Guest post by Maurizio Morabito
Quite an effort has been made by many people (including Dr Richard Muller) to portray the BEST pre-pre-pre-papers as some kind of death blow against climate skepticism, as if the whole debate had been a sports match with everybody pigeonholed in two opposite camps: here, the noble scientists finding out the world is warming; there, the ignoble skeptics pretending the world is not warming.
Needless to say, it’s all the usual crass, outdated lie.
How do I know? I know it from the About page at [my] blog. Why? Because that page does not contain just a text by Yours Truly, rather a large quote by Willis Eschenbach. [Who is a major essay contributor here at WUWT.]
It was simply such an appropriate, informed, short and straight argument, I knew it was going to describe pretty much all my future efforts at the blog.
Original publication place & date? The ClimateSceptics yahoo group, Mon Oct 22, 2007, 12:22pm:
I also think that increasing GHGs will warm the earth … but that is not the real question to me. The real question is, how much it will warm the earth. To date, I have not seen any “useful quantative results” regarding that question either …
Once those quantitative results are in, we can proceed to the next question — is a warmer earth better or worse on balance? The globe has warmed quite a bit since the 1600s, and in general this has been of benefit to humans. The sea level rise from the historical warming has not been a significant problem. In addition, a warmer world is predicted to be a wetter world, which overall can only be a good thing. So, will warming be a problem, or a benefit? This is a very open question, and one which will be difficult to answer as some areas will win and some will lose. To date, however, recent warming seems to be occuring outside the tropics, in the night-time, in the winter … this does not seem like a bad thing.
And at some future date when those questions are answered, we can proceed to the final question, viz:
If GHGs are determined to be a major cause of the warming (as opposed to landuse changes, or black carbon on snow, or dark colored aerosols, etc) and if we determine that the warming will be on balance a negative occurrence, is there a cost-effective way to reduce the GHGs, or are we better off putting our money into adaptation?
Until we can answer all of those questions, we should restrict ourselves to actions which will be of value whether or not there is future warming. The key is to realize that all of the problems that Al Gore is so shrill about are here now with us today — floods, heat waves, famine, rising sea levels, droughts, cold spells, and all of the apocalyptic catalog are occuring as I write this. Anything we can do to insulate the world’s population from these climate problems will be of use to everyone no matter what the future climate holds […]
“But they changed the game from one of scientific method to one of media blitz. The papers have not completed peer review, and they have not been accepted by a science journal. If I had done the same thing, I’d be excoriated by people just like yourself.”
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That’s fine. But your statement in March said you would accept the BEST results “whatever” they showed. There were no caveats about press releases. I didn’t realize that press releases and waiting for peer review were caveats to your original statement from March. I thought press releases were pretty common for major scientific projects. But thanks for providing your feedback on why you aren’t accepting or endorsing BEST anymore.
As for the belated assertions that skeptics “knew all along” that the earth was in a warming trend, I don’t see how this comports with frequent and numerous posts here and on other skeptics blogs claiming the temperature records were fraudulent, and fabricated to exaggerate or even fabricate warming. Or with your comments that you didn’t know if BEST reconstructions would show warming or cooling. And if global warming was such a foregone consensus in the skeptical blog world, what’s up with all the posts about some snowstorm, or some cold spells with follow up comments and much yucking it up about “global cooling”. Collectively, it all gives the impression that skeptics were unconvinced of any measurable or significant warming, or worse – they thought warming trends that are now re-confirmed by BEST were fraudulent. With all due respect, it seems like a whole lotta goal post moving going on.
peter stone – not sure what more evidence do you need. Actually, given you’ve been provided evidence, there’s no point in finding even more of it.
“If GHGs are determined to be a major cause of the warming (as opposed to landuse changes, or black carbon on snow, or dark colored aerosols, etc) and if we determine that the warming will be on balance a negative occurrence, is there a cost-effective way to reduce the GHGs, or are we better off putting our money into adaptation?”
All in all a common sense take on what the political/economic response should be to a warming planet. However, I found this above quoted paragraph a bit too narrow in it’s list of possible warming causes. It could simply be we are in warming and cooling cycles without much affect at all from Humans one way or another.
The reason I think this simple ‘nature is driving climate’ reason needs to be considered is simply the ice core data from both Greenland and Antarctica that gives a near term (geologically speaking) view of the Earth’s temps over the last number of Ice ages. They both show a dramatic swing out of the last Ice age to warm temps (warmer than now) and then swings in temps both up and down in a periodic fashion with each upward swing in temps topping off less warm than the last one, meaning the overall trend has been gradual cooling since the emergence to warm temps after the last ice age. The Medieval Warming period was warmer than now, the Roman period was warmer than now, the Minoan warming period at 1400 bc was even warmer. Each of these were warmer than the next one that followed it. Anyone coming to this debate should really look at the ice core data before even starting discussions.
There are lots of these ice core graphs out there. Take your pick. They all show the same thing. There is nothing exceptional going on other than man overstating his importance over nature. My opinion is that man’s signature, in the final analysis, is probably within the noise floor of any nature caused trends.
My Magic 8 ball says there will be another bait and switch, this is a pre-publication PR release, there will be changes made to the actual publication papers and the warmistas will be claiming the peer-reviewed published paper as authoritative, yet taking their talking points from the PR version.
[Snip. You are completely misrepresenting and misquoting Anthony, who has never said, as you mendaciously allege, that the planet isn’t warming. ~dbs, mod.]
For those claiming that “no skeptic has ever claimed that the world was getting warmer”, how do you explain the first three items of the “Summary for Policy Makers” from the report “Surface Temperature Records: Policy-Driven Deception” authored by Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts? I paste them below:
1. Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.
2. All terrestrial surface-temperature databases exhibit signs of urban heat pollution and post measurement adjustments that render them unreliable for determining accurate long-term temperature trends.
3. All of the problems have skewed the data so as greatly to overstate observed warming both regionally and globally.
dalazal says:
October 23, 2011 at 10:10 pm
“For those claiming that “no skeptic has ever claimed that the world was getting warmer”, how do you explain the first three items of the “Summary for Policy Makers” from the report “Surface Temperature Records: Policy-Driven Deception” authored by Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts? ”
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With reading comprehension?
dalazal says:
October 23, 2011 at 10:10 pm
“………..
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That’s the trouble with gulping your food down without chewing each word.
{Sigh} He was making a joke about being a decade or two out of date. Note the reference to his “286”; that’s the IBM PC 80286 chip used in the “AT” models, circa 1985.
Note the missing “not” in the first quote; s/b “that the world was NOT getting warmer”.
Lots of reading comp problems going ’round, apparently.
>;p
Here’s something to chew on: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/#comment-776101
Flat or negative since 1900, if you just use long-period stations, unadjusted.
Oops!
Brian H says:
October 24, 2011 at 3:29 am
” {Sigh} He was making a joke about being a decade or two out of date. Note the reference to his “286″; that’s the IBM PC 80286 chip used in the “AT” models, circa 1985.”
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Ahhhhhhh Thank you! 🙂
Brian H says:
October 24, 2011 at 3:29 am
“Here’s something to chew on: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/#comment-776101
Flat or negative since 1900, if you just use long-period stations, unadjusted.
Oops!”
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I have been reading that….. with interest. It seems to throw some damper on BEST?
Have a good day 🙂
Remember: when the US warms, the world warms. When the US cools, it’s just 2% of the world’s surface.
Interesting responses. So let me see:
1) On the one hand, some here dispute that Watts and other skeptics claimed that the world was not getting warmer. The very author of this post claims this is a “crass, outdated lie”.
2) On the other hand, readers of this very blog, who presumably *have had* access to claims of D’Aleo and Watts’ report from August of 2010, immediately point to this new post (which is about the US only!), authored by a guy who admittedly is not a climate scientist and has no specific training in the field showing NO WARMING TREND for the 20th century.
It seems that the skeptics (Watts included) need to own it. While it might be true that some were consistent from the beginning in their positions, the majority seems to vacilate, according to what is convenient, between “there is no evidence of warming” and “sure, there is warming, the question is how much is due to human activity”.
dalazal,
I challenge you provide a verbatim statement by Anthony Watts where Anthony states flatly that the planet is not warming. I think you are a despicable little troll who deliberately misrepresents what we have been discussing here over the past five years. Put up or shut up, troll.
Dalazal : stop embarrassing yourself – the work may be getting warmer yet only slightly so. What happens at US level may be warming cooling or nothing at all, it’s got little to do with the rest of the planet combined.
Smokey,
Go to page 6 of the following document, and and check out items 1-3: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
Is this not a co-authored document by Anthony Watts? Does it not say that “it cannot be credibly
asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century”?
Moreover, even if it is true that Anthony Watts does not personally think that there has been no global warming and is just happy to let others interpret his work that way, you don’t need to go very far in this blog to find all kinds of posts and comments where people just flatly deny the evidence that there has been global warming at all. See the commenters that responded to me here, who immediately pointed me to this new post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/#comment-776101
and were just too happy to interpret this as meaning that there has been no significant global warming. Go to the comments in that thread and see how many people are just gloating over how this is the nail in the coffin of the AGW crowd. Their argument is simple: There is no warming!
You might want to make the argument that these people are not skeptics or at least not representative of the way most skeptics see the issue, or whatever. If that is the case, then you should do your best to disabuse them from the idea that there has been no warming in the 20th century, and point them to the real argument, which now seems to be about “how much warming?” and “who/what caused it?”.
omnologos: “the work may be getting warmer yet only slightly so”
Sure, but that is not what the most credible estimates show so far. All the data points to a rather significant warming. So why would you think otherwise?
omnologos: “What happens at US level may be warming cooling or nothing at all, it’s got little to do with the rest of the planet combined.”
I agree. Now go tell that to the people posting on this thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/
The Mueller report and the reaction to it by skeptics lays bare the irrationality and hypocrisy of the AGW denial movement. The denial movement and the young Earth creationist movement have much in common. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
I doubt this post will make it through the moderator.
REPLY: Well this one will, but others will not because you’ve used a fake email address. – Anthony
O- Look D I bought myself a Wii for $100
D- Bad choice O. Buying that stuff is making you poorer
O- Yes D I’m poorer than I was but only slightly so
D- Why don’t you think you’re poorer?
O- Don’t embarrass yourself. I just told you I’m poorer but not that much
D- Why don’t you think you’re poorer?
And so on and so forth…
dalazal,
You clearly don’t understand what “significant” means. Your verbatim quote specifically stated in no uncertain terms that “Watts and other skeptics claimed that the world was not getting warmer.”
You’ve been owned, chump.
Omnologos: What is the basis for your belief that the world is not getting significantly warmer?
Smokey: Do you deny that some vocal skeptics have been disputing the evidence that the world was getting warmer? Because I see this happening in this blog all the time. In fact, I just showed you a thread where this is happening right now. If you really don’t think skeptics should be making that argument, you should not be discussing with me, because I agree with you. You should be going to that thread and disabusing people from that idea.
dalazal,
The planet has warmed – naturally – from 288K to 288.8K over a century and a half. That is insignificant. The planet has warmed and cooled to a much greater extent, and in a much shorter time frame, many times in the past – when CO2 levels were under 300 ppmv. Charts on request.
And you claim that “…vocal skeptics have been disputing the evidence that the world was getting warmer… all the time.” Cite a dozen or so verbatim statements to that effect, or admit you’re winging it. The onus is on you to back your allegations. I challenge you to post a dozen verbatim statements, out of almost 700,000 reader comments.
dalazal says:
October 24, 2011 at 8:52 am
Try to pay attention…read each word slowly…chew each and every word carefully and you might be able to digest 🙂
You Quoted:
[ “1. Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.” ]
Remember, they are talking about particular data sets:
Pay attention to these key words:
“credibly”
“asserted”
“significant”
You Quoted:
[ ” 2. All terrestrial surface-temperature databases exhibit signs of urban heat pollution and post measurement adjustments that render them unreliable for determining accurate long-term temperature trends. “]
Remember, they are talking about particular data sets:
Pay attention to these key words:
“render”
“unreliable”
“determining”
“accurate”
“trends”
You Quoted:
[ ” 3. All of the problems have skewed the data so as greatly to overstate observed warming both regionally and globally. ” ]
Remember, they are talking about particular data sets:
Pay attention to these key words:
“skewed”
“data”
“greatly”
“overstate”
“observed” – “warming”
The The U.S. General Accounting Office seems to agree that the data is flawed.
http://www.auscsc.org.au/download/101
Smokey says:
October 24, 2011 at 11:13 am
“You’ve been owned, ………..”
Actually, IMO… “owned” before even posting here. Now “schooled” 🙂
Anonymous Scientist says:
October 24, 2011 at 10:20 am
” I doubt this post will make it through the moderator.”
ha ha ha ha…..
As a “scientist” …and this being a work day…I have to ask: Who’s paying you to read and post on blogs?
Maybe, you could do an experiment [ actual science ] that shows causation and correlation – empirical observational evidence, for your beliefs in AGW? It would sure help your cause and it’s been a few decades in arrears – like the “rent”. 🙂
I can think of three claims in particular that skeptics have made in recent years against the surface temperature records that have been refuted by the BEST results:
1) Cold stations were deliberately deleted in GHCN in the 90s which increased warming
2) Scientists have adjusted the data over time to reduce the 1940-1970s cooling
3) Scientists have been “cooking the books” exaggerating warming in various ways by adjusting and altering raw data (ie both the above plus more)
These were not claims made by a single blog they were widespread, well publicized arguments. They were also clearly wrong. BEST has merely very publicly shown it.
Anyone who believed those claims would have had zero trust in the surface temperature record. To the point that how could they accept the world had warmed?
So I don’t buy that skeptics can just wash their hands of the matter as if the BEST results were expected. A lot of skeptics are now saying they accepted the world has warmed. But where were they when accusations like this were doing down:
“NOAA stands accused by the two researchers of strategically deleting cherry-picked, cooler-reporting weather observation stations from the temperature data it provides the world through its National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). D’Aleo explained to show host and Weather Channel founder John Coleman that while the Hadley Center in the U.K. has been the subject of recent scrutiny, “[w]e think NOAA is complicit, if not the real ground zero for the issue.”
And their primary accomplices are the scientists at GISS, who put the altered data through an even more biased regimen of alterations, including intentionally replacing the dropped NOAA readings with those of stations located in much warmer locales.
As you’ll soon see, the ultimate effects of these statistical transgressions on the reports which influence climate alarm and subsequently world energy policy are nothing short of staggering.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/climategate_cru_was_but_the_ti.html
onion2 – there is no such a thing as a “BEST result”. There is no result unless and until they manage to get their papers published, and the published results pass a minimum of smoke tests by knowledgeable onlookers. So far we only have stuff thrown to the dogs and the journalists, with zero correction on spelling errors (let alone problems with maths and evaluations).
But even assuming everything will be published as-is, you have completely missed the fact that, as they stand, the BEST papers do not support any alarm about climate, since a warming up of 2C since 1800 hasn’t resulted in any disaster.
Furthermore you have failed to understand the difference between reporting issues with measurement in one country (the USA) and disbelieving the warming up of the whole planet. Since you’re not the first one trying to make the same flawed point in this thread, chances are you’re not interested in a dialogue.
Furthermore, BEST did no measurements of its own, but used the same 95%-overlap pre-adjusted data set relied on by Warmists. So their study “begs the question” in the logic sense: the conclusion is presumed in the assumptions.