By S. Fred Singer
Gallia omnia est divisa in partes tres. This phrase from Julius Gaius Caesar about the division of Gaul nicely illustrates the universe of climate scientists — also divided into three parts. On the one side are the “warmistas,” with fixed views about apocalyptic man-made global warming; at the other extreme are the “deniers.” Somewhere in the middle are climate skeptics.
In principle, every true scientist must be a skeptic. That’s how we’re trained; we question experiments, and we question theories. We try to repeat or independently derive what we read in publications — just to make sure that no mistakes have been made.
In my view, warmistas and deniers are very similar in some respects — at least their extremists are.
They have fixed ideas about climate, its change, and its cause. They both ignore “inconvenient truths” and select data and facts that support their preconceived views. Many of them are also quite intolerant and unwilling to discuss or debate these views — and quite willing to think the worst of their opponents.
Of course, these three categories do not have sharp boundaries; there are gradations. For example, many skeptics go along with the general conclusion of the warmistas but simply claim that the human contribution is not as large as indicated by climate models. But at the same time, they join with deniers in opposing drastic efforts to mitigate greenhouse (GH) gas emissions.
I am going to resist the temptation to name names. But everyone working in the field knows who is a warmista, skeptic, or denier. The warmistas, generally speaking, populate the U.N.’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and subscribe to its conclusion that most of the temperature increase of the last century is due to carbon-dioxide emissions produced by the use of fossil fuels. At any rate, this is the conclusion of the most recent IPCC report, the fourth in a series, published in 2007. Since I am an Expert Reviewer of IPCC, I’ve had an opportunity to review part of the 5th Assessment Report, due in 2013. Without revealing deep secrets, I can say that the AR5 uses essentially the same argument and evidence as AR4 — so let me discuss this “evidence” in some detail.
Read the full essay here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/climate_deniers_are_giving_us_skeptics_a_bad_name.html#ixzz1nn0SciyO
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You would do well to consider an EM experiment closely mimicking sun(source)–earth/atmosphere–space(sink) scenario than one where only the four laws of thermodynamics would seem to apply …
.
Sorry, but ‘deniers” views don’t matter much. It is the Warmists’ ‘evidence’ and policies that are potentially economically damaging. Policies are being formulated based on Warmists’ computer models etc. Focus on the real danger; people who deny that co2 is a greenhouse gas don’t matter in the big scheme of things as policies are not being based on their arguments.
The antonym of believer is sceptic. The antonym of deny is agree. So in the context of the impact of anthropogenic activity on climate one either believes that business as usual is dangerously bad (believer) or one does not believe that (sceptic) and allows both sound or poor reasoning.
Or one agrees (agreer) that it is dangerously bad or one denies that it is dangerously bad (denier) similarly with both sound or poor reasoning.
http://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-opposite-of/believer.html
http://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-opposite-of/deny.html
All very simple, more dancing on a pinhead caused by believers to divide non-believers, to generate parallels with the phrase ‘Holocaust denier’ with all its connotations, so that less effort has to be put into defending their belief from the attack by sceptics. And while sceptics have to defend themselves against the ‘Holocaust denier connotations’.
Do we really need to be legitimizing the use of the obnoxious word by defining what it should mean when that isn’t how it is used by most alarmists?
Until we start referring to the Al Gore crowd of CAGW believers as “deniers” and “anti-science” then I think those term should be dropped. At least by our side. Leave the insults to the CAGW side, it just further discredits them. Or call them extremists, which they clearly are.
I don’t think there are many on the non-CAGW/skeptic side arguing that we’re heading into an ice-age in the immediate future, so extremism seems to be firmly in the CAGW camp.
“There is no global warming” seems to me to be far closer to the whatever the truth of the matter is than anything coming from the CAGW camp, so to be insulting to them, but not the CAGW side, seems… odd. And since this IS a political issue, let’s keep in mind that the “no warming” crowd isn’t demanding restructuring of the world’s economies to the benefit of a few.
As Linzen says, “Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition.”
Regarding lack of understanding of the science: In other sciences, such as Chemistry, how to they refer to people who don’t believe the standard models? As deniers? Uneducated? Ignorant? Stupid?
By all means, discuss the science. Educate those of us who don’t know. Try throwing a bone to us who don’t have advanced degrees in the subject, or work as engineers, and explain it in English. Some of us will learn something.
Thank you.
I’m not too sure that classification helps very much, especially if it’s missing the largest group;’The confused’.
S. Fred Singer: There are a multitude of erroneous claims in your essay.
Example 1: You claim, “IPCC-AR4 uses only the global surface temperature (GST) record (shown in fig. 9.5 on page 648).”
Fred, scroll a few pages to page 696 in chapter 9 and you’ll find Figure 9.12, which compares models to observations with the continental land masses subdivided.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html
It also has comparisons of models versus global land surface temperature and global sea surface temperature. Scroll a few more pages to page 703 to FAQ 9.2 Figure 1, for comparisons for each continent.
Example 2: “But what if there is little to no warming between 1978 and 2000? What if the data from thousands of poorly distributed weather stations do not represent a true global warming? The atmospheric temperature record between 1978 and 2000 (both from satellites and, independently, from radiosondes) doesn’t show a warming. Neither does the ocean.”
Fred, you should check the data before you claim TLT didn’t rise between 1978 and 2000. The UAH TLT anomalies from Jan 1979 to Dec 2000 have a linear trend of 0.093 deg C/decade.
http://i42.tinypic.com/95x5xz.jpg
And HADISST sea surface temperature anomalies between Jan 1978 and Dec 2000 have a linear trend of 0.095 deg C/decade.
http://i40.tinypic.com/15hyf7a.jpg
Fred, it’s bogus claims like those by skeptics that give skeptics a bad name.
No. Warmist models and ‘evidence’ are being made along lines promoting political ends. ‘Denierism’ is a conflatonary term lumping alternative thought into one preplanned pipe, the easier to debunk the homogenized blend with false comparisons to the false argument.
It’s easy to lie about what someone says and ‘rebut’ it because it’s a Logical Fallacy called Strawman Argumentation.
But applying scientific argument to political b.s. is like expecting math rules to apply in English class. The name of the joint is your tipoff: InterGOVERNMETAL Panel on Climate Change.
Jimbo says:
February 29, 2012 at 10:49 am
Sorry, but ‘deniers” views don’t matter much. It is the Warmists’ ‘evidence’ and policies that are potentially economically damaging. Policies are being formulated based on Warmists’ computer models etc. Focus on the real danger; people who deny that co2 is a greenhouse gas don’t matter in the big scheme of things as policies are not being based on their arguments.>>>>>
Very well put. The IPPC ‘team’ must be laughing their socks of whilst sceptic ‘purists’ squabble among themselves for bragging rights.
Singer:
“Another subgroup says that natural annual additions to atmospheric CO2 are many times greater than any human source; they ignore the natural sinks that have kept CO2 reasonably constant before humans started burning fossil fuels.”
Does anyone know whatever happened to Murry Salby’s paper, announced in August for last September, and his book, announced in August for this year?
Lindzen, at House of Commons, February 22, 2012:
• “Carbon Dioxide has been increasing.
• “There is a greenhouse effect.
• “There has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years.
• “There has very probably been about 0.8 C warming in the past 150 years.
• “Increasing CO2 alone should cause some warming (about 1C for each doubling).
“[None of these statements] is controversial among serious climate scientists.
“[None of these statements] implies alarm. Indeed the actual warming is consistent with less than 1C warming for a doubling.
“Unfortunately, denial of [these facts], has made the public presentation of the science by those promoting alarm much easier. They merely have to defend the trivially true points [above]; declare that it is only a matter of well- known physics; and relegate the real basis for alarm to a peripheral footnote – even as they slyly acknowledge that this basis is subject to great uncertainty.”
Lindzen presents examples of this by the American Physical Society and by Martin Rees and Ralph Cicerone.
I think he’s right, and I prefer the way he puts it, over the way Singer puts it, with all due respect to Singer.
Several posters have left comments indicating that they are misidentifying Singer as a beligerent warmist. Given that he has adopted their offensive vocabulary, this is understandable.
Philw1776 says
It’s prudent for all sides to explore energy alternatives to coal and oil like nuclear and solar,
Henry@Phil
No nuke energy, please!!
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/nuclear-energy-not-save-and-sound
that is why I started investigating if there really is something wrong with CO2.
In the process I found out that more CO2 is better
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
OK?
BTW what’s with the no. 1776?
I call myself a denier, I wear the moniker as a badge of honour. I enjoy it when self righteous alarmistas call me a denier. It tells me I’m on the right track.
Laws of Nature says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:52 am
First of all, the isotopic evidence I have seen only supports that humans indeed burn fossil fuel and does not give any additional information beside that (well you can measure how CO2 diffuses into the deep ocean).
Secondly F. Singer seems not to be aware, that CO2-sinks during a little ice age might change naturally once this LIA comes to an end.
Last not least there are studies by T. V. Segalstad and R. H. Essenhigh suggesting, that the short residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is at odds with the attribution of the long term slope of CO2 in the atmosphere for the last 100years to anthropogenic causes.
That was discussed already many times here and elsewhere by several others and me. Point by point:
– The isotopic evidence shows that the oceans can’t be the source of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere: their isotopic composition is too high. Any huge release from the oceans would increase the 13C/12C ratio (in fact the oceans are a measured net absorber of CO2). Land vegetation could be the source, if lots of land were burned down without replacement, but the oxygen balance shows that land vegetation is a net absorber of CO2, not a source (the earth is greening).
– The CO2 levels of seawater in steady state with the above air shows a change of 16 ppmv for each °C change. Even with a huge cooling by 1°C of the ocean surface, that wouldn’t give more than 16 ppmv of the 100+ ppmv we are above the previous steady state.
– Segalstad and Essenhigh talk about the residence time, which is short, but that has nothing to do with an excess decay time, which is a lot longer. The first can be compared to how long some goods stay in a factory (the throughput in capital), the latter is the loss or gain of a factory for the shareholders’ money. Quite distinct time constants…
See further:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
That humans are responsible for the CO2 increase is based on a lot of evidence, real evidence, measured in the oceans and atmosphere… Some skeptics don’t like that and still insist that humans are not responsible. I don’t think that is wise, as that makes it far more difficult to discuss other aspects of the “consensus” which are far more on shacky grounds: what is the real effect of our 100+ ppmv CO2 increase…
Forget the contrived terminology of “warmista, skeptic, and denier.”
The simple fact of the matter is that there are government paid liars and then there are the rest of us.
For the rest of us the “globalony” issue is just a global IQ test. If you believe mankind can affect the global climate either way, you fail the test. And really, there is no need to get into the weeds on this issue. If you believe man can affect the global climate, you are an easily fooled imbecile.
Deniers …. are like communism/nazisim. For me politics is a circle … go far enough left or right and you will meet people from the opposing wing coming round from the other way. So, by the time you get to communism and nazism, there isn’t a lot of difference.
Likewise climate deniers … there are solar activity deniers, and apparently CO2 deniers, and as far as I am concerned they most inhabit the same crackpot asylum.
I recognize that according to the records, the world has warmed by approximately 0.7C in the last 100 years.
My first problem with this number is that the temperature measuring network is not of sufficient quality to measure an amount this small. It was never designed to measure tenth of a degree changes over a century. It was designed to give a “good enough” input for local, daily, weather forecasts.
The record is contaminated with UHI changes, and a huge multitude of micro site, and even equipment changes that for most part are poorly, if at all, recorded.
My personal WAG is that as much as half of the 0.7C increase is not a real increase, but rather the result of instrumentation problems.
Of the remaining warming that is real.
Some of it is due to changes in the sun. TSI, which pretty much everyone agrees on, as well as Cosmic ray influences, which is still subject to debate.
Some of it is due to cyclical changes in the climate. (PDO, AMO, etc.)
Some of it is due to CO2.
The ratio of these three factors, (and others) is still hotly debated.
My personal WAG is that CO2 is an extremely weak player in the climate system. Does this put me in the skeptic, or the denier camp?
I forgot to add that the existing temperature network is poorly distributed geographically as well. Outside the US, southern Canada, and Europe, the number of land based sites is woefully inadequate. The number of ocean based sites is pretty close to non-existant.
Mosher, what Singer and you are advising happened with the Conservative movement in the early 1960s. The mainliners (centered around Bill Buckley’s National Review magazie) purged the extremists (John Birch Society) and eventually won the Whitehouse in 1980. The problem for this happening today on the climate spectrum are several: 1) too many “extremists” with every nutcase having his own blog, 2) no mainline skeptic group that can do the purging, 3) a diffuse press with much reduced journalistic integrity, 4) too many bloggers with mouthpieces out of proportion with their credibility. This is going to be a long adventure. Watch out for stobor.
Skeptics –> deniers –> anti-science – came from where? Which ‘side’ is calling who those terms?
Why is the impugned side accepting those terms as descriptive? What’s with the self casting?
To take on the oppositions labeling only works if it’s represented as humorous. e.g. Devildogs, jarhead etc.
ChE and Jim
I really am trying to run a good experiment. I would like to include any good references in my write-up if you have any. Admittedly my experiment is only an analog of the troposphere where convection dominates and temperature declines with height. I would like to try something inverted, cold at bottom and warm on top as an analog for the stratosphere, but I cannot figure out where to put the thermocouple. : ) Looking for a description any real dynamic experiment that has been performed at constant pressure where the addition of CO2 causes a stable increase in the max temperature. Until then all I have is Miskolczi’s paper.
If you are accused of being a denier, how are you supposed to deny that you are a denier without confirming the accusation that you are a denier?
Catch 22.
dp says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/climate-deniers-are-giving-us-skeptics-a-bad-name/#comment-908403
Henry@dp
here is my take on it,
I am not sure if it will help you or confuse you more.
Especially, do take some time to study the paper I mentioned and quoted in the footnote.
Otherwise you will never get it.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Obviously my acknowledgement that a GH effect exists does not change my observations that I could not discern any effect from an increase in GHG in the temperature records.
Namely if warming is caused by an increase in GHG or by an increase in volcanic activity (more warmth produced by earth in the oceans), you would expect to find mean temps rising as a result of increasing minima.
that is not happening, at least not for the past 3 to 4 decades.
In fact, if you look carefully in fig. 3.38, of the AR4 report, you will note with me that from 1979 to 2003 colder nights have been increasing and warmer nights have been decreasing.
that is exactly what I am finding: the warming of the past 3-4 decades has been caused by increasing maxima (that happen during the day) pushing up the average temperatures.
either it was more intense heat from the sun and/or there were less clouds, and/or there was less ozone shielding, etc.
But it was not the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere that did it, any of it.
Unless you want to blame increasing greenery as a result of more CO2, which I found does trap some heat.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
I m convinced that “the greenhouse effect does not exist”. Does that make me a “denier”? Like the Late Lord Keynes my opinions change when my information changes. Does that make me a skeptic? When someone demonstrates to my satisfaction that the earth’s atmosphere can be reduced to a single number and that this has any meaning, and that that number has been calculated from fully appropriate data that has been tolerably accurately measured, and that any use of statistics has been vetted by by a statistician of eminent standing to ensure that no first or second order variables have been omitted nor bias included, and that the division by two of a daily minimum and maximum temperature gives a result of any consequential meaning, and that the invalidity of the first and second laws of thermodynamics can be satisfactorily demonstrated; then, and only then, will I be prepared to review my opinion.
You speak, Dr. Singer of ‘everyone working in the field”. Am I to infer from that that only those can have a valid opinion? Are amateurs who have given the matter long consideration to be lumped in with those who gain their opinions from the popular press – from propaganda? Is my considered opinion really of lesser value than that of, say, Hansen? Are all scientists truly skeptical to the bitter end? Einstein was highly skeptical in his approach but it did not stop him making his definitive declaration of what E equaled at the end of the day.
Are you just playing word games here Dr. Singer? Lots of us read Mr.Solomons book, ‘The Deniers”, many years ago, that book really defined the term, so trying to recast it now is just counter-productive. Many people, unlike you apparently, wear the term like a badge of pride, standing up for sound scientific principles and the scientific method, not some obtuse denial of science. If you’re hypersensitive from having the term used against you, as a pejorative, that’s understandable. I would ask you to consider the sources (unscientific political hacks like Gleick and Revkin). Some of your statement reads like a confirmation that anyone disagreeing with phony CAGW conclusions is a nut-job. The statement only adds fuel to the fire and does nothing to help restore the scientific method and some sense of validity and integrity to climate science. Placating these eco-bullies helps no one.