Guest post by Warren Meyer
Likely you have heard the sound bite that “97% of climate scientists” accept the global warming “consensus”. Which is what gives global warming advocates the confidence to call climate skeptics “deniers,” hoping to evoke a parallel with “Holocaust Deniers,” a case where most of us would agree that a small group are denying a well-accepted reality. So why do these “deniers” stand athwart of the 97%? Is it just politics? Oil money? Perversity? Ignorance?
We are going to cover a lot of ground, but let me start with a hint.
In the early 1980′s I saw Ayn Rand speak at Northeastern University. In the Q&A period afterwards, a woman asked Ms. Rand, “Why don’t you believe in housewives?” And Ms. Rand responded, “I did not know housewives were a matter of belief.” In this snarky way, Ms. Rand was telling the questioner that she had not been given a valid proposition to which she could agree or disagree. What the questioner likely should have asked was, “Do you believe that being a housewife is a morally valid pursuit for a woman.” That would have been an interesting question (and one that Rand wrote about a number of times).
In a similar way, we need to ask ourselves what actual proposition do the 97% of climate scientists agree with. And, we need to understand what it is, exactly, that the deniers are denying. (I personally have fun echoing Ms. Rand’s answer every time someone calls me a climate denier — is the climate really a matter of belief?)
It turns out that the propositions that are “settled” and the propositions to which some like me are skeptical are NOT the same propositions. Understanding that mismatch will help explain a lot of the climate debate.
Full essay here at Forbes (well worth your time, Anthony)
Jim Cripwell said: “I, for one, do not accept this number. It can NEVER be measured, so how anyone can claim it is valid I have no idea. It is a hypothetical, and completely meaningless number. ”
Jim, your criticism is valid, but the article is not flawed by maintaining 1C. First the 1C can be simply calculated in radiative column models in clear and cloudy conditions, followed by some sort of averaging. There are flaws with that, with the 1C we will get circulation changes particularly convection which will change albedo, latent heat transfer, etc. But the gross concept is sound because 1C is not a drastic warming so drastic circulation and weather changes should not be anticipated.
I’m surprised there was no link to Warren Meyers site http://www.climate-skeptic.com, although he doesn’t seem to post to it as often as he used to. This was the first site I visited when I decided to open my eyes to the whole GW issue, and it was a link there that led me to the wonderful here.
Seeing his graph showing the temperatures superimposed on the PDO was what made it all click into place for me.
Well balanced article. Pity about the glaring error ” (a phenomenon we can hear with loud feedback screeches from a microphone).” The feedback screeches from the speakers, not the microphone. You have to wonder if that something that obvious can slip past.
Meyer writes:
“But the science of this positive climate feedback theory is far from settled. Just as skeptics are probably wrong to question the basic greenhouse gas effect of CO2, catastrophic global warming advocates are wrong to over-estimate our understanding of these feedbacks. Not only may the feedback number not be high, but it might be negative, as implied by some recent research, which would actually reduce the warming we would see from a doubling of CO2 to less than one degree Celsius. After all, most long-term stable natural systems (and that would certainly describe climate) are dominated by negative rather than positive feedbacks.”
Right, Mr. Meyer, but you leave out the most important point. Climate scientists have produced no well confirmed physical hypotheses that explain “feedbacks,” such as the effects of rising CO2 on cloud behavior, and they have no plans to do so. Without such well confirmed physical hypotheses, they have no science of feedbacks. They should readily admit this. They should claim that they have some rational reason for believing that feedbacks exist but that it is not science.
Also, genuine scientists would find their faces turning beet red if they talked about “feedbacks” the way climate scientists do. “Feedbacks” is just a hand waving term that hides the fact that there are no well confirmed hypotheses that can be used to explain and predict the phenomena in question.
An excellent summary. One specific bit to quibble with however is the lack of a distinction between fast and slow “earth system” feedbacks. The planet has not yet found an equilibrium point to the current level of greenhouse gases, so it is huge misstatement to give any specific increase to 390 ppm, as even if somehow the CO2 level suddenly stopped rising, there are still decades worth of warming ahead until all the Earth system feedbacks have caught up to reach equilibrium. Mind you, I am a warmist, but not a believer in “catastrophic” AGW, but I do understand the reality of fast and slow feedbacks, and the fact that it takes decades for a system as large and complex as the Earth’s climate to reach equilibrium once all feedbacks have fully acted.
Theo Godwin said:
Also, genuine scientists would find their faces turning beet red if they talked about “feedbacks” the way climate scientists do. “Feedbacks” is just a hand waving term that hides the fact that there are no well confirmed hypotheses that can be used to explain and predict the phenomena in question.
——
This is a very ignorant statement, and indicates that you obviously know nothing of the field of medicine or biology where feedbacks play a vital role in nearly all aspects, and are talked about in much the same way as climate scientists do. In this regard, the paradigm of viewing the Earth as a single living organism with all the same complex feedbacks as any organism has is quite valid.
Proud to be a 3% er
This is an outstanding high-level summary of the problems with the CAGW position. Thank you for drawing the article to our attention.
R. Gates says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:31 am
“An excellent summary. One specific bit to quibble with however is the lack of a distinction between fast and slow “earth system” feedbacks. ”
Radiative exchange of energy (absorption and re-emission) happens in milliseconds. Thousands of such processes happen within seconds.
Absorption and re-emission near the surface happen after an average free path length of about 30 m.
So much for “slow”.
“R. Gates says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:40 am”
Did you intentionally misunderstand him? He was referring specifically to the use of the term “feedbacks” as it’s used by “climate scientists”. He was not referring to biology or medicine.
I am not a warmist, but agree with R Gates’ entry at 1140 AM.
I would add that a complex system such as the Earth’s Air/Oceans system with its continuously changing inputs on multiple timescales is never at equilibrium—–this is part of what will always make good climate science difficult. At every moment the system is settling toward some equilibrium, but the changing inputs continuously change the equilibrium, so the system never gets there. Since we never get to see the equilibrium, empirical studies can never measure it, and models can never be verified.
Models, however, can be refuted if the real world does produce measurements that are inconsistent with the models. We know that the CAGW models circa 1990 have all been refuted by the failure of the climate to warm anywhere near the level predicted by those models as measured CO2 has continued to climb.
Eric (skeptic) writes “Jim, your criticism is valid, but the article is not flawed by maintaining 1C. First the 1C can be simply calculated in radiative column models in clear and cloudy conditions, followed by some sort of averaging”
I respectfully disagree. Any number which can NEVER be measured has no meaning in physics. Second, no model, unless it has been fully validated, can ever “calculate” anything. It can only”estimate”. By the way, if you have a reference to how this “calculation” is actually done, I would be grateful. TIA.
Wow, the pedants are clearly out in force today. They should try actually reading the article in question at the source.
To Warren Meyer……please:
Warming does not only produce “many” effects….but, a good list has been
compiled, please see
its time….. we buy our tumbstone soon……
JS
The list disappeared, again:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Thank you, Warren Meyer, for this clear and well-balanced essay. It deserves to be more widely circulated. I have noticed a few minor points which you might consider when preparing a future edition. However there is one point where I think you may have unnecessarily laid yourself open to criticism. The ‘97%’ figure for support of the consensus in the Doran paper is indeed meaningless as both the leading questions would be answered in much the same way by sceptical scientists as by adherents of the orthodoxy. The Doran paper is thus irrelevant to the climate debate. However the figure 97-98% appears in another recent publication which I think may be cited by your critics; namely the Anderegg et al (2010) paper ‘Expert credibility in climate change’ (PNAS, Volt 107, 12107 – 12109). This paper, which is not hidden behind a paywall, may, along with the discussion it has given rise to, deserve more attention than the Doran paper. As far as I know PNAS papers are not subject to conventional peer review, which may itself reflect on the credibility of the Anderegg et al paper. I still think it deserves a mention.
Jim, the estimates rely on spectral broadening calculations like this: http://www.john-daly.com/forcing/hug-barrett.htm Those calculations assume “all other things being equal” which, as you point out, may not be true. I believe it is true enough for purposes of a crude estimate.
R Gates, when you say “there are still decades worth of warming ahead until all the Earth system feedbacks have caught up to reach equilibrium.” do you mean thermal inertia? Or more ice and tundra melting? Those do not seem to be very significant since the ocean warming may be deep (i.e. not part of the short term equilibrium) and the tundra also has depth that will take more than decades to warm.
@rhs
“…Best quote I think I’ve ever heard to summarize such a divided opinion:
At best, this is a function of the laziness and scientific illiteracy of the media that allows folks to talk past one another; at worst, it is a purposeful bait-and-switch to avoid debate on the tough issues…”
Actually, the worst is a lot worse. What is entirely left out of this essay is the question of WHY people are avoiding debate. The initial reason was probably scientific arrogance, but now it is more likely to be because a lot of jobs and money are riding on the debate, and in a fair debate they will lose. So at worst this is a conspiracy to defraud and enslave the world’s taxpayers – it probably didn’t start that way, but that’s what it has become…
Now that “volcanoes” are now being blamed for the Little Ice Age (to divert attention from solar minimums) it is nice to see the warmenizers are admitting that there was a global Little Ice Age.
Since there was an agreed upon global Little Ice Age, I await the day when the sane warmenizers (a small percentage) agree than any 20th century warming is just a bounce back from the global Little Ice Age.
Did you know some January’s were 10C colder than the warmest ones?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt
Eric (skeptic) says:
February 9, 2012 at 1:50 pm
R Gates, when you say “there are still decades worth of warming ahead until all the Earth system feedbacks have caught up to reach equilibrium.” do you mean thermal inertia? Or more ice and tundra melting? Those do not seem to be very significant since the ocean warming may be deep (i.e. not part of the short term equilibrium) and the tundra also has depth that will take more than decades to warm.
______
Certainly there is some “thermal inertia” (I really hate that phrase) in the oceans, in that at least some of the energy has gone into the deeper ocean through the THC, and it will alter patterns in climate for centuries. However, the earth system feedbacks specifically I’m referring to are related to changes in the cyrosphere and biosphere. The cyrosphere is still reacting to 390 ppm, and will for several more decades. Unfortunately, over that time period we’ll be seeing 410, then 420, 430, etc. ppm. But even if somehow we stayed around 390, it would take many decades before the cryosphere settles in to some equilibrium just from 390 ppm (not to mention the higher amounts of methane and N20. Thus, in the shrinking of ice cover, summer sea ice cover, glaciers, etc. more heat is still being absorbed as these shrink, meaning the thermal equilibrium temperature is still higher from here. In terms of the biosphere, the response of plants and animals to the warming we’ve already seen will take decades to fully complete. These changes (such as species migration) alter the amount of energy absorbed by the system (plants now covering formerly ice covered rocks in Greenland for example). These are long-term slow feedbacks, that mean the actual equilibrium temperature from the amount of CO2 we currently have is still many decades out. To state that the world has warmed only 0.7C from the 390 ppm we currently have is to miss the underlying warming that is still going on from the 390 ppm, such that even if we stayed at 390 ppm, we might very well still see 1 to 1.2C of warming just from these levels after the slow feedbacks have completed. Of course, we’ll never know as higher higher we go in CO2 for the next several decades.
R. Gates says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:31 am
Yeah I agree Mr Gates. When the sun rose this morning, I didn’t feel it’s warmth, what I felt was the warmth from the sun that rose many decades ago.
Rob Crawford says:
February 9, 2012 at 12:18 pm
“R. Gates says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:40 am”
Did you intentionally misunderstand him? He was referring specifically to the use of the term “feedbacks” as it’s used by “climate scientists”. He was not referring to biology or medicine.
_____
And my point was that it is equally as valid for climate scientists to talk about feedbacks as a biologist would. They are both dealing with complex systems with multiple interacting feedbacks. In this sense, CO2 additions to the atmosphere should be viewed more like any change in input to a biological system.
DirkH says:
February 9, 2012 at 12:07 pm
R. Gates says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:31 am
“An excellent summary. One specific bit to quibble with however is the lack of a distinction between fast and slow “earth system” feedbacks. ”
Radiative exchange of energy (absorption and re-emission) happens in milliseconds. Thousands of such processes happen within seconds.
Absorption and re-emission near the surface happen after an average free path length of about 30 m.
So much for “slow”.
_____
Suggest you read a bit more about the changes going on to the biosphere and cyrosphere, and stop trying to give me schooling on basic radiational physics.
Thanks for the read. I guess i am a sceptic..