UPDATE: 9:55 AM PDT 8/8/12 A graph of Palmer Drought Severity Index -vs- GISTEMP data has been added from Dr. Michaels. Looks like another “GISS miss”.
There’s a lot of blowback against James Hansen’s recent (non tested) PNAS paper, trying to link weather and climate, covered here on WUWT. Even NOAA scientist Dr. Martin Hoerling is panning it. This from The NYT:
Dr. Hoerling contended that Dr. Hansen’s new paper confuses drought, caused primarily by a lack of rainfall, with heat waves.
“This isn’t a serious science paper,” Dr. Hoerling said. “It’s mainly about perception, as indicated by the paper’s title. Perception is not a science.”
Here’s a short editorial by Dr. Pat Michaels, former Virginia State Climatologist:
Hansen is simply wrong.
Hansen claims that global warming is associated with increased drought in the US. This is a testable hypothesis which he chose not to test, and, because PNAS isn’t truly peer-reviewed for Members like him, no one tested it for him.
I have [examined] drought data [that] are from NCDC, and the temperature record is Hansen’s own. His hypothesis is a complete and abject failure.
[UPDATE: Graph added 9:55AM PDT 8/8/12:]
It is hard for me to believe that Hansen did not know this, and yet he went ahead with his paper. This must be true because Hansen has published papers on the Palmer Drought Index and future warming. Administrator Bolden is obligated to investigate the ethics of publishing a paper that the Director of the GISS laboratory knew could not pass the most simple test of hypothesis.
The following excerpt from his PNAS paper tells you everything you need to know about James Hansen’s paper:
“Although we were motivated in this research by an objective to expose effects of human-made global warming as soon as possible…”
– Dr. Patrick Michaels, via email
=============================================================
On the same day of one of NASA’s proudest achievements, the landing of the rover Curiosity on Mars, Dr. James Hansen and PNAS went on a media blitz to push a paper that is so technically flawed, that if it were a spacecraft, it would surely have burned up in the atmosphere due to a faulty understanding of that atmosphere. Unfortunately, as Dr. Michaels points out, it was never tested and Dr. Hoerling points out that it “isn’t science, but perception”. NASA used to deal in facts and testing, because if they didn’t, people died. Now NASA’s image has been tarnished on the day of one of its greatest triumphs by a rogue scientist with unsupportable ideas and a global media megaphone.
I have in the past, called for Dr. Hansen’s firing after his arrest episodes where he acts as an activist and protestor. I repeat that call today and will continue to do so. NASA administrator Bolden, fire Dr. James Hansen. He is an embarrassment to NASA, and an embarrassment to science. Show him the door.
Many of your greatest engineers, scientists, and astronauts agree that Dr. Hansen has overstepped his bounds with his advocacy, as I repost below. – Anthony
=============================================================
From this WUWT story:
Joint letter to NASA Administrator blasts agency’s policy of ignoring empirical evidence
HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012.
49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.
The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance.
H. Leighton Steward, chairman of the non-profit Plants Need CO2, noted that many of the former NASA scientists harbored doubts about the significance of the C02-climate change theory and have concerns over NASA’s advocacy on the issue. While making presentations in late 2011 to many of the signatories of the letter, Steward realized that the NASA scientists should make their concerns known to NASA and the GISS.
“These American heroes – the astronauts that took to space and the scientists and engineers that put them there – are simply stating their concern over NASA’s extreme advocacy for an unproven theory,” said Leighton Steward. “There’s a concern that if it turns out that CO2 is not a major cause of climate change, NASA will have put the reputation of NASA, NASA’s current and former employees, and even the very reputation of science itself at risk of public ridicule and distrust.”
Select excerpts from the letter:
- “The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”
- “We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated.”
- “We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject.”
The full text of the letter:
March 28, 2012
The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr.
NASA Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001
Dear Charlie,
We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.
The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.
As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.
For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.
Thank you for considering this request.
Sincerely,
(Attached signatures)
CC: Mr. John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator for Science
CC: Ass Mr. Chris Scolese, Director, Goddard Space Flight Center
Ref: Letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, dated 3-26-12, regarding a request for NASA to refrain from making unsubstantiated claims that human produced CO2 is having a catastrophic impact on climate change.
/s/ Jack Barneburg, Jack – JSC, Space Shuttle Structures, Engineering Directorate, 34 years
/s/ Larry Bell – JSC, Mgr. Crew Systems Div., Engineering Directorate, 32 years
/s/ Dr. Donald Bogard – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 41 years
/s/ Jerry C. Bostick – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 23 years
/s/ Dr. Phillip K. Chapman – JSC, Scientist – astronaut, 5 years
/s/ Michael F. Collins, JSC, Chief, Flight Design and Dynamics Division, MOD, 41 years
/s/ Dr. Kenneth Cox – JSC, Chief Flight Dynamics Div., Engr. Directorate, 40 years
/s/ Walter Cunningham – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 7, 8 years
/s/ Dr. Donald M. Curry – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Leading Edge, Thermal Protection Sys., Engr. Dir., 44 years
/s/ Leroy Day – Hdq. Deputy Director, Space Shuttle Program, 19 years
/s/ Dr. Henry P. Decell, Jr. – JSC, Chief, Theory & Analysis Office, 5 years
/s/Charles F. Deiterich – JSC, Mgr., Flight Operations Integration, MOD, 30 years
/s/ Dr. Harold Doiron – JSC, Chairman, Shuttle Pogo Prevention Panel, 16 years
/s/ Charles Duke – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 16, 10 years
/s/ Anita Gale
/s/ Grace Germany – JSC, Program Analyst, 35 years
/s/ Ed Gibson – JSC, Astronaut Skylab 4, 14 years
/s/ Richard Gordon – JSC, Astronaut, Gemini Xi, Apollo 12, 9 years
/s/ Gerald C. Griffin – JSC, Apollo Flight Director, and Director of Johnson Space Center, 22 years
/s/ Thomas M. Grubbs – JSC, Chief, Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Branch, 31 years
/s/ Thomas J. Harmon
/s/ David W. Heath – JSC, Reentry Specialist, MOD, 30 years
/s/ Miguel A. Hernandez, Jr. – JSC, Flight crew training and operations, 3 years
/s/ James R. Roundtree – JSC Branch Chief, 26 years
/s/ Enoch Jones – JSC, Mgr. SE&I, Shuttle Program Office, 26 years
/s/ Dr. Joseph Kerwin – JSC, Astronaut, Skylab 2, Director of Space and Life Sciences, 22 years
/s/ Jack Knight – JSC, Chief, Advanced Operations and Development Division, MOD, 40 years
/s/ Dr. Christopher C. Kraft – JSC, Apollo Flight Director and Director of Johnson Space Center, 24 years
/s/ Paul C. Kramer – JSC, Ass.t for Planning Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Div., Egr. Dir., 34 years
/s/ Alex (Skip) Larsen
/s/ Dr. Lubert Leger – JSC, Ass’t. Chief Materials Division, Engr. Directorate, 30 years
/s/ Dr. Humbolt C. Mandell – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Program Control and Advance Programs, 40 years
/s/ Donald K. McCutchen – JSC, Project Engineer – Space Shuttle and ISS Program Offices, 33 years
/s/ Thomas L. (Tom) Moser – Hdq. Dep. Assoc. Admin. & Director, Space Station Program, 28 years
/s/ Dr. George Mueller – Hdq., Assoc. Adm., Office of Space Flight, 6 years
/s/ Tom Ohesorge
/s/ James Peacock – JSC, Apollo and Shuttle Program Office, 21 years
/s/ Richard McFarland – JSC, Mgr. Motion Simulators, 28 years
/s/ Joseph E. Rogers – JSC, Chief, Structures and Dynamics Branch, Engr. Directorate,40 years
/s/ Bernard J. Rosenbaum – JSC, Chief Engineer, Propulsion and Power Division, Engr. Dir., 48 years
/s/ Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt – JSC, Astronaut Apollo 17, 10 years
/s/ Gerard C. Shows – JSC, Asst. Manager, Quality Assurance, 30 years
/s/ Kenneth Suit – JSC, Ass’t Mgr., Systems Integration, Space Shuttle, 37 years
/s/ Robert F. Thompson – JSC, Program Manager, Space Shuttle, 44 years/s/ Frank Van Renesselaer – Hdq., Mgr. Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, 15 years
/s/ Dr. James Visentine – JSC Materials Branch, Engineering Directorate, 30 years
/s/ Manfred (Dutch) von Ehrenfried – JSC, Flight Controller; Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, MOD, 10 years
/s/ George Weisskopf – JSC, Avionics Systems Division, Engineering Dir., 40 years
/s/ Al Worden – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 15, 9 years
/s/ Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller – JSC, Meteorologist, 5 years
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From Material and Methods:
Relevance ? Playing on peoples emotions and feelings much ?
Do you really want James Hansen fired? Remember, this is the same person who claimed George W. Bush was “silencing” him on global warming. What was really happening was the Bush administration was telling him to shut up, do his job, and stop being an advocate on taxpayer time. James Hansen would love to be a martyr. If he is fired, I can guarantee you the man will claim he was fired to silence him.
What’s the current connection between Hansen, Al Gore, Crispin Tickell, James Lovelock and Tim Flannery? They are all judges for Richard Branson’s Virgin Earth Challenge which is due to award a prize of $25 million this year for “a commercially viable design which, achieves or appears capable of achieving the net removal of significant volumes of anthropogenic, atmospheric GHGs each year for at least 10 years”, with significant volumes specified as “should be scalable to a significant size in order to meet the informal removal target of 1 billion tonnes of carbon-equivalent per year”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Earth_Challenge
http://www.virgin.com/subsites/virginearth/
looking for climate change on mars
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HINcC_hEetg/UB_wh9vGyLI/AAAAAAAADKs/AiKeMommmsY/s1600/NASA%2BJames%2BHansen.bmp
The paper your are talking about appears to be one that Tamino has criticised. Tamino had a detailed look at the analysis in that paper, and concluded that there was an error that made it look as though the variance of temperatures was increasing. An increased variance would lead to more extreme heat and cold. Tamino’s analysis was that there was no evidence for increasing variance.
So I’d be surprised if this paper passes peer review. I think an increase in extremes is a bee in Hansen’s bonnet – something he seems to have trouble letting go of.
Now if only the shining lights of the “skeptic” movement could be as critical of people on their own side making outlandish statements. Why don’t you start here, with a critique of Christy’s testimony to Congress?
Fire a government employee for incompetence? I tried that once. Took a year. I got harassing phone calls at work, at home, very late at night from civilian personnel management for that year. You can do it if you have perseverance and a wad of evidence that the employee is not doing his job properly. Now, what exactly is Hansen doing that his superiors don’t want done?
No need to fire Hansen, GISS is too contaminated to be redeemed even if he was removed.
So transfer GISS to the US Department of Art and Technology. NASA would be better for it, and Hansen can work for people who’d understand him and welcome his unique talents. Just look at their impressive and peer-approved staff listing, they’d welcome him as a long-lost brother. Even GISS’ trendy New York City headquarters would be a good fit with the Department.
And everyone should automatically know what sort of pronouncements Hansen is making simply by his association with the Department. Win-win all around!
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/curiosity.png http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/moon_landing.png
Either of these on their own represents my view. Together, they are somewhat ambivalent. Somewhat like the ambivalence caused by the fact the warmists have a NASA scientist on their side.
But then again, we have 40 on ours.
“jrinchart says:
August 7, 2012 at 11:23 pm
“With the temperature amplified by global warming and ubiquitous surface heating from elevated greenhouse gas amounts, extreme drought conditions can develop.”
There’s nothing about “increased drought in the US” in the PNAS paper.”
Where does the EXTRA energy come from to AMPLIFY warming?
Maybe NASA should stick to mozzie outreach and leave space to the JPL.
Congratulations JPL engineers! Putting a billion dollar go-cart on another planet was an amazing feat. My only question is how will it pay its way?
Hansen is nuts. And you can quote me on that.
The call to get Hansen fired. sounds good and logical at first , but like Mann he actual is useful to AGW proponents the scale of silly claims combined with a ego you could land a Jumbo jet on make them a liability to ‘the cause ‘ in the eyes of anyone but the AGW faithful whose minds could never be changed .
So like Mann, keep him in the spot light , keep him under pressure and enjoy the results .
It appears Academy members – Hansen presumably is one – can make “Contributed Submissions” to PNAS whereby their paper is reviewed by three people of their choice – so, as Michaels says, such a contribution is not really peer reviewed in the normal sense of the term.
At age 71, isn’t Hansen past the age of mandatory retirement?
You wonder how Hansen keeps his job?
What’s the problem? Hansen is doing exactly as his bosses would like.
Who is he pissing off? No one in my opinion.
Obama? Jackson? Bolden? Pachauri? Gore? Holdren? Reid? Boehner?
Not a chance.
They get what they want and Hansen looks like the maroon.
With his stupid hat he’s the perfect dupe.
cn
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 8, 2012 at 5:00 am
No need to fire Hansen, GISS is too contaminated to be redeemed even if he was removed….
_______________________
At this point I think it is time to shut down NASA and GISS completely along with several other US government bureaucracies. When the gangrene and rot gets this deep the only thing that can be done is AMPUTATE!
Judgment affirmed by climatologist Tim Ball: NASA scientist out of control posted Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Perhaps he’s moonlighting at Estee Lauder?
Hansen ignores climate persistence (Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics) which show natural variations are a factor of two greater than classical statistical analyses. e.g. See: D. Koutsoyiannis et al. Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics in long climatic proxy records
Hansen similarly ignores the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and other natural oscillations that provide better forecasting. Scafetta shows the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) coupling to CO2 concentration and to the length of day variations.
David Stockwell found CSIRO’s hindcast drought predictions were opposite historical rainfall reality. Hansen provides no validated evidence for his “perception”.
Time for serious “peer” review of Hansen, not “pal” review or publish by authority.
I’m afraid firing Hanson would make a martyr of him. OTH, at least he wouldn’t be on the public dole then.
Anyhoo, first we’ll need a regime change for this to happen. The man is golden. Not because of his science, but because he knows people.
RockyRoad said on August 8, 2012 at 5:49 am:
Corn Nuts? That would be appropriate. Start with corn, end with “nuts”. Start with actual temperature measurements, end with…
===
James said on August 7, 2012 at 8:14 pm:
Of course it’s not a flaw. He needs it to look good for the camera, get some color on that pale skin. And not just for the TV interviews or presentations either. His arrest photo might wind up posted on The Smoking Gun, and those always look terrible without makeup.
You can’t really fire a government employee, but you can reorganize a government agecy out of existence. The employeesacan then be riffed. If they can’t find another home and job, they are done.
What Agency would want most of the GISS Riff-Raff sycophants, contaminating their agency and being a source of constant and uncontrollable angst? Simply Riff GISS.
Given the recent hub-bub about lampposts, I think this quote Andrew Lang sums up Hansen pretty well:
• “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… For support rather than illumination.”
Ahhh … Gee Caleb … are you sure that wasn’t an announcement on the Air America network (launched 3-31-2004 and dissolved 1-21-2010) or maybe a Daily Kos post or perhaps a DU (Democratic Underground) article that shut down the servers? Just kidding, the astute among the readership are fully aware of audience listening numbers and who is hungry for the ‘trvth’ …
I do wish, however, that some people would not engage in unwarranted gratuitous slams when clearly it is not the Air America or Daily Kos/HuffPo crowd that reads en masse these websites …
BTW, you seem to be quite competent and able to “work a computer” even though you may be part of the Rush-listening contingent … I ran across his broadcast in the early 90’s and was struck at how he ‘stood out’ in stark contrast to the ‘bulk’ of the Politically Correct MSM who are incapable of facing any issue head on …
Eagles Up and “The chair is on the wall.”
.
A bigger problem then Hansen’s abuse of NASA reputation is PNAS.