Mike might be, what do YOU believe in? I can only expect it must be some form of communist govt since he obviously does not like free enterprise.
BTW, I live about 90 miles from the nearest University library. Running back and forth every time I wanted to read a paper is not reasonable. And, of course, many people live much further away than myself.
I am reminded once again of President Eisenhower’s prescient speech. He was describing a trend away from indpendent scientists tinkering in their labs, to a new elite of government funded scientists. He understood that this would lead to advocacy by the scientists, the distortion and manipulation of science and its eventual complete absorption into a government instrument of propaganda.
Lewis, Trenberth and the others are ‘to be gravely regarded.’
onion says:
January 14, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Kiehl’s talk is obviously aimed at those like me…
Yes, we know, because only the most hopelessly misinformed and delusional of CAGW Believers could possibly be taken in by his government-funded drivel. Looks like his aim was swift and sure.
Patrick in Adelaide,
Can’t locate the figures just now but there has been a step change in the amount of fossil fuel burning, particularly coal, over the last 15 years as China and India and other developing countries have ramped up their energy use. But CO2 in the atmosphere continues to grow at roughly 2ppm per annum.
So where is the connection?
From Jack Greer on January 14, 2011 at 6:36 pm:
Whoa, hold up! Change of subject there, pardner.
You, previously: “…to materially impact Earth’s climate …”
You, now: “…our, perhaps, profound impact on human existence on Earth…”
Looks like you have a problem with self-importance, which is pretty common. Far as the Body Earth is concerned, this big ball orbiting around the Sun, all of mankind’s “impact” is akin to a pimple, perhaps less than that. Such talk may upset the Gaia worshipers, but it’s true. Earth was here long before us, Earth will be here after us, our total “impact” will be a transitory blip, its effects erased over time.
In my previous comment you so maligned, I had carefully chosen a 500 year resolution for the timeline. We human critters are smart enough to keep our own cages clean, once we learn how to. We also can figure out how to manage our available resources. And technology marches on. You think CO2 emissions are a problem? We’re always getting more energy efficient than we used to be, since energy costs money and people don’t like spending money they don’t have to spend. As long as new technology lets us do the same thing for less money, people will adopt it. As to the cage cleaning, we’ve learned the importance of a clean environment, with clean air and water. We’ve gotten pretty good at cleaning up after ourselves, and we’ll get better. The major problem now is getting our fellow human critters to do the same, supplying the knowledge and technology and getting them motivated to do the same. Your changed subject, mankind’s impact on itself, is being taken care of, brought about by “enlightened self-interest” if nothing else.
So cleaner energy sources are coming. We have nuclear, with improved designs like the CANDU reactor. Once we get rid of the subsidy-driven market that’s keeping less-efficient tech profitable, solar may become a worthy supply. Residential and larger users are discovering the benefits of ditching furnaces altogether and going with geothermal heat pumps, there are even homes without any heating system that do just fine in frigid winters. Plus fusion power shall be coming along any day now…
Thus those “excess” CO2 emissions shall be declining in a microscopic bit of geological time. Even if humans don’t manage it, this interglacial shall end soon, and many to most of the potential sources of fossil fuels shall be buried under a mile or so of ice, unreachable, which will tend to greatly restrict their use.
Besides, we’re overdo for a surge in population-destroying plagues, with limited remaining effective antibiotics. Since far less humans means less CO2 emissions, that’ll make some people happy.
Thus in the long view, mankind does not have the ability to materially impact Earth’s climate, and certainly will not by the proposed CO2 -> (C)AGW mechanism. If it upsets you that you might not see a desired noticeable change in Earth’s climate brought about by humans within your own tenth-of-an-eye-blink lifespan, as is common among Green activists and (C)AGW proponents, tough, that’s your problem. The Earth doesn’t even know you are here.
Mike says:
January 14, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Bill Illis says:
January 14, 2011 at 6:48 pm
“The paper is not available,….” to people who are too lazy to go to a library.
“….I believe I have the data he is using.”
Surely any non-elitist reviewer would accept that claim.
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Same argument applies to those that are too lazy to check the assertions for themselves.
I spent a great deal of time gathering up all the data that is available on the paleoclimate. I do so continuously. So I wouldn’t describe myself as lazy about this.
@kadaka
“Plus fusion power shall be coming along any day now…”!!!
Comrade, you’re even more optimistic than I am 🙂
@LevelGaze;
Mebbe not: focusfusion.org , LPPhysics.com .
Should be about 5 yrs. or so. Costs about 1/20 (5%) of current best N.A. retail.
@ur momisugly LevelGaze on January 15, 2011 at 9:34 pm:
After researching the proposed candidates for fusion power, I came to this conclusion:
Commercially-viable fusion power shall always be coming along any day now, starting twenty years from now. ☺
@kadaka (and to a lesser extent Brian H)
We drink from the same fountain. :))
I’m really starting to notice a lot of cyncism in the general public the past 6 months or so with respect to the climate change fraternity. The whole “because of climate change” phrase is now becoming a bit of joke for people to use now….
“My football team lost… must be because of climate change”.
“My son won’t finish his dinner…must be because of climate change”. (etc .)
And here is Oz, especially with the Queensland floods, the general public are seeing right through the shrill garbage spewing out of the mouths of Sackett, Lowe, Williams, Steketee etc.
The ‘history deniers’ are losing their followers and losing them fast. Bit by bit they keep digging the hole, and bit by bit it gets bigger and bigger.
Cam says:
January 16, 2011 at 4:19 am
“The ‘history deniers’ are losing their followers and losing them fast. Bit by bit they keep digging the hole, and bit by bit it gets bigger and bigger.”
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But so far the only thing going into that hole is our hard-earned money as they continue to ramp up useless sequestration efforts. We might be winning the argument but we can still lose the war against crippling taxation.
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” — Maurice Strong, Executive Director UNEP, Executive Member of The Club of Rome.
onion says:
January 14, 2011 at 2:21 pm
“Kiehl’s talk is obviously aimed at those like me who accept the significance of the CO2 rise …”
_________
What significance?
It seems to have escaped your attention that the force on the temperature decreases logarithmically with rising CO2 concentration. The propagandists have managed to turn this around, to implant in people’s minds a magical formula for thermal runaway that thrives on imagination and ignorance.
(Hmmm? I was going to insert a graph but there’s no [img] tag in the list below the comment box)
Old England says:
January 14, 2011 at 4:58 pm
“In Hulme’s own words as reported at ”
Thanks a lot; the quotes went into my archive. Hulme is a true machiavellist. Watch the biodiversity campaign. It’s the next vehicle for them. (The IPCC is dead.)
Refreshing comments here, especially Martin Atkins on the perversion of peer review and supposed-science journals like Science: Bingo. (or Ditto, or touché, or etc…)
Here’s an NSF press release relating to this paper: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=118363&org=NSF&from=news .