Guest post by Dr. Jerome Ravetz
While the micro-bureaucracy of the Lisbon workshop bureaucracy grinds its way towards the release of a statement, I realise that the time is long overdue for me to touch base at WUWT.
After all, it was at WUWT (with the help of Rog Tallbloke) that I made my debut on the blogosphere, and enjoyed the reaction of hundreds of readers, be they enthusiastic or vitriolic. Also, it was on WUWT that I had the first experience of seeing non-violent communication in the Climategate debate. The circumstances were surprising, for it involved our very own fire-eating champion Willis.
He was responding to Judith Curry’s posting, where she explained how she had got to where she was then. Of course he loathed her for complicity in the great Warmista fraud, and he despised her for attempting to apologise for her actions rather than crawling to WUWT in full contrition. But he had to admit that he respected and admired her for guts in doing a Daniel act, and facing the lions like himself. At that point, non-violence in the climate debate was born. For Willis had realised that bad people are not necessarily all bad. There might even be some purpose in talking to them! From that point on, WUWT could take the lead in enforcing civility in the debate, and I am very pleased to see how the principle has spread all across the lines.
Reflecting on that incident, I began to shape up ideas for the workshop that eventually took place last month. Of course it was highly imperfect, with many things done and not done in error. But what was remarkable was the universal spirit of accomplishment, even delight, that people were getting on so well and so productively. Of course, this depended to some extent on our choice of invitations; we did get close to the edge of the zone on the spectrum within in which people would be sure to be reasonably civil to each other. On that first meeting, with so much other learning to do, it would not have been productive to have explosions of mutual insults. Another time, we could try to take on that one as well.
I suppose people know that I went to a Quaker college, Swarthmore, and I have spent all the years afterwards making sense of its message of nonviolence. In a course on political science I read ‘The Power of Non-Violence’ by Richard Gregg. It struck me as very sweet but quite unrealistic. Between then and now was Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, and now Tunisia, Egypt and beyond. It seems that a group of non-violent activists in Serbia had used a book by one of Gregg’s followers, Gene Sharp. They had passed the message to a study group in Qatar, and it was picked up by the activists in Tunisia and Egypt to become the basis of their strategy. The rest is history in the making. There is at last some chance that revolutions now will not simply produce new tyrannies. All this gives support to my conviction that we were correct in making the main purpose of the Lisbon workshop to further the development of non-violence in scientific debate.
My principle has always been that you don’t know what the other person is going through, and to return their violence doesn’t help them resolve their conflict of conscience. It’s so easy to condemn the evil ones and try to destroy them; that way we would still have the sectarian killings in Northern Ireland and probably a bloodbath in South Africa. On the personal level, who would have known that the slave-trader John Newton was being prepared for the experience that would eventually lead him to compose ‘Amazing Grace’?
With those words of explanation, I offer my Lisbon public lecture to Anthony Watts for debate on WUWT. This, I believe is the essence of the Lisbon story, rather than who said what about whom. Willis – over to you!
==================================================================
Non-Violence in Science?
Jerome Ravetz,
‘Reconciliation in the Climate Change Debate’
Public Meeting at the Gulbenkian Foundation
Lisbon 28 January 2011
People attending this conference might find the whole idea of non-violence in science to be strange. We are familiar, by now, with the use of reconciliation and non-violence to resolve intractable disputes in the political sphere. Indeed, it is now generally accepted that this is the only way to achieve a lasting and just settlement in conflicts between peoples. It worked in South Africa and in Northern Ireland, and noone with standing in the international community argues for a different approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. But science? What possible relevance could this approach have to science?
Debate, sometimes fierce and impassioned, is the lifeblood of science. The advances of science do not occur smoothly and by consensus. There are always at least two sides to the interpretation of new theories and results. Social researchers have found that each scientific side explains its own attitudes in methodological terms, and explains the attitudes of the opposition in sociological terms. Roughly speaking, “I” am being a scientist, and “They” are being – something else. All this is quite natural and inevitable, and it has been that way from the beginning.
The process does not work perfectly. There is no ‘hidden hand’ that guides scientists quickly and correctly to the right answer. There can be injustices and losses; great innovators can languish in obscurity for a lifetime, because their theories were too discordant with the prevailing paradigm or ‘tacit knowledge’. However, to the best of our knowledge, the correct understanding does eventually emerge, thanks to the normal processes of debate and to the plurality of locations and voices in any field of science.
Why, then, have we organised a scientific conference about reconciliation, where we have actually had instruction in the theory and practice of ‘Non-Violent Communication’? Do we really need to import the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi into the conduct of science? We believe that on this occasion we do. This conference has not been about science in general, or any old field of science. The focus has been on Climate Change, and in particular the rancour that has been released by the ‘Climategate’ emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.
This debate has not just been about the science of climate change It also concerns policy, for reducing the emissions of Carbon Dioxide worldwide. This requires a very large, complex and expensive project. It extends into lifestyles and values, as the transition out of a carbon-based economy will require a change in our ideas of comfort, convenience and the good life. There are urgent issues of equity, both between rich and poor peoples now, and also between ourselves and our descendants. All these profound issues depend for their resolution on an adequate basis in science. Some say, if we are not really sure that bad things are happening, why bother imposing these drastic and costly changes on the world’s people? But others reply, by what right can we use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for failing to protect ourselves and our descendants from irreversible catastrophe?
Both of those positions accept that there is a real debate about the strength of the science, and effectively argue about the proper burden of proof, or degree of precaution that is justified. But there are plenty of voices on the extremes. For quite some time, the official scientific establishments, particularly in the Anglophone world, claimed that ‘the science is settled’, and ‘the debate is over’. At the opposite extreme are those, including some quite reputable scientists, who argue that nothing whatever has been proved about the long-term changes in climate that might be resulting from the current increase in the concentration of Carbon Dioxide. Between these extremes, the explanations of opposing views are not merely sociological. They become political and moral. Each side accuses the other of being corrupt. The ‘skeptics’ or ‘deniers’ are dismissed as either working for outside interests, industrial or ideological, or being grossly incompetent as scientists. In short, as being either prostitutes or cranks. In their turn, the ‘alarmists’ or ‘warmistas’ are accused of feathering their own nests as grant-gaining entrepreneurial scientists, playing along with their own dishonest ideological politicians. In their protestations of scientific objectivity, they are accused of the corruptions of hypocrisy.
In the classic philosophy of science, it was imagined that debates would be settled by a ‘crucial experiment’. The observations made by Eddington in 1919 confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity, tout court. Before that, Rutherford showed that the atom is nearly all empty space, with a massive nucleus and planetary electrons circling it. Such crisp, clean experiments are taken as characteristic of natural science, establishing its status as solid knowledge, superior to the mere opinions of the social sciences and humanities. Where such crucial experiments happen not to occur, as in the case of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, it is assumed that they would occur if we could devise them. For that is the essence of science.
When we come to the climate, there are indeed two classic, simple experiences that for some are as conclusive as Eddington’s observation of the planet Mercury and of the light from the star in the Hyades cluster. The first of these is the original model of a ‘greenhouse’ earth made by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius in 1896. And the second is a remarkable set of readings of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, taken on top of the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa, showing a steady rise from their inception in the 1950’s. Nothing could be more convincing than that combination, except to those who do not wish to be convinced. Suffice to say that the application of the Arrhenius model to the actual conditions on earth, including all the effects that could modify the entry and exit of radiant energy, plus the storage of heat in the oceans, leaves plenty of room for debate for those that want it. And the Mauna Loa data extend only over a half-century; extrapolating that backwards or forward is again not entirely straightforward.
Hence the climate science debate is one where all the features that make natural science different from sociology, or indeed from politics, are weakened or absent. And in the course of that debate we have discovered a serious flaw in the prevailing philosophy of science: there is no explanation of honest error. Students of science never see a failed experiment or a mistaken theory; for them it is success and truth all the way. Only those who have done truly innovative research discover how intimately are success and failure, truth and error, connected. And so when a scientist finds him- or herself convinced of the truth of a particular theory, they have no framework for treating their erring opponent with respect. “I” am right, “you” are wrong, and by persisting in your error you demonstrate that your failings are moral as well as intellectual. In the ordinary course of scientific debate such attitudes are kept under control, but in the total, complex climate science debate they come to dominate.
The debate has passed its peak of intensity, as the failure of Copenhagen has taken the impetus out of the policy drive. But the rancour and bitterness are unresolved. There has been some softening of attitudes about the issue of global warming, but (so far as I can see) little softening of emotions about past adversaries. It is for that reason that my colleagues and I have made this unusual experiment, if you wish bringing Gandhi to science or even science to Gandhi. As we planned it, our hopes were modest indeed. We could not imagine attracting people with very hardened views on the other side. We know that political negotiations begin with intermediaries, then perhaps progress to members in adjacent rooms, eventually have principals all ensconced in a secret location, and only when it is all over do they meet in public. Of course people don’t trust and respect each other at the start; and they themselves are distrusted by their own side even for dealing with the enemy. Only gradually, with many fits and false starts, is trust built up.
So for our first little experiment, we brought together people who would at least talk to those we brought with opposing views. And of course, what is essential in such activities, all who are there agree that this is an important venture. When we saw how some very busy people have enthusiastically agreed to come from very long distances, we felt that this venture is indeed worthwhile. Of course we hope that by its success it will lead to others. We do not at all intend to ‘solve’ the climate science debate, or to reach a consensus on whether we must now mount a global campaign against Carbon Dioxide. That is to be left to other forums, organised from within the appropriate scientific institutions. If we can only get people talking, and eventually framing particular scientific questions on which agreement could in principle be reached, that will have been as great a success as we could hope for.
We would also like such a venture as this to be an example of the power of non-violence, even in science. The great culture heroes of the last half-century have been defined by non-violence: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, and now Aung San Suu Kyi. They all paid a price for their convictions, sometimes a heavy one. We note that none were white men, and none were scientists. This is not to say that non-violence has been totally absent from science. We all know of Einstein and his ambivalent relation to warfare; and there is the late Sir Joseph Rotblat, who gave up a career in science to found the Pugwash movement for East-West dialogue during the cold war. But if we search for scientists who have really lived out their non-violent convictions, we find two nonwhite women: Wangerai Maathai and Vandana Shiva.
That reflection brings me to the state of science itself. Those of an older generation remember a time when the prestige of science was unquestioned. Science would save the world, and scientists would do the saving. It is all different now, and the mutual denunciations of the scientists in the Climategate debate have not helped. One of the most important influences that drove me to a personal involvement in this debate was a report by our distinguished colleague Judith Curry, of a conversation with a student. This student was dismayed by the Climategate story that had just broken, and wondered whether this was the sort of career that she wanted to take up. We all know what happens to institutions when they fail to attract the brightest and the best young people. Slowly, perhaps, but surely, they atrophy and wither.
You see the connection. If ‘science’ comes to be seen by young people as the sort of institution where Climategate happens, and where scientists insult and condemn each other, its future is not bright. Of course, this negative reaction would happen only at the margins; but it is at the margins where we will find the really wonderful young people that we need. I cannot prescribe, indeed I can scarcely imagine, how the spirit of non-violence that has inspired the political world can be imported effectively into science. But I would argue that it is an attempt that is well worth making, even for the future of science itself.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
eadler: In hindsight I edit my line “That remark is insulting to the moderators, Anthony, and the readership here, eadler, all of whom welcome balanced opinion — which your post is.”
I replace it with: “That remark is insulting to the moderators, Anthony, and the readership here, eadler, all of whom welcome opinion.”
Reconciliation? As compromise, no. Can science advance though political compromises about the explanation for observations? The clash of ideas often advances understanding. A better model is the drawn-out dispute between Gamow and Hoyle: Gamow’s neutron fusion failed for mass numbers 5 and 8; Hoyle’s stellar fusion succeeded, but could not explain initiation. Others built upon both theories to produce the current explanation. Nonetheless, “first cause” remains an open issue, among others.
The “remedy” proposed for CAGW involves major demolition of the basis for current advances in human welfare. Diversion of farmland to produce ethanol is a case in point (food affordability and starvation). Banning DDT in all its forms and applications is another (malaria). Banning CFC has little effect other than price increases and corporate favors; the ozone hole remains constant (D’Aleo).
The remedy by political elites remind me of a line from Shrek: “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.” – Farquaad
Cynthia Lauren Thorpe says: (February 23, 2011 at 8:21 pm)
They’ve disarmed Australia with the ‘set up’ they staged in Tasmania.
You crossed the line with that sentence, Cynthia. A lot of people were killed by a crazy gunman that afternoon. I disagree with the severity of the gun laws that sprang from it; but there was no “set up” and you owe a large and humble apology to your new country of choice for even suggesting it.
Anthony; moderators: Please see “Port Arthur massacre (Australia)” and consider very careful moderation of Cynthia’s comments in future.
Cindy;
Streamofconsciousness chat-chat doesn’t communicate on paper. So solly.
trivia notes:
“useful fools” (not “tools”)
Hawking, Stephen
Coincidentally, just now listening the great TV philosopher, Greg Gutfeld (Red Eye), and he noted that in any shooting incident, the arrival of a second person with a gun ends it.
eadler,
“Since the aerosals alone would create a cooling trend, and the anthropogenic emission of GHG’s create the main warming trend, the aerosals couldn’t be responsible for warming, despite the uncertainty in trend that you mention.”
Variation in aerosol forcing can create a cooling or warming trend depending on whether they are increasing or decreasing respectively. CO2 forcing which is proportional to the log of its concentration could not have caused the mid-century cooling nor the relatively steep upward temperature trend of the 80s and 90s. The uncertainty in aerosol forcing was particularly helpful to the climate models in “matching” the 20th century climate despite significant disagreement among them on climate sensitivity. But this helpful little buddy, could easily have performed a similar role for solar, and possibly could have handled the task of matching the 20th century warming without any variation in solar or CO2.
Recall that in the 20th century the proportion of energy from petroleum was increasing, the 50s, 60s, and 70s saw the boom and decline in use of leaded gasoline, and it also saw the peak of acid and then significant reduction of acid raid due to sulfate aerosols. Notice that the IPCC groups aerosols with CO2 in anthropogenic forcings, and discounts natural forcings alone as being able to explain the recent part of the warming. Well if you group things a little differently, the solar grand maximum could explain the 20th century warming, with the same kind of aerosol curve fitting that helped CO2 forcing. The uncertainty in aerosol forcing also served as good cover for the model inability to reproduce the observed multi-decadal climate modes were in phases that help explain both the mid-century cooling and the acceleration of warming in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Where does the reality probably lie? Most of the warming since the little ice age is due to solar, which plateaued at a grand maximum for the last 60 years of the 20th century. CO2 probably contributed about 30% of the warming since 1950. Aerosols and climate modes and volcanoes sculptured the details of the temperature curve. Any greater contribution from CO2 requires net positive feedbacks to CO2 forcing that act in decadal time frames without crossing climate tipping points, for which is there is no model independent evidence. We need a longer sample of high quality data, better models subjected to perhaps a couple decades of less accommodating peer review. A really interesting couple solar cycles would help increase our understanding and may be arriving just in time. With these we might reach a scientific consensus rather than an ideologically imposed one.
Those of us who love science really want to know and understand, we don’t trust those that want to cover up and withhold the evidence rather than follow it, and who want to express confidence where they should acknowledge uncertainty. We don’t trust them because they aren’t like us, they don’t love science, they aren’t sharing our quest to know and understand. The climategate revelations were shocking, cathartic and really, really sad and disappointing. I cried, and still tear up if I think about them very much. Don’t let them tell you that everybody is two faced when they get behind closed doors, because everybody isn’t, but those who tell you that almost certainly are. Climategate is sad, not just because of what those people were doing to the science, but also because of what they are missing. If you have ever been at the whiteboard at M.I.T. or Caltech or our national or corporate laboratories with the very best minds, you know what I mean. It is refreshing, cleansing, challenging and enlightening. Did the authors of the climategate emails sound like they wanted to be challenged and enlightened or did they sound like they had an agenda?
Know the thirst. Follow the evidence. Let the chips fall where they may. Welcome to the quest!
Well said Martin.
Martin Lewitt says:
February 24, 2011 at 3:16 am
eadler,
“Since the aerosals alone would create a cooling trend, and the anthropogenic emission of GHG’s create the main warming trend, the aerosals couldn’t be responsible for warming, despite the uncertainty in trend that you mention.”
Variation in aerosol forcing can create a cooling or warming trend depending on whether they are increasing or decreasing respectively. CO2 forcing which is proportional to the log of its concentration could not have caused the mid-century cooling nor the relatively steep upward temperature trend of the 80s and 90s. The uncertainty in aerosol forcing was particularly helpful to the climate models in “matching” the 20th century climate despite significant disagreement among them on climate sensitivity. But this helpful little buddy, could easily have performed a similar role for solar, and possibly could have handled the task of matching the 20th century warming without any variation in solar or CO2.
Looking at the attribution graph I referenced from AR4, showing the temperature contributions to the temperature change of between 1900 and 1990. Aerosals and GHG’s dominate with natural factors accounting for very little for all 5 different models, even accounting for uncertainty.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-9.html
Recall that in the 20th century the proportion of energy from petroleum was increasing, the 50s, 60s, and 70s saw the boom and decline in use of leaded gasoline, and it also saw the peak of acid and then significant reduction of acid raid due to sulfate aerosols. Notice that the IPCC groups aerosols with CO2 in anthropogenic forcings, and discounts natural forcings alone as being able to explain the recent part of the warming. Well if you group things a little differently, the solar grand maximum could explain the 20th century warming, with the same kind of aerosol curve fitting that helped CO2 forcing. The uncertainty in aerosol forcing also served as good cover for the model inability to reproduce the observed multi-decadal climate modes were in phases that help explain both the mid-century cooling and the acceleration of warming in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
This doesn’t appear to be the case looking at the graph of 5 model results that I linked.
In addition, the results of 58 simulations with 14 different models don’t agree with your statement. Natural forcings can’t account for the warming in the last 40 years and the blue line in the following link, which indicates only natural forcings shows a temperature decline since 1955. This indicates that the known natural factors cannot account for any of the warming since then.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-5.html
In fact, the decline of global sulfate aerosals since the 1970’s has been very small, 0 to 10Tgs, compared to the increase since 1950, about 45Tgs, if you examine the graph shown in fig. 6 of the following link.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-much-did-aerosols-contribute-to-mid-20th-century-cooling.html
Where does the reality probably lie? Most of the warming since the little ice age is due to solar, which plateaued at a grand maximum for the last 60 years of the 20th century. CO2 probably contributed about 30% of the warming since 1950. Aerosols and climate modes and volcanoes sculptured the details of the temperature curve. Any great1er contribution from CO2 requires net positive feedbacks to CO2 forcing that act in decadal time frames without crossing climate tipping points, for which is there is no model independent evidence. We need a longer sample of high quality data, better models subjected to perhaps a couple decades of less accommodating peer review. A really interesting couple solar cycles would help increase our understanding and may be arriving just in time. With these we might reach a scientific consensus rather than an ideologically imposed one.
There is ample evidence to indicate positive feedback due to albedo and water vapor. There is an evidence of ideologically motivated resistance to the scientific consensus based on the work of the past 40 years.
Those of us who love science really want to know and understand, we don’t trust those that want to cover up and withhold the evidence rather than follow it, and who want to express confidence where they should acknowledge uncertainty. We don’t trust them because they aren’t like us, they don’t love science, they aren’t sharing our quest to know and understand. The climategate revelations were shocking, cathartic and really, really sad and disappointing. I cried, and still tear up if I think about them very much. Don’t let them tell you that everybody is two faced when they get behind closed doors, because everybody isn’t, but those who tell you that almost certainly are. Climategate is sad, not just because of what those people were doing to the science, but also because of what they are missing. If you have ever been at the whiteboard at M.I.T. or Caltech or our national or corporate laboratories with the very best minds, you know what I mean. It is refreshing, cleansing, challenging and enlightening. Did the authors of the climategate emails sound like they wanted to be challenged and enlightened or did they sound like they had an agenda?
Know the thirst. Follow the evidence. Let the chips fall where they may. Welcome to the quest!
I have presented scientific evidence from the literature that shows that your statements about the state of the science are wrong. Declines in aerosol cannot be responsible for warming, over the past 40 years, because there has been no significant decline.
There is an element of contradiction here. The selected emails of publicized by the so called skeptics would not be used as definitive of the general state of climate science by someone who is interested in scientific method. It would be interesting to get copies of emails sent by Lindzen, Michaels, Soon, Baliunas etc.
The institutions that investigated the Climategate emails did not charge any scientists with misconduct. If there were transgressions by scientists, they pale in comparison to the misstatements of the state of the science by skeptics such as Monckton, Morano, Lindzen, Michaels and their ilk.
REPLY: “it would be interesting to get emails….” Well I’d settle for you responding to my request yesterday. You said you wrote a paper. I offered to take a look, unless I’ve somehow missed it I haven’t seen you respond to that. Since you brought it up, yes I’d like to have a look at it. Please provide a link – Anthony
REPLY: “it would be interesting to get emails….” Well I’d settle for you responding to my request yesterday. You said you wrote a paper. I offered to take a look, unless I’ve somehow missed it I haven’t seen you respond to that. Since you brought it up, yes I’d like to have a look at it. Please provide a link – Anthony
My memory is imperfect, but I don’t recall saying that I wrote a paper. You must be thinking of someone else. I can’t find anywhere on this thread where I said that. I have never written any published paper on climate. Only comment posts.
eadler,
If you read your skepticalscience blog citation, you will see them quote the IPCC assessment of uncertainty on aerosol forcing:
“According to the IPCC, the total (direct + indirect) radiative forcing due to anthropogenic aerosols could range anywhere from -0.4 to -2.7 Watts per square meter (W/m2), although the most likely value is -1.2 W/m2.”
Recall that even Hansen’s assessment of the energy imbalance of the 90s was 0.85W/m^2. So the aerosol uncertainty is two to three times larger than the phenomenon of interest.
Global brightening and dimming is still an active area of research, correlated with the mid-century cooling and the recent warming:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011470.shtml
It merited a special section in JGR last year:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009JD012841.shtml
The significance of aerosol uncertainty should not be underestimated:
“Studies attributing 20th Century global warming
to various natural and human-induced forcing
changes clearly are hindered by these uncertainties
in radiative forcing, especially in the
solar and aerosol components….
The large uncertainties in aerosol forcing
are a more important reason that the observed
late 20th Century warming cannot be used to
provide a sharp constraint on climate sensitivity”
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-1/final-report/sap3-1-final-ch4.pdf
Martin Lewitt says:
February 24, 2011 at 9:59 am
eadler,
If you read your skepticalscience blog citation, you will see them quote the IPCC assessment of uncertainty on aerosol forcing:
“According to the IPCC, the total (direct + indirect) radiative forcing due to anthropogenic aerosols could range anywhere from -0.4 to -2.7 Watts per square meter (W/m2), although the most likely value is -1.2 W/m2.”
Recall that even Hansen’s assessment of the energy imbalance of the 90s was 0.85W/m^2. So the aerosol uncertainty is two to three times larger than the phenomenon of interest.
I think what you need to look at is the net anthropogenic forcing including GHG and aerosols. Here is a diagram from skeptical science that shows that aerosal forcing is negative, despite the large uncertainty, and global warming is positive and that the uncertainty is insufficient to make the net anthropogenic warming negative. As has been pointed out, natural forcings are negative, which makes the net forcing of +0.85 less that the most probable value of anthropogenic forcing. There is little doubt that the net Anthropogenic forcing is positive, and driven that way by GHG’s, despite the uncertainty associated with aerosols.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Aerosols-as-fudge-factor-NIPCC-vs-Lindzen.html
C L Thorpe said:
Go out into your areas of expertise and become one of the innumerable Bravehearts – whether it be Christ – or, the one of Scottish renown – or, even cute lil’ Mel Gibson, who had the GUTS to star in that film ~ or in that 1/2 face film of his ~ or ~ Conspiracy Theory…or…do you prefer the Patriot……..or…well, you obviously get my drift. I won’t even GO to one of his biggest productions. That man is a HERO, Gentlemen. He used to live across the mountain from where I was in Montana and he’s a HERO. …TILL ~ that is ~ he drinks in Malibu and gets crapped on by everyone in the politically ‘correct’? crowd.
—————————————————————-
I agree with Roger Carr’s comment above re the Port Arthur massacre, and add my concern about endorsing Mel Gibson’s anti semitic comments and the rest of his unpleasant behaviour. Quite inappropriate for WUWT.
Having had the misfortune of meeting Gibson a few times over a long period, I can confirm that he is at best an a**hole of the first water, and certainly no hero.
REPLY: Cynthia is now in a permanent moderation queue, I’m also growing rather tired of her lengthy off topic missives. If she has something relevant to say it will be passed on. – Anthony
eadler,
The situation isn’t as simplistic as the aerosol forcing is negative, and global warming is positive. Aerosol forcing becoming less negative, (solar brightening), can explain or help to explain change from mid-century cooling to late century warming, even if the net aerosol forcing remains in the negative range. You are looking at a web site that hasn’t kept up with recent published work. Since the AR4, reassessments have increased the contribution that black carbon apparently made, one of the aerosols that does contribute to warming.
With an energy imbalance 0.85W/m^2 to be attributed, could the decrease in negative aerosols like SO2, and the increase in black carbon have made the total aerosol contribution say 0.2W/m^2 less negative, since the mid-century cooling? Could the multidecadal climate modes being switching from negative phases to positive warming phases account for another say 0.2W/m^2 effect? Could the remain 0.45 W/m^2 be split between the solar grand maximum and the well mixed greenhouse gasses like CO2?
The model climate sensitivities were considered poorly constrained by the 20th century data, even at the time of the AR4, and that was with the working group I authors giving unwilling to acknowledge any attribution or projection uncertainty due to the various model diagnostic problems. Since the AR4, appreciation for solar variability and black carbon have increased, the model deficiencies in representing the increase in precipitation have been published and confirmed by latent heat flux figures.
What the AGW hypothesis is really lacking, is any evidence that the net feedbacks to CO2 are positive, and that is needed to give the model projections any credibility, because if it isn’t positive then ALL of the AR4 models are wrong. That would not be as surprising as it seems. The model errors are highly correlated in many of the diagnostic studies. There has been perhaps too much model intercomparison, and not enough comparison with the observations.
regards
MartingMartin Lewitt says:
February 24, 2011 at 1:26 pm
eadler,
The situation isn’t as simplistic as the aerosol forcing is negative, and global warming is positive. Aerosol forcing becoming less negative, (solar brightening), can explain or help to explain change from mid-century cooling to late century warming, even if the net aerosol forcing remains in the negative range. You are looking at a web site that hasn’t kept up with recent published work. Since the AR4, reassessments have increased the contribution that black carbon apparently made, one of the aerosols that does contribute to warming.
I agree that black carbon is a contributor to global warming. This article describing recent work on this, says that the estimates don’t show that it overshadows GHG’s.
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2009/07/black-carbon-and-global-warming/
More recent work by Hansen and Ramanathan estimates climate forcing from black carbon to be considerably higher – two to four times higher than IPCC estimates, making it the second largest anthropogenic forcing after CO2. Figure Two shows how estimates of black carbon forcings from Ramanathan and Feng compare to IPCC estimates and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The negative forcing resulting from sulphate aerosols (as discussed in a previous Yale Forum article) still considerably outweighs the positive forcing caused by black carbon, and the increases in estimated forcing by Hansen and Ramanathan relative to the numbers used in the IPCC 2007 report do not necessarily require any reassessment of the positive forcing associated with anthropogenic greenhouse gases, given the wide uncertainty range in negative aerosol forcings.
The recent UN report recommends measures to reduce black carbon, which can reduce temperature increases by 0.5C in the future.
http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/Black_Carbon.pdf
What the AGW hypothesis is really lacking, is any evidence that the net feedbacks to CO2 are positive, and that is needed to give the model projections any credibility, because if it isn’t positive then ALL of the AR4 models are wrong. That would not be as surprising as it seems. The model errors are highly correlated in many of the diagnostic studies. There has been perhaps too much model intercomparison, and not enough comparison with the observations.
It is wrong to say there is no evidence of positive feedback .
You may not agree with these items, but skeptical science has a list of observed positive feedback mechanisms supported by references in the peer reviewed literature.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Empirical-evidence-for-positive-feedback.html
Water vapor, reduction in ocean absorption of CO2, Arctic Sea Ice melting ….
Martin;
It’s all voting, don’t you see? Models express (“project”) the opinions of their “expert” creators, so it’s about them reaching a computerized consensus. Observations are incidental to this process.
LOL
eadler,
The skepticalscience page you cites, does correctly identify positive feedbacks, but as they also admit it is the “net feedback” which matters. The first couple studies report estimates of climate sensitivity across the ice age/interglacial boundary, and aren’t relevant for two reasons, that crosses a tipping point that is not one we would cross in the next couple hundred years, unless the climate was cooling, the second point is that transition is due to solar not CO2. Solar is coupled to the climate quite differently than CO2. I’ve probably read the middle one, but don’t recall it at the moment. The fourth one sounds interesting, but the link is broken. The Tung and Camp article is in the current climate, but once again is a sensitivity to solar based upon the signature of the solar cycle detected in the observations. Lean published a paper disputing the amplitude of the result Tung claimed, detected only about half the response claimed by Tung. The models failed to reproduce either signature.
I’ll try to track down and review the other two, but keep in mind that the net feedback has been known to be key issue in the science, I think we would have heard more about them if they were relevant or persuasive.
The site you keep using seems quite out of date, you would think if they were serious they would also discuss the contrary evidence that have been hot topics in recent years.
Brian H says:
February 24, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Martin;
It’s all voting, don’t you see? Models express (“project”) the opinions of their “expert” creators, so it’s about them reaching a computerized consensus. Observations are incidental to this process.
LOL
Are you denying that the observations of positive feedback mechanisms listed in the skeptical science link has not been made? If so, you are absolutely wrong. Read the link and look at the references. The observations are the basis for inclusion of these mechanisms in the models.
eadler,
“Are you denying that the observations of positive feedback mechanisms listed in the skeptical science link has not been made?”
Didn’t you notice, I agreed with them all:
“The skepticalscience page you cites, does correctly identify positive feedbacks, but as they also admit it is the “net feedback” which matters.”
Did you notice that skepticalscience did not list the negative feedbacks? There might be some subtle ones, but most of the major components of the climate system are negative feedbacks, All the mechanisms which help deliver cool the surface and deliver heat to the top of the atmosphere where it can be radiated into space are negative feedbacks, try evaporation, latent heat release at altitude, convection, precipitation, increased albedo from cloud formation (rejected more solar heat), ocean currents and weather systems which transport heat poleward. Most of the heat from the sun is concentrated in the tropics, transporting if poleward, allows more of the earths surface and atmosphere surface area to radiate the heat away. As your site mentions it is the “net feedback” that matters, they just happened to list only the positive feedbacks. The most important positive feedback is acknowledged to be water vapor, but even water vapor is just one component of the water cycle, and the net feedback from the water cycle may actually be negative.
Even someone less confident than most AGW believers, say just 90% confident like the IPCC authors, should obviously have good model independent evidence for the what the net feedback to CO2 forcing is in the current climate. As noted, model sensitivity is poorly constrained by 20th century data due to uncertainties.
eadler,
I looked at Gregory 2002a, and it is not model independent, it uses estimates of all forcings not just CO2. It assumes the ocean heat uptake in the 19th century because “there is no observational estimate”. It assumes the forcings can be combined linearly:
“Making the usual assumption that forcings can be combined linearly”
And it assumes the climate sensitivity for different forcings is the same:
“The utility of the climate sensitivity also depends on the response being independent of the nature of the agent causing the radiative forcing.”
It ignores internal variability:
“The effect of internal (unforced) variability of the climate system on F0
and Q0 is also neglected, because estimates based on 1300 years of the HadCM3 control run show these fluctuations to be an order of magnitude smaller than the uncertainties.”
http://epic.awi.de/Publications/Gre2002a.pdf
I couldn’t find the full text of the Hoffert (1992) paper, but from the mention in the AR4, it apparently is model based.