Post by Dr. Ryan N. Maue
Dr. Trenberth delivered his highly-anticipated presentation at the American Meteorological Society 91st Annual Meeting in Seattle on Wednesday. The talk was titled “Promoting climate information and communication of climate change“, and an overflowing crowd of several hundred listened for about 20-minutes, then scattered. Those that read the preprint online (version 3 now) and expected Trenberth to back off on his rhetoric were sorely disappointed. Dr. Trenberth
- vigorously defended himself against the out-of-context slanderous claims from ClimateGate emails
- cheerfully promoted the science of the IPCC regardless of silly errors [like the Himalayan Glaciers — Telegraph Jan 27 news article]
- threw Phil Jones under the bus for being naive about “keeping papers out”
- doubled-down on the denier vitriol
- trashed the media for insufficiently sympathetic and woefully inaccurate climate change coverage
- attributed a dozen recent extreme weather events to global warming including the Queensland flooding
- and finally suggested that the “null hypothesis” concerning AGW attribution be turned on its head.
All in all, it was the stemwinder that everyone expected from the preprint preview/fiasco. Details from the talk follow…
I sat in the rear-most row of the conference room and took some notes on my laptop during the proceedings. I have quotes that can be confirmed when the AMS publishes their presentations online likely in the next month or so. Otherwise, I am paraphrasing the slides that were presented.
The presentation was dedicated to Dr. Stephen Schneider who passed away last July. Trenberth described the ClimateGate incident as an “illegal email hacking” that spawned viral attacks on scientists. The emails were used to “damn the IPCC and many of us”, and included conversations that were clearly not for human public consumption. The term “ClimateGate” should have been replaced by “swiftboating”. Trenberth himself was not embarrassed per se, just dismayed about the viral nature of the coverage. He went on to explain the “can’t find the heat / travesty” email, and said he was not particularly upset with what was put out in the public domain in terms of his email correspondence. According to him, ClimateGate simply proved that scientists were human. There was “some evidence of a lack of openness” but all following reviews/inquiries found no problems with the science.
Trenberth then discussed the small errors in the IPCC report (Himalayan glaciers), but there were no major changes to the overall IPCC conclusions. He admitted that the IPCC handled the “errors” rather poorly and left some scientists “hung out to dry”. Trenberth had not seen the Phil Jones email (Trenberth was not cc’ed) that said “we are gonna keep these papers out of the IPCC”, but blamed Jones for being naive about the process. Regardless, the papers, which Trenberth snidely commented “weren’t very good anyways” were indeed not excluded. (The system worked.) The “It’s a Travesty” is still accurate, but Trenberth believes that the missing heat is somewhere in the oceans, maybe below 300 – 700 meters depth. It was just a cherry-picked email anyways.
Deniers: in the AMS preprint, which Trenberth described as garnering plenty of “nasty email responses” the term is heavily used. Trenberth defined it in the talk as someone that simply rejects basic information about climate science. There is a difference between skeptics and deniers, though it was not explicitly delved into. Trenberth lamented exasperation with the deniers and suggested that he and everyone else simply not debate nor grant them visibility or a platform by engaging with them. Good advice — with the obligatory quote from Daniel Patrick Moynihan about having your own set of facts. Indeed, on the distinction between deniers and skeptics, he said “if the shoe fits, wear it”. The audience chuckled.
Media: same as preprint. Trenberth lamented the trend that blogs and media contaminate the discourse with an increasing trend of uninformed opinions. He has seen his colleagues get burned when they engage with the media often through misquotation or slanted coverage. He suggested that a scientist feed the media a story and exclusively promote your own stuff in order to tell a story or generate news. Some quotes from Thomas Friedman on a Meet the Press from Sept 6, 2009 were read, but I didn’t jot them all down because he reminds me of Paul Krugman.
Nature of climate change: It’s winter he declared, that’s why it is cold and snowy. The audience laughed loudly at that quip. Natural variability is ongoing and when the natural warmth and AGW are in the same direction, as with the recently waned El Nino, then “records will be broken”. He showed the obligatory shifting of the bell-curve to demonstrate changes in extreme events with global warming by moving the entire distribution to the right.
The null hypothesis has been (prove at 95% confidence level) that “there is no human influence on climate” which required folks to prove otherwise. However, with the IPCC declaration of “unequivocal warming due to humans”, Trenberth implored that we change the null hypothesis to put the onus of proof on the deniers: “There is a human influence on climate.” Therefore, the following events would not have happened or as bad or something (not clear what he meant/implied) without the human influence on climate:
Flooding in Pakistan, Russian drought, heat wave, and wildfires, flooding in the US including the rainstorm in Nashville, the active Atlantic hurricane season, and Snowmageddon.
The key is the 4% increase in moisture or water vapor over the past 4-decades shown in anomalous SSTs. The Queensland flooding is also due to SST increases and “indeed global warming” related, but he also mentioned La Nina. He suggested that we use these events (disasters) as teachable moments to “straighten out the media”, “inform the public and politicians”, and resolve renewed US leadership in climate science.
The two audience questions were brief and ancillary to Trenberth’s thesis.
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This talk is one of the opening salvos in a well-coordinated broadside initiative to redeem and repackage climate science, climate scientists, and climate policy in the eyes of the public. This “re-education” campaign needs a brand name. Together We Thrive and Win the Future are taken
Promoting climate information and communication of climate change
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I just shoveled 18 inches of globull warming this morning. Trenberth can spout all he wants about his projections and computer models and simulations. I’m a scientitst: When observation doesn’t match speculation, I throw the speculation out. I don’t know what Trenberth does except speculate more frequently and more fantastically.
For those that asked about KT’s reception, I would say it was very warm. The applause was vigorous and the laughs were on cue. I was in the warmist bubble for an hour and it was an odd, surreal place. These people believe the science is settled and we should get busy divvying up the carbon tax booty for them.
I’m getting tired of his rhetoric. After shovelling globull warming for the fourth time this winter, I’ve come to the conclusion that a warmer planet would be a better planet. I want the planet to warm up. I’m not sure an average of 2 or 3 degrees will be enough.
Their whole basis of AGW fear mongering is what’s known as the logical fallicy of “Slippery Slope” argumentation. It’s a giant leap of faith to go from connecting release of CO2 to a runaway warming planet to the destruction of life as we know it. What sane, logical, and intelligent person believes that?
“Together We Thrive and Win the Future are taken”
Win The Future = WTF
There must be some other WTF acronym meanings we can use for the climate debate.
Weather That Fails?
We Take Funds?
The idea of reversing the null hypothesis is so strange. The question “do humans affect the climate” is answered by most sceptics with “yes”. But what we want to know is “how” and “how much”. Trenberth’s null that humans affect the climate provides no information whatsoever. Is his null that the IPCC reports are sent down from heaven on stone tablets? Well, he admits that the Himalayan glacier thing was an error, so I guess not. Is he saying that we should accept any pronouncement from any climate change scientist? Like Hansen claiming many meters of sea level rise this century or that the Greenland ice sheet will simply slide into the sea? Which null exactly is he claiming should be accepted? It really makes no sense, besides being a juvenile debating trick.
Richard Hill when he says: January 27, 2011 at 2:37 am
“The tone of the comments on this topic seem a bit smug. The facts on the ground are that the AMS itself, the APS, the NAS, the Royal Society, etc, etc,, are all committed to promoting urgent CO2 reductions. The MSM and the politicians follow these Authorities. You get the feeling that the commenters at WUWT think they are winning the battle. Perhaps skeptics have landed an odd lucky shot, but the IPCC is still winning the war. Lets see a body like the AMS modify its official statement on the issue.”
Sorry, politics is a bit like weather — when the conditions are right: warm, wet meeting cold air — when “scientists” loose their credibility, the “honeymoon period” is over, and people start looking critically at a subject with next to no evidential base — when the conditions are right, you may not be able to say exactly when or where the storm will develop but develop it will!
Tha’s a storm coming and no one can stop it!
(upswings from natural variation excepted)
Unlike most people on here I don’t particularly care whether I am called a skeptic or a denier.
Yes, I absolutely understand that the thermaggedonists use the term to try to smear those who keep asking awkward questions with the notion of ‘holocaust deniers’. Yes, that is needlessly and deliberately very offensive.
But there is no way to win the argument with these clown because, as has been pointed out many times, the warmist position is quasi-religious (and many of them have WAY too much to lose). The nearest you will get to a concession, when the clearly observable facts are too blatant, will be a goalpost-moving tactic. So instead of snow being a “rare event”, snow will become a sure confirmation of Global Warming, which everyone except the “deniers” has realised all along.
I also like Lindzen’s point that, to be sceptical about something, there has to be a plausible hypothesis to be sceptical about. And that the notion that human CO2 emissions are likely to have any more than a trivial effect on climate, let alone to constitute an urgent problem that justifies the expenditure of Trillions, certainly isn’t plausible.
There is perhaps an analogy with Kaiser Bill’s description of the British forces in WWI as a “contemptible little army” and the insult’s subsequent adoption by British soldiers, whose post-war veteran’s association calls themselves “The Old Contemptibles”.
I think it might greatly irritate idiots like Hansen and Trenberth if we took their snide insults as badges of honour.
Interesting contrast on reports of the missing heat:
Dr Maue’s account: “The “It’s a Travesty” is still accurate, but Trenberth believes that the missing heat is somewhere in the oceans, maybe below 300 – 700 meters depth. ”
Dr Curry’s student: “What he was actually referring to, he says, is the fact that at the time we could not account for the global energy balance when the total ocean heat content is considered, but now it appears that much of the heat is being stored below 300 m”
I wonder if the speaker intended the impression to be “it’s still unknown, a possibility is the heat is below 300m”, or the impression that “the missing heat has been located” even though it hasn’t been measured?
At this point sane people need to start turning their back on Trenberth. If we go much further paying attention to this man, we start to look like the scientists who argue with creationists. His belief system is set, he has made his choice. Yes, he claims to be a scientist, but his behavior says otherwise. No real scientist would have such an “if you’re not with us you’re against us,” way of looking at the world. We need to stop listening to what he says, much like ignoring Hansen. They’ve made their choice and thrown their eggs in one basket. No amount of talking to them is going to undo that situation.
Murray Grainger says:
January 27, 2011 at 4:52 am
Purakanui says:
January 27, 2011 at 12:25 am
This is … a man who sees his position crumbling around him and who is desperately fearful that his mana is blowing away in the cold wind of the real world.
With a tag like that and a word like that you declare yourself to be a Kiwi. (Real or adopted.) The unfortunate thing is no one outside NZ understands the word “mana” (it is not biblical), which is a real shame as it is a fantastic way to express the concept and I find my UK colleagues looking very blank when I use it.
Mana 1. (noun) prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, spiritual power, charisma
———————————————————————–
Murray, your UK colleagues have clearly not read the novels of the supremely English C P Snow, who used the term more than once in his writing!
Re Trenberth, I guess his speech is a summary of the current narrative of AGW alarmism. It’s not likely to set the world outside his inner circle alight though. I doubt that it will change anyone’s mind, one way or the other. Probably best if we all get back to our respective fields of endeavour and continue to use whatever skills we have to bring about change. Wasting energy on the witterings of these people to their supporters is unlikely to be productive, IMO.
Surely a man who can claim that the theory of AGW is so solid, so without flaws that the null hypothesis should be reversed, would have no problem in falsifying the current null hypothesis in the first place. In that case why doesn’t he just do that – no reversal would even be necessary.
Or is he merely a child, stomping his foot in the playground, yelling: Yes it is too, it is because I (or someone else) says so.
richard verney says: January 27, 2011 at 4:47 am
“The tide may already have changed (since there are many factors which appear to be coming together suggesting cooler times ahead) but we need that tide to fully ebb to take with it the AGW scam.”
Richard, you seem to believe that the global warming scam will only go away when there is proof positive it is wrong. That’s the scientist in you speaking, and yes the right way to think about it is a balance of evidence.
But the public and media don’t work that way. Just look at swine flu. Swine flu never went away, people still keep getting Swine flu, people still keep dying from flu … indeed flu is a major cause of death in the winter. But somehow despite the evidence that people are still dying from Swine flu … the scare has gone away (despite frequent attempts to revive it)
Other examples are the nuclear winter: did the missiles disappear, or did public perception regarding the danger of those missiles disappear?
Big public scares like these tend to be a self-feeding frenzy. They are like wild-fires, they rapidly spread and keep growing so long as there is combustible material (i.e. newsworthy stories) to feed the flames.
Eventually, the stock of newsworthy material becomes exhausted – the public don’t want to hear the same stuff again and again and again and the media and public get bored, and the fire just fizzles out.
Obviously, it helps if e.g. cooler weather dampens down the fire and worse if the weather (climate) is against up, and yes there are always small pockets of combustible material which haven’t been touched and go up after the main fire is out, but it is going out!
Obviously, extending the analogy, brushwood grows again and e.g. the weather keeps coming up with new stories, but these repeat flare-ups never have the intensity of the big initial burn.
If you want me to put a figure on that … about 30% less interest by the media over the last year. Around 60% over the last 3 years. At that rate of decline, it’ll have virtually fallen off the (public) radar in five years. It’s going, and about the last bit of new-media brushwood that hasn’t been burnt (story that can be run) is for the mass media to turn in against the climate “scientists” and make a few months of headlines tearing them to shreds!
On balance I would say the adoption of the word “denier” by the AGW faithful was a major mistake. By making name-calling a big part of your marketing campaign you disenfranchise any new “customer” who comes in with any of the difficult to answer questions regarding the AGW religion. I think many of the readers here have experienced it and may have contributed to their adoption of the skeptic position.
Also, it allowed those who doubted AGW to start calling themselves “sceptics”. We all know that scepticism is essential to good science and letting your opponents adopt this moniker was a truly gigantic error by the AGW cultists.
I think this all demonstrates the appalling critical thinking capabilities of the AGW faithful. The fact is these folks are just not very bright.
Richard Verney says, “There is not a quick game changer on the horizon. What we need is a decade of cooling temperatures. . . . “
I am much more sanguine about even a decade of cooling having any effect at all in correcting the situation. If what Anthony has proven concerning the source of the data being biased, is as bad as it seems, then the the deck is heavily stacked against any future cooling trend ever showing up except in the minority of ‘rural’ sensors that remain active. Unfortunately, if the status quo for “official temperature record” keeping continues, without serious scientifically sound elimination (correction?) of obvious upward biases (urban and airport heat effects, sensor drift, data homogenization etc.) the deck is stacked against even natural cooling showing up in the “official temperature record”. I seriously doubt the world-wide human population is going to decrease. Urbanization is going to continue on its unrelenting upward track, and consequently urban centers where sensors are monitored will continue to show gradual warming regardless of the sources of energy that those urban centers tap into. Furthermore, as is evidenced from how vast portions of the population can be scared by dire predictions of the consequences of 1 degree change, even no change at all in a a very noisy temperature signal can always be spun to say whatever you want it to say, and can work unethical (funding and consensus motivated) scientists, unthinking (biased and uncritical) journalists, and unwise politicians into a tizzy.
So, on the one hand Trenberth says not to engage the “deniers”, and on the other says that the onus of proof is now on the deniers. So, if climate scientists refuse to engage, and media outlets follow suit, how exactly are we to present the voluminous proof disputing AGW?
His distinction between deniers and skeptics seems trivial. Did he identify who he believes are genuine skeptics and who are only deniers? Does he think Steve McIntyre is a denier? If so, he has no clue what he’s talking about.
Brand name–
PITIFUL
People In The Inside Find Unbelievable Luxury
I haven’t read all the posts but . . . the game described is as old as the old testament . . .
Pay more tithes, spring will come . . . railed against by Isia . . .
Wear your burka . . . earthquakes will stop . . . said by an Iman in the mid east recently past.
Pass cap n trade . . . and all will be well . . . by you know who!
Anything bad happens . . . you made “the big guy upstairs” angry . . .
Bottom line, somehow we are in abject, absolute, control. (they say) The basis for this entire grand dilusion. . . .
Somethings we can control . . . hopefully ourselves.
Somethings we can influence. . . and somethings we must accept . . .
Insert the Serenity Prayer here. . .
Consider that Trenberth is correct enough: if you factor land use and albedo changing soot and [insert an entire list of human activity] it would be hard to argue that six plus billion souls are *not* changing their environment at least in some way.
The great leap here isn’t the recast of the null hypothesis, but the implied notion that mankind can stop being mankind. Six billion people need to eat and have places to live and so on, and OK, let’s posit that this has an effect on climate. Deal with it.
The only real danger here is the help Trenberth gives to the wannabe totalitarians who want to tax western culture into oblivion while the rest of the world blithely goes on about their business.
No sunspots for you Trenberth.
Inside each of the recent warmist speeches is the statement that “the influence of man on climate” is clear. Impossible to reject, but hardly important. It is the CATASTROPHIC influence that concerns us.
The reduction in the danger: the key to backing down.
Ryan, what was the audience reaction? Was he preaching to a converted audience or dark silence? Thanks
The poorest of the poor see a lifetime’s work slip between their fingers and slowly spatter on the ground. We are only able to take a good name to the grave, and some won’t even take that. For some their life’s work amounts to nothing except an example for others of what not to do.
I think I just called Trenberth a Climate Nazi.
No Sunspots for you Trenberth. Next!
“tonyb says:
January 27, 2011 at 12:16 am
Following the pre print in WUWT a few weeks ago I emailed Dr Trenberth to complain about the use of the word ‘Deniers’.”
In AGW terms I prefer to interpret it as “Denier is a unit of measure for the linear mass density of fibers.” That fine mesh of scrutiny applied by open minded thinkers to the polluted outpourings of a pseudo-scientific cabal of agenda driven climate activists.
Jeff Alberts said
So, if climate scientists refuse to engage, and media outlets follow suit, how exactly are we to present the voluminous proof disputing AGW?
BINGO for you, great question . . . PRIZE . . . . I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they, DON’T.