Deal with climate reality as it unfolds
Special to Financial Post May 23, 2012
By Dr. Bob Carter
Over the last 18 months, policymakers in Canada, the U.S. and Japan have quietly abandoned the illusory goal of preventing global warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, an alternative view has emerged regarding the most cost-effective way in which to deal with the undoubted hazards of climate change.
This view points toward setting a policy of preparation for, and adaptation to, climatic events and change as they occur, which is distinctly different from the former emphasis given by most Western parliaments to the mitigation of global warming by curbing carbon dioxide emissions.
Ultimately, the rationale for choosing between policies of mitigation or adaptation must lie with an analysis of the underlying scientific evidence about climate change. Yet the vigorous public debate over possibly dangerous human-caused global warming is bedeviled by two things.
First, an inadequacy of the historical temperature measurements that are used to reconstruct the average global temperature statistic.
And, second, fueled by lobbyists and media interests, an unfortunate tribal emotionalism that has arisen between groups of persons who are depicted as either climate “alarmists” or climate “deniers.”
In reality, the great majority of working scientists fit into neither category. All competent scientists accept, first, that global climate has always changed, and always will; second, that human activities (not just carbon dioxide emissions) definitely affect local climate, and have the potential, summed, to measurably affect global climate; and, third, that carbon dioxide is a mild greenhouse gas.
The true scientific debate, then, is about none of these issues, but rather about the sign and magnitude of any global human effect and its likely significance when considered in the context of natural climate change.
For many different reasons, which include various types of bias, error and unaccounted-for artifacts, the thermometer record provides only an indicative history of average global temperature over the last 150 years.
The 1979-2011 satellite MSU (Microwave Sounding Units) record is our only acceptably accurate estimate of average global temperature, yet being but 32 years in length it represents just one climate data point. The second most reliable estimate of global temperature, collected by radiosondes on weather balloons, extends back to 1958, and the portion that overlaps with the MSU record matches it well.
Taken together, these two temperature records indicate that no significant warming trend has occurred since 1958, though both exhibit a 0.2C step increase in average global temperature across the strong 1998 El Niño.
In addition, the recently quiet Sun, and the lack of warming over at least the last 15 years — and that despite a 10% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide level, which represents 34% of all post-industrial emissions — indicates that the alarmist global warming hypothesis is wrong and that cooling may be the greatest climate hazard over coming decades.
Climate change takes place over geological time scales of thousands through millions of years, but unfortunately the relevant geological data sets do not provide direct measurements, least of all of average global temperature.
Instead, they comprise local or regional proxy records of climate change of varying quality. Nonetheless, numerous high-quality paleoclimate records, and especially those from ice cores and deep-sea mud cores, demonstrate that no unusual or untoward changes in climate occurred in the 20th and early 21st century.
Despite an estimated spend of well over $100-billion since 1990 looking for a human global temperature signal, assessed against geological reality no compelling empirical evidence yet exists for a measurable, let alone worrisome, human impact on global temperature.
Nonetheless, a key issue on which all scientists agree is that natural climate-related events and change are real, and exact very real human and environmental costs. These hazards include storms, floods, blizzards, droughts and bushfires, as well as both local and global temperature steps and longer term cooling or warming trends.
It is certain that these natural climate-related events and change will continue, and that from time to time human and environmental damage will be wrought.
Extreme weather events (and their consequences) are natural disasters of similar character to earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions, in that in our present state of knowledge they can neither be predicted far ahead nor prevented once underway. The matter of dealing with future climate change, therefore, is primarily one of risk appraisal and minimization, and that for natural risks that vary from place to place around the globe.
Dealing with climate reality as it unfolds clearly represents the most prudent, practical and cost-effective solution to the climate change issue. Importantly, a policy of adaptation is also strongly precautionary against any (possibly dangerous) human-caused climate trends that might emerge in the future.
From the Financial Post via Dr. Carter in email correspondence
Bob Carter, a paleoclimatologist at James Cook University, Australia, and a chief science advisor for the International Climate Science Coalition, is in Canada on a 10-day tour. He speaks at Carleton University in Ottawa on Friday.
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richardscourtney says:
May 29, 2012 at 3:58 pm
“I merely try to explain very basic measurement theory. Press your case if you like but, as Robert tried to explain to you, your arguments will not gain traction if you do not consider fundamental empirical procedures.”
Don’t explain it. You do not understand it. I do. I use it every single day of my life. And, my products work. I’m what you’d call on the advanced level.
“I don’t know what your plot indicates and nor do you.”
I really do.
“And please note the providers of the MLL data you are analysing have stated a measurement accuracy which says they do not trust the data to have the resolution your plot analyses. That is the evidence before our eyes which you are ignoring but I am not.”
Jeez, Richard. It’s only evidence that they are wrong. How can you not see this? This is data. What they say is just their say-so. It’s like they’re saying, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes,” and you are choosing them. Are you listening to yourself?
I’m really not kidding or blustering here. I do this stuff every day. You can only imagine my frustration if you imagine yourself trying, say, to explain about the principles of powered flight to a 19th century layman.
Well, I’m obviously not going to break you out of your comfortable straightjacket. We’ll take it up another day, no doubt.
Bart:
I see no purpose in my providing further replies. I have said what I said and I stand by every word. I fail to see any point you have made which I have not answered.
As you say, I am in a “straightjacket” but it is not “comfortable”. It is called the ‘scientific method’.
I would be delighted to learn that the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic, is natural or is some quantified combination of the two. Unfortunately, my “straightjacket” prevents me from knowing that.
Richard
richardcourtney (May 30, 2012 at 5:34 am):
A critique of Bart’s argument can be organized around its premise of causality. Bart argues that because the CO2 time series lags the surface temperature time series a rise in the CO2 concentration cannot cause a rise in the surface temperature, for the cause of an effect must precede this effect rather than following it.
Bart’s argument implicitly reduces the climate system to cause and effect relationships. Under the proposition called “reductionism” every phenomenon can be reduced to relationships between causes and effects but reductionism is known to be false proposition. With the falsification of reductionism, we are left with the possibility that conditions on the preceeding CO2 concentration time series might provide information about the subsequent evolution of the surface temperature time series.
Warmists argue that a rise in the CO2 concentration causes a rise in the surface temperature. Bart argues that a rise in the CO2 concentration cannot cause a rise in the surface temperature. Both arguments are flawed by the premise in them that the climate system can be reduced to cause and effect relationships. There is no reason to believe that it can.
Terry Oldberg:
Thankyou for your comment at May 30, 2012 at 10:17 am which is directed at me.
I accept your argument.
Richard
Terry Oldberg says:
May 30, 2012 at 10:17 am
“Bart argues that a rise in the CO2 concentration cannot cause a rise in the surface temperature.”
Never said that anywhere. What I argued is that the effect of CO2 on temperature is observably negligible in the last 54 years. You are just casting about for an excuse to ignore what is in front of your eyes.
richardscourtney says:
May 30, 2012 at 5:34 am
“It is called the ‘scientific method’.”
Puh-leeze. It’s called being hidebound and unwilling to accept that your education is incomplete.
Bart:
I stand corrected on the specifics of your argument. If I’m not mistaken, this argument incorporates reductionism as a premise. This premise is false and in this way your argument fails.
Bart, you haven’t wasted any time on this thread. It’s very thought provoking. I’m still digesting your comments, and the criticisms of Richard Courtney, Robert Brown [and others] which seem prudent.
What you say is certainly consistent with some less mathematical thoughts I have had about the CO2 flux, specifically the seasonal variations. The maximal rate of CO2 increase always seems to occur during the coldest months of the Northern hemisphere. I find it difficult to believe this is due to the recycling of carbon dioxide that has been sequestered by photosynthesis [as I am led to believe, reading some commonly proclaimed explanations].
Both processes rely on biological activity, which should be minimal during the winter months, so it suggests other processes account for the bulk of the flux. Thermal cycling obviously comes to mind, not least that there is a lot of water [ocean AND land] that is freezing during this period, simultaneously expelling it’s dissolved CO2 content, while the Southern oceans are warming.
Perhaps this is already well described in the literature, but I’m still catching up on this.
michael hart says:
May 31, 2012 at 7:48 am
Thanks, Michael. The criticisms Robert and Richard have maintained really are either trivial or outright wrong. Electrical engineers have devised all sorts of ingenious means for extracting information from noisy data, and have been doing it for many decades. If we were not extremely successful at it, you would not be using your computer or cell phone or any other of your marvelous electronic gadgets.
For those of us in communications or controls, it’s our whole raison d’etre. People in climate science or physics… not so much. Richard and Robert have offered words. I have explained in detail, and offered numerical simulations to show behavior consistent with what I have stated.
Regarding seasonal fluxes, I have seen many people calculate the amplitude of the measurements, compare it to annual temperature variations, derive a sensitivity, and proclaim that, that sensitivity is much too small to account for the long term variation. But, such an analysis is naive, and neglects the fact that the system responds as a low pass filter (as in this plot, as an example of a low pass filter response), attenuating the response at higher frequencies, e.g., at a cycle rate of once per year. The gain of the response can rise dramatically for very low frequency (e.g., a ramp or quadratic) inputs.
Unfortunately, much of what is considered “known” actually falls under the heading of “narrative”. That is, it is an explanation which, on a superficial level, appears to be consistent with the known facts, and some group agreed it was plausible, and the idea suddenly leaped into the realm of “established fact”. It has become very difficult to separate what is actually proven, and what is merely surmise.