Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Former NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan is worried some media outlets do not provide sufficiently apocalyptic climate views.
Americans ‘under siege’ from climate disinformation – former Nasa chief scientist
Fake news spread by those with a profit motive is leaving many people oblivious to the threat of climate change, says former head of US space agency.
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Friday 9 June 2017 00.15 AEST
Americans are “under siege” from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa’s former chief scientist has said.
Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.
“We are under siege by fake information that’s being put forward by people who have a profit motive,” she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits. “Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.”
During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.
“The harder part is this active disinformation campaign,” she said before her appearance at Cheltenham Science Festival this week. “I’m always wondering if these people honestly believe the nonsense they put forward. When they say ‘It could be volcanoes’ or ‘the climate always changes’… to obfuscate and to confuse people, it frankly makes me angry.”
Stofan added that while “fake news” is frequently characterised as a problem in the right-leaning media, she saw evidence of an “erosion of people’s ability to scrutinise information” across the political spectrum. “All of us have a responsibility,” she said. “There’s this attitude of ‘I read it on the internet therefore it must be true’.”
…
Even using IPCC estimates, there is a real possibility we do not face a climate emergency. From IPCC AR5 Chapter 10 page 871;
… Estimates of the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) based on multiple and partly independent lines of evidence from observed climate change indicate that there is high con dence that ECS is extremely unlikely to be less than 1°C and medium con dence that the ECS is likely to be between 1.5°C and 4.5°C and very unlikely greater than 6°C. These assessments are consistent with the overall assessment in Chapter 12, where the inclusion of additional lines of evidence increases con dence in the assessed likely range for ECS. …
Read more: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf
The lower IPCC estimate for a plausible equilibrium climate sensitivity is an unexciting 1.5C per doubling of CO2. Even 1C per doubling is considered possible.
CO2 is currently growing at around 3ppm / year, according to observations from Mauna Loa.
Starting from 2016 / 404ppm, project the CO2 level by 2100;
404ppm + 3ppm * (2100 – 2016) = 656ppm
Calibrating for 1.5C / doubling (CO2 forcing is logarithmic) – determine the value of k;
1.5C = k log10(2)
k = 1.5C / log10(2) = 4.98
Determine the equilibrium temperature anomaly for 656ppm;
T = k log10(656ppm / 280ppm) = 1.8C temperature rise above pre-industrial temperatures.
Note this is the equilibrium sensitivity calculation – the transient climate sensitivity is likely to be even less.
Since we have already experienced around 1C of temperature rise without any noticeable ill effects, an additional 0.8C by the year 2100 is a big nothing burger.
Obviously everyone can debate the likelihood of various climate sensitivity estimates, or the possibility that the rise in atmospheric CO2 level will accelerate as China complies with their Paris agreement commitments, by building hundreds of new coal plants, but my point stands;
The science is NOT unequivocal that we face a climate emergency. Using the IPCC’s own climate figures, there is a real possibility anthropogenic CO2 is not a big deal.
Calling people who point this out purveyors of “fake news” is pure climate alarmism.
As for what happens after the year 2100, frankly that is their problem. By the year 2100 humanity will know whether CO2 is causing climate problems – and will have the energy supply options and advanced engineering capabilities to deal with any eventuality.
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Whether out of ignorance or deceit, it’s always a turn off for me when a scientists uses the term “carbon emissions” when in actuality what they are talking about is carbon dioxide. Sure, we can speak of the carbon cycle and the interchange of carbon between the various sources and sinks, but carbon dioxide, not “carbon” is the combustion emission being discussed.
Didn’t the IPCC have a paragraph in one of their earlier presentations that stated that the warming noted could be broken down between natural and man made in the following portions: .25 degree C was natural warming prior to 1945, .25 degree natural warming after 1945 and the remaining .3 degree C was man made. Use that warming (.3 degree C) in your calculation and you really get a nothing burger out to the year 2100..
Also, I think your equation should use natural logs, not base 10 logs. Still doesn’t change the answer much.
SMS June 11, 2017 at 5:42 am
It matters not a twit …… iffen one uses natural logs, ….. unnatural logs, ….. artificial logs ….. or just any ole timber log, …….. simply because, ….. whenever one is touting the “junk science” claim stating that ….. the rate of increase in near-surface air temperatures will begin decreasing as a result of an increase in atmospheric CO2 because the “CO2 (temperature increase) forcing is logarithmic” …… is little more than a “blue sky dream” that was concocted up by the partisan “warminists”.
Me thinks the above claim is akin to claiming that …….. “The more sugar you put in your cup of coffee …… the more sour your coffee will taste“.
I agree that CAGW is a climate hustle. But don’t you think it would be better to use the correct formula so that when the trolls come through they don’t hijack the discussion?
I thought Samuel Cogar was going to make the point that it doesn’t matter what log base you use because mathematically the results would be the same. The “K” factor using log base 10 vs natural log would be different, but would be exactly balanced out by the ratio of ln2/(log base 10 of 2). All log scales are equivalent. The “natural” log comes up because the Natural log of 1 + x approaches x as x gets smaller and smaller, approaching zero. For instance, the natural log of 1.001 is 0.0009995, pretty close to 0.001., only off by 0.05%.
The based 10 log of 1 + x approaches x/(2.20358+), which is a lot messier than just “x”.
You all should be using this “Log Scale” (see below) for calculating the warming effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 because I am positive your measured calculations will be just as accurate as they will be iffen you use “base 10 logs” or whatever.
http://www.shopcomstocklogging.com/assets/images/DOYLE-2.jpg
doesn’t change the answer at all
1)Moreover, fossil fuels will be peaking before mid century and becoming more expensive, more of it will be going into petrochemicals and fertilizers and we WILL be getting more power from the atom. This is a no brainer.
2) CO2 emissions will accordingly flatten with increased use of natural gas for power and transportation.
3)We are on a downslope overall to the next glacial period, so if warming has more strength than it has shown so far, it will be bucking orbital forcing.
4) We’ll be testing the sun’s influence, too. Perhaps we should keep an eye on Mars Ice cap going forward. No one, even sceptics, mention the Nasa and Pulkovo Observatory (Russia) observation that both planet’s ice caps shrunk at the same time. WUWT?
5) The next 10yrs following this past El Nino will pretty well give even the IPCC a much lower upper bound on ECS. The temperature crunchers are likely to be constrained in their fiddling with Trump in the WH and if a cooldown persists, that will be the end of it.
6) If the greening/plankton expansion and crop yields continue to advance, the net cost benefit will be pushed evermore into the expanding benefit side of the ledger – enhanced land and ocean habitat will be good for mankind and beast, beasties, and the plant kingdom.
Using a “reasonable” estimate of remaining fossil fuel resources, it’s hard to see CO2 rising above 630 ppm. This of course assumes fossil fuel prices increase and new technologies are developed to replace them over the next 100 years.
The “Intermittent Renewable ” as savior got that way via science by press release, Trump should reply in kind immediately.
“…the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.”
The is no evidence. Period. These people actually believe that model outputs and consensus are scientific evidence. I actually read on a website that the consensus of 97% of scientists is evidence that CAGW is real.
The biggest consequence of “continued carbon emissions” is the greening of the planet (particularly the boost in world-wide foodstuff production.)
Those that ignore that huge benefit have a nefarious objective, and none other.
Record low temperature for London, Ontario. on this date …0.06 C….1972
Record High temperature for London, Ontario. on this date 31.1 C….1949
And the alarmists are worried about 0.8 C of warming by 2100 ???
Sheesh !
That should be….
“Record low temperature for London, Ontario. on this date …0.6 C….1972”
Wow, a person afflicted with conspiratorial ideation and clearly diminished critical thinking skills actually held a position of high authority at NASA. We are facing real challenges.
As an option, the climate scientists could start to put out all the data themselves.
Then us skeptics wouldn’t feel the need to inform the rest of the public about all the contradictory data that is not shown to them.
Climate science is a propaganda-based movement. That is why there are skeptics and why people are slowly turning against it.
If there really were Big Money behind climate skepticism there’d be one professionally produced skeptical video per year, and it would be free (on YouTube) or obtainable at very low cost (if a DVD or film). IOW, there’d be 30 of them by now, and some of them would focus in detail on specific aspects of the issue, particularly the weakest points in the warmists’ case. Instead, skeptical productions have mostly been sporadic, amateurish, and unfocused. Maybe five exist that cost something substantial to create.
And who can remember seeing a contrarian billboard, or a TV or radio spot, or a print ad? Those have been nearly nonexistent. If Big Money were backing skepticism, there’d be a ton of such missives.
For a list of 20-plus things (including those above) that would be happening (but aren’t) if climate contrarians were actually well-organized and well-funded, see my WUWT guest-thread, “Notes from Skull Island” at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
There is a real advantage, however, to not being well-funded and organized: It’s tougher to target the skepticism. I have noticed as certain bloggers become more well-known, they are the targets of warmists blogs. Meanswhile, the “lesser” bloggers have smaller audiences, but blog away without any opposition. Small groups and individuals are actually more difficult to counter. This does not mean that your writings about skeptics not being well-funded are not accurate, I’m just saying there advantages to being not-well-funded.
@Sheri: As one of the self funded tiny accidental bloggers on this niche, mixed with other of life’s interesting stuff, I agree with you. Looking at my site’s Google Analytics over time, it’s pretty apparent that the MSM are losing their grip on the “we’re all gonna die” story. The redistribution of the mistrust is spreading world wide. The Social Media revolution has initially produced the Lowest Common Denominator of IQ stampeding across the planet, but it is also capable of cutting both ways. Just not yet. Patience.
https://notonmywatch.com
– the old man
I have yet to benefit in any way from not buying into the CAGW scam. However, hundreds of thousands of people are documented as having received grants to “study” CAGW, being hired to lobby about CAGW, using public funds to “study”, lobby, or promote CAGW, etc., and attending lavish conferences in destination-vacation hotspots. Publicly questioning any aspect of CAGW has the potential to destroy one’s career, but making patently absurd claims about CAGW’s “potential effects” does not seem to have any negative effect. Algore has made millions because he tells lies about climate, weather, and the environment. Find the most prominent skeptic in the world, compare their income to Algore. Look at the ten best-known academics who are publicly skeptical of CAGW. Look at the ten best-known academics whose careers are based on promoting CAGW as true. Compare their finances and professional standing over time. Which stance has been more beneficial over time?
If I was looking to make some money, I picked the wrong side. If there really is funding for skepticism, please direct me to the source.
The protests have mainly against Trump’s mostly unjustified budget cuts (which even Pruitt opposes), not against climate-related “fake news.”
Budgets are necessary, not “unjustified”.
I said “budget cuts.”
I meant budget cuts……..
Budget cuts don’t have to be justified. The massive and out of control SPENDING is what has to be continually justified, and that is precisely what leftist MSM does. Slashing spending, followed by slashing fraud and unaccountable foreign aid, then a thorough investigation and prosecution of the guilty parties in USG. These are the actions Americans have to force on government.
So the government continuing to spend more than it takes in, resulting in a “stealth” tax on liquid assests held by everyone is “justified”?
My response when this comes up: “OBVIOUSLY, THE SCIENCE IS NOT CONVINCING”. Come on, no one has a disinformation campaign and is winning on convincing science. It only works if the science is flawed. You can’t exploit hard and fast facts. It’s in the realm of “How to lie with statistics” we see this happen. Her statement is an bold admission that the science is flawed.
No one has launched a successful campaign to prove aliens have landed or any other such idea. That stays in the “off the wall” catagory. Yet global warming is questioned by even the best and brightest in the field. It’s the FLAWED SCIENCE, not the money, not the oil companies (who all profit from global warming through renewable subsidies they use for oil exploration, building back up plants, etc), just really flawed science.
Lastly, women are sooooooo annoying. Mostly I vote to keep women out of STEM—especially whiney ones that emote instead of think. Actually, the same thing goes for whiney males. (Thinking women are not under this umbrella—— There are just so few ever seen in news stories, etc.)
Few? Judith Curry, Susan Crockford, Marie Curie, Mileva Marić, Emilie du Chatelet, Caroline Herschel, Mary Anning, Mary Somerville, Maria Mitchell, Lise Meitner, Irène Curie-Joliot, Barbara McClintock, Dorothy Hodgkin, Maria Agnesi, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Virginia Apgar and many more.
I only recognized two names in your list.
Don’t forget the beauty and brainy
Ada Lovelace – mathematician and first computer programmer
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FtWVV1q8mAs/UElS40B-pvI/AAAAAAAAA1w/P8iN6hKrcTc/s1600/1+Ada+Byron+en+su+juventud.jpg
Hedy Lamarr – Hollywood actress and inventor of frequency hopping radio system
http://hedylamarr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Lamarr_Tortillaflatb_promo.jpg
Lisa Randall – Professor of Physics at Harvard
Amy Mainzer – astrophysicist at NASA JPL
http://www.cms.awaitnews.com/Resources/Images/356495780.jpg
“Already experienced around 1 degree C temperature rise” means you are assigning all of that rise to permanent climate effect and none to cycles like AMO that are either poorly understood or ignored or averaged now.
Resourceguy June 11, 2017 at 6:20 am
Actually, me absolutely positive that it means that the avid proponents of CAGW have highjacked all of the Interglacial Warming from 1880 to present ….. and have been blaming it on anthropogenic warming.
Assuming that the IPCC is correct in that wattage is proportional to the logarithm of the amount of CO2 in the air
ln (400/280) = 0.3567. The ln of (560/280) is 0.6931 so we’re already .3567/.6931 so we’re already at 51.5% of a doubling of CO2 with no harmful effects.
If I had used base 10 instead of ln, I would have gotten
log (400/280) = 0.1549 log 2 = 0.30103 giving the same 51.5% there already.
I wish you wouldn’t use or quote the word “experienced”. In those terms the only thing I’ve experienced over the past decade is cooling. Of course it could be that the area I’m in has detached itself from the world climate system, but somehow I doubt that.
NASA “Adjusted” Temperature Charts Prove CO2 Driven Warming is a Hoax
Unless the laws of physics cease to exist in the labs of NASA, NASA’s own research and publications debunk the CAGW theory.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/nasa-adjusted-temperature-charts-prove-co2-driven-warming-is-a-hoax/
She’s referring to the claim of a few contrarians that undersea volcanoes release a lot of CO2. But that’s a rare claim (mostly promoted by Monckton, IIRC). It might be something that the mainstream hasn’t accounted for. She’s cherry-picking by suggesting that this is a common contrarian claim.
Her omission of “undersea” qualifies as a half-truth, perhaps a deliberate one. I.e., she may be counting on her audience reacting thusly: “Those ignorant skeptics! Don’t they know that volcanoes cool the atmosphere?!”
Roger Knights June 11, 2017 at 6:23 am
Oh, wow, ….. so that is why the tropical temperatures of the Hawaiian Islands have been drastically “cooling” during the past 34 years, to wit:
Land-based volcanoes that erupt explosively enough to shoot SO2 into the stratosphere, unlike those whose eruptions merely ooze like the basalt-types in Hawaii, are the only ones that cool the global atmosphere. This is so well-known here that I didn’t think I needed to mention it.
Roger, I was NOT belittling you or your comment, …… but on the contrary, ….. I was criticizing the author of your quoted comment …. wherein you claimed she stated ….. “Those ignorant skeptics! Don’t they know that volcanoes cool the atmosphere?!”
Well “DUH”, …… Roger, …… just how much thermal (heat) energy has been emitted into the atmosphere as a result of ….. 34 continuous years of 24/7 “oozing” of 700 to 1,200 °C (1,292 to 2,192 °F) volcanic lava, …. which as of December 2012, the eruption had produced 4 km3 (1 cu mi) of lava, covered 125 km2 (48 sq mi) of land, added 202 ha (499 acres) of land to the island, destroyed 214 structures, and buried 14.3 km (9 mi) of highway under lava as thick as 35 m (115 ft).
And has the CO2 emissions outgassed by Kilauea during said 34 years caused more “cooling of the atmosphere” ……. than the 34 years of outflow of “hot” lava has caused “heating of the atmosphere”?
So, was that a “brainer” or a ”no-brainer” question?
She is a Geologist:
Stofan holds master and doctorate degrees in geological sciences from Brown University in Providence, R.I., and a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
https://www.nasa.gov/offices/ocs/stofan_bio.html
This NASA “scientist” must be completely ignorant of the geological record of the earth. This “scientist” denies 600 million years of history.
http://www.paulmacrae.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/co2-levels-over-time1.jpg
Ugh. It is like Virginia’s colleges are TRYING to produce and promote idiocy. UVA, GMU, W&M…
At least the worst offenders have not been natives. The (relatively) recent influx of morons will likely change that.
The bigger problem for her is that NASA (or the Goddard institute) has fed the public with fake news for decades making it very easy to raise doubt on what NASA is putting out.
I am afraid k = 1.5C / log10(2) is not 4,96 but k =2,16
Nevertheless it is true
T = k log10(656ppm / 280ppm) = 1.8C temperature rise above pre-industrial temperatures
using equations linking CO2 as any sort of driver of temperature , in a convective atmosphere, is rather silly.
CO2 started rising during the Holocene during neoglaciation when temperatures were falling.
If she was speaking as a scientist, perhaps she should have provided some science and not just her opinion. The quotes in this post don’t suggest she did anything but repeat the CAGW mantra without any evidence to support the theory.
Question:
Does “Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS)” mean only atmospheric CO2’s effect or is it more inclusive?
What then is CO2’s overall effect, either warming or cooling, which often is expressed ” “X” degrees C increase per doubling of atmospheric CO2 level”?
Hasn’t each successive IPCC report progressively lowered the “may/might” effect of CO2?
ECS is defined as the new eventual equilibrium from a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Essay Sensitive Uncertainty goes into details and provides a number of ways to estimate it without using climate models. Likely 1.6-1.7.
Isn’t there a more recent paper that shows it at about 0.54 C per doubling?
‘During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.’
Where the heck was she up to six months ago? The ‘US science community’ has been fighting skeptics for over a generation.
‘she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits.’
Jeeeze, not this again. We’ve been waiting for over a decade for our checks!
Further proof of tribal groupthink: if you are a skeptical scientist, you are not part of the “science community”. Isn’t Buzz Aldrin a skeptic? She’s kicking HIM out?
I wonder how they come at these positive effects to temp with increased CO2?
CO2 is a wonderful fire extinguisher but that has all to do with its inflammability and its high energy consumption to go from solid/liquid to gas phase, both IRRELEVANT to warming.
A gas cannot contain much heat you need bigger oscillating artefacts for that mixed in the atmosphere: Water forms droplets and ice crystals, these are huge artefacts allowing to store heat.
CO2 molecule just excites, then releases all its energy again. it can hold up a photon but only for an infinitesimal time duration, and eventually the photon leaves with its energy , just like when there would be no CO2 molecule aroound..hmmmm??
The computation of radiative equilibrium for any arbitrary source and object spectra is rather simple if one even knows what a dot product is . But that leaves out the great majority of the “climate science” community who apparently never had a competent course in heat transfer .
Gravity is left out of the computations but is the only explanation for why the bottoms of atmosphere are hotter than their tops . Even light blue shifts , ie : heats , as it descends into a gravitational well . From there it is only a matter of working out the equations to calculate the temperature profile for any matter in a gravitational field including atmospheres . Venus’s surface is hot because of the weight of its atmosphere , not its spectrum .
But NASA has pages full of disinformation based on the GHG nonscience .
Really funny misprint. She (or more likely the guardian which is notorious for its illiteracy)
Uses the words Con and dence(dense?) three times in the blurb above.
Just about par for the course.
waterside4,
I assumed that “con dence” was supposed to be “confidence”. It may be a typo’ committed by Eric. If not, then there should be a “[sic] placed behind the occurrences of the word pairs to put the onus on the Guardian.
Naturally Clyde. I was just bemused b y the term Con which just about sums up the whole issue.
*A very dence con at that.*
They really screwed up . The word they were looking for is covfefe .
Having done her part to destroy NASA’s public image, this former “civil servant” now seeks another trough to feast at.
More evidence of that new ethical standard,crippling civilization, “Good Enough For Government”.
GEFG the UN and civil service highest standard.
Has anyone on the “Concerned” side off things , told these fools how revealing their projection is?
..and all the whining, pissing, and moaning can’t get past the fact that in over 100 years…
…they have yet to prove anything
At least her drivel is now coming via the Guardian instead of an official NASA release. Elections do matter.