While the GAO issues a report today saying that the US Historical Climatological Monitoring Network has real tangible problems (as I have been saying for years) the Inspector General just released a report this week saying that EPA rushed their CO2 endangerment finding, skipping annoying steps like doing proper review. The lone man holding up his hand at the EPA saying “wait a minute” was Alan Carlin, who was excoriated for doing so.
From Powerline Blog:
Here’s a refresher: in 2009, when the EPA announced its “endangerment” finding to justify its planned regulation of greenhouse gases under 
the Clean Air Act, Alan Carlin, a 35-year veteran EPA employee who ran the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics, produced a 98-page critique of the climate science the EPA used in its finding. Carlin’s report concluded, “We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by the EPA.”
You can guess what happened next. The Obama Administration, the one supposedly dedicated to transparency and “restoring science” in public policy making, squashed Carlin’s report and told him to cease and desist any further analysis on climate change issues. Carlin’s supervisor (a political appointee) emailed his: “I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research, etc.” Shortly after this episode Carlin left EPA. (By the way, Carlin was the chairman of the Los Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club in California at one time, and helped with the Sierra Club’s campaign to stop two dam projects back in the 1960s. In other words, he’s no right-wing ideologue, as the smears of the climate campaigners would have you think.)
This story is relevant again this week not simply for the obvious hypocrisy and double standard (insert the old joke about liberals and double-standards here), but because the issue of the EPA’s climate science has resurfaced in the form of an EPA inspector general’s report that essentially says that Carlin was right about the EPA’s shoddy scientific review. Here’s the New York Times account from Wednesday:
In a report with wide-reaching political implications, U.S. EPA’s inspector general has found that the scientific assessment backing U.S. EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous did not go through sufficient peer review for a document of its importance. . .
According to the IG report, EPA failed to follow the Office of Management and Budget’s peer review procedures for a “highly influential scientific assessment,” which is defined as an assessment that could have an impact of more than $500 million in one year and is “novel, controversial, or precedent setting.”
In particular, the document was reviewed by a 12-member panel that included an EPA employee, violating rules on neutrality. EPA also did not make the review results public, as required, or certify whether it complied with internal or OMB requirements.
In a statement, IG Arthur Elkins Jr. emphasized that his office “did not test the validity of the scientific or technical information used to support the endangerment finding.”
“While it may be debatable what impact, if any, this had on EPA’s finding, it is clear that EPA did not follow all required steps for a highly influential scientific assessment,” he said.
Roger Pielke Jr. observes how the climate campaigners are all circling the wagons, saying “move along, nothing to see here,” and noting that “I’d speculate that these observers would have had different reactions had this report been requested by Henry Waxman in 2006 about the last administration’s EPA. . . during the Bush Administration concern about processes to ensure scientific integrity were all the rage. At that time it was generally understood that process matters, not simply because it helps to improve the quality of scientific assessments, but also because it helps to establish their legitimacy in the political process. One sneers at process at some risk.”
More at Powerline Blog
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I’m proud to say that Alan used materials from WUWT in his report, and that he has been vindicated for standing up to the sloppy rush job.
Thank you Mr. Carlin, for having integrity where others did not.
UPDATE: Climatologist Pat Michaels sums up the whole affair pretty well at Forbes: The EPA’s Endangerment Finding Is Very Endangered
“used materials from WUWT in his report”
Yes, it rather showed.
REPLY: And yet, he was right and you’re demonstrating again that you are just an angry troll, contributing nothing but snark here. -Anthony
In Australia at the moment, The impression I am getting as compared to a year or two ago is that the subject is practically dead. No one is interested and there will be no tax as I think Gillard and even the greens realize there is no AGW. This story will probably nail it.
Don’t forget, about a year later, Babs Boxer and Lisa Jackson both testified that even though the endangerment finding said it used the CRU/IPCC “Gold standard,” they really relied on NASA data–which NASA had admitted days earlier was so bad it had substituted the CRU numbers.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/boxer-jackson-admit-epas-co2-finding-based-on-fail/
This surely shows that Carlin is vindicated and it confirms that WUWT is having some impact on getting “it” right, “it” being both the science and the politics.
Let’s hope Carlin is getting proper attention on this and any damage he may have experienced is corrected.
It’s good to see these actions bringing the warmists to account. They’ve had free rein for too long. Whether it be the warmists or the skeptics, most use good science and come to different conclusions. That’s fine. It’s the messages that get politicized and the data and conclusions that are fudged for idealogical reasons that give all climatologists a bad rap. I support some constraints on the EPA to get things right.
Andrew Andrew Andrew… of course they know there is no AGW and the existence of it or not has absolutely nothing to do with their plans to tax tax tax and to take more power. When it is quietest is when you need to fear most because you will never convert these people with facts.
from the co-chair of IPPC…
But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.—Ottmar Edenhoffer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
Congrats to Mr. Carlin ! I remember printing his study/report out and reading it in its jaw dropping (at the time) entirety. Ahead of his time in calling the EPA out…
Richard Telford –I suppose if they used material from Real Climate it would have been OK.
The people who contributed to the Inspector General’s report better pray that President Zero is defeated in 2012, or look for new jobs.
The whole idea of “due process when it suits us” around CAGW and CO2 is insult using a broad brush. And for the same people to launch into AdHom tirades when confronted with the double standard (and the crappy science) is basically applying a second coat of tar. Mr. Carlin is old-school, and brave enough to stand behind his principles. Pretty funny that he got smeared as right-wing. Well, not so funny, but certainly illustrative of the apparent eschewing of data and facts by those with the tar bucket.
Yes, Carlin has been right all along. You can read him at http://www.carlineconomics.com
Yes. That was under the direction of the execrable Carol Browner. A lawyer that pretended to be a scientist. Perhaps one of the dumbest, but perhaps the most vicious, to serve in modern times. A true scientific dolt, she demonstrated amply that ignorance and incomprehension was no bar to being in our government.
Folks, this is the end game of CAGW “science” – control of our lives through onerous regulations such as those proposed by the EPA. And, of course, there’s the BILLIONS of dollars in climate ca$h to spread around…
If a senior manager in the private sector was shown to have manipulated a design review process (in an FDA regulated environment) during an audit the senior manager might end up with his office taped shut and his files removed. At a minimum the auditors would be spending a lot of time talking to the senior manager and the members of the design review team……………
Could it be possible to hope that the called for hearings and investigation will disclose the whitewash that was applied to the most incredulous claims the IPCC has made?
I have read quotes where Senator Inhofe has painted a target on few peoples backs that have gone out of their way to try and humiliate him by consensus. Is this the opening he has been looking for to finally pull the trigger?
Climate scientist Kevin Trenberth said “There is nothing here that undermines the EPA’s way forward.”
Guess I could be wrong I am pretty sure that says “Move along nothing here to see.”
Those that build little empires within government or other such controlling/regulatory bodies under the auspices of government, need to be reminded – constantly – that they are PUBLIC servants and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law when they are shown to FAIL the public. There is no excuse – when a doctor behaves badly, they are struck off – these people should lose their jobs and pensions, etc, etc – for any proven disingenious behaviour. It might make them think twice before putting themselves and their dictatorial tendencies first!
I couldn’t help but notice at least half a dozen attempts to bolster the “science” in the NYT article. Total spin job from the NYT on this one.
It ain’t over till the fat lady sings. The fat lady in this is the UNFCCC. See the story here:
U.N. Seeks to Raise ‘Level of Ambition’ in World Climate Regulations
The 2009 Copenhagen climate summit may have failed, but its objectives, and the United Nations’ determination to realize them, are very much alive.
Global airline carbon taxes, taxes on shipping, sweeping changes in land use, and an even bigger squeeze on world-wide greenhouse emissions—including tougher U.S. emissions limits and enforcement —have been under intense discussion at a series of discreet international “workshop” meetings fostered by the U.N. in the past six months.
The gatherings aim at raising the stakes in the “climate change” agenda, while keeping new actions as much as possible under the cloak of purely domestic activities for each nation involved.
Documents summarizing the workshop proceedings will be presented to yet another U.N. gathering in Panama starting October 1, under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The summary documents make clear that the governments of many Western developed countries—including the U.S.— are still hoping to increase the “level of ambition” of commitments they made in the wake of the failed Copenhagen climate summit to undertake drastic reductions in their carbon dioxide emissions to combat “climate change,” even without a global treaty to carve them in stone.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/30/un-seeks-to-raise-stakes-in-world-climate-regulations/?test=latestnews#ixzz1ZThMqBnU
The only thing that shocks me about this affair is that Carlin was vindicated!
Minor word usage point: “quashed”, rather than “squashed”, is the more accurate word when used in a phrase meaning “suppressing” a report, document, or such. For example, lawyers use the term in phrases like: “He sought to quash the subpoena..”
Sorry to be tedious, just a pet peeve of mine. Quash this, if you please.
KW
Its interesting — the EPA has a reputation for aggressively prosecuting people for rules violations. For example, the EPA filed *criminal* charges (yes, criminal charges) against San Diego Gas and Electric Company for it’s alleged failure to follow rules governing the removal of asbestos:
Yet here we have a case where the EPA failed to follow federal regulations, resulting in a potential for massive damage to the economy, and the OIG response is to recommend that the EPA “revise its Peer Review Handbook”?? When a private citizen unintentionally runs afoul of the complex EPA rules they are prosecuted as criminals whereas when the EPA violates the law they are told to update their manuals??
Unfortunately, I agree with Tom (2:39pm). They are doing everything possible to stiffle debate and keep this out of the news and will then ram it through parliament in mid-October and treat it like a fait accompli. If you think otherwise then you’re dreaming. My dream was that Gillard might be tossed out before then it this is looking less and less likely. Labor will happily let her go her merry way and then try to blame her for all the disasters wreaked. She keeps talking about the national interest but she doesn’t have the slightest understanding of the concept. Its all about personal power and WINNING.
As for Alan Carlin, I have nothing but the greatest admiration for him. As so many others, he’s been attacked and has suffered for simply telling the truth. That seems to be the greatest crime at the moment. Just look at Andrew Bolt.
Reflecting on Skeptical Science’s misuse of language, I mused, once again, how nice it would be to have a wiki that deconstructs each of SkeSci’s unmerited debunks of climate skeptics’ issues.
But here’s a smaller project that might be even better able to help the re-establishment of integrity. How nice it would be to have our own “Not-an-IPCC-rogue gallery”, matching each of SkeSci’s named individuals and perhaps extending to RealClimate “rogues gallery” etc. Why was Don Easterbrook tarred? Because of the damning evidence of his ice core record. Why were Soon and Baliunas tarred? Because of the damning evidence of their paper – which still needs rehabilitating here IMHO. Why is Monckton tarred? Because of the damning evidence of his use of IPCC maths against itself. Why was Tim Ball’s bio deleted from Wikipedia? Because of the damning evidence of his career. It would be such a nice piece of work, if Alan Carlin and lots more who have paid the price, could have accessible biographies, all together, focussing particularly on why they were tarred – what warmists wanted to suppress – and what their crucial evidence actually says.
Project, anyone?
Lisa Jackson in unmoved by the IG report. That is not a surprise, nor should it be based on her actions over the last 20 years in support of the AGW crusade.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Democrats will lose the White House in 2012. If that indeed comes to pass then I have a bit of advice to give the new management.
Remove the cancer that allowed AGW to become the monster it is today within the US government. Bush did not shake up the government science technocracy or the federal science funding bureaucracy when he took over after Clinton in 2001. Gore had spent eight years replacing high and mid level scientists and bureaucrats within the government and NAS with AGW believers. These folks then spent the next eight years undermining Bush’s policies. This is also how Obama was able to get a running start beginning in 2009.
I will be the first to mention Lisa Jackson. She has to go. She accepted work that was not up to standards, and clearly not up to standards as one of her employees, Alan Carlin, had clearly reported, and used it to justify one of the most far-reaching and expensive regulatory regimes in the history of the USA. Senator Inhofe, call for her resignation please. Call for an investigation of the entire matter, please. Have Alan Carlin as your first witness.
LUCY~such a juicy suggestion for a project!
Here’s my second for a discussion thread devoted to the who, what, when and hows!!
This is a much merited project. Perhaps the thread could suss out the details. Supposing that Watts wants to defer to others initiative with the project, Stephen Malloy may be a worthy custodian (given his affiliation with CEI.org and its mission to correct environmental mis-information). Alternatively and ore heretically — and because it dovetails with his “hit and run” site exposes by deepening them and adding much reference background — perhaps Steve Goddard would be game?
Just wait for the first court case where the judge strikes down the “Endangerment Finding”
Andrew,
Don’t for a minute think that AGW is dead here in Australia. We are dead-against the carbon tax for sure, but that became the lightning rod for debate, not AGW. There’s enough idiots on both sides of politics that accept without question the reality of AGW, so the defeat or deferment of the Carbon Tax won’t stop more “Eco-friendly” regulations from coming down the tube.
With the Labor Party hell-bent on it’s own distruction, the worst-case scenario is coming true: the rise of the people & progress hating Greens.
The Carbon Tax may not come to pass, but this is really only the opening salvo.
Carlin was trying to protect the EPA from the consequences of a politically-driven decision on science it didn’t understand. So they trashed him.
He is a really good guy. He was trying to do the right thing. I talked to him maybe three times over the telephone while I was writing for Examiner.com.
They trashed a really good human being. I won’t forget that.
Here is a quotation from the New York Times article cited above:
‘”The key difference here was that they didn’t create new science,” said Francesca Grifo, a scientist who heads the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “And typically, when you call something a highly influential scientific assessment, you actually added some other data, or used grey literature, or did something that hadn’t already been fully reviewed.”‘
You really have to give Francesca credit for honesty. Who would have known that assessments “added some other data, or used grey literature?” So, now we know that it is policy at the UCS to add grey literature as needed to assessments. We have this from the Head of the Scientific Integrity Program of the UCS itself.
Somehow, though, I don’t think Francesca will be employed by UCS after this NYT article gets around.
One person I sought out at the ICCC in Washington in July was Alan Carlin. I thanked him for upholding the scientific method, the theme of the conference.
Nice guy.
Richard Telford says:
September 30, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“used materials from WUWT in his report”
Yes, it rather showed.
===============
Well……….
Don’t hold back.
Thrall us with your acumen.
Iren says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:18 pm
They are doing everything possible to stiffle debate and keep this out of the news and will then ram it through parliament in mid-October and treat it like a fait accompli. If you think otherwise then you’re dreaming. My dream was that Gillard might be tossed out before then it this is looking less and less likely.
Yep, she was installed for a reason and she won’t give up until she achieves what she was told to do. No matter the damage to herself, her party, or the country. Like somebody said before, when it is at its most quiet, it is at its most dangerous.
My congratulations to Alan Carlin for having the fortitude to stand up to a roughshod agency gone wild in their overreach and bypass of congress.
What more is there to understand about how the EPA works when the President can threaten to enact draconian measures through the EPA if Congress didn’t pass Cap and Trade? In the face of such blatant use of the EPA as a bullwhip, did anyone really think the EPA wouldn’t rig the findings on CO2?
For anyone who truly believes “move along there’s nothing to see”, I’ve got some underwater real estate lots in Florida I’d be willing to let go for an exceptional price. Buy today before the price goes down!
My thanks again to Alan Carlin. i am very glad he is being vindicated. EPA needs to be seriously reined in. Maybe, just maybe, this is the start.
Richard Telford says:
September 30, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“used materials from WUWT in his report”
“Yes, it rather showed.”
And, what is your problem?
I would accept anyone using “materials” from any source if the information obtained contributed to a logical argument. Proper science does not, and should not, condemn facts because the researcher happens to disagree with the ethos of the source of the information.
To give an example, I disagree that man-made CO2 is currently causing global warming, but I do agree that CO2, whether man-made or not, will cause global warming if present in significantly larger amounts.
I have yet to hear any AGW believer state the above MAY be true, their problem with basic science, not mine!
The New York Times tells lies again when it states that “highly influential scientific assessment” is defined as an assessment that could have an impact of more than $500 million in one year and is “novel, controversial, or precedent setting.” — after giving this false definition, the rest of its article is given over to Warmist scientists (Trenberth, even) who say it’s all settled science, so the criterion is not met. However, the Inspector General’s report actually states:
“A highly influential scientific assessment is a scientific assessment that:
— Could have a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year on either the public or private sector, or
— Is novel, controversial, or precedent setting, or has significant interagency interest”
Note the “OR” between the two conditions, ie, either is enough. Whereas the NYT states it as “AND”, ie, both required, and then writes the entire 2nd half of their article to say that since the 2nd condition is “settled science”, therefore the IG is wrong. NYT lies again, what do you expect.
Tom, Irene and TWE, you’re right. It’s not about AGW anymore, its about Gillard doing anything to stay in power and if that means doing what the Greens and the Independents want she’ll do it. As Irene said the Carbon Tax will be passed regardless because remember ‘the science is settled’ and the Government has closed the book on it. In the debate the Government has blocked all attempts to introduce scientific evidence against AGW. Alan Carlin’s story is great for the US but it will have no impact on us. When the next election comes I hope Australians don’t forget the lie. ‘”There will be NO Carbon Tax under a Government I lead” Julia Gillard’
Thanks for this report Anthony, and also Anthony Valencia for posting the link to Alan Carlin’s site. I hadn’t realized the connection between Alan and the EPA and though I understood the politicization that was going on with the US EPA. I wasn’t aware of Alan’s prior report questioning the science that underpinned that politicization. As I read through Alan Carlin’s site I came across his report on the specific propaganda distributed by government agencies and the National Parks and Gardens, where quite clearly out and out propaganda is being put to the public in furtherance of the Climate warming scam.
This report connected a few dots for this Australian, as the same process has been used here, particularly with the C.S.I.R.O. in the release of its notorious propaganda claim that we had seen the end of “normal” rainfall and Australia faced a very dry sparse rainfall in the future due to the effects of global warming, in contrast to the flooding rains we actually got as part of a normal cyclical repeat of past weather patterns.
I would say to Iren, Neil, and TWE. Its worth re-reading Alan Carlin’s writing and comparing that with the corruption and spin we have experienced here, with stacking of the EPA and CSIRO, (ABC) with green environmentalist’s and left wing idealists heading up key positions and pushing their agenda i.e. hell bent on destruction of the Australian economy. It is a vicious debate here, with the government propping up the worst science and belittling any scientist who dares to speak out against either the Carbon Tax or the idea of CAGW.
At the same time as the Gillard Government destroys and ignores reputable scientists smeared with the D word they, reward and praise those who comply with their approved climate propaganda, and have the temerity to claim they are “defending science” from those awful people who dare to say or present an apposing view.
I too detect a change in the ordinary Australian voter as they are seeing this evolve before their eyes, and they ask WHY! Not only that, but the absolute disgust that comes from the realization of the con trick that has been perpetrated in spinning this agenda.
All praise to the scientists and brave souls who have been motivated to stand up and speak out on the issue in Australia. Its not over, but I think good sense and good science with win through the spin.
“Truth-tellers” are among the most reviled people walking the face of the earth. Mr. Carlin deserves a special place in the “Don Quixote Hall of Fame”.
mpaul says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Its interesting — the EPA has a reputation for aggressively prosecuting people for rules violations. For example, the EPA filed *criminal* charges (yes, criminal charges) against San Diego Gas and Electric Company for it’s alleged failure to follow rules governing the removal of asbestos:
San Diego Gas & Electric Company (“SDG&E”) sold a decommissioned natural gas storage facility to a real estate developer. As part of the transaction SDG&E removed all of its equipment from the site, including miles of underground pipes covered with multi-layered coating, one of which layers contained asbestos. Licensed asbestos abatement contractors and experts retained by SDG&E concluded that the coating material was not subject to federal regulation. Local, state and federal government inspectors were on site more than 20 times during the course of the removal operations. Nevertheless, the federal government criminally charged SDG&E and three individual defendants with violating federal regulations.
Yet here we have a case where the EPA failed to follow federal regulations, resulting in a potential for massive damage to the economy, and the OIG response is to recommend that the EPA “revise its Peer Review Handbook”?? When a private citizen unintentionally runs afoul of the complex EPA rules they are prosecuted as criminals whereas when the EPA violates the law they are told to update their manuals??
—————
Your point is well taken. Any govt. employee/organization entrusted with the power granted MUST be held accountable at the same standards/scope as they wield. Kind of like a poker game, if you want to play a hand be prepared to win or lose at the same stakes. Unfortunately that’s not the case now.
Mr. Watts, thank you for all you do in bringing the ‘other side’ to us. You are performing a valuable service to society and are under accredited for your contribution. I applaud you.
And Congratulations to Anthony on the 90 Million views.
Iren says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:18 pm
==========================
I’m with you Iren … what is happening in our country is a travesty. Our democratic rights are being subverted by an illegitimate government under the influence of the socialist left. The ramblings of one Prof. Robert Mann wrt the right to publish an opinion are grossly offensive to our democratic nation.
Read the EPA IG Report. There are many arguments about scientific issues that are actually political ones. Mainly that the climate change the IPCC is talking about is going to be so serious that many of us will die. That is a real scientific stretch but it is the “political” story (my spin but true) that EPA and many others US government entities are touting in this report (NRC another believer).
Also in the timeline on page 41 is an interesting entry:
04/02/07
Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under CAA, and that EPA must determine whether greenhouse gases emitted from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution, which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare.
Interesting that a non-scientific government court decided to make a serious scientific pronouncement that basically indicates that CO2 (plant food – high concentrations found in the lungs of all mammals) and H2O (obvious basis for all life) are pollutants. As I understand it the EPA mandates on Air Quality health risks are limited to respiratory pollutants such as particulates and toxic gases. Why did the Supreme Court allow the EPA to expand the original law into this area? I think the Congress should clarify this law. Fat chance of this Congress doing anything.
The IG Report seems to generally say that procedural rules had been broken but that in the end many of the EPA conclusions of the Endangerment Finding are supported. The issue of the Climategate emails is of little consequence because HadCRU temperature data seem to be accurate. All the issues, brought up by the emails, of “contaminating” some of the IPCC results seem to be ignored. Heavy use of IPCC findings got EPA a hand slap to the effect that more independent sources should have also been used. But there are numerous rebuttals in the report that basically say “a number of US Government organizations have accepted the IPCC 4th Assessment Report and it has been extensively peer reviewed so EPA can base much of our scientific conclusions on the IPCC results”.
In many ways the details of this report are depressing and I wonder how Senator Inhofe will take it.
My hat is off to Alan Carlin for his professionalism, integrity, and willingness to suffer for what is right. I am humbled by his example.
Another avenue of attack by green(/red) interests that is currently moving along under the radar is the Law of the Sea Treaty. It has extensive provisions addressing pollutants, presumably including CO2, carried to the sea by the atmosphere from marine, airborne, coastal and inland sources. I expect it to be brought before the Senate for ratification later this year or the next while it still has a snowball’s chance of passage.
kwinterkorn says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Minor word usage point: “quashed”, rather than “squashed”, is the more accurate word when used in a phrase meaning “suppressing” a report, document, or such. For example, lawyers use the term in phrases like: “He sought to quash the subpoena..”
Sorry to be tedious, just a pet peeve of mine. Quash this, if you please.
KW
Given the Thermystics propensity for mangling language, I for one agree with your pet peeve, but perhaps we could let the beef about ‘squashed’ slither by…seeing how many in here likely see “squashing” as a more potent outcome.
Another vote for Lucy Skywalker’s project – much needed! It could go in, or next to, Anthony’s reference pages, and would be a very useful addition. It might be doubly useful to have also a parallel list, defined approximately by Prof. Muller’s observation that “I now have a list of people whose papers I won’t read anymore”.
One correction, Anthony. Alan’s boss, who emailed him to cease and desist, a fellow by the name of Al Mcgartland, is a career employee, not a political appointee. He still has his job.
Of course, many of our thoughts went immediately to Alan Carlin upon learning of this most sought after inquiry into the EPA regarding the Administration’s agenda driven manipulated CO2 “global warming/climate change” findings. The principled actions of people such as Carlin play a critical role in confronting assaults on integrity but often go unheralded. Here’s to Carlin, Anthony and all the WUWT participants. CAGW actions to date have set back progress way too much already – ongoing skepticism must continue to accompany dogged investigations increasing our knowledge and understanding of climate, etc. I hope we can survive this era of political science.
The EPA has no interest in science or truth only the power grab that following their own agenda will give. I see no change, unfortunately.
Well done Allan for your brave attempt to get the giant to follow the rules that it had ignored. Won’t change anything unless the new President is science savvy.
Seems Carlin had a point about the diligence of the peer-review, however this was a minor part of his critique. Most of his ‘report’ claimed that the science itself was invalid or unsupported. This was, and remains, pure balony.
Check out his 7 ‘failings’ – every last one is wrong. http://www.carlineconomics.com/files/pdf/end_comments_7b1.pdf
Sorry, but I don’t call this a vindication.
This article is a complete fabrication of the actual situation. Typical of WUWT.
It’s comprehensively refuted here for those with the open mind to read.
http://www.ericpooley.com/2011/09/29/how-inhofe-turns-balloon-animals-into-news/
It is all based onludicrous statement by Senator Inhofe questioning the EPA which has been shown to be an outrageous misrepresentation and waste of public money
Mark Harrigan,
Typically, your rant and your “comprehensive” link don’t link to the actual document at hand.
It was linked by Anthony in this post and I repeat it here.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=e0584e33-d3da-4fba-b95a-e93548105e09
Your “comprehensive” link refers only to the first sentence. Educated people generally like to view things in context.
mark harrigan says:
October 1, 2011 at 3:36 am
This article is a complete fabrication of the actual situation. Typical of WUWT
Eric Pooley is senior vice president for strategy and communications at the Environmental Defense Fund.
So this guy has no axe to grind in this debate?. You clown!! His mind is as open as ENRON.
What is it with you trolls. You talk of open mindedness without the first clue as to what the word means. Unbelieveable.
What is ludicrous is to declare CO2 and H2O as pollutants.
Senator Inhofe should be applauded and commended for his continued stand against this absurdity.
The EPA has been shown to support an outrageous misrepresentation and it is a waste of public money.
At an industry meeting in 2009, I asked EPA’s Gina McCarthy upon what body of science did EPA make it’s endangerment finding. Her response was “…IPCC, the pre-eminent scientific body on the question of climate change”. The room erupted into laughter.
@ Phillip Clarke and mark harrigan
Very inflammatory statements being made by both of you. I would challenge both of you to take Carlin’s 7 statements and justify your positions. Directly for Clarke since you think nothing Carlin stated is true. And indirectly for Harrigan since you think that Inhofe is being political and is not making the challenge based on science. See below and comment.
Carlin’s 7 statements
1. Lack of observed upper tropospheric heating in the tropics (see Section 2.9 for a detailed discussion).
2. Lack of observed constant humidity levels, a very important assumption of all the IPCC models, as CO2 levels have risen (see Section 1.7).
3. The most reliable sets of global temperature data we have, using satellite microwave sounding units, show no appreciable temperature increases during the critical period 1978-1997, just when the surface station data show a pronounced rise (see Section 2.4). Satellite data after 1998 is also inconsistent with the GHG/CO2/AGW hypothesis
4. The models used by the IPCC do not take into account or show the most important ocean oscillations which clearly do affect global temperatures, namely, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and the ENSO (Section 2.4). Leaving out any major potential causes for global warming from the analysis results in the likely misattribution of the effects of these oscillations to the GHGs/CO2 and hence is likely to overstate their importance as a cause for climate change.
5. The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility of indirect solar variability (Section 2.5), which if important would again be likely to have the effect of overstating the importance of GHGs/CO2.
6. The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility that there may be other significant natural effects on global temperatures that we do not yet understand (Section 2.4). This possibility invalidates their statements that one must assume anthropogenic sources in order to duplicate the temperature record. The 1998 spike in global temperatures is very difficult to explain in any other way (see Section 2.4).
7. Surface global temperature data may have been hopelessly corrupted by the urban heat island effect and other problems which may explain some portion of the warming that would otherwise be attributed to GHGs/CO2. In fact, the Draft TSD refers almost exclusively in Section 5 to surface rather than satellite data.
My position is that he has a very good case in EVERY one of these statements.
Bernie
Mark
That’s not a refutation, it’s a string of assertions joined together with unsubstantiated abuse of “deniers”. With an open mind, all one needs to do is read the actual report, not the spin put on it by one side or the other.
@ John M.
Ok, it’s simple. The claim (touted by Inhofe and Carlin and mindlessly repated in the media thanks to Inhofe’s media manipulation) is that the EPA IG’s report is “proof” that the science on which the EPA has based its endangerment finding is flawed.
In fact the IG’s report says nothing of the sort and makes it abundantly clear that EPA’s endangement finding met all the statutory requirements.
Here’s the relevant statement from the EPA http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/64a85204a88e46a785257919006fce32!OpenDocument
The IG makes clear “We made no determination regarding the impact that EPA’s information quality control systems may have had on the scientific information used to support the finding. We did not test the validity of the scientific or technical information used to support the endangerment finding, nor did we evaluate the merit of EPA’s conclusions or analyses.”
In other words this about PROCEDURAL matters – not about the science at all.
Simple and clear enough for you now? Took me only a few minutes to google it.
What were you saying about educated people and context??
By the way – as far as I cant tell the link from WUWT to the actual IG statement is broken (curiously?) but the link to Inhofes misrepresentation is clear.
Here’s the link to the IG’s statement http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2011/IG_Statement_Greenhouse_Gases_Endangerment_Report.pdf
The bottom line is that the IG felt the EPA should have subjected their technical support document (TSD) to more rigourous peer review. The OMB actually disagrees and “believes that EPA reasonably interpreted the OMB bulletin in concluding that the TSD did not meet the bulletin’s definition of a highly influential scientific assessment.”
In other words it’s a procedural bunfight. NOT a finding or even a debate about the science.
REPLY: “as far as I cant tell the link from WUWT to the actual IG statement is broken (curiously?)”
Sorry case of “cant tell FAIL” …works fine. Probably PEBKAC – Anthony
When the Carlin Report came out, I had been newly assigned by my company to come up to speed on carbon capture technology. It was like drinking through a firehose. I was also totally unaware of the skeptical blogosphere and just knew something about the “science” did not smell quite right and the “concensus” disturbed me as a student of science. The Carlin Report was a solid anchor that allowed me to understand more about the subject. And the fact that he worked for the EPA also made an impression on me.
Not long after that, I became a frequent visitor to WUWT and other sites. Thanks, Anthony, for your efforts and thanks to Mr. (Dr.?) Carlin, as well.
Late last night, I started reading the IG’s report. I had a wonderful sound sleep, and woke up really rested this morning. I just wonder what type of academic background the investigators have. How could they write this much about that? After a while, it seemed they were just going in circles. Then my eyeballs started going in circles. That’s when I fell asleep.
mark harrigan says: October 1, 2011 at 3:36 am
[…]
It is all based onludicrous statement by Senator Inhofe questioning the EPA which has been shown to be an outrageous misrepresentation and waste of public money
You of course are referring to the EPA as to the “outrageous misrepresentation and waste of public money”.
Well done Bernie, focus on the science, not the spin.
Steve Keohane says:
October 1, 2011 at 9:50 am
“You of course are referring to the EPA as to the “outrageous misrepresentation and waste of public money”.
—
Actually, he was referring to the wasteful government funding of climate “science” (which, as I pointed out earlier, has seen MASSIVE growth in recent years. No greed there…nope…).
@Mark
It IS a debate about science (at least on this blog) but it is also a debate about economics and good science in order that we make good economic decisions. Of course the government organizations are concerned about procedures and so am I, but ultimately I am not interested in a lone political discussion without some solid science backing it up especially if that political discussion turns into a really stupid economic decision. I tend to agree more with John Who and Steve Keohane than you when it comes to “outrageous misrepresentation and waste of public money”. Policy coming out of the EPA lately is sloppy and flawed.
Bernie
I’m happy and gratified to see this, and for Alan’s vindication. The IG finding, which I have yet to read, seems to track one of the comments I had on the ANPRM for Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the Clean Air Act. Extract follows
[Emphasis added.]
A few years ago, the EPA was forced to recant it’s rules on micro-particles when it was shown in court that they hadn’t followed their own procedures in implementing the rules.
Perhaps there is a chance that the CO2 rules can be stopped as well.
Well, I guess we heard it here first. “Minor procedural issues” are not something the EPA needs to dirty its little hands over.
And the New York Times is merely a mouthpiece for Sen. Inhofe.
Amazing what you learn from people who get all their information from one or two sentences out of an entire legal opinion and from one-page screeds at low-traffic blogs.
This IG finding will have zero impact on the EPA’s proposed CO2 regulations. The only thing that will stop their eventual implementation (after the 2012 election of course) will be either the election of a Republican president and Republican majorities in both houses of congress, or Anthony Kennedy waking up the day the Supreme Court decides the litigation contesting the finding, and deciding to put the law before his deeply felt desire to be liked by the New York Times.
Here ya go, something for the excitable trolls Telford, Clarke, and Harrigan to get upset about all over again.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2011/09/30/the-epas-endangerment-finding-is-very-endangered/
Lawsuits are coming, it will be tied up for a couple of years. In the meantime, the science might change to be less alarmist while all that is happening. And, we can see 2012 from our house.
“Could have a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year on either the public or private sector…”
Could have a potential…? I think that Thursday between 2 and 3 a.m. the impact from their CAGW regulations will be greater than $500M.
That rule must be real old. I think they will want to update that to say $500 trillion instead.
That should give them the latitude they need to conduct their jobs at a basic level.
Bernie … here you go
“1. Lack of observed upper tropospheric heating in the tropics (see Section 2.9 for a detailed discussion).”
This is not a fingerprint of greenhouse gas warming – the subject of the EPA finding, and while there are considerable data issues with long term tropical troposherical data, the confidence intervals of the models and observations intersect.
See, for example http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm
“2. Lack of observed constant humidity levels, a very important assumption of all the IPCC models, as CO2 levels have risen (see Section 1.7).”
“Figure 2b shows the change in relative humidity, DRH, defined as RH in DJF07 minus RH in DJF08. The data show large regions of both positive and negative DRH. Variations in DRH tend to cancel, however, and Figure 3b shows basically no change in global-average RH between
800 and 300 hPa” Dessler et al 2008
“3. The most reliable sets of global temperature data we have, using satellite microwave sounding units, show no appreciable temperature increases during the critical period 1978-1997, just when the surface station data show a pronounced rise (see Section 2.4). Satellite data after 1998 is also inconsistent with the GHG/CO2/AGW hypothesis”
Pure cherry-picking, and wrong – why is the 19 years from 1978 ‘critical’? The period is too short to get a significant signal from natural variability. Consider all the data and the surface and satellite measurements are consistent with each other and exactly in line with model projections of greenhouse gas warming.
“4. The models used by the IPCC do not take into account or show the most important ocean oscillations which clearly do affect global temperatures, namely, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and the ENSO (Section 2.4). Leaving out any major potential causes for global warming from the analysis results in the likely misattribution of the effects of these oscillations to the GHGs/CO2 and hence is likely to overstate their importance as a cause for climate change.”
The oscillations would be an output from a climate model and certainly the ENSO is simulated to a greater or lesser extent in some models. These oscillations merely move heat around the system, and cannot account for the long term average warming of the whole surface.
“The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility of indirect solar variability (Section 2.5), which if important would again be likely to have the effect of overstating the importance of GHGs/CO2.”
The models and the IPCC can only consider influences for which there is some evidence. You might as well say the IPCC and models ignored the possible climatic influence of leprechauns.
“The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility that there may be other significant natural effects on global temperatures that we do not yet understand (Section 2.4). This possibility invalidates their statements that one must assume anthropogenic sources in order to duplicate the temperature record. The 1998 spike in global temperatures is very difficult to explain in any other way (see Section 2.4).”
More leprechauns. The 1998 spike may have had something to do with the most powerful El Nino of the century, no? Besides I thought the ‘critical period’ was 1978-1997 – coveniently excluding the massive spike….
“Surface global temperature data may have been hopelessly corrupted by the urban heat island effect and other problems which may explain some portion of the warming that would otherwise be attributed to GHGs/CO2. ”
Except we now know, thanks to Fall et al, that station siting issues have no significant impact on the long term average, in the US at least.
See also http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/
Indur M. Goklany
Your summary is exactly the way to apply critical assessment when jobs and public expenditure will be at stake. To do otherwise would be a waste of taxpayers money, and of course failure to do the job one is paid to do! What happened to pride and Integrity in ones work ?.
Thanks for that Indur- I guess that Telford, Clarke, and Harrigan are either spinning an interest agenda or protecting the indefensible.
Phil Clarke, don’t be silly. Your “tropospheric hot spot”, the “fingerprint of global warming” has been falsified by empirical observations.
1978 starts a critical period because that’s when the hockey stick et al start climbing, IIRC.
19 years, 30 years, pick a number. They all have their interesting attribute and show (or suppress) different aspects of climate cycles and change.
May I suggest going back 6,000 years ago when the glaciers retreated far more than they have in the last 1000 years. See http://wermenh.com/climate/6000.html
Smokey – the falsification has been falsified http://moyhu.blogspot.com/2010/08/underestimate-of-variability-in.html
But glad you agreed with 6 out of 7 of my points, Carlin’s ‘science’ remains utterly unvindicated.
Ric “1978 starts a critical period because that’s when the hockey stick et al start climbing, IIRC.”
Possibly. There certainly seems to have been a step change in the rate of warming mid-seventies. And the end of the decade is when we started receiving satellite data. My point was about Carlin’s selection of an apparently arbitrary interval of 19 years when we now have 30 years of data. Why stop in 1997?
I’ll tell you – over 19 years short term natural variability can mask the long term gradual rise from GHG frcing, and 1997 was a strong La Nina year, thus pulling Carlin’s endpoint down and depressing the overall trend. Mmmm … cherries!
@Phil Clarke
Without conceding any of the other 6 points for now lets just look at number 7. I would submit that using even the US surface station data (“some of the best in the world?”) for determining natural or human climate effects has its limits. These measuring sites were not set up to
obtain climate research data. To do this, global sites would probably best be sited in predominately rural areas (and have at least 120 years of data from the same site, using the same hi-tech instrumentation etc.-none of which is likely). There is much climate research based on the data from traditional sites and I think from Carlin’s point of view it means that the EPA and the IPCC have probably propagated errors because of these data limitations. In other words we do not have all the answers yet and he was concerned that the EPA was rushing to judgement based on extremely tentative work discussed in the IPCC Assessment Reports. You sound very confident that you are correct in each of your responses to Carlin’s 7 points. I am much less so but I am confident that there is a rush by many of the governments in the world “to do something” (at very large cost) in spite of this healthy lack of confidence by many of us who want the scientific community to show us why any of it is so.
Bernie
Philip Clarke says:
October 1, 2011 at 3:18 pm
“These oscillations merely move heat around the system, and cannot account for the long term average warming of the whole surface.”
Deliberate attempt at confusion! The system is more than just the surface. Ocean Heat Content (OHC) is an energy storage parameter of the system, and therefore cannot fail to affect “the long term average warming of the whole surface.”
Unless of course by ” long term” you mean something comparable to the age of the solar system? Nope. You mean just the length of the blade on the Hookey Schtick, don’t you.
@ Steve Keohane & @ Frank K & & Bernie – no, I am not (but you knew that!). If you want to make politcal points because you disagree with climate science – fine – but THIS issue is about trumped up spin (by Inhofe) in relation to the IG’s report on the EPA.
The FACT is there is NO finding by the IG that the climate science used by the EPA is in any way flawed
As for a debate about the climate science – that’s more properly conducted by scientists who know what they are actually doing – not on blogosphere sites by untrained amatures who call people they disagree with “Trolls” (yes you Mr Watts) . Quite frankly if you do not understand that AGW is real and a problem then you have your head in the sand (it’s a bit like refusing to accept a diagnosis of a serious illness from a doctor because you don’t want to believe it and keep going to visit more and more doctors until finally you get a diagnosis that says you don;t have a problem).
What IS a proper and useful political debate to be had in the public arena is what (if anything) should be done about the problem.
We know CO2 causes warming, we know we are putting excess CO2 into the atmosphere and we know the temperature is rising and the Ocean pH is dropping. We therefore know humans are the cause of AGW, but there are uncertainties about climate sensitivity, feedback and forcing etc and hence how warm it might get and how fast that will happen. Quite frankly that’s why we need good climate science (and healthy debate about those issues that remain uncertain – but we should let those who are QUALIFIED to conduct that debate do so instead of pretending we on the blogosphere know better) so that can inform public policy about our responses and what mixture of abatement/adaptation we should take.
Gee, even if AGW is wrong (I’m willing to bet it isn’t and every single national science body of credibility says the same thing) some of the actions we might take to address it will improve our energy security and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels (which are running out and cause many other health realted problems – in fact use of fossil fuels causes more deaths per KWh of energy produced than any other source by orders of magnitude). On the other hand we have derived many economic and social benefits from the use of fossil fuels so any transition away from them needs to be gradual and carefully managed.
This site and others like it would be better off to focus on these important poltical, social and economic issues instead of trying to debate a science they are not trained to understand and consistently show they do not.
(But, of course, if you think you are smarter than most of the worlds climate scientists – go ahead – but because refusing to accept the real situation impacts us ALL and not just those with their head in the sand – I will continue to advocate for rational debate about sensible courses of action).
Dr Mark Harrigan (phsyicist)
And just how do we determine who all those QUALIFED savants are? Oh, I know, we let the EDF, Greenpeace, FoE, MoveOn.com, WWF and 10-10 tell us who those savants are.
Next step, we ban all Letters to the Editor in all newspapers. Wait, better yet, we let the likes of “Dr Mark Harrigan (phsyicist)” peer review all letters first to determine if the submitter is entitled to use the word “science”.
What better way to ensure a strong and vibrant technology-based civilization than to let the folks with “PhD” after their name determine who can and cannot speak about an issue?
To Dr. Mark Harrigan
Wow I am not sure where to begin. Such a long list of dogmatic statements.
I would hope that the IG would not make a statement on the science. On points of procedure of course. It is disappointing to me that the Supreme Court attempted to make a statement on the science.
I would suggest that if we “unwashed” non-climate scientists cannot properly discuss (or understand) the science then the political discussion is already doomed. It was not I (nor do I think it was Alan Carlin) who suggested that the science is settled. In fact I am just one of the many who wish to slow down this speeding train that is hurtling toward the precipice (EPA, IPCC, others). Until we all can easily understand the science, I would suggest that hastily cobbled together political or economic solutions will gain us very little.
It is encouraging that you don’t wish to shut down the mines and the wells immediately but the following statement :
“in fact use of fossil fuels causes more deaths per KWh of energy produced than any other source by orders of magnitude”
is amazing to me! Where did you get that?
I am all for healthier, safer and more efficient (economic) solutions to ALL our problems. I am also for debate (especially if it is based on good data) but I am not for hastily developed solutions that are crammed down ALL our throats by government bureaucrats.
Bernie
mark harrigan says:
October 1, 2011 at 9:04 am
By the way – as far as I cant tell the link from WUWT to the actual IG statement is broken (curiously?)
Well, maybe you “cant’ tell very far, but as far as I can tell, the link works..
LOL
Oh, and allow me to fix your statement from October 2, 2011 at 12:15 am
We know CO2 causes extremely slight warming, we know we are putting an extremely small amount of excess CO2 into the atmosphere and we know the atmospheric temperature has been both rising and falling and the Ocean pH may be slightly changing. We are not sure that humans are having anything more than an almost immeasurable effect on the climate, but we do know that there are uncertainties about climate sensitivity, feedback and forcing etc and hence how warm or cool it might get and how fast that will happen also remains uncertain.
There, as far as I can tell, that statement is no longer broken.
more LOL
Congratulations to the EPA’s Inspector General, and the crew that produced the report. IG’s are about the only folks inside the beltway that seem to still have any integrity at all. Lord love a duck! Keep up the good work guys, you’re about the only thing standing between the two sides of the next Civil War.
Recall that it was Sen. Obama from Illinois that authored the U.S. senate bill to enable IGs to be fired. That sure comes in handy from time to time.
mark harrigan says:October 2, 2011 at 12:15 am
@ Steve Keohane & @ Frank K & & Bernie – no, I am not (but you knew that!). If you want to make politcal points because you disagree with climate science – fine – but THIS issue is about trumped up spin (by Inhofe) in relation to the IG’s report on the EPA.
The FACT is there is NO finding by the IG that the climate science used by the EPA is in any way flawed
As for a debate about the climate science – that’s more properly conducted by scientists who know what they are actually doing – not on blogosphere sites by untrained amatures who call people they disagree with “Trolls” (yes you Mr Watts) .
The part of your statement that is bold, shows this issue is political by virtue of the involved parties being political…
I did temperature measurement and control methodology for IC manufacturing that was adopted by NIST as SOP for SemaTech, and can easily recognize garbage science regarding temperatures, like AGW. Humans may have contributed a fraction of the .7°-.8°C rise we’ve seen, with land use change and possibly a CO2 effect being .2°-.3°C, but the remainder is natural variation. There is no evidence of anything unprecedented going on. I’ve been studying paleo-anthropology for fifty years, it has been warmer and colder. We seem to do better when the glaciers recede. Climate science is not settled.
@ Steve – great Steve – look forward to you publishing in the near future – but in the meantime it just an uncredentialed unscientific piece of blogospheric claim which has debukned more times in the scientific literature than I care to count.
As for the issue being political. Well – in THIS intance it has been polticised by the false claims of Inhofe
(By the way – I never said that Climate Science is settled – although some parts of it are fairly well established and yet to be overturned)
@ John neither this link on WUWT http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=e0584e33-d3da-4fba-b95a-e93548105e09 or this one http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=bb6f9c3f-802a-23ad-432c-dc7700b3bf61 would work for me – but as I linked to the actual IG statement it hardly matters.
Given that you feel empowered to make statements about climate science without substantiation I look forward to seeing you published in the relevant literature. Otherwise you are just another unqualified blogger who wishes to deny science (like a quack medical provider to my hypothetical medical patient). Here’s just one paper that clearly concludes WE are the primary cause
Rosenzweig et al (2008). “Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change”
Nature 453, 353-357.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Rosenzweig_etal_1.pdf
in which the abstract says (in part) “these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone.”
Then there’s the royal society (the worlds most pretigious science body) http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/
who state
“There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, including agriculture and deforestation. The size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still subject to uncertainty. Nevertheless, the risks associated with some of these changes are substantial.”
But apparently you know better????
Perhaps you might might find this simple explanation more within your intellectual grasp
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-we-know-were-causing-global-warming-in-single-graphic.html
@ Bernie – my claim ““in fact use of fossil fuels causes more deaths per KWh of energy produced than any other source by orders of magnitude” may, indeed, be amazing to you.
Strange though – because an open minded skeptic would have tested such a claim.
Perhaps you have not heard of google which you might use to test such a claim? Try typing “deaths per kwh” and see how many links you get
No matter – I’ll give you one clear link here
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy
You’re welcome 🙂
mark harrigan says:
October 2, 2011 at 3:37 pm
@John neither this…better???
Perhaps you might might find this simple explanation more within your intellectual grasp
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-we-know-were-causing-global-warming-in-single-graphic.html
The overall inference of your reply is that only a published PhD may be able to have the “intellectual grasp” necessary to understand the basics of what is happening regarding the “CAGW” discussion. This is insulting to anyone with an IQ capable of understanding the discussion and especially those with an IQ equal to or higher than someone with a degree that you would feel is appropriate to this discussion. However, your statement does make one wonder – since you feel empowered to make statements about climate science, please provide us with a listing of your published work in the relevant literature. According to you, otherwise you would be just another unqualified blogger who wishes to deny science.
Your further inference that “skepticalscience” is for those with, shall we say, a lower “intellectual grasp” is actually an area in which we somewhat agree – that site is designed for the weak-minded who want to be led by agenda driven, deceptive “science”. I have no doubt that you have it bookmarked and refer to it often.
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
http://www.petitionproject.org/
I know, that statement isn’t from relevant literature, but one could argue that it has been given a much more thorough peer review than many papers that support the CAGW by CO2 argument.
@ John – you’re right – I should not have been so condescending and I apologise for any offence.
It’s just that I found it rather arrogant on your part to feel you could rephrase my statement to “fix it” a little insulting, especially given you have no evidentiary basis for doing so and when my statement as it originally stand is support by every single national science body of credibility (and for which I have offered a peer reviewed paper in its support.
What do you offer? A reference to an unaudited petition?
In relation to skeptical science – they have won one of the most prestigious prizes for science (the Eureka prize) for the way they report on the current science and if you spent any time at the site you might realise they consistently reference published peer reviewed science to support any of their arguments.
The petition project has been debunked more times than I can count but if you wish to persist in believing in myths and denying the science then that is, of course, your choice. But given that you KNOW it is not published science or from a reputable science body I wonder why you choose to believe it? (there is simply no credible basis to suggest it has had anything vaguely resembling peer review)
Scientific American took a random sample of some of signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 they were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climate science community.
The number who have signed it sounds like a lot until you realise it is less 0.3% of the available scientific population in the USA (the vast majority of whom are not qualified in climate science).
So can it really be relied on?
here are just a couple of references pointing out some clear credibility problems with this petition
http://climatesight.org/2009/06/17/ignore-the-petition-project/
http://www.skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project.htm
http://www.howtopowertheworld.com/petition-project.shtml
Perhaps more importantly I do not think you can place any reliance on something like that which has NO process of validation and auditing.
On the other hand the relevant national science bodies have boards of governance and memberships (who DO comprise qualified climate scientists).
I have already referenced the Royal Society (and I note you haven’t explained how you know better even though you may well be a highly intelligent fellow? I certainly do NOT know better and wouldn;t presume to be arrogant enough).
Here’s another example from the US National Academy of Science’s report America’s Climate Choices 2011:
“Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and poses significant risks for a range of human and natural systems. Emissions continue to increase, which will result in further change and greater risks. In the judgment of this report’s authoring committee, the environmental, economic, and humanitarian risks posed by climate change indicate a pressing need for substantial action to limit the magnitude of climate change and to prepare for adapting to its impacts.”
You are right about another thing too. I am not a climate scientist. On that point I stand guilty as charged. I do have the physics to understand the relevant science when explained but I bow to the superior expertise of actual climate scientists in this matter, the vast majority of whom support that AGW is real and a problem (as per above). Just like I would bow to the superior expertise of a medical professional in relation to my own health
So – what should the intelligent, open minded (but non-qualified and certainly non-expert) person do?
Believe the blogosphere and non-audited projects with a political bent – or accept the published science and the conclusions drawn by those who actually have the training and the knowledge?
Sorry – missed the link to the NAS statement
But here’s a link that shows virtually ALL of them
http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html
Perhaps an open minded, reflective person might wnat to actually read them and consider their views before rushng to state that they know better
And here’s the direct link to the NAS statement
http://dels.nas.edu/Report/America-Climate-Choices/12781
(my old link was broken)
@Mark
What’s so hard about putting in the link in the first place? I do have another life. Be that as it may thanks.
Sure industrial accidents and health risks are very high in a number of industries and jobs especially those in the third world where safety is often not as much a concern. But I will grant you the fact that in extractive industries, industrial deaths are pretty high everywhere and if we can replace them with more environmentally friendly, safer and healthier methods of energy production I am for that. The graphic footnote brings up a problem with the renewables in that they are young industries and there are extractive supply chains there that have yet to be studied. If photovoltaics were viable now I would be there myself but where I live they are heavily tax supported (state and fed) and the power companies give users “sweetheart” deals on rates (all of these are subsidies). There are also emerging safety and health risks with these new forms of energy production that may change this nice picture in the future. I have a friend trying to get off the grid with his photovoltaic array but night production is very poor. This worldwide study of 1800 cases over 30 years does not seem like a huge fatality impact when compared say to world wide auto accidents (I’ve seen the stats and I’m going to keep driving). Nuclear looks good here doesn’t it except maybe for the accidents and the disasters? And maybe even then.
Health issues concerning air quality problems is another issue. Someday we will completely solve this and I applaud viable methods to do so in all industrial processes.
Bernie
“mark harrigan says:
October 2, 2011 at 6:32 pm”
Well then, mark, what do you think of a CO2 = CAGW “Science” that has failed to get even one relevant prediction correct as compared to the empirical world, which has even showed results oppostite to its predictions, while these facts do not even bother its esteemed “Scientists”, who instead remain content with insisting that everything that happens is “consistent with” CO2 = CAGW – such that, as they actually use their hypothetical statements, these alleged “statements” turn out to make no factual claims whatsoever upon the real world? Even to the point that they have to call their intentionally directed GCM runs “experiments” and their output the real “data”.
mark, not only is ipcc Climate Science not doing real scientific method and principle science, its verbiage relates to the real world only as well as does any other garden variety Apocalyptic claim demanding our repentance in its specified currency “before it’s too late”, as its tribute. Why do you want to support such an enterprise?
Well JPeden,
That’s a bold claim. Can YOU provide a reference to a piece of peer reviewed published science that has made a specific FUTURE claim about a parameter that has been incorrect within the (usual) 95% confidence limits (+/-) 2 standard deviations that are normally used?
But wait! – I can –
apparently the IPCC models GOT IT WRONG on sea ice!
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JC007110.shtml
So you are right! They DID fail to get their prediction right!
But wait – oops they UNDERESTIMATE the actual loss
“IPCC climate models underestimate the decrease of the Arctic sea ice extent. The recent Arctic sea ice decline is also characterized by a rapid thinning and by an increase of sea ice kinematics (velocities and deformation rates), with both processes being coupled through positive feedbacks. In this study we show that IPCC climate models underestimate the observed thinning trend by a factor of almost 4 on average and fail to capture the associated accelerated motion”
Maybe – instead of just recycling tired myths from the blogosphere you might want to look at the actual science.
In any event, a specifc future claim that is wrong hardly invalidates the entire science. As the fllowing letter last year “Climate Change and the Integrity of Science” published in the journal Science says
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/689.full
I(t’s written by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel Laureates. I recommend reading the entire letter but here is an excerpt:)
“There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet…
… The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:
The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more. ”
Tell me JPeden – how is it that you are right and they are wrong?
Any empirical evidence of any off the above claims? Lot of hot air. Model runs or not experiments. Model outputs are not data. Empirical evidence has shown 13 years of cooling when CO2 levels went up. That’s why Trenberth and Co. are searching for missing heat in the oceans and can’t find the tropospheric heat spot till date, simply because they don’t exist. That’s why Hansen is blaming chinese aerosols for causing a ” pause ” in global warming.
You need to read up what’s happening before wasting time on hyperbole with zero evidence.
@ Venter. I do not see how it is possible for any objective person to argue there has been 13 years of cooling when looking at the Global surface temperature data here
http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/ which shows the evidence (all of which needs to be viewed over decades and it’s 5 year moving averages (at a minimum) which are relevant – not individual years
OR are you saying that is all faked?? And that you know better and have better data because??
@ mark harrigan
First, apology accepted.
Second, regarding the paragraph I “fixed” – the post of yours from which it came did not provide any reference or link and sure sounds like a post from “just another unqualified blogger who wishes to deny science”. (your words) You should not be surprised that a post by such a person might be challenged, or, in my case, paraphrased in the manner I did. My point – each of us here has arrived at their opinion regarding “CAGW by CO2”. Mine and yours do not agree.
However, you ask So – what should the intelligent, open minded (but non-qualified and certainly non-expert) person do?
I would suggest you step back and take a breath and then ponder these:
If CAGW by CO2 is true, why do many of its supporters feel the need to provide misleading information and misrepresent science?
Before you tune out that question, you can start with Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” which has many misleading statements and misrepresentations of science. While Gore may be like you and I – “another unqualified” person – he claims his information was from real climate scientists.
Then consider the UN’s IPCC reports – while they purport to be a “gold standard” of global climate science, why are so many of its conclusions based on non-peer reviewed, activist assertions?
You seem to like John Cooks site. If you take the time you’ll find that every one of his attributions to “skeptics” has been discussed elsewhere and his conclusions are either wrong, misleading, or a misrepresentation. WUWT has a number of “skeptical” and “lukewarmer” sites you can visit. If you actually have an open mind, they may at least make you start questioning what you think is the truth.
I’m not going to say that everything in this site:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm
is accurate, but I will say that the journey of his described quest to “get it right” is probably one that many skeptics have taken. You’ll discover, as he did, that those who you thought were experts on climate science haven’t been exactly honest with you.
You’ve taken at least one step on that journey by reading and posting here on WUWT.
To All:
I doubt if Mark Harrigan will do as I suggest, but I’ve posted it in case some other reader may find something here that makes them go “Hmmm…”.
@ Mark
Go here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1979/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1979/mean:12/plot/rss/mean:12
Note that 3 of th 4 major reporting agencies show we have not been as warm as we were in 1998.
Please don’t state bullshit. There’s been no warming after 1998 and the AGW promoters themselves are running around finding tenuous excuses for that.
Read below statements from ” It’s a travesty ” Trenberth about ” global warming on temporary hold ” nd claiming that the heat is hidden somewhere in the oceans and will resurface later
http://img.ibtimes.com/www/articles/20110919/216084_global-warming-deep-ocean-research-science.htm
Here’s Kaufmann et. al. stating that cooling happened due to Chinese coal usage
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/04/a-peer-reviewed-admission-that-global-surface-temperatures-did-not-rise-dr-david-whitehouse-on-the-pnas-paper-kaufmann-et-al-2011/
Here’s Jean-Paul Vernier at NASA blaming aerosols from volcanoes for lack of warming
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/18/new-nasa-paper-contradicts-kaufmann-et-al-saying-its-volcanoes-not-china-coal/
The AGW crowd are running like headless chicken to find some lame excuse for the lack of warming and these 3 contradictory claims have been expressed within the past few months.
So I suggest you take your uninformed trolling elsewhere. You have no clue of what you’re talking about.
One problem with the basic CAGW hypothesis that Alan recognized is the assumption that the observed long-term rise in atmospheric CO2 is 100% caused by anthropogenic emissions. This could only be possible if long-term natural source and sink rates did not change. The ice core proxie data shows that these natural rates change. I have been analyzing the reported CO2 and C13/c12 data and the results indicate that the anthropogenic contribution to the global background concentration has varied around 12% in the last 20 Years. It follows that the observed rise is mostly natural and any attempt to limit atmospheric concentrations by controlling emissions will have little success. The cost of controls are far greater than the 88% marginalize benefits.
mark harrigan says:
October 3, 2011 at 2:51 am
Well JPeden,
That’s a bold claim.
No, it’s a fact that CO2 = CAGW has not gotten even one relevant prediction right yet, as compared to the empirical record. For example, where is the Tropical Tropospheric Hot Spot which was supposed to be the “fingerprint” of CO2 = AGW, or, as revised, now of “any” GW?
Or are you going to argue that, contrary to another of its official GCM “predictions” for the first decade of this century, since the “planet”/atmosphere has not warmed over at least the past 15 years now of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, Climate Science got its GCM no-warming Hot Spot prediction right, because it also got its CO2 = CAGW prediction wrong?
As you can perhaps see, mark, ipcc Climate Science speaks in classical gibberish, the kind of “scientific” language which you “believe”, and according to which the actual empirical data turns out to be always “wrong” or defective according to the needs of its practice and “method” – which are obviously directed at goals other than truly scientific ones.
For example, that’s why Trenberth allows and spurs himself on to never stop looking for the as yet completely unfound “missing heat” which, and again contrary to the actual effects of this and the Holocene’s previous Warmer Periods, will allegedly kill us all once it’s finally found in enough quantities, unless we do something really stupid like effectively commit suicide or become enslaved, “before it’s too late!” and the Apocalypse takes us down…snif.
mark, what are your goals? Are you getting paid to repeat ipcc Climate Science’s “tenets” and liturgy here? If only for your own benefit, it’s time for you to come clean about how your own mind works.
mark harrigan says:October 2, 2011 at 3:22 pm
@ Steve – great Steve – look forward to you publishing in the near future –
Not interested in publishing, was requested to over twenty years ago, seemed like a waste of time. What is empirically repeatable, and used tens of thousands of times a day, does not need a paper to stand on.
mark harrigan says:
October 3, 2011 at 2:51 am
Tell me JPeden – how is it that you are right and they are wrong?
Apart from the fact that ipcc Climate Science and the Boards of Scientific Organizations are wrong simply as judged by the failure of CO2 = CAGW’s relevant predictions, which essentially falsify the hypotheses involved – and regardless of anyone’s publishing record in “peer reviewed” journals, which were never put forth as establshing the “given truth” of that which was published, that is, never before the advent of “Climate Science”; and along with its independent failure to even demonstrate anything new in the climate as compared to the Null Hypothesis, in need of a CO2-driven mechanism, etc.; you’re also going to have to take up that particular matter above with the Chinese and Indians. And with the ipcc itself!
That is, where the rubber meets the road, India and China in fact demonstrate by their active construction of essentially as many coal-fired electricity plants as possible, that they consider the burning of fossil fuel to be necessary to the cure of their objective disease involving underdevelopment, instead of being the merely demonized cause of the ipcc’s completely disasterized CO2 = CAGW Apocalypse – itself allegedly constituting the “reason” entities and people like the ones you cite want us to return to the same condition which is now India’s and China’s disease!
And all the while the very people you revere and their acolytes here have not shown any evidence at all, as to decreasing their own “carbon footprints”, that they themselves even believe what they are saying!
Have you, mark? What have you done to significantly reduce your own carbon footprint. After all, it is your belief, not mine, that the Apocalypse is too near to not act! Although I’ll wager right now that you can’t match my record in regard to carbon footprints, which I’ve engineered simply out of concerns for efficiency and common sense.
But going back to the progenitor of all this blatantly Apocalyptic methodology and its actual goal, if the UN and its ipcc does in fact believe its own “science”, why did it exclude countries containing ~5 billion of the Earth’s ~6.7 billion people from having to follow its own alleged Kyoto Protocol cure to its own alleged disease disaster?
For those of you that may be interested, google “Mark Harrigan”+”climate” to get an idea from where he comes with his comments. You can do the same for any commentor that uses their real name, including me.
Fred H. Haynie says:
October 3, 2011 at 12:50 pm
For those of you that may be interested, google “Mark Harrigan”+”climate” to get an idea from where he comes with his comments.
Most excellent suggestion, Fred.
Got him:
http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/User:Mark_Harrigan
Whoa! Be afraid! Be very afraid!
🙂
My My – quite a forest of replies. It would appear I have touched a few nerves of those who seem uncommonly keen to counter my posts. What’s wrong folks? Too much of a challenge for your entrenched beliefs? I also note how “Angry” and “Grumpy” you all sound.
First – in relation to this thread. No one has successfully refuted my point that this entire IG/OMB/EPA issue has been trumped up Inhofe based on a falsehood. Regardless of your views on AGW the IG made no finding in relation to the science. So Carlin’s comments, Inhofe’s challenge and the media beat up surrounding it is based on a deliberately politicised misrepresentation. Surely that should give some of you pause?
As for the rest – well a post would be WAY too long to deal with them all.
But suffice it to say NOT ONE OF YOU has actually referenced any published science – just regurgitated blogosphere analysis.
You also demean http://www.skepticalscience.com/but it has won a prestigious science prize recognising its practice of good reporting on science always referring to the established literature. NONE of the other blogosphere sites you refer to can make that claim. Perhaps because they are rubbish unsupported by the actual science?
IF you don’t like though maybe look at http://www.ucsusa.org – a site run by real scientists (see below)
As I have said, the proper place for real debate about the science is not here. For any claims that any of you have made if you can’t substantiate it with a reference to either a properly published piece of science or a properly considered statement from a credentialed body of science then you are an unqualified blogger who is merely repeating myths. So it’s not worth responding. Either publish your unsupported conclusions yourself, or reference something credible. Blogosphere sites don’t count.
In particular for Steve and Fred? What a joke! – Steve claims he has no need to publish and Fred – despite years of trolling around on the blogosphere with his crackpot analysis can’t. Ever consider that is because what you are saying is complete rubbish? Get published or be silent.
Second – Was what I said REALLY that controversial? It only accords with the majority of climate scientists, climate science conclusions in the published literature and every single credible national science body. Namely that AGW is real, our burning of fossil fuels is the most likely cause, that it is a problem although there are uncertainties about forcing/feedbacks and hence how warm/how fast and associated downsides.
Those uncertainties are summarised quite well here http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/certainty-vs-uncertainty.html
Yes there are contrarians but very few of them are qualified climate scientists (Bob Carter for example is NOT and has published only one piece of recognised climate science and it has been refuted). Their positions are dealt with here
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/
I’ve even recognised that because of the benefits fossil fuels have offered that any mix of abatement/adaptation needs to be carefully managed. That’s not “alarmist”, it’s quite moderate and suitably precautionary based on the expert advice.
But you all seem to want to deny every single element of that and I’m accused of “having an agenda” (which by the way – is not an argument – I could just as easily challenge your agenda – and let’s face it there is an ENORMOUS set of fossil fuel based economic interests who have an agenda to deny AGW – are you really SO sure you are not being manipulated by them?)
Is the position you have all adopted really credible? Could the vast majority of climate scientists and science bodies have it SO completely wrong? (I notice that none of you have directly addressed that challenge as to why you are right and they, who are vastly more qualified than any of us, are so wrong).
Ask yourself, is that really a rational, sane conclusion?.
That they are all so deluded and the blogosphere (informed mostly by those with a peculiar conservative psychology and perhaps a fossil fuel agenda) full of non-experts and a few contrarian scientists really know the truth? Are you sure that you are not falling for a re-assuring lie rather than a confronting truth that might force us to change our ways somewhat?
Objective readers of this blog will, of course, draw their own conclusions 🙂
@ JPEden – That’s a lot of contorted language, backed up by no substantiation that essentially shows you have no understanding of science.
Indeed your claims are really rather shrill and essentially recycling old myths that have been debunked time and time again. I challenged you to provide a specific piece of published science that made a specific claim that turned out to be false. You haven’t. Thus you are refuted.
The reality of consistent warming and the MYTH of cooling since 1998 is well dealt with on page 2 here http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/climate-science-update-temperatures.pdf. As I have already noted you need to look at the VERY LEAST at 5 year moving averages over DECADES to really see the direction in which things are heading because climate change is a phenomenon that acts over decades. Therefore your claims on temperature are refuted.
I also notice you have still failed to explain why you are right and the world’s science bodies are all wrong. You have just restated your position without substance.
Given all the above, and that you can claim no published science nor reference any, you are either an ill-informed AGW denialist blogger or you have an agenda and hence can be ignored.
P.S. I’m alas, not being paid anything. are YOU??
@JohnWho – You also have not referenced a single piece of published science to sustain your claims. Just a whole load of rubbish attacking the IPCC with no evidence to back you.
Yes the IPCC did get some things wrong (two actually – they misspoke about a single glacier – when the vast majority ARE retreating, and they got it right about the Amazon rain forrests but mucked up their references)
That’s only a tiny percentage out of 1000’s of pages and many linked conclusions. If some gets 99% of what they say right and less than 1% wrong is that a basis for dismissing everything they say?
On that basis you are a complete fool since the link you found to a Mark harrigan isn’t me LOL (though he seems like a fine fellow albeit a bit obsessed with on-line role playing games – at least he’s not peddling misinformation like you). I live in Australia, studied at the University of Melbourne where I did my PhD.
“Got Him” you proudly pronounce?
Do you normally jump to conclusions without evidence so quickly?? Oh, yes, of course – you do.
By the way for the objective OPENMINDED readers without a predisposed mind set the issues with the IPCC report are dealt with very well here
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/attacks-on-the-ipcc.html
A site run by SCIENTISTS by the way – not by ideological bloggers.
So JohnWho? All very well for you to suggest other readers troll your blogosphere sites – I suggest they actually look at sites run by scientists (such as http://www.ucsusa.org/) or one of the many sites of credentialed scientific bodies (like here
Just like you go to REAL doctors to get your medical advice and not quacks who make unsubstantiated claims
@Steve ” Not interested in publishing, was requested to over twenty years ago, seemed like a waste of time. What is empirically repeatable, and used tens of thousands of times a day, does not need a paper to stand on” – with due respect what a load of rubbish. You will not subject your unsubstantiated findings to scrutiny by others and you cannot support your claim by showing others who have repeated it?? Then that is NOT science. . In other words your claims about temperature data have no substance or validity and can be ignored.
@Fred – Fred I can see you’ve been trolling ALL around the internet for more than four years trying to get someone to pay attention to your garbled presentation full of jargon and un-justified conclusions. Strangely enough – no one of credibility accepts what you are saying. in fact I couldn;t find anyone at all who does
You claim to have “retired early from EPA research” where you worked in the Atmospheric Sciences research Laboratory. Why I wonder? You appear to have been a Project Officer and not associated with any publication since 1990 – NONE of which were to do with climate science (they are all to do with impacts of atmosphere on metal and other surfaces). Project officers are not researchers per se but are responsible for the technical management of a project (in other words a form of support tech).
No one else in the scientific community agrees with your contention that anthropogenic contribution to CO@ increase is only 12%
There’s a great link here that establishes it’s us http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/ – a web site RUN BY CLIMATE scientists who actually reference reel published literature (lots of similar well references links at skeptical science too by the way but I know you prefer not to use that site despite it’s credentials).
But as a “former EPA scientist” why haven’t you published? Your failure to do so makes it clear you either don’t really believe what you say or, more likely, what you say won’t stand the scrutiny of peer review in a reputable journal.
Put up or shut up.
@Venter
None of your links go to actual published science papers either – just the uncredentialled blogosphere
I’ve dealt with your false claims about no warming since 1998 above – it’s just not true and shows you have no understanding of trends, data variability and moving averages. It’s the equivalent of picking the warmest day in winter and comparing it to the coolest day in summer (often about the same) and then claiming there is no difference in temperature between the two.
What a joke.
here’s the ACTUAL data from the NASA key indicators site http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/
Year Temp Moving 5 year Avg
1970 0.03
1971 -0.10
1972 0.00
1973 0.14
1974 -0.08 0.00
1975 -0.05 -0.02
1976 -0.16 -0.03
1977 0.12 -0.01
1978 0.01 -0.03
1979 0.08 0.00
1980 0.19 0.05
1981 0.26 0.13
1982 0.04 0.12
1983 0.25 0.16
1984 0.09 0.17
1985 0.04 0.14
1986 0.12 0.11
1987 0.27 0.15
1988 0.31 0.17
1989 0.19 0.19
1990 0.36 0.25
1991 0.35 0.30
1992 0.13 0.27
1993 0.13 0.23
1994 0.23 0.24
1995 0.37 0.24
1996 0.29 0.23
1997 0.39 0.28
1998 0.56 0.37
1999 0.32 0.39
2000 0.33 0.38
2001 0.47 0.41
2002 0.56 0.45
2003 0.55 0.45
2004 0.48 0.48
2005 0.63 0.54
2006 0.55 0.55
2007 0.58 0.56
2008 0.44 0.54
2009 0.58 0.56
2010 0.63 0.56
Even a blind fool can see that is on the rise.
As for your comments about Trenberth, Kaufmann and Vernier – I note you don’t reference their actual papers. But to deal with your points – it’s a measureable fact that the Ocean stores heat (it’s a great heat reservoir) and it’s been established that, although the world HAS been warming (see above plus 3 of the hottest years ever in the last decade). Trenberth is doing REAL physics based on the energy balance (energy in, less out must be how much that remains). Shame you don’t understand that. As for Kaufman and Vernier – well, guess what, aerosols DO contribute to cooling. Thanks goodness! Without those aerosols we’d be a lot hotter now and yet the data above CLEALY shows we are warming anyway.
With due respect (something I note very few on here accord anyone who doesn’t agree with them) It is YOU who are trolling and who is uninformed.
Okay – I’m done 🙂
The entire premise of this thread has been shown to be false.
None of you have any real science on which you can base your claims – nor do you seem to appreciate that the actual science debate is taking place, quite properly, by scientists who actually know what they are doing and subject all their data, findings and conclusions to critical review by those who actually know what they are doing.
If you wish to persist in having an ill-informed misrepresentative debate via the blogosphetre I can’t help you. I certainly hope for your own sake you don’t take the approach when you need medical advice and treatment
Me, I’d rather be focusing on the sensible steps we can take to do something about it without creating too severe a disruption in our advanced western economies or denying the developing nations the right to improve their lot. That won’t be an easy task.
We can all help by looking to see what we can all do personally to reduce our energy use and make it more efficient – I’ve managed to reduce our power bills by more than 25% in the last few years despite price rises of far more than that in Australia – so there is scope for personal action as well as societal action. In Australia we will soon have a price on carbon plus an investment fund to develop useful alternative sources. The transition wo’t be easy but it has to happen sometime. China is developing the most advanced and largest solar inustry in the world (yes, I know their absolute emissions are growing but their per capita is looking good and that growth is a function of their economic development).
The USA could choose to take a leadership role in developing new sources of energy and maybe pay attention to Thoimas Friedman – that would keep it as the great leading democracy of our times – unfortunately I suspect, especially as indicated by many of the attitudes on here – it is more lilely to continue what may be a terminal decline.
Pity, but we can live in hope. Been nice to dialogue with you all. 🙂
mark harrigan says:
October 4, 2011 at 2:59 am.
Those are strong words coming from someone that is so biased that they cannot read objectively. I challange you to show where my ideas and techniques in analyzing the data are “crackpot” and where I am any less qualified as a scientist than IPPC climatetoligist to do such analysis. Yes, I was a project officer that awarded and monitored contracts, but we did original inhouse research as well, both laboratory and field studies. More than 60 of the articles that I authored or coauthored were published in peer reviewed documents. I even made it into a couple of Who’s Whos. Any one that compares google hits between us can judge for themselves who is the scientist and who is the troll.
Mark,
Many of us that comment here, that consider themselves scientist, are well aware of the “group think” credentials of Real Climate, having tried to comment and being moderated out. The internet will eventually replace paper publications and peer review will become a more open processes. Judy Curry’s blog is a good start. I don’t think your ranting would get anywhere on her site.
mark harrigan says:
October 4, 2011 at 2:41 am
@ JPEden – That’s a lot of contorted language, backed up by no substantiation that essentially shows you have no understanding of science
[The Super Hero then continued his devastating discourse.]
As mark harrigan’s Punisher looked over the battle field of his latest Victory, one of the vanquished villians was heard to exclaim to his fallen comrades, “Woe is to us, I fear we’ve all been slain by the mighty ‘Punisher’ himself!”
Mark Harrigan:
Why not just get back to us AFTER you understand the “Null Hypothesis”?! After all, one should not put any letters after one’s name until they do! It would also be useful, to think and conclude, using your own cerebrum’s capability, now and again. It might slow, your regurgitation of error, tendencies. GK
mark harrigan says:
October 4, 2011 at 2:43 am
@JohnWho – On that basis you are a complete fool since the link you found to a Mark harrigan isn’t me LOL (though he seems like a fine fellow albeit a bit obsessed with on-line role playing games – at least he’s not peddling misinformation like you). I live in Australia, studied at the University of Melbourne where I did my PhD.
“Got Him” you proudly pronounce?
Do you normally jump to conclusions without evidence so quickly?? Oh, yes, of course – you do.
(Bold mine)
I’m shocked to learn that that isn’t you!
LOL
Good to see you have a sense of humor, albeit on the mean-spirited side.
You’ve been duped by peddlers of misinformation and you spew forth their conclusions while accusing others of doing the same.
I believe the following is correct:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
The source of the statement isn’t as important to me as is what the statement conveys.
It does not deny that we, mankind, may be adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
It does not deny that we have been warming since the end of the LIA and we may continue to do so for a undetermined amount of time.
It does not deny that atmospheric CO2 levels may have some effect on the climate – either cooling or warming.
What it does deny is that “human release of carbon dioxide…is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
In that regard, nothing you or any other believer in CAGW by CO2 has shown proves that human release of carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and/or disruption of the Earth’s climate.
One more time, none of these are proof of CAGW by CO2: (list not all inclusive)
-Arctic Ice disappearing
-Glaciers retreating
-Coral reef bleaching
-Mt Kilimanjaro losing snow
-Polar bears doing anything anywhere
-Some creature or plant facing extinction
-A change in cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons
-Droughts
-Floods
-Dry rivers
-Computer models or simulations
-A “consensus”
-Al Gore’s movie
-Etc. causing etc. by etc. reported by etc., etc.
The real Mark as he would like to be viewed.
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Danny Abramovich
Danny Abramovich arrives at ISEMI with a rich background in teaching and in the business sector, with a specialty in Marketing. A graduate of Lyon Graduate School of Business in France, Danny worked for several years at IsraCard, Ltd, and then moved on to found Marketing 2 Go Ltd., a marketing consulting company that includes marketing consulting, marketing representation, and marketing training. Marketing 2 Go Ltd., primarily consults for the service industries. Danny is also currently a part-time partner for an advertising agency.
Danny’s teaching credentials are also impressive. He has been teaching since 1996 in several graduate and undergraduate programs in Israel, including the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzelia, the extension of The University of Manchester Business School in Israel, and in the extension of the University of Derby in Israel. Danny has been teaching in Marketing oriented subjects, and will continue to do so at ISEMI, where he will be teaching New Venture Marketing and Global Marketing.
Eyal Benjamin
Eyal Benjamin is yet another natural entrepreneur. He has founded two companies, Kito Marcom, Ltd, a technological education company, and Freenet Communications, Ltd., an ISP. Eyal also served as CEO for both companies. After filling the position of VP of Marketing and Business Development for a Venture Capital Fund, Eyal moved on to establish a new software start-up which he developed during his studies at ISEMI.
Eyal graduated from Tel Aviv University with a degree in Engineering, and has also completed one year of MBA studies at Bar-Ilan. Eyal expects to formulate the large amount of knowledge and experience he has acquired to an ordered methodology at ISEMI. Furthermore, he would like to “fill in the gaps” of his knowledge in regards to the creation and management of new ventures. He feels that ISEMI would be an ideal environment to achieve both goals, while still pursuing his career.
Eyal thought, when his first start-up “crashed” that he would never do something on his own again. He soon discovered, however, that “once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur,” and has been searching for ways to continue to create new ventures, which happened sooner than he thought.
Eyal is the perfect example of the ideal ISEMI entrepreneur; a new venture creator, who has gone through the good times and the bad. He feels that his “creative thinking” is his greatest hobby, an example of creating a career out of what you love. Eyal is looking to move on for a PhD in which he will be able to develop new methodologies in Entrepreneurship Research.
Eyal feels that he can contribute a great amount of knowledge and experience to his fellow students, while also hoping that he can learn a great deal from them.
Eyal has stated his studies at ISEMI in 2002 and has been awarded the MEI degree on January 2005. Since 2003 he has been teaching several finance related entrepreneurship courses at ISEMI and has established two more ventures.
Dr. Reto Callegari
Dr Reto Callegari is Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of ADVAL CIC (S) PTE, Ltd., a successful financial institution in Singapore, where he functions as an Angel Investor in a wide array of companies. Hailing from Switzerland and with an impressive resume of Banking Activities, Dr. Callegari, already quite an expert in Asian enterprises, decided to make that area of the world his home.
Dr. Callegari worked at Credit Suisse in both Zurich and Geneva, and filled positions of great responsibility including acting as a member of the management team in directing expansion into Asia, serving on the board of ECOTEC, the Euro-China Organization for Technical and Economic Co-operation and holding the positions of Head of Private, Institutional Banking and Trading and Head of the International Department for Corporate Trade and Finance. He also served as Member of the Executive Committee, Chairman of Credit Suisse Investment Consulting Ltd. in Taiwan and as Member of the Executive Board and CEO in Asia Pacific. Prior to his work at the bank, Dr Callegari served on the National Research Council of Thailand as a Foreign Researcher.
Today, at ADVAL in Singapore, Dr. Callegari directs investments in new ventures and offers consulting/management services for start-up companies and investors. He acts as an investment advisor and as a member of various Boards of Directors. The Chairman of the International Advisory Panel of Suntec Labs, he also served as a lecturer and mentor at a number of business seminars and universities in Asia, Europe and Israel. Dr. Callegari received his undergraduate degree at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and graduated from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He completed his Ph.D. work with Honors in Economic Geography at the University of Zurich. Now dedicated to lecturing at ISEMI on a regular basis, Dr. Callegari found us, and we him, in a very interesting way. While attending a Technopreneurship Conference in Singapore, sponsored by Swinborne University, Dr. Callegari met Professor Liora Katzenstein, who asked him to join the ISEMI team. The gain has been all ours.
Shoshana Emmanuel
Ms. Shoshana Emmanuel specializes in teaching discourse analysis and literacy for academic purposes in English, Hebrew, and French. Her courses provide the students with the tools to analyze articles while identifying their structure, major arguments, and purpose.
Ms. Emmanuel completed her studies for the M.A. in English and French at Tel Aviv University. She further studied in those departments at the University of Geneva, at the Goldman Institute for Business Communication in Geneva and at the Sorbonne University in Paris.
Prof. Michael Epstein
With a strong background in sciences including a B.Sc. in Chemistry, an M.Sc. in Physical Chemistry, a Ph.D. from the Weizman Institute in Biochemistry, and a post doctorate fellowship at Cornell University, Dr. Mike Epstein decided to augment his training with a formal entrepreneurship education . He came to study at ISEMI and was granted a Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Since garnering his degree, Dr. Epstein has deepened his involvement with the institution and now acts as the Program Director of the master degree studies as well as a lecturer on a number of topics. Prof. Epstein has amassed a great deal of experience “in the real world”, as well. He served as a visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. USA, and was appointed Senior Scientist at Rogoff-Welcome Research Institute at the Beilinson Hospital. Interested in combining his science know-how with business, Dr. Epstein moved to Isolab, Inc, a medical and agricultural diagnostics company of 100 employees in Akron Ohio, where he was a member of the management team in charge of business development. Returning to Israel, he was named Deputy Head of a Holding Group in charge of Biotech for Ampal, American Israel Corporation, where he also served as a board member of subsidiaries and CEO of Tayco Diagnostics and Pharma Clal and increased sales by 35% and profit by 25%, despite an overall drop in the industry over the same period. Dr. Epstein was also involved in health care institutes as co-founder, partner and CEO of Libit Cardiac Health Institutes, Ltd., and CEO of Hilla Dental Health Institutes, Ltd. At Hilla, Dr. Epstein took a twelve million dollar business of 12 dental clinics with a long record of losses, and turned it into a profitable business. Prof. Epstein struck out on his own and founded “Machshava”, a hi tech business consulting firm which dealt mostly with companies in the field of biotech, and consulted on the many business and professional aspects of the field. Prof. Epstein is presently involved in BioTargeting Ltd. and D4all Ltd. as the cofounding entrepreneur and CEO. The former is a startup company dealing with novel X-ray and ultrasound imaging, while the latter is a startup concerned with internet trading. Prof. Epstein also has his hands in real estate with the Chen Hasharon project – a self-owned project of 42 town houses for which Prof. Epstein has full responsibility.
Dr. Samuel Frankel
Dr. Samuel Frankel’s wide areas of expertise include a wide array of aspects of financial management. Today a successful economic and financial consultant, he garnered his experience through a number of high-level positions: Dr. Frankel carried out the establishing operations of a Cross Borders Leasing Corporation in Alamaty Kazakhstan for the C.I.S. countries. Later he was responsible for conducting a feasibility study and for securing funds for the MIDOR Refinery, in Alexandria Egypt. During 1998 -1999 he was part of the team conducting the Due Diligence as well as soliciting investors for the privatization of the Armenian Yeravan Electricity Companies for the Government of Armenia, as part of the World Bank activity. Prior to that, Dr. Frankel founded Genmedix, a generic drug corporation, and was responsible for establishing cost, financial reporting and marketing contracts for Genmedix. During 1991-94, at the Meuchedet Health Fund, he served as a Medical Division Economist, while at Kupat Holim Leumit, he was responsible for preparing the recovery plan and subsequent follow-up with relevant authorities toward the ministry of Health and Treasury if Israel.
Dr. Frankel was a Senior Economist and member of the Executive Management of the Israel Corporation, where he was responsible for the analysis and preparation of company mergers acquisitions. Before that he served as the Deputy Director of Investments and Treasurer of Migdal Insurance Company, Where he was responsible for the cash flow of the company as well as for investment in various securities, debentures and loans. During 1980-85 he worked at Israel Discount Bank, preparing working papers for the bank’s senior management regarding Euromarket interests and exchange rate fluctuations, new public and private offerings, evaluating and operating procedures with large Banks clients and reviewed the bank’s financial spreads.
Dr. Frankel was awarded a B.A. in Economy, with a minor in Mathematics and Information and Computer Science from Georgia State University. He earned his M.B.A. and Ph.D. at the School of Business Administration at the same institution.
Amir Freund
Amir Freund completed a B.Sc. at the Technion in Haifa in the framework of the IDF Academic Reserve program, and then joined the Mamdas unit of the Israel Air Force, which is responsible for software development for IAF avionic and radar systems. Amir remained in the IAF until 1991, including three years as part of the IAF project management team developing the MMRS Radar System at Norden Technologies in Connecticut, and then helping with the development and testing of the system in Israel. Amir then began accumulating knowledge of Wireless systems: for four years he was software group manager for a telecom company in Herzliya, working on Wireless Local Loop (WLL) development; and for two years he was project manager for another telecom company in Petach Tikva, where he managed the development of a WLL Personal Communication System for the US market.
Equipped with this thorough experience, in 1996 Amir became co-founder of Floware Wireless Systems, where he acted as VP R&D, involved in many aspects of company strategy. The company has grown into a world leader in broadband wireless communication with over 300 employees, and taken public in NASDAQ in 1999 (FLRE). Subsequently it merged with Breezcom Ltd. and became Alvarion (ALVR).
Amir says he now wants to take some time out and add to his education with a masters degree in business. While ISEMI is proud of the practical, hands-on experience it offers its students, interestingly enough many who register for the MEI course are seeking to back up their existing practical experience with theoretical knowledge, and Amir is clearly in this category. He will doubtless have a great deal to contribute to his sessions at ISEMI.
Professor Murray Gilin
(PhD(Cantab), MEd(Hons) (Melb), MEngSc (Melb), BMetEng (Hons) (Melb), ASMB(Ballarat), FTS, FIEAust, FAIM, FACE, FWACE)
Murray Gillin’s professional career has covered a broad spectrum beginning as an engineer with the Defence Industry with subsequent appointments to positions of Research Scientist with the Defence Science & Technology Organisation, Defence Research Attaché at the Australian Embassy in Washington, USA, Senior Principal Research Scientist in Defence Science, Canberra. In 1979 he was appointed Dean of Engineering at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. As Dean of Engineering he developed the Engineering Faculty into Australia’s largest and most successful compulsory work-integrated-learning program and in 1989 he formed the School of Innovation and Enterprise. In January 1994 he was appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology.
His research interests cover the development of high-performance carbon-fibre-reinforced composites, evaluation of cooperative education and the process of innovation and entrepreneurship in managing growing enterprises. He currently directs several research programs with some 18 PhD candidates.
The development of innovative programs within the Graduate School of Entrepreneurship have contributed significantly to the range of quality programs offered to educate entrepreneurial managers. These programs are recognised as world leaders in the development of relevant entrepreneurial education and have been offered in Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
His professional qualifications include – Fellow, Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Fellow, The Institution of Engineers, Australia, Fellow, Australian Institute of Management, Fellow, Australian College of Education, Fellow, World Association for Cooperative Education, Member, Australian Institute of Physics, Senior Member, American Institute for Mining and Metallurgy and Foundation Member, Australian Academy of Design. In 1997 Prof. Gillin was awarded the “Order of Australia” by the Australian Government and in 2001 he was nominated as “The Entrepreneurship Educator of The Year”.
David Goldman, Esq.
Mr. Goldman has vast law and economic experience, both in education and in law. He is a graduate of three programs at Hebrew University in Jerusalem; a BA in Accounting and Economics, a LL.B (jointly with the BA), and he received his LL.M in 1999.
Mr. Goldman has worked as an assistant to the president of the Municipal Court in Jerusalem, and as an Attorney for a private law office, as well as for the Tel Aviv District Attorney’s office (both in the fiscal field). He is currently a partner dealing primarily in tax law in a prominent law firm in Tel Aviv.
Mr. Goldman’s teaching experience includes several prestigious institutions such as the Interdisciplinary Center for Law in Herzelia, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the University of Haifa.
Mr. Goldman has also written several articles in professional journals (such as Taxes, The Accountant, and Knowledge to Information) on fiscal and legal issues.
Professor Adolph M. Hanich
Adolph Hanich is at present the director of the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at Swinburne University of Technology. He was the founder and principal of Fairhaven Associates Pty Ltd a strategy consulting practice. Prior to starting his own practice, he was a senior partner with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu – Asia, one of the global “big five” professional firms, where he was involved in a leadership capacity in both management consulting and corporate advisory work.
Over the last twenty years he has consulted to a wide cross section of Australia’s major business and public sector enterprises. Originally trained as a chemical engineer, he switched to a management career and had some twelve years experience as a corporate executive in several major multi-nationals, before joining the consulting profession.
Adolph Hanich has been a pracademic at Swinburne since 1994, has also taught at Monash University and has been a guest lecturer at RMIT and Melbourne Business School.
Over the years he has been involved in the start up (and shut down) of a number of enterprises. He has been a Director of numerous companies and is currently chairman of several Boards.
Dr. Mark Harrigan
“Dr. Mark Harrigan has extensive practical experience with the business of creativity and innovation having brought new products to the market in a wide variety of industries.
He is an accomplished facilitator and workshop and seminar presenter. Voted “Speaker of the Year” in 1999 by The Executive Connection, an international organisation of CEO’s. Dr Harrigan has been personally trained and accredited by Dr Edward de Bono, the inventor of the term “Lateral Thinking”, to teach and use his techniques and is Australia’s most experienced trainer in this area Dr Harrigan has a diverse background covering R&D, Manufacturing, Marketing and Corporate & Business Strategy. He holds a Ph.D. in Atomic Physics from Melbourne University and began his professional career with Kodak Australasia, as an R&D scientist and manager and then as a National Divisional Marketing Manager. Prior to establishing his consulting business he was the Manager of Business Innovation at Invetech, a leading Australian consulting firm to the manufacturing industry.
Dr Harrigan lectures in Strategy at the Company Director’s Course for the Australian Institute of Company Directors and runs a course in Innovation at the Israel School of Entrepreneurial Management and Innovation and at the Swinburne Graduate School of Management’s Masters of Enterprise Innovation. He is also Strategy Director of a $30 million turnover food manufacturer and Chairman of a small computer services company.
Dr Harrigan’s client list includes BHP, BTR Nylex, CSR, KPMG, McDonalds, Pacific Dunlop, Reckitt & Colman, Southcorp, and Yellow Pages Australia, as well as several smaller enterprises and a range of government organisations and utilities.”
Sorry about the above. I did a copy and paste and thought I had only copied Mark’s paragraph.
Utter bullshit Mark Harrigan. Please go check HADCRUT, RSS and UAH data and find out where is this warming you talk of since 1998 till now. Your 5 year moving average as an indicator of Global Warming is absurd.
And by the way the entire Global Warming [non ] Science so far on which the IPCC is thriving is based upon HADCRUT data. You don’t even seem to know that.
And read the links referenced and read the papers published. The names of the papers are given. Go do your homework first. And what you are doing is unverified blogoshpere trolling, with no knowledge of science or facts and no honesty.
@ Ventner – Piffle.
The data I show is from Nasa based on GISS – good link explaining relationship to HADCRUT here http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/2009-temperatures-by-jim-hansen/
HADCRUT is explained here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HadCRUT
GISS here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GISS
There is broad agreement between these two sources as explained here http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=468
The data I have posted is AVAILABLE FOR ALL TO SEE if they would but look at the NASA key indicators site. http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/#globalTemp
If you want to assert that is false please provide the references to the many peer reviewed papers by qualified scientists (
It is you who have no understanding and are dishonest. As is this entire thread.
@ You all
I have already said
“First – in relation to this thread. No one has successfully refuted my point that this entire IG/OMB/EPA issue has been trumped up Inhofe based on a falsehood. Regardless of your views on AGW the IG made no finding in relation to the science. So Carlin’s comments, Inhofe’s challenge and the media beat up surrounding it is based on a deliberately politicised misrepresentation. Surely that should give some of you pause?”
Apparently not??
It took me all of five minutes to establish that fact. How come none of you could do so??? Confirmation bias?? Predisposition to a certain view??
What does that say for your credibility??
We obviously disagree. I claim that I have the science on my side and have made my case for that claim. You dispute it (though not terribly well).
What cannot be disputed is that the premise of this thread is false, nor that the vast majority of climate scientists agree with my position as do all the major bodies of science. Readers can draw their own conlusions from that.
But – let us part on good terms.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2011/10/04/an-open-letter-to-climate-change-deniers-and-skeptics-the-final-chocolate-straw/
Even you guys will appreciate (I hope) the humour/tongue in cheek of this.
Realclimate is not a source to be trusted on anything related to climate science.
And only an idiot uses Wikiedia to explain HADCRUT.
HADCRUT is not showing any relationship to GISTEMP. There is no explanation here.
GISTEMP is manipulated by Hansen to lower past temperatures and increase preset. GISTEMP is divergent from HACDRUT, UAH and RSS.
All the IPCC and AGW science has been done based on HADCRUT.
Why don’t you write to Phil Jones, Trenberth and Schmidt and ask them if it is cooling or warming since 1998?
Or even more simply let us know which year has been warmer than 1998 in the past 13 years.
Answer : None
@Mark harrigan:
But – let us part on good terms.
Goodby, fair “Punisher”, for surely if you are not he, yet you have performed to his standard!
Oh NO the end of chocolate! (ref: Mark’s Forbes article) It seems like I have seen thousands of studies that start out with IF or WHEN it gets warmer some terrible thing will happen . . . .
What I would like to see just once is, IF it gets colder . . . .
It could happen you know!
Bernie
mark harrigan says:
October 5, 2011 at 6:17 am
By your biased perspective you are actually clueless as to how science works in industry. You must be an academic, who lives in a world of conjecture, lacking empirical experience. Most scientific papers are eventually proven wrong. Why write papers about things industry uses as SOP… it is a waste of time.
@ Steve Keohane – hmmm – an unjustified assumption leading to a fallacious conclusion about an irrelevance Steve? Sounds like a typical denier to me – lol.
I’m not an academic. I’ve been a researcher in industry although mostly over the last two decades have worked running businesses, including building and selling my own. I think it’s possible I just may understand far more about how science is used in industry than you do perhaps?
as for the statement “Most scientific papeprs are eventually proven wrong”? – evidence?? or just another myth.
Deny this
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111020/full/news.2011.607.html
Who’s biased I wonder
Mark Harrigan says:
October 20, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Mark, I apologize if I mislabeled you. I retired from industry twenty years ago. From your insinuation of my being a denier, What do I deny? The climate changes, it always has. The fraction of a degree of inferred warming is smaller than the standard deviation. It is cooler now than when Greenland was settled, because retreating glaciers show pre-existing flora to the glaciers. The Gulf of Mexico was 2 meters higher 2000 years ago because the coast was 50 miles inland and the inhabitants left piles of shells where they lived on then current shores.
One can play all the games one wants with temperatures, but they do not over rule empirical observation. None of the catastrophic predictions have occurred, are occurring, nor will occur at the current rates of change of alleged warming.
The work I did with NIST beating the world’s first 32-bit CPU’s linewidths into submission,
+/-0.1μ, 3σ, in about 1985, was all about temperature measurement and control. I did this via temperature control at key process points of +/- 0.1°F. While this was important enough to be incorporated into SemaTech, it was a temporary step to whatever is being done now with better technology I’m sure.
You must be joking about the BEST “analysis” of surface stations…GIGO
Steve – I appreciate your courteous reply. However I would dispute your analysis and conclusions.
1) The BEST analysis (which by the way Mr Watts said he would accept no matter whether it agreed with his anti AGW stance or not – and it’s a bit rich h now appeals to the Peer reveiw process as a “get out” given that he has been a laeding critic of Peer Review as a process) clearly shows there has been warming. It IS based on empirical observation – so it seems to me you are in denial.
2) You say “The Climate changes, it always has” – but why?? Is it by magic?? No – of course not – the climate changes in response to some sort of climate forcing and that change is either amplified or reduced by positive or negative feedback. In the current times that’s due to CO2 forcing from (somewhat mislabelled but nevertheless real) greenhouse effect. The physics of that is beyond dispute. Water Vapour becomes a positive feedback to that. The only real uncertainty relates to how warm/how fast as there are, of course, many influences – such as Solar irradiation, albedo changes etc – but generally they are, if anything, at the moment tending to mitigate CO2 warming (for which we can be grateful). And such an assessment needs to be considered over decades, not just a few years.
3) Also, has GLOBAL climate actually changed all that much (except for recently). There is clear evidence that, in fact, GLOBAL climate (as opposed to just northern hermispheric or other regional climate) has NOT changed as much as it has in the last 30-40 years for nearly 20,000 years – you might like to look at this paper that establishes that – http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v48/n1/p5-11
4) Re your comments about measureement uncertainty and errors – I actually worked in Metrology for many years (I’m a PhD physicist by training) – they are simmply untrue. If you have a careful look at the measurment uncertainty available in the NASA or GISS data (for example) you will see it is WAY less than the amount of warming in the last 30 years
5) As for the “disasters” – you really out to google that – there is a powerful emerging series of staudies showing that the increasing frequency and severity of climate related incidents (flooding in Pakistan, Australia, USA, Thailand etc) and heat waves in places like Russia and droughts in Africa etc – are starting to statistically add up as being not readily explained by “natural” variations.
Mark Harrigan,
I shouldn’t pile on, but you make it too easy. Your CV posted above could just as well be Elmer Gantry’s CV. And you avoided Steve Keohane’s questions – for good reason, I suspect.
To answer your comments, Anthony Watts said he would accept the BEST conclusions. But Muller has been far from honest, and BEST diddled with the data, producing conclusions that show both warming and cooling; take your pick.
At this point I would not accept Muller’s word that the sun rises in the east. Muller is a slippery eel whose smile is a front for his devious mind. His overt backstabbing has been documented here, when he welshed on his promise of confidentiality to Anthony. Would you trust a devious trickster like that?
I also worked in a Metrology lab, for 30 years. We had over 140 engineers and technicians, and not one of them believed in the CO2=CAGW nonsense. You say, “…has GLOBAL climate actually changed all that much (except for recently). There is clear evidence that, in fact, GLOBAL climate (as opposed to just northern hermispheric or other regional climate) has NOT changed as much as it has in the last 30-40 years for nearly 20,000 years…”
That is simply incorrect. The fact is that the planet is still emerging from the LIA along its same long-term trend line. There is no evidence showing that anything unusual is occurring. The deceptive use of charts with a zero or specific temperature y-axis makes them look alarming. But when the actual long-term trend is used, we can see that the planet’s warming is natural and nothing to be concerned about.
When most everyone else in this thread constantly corrects your misinformation, maybe you should accept the fact that you’re on the wrong track.
🙂 Smokey – you reference the bloggorhea on a blog site (with dubious data) – I reference a science paper (which apparently you did not even read). Your simply “deny” its conclusions but offer no evidence to support your claim.
I talk science, you talk politics and make an ad hom comment.
Doesn’t speak much for your arguments – and “belief” of your work colleagues is not really relevant is it? If neither you or your colleages accept the physical reality that CO2 absorbs and back reflects long wave IR then you don;t know basic science.
Now here’s a little bit of elementary logic for you.
It’s quite reasonable for those who have difficulty coming to grips with AGW to have questions. That’s what real skeptics do.
But you have to question the motivation and open mindedness when, despite continually being shown the data and paper after paper concluding the issue is real they continue to object and bluster.
The scientific endeavour is not simply an individual effort – it is a collective domain – those who promote personal views about the reality of AGW without submitting their work to proper peer review are not part of that domain. They are pushing a personal view (to which they are entitled). But they are not entitled to their own facts.
I think one should remember Occam’s razor – namely
Person on web post claims to have in their self-published “paper”/website a comprehensive refutation of AGW which is full of important looking science and formulae but has not had any of the work subjected to review and evaluation by people who understand the science. Nevertheless it is clear in their own estimation that they have it right and the world’s climate scientists have it wrong.
Possible reasons?
Hypothesis 1) Author rightly believes the “real” science of Climate published in the reputable peer reviewed climate science journals is fundamentally flawed.
For this to be true there must be thousands of climate scientists, atmospheric physicists, journal editors and prestigious bodies of science who are either subject to mass delusion, associated with some vast conspiracy theory or just plain dumb.
Hypothesis 2) The Author wrongly believes their arguments or “science” are valid whereas in fact their unpublished refutation of AGW is complete junk, unable to be substantiated by evidence or to survive even a cursory peer review by properly trained scientists who know what they are doing because the Author has not even a rudimentary grasp of what they are saying
For this to be true the unpublished “refutation” of AGW has no real scientific basis.
Occam’s Razor recommends, when faced with competing hypotheses that are equal in other respects, select the one that makes the fewest new assumptions or to paraphrase
“simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones”
Mark Harrigan,
As I said above, you make it too easy.
First, you misunderstand Occam’s Razor: “One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.” ~William of Ockham, 1285-1349
By adding an unnecessary, extraneous variable [CO2] to describe what controls the climate, the result is confusion. That’s why not one GCM has been able to accurately predict the climate.
With a 40% increase in the dreaded “carbon”, the climate doomsters expected a steep ratcheting up of global temperatures by now. That has not happened, and the extremely *mild* temperature rise since the mid 19th century can be fully explained by natural variability; the null hypothesis has never been falsified, and global temperatures are not accelerating as endlessly predicted. Neither is sea level rise accelerating. Rising thermal expansion would be an early indicator of accelerated global warming. But it’s just not happening.
Now, before your head explodes, let me make clear that there is probably a minor component of radiative warming from GHG’s. But it is so small that it can be dismissed for all practical purposes. The planet has warmed from 288K to 288.8K in 150 years. Big deal. At times during the Holocene, temperatures have risen by 15°C in a shorter time frame — when CO2 levels were much lower than they are now.
So go ahead and scare yourself silly over AGW. But the rest of us see things in a more normal and rational perspective.
[Snip. We don’t tolerate accusations of “denialism” here. ~dbs, mod.]
Well – I’m actually pleased to see there is some editorial management here – it’s a refreshing change compared to some blogs and I do commend you for it 🙂
Smokey claims “The planet has warmed from 288K to 288.8K in 150 years. Big deal. At times during the Holocene, temperatures have risen by 15°C in a shorter time frame — when CO2 levels were much lower than they are now.”
The second claim – a 15 degree rise in less than 150 years is without substantiation and I would suggest is plainly incorrect. That has NEVER happened.
The first claim is misrepresentative – of the 0.8 degree rise in the last 150 years 75% of it has happened in the last 40 years.
The BEST data (and other data sources) clearly show the planet is warming. There is ample evidence (such as the paper I linked to above which I doubt Smokey has actually read) that these recent increases in warming (over, say the last 40-50 years) are far in excess of any natural variation for thousands of years.
The climate does not change by “magic” – something has to be causing it – so an appeal to the null hypothesis is fallacious. It has CLEARLY been shown to be false.
The best science, based on measured increases in CO2 levels, the basic physics of the (somewhat misnamed but real) greenhouse effect, and the measured satellite observations of reduced long wave IR precisely where you would expect CO2 absorption and remissions to occur. We can be grateful that warming has slowed somewhat in the last 10 years thanks to the natural variations – which are well explained and illustrated here http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/fig/figure-spm-2-l.png
So I stand by my comments with respect to Occam’s razor.
I would also point out that I showed above that the entire premise of this thread (that the GAO’s challenge to the EPA somehow invalidated the science) is completely false – something most posters on this thread rushed to embrace without checking their facts.
I would have though that might at least give some posters pause
By the way – it IS apparently okay to call people Trolls on this thread as Anthony Watts has done – so it seems a little hypocritical to censor based on the word “denier” – but so be it 🙂