Yesterday, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) published a letter yesterday to U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, admonishing him for having the temerity to doubt that carbon dioxide is the “primary driver” of global warming.
Here is the text of the letter.
Source: https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/about-ams/ams-position-letters/letter-to-doe-secretary-perry-on-climate-change/ (PDF)
Here are a few of my thoughts.
The AMS, in their letter, say skepticism is welcome:
In the interview you also mentioned that it should be quite acceptable to be a skeptic about aspects of the science. We agree, and would add that skepticism and debate are always welcome and are critically important to the advancement of science.
Yet, the very letter they sent contradicts this, suggesting that there is no debate nor room for skepticism about carbon dioxide being the primary driver of temperature change.
The fundamental problem of our knowledge boils down to the sample size. We only have about 100 or so years of temperature records that are worth anything and even the most recent records on all that good because they’re terribly polluted by the infrastructure of human existence itself. And further our understanding of atmospheric and oceanic cycles is even more limited in time than the case of global temperature data.
If you were to line up our period of first-hand scientific knowledge of Earth’s processes, against the period of humanity’s intelligence, it would just be a small speck on the timeline. To assume we have certainty in knowledge about Earth’s processes, when new processes are still be discovered, is pure folly.
Even today, we are discovering more about our atmosphere than we knew 30 years ago in June 1988 when Dr. James Hansen first declared it a problem, and there are studies that show that recent record breaking warmth, such as a paper just published in Nature, Yao et al. Distinct global warming rates tied to multiple ocean surface temperature changes. covered here on WUWT.
For the AMS to admonish Perry that there’s no room for debate on Carbon Dioxide as being the primary driver, is essentially to deny the process of science itself. Science is often right, and also often wrong, but just as often, it is self-correcting. If global warming hadn’t become such an entangled and messy social and political issue, it’s likely that science would have done some levels of self-correction on the issue already.
For example, it was once believed that the Earth’s plates did not move, until plate tectonics came along. Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1912, but it took until the 1960’s for it to become generally accepted, when a drastic expansion of geophysical research, driven by the cold war, produced evidence that reopened and eventually settled the debate.¹ Science self-corrected, but it took decades because scientists are often reluctant to embrace change which threatens the validiity of their own work. It was also generally believed that stress caused stomach ulcers, until a clinician, exasperated by lack of attention to his pointing out that the real cause was the bacterium Heliobacter Pylorii infecting the stomach lining², had to prove it against the consensus, and drank a bacterial cocktail and developed an ulcer himself. He won the Nobel prize for defying that consensus³.
Science that fails to account for the possibility of being wrong is of no virtue.
The AMS should lead in science by setting an example, by showing that even in the face of overwhelming consensus on an issue, there must be room for doubt, and thus room for self-correcting science. It only takes one finding in science to refute consensus, no matter whether it’s 97%, 99%, or 100%. Science is not infallible.
Anthony Watts
1. http://www.nature.com/news/earth-science-how-plate-tectonics-clicked-1.13655
2. http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer-solved-medical-mystery
3. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/press.html
Note: about ten minutes after publication the article was updated to correct a spelling error, add an omitted phrase, and add references.
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” even the most recent records on all that good”
should read “aren’t” instead of “on”?
No hotspot = no source of “back radiation” = not CO2 causing surface warming
There, the multiple lines of evidence in one simple statement.
Exactly, When no “Tropospheric Warm Zone” could be identified, (That’s good news.)
I waited for the celebrations in the “News” that CO2 was not the global warmer that had been feared.
What, No celebration of Earth’s immunity to CO2 rise.
I smelled a rat.
Voila! another “Climate Skeptic” was born. – me.
Further, after the “Tropospheric Warm Zone” could not be found, their “hypothesis” was never adjusted and re-tested. The Scientific Method had been abandoned.
Now, I’m not as skeptical as I am sure.
“Now, I’m not as skeptical as I am sure.”
Well said.
I put myself in that camp as well.
I know for sure and without any doubt that the warmistas are completely full of crap and that it is just a matter of time before the whole world knows it, and on that day the Hall of Climate and Science Shame will be seeking a large amount of land for their new wing.
Some of these people will be known long into the future as perpetrators of the worst sc@m and scandal in history…by miles.
They will be famous and known to all, for hundreds and likely thousands of years, as the terrible people they are…the very worst sort.
History will not be kind to them.
I expect their very names will come to be synonyms for all sorts of epithets and crimes.
‘In the interview you also mentioned that it should be quite acceptable to be a skeptic about aspects of the science. We agree, and would add that skepticism and debate are always welcome and are critically important to the advancement of science.’
This is simply the lip-service provided before predetermined conclusions are imposed.
There seems to be an endless chain of people who believe that CO2 is the main driver of global warming solely because they heard it from someone with authority and assume that they applied due dilligence in coming to that conclusion. In my work there have been times where we have been repeatedly told by managers and execs that something can’t be done, then after following the chain to find out why, we eventually come to the lowly person who would do the actual work and are told yes, it can be done. It’s just that nobody ever asked because they all just assumed it can’t.
Hoyt, when working as a service tech., I found that 75% , or more, of technical problems were actually human errors covered in EGO.
What is it Richard Lindzen says? That to believe CO2 is the climate control knob for planet earth is to come dangerously close to believing in magic?
You gotta love it. The organization that once thought weather was caused by meteors now believes that climate is caused by CO2.
Yeah … The American CO2logical Society … but then “logical” is not what they’re known for.
Our local TV weatherman is a certified AMS member and he can’t predict tomorrow’s weather seemingly half the time.
Yesterday’s forecast for today was for overcast skies and no rain. “All the rain will be north of us”. From the radar it appears about 60% of the radar beam coverage is showing rain and it is filling in. Plus there are quite a few embedded heavy rain showers. Raining at my house. Missed that one.
The real issue is all they do is look at the models and “future cast” and never stick their head out the window anymore.
Okay thanks, I’ll mark them off the list of serious professional organizations and add them top to the list of compromised ones.
Do they, like the AAAS, offer plastic sippie cups to new members? THAT’s the important question to ask. (^_^)
Sadly, this sentiment does not reflect the beliefs of a strong minority of AMS members, as evidenced in the surveys of their members. The only reason I remain an AMS member is the weak hope that us skeptics can help steer the organization less to the left than it would otherwise be …
I gave up membership a few years ago but was making a contribution to the education fund instead of paying dues but this year’s actions have made reconsider that decision as well. I can not longer support the organization in any way.
I, too, remain a member in the forlorn hope that things will turn around once the wheels fall off the bandwagon. When I receive the annual candidate list for AMS and AAAS (section W) elections, I carefully peruse candidate’s statement. If they so much as pay lip-service to CAGW or the like, I do not vote for them. There are times I cast no vote for any candidates for a given office. I have yet to see anyone brave enough to question global warming or speak up for skepticism, but I live in hope.
Mumbles, you should run!
In a multi-candidate slate, if you clearly state that you are a CAGW skeptic and 30%(?) of the members have a similar leaning, then you would have an excellent chance of winning a slot.
Even if you cannot change policy, then having one honest skeptic on the board should stop some of their shenanigans.
You are a better man than I, Data Soong. I dropped my membership over a decade ago. No regrets, especially when I read the obvious nonsense still coming from the top of the organization.
WUWT should poll AMS members to measure the extent of agreement with the executives position.
Actually, the AMS should do that. Maybe BEFORE they issue a statement in our name. But I am not holding my breath til then.
This is a great idea.
In fact, it may be about time to go around and get every single person who is a scientist and get them on record, and compile the real numbers.
I am actually sick…SICK…of hearing people repeat that 97% garbage that was never true and was debunked almost as fast as people asserted it.
Those who invented those numbers were telling obvious lies and should have been laughed out of town.
To hear the previous POTUS, or Bill Nye, or Neil Degrasse Tyson, or CEOs testifying before congress…or anybody at all really…use that bogus statistic in 2017, and say it with a straight face, when it is miles from true, is misrepresented as to what it was originally purported to begin with, and means nothing as evidence even if somehow it was true…well
I seriously cannot understand how anyone who has the training and base of knowledge and the specifics of the issue to…who basically knows enough to know the truth…can remain calm and civil and not even call it out when these lies are told over and over again to a gullible public who are literally incompetent to discern the truth from the malarkey.
It is simply too much.
It is not a mistake…it is a fraud.
It is not a disagreement…it is a case of con artists being found out and having them just lie bigger.
Anyone who knows what is actually going on has a moral and ethical responsibility to say what they know at every opportunity and to do so in clear language and with no ambiguity.
Even is only for the children.
I hope you’re serious and agree wholeheartedly. If you knew me, you would know I’m just not wholehearted about anything but I can be about stopping this atrocious corruption of science and economic sense. I actually believe that the fate of the Western world is hanging on this issue and the failure of the public to understand how deeply they are being betrayed by our political class.
I am completely serious.
And as well, i am also the sort that is on most subjects and most of the time rather phlegmatic…I am just not given to sitting around fretting.
But this issue is different.
Completely different.
I agree that the eventual fate of our society is literally at stake here…do we continue on with a free enterprise capitalist democratic republic, or do we swing towards worldwide socialism, deindustrialization, a society that programs rather than educates children…
And yes…I also think that much and likely most of the public has little idea of the breadth and scope of the lies, fraud, and betrayal of trust which is being perpetrated upon them.
“American Meteorological Society” Seems they have nothing better to do then lecture the head of the department of energy. Hmm, could any of you people who are member give them a ring and point out that it is very likely that Mr Perry is a bit busy. We just had a tropical storm plow into the gulf states, there is a old fashion heat wave in the southwest. Which is after a winter and spring that dumped record breaking snow in the Rockies and California. Ah, is all this heat, you know melting the snow, I have not heard a peep. That is a lot of water up there. I would expect flooding but then that is just me. Oh and Jellystone is acting up again.
Maybe they could see their way to concentrating on some important stuff.
michael
Why do 26 of the 50 state Hi Temp Records still date back to the decade of the 1930’s?
Because the 1930’s was a lot hotter than today. The 1930’s was an extreme weather decade and its deleterious effects were felt around the world. Today is nothing like the 1930’s. Today is a walk in the park.
“The 1930’s was an extreme weather decade and its deleterious effects were felt around the world.”
Wrong. 30’s were only hot in the US, 2% of the world area.
I didn’t know the Arctic was part of the US, ReallyS.
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Arctic-Temperatures-1920-2017-HadCRUT4.jpg
Richard,
Seems you believe that C02 has caused the warming we’re seeing in the Arctic? Do I have that correct?
Using your graph, it shows the Arctic being at a relatively cold point in the 1960s and 70s, which is true, people were all worried about global cooling, I remember it well.
Since the 1960s and 70s the earth has warmed by 7/10ths of a degree Fahrenheit, but the Arctic has warmed 4F-7F (Depends on which study you want to believe) I believe it’s closer to 7F. How can that be?
Come on, show me how smart you are!
If you think it’s caused by reduced albedo, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn NY, and it’s a nice bridge too, I will sell it to you for just $10,000.00!
Good luck.
Thanks for that Arctic Temperature chart, Richard M. I can add to the other charts “from around the world” that show the same surface temperature profile as the U.S. surface temperature chart (circa 1999), said profile being that the 1930’s-40’s is as hot or hotter than subsequent years.
None of the unaltered historic surface temperature charts look like the Hockey Stick chart. Instead they look like the Hansen 1999 U.S. surface temperature chart. We should consider the Hansen 1999 U.S. temperature chart as representative of the *whole* world. It is a much better fit than the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart.
Look at the charts below.
The one on the left is the Hansen 1999 U.S. chart, and the one on the right is the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick surface temperature chart. Now tell me, which temperature profile does the Arctic Temperature chart resemble the most?
The answer is obvious. And it applies to just about all the unaltered charts I have seen from around the world. None of the unaltered surface temperature charts resemble the Hockey Stick chart. The Hockey Stick chart is all alone.
The Hockey Stick chart makes it look like the Earth’s temperature is getting hotter and hotter year after year. Which is the purpose of the Hockey Stick chart. It has been dishonestly customized to promote the CAGW narrative.
But the real temperature profile, the one on the left shows the 1930’s as being 0.5C hotter than 1998, which makes it 0.4C hotter than 2016, the suppposed “hottest year evah!”.
The reality is we have been in a temperature downtrend since the 1930’s. But that doesn’t fit in with the CAGW narrative so a few dishonest climate scientists decided to cook the books and make it fit. See the Climategate emails for details on their dishonesty.
That didn’t work. Let me try this.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
Really skeptical, you are really an ignoramus…or a liar.
Hard to say which with limited information, but as I said above…it hardly matters. You are spreading lies and are therefore complicit in the fr@ud.
TA and Richard M,
Lets not forget…by 1998-1999, what was accepted and published everywhere from textbooks to international science conferences as the correct chart of worldwide temperature trends as of the late 1970s had already been altered to get the charts shown by TA above.
By the mid 1970s all of the warming in the first half of the 20th century had been erased, and glaciers were growing all over the world, Arctic ice was increasing, and global cooling was very much a concern.
We have already had to suffer through and debunk years of warmista lies about this cooling trend, and how well documented and accepted it was.
People who claimed to be climate scientists and researchers intoned with solemn manner and straight face that global cooling was nothing more than an outlandish blurb discussed in a single issue of Newsweek magazine.
Who can forget this video (below), which though from a program noted for sensationalizing news, was nevertheless spot on in capturing the concerns of the time. Some well known names appear on this program, and although the meme was the opposite of the one now in vogue, some had the same penchant for catastrophic and gloomy outlooks.
The first IPCC report noted satellite data on sea ice from the early parts of the 1970s, which showed sea ice see-sawing around but generally increasing greatly during the 1970s.
But now everyone has swallowed the lie that no satellite data existed prior to about 1980. True? No.
Convenient for their tall tales? You betcha!
And for any that have the notion that somehow the “adjustments” and deletions to these historical records and trend charts are justified…well…we can sample written accounts from newspapers, periodicals, and the journals of various explorers to see which charts are consistent with actual observations at the time.
What we find are many stories and accounts of rapidly declining Arctic sea ice and glaciers in the 1920s, for example, at a time which the revised warmista charts show was far cooler than the 1970s and the present.
And the documented growth of ice all over the world in the 1970s occurred, according to warmista charts, during a period of flat or rising temps that were far higher than the 1920s when ice was rapidly melting.
If there is anyone who needs to see the charts and historical accounts of which I speak…just say so…I will be happy to post as many specific examples as anyone wants.
Really skeptical, you are really using the wrong handle.
I can list some ones more appropriate to the sort of person you really are if you want.
https://youtu.be/L_861us8D9M
Really Skeptical,
So I guess you support the Stalinist erasure of the world heat record from Libya in 1922, ie from the global warming cycle of the 1910s to ’40s which you claim was only in the USA. Is there no CACA lie, no matter how shameless, into which you won’t buy?
Not that a world record from 1913 is any better for the CACA cause.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0913/New-findings-overturn-Libya-temperature-record
An analysis of what had been for 90 years the hottest recorded temperature, in El Azizia, Libya in 1922, found serious flaws in how the heat was measured. The World Meteorological Organization has now handed the title back to Death Valley, in July 1913.
El Azizia, Libya, no longer holds the title for “world’s hottest temperature.” Today, that record passes to Death Valley, Calif.
No, a heat wave didn’t pass through the notoriously baking area yesterday. The new record-setting temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius) was actually recorded in Death Valley on July 10, 1913.
The temperature is only now being recognized because the previous record high temperature of 136.4 F (58 C) in El Azizia has been overturned by the World Meteorological Organization after an in-depth investigation by a team of meteorologists. The record temperature had long been thought dubious, but this new study has finally made the persuading case to overturn it, 90 years to the day after it was made.
Anth0ny,
Perhaps some Member of the AMS would be willing to send the AMS Executive Committee a variant of the following draft letter.
Richard
—————————————————————–
Dear Sirs:
I write to request a clarification of a statement in your recent letter to Rick Perry, esq., Secretarty of the US Department of Energy.
You say
Please state what you think to be that “extensive scientific evidence” because no such evidence has been published in the scientific literature to date.
In the 1990s Ben Santer and several others claimed to have found some such evidence
(ref. Santer B, et al. ” “A Search For Human Influences On The Thermal Structure Of The Atmosphere”. Nature, vol.382, p.39-46. 4 July 1996)
but that was soon shown to be an artifact of improper data selection
(ref. Michaels P & Knappenberger P. Nature. vol.384, 12 Dec 1996)
and, also, the brief period of a warm trend selected out by Santer et al was largely explainable by known natural events and not induced through any man-made cause
(ref. Rainer-Weber G. Nature. vol.384, 12 Dec 1996) .
Since then much research has been conducted world-wide in attempt to find some – any – empirical evidence to support the suggestion that human activity is a discernible cause of change of global climate over the last half century. This research has cost more than $2.5 billion per year and has failed to find any such evidence.
However, you claim to possess “extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide”. Please state what you think to be this evidence which you claim to possess and provide reference(s) to it.
And I ask you to note that opinions – whether written in words or computer code – are only evidence that their providers hold those opinions and are not substitutes for empirical evidence of reality.
Yours faithfully
XXXXX
Good questions, richard. If they have this “extensive scientific evidence” as they claim, then it should be easy to provide it to everyone.
But I’m like you. I have seen no evidence demonstrating any connection between human-caused CO2 and the Earth’s climate. And I’ve been looking for it for a long time.
I started out looking for the evidence of human-caused Global Cooling back in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Didn’t see any evidence of such then, and now that the climate is warming, the alarmists have turned around 180 degrees and now claim humans are the cause of the warming. But there’s no evidence this is the case, either.
The only “evidence” they really can point to is the Hockey Stick chart, and of course, we all know the Hockey Stick chart has been dishonestly manipulated to the point that it is useless as evidence. It has degenerated into an advertisement for CAGW.
I want to see the evidence of CAGW that AMS claims to have. They sound so sure of themselves.
Someone should compose a synopsis of some of the strongest, well-said points on this blog and actually send it to the AMS with a cc to Rick Perry.
Perhaps the AMS could publish a list of the scientific evidence/studies they think establishes that CO2 is affecting the Earth’s climate.
Then WUWT can systematically debunk every one of them and let’s see what they have to say after that.
Great Job Richard Courtney. It’s fraud from first word to last and you called them to their faces.
Well – as close to their faces as you can get. Great letter.
I would add that their failure to consider the shortcomings of the AGW evidence puts them in danger of involving their membership in political issues without any clear mandate.
The Nautilus survived all five major extinction events. Probably because it descended into the depths and ate all the carrion that drifted down from the surface. Man is but a blink in geologic time. The Nautilus will likely still be around after humans are gone.
This debate over CO2 is irrelevant to the Nautilus and some of the other survivors of the last five major mass extinction events.
Sometimes when an article raises my blood pressure a tad, I realize that in the overall scheme of things, it really won’t matter. Humans have lived a fraction of the time the dinosaurs did.
Our modern lives are likely due to high CO2 levels in the past that allowed land and aqueous plant life to thrive and store huge amounts of energy for our use. Lucky us.
But human time is short compared to say glass sponges that can live 2,000 to 6,000 years deep in the oceans. Life will go on. With or without humans.
Enjoy the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus#Fossil_genera
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus
Well, that bit of perspective was most uplifting…thank you.
I think I shall leave instructions to have myself buried at sea so that I might contribute to the energy supply of some future civilization.
Yup! I wouldn’t count on sea level rise doing it for you! 😉
Anthony, is there any updates on when your latest study will be published?
Did you ever think that this “multiple lines of evidence” canard is a little like when you tell you kids, “There are many reasons why we can’t go to Disney World.” When the kids ask, “What reasons.” you just brush them off by replying, “Oh, sweetie, they are just too numerous to mention.”
Does anyone know if the AMS gets any federal funding like the National Academy of Science does? A quick Google search did not yield any evidence to me that it does, but I could be wrong. If so, how much?
I think it would be interesting for Secretary Perry to mention any such funding to the AMS in a letter to them if AMS does not demonstrate any interest in acknowledging the scientific issues and problems with the CAGW issue. People sometimes can change their tune when their health of their pocketbook is at stake.
Yet there has only been approximately 17 years of warming in the last 67 yrs (1980-1997), and that was two decades ago despite the rapid rise in CO2 since. The lack of warming in the 21st century has been confirmed by the new Santer, Man, Mears et al. paper. I’m not saying that CO2 doesn’t have a warming effect, but if it is the ‘primary cause’ of climate change then why has it had such a minimal effect since 1950? If the warming attributable has been hidden by other natural factors then CO2 obviously isn’t the ‘primary caue’ of climate change.
Perhaps the AMS are blinded by false assumptions that aren’t borne out by the reality of empirical evidence. It is exactly because they reject sceptical debate by citing a false ‘consensus’ on the issue that they reach the wrong conclusion. Maybe they should let their members vote on the issue instead of the AMS making unsubstantiated, opinionated statements on their behalf.
Magoo wrote: “Yet there has only been approximately 17 years of warming in the last 67 yrs (1980-1997)”
Where have you been for the last 3+ years? Still drinking Lord Monckton’s Kool Aid about the Pause? Haven’t you noticed he hasn’t been around to serve that brew lately?
The recent El Ninos drove surface temperature to a peak 0.5 K (!) above the 2001-2013 average. The descent from the peak has left current temperature (13 month average) at least 0.2 K above that during 2001-2013. The 99 La Nina following the 97/98 El Nino caused a fall to the earlier baseline. With those three years at or near the end of any regression, future resurrection of the Pause will be extremely unlikely. It would take a 0.7 K fall in temperature to counterbalance the recent rise. The warming trend for the two decades since the 97/98 El Nino is now essentially the same as for the two decades that preceded it, approximately 0.17 K/decade. When climate is suppose to represent long-term averages, I know it sounds crazy to say that three warm years could have such a big effect, but the peak warming (0.5 K) was so huge that it outweighs (at the end of a long lever arm) a decade with negligible warming.
ARGO is showing warming. Even UAH shows warming since 1997, though the trend is not statistically significant. The 38-year trend for UAH trend is smaller than land or ocean, but it is significant.
The Pause is dead; long live Lukewarming. Lukewarming has been occurring for the last four decades despite a decade of much slower (essentially negligible) warming.
Since the planet’s temperature shows a large amount of unforced variability (noise), it is common for trends covering a decade or two to be statistically insignificant. The absence of statistically significant warming is not proof of cooling or a constant temperature, it is simply evidence that the record is too short to draw any conclusions given the noise.
What all of the questions boil down to is “What would be happening if CO2 was not rising, compared to what is happening on the actual Earth?”
No one knows, and the models have failed to demonstrate that they can inform us.
In fact, they have demonstrated that they are incapable of informing us.
And the climate science establishment has demonstrated that they are mostly experts at little else but misleading and misinforming us.
Another way to restate what you have pointed out regarding the ever changing word salad in the AR reports is to simply say that they make up whatever crap they want, and they have not even remained internally consistent.
No one should pay any attention to them.
The stark disparity between the summaries for policymakers and the body of the reports is all the evidence anyone needs of their disingenuousness.
So…they are biased, just guessing, and dishonest.
Any one of these makes them unreliable sources of information.
Whatever you call what they do…it aint science.
Menicholas: “No one knows, and the models have failed to demonstrate that they can inform us. In fact, they have demonstrated that they are incapable of informing us.”
IMO, the situation is different. On a planet with a chaotic climate system with limited long-term observations, it is extremely difficult to prove whether or not climate models are valid – or more precise – which of many climate models, if any, are useful for projecting the future. A strong El Nino can raise GMST by 0.5 K in a half year. At least some of the 1920-1945 warming (and earlier fluctuations) can’t be attributed to any known forcing. The Pause from 1945-1975 was probably not completely caused by rising aerosol. Climate models rarely produce hiatuses such as seen in the early 2000’s. We don’t know what causes phenomena like the LIA and MWP.
Chaotic systems don’t show a clear connection between cause and events, especially in the short-term. We don’t know whether climate models are “wrong” or “right”. Climate scientist have no business spreading their projections without a clear explanation of: their lack of validation, the arbitrary process by which they are parameterized, the significant disagreement between models and the fact that the best guess today is that the mean model is “running” hot compared with observations.
We don’t have proof that models have failed scientifically; they fail as a useful tool for policymaking and they fail in candor.
Andy: Respectfully, the problem with the AMS’s letter and many other statements is the non-quantitative descriptions about the role of CO2. In this letter, the no-quantitative “weasel word” is “primary”. AR5 said “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010”. In doing so, they relied on climate models with an average ECS of 3.3 K, but admitted that the likely range for ECS is 1.5-4.5 K. (TCR is probably a better metric for recent global warming and its likely range is nearly as wide, 1.0-2.5 K.)
The problem for lukewarmers like me (I won’t claim to speak for others), is that the lower end of the likely range puts one smack one the edge of weasel words, such as: primary, at least half, most, principle, etc.
AR5 says that “the best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period”. However, if the IPCC can’t offer a best estimate for ECS (and TCR), then it is logically inconsistent for them to offer a best estimate for the human-induced contribution to warming. To calculate that, multiples the uncertainty in TCR by the uncertainty in anthropogenic forcing.
You also wrote: “Science that fails to account for the possibility of being wrong is of no virtue.” We need to remember that policymakers often need to make decisions in the absence of a traditional level of scientific statistical significance. Neither the AMS nor the IPCC were elected to make such decisions: their job is to provide an accurate assessment of scientific [un]certainty. Policy decisions should be made by those elected to do so – taking into account science and many other factors. Some factors that aren’t the business of scientists include: cost-benefit, feasibility, the likely course other nations will follow given non-binding or binding agreements, inter-generational equity, the demonstrated inability – as demonstrated by Social Security – of our government to plan for more than a decade or two, central control vs the marketplace, etc. Scientists who don’t believe in the democratic process and believe elites like them should be making these decisions (by providing distorted information to policymakers and the public) logically should move to China – where decisions are made this way.
We are so far past this point…these points should have been hammered home thirty years ago.
At this time…we are through the looking glass.
Menicholas: Thirty years ago, the IPCC first report said the amount of warming expected from rising GHGs was impossible to distinguish from natural variability. It wasn’t until their second report that Ben Santer slipped into the SPM a statement that there was an (unquantified) discernible human influence on climate, a conclusion that was inconsistent with the peer-reviewed body of the report – which speculated on how long it would take to conclusively attribute any warming to humans. AR3 was the first to make claims that more than half of warming was due to humans, a statement that has been repeated ever since with increasing confidence.
It may be that the Climategate emails, the obvious problems in the paleoclimatology studies publicized by ClimateAudit, the Himalayan disaster, and the antics of the environmental fringe have taken a toll. AR5: lowered the lower bound for ECS, predicted warming for the next two decades of only 0.3-0.7 K (and given the Pause, would represent the total warming for the first 1/3 of the century, a MWP was acknowledged without an unambiguous comparison to the current warming period, little confidence is expressed about hurricanes. 16 IPCC authors wrote a paper stating that observations of warming and forcing were inconsistent with the expectations of climate models. For AR6, modelers are expected – or the first time – to disclose how their models were actually tuned. Perhaps I am overly optimistic.
Frank,
I am unsure just what being a lukewarmer says about your views and opinions.
But I think it means a belief that CO2 will warm the Earth, but that it will not be that bad, or we can cope with it best by adapting to the changes (are they inevitable in the lukewarmer view, or just possible?) that are coming.
But I think you are making a mistake to take any notions of IPCC published “likely ranges” as being anything more than the wild guesses of people with a certain well defined agenda…to prove global warming, not to ascertain the truth.
Earth history, the ice core data, the modern temperature records, the records of historical changes over the past few thousand years…and many other lines of evidence…lead me to believe that CO2 does not control the temperature patterns in the atmosphere.
-That a cycle of cooling is far likelier than decades of continued warmer or even flat temps. (Outside of Mikey Mann’s imagination, the Earth does not really “do” flat…at least not for long)
-That whatever effect it does or does not have is minor and far smaller than natural variation.
-That natural variations over the past several thousand years have not been adequately elucidated, and in the past twenty to thirty years much effort has indeed been made to obscure and obfuscate what really happened…the when’s, where’s, whys and how much’s.
-That warmer temperature regimes are better, and not a problem at all.
-And that higher CO2 is a huge net plus for plants, tress, crops, and therefore for life and for human civilization and the biosphere in general.
“Thirty years ago, the IPCC first report said the amount of warming expected from rising GHGs was impossible to distinguish from natural variability. It wasn’t until their second report that Ben Santer slipped into the SPM a statement that there was an (unquantified) discernible human influence on climate, a conclusion that was inconsistent with the peer-reviewed body of the report – which speculated on how long it would take to conclusively attribute any warming to humans. AR3 was the first to make claims that more than half of warming was due to humans, a statement that has been repeated ever since with increasing confidence.”
Yeah, one guy inserted his personal opinion, that human CO2 was changing the Earth’s climate, into the IPCC summary report, in direct contradiction of the statements made by the IPCC scientists in the actual report, and it has become accepted fact among the credulous since that time. I don’t think this can be overemphasized enough.
This CAGW narrative has been dishonest from the start. There’s lying in the IPCC report about humans causing the climate to change, and lying with the Global Surface temperature charts (Hockey Stick) to make it look like humans are causing the climate to change.
Deliberate lying. Harmful lying.
The fact that Mann’s Hockey Stick contradicted all the paleo studies to that date (and the written historical record as well) and that it failed to elicit even one protest from the politicized climate “scientists” has soured me on their integrity. They’ve got a lot of ‘splanin to do.
Menicholas: Lukewarmer? Someone who believes future changes will probably be smaller and less impactful that the IPCCs central estimates.
The IPCC was founded by a bunch of activist scientists, and each generation of insiders who control their rules and SPMs picks those who follow them. Their SPMs are not scientific documents, because (as Schneider infamously said), ethical scientists tell the whole truth with all of the caveats. The SPMs certainly miss the biggest caveat – one that belongs at the beginning of many statements: “If our climate models are correct, then …”
Nevertheless, I don’t think the IPCC makes up any numbers. There science can’t provide policymakers with reliable definitive scientific answers, so they improperly pick and choose so as to promote restrictions on emissions.
If you were a climate scientist who recognized that a wide range of possible climate futures were consistent with your understanding of climate, would you be tempted to emphasize bad scenarios so you wouldn’t be blamed for any catastrophe? Schneider once referred to emissions reductions as buying insurance against the possibility that climate sensitivity could be high – but it isn’t the job of science to decide who must buy such insurance. Poor countries and less affluent citizens in developed countries can’t afford insurance, but ivory tower academics don’t have any contact with them.
This just utterly fails to hold together logically. If full blown AGW catastrophism falls into the range of natural variability ala Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm period, Roman Warm period, Minoan warm period or Holocene Maximum and the entire theory fails on the test of Tropospheric Hotspot and nearly 20 years of zero warming ( give me a break on .2C being accurate or meaningful), then your stand on the cause of lukewarmism is about like comparing a slightly humid day to the Biblical Flood! A ridiculous example of the need of some human minds to have an emergency to deal with.
“Neither the AMS nor the IPCC were elected to make such decisions: their job is to provide an accurate assessment of scientific [un]certainty.”
The AMS is obviously not doing its job. Instead of an accurate assessment of scientific [un]certainty, Mr. Perry received a letter full of lies, appeals to authority and contradictory statements.
Well, they did get this part correct, “…carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the primary cause [of global warming].” They just conveniently did not mention that water vapor was the main driver.
Water vapor responds to warming and amplifies it. The average water vapor molecule remains in the atmosphere for 9 days, a fact that can easily be checked by dividing the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere by the total rainfall every year. With a nine-day half-life, there is no way for water vapor to remain in the atmosphere for long enough to drive warming. Warming produces more water vapor – at least in areas that are well-mixed and near liquid water such as the boundary layer over the ocean. There is no guarantee that water vapor is or is not rising in the upper troposphere.
No it doesn’t, at least in the real world
This is just a distraction that has nothing to do with our climate, our climate is based on the water cycle. When was the last time it stopped working?
The half life of water vapour is meaningless when one molecule falling out of the sky is replaced by one molecule entering the atmosphere on a continual basis. It’s like saying cars can’y cause traffic because they’re only on the road for 45 minutes at a time on average> C’mon man! And regardless, water vapour plays a critical role in transporting heat to altitude, half the job of getting to space. So it is actually a regulator with warming and cooling functions.
YHGTBSM!
On earth we have this process called the hydrological cycle, which operates to keep the atmosphere on average on the order of 100 times more water vapor in it than CO2.
Going from three CO2 molecules per 10,000 dry air molecules to four has virtually no effect, since over much or the planet there are 400 H2O molecules per 10,000 dry air molecules (~7808 N2, 2095 O2, 93 Argon and 4 CO2, with trace amounts of other gases).
Let’s not forget that water vapor is also much lighter than air, and as it increases in the atmosphere to levels common in the tropics, this air becomes very easily lifted into vast thunderstorms, and the more water vapor there is, the stronger and higher these storms reach.
Tropical thunderstorms commonly reach the top of the troposphere and beyond. Some go several miles above the top of the troposphere.
These storms transport gigantic amounts of energy above most of the atmosphere, where it is then lost into space.
Most of the Sun’s energy that reaches the surface does so in the tropics, and much of this then evaporates water, which feeds large storms that transport heat most of the way to space.
One might suppose that a principle concern of climate scientists might be to determine detailed specifics of all of this.
But I think that if they did, there would be a lot less to be alarmed about.
“where it is then lost into space.”
..
Not all of it, since photons are emitted in all directions, some of it makes it’s way back down to the surface.
Menicholas June 23, 2017 at 7:53 pm
Only educated idiots or liars like Mann could ignore the fact that the sun shining on the moist tropical oceans is the engine that drives earth’s climate, not an extra molecule of an essential trace gas per ten thousand air molecules.
When solar activity is higher for a number of cycles, the climate system will warm the planet, thanks to the heat stored in the oceans and released through its circulation. When it is lower for a number of cycles, there will be cooling. The heat capacity of the oceans is gigantic. Of the air, not so much.
“Not all of it, since photons are emitted in all directions, some of it makes it’s way back down to the surface.”
Sure, some does.
What is the temperature up there?
And what, therefore, is the average energy of these photons?
Is air with CO2 and H2O in it transparent to these wavelengths?
So how far does it go down before hitting and thermalizing a molecule?
Consider too that during these thunderstorms, which are very large, there is water in the condensed phase in huge clouds occupying most of the space in the downwards directions.
The point is not that every bit of energy that gets up there has only one place to go…it is that when there is more energy available at the surface, larger amounts of energy laden moist air is transported quickly to the top of the troposphere. And from there the path of least resistance is up, and there is not much resistance in that direction once up there.
Micro6500: Correlation is not proof of causation. Your graph doesn’t demonstrate anything. When the dew point and temperature is the same, then relative humidity is 100%. A constant difference means that relative humidity is roughly constant, but less than 100%. The relative humidity in the boundary layer is determined by the rate of evaporation and the rate at which water is transported into the free atmosphere above. And the rate of evaporation goes down as relative humidity approaches 100% (when no evaporation occurs)
And when the biggest fluctuation in your data is caused by an increase in the number of stations reporting, you need to find a different way to process your data. Use grid cells to generate a constant one data point per unit area.
That picture Frank wasn’t the causation graph, just how 80 million records play out. And it still shows the correlation between the two.
This image is causation
This explains why it’s not equilibrium, and that it’s not correlated to other attribution. It is however correlated with dew points
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL019137/pdf
What they missed is cooling is nonlinear, because water vapor change cooling rate during the night.
That picture Frank wasn’t the causation graph, just how 80 million records play out. And it still shows the correlation between the two.
This image is causation
This explains why it’s not equilibrium, and that it’s not correlated to other attribution. It is however correlated with dew points
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL019137/pdf
What they missed is cooling is nonlinear, because water vapor change cooling rate during the night.
The green house gases can’t warm a planet they stop 20% of the total firelight of the sun from reaching.
They can’t warm a planet they scrub of heat through conduction. All the gases of the atmosphere are many degrees colder than the Earth.
They can’t warm a planet they create phase change refrigeration of. Green House Gases not only block 20% total available warming firelight to the planet they set up a phase change refrigeration cycle that refrigerates not just the surface but the entire Nitrogen-Oxygen bath at large.
NO gases warm the planet. None of them. They’re all many degrees colder than the planet,
and there isn’t any such thing anywhere – in all thermodynamics – of insulation between a fire and rock,
making that rock warmer, by making less light reach it, to warm it.
Every single word
Every single syllable
Every single symbol
of any string of characters alleging the atmosphere can warm the planet in any way at all is utter falsehood. It is physically impossible for a
thermally conductive,
light blocking
fluid bath
to warm anything placed in it, which is many degrees warmer than the bath itself.
Most CERTAINLY adding more light blocking insulation
so it never reaches the light warmed rock in question
never warmed the rock
it let less light warm.
“Multiple lines of evidence” (unidentified) is the last refuge of a spinner who cannot cite even a single line of evidence, a scientific paper, an equation or other mathematical proof, or even a specified individual authority. It sounds like pure waffle.
I fished with multiple lines once because I had no faith in my knowledge of the fish I was after or what they ate or what depth they might be at. When I know what I’m doing I only use one!
Try reading the scientific literature Barry, you will find it.
Brought to you by the guys who have a spotty record predicting rain seven days out.
The AMS should pole their members on the question. If they don’t they have no business writing such categorical letters. Heads of such organizations are usually more adept at politics than they are adept at the central subject of their organization.
Scott,
Most of their problems would be solved by providing them with an office with a window.
Then they could look out the window and see if it was night or day, wet or dry, etc.
Then their forecasting would be far more accurate than it normally is.
I suspect it would still be inaccurate. They might fail to notice that the blind was down.
Add a rock on the window sill. That would make the weather station complete.
Still no shortage of Swamps to drain…..
Whenever those thermobillies want to show me another time in all thermodynamics when light refractive insulation made a light warmed rock warmer by letting less warming light reach it
then they’re not the lying ignoratti trash I have to warn my kids about trying to teach them less light warming a light warmed rock makes it warmer than when more light warmed it.