Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
I published the following article on Canada Free Press (CFP) in 2010. I also posted it to my web site in 2012. This posting was required because CFP withdrew all my articles from their archive at my request. I did this because CFP published an apology written by Roger McConchie, lawyer for IPCC author and Green Party leader in British Columbia, Andrew Weaver. I was not aware of this action but in the three lawsuits filed against me by McConchie he also files against the outlet for the article. I pursued a “not guilty” defense against the lawsuit and as was reported here, the judge dismissed the case.
The article is republished here to illustrate that many are starting to realize what I realized years ago, the extent and manner of the deception. As I explained in court and elsewhere, most people can’t believe that a small group of people could deceive the world. But as I also wrote before, Anthropologist Margaret Mead,
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
The entire story is available in my book, “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science,” or you can get a synopsis in “Human Caused Global Warming: The Biggest Deception in History.”
IPCC/CRU Self-Deception Through Groupthink
March 2010, Dr. Timothy Ball
Few understand the extent of corrupted science produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Data was altered, or completely ignored and research deliberately directed to prove their claim that humans were causing global warming. A.W.Montford’s book The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science is a litany of refusals to disclose information. They all work to prevent other scientists carrying out the most basic test namely, replication of results.
In his report on the hockey stick debacle for the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Professor Wegman wrote; Sharing of research materials, data, and results is haphazard and often grudgingly done. We were especially struck by Dr. Mann’s insistence that the code he developed was his intellectual property and that he could legally hold it personally without disclosing it to peers. When code and data are not shared and methodology is not fully disclosed, peers do not have the ability to replicate the work and thus independent verification is impossible.
People identified in the leaked emails of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were primarily responsible through the Physical Science Basis Report of Working Group I of the IPCC and the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). Politics is clearly the motive for some scientists like James Hansen, Stephen Schneider and others, but this is not so clear for most at the CRU. Which begs the question how and why supposedly intelligent people became involved and continued to participate in such corruption?
The Group
Irving Janis developed the concept of Groupthink, which requires unanimity at the expense of quality decisions. “Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision-making.”
The CRU/IPCC pattern is a classic example.
Groupthink
Here’s a list of some symptoms of groupthink with examples from CRU/IPCC emails and actions.
· Having an illusion of invulnerability. Content of the emails has many examples of arrogant invulnerability. In a backhanded way, Overpeck provides support for this position because he advised them on Sep 9, 2009, to “Please write all emails as though they will be made public.” They didn’t listen because they believed they were invulnerable. Others within the general community reinforced CRU invulnerability. On October 2003 Ray Bradley, who had published the original hockey stick with Michael Mann, wrote. “Because of the complexity of the arguments involved, to an uniformed observer it all might be viewed as just scientific nit-picking by “for” and “against” global warming proponents. However, if an “independent group” such as you guys at CRU could make a statement as to whether the M&M (McIntyre and McKitrick) effort is truly an “audit”, and if they sis it right, I think would go a long way to defusing the issue. If you are willing, a quick and forceful statement from The Distinguished CRU Boys would help quash further arguments, although here, at least, it is already quite out of control.”
· Rationalizing poor decisions. Jones rationalized the decision to withhold Freedom of Information (FOI) to the University of East Anglia staff on December 3, 2008 as follows, “Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school – the head of school and a few others) became very supportive.”
· Believing in the group’s morality. The entire body of emails supports this claim. Rob Wilson wrote on 21 February 2006 “I need to diplomatically word all this. I never wanted to criticise Mike’s work in any way. It was for that reason that I made little mention to it initially.” On 6 May 1999, Mann wrote to Phil Jones, “Trust that I’m certainly on board w/you that we’re all working towards a common goal” and later “I trust that history will give us all proper credit for what we’re doing here.” So do I!
Conversely, Keith Briffa, who I believe was the whistleblower, battled with Mann and became increasingly alienated from the group.
On 17 June 2002, he wrote,
“I have just read this letter and I think it is crap. I am sick to death of Mann stating his reconstruction represents the tropical area just because it contains a few (poorly temperature representative) tropical series.”
· Sharing stereotypes which guide the decision. This takes the form of unethical comments of practice going without challenge because they were all doing it. On 19 September 1996 Funkhouser wrote, “I really wish I could be more positive about the Kyrgyzstan material, but I swear I pulled every trick out of my sleeve trying to milk something out of that.”
· Exercising direct pressure on others. On 24 April 2003, Wigley wrote, “One approach is to go direct to the publishers and point out the fact that their journal is perceived as being a medium for disseminating misinformation under the guise of refereed work. I use the word ‘perceived’ here, since whether it is true or not is not what the publishers care about — it is how the journal is seen by the community that counts.” They also got James Saiers, editor of Geophysical Research Letters, fired.
· Not expressing your true feelings. On the 14 October 2009, Trenberth expresses something to Tom Wigley that none of them ever dared say in public. How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are nowhere close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”
· Maintaining an illusion of unanimity. Briffa struggles to maintain the illusion when he writes to Mann on April 29 2007, “I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC, which were not always the same. I worried that you might think I gave the impression of not supporting you well enough while trying to report on the issues and uncertainties.”
· Using mindguards to protect the group from negative information. “The idea is that we working climate scientists should have a place where we can mount a rapid response to supposedly ‘bombshell’ papers that are doing the rounds and give more context to climate related stories or events.” This was Mann’s comment to the group about establishment of Realclimate to act as “mindguards”.
Some of the negative outcomes of groupthink also fit the actions of the CRU/IPCC group.
· Examining few alternatives. They narrowed the options by the definition of climate change to only those caused by human activities. Of the three greenhouse gases almost all the focus is on CO2.
· Not being critical of each other’s ideas. Not only were they not critical, but they peer reviewed each other’s work and controlled who they recommended to editors for reviewers. Mann to Jones 4 June 2003 “I’d like to tentatively propose to pass this along to Phil as the “official keeper” of the draft to finalize and submit IF it isn’t in satisfactory shape by the time I have to leave.” On August 5, 2009 Jones wrote to Grant Foster in response to his request for reviewers for an article, “I’d go for one of Tom Peterson or Dave Easterling. To get a spread, I’d go with 3 US, One Australian and one in Europe. So Neville Nicholls and David Parker. All of them know the sorts of things to say – about our comment and the awful original, without any prompting.”
· Not examining early alternatives. There was a graph of temperatures drawn by Lamb showing the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and used in the first IPCC Report. It was correct but contradicted their claim of modern warming. As Mann said to Jones on 4 June 2003, “it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back.” They chose to rewrite history.
· Not seeking expert opinion. Professor Wegman spoke directly to this problem in his report for the US Senate on the infamous hockey stick graph. “It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community.”
· Being highly selective in gathering information. Apart from only looking at human causes, the CRU emails have many examples of data selected to prove their point. Tim Osborn to the group on 5 October 1999 speaks of the issue McIntyre identified of truncated records.
They go from 1402 to 1995, although we usually stop the series in 1960 because of the recent non-temperature signal that is superimposed on the tree-ring data that we use. On the 19 March 2009 Santer wrote to Jones about the Royal Meteorological Society (RMS) asking for data used for a publication. “If the RMS is going to require authors to make ALL data available – raw data PLUS results from all intermediate calculations – I will not submit any further papers to RMS journals.” On 27 September 2009 Tom Wigley wrote to Phil Jones about a problem with Sea Surface Temperatures (SST), “So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 deg C, then this would be significant for the global mean – but we’d still have to explain the land blip.”
· Not having contingency plans. They never expected they would be exposed. Maybe Benjamin Santer’s comment on April 25 counts.
I looked at some of the stuff on the Climate Audit web site. I’d really like to talk to a few of these “Auditors” in a dark alley.
But they were exposed. Now most can’t believe scientists could ignore or deliberately manipulate data, distort procedures and not have more of them speak out. As Janis explains groupthink, “occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.” The relatively small group involved with the machinations of proving fossil fuels was producing CO2 that was causing warming or climate change appears to be a classic example of Groupthink. Professor Wegman in his report identified 43 people all linked in various ways, but especially publishing together and apparently peer-reviewing each other’s work that apparently constituted this group. They controlled the CRU, the critical roles of the IPCC and therefore world climate science and the resulting policies.
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Groupthink, ya think?
Gropethink, brokethink,
Ropethinka Dope think.
=================
““Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with”
Exactly like when dealing with … “antivaxxers”. These people are dirty. They are evil and even more terrible, they don’t accept our adjusted data, statistics where we get to exclude any unwanted data and they don’t take “proxies” as replacements for the real thing.
But even on the uber-mainstream, uber-corporate, uber-predictable and uber-pro-Big Pharma news channel Fox News, a host (Tucker Carlson) has described the vaccine skepticism a “no go zone”, which is perfect description.
Ach! There are so many people to reply to, I have to make a group reply.
First, for the sake of expedience, I’ll term the general groups, “skeptics”/”believers” (non-climate scientists) and “contrarian”/”consensus.” (climate scientists). I know they are poor terms.
It seems there is one fundamental difference between me and most others here: I believe that overall there is integrity in the consensus. My uncle has worked for NOAA for decades. He was Chief of the Mauna Loa Observatory for most of that. He now works in Boulder, and he took me to work when I visited a couple weeks ago. It’s HUGE. A rat warren of offices, and posters of current research on the walls everywhere.
This is just one place. There are people working all around the globe on climate change – not just the models, of course, but doing experiments to see how increased CO2 affects plants in nature, looking at organisms in the ocean that are showing problems building their shells…they are measuring tree heights by satellite! Imagine. They can track growth rates.
The idea that all these people are corrupted by an ideology or anything else is simply absurd. There is absolutely no way. It would be logistically unfeasible, if nothing else. How would you get that many people to look the other way when wrong is done? Not a single whistleblower that isn’t also a skeptic? Does that make any sense at all? Why are you so sure that the contrarians aren’t corrupt, especially considering the ties to FF?
You want corruption? How about this?
http://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/2001-memo-from-exxonmobil-lobbyist-randy-randol-to-white-house-on-ipcc-team/
ExxonMobil memo to Bush administration asking for the head of the IPCC, Robert Watson, to be replaced, and asks whether two others can be. It asks a couple dozen questions about the IPCC, including whether its release can be delayed for further input. Obviously Exxon knows Bush is on their team. The Bush administration used to edit the reports of its scientists before they were released to the public. The editor had no scientific background; his sole purpose was to change the message. (Sorry, don’t have the link handy)
On the climatefiles site are dozens of original documents looking at how much was known by FF/industry, what the said to the public, the propaganda campaigns they planned (with budgets, timetables, names, everything), propagandist ads. (I should define propaganda; information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.)
One of the campaigns had as its primary goal to “Reposition global warming as theory (not fact).” “Reposition”! See? It had become accepted, and they had to make to questionable. If you look at the ads here, they are conveying exactly what skeptics say now http://www.climatefiles.com/denial-groups/ice-ad-campaign/.
1965. LBJ’s Science Advisory Committee:
“By the year 2000 the increase in atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate, and will almost certainly cause significant changes in the temperature and other properties of the stratosphere.”
Will continue in another post…
“First, for the sake of expedience, I’ll term the general groups, “skeptics”/”believers” (non-climate scientists) and “contrarian”/”consensus.” (climate scientists). I know they are poor terms.”
Not poor. False, misleading and grossly oversimplified. For one thing there are many ‘climate scientists’ who are skeptical of the CAGW consensus view.
Interesting about your uncle. That explains a lot about what you post.
P.S. Back in 1965 they were getting ready to blame CO2 for the imminent Ice Age.
“The idea that all these people are corrupted by an ideology or anything else is simply absurd. There is absolutely no way. It would be logistically unfeasible, if nothing else.”
OK, first you misrepresent what’s happening: it isn’t about NASA faking the Moon landing with ten of thousands of engineers conspiring together, it isn’t about a secret society either. Nobody says that there was explicit James Bond vilain like conspiracy in a remote location. (Although Climategate emails come close.)
Second, these people in “climate science” are very few (mostly incompetent “scientist” who would have had to find a real job if it wasn’t for this gig).
A lot more people lied about what was happening in Soviet Union, which was a complete disaster from the beginning to the end. People could travel, see what was happening then come back to West and lie about it. It’s an immense cover up and anyone who says “conspiration are impossible” is simply grossly denying the most documented facts of history. That’s denial on steroids.
And it’s standard denial. Even today, historians (who are almost all closeted Marxists) deny or hide that denial.
Anyone who says many people cannot lie together is simply in denial of basic facts he cannot handle psychologically. People lie with lies transparent to a 12 years old all the time (we can rely on wind to sustain a country, men have more s-x partners than women…). One of the reasons children have issues.
MANY PEOPLE GO ALONG WITH TRANSPARENT LIES ALL THE TIME, PERIOD.
Kristi S. said:
The idea that all these people are corrupted by an ideology or anything else is simply absurd. There is absolutely no way. It would be logistically unfeasible, if nothing else. How would you get that many people to look the other way when wrong is done? Not a single whistleblower that isn’t also a skeptic? Does that make any sense at all? Why are you so sure that the contrarians aren’t corrupt, especially considering the ties to FF?
MY RESPONSE:
I tend to be cautious about how the word, “corruption”, is used. There is corruption spawned of intentional fraud, and there is corruption that is a consequence of simply not having a coherent, logical understanding of the facts. I honestly am not sure how many people are involved with intentional corruption and how many are involved through more innocent corruption, as a consequence of their own personal idealism and tendency to avoid facts that go against this.
When the momentum of an ideology reaches commanding proportions in people who control the journals, educational institutions, and grant-funding organizations, it’s easy to see how many scientists whom these “controlers” oversee could be led in the same direction, because their reputations and jobs depend on it. THERE IS A WAY, in other words. We are seeing it.
As I said earlier, the one way this era IS different than any other is the melding of politics, economics, idealism, activism, and marketing in a way that was impossible before the recent information revolution.
By “FF”, I assume you mean “fossil fuels”. Your implied certainty about the given association of contrarians to fossil fuels is misplaced certainty. I have NO ties to fossil fuels, for example. At one point in my younger life, I gave up a car for a whole year, and used primarily a bicycle for longer-range transportation about town. I once spent three or so months in Sourthern California too, and during this time, during the day, I used a bicycle to get about much of the time. I was even once like you in my beliefs, but a very smart person started pointing me towards some conflicting facts. One thing led to another, and I came to view the CO2 fear as everything that you now consider to be impossible — more akin to a religion, in other words.
As for that memo you pointed out, where’s the corruption in IT. My first impression of it, on a quick read, is that it is a response to suspected corruption in the IPCC.
I wrote a long reply to your other post, but it did not post. Fortunately I copied it first, and will attach at the end, in sections. Some of this post is addressed there.
Yes, “corruption” is often not well-defined.
You call a belief in AGW in ideology. I don’t think of it that way. Is a belief in the theory of relativity also an ideology? Or belief in the scientific understanding of the history of the universe? How would this ideology have gotten started, or when did it turn from science into ideology?
Why is this a partisan issue?
“Your implied certainty about the given association of contrarians to fossil fuels is misplaced certainty.”
No, I obviously wasn’t clear. There need be no direct association. In some cases it’s closer than others. There does seem to be a relationship between think tanks that receive funds from FF and a core of vocal skeptics, some of whom are climate scientists, some in other fields. Some of these think tanks have also done “education” and “outreach” about climate change, preaching uncertainty and the wonders of FF. Then there are the advertising campaigns, the op/eds by contrarian scientists, the media outreach …there have been campaigns to reach school kids and their teachers.
‘As for that memo you pointed out, where’s the corruption in IT. My first impression of it, on a quick read, is that it is a response to suspected corruption in the IPCC.”
Wow. That’s remarkable, and fascinating. So you think that the IPCC was stacked with people lacking scientific integrity (or overcome by bias), and Exxon wanted to set things right? For the public benefit, or what? Do you not see any conflict of interest here? Is there any evidence given of “corruption”? Do you think it’s appropriate for industry to ask the government to change international scientific reports? Do you think Bush was unbiased when it came to oil producers?
Do you think it’s more likely that science has become driven to push an idea than for industry to have manipulated public opinion? (There are, btw, links between the public relations for tobacco and oil)
I don’t know how much we can change the future. It depends on many things, including how much people are willing to sacrifice, but also how much they are willing to change their habits and the way they see energy and consumption. That alone could make a substantial difference, without any taxation or regulations. I suspect (and it seems to be supported by polls) that many people in developing countries are more aware of climate change than Americans, and that may influence the way they develop their energy resources.
The primary aim should be to slow the change. Stopping it altogether will be much more difficult. With luck some natural process may kick in, some negative feedback, or maybe we will figure out how to fix it technologically, or maybe we’ll stop emitting so much…I don’t know. No one does.
What happens in the future isn’t my biggest concern. There’s the reputation of scientists I go on and on about, but there’s also for me a matter of patriotism. I don’t like the position America is in. We have contributed more CO2 to the atm than any country, yet we aren’t willing to be responsible for it. We couldn’t contribute less than $10/person to join the Paris Accord when the Swedes are contributing over $60/person. I don’t like looking so selfish as a country, even if it’s appropriate.
And there’s the moral angle: What if the scientists are right? What if our actions are going add misery to the lives of millions, as storms become more and more damaging to low-lying areas with the rise in sea level, widespread droughts and massive floods? Have you been following the drought in South Africa? Cape Town is running out of water. I know, one event can’t be attributed to climate change, but there are trends. Here’s an interesting paper, though I’ve only just read the abstract:
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/4/1474.full
There is a lot of research about forest and climate change. The wonderful greening everyone talks about is very simplistic. It matters a lot where the greening is, what is greening, and what the secondary effects of the greening might be. A flush of green in the spring may be unsustainable in the summer. Some suggest the extra greening could lower water tables; just because a plant’s water use efficiency is greater doesn’t mean it will use less water, when it’s putting on more leaf tissue. Since my area of expertise is invasive plants, I think about the fact that they are typically much better able to make use of changed conditions – they are adaptive, opportunistic, have mechanisms to disperse to favorable habitat, etc. – and my become even more competitive against natives and crops. Response to increased CO2 could influence plant (and therefore animal) communities in unforeseen ways, regardless of climate change.
The effects of CO2 apart from any climate change are enough to warrant consideration.
Then there are the economic aspects. China is becoming the world leader in renewable energy. To put tariffs on solar panels in order to supposedly support our practically non-existent solar panel industry AT THE SAME TIME we deny AGW and end support for renewable research can only be seen as an attempt to crush the industry, and I think that’s crazy considering the global market. Some say the Chinese can produce panels so cheaply that solar is competitive with coal.
I think alarmism about the catastrophic is a less powerful force than the uncertainty of what might happen. This becomes more powerful as one finds out how many changes there are already, and realizes that the people studying this go far beyond the physicists and modelers to foresters and agronomists and evolutionary biologists, and on and on. That’s why I say it would be impossible for even innocent corruption to be a big stretch of the imagination. What about all the Chinese climate scientists, are they part of it, too? Climate science is not a discrete bunch, it’s multidisciplinary, international, an integrated web of researchers. The “groupthink” thing becomes much less plausible, at least if discussing science. Many would simply say that it’s all a part of global socialist campaign for wealth redistribution. Is that part of the “ideology” you referred to? To me that idea is baffling and sad that Americans could see each other this way. There’s such a gulf in understanding.
“So you think that the IPCC was stacked with people lacking scientific integrity”
My guess is that almost everybody in academia does.
Ms Kristi believes so much that is wrong, that I simply do not have time to correct each and every unfounded parroted claim. But this is one I enjoy smashing each time I see it.
Richard Muller was never a skeptic.
By Richard Muller on December 17, 2003
Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. I would love to believe that the results of Mann et al. are correct, and that the last few years have been the warmest in a millennium.
Medieval Global Warming – Page 2 | MIT Technology Review 11/03/11
“It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic“
“Richard Muller, Climate Researcher, Navigates The Volatile Line Between Science And Skepticism”
Less than a year after announcing that he was never a skeptic, he announced that he was a converted skeptic.
“The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic”
By RICHARD A. MULLER
Published: July 28, 2012
CALL me a converted skeptic.
“The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic” – NYTimes.com
Why does Ms Kristi parrot liars and fr*uds? Why is she okey dokey with proven serial data abusers and kangaroo courts? Why does she deny science and natural variability? Surely there is a driving agenda that allows her to look the other way as catastrophic damage is done to climate science, and science in general is dragged into the gutter of politics.
So funny that she believes that Muller was a skeptic, and that Occams Razor does not apply to the null hypothesis. But then she is just chock full of knowledge about things that just aren’t so.
Congratulations, Gator, you found an error! I took someone at his word on youtube, silly me – I should remember that only contrarian scientists are honest and only skeptics unbiased. What fun for you — you can take the opportunity to insult me, how grand! Go for it, Gator! Do your best!
Ms Kristi, mocking me is a poor and pathetic substitute for admitting you are wrong.
More hand waving from Ms Kristi in 3, 2, 1…
Chess playing pigeons, all the way down Kristi.
Gator says, “Ms Kristi, mocking me is a poor and pathetic substitute for admitting you are wrong.”
(Does anyone else see the irony in this?)
I don’t have a problem admitting I’m wrong. In this case especially. The important thing is that he found CO2 as the only thing that worked to recreate recent climate change. But if he’s not a contrarian, I guess that becomes tainted testimony.
I’m sure you were just testing me, but I know natural variation can’t be the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is, we don’t see an effect of A (human-emitted CO2) on B (climate change). Absence of effect cannot be a driver in climate, of course.
Furthermore, “natural variation” is not an alternative to CO2 as a forcing mechanism. How can variation cause anything? There has to be something physical driving the pattern. It has to take into account the phases of the solar and oceanic cycles, the effect of volcanoes like Pinatubo, and change in land use. And it has to explain the increase in global average temp – surface and ocean – as well as the drop in sea water pH, increase in sea level, and all the rest, as well as where all the carbon from FF is going and what its effects are, with numbers – how much is going into each sink, and where’s the rest? It won’t suffice to just say the planet is greening. (Pretty tough to do that without modeling, eh?) Give me references to original literature supporting your idea. Once you find an explanation for all that, we can converse.
Until then, I’m going with Occam’s Razor.
If you want to play Who’s the Better Scientist, it’s your move. Until you have the answer, leave me alone. Don’t waste your time, mine, or that of the moderators.
Mr Kristi, natural variability, or the Null Hypothesis, is what Occam’s Razor would suggest. Claiming that man now controls climate with his minuscule contribution to the atmospheric CO2 budget is an extraordinary new claim that requires extraordinary new evidence.
1- List all climate forcings, order them from most to least effectual, and then quantify them all.
2- Please provide even one peer reviewed paper that refutes natural variability as the cause of recent, or any, global climate changes.
There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about our climate, or how we got here. For 4,500,000,000 years climates have always changed, naturally. This means there has been a set precedent, and the burden of proof falls on natural climate change deniers like yourself.
““Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with”
Like Cliven Bundy, his family, Mormons, and other supporters the FBI and BLM were “dealing” with?
(Was social “racism” at play?)
Just found this: a prediction based on a model run in 1988 by James Hansen (I know many of you dislike him – is he an advocate?) https://www.e-education.psu.edu/meteo469/node/141
It seems to run pretty well, even at that early stage in modeling.
There ARE ways of testing models. Some have asserted that modeling isn’t falsifiable, so it isn’t science. In a way, what a model is doing is testing a bunch of hypotheses and associating outcomes with probabilities, which just what experiments do. If we run an experiment testing whether a drug works better than a placebo and reject the null hypothesis at p=0.05, that doesn’t necessarily mean it works. There’s a 1 in 20 chance that the result is through chance. So we can’t predict with 100% accuracy that the drug will do it’s thing, just like we can’t predict that the surface of the planet will warm 1.989 C by 2100. Science is fallible, yet we rely on it every day. There is no good reason not to when it comes to climate – at least those bits that are of high certainty.
CLIMATEGATE. I know the excerpts sound incriminating. They are taken from over 1000 emails. I can’t figure where to find them, but I will and I’ll read the context. But even without doing so I’ve heard some of the story, and I can easily see how some of the quotes could be misconstrued. For example,
“One approach is to go direct to the publishers and point out the fact that their journal is perceived as being a medium for disseminating misinformation under the guise of refereed work. I use the word ‘perceived’ here, since whether it is true or not is not what the publishers care about — it is how the journal is seen by the community that counts.” They also got James Saiers, editor of Geophysical Research Letters, fired.
This was out of genuine concern that the journal was not following scientific editorial protocol. They made a complaint, and the editorial board of the journal supported it. Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas were publishing papers that shouldn’t have been published. (And as you surely know, Soon was funded by FF and didn’t disclose it.) (James Saiers himself says they didn’t get him fired; he left when his term was up.) This gives a pretty balanced report, in spite of being in the Guardian (there’s another that’s clearly biased; I can tell the difference) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/02/hacked-climate-emails-flaws-peer-review
I read some more of the “damning” emails. I think Jones toed or maybe crossed the line sometimes. It’s hard to tell. The group was careless about what they said, but they never expected to be hacked. Ball suggests there was a whistleblower, but that makes no sense – there’s not enough there to do anything but give skeptics ammunition. No, it was malicious.
It would have taken just one whistle blower on all those investigative committees that supposedly colluded to say something and ruin all their careers. You think they are going to risk that for these guys? When they don’t know who will investigate later?
One report on the investigation of the incident ended like this:
Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour, and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.
In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.
But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of the CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA, who failed to recognize not only the significance of statutory requirements but also the risk to the reputation of the University and indeed, to the credibility of UK climate science.
CONTINUED
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2017/02/Curry-2017.pdf
I will keep reading, keep exploring. I will try to keep an open mind. There is much, much more to my convictions than I’ve talked about here. The evidence of change, for example,
Science generally assumes the principle of Occam’s Razor: that the most obvious, simplest explanation is usually true. To believe that there a global conspiracy among scientists, publishers, gov’t and private funding bodies, universities, etc. is a greater stretch for me than to believe that humans are changing the atmosphere and the climate, as has been predicted for 50 years.
(I’ve read some of Dr. Ball’s work, and the work of other contrarians.)
I don’t think this is the site for me, at least for discussion. I messed up when I came. I should have shown more humility, should have asked more questions. It would have ended up the same either way, though
A lot of condescension has been shown me. I don’t mind debating something, but I do mind being told over and over that I have to educate myself. You all are educated in your narrative, and I am educated in both mine and yours. There was one argument I hadn’t heard before, and that was about stomates being a proxy for CO2 levels, suggesting higher levels in the past 10000 years or something . That was new! Very weak evidence, though, as was clear from the research paper.
None of you people know me or my background, but some of you sure make a lot of assumptions. I’m not up to trying to change anyone’s mind about me or anything else. Ir really bothers me knowing that so many people think the consensus are corrupt, but I can’t do anything about it. Maybe I’ll just stay quiet or go elsewhere, I don’t know.
Ms Kristi, are your arms tired yet? Your hand waving woukld win gold in P’yŏngyang.
Let’s get to the basics, shall we? It really is very simple.
1- List all climate forcings, order them from most to least effectual, and then quantify them all.
2- Please provide even one peer reviewed paper that refutes natural variability as the cause of recent, or any, global climate changes.
There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about our climate, or how we got here. For 4,500,000,000 years climates have always changed, naturally. This means there has been a set precedent, and the burden of proof falls on natural climate change deniers like yourself.
ROBERT, part 1
ROBERT
“– Theory and experiment going back to the 19th C and their predictions coming true
Can you be more specific ? — which theory? , by whom ?, which predictions ?, which ones specifically came true ?”
Ekhoms is who I first learned about when studying global warming around 1990, but he built on the work of others. Apparently he was first to use the word “greenhouse” to describe the effect of atmospheric gases..
Below are excerpts from an essay since the original article is 60 pages.
http://nsdl.library.cornell.edu/websites/wiki/index.php/PALE_ClassicArticles/GlobalWarming/Article5.html
‘In 1901 the Swedish meteorologist Nils Gustaf Ekholm (1848-1923) examined the causes of changes in the Earth’s temperature over geological and historical time scales. His comprehensive review included astronomical factors such as changes in the sun and in the Earth’s orbit, and atmospheric factors such as changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and volcanic emissions….Ekholm regarded variations of the carbon dioxide concentration as the principal cause of climatic variations, citing the “elaborate inquiry on this complicated phenomenon” made by his colleague Svante Arrhenius. He explained how carbon dioxide is a key player in the greenhouse effect and how this conclusion is based on the earlier work of Fourier, Pouillet, Tyndall, and others. By the most reliable estimates, a tripling of carbon dioxide levels will raise global temperatures 7 to 9 degrees Celcius . An increase in carbon dioxide will heat high latitudes more than the tropics and will create a warmer more uniform climate over the entire Earth….Ekholm pointed out that over the course of a millennium the accumulation in the atmosphere of CO2 (carbonic acid) from the burning of pit coal will “undoubtedly cause a very obvious rise of the mean temperature of the Earth.’
……………………
Kristi S.,
I fear that Ekhoms , along with the greenhouse giants on whose shoulders he stood, were all complicit in initiating and perpetuating a chain of errors that has caused the myopic focus on radiation underlying the “radiative greenhouse theory” of today.
Even though Ekhoms seems to have acknowledged wind as a component of climate dynamics, he chose (I think) a rather limited view of radiation — seemingly fragmenting it to such a degree as to make it more important than it is. Sure, the sun is the main source of energy, but radiation is NOT the only means by which the atmosphere deals with this energy. To view radiation only in terms of how we think of it traveling through outer space (photons or waves dissociated from a fluid dynamic air medium that they penetrate) seems to ignore the true primary focus, which is the dynamics of this fluid mass of air itself.
What does the fluid dynamic mass of the atmosphere, under the force of a gravitational field, do to the energy of photons/waves from the sun AFTER this energy penetrates ? It’s NOT just radiation physics anymore. It’s NOT just the application of Stefan’s law of perfect black bodies to bodies that are imperfect. There’s more going on that mere radiation calculations cannot account for, and if this is the only way you TREAT this solar energy, then this is the only way you might SEE this solar energy, and, alas, a shortsighted way of seeing this solar energy, because you are not allowing yourself a full view of the other components, weighted in their proper proportions.
Lots of pictures illustrating the greenhouse effect represent a rather static looking ball, just sitting there, NOT spinning, NO representations of vast motions of a fluid atmosphere, … with ONLY the lines of photons zipping through this non-moving, non-rotating ball. But here’s some of what such pictures are missing:
You see, other arrows need to be in there, showing fluid motions of the rising/falling/circulating air mass, … possibly even other arrows showing phase changes in water and ocean currents, possibly to some depth.
The “greenhouse theory” just seems so flat on so many levels, … as contradictory as this sounds. (^_^)
You’ve got over 70% of Earth’s surface composed of a fluid dynamic liquid and over 98% of Earth’s atmosphere composed of a fluid dynamic mass of gases OTHER THAN “greenhouse gases” — two massive, intertwined, fluid, chaotic systems — , and you want to insist that the radiative behavior of 0.04% of just ONE of these massive systems critically controls the WHOLE coupled system.
Hopefully, you might get some clue as to how I have come to seriously doubt this.
I imagine the complexity of the atmosphere is why it’s treated as multiple layers by models. I’m afraid I don’t understand your point. How does the turbulence alter the ability of CO2 to act as they say it does?
“Two massive, intertwined, fluid, chaotic systems — , and you want to insist that the radiative behavior of 0.04% of just ONE of these massive systems critically controls the WHOLE coupled system.”
No, of course no. No one believes that. Geez, you really underestimate the state of the science!
I believe it’s highly unlikely that so many people would have mindlessly accepted greenhouse theory for 120 years.
What holds in heat if not the GHG?
It’s phenomenal that people think scientists are such brainless sheep. I have little patience for this. Maybe I’m wrong, just an idealist, and have a completely false sense of the profession, but I’m certainly not going to learn I’m wrong through a site or documents filled with prejudice. That would make no more sense than learning all my views from Al Gore. In both cases there might be some facts and interesting information, but it comes with so much hyperbole it has to be taken with skepticism.
What your diagram doesn’t depict are the layer of atmosphere around the troposphere that are also a part of the energy balance. And you diagram doesn’t show the E balance at all, so I don’t know how it’s an improvement. Seems to me when those pictures take the atm. as a single body, that’s a fair estimation for the sake of what they are trying to communicate, simplified as it is. I really don’t understand.
I don’t have a clue why you doubt, no.
Are you/were you a meteorologist?
My point, Kristi, was NOT to provide a complete, perfect diagram, but to illustrate how common diagrams have a narrow focus, and that a more reasonable diagram could not possibly show (in pictures) the vast complexity involved, for which we place trust in climate models to forecast policies for human destiny.
I am not and have never been a meteorologist. Are you? (^_^) … I’m just some guy trying to talk to you about this subject and how I have come to believe what I believe.
I will now answer your previous post here [probably all I have time for now, so bye]:
imagine the complexity of the atmosphere is why it’s treated as multiple layers by models. I’m afraid I don’t understand your point. How does the turbulence alter the ability of CO2 to act as they say it does?
Mathematically, specifically, I do not know how models might under represent fluid turbulence. I have to look at the reality outside of the model to ascertain that I suspect that the models DO. My understanding, for example, is that one class of models requires approximations concerning the Navier Stokes equation of fluid flow, and here in these approximations, I might suspect some incorrect assumptions as to how a chaotic fluid system might distribute its energy. Also, it is my understanding that models have some built-in assumptions about the forcing power of CO2, and these assumptions themselves might be driving the models in the wrong directions.
Models have to be “tuned” too, and, as I understand it, this is done by taking climate information from previous and present time steps to extrapolate forwards to the next time. This seems to pose a potential bias towards particular times. If the CO2 assumptions are based on specific times where CO2 appears to follow temperature, then I could see this sort of “tuning” as being flat-out wrong, because there have been other times when CO2 does NOT have the same relationship with temperature.
Imagine trying to divide up the human body into many cubes, stacked in many layers, and then trying to work out equations that captured the actions WITHIN each of these cubes, as well as the actions BETWEEN each of those cubes, and then integrating all these divided actions into the gross movement of the whole organism. This is a fool’s task. This is NOT how to study human movement. This is the wrong way to go about it, … placing way too much trust in the wrong approach. A fun toy to play with, maybe, but, reality modeling? — I don’t think so.
“No one believes that”, you say? Well, from what I see, this is EXACTLY what many people believe, including you. If not, then why the crucial focus on 0.04% of atmospheric gases as the problem? Even more specific, why the crucial focus on the minascule human component — 0.00002% — of atmospheric gases?
If you say that CO2 is the problem, or, specifically, that 0.00002% of atmospheric gases created by humans is the proboem, then you are saying that 0.04% of all atmospheric gases is a problem and that 0.00002% created by humans is the specific problem. By “problem”, you mean “CO2 controls the WHOLE coupled atmospheric/ocean system, and human-produced CO2 controls the WHOLE coupled atmospheric/ocean system towards catastrophe .” What else are you believing, if not what I just wrote?
I believe it’s highly unlikely that so many people would have mindlessly accepted greenhouse theory for 120 years.
Unlikely, perhaps. “Amazing” is the word that I would use. I still cannot believe that I myself believed it as long as I did. When those who control the flow of information are in the public schools, universities, publishing industries, etc., a totally wrong paradigm can most certainly control the beliefs of “so many people”.
You think that you are living in times where this cannot happen anymore — that there is no place where this is possible — that this is Dark Ages stuff — that it went out ot style with Copernicus or Kepler or with any other person who challenged an existing paradigm. This is what is probably amazing to you — that you yourself could be living in a time when climate science could be held sway by these same social forces that you thought were out of style.
What holds in heat if not the GHG?
Even GHG (“green house gases”) do NOT “hold in heat”. “Greenhouse gases” absorb infrared RADIATION and then EMIT. If anything “holds in heat”, then it is the massive, OTHER 98% of the mass of the atmosphere. The heat capacity and heat-regulatory capacity of this mass (along with the heat capacity and heat-regulatory capacity of the world’s water) is what keeps Earth in the habitable zone — (generally) just cool enough on the day side, and just warm enough on the night side for life to thrive.
It’s phenomenal that people think scientists are such brainless sheep.
I think you mischaracterize what “people” think. Scientists can make some extremely brilliant errors. Writers, educators, and marketeers can then make some brilliant enthronements of those errors. Culture can hold onto belief in the errors for a long time, because reflexive patterns of life, society, its infrastructure and functioning all are based on these errors. Momentum of the errors can build to a point that people face great discommfort mentally, physically, and, most importantly, ECONOMICALLY, to consider overhauling beliefs spawned by these errors.
I have little patience for this. Maybe I’m wrong, just an idealist, and have a completely false sense of the profession, but I’m certainly not going to learn I’m wrong through a site or documents filled with prejudice.
I’m not sure which documents you might be reading, to make the judgement that you just made. And I think that you might be unfair, if you characterize all the people at WUWT as “filled with prejudice”. Unfortunately, considering alternatives takes patience and time. I hope that you will read broadly, and not be put off by ideas that challenge your current ones. I’ve been where you are.
Waking up to reality can be uncomfortable.
Best wishes. I’m out.