Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
When a scientist’s work is revealed as wrong, the reason is rarely an issue. The error is identified and corrected by the author Unfortunately, that is not always the case with climate science errors. Often the question is whether it is a matter of incompetence or malfeasance? Either way there is a problem for an accurate advance of science. Normally, a simple determination is that a single mistake is probably incompetence, but a series of mistakes is more likely to be malfeasance. However, again in climate science, that doesn’t always apply because a single major error to establish a false premise to predetermine the result can occur. Usually, this is exposed when the perpetrator refuses to acknowledge the error.
All these issues were inevitable when a political agenda coopted climate science. Two words, “skeptic” and consensus”, illustrate the difference between politics and science in climate research. All scientists are and must be skeptics, but they are troublemakers for the general public. Science is not about consensus, but it is very important in politics. As a result of these and other differences, the climate debate occurs in two different universes.
A major challenge for those fighting the manipulations of the IPCC and politicians using climate change for political platforms is that the public cannot believe that scientists would be anything less than completely open and truthful. They cannot believe that scientists would even remain silent even when science is misused. The politicians exploit this trust in science and scientists, which places science in jeopardy. It also allowed the scientific malfeasance of climate science to be carried out in the open.
A particularly egregious exploitation was carried out through science societies and professional scientific groups. They were given the climate science of the IPCC and urged to support it on behalf of their members. Certainly a few were part of the exploitation, but a majority, including most of the members simply assumed that the rigorous methods of research and publication in their science were used. Lord May of the UK Royal Society was influential in the manipulation of public perception through national scientific societies. They persuaded other national societies to become involved by making public statements. The Russian Academy of Science, under its President Yuri Israel, refused to participate. At a United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) 2005 climate meeting he was put in his place.
“The Russian scientist was immediately and disrespectfully admonished by the chair and former IPCC chief Sir John Houghton for being far too optimistic. Such a moderate proposal was ridiculous since it was “incompatible with IPCC policy”.
Israel, a Vice-chair of the IPCC, knew what he was talking about from the scientific and political perspective.
Politics and science of human-caused climate change became parallel through the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The political framework evolved as Agenda 21, and the science framework evolved through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (Figure 1).
Figure 1
The challenge was to control the science by bending it to the political agenda, which had the effect of guaranteeing scientific conflict; these created inevitable points of conflict that forced reaction.
The first was in the definition of climate change given to the IPCC in Article 1 of the UNFCCC. It limited them to considering only human causes of change.
Climate change means a change of climate, which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable periods of time.
Because of the political agenda people were allowed to believe the IPCC were studying climate change in total. The reality is you cannot determine human causes of change if you do not know or understand natural causes. The forcing diagrams used in early IPCC science Reports illustrate the narrowness (Figure 1) and its limitations.
FIGURE 1: Source, AR4
They identify nine forcings and claim a “high” level of scientific understanding (LOSU – last column) for only two of eleven. Of course, this is their assessment.
Most people, including most of the media don’t know that the science reports exist. This is because the Summary for Policymakers Report is released with great fanfare months ahead of the science report. As David Wojick, IPCC expert reviewer explained:
Glaring omissions are only glaring to experts, so the “policymakers”—including the press and the public—who read the SPM will not realize they are being told only one side of a story. But the scientists who drafted the SPM know the truth, as revealed by the sometimes artful way they conceal it.
…
What is systematically omitted from the SPM are precisely the uncertainties and positive counter evidence that might negate the human interference theory. Instead of assessing these objections, the Summary confidently asserts just those findings that support its case. In short, this is advocacy, not assessment.
Actions speak louder than words. Some of us started pointing to the limitations and predetermination of the results created by the original definition of climate change. As Voltaire said, “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.” Typically, the IPCC people listened, but only to offset not deal with the problem. Quietly, as a Footnote in the Summary for Working Group I AR4 Report they changed the definition of climate change.
“Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.”
It is a convenient comment to counter those who challenge the original definition, but little else. If it was true AR5 should be very different. For example, it should refer to the Milankovitch and Svensmark Effects and include them in their computer models. It is not possible to make it true because the original structure of the IPCC and its Reports was cumulative. Each Report simply updated the original material that was restricted by the original definition. The only way they could make the new definition correct is to scrap all previous work and start over.
When science operates properly this wouldn’t happen. Predictions of the first IPCC Report (1990) were wrong. Normally that forces a reexamination of the science. Instead, in the 1995 Report they changed predictions to projections and continued with the same seriously limiting definition. The entire IPCC exercise was a deliberate deception to achieve a predetermined, required, science result for the political agenda. It is not science at all.
If an honest man is wrong, after demonstrating that he is wrong, he either stops being wrong or he stops being honest. Anonymous
I am guessing the chart’s display of greenhouse gas (such as with CO2) forcing includes proposed water vapor increase due to increased CO2 causing greater evaporation from ocean and land surfaces. Direct forcing without water vapor increase is much less. I’ll see if there is a link to this line of thought that includes calculations between the two conditions: greenhouse gas (IE CO2) alone compared to other forcings, and greenhouse gas with water vapor increase compared to other forcings.
I think one of the reasons for the proposed deep ocean heat absorption proposal is that water vapor has not increased as theorized. So instead of causing increased evaporation, the heat is doing something else. And it is doing something else in a part of the Earth’s systems we can’t measure. That would point to, by elimination, the deep ocean. Basically: Wild-ass guess.
What is the travesty here is that AGW scientists are using wild-ass guesses presented as serious research and it is getting past peer-review and into high-end journals. Which circles us back to the stench of pseudo-research scams versus mistaken theories.
[Heinlein], in his ‘devil’ theory of sociology, warns “Do not attribute conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity”.
The distinction becomes clear when the perpetrator reacts to the revelation of his errors. Stupidity yields to enlightenment. Villainy does not.
A fool will hang onto a wrong idea for one of two reasons. Either he has an unrevealed motive for wanting others to believe the wrong idea (i.e. “the lie”), or he simply cannot accept his own fallibility.
The former is a knave, and should be publicly shamed. The latter is a fool, and should not be heeded.
Stupidity sounds like a convenient excuse. They didn’t want to know. Still guilty.
Oops! Make that “Heinlein, as in Robert A.
[snip – sorry, don’t put words in our mouth not said -mod]
“We call it riding the gravy train”
The sad part is that there are those that prefer to be part of the political solution based on the fact that “baby, that IS where the money is.” You can be a good scientist, do the studies and realize that the public and policy makers are being duped, but unless you prefer to work as a stall cleaner at the race track, you are in no position to say anything, for “politics” pays the bills, not “being correct.” Thus you have no choice but to compromise yourself, or cease having a job in the field that you studied. And frankly, working in the field you studied will pay back those “student loans” faster than cleaning stalls at the local race track. Truth may be the first victim, but integrity is a close second.
Authoritarians bent on totalitarian rule always insist that the “truth” is simply what ever they say it is. If they say that co2 causes warming and must be “stopped”, then that is simply the way it is. If you question this arrangement you are questioning their authority to rule you and their power to destroy you; science has nothing to do with it.
It is a racket. The same scientists who produce the IPCC “assessment reports” that lead to UNFCCC recommendations get paid to implement those recommendations by their home countries as consultants to the government (Example: University of East Anglia influential in IPCC assessment, which leads to UNFCCC policy recommendations. Tyndall Centre is then conrtacted by DEFRA in the UK to implement UNFCCC recommendations — and Tyndall Centre is — University of East Anglia). So the actions of those who sit in the IPCC panel bring cash into the university.
In fact, I believe they tried setting up the same sort of circular scam in the US but got caught out on it by the emails that were released.
Another solar cell fail! Solar impulse lost it’s pulse. Clouds -water vapor!
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32955880
If the pilot has to ditch it in the Atlantic, maybe the Kayak 4 Earth guy can rescue him. Wouldn’t that be great.
What is the carbon-footprint of this project?
Moving a team of dozens of technicians and supports staff and tons of hardware around the world has surely guzzled several swimming pools worth of aviation fuel.
It may only be a proof of concept. But, what is that concept? Is it that you can get generous funding for any project, no matter how absurd, providing that you dress it up as green and clean willful and blind optimism.
Having said all that, I quite like the engineering, design and dedication.
Shame about the bullcrap.
It’s BS anyway; I’m willing to bet they take off with fully charged batteries which are full of filthy fossil fuelled electricity. I can’t imagine that when the plane lands they just leave it outside for a few days to recharge the batteries. The average speed on the aborted leg they have just flown was 48km/h (30mph); only 6,500km left to go to Hawaii (5 days and 16 hours at 30mph).
Like Amundsen and the North West Passage, it’ll probably end up taking more than one year.
IPCC fudged science cannot and does not change what did and did not cause the warming in the last 150 years. The big climate change surprise for the media and public will be the magnitude and rapidity of cooling which has started.
I am curious what the public and media reaction will be when they ‘discover’ the planet is abruptly cooling and that scientists have know there is cyclic climate change and cyclic abrupt climate change in the paleo record for roughly 15 years.
Solar observations continue to support the assertion that the solar cycle has been interrupted. Antarctic sea ice is now the highest in recorded history (satellite), two sigma above the average for each and every month of the year.
The Greenland Ice Sheet yearly spring melt is roughly 1 month late, compared to the 1990 to 2011 mean. Greenland ice sheet snowfall has been above the 1990 to 2011 average for all months this winter. Greenland Ice Sheet temperatures dropped 2C last winter.
http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
This is significant as this is a complete reversal of Greenland ice sheet warming in the last 20 years. Multi-year Arctic sea ice has increased and total Arctic sea ice volume has increased.
The regions of the planet that warmed in the last 150 years (high latitude regions) are the same regions of the planet that warmed in the past during a Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycle.
The climate cycles in the paleo record come in a small, medium, and super large version. The small cycle such as the Little Ice age or Medieval warming period is called a D-O cycle, the medium cycle (8200 year before present cooling event) does not have a name, and the super large cycle which can terminate an interglacial period which is called a Heinrich event (the last Heinrich event was the Younger Dryas 11,900 year before present abrupt cooling ‘event’ that lasted for 1200 years, during the 11,900 BP year abrupt cooling event the planet went from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 75% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade). It is known that solar magnetic changes correlate with all of the past warming and cooling cycles.
The late Gerald Bond found that the ‘Bond’ cycles have an average periodicity of 1470 years (typically rounded up to 1500 years) and has able to track 23 cycles (Bond Cycles) which is the limit of the proxy resolution in the ocean floor sediment. The fact that that the Bond cycles occur in both interglacial periods and glacial periods and maintain the same periodicity in both interglacial periods and glacial periods indicates an external forcing function is causing the Bond cycles. It is the sun.
The Antarctic Peninsula ice core data shows 342 warming and cooling cycles over the last 240,000 years with the same periodicity of 1500 years as found in the Northern Hemisphere. The fact that there is warming and cooling of both hemispheres with the same periodicity provides further support that the forcing function is cyclic changes to the sun which in turn cause changes in cloud coverage and cloud properties.
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256
William: Latitude and longitude of Svalbard (Longyearbyen)
78.2167° N, 15.6333° E Svalbard Longyearbyen, Coordinates
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
Dr. Ball,
You’ve written many good articles but this one seems to concisely nail the root of the problem especially well.
Lord Monckton has weighed in on this question, calling for fraud investigations of people using public funds to produce fradulent science. But the governments whose responsibility it is to investigate fraud also want these fradulent results to justify their expansive policies, and if fraud is proven, they’ll be exposed as part of the scam.
President Eisenhower warned of the corruption of science by government financing in his farewell speech, and the great Global Warming hoax has been the worst example I’m history.
The pause will be deeper and more pronounced the better the measurement of current conditions becomes.
Because global warming has been a fraud from inception. Top to bottom. From Arrhenius to Rahmstorf.
Tim – Glad you brought up scientific deception because global temperature monopolies, namely GISS-NCDC-HadCRUT, are on a huge binge falsifying global temperature records. They have been doing it since the beginning of the satellite era in 1979 and still are into it, How do I know? I discovered it in 2008 while doing research for my book “What Warming?” The major result of this deception is to cover up the lack of warming in the eighties and nineties with a false warming called “late twentieth century warming.” My work showed that there had been no warming at all from 1979 to 1997, an 18 year stretch. It is shown as figure 15 in my book that came out in 2010. It compares in length to the current hiatus we are living through now. What I observed in fact was a hiatus that existed before the word for it was even invented. I put a warning about the deception into the preface of the book but nothing happened, no response at all. You will probably wonder why I am so sure about it. I an sure because the lack of warming in the eighties and nineties is self-calibrating. As it happens, ENSO was active at the same time and produced a clearly defined wave train consisting of five El Nino peaks with La Nina valleys in between. To determine the global mean temperature in such a case you start by putting a dot in the middle of a line connecting an El Nino peak with its nearest La Nina valley. Justification for this is the fact that the wave train was produced as a result of an harmonic oscillation of ocean water in the equatorial Pacific that is reflected in atmospheric temperature variations we record. Connecting the dots will then give you global mean temperature trend. When I put yellow dots in these locations I saw that they formed a horizontal straight line, indicating no warming during this period. This is shown by a horizontal blue line fitted to the dots in figure 15. Anyone can repeat this with a publicly available temperature record if they want to convince themselves. To do it right, follow directions in my book. What follows from this lack of warming? Nothing in particular if you take it in isolation as I did for years. But combine it with the hiatus we are living through now and the lack of warming extends to cover most of the satellite era. The only parts of it not covered by one or the other of the two hiatuses are the super El Nino if 1998 and a short step warming from 1999 to 2002. Neither one of these is a greenhouse product. From this it follows that that there can be no greenhouse warming at all during the entire satellite era. Therefore,
THE GREENHOUSE THEORY OF GLOBAL WARMING IS DEAD.
I must write an article about it but your blog is the first one to get this message.
I posted this before, but in essence, what we have here is Alchemy reloaded.
See: https://librivox.org/the-story-of-alchemy-by-m-m-pattison-muir/ for how this kind of thing works, and how consensus and secrecy can deceive a lot of smart people for a very long time.
Think of what kind of steps would be needed to correct all the errors this time round — back then, eventually, Chemistry won out in the end, but it was not as simple as it ought to have been. Neither will this one be.
good article Dr. Ball To commenters on this thread: The best way that the truth is hidden is in a plausible story. Because it is a plausible story many will wrap themselves in it and defend it as though it was their idea!
Normative Science
It is easy — and wrong — for scientists to become stealth policy advocates
http://oregonstate.edu/terra/2013/01/normative-science/
http://tinyurl.com/nen48e8
http://tinyurl.com/ouarvnd
Then Dr. Tim Ball answers his question in his concluding paragraph,
– – – – – –
Dr. Tim Ball’s answer to his question is that the IPCC organization and its processes constitute a well-organized opaque plan to create act[s] or statement[s] intended to make people believe something that is not true**.
I ask one question of those agreeing with Dr Tim Ball’s post. Why? Why would someone or some group make such a plan? I ask it sincerely and not rhetorically.
** that italicized passage is the definition of the word ‘deception’.
John
John: There are two answers
The first if for fame and money and influence, attracting attention to an obscure branch of weather reporting without much visibility. Those as the cannon fodder people paid for their petty crimes against all logic and common sense. They are a dime a dozen in academia.
The second is the desire by some to overcome the poor framing of the UN Charter in 1948 to deliver to the world a better conceived political framework, something akin to a global federation, that places global problems under the aegis of some representative, global governance mechanism. To pretend we do not have global problems is pointless – the question is how to solve them. The EU model will not work (where everyone has a veto) because it is not democratic at all.
The UN was created to prevent wars between the major powers and in that regard it has been success. It cannot, however, prevent war. That is its major failing. We deserve better. Those with the ‘upper hand’ like the present arrangement or are at least willing to put up with it. A lot of, particularly young, people are not.
The idealism of youth will provide motivation and energy to ideals of the age. Getting together to prevent some imminent catastrophe is a good ideal. Blaming mankind for it opens all manner of doors to opportunities for funding and control.
Until mankind establishes some mechanism for addressing common threats, such as extremes of wealth and poverty, there will be huge conflicts. Young people are fed up with the stupidity of the concept of perpetual war and do not see it as a future they want to be part of. The same persisted in the 60’s. Boomers have little real interest in perpetuating the idiocy of the 20th century military-industrial complex.
The conflict about things like climate (it could easily have been something else) is rooted in the desire to have a world in which there is a lot more peace and harmony. Preventing war is not soft and fuzzy, it is rule-bound and punitive for those who do not toe the line. Some countries want the freedom to conduct wars where and when the feel it is needed (for a variety of reasons). The ‘victim countries’ disagree. They see economic exploitation as a form of war made against them. They are getting poorer and more desperate. This is a deliberate policy of some nations.
Desperate people are dangerous. Whatever cause will come along and promise them solidarity and sympathy will get support, no matter how crazy and how baseless are its assertions, as long as it promises to stop the insane roundabout of domination, frustration and war. So after the climate scam is uprooted, another will take its place and this will continue until the people of the world have a secure, permanent place at the global table. That is only going to happen with some form of federation that secures their interests. Vested interests, criminals, rogue state leaders and scofflaw corporations don’t like that, so the struggle continues.
John, the simple answer is greed and power. Government pays for scientific papers that prove their is a problem so scientists will lie to get paid. Government then uses those papers to take more control to fix the “problem”. It is a self perpetuating method for people to justify their existence. I know this probably makes me sound like a conspiracy but but IMO its just part of human nature to be inclined toward greed. It’s misplaced ambition.
No.
CFACT has a petition on its website protesting censorship of climate science, beginning with
“Don’t Censor Climate Speech!
Freedom of thought and expression are fundamental rights.
Yet those who advocate the theory of catastrophic man-made global
warming are seeking to censor the opinions of scientists and experts
with whom they disagree.
They are attacking the reputations and careers of scientists and
using fear and intimidation to block meaningful dialogue about the
climate and prevent the public from seeing scientific data and
alternative explanations that contradict their claims.”
I’ve gotten a ‘500-internal server error’ when I submitted it since yesterday. I submitted CFACT’s contact form yesterday. This could be a CFACT server issue, but I figured it was on topic to acknowledge deliberate interference. Has anyone successfully submitted this petition? Has CFACT stopped collecting signatures? I want to make sure there are as many as possible.
dumb mistake above – the link I omitted here:
https://secure.giveworks.net/cfact/free_climate_speech_int
I wonder if we’ll have to come up with a new word for science. Liberals co-opted the word liberal, and people invented the word libertarian to mean what liberal used to mean. Government money has so thoroughly corrupted scientists in not only climate, but medicine, nutrition and even physics to the point where science in its most common use means political and financially motivated pseudo-science. Maybe we need a new word.
I am partial to the phrase “natural philosophy”. That is where we do not have the means to perform actual experiments to test an hypothesis, but have to work through the problem in a logical and orderly manner, using discussion in place of experiments. This would be applicable to our many proxy measurements, and to the work of historical geology and astrophysics. Some science is simply not amenable to doing a specific experiment, yet is still valid science.
In contrast to that, we could perhaps start using the phrase “experimental science” to denote science which does use hands-on experiments to test an hypothesis, publishes both data and experimental method, and encourages other researchers to attempt to duplicate the experiments. This could also help to separate out the hard sciences from the squishy sciences (squishy not meant to be derogatory, but simply indicating that something like medicine is often more of an art than a science).
I have even thought that our National Laboratories could be best used as a sounding board, by being funded to do these duplicate experiments before the original publication, thus providing a true peer review system which not only looks at the verbiage and data, but also looks at the laboratory equipment setup, and carries out independent verification of results.
‘when a political agenda coopted climate science. ‘
I think that the case can be made that some in climate ‘science ‘ already had a political agenda , you only have to read the saving the planet BS along with the inronically anti-sceince approch of defaming ‘deniers’ to see this in action.
Although for some it was a political agenda , along with much better career prospects than otherwise possible for poor work , that was the attraction .
So I would say it more of a two way street .
A statement I found in a Forbes article from last year put the corn to ethanol issue into perspective for me. “The grain required to fill a 25-gallon gas tank with ethanol can feed one person for a year, so the amount of corn used to make that 13 billion gallons of ethanol will not feed the almost 500 million people it was feeding in 2000. This is the entire population of the Western Hemisphere outside of the United States.”
Ethanol advocates say so what, we can produce enough corn for both. True for now, but if the mandates increase, we won’t be able to produce enough, and the cost will escalate too.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/04/20/its-final-corn-ethanol-is-of-no-use/
How many gallons of oil does it take to grow and process grain and distribute enough ethanol to fill a 25 gallon tank?