This essay from Willis appeared on WUWT overnight Saturday while I slept. After reading it this morning, I decided to make it a sticky at the top of WUWT (I also added the open letter reference) because it says everything that needs to be said about the current state of affairs in climate science and the skeptic position. I ask readers not only to read it, but to disseminate it widely at other websites and forums. Hopefully, the right people will read this. Thanks for your consideration, and thank you, Willis.
UPDATE: I’ve made this essay available as a PDF here: Willis_Trenberth_WUWT_Essay suitable for printing and emailing. – Anthony
UPDATE2: Trenberth reacts: edits speech to fix copying, leaves “deniers”
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I would like to take as my text the following quote from the recent paper (PDF, 270k also on web here) by Dr. Kevin Trenberth:
Given that global warming is “unequivocal”, to quote the 2007 IPCC report, the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence [on the climate].
Figure 1. The game of Monopoly’s “Community Chest” card that was randomly drawn by Dr. Kevin Trenberth. Some guys are just lucky, I guess.
The “null hypothesis” in science is the condition that would result if what you are trying to establish is not true. For example, if your hypothesis is that air pressure affects plant growth rates, the null hypothesis is that air pressure has no effect on plant growth rates. Once you have both hypotheses, then you can see which hypothesis is supported by the evidence.
In climate science, the AGW hypothesis states that human GHG emissions significantly affect the climate. As such, the null hypothesis is that human GHG emissions do not significantly affect the climate, that the climate variations are the result of natural processes. This null hypothesis is what Doctor T wants to reverse.
As Steve McIntyre has often commented, with these folks you really have to keep your eye on the pea under the walnut shell. These folks seem to have sub-specialties in the “three-card monte” sub-species of science. Did you notice when the pea went from under one walnut shell to another in Dr. T’s quotation above? Take another look at it.
The first part of Dr. T’s statement is true. There is general scientific agreement that the globe has been warming, in fits and starts of course, for the last three centuries or so. And since it has been thusly warming for centuries, the obvious null hypothesis would have to be that the half-degree of warming we experienced in the 20th century was a continuation of some long-term ongoing natural trend.
But that’s not what Dr. Trenberth is doing here. Keep your eye on the pea. He has smoothly segued from the IPCC saying “global warming is ‘unequivocal'”, which is true, and stitched that idea so cleverly onto another idea, ‘and thus humans affect the climate’, that you can’t even see the seam.
The pea is already under the other walnut shell. He is implying that the IPCC says that scientists have “unequivocally” shown that humans are the cause of weather ills, and if I don’t take that as an article of faith, it’s my job to prove that we are not the cause of floods in Brisbane.
Now, lest you think that the IPCC actually did mean that ‘humans are the cause’ when they said (in his words) that ‘global warming was “unequivocal”‘, here’s their full statement from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary For Policymakers (2007) (PDF, 3.7 MB):
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level (see Figure SPM-3).
Despite the vagueness of a lack of a timeframe, that is generally true, but it says nothing about humans being the cause. So he is totally misrepresenting the IPCC findings (which he helped write, remember, so it’s not a misunderstanding) to advance his argument. The IPCC said nothing like what he is implying.
Gotta love the style, though, simply proclaiming by imperial fiat that his side is the winner in one of the longest-running modern scientific debates. And his only proffered “evidence” for this claim? It is the unequivocal fact that Phil Jones and Michael Mann and Caspar Amman and Gene Wahl and the other good old boys of the IPCC all agree with him. That is to say, Dr. T’s justification for reversing the null hypothesis is that the IPCC report that Dr. T helped write agrees with Dr. T. That’s recursive enough to make Ouroboros weep in envy …
And the IPCC not only says it’s true, it’s “unequivocal”. Just plain truth wouldn’t be scientific enough for those guys, I guess. Instead, it is “unequivocal” truth. Here’s what “unequivocal” means (emphasis mine):
unequivocal: adjective: admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding; having only one meaning or interpretation and leading to only one conclusion (“Unequivocal evidence”)
Notice how well crafted Dr. T’s sentence is. After bringing in “global warming”, he introduces the word “unequivocal”, meaning we can only draw one conclusion. Then in the second half of the sentence, he falsely attaches that “unequivocal” certainty of conclusion to his own curious conclusion, that the normal rules of science should be reversed for the benefit of … … well, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s claiming that normal scientific rules should be reversed for the benefit of Dr. Kevin Trenberth and the IPCC and those he supports. Probably just a coincidence, though.
For Dr. Trenberth to call for the usual null hypothesis (which is that what we observe in nature is, you know, natural) to be reversed, citing as his evidence the IPCC statement that the earth is actually warming, is nonsense. However, it is not meaningless nonsense. It is pernicious, insidious, and dangerous nonsense. He wants us to spend billions of dollars based on this level of thinking, and he has cleverly conflated two ideas to push his agenda.
I understand that Dr. T has a scientific hypothesis. This hypothesis, generally called the “AGW hypothesis”, is that if greenhouse gases (GHGs) go up, the temperature must follow, and nothing else matters. The hypothesis is that the GHGs are the master thermostat for the globe, everything else just averages out in the long run, nothing could possibly affect the long-term climate but GHGs, nothing to see here, folks, move along. No other forcings, feedbacks, or hypotheses need apply. GHGs rule, OK?
Which is an interesting hypothesis, but it is woefully short of either theoretical or observational support. In part, of course, this is because the AGW hypothesis provides almost nothing in the way of a statement or a prediction which can be falsified. This difficulty in falsification of the hypothesis, while perhaps attractive to the proponents of the hypothesis, inevitably implies a corresponding difficulty in verification or support of the hypothesis.
In addition, a number of arguably cogent and certainly feasible scientific objections have been raised against various parts of the hypothesis, from the nature and sign of the forcings considered and unconsidered, to the existence of natural thermostatic mechanisms.
Finally, to that we have to add the general failure of what few predictions have come from the teraflops of model churning in support of the AGW hypothesis. We haven’t seen any acceleration in sea level rise. We haven’t seen any climate refugees. The climate model Pinatubo prediction was way off the mark. The number and power of hurricanes hasn’t increased as predicted. And you remember the coral atolls and Bangladesh that you and the IPCC warned us about, Dr. T, the ones that were going to get washed away by the oncoming Thermageddon? Bangladesh and the atoll islands are both getting bigger, not smaller. We were promised a warming of two, maybe even three tenths of a degree per decade this century if we didn’t mend our evil carbon-loving ways, and so far we haven’t mended one thing, and we have seen … well … zero tenths of a degree for the first decade.
So to date, the evidentiary scorecard looks real bad for the AGW hypothesis. Might change tomorrow, I’m not saying the game’s over, that’s AGW nonsense that I’ll leave to Dr. T. I’m just saying that after a quarter century of having unlimited funding and teraflops of computer horsepower and hundreds of thousands of hours of grad students’ and scientists’ time and the full-throated support of the media and university departments dedicated to establishing the hypothesis, AGW supporters have not yet come up with much observational evidence to show for the time and money invested. Which should give you a clue as to why Dr. T is focused on the rules of the game. As the hoary lawyer’s axiom has it, if you can’t argue facts argue the law [the rules of the game], and if you can’t argue the law pound the table and loudly proclaim your innocence …
So now, taking both tacks at once in his paper, Dr. T. is both re-asserting his innocence and proposing that we re-write the rules of the whole game … I find myself cracking up laughing over my keyboard at the raw nerve of the man. If he and his ideas weren’t so dangerous, it would be truly funny.
Look, I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you, Dr. T, but you can’t change the rules of scientific inquiry this late in the game. Here are the 2011 rules, which curiously are just like the 1811 rules.
First, you have to show that some aspect of the climate is historically anomalous or unusual. As far as I know, no one has done that, including you. So the game is in serious danger before it is even begun. If you can’t show me where the climate has gone off its natural rails, if you can’t point to where the climate is acting unusually or anomalously, then what good are your explanations as to why it supposedly went off the rails at some mystery location you can’t identify?
(And of course, this is exactly what Dr. T would gain by changing the rules, and may relate to his desire to change them. With so few examples to give to support his position, after a quarter century of searching for such evidence, it would certainly be tempting to try to change the rules … but I digress.)
But perhaps, Dr. T., perhaps you have found some such climate anomaly which cannot be explained as natural variation and you just haven’t made it public yet.
If you have evidence that the climate is acting anomalously, then Second, you have to show that the anomaly can be explained by human actions. And no, Dr. T., you can’t just wave your hands and say something like “Willis, the IPCC sez you have to prove that what generations of people called ‘natural’, actually is natural”. There’s an arcane technical scientific name for that, too. It’s called “cheating”, Dr. T., and is frowned on in the better circles of scientific inquiry …
(N.B. – pulling variables out of a tuned computer model and then proudly announcing that the model doesn’t work without the missing variables doesn’t mean you have established that humans affect the climate. It simply means that you tuned your computer model to reproduce the historical record using all the variables, and as an inevitable result, when using only part of those variables your model doesn’t do as well at reproducing the historical record. No points for that claim.)
Third, you have to defend your work, and not just from the softball questions of your specially selected peer reviewers who “know what to say” to get you published in scientific journals. In 2011, curiously, we’ve gone back to the customs of the 1800s, the public marketplace of ideas — except this time it’s an electronic marketplace of ideas, rather than people speaking from the dais and in the halls of the Royal Society in London. If you won’t stand up and publicly defend your work, it’s simple – you won’t be believed. And not just by me. Other scientists are watching, and considering, and evaluating.
This doesn’t mean you have to reply to every idiot with a half-baked objection and a tin-foil hat. It does mean that if you refuse to answer serious scientific questions, people will take note of that refusal. You must have noticed how such refusal to answer scientific questions totally destroyed the scientific credibility of the website RealClimate. Well, they’re your friends, so perhaps you didn’t notice, but if not, you should notice, here’s an example. (PDF, 147K) Running from serious scientific questions, as they make a practice of doing at RealClimate, makes you look weak whether you are or not.
And Always, you have to show your work. You have to archive your data. You have to reveal your computer algorithms. You have to expose everything that supports and sustains your claims to the brutal light of public inquiry, warts and all.
Dr. T., I fear you’ll have to get used to the sea change, this is not your father’s climate science. The bottom line is we’re no longer willing to trust you. You could publish in the Akashic Records and I wouldn’t believe what you said until I checked the figures myself. I’m sorry to say it, but by the actions of you and your colleagues, you have forfeited the public’s trust. You blew your credibility, Dr. T, and you have not yet rebuilt it.
And further actions like your current attempt to re-write the rules of science aren’t helping at all. Nor is trying to convince us that you look good with a coat of the finest English whitewash from the “investigations” into Climategate. Didn’t you guys notice the lesson of Watergate, that the coverup is more damaging than the original malfeasance?
Dr. T, you had a good run, you were feted and honored, but the day of reckoning up the cost has come and gone. Like some book said, you and the other un-indicted co-conspirators have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting. At this point, you have two choices — accept it and move on, or bitch about it. I strongly advise the former, but so far all I see is the latter.
You want to regain the trust of the public, for yourself and for climate science? It won’t be easy, but it can be done. Here’s my shortlist of recommendations for you and other mainstream climate scientists:
• Stop trying to sell the idea that the science is settled. Climate science is a new science, we don’t even have agreement on whether clouds warm or cool the planet, we don’t know if there are thermostatic interactions that tend to maintain some temperature in preference to others. Or as you wrote to Tom Wigley, Dr. T,
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
SOURCE: email 1255550975
Curious. You state strongly to your friend that we’re not close to knowing where the energy is going or to balancing the energy budget, yet you say in public that we know enough to take the most extraordinary step of reversing the null hypothesis … how does that work again?
At this point, there’s not much about climate science that is “unequivocal” except that the climate is always changing.
• Don’t try to change the rules of the game in mid-stream. It makes you look desperate, whether you are or not.
• Stop calling people “deniers”, my goodness, after multiple requests that’s just common courtesy and decency, where are your manners? It makes you look surly and uncivilized, whether you are or not.
• Stop avoiding public discussion and debate of your work. You are asking us to spend billions of dollars based on your conclusions. If you won’t bother to defend those conclusions, don’t bother us with them. Refusing to publicly defend your billion dollar claims make it look like you can’t defend them, whether you can or not.
• Stop secretly moving the pea under the walnut shells. You obviously think we are blind, you also clearly believe we wouldn’t remember that you said we have a poor understanding of the climate system. Disabuse yourself of the idea that you are dealing with fools or idiots, and do it immediately. As I have found to my cost, exposing my scientific claims to the cruel basilisk gaze of the internet is like playing chess with Deep Blue … individual processors have different abilities, but overall any faults in my ideas will certainly be exposed. Too many people looking at my ideas from too many sides for much to slip through. Trying anything but absolute honesty on the collective memory and wisdom of the internet makes you look like both a fool and con man, whether you are one or not.
• Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”. Yes, possibly all of the water molecules in my glass of water might be heading upwards at the same instant, and I could conceivably win the Mega-Ball lottery, and I might still play third base for the New York Yankees, but that is idle speculation that has no place in scientific inquiry. Give us facts, give us uncertainties, but spare us the stuff like “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds …”. Yeah, I suppose it could. So what, should I buy a lottery ticket?
• Stop lauding the pathetic purveyors of failed prophecies. Perhaps you climate guys haven’t noticed, but Paul Ehrlich was not a visionary genius. He was a failure whose only exceptional talent is the making of apocalyptic forecasts that didn’t come true. In any business he would not have lasted one minute past the cratering collapse of his first ridiculous forecast of widespread food riots and worldwide deaths from global famine in the 1980s … but in academia, despite repeating his initial “We’re all gonna crash and burn, end of the world coming up soon, you betcha” prognostication method several more times with no corresponding crashing burning or ending, he’s still a professor at Stanford. Now that’s understandable under tenure rules, you can’t fire him for being a serially unsuccessful doomcaster. But he also appears to be one of your senior AGW thinkers and public representatives, which is totally incomprehensible to me.
His string of predicted global catastrophes that never came anywhere near true was only matched by the inimitable collapses of the prophecies of his wife Anne, and of his cohorts John Holdren and the late Stephen Schneider. I fear we’ll never see their like again, a fearsome foursome who between them never made one single prediction that actually came to pass. Stop using them as your spokesmodels, it doesn’t increase confidence in your claims.
• Enough with the scary scenarios, already. You’ve done the Chicken Little thing to death, give it a rest, it is sooo last century. It makes you look both out-of-date and hysterical whether you are or not.
• Speak out against scientific malfeasance whenever and wherever you see it. This is critical to the restoration of trust. I’m sick of watching climate scientists doing backflips to avoid saying to Lonnie Thompson “Hey, idiot, archive all of your data, you’re ruining all of our reputations!”. The overwhelming silence of mainstream AGW scientists on these matters is one of the (unfortunately numerous) reasons that the public doesn’t trust climate scientists, and justifiably so. You absolutely must clean up your own house to restore public trust, no one else can do it. Speak up. We can’t hear you.
• Stop re-asserting the innocence of you and your friends. It makes you all look guilty, whether you are or not … and since the CRU emails unequivocally favor the “guilty” possibility, it makes you look unapologetic as well as guilty. Whether you are or not.
• STOP HIDING THINGS!!! Give your most private data and your most top-secret computer codes directly to your worst enemies and see if they can poke holes in your ideas. If they can’t, then you’re home free. That is true science, not hiding your data and gaming the IPCC rules to your advantage.
• Admit the true uncertainties. The mis-treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC reports, and the underestimation of true uncertainty in climate science in general, is a scandal.
• Scrap the IPCC. It has run its race. Do you truly think that whatever comes out of the next IPCC report will make the slightest difference to the debate? You’ve had four IPCC reports in a row, each one more alarmist than the previous one. You’ve had every environmental organization shilling for you. You’ve had billions of dollars in support, Al Gore alone spent $300 million on advertising and advocacy. You’ve had 25 years to make your case, with huge resources and supercomputers and entire governments on your side, and you are still losing the public debate … after all of that, do you really think another IPCC report will change anything?
If it is another politically driven error-fest like the last one, I don’t think so. And what are the odds of it being an honest assessment of the science? Either way the next IPCC report won’t settle a single discussion, even if it is honest science. Again, Dr. T, you have only yourself and your friends to blame. You used the IPCC to flog bad science like the Hokeyschtick, your friends abused the IPCC to sneak in papers y’all favored and keep out papers you didn’t like, you didn’t check your references so stupid errors were proclaimed as gospel truth, it’s all a matter of record.
Do you truly think that after Climategate, and after the revelations of things like IPCC citations of WWF propaganda pieces as if they were solid science, and after Pachauri’s ludicrous claim that it was “voodoo science” to point out the Himalayan glacier errors, after all that do you think anyone with half a brain still believes the IPCC is some neutral arbiter of climate science whose ex-cathedra pronouncements can be relied upon?
Because if you do think people still believe that, you really should get out more. At this point people don’t trust the IPCC any more than they trust you and your friends. Another IPCC report will be roundly ignored by one side, and cited as inerrant gospel by the other side. How will that help anyone? Forget about the IPCC, it is a meaningless distraction, and get back to the science.
That’s my free advice, Dr. T., and I’m sure it’s worth every penny you paid for it. Look, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Sadly for you, but fortunately for us, you got caught hanging out with the bad boys who had their hands in the cookie jar. And tragically for everyone, all of you were seduced by “noble cause corruption”. Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s happened to me too, you’re not the first guy to think that the nobility of your cause justified improper actions.
But as far as subsequently proclaiming your innocence and saying that you and your friends did nothing wrong? Sorry, Dr. T, the jury has already come in on that one, and they weren’t distracted by either the nobility of your cause, nor by the unequivocal fact that you and your friends were whitewashed as pure as the driven snow in the investigation done by your other friends … instead, they noted your emails saying things like:
In that regard I don’t think you can ignore it all, as Mike [Mann] suggests as one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys a[s] lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database.
Indeed technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do.
SOURCE: email 1177158252
Yeah, that’s the ticket, that’s how a real scientist defends his scientific claims …
w.
@-Vince Causey says:
“I feel comfortable believing that today’s climate is no different from past episodes.”
Belief is always effective at making people feel better.
Nature however has a habit of contradicting belief and making your life worse unless you understand it.
@- Jim says:
” do you have a link describing the DLR “anomaly” you are taking about?”
http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
If AGW is now the null hypothesis as T claims then governments should stop handing out grants in support of it. You DO NOT send good money down the sinkhole of looking for evidence for standing NULL hypotheses. Scientific endeavor is about testing the stability of null hypotheses. I’m looking forward to seeing tens of billions of $$$ laid out for research that puts the AGW hypothesis to the test, now that it is the null hypothesis.
Not happening?
Well, Dr. T, it seems that granting agencies haven’t bought your silly claim. And it’s a good thing for you as you rely on the grants based on AGW NOT being the null hypothesis.
The way I understand the null hypothesis in this case is that, if temperature variations since the beginning of the industrial period fall within the the margins of previous temperature variations, then they need not be attributed to any special new cause, and therefore it should be the default assumption that whatever combination of causes produced previous warming or cooling trends, are also applicable and sufficient to explain variations in the current period.
The attempt by the CAGW specialists to shift the null hypothesis to the assumption that the warming has been caused mainly by extra CO2, originates in the claim that the greenhouse properties of this gas are well understood, and that a theoretical calculation of the thermal effects of extra CO2 (everything else remaining equal) is a matter of pretty straighforward physics.
Since, for whatever reasons, physical experiments attempting to measure the thermal effect of different concentrations of this gas in the atmosphere seem to be non-existent, everything must hinge on theoretical calculations.
Depending on who you listen to, these calculations (again, excluding feedbacks) are either very simple or not so simple, or very difficult. Even those who say they are simple come up with significantly different results. But most of them agree that the effect (of a CO2 doubling) would not *in itself* be cause for alarm.
So from one perspective, the *contribution* of human CO2 emissions to the climate should be part of the null hypothesis IF you think basic greenhouse theory is bedrock science.
It seems to me that the real sleight of hand performed by the CAGW scientific salesmen consists in injecting all kinds of diluting conjectures (regarding feedbacks, tipping points etc.) in this supposed bedrock, all the while pretending that the bedrock continues to be as solid as it was before the speculative injections, and from there they proceed to build a case for catastrophism and proceed to sell it. Once these gaseous dilutions (or delusions) begin to soften and puff up the initial “bedrock,” they quickly get overrun by sheer fantasy at every step. That’s when you start seeing a proliferation of words like “can” “may” “might” “could” in scientific articles, which eventually, after some repetitions, tend to end up being replaced by “will” in the popular reports. At some point, early in the game, normal science is thrown out the window and is replaced by science fiction of the cheapest variety, and the majority of the public, as well as scientists, don’t seem to notice.
Buzz,
You offered a long list of extreme scenarios and ended with the question, what would it then take to reverse the null hypothesis (a la Trenberth). But don’t you see Buzz, if all those extreme events happened, you wouldn’t have to reverse the null hypothesis – you would have evidence that directly falsified it. Isn’t it wonderful how all this science stuff works?
Izen,
You had made some interesting comments previously, but now spoil it all with that unnecessary stuff comparing WUWT posters with anti-science creationists. What is it with proponents of AGW that they can’t be satisfied without throwing some insults?
henry@izen
To quote from the paper you are quoting:
W.F.J. Evans, North West Research Associates, Bellevue, WA; and E. Puckrin
The earth’s climate system is warmed by 35 C due to the emission of downward infrared radiation by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (surface radiative forcing) or by the absorption of upward infrared radiation (radiative trapping). Increases in this emission/absorption are the driving force behind global warming….
Obviously this is nonsense! CO2 absorbs strongly at around 2 um (3 peaks) and 4-5 um but this causes radiative cooling, and not warming. This is because the sun is radiating in the 0-5 um range. Hence the fact that they can measure this radiation (cooling!!!) on earth as it bounces back to earth from the moon.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
I suggest you start thinking for yourself,
my own report here is a good starting point:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Come back to me if you don’t understand anything that I wrote.
Willis,
Excellent post, as always. The only point where I might disagree is that the IPCC is done. I have another suggestion or two.
First, if the IPCC wants to appear objective about the science, they have to exclude researchers who have disqualified themselves. Eduardo Zorita has already said he thinks CRU people should be excluded from future IPCC assessment reports because Climategate showed them to be … well, what they are. Trenberth has shown that anyone who uses the term “denier” is also unable to objectively assess the science. Who are Trenberth’s “deniers?” Any researcher who reaches a conclusion he doesn’t agree with? That is the way it sounds. So, Pielke, Christy, Spencer, Lindzen, Douglass, McIntyre, McKitrick… none of the papers written by these people and others can get a fair shake from Trenberth. He cannot possibly play an authorship or leadership role in assessing science fairly.
Second, if the IPCC chooses to continue to employ Jones, Mann, Hansen, Trenberth etc, then they should publish a majority report and a minority report. The minority report could be written the people above, plus other physicists, statisticians etc. I am willing to bet if the two reports are side by side, most climate scientists would endorse the minority report rather than the report written by Trenberth, Jones, Mann and Hansen.
At the end of the day, the minority report would become the majority report.
FAO: Izen and “anti-science advocacy”
Some delicious hypocrisy there, given Kev the Kiwi’s own words…
Indeed technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do.
Best Regards,
Yarmy
(Atheist, liberal, global warming believing, catastrophe-denying science advocate)
Alexander Feht says:
January 17, 2011 at 2:13 am
Buzz is paid by the Big Windmill industry.
There doesn’t appear to be a statement on conflicts of interest in his paper referred to by ‘dp’ above.
@-Vince Causey says:
“…but now spoil it all with that unnecessary stuff comparing WUWT posters with anti-science creationists. What is it with proponents of AGW that they can’t be satisfied without throwing some insults?”
My apologies, most posters here are not anti-science, the comment I made was clumsily general. When it comes to throwing stones I only ever retaliate. In this case to a poster that described me as an incontinent immature canine. I also know from seeing his previous posts that to describe him as pro-science would be less than accurate.
As I’ve been saying for a while: our climate research dollars would be far better spent:
1. Establishing and using a PROPER method of measuring overall energy content in the atmosphere. “Surface Temperature” is a meaningless index, and anyone with any knowledge of SCIENCE would know this. Until this is done any “fingerprint” from CO2 or other human-influenced emissions can not possibly be detected.
2. Determining once and for all what natural forces have driven climate in the past, including ice ages, little ice ages, optima, etc. A quick scan through the wikipedia article on Ice Age show it is littered with unscientific CO2 suggestions (ie. “(ice age) possibly being ended by the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as CO2 produced by volcanoes.”). Contrary to the anti-science Warmists, CO2 is not a significant enough driver of anything to answer any of these questions.
3. Building models that are increasingly accurate at forecasting weather.
Personally, I’m disgusted at the success of warming evangelists in their indoctrination of students. Some of the comments on this thread demonstrate that THINKING has been replaced with EMOTION when it comes to climate. I see assertions that are ludicrous at best, but clearly firmly believed.
Don’t worry Mr. Eschenbach, I don’t want to engage you personally any further either. The discourse between us has obviously deteriorated. I would suggest that when you put something out on to the blogosphere, especially something that is obviously controversial and contains opinions and analyses, you should expect criticism. That’s what the AGW debate generates, and that’s what sites like WUWT (or Climate Progress on the other side) serve.
Without getting into whether the original posting gave adequate credence to what Trenberth was saying, or refuted it in a logically sound way, I do think the posting and the comments on the board raise an interesting question >> when, if ever, does the burden of proof (and/or burden of persuasion) shift from those advancing AGW theory to those opposing any type of mitigation action? Certainly, the burden rests with the proponents of the theory initially, and just throwing out a hypothesis or a theory does not cause it to shift. And the fact that the theory is consistent with some observable facts also is not by itself enough to shift the burden. On the other hand, many posters have suggested that the burden never shifts, it always rests with the proponents, and that doesn’t seem right to me either. For instance, in my opinion, there are certainly enough indisputable premises and observational facts that the burden has shifted to those opposing the theory (now “law”) of gravity, the theory of relativity, and the theory of evolution.
Now I do have a deep knowledge of the law and the policy surrounding climate change. But I’m not trained in the hard sciences. I am self-taught, especially as it relates to the science of climate change, and I am married to a scientist. I do understand logic and the scientific method, at least so far as most lay people do. I have given seminars on the “science of climate change for non-scientists – what the policymakers know or should know.” I give these seminars to lawyers and business people from the fossil fuel industry, who are as a whole very skeptical … and I try to do so fairly. But I am no expert. I can grasp 90-95% of the science, but there reaches a point (usually involving equations with symbols) where I just can’t get my legal mind around it. But that’s OK, most people can’t. Preparing for the seminars forces me to learn and understand much of the science and then be able to translate it into language that non-scientists can understand. I do think it is important to point out areas where there is absolutely no real debate, and areas where the scientific discussion continues. That’s the best I can do.
The scientific method, both generally and as it relates to climate change, is largely inductive. A hypothesis is presented that is consistent with observable or verifiable facts. Then it is tested. It is criticized and challenged. For most scientific conclusions, the hypothesis can be verified or disproven in a laboratory, by adding and removing variables and comparing results to a control group, and by being able to repeat the analyses and reach the same endpoint. The challenge for AGW proponents is that, while certain of the underlying premises can be recreated and proven in a laboratory, their major conclusion cannot be. This is because we have only one planet earth. We don’t have a control earth. The ever-improving models are still imperfect in attempting to account for all climatic variables and project with certainty where climate change will lead us. That said, in my mind, at some point, the emerging consensus as to some premises together with increasing consistency (both qualitatively and quantitatively) with observable facts leads to the burden shifting. That is the point that seems to be in contention between Trenberth and Mr. Eschenbach (and many posters).
When I try to break it down for the non-scientists, I suggest that there are basically six proposed premises for AGW theory which arguably support that major conclusion that AGW is a serious problem for which (proponents claim) some mitigation action should be taken:
(1) Temps are rising (at historically significant rates to historically significant levels). This is largely accepted in the scientific community. I know there are some isolated challenges based on the urban heat island effect, but the adjustments made by the temp keepers together with the consistency among them has largely laid such challenges to rest. And the changes in the natural world (ice melt and shifting ag zones and forests, for example) are consistent with the instruments. Most reconstructions show that we have surpassed the highpoint of the MWP, though I know there are still a couple reconstructions (Loehle) floating around the Internet which suggest otherwise. And 0.2 degrees C per decade over 30 years is historically significant in anyone’s book, even if it is not THE greatest increase ever (and arguably it’s right up there). I don’t think scientists give much credence to folks who argue, based on a single warm year in the past (1998 or 2005), that the warming has somehow stopped. Most intelligent folks, I think, recognize that longer timescales show a continued warming trend. Certainly as to this point, challengers bear the burden of proving that either temps aren’t increasing or it’s historically insignificant.
(2) GHG levels are rising (at historically significant rates to historically significant levels). This is about the most rock solid observational evidence that exists in the discussion, and it is not seriously challenged in the scientific community. The evidence keeps mounting that we’re at levels higher than we’ve seen for hundreds of thousands (and in some recent studies, millions) of years.
(3) CO2 and other GHGs trap radiant heat. This is one of the premises that can be and has been recreated in the laboratory, and it is not seriously challenged.
(4) Human activities (primarily GHG emissions, but also land use changes) have been (largely, significantly … pick an adverb) responsible for recent warming. This premise is complicated, as it involves elements of both deductive and inductive reasoning, as well as mathematical and physical equations. The blackbody sensitivity of a 4 watt per sq meter increase (translated to 1.2 degrees C) from a CO2 doubling seems to be largely accepted (give or take a couple tenths), based as it is on physics and observation. Even the Spencers and the Lindzens don’t seriously challenge that. But that doesn’t necessarily prove that the recent increase in CO2 emissions has caused the recent warming. The more we learn of our paleoclimatic history, the more comfortable the scientific community is in acknowledging that CO2 (and other GHGs) in the atmosphere is definitively a radiative forcing. The problem comes more from the deductive element of this premise, and there continues to be a debate. The AGW skeptics have over the past couple decades advanced various other natural forcings as the cause of recent warming. Slowly, as we gain more observational evidence, these natural alternatives are being ruled out. Our ability to directly measure solar irradiance levels (rather than just estimating based on sun spots and flares) has in many minds ruled out the sun as the dominant forcing. The various oceanic and atmospheric cycles have all shifted from positive to negative while the temp increases have continued (in admitted jumps and starts) suggesting they are not the dominant long term forcing. Spencer has argued the PDO, and there is a broad correlation between positive PDO and warming (and vice versa). But, long term (decadal or century scales), these cycles are neutral. Over the past 30+ (and/or 110) years, temps are not. Moreover, the PDO went negative in 2008, and the past two years have been among the warmest on record. Thus, while temps may level out (rather than decline) under the influence of solar minimums and atmospheric cycles, they march up when the cycles turn around. This suggests that, while the solar and atmospheric/ocean cycles have a significant impact on short-term (and regional) temps, they cannot explain the recent global warming. The Milankovich cycles, volcanoes, natural GHG release, etc., have been ruled out. Spencer is pushing a cloud theory still — that it may be cloud cover is causing warming rather than the other way around – but to my understanding this is not (yet) supported by observation or accepted theory. As to this particular premise, it seems to me that the accumulating observational evidence has shifted the burden to the ‘skeptics’ to propose an alternative cause for recent warming.
(5) The temp increase will become worse in the future. This premise goes to feedbacks, and is still very much debated. Although much of the support for this premise comes from observation and knowable natural phenomena, as well as our paleoclimatic history, much of it is necessarily based on modeling as well. And no one can definitively rule out the possibility that there is a negative feedback that the models aren’t accounting for. The scientific community seems to have a good understanding of some of the positive feedbacks, especially water vapor, decreased albedo, and warmer oceans. Many fear that the melting permafrost will be a tipping point that will cause temp increase to exceed conservative estimates. And of course there is considerable debate on the feedback effect of clouds (Lindzen being the most prominent skeptic). This debate is acknowledged in all the scientific compilations, from the IPCC to the EPA. The burden on this point probably remains with the proponents of AGW theory. But the models are getting better, our paleoclimatic knowledge is getting deeper, and the record of direct observations is getting longer. It seems to me that, at some point, the burden shifts (but we’re not there yet).
(6) The final premise is that the effects of climate change will be bad. There is some discussion that initial plant growth could increase, and the Russia and Canada will benefit from more usable land. There is also legitimate debate as to how rapidly and the extent to which some of the bad effects, especially glacial melt and sea level rise, will happen. But by and large we know that rising sea levels (and climate refugees) would be bad. We know meteorologically that more severe storms, floods, droughts and heat waves are likely if the warming continues, and these are bad. Ocean acidification, agricultural stress, species lost, etc. are all likely if the warming continues, and these are bad. Extreme weather events over the past year, consistent with climate change predictions, have had devastating effects. This discussion will continue, and I’m not sure it fits neatly within the “burden of proof” discussion.
In sum, as the evidence supporting these premises mount, it seems to me that the burden shifts. Whether policymakers should wait until that shift happens before doing something definitive is a different discussion. Sorry for the rambling long post. But the question remains, at what point does the scientific burden of proof shift?
[moderator comment deleted by bigger moderator ~ ctm]
Buzz, while displaying the worst kind of pretentious and manipulative behavior, has no learning curve and cannot comprehend the AGW movement for what it is.
https://public.me.com/ix/willi…
I’m sure he either never read this, couldn’t understand it or deliberately chooses the Gavin Schmidt/Michael Mann dishonest path of obfuscation & dismissal.
There are many examples of these fatal flaws within the AGW Team’s work demonstrating both their extreme lack of integrity and the willingness of the rank and file (Buzz) to accept anything at all.
Without any answers for these nails in the AGW coffin Buzz mimics Schmidt and Mann.
There is no level of egregious misbehavior that would trigger any honest discussion from the likes of Buzz.
I’m sure the fact that he can post his offensive tripe here while RC routinely blocks polite scientific discussion also means nothing to Buzz.
Perhaps he is Joe Romm? That would explain everything.
izen says:
January 17, 2011 at 8:43 am
@-Vince Causey says:
“…but now spoil it all with that unnecessary stuff comparing WUWT posters with anti-science creationists. What is it with proponents of AGW that they can’t be satisfied without throwing some insults?”
My apologies, most posters here are not anti-science, the comment I made was clumsily general. When it comes to throwing stones I only ever retaliate. In this case to a poster that described me as an incontinent immature canine.
=================
Apologies gratefully accepted. Sorry, I missed the incontinent canine post 🙂
henry@Barry Foster
I have been where you came from. I used to be an Al Gore fan.
I am a chemist so might be a bit ahead of you
To reply to your assertions
1) temps. have been rising but not that much. it looks like 0.7 degrees C over the past 100 or 150 years. Actually it seems to me that over the past 25 – 30 years warming has stalled.
2) CO2 is a natural gas like oxygen and all of life including your own depends on it. More of it is better, because it stimulates growth.
3) if Co2 causes trapping of heat you would expect minimum temps. to rise at a rate as fast as max. temps and mean temps. This is simply not happening, at least in the three places where I looked so far. South Africa, Spain and Northern Ireland. (I don’t have the time to look elsewhere, this is just my hobby)
4) + 5) + 6) all proved invalid
for a start look here
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/assessment-of-global-warming-and-global-warming-caused-by-greenhouse-forcings-in-pretoria-south-africa
and then read the results of my own investigation here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
let me know if anything is not clear to you.
Buzz buzzes:
“The challenge for AGW proponents is that, while certain of the underlying premises can be recreated and proven in a laboratory, their major conclusion cannot be.”
That is right, Buzz. So the “therory” is not falsifiable, and therefore, it ain’t science; it is religion. That’s the problem.
Here’s the deal: we cannot explain the cycling temperatures that were represented in the Roman Warm Period, Dark-Ages Cooling Period, Medieval Warming Period, Little Ice Age, and finally, the Current Warm Period. It is simply not logical, let alone scientific, to select a variable like CO2 to explain the current warming, when we have no frigging idea what caused past variations! It is especially foolish to blame CO2, when past evidence suggests very little correlation between CO2 and temperatures!
Buzz Belleville:
At January 17, 2011 at 8:56 am you ask:
“Without getting into whether the original posting gave adequate credence to what Trenberth was saying, or refuted it in a logically sound way, I do think the posting and the comments on the board raise an interesting question >> when, if ever, does the burden of proof (and/or burden of persuasion) shift from those advancing AGW theory to those opposing any type of mitigation action?”
Surely, you must know the answer to that. However, in case you really do not know, the answer is as follows.
AGW will elevate from being a hypothetical conjecture to become a scientific hypothesis if and when there is some evidence to support it. That would be if and when there is a disproof of the null hypothesis of climate behaviour. And that null hypothesis is that all observed global climate behaviour is explicable as being natural because it is similar to the climate behaviour which happened in the past and is known to be natural.
If observation of some demonstrably unnatural global climate behaviour were to occur, then investigation of the cause of the unnatural climate behaviour would be warranted. And if that investigation were to demonstrate the unnatural climate behaviour was most probably a result of AGW, then AGW would be elevated from being a scientific hypothesis to become a scientific theory.
Before then, no action in response to the hypothetical conjecture of AGW is warranted. But, if AGW were to become a scientific theory then consideration of actions to mitigate it and/or to adapt to it would be prudent.
Prior to AGW becoming a scientific theory “those advancing AGW theory” have as much credibility as those advancing astrology theory.
See, even though your question was posed in ‘have you stopped beating your wife form’, it has a simple and straightforward answer. That is the beauty of the scientific method: it cuts through B*** S***.
Richard
Buzz Belleville,
This explains a lot.
Regarding Buzz’s long missive of 8:56am
I, as someone on the AGW side with a relevant scientific background find this very encouraging. I often despair that the general public think of AGW as a hoax, or at best bad science, and then I see this. Clearly Buzz has a great filter for determining what is and is not bunkum, and has come to the kind of well balanced view that the scientists are trying to convey, and often feel they’ve failed, leading to the need for rapid response teams, etc. Thanks, Buzz, for restoring my belief that the correct information is getting to the public.
Question?
Just how many nails are required to seal this CO2 coffin?
ewrgall;
To explain what I mean this is like giving three people each a piece of paper and a pencil and telling them to pick five number that add up to 100
13+17+19+21+30=100
24+12+14+19+31=100
11+19+18+32+20=100
———————————-
That’s a pretty decent analogy, and I like the rest of the logic in your description because it shows the fallacy of how the IPCC is presenting models and their data, except it is SO much worse than that. Consider this statement from IPCC AR4 concerning modeling of the earth’s energy balance:
____________________
Chapter 8 8.3.1.1.2
Calculation of the global mean RMS error,
based on the monthly mean fi elds and area-weighted over all
grid cells, indicates that the individual model errors are in the
range 15 to 22 W m–2, whereas the error in the multi-model
mean climatology is only 13.1 W m–2.
___________________
So…. The BEST model they came up with is out by 15 watts/m2, some as high as 22w/m2, but if they average them all together then hey are only out by 13 watts/m2! They don’t know WHY this is, they don’t know WHICH parts of WHICH models are the problem… but they can say with confidence that the average for doubling oc CO2 is 3.71 w/m2, accurate to within 1/100 of a watt. If you then read carefully, this is derrived from 14 models which were run multiple times (58 runs in total, different starting parameters and so on). So not only are the models wrong, they know they are wrong, they used 14 models to create 58 wrong answers which when averaged “prove” that CO2 doubling will increase surface flux by 3.71 w/m2.
And how does that relate to temperature? Well it seems that the models we know are wrong, and we don’t know why, and if we run enough versions of them and average them we’ll get something that’s only out by 13 watts/m2 or so, we get pretty good temperature predictions:
_________________________
Even over extensive
land areas of the NH where the standard deviation generally
exceeds 10°C, the models agree with observations within 2°C
almost everywhere.
__________________________
They agree with observations within 2 degrees? Which model would that be? The one that was out by 15 watts? Or the one that was out by 22 watts. Oh! It’s the average of the models because by averaging the things we know are wrong with each other (you know, 14 wrong models with 58 sets of results between them) we can get within TWO DEGREES of observation! TWO! 2.0! So how close was the “best” model? 3 degrees? And since we’re onthe topic, why is it that they don’t tell us which model got the closest on these measurements? Is it because it totally blew it on everything else?
So…. the best model is out by at least 15 watts/m2 and the best temperature we can get is out by more than 2 degrees… from which they conclude:
CO2 doubling = 3.71 w/m2 = 1.1 degrees C and they are VERY confident they fot that right.
OOOPS, I almost forgot. To show the accuracy of their models, they also looked at their ability to calculate net surface heat flux on the ocean. Got pretty close, we’ll just ignore that they used TOW DIFFERENT TIME PERIODS:
________________________
The observational estimates are from da Silva (1994) and are based on COADS observations over the period 1945-1989. The model results are from years 1980-1999 of the CMIP3 20th Century simulations.
_________________________
Exactly why would they not have used COADS 1980-1989 to compare to the model results 1980 to 1989, the period in which they overlap and so comparison is meaningful? In fact, since the models can be run for any time period, why not create model output that matches the 1945 to 1989 period? After all, they used 14 models with a total of 58 results to get their “its wrong but if we averager enough results from enough models, it is less wrong” why not take that next eensy teensy bit of effort to make the time periods match?
May I answer that?
Any scientist who could put their name to this crap would embarass themselves less by walking naked through a northern park, in winter, and using what ever instrument they may have about their person to correlate to temperature. I presume this will be decried as sexist since observations must be recorded and the only utsensil at hand being the aforementioned instrument and only medium on which to record results being snow… but I think the embarassment is still less than what has been published as science and has the added benefits of over hearing a few of these intellectuals grumble to themselves that a lottle global warming might be a good thing at that moment.
Buzz,
An interesting (and lengthy) exposition. I still argue that the null hypothesis cannot be reversed. Firstly, the scenarios you described earlier to support this reversal would themselves provide the evidence that falsifies the null hypothesis – so the scientific method would work as intended, no reversal necessary. The second point about the law of gravity is a bit of a strawman – gravity is actually a law of physics not a hypothesis or conjecture.
Your itemised list is long, so I’ll pick up on some of the points.
(1) I (and most sceptics) agree with your statement that temps have been increasing. But then you overreach by adding that we have surpassed the warming of the MWP, and quote Loehle as an outlier. This is a hotly contested area. I don’t know where you base this on – there are literally hundreds of papers attesting to MWP being warmer and global, and most of the hockey sticks have been found flawed.
(2) GHG rising, yes, but in the geologic past have been much higher – Mesozoic averaged 2000 ppm, and the late Ordovician had 5000ppm just as the world entered a glaciation.
(3) CO2 traps heat – well, to be pedantic, it absorbs and radiates, but I take your point. The problem is, the amount of forcing is quite small – about 3.7 watts per square metre per doubling. And because by Stefan-Boltzman, temperature increase goes by the fourth root of this increase in radiation, the sensitivity is about 1.2C.
(4) Your first part relates to point (3) above. The second part alleges that because scientists haven’t found the causative factors for recent warmings, then the default position of CO2 must be accepted as true. You say: “As to this particular premise, it seems to me that the accumulating observational evidence has shifted the burden to the ‘skeptics’ to propose an alternative cause for recent warming.” Well no. As I stated earlier, if the accumulated evidence was as strong as you say, then this would be sufficient to falsify the null hypothesis. But it hasn’t. The correct path to take, I believe, is to fund climate science to look for the natural causes. Unfortunately, the IPCC is an organisation set up only to look at man-made climate forcings – this is actually in their mission statement. All they have done with natural forcings is to use them as strawmen to bolster the AGW hypothesis. So it really isn’t a level playing field.
(5) You say: “The temp increase will become worse in the future.” but then admit this goes to the heart of feedbacks and is hotly debated. If it is hotly debated then how can you assert that the increase will become worse? You say that most of the support comes from observation data as well as paleoclimatology and models. The point is it all comes from models based on basic physics equations, such as the Clapeyrion-Clausius. It is not what the models contain that is the problem, it is what they leave out. They leave out cloud feedbacks, which overwhelm CO2 forcing by an order of magnitude. They assume a simple positive feedback of more Co2 = more heat = more water vapour = more warming etc. But there is no observational data that supports this – quite the opposite. A predicted outcome of this feedback is a tropical mid troposphere warm spot – and this has not been observed, which rather negates your assertion that observation data supports the models.
You say: “Many fear that the melting permafrost will be a tipping point that will cause temp increase to exceed conservative estimates.” Well, fearing something might happen is not science – you have bought into the same kind of alarmism as the Himalyan glaciers melting in 25 years and the Amazon rainforest being extremely sensitive to the smallest drop in rainfall.
(6) You then talk about the effects of the warming will be terrible. Yet there is no science to support this at all. Hurricanes are not getting any bigger/more frequent. Geological records tell us that when temperatures were higher, the world was a much more green and abundant place. During the Eocene, hippos roamed England. Arm waving over doomsday scenarios is all such alarmist junk and not science, I can’t even be bothered to debate it.
Finally, here is some evidence that does not support your theory. (a) The missing heat. Ever since we deployed the Argo network to support the warming theory, the missing heat in the oceans has now passed 1*10^23 joules. (b) ERBE satellite data as studied by Lindzen and Choi do not show the reduction in the outgoing radiation when the surface temperatures increase, as predicted by models. (c) So much of the anecdotal climate warnings are not unique – they have happened before: the declining arctic ice in 1912, the droughts in the 1930’s, floods – there is nothing at all unprecedent or unsual and does not point to evidence of AGW.
Jim D:
Congratulations on your post at January 17, 2011 at 10:08 am. It is a pefect troll comment.
It contains no information so cannot reasonably be challenged as to fact, but it misleads by implication (e.g. “well balanced view that the scientists are trying to convey”) and thus provides bait for people to bite on.
Well done! It is a great improvement on your earlier attempts in this thread.
Richard
Richard S Courtney, I don’t know where I hit a nerve, and have re-read our exchange and still don’t see it. Is it because I tried to clarify the null hypothesis in terms that I understand it to be? Should that be described as offensive? I have then quoted your version of the null hypothesis and responded. What would define a change from past climate behavior, I ask? I suggest a couple
– the global average temperature rises 0.5 (or 1) degree without a solar increase?
– the decadal-averaged ocean temperature is globally above average?
Where is the bar, and who sets it?
The burden of proof never shifts.
Either you prove your case or we walk away without the penalties you seek to impose. ( OJ Simpson)
The case cannot be proven by claiming that any and every effect, is caused by your chosen defendant. Charges must be specific, and proven to be caused by the defendant.
In this case you take effects that have been ongoing for thousands of years and claim that they are accelerating in every conceivable direction, and propose to penalize the chosen defendant for all of them whichever way they go.
Neither legally nor scientifically sound.
Storms are not more severe.
Floods, droughts, and heatwaves, are a fixture and are no worse than ever.
Locally, my high temp records are from the 1930s and lows from the 1980s.
You are claiming linear trends for oscillating chaotic conditions ( science-y ).
But you have yet to ascribe causes for the recent and current harsh winter weather .
Weather may not be climate, but climate is most certainly composed of weather.