Josh writes:
On this historic Brexit day the fun has not been confined to this continent. Over in the US they have had a ‘hearing’ on Climate Science with three of the world’s most eminent climate scientists. Michael Mann was there too.
The Hearing- Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. On the Panel were Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. John Christy. Dr. Michael Mann, and Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.
Worth watching (nearly) the whole thing.
Josh
Added: links to written testimony are within each name. – Anthony
Witnesses
President, Climate Forecast Applications Network; Professor Emeritus, Georgia Institute of Technology
Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama at Huntsville; State Climatologist, Alabama
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Pennsylvania State University; Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC), Pennsylvania State University
Professor, Environmental Studies Department, University of Colorado
UPDATE: From Marc Morano at Climate Depot
AP’s Borenstein calls out Michael Mann for a whopper: ‘Mann said he didn’t call Curry a denier. But in his written testimony he called Curry ‘a climate science denier’
Associated Press:
At first Mann said he didn’t call Curry a denier. But in his written not oral testimony he called Curry “a climate science denier.” Mann said there’s a difference between denying climate change and “denying established science” on how much humans cause climate change, which he said Curry did.
[Also see: Warmist Michael Mann tells whopper at congressional science hearing?]
AP:
Mann and Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California both compared the other side’s behavior to the former Soviet Union under Josef Stalin. Mann first raised the Stalin analogy, then Rohrabacher used the comparison four times after that to talk about Mann and other mainstream climate scientists. “For scientists to call names to beat someone into submission, that’s a Stalinist tactic,” Rohrabacher said.
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Good god Mann is derranged!
I can’t understand how they can sit there listening to M. Mann without wanting to cause him some damage. He is such an A-h***
It’s worth looking at the comments on Facebook, where this video has been posted for a while. Thousands of them, two or three coming in every second, and all of them negative.
Strangely, they all seem deeply worried about the fact that Congress is listening to the “deniers”. Not one of them seems at all concerned about the coming environmental apocalypse itself – in fact you would almost think they welcomed it!
Did anyone else notice how tiny MM’s hands are?
No – only how tiny his arguments are.
I haven’t seen Mann in action before. Is he so used to equivocating, dissembling, generalizing, evading the question and simple ad hominem argumentation that he feels no compunction about outright LYING to Congress? Does he get away with this regularly? (1:54:50, but just pick any of his answers, practically).
correction: Oops…not “Congress”, but House Committee.
Notable during the hearing was application by left leaning politicians of the equivocation aka bait and switch fallacy featuring a change in the meaning of the term “science” or a form of this term in the midst of an argument. By the definition of terms, an argument of this kind is an example of an equivocation. While an equivocation looks like a syllogism it isn’t one. Thus, while it is logically proper to draw a conclusion from a syllogism it is logically improper to draw a conclusion from a syllogism. To draw such a conclusion is the equivocation fallacy. Through frequent use of this fallacy leftists strive to dress up their pseudoscience to look like a legitimate science.
I am considered nasty, opinionated and a bully by many of my enemies and more than a few of my friends … Mr. Mann gives us nasty, opinionated bullies a true role model to aspire too in our interactions with fellow human beings … I am truly awed by his ability to see every question or critique as a personal attack and respond in kind but with the volume turned up to 11 … I really have to work on my game if I ever hope to rise to his level of nasty, vindictive vitriol …
Your humility in the face of a true master does you great credit.
Curry in particular is very cautions and scientific–“we don’t understand things well enough to rule that out”. Mann has no qualms about spouting unproved and impossible- to- quantify certainty. I wish he would be asked provide the calculations for his odds of recent warming being all anthropogenic.
Wow, when he’s lost Borenstein…he’s toast.
@TO
… it is logically proper to draw a conclusion from a syllogism it is logically improper to draw a conclusion from a syllogism
Say again?
Listening to Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson 81 at the beginning of the session, I had concerns about her understanding of the subject matter, in spite of her background in healthcare, but to offer the Union of Concerned Scientists as a reference clinched it for me. A person has to know their statute of limitations.
As for that poisonous dwarf Mann, the sooner the jumped up little squirt gets Steynrollered, the better. QED.
Watching Mann now . What a dangerous bozo . Repeated his quote I included in the slide below :
http://cosy.com/Science/QuantTrumpsQual.jpg
I continue to find it astounding that the most fundamental non-optional quantitative experimental observable Laws of radiant heat transfer are outside the ken of almost all “climate scientists” involved in all sides of the debates .
A common core (;-) of universally agreed , experimentally measurable quantitative computable expressions , ie : equations is desperately needed .
Where is the brilliant YouTube showing how to calculate and verify the equilibrium temperature of a billiard ball under a sun lamp ?
One of the best climate presentations ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHFfOOF-6Fs
Extra Extra Read All About It-Michael E. Mann admits on camera during live House hearing yesterday that humans are directly responsible for only 0.2 C of warming!!! (plus or minus whatever the margin of error is…anyone….anyone? Margin of error in HadCRUT4 measurements?)
Yesterday during a House hearing on Capital Hill, Michael E Mann brought forth a chart that suspiciously stops prior to the year 2000, which supposedly demonstrates the historical temperature of Earth from reconstructions and the HadCRUT4 temperature record added at the end. Had the data up until 2017 been added to the chart, it would have shown a significant stablizing/dropping trend in the data since 1999-
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20and%20TropicsSST.gif
Mann’s chart’s Y axis is divided into incredibly FRIGHTENING increments of 0.2 tenths of a degree Celcius.
At the same hearing, Michael E Mann also insisted repeatedly, and vehemently, that he agrees with the IPCC, who have stated with all the certainty that the word “likely” implies, that it is “likely” that at least 50% of the warming experienced globally since 1950 is the direct result of human influence.
Using Mann’s own chart then, the human race has LIKELY been responsible for HALF of a global temperature increase of 0.4 C. Yes, that’s right. Even after all those hundreds of gigatons of CO2 and other nasty (but naturally occurring gases etc) that humans are responsible for putting into our atmosphere for the past 50 years AND are continuing to put into it, the rate of human induced warming is a mere 0.2C (or 0.36 F).
Mann’s chart can be seen at 1:42:14 in the video for comparison.
I was disappointed to fact they did not talk more about carbon dioxide and the very small concentration make up of the atmosphere could cause warming and to what degree?Also nobody mentioned what percentage of the 0.04% is from human activity?
Mr Mann’s chart shows quite a bit of natural variability in earth’s temperature since the year 1000. In fact, it shows MORE warming, and cooling, in short amounts of time-say 50-100 years. For example in the “green” analysis, from 1300-1350 (ish) shows an increase in temps of 0.4 C without any human emissions to cause the problem. And in Mann’s own BLUE chart line, it happens repeatedly!! If he’s “all about the physics” then his own physics prove that Earth’s temperatures fluctuated in the exact same time frame, and to the same degree, in the past that they have since the industrial era.
What a thin skin MM is. Slags everyone! Curry is now a “climate science denier” but not a climate change denier???? Quotes Pielke on his extreme weather events studies and when quoted back wants to see the “context”. I just hope thir Mann/Steyne thing gets an airing pretty soon.
Oh Mark Steyn will fillet him like a catfish and fry him cajun style! If Mann gets flustered when elected officials who aren’t quite sure how to ask certain questions approach him, he’s going to end up passing out when Mark Steyn gets ahold of him. And now Steyn can add several more instances when Mann has perjured himself, lied, and evaded direct questions from US Government Officials to his VAST repertoire on Mann!
I was about to say thanks until I started reading it. He must be really regretting taking on Steyn!
Nanker-
“I was about to say thanks until I started reading it”
My post or Mann’s 2015 “odds” paper? 🙂
I just want someone to ask him about the precise steps he took in MBH98 where he “hid the decline” so he can spell out in front of congress exactly what he did…because I’m quite certain that 97% of scientists would agree that truncating the divergent data and splicing on the temperature record to do the smooth would be seen for what it is…
All of that should come out in the discovery phase of the trial. Steyn gets to ask the court to make Mann cough up his research data and his methods and explain it all to the judge because all of those things are what lead Steyn to call him a fraud. He can use Manns tweets, congressional testimonies, emails, etc anything related to his research or papers that indicate fraudulent behavior.
Not ONE person from the scientific community to offer their support or agreement with Mann in the form of amicus curiae. Not one. Wonder why…
Ms Esty killed the “deniers”, who agreed that there was a significant chance (maybe not 50%) that in fact humans contribute significantly to global warming. Also, Curry (and by their silence, every one of the scientists) agreed that there was no problem with having every Government department doing climate research. Specifically, NASA, which originally was created to do aeronautical and space research, should be building satellites to research climate issues. As should NOAA, but of course, they will leave the development of boosters to NASA. (Why? Access to space is important! Why shouldn’t they also develop their own boosters?) No one denied that if there was the slightest chance that we’d all see the planet burn up due to AGCW. Conclusion: then we should throw all manner of money at climate science.
No one discussed Beyer’s point that the error between measured and model predictions was a mere 0.5 degrees. Never mind that the difference between the hottest year on record and the coldest was only slightly more, at 0.6 degrees – also a trifle. (Using the charts presented.) Conclusion: the models are spot on!
I’ll give Smith credit for calling Mann out (with Mann’s own published statements) for applying the denier epithet to Dr. Curry, at the least. Louderman did an excellent job of cornering Mann as clearly a denier that there was no way the models could be wrong.
The CAGW crew did an outstanding job of twisting language and logic. There is not a chance in hell that any fascist would be anything but ecstatic over the way this hearing went. Mayor of Venus was very correct that Curry, Christy, and Pielke are among the 97%, but not in the way that 97% is represented by Orestes.
I personally believe not only in climate change, but that over any 100 year period, we are (or should be) warming – slightly. Only a quirk of nature would keep that from happening, until we begin descending into the next ice age, which will be devastating if we haven’t figured out how to use energy sources (non-wind/solar) to keep us, our livestock, and our crops warm. Nevertheless, if I hadn’t been around when scientists were trying to figure out if CO2 would cool or warm the planet, seen the previous periods where there were calls to Government to step in and save us from hell/ice ball, I would have awarded this debate to CAGW. </b?
KK,
You failed to consider that it is beyond the remit of the witnesses present to opine on which agency should or should not do further work on a particular aspect. Dr Curry in particular noted a few broad areas where some scientists considered further research was needed. The mechanics of how this would be done is not for her to say. She answered the relevant questions as put, immediately and positively.
Ms Esty’s contribution meant nothing at all. It is pointless to argue how much change is natural and how much is anthropogenic, because to date NOBODY has published a method to attribute these portions. Indeed, at a fundamental level, NOBODY has published a definitive, agreed paper on the parameter of climate sensitivity and its value. The option is still open that CS is zero for the earth system, whereas it is not zero if one considers only the front end of the process, namely the interaction of radiation with gases that absorb radiation. It is simply misleading to state that because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the atmosphere will heat when radiation enters it. Radiation also leaves the system. The balance of incoming versus outgoing is of interest.
You claim that the models are spot on. Even Blind Freddy can look at any of a number of graphical presentations to find that this is not the case. You might take into account that in the CMIP exercises, various labs select one or more computer runs that they then submit for statistical comparison with other labs. Statistics involves sampling a population. When sampling is done subjectively, some to all of the validity of then using statistics is lost. It is just another form of cherry picking. So it does not matter if the models are spot on or way off the mark, because they are fundamentally invalid because of subjective input and later selection. Then the use of averaging to get a view of the combined input of the tens of participating CMIP labs is childish, mathematically invalid and practically without scientific meaning – especially when very expensive policy decisions are based on this invalid procedure.
It is time for climate work to pull its socks up and stop dragging down the standard of science in general.
One could go on. One shall not.
Dr Mann showed the negative value of talking too much.
Geoff
I agree with all you said, as you have been a follower of climate science in general, and clearly anti-CAGW. I’m concerned with how it looks to someone who is relatively new to the argument. Mind you, trying to see something from a neutral POV is truly impossible, and I freely admit that I may be over-empathizing. It disturbs me to see otherwise rational people, with STEM degrees, backing CAGW. As a manager of other aerospace engineers, I was distressed with how many of them – some with advanced degrees – bought the religion wholeheartedly. I felt this hearing would not shake them in the least.
KK, I agree.with all you say. I had no dog in this fight until accidentally discovered a deliberately misleading NRDC Congressional breifing in 2011. Nothing good since, but is complicated.
So this thread absent context is difficult. But not impossible.
“Conclusion: then we should throw all manner of money at climate science.”
Including a portion to a Red Team, per Curry.
If Curry’s (and Pielke’s, Christy’s) recommendation was followed – fine. But that part will be omitted. Ms Esty will only parade their agreement to maintaining current expenditures, with the implication that it should continue going to CAGW scientists – like Mann.
I remember reading Bish’s book Hockey Stick Illusion where we learned that M Mann defended his bad statistical analysis by saying he wasn’t an statistics person. Then later when McIntyre asked him to collect new tree data to fix the issues on that front he said he wasn’t a data collection guy or that it was too difficult and expensive to go get the tree data. So McIntyre went and did it himself on some random weekend. And I’m thinking: well if you aren’t any good at collecting data and you can’t handle processes to process that data, what the hell ARE you bringing to the table? Is there any other aspect of this research I’m missing?
I had to re listen to MM. I would love to see the calculation that shows there is a 1:10,000 chance that under half of climate change is caused by man!!! I haven’t heard this claim before.
Nankerphelge:
I suspect it comes from here:
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep19831
I stopped reading after Monte Carlo and “semi-empirical” and “model simulations”. But its weird because didn’t he say during his testimony that the IPCC had calculated those odds? Did we catch him in yet another lie?
“…..The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) was identified by Schlesinger and Ramankutty in 1994….”. That is from Wikipedia but they are well known researchers.Maybe Michael Mann got his Nobel Prize for not naming it????
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/08/mann-and-coining-the-amo-and-claims-of-credit/
Schlesinger and Ramankutty discovered the phenomenon in 1994. hen other scientists began studying it. Dick Kerr, a science writer, was interviewing Mann over the phone about a recent paper on this topic, and since giving it a name made it easier to write about it, KERR suggested “AMO”. Of course, Mann decided to take credit for that as well. I loved how he brought up such an insignificant thing-as “coining a name”-for a well known natural phenomenon (which he did not do) today in testimony as if it somehow impacted Judith Curry’s own research somehow.
It is a strange thing to “claim” something that can be disproved readily. Goes to the psyche methinks.
So much has been wasted trying to prevent the inevitable rather than preparing for the inevitable.
Changing weather and climate are inevitable. Man has little or nothing to do with it … but some have found a way to profit from it.
Sad not to hear anything about falsifiability when discussing the scientific method.
Perhaps sad. But it was noted a couple of times that models that work produce forecasts that work and if they do not then the model is faulty. That is a step before falsification that saves going the extra miles.
Not exactly the same as falsifying, but along the same lines.
Geoff
Wow. This is the first time I’ve heard him to any lengthy extent. He’s a child.
Nice write up on NR http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446295/michael-mann-house-testimony-climate-change-embarrassing-rude