From Dr. Benny Peiser and the Global Warming Policy Foundation via email.
The Observatory, 21 October 2011
David Whitehouse
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has released its preliminary findings though not in a research journal but to the scientific community and the general public. Their trumpeted finding is not surprising – the world has gotten warmer in recent decades – or at least the land has. This is consistent with the other global temperature datasets.
A press release issued by the project said, “Global Warming is real,” adding that it can find no evidence of a heat island effect, and that even weather stations considered to be of doubtful quality still show relative warming over the 1950 – 2010 period in question.
Whilst the results are not that surprising, the findings of the research have been used by some to talk about the nature of climate skepticism bearing in mind that the impetus for the Berkeley initiative came from self-avowed skeptical scientists. But the results, and how they have been portrayed, also says something about the nature of today’s environmental reporting. In particular it reveals a narrow focus on trouncing sceptics at the expense of putting the science into its proper context.
The Guardian is notable not for what it says but for what it doesn’t say. The article has far too narrow an outlook, providing no overall context. It does not even mention that the Berkeley researchers themselves say they cannot determine why the world has warmed. It makes no mention that those sceptics who doubt that the earth is warming are few in number, and that there is a widespread and respectable group of scientists who, in peer reviewed journals, debate the relative mix of influencing factors concerning that warming.
The Guardian also allows Jim Hansen to misrepresent scepticism and go unchallenged. He says, “as I have discussed in the past, the deniers, or contrarians, if you will, do not act as scientists, but rather as lawyers….as soon as they see evidence against their client (the fossil fuel industry and those people making money off business-as-usual), they trash that evidence and bring forth whatever tidbits they can find to confuse the judge and jury.” The number of sceptics included in the article is zero.
The Economist (not in my opinion noted for its deep thinking on climate science) article was clearly written by someone unfamiliar with the subject. Like the Guardian it failed to put this research into its proper perspective. Its sceptic count was also zero.
The report in Nature was much better, in my opinion because it actually included comments from the sceptics in that Steve McIntyre said he has found some problems with the Berkeley research. Given Steve’s track record this is something worth noting. The Berkeley team is posting their raw data on the web and no doubt many statistically adroit bloggers will get to work (for me one of the main things to come out of “Climategate” was that professors of climate science were not in the same league as some on the web when it came to statistical analysis.) Nature’s sceptic count is one.
New Scientist did a good job in that they did provide perspective for the research emphasising just how irrelevant was the Berkeley finding to many sceptical questions today. New Scientist sceptic count, three.
But, for me, the worst treatment came from Forbes. This spiteful article says that the scientific community been saying for decades that the earth is warming up? I don’t think so. It goes on;
“Indeed, even most remaining climate change skeptics and deniers have moved away from saying there is no warming. Now, their major talking points are that it isn’t caused by humans, or only a little bit, or it won’t be bad, or we can’t afford to fix it, or… Denial is a moving target.”
This prejudiced, intolerant and inaccurate, article completely misrepresents sceptical views, and is a good example of the problem facing the debate about climate science within and without of the scientific community. We must surely rise above such sour and divisive comments that have no place in scientific discourse. The author is in an old sterile paradigm that is inherently anti-science, and is more of the problem facing progress than some at the extreme end of climate scepticism.
Trivial Headlines
There are very few people who do not believe the world hasn’t warmed, in various episodes, since the instrumental record began about 150 years ago. We are today warmer than the Little Ice Age, warmer than the Victorian Era, indeed warmer than the 1970s. The proper question is, of course, why? The Berkeley team have no conclusions about this.
So all the headlines that basically say sceptics have been trounced because the world really is warming are trivial. The Berkeley team confirm what has been found in three other datasets and what “both sides” of the debate already agree on. I could say “so what,” and “is it news?” Well, news is what reporters print.
There are significant questions about the research however. Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre say they have found some serious issues that will no doubt come out in due course.
The 39,000 or so weather stations cover 29% of the planet and a third of them showed no warming over the 60-year period under consideration, indeed they showed cooling. How does the distribution of these two sub-sets of data compare? One would not expect global warming to be even across the globe (indeed most of it seems to take place in the Arctic) but if the cooling stations were well mixed in with the warming stations geographically then that would be interesting. The Berkeley researchers interpolate temperatures between stations and I wonder if the cooling stations fit into this interpolation? Indeed, perhaps one way to look at the data would be that only a third of weather stations (the difference between the warmers and the coolers) contribute to the final conclusion. To my mind that’s a very different stance from saying that two-thirds of temperature stations show warming.
Other things that emerge from the data is that it confirms that the Nasa Giss dataset is anomalously high with respect to the other datasets especially in the past decade. Thus we should be careful, as I have said previously, about claiming temperature records based on Nasa Giss data alone.
The data also confirm the post-2000 standstill, Nigel Calder has noted this. Looking at the data I do not agree with the study’s lead author that the recent standstill is not present in the data.
The British government’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, stressed that the study needed to
be peer-reviewed before being factored in to the debate, but that if it was found to be correct, it would conform with US work at NASA and NOAA and that of Phil Jones and his colleagues at the UK Hadley Center-UEA Climatic Research Unit. “This work adds to the evidence about how climate change is happening,” he said.
Actually the researchers say they cannot say how global warming is happening just that it is, though one could be charitable and say that Sir John’s comments about how global warming is happening might refer to geospatial data, but refer to my previous comments about that.
Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said he hoped that if and when the study was peer reviewed and published, the focus could shift to “the implications for the future of this warming rather than wrangling over whether the warming is really there.”
I hope not. The implications for the future must be framed in the context of our understanding of what is actually going on. That should be the next focus.
But there is something really important in one of the four papers issued by the Berkeley team, and a considerable irony that it has been missed by all reporters and commentators.
If you do something that most of the reporters haven’t done, and usually never do, study the research paper itself (why bother when there is a press release) you will find something remarkable.
“Human Component Overstated”
The findings of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project are important because they emphasise the growing realisation that science has underplayed the unknowns and uncertainties in the attribution of the causes of recent climate change. Without doubt, the data compiled and the analysis undertaken, by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project is unambiguous evidence that the root causes of global warming are poorly understood.
The researchers find a strong correlation between North Atlantic temperature cycles lasting decades, and the global land surface temperature. They admit that the influence in recent decades of oceanic temperature cycles has been unappreciated and may explain most, if not all, of the global warming that has taken place, stating the possibility that the “human component of global warming may be somewhat overstated.”
There is the headline missed by all: Scientists say human component of global warming may be overstated.
Why isn’t it there? It’s just as valid as the headlines used, scientifically more interesting and journalistically light-years better than what has been reported.
The BBC did mention the North Atlantic decadal oscillation aspect of the story saying, “The Berkeley group says it has also found evidence that changing sea temperatures in the north Atlantic may be a major reason why the Earth’s average temperature varies globally from year to year.” But it then fails to explain what this means and gets itself into a twist and doesn’t mention the conclusion reached by the Berkeley researchers.
Now, here’s the irony, the Berkeley team are actually sceptics about the matter where the real debate lies – the question of the mix of human and natural contributions to the recent warming. Now why didn’t any of these “reporters” pick up on that?
Why was this nugget missed or ignored? It is because environmental reporters are too obsessed with bashing sceptics, and reading press releases, than in reporting science.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.org
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the Berkely team is simply warmists in skeptic sheeps clothing … why would they release their un-reviewed paper to be blasted across the world otherwise ?
REPLY: And despite your whiny objections, it stays, tough noogies junior. Complain to Whitehouse and GWPF, but please do shut up about my accurately reproducing the article. – Anthony
_______________________________________________________________________________
We do have a quote though, don’t we?
With no attribution to anyone or any group of people whatsoever.
Generated from the GWPF and NOT the Berkeley scientists themselves.
In other words a ficticious quote, as in something that is patently false.
Those are the EXACT facts as I understand them to be until such time as I am proven wrong.
Just setting the record straight for those of us who just happen to be true skeptics.
Thanks Anthony Watts for highlighting an often overlooked point: Climate realists aren’t denying that the world has warmed, but the question of human involvement is still out there. I mean, just because hundreds of government institutions, corporations, scientific and professional organizations—not to mention non-profits—have all made statements affirming their stance that global warming is a man-made phenomenon (see list below), doesn’t mean anything. Note that even the likes of Chevron, American International Group, Alcoa, Xcel Energy and General Motors are all on board with the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Clearly all these different organizations with varying interests are conspiring to agree that climate change is real and human-caused.
National Religious Coalition on Creation Care
350.org
Academia Brasiliera de Ciências
Academié des Sciences, France
AccademiadeiLincei, Italy
Adidas
AirFrance
Alcoa
Alliance for Climate Education
Alstom
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association of Wildlife Veternarians
American Astronomical Society
American Baptist Churches USA
American Chemical Society
American Council on Science and Health
American Electric Power (AEP)
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Institute of Physics
American International Group
American Lung Association
American Meteorological Society
American Museum of Natural History
American Physical Society
American Psychological Association
American Public Health Association
American Quarterly Association
American Rivers
American Society for Microbiology
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Landscape Architects
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
American Statistical Association
American Water
American Water Works Association
Aspen Global Change Institute
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Australian Medical Association
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Bayer
Ben & Jerry’s
Biofuelwatch
Boeing
Botanical Society of America
British Airways
Burlington Electric Department
Canadian Association of Physicists
Canadian Geophysical Union
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Society of Soil Science
Canadian Society of Zoologists
Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA)
Carbonfund.org
Center for Biological Diversity
Center for New American Security
Central Appalachian Network
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Chevron
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Church of the Brethren General Board
Citi
Citizens Campaign for the Environment
Citizens Climate Lobby
Clean Air Cool Planet
Climate and Health Council
Climate Communication
Climate Institute
Climate Literacy Network
Coalition for Clean Air
Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life
Committee on Climate Change (UK)
ConAgra Foods
Conservation Law Foundation
Constellation Energy
Continental Airlines
Cool California
Copenhagen Accord (Representatives of 112 countries and the E.U, including the U.S)
Coral Reef Alliance
Covenant of Mayors
Crop Science Society of America
CUIPO
David Suzuki Foundation
Dell
Department for International Development (DFID)
Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Department of Ecology, State of Washington
Department of Energy and Climate Change (UK)
DeSmogBlog
Deutsche Akademie der NaturforscherLeopoldina, Germany
Directgov (Uk)
Dole
Dow Chemical
Dupont
Duracell
Earth Charter Initiative
Earthjustice
Eco-Justice Collaborative
EcoHealth Alliance
EcoLogic Development Fund
Ecological Society of America
Endangered Species International
Environment America
Environmental and Energy Study Institute
Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Law Alliance World Wide
EPA (Ireland)
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
European Environment Agency
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
European Physical Society
European Science Foundation
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Exxon Mobil
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (Science and Technology Australia)
Food and Agriculture Organization
Ford Motor Company
Friends of the Earth
Fujitsu
General Electric
General Motors
Genworth Life Insurance
Geological Society of America
Geological Society of London
GlaxoSmithKline
Global Citizen Corps
Green America
Greenfacts
Greenpeace International
Health and Environment Alliance
Health Care Without Harm
Honda
HP
IBM Global Services
Ikea
Indian National Science Academy, India
Institute of Biology (UK) (Society of Biology)
InterAcademy Council
InterAction
International Council of Nurses
International Council on Mining and Metals (representing 19 member companies and 30 member associations)
International Crisis Group
International Doctors for the Environment
International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations
International Monetary Fund
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
International Union for Quaternary Research
Johnson Controls
Kimberly-Clark
KyotoUSA
League of Conservation Voters
Lego
Levi Strauss & Co.
LG
Light Blue Line
Madison Gas & Electric
Marine Bio
Merck
Motorola
Munich Re
NASA
National Academy of Sciences, U.S.
National Audubon Society
National Environmental Trust
National Park Service
National Resource Defense Council
National Science Foundation
National Snow and Ice Data Center
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Nature Canada
New Mexico Solar Energy Association
News Corporation Europe and Asia
Oceana
Ohio Environmental Council
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Oil Change International
Open Source Systems, Science, Solutions (OSS)
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Oxfam International
Pacific Environment
Parliament of Australia
Pembina Institute (Canada)
PepsiCo
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Presidents’ Climate Commitment (670 colleges and universities)
Procter & Gamble
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Public Citizen
Rainforest Action Network
RealClimate
Reformed Church of America
REI
RioTinto
Rolls-Royce
Root Capital
Royal Bank of Scotland
Royal Society of Canada
Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Society, U.K.
Russian Academy of Sciences
SAB Miller
Safe Climate Campaign
Samsung
Save Our Seas Foundation
Science Council of Japan
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
Shaklee
Sierra Club
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society of Systematic Biologists
Soil Science Society of America
Sony
Standing Committee of European Doctors
Stop Global Warming Virtual March
Suncor (Canada)
Surfrider
Syngenta
T-mobile (UK)
Target
Tennessee Valley Authority
Thames Water
The Aldo Leopold Foundation
The Climate Group
The Episcopal Church
The Evangelical Climate Initiative
The Humane Society
The Nature Conservancy
The Ocean Foundation
The United Kingdom Environmental Change Network
The White House
The Wildlife Society
Timberland (UK)
Time for Change
Time’s UP!
Toyota
U-Haul
U.S. Department of Agriculture
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service
Unilever
Union of Concerned Scientists
Unitarian Universalist Association
United Methodist Church
United Nations, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
United States Global Change Research Program
United Utilities (UK)
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
UPS
US Agency for International Development
US Arctic Research Commission
US Department of Transportation
US Global Change Research Program
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
World Bank Group
World Council of Churches
World Federation of Public Health Associations
World Health Organization
World Medical Association
World Meteorological Organization
World Nuclear Association
Xcel Energy
Laurie Bowen says:
October 21, 2011 at 11:33 am
M.A.Vukcevic: I really really really like your site . .
Hmmm.., that is a bit of a surprise, half of the things are not there and for the rest, even I have difficulty in locating my own work, but thanks anyway…
Mr Watts
You may occasionally sound irascible (I don’t blame you!) but please understand that most of your denizens (and 97% – to coin a phrase) of lurkers appreciate what you do.
FWIW, I was subjected to a formal diagnosis – profoundly deaf (fortunately only above 1MHz). Doesn’t compare, but I do understand.
[Snip. Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
“adding that it can find no evidence of a heat island effect”
I have a thermometer on my car. Almost EVERY time I drive into a city the temperature goes up between 1 to 5 degrees celsius. That happens at least 19 times of twenty. Denying UHI is, well, a travesty.
I agree with Muller’s comments regarding the AMO. The BEST team says that they were not trying to ascribe attribution to the temperature trend (such as human-caused global warming) but then one of their papers comes right out and says the cyclical AMO is strongly correlated. Is that not exactly what the Berkeley Earth Decadal Variations paper is all about, attribution to ocean cycles.
And then there is a big problem with their understanding regarding the ENSO. First, they did not take into account the 3 month lag (why not) and then they noted there were both positive and negative correlations between temperature and the ENSO.
But their correlation map (Figure 6) is exactly how the ENSO operates. It has different impacts in different regions and the correlation map is essentially dead-on what was previously known. Some place get more rain and some places get less rain when there is a La Nina (and opposite when there is an El Nino). Some places are warmer and some places are cooler when there is a La Nina (and opposite when there is an El Nino). The correlation map shows these previously known patterns exactly. So their dismissal or downplaying of the ENSO is off-base.
“The urban heat island effect is locally large and real, but does not contribute significantly to the average land temperature rise. That’s because the urban regions of the Earth amount to less than 1% of the land area.”
They should look harder than that. It is a well established fact that for high enough population densities each doubling of this density contributes 0.25-0.27 °C to local warming. That is, the relation is logarithmic.
The big (and unanswered) scientific question is what level of population density counts as high enough in this respect. That is, what is the population density below which this logarithmic dependence breaks down?
If it is significantly lower than the lowermost population density measured in the most densely populated 1% of land surface, their proposition simply does not make sense. But that question was not even asked.
We do know, that population of the entire Earth has doubled almost twice during the last century. Therefore, if logarithmic dependence of UHI on local population density extends to sparsely populated areas, effect of UHI alone should be ~0.5 °C in this particular time period, which is a rather significant portion of the entire warming observed.
Or it may be the case that in an area with low population density, doubling has no effect on local temperature, but if it is so, it should be still proven. What is more, the accurate form of the population density – temperature anomaly function should be determined and quantified. That’s the way science is done, not by hand-waving.
The B-Team did not “release” their unreviewed paper, they advertised, publicised, hyped, and made exaggerated claims for their unreviewed paper.
The problem isn’t that they provided access to the paper and the data before review, the problem is that they have based a component of an obviously coordinated global warming PR campaign on their unreviewed paper.
Sorry – get my units right: 1kHz.
Depend heavily on lip-reading – esp. females. Too many cartridges, too close. And the big guns.
In my experience, the Guardian and the truth are only rarely on the same page – and they are complete strangers to reality!
For people wondering where the quote comes from, it’s
“Given that the 2-15 year variations in world temperature are so closely linked to the
AMO raises (or re-raises) an important ancillary issue: to what extent does the 65-70
year cycle in AMO contribute to the global average temperature change? (Enfield,
2006; Zhang et al., 2007; Kerr, 1984.) Since 1975, the AMO has shown a gradual but
steady rise from -0.35 C to +0.2 C (see Figure 2), a change of 0.55 C. During this same
time, the land-average temperature has increased about 0.8 C. Such changes may be
independent responses to a common forcing (e.g. greenhouse gases); however, it is
also possible that some of the land warming is a direct response to changes in the
AMO region. If the long-term AMO changes have been driven by greenhouse gases
then the AMO region may serve as a positive feedback that amplifies the effect of
greenhouse gas forcing over land. On the other hand, some of the long-term change in
the AMO could be driven by natural variability, e.g. fluctuations in thermohaline
flow. In that case the human component of global warming may be somewhat
overestimated“
I note that the gwpf is slicing up the quote mid-sentence to make it seem like a conclusion when they’re simply raising a possibility. Another possibility they raise is that the AMO is acting as an amplification of the greenhouse effect.
I also find no support whatsoever for this statement
“They admit that the influence in recent decades of oceanic temperature cycles has been unappreciated and may explain most, if not all, of the global warming that has taken place”
They simply note that a part of the AMO change may be driven by natural variability and that in turn may contribute to a portion of the warming can in no way be represented as “explain most, if not all, of the global warming that has taken place”.
A visual guide to UHI in Paris. (From the NASA page I referenced earlier)
5C nighttime UHI.
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/505100main_Fig3.JPG
Somebody tell them to go back and look hard at this sentence: “There are very few people who do not believe the world hasn’t warmed…”
Could it be because you leave home in the morning and arrive in the city for work after the sun has been shining for an extra hour?
Voice of Reason [snicker!],
So you found some talking points. If you subtracted every organization that stands to financially benefit from the CAGW scare, your list would start and stop at zero.
Contrast those corporate and eco rent-seekers with the 30,000+ professionals with degrees in the hard sciences [including over 9,000 PhD’s] who signed the following statement:
So who are you gonna believe? Greedy rent-seekers, or independent scientists? Only a dope would believe the former are legit. [Also glad to see you get your authority from U-Haul.☺]
Now I know why I didn’t find it. I was searching for “overstated”
Why is more heat bad? In our household in New Jersey, I have noticed that the family members complain about the cold, not the heat. I suspect we’d be very pleased if average temps were 2-4 degrees higher.
I’m going to create some boilerplate text to reply to your post (where do you keep your boilerplate) and any other post that repeats that meaningless twaddle.
I’ll just summarize:
1) Science is not determined by consensus or committee! Science is determined by fact.
2) “It’s true because so-and-so [insert your favorite authority here] says so” isn’t science, either.
Jeremy, and others.
The quote from the Berkeley scientists is:
“On the other hand, some of the long-‐term change in the AMO could be driven by natural variability, e.g. fluctuations in thermohaline flow. In that case the human component of global warming may be somewhat overestimated.”
and it can be found here:
http://www.berkeleyEarth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Decadal_Variations
Dr Whitehouse is accurate.
EFS_Junior says:
October 21, 2011 at 11:54 am
We do have a quote though, don’t we?
With no attribution to anyone or any group of people whatsoever.
Generated from the GWPF and NOT the Berkeley scientists themselves.
In other words a ficticious quote, as in something that is patently false.
Those are the EXACT facts as I understand them to be until such time as I am proven wrong.
You’re wrong:
@EFS_Junior
The “human component” quote originated with the Berkeley Earth team. It comes from page 12 of “Decadal Variations in the Global Atmospheric Land Temperatures”, available as a PDF download here.
The key issue the paper raises are the possible reasons for AMO variations in the past decades.
They offer the following possibilities:
1. Greenhouse gases independently cause AMO alterations and land-based warming.
2. Greenhouse gases alter AMO and this drives land-based warming.
3.Alterations in the thermohaline circulatory flow drive AMO alterations,thereby driving land-based warming.
They do not state which is correct, hence what they are saying is that if the AMO changes are driven by circulatory flow patterns of the worlds’ oceans, then human-based warming may have been overstated.
So they’re saying it MAY have been overstated, not definitely HAS been.
Typical cautious scientists not wishing to ascribe mechanisms when their research has not addressed it.
The way I read the paper is that they have extended the sorts of analyses done by Joe D’Aleo in the past. With the exception that they have not correlated temperature measurements with carbon dioxide, which he did, finding it to have far less correlation to temperatures than the oceanic parameters he studied (PDO and AMO).
Voice of reason:
“Academia Brasiliera de Ciências. . . Xcel Energy.”
So what? There are millions upon millions of individuals who believe in some form of CAGW, inhabiting all walks of life. I would further suspect that those with these views are skewed towards positions of bureaucratic power. That after all is what makes a good bureaucrat – uncritical assimilation of current cultural memes. So all you have shown is the obvious – bureaucrats are great at toeing the line.