[Note: Charlie Martin of the PJ Tattler graciously agrees to have this reprinted here. While he’s taken a bit of artistic license with some claims, such as the “big oil coupon” claim, the gist of it sums up well, but could use some tweaking on details, which I’m sure WUWT readers will enjoy providing. For example, McIntyre and McKittricks’ criticism of the hockey stick math didn’t include full spectrum random numbers, but was red noise. – Anthony]
(I ended up writing this as a lengthy answer to someone on Google+ — might as well let the world see it.)
Here’s what I’ve said so far:
“There are few skeptics (I can’t think of any, and I’ve been reporting on this for two solid years and an interested bystander for several years before that) who don’t believe there has been significant warming since the Little Ice Age, or that humans contribute to it, or that additional CO2 or other greenhouse gases aren’t probably part of that contribution.”
Unless one is arguing that humans are the only cause of global warming — in which case I’d have to point to that big glowing thing in the sky during the daytime — what I said explicitly includes a human contribution and even a greenhouse gas contribution.
Now, the IPCC AR4 model is rather stronger than that: it insists that anthropogenic, greenhouse-gas forced warming is the dominant — so dominant that it leads the unthoughtful to turn it into “only” — cause of global warming. For conciseness, call that the AGW model. Reasons I don’t find that hypotheses convincing include:
(1) from the start, it has depended on very sensitive statistical techniques to tease a signal out of an overall warming that has been going on for 500 years. Refer back to the famous “hockey stick” charts and then look for one with actual error bars: even in the papers making the strongest arguments for the AGW hypothesis have very wide error ranges — so wide that the AGW component barely exceeds the limits of the technique.
(2) the specific methods used for some of the dominant studies turn out to be mathematically flawed. in particular, the methods of Mann _et al_ turn out to present a clear hockey stick no matter what the input data is, including pure random numbers.
A method that detects a signal when there is no signal is necessarily suspect. At best.
Other examples of questionable parts of these results include:
- the methods used to select data points in the GCHN data sets — examined carefully, it turns out that the selected points used to compute GAST and regional temps are, to a *very* high probability, the points from the raw data set that lead to the most warming. Carefully read, the descriptions of the analysis even say that’s a selection criterion: they’re selecting data points that fit the models well — but then testing the models by how well they fit the data.
- actual site locations turn out to very commonly have poor site placement and site changes that would add significant warming. This warming has not been appropriately compensated for. [Note: GHCN3 does handle site changes better, Charlie is probably not aware of it since it is relatively new- Anthony]
- odd ad hoc methods to fit together paleoclimate data and actual temperature measurement, including the famous “hide the decline” patching, and contrariwise the exclusion of recent tree ring data that suggests tree rings may not be as strongly correlated with temperature as we think. The explanations for those exclusions end up looking very ad hoc in themselves.
(3) There is actually extensive literature showing anthropogenic components that are not driven by greenhouse gases. These results have been excluded from the IPCC, often in very questionable ways (cf Roger Pielke Sr’s removal from the IPCC editorial board.)
(4) The predictions of further warming are necessarily based on models. Now, it happens I did my PhD work on Federally funded modeling, from which I developed the NBSR Law (named after the group for which I worked): All modeling efforts will inevitably converge on the result most likely to lead to further funding.
Anyone with a unbiased eye who looks into it will find any number of people who have found that a model that predicts more warming gets funded; a model that predicts relatively less warming gets less funding. Pre-tenure researchers in particular are warned away from results that don’t fit orthodoxy.
(5) The models themselves turn out not to be very predictive. Grossly, you could look at Jim Hansen’s prediction from the 80′s that Manhattan Island would be awash by the 2000′s. More technically, there were a number of models that predicted pretty significant warming, and in fact an increased warming rate, increased 2nd derivative, in the span 1990-2010. In fact, the warming was much smaller than predicted, and the second derivative appears even to have turned negative.
These models are often revised so that after the fact that predict what really happened. This isn’t very satisfactory.
In the mean time, actual observation, as eg with Dick Lindzen’s recent paper, simply isn’t fitting the models very well. As Granddaddy used to say “if the bird book and the bird disagree, believe the bird.”
(6) It’s unclear how the AGW hypothesis can be falsified in its current form. Certainly, anecdotally, there are people who predict that unusual warm spells are a sign of global warming, as are unusual cold spells. Should we have a period of unusually small variation, there are people who have suggested that as an effect of global warming. And in any case, simply observing warming doesn’t allow one to infer the truth of AGW as a hypothesis.
(7) The arguments against the skeptics turn out to be unscientific, and often unprofessional, in the extreme.
These range from the common — “the consensus is” — to the ad hominem, and even to outright attempts to suppress free inquiry.
“The consensus is” neglects the fact that science isn’t decided by consensus, not permanently at least. (At one time, the consensus was that fire involved a special elemental substance called phlogiston; at another, it was that atoms were indivisible and unchangeable; not so long ago, it was that light was a wave in a literally ethereal substance called the “luminiferous aether.” If consensus precluded further testing, we would still believe those today.)
The ad hominems include the way that anyone who ever received so much at a 10 cents off gas coupon from a service station is accused of being in the pay of Big Oil. Sometimes, the ad hominems are frank lies, but they get out into the AGW enthusiast community and are treated as truth.
And, well, anyone who read the ClimateGate files knows about actual attempts to suppress certain authors and papers. Perhaps it’s not fair to call it “conspiracy”, but the fact is that there is clear and unequivocal evidence of collusion and bullying on authors, reporters, and journal editorial boards.
If the AGW arguments are that strong, they don’t need collusion and bullying.
So, this is a very long piece considering I’m not getting paid to write it; let me summarize.
First of all, what *I* said wasn’t what you supposed I’d said. It would be worth considering what else you _think_ you’ve read recently for other cases.
Second, to the extent that I have a position, as I said, I think warming is unequivocal, a human contribution very probable, and the magnitude of that contribution in the face of feedbacks and homeostasis currently unknown and on the very edge of what we can actually measure.
And third, I don’t think the AGW enthusiasts consider the costs and benefits of AGW amelioration versus the other possibilities. If preventing a sea level rise of one meter means dooming future generations in the Third World to sickness, hunger, and darkness, it’s not worth it.
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My arguments against the theory of Greenhouse warming is that there are violations of the laws of thermodynamics, the heat predicted in the upper troposphere cannot be found and the heating is not necessary for maintenance of the surface average (?) temperature of 15C. Adiabatic compression works as well and actually happens in fact.
After my last post I paid a visit to Morano’s Climate Depot and found a very interesting link:
http://climate-change-theory.com/
I reproduce a paragraph (b) which supports my coolist position:
b) That, because nitrogen and oxygen do not radiate much heat themselves at atmospheric temperatures, then the heat they do acquire by conduction from the surface must be transferred also by molecular collision to greenhouse gas molecules. These GHG molecules can emit IR radiation and so, indirectly, they cool 98% of all atmospheric molecules.
Imagine that the Earth’s atmosphere were made simply of oxygen and nitrogen and no other greenhouse gasses. Because oxygen and nitrogen are less effective radiators than the so called greenhouse gasses the mean temperature of the atmosphere would have to be much warmer in order for the radiative energy output of the atmosphere to space to equal that of the incoming solar radiation. If we add a single molecule of CO2 this would pick up energy from oxygen and nitrogen through thermal collisions and radiate more effectively thus increasing the radiative output of the atmosphere to space. Add a million, a billion and then a trillion more and the radiative output will increase thus cooling the atmosphere until a new thermal equilibrium is reached at lower mean climate temperatures. The rule is: more greenhouse gasses equals more radiative output and thus lower mean global temperatures. The simple and logical extension of this to climate sensitivity (largely through water vapour) is that climate sensitivity is negative.
While I realise this idea is heresy on a supposed AGW sceptic website where the majority of contributors actually endore the AGW position albeit with a belief in a lower climate sensitivity, I do hope you will consider the coolist position and be prepared toreview your AGW credentials!
If you are prepared to consider the possibility that oxygen and nitrogen are less effective greenhouse gasses than CO2 and water vapor you must in consequence accept the concommitant paradigm shift and see the electronic emission gasses as cooling gases without which the planet would be much warmer. You will then become a coolist like me and see the paradigm you currently endorse i.e. that AGW is real as a false one. As it is the AGW scam survives not inspite of AGW sceptics but because of them!
Get cool!
Philbert’s Daddy;
Correction: far more surely than weather. Fuel poverty starvation trumps direct and indirect weather deaths by at least an order of magnitude. But global fuel poverty is the prescription.
Here’s a quote from the tortuously titled Greenhouse Development Rights Framework report linked by Annie above:
To aid in calculating how much, the RCI (Responsibility and Capacity Index) is touted as the brilliant new billing guideline.
Correction: quoted by Anne, not Annie. Totally different gal, my mistake.
;p
I wish I believed in strong AGW. We’re gonna need it when the ice sheets start to march again, tomorrow or the day after. But we should give it our best shot; at least the world’s flora will love us. Which is a VERY good thing.
eco-geek says:
September 2, 2011 at 3:31 am
If you are prepared to consider the possibility that oxygen and nitrogen are less effective greenhouse gasses than CO2 and water vapor you must in consequence accept the concommitant paradigm shift and see the electronic emission gasses as cooling gases without which the planet would be much warmer.
As I understand it the theory is that without greenhouse gases the radiation to space would be from the Earth’s surface itself rather than from the cloud tops at 5km.
This would be at a lower temperature than we have on the surface due to the insulating effect of water vapour and co2.
Nuke Nemesis says: September 1, 2011 at 10:22 am
The reasons to be a believer are: 1) It’s warmed 2) CO2 has increased 3) CO2 is a greenhouse gas … 5) Man burns fossil fuels, which release CO2 into the atmosphere … Really, that’s all they got.
Hi Nuke. You neglect to mention the pattern of the warming. Night > day, winter > summer, polar > equitorial. What mechanisms can you think of that could be responsible for this? Also, consider reading Knutti and Hegerl 2008 (http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf) on the ten differing approaches used to estimate climate sensitivity, their strengths, weaknesses and results. Are you sure “that’s all they got”?
Jay Davis says: September 1, 2011 at 2:13 pm
My reason for being a skeptic is very simple – no AGW adherent has been able to coherently explain to me why the glaciers retreated so rapidly 10 – 12 thousand years ago without the help of mankind.
Hi Jay. Have you looked up orbital forcing and Milankovitch cycles?
“There are few skeptics (I can’t think of any, and I’ve been reporting on this for two solid years and an interested bystander for several years before that) who don’t believe there has been significant warming since the Little Ice Age, or that humans contribute to it, or that additional CO2 or other greenhouse gases aren’t probably part of that contribution.”
You should spend some time reading the WUWT comments. Perhaps what you are saying is people who claim no significant warming since the LIA or that humans have not contributed to this warming or that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas are not skeptics but something else (if only there was another term which could describe these non-skeptics).
Charlie Martin says:
“There are few skeptics (I can’t think of any, and I’ve been reporting on this for two solid years and an interested bystander for several years before that) who don’t believe there has been significant warming since the Little Ice Age, or that humans contribute to it, or that additional CO2 or other greenhouse gases aren’t probably part of that contribution.”
it seems abundantly clear that the recent temperature rise is not caused by the rise in CO2 levels.
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism
we know that carbon dioxide definitely did not cause the recent warming
There is absolutely no rational basis for the claim that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are causing or have caused global warming
The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length
It is pretty easy to find contrarians who dispute the greeenhouse effect and any human contribution to it.
tallbloke,
The simplistic warmist model you describe is one from erroneous elementary school textbooks. If in the absence of GHGs the surface of the earth radiated energy directly into space then we would be walking around in pools of liquid gas. In fact most heat from the surface (>80%) is taken up by the atmosphere by conduction, convection and latent heat of evaporation of water. Try turning on your central heating then holding the flat of your palm 18″ away from the vertical face of a radiator (where radiative effects dominate) then do the same with the flat of your palm facing down 18″ above the radiator (where conductive, convective effects dominate). Which warms your hand the most? The term “radiator” is a misnomer as most heat leaves the radiator through convection. It is really a convection heater.
So with a simple oxygen, nitrogen atmosphere the heat content must be radiated away into space but as these gasses are not effective radiators the temperature of the atmosphere would have to increase until the radiative equilibrium was reached. With the introduction of GHGs such as H2O CO2 and methane which radiate well, the temperature of the atmosphere will fall to a lower equilibrium value. GHGs cause global cooling. The link in my second post suggests that 98% of radiative heat loss is due to GHGs.
Note the reason that the tiny amounts of CO2 that have appeared in the atmosphere of late (due to global warming caused by higher levels of solar activity) have not resulted in much observable cooling. This is because:
1) Solar effects dominate (magnetic field strength, solar wind, cosmic ray decreases (less cloud cover) increased coupling of solar flare lateral currents into the oceans via the coupling of helio/geo magnetic fields etc.)
2) Climate sensitivity produces negative feedback. As CO2 levels produce cooling due to increased radiative loss the cooling reduces the net evaporation from the oceans so the radiative loss due to water vapour is correspondingly reduced thus the cooling effect of additional CO2 in the atmosphere is largely negated by the warming effect of reduced water vapour content in the atmosphere.
In brief, although CO2 emissions do produce global cooling the amount is extremely small and likely to be even less than the reduction of solar irradiance at the Earth’s surface due to the initial interception of this radiation by the additional CO2 which only acts on very small fraction of the solar BB spectrum well down the IR end.
So while I am a coolist I conceed that cooling caused by CO2 is in practice embarassingly small.
eco-geek says:
September 2, 2011 at 12:56 am
Me? I believe that CO2 causes global cooling but I get no coverage anywhere – except for the baco-foil….
Eco-geek I have stated many times here and elsewhere that all gases disspate heat. O2 and N2 via conduction with terra firma and CO2 via a way you mention. Without this dissipation property of gases our lives could not exist as they do.
Eco-geek
I agree that CO2 can cause local cooling in the manner you describe (translational motion transfered by collision to a GHG that may radiate it), but I have to disagree with:
No, the radiative equilibrium would be with the surface, not the atmosphere. Without GHG’s (including water vapor) and clouds (water) the “atmospheric window” would be 100% and there would be no greenhouse effect. [However, If Ozone (3 oxygens) is still present in your hypothetical Oxygen Hydrogen atmosphere it would maintain a greenhouse effect of some magnitude depending on it’s concentration.]
That’s hypothetical Oxygen Nitrogen atmosphere. LOL. Why aren’t these things visable before posting.
Kevin, maybe that paragraph is a little too concise or something. I guess first of all I should have said “serious skeptics”. As to the other points, well, we know there has been warming — that’s how we know there was a Little Ice Age. We’re pretty darn sure that there’s a greenhouse effect — that’s gone past in these comments; if there weren’t, the temperature on Earth would be dramatically colder. I do’t remember the black-body equilibrium temperature exactly, but foggily recall it as -30C, something like 250 kelvin. Given those two points, and the assumption that humans are contributing something to CO2 level, it follows necessarily that humans are making some anthropogenic contribution.
What you can’t conclude is the magnitude of that contribution.
Charlie Martin says:
“Kevin, maybe that paragraph is a little too concise or something.”
In truth, the whole article suffers from a lack of precision.
Charlie Martin says:
“Unless one is arguing that humans are the only cause of global warming — in which case I’d have to point to that big glowing thing in the sky during the daytime — what I said explicitly includes a human contribution and even a greenhouse gas contribution.
Simply pointing out the existence Sol does not demonstrate anything in itself and those who dismiss it as major contributor to recent changes in the climate do so with good reason. There is a significant body of work looking at the sun’s contribution to recent warming (see, for example; http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0901/0901.0515v1.pdf, here and here) and it is unlikely that it is a primary contributor to it.
Charlie Martin says:
“it [the AR4 model] has depended on very sensitive statistical techniques to tease a signal out of an overall warming”
The IPCC case is not dependent on modelling or statistics, there is a wealth of physical observations: we know that CO² concentrations are increasing in the atmosphere; isotopic analysis confirms that this increase in anthropogenic in origin; spectral analysis tells us that CO² and; satellite and ground observations show that the absorption and emission spectra of the atmosphere is changing in those wavelengths where CO² absorbs and emits. These are actual measurable, physical phenomena that underpin the AGW theory.
Charlie Martin says:
Anyone with a unbiased eye who looks into it will find any number of people who have found that a model that predicts more warming gets funded; a model that predicts relatively less warming gets less funding. Pre-tenure researchers in particular are warned away from results that don’t fit orthodoxy.I don’t know if this is true, but even if it is it could simply be because those models that fit orthodoxy are more accurate. This would be easy enough to demonstrate with hindcasting comparisons. Are you aware of any such studies or is this just a specious assertion?
Charlie Martin says:
“It’s unclear how the AGW hypothesis can be falsified”
No its not. The AGW theory has a latitudinal, atmospheric, seasonal and diurnal fingerprint that differentiate it from solar warming.
Kevin MacDonald says:
“The AGW theory…”
AGW is not a theory.
Let me add another reason from the Climategate emails – the software implementation of the mathematical/physical models is inadequate. HARRY_README.TXT. Anyone with a STEM background can look at that file and read an engineer desperately trying (and failing) to recreate previously published data, “playing” with things until they “look right”, finding straight-up falsifications (“fudge factor”). And of course, for that data set, only some intermediate, already partially processed data was available, with the original untouched data completely gone missing.
<i?Simply pointing out the existence Sol does not demonstrate anything in itself and those who dismiss it as major contributor to recent changes in the climate do so with good reason.
Kevin, you’re being silly, and confounding “warming” with anthropogenic warming in the bargain. With no Sun, no amount of anthropogenic CO2 would make a lot of difference.
The IPCC case is not dependent on modelling or statistics, there is a wealth of physical observations: we know that CO² concentrations are increasing in the atmosphere; isotopic analysis confirms that this increase in anthropogenic in origin; spectral analysis tells us that CO² and; satellite and ground observations show that the absorption and emission spectra of the atmosphere is changing in those wavelengths where CO² absorbs and emits. These are actual measurable, physical phenomena that underpin the AGW theory.
Kevin, are you at all familiar with how this stuff is done? First of all, you’re point about the case not depending on statistics or modeling is simply wrong — the data you’re mentioning are inherently statistical. CO2 concentration varies from place to place, and over time; the increase — which I don’t question — can only be measured by applying statistical techniques to a large collection of actual measurements. On the other end, measurements of radiativity themselves use instruments with significant measurement error; statistical techniques are used to estimate the “real” values and eliminate measurement error. And the IPCC’s estimates of expected future warming are necessarily the product of modeling.
I don’t know if this is true, but even if it is it could simply be because those models that fit orthodoxy are more accurate. This would be easy enough to demonstrate with hindcasting comparisons. Are you aware of any such studies or is this just a specious assertion?
You’re right: it could be. That doesn’t mean it is. I’m personally aware of the difficulties that Roger Pielke Sr has had since the anathema was pronounced; I’ve met younger scientists who told me of being told flat out that experiments that questioned any point of the AGW hypothesis would mean the end of their scientific careers. And anyone who read the Climategate emails can find examples of collusive interference with some hypotheses or experiments being published.
“It’s unclear how the AGW hypothesis can be falsified”
No its not.
Yes it is. If it were clear, well, the fact is that several of the items you mention haven’t behaved according to the original predictions would have already served as a falsification.
Smokey, AGW is indeed a theory.
chasrmartin,
AGW does not fit the scientific definition of a theory. A theory as at least one nontrivial validating datum, and is generally able to make consistent, accurate predictions. AGW has no testable, replicable validating data per the scientiffic method, and numerous predictions based on the AGW hypothesis have been routinely falsified. Therefore AGW is not a theory. It is at most a hypothesis, or even a conjecture.
>> “The models themselves turn out not to be very predictive. Grossly, you could look at Jim Hansen’s prediction from the 80′s that Manhattan Island would be awash by the 2000′s.”
Models are able to hindcast and have predicted the short term cooling effects of volcanoes like Mt. Pinatubo. Also, the Hansen prediction you cite is bunk.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Examining-Hansens-prediction-about-the-West-Side-Highway.html
Opinion pieces… everybody’s got one.
Smokey, some guy’s blog post isn’t sufficient support for a somewhat idiosyncratic definition, and note that his four candidate elements of his hierarchy aaren’t supported by citation: they’re his own attempt at definition. Several parts of the definition are in fact self-refuting, eg, his assertion of Newtonian mechanics as a “law”, which he defies as “4. A law is a theory that has received validation in all possible ramifications, and to known levels of accuracy.” In fact, Newtonian mechanics is a good approximation, but is not consistent with actual observation within the limits of current measurements: we can, for example, observe relativistic time dilatation with accurate clocks in ordinary life.
A little wider reading in philosophy of science and formal logic would be of use here. Let me recommend Popper’s Logik der Forschuung; if you don’t do German, try the English Logic of Scientific Discovery, or read his autobiography, which discusses his theory in more popular terms.
Mr. Martin says”There are few skeptics … who don’t believe there has been significant warming since the Little Ice Age …”. Actually, it’s the AGW believers, or some of them, who deny this on the ground that there was no Little Ice Age.