Guest post by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Even the name of the “Skeptical” “Science” blog is a lie. The blog is neither skeptical nor scientific. It is a malicious, paid propaganda platform for rude, infantile, untruthful, and often libelous attacks on anyone who dares to question whether global warming is a global crisis.
That poisonous blog has recently attacked 129 climate researchers, of whom I am one, for having dared to write an open letter to the U.N. Secretary-General asking him not to attribute tropical storm Sandy to global warming that has not occurred for 16 years.
The following are among the blog’s numerous falsehoods and libels:
1. On at least four occasions we are referred to as climate “denialists” – a term as unscientific as it is malevolent. We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming. We raise legitimate scientific questions about how much warming Man may cause, and about whether attempted mitigation can ever be cost-effective.
2. It is claimed that our “preferred route” to air our “grievances about global warming is via “opinion letters published in the mainstream media” rather than via peer review. Yet most of the signatories named by the blog as having “no climate expertise” have published papers in the reviewed literature. To take one example named by the blog, Professor Nils-Axel Mörner of the University of Stockholm has published some 550 papers, nearly all of them in the reviewed literature, and nearly all of them on sea-level rise, which he has been studying for 40 years.
3. It is claimed that our arguments are “unsubstantiated”. Yet our letter offered a great deal of substantiation, as will become evident.
4. Tom Harris of the Climate Science Coalition, one of the letter’s organizers, is described as “best known for grossly misinforming … university students about climate change in a Climate and Earth Science class he should never have been teaching”. The only sources given for this grave libel are a farrago of childish falsehoods on the “Skeptical” “Science” blog and its sole citation, an error-ridden screed circulated by the dishonestly-names “Canadian Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism”.
5. The fact that there has been no statistically-significant global warming for 16 years is described as a “myth”. Yet the least-squares linear-regression trend on the Hadley Centre/CRU dataset favoured by the IPCC indeed shows no statistically-significant warming for 16 years. The minuscule warming over the period is within the margin of uncertainty in the measurements and is, therefore, statistically indistinguishable from zero.
6. It is claimed that we were wrong to say there has been no statistically-significant global warming because the oceans have warmed. However, the standard definition of “global warming” is warming of the near-surface atmosphere. Also, measurements to date are inadequate to tell us reliably how much – if at all – the oceans have warmed in recent years.
7. It is claimed that we were wrong to say that computer models are now proven to exaggerate warming and its effects. Yet we had pointed out, correctly, that a paper by leading climate modelers, published in the NOAA’s State of the Climate report in 2008, had said that 15 years or more without global warming would indicate a discrepancy between the models’ projections and real-world observations and that, therefore, the models were proven incorrect by their creators’ own criterion.
8. It is claimed that we were wrong to state that some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is a distinct possibility. Yet some scientists have indeed pointed out what we said they had pointed out, though our use of the word “some” fairly implies there is evidence in both directions in the literature.
9. It is claimed that we used “careful wording” in saying that there is an absence of an attributable climate change signal in trends in extreme weather losses to date. Yet we were merely citing the IPCC itself on this point.
10. It is claimed that we were wrong to state that the incidence and severity of extreme weather has not increased. Though it is trivially true that temperature maxima have increased with warming, there has been no trend in land-falling Atlantic hurricanes in 150 years, and there has been a decline in severe tropical cyclones and typhoons during the satellite era.
11. It is claimed that we “falsely” accuse the U.N. Secretary General of “making unsupportable claims that human influences caused” tropical storm Sandy, and that “in reality, Ban Ki-Moon did not say climate change caused Hurricane (sic) Sandy”. Yet he had said: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane (sic) Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our dependence on carbon emissions.” We had rightly written: “We ask that you desist from exploiting the misery of the families of those who lost their lives or properties in tropical storm Sandy by making unsupportable claims that human influences caused that storm. They did not.”
12. It is claimed that we are “a list of non-experts”. Yet half of the 129 signatories are Professors; two-thirds are PhDs, and several are Expert Reviewers for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.
One day, the useless “Skeptical” “Science” blog may perhaps have a curiosity value to historians studying the relentless, lavishly-funded deviousness and malice of the tiny clique who briefly fooled the world by presenting themselves as a near-unanimous “consensus” (as if consensus had anything to do with science) and mercilessly bullied anyone with the courage and independence of mind to question their barmy but transiently fashionable beliefs. The blog’s falsehoods have made no serious contribution to the scientific debate that we who are genuinely skeptical and truly scientific have by our patient endurance now largely won.
@ur momisugly David Ball
We don’t notice the GHE from CO₂ since it practically maxed out at levels too low to support virtually all life on Earth. CO₂ is just “along for the ride”, follows temperature, is unable to lead temperature at pre-industrial concentrations and above, etc. That’s not an issue.
Saying there can’t be a GHE because temperature isn’t following CO₂, when CO₂ is at levels where it’s incapable of yielding a significant temperature increase anyway, that’s a problem.
Just because the GHE is in the background without detectable changes, essentially hidden, doesn’t justify saying it doesn’t exist. It’s there. I don’t say there can’t be dirt under my basement supporting my house because I’ve never seen it, nor do I believe there must be pilings down to the bedrock as dirt alone won’t support it.
The capitulation that Co2 has “some” effect is going to do more harm to the skeptics position than good.
The GHE of CO₂ is there, it exists. But the expected CO₂ increases won’t yield temperature increases, the GHE is maxed out. The warmists want to cut atmospheric CO₂ to lower temperatures, but the science shows that won’t work as they’ll have to be reduced to where life on Earth is threatened with extinction to make a meaningful difference.
How does it hurt us to admit the scientific truth, and to try to get the opposition to admit what the science really says about their desired “carbon” reductions?
From KevinK on December 5, 2012 at 8:35 pm:
Oh, about those “old textbooks” that are always correct, I think the guys that designed Chernoybl (sp) had one of those….
From Greg House on December 5, 2012 at 6:23 pm:
Then the whole notion of “warming back radiation” was debunked in 1909 by American physics professor R.W.Wood
Wow, as old as 1909? Obviously can’t be correct, that’s “old textbooks” stuff.
@ur momisugly J. Philip Peterson:
“Here are two results from a single Google search on the subject that I performed this morning. http://news.discovery.com/earth/no-global-warming-hasnt-stopped-121017.html
I clicked over and read it–and the answers you seek are right in the comments. There are some very thorough and thoughtful answers there.
I am most grateful to those who have kindly sprung to Professor Moerner’s defense. He is indeed the world’s most distinguished sea-level scientist, and a charming man. My late beloved father, like the Professor, was a keen and proficient dowser, consulted by the Maltese government to find three Punic tombs in a vast acreage beneath the walls of the ancient capital of Mdina (he found all three, with a fine second-century head of Seneca as a bonus).
Professor Moerner is a brilliant lecturer. At the St. Andrews University Union, Britain’s oldest debating society, he charmed the House with one of the politest, most entertaining speeches I have heard, and then demolished one of the three nebechem on the other side, who had invited him to see whether he could get a paper into the peer-reviewed literature, by apologizing that he had only written 530 such papers and undertaking that he would try harder in future.
He should neither be underestimated nor insulted by those who have never met him, never read any of his papers, and would not understand them if they did. His results may be inconvenient, but – to borrow a phrase – they are inconvenient truths.
jazzyT says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:22 pm
“in the satellite data, the error bars for the series starting in 1995-2012 range from -0.064 to 0.342, and for 1996-2012, the error bars range from -0.089 to 03.65.”
We went over this thoroughly on another thread. Both error bars are bogus, as they are based on an arbitrarily selected statistical model which does not apply to the true statistics of the ongoing process. If your statistical model does not match reality, then the results you get from applying it are useless.
E.M.Smith says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:44 pm
If that is what he means, he needs to say so explicitly. And, he needs to lead with the mechanism he believes is responsible for nulling the effect, not the denial of any effect at all. Only members of the choir listen to the sermon after the minister informs the congregation that they’re all going to hell.
John Brookes says:
December 5, 2012 at 2:23 am
See reply to jazzyT above. But, even if you insist on using shady statistics to assert that there has been statistically significant warming since 1995, you are still left with the fact that it is WAY LESS than would be consistent with the AGW conjecture of severe warming.
Thinker says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:24 am
You are missing one thing: in order to achieve an adiabatic lapse rate, you must have an energy sink at altitude. That is the role played by “greenhouse” gases, which radiate heat away so that a temperature gradient can be established.
David Ball says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:52 pm
“Ask yourself what possible difference could saturation make if Co2 is a result of temperature change.”
Which, it is.
RoHa says:
December 5, 2012 at 6:47 pm
“From that accusation it seems he is a bit of a loony in regard to dowsing.”
Maybe. Maybe not. In the US, at least, we demand to hear both sides of the case before we convict.
KevinK says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:31 pm
“Here on the Earth with a gas filled atmosphere it is useless.”
You need to specify such conditions from the start, and why you believe they are important. If all you say is “the GHE does not exist”, few will read farther to see your justification.
From KevinK on December 5, 2012 at 7:31 pm:
If a vacuum is “cold” as claimed by the climate science folks why would we have problems cooling off our satellites ? Why do they often have large radiative surfaces on the outside of them ? We don’t put them there for the looks, no racing stripes either, they weight too much.
The “temperature” of outer space is about 3K, that’s the temperature equivalent of the background microwave radiation, as we are told by physicists who have measured it, not “climate science folks”.
The primary method of cooling off satellites is radiation at thermal wavelengths, as there is insufficient atmosphere for convective cooling. The released photons at thermal wavelengths will then travel through space until they hit something. They could even hit the Sun, and warm up the Sun an infinitesimal amount.
That’s why nobody stuffs in the walls of their houses (not the same as a simple reflective barrier (aluminum foil) that can be effective in the tropics but is no longer used in northern climes because it tends to electrocute folks that accidentally connect it to the wiring in the house, ouch that hurts, but only for a little while.
Actually it’s because radiant barriers don’t work unless facing an air space (reference). So at the higher latitudes with the walls already stuffed with insulation, no benefit. Closer to the equator, they’re better than nothing, but not by much.
BTW, the most egregious examples of electrocution from aluminum foil insulation occurred in Australia, paid for by a daft government scheme, often mentioned by Andrew Bolt, which also included many house fires. So your referring to “northern climes” may be a bit confusing.
Any textbook that claims that the blockage of IR transmission out of a greenhouse causes a temperature rise is WRONG, it is that simple.
Yup.
So perhaps I’m a loon, but the stuff I have worked on performs as promised, unlike climate models.
You have shown you do understand the radiative physics, when it suits you.
If you want to argue it shouldn’t have been named the “greenhouse” effect as that’s not how greenhouses work, I agree.
But saying the effect, whatever it should have been properly named, doesn’t exist? That’s the lunacy.
One might then ask, does that not then mean that more radiating GHG would create a greater gradient, which would tend at best to leave the temperature at the surface the same, and more likely to reduce it? Maybe that is what you are trying to say. Personally, I need to spend more time researching the topic to reach a comfortable conclusion on the matter.
Thinker says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:24 am
“Those who continue to contend that backradiation raises surface temperature 33 degrees (or whatever) clearly assume that an atmosphere without any water vapor or GHG would have a uniform temperature without any lapse rate.”
Actually, I see from above you are arguing that the requirement for a heat sink is, in fact, wrong. I believe, however, that the heat equation in a spherical 3-d domain demands it – we had a rather long discussion about this on another thread some time ago. I’m a bit skeptical that your entropy argument is considering the complete system. Perhaps you could go into a bit more detail?
Bart says:
December 5, 2012 at 11:49 pm
“Maybe. Maybe not. In the US, at least, we demand to hear both sides of the case before we convict.”
Which is not to say I take dowsing seriously, though I’d be less worried about the state of mind of a person who believes in it than a person who believes, e.g., that “superstorm” Sandy is proof of global warming.
What I am saying is that the Professor may have been teaching from the stance of informing rather than advocating, and I can readily believe that his detractors would twist his words in order to damage his credibility on unrelated subjects. Maybe, the good professor just finds it a playful curiosity and a relaxing diversion from his more serious pursuits.
Friends:
As part of his complete rebuttal of the scandalous attacks on Neils-Axel Morner, at December 5, 2012 at 11:40 pm Monckton of Brenchley says:
In addition to being correct, Lord Monckton’s account of events at the debate display much modesty.
Morner and I are indebted to Monckton of Brenchley for his actions during that debate. People interested in the event can read my report of it at
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
Richard
Gail Combs says:
“CO2 is a flea in a room full of elephants.”
LOL. Now there’s an image worthy of a Josh cartoon; in the warmist world the tiny flea would be the ring master ordering the elephants around while in the real world he’s just ignored.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says, December 5, 2012 at 11:53 pm: “If you want to argue it shouldn’t have been named the “greenhouse” effect as that’s not how greenhouses work, I agree. But saying the effect, whatever it should have been properly named, doesn’t exist? That’s the lunacy.”
=============================================================
It is absolutely not about the name.
Look, let us just name it properly to remove the confusion and then see, what the Wood’s experiment demonstrates. So, according to the IPCC, “greenhouse gases” warm the surface (or slow down cooling) by their back radiation (I know, there are some other versions of this “effect” on the internet, but politically relevant is the IPCC’s one).
OK, let us name this “effect” properly: “back radiation warming effect”. And let us forget greenhouses.
Now, what does the Wood’s experiment demonstrate? It demonstrates, that back radiation either does not warm at all or only to a negligible extent. Given the well known warmists’ assertion that back radiation of certain gases produces 33C warming effect, one should expect even more warming produced by the back radiation from glass. The result of the Wood’s experiment was however under 1C. And the temperature in the box with the glass lid was indeed realistic, we all know the temperature in a car parked in the sun in summer.
So, what we can see is that back radiation practically does not work. And how this not working effect is named is irrelevant.
Thinker says:
Here are the reasons why physicists such as myself know that your argument is incorrect:
(1) You seem to think that the actual lapse rate has to be at the adiabatic lapse rate. This is incorrect, as can be seen in the Earth’s stratosphere where the temperature is constant or even increasing with height. The adiabatic lapse rate is what a physicist would call a stability criterion. That means that the actual lapse rate can be less than the adiabatic lapse rate but if it becomes greater than the adiabatic lapse rate, then the atmosphere becomes unstable to convection and this convection drives the lapse rate back down to the adiabatic lapse rate. So, the reason for the lapse rate in the troposphere being close to the adiabatic lapse rate (or a compromise between the dry and moist adiabatic lapse rates, to be more precise) is that the troposphere is strongly heated from below (both by the Earth’s surface absorbing solar energy and by the absorption of back-radiation from greenhouse gases). If convection could not occur, this would in fact cause the lapse rate to be larger than the adiabatic lapse rate. However, such lapse rates are unstable to convection and the convection then lowers the lapse rate back down to the adiabatic lapse rate.
(2) The lapse rate alone does not determine the surface temperature. Claiming it does is akin to claiming that if I have the equation of a line y = m*x + b and I specify m then you could tell me what y is when x=0. In fact, you can’t do that because you need to know b also or, equivalently, you need to know the (x,y) coordinates for one point on that line. The role of greenhouse gases is actually to determine the height of the effective radiating level at which the Earth’s atmosphere is at a temperature of 255 K. (This height is currently about 5 km.) The temperature at the Earth’s surface then follows from extrapolating the temperature down to the surface using the typical environmental lapse rate of 6.5 C per km. [Hence, 255 K + (6.5 C per km)*(5 km) = 287.5 K.]
(3) If we increase greenhouse gas concentrations, we increase the effective radiating level (that level in the atmosphere where emitted IR radiation can successfully escape to space without being absorbed again). For example, if the effective radiating level increases to 6 km, then the temperature at the Earth’ surface would increase by about 6.5 C to ~294 K. [255 K + (6.5 C per km)*(6 km) = 294 K.]
(4) Note that there is no claim made that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations increases the lapse rate: It doesn’t because the lapse rate in the troposphere is limited by convection. To the first approximation, the lapse rate is expected to remain constant as greenhouse gases increase. To a better approximation, it is actually expected to decrease slightly because the moist adiabatic lapse rate is a decreasing function of the surface temperature. This effect is known as the “lapse rate feedback”, a negative feedback included in all of the climate models.
@Bart
You might find the answers you are looking for in the following link;
http://www.tech-know-group.com/papers/IR-absorption_updated.pdf
Starting from the environmental lapse rate and from an one-stream heat flow formulation – that means no back-radiation- it is found that the major role in the evacuation of heat from the surface is by means of convection of sensible and latent heat.
[Snip . . Attack the problem not the man. Google is your friend] . . mod
RoHa says:
But the original arguments in this thread did not demonstrate that his research is good. They just appealed to his scientific authority, i.e., here was an eminent scientist who signs this letter, so apparently this alone should carry some weight. Now, we learn that this scientist has shown atrocious scientific judgement in the past.
And, by the way, here is a piece from James Randi, the magician and debunker of pseudoscience, about Morner and his dowsing claims: http://www.randi.org/hotline/1998/0012.html
joeldshore:
At December 6, 2012 at 7:51 am you attack Morner on spurious grounds and at December 6, 2012 at 7:25 am you claim you are a “physicist”.
Morner has been honoured with awards by his peers. In the unlikely event that anybody gives you similar respect then – and only then – will people take what you say seriously.
Richard
Re David Ball and does temperature drive CO2 or CO2 drive temperature,
Lubos has run the numbers and his conclusion is that the influence of temperature on CO2 is about 10 times stronger than the effect of CO2 on temperatures.
http://motls.blogspot.de/2012/07/land-biospheres-absorption-of-co2.html
[Snip . . Attack the problem not the man. Google is your friend] . . mod
What a crock. If you hear something you don’t like, you snip it? ISTR some bloke claiming just that of skeptical science not long ago.
Google is indeed your friend… googling “debunking monckton” is very revealing.
And if you snip this, there can be no doubt where you stand.
[It reveals “debunking Monckton” as another (false) page in the propaganda of the CAGW zealotry and theist dogma. Mod]
JWR says:
December 6, 2012 at 7:42 am
Thanks. I will look it over when I have time.
@ur momisugly joeldshore
“They just appealed to his scientific authority, i.e., here was an eminent scientist who signs this letter, so apparently this alone should carry some weight.”
Specifically, the appeal to his authority is based on his expertise on sea level. This expertise is backed up by his research.
Demonstrating that his judgement is cracked in regards to dowsing does not automatically imply that his expertise on sea-level is unfounded.
Perhaps I should add that I have no strong beliefs about Mörner’s expertise or about dowsing.
I do have a strong belief that the sea is pretty much where it was when I was a boy, but that’s because I’ve looked at it.
Ok, here we go again;
Somebody wrote;
“The “temperature” of outer space is about 3K, that’s the temperature equivalent of the background microwave radiation, as we are told by physicists who have measured it, not “climate science folks”.”
NO outer space is largely void of particles, temperature is a measurement of how fast a particle is vibrating,, THUS NO particles; NO temperature. The “about 3K” is the equivalent temperature if space was filled with particles, It is a background FLUX equivalent,
“But saying the effect, whatever it should have been properly named, doesn’t exist? That’s the lunacy.””
I never said the “effect” (properly named or not) doesn’t exist. I stated that the “effect” only delays the propagation of heat (or the equivalent unabsorbed free space electromagnetic radiation) through the system by causing the energy to make multiple passes through the system at the speed of light. Multiple passes equals a delay, not a reduction in the velocity.. A thermal insulator reduces the velocity of heat flow.
Thus the “effect” does not act as a thermal insulator; it has been misdiagnosed. It introduces a delay on the order of tens of milliseconds. Since the frequency of incoming energy is on the order of 24 hours (~86 million milliseconds) this delay HAS NO EFFECT on the “equilibrium temperature” (an oxymoron in itself by the way).
And thanks for the tutorial about how satellites are cooled, I’m rushing off now to redesign all the ones we have already launched that until now where working just fine (yes, we take their temperature all the time while they are up there, at multiple locations on the “BIRD”).
The lunacy is in believing that a gas (or a group of gases) that represent parts per billion of the thermal mass of the Earth (Oceans, Landmass, Atmosphere) are actually “FORCING” the other 999,999,999,999 billion parts of the thermal mass into thermal equilibrium with themselves…………
Cheers, Kevin.
richardscourtney says:
December 5, 2012 at 3:21 am
I said that the data are not worth much because the slopes change when you change the starting point, and that was not for the dataset above, but for one graphed on woodfortrees.org, linked from my first post.
Each indicated trend cannot be distinguished from zero, but, also, at a 95% confidence level, none of them can be distinguished from a slope of 2 degrees per century. Four of them cannot be distinguished from 3.5 degrees per century, and one cannot be distinguished from 4.4 degrees century. In other words, taken as a group, we might see no change at all, or we might be headed for scary change, or even straight into the maw of Al Gore’s warmest nightmare. Or it might be zero change. What is this worth to you? What do you learn from such a projection that you couldn’t have learned by, say, asking the cat?
I think you were a bit careless reading the post. When the slope changes significantly as you change starting points, you already have significant problems. The huge error bars, which themselves allow significant warming rates, or even alarmist-ing warming rates, are just icing on the cake.
JazzyT,
I note that you had no response to the facts I presented showing that global temperatures are recovering from the LIA along the same trend line, with no recent acceleration — and irregardless of whether CO2 was low or high.
That, of course, means that CO2 has at most a negligible effect, which can therefore be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. Which in turn means that catastrophic AGW is completely debunked, and that plain old AGW has been wildly overestimated. At current levels, CO2 has zero measurable effect on temperature.
Sorry about your failed conjecture. But that is how science and the scientific method operates.
As one example of the incorrect statement that Monckton has made, he claims:
However, if one goes to that report ( http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf , p. S-23), the actual statement in the report is:
What this means is that if the measured trend were zero for 15 years or more, then that would constitute a discrepancy at the 95% confidence level. Note that it does NOT say that if the measured trend were not different from zero with 95% confidence for 15 years or more then that would constitute a discrepancy at the 95% confidence level. If you don’t understand the difference between these two statements, you don’t understand statistics very well.
The point is that a trend that is zero for 15 years or more lies outside the 95% confidence window for what the models predict. It does not mean that a trend that is positive lies outside the 95% confidence window just because the 95% confidence window around that trend itself includes a trend of zero.
This statement by Lord Monckton is indicative of just the sort of incorrect statements that SkepticalScience is rightly noting.
[I should also note that a 95% confidence level assumes one is not purposely cherry-picking exact intervals to choose in order to get a desired result. After all, something that is excluded at a 95% confidence level still occurs 1 out of 20 times, so if I am allowed to cherry-pick through enough segments, I can find such a violation. This, however, is not relevant in the current case since Monckton’s conclusion of such a violation is incorrect and is due to a misinterpretation of the statement made in that report and a misunderstanding of statistics.]