Guest post by Patrick Michaels
When the battle is being lost, there is a tendency to try to raise a level of distraction to shift the attention away from the desperate situation at hand. Such is the noise being raised concerning my presentation of the results from a recent series of scientific findings and observations—that lend further support to notion of modest climate change. The apocalyptics and the gloom-and-doom crowd are losing both the science battle and the policy war.
Dana Nuccitelli (aka dana1981) over at the website Skeptical Science has recently written a screed purporting that I delete “inconvenient” data in order to make my points. In fact, what I have done is to highlight the major findings of the studies I have commented on—findings that have indeed strengthened the case that global warming in this century will be in the lower end of the range of projections issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Mr. Nuccitelli starts by digging up the dead horse of my 1998 testimony to Congress and my presentation of the global temperature projections made ten years earlier (in 1988) by NASA’s Jim Hansen. In my testimony before the Committee on Small Business of the U.S. House of Representatives in July 1998 (available here) I elected to focus on a comparison between the observed temperatures and those projected to have occurred under Hansen’s (in his words) “business-as-usual” (BAU) scenario. Remember, this was in 1998. There was no worldwide treaty reducing carbon dioxide emissions (indeed, there isn’t one now). The only change to BAU that took place in the 1988 to 1998 time period was the Montreal Protocol limiting the emissions of CFCs. Reductions in production began only in 1994 and the radiative effect of the Protocol by 1998 was infinitesimal. To me, BAU means BAU. One of the main points that I was making in my 1998 testimony was that observations indicated that the global temperature were rising much less than Hansen had forecast under BAU, which is what happened. That was true then, and it remains true today, as the amount of warming he overforecast in 1988 is painfully obvious.
Mr. Nuccitelli then criticizes my handling of the results of a pair of new scientific studies examining the earth’s climate sensitivity by Schmittner et al. (2011) and Gillett et al. (2012). Each of these research teams reported rather lowish estimates of the climate sensitivity. As in any scientific study, there is a lot of discussion concerning data and methods and results in these papers and caveats and uncertainties. In my summary of them, I focused on the major results much as the authors did in the papers’ abstracts. In both case I wrote positively about the findings. Not having obtained the actual raw data from the authors themselves to enable me to create charts directly illustrating the paper’s main points (a task that is commonly not altogether straightforward, timely, or even successful; see the Climategate emails for examples of the myriad of potential difficulties encountered in such an effort), I did the next best thing, which was to adapt the published figures to simplify and highlight the major results (and focus my accompanying text on the main findings).
For example, from Schmittner et al., I removed from one of the original figures some data pertaining to individual components (land and ocean) because the paper was about global temperature and I am concerned about global sensitivity. I showed the global results (and noted in the caption of the Figure I presented that it had been “adapted from Schmittner et al., 2011″). The finding that I showed was the same one which the authors focused on in their abstract which I reproduce here in full:
Assessing impacts of future anthropogenic carbon emissions is currently impeded by uncertainties in our knowledge of equilibrium climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling. Previous studies suggest 3 K as best estimate, 2–4.5 K as the 66% probability range, and non-zero probabilities for much higher values, the latter implying a small but significant chance of high-impact climate changes that would be difficult to avoid. Here, combining extensive sea and land surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum with climate model simulations, we estimate a lower median (2.3 K) and reduced uncertainty (1.7–2.6 K 66% probability). Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.
And the same is true for my encapsulation of the work of Gillett and colleagues. In this case, I simplified one of the original figures by removing some results that were derived using a shorter and incomplete (1851-2010 vs. 1901-2000) temperature record while retaining the same record that was preferred by the authors (and again noted in the caption to the Figure that I presented that it had been “adapted from Gillett et al., 2012″ and additionally added that “the original figure included additional data not relevant to this discussion”).
That one of the primary scientific advances of the paper was the result derived using the more complete temperature time series is demonstrated by the paper’s title “Improved constraints on 21st-century warming derived using 160 years of temperature observations.” Note the words “improved” and “160 years of temperature data” (the full record).
I invite you to compare the “before” and “after” images from these two papers as detailed by Dana Nuccitelli with the descriptions made in summary by the paper’s original authors and you’ll see that I was being true to their work. Further, read through my articles (here and here) spotlighting their results and you’ll see that I was also quite supportive of their findings.
Mr. Nuccitelli, as a contributor to Skeptical Science—a website dedicated to trying to bolster the alarmist claims of human-caused climate change—realizes that it is in his best interest to try to obliterate evidence which paints a less than alarming picture of our climate future. Anyone who both produces and synthesizes such findings will be his target. That’s just the way the game is played by alarmists like Dana and the ever-obnoxious Joe Romm (who probably has done more damage to his cause with his over-the-top vitriol than he can possibly imagine).
If evidence continues to accrue that the earth’s climate is not changing in a manner sufficient to inspire enough fear in the general populace to demand life-altering energy limitations, attacks will continue by those, to use Mr. Nuccitelli phrase “who simply don’t want to accept the scientific reality.”
To keep up with the latest scientific findings concerning climate change highlighting the modest nature of the expected changes—findings that which are unlikely to be highlighted in the general media—I invite you to drop in from time to time here at World Climate Report , my “Climate of Fear” column at Forbes, my “Current Wisdom” feature at Cato, or any of the other sites, such as Watts Up With That? or Junk Science, that occasionally highlight my writings.
And, as always, if you ever don’t believe what I have to say, or want to investigate the issue in more detail, I include a list of references of the papers that I am discussing. So, as Casey Stengel used to say, ‘you could look it up.’
References:
Gillett, N.P., et al., 2012. Improved constraints on 21st-century warming derived using 160 years of temperature observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L01704, doi:10.1029/2011GL050226.
Schmittner, A., et al., 2011. Climate sensitivity estimated from temperature reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum, Science, 334, 1385-1388
DOI: 10.1126/science.1203513
UPDATE: Shub Niggurath shows even more integrity issues at Skeptical Science.
@AC Osborn
You clearly haven’t seen the opposing thread on SkS; though — with only one exception — I note that the ‘sceptic’ posters on here don’t have the wherewithal to comment there.
[Reply: Skeptics are either deleted at SkS, or their comments are altered. Defend that, if you can. ~dbs, mod.]
Nice try at your own “victim” straw man. I owe you nothing. You just lied again. I never said you were “not respectful” to Pat Michaels – I said you lied about what he said – you did. Now you are lying about what I wrote. Trying to create a straw man to play the wounded victim when all I did was say you owed him an apology for lying. You still do.
I am Phil Jourdan (Phillip if you want to know the full name – 2 els). You are an anonymous liar.
p.s. I quoted what you parts where you lied. No big words in those few sentences. Stop playing the victim. It does not work on me or others here. And try manning up. Or continue to be the anonymous troll you appear to be portraying.
Let’s see: someone does a study with a new data set – they publish a graph that shows the conclusion of this new data set and include the old data set for comparison. Someone else wishes to highlight the conclusion of the new analysis but really could care less about the distracting and superseded old data so redacts that data from the graph on his discussion about the conclusions of the new analysis and clearly states that he did so in the caption of the graph and the text. People wedded to the conclusions drawn from the old data set throw a hissy fit about their pet data not making the chart of the discussion. I don’t see the problem – now if he had represented the graph as being the original from the paper, then there would be issues.
I was taught that graphics should only be used to illustrate an idea in a paper. As working aids for my analysis, I produce thousands of them but only put illustrative ones in the final product. They are there to support the prose, not to allow someone else to reproduce the work – that is what data files and procedure descriptions are for!
JRWoodman:
As I stated in a previous post on this thread, I am no longer welcome to post at SKS. In fact, I can’t log in at SKS.
I don’t know if I will ever be allowed to post there, that isn’t even important. Mr. Cook owns the site and that is his perogative to not allow scientifically based dissenting views. Just so that you know it is not possible for some of us to post, whether we desire to post or not.
Actually Thoughtful:
The tree ring based temp proxies prior to 1950 or so do not represent temperature. The error bars of those said proxies are so large that it might have been -15C…..ok….a bit of a stretch but the point is that the error bars do encompass all of the temperature metrics. What Dr. Mann showed in his tree ring proxy was essentially a flat temperature. This provides no information of value to anyone.
Was this the same Schneider along with Rasool who came out with a paper in 1971 predicting a new ice age? What I find really alarming is that they used Dr. James Hansen’s climate model to arrive at their findings. More recently we had 1988, Congress and Therrmageddon.
SteveE says “Do you not think that you were misrepresenting Hansen by only presenting the Sernario A which Hansen refers to in the paper as “on the high side of reality”?” Hansen’s paper clearly states why he thinks scenario A must eventually be on the high side of reality. Page 9345 2nd paragraph explains the reasons. The link was provided above.
[Reply: Skeptics are either deleted at SkS, or their comments are altered. Defend that, if you can. ~dbs, mod.]
My comments have been deleted from WUWT over on the Monckton responds to “potholer54”
article. It was first posted and then a day later replaced with:
SteveE says:
January 13, 2012 at 8:38 am
[snip]
My comment was along the lines of Monckton was a climate extremist by his own defination.
I couldn’t have put it better myself. By the way is this lying by omission?
@MOD
Skeptics are only deleted on SkS when they offend against the comments policy, which is there to produce civil and constructive discussion. So in summary…
No accusations of deception.
No ad hominem attacks
No politics.
No link or pic only.
No ALL CAPS.
No profanity or inflammatory tone.
No off topic comments.
No copying and pasting from other comments.
No cyber stalking.
More detail at: http://www.skepticalscience.com/comments_policy.shtml
Anyone who repeatedly ignores one or other of these requirements will warned more than once before being banned. I’ve had comments on SkS both deleted and moderated, as have regular commenters. If you want to post there you need to be aware of the policy at all times. Perhaps worth a try on WUWT?
[Reply: In the past I posted a number of comments at SkS. Not one of them violated any posting guidelines, but they did – politely – contradict certain arguments being made. Not one ever made it out of moderation. ~dbs, mod.]
Jimbo says:
January 19, 2012 at 7:11 am
richard verney says:
January 19, 2012 at 4:45 am
………….
It was the KNOWN UNRELIABILITY of the paleo record which the ‘scientists’ were trying to hide when they were seeking to ‘coceal’ the divergence problem and splice on the instrument record for the period post 1960 without showing the paleo reconstruction for the later period.
I couldn’t have put it better myself. By the way is this lying by omission?
—
I guess if they’d done that it would be, numerous papers discuss the divergence between tree ring and temperature in high-latitude locations since 1995 though so I’d say they aren’t.
http://eas8001.eas.gatech.edu/papers/Briffa_et_al_PTRS_98.pdf
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publications/%20cook2004.pdf
There’s lots of papers on it if you care to look.
The earth hasn’t warmed in the last 15 years, it has cooled slightly over the past 10, supporting Easterbrook’s 1998 prediction. The 1.0 F increase per decade prediction is the big FAIL.
JR Woodman@7:25
I am a polite poster. I do not use caps, and I do try and post published papers.
One of the reason’s I got banned is because I used NOAA temp data to show that the USA has not warmed in the past 100 years. There were those that didn’t like that at all, but it is fact. North America is now about as warm as during the 1930’s to early 1940’s. A rebound if you will.
SKS is a site that does not like dissent from their percieved climate data.
And they really don’t like error bars.
This site is much more informative scientifically than SKS as it is open to comment. A “thinking” persons site, rather than a dogmatic site.
steven says:
January 19, 2012 at 7:06 am
SteveE says “Do you not think that you were misrepresenting Hansen by only presenting the Sernario A which Hansen refers to in the paper as “on the high side of reality”?” Hansen’s paper clearly states why he thinks scenario A must eventually be on the high side of reality. Page 9345 2nd paragraph explains the reasons. The link was provided above.
—
I know, I was quoting from that paper incase you hadn’t noticed…
[snip – Dana, after the sort of stuff you pulled on Deltoid, such as not providing your own inciteful quotes to go with my admonishment of you (context), why should I give you a venue here anymore? You seem hell bent on hatred.
An explanation is needed – please reply.
Shub Niggurath shows even more integrity issues at Skeptical Science. Coming so soon after the comment editing fiasco there, quote doctoring is not really a surprise.- Anthony]
Camburn – “…it is fact. North America is now about as warm as during the 1930′s to early 1940′s.”
Seriously, Camburn? http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:121/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/mean:121/plot/best/from:1850/mean:121
As I recall from several discussions, making things up (such as quotes) was one of the reasons you got a lot of moderation on SkS.
SteveE, you left out why scenario A must eventually be on the high side of reality. Don’t leave things out like the word eventually or the caveats. Leaving things out may cause people to start yelling liar you know.
KR:
I don’t have time this minute, but look for evidence in the next 24 hours that the USA has not warmed since the 1930’s and 1940’s……but gotten back to the temperatures at that time.
I don’t make things up sir. No need to do that as the theory of AGW has several flaws.
Kinda like the Strat is cooling, when it has been flat for over 15 years.
“However, due to increasing CO2, the CCMs simulate a continuous linear cooling by 1~K per decade over the entire 1979 to 2010 period. This is not consistent with the near-constant temperatures observed since the late 1980s.”
Conclusion of
Ozone and Temperature Trends in the Upper Stratosphere at Five Stations of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change
Publication:
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract
dana1981 says:
January 19, 2012 at 8:37 am
[snip – Dana, after the sort of stuff you pulled on Deltoid, such as not providing your own inciteful quotes to go with my admonishment of you, why should I give you a venue here anymore? You seem hell bent on hatred. – Anthony]
OK – so lets stop pretending this is a site that doesn’t ban/edit posts and posters.
You do. And it also appears you do so for personal reasons, as opposed to an objective policy, such as SkS (given that even an objective policy will, at some point be interpreted by a human being and therefore be applied unevenly at some level).
Let’s keep talking about Michaels and his indefensible manipulation of Hansen’s work before Congress. That is the subject of the OP and worthy of explanation. Will Michaels come forward and admit that what he did is wrong? Or is he too caught up in emotion to look objectively at his actions 15 years ago?
REPLY: Dana’s issue is that Michaels doesn’t show the entire context of a graph, then hypocritcally he does the same thing when talking about my responses over on the Deltoid thread…he leaves out the context of what caused me to respond to him in the first place – his own angry and hateful comments.
So I ask you and I ask Dana, why should I allow him to comment here on issues of leaving out context when he turns around and does the same thing he’s complaining about that Michaels supposedly did? Yes some posters are banned here, who have violated site policy, or for thread bombing, or for sustained shape shifting, there’s no pretending about that except in your mind.
Dana1981 isn’t banned, he’s had no snips in the two years he’s been commenting here. I’m trying to get his attention and get him to act like an adult and explain why it is OK for him to leave out context while complaining about others. Be as upset as you wish.
Also, Shub Niggurath shows even more integrity issues at Skeptical Science. Coming so soon after the comment editing fiasco there, quote doctoring is not really a surprise.
– Anthony
Dirk H and Mailman”
“I think he’s a climate scientist from the Team.”
I am honored at the suggestion – but no, I am a mere mortal who values the evidence over the emotion. The evidence CLEARLY shows the world is warming, and man is to blame.
That Michaels has to doctor graphics and misrepresent the actual science to say anything other than my summary statement simply underscores that the world is warming and man is to blame.
Snotrocket: “I just wondered because, when I come to read comments about your experiences on WUWT over at SkS, I shall be able to find your comments easily, especially where you tell your mates that WUWT ‘censored’ you (when WordPress dropped your comment and you refused to redo it after being offered to do so).”
Just to be clear the above is your fanciful rendering of events. None of that has happened. I got a mulligan – I regret interacting with MarkT has he has proven, in the past, to be all show and no go. Due to a server error (according to the moderator) – I got a 2nd chance at ignoring that poster. I jumped at it. I have, so far, not spoken on the issue of moderation at WUWT, other than my first take upthread, where I complimented the moderator and fellow posters. (oh and I have a negative comment about moderation currently in moderation)
So why all the hate?
@Anthony.
Why do you censor what Dana 1981 has to say, without reason; other than you didn’t like what he wrote elsewhere. Aren’t your readers capable of judging the worth of what he writes for themselves, or could it be that you’d prefer them not to read the good point that he made?
PhilJourdan – why don’t you try identifying where I “lied”? If you are careful, in that process, you will realize you misread the quote thread and are making a false accusation. I will treat your silence as that admission (for bonus points you could admit it and all will be well (and you will instantly be a very, very rare poster on the internet – one who acknowledges and owns his mistakes – what I am asking Michaels to do on this very thread).
If you find where I lied, please be explicit – as you are still going on and on, yet you have not supported your claim.
Didn’t dana1981 say in the earlier thread that he emailed Gillett about Michael’s portrayal of his graph? If so has there been a reply?
I didn’t see in the sKs thread where dana mentions what Gillett had to say. Could it be that Gillett either didn’t care about the what Michaels had done and he and didn’t bother to reply or he replied such and dana didn’t want to say that
Camburn – “…I used NOAA temp data to show that the USA has not warmed in the past 100 years… North America is now about as warm as during the 1930′s to early 1940′s”
I’ll be very interested to see you support those statements. In the meantime, the data I’ve seen (including Karoly et all 2003, Fig. 4, observations http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~wittaya/journals/DetectofHumabInfluonNamerica.pdf) indicates NA temperatures ~1C above 1900, and about 0.2C above the 1940’s.
Camburn says:
January 19, 2012 at 8:02 am
///////////////////////
It is rather doubtful whether the USA is today as warm as it was in the 1930s unless there has been a significant increase in rainfall since if it were to be that warm there ought to be dustbowl conditions as witnessed in the 1930s.
As far as I amn aware, there are not dustbowl conditions similar to those observed in the 1930s, the absence of which suggest that it is probably cooler today than it was during much of the 1930s.