Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Over at Roy Spencer’s usually excellent blog, Roy has published what could be called a hatchet job on “citizen climate scientists” in general and me in particular. Now, Dr. Roy has long been a hero of mine, because of all his excellent scientific work … which is why his attack mystifies me. Maybe he simply had a bad day and I was the focus of frustration, we all have days like that. Anthony tells me he can’t answer half of the email he gets some days, Dr. Roy apparently gets quite a lot of mail too, asking for comment.
Dr. Roy posted a number of uncited and unreferenced claims in his essay. So, I thought I’d give him the chance to provide data and citations to back up those claims. He opens with this graphic:
Dr. Roy, the citizen climate scientists are the ones who have made the overwhelming majority of the gains in the struggle against rampant climate alarmism. It is people like Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts and Donna LaFramboise and myself and Joanne Nova and Warwick Hughes and the late John Daly, citizen climate scientists all, who did the work that your fellow mainstream climate scientists either neglected or refused to do. You should be showering us with thanks for doing the work your peers didn’t get done, not speciously claiming that we are likeable idiots like Homer Simpson.
Dr. Roy begins his text by saying:
I’ve been asked to comment on Willis Eschenbach’s recent analysis of CERES radiative budget data (e.g., here). Willis likes to analyze data, which I applaud. But sometimes Willis gives the impression that his analysis of the data (or his climate regulation theory) is original, which is far from the case.
Hundreds of researchers have devoted their careers to understanding the climate system, including analyzing data from the ERBE and CERES satellite missions that measure the Earth’s radiative energy budget. Those data have been sliced and diced every which way, including being compared to surface temperatures (as Willis recently did).
So, Roy’s claim seems to be that my work couldn’t possibly be original, because all conceivable analyses of the data have already been done. Now that’s a curious claim in any case … but in this case, somehow, he seems to have omitted the links to the work he says antedates mine.
When someone starts making unreferenced, uncited, unsupported accusations about me like that, there’s only one thing to say … Where’s the beef? Where’s the study? Where’s the data?
In fact, I know of no one who has done a number of the things that I’ve done with the CERES data. If Dr. Roy thinks so, then he needs to provide evidence of that. He needs to show, for example, that someone has analyzed the data in this fashion:
Now, I’ve never seen any such graphic. I freely admit, as I have before, that maybe the analysis has been done some time in the past, and my research hasn’t turned it up. I did find two studies that were kind of similar, but nothing like that graph above. Dr. Roy certainly seems to think such an analysis leading to such a graphic exists … if so, I suggest that before he starts slamming me with accusations, he needs to cite the previous graphic that he claims that my graphic is merely repeating.
I say this for two reasons. In addition to it being regular scientific practice to cite your sources, it is common courtesy not to accuse a man of doing something without providing data to back it up.
And finally, if someone has done any of my analyses before, I want to know so I can save myself some time … if the work’s been done, I’m not interested in repeating it. So I ask Dr. Roy: which study have I missed out on that has shown what my graphic above shows?
Dr. Roy then goes on to claim that my ideas about thunderstorms regulating the global climate are not new because of the famous Ramanathan and Collins 1991 paper called “Thermodynamic regulation of ocean warming by cirrus clouds deduced from observations of the 1987 El Niño”. Dr. Roy says:
I’ve previously commented on Willis’ thermostat hypothesis of climate system regulation, which Willis never mentioned was originally put forth by Ramanathan and Collins in a 1991 Nature article.
Well … no, it wasn’t “put forth” in R&C 1991, not even close. Since Dr. Roy didn’t provide a link to the article he accuses me of “never mentioning”, I’ll remedy that, it’s here.
Unfortunately, either Dr. Roy doesn’t fully understand what R&C 1991 said, or he doesn’t fully understand what I’ve said. This is the Ramanathan and Collins hypothesis as expressed in their abstract:
Observations made during the 1987 El Niño show that in the upper range of sea surface temperatures, the greenhouse effect increases with surface temperature at a rate which exceeds the rate at which radiation is being emitted from the surface. In response to this ‘super greenhouse effect’, highly reflective cirrus clouds are produced which act like a thermostat, shielding the ocean from solar radiation. The regulatory effect of these cirrus clouds may limit sea surface temperatures to less than 305K.
Why didn’t I mention R&C 1991 with respect to my hypothesis? Well … because it’s very different from my hypothesis, root and branch.
• Their hypothesis was that cirrus clouds act as a thermostat to regulate maximum temperatures in the “Pacific Warm Pool” via a highly localized “super greenhouse effect”.
• My hypothesis is that thunderstorms act all over the planet as natural emergent air conditioning units, which form over local surface hot spots and (along with other emergent phenomena) cool the surface and regulate the global temperature.
In addition, I fear that Dr. Roy hasn’t done his own research on this particular matter. A quick look on Google shows that I have commented on R&C 1991 before. Back in 2012, in response to Dr. Roy’s same claim (but made by someone else), I wrote:
I disagree that the analysis of thunderstorms as a governing mechanism has been “extensively examined in the literature”. It has scarcely been discussed in the literature at all. The thermostatic mechanism discussed by Ramanathan is quite different from the one I have proposed. In 1991, Ramanathan and Collins said that the albedos of deep convective clouds in the tropics limited the SST … but as far as I know, they didn’t discuss the idea of thunderstorms as a governing mechanism at all.
And regarding the Pacific Warm Pool, I also quoted the Abstract of R&C1991 in this my post on Argo and the Ocean Temperature Maximum. So somebody’s not searching here before making claims …
In any case, I leave it to the reader to decide whether my hypothesis, that emergent phenomena like thunderstorms regulate the climate, was “originally put forth” in the R&C 1991 Nature paper about cirrus clouds, or not …
Finally, Dr. Roy closes with this plea:
Anyway, I applaud Willis, who is a sharp guy, for trying. But now I am asking him (and others): read up on what has been done first, then add to it. Or, show why what was done previously came to the wrong conclusion, or analyzed the data wrong.
That’s what I work at doing.
But don’t assume you have anything new unless you first do some searching of the literature on the subject. True, some of the literature is paywalled. Sorry, I didn’t make the rules. And I agree, if research was public-funded, it should also be made publicly available.
First, let me say that I agree with all parts of that plea. I do my best to find out what’s been done before, among other reasons in order to save me time repeating past work.
However, many of my ideas are indeed novel, as are my methods of analysis. I’m the only person I know of, for example, to do graphic cluster analysis on temperature proxies (see “Kill It With Fire“). Now, has someone actually done that kind of analysis before? Not that I’ve seen, but if there is, I’m happy to find that out—it ups the odds that I’m on the right track when that happens. I have no problem with acknowledging past work—as I noted above, I have previously cited the very R&C 1991 study that Dr. Roy accuses me of ignoring.
Dr. Roy has not given me any examples of other people doing the kind of analysis of the CERES data that I’m doing. All he’s given are claims that someone somewhere did some unspecified thing that he claims I said I thought I’d done first. Oh, plus he’s pointed at, but not linked to, Ramanathan & Collins 1991, which doesn’t have anything to do with my hypothesis.
So all we have are his unsupported claims that my work is not novel.
And you know what? Dr. Roy may well be right. My work may not be novel. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong … but without specific examples, he is just handwaving. All I ask is that he shows this with proper citations.
Dr. Roy goes on to say:
But cloud feedback is a hard enough subject without muddying the waters further. Yes, clouds cool the climate system on average (they raise the planetary albedo, so they reduce solar input into the climate system). But how clouds will change due to warming (cloud feedback) could be another matter entirely. Don’t conflate the two.
I ask Dr. Roy to please note the title of my graphic above. It shows how the the clouds actually change due to warming. I have not conflated the two in the slightest, and your accusation that I have done so is just like your other accusations—it lacks specifics. Exactly what did I say that makes you think I’m conflating the two? Dr. Roy, I ask of you the simple thing I ask of everyone—if you object to something that I say, please QUOTE MY WORDS, so we can all see what you are talking about.
Dr. Roy continues:
For instance, let’s say “global warming” occurs, which should then increase surface evaporation, leading to more convective overturning of the atmosphere and precipitation. But if you increase clouds in one area with more upward motion and precipitation, you tend to decrease clouds elsewhere with sinking motion. It’s called mass continuity…you can’t have rising air in one region without sinking air elsewhere to complete the circulation. “Nature abhors a vacuum”.
Not true. For example, if thunderstorms alone are not sufficient to stop an area-wide temperature rise, a new emergent phenomenon arises. The thunderstorms will self-assemble into “squall lines”. These are long lines of massed thunderstorms, with long canyons of rising air between them. In part this happens because it allows for a more dense packing of thunderstorms, due to increased circulation efficiency. So your claim above, that an increase of clouds in one area means a decrease in another area, is strongly falsified by the emergence of squall lines.
In addition, you’ve failed to consider the timing of onset of the phenomena. A change of ten minutes in the average formation time of tropical cumulus makes a very large difference in net downwelling radiation … so yes, contrary to your claim, I’ve just listed two ways the clouds can indeed increase in one area without a decrease in another area.
So, examining how clouds and temperatures vary together locally (as Willis has done) really doesn’t tell you anything about feedbacks. Feedbacks only make sense over entire atmospheric circulation systems, which are ill-defined (except in the global average).
Mmm … well, to start with, these are not simple “feedbacks”. I say that clouds are among the emergent thermoregulatory phenomena that keep the earth’s temperature within bounds. The system acts, not as a simple feedback, but as a governor. What’s the difference?
- A simple feedback moves the result in a certain direction (positive or negative) with a fixed feedback factor. It is the value of this feedback factor that people argue about, the cloud feedback factor … I say that is meaningless, because what we’re looking at is not a feedback like that at all.
- A governor, on the other hand, uses feedback to move the result towards some set-point, by utilizing a variable feedback factor.
In short, feedback acts in one direction by a fixed amount. A governor, on the other hand, acts to restore the result to the set-point by varying the feedback. The system of emergent phenomena on the planet is a governor. It does not resemble simple feedback in the slightest.
And the size of those emergent phenomena varies from very small to very large on both spatial and temporal scales. Dust devils arise when a small area of the land gets too hot, for example. They are not a feedback, but a special emergent form which acts as an independent entity with freedom of motion. Dust devils move preferentially to the warmest nearby location, and because they are so good at cooling the earth, like all such mechanisms they have to move and evolve in order to persist. Typically they live for some seconds to minutes and then disappear. That’s an emergent phenomenon cooling the surface at the small end of the time and distance scales.
From there, the scales increase from local (cumulus clouds and thunderstorms) to area-wide (cyclones, grouping of thunderstorms into “squall lines”) to regional and multiannual (El Nino/La Nina Equator-To-Poles warm water pump) to half the planet and tens of years (Pacific Decadal Oscillation).
So I strongly dispute Dr. Roy’s idea that “feedbacks only make sense over entire atmospheric circulation systems”. To start with, they’re not feedbacks, they are emergent phenomena … and they have a huge effect on the regulation of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales.
And I also strongly dispute his claim that my hypothesis is not novel, the idea that thunderstorms and other emergent climate phenomena work in concert planet-wide to maintain the temperature of the earth within narrow bounds.
Like I said, Dr. Roy is one of my heroes, and I’m mystified by his attack on citizen scientists in general, and on me in particular. Yes, I’ve said that I thought that some of my research has been novel and original. Much of it is certainly original, in that I don’t know of anyone else who has done the work in that way, so the ideas are my own.
However, it just as certainly may not be novel. There’s nothing new under the sun. My point is that I don’t know of anyone advancing this hypothesis, the claim that emergent phenomena regulate the temperature and that forcing has little to do with it.
If Dr. Roy thinks my ideas are not new, I’m more than willing to look at any citations he brings to the table. As far as I’m concerned they would be support for my hypothesis, so I invite him to either back it up or back it off.
Best regards to all.
w.
Jeff L says:
Wilis, I don’t read Dr. Roy’s comments as an attack on you at all – I am not sure why you took it that way.
Because the only thing bigger than Wilils’ ego is the chip on Willis’ shoulder for anyone who has even the slightest disagreement with Willis.
Roy went out of his way to sugar coat what was very constructive and very gentle criticism that was as much directed at the other people who fawn over Willis as it was at the Willis who fawns over Willis. Undoubtedly, Roy made those feather smoothing gestures because he understands what a jerk Willis can be when Willis’ opinion of Willis is confronted with the reality of Willis. Futile effort.
@CD.
Science can be done by anybody. But to be a scientist does mean defending your ideas against criticism and testing them.
kingdube says: October 9, 2013 at 3:29 pm
“Dr. Roy was hounded into commenting on Willis and gave it the time he could.”
Dr Spencer was not “hounded’ into publishing the disgraceful graphic. He has now lost all credibility with me(it was already very low due to his belief in fairies). I have never visited his website, due to the aforesaid belief, but take Willis’ word for the fact that it was published there.
Cooler heads on both sides should prevail. Maybe he is correct that your analysis is either incorrect or unoriginal- I don’t know. Citizen climate scientist are the result and not the cause of poor climate science. Possibly before your analysis you could ask him or another in the field if they can recommend some relevant papers. I’m sure this can be worked out.
I realize they may feel it is tedious to contribute outside of their own projects but I think many scientists like Dr. Spencer actually enjoy teaching what they know.
I’ve always enjoyed reading Willis’ theories and ideas, but I have to admit, even I assumed that others must have done work on this before, because so much of it just seems rather obvious. I find it very interesting that so far, no one can actually point to real work being done on this in the field or academia. That’s the really interesting part.
I kind of thought it was the most obvious thing in the world, that hot air rises, and hot water evaporates and forms rain and thunderclouds, and all that helps cool the planet. I’m no expert in climate science, so I assumed that it was the kind of thing climate science would have looked into first, and not last, when looking at how the earth’s climate works. That it hasn’t, and that it takes ordinary citizen-scientists like Willis to bring it up, is the real story here.
“There is a ‘scientific method’ – a way of thinking. To paraphrase it, it’s hypothesis/theory/experiment.”
Willis uses real data in his presentations. That to me is science. Some others, such as Steven Wilde, post hypothesis all the time, with no follow through with real data to prove/disprove the hypothesis. I gain nothing from his posts.
Thus I enjoy Willis’ posts immensely. They are easy to read and show imaginative thinking. That keeps me coming back to WUWT.
Spencer would be taken more seriously if he wasn’t a creationist. He doesn’t help the cause of skeptics when he falls in the stereotype that all skeptics lack scientific knowledge.
@commieBob.
I agree with you about Heaviside – what a genius. Recasting Maxwell’s equations, the D operator and a very practical knowledge of electricity.
I also agree that lots of “amateurs” have made contributions to electronics. The important thing is that they did experiments and compared them to theory – the essence of the scientific method.
The problem with citizen scientists is that they may not all be Heavisides but some think that they are!
RC Saumarez
I agree, but there is something quite insidious creeping through the UK at the moment; the emergence, via celebrity scientists, of a science-cult with in its culture, complete with priesthood and council of cardinals (Royal Society). This is worrying to me, they seem to feel entitled to tax-payers money (almost without justification) and their followers claim sophistication by showing blind obedience to prevailing scientific opinion and loyalty to the priesthood. Climate change is probably the most prominent writ but it’s not the only one.
Ronald Voisin says:
October 9, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Thanks, Ronald. I was accused without foundation, both in the title and in the body of Roy’s post. What makes it harder is, I like and respect Dr. Roy, and his scientific work has been important.
If you should ever have the misfortune to be wrongly accused in that manner and compared to Homer Simpson, and I hope you never are in that situation, well, I guess we’ll see then how calm and mellow you remain.
w.
The “consensus” loves to slam skeptics as being ignorant amateurs. I don’t see why Dr. Spencer would want to give the very same people who smear HIM for his religious beliefs, additional ammunition . Perhaps it is a time issue, as suggested. Scientists may not have the time to answer posts on other people’s blogs or even to keep their own going, for that matter. Dr. R. Pielke, Sr. shut down his climate blog due to that issue – busy writing a book on atmospheric models, I think. Maybe the pros need to assign a grad assistant to follow internet content? They’ve been assigned worse tasks no doubt, lol.
Willis, It has been years since I was a freshman engineering student, but when I read Dr. Spencer’s response to questions raised for him to comment on your exposition of your theory, I was quickly brought back into the classroom where the “teaching technique” was to publicly humiliate an as yet uneducated student who asks an innocent question in class that was directly answered in the text they should have read in the last reading assignment! Another technique used was to single out the student who has been doing well on the quizes and seems to have the respect of the others in the classroom and attempt to publicly humiliate them by quizing them until they fail to answer, just to elevate the authority of the professor and squelch student dissent about some disagreement the class might have raised.
The teaching technique is far more sensitively illustrated (because it does not involve public humiliation) in this classic:
” Do you hear your heart beat?”
“No”
“Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?”
“Old man – how is it that you hear these things?”
“Young man – how is that you do not?”
I was never, and still am not, an advocate for public humiliation as a motivational teaching method because it rarely motivates anyone and instead just antagonizes students who now think of the professor as arrogant, impatient and one of those typical grey hairs who is always “looking down from his ivory tower of learning with disdain on the ignorant masses”.
In this case, you were never given the syllabus, so how could you expect to KNOW everything Dr. Spencer has read on the subject that is germaine to your postulate? He chides you for not googling “cloud radiative forcing”. I did. 306,000 results hardly narrows down the field to find the gems of truth. Still, Dr. Spencer did give you one really good review article which I have skimmed and am going to sit back and savor. He stated, “If you want to get some idea of what has been done on cloud feedback, then a good place to start is Graeme Stephens (2005) review of cloud feedback work performed over the years.” The link included goes to a pretty good review of literature.
In my humble opinion, Willis, Dr. Spencer’s criticism is something that you should take as a positive thing. He thinks you can take it and get better at what you do. Humility is a positive virtue. You have proven that in your writing in the past. If Dr. Spencer thinks you should read a little bit more, then perhaps that is a good thing. I certainly am going to read a little bit more.
At the same time, I too have not, in all my reading come across any other theory that so simply and logically states, in clear English, a theory about why thermaggeddon has not happened. Granted it does not answer the question about long term surface temperature meandering over decades and centuries, but it does completely squelch the Chicken Little, The Sky Is Falling alarmism. Why? Because it explains why 1 degree over a decade is nothing to worry about, when the daily temperature fluctuations of 10 – 20 – 30 degree variance are unfailingly regulated back to 298 K. It gets everyone to step back and look at the far more influential feedback – water – and stop the insane moaning about CO2.
This isn’t a very nice situation. Willis has reacted ‘strongly’ no doubt but Spencer is bang out of order and rubs salt into the wound by posting a dud link supposedly to back up his point. If Spencer is sloppy enough to muck up a blog what else does he not bother to check?
It seems that the nut of Spencer’s whine is that he gets asked to comment on the work of people who publish their own original (to them) research that they have funded themselves and via their tax dollars.
If Dr Spencer is too busy to comment then he doesn’t have to. It’s not like Willis will get pissed with him.
Spencer patronisingly asserts that ” And we already knew that clouds, on average, cool the climate system, as described almost 25 years ago from the first Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data.” OK how come none of the proper scientists have got the stones to stand up and say that?
Maybe the proper pay check scientists have already done all the possible analyses on all of the data but they just don’t like to tell anyone the results.
It’s self evident that Mr Eschenbach has an ego easily large enough to power a medium sized city but unfortunately for Spencer et al he also has the brains and wedding tackle to match it.
I urge Mr Eschenbach to keep calm and carry on.
General P. Malaise says:
October 9, 2013 at 2:50 pm
Hey, people are complex. Roy has done very important work, and has been transparent and clear in his science. I respect that, even if he does attack me.
w.
What is the definition of a citizen scientist?
Really interesting Willis, thanks!
I think that you would be really interested in some recent research that I have come across about crowds and citizen science. In particular I feel you may find these two emerging pieces of research very relevant:
– The Theory of Crowd Capital
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2193115
– The Contours of Crowd Capability
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2324637
Powerful stuff!
Citizen Climate Scientist. Professional Climate Scientist. Both are Climate Scientists.
I always enjoy your posts Willis & think you are really onto something with your emergent phenomena thermostat idea. That being said, I think Joanne Simpson’s early work on clouds as heat pipes is quite similar to your thesis (& I think it supports it). I’d give you the link, but it was on a NASA site and that seems to be down currently.
Ken says:
October 9, 2013 at 3:08 pm
Ken, I would have had no problem with his accusations if they had been cited and referenced. They were neither. The accusation about Ramanathan was ludicrous, and other than that, he didn’t give one single example of the ignorance and plagiarism he accused me of.
In addition to it being good science to cite the previous work that he claims I either don’t know about or am stealing from, it’s downright nasty to accuse a man of malfeasance without giving one damn example to back up the accusation. How on earth can I defend myself against such vague nastiness?
w.
mcourtney at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/09/dr-roy-spencers-ill-considered-comments-on-citizen-science/#comment-1442136
i accept the the comment relating to the low quality journals vs the high quality journals. i believe this is down to the quality of the scientists that submit to them.this in turn leads me to believe the quality of the scientists in climate science is rather low.
i have a background in industrial ceramics and have worked with scientists in developing materials and processes.in every instance i had complete confidence in the ability of those scientists as they demonstrated not only correct knowledge,but also ability.
quite possibly the fact climate science is in its infancy and suffers from a real lack of solid evidence has lead to the debacle we face today, however, the level of confidence placed in its output by major world governments is far from justified,and i am mystified as to why members of the traditional science communities have not been more outspoken against what is going on.
as to your final comment : The as yet unanswered question is how important and skilful are the readership of WUWT.
only time will tell,but i will hazard a bet no less skilful than the climate science community 🙂
Rud Istvan ,i am sure i will enjoy your books. i will make a point of searching them out.
“C’mon, folks! Do you really think that of the billions of dollars spent on designing, launching, and keeping these satellite instruments going, that no one thought to analyze the data? Really? That’s why hundreds of scientists and engineers collaborated on such projects in the first place! ”
Roy Spencer
Then up pops Willis, who does it for fun on his own and offers an analysis and some conclusions into the public arena before they choose to, or are allowed to?
I am hoping it is just sour grapes from RS , anything else is quiet worrying.
Alan Millar says:
October 9, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Very well said. What really rankles me is that the most generous description of Spencer’s effort against the citizen scientist is that he is trying to pull rank. That is disgusting in itself. However, Spencer works in a field where quite some so-called scientists and quite a few others have tried to pull rank, tried to throw in the kitchen sink, and tried just about everything under the sun to ensure that no one does any empirical science, that all the science is top down from radiation theory, and that we are forever stuck with global averages and statistical magic.
Theo Goodwin: Your brilliantly expressed observation of the top-down science and statistical magic bloody well applies to all of modern physics. Just replace “radiation theory” with whatever it is that people were awarded Nobel prizes for during the last 70 years or so. Spot on.
Mardler says:
October 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm
“Pity it entered the public arena whoever started it. May be best to have a private conversation with Roy asap, Willis.”
The shoe is on the other foot. Read Willis’ post.
Hi Willis, whilst agreeing that Dr Roy’s choice of words left a great deal to be desired, I thought I’d share a personal observation on dust devils. You mentioned them in passing saying, “Typically they live for a (sic) some seconds to minutes, and then disappear.” I agree with you here as well. There are, however, some very atypical dust devils!
I grew up in Eastern Washington State, which, due to the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains, is quite dry in the summer. Large portions of the state are, in fact, desert.
It was not atypical for dust devils to form during the day and last for several hours. They could be seen miles away as they pulled dust from the ground and ejected it from the top of the maelstrom. This resulted in a yellow-brown plume, situated well above ground, extending several miles downwind from the dust devil. They were largely stationary, perhaps moving so slowly that it was not apparent to the naked eye. They seemed to prefer plowed fields absent of vegetation. This made sense to me as vegetation would inhibit the localized ground heating necessary for their formation.
Thought you might enjoy a respite from the emotional maelstrom with a bit of observation on maelstroms….
Thanks for all your fine posts and keep up the good work!