Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Dear Dr. Gundersen;
I see that due to the highly theatrical auto-defenestration of your predecessor, Dr. Peter Gleick, you are now the Chair of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Task Force on Scientific Integrity. I’m not sure whether to offer my congratulations or my condolences. Let me offer you both, as you have both huge opportunity and huge danger in front of you, and the reputation of your Task Force has already suffered serious damage.
Next, let me put it to you straight. As Dr. Gleick’s demise for wire fraud is just the latest demonstration, far too many climate scientists have all the scientific integrity of a desperate grifter whose con is going badly wrong. Consider for example the response from Dr. Gleick’s supporters to his actions, who in many cases have lauded him as a “whistleblower”, and some of whom stop just short of proposing him for climate sainthood.
So my question for you is this: what are you planning to do about this abysmal state of affairs?
Make no mistake. If Peter Gleick walks away from this debacle free of expulsion, sanction, or censure from the AGU, without suffering any further penalties, your reputation and the reputation of the AGU will forever join his on the cutting room floor. People are already laughing at the spectacle of the chair of a task force on scientific integrity getting caught with his entire arm in the cookie jar. You have one, and only one, chance to stop the laughter.
Because if your Task Force doesn’t have the bal … the scientific integrity to take up the case of its late and unlamented commander as its very first order of business, my Spidey-sense says that it will be forever known as the “AGU Task Farce on Scientific Integrity”. You have a clear integrity case staring you in the face. If you only respond to Dr. Gleick’s reprehensible actions with vague platitudes about “the importance of …”, if the Task Force’s only contribution is mealy-mouthed mumblings about how “we deplore …” and “we are disappointed …”, I assure you that people will continue to point and laugh at that kind of spineless pretense of scientific integrity.
Folks are fed up with climate scientists who lie, cheat, and steal to attack their scientific opponents, and who then walk away without the slightest action being taken by other scientists. As long as there are no repercussions from the scientific community for the kind of things Dr. Gleick has done, mainstream climate scientists will continue to do them. Indeed, Dr. Gleick’s own actions were no doubt greatly encouraged by the fact that you noble scientists were so full of bul … of scientific integrity that you all let the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators walk away scot-free, without even asking them the important questions, much less getting answers to those major issues.
You have the opportunity to actually take a principled stand here, Dr. Gundersen, and I cannot overemphasize the importance of you doing so. Dr. Gleick’s kind of unethical skullduggery in the name of science has ruined the reputation of the entire field of climate science. The rot of “noble cause corruption” is well advanced in the field, and it will not stop until people just like you quit looking the other way and pretending it doesn’t exist. I had hoped that some kind of repercussions for scientific malfeasance would be one of the outcomes of Climategate, but people just ignored that part. This one you can’t ignore.
Well, I suppose you can ignore it, humans are amazing, anyone can ignore even an elephant in the room … but if you do ignore it, in the future please don’t ever expect your opinions on scientific integrity to be given even the slightest weight. The world is already watching your actions, not your words, and you can be assured that those actions will be carefully examined. If you let this chance for meaningful action slip away, no one out here in the real world will ever again believe a word you say on the subject of integrity.
I cannot urge you in strong enough terms. Do not miss the boat on this one. The credibility of your panel is already irrevocably damaged by the witless choice of your first chair. The move is yours to make or not, the opportunity is there to take the scientific high ground. You will be judged on whether you and the Task Force have the scientific integrity to take action regarding Dr. Gleick, or whether you just take the UN route and issue a string of “strongly worded resolutions” bemoaning the general situation.
Let me close with a quote from Megan McCardle at The Atlantic:
When skeptics complain that global warming activists are apparently willing to go to any lengths–including lying–to advance their worldview, I’d say one of the movement’s top priorities should be not proving them right. And if one rogue member of the community does something crazy that provides such proof, I’d say it is crucial that the other members of the community say “Oh, how horrible, this is so far beyond the pale that I cannot imagine how this ever could have happened!” and not, “Well, he’s apologized and I really think it’s pretty crude and opportunistic to make a fuss about something that’s so unimportant in the grand scheme of things.”
After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.
I am hoping for action on this, but sadly, I have been in this game long enough to not expect scientific integrity, even from scientists who sit on scientific integrity task forces … and I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
In any case, my warmest and best wishes to you, Dr. Gundersen. I do not envy you, as you have a very difficult task ahead. I wish you every success in your work.
w.
APPENDIX:
From the AGU website, I find the following, and I encourage people to note the names of the participants in this scientific experiment. If they actually step up to the plate, if the Task Force and the AGU do take action regarding Dr. Gleick’s misdeeds, if they don’t just blow smoke and mouth smooth-sounding words, then these are the people to congratulate.
And vice versa.
AGU Task Force on Scientific Ethics
Chair
Linda Gundersen, USGS, Reston, Virginia.
Members
David J. Chesney, Michigan Tech University, Houghton, Michigan
Floyd DesChamps, Alliance to Save Energy, Washington, DC
Karen Fischer, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Tim Grove, MIT Earth Atmosphere & Planetary Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Linda Gundersen, USGS, Reston, Virginia
Noel Gurwick, UCSUSA, Washington, DC
Dennis Moore, NOAA/PMEL, Seattle, Washington
Arthur Nowell, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Len Pietrafesa, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina
Jeff Plescia, Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, Maryland
Peter Schuck, NASA/GSFC CODE 674, Greenbelt, Maryland
Jagadish Shukla, Geo Mason-Center Ocean/Land Atmosphere, Calverton, Maryland
Vivian Weil, Center for Ethics, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois
Staff Liaison
Randy Townsend
The Scientific Ethics Task Force is responsible for reviewing and guiding the Union’s standards, principles, and code of conduct on ethics and integrity in scientific activities.
Committee Charge
Review the current state of AGU’s scientific ethical standards in the geophysical sciences and those of other related professional/scholarly societies;
Based on this knowledge, update AGU’s protocols and procedures for addressing violations of its ethical principles;
As appropriate, revise and augment AGU’s current ethical principles and code of conduct for AGU meetings, publications and for interactions between scientists with their professional colleagues and the public;
Propose sanctions for those who violate AGU’s ethical principles, and
Consider whether AGU should adopt a statement of ethical principles as a condition of membership or for participation in certain activities of the Union. If so, develop a recommendation on how the principles would be applied to AGU members and or participants in AGU activities.
jim says:
February 22, 2012 at 2:49 am
“presumably she is the second most honest member”
ROFL.
Those people and organizations that have defended Gleick since he admitted wire fraud suggests to the outside world that faking results and meddling with data is perceived as an acceptable way of getting the job done. A delusional God syndrome must be systemic amongst Gleick’s peers.
____________________________________________________________________
One must look at the establishment as a whole. in this case Eddenhoffer exposed the cult that is AGW and the real crux of the agenda… its not about science.. its about control of money and people… down to every thing they eat, do and when they die… in the quest for ultimate power anything and everything is acceptable… Gleicks behavior is but a symptom of a greater problem. the lust for power is intoxicating and it removes any ethical ground that might have existed…as he saw his power and stature going away he did what he could to regain power and control..
If you look and Michale Mann, Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, and many others when they were exposed as liars and frauds.. their socialist agenda trumps all….
Willis – an open letter is a bit of an olive branch. It is bad form to offer it and then whack the person over the head with it. I’m one of your big fans, we’re on the same side, but sometimes we don’t agree. I’m a fan but not a fan boy. This isn’t one of your great works but then you have had some great works to compare – I hear thunderstorms just recalling it. We’ve had the discussion about anonymity and it isn’t worth going over again. I retire in a few months and I can bare all at that time, and we can split a betel nut and have a good laugh. Privacy matters and that in fact is what underlies the gleickswoggle caper – denial of anonymity against the wishes of the anonymous.
Please do keep up the excellent work and I will continue to enjoy reading it.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree, well, we don’t have to actually agree, but that’s what’s going to happen regarding posting while incensed. On average it doesn’t work out as well as an unimpassioned but well written missive which you are more than capable of and probably would have jotted off if you’d waited one more day. I will say this about your non-Churchillian ultimatum, it was in the best tradition of Gonzo writing but archaic.
As for your target reading your chide – perhaps some of it will be seen, but having dealt with these former crosswalk monitors and teacher’s snitches, I know and you should know you are the water, they are the duck. It won’t matter.
[Moderator’s Objection: Split a betel nut? No. Not here. Not ever. No $!@ur momisugly#&^!*! betel nuts. -REP]
dp says:
February 22, 2012 at 1:03 pm
“Willis – we got enough Gonzo Journalism from PG this week. Responding in kind won’t move the ball down field. ”
I must have missed the part where Willis forges an NCSE memo. Can you clue me in?
Roger that – betel nuts are right out!
dp says:
February 22, 2012 at 8:43 pm
What, are you the “Miss Manners” of open letters now? An open letter is any damn thing I want it to be, as long as it is open. That’s the difference between me and you. I draw outside the lines. Can’t help it.
dp, you still don’t get it. You can come back and explain your position fifty times, and it won’t change me a bit. I DIDN’T WRITE THE POST FOR YOU, and your opinion of it, while interesting, is ultimately meaningless to me. I wrote it as best I know how. If you want to write an olive branch, I invite you to do so. If you want to continue to bitch and moan about the way I write, go away. Don’t go away mad. Just go away. I don’t need your endless complaints, I’m not interested in your insights. I write the way I write. You think its wrong. I don’t give a shift. MOVE ON, your attempts to get me to agree to being average and follow the rules are terminally boring.
Congratulations on your retirement, and if you have betel nut, lime, and a leaf, I’ll gladly join you.
Thanks, appreciated.
Let me say again. Your opinion of my writing holds no weight at all. I wrote it in a specific way, with a specific purpose, to reach a specific person as best I know how. I DON’T CARE IF YOU LIKE IT.
I also don’t care if it works “on average”, I’ve never written “on average” in my life. You seem to think writing is some generic “on average” act, which may be why I’m the blogger here and you’re the commenter. The part you don’t seem to take in is this—I wrote that piece to affect a certain person, and that person is not you. I didn’t write it to affect an average person, or a generic person. I aimed it, as best I know how, at Dr. Gundersen, at what I guessed might move her, intrigue her, push her, get under her skin, get behind her defenses.
And now you are here babbling about “on average”, and telling me how it affected you … spare me.
Look, dp, I’m a thowback, a sport, a primitive man in a modern world. I don’t do focus groups. I don’t listen to either nay-sayers or people who think I’m great, I “treat those two impostors just the same”. I don’t care if people think I’m off the rails. I don’t care if people like or hate what I write. I’m unconcerned even if everyone thinks I’m an idiot. I’m not writing for acclaim or for self-esteem or for approbation. I just write what I write as best as I know how. In particular, I don’t try to second-guess myself afterwards. It goes nowhere, because the next situation is never ever the same.
So you say … based on what? How many public open letters have you actually written and published, dp, as I wrote and published this one?
One?
None?
This is about my sixth or so, I’m not sure. Come back when you catch up, and I may give your opinion some weight. Or not. Like I said, I generally follow my own stars, they’ve served my navigation for years. I chose my words for a reason, my reasons don’t involve you in any way, and you have not given me any reason to change a single word.
Yeah, I used to get that reaction a lot, it’s an ugly habit. My favorite betel nut sight was one time on the island of Malaita. I went into a government office. Instead of a spittoon for the red, staining betelnut juice that everyone spits when they chew, they had a new cardboard box in the corner.
Well, they had had a new cardboard box, but from the appearances that was some weeks ago. With the wet spit and the tropics the bottom half of the box had melted, leaving the top of the box looking like a square cardboard crown floating on a couple square metres of bright red betelnut spit flowing out from the corner of the office … people tiptoed (barefoot of course) as near as they dared, and then from force of habit tried to spit into the bottomless cardboard box.
I started chewing betel there in the Solomons, while I was playing with a local rock band … best band in the country, actually. Everyone in the band chewed “bilnas”, as the Solomon Islands pijin language has it, and so I took it up as well. It was pretty gruesome when we all got up on stage, when the whole band smiled the spotlights reflected red all around the dance floor, and we looked like cannibals on a lunch break …
Dirk – I think you don’t understand Gonzo journalism. It is brash but honest. Not that Hunter was above stimulating conversation using creating means. Get a copy of Nuni – it is a tale much like some Willis has shared of a fictitious time (not lumping Willis into the fiction) in the Solomon islands written by a guy who was critically acclaimed but probably had trouble paying his bills. Note the page after page of ranting as the relationships develop. That is Gonzo. If you’ve read Atlas Shrugged then you have read Gonzo. It is strident, sometimes energized by chemicals, but a very deep look into the mind of the writer. I’ve been compared to Kerouac and that can be annoying when you strive for your own style, and I’d offer Willis is in that crowd when he’s on. Or at least he can be. I wouldn’t claim it is even intentional, but passion is a big part of it and Willis is passionate. Perhaps you’ve noticed. All I’m saying is there are pragmatic reasons for reigning it in from time to time.
Willis – if you didn’t write that post for me and other WUWT readers you’d have posted it somewhere else where we’d never have seen it. Of course you wrote it for us.
Since I’ve not attacked you but only the tone of your post, and you have seen cause to attack me personally I will drop the point, well made, I think. Your skin is thinning. Grow a carapace if you want to be a writer.
dp says:
February 22, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Are you really that dumb, or do you just play dumb on the web? I have said many times, I wrote it for Dr. Linda Gundersen. The title is kind of a clue for those with any wit. I posted it where I post everything. No, you weren’t involved at all, I didn’t write it for you in any sense, but clearly your ego is agitating for its own area code.
Oh, now you’re going to go all sensitive on me? You came once to tell me how I should write. I said I wasn’t interested. You came back again, to tell me that I was doing it all wrong. I said I couldn’t care less.
The third time you came back to pester and annoy me about my writing, yes, I got personal. That’s what happens when you persist in trying to school someone who has repeatedly said they’re not interested in the slightest in your fantasies about how to write. They bite back. It’s the way of the world, third time being a jerk is the charm. Get used to it.
Next, you think my skin is thinning? You’re the one bitching about being attacked, and I could care less if you attack me, whose skin is thin here? Again, you don’t have a clue what my point of view is. You obviously think I’m upset or angry. In fact, I think you are being very childish, but that you are kinda cute when you get upset.
In particular, you don’t deal with rejection well at all. You don’t seem to understand that when I say I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR OPINION OF MY WRITING, that doesn’t mean “please return and explain your brilliant ideas to me again”. Now you’re all butthurt that I have had to repeatedly detach you like some crazed remora and throw you back into the ocean, since you keep coming back to latch on once again and tell me (very politely) that I’m a jerk and a fool who doesn’t know how to write …
But I’m still laughing, dp, that’s where you’re wrong. I only get upset about important things, not about random anonymous internet popups who are convinced they are Miss Manners … don’t let the door hit you in the ego on the way out.
w.
PS—Come back and discuss the science any time, you are always welcome for that.
Thank you again for your reply, Willis – and excuse my delayed reply, which is due to the small matter of living in different time zones …
Both your examples provided great food for thought.
Let’s take the Trachoma one, and the perfidy of a producer of cookers which make the problem of trachoma worse. You then say:
“I say the cause is the cause, and there will always be people to game the system and cheat and lie and steal in the name of a host of things.”
Does that mean that the corrupt producer of cookers displays the garden variety of corruption in all cases except when he sells this same shoddy products with the label ‘prevents trachoma’, in which case it suddenly becomes ‘noble cause corruption’?
I think your excellent flip-side example:
“Does playing a video game ethically and with integrity somehow transform playing video games into a noble calling?”
actually points to what I was trying so clumsily to convey.
Corruption, noble cause one or not, is down to a lack of integrity. Doesn’t matter if one cheats oneself and others while playing video games, or produces and sells shoddy cookers, or fiddles data. If a cause is labelled ‘noble’, the temptation to cheat becomes greater, because fighting for something considered to be ‘noble’ confers ‘nobility’ to the perpetrator.
It is still cheating, it is still corruption, no matter the cause.
I think we’ve labelled far too many ’causes’ as noble, or ‘pretty noble’, when in fact we mean “worthwhile”. When we say that ‘saving the planet’ is most noble, then we have already accepted that everything else must be subordinate, and that cheating is of course allowed.
I would further say that using the label ‘noble cause’ actually invites noble cause corruption.
If we use ‘worthwhile’ for a cause, then we get “worthwhile cause corruption”, which illustrates IMV that corruption is corruption, no matter the worthiness of a cause.
Which then means that, as you say, ‘the cause remains the cause’.
Thanks, Willis, for making me put my brain into gear with my first cup of coffee!
Well, all this aside, I have one more question for Dr. Gundersen.
I’m currently a US gov’t employee. If I have a problem with my current position, can I apply for a job with the USGS?
I can imagine how much easier and lucrative a job there must be, not having to worry about ethics and all that.
Wiliis Eschenbach: my letter’s not in her email inbox, is it?
Then it’s not written to her, is it? It’s written to WUWT readers. It’s only addressed to her.
I do like your data analyses. You pick interesting data sets and do interesting statistical analyses with them.
This letter? not so much. I’d recommend that she ignore it, and I think that she will.
Septic Matthew says:
February 23, 2012 at 8:30 am (Edit)
Yes, it is written to her. A snail-mail letter, a fax, or a telegram wouldn’t be in her email inbox either … and by your asinine logic, that would mean that none of them were written to her. Get with the picture, you’re a smart guy, you usually don’t commit such obvious logic FAILs.
See, that’s the deal with an “open letter”, Matthew. It’s called an “open letter” because it is a letter, which like any other letter is written to a particular person, but is open for others to read. Thus, “open letter”. Get it?
Do try to keep up. Trying to school me doesn’t work when you’re not following the story.
w.
Wow – I’ve read many many open letters over the years, mainly published in newspapers where such a thing has a long tradition.
I had always assumed that the letter was written to the person named at the head of the letter, but being “open” I, as a the reader of the newpaper, would get to read the letter as well.
It turns out all these letters were actually written to me! And I never realised it till now! How silly of me.
brc says:
February 23, 2012 at 5:44 am
I’m not a one-eyed electric car lover but the Tesla engineers have come up with a lot of clever stuff. Their battery packs are miles ahead of most of the competition and they were the first to market with a modern electric car … is a testament to a very good 1.0 design in the roadster.
———————–
I’m not quite as impressed. The roadster was already designed for them. A guy takes a Lotus Elise chassis, and puts an electric motor into it and straps together some 7000 cells with off the shelf cell management technology. The battery pack technology is off the shelf tech BTW. Then gets the taxpayer to finance it. I don’t see the purpose for the car. I’m not into gimmickry for the sake of gimmickry. It’s perfomance is totally unimpressive to me. A Corvette ZR1 or Camaro ZL1 (just 2 examples), which costs less and are a lot more practical, will rape a Tesla. I have reservations about refering to Tesla as an American car company. They may be American, but I’m not sure they quite have achieved a level where they can be considered a car company yet maybe a kit-car company.
I would ask the chairman of ethics to look into this scientific issue. Nils-Axel Mörner alleges that the IPCC and the cohorts of the extreme AGW paradigm are cooking the books, exaggerating the amount of sea level rise by a factor of at least three.
Nils-Axel Mörner appears to allege in the attached article that some scientists are manipulating data to support a hypothesis. How can that be possible? Surely the director of ethics would be concerned about either Nils-Axel Mörner’s outrageous comments or the outrageous action of the scientist that are hiding a clear paradox.
Nils-Axel Mörner is a specialist in sea level measurement, with many published papers. Surely if the IPCC is not a propaganda document someone can provide a clear extensive rebuttal to Mörner’s very basic fundamental observations.
It appears this is Nils-Axel Mörner third publication of with the same underlying conclusion. Surely if science is on the side of the IPCC this should be simple matter to clear up.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2011/Winter-2010/Morner.pdf
“THE GREAT SEA-LEVEL HUMBUG There Is No Alarming Sea Level Rise!” by Nils-Axel Mörner
This is, indeed, a terrible falsification of the actual situation. We are undoubtedly facing a “sea-level-gate.” The journal that published this false claim, Ethics and International Affairs, refuses to print a comment “that focuses on empirical data.” With surprise, we must ask: What is the meaning of addressing moral concern, if the entire empirical base is wrong?
The mean of all the 159 NOAA sites gives a rate of 0.5 mm/year to 0.6 mm/year (Burton 2010). A better approach, however, is to exclude those sites that represent uplifted and subsided areas (Figure 4). This leaves 68 sites of reasonable stability (still with the possibility of an exaggeration of the rate of change, as discussed above). These sites give a present rate of sea level rise in the order of 1.0 (± 1.0) mm/year. This is far below the rates given by satellite altimetry, and the smell of a “sea-levelgate” gets stronger.
The IPCC authors take the liberty to select what they call “representative” records for their reconstruction of the centennial sea level trend. This, of course, implies that their personal view— that is, the IPCC scenario laid down from the beginning of the project— is imposed in the selection and identification of their “representative” records.
We start to smell another “sea-level-gate.”
When the satellite altimetry group realized that the 1997 rise was an ENSO signal, and they extended the trend up to 2003, they seemed to have faced a problem: There was no sea level rise visible, and therefore a “reinterpretation” needed to be undertaken.(This was orally confirmed at the Global Warming meeting held by the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow in 2005, which I attended). Exactly what was done remains unclear, as the satellite altimetry groups do not specify the additional “corrections” they now infer. In 2003, the satellite altimetry record (Aviso 2003) suddenly took a new tilt—away from the quite horizontal record of 1992-2000, seen in Figures 5 and 6—of 2.3 (±0.1) mm/year (Figure 7).
I would ask the chairman of scientific ethics to look into this issue in addition
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2011/Winter-2010/Morner.pdf
“THE GREAT SEA-LEVEL HUMBUG There Is No Alarming Sea Level Rise!” by Nils-Axel Mörner
It appears that a lead author of an IPCC chapter may be biased and could be acting in manner which some might label as unethical.
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm
Hmm.. the AGU has an inordinate number of atomspheric specialists stacking this panel. You don`t suppose it was climate nepotism that peopled the integrity watchers
Michael G Wallace says:
February 23, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Michael, I can assure you she has read it. If she did not see it herself, I’m quite sure that one of her friends pointed it out to her. Everyone seriously interested in climate science reads WUWT regularly, if only to find out what Anthony and I and the other guest posters are up to now. And some of them know her. So yes, she has read it, as have the members of her team.
Who would be the person to send it to there?
My own feeling is that a lot of researchers are funding-driven, and I have compassion for that. I consider myself fortunate that I’m pounding nails for a living these days. Some guys lift iron for exercise … I lift wood.
And as a result, I am not beholden to anyone regarding the direction of my scientific work and research. It also allows me to write for WUWT uninhibited by any monetary considerations.
And I understand that most scientists do not have that luxury.
w.
Michael Wallace and Willis Eschenbach,
Thank-you for the thoughtful comments. Willis’ comment concerning financial pressure and risk if one does not stay on message is astute.
There may also be general academic pressure and peer pressure to remain silent to what appears to be obvious evidence of a subgroup’s efforts to manipulate the scientific process and in some cases to manipulate data and analysis, as there is the mistaken belief by some that the end justifies the means.
Any significant sustained unexplained cooling will change the public, politicians, and media’s perspective concerning climate change. There will eventually be a request for an explanation as to the cause of the cooling and a requested for a revised long term climate forecast. I would assume that gradually as the science is worked out and made public that there will also be a call for action to resolve the problems related to scientific integrity and ethics.
There are a host of ineffective (such as the capturing and sequestrating of CO2, roughly an increase in capital cost of 3 times and loss of efficiency of 30% or the construction of wind farms in regions where wind speeds are too low for an economic wind farm) and harmful initiatives (such as the conversion of food to biofuel which has and will result in food shortages and in tropical rainforest being cut down), that will hopefully be addressed at the same time.
My interest is primarily scientific. I am not sure if I can be of any help with the important unresolved ethical and policy issues. I do not like conflict. I will have some free time later this year perhaps I can layout an overview of abrupt climate change and what it appears is currently underway. I thought people would be more receptive to the science if it is clear the solar cycle has been interrupted and there is observational evidence of the cooling.
Best wishes,
William
Comments:
Based on the paleoclimatic record and research to try explain the cause of cyclic abrupt climate change in the record, it appears the planet is about to cool due to an interruption in the solar cycle. The late Gerald Bond, tracked 23 of the warming/cooling cycles that are also known as Dansgaard-Oesgher cycles. The magnitude and rapidity of the cooling phase varies depending on how long the sun was in a high activity state prior to the interruption, the duration of the solar cycles prior to the cycle interruption, the rapidity of the cycle interruption, and the orbital configuration of the planet when the cycle restarts. The largest cycles such as the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event which are called Heinrich events are capable of terminating interglacial periods. There are geomagnetic excursions that have been found at the Heinrich events. It appears it is the geomagnetic excursions that cause the very large, rapid cooling events. The Younger Dryas cooling period lasted around 1000 years, with 70% of the cooling occurring within a decade.
The geomagnetic field specialists have spent the last 10 years analyzing the geomagnetic proxy data to confirm the timing of past field changes and to confirm the paradoxical rapidity of past geomagnetic field changes (the proxy data indicates a rapidity of change that is physically not possible for a core based field generating mechanism) The proxy data was initially analyzed and interpreted based on what is possible based on the assumed field generation mechanism. The geomagnetic field specialists’ paradigm is likely shifting due to the current unexplained rapid changes (increase in size and drop of field intensity in that region.) of the South Atlantic geomagnetic field anomaly which appears to be the start of a geomagnetic excursion ( A set of three European satellites, “Swarm” are schedule for launch this spring to try to determine how and how rapidly the field is changing) as well has the discovery of past abrupt unexplained 10 to 15% degree shifts (archeomagnetic jerks) in the geomagnetic field axis orientation as compared to the planet’s rotational axis, that correlate with past cooling periods, (10 “archomagnetic jerks” have been found in fired pottery that captures the orientation and strength of the field when the pottery cools. It has been found that past geomagnetic excursions correlate with the termination of past interglacial periods)
There is an interesting new published paper that proposes an ocean/core coupled mechanism to explain the rapidity of the past geomagnetic field changes. Ocean currents and electric current flow through the conductive ocean generated a field that is impressed on the conductive liquid core. The ocean mechanism has a time constant of roughly 5 years as compared to the core’s time constant of few thousand years.
Ethics are connected with the personality, the world view of the person in question.
It is interesting to compare the world view of James Hanson to Henrik Svensmark.to William Connelly to Richard Alley, based on their response to observations and outward actions. Each person within their worldview which may or may not be connected to the reality, believes they are acting morally and ethically. If a scientist takes a very strong public position which is scientifically incorrect it becomes very, very, difficult for them to state that they were completely incorrect. An example of that problem would be Lord Kelvin.
To continue to make statements that are not supported by observations and logic it is necessary to ignore new data that invalidates past hypotheses.
I will provide an outline in the next couple of comments of the change in science concerning extreme AGW and compare it to the worldview of those advocating the extreme AGW paradigm such as William Connelly or James Hansen.
Richard Alley and colleges discovered the cyclic abrupt climate change in the Greenland Ice core data. Due to the physical phenomena which is referred to by paleo-climatologists as the polar see-saw the Antarctic ice sheet warms when when the Greenland ice sheet cools and visa versa. The Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere both cool and warm concurrently (See Svensmark’s attached paper’s data to justify this assertion.) The reason why there is out of phase warming and cooling of the two ice sheets is due to the affect of high and low altitude clouds and increasing and decreasing ionization. i.e. Increasing ionization causes an increase in low level planetary cloud cover and reduction in high altitude cirrus clouds. The decrease in cirrus clouds has little affect on the Antarctic as the temperature above the ice sheet is so cold there is little difference in ice crystals and therefore little decrease in winter temperatures when high altitude clouds have the greatest affect on cooling due to lack of sunlight. In the summer the increase in low level clouds causes warming in the Antarctic as the albedo of the ice sheet is greater than the clouds and clouds have a component of warming due to the greenhouse affect of water and ice in the cloud. The polar see-saw effect is why there has been a significant decrease in Arctic ice and an increase in sea ice around the Antarctic ice sheet during the 20th century warming. (There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleoclimatic record.)
This link, figure 3 provides a graph from Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/
The Bond/Dansgaard-Oesgher are clearly evident in the paleorecord. The planet warms and then cools with different magnitudes of cooling following a cycle of roughly 1470 years plus or minus around 17%. As Gerald Bond found there are cosmogenic isotope changes at all of the past climate warming and cooling. What I do not understand is why Alley is not interested in what caused the past cycle of warming and cooling. Clearly there was a physical reason, the past cyclic warming and cooling that is periodic. Subsequent research shows the mechanism is not ocean currents, as there is a lack of correlation of ocean current changes and the cooling events and modelling indicates the temperature change due to a complete stoppage the Atlantic drift current is a factor of 3 to 5 too small to explain what is observed.
Svensmark looks at the observations as a puzzle to be solved. Svensmark is very conservative, matter of fact, scientific in his explanation of his hypotheses, providing observations and logic to justify his conclusion.
Attached is Svensmark’s paper which attempts to solve the puzzle of the polar see-saw. Svensmark’s paper includes data which uses direct measurement of ice sheet temperature from ice cores (due to insulating properties of the ice sheet the direct measurement of ice core temperature at different levels can be used to determine past temperatures for roughly the last 6 thousand years). Svensmark’s ice core temperature data show there is no lag time in the polar see-saw which rules out ocean currents as the cause of what is observed.
Subsequent ocean current measurement by smart deep ocean floats indicates there is no deep ocean conveyor, the deep ocean current is distributed and complex which completely invalidates the hypothesized mechanism at a fundamental level.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0612145.pdf
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/ocean-conveyor-belt-dismissed
After nearly 50 years of acceptance, the theory that a great ocean “conveyor belt” continuously circulates water around the globe in an orderly fashion has been dismissed by a leading oceanographer. According to a review article in the journal Science, a number of studies conducted over the past few years have challenged this paradigm. Oceanographers have discovered the vital role of ocean eddy currents and the wind in establishing the structure and variability of the ocean’s overturning. In light of these new discoveries, the demise of the conveyor belt model has been become the new majority opinion among the world’s oceanographers. According to M. Susan Lozier, of Duke University, “the conveyor-belt model no longer serves the community well.”
The idea that the ocean conveyor belt transports cold, dense water from the subpolar North Atlantic along the “lower limb” of the conveyor belt to the rest of the global ocean, where the waters are upwelled and then transported along the “upper limb” back to deepwater formation sites, has been supported by the majority of oceanographers for decades. This circulating flow was assumed to operate along western boundary currents in the deep ocean and provide a continuous supply of relatively warm surface waters to deepwater formation sites. While it was thought to be vulnerable to changes in deepwater production at high latitudes, with significant injections of fresh water capable of disrupting the smooth operation of the system, under normal conditions the conveyor belt was thought to function constantly and consistently. Now it seems that opinions within the oceanographic community have shifted, and the great ocean conveyor belt model has fallen from grace.
As detailed in an eye opening article by Dr. Lozier, the conveyor belt has been found wanting and dismissed as the dominant ocean overturning paradigm. Lozier is Professor of Physical Oceanography and Chair of the Earth and Ocean Sciences Division at Duke, and is an expert in large-scale ocean circulation, water mass distribution and variability. The article, “Deconstructing the Conveyor Belt,” begins with a short history of the conveyor belt theory’s development. According to Lozier, our modern idea of the ocean’s overturning, and our understanding of its importance to Earth’s climate, developed as a result of the work of two prominent oceanographers:
This is a link to Susan Lozier’s review paper.
http://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/lozier10sci_95064.pdf
Another paper that provides data to show the Dansgaard-Oeschger events are not caused by changes the North Atlantic Drift current.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2000PA000571.shtml
On the 1470-year pacing of Dansgaard-Oeschger warm events
The oxygen isotope record from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice core was reanalyzed in the frequency and time domains. The prominent 1470-year spectral peak, which has been associated with the occurrence of Dansgaard-Oeschger interstadial events, is solely caused by Dansgaard-Oeschger events 5, 6, and 7. This result emphasizes the nonstationary character of the oxygen isotope time series. Nevertheless, a fundamental pacing period of ∼1470 years seems to control the timing of the onset of the Dansgaard-Oeschger events. A trapezoidal time series model is introduced which provides a template for the pacing of the Dansgaard-Oeschger events. Statistical analysis indicates only a ≤3% probability that the number of matches between observed and template-derived onsets of Dansgaard-Oeschger events between 13 and 46 kyr B.P. resulted by chance. During this interval the spacing of the Dansgaard-Oeschger onsets varied by ±20% around the fundamental 1470-year period and multiples thereof. The pacing seems unaffected by variations in the strength of North Atlantic Deep Water formation, suggesting that the thermohaline circulation was not the primary controlling factor of the pacing period.
This paper includes data from a general circulation climate model that shows that the regional drop in temperature of a complete stoppage of the North Atlantic Drift current is a factor of 3 to 5 too small to explain the cooling associated with Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event and the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle. As noted in the above paper, there is a lack of correlation of abrupt cooling events and changes to North Atlantic drift current, so the hypothesis is invalidated due to lack of correlation and the physical inability to cause the cooling that is observed.
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.999,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/pubs/Seager_etal_QJ_2002.pdf
William, thanks for your thoughts. However, I’m not sure what your point is. You seem to be saying that the oceanic overturning is not happening, but the paper you cite says:
But that certainly may not be your point at all, it’s very difficult to tell.
So … let me suggest boil your claim down to a couple of sentences and try again. When you get wordy you get lost, or at least I get lost.
What is your point? What is the core, the essence of your claim? Because it is certainly not obvious from your writing above. Please don’t give me another eight long paragraphs in support, we can get to that once we’re clear what you are claiming.
Let’s start with a clear statement of your main thesis, which at this point is not clear at all.
w.
Also, William, your citation about the Gulf Stream says that the whole study was done with models:
Color me totally unimpressed. If you want to get traction around here, citing a study which does nothing but compare two climate models won’t do it. In fact, it loses you points, people think “Man, that guy is a newbie, who else but a newbie would believe that climate model A minus climate model B means a damn thing …”
w.
Just what is the purpose of a “Task Force on Science Integrity”? What is supposed to be different from before its creation and after it has completed it mission — or at least passed its first milestone?
The Other Pamela Grey on March 4 in “New Study Shows…” reported
Link: http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/03/censorship-comes-to-australia/
Just who’s bright idea was it to create an AGU Task Force on Science Integrity? If Peter Gleick wasn’t one of the biggest proponents, I’d be shocked. What will be their measure of “success?” if not to reduce ‘unethical behavior’. Of course ‘ethics’ is close to honesty, and we can’t have anyone do, write, or say things within the AGU that are not honest — can we? And they’re the Task FORCE! that knows where honesty starts and ends — just look at their founding chairperson, Mr. Gleick.
On a re-read, I need to clarify that the “News Media Council” is a proposed Australian Government body and I know of nothing to connect it to the AGU Task Force. Nothing except coincidental timing. Whether the potential goals are similar is the focus of my questions.