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 The term “ClimateGate” should have been replaced by “swiftboating”.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.
————-
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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Julian in Wales says: January 27, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Was this a rant from the heart of a believer or was it the bluster of politician buying time?
Dr A Burns says: January 27, 2011 at 12:50 pm
A week or so ago, I had an email correspondence with Kevin Trenberth. The correspondence speaks for itself as to Trenberth’s level of integrity. I can forward the original emails to anyone interested but here is a summary:
——————————————————————————-
When you put Trenberth’s AMS defence paper and Dr A Burns’ email summary you have to conclude that Trenberth is really a liability to his cause. He is unconvincing. His answers to Dr. Burns were didactic, petulant, arrogant and lacking the necessary reason that one could take as the basis of a good argument.
He should be ignored now.
Douglas
Thanks, Ryan. This post is much appreciated.
tonyb says:
January 27, 2011 at 12:16 am
“The deliberate connotations to us in Europe in particular are highly unpleasant. My father in law was one of the first to enter a concentration camp . . . ”
The feelings, although personal and thus unique, are not unique to Europe. I’m aware of U.S. soldiers that as young men entered (liberated is a term some use) concentration camps. The experiences are still vivid. Some are able to relate what they saw, some not. I have a friend that can and does, thinking it important to do so.
I agree with you too, that when one wants to promote a position it does little good to antagonize those of the opposition. Talk radio hosts are the exception. Such tactics generate excitement*, publicity, raise ratings, and their salary. [*Sort of like kicking a wasp nest.]
Joel Shore says:
January 27, 2011 at 2:06 pm
(1) Creationists arguing that the scientific community is actively keeping them out of journals, etc., etc. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed), just as “climate skeptics” make similar claims.
(2) In the case of both evolution /creationism and global warming, you have all of the respected scientific organizations on one side of the debate but a large majority of people refusing to accept the scientific evidence because they don’t like the conclusions.
(3) It just so happens that it is the “climate skeptics” side that has one of its very few well-published and reasonably respected-in-the-field scientists arguing that “intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism.” ( http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/roy-spencer-on-intelligent-design/ )
Those of us who have been involved in both the climate debates and the evolution debates know how the analogy between the two actually plays out.
———————————————————————
Joel. Point 1. So what? Point 2. Get real. What you say is not true. Point 3. so what again.
In short. What are you trying to say? Your comments don’t seem to be of anyvalue at all Joel.
Douglas
I agree with Trenberth that the emails were not that personally embarrassing to him. His guilt in climategate is mostly by association and his frank concern for the missing heat made him look like the best of the bunch. If he had been as open in his frank discussion of the evidence in public, and openly addressed, subject to peer review, issues raised by the data and the model diagnostic literature he would be a credit to the field. The IPCC process is not subject to peer review and in his role he exploited the option he had to just dismiss or avoid relevant studies. In his subsequent work as a reviewer and speaker he has conveniently missed relevant results that should have been addressed, and engaged in the type of rhetorical games he played in this talk.
Based upon the state of the evidence, where what is really in dispute is the net feedbacks to CO2 forcing in the current climate, I think a reasonable null hypothesis is that the direct effects of CO2 are warming the climate at a sensitivity of approximately 1 degree C for a doubling. The AGW believers hypothesize that the net feedbacks are positive and that the sensititivity is such that AGW will swamp natural variation. I think there is agreement that a 1 degree C level of climate sensitivity will merely perturb natural variation and is not a cause for alarm. Skeptics hypothesize that the net feedbacks may actually be negative. There doesn’t appear to be much evidence for either hypothesis, with the models having severe problems with correlated error and bias, and but there is some, not yet conclusive, evidence from the actual radiative balance data, that the net feedbacks appear to be negative at the lower latitudes.
Richard Hill 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.
You are leaving out the dark horse in this race, the opinion of the great (scientific) unwashed. It is my experience that in the lay public, it is the soi disant intellectuals that seem to embrace the CAGW rhetoric. Your average citizen, while not scientifically learned, has no compunction about calling BS on the pronouncements of politicians and other people of authority. Try it out. After a substantial winter deposit of global warming, joke about it with the garbage collector, the meter reader, the newspaper delivery person, the postman. You will likely get an agreeable chuckle and a derogatory remark about Al Gore. Then joke about it with your local leftist or centrist candidate for office or other such politically active people, or people involved with any kind of “social justice” cause, people involved in the media etc. Be prepared for a superior to thou lecture on the 2,500 scientists of the IPCC and the 97% of climate scientists trumping your puny denials. So if we keep having the types of winters that we have been having, it will not make any difference to that average person if GISS says that 2010 has been the warmest year ever. As the credibility of CAGW is eroded (rightly or wrongly), a “tipping point” will be reached where the politicians and media will need to change their tune. Do the espousers of CAGW have the cojones to stay on message in the face of a decade or two of flat to cooling temperatures?
The BBC’s “Men of Rock” program today asserted in it’s last five minutes that a new ice age is on its way. Most of Britain, Europe and the US is going to become uninhabitable as it will be under hundreds of feet of ice and for a very long time. There was not a single mention of AGW in the entire program.
“Geologist Iain Stewart retraces the steps of a band of maverick pioneers who made ground-breaking discoveries in the landscape of Scotland about how our planet works.
“In the final episode, Iain finds out about daredevil scientist Louis Agassiz, who first imagined the world had been gripped by an ice age. Plus, the story of humble janitor James Croll, who used the planets to work out the natural rhythms of the earth’s climate.”
Don’t tell Trenberth, but the implications of this program are that someone at the BBC reckons that the coming big ice is going to be the biggest killer of all, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wvjnq/Men_of_Rock_The_Big_Freeze/
Kate
I missed the programme but Stewart is an arch warmist so I would be surprised if he associated himself with the ice age message. What was the context?
tonyb
Douglas says: Joel Shore says:
January 27, 2011 at 2:06 pm
(1) Creationists arguing that the scientific community is actively keeping them out of journals, etc., etc. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed), just as “climate skeptics” make similar claims.
Douglas, I’ve no problem at all with the public being told about intelligent desire and the manmade global warming scam … these cult religions can only be exposed for what they are by being exposed using good science.
Science is not afraid of information, it is not afraid of the open and honest debate of ideas based on the facts. E.g. even tonight I’ve suddenly realised that there could be a scientific basis for certain obscure methods of controlling pain … obviously the “new-age” cult type theory behind it is totally bogus, but there may be a physical explanation (not just placebo) why the right frame of mind can not only control, but even physically reduce pain.
There are also areas of human investigation where scientific methodology is just the wrong way to approach the subject … again, open and honest debate and allowing the free access to ideas is essential.
So, even though intelligent design is one of the less serious issues of modern society, I’ve no problem with it being adequately covered in Wikipedia.
But unfortunately wikipedia is full of mini-hitlers who don’t share my belief in truth honesty and freedom to information and providing information without filtering everything to match the group-think point of view of those hypocrites at wikipedia.
I vote for Frank K.’s “Foundation for Advancing and Renewing Climate Education” it makes a great acronym.
Dr Trenberth really deserves the moniker “Travesty” Trenberth for this.
It’s Climategate, not swiftanything, anyone that refers to Climategate as swiftwhatever is trying to pull a fast one and change the optics. Very political, just like using the word “denier”.
Natural climate variation didn’t stop working in 1930, there might be some AGW, but it’s not catastrophic, and very unlikely to be catastrophic in the next 90 years or 900 years.
Read THIS, Barry.
Last night (26 Jan) my local (Sacramento, CA) PBS station ran an hour long special entitled-
“The Next Frontier: Engineering the Golden Age of Green” cuts through the debate about global warming and climate change. Instead, it focuses on the renewable, clean energy technologies that can improve our future and create significant economic opportunities.” I missed the first minute, or so, of the special hence I must of missed the debate about global warning and climate change. The show was sponsored by the Professional Engineers in California Government, a brief description of the show is located here- http://www.thenextfrontiermovie.com/one_sheet.pdf
The head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB- the state agency responsible for implementing CA’s cap and trade system for CO2) was interviewed during the presentation.
The show is going to be broadcast again tomorrow on the Sacramento PBS station. The show is being broadcast throughout the country as well- schedule noted here- http://www.thenextfrontiermovie.com/broadcasts.htm
Joel’s argument falls apart when you come across atheists who question AGW.
You’ve heard of the Chewbacca defense?
Now we have the Trenberth Defense: http://conservativedialysis.com/~mnick/wp/images/lalala.jpg
Joel’s argument fell apart when it came out of his fingers. It’s a sign of desperation. We’ll soon be pitying the die-hard alarmists.
==========
Rocky H says January 27, 2011 at 12:28 pm
“In the case of the global climate, the Null Hypothesis is the range of temperatures, precipitation, trends and so on that existed before the recent rise in co2.
“Any alternative hypothesis must be tested against those parameters, which together form the climate Null Hypothesis. If the increase in co2 hasn’t caused a measurable change outside of those parameters (and it hasn’t), then the Null Hypothesis is unfalsified, and the alternate hypothesis fails.”
Sorry, as a scientist I am free to do what I want when it comes to setting nulls and alternates. How I do that will be fundamental to my experimental design, the results I might produce, and the value of my experiment.
You can’t tell me what to test, and nor can Dr T.
HAS,
You are certainly free to do what you like, and I’m not preuming to tell you what to test.
What I am pointing out is that the climate null hypothesis – the pre-industrial temperatures and other parameters – has not changed as a result of the rise in CO2.
It is all normal and natural climate variability. The null hypothesis has not been falsified.
I suggest that we take Dr. Trenberth’s idea seriously and test drive the proposition that the NUL hypothesis should be reversed.
But, why just limit it to climate “science”.
The world of science is much wider and richer than that.
Let’s start with, say STOMACH ulcers.
Let’s make a new NUL hypothesis out of that.
I’ll even thro[w] in a double negative to make it a little more interesting:
“There is no significant evidence that stomach ulcers are not caused by stress”.
Many thousands of doctors laboured for more than 100 years to disprove that hypothesis.
WUWT?
Any of you that may be still awake by now, may have noticed my (usual) typo.
For “I’ll even THROUGH …..) the more scholarly amongst you may prefer “throw”, but I’ll leave that to you to decided as well.
FWIW, there are observations that could be used to disclaim a human influence on climate (though that statement is a matter of degree).
If you look at records of temperature going back pre-1900, the adjusters have altered trends more than highs and lows relative to adjacent years. In many parts of the world one can see hot years on or about 1914, 1941, 1970 and 1998. These just happen to be about 28 years apart for reasons I can only guess at.
However, for each station that shows these hot years, there are many that do not. So, there is a process in action that in some parts of the world, before man became too active, where there are hot 1914s. There are other parts of the world where 1914 is not anomalous. So, the effects is not global unless there is a lot of noise, and they predate the great CO2 climb.
Study the 1998 hot year in particular. It warmed land, sea and air, but only at some places, at much the same time. Further, if noise is not creating the pattern, there seem to be about 3 heat pulses of about two months each or less. This is not a pattern one would expect of man-made global warming from GHG and I think it is sufficient to call the reverse onus of proof.
Alexander K says:
January 27, 2011 at 2:24 am
“I am more than a little surprised and disapointed that the AMS gave Trenberth time, space and a venue for his alarmist and dishonest nonsense.”
It’s not surprising at all. This is the same organization that awarded James Hanson the Rossby Award, the Society’s highest honor, back in 2009.
On the question of AGW/skeptics vs. evolution/intelligent design, I’ve never had problems with the science of what is commonly called “evolution,” – even though that term involves and entails a lot of stuff. Where I’ve had problems is with the philosophical conclusions some scientists draw from the evidence they have found. I see “intelligent design” as just another reasonable philosophical conclusion one can properly draw from reading or doing the science. Now I know some out there try to pawn it off as science, and there just isn’t enough evidence to make that kind of an argument. But I think it quite fair to see it that way from a religious or philosophical viewpoint. The world is not as random as we may think.
I hearby declare 2011 “International Get Trenberth Year”.
tonyb says: I missed the programme but Stewart is an arch warmist so I would be surprised if he associated himself with the ice age message. What was the context?
…Yes, I was surprised as well because I’ve objected in the past to Steward’s sweeping statements about AGW. On this occasion, he was in Scotland and talking to geologists (yes! real scientists!) who specialise in glaciers and ice age geology. On a calm lake in Scotland, they were examining the evidence at the bottom of the lake at the tracks carved out by the glaciers in the last ice age, which, being at the bottom of the lake, were perfectly preserved. Looking all around at the breathtaking scenery, Steward remarked that in 20,000 years or so the entire area would be covered in ice sheets the top of which would be at least 400 feet above him. He said he “couldn’t imagine it”. The real scientists then provided proof of what is going to happen, which he accepted, and then they ran a program illustrating the spread and extent of the next ice age which they said is already overdue.
As 60% of the US is going to be covered in ice sheets up to two miles thick for thousands of years, maybe the Mexicans will be running border controls to keep the Americans out!
“[ryanm: thanks anthony. small world: i sat next to dr. susan solomon while i took notes]”
Well, don’t leave us hanging … did she crib?
The trenberth quote
“It is worth considering whether the odds of the particular event have changed sufficiently that one can make the alternative statement “It is unlikely that this event would have occurred without global warming.” For instance, this probably applies to the extremes that occurred in the summer of 2010: the floods in Pakistan, India, and China and the drought, heat waves and wild fires in Russia. It likely also applies to the flooding in Queensland, Australia In January 2011.”
He seems to be making calls on events that happened two weeks ago. I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark but I guess all the relevant data on the Queensland flood is collated, never mind a full analysis done. Where’s the science in that particular statement?
HAS:
Despite repeated explanations and corrections, at January 27, 2011 at 2:30 am, you yet again assert;
“Just to remind – the null hypothesis is simply what the experimenter wishes it to be for the purpose of his/her experiment. There is no preordained null hypothesis, and the choice of it carries no presumptive weight..”
No! That is a falsehood! And it is an attack on the scientific method.
The null hypothesis is that nothing has changed unless there is empirical evidence that a change has occured.
So, in the case of the cause(s) of climate change, the null hypothesis is that the causes of climate change are the same (i.e. natural) as the causes of previous and similar climate changes unless empirical evidence that shows a different cause is obtained.
That is the ONLY null hypothesis concerning climate chjange and it is the governing hypothesis according to the scientific method. Any assertion is pure pseudioscience if it disputes this is the only null hypothesis concerning climate change.
Richard