Scientific climate
- Nature 478, 428 (27 October 2011) doi:10.1038/478428a
Results confirming climate change are welcome, even when released before peer review.
excerpts:
…
Of course, reproduction of existing results is a valid contribution, and the statistical methods developed by the BEST team could be useful additions to climate science. But valid contributions and useful additions alone do not generate worldwide headlines, so the mas-sive publicity associated with the release of the papers (which were simultaneously submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research) is a curious affair.
There was predictable grumbling at the media coverage from within the scientific community, which saw it as publicity in lieu of peer review. Reporters are more than happy to cover the story now, while it’s sexy, but will they cover it later, when the results are confirmed, adjusted or corrected in accordance with a thorough vetting? The short answer is no, many of them will not. Barring an extraordinary reversal of message, the wave of press coverage is likely to be only a ripple when the papers are finally published. And this is what upsets the purists: the communication of science in this case comes before the scientific process has run its course.
Members of the Berkeley team revelled in their role as scientific renegades. Richard Muller, the physicist in charge, even told the BBC: “That is the way I practised science for decades; it was the way every-one practised it until some magazines — particularly Science and Nature — forbade it.”
This is both wrong and unhelpful. It is wrong because for years Nature has explicitly endorsed the use of preprint servers and confer-ences as important avenues for scientific discussion ahead of submis-sion to this journal, or other Nature titles. For example, on page 493 this week we publish a paper that discusses the dwarf planet Eris, based on results that the lead author presented (with Nature‘s knowledge and consent) at a conference several weeks ago. Journalists are, of course, welcome to report what they come across in such venues — as several did on Eris. What Nature discourages is authors specifically promoting their work to the media before a peer-reviewed paper is available for others in the field to read and evaluate.
Muller’s statement is unhelpful because such inflammatory claims can only fuel the heated but misguided debate on climate-sceptic blogs and elsewhere about the way science works and how it treats those who insist on viewing themselves as outsiders.
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Nature printed this letter from Dr. Fred Singer, which I was also given a copy of via email:
- Fred Singer said:
- Dear Editors of Nature:
What a curious editorial [p.428, Oct.26} ? and how revealing of yr bias!
“Results confirming climate change are welcome, even when released before peer review.”
(emphasis added)
You imply that contrary results are not welcomed by Nature. But this has been obvious for many years.
Why are you so jubilant about the findings of the Berkeley Climate Project that you can hardly contain yourself? What do you think they proved? They certainly added little to the ongoing debate on human causes of climate change.
They included data from the same weather stations as the Climategate people, but reported that one-third showed cooling — not warming. They covered the same land area ” less than 30% of the Earth?s surface ” housing recording stations that are poorly distributed, mainly in the US and Western Europe. They state that 70% of US stations are badly sited and don’t meet the standards set by government; the rest of the world is likely worse.
But unlike the land surface, the atmosphere has shown no warming trend, either over land or over ocean — according to satellites and independent data from weather balloons. This indicates to me that there is something very wrong with the land surface data. And did you know that climate models, run on super-computers, all insist that the atmosphere must warm faster than the surface? And so does theory.
And finally, we have non-thermometer temperature data from so-called “proxies”: tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments, stalagmites. They don’t show any global warming since 1940!
The BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature) results in no way confirm the scientifically discredited Hockeystick graph, which had been so eagerly adopted by climate alarmists. In fact, the Hockeystick authors never published their post-1978 temperatures in their 1998 paper in Nature ? or since. The reason for hiding them? It’s likely that those proxy data show no warming either. Why don’t you ask them?
One last word: You evidently haven’t read the four scientific BEST papers, submitted for peer review. There, the Berkeley scientists disclaim knowing the cause of the temperature increase reported by their project. They conclude, however: “The human component of global warming may be somewhat overestimated.” I commend them for their honesty and skepticism.
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S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere. He is co-author of Climate Change Reconsidered [2009 and 2011] and of Unstoppable Global Warming 2007.
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stevo, your question was answered several times in this thread alone.
If you’re going to ask questions, you could at least take the time to read the answers.
Stevo, if I say to you “I will paint your house” and you respond that you’ll accept that whatever colour it may be, would you then be annoyed if I painted your car instead?
The situation is analogous. BEST promised to study the issue of station siteing and accuracy, which would necessitate sticking to the 30 year period covered by the surface stations project. They then switched to “proving” that the world is warming, which is a completely different issue.
Frankly, if you can’t see the problem with that, then you’re an obtuse nit.
stevo,
When are you and your cohorts going to give up your infantile perseverations and turn to the cash value of your own meme, applied to you: the fact that CO2 = CAGW has been effectively falsified, since its alleged hypotheses have not produced even one relevant correct, empirically confirmed prediction yet!
“I know you are but what am I?”
What, no principles?
Anthony Watts says:
October 27, 2011 at 9:01 am
But I *have to accept it uncritically*, because I made the mistake of trusting them once when I visited them personally and they told me their plan.
Never trust a Progressive or anyone displaying any significant amount of political correctness. It is their mind. A deal is never a deal, even if it’s in writing. Never give them any of your business. Do not trust them with anything of value. I have personal and more removed examples, too. It’s rather horrifying.
So then when it get’s peer reviewed and published you guys will accept it? I doubt it.
“And finally, we have non-thermometer temperature data from so-called “proxies”: tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments, stalagmites. They don’t show any global warming since 1940!”
It is demonstrably false and an outright lie to claim paleoclimate proxies show no warming since 1940. Not that I’m caught off guard that Fred Singer is attempting to pass misinformation off as facts.
It’s pretty obvious that his bold statement about accepting whatever result was based on the strong expectation that their result would conform to his prejudices. He was sure they were going to find less warming than everyone else. When they didn’t, the Watts backlash began.
“its alleged hypotheses have not produced even one relevant correct, empirically confirmed prediction yet”
Awesome comment. Tropospheric warming, stratospheric cooling, nights warming more than days, winters warming more than summers, less outgoing mid-IR radiation and more downward mid-IR radiation are among the empirically confirmed predictions. If there were “not even one”, then no-one would subscribe to the theory. But if there were “not even one”, it would mean that the atmosphere, uniquely in the universe, did not obey the laws of physics.
Anthony, Nature did not print a letter from Fred Singer. Singer posted an online comment on their editorial. Very different, wouldn’t you say?
Stevo says….
“You can argue that they have somehow misbehaved. Maybe that could even be true.”
It is true.
Stevo, you seem to have a very shady standard of ethics. Your prejudices seem to driving some very oddball comments.
@John B: Haha, I can only imagine how the Wattsphere would have erupted if a climate scientist had posted a comment on the very same Nature editorial and it was featured on a pro-AGW blog as being ‘printed’ by Nature. Oh snap.
@chris: I am a paleoclimatologist and I have seen post-1940 warming with my own samples, forget BEST.
stevo says:
“Tropospheric warming… If there were ‘not even one’, then no-one would subscribe to the theory.”
The “theory” [actually a conjecture] is falsified by stevo’s own statement, because the tropospheric warming didn’t happen as predicted. Tropospheric warming, the model-predicted “fingerprint of global warming” never appeared, although it was widely predicted by the alarmist crowd. Empirical evidence such as radiosonde balloons showed that the models were wrong.
So will stevo be a stand-up guy, and per his own statement admit that “no one will subscribe to the ‘theory'”?
Not a chance.
Smokey, what a shame you don’t understand what “tropospheric warming” is. It’s what the BEST dataset revealed, that was already shown by the GISS, RSS, HADCRUT and UAH datasets. The greater warming seen at higher altitudes is something different, not specific to greenhouse gas warming but generally expected for any warming in response to external forcing. And also empirically confirmed – see Santer et al. 2008, Intl. J. Climatol., 28, 1703
Smokey,
You really need to drop the “fingerprint of global warming” trope. Firstly, Stevo was referring to “tropospheric warming”, i.e. the part of the atmosphere in which weather happens, and you are referring to the “tropical tropospheric hotspot”. Secondly, the hotspot, or lack of it, or inabilitiy to measure it, whatever, is NOT a “fingerprint of global warming”, as even Dr Roy Spencer acknowledges:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/10/hotspots-and-fingerprints/
You are misinterpreting the IPCC figure that is reproduced on the page I linked. The hotspot is a model prediction that arises from any warming, no matter what its cause, as a consequence of adiabatic lapse.
The real “fingerprint of global warming” is the stratospheric cooling, which you can see in figure (d) and which has been observed.
stevo says:
October 27, 2011 at 8:22 am
If he wasn’t going to accept the results, he shouldn’t have said he would do. He’s going to quite some lengths to rubbish them, even before they are published. You can argue that they have somehow misbehaved. Maybe that could even be true. But the fact remains that he said he would accept the results, and now does not. Why did he say he would?
__________________________
Because Anthony made the mistake of thinking they were honest gentlemen.
Unfortunately Lying Manipulators are much more common then honest gentlemen. It is why most small businessmen now use contracts instead of a handshake (Anthony should have) It is why businesses do not accept checks. Why you have to pay before pumping gas….
I have had the discussion about the decline in honesty with many small business people over the last decade. I have yet to talk to one who has not noticed the problem.
@stevo
October 27, 2011 at 11:20 am
It’s pretty obvious that his bold statement about accepting whatever result was based on the strong expectation that their result would conform to his prejudices.
+++++++++
Perhaps the only one exhibiting prejudices here is you. You seem to be prejudiced against Anthony and are looking for a way to smear him. He has already pointed out that he thinks the main conclusions are correct, howver there are other serious deficiencies with the matter. You seem to think this simple case of BEST behaving badly will create an opportunity for you to stretch anything that happens into something that makes Anthony to appear to not be a man of his word. He entered the ‘relationship’ in good faith. That good faith understanding was created by Muller. Nnow we know Muller was tricking him. Anthony understands that he has been tricked. Any promised induced by false promises are invalid.
You, Stevo, want to use Muller’s success at tricking Anthony to make it appear than Anthony is somehow ‘wrong’ or ‘unreliable’ on the basis that he was tricked by Muller rather than to put the blame on the one responsible.
Why would you want to do that, Stevo? Is it because you are prejudiced against the skeptical views Anthony (quite rightly) holds that there is something very fishy about this whole ‘global warming’ panic? My conclusion, based on your statements, is that you are indeed probably prejudiced against certain ideas and people and therefore might not to be considered a reliable witness. You can, of course, change that quite easily.
@Larry Fields:
“I thought that Nature was a Warmist rag.” It WAS. But in the 130 years before, Nature built up a reputation as THE leading organ of science reporting – from confirming the theory of relativity to the announcement of the structure of DNA; publishing a paper on a significant new aspect of how nature worked could be seen as a guarantee for a Nobel prize. Now that the AGW story has fallen apart, in general and in every detail, they find themselves reduced to the level of a fringe political propaganda rag.
An unenviable position: a sudden U-turn would be a blatant admission of former idiotical advocacy; a gradual backing down looks like obstinate boneheadedness in the face of having been shown up as that idiot.
David in Georiga says:
October 27, 2011 at 8:31 am
Unless I’m mistaken, the BEST temperature reconstruction for the US shows that the LIA did indeed exist, and was fairly deep. If the temperatures in England and Europe also have the LIA in their records (and they do) then we need to also check Asia. Unless the South Hemisphere showed warming of more than a degree C, from 1600 to 1900, then the LIA affected the temperature of then entire globe, and the Mann hockey stick graph is completely refuted….
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Dr John Daly tore the hockey stick apart here: hockey stick: http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
His rural stations world wide are here: http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm
Dr Daly said the LIA ended 1830. These are the longest running of his rural stations (1800’s) Do not forget Frank Lancer’s work showing the influence of the ocean on coastal temps as you look at these graphs.
Capetown S. Africa, 1857: http://www.john-daly.com/stations/s-africa.gif
Kimberley S. Africa, 1897 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/kimberly.gif
Madagascar, 1889 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/madagasc.gif
Adelaide Australia 1857 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/adelaide.gif
Adelaide/Mildura Australia Airport 1857 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/Mildura.gif
Alice Spring Australia 1879 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/alice-sp.gif
Cape Otway Australia 1865 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/c-otway.gif
Wilson’s Promontory Australia 1877 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/wilsons.gif
Chatman Island NZ http://www.john-daly.com/stations/chatham.gif
Hokitika NZ http://www.john-daly.com/stations/hokitika.gif
Bikaner India 1879 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/bikaner.gif
Darbhanga India 1876 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/gauhati.gif
Srinagar India 1893 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/srinagar.gif
Turkmenistan 1883 http://www.john-daly.com/stations/krasnovd.gif
China http://www.john-daly.com/stations/macao.gif
China http://www.john-daly.com/stations/nanning.gif
Japan http://www.john-daly.com/stations/osaka.gif
RUSSIA:
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/kirensk.gif
(1856) http://www.john-daly.com/stations/nikolaev.gif
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/siberia.gif
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/salehard.gif
(1881) http://www.john-daly.com/stations/turuhans.gif
Also see: http://www.john-daly.com/index.htm (Perhaps the site “Keepers” can point you to the raw data.)
John B links to Dr Spencer, who states:
“I have never been convinced that there is ANY fingerprint of anthropogenic warming.”
The problem is that the alarmist crowd is the originator of that silly prediction. Now that it’s been falsified, they’ve once again moved the goal posts, this time to stratospheric cooling. Earth to the alarmist crowd: the stratosphere is cold. So I guess you believe that validates your latest scare story.
In order to rescue their ‘tropospheric hot spot’ prediction, the alarmists are beginning to split hairs within the troposphere. It still doesn’t support them. The models are wrong. So who should we believe? Models? Or our lying eyes?
The fact is that the planet is still naturally warming from the LIA. There is no testable evidence that the small amount of CO2 emitted by human activity has caused any acceleration of warming. That is honest science, not alarmist scientology.
[snip. Calling Anthony Watts dishonest, or even implying it, gets you snipped. I’ve known Anthony for years, and I don’t know anyone more honest. This is not your blog, where you can say anything you want. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip]
No body can handle with such phenomenon.
The dividing lines in America become more marked, more pronounced, all the time. What is America heading for?
Neither Anthony Watts nor his data are central to the BEST project, which looked at far more than the work compiled by surfacestations.org. BEST were not required to ‘consult’ with Anthony about the approach they took. The study is supposed to be independent, and asking permission on how to proceed from anyone outside the group would be completely unsatisfactory. Should the authors have gotten permission from NOAA or GISS about how to treat their data?
BEST are laying out their data, programs and methods on the web for all to see and tinker with. Rather than whining about what they should have done, critics should roll their sleeves up and do the work they think should be done.
REPLY: Oh please. Both papers published on the subject used 30 year periods because the siting metadata isn’t valid for 60 years. NOBODY, not me, not NOAA, not BEST has any clue what the siting conditions were 60 years ago. NOAA knew not to do that for the same reasons that I did. But if I had done it, extrapolated siting conditions to 60 years out, I’d be excoriated for doing so. Double standard.
And you know what? I told them of the issue days before, when they gave me an early copy of the paper, I pointed out that issue and even told them where they made spelling errors. Muller acknowledged receipt but was “too busy” to get those corrections in before the media blitzkrieg. The paper went out, spelling errors and all. Such professionalism.
They did it wrong, and they dedicated a whole paper to this siting exercise of mine. We’ve already falsified it, and unlike these opportunistic media seekers at BEST we aren’t making a press release, giving pre-release copies to reporters, we aren’t blogging on it, and we aren’t making a scene. We are going through peer review, doing it the right way. Tough noogies if you don’t like it that. And no, I’m not interested in your further opinions on the subject. I get tired of being dissed by people like yourself that don’t have the courage to put their name to their words and do nothing but complain, offering nothing to the work. Man up Barry come out of the closet and have the courage to put your name to your words telling me what I’ve done wrong and why BEST is right, or shut up and wait for us to do the science properly, like BEST should have. Instead they screwed the pooch (as pilots say).
If you want to comment further, and tell me why I’m wrong, put your name on it buddy. Have the courage to stand up for what you believe in and what you write like I do every day. Then we’ll be on equal terms. Otherwise you are just another anonymous coward wasting my time.
– Anthony
Speaking of double standards, Anthony, when you apply the ‘anonymous coward’ criticism equally to the myriad anonymous ‘skeptic’ posters here who ridicule and smear and scorn working scientists, there’s a glimmer of a possibility I’ll take this particular bugbear of yours seriously.
I will continue to post under ‘barry’. If you prohibit my criticism just because it is anonymous then it’s not me who should be manning up. Next post will be substantive, assuming you don’t ban me. I think you make a couple of good points.
REPLY: Diversion. I’m right here, and asking you to be on equal terms, you decline, so I’m not interested. You want the diss without the risk. Coward. Wait for the paper to be published, then you can comment about. it.- Anthony
I haven’t been around for a while so someone may have posted this elsewhere, but the UK government (well I assume it is the government, I need to check out who/what “sustainable gov” is) has latched onto the press release and paper with great gusto
http://www.sustainablegov.co.uk/central-government/energy-and-climate-change/global-warming-sceptics-silenced-by-new-evidence?utm_source=Extravision&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2027/10/11
Mostly good responses, though, so maybe it has been posted somewhere already.
Just goes to show the reason why these press releases are made so that they can be picked up by journalists looking for others to do their work for them and quangos, ngos, etc. needing to maintain the world-is-warming-the-end-is-nigh-unless-we-tax-the-beejaysus-out-of-you mantra