From his blog http://www.drroyspencer.com/ which I’m repeating here to help get wide exposure.
A Challenge to the Climate Research Community
I’ve been picking up a lot of chatter in the last few days about the ’settled science’ of global warming. What most people don’t realize is that the vast majority of published research on the topic simply assumes that warming is manmade. It in no way “proves” it.
If the science really is that settled, then this challenge should be easy:
Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.
Studies that have suggested that an increase in the total output of the sun cannot be blamed, do not count…the sun is an external driver. I’m talking about natural, internal variability.
The fact is that the ‘null hypothesis’ of global warming has never been rejected: That natural climate variability can explain everything we see in the climate system.
A better challenge is to give just one weather/climate scenario that disproves global warming.
I can already tell you what the response will be:
“One study doesn’t prove global warming, HUNDREDS of studies taken together prove it as shown by the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change.”
Expand it out with useless filler and insert a few “deniers” and it’ll be Real Climate ready.
I am understanding this challenge would not falsify AGW, only the assertion of “Settled Science” which is in itself an oxymoron.
Roy, Roy, don’t you get it? They simply anoint AGW as the null hypothesis. They only part they get correct is the “null” part, of course.
{scratch head smile}
This is just silly. Prove that the recent warming wasn’t caused by God hugging the Earth extra tight …
Go get ’em Dr. Roy!! This should be interesting…
Disprove the null hypothesis?
you can’t expect them to do that … that’s like real science!
“He compared the efforts of financial journalists with the way crime reporters or foreign correspondents worked. He painted a picture of the outcry that would result if a legal correspondent began uncritically reproducing the prosecutor’s case as gospel in a murder trial, without consulting the defence arguments or interviewing the victim’s family before forming an opinion of what was likely or unlikely. According to Blomkvist the same rules had to apply to financial journalists.”
From the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larrson.
When I read this I immediately thought of environmental reporters.
To talk of settled science is to admit incompetence.
Brilliant. I look forward to the references. But I’m not holding my breath.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times . . . . and that ought to be enough . . .
22/7 = ? anyone . . .
Um, “scientific” paper, not “peer-reviewed” paper.
Presumably, one of the many “Hockey Stick” graphs would meet the criteria. If the climate were truly stable for the last 2000 years, and only in the last 30 has there been an abrupt rise, then I’d agree the warmists have something. The problem is that none of these papers are “scientific” in the classic sense. Most aren’t reproducible, a key requirement to be “scientific”. The rest aren’t robust, where a statistician can point out obvious flaws.
Presumably, any of the computer “Global Circulation Models” would meet the criteria. But computer models aren’t empirical evidence. They are a good way of coming up with theories, not proving theories.
Ultimately, would want is an “Old Science” proof of AGW, not “New Science” of irreproducibility, statistical hand waving, and computer models.
Jack Greer>
I think you’re missing the point. Sure, it’s a daft thing to ask for – unless ‘the science is settled’ in which case it should be there.
“”””” Laurie Bowen says:
February 2, 2011 at 11:59 am
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times . . . . and that ought to be enough . . .
22/7 = ? anyone . . . “””””
3+/-50%
Robert Wykoff said February 2, 2011 at 11:32 am:
“A better challenge is to give just one weather/climate scenario that disproves global warming.”
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Of course. Frustration seems to have pushed Dr. Spencer beyond his own tipping point.
3.1’4’2’8’5’7′
Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.
Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out experimentation by little green aliens as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.
I was having a discussion by email with a professor of astronomy, I had read his review of “Heaven and Earth” by Ian Plimer. This appeared in the Australian some years ago, but I didn’t get round to reading it until recently. The review was so totally biased and so utterly unfair that I could not resist sending an email to the author.
One thing I said was – science in never settled, I quoted the issue of peptic ulceration. Two doctors in Western Australia produced the idea that peptic ulceration was due to infection rather than gastric acidity. The overwhelming consensus at the time was that acid, or acid plus certain enzymes, caused ulcers. The West Australian doctors were laughed to scorn. They now hold a Nobel Prize.
The astronomy professor replied thus. This is not verbatim, but the sense has been retained.
Science is science. And good science will always triumph over bad science. There was no evidence whatsoever to support the acid hypothesis. The West Australian doctors did an experiment which proved that the rubbish their peers believed was wrong. They were quite rightly awarded a Nobel Prize.
The level of consensus within the climate science community is much stronger than that within the medical community. Because of this, climate science is more soundly based than medical science.
This is good thinking from a professor of astronomy. I don’t think that even a professor of theology could have done any better.
Let’s us look at the man- made global warming hypothesis from the point of view of medical science…
The system which almost all doctors accept today is the Cochrane system. Briefly, the Cochrane system works as follows.
The strongest level of evidence is level one.
Level one evidence consists of randomised controlled trials under extremely stringent conditions.
The next level of evidence is level two.
Level two evidence again consists of randomised controlled trials, but under less stringent conditions.
Next comes level three.
Level three evidence consists of observational studies.
Even if the series studied is large and the correlation is tight, an observational study can never prove a hypothesis. Correlation does not prove causation. An observational study might suggest that a hypothesis is “reasonably likely” But the proof lies in the randomised controlled trial. Preferably this trial will have reasonably large numbers of patients and have the tight parameters of level one.
Consensus gets low marks under Cochrane. Cochrane is about evidence rather than opinion. A single opinion has an evidential value of zero. Consensus might represent the opinion of 3,000 people. Multiply zero by 3,000 and the answer is still zero.
Now let’s look at man made global warming.
We can’t have a randomised controlled trial. We have one patient (planet earth). We don’t have even one single other planet to put in the control group.
So let’s do an observational study.
An observational study with one patient is not an observational study. It is an anecdote, or at best a case report.
OK, let’s be practical. We only have one planet earth, so our single patient is very, very important to us.
Since planet earth is so precious to us, we are prepared to accept an observational study with a tight observed correlation as being evidence enough to act on.
We have to look at the degree of correlation over four time periods.
There is the period 1900 to 1945. During this period the planet warmed.
Compared to today, there was not much in the way of heavy industry. There were very few cars on the road. Not a lot of CO2 was produced… But the planet warmed. 1938 may not be the hottest year ever recorded, but it fits comfortably into the top 10. I think that it is very reasonable to say that the warming seen from 1900 to 1945 was not due to carbon dioxide. We were coming out of an ice age.
Now let’s look at the period from 1945 to 1975. We are in the era of post war recovery. More cars are being built. More electricity is being generated. More heavy industry is starting up. More CO2 is being produced. But the temperature is in fact going down. How do we explain this? The IPCC says pollution with substances such as sulphur dioxide were the cause of the fall in temperature over this period.
Now this is an assertion. There are no quantitative measurements of all the aerosols and other pollutants and computer models of how each pollutant would affect the climate. But lets be generous. Lets say that there is a seventy five per cent chance that this explanation is correct.
Now we move on to the period from around 1975 to 1998. Her we have a period when a further rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide is associated with a further rise in temperature. There arte alternative explanations. It could be the sun. It could be something that we haven’t thought of yet. But let us be generous and say we are 90% certain that global warming from 1975 to 1998 was caused by man made carbon dioxide.
Then we reach the period 1999 to 2010. We continue to produce lots of carbon dioxide. There is no statistically significant rise in temperature during this period.
But the warmists say that this 11 year period contains three, or five or six of the warmest years on record.
Well the temperature has been rising by fits and starts for about 150 years. We are on a high plateau, so it is not surprising that some of the temperatures we see are record ones. But are we going to stay on that plateau? Are we going to start moving gradually downwards in terms of temperature? Or are we about to take off with the climate getting warmer still?
Well, of course, there is no way in which this question can be answered with any certainty. But lets be generous again. Let us say that the fact that several of the years of the last decade are in the top 10 ever recorded means that there is a 70 per cent chance that this period of time supports man made global warming.
OK the global warming hypothesis rests on three lines of evidence.
The first line of evidence has a 75% chance of being correct.
The second line of evidence has a 90% chance of being correct.
The third line of evidence has a 70% chance of being correct..
If you roll a dice once, the odds against guessing the right answer are six to one.
If you roll the dice three times the odds against you getting the right answer three times running are six to one multiplied by six to one multiplied by six to one.
The odds against you are 216 to one.
The odds in your favour are the reciprocal of this. They are 0.00463.
Now we have three lines of evidence for the man-made global warming hypothesis.
The odds in favour of each piece of evidence are, respectively 75%, 90%, and 70%
Multiply 0.75 by 0.9 then by 0.7 and you get 0.475.
There is a 47.5% chance that the hypothesis is correct.
Does this show that the science is settled? Don’t make me laugh.
I have no idea what the temperature will be like in 100 years time. Neither has the IPCC.
You’re my hero………..
It is extraordinary that, with the economic and energy consequences of cAGW theory, the governments of the developed nations have not demanded a conference in which both sides of the debate present and evaluate the evidence for their positions.
Attendance should be mandatory so that no-one could avoid the cross examination and conducted in the spirit, not of Lisbon, but perhaps of Solway 1927.
Let the facts and the evidence decide.
Jack Greer says:
February 2, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Robert Wykoff said February 2, 2011 at 11:32 am:
“A better challenge is to give just one weather/climate scenario that disproves global warming.”
=========
Of course. Frustration seems to have pushed Dr. Spencer beyond his own tipping point.
My god the trolls have been dragged from under the bridge. Get your act together you guys. Read Trenberth et al they are far better at deflecting the question from the climate science is settled scenario.
McShane & Wyner are not quite what you are seeking, Roy, but they did shake things up quite a bit!
http://climateaudit.org/2010/08/14/mcshane-and-wyner-2010/
It will likely take years for the type of scientific evaluation you seek to see the light-of-day, although there might be something in the Russian literature. Would that count?
“What most people don’t realize is that the vast majority of published research on the topic simply assumes that warming is manmade.” – R.Spencer
This phenomenon drives me absolutely batty. How many thousands of studies have been done, with time, money and resources spent, that operate along the lines of such-and-such species displaying such and such behavior in the context of global warming?
All of these studies are absolute garbage, all those resources wasted, since the underlying assumption (that AGW is real) is a myth.
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Incidentally, Dr. Spencer, I downloaded your book “The Great Global Warming Blunder” to my Kindle the other day. I’m enjoying the read immeasurably.
AGW/Climate Change is not science but alchemy. An endeavour to turn CO2 into Au.
AGW is a belief system that does not need to be proven. You just need faith. It is exactly the same thing with God. There are never been any peer-reviewed papers on the existence of God. The whole thing is based on a bunch of gray literature papers (dead sea rolls) that they conveniently put together and named it Bible. Not an once of science in it, yet people always killed each other to impose their belief system.
This is just silly. Even the IPCC report doesn’t “rule[] out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.” It is simply extremely unlikely.
Might as well ask for a biology paper that rules out the possibility of God.