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.
J. Philip Peterson:
At December 5, 2012 at 12:27 am you ask
Climate is changing as it always has and always will, and the link provides examples of changing climate. But the fact of climate change tells nothing about the cause(s) of climate change.
At issue is the nature and degree of effects of human activities on climate change. And the link provides no information of any kind about that issue.
Richard
Dear Mr Watts, I was wondering for the Christmas Season whether we could have a holy book of rules of Global warming.
My first would be.
The Holy scriptures of Climategate Scientists decree that under no circumstance is it allowed for a Hurricane in Hurricane season to be worse than one from the past.
Christopher, trafamadore appeared here recently at WUWT and has taken up the role of resident troll. As you’ve discovered, trafamadore’s misunderstandings are easily countered. As is often the case with trolls, trafamadore helps us to reinforce our messages.
Hello Phillip (December 5, 2012 at 12:27 am),
The fact that global temperatures have not risen over the past 16 years is just that – a fact. And no one who can read a simple graph can dispute that. This of course presents a problem for the True Believers. They must somehow get rid of this ‘putative’ fact. So both papers that you refer to present graphs which instead show that global temperatures have risen over the past century or so. No one disputes that. They point out that temperatures have also stalled in the past too, or even decreased for a few years. And no one disputes that either. Nevertheless, it is clear that over the last 16 years there has been no warming. . You don’t need to look at what happened in 1880 to see what happened over the last 16 years.
None of their models predicted that. On the contrary, James Hansen predicted that temperatures would rise between 2 to 4 degrees in the first decade of this century. Instead, temperatures have been flat. Big problem for the catastrophic runaway theory.
The second paper that you link to shows pictures of photogenic polar bears and claims that the ice is melting, glaciers are receding and that sea levels are rising. All are true, but these processes started at the end of the last ice age. This is what happens naturally in an inter-glacial period.
Tell your professor friend that in the previous interglacial period, which we call the Eemian (about 100,000 years ago, that conditions were generally warmer everywhere and that the Arctic was ice free in summer ; according to the IPCC assessment reports, which as your second link makes clear, are based on the work of 1000s of scientists around the world.
.
This is the one argument which SkS cannot and never will be able to squash, because any alternative can be proven to produce a reduction in entropy, which, as any physicist knows, is a violation of the Second Law. So consider this if you have a background in physics …
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.
This is not possible because the adiabatic lapse rate has been clearly shown to be proportional to gravitational acceleration for any given gas. Such a temperature gradient will develop even in a closed room, though the difference in temperature would be only about 0.015 degree. My point is that it does happen and has been talked about since Loschmidt in the late 19th century.
Just because Maxwell and Boltzmann scoffed at the idea, does not mean they were right. No-one had the instruments then to prove the point one way or another.
Yes there have been attempted rebuttals on WUWT, saying a wire conductor outside a cylinder would conduct heat upwards. But in fact it would not, because, as Loschmidt said, it applies in solids, liquids and gases. So the wire would not conduct upwards because it already has exactly the same temperature gradient. Graeff established this empirically with the gas and the walls of the container having a temperature gradient. (You can easily Google these names for links.)
The point of all this is of course that the adiabatic lapse rate is not something which eventuates from convection, or even needs a hot starting point such as a surface pre-heated above the temperature of the adjoining layer of atmosphere. No, it all happens spontaneously, and it has to be that way.
Hence the normal diffusion of molecules in a gas establishes the vertical temperature gradient spontaneously, simply because entropy is not altered and potential energy interchanges equally with kinetic energy. Hence the lower regions are automatically warmer.
It follows that on any planet with an atmosphere, such as Earth, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter etc the natural lapse rate (together with the mean Solar radiation received) establishes the temperature at every level, including the lowest level adjoining the surface. So the surface automatically takes on a very similar temperature.
It only looks like the surface has established the temperature of the adjoining atmosphere, but in reality the atmosphere had to fit in with the insolation and automatic lapse rate first. Of course on Earth it gets hotter in the day, but it does not usually get colder than the atmosphere at night. So the atmosphere provides a ratchet effect and there is an interchange by radiation and conduction which keeps the temperature gap quite small.
So this keeps carbon dioxide right out of the picture, and you’re wasting time thinking about back radiation and all that, because all cooling processes will adjust to conform with the lapse rate.
J Phillip Peterson
Tell your friends that , using similar techniques , you can devise a chart shows that you grew three feet between the ages of 18 and 36. Simply plot your height at zygote then at age 36 and connect with a single slope. We say that the last global warming trend ended in 1998. Challenge your friends to present temperature data that shows warming for the last 15 years. They cannot. This lack of warming refutes their theories utterly, and any prediction of future warming is rank speculation.
trafamadore, I don’t know if you realize this yet, but you have been well and truly owned.
I don’t know exactly what the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s livestock brand looks like, but I imagine it must be difficult for you to sit comfortably with that brand still stinging on your backside…
J. Philip Peterson,the claim that there hasn’t been warming, or significant warming, in the global surface record over the past 16 years is correct and isn’t contradicted by your links (I believe, I just skimmed).
See here,
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2012/trend
Yes the linear trend is up, but the temperature ends lower than where it started, so it’s hardly significant.
People can argue about the significance of that as a separate argument (and do!). Is 16 years long enough? Maybe not, though climate scientists seem to have a moving target regarding what constitutes a significant period. As you can see the signal is quite noisy with a range of about 0.7 C in that period. That suggests perhaps a longer period is needed, perhaps 2 or 3 decades. But it also suggests that we’re quite insensitive to temperature swings. Can you recall from memory which years over the past decade where the hottest and coldest? I can’t. In the context of the debate 0.7 C is quite large.
J Phillip Peterson
Concerning the second link: no skeptic disputes that the globe has warmed this past century. We see this warming as a natural, centuries-long trend. We dispute that this warming is detrimental. We note the hyper-exaggerated alarms that the alarmist propaganda mills crank out and we trace it to the dubious science that serves as the mill grist, and we object that national policies should be founded on such panic-mongering fed by such ill-founded science. We see a science produced by would-be scientists whose judgement is fogged by ideological commitment and grant-grabbing fever. This dubious science has been refuted variously and repeatedly, but as you can see for yourself, the propaganda mills still busily grind out the panic. This propaganda effort is not an accident, but is conceived, concerted, and executed purposefully by an organized party.
Concerning the benefits of a warmer world: milder winters, which mean lower fuel bills and improved winter conditions, and a longer growing season and higher humidity levels, resulting in more food production for a growing population. This last is important for a world whose population is expected to double and redouble the next century. The stark horror facing the world is not warmth but famine. So much for the global warmers.
My dear Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley: You must remember, many years ago, when there were vacuum tube radios; whenever we put it off there appeared a very short intensification of the radio signal, a kind of “rogue wave”….before dying. That radio program is over!
John Brookes
We note that you claim that the globe has warmed in the last fifteen years. Interesting, because not even Phil Jones, your hero, would make such a claim. So now we have enough information to take your measure as a scientist. That you for that information.
John Brookes:
At December 5, 2012 at 2:23 am you provide a “challenge”. I write to accept it and to provide you with a counter challenge” which I anticipate you will not accept.
Your “challenge” is
I answer:
In the period from ~1940 to ~1970. A similar such period was from ~1880 to ~1910.
Both these periods were prior to significant anthropogenic CO2 emission to the atmosphere.
Now for my challenge to you.
The IPCC AR4 predicted (n.b. predicted and not projected) “committed warming” of 0.2deg.C per decade (+-20%) averaged over the first two decades after year 2000. This “committed warming” was certain to occur because of greenhouse gases already in the system.
It is now nearly 2013 and there has been discernible warming since 2000. The climate models predicted the “committed warming” was certain to occur if there were no significant changes to volcanism or solar behaviour which have not happened. This “committed warming” should now have provided at least 0.2deg.C of global warming. And for the trend of 0.2deg.C per decade (+-20%) averaged over the first two decades after year 2000 to be achieved requires a probably impossible rise over the next 7 years of ~0.8deg.C (this would be a greater rise than happened over the entire twentieth century).
So, my challenge is to ask you
Where has the “committed warming” gone if the climate models are not bunkum?
Richard
Ooops! I intended to write
It is now nearly 2013 and there has been NO discernible warming since 2000.
Sorry.
Richard
@ur momisugly trafamadore says: December 4, 2012 at 2:25 pm
“Okay, I just googled “tilted sea level graph” and Morner’s name comes out at the top. You don’t forget things like that, pretty entertaining.”
LOL! It sure does! Because it is only referenced on SkS, and then pointed to there from other BLOGS. In no authoritative site does it appear. Talk about Circular logic! You were told to get a real source, not a blog. You failed.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
December 4, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Pretty weak to dismiss an entire argument based on one poster who does not represent the argument well. Truth is the daughter of time, and she will tell.
“It is now nearly 2013 and there has been NO discernible warming since 2000.” – really?
Dear posters,
if you do not bother to format your comments containing quotes in such a way that the readers could clearly understand who said what, it should be no surprise, if your comments are not taken seriously.
Mother:
At December 5, 2012 at 8:06 am you ask
Yes, really. Please read the thread before posting.
For example see the above post by Werner Brozek at December 4, 2012 at 9:29 am. He explains it in words and also links to graphs which show when the trend extends back to zero for several data sets.
However, in case you want to knit-pick about “since 2000” I add a plot from 2000 which – for consistency – was also by Werner Brozek but posted on another thread
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2000.9/plot/wti/from:2000.9/trend
Richard
I checked the first professor, Nils-Axel Morner (Mörner, with dots on o). On web of science I can find exactly 90 publications for morner na* and with address set to Sweden (91 with morner n* and 111 by leaving sweden out). Naturally he can have other publications but I would still say that some 90 is far from 550. Also some of the papers are some conferens abstracts, which are seldom refereed to any higher degree. Some 450 papers are missing.
Mörner is famous in Sweden for his dowsing theories;-)
Here’s a link to my recent comment where I posted the results of the 2007 Mason U. study that found a much lower percentage of earth scientists in the catastrophic camp:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/03/on-certainty-truth-is-the-daughter-of-time/#comment-1163387
Is that really true? How often are there debates in the literature about the meaning of the findings in previous papers? It seems to me that journals shy away from that, especially when the would-be debaters represent a distinct minority in the field. Journals seem to focus on “findings” that a new, surprising, and significant. Secondarily, they occasionally run papers that challenge other findings, but usually not in a highly confrontational way.
WUWT ran a thread on a replication Dr. Loo’s survey and (IIRC) WUWTers strongly endorsed GW. Here’s the link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/08/replication-of-lewandowsky-survey/
Here’s a link to the survey itself (password is REPLICATE):
http://ascottblog.wordpress.com/lewandowsky-survey-replicated/
1. But how many climatologists have expert knowledge of climate either? On Aug. 1, Gail Combs said:
2. And how much knowledge of climatology is needed to detect faulty statistics, unwarranted assumptions, non sequiturs, fudging, etc.? Not much, especially when these flaws have been brought to their attention by contrarian critics. MOST scientists who have diligently studied the literature and the critiques thereof can come to an informed and rational opinion of the warmists’ case, especially when it comes to “policy prescriptions,” which the IPCC specifically disavowed making–but which UN Secretary Bim Bam Boom IS prescribing.
I started using the “blockquote” and “/blockquote” tags (inside angle brackets) about a year ago and I love them. They can be nested. It takes a while to get the hang of them. I usually compose offline so I can more easily be sure that I’ve matched every indent with an outdent and that I haven’t left out any backslashes. It’s easier in Word, where I use the abbreviations “bq” and “bqs”, which the autocorrect feature expands for me.
Henric:
Nice try but a total fail.
Nils-Axel Morner is probably the world’s leading authority on sea level.
On the other hand, you are an internet troll trying to smear a world-renowned scientist from behind the cowardly shield of anonymity.
Go back to SkS where your slime is appreciated. It is disdained here.
Richard
Richard: Fail, me no fail? In 1995 the associateion “Vetenskap och folkbildning” (the Swedish SKEPTICS http://www.vof.se/visa-english) announced Mörner to be the “förvillare” of the year
http://www.vof.se/visa-forvillare1995. However, me no proper English, so pick your proper wording for “förvilla” from this list http://sv.bab.la/lexikon/svensk-engelsk/f%C3%B6rvilla. Choose any of them, add them to your cv and make it stand out from the crowd. Scientist he may be but world renowned only here.
jazzyT says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:22 pm
I appreciate what you are saying about starting times. However NOAA set the “goal post” at 15 years and said certain things. Earth ‘scored’ against this “goal post”. Was the goal post too high or too wide? That is not for me to say. However starting at 1999 makes the time less than 15 years. A while back, we were challenged to prove there was no global warming for 15 years. I showed there was none for 180 months and was accused of cherry picking a start time of just before 1998. Someone else picked a shorter time and was accused of not going 15 years! But getting back to 1998, yes, that was a super El Nino, but look what followed it, very strong La Ninas. So if you plot RSS from 1997 OR from 2000, you get a fairly straight line either way. See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:2000/trend
And any positive slope you may get from a time in 1999 is really small and not worth worrying about.
To the nearest year, there has been no warming at all for 16 years, statistical or otherwise, on several data sets. However we can go back 18 years to show no statistical warming, even on the other data sets. This has been demonstrated in posts above.
You are of course correct that short, cherry picked trends can be noisy. That is why NOAA said what it did regarding 15 years. My interpretation is that after 15 years of no temperature rise, one should stop blaming noise and accept that CO2 is just not the driver they thought it was.