Recently in Climate Category

Sitting here in front of my computer in The Manse's little office, looking out the window at the rain falling on this below normal temperature fall afternoon makes me yet again question the idea put forth by many of the AGW faithful that the sun has little effect on our climate.

There is plenty of evidence that our sun's activity cycles have quite a lot to do with our climate, with observations over the past 5,000 years seemingly backing up a number of theories that sunspot cycles can have a profound effect on our world's weather.

Even over the past 1,000 years it can be shown that the number of sunspots appearing on the sun's surface gives us a pretty good indication of activity, with more sunspots heralding warmer temperatures and less (or none) bringing cooler temperatures.

Work done by Dr. Henrik Svensmark has shown that the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods coincided with lengthy periods of high sunspot numbers and the Little Ice Ages (approximately 1300 to 1550 AD and 1650 to 1750AD) coincided with lengthy periods of minimal sunspot numbers, the so-called Maunder and Dalton Minimums. (I linked to Svensmark's Wikipedia page as most of his works, papers, and videos are linked from there.) Svensmark has managed to tie together solar activity and its effects on gamma radiation and cloud formation. (I won't go into all of it here, but I have covered it before.)

Now we find out our sun may be going into an extended quiet period - a minimum - like those seen during the Little Ice Ages. If Svensmark is right this may mean we're going to see extended periods of colder than normal weather that may last decades.

Waiting for solar fireworks to reach a grand finale next year? Um, sorry, looks like you already missed them. Structures in the sun's corona indicate that the peak in our star's latest cycle of activity has been and gone, at least in its northern hemisphere.

The southern hemisphere, meanwhile, is on a sluggish rise to solar maximum and may not hit its peak until 2014.

This bizarre asymmetry strengthens a theory that has been bubbling among sun watchers for the past few years: our star is headed for hibernation. Having the sun's outbursts turned off for a while would provide a better baseline for studying how they influence Earth's climate.

If such a thing does happen, it will give us a better idea of what effect the sun and CO2 has on our climate. I'm willing to bet that many of the AGW faithful are going to find out their favorite villain, anthropogenic CO2, has had little effect on climate and that the changes seen in our most recent history have been driven primarily by solar activity.

The next few decades are going to be interesting.

(H/T Synthstuff)

From the comments to the original WSJ opinion piece by Fred Krupp I posted about this past weekend comes this piece of wisdom from the late George Carlin. This was also linked by Instapundit. Warning: Strong Language.


While I haven't always agreed with Carlin's viewpoints, I agree with him about this topic, though maybe he didn't go quite far enough. A lot of the folks predicting the end of the world because of AGW are no different that those Carlin excoriates, except they may be even more clueless and self-serving.

After a week long hiatus I feel refreshed and ready to get back to blogging. I can see that Brent more than filled in while I was off doing other things.

One of those things was delving yet again into the morass that is AGW. A number of columns and blog posts have certainly been stirring the pot, bring even more debate about this issue to the forefront. One column in the Wall Street Journal certainly garnered a lot of comments. There are so many I still haven't finished reading through them all.

The column in question, written by Fred Krupp, claims that many skeptics about AGW have since come around to the AGW camp and that it's obvious the debate is over. But it must be noted that Krupp isn't exactly impartial as he is president of the Environmental Defense Fund, an organization not known for being impartial about the ongoing debate.

One of Krupp's biggest flaws with his opinion piece is that he's confusing agreement that climate change is occurring with agreement that climate change is caused almost exclusively by man. An example:

Respected Republican leaders like Govs. John Kasich of Ohio and Chris Christie of New Jersey have spoken out about the reality of climate change. Rupert Murdoch's recent tweet--"Climate change very slow but real. So far all cures worse than disease."--may reflect an emerging conservative view. Even Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, during public comments in June, conceded the reality of climate change while offering assurances that "there will be an engineering solution" and "we'll adapt."

Not one of the people he cited agree with the It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans claim about climate change. Not one. But he implies that they've "come around" to that way of thinking. They haven't.

I certainly don't believe climate isn't changing. Of course it is, just as it has for almost all of Earth's existence. Do humans have an effect on climate change? I will agree with the statement that humans have a non-zero effect on climate, but so far no one has proven that it's anything but miniscule. Yes, humans can have a profound effect in very small areas. A perfect example of that is the urban heat island effect, where the concrete, pavement, and rooftops in an urban area can multiply the effect of the sun, making it much warmer during the day and, as the concrete and pavement radiates the heat it collected during the day, making for much warmer nights as well. Once you get out of the urban area, the day and nighttime temps fall back to 'normal'. It is this effect, along with the higher energy usage that goes along with it, that has boosted many of the surface temperatures, giving a false increase in average temperatures, something else addressed in the comments to Krupp's piece.

Krupp also mentions physicist Richard Muller's Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, where Muller and his team reviewed surface temperatures and the means for measuring them. This project was supposed to address the issue of poorly located measuring stations (next to AC exhausts, paved parking lots, or among encroaching buildings in urban areas). Muller published his non-peer reviewed findings which basically stated there were no errors in measurement and that surface temperatures are rising, satellite temperature measurements to the contrary notwithstanding. One of Muller's colleagues, Dr. Judith Curry, chair of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, disagreed with Muller's conclusions and believed he was premature in releasing the results.

When asked whether the rate had stopped over the last 10 years [Muller] said they had not. "We see no evidence of it having slowed down," he replied and a graph issued by the BEST project suggests a continuing and steep increase.

But this last point is one which Prof Curry has furiously rebuttted. In a serious clash of scientific experts Prof Curry has accused Prof Muller of trying to "hide the decline in rates of global warming".

She says that BEST's research actually shows that there has been no increase in world temperatures for 13 years."

So you have two scientists on the same research project who disagree with each other. Which one do you believe? Curry blogs about why she disagrees with Muller's conclusions and Muller's response.

One of the strongest voices criticising the study comes from the BEST team itself. Dr Judith Curry, head of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, declined to be a co-author on the latest BEST study, and says on her blog she does not "see any justification in [BEST's] argument for" the group's statement that its warming data fits with manmade carbon dioxide. Curry's not alone: former climate scientist William Connolley claims BEST has done "none of the attribution work you'd expect".

Muller says Curry distanced herself from the paper because she disagrees with the findings, and that she has an alternative theory - that the climate is random, so any correlation between increases in carbon dioxide and warming is an accident. His response: "'I've said to her that the unfortunate aspect of her theory is that it's untestable. Now a theory that's untestable is not something I consider to be a theory."

No one who frequents this blog has ever seen me refer to climate as 'random'.  I have an email discussion with Muller, who said he used the word 'random' in the interview since it is more easily understood by the public.  He has read my post Trends, Changepoints, and Hypotheses.  Re the climate shifts hypothesis, he is concerned that it is not testable.  I argued that it is just as testable as the other two hypotheses, and observations are not currently sufficient to distinguish between these three hypotheses.

She goes on to ask "So, is Muller's primary interest in the science, or in establishing himself in a position of power at the climate science/policy interface? The press releases and op-eds suggest the latter." So has Muller "sold his soul" to gain power as Curry suggests? It wouldn't be the first time a scientist has fallen under the sway of that particular vice.

Another skeptic voicing his dissent at the consensus is Dr. John Christy, the Alabama State Climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. In testimony he gave before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this month, Christy brings up new discoveries that explain part of the warming found it traditional surface temperature data and decouples some of the warming and the "extra" greenhouse gases. His testimony can be found here. It's well worth reading and brings up some question we should all be asking the AGW supporters.

So the debate continues, with some folks "switching sides" (Krupp doesn't mention the numerous former AGW proponents that have since changed their minds), and the the faithful still chanting the mantra that unless we "Do Something!" now, we're all gonna die.

It seems that all of the weather we've been experiencing over the past few months is all our fault. So says a report from US and UK researchers. (No link available at the moment.) So says a news report on ABC's World News this evening.

Supposedly the report says all of the extreme weather we've been experiencing the past year is due directly to human generated greenhouse gases and that no other explanation is probable. Despite reams of data to the contrary, they're sticking to the predictions of disastrous sea level rise, massive killer hurricanes by the hundreds, and a whole host of other calamities that will be brought on by AGW. They have presented no further data, projections, or evidence that what they're claiming is true.

Really? It looks like these folks have fallen under sway of the Correlation Fallacy, ignoring the myriad of forces that affect weather (even the most rabid climate scientist admits they can't possibly know a majority of the factors that affect climate). So how is it that these scientists can state with absolute certainty that the only possible cause is human activity?

It's simple: they're nuts. What's worse is that they're lying to themselves.

At this point I am highly skeptical of anyone who says they know "without a shadow of doubt" that we are the end-all and be-all in climate change. Our atmosphere is such a chaotic system that anyone who says they can predict with high accuracy what the climate will be like next year, let alone 30 or 100 years from now, is a quack. Unless they have a climate model whose algorithm takes into account every factor that affects climate then all they're doing is gazing into a crystal ball, and a cracked one at that.

This isn't science. This is politics, period.

Hot Air has a follow up to my previous post about falling CO2 emissions by the US.

Although it should read "for [white] burly men," it's a great posting by Instapundit on how Gov. Martin O'Malley will face a tough presidential go in 2016 because of his homegrown utility troubles. Read it. Sometime race has to be injected, though, to follow truth. Obama didn't want to stimulate jobs that would benefit our national security and provide long-term help for the sorts of people, white guys, his political party demonizes as it sides with Black Panthers thugs and feminists baby killers.

The failure to generate electricity for all on a steady, continuous basis will be a terrible political blow to politicians who, like Prez Obama, follow the green agenda. Like the bogus Global Warming claim.

I find it ironic that the push by the greens and 'watermelon environmentalists' to impose draconian regulations and controls on carbon dioxide emissions in the US is coming to naught. It's not that the US won't give in to their demands (they aren't), it's more that US carbon dioxide emissions have been dropping without the need of these 'extraordinary measures' demanded by the greens.

It's a hard sell for them when emissions have been falling at a more rapid pace than they demanded.

Much to the surprise (and, one suspects, the chagrin) of the deranged doomsaying wing of the environmental movement, new forecasts of US CO2 emission are out and they point to an even steeper drop than the last set of predictions.

No cap and trade, no huge new taxes on oil, no draconian driver restrictions, no air conditioning bans, no rationing -- and the US is on track to cut its CO2 emissions 17 percent below the 2005 levels by 2020 -- and to keep cutting our emissions levels beyond that.

There are a couple of reasons for the drop, the two biggest being the replacement of less efficient vehicles, industrial/commercial/residential equipment, and older power generation systems with new and more energy efficient ones; and a drop in economic activity which usually decreases the demand for energy and in turn decreases carbon dioxide emissions.

I doubt very much the choice to replace old equipment was made purely in order to reduce CO2 emissions. Instead it was likely made due to economics, as newer equipment tends to be more efficient and requires less maintenance than old equipment which in turn lowers operating costs. The lower emissions are a byproduct of this efficiency.

I know in the recent past the US was decreasing its carbon dioxide emissions at a faster rate than those countries who signed on to the Kyoto treaty and I think we'll probably find that is still the case. But what this is telling us is that Kyoto was not the means of reducing CO2 output. In fact, some signatories have seen their CO2 emissions continue to rise.

In any case, the United States of America is living proof that there are more ways to address environmental concerns than the green movement as a whole is willing to admit.

--snip--

The truth is that if CO2 emissions are going to come down, it's going to happen the American way rather than the Greenpeace way. Instead of flinging muck and howling curses at the most successful carbon cutting large economy in the world, maybe a few more greens here and there will start thinking about how to spread the magic around.

Indeed.

(H/T Instapundit)

One of the best rebuttals I've ever read in regards to the use of the word "deniers" in scientific literature to label those of us who are skeptical about Anthropogenic Global Warming comes from Dr. Robert G . Brown of Duke University. Dr. Brown is a theoretical physicist and has a full understanding of the scientific method and the pitfalls scientists must avoid in order to make sure the science is sound.

One of the biggest problems with the use of "denier" is that it is too often applied to skeptics, which are not the same thing. One of Dr. Brown's complaints is the use of that term in scientific literature to describe those who are skeptical of questionable claims about AGW. As he states more than once, all scientists should be skeptical about claims of any kind, even their own, as a means of maintaining scientific honesty. It is too easy for scientists to be caught up in what they want to be true versus what is true, hence the need for healthy skepticism. Unfortunately when it comes to climate science it seems that skepticism is not tolerated, something that makes any claims made by those same climate scientists automatically suspect.

Being a skeptic does not mean that one does not believe in climate change. Quite the contrary. But health skepticism at the cause of climate change must be maintained in order to delve into the true causes, particularly when the the only acceptable answer is that its main cause is human activity.

I won't quote from Dr. Brown's response to Dr. Paul Bain's use of "denier" in scientific literature, but I will use one of his comments in response to the post linked above. I think he does a pretty good job describing why he finds the label so disturbing as he sees it as an indicator of closed minds in a field of endeavor that requires minds to be open to all possible causes of climate change, otherwise any results will be tainted and will smack of Lysenkoism, where politics decides scientific 'truth' rather than facts, evidence, experimentation, and theories.

Writes Dr. Brown in response to this comment:

On the contrary, I don't think there is any good reason to call people who don't believe in the "Anthropogenic" part of global warming deniers either, as I don't think the term has any place in science (as I think I made clear). However, bear in mind that I'm posting as a physicist -- not ex cathedra in any sense, but to explain why I find it difficult to escape from my own strongly held beliefs concerning the laws of nature. That the globe has warmed, on average, since the LIA (with some bobbles along the way) is -- in my opinion -- difficult to doubt because there is a rather lot of evidence supporting the assertion. That takes care of the GW part -- people who "deny" that global warming and cooling take place (with mostly warming since the mid-19th century) may not be "deniers" but they are IMO badly wrong, an opinion I will continue to hold until I am shown some fairly serious evidence to the contrary.

It is also entirely possible to doubt the anthropogenic part and not be irrational. I've been in a debate with a very cogent arguer in other threads of WUWT who puts forth the proposition that global CO_2 levels are set by temperature only, with a roughly two year lag. His argument is evidence-based, associated with an observed, usually lagged, strong correlation between the temperature anomaly and the derivative of the atmospheric CO_2 concentration. It is quite plausible, and only fails to be completely convincing because it is not unique -- one can find a number of related models for the carbon cycle that make more or less of the CO_2 concentration responsible for the temperature anomaly and still retain the correlation in question, as well as models that may or may not retain the correlation but that fit the data within its error bars. There is also a problem of sorts with causal order in the data -- again, not something that proves the arguer or his assertion wrong, but still something to be thought about (as it implies that both the CO_2 and temperature change might have a common prior cause that is neither one of them). This approach doesn't "deny" that warming has occurred, or deny that atmospheric CO_2 concentration increases can cause temperature increases, it merely points out that it is not certain that the CO_2 levels in our atmosphere are primarily set by anthropogenic contributions, that there are plausible alternatives not as far as I know falsified by any argument or evidence, and that it may be GW that is causing the CO_2 increase and not the other way around. There are arguments against this, note well, but IMO they are not certain or settled science -- the carbon cycle is too open a question for that and a lot of science is still being done.

However, it is a lot more common for the doubt of AGW or the GHE itself to be expressed as terrible science -- propositions that openly violate the first or second law of thermodynamics or "There is no way that a trace gas in our atmosphere can be responsible for warming", for example. Well, yes there is, and the physics of it is relatively straightforward and well-known. Furthermore, one can simply look at the TOA IR spectra and see the CO_2 hole in radiation from the surface -- as close as one might hope to get to direct experimental of the GHE in action. So when skeptics assert "there is no such thing as the Greenhouse Effect", usually without anything like a well-founded theoretical argument or empirical support, they -- again in my opinion -- openly invite rebuttal, and I spend a fair bit of time on WUWT rebutting exactly that sort of claim. Obviously, they provide CAGW proponents with an opportunity to commit any number of logical fallacies and claim that because these skeptics have silly arguments, all skeptics are wrong. And even given my strong beliefs that the GHE is totally real and that it is not at all unreasonable that humans have contributed both to the total CO_2 concentration in the atmosphere (although quite possibly less than the AGW crowd asserts that they have contributed) and that the increased CO_2 has raised global temperatures by some amount (although quite possibly a lot less than the CAGW crowd asserts that they have raised them by), I do try to remain open to any specific argument to the contrary (such as the example given above that I could not falsify, although neither could I falsify alternatives that also worked).

The point is that one should not excuse the individuals on either side of the issue from their individual errors against reason. Some AGW opponents are quacks. I'm sorry, but there it is. Anthony is aware of this -- all of the scientists on this list are. The fact that some quacks try to invent unified field theory in physics (and somehow always seem to find my email address so that they can explain it to me) doesn't mean that physics in general or the search for a unified field theory in particular is quackery. Similarly some quacks opposing CAGW doesn't mean CAGW is either right or wrong, or that skepticism in general is quackery, it just means more "noise" in the discussion. In general, the list is pretty good at policing this sort of thing without resorting to censorship or (usually) name calling -- one reason I like to hang out here -- and the level of the science presented on both sides tends to be pretty good.

Note well, some AGW proponents are just as quackers! Ask Al Gore, for example, to present actual evidence defending half of the assertions he makes in the international news. A few other names come to mind as well, especially ones that have more or less "confessed" to at the very least abhorrent scientific practices in the Climategate emails -- gatekeeping, trying to get journal editors fired, concealing evidence that does not support a desired "cause", and the extraordinary steps of trying to get scientists actually fired from faculty positions at other institutions for the sin of disagreement with their published results and public position!

Shameful. One can indeed think of some nasty adjectives to describe the individuals who engage in such inappropriate activity as if it were science.

Science, however, does not benefit from throwing around pejorative terms (even in the specific cases where one might think they are justified). It's one thing that does bother me about this list -- certain members knee-jerk assume the worst about any scientist or politician that does -- in all honesty -- accept the conclusion of AGW, or CAGW. They not infrequently blow off steam with a bit of name-calling (and I'm probably not entirely free from blame here -- it is human nature and this is an informal venue). I obviously understand that -- but again it degrades the quality of the scientific debate, which should not automatically impugn the motives of someone that disagrees with you but rather should focus on the details of the disagreement, the arguments, and above all, the data and what can legitimately be inferred from it.

In any event, I hope this makes my position here clear. To summarize -- one should never use pejorative terms like "denier" in a scientific paper published in a reputable journal, not even to describe quacks who "deny" the laws of thermodynamics (whether or not they understand them). In general one should just ignore them. I would go one step further, and say that the term skeptic has no place in the debate, and is a purely political term that needlessly and incorrectly polarizes the scientific community and stifles the scientific process itself. All scientists worthy of the name are skeptics, and the best of them are the most skeptical of their own pet theories and beliefs, for it is here that we are most easily blinded the most by that bete noire of the scientific process, confirmation bias. We all see what we believe, and it is only by doubting our own beliefs that we can come to be reasonably sure of them, in time.

It is this that Feynman was attempting to convey in his wonderful speech -- one can always find evidence confirming any belief if one looks for it and fails to accurately report all of the evidence that didn't work out or confounds it. It is here that -- in my opinion -- climate science has horribly failed the people of the world. Whether or not the AGW hypothesis is correct -- with or without the "C" -- there has been a most unseemly rush to present only one side of the evidence, almost certainly to achieve certain political ends. Contrary evidence or arguments have been actively suppressed. Data and methods have been concealed as long as possible, and when finally revealed have proven to be at least -- questionable -- in many cases.

In the end it is this dishonesty that corrupts the scientific process, and we are paying for that corruption every day not just in climate science but in medical research, social science research, and many other scientific venues in which confirmation bias and cherrypicking of results runs rampant. In the case of climate science, the worst case bill -- either way -- could be in the trillions. Perhaps instead of throwing around terms like "denier" intended to shut down debate, we could open up the debate and get the science right.

Indeed.

Too many of the AGW and CAGW faithful have their blinders on and are incapable of seeing evidence, data, or theories that contradict their deeply held beliefs. Call it an ideological not-seeing-the-forest-for-the-trees problem. Their minds are made up and no amount of debate, discussion, or failure of their pet theories to predict actual climate behavior will change their minds. On the other hand, if the climate scientists who espouse much of this not-to-be-questioned theories were to take a closer look at their work, their data, and their assumptions, they might do one of two things: open up all of their data, algorithms, experimental processes, and any other relevant information for everyone to see, or; decide their theories and predictions are wrong and start over, this time without falling into the Feynman trap.

You know it's coming apart for James Hansen when forty-nine of his fellow NASA colleagues questioned the validity of catastrophic climate change predictions based entirely on flawed climate models and not upon objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change.

After all, isn't (or wasn't) NASA's job to approach science with an open mind, to look at the data retrieved during its research, collected by instruments both earthbound, airborne, and in space? Yet Hansen has turned all of that on its head, using his standing at NASA as a bully pulpit to put forward his views and just enough of the science to make his claims credible. How much has he tarnished NASA's reputation? (Not that it hasn't been tarnished by others, turning away from actual science and towards "Muslim outreach", something that has absolutely nothing to do with NASA's charter.)

These forty-nine scientists, all of which have credentials that are equal to or better than Hansen's, are saying "Hey, wait a minute! This climate change stuff isn't based on hard science, but conjecture, incomplete data, and faulty computer prognostications! That's not science!"

Maybe this is just the nudge needed to move the debate about climate change to the actual science, the "un-adjusted" raw data, and away from the politically attractive predetermined results bought and paid for by those who see CAGW as a means to an end.

But I'm not holding my breath that it will happen any time soon.

It seems I get drawn back to the subject of AGW again and again. Over the past couple of years there hasn't been anything new from the "We're-All-Gonna-DIE-And-It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans" warmists. On the other hand, between ClimateGate 1.0 and 2.0, more scientists questioning the "settled science", and gross failures of climate models to even come close to predicting the actual temperatures over the past 10 years or so, AGW has been losing its luster, except for the few diehards who still choose to keep pushing their agendas.

One of the most recent setbacks is the more recent failure of climate models to predict the present decade long halt to warming, and particularly their lack of correlation between predicted effects of increased CO₂ concentrations and their effect on climate.

Some may point to the recent warm spell we enjoyed in the US over the past week or so as proof of AGW. But I recall more than a few really mild winters (and equally bitter cold winters) since I've trodden this earth. It's called weather and it happens all the time.

But back to the main point.

During a fundraiser in Atlanta earlier this month, President Obama is reported to have said: "It gets you a little nervous about what is happening to global temperatures. When it is 75 degrees in Chicago in the beginning of March, you start thinking. On the other hand, I really have enjoyed nice weather."

What is happening to global temperatures in reality? The answer is: almost nothing for more than 10 years. Monthly values of the global temperature anomaly of the lower atmosphere, compiled at the University of Alabama from NASA satellite data, can be found at the website http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/. The latest (February 2012) monthly global temperature anomaly for the lower atmosphere was minus 0.12 degrees Celsius, slightly less than the average since the satellite record of temperatures began in 1979.

The lack of any statistically significant warming for over a decade has made it more difficult for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its supporters to demonize the atmospheric gas CO2 which is released when fossil fuels are burned.

Many of the warmists point to the increase in global temps and their correlation with increased levels of CO₂ as the only proof they need. But they choose to ignore that global temperatures started increasing well before the CO₂ levels stared rising. So unless CO₂ has some kind of temporal effect, meaning that its effects somehow travel through time to cause warming before the levels rise, then we have to look at the possibility that CO₂ levels rose because of rising temperatures. Antarctic ice cores showing 400,000 years of climate data suggest just that scenario.

Perhaps my biggest gripe about the ongoing AGW doomsaying is that all they predict is calamity, yet they have no way of telling us exactly how they came to that conclusion. It's like they assume that any change is a bad change and that there's no way that conditions on Earth might actually get better rather than worse. Paleoclimatology suggests things will be better with a warmer climate. Better that than trying to usher in a another Ice Age.

Probably one of the best proponents of the "skeptics" view on AGW, Lord Monckton, gave his "Climate of Freedom" lecture at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Monckton, being no fool, was well prepared to parry the claims and fallacies put forth by the indoctrinated "watermelon" environmentalists (green on the outside, red on the inside) either attending the lecture or protesting outside the lecture hall.

One of his better encounters was with Erin Delman, president of the Environmental Club at the college and one of the unthinking indoctrinated.

As they filed in, Lord Monckton was chatting contentedly to a quaveringly bossy woman with messy blonde hair who was head of the college environmental faction. Her group had set up a table at the door of the auditorium, covered in slogans scribbled on messy bits of recycled burger boxes held together with duct tape (Re-Use Cardboard Now And Save The Planet). "There's a CONSENSUS!" she shrieked.

"That, Madame, is intellectual baby-talk," replied Lord Monckton. Had she not heard of Aristotle's codification of the commonest logical fallacies in human discourse, including that which the medieval schoolmen would later describe as the argumentum ad populum, the headcount fallacy?  From her reddening face and baffled expression, it was possible to deduce that she had not. Nor had she heard of the argumentum ad verecundiam, the fallacy of appealing to the reputation of those in authority.

Ah, yes. The ever popular appeal to authority, the usual device of those who know their argument is a losing one. It's certainly one of the more used tactics of the warmist camp - if the facts don't support your beliefs, then make the appeal to authority as if that's all one needs to do to prove the unsubstantiated claims.

But for the moment let us return to to Erin Delman's refrain - "There's a CONSENSUS!" Monckton blew the consensus argument out of the water with a few examples of consensus that were anything but proof.

[Monckton] said that, unlike the IPCC, he was going to speak in plain English. Yet he proposed to begin, in silence, by displaying some slides demonstrating the unhappy consequences of several instances of consensus in the 20th century.

The Versailles consensus of 1918 imposed reparations on the defeated Germany, so that the conference that ended the First World War (15 million dead) sowed the seeds of the Second. The eugenics consensus of the 1920s that led directly to the dismal rail-yards of Oswiecim and Treblinka (6 million dead). The appeasement consensus of the 1930s that provoked Hitler to start World War II (60 million dead). The Lysenko consensus of the 1940s that wrecked 20 successive harvests in the then Soviet Union (20 million dead). The ban-DDT consensus of the 1960s that led to a fatal resurgence of malaria worldwide (40 million children dead and counting, 1.25 million of them last year alone).

You could have heard a pin drop. For the first time, the largely hostile audience (for most of those who attended were environmentalists) realized that the mere fact of a consensus does not in any way inform us of whether the assertion about which there is said to be a consensus is true.

And there is the crux of the argument. Consensus, particularly when the term is applied to science, means absolutely nothing. It is merely a tool used to push unsubstantiated and, in some cases, wholly unprovable "scientific" gobbledygook. Consensus means nothing in regards to the validity of a scientific hypothesis. All it takes is one person outside the consensus to prove it wrong.

What made Monckton's lecture even more eye opening was using the IPCC's own data and conclusions to prove them as nonsense. As Monckton stated, the IPCC's reports were not peer reviewed, something the warmists claim ad nauseum is the only thing that is the measure of whether something is true or not. (Never mind that the only peers the AGW folks want reviewing anything are those who are firmly in the warmist camp. The open-minded need not apply.)

In the comments to the post linked above, Lord Monckton replies personally to some of the warmist trolls who tried to discredit his claims by making strawman arguments, misrepresenting what he stated, or trying to attack his data. Ironically, much of the data he used came from the IPCC itself, which he goes to great lengths to explain in his reply. Using their data he shows a number of faulty or unsubstantiated assumptions made by the IPCC to make their grossly overestimated projections about AGW. He shreds every one of the trolls' accusations and shows them for the indoctrinated and unthinking drones they are.

As more than one commenter opined, they'd love to see Lord Monckton debate Al Gore about AGW. Too bad we'll never see that happen. Monckton would bury him.

As the furor has started to die down over Peter Gleick's use of identity theft in order further support of his cause, that being Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, I have to admit to thinking about both the immorality of the act and the casting aside the ethics that someone like Gleick should have strove to uphold.

Some have tried to rationalize his act, proclaiming his intentions were good. But that's an old excuse that has been overused and does not excuse his actions. We also know where that road leads: Hell.

The debate rages on about whether "lying for the cause" excuses the lies or is merely an excuse for something that an unethical or immoral person would have done anyways.

We've seen so much in the way of lies and deceit in regards to AGW that it's becoming hard to discriminate between facts, wishful thinking, and outright fabrications. And in that regard I have to say the award for the most deceitful actions must go to the supporters of AGW. As the ClimateGate e-mails have revealed, those who should have been pursuing the truth instead put their efforts towards burying it. (Please notice that I use the lower case 't' in truth, as science is supposed to search for the truth. Use of the upper case "T" in Truth tends to signify that whatever is designated using that word tends to be anything but.) Dissenting viewpoints were quashed. The word 'peer' in "Peer review" was redefined to mean "only those who agree with us", which destroyed the credibility once attached to that phrase. Publications which dared to publish dissenting views were targeted for trivialization or forced to fire editors who refused to toe the line if they wished to survive.

Such is the power of lying for the cause.

In this case the lies are allegedly to force courses of action that are supposedly necessary to save the planet. Never mind that there is tenuous evidence at best that any such actions are required. The true believers know they are right and are willing to put forward any story, use any lie, any fabricated evidence to advance their cause. The thought that they might actually be wrong has never crossed their minds. And should there be any facts that contradict their belief system then it must be suppressed and those presenting them discredited.

When these kinds of actions are applied to science, then it ceases being science. It becomes dogma and requires no proof. We saw that in Nazi Germany (racial science) and the Soviet Union (Lysenkoism), where political beliefs overrode the truths provided by science. And because of it millions died.

CAGW is no different. And while it's not likely to lead to extermination camps and gulags, millions (if not a couple of billion) will pay the price for the lies put forward "for the good of the people." Scientific truth need not apply.

Call it yet another blow against the AGW faithful.

In this case, Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, whose specialty is atmospheric physics, testified in front of the British House of Commons about the overblown hysteria that is anthropogenic global warming and the dire predictions of catastrophe.

For those of you out there who will try to claim that Dr. Lindzen isn't a climate scientist, I must remind you that climate is atmospheric physics, and Lindzen is an expert.

Lindzen's presentation to the House of Commons can be found here. (PDF)

I got into a discussion about AGW with my rather liberal brother-in-law last night. Unlike many other debates I've had with AGW believers, this one was unemotional and, quite frankly, enjoyable. While neither of us convinced the other our particular point of view was the correct one, we both agreed there are still too many unanswered questions that need to be addressed before considering any of the proposed corrective "actions" are taken. (Both of us agreed that some of the proposals are too draconian and, in the end, foolish.)

This brings me to tonight's post.

I linked to the follow-up opinion piece from the "Sixteen Concerned Scientists", and much like the first there were a considerable number of comments. Unlike the first, many of those commenting were far less emotional (though no less indoctrinated).

One of the best comments I've come across so far came from Mike Koban, a scientist in the fields of geochemistry and dendroclimatology. Apparently he is a professor at the University of West Florida, teaching Basic Hydrology, Physical Geology, Environmental Geology, and Geomorphology.

Writes Mike:

I have a points to make about GW and Environmentalism --

First, it's not even politically correct to say "Global Warming" anymore -- we call it "Global Climate Change." This, I think, reflects the point that most of us naysayers are trying to highlight. And that is that the science is far too uncertain to make any economic, political or social projections, especially those as sweeping as redirecting all energy production towards "green" types.

Second, if the GW movement is about preserving our planet the way it is...that's just silly. No natural system is ever about the status quo. They are ever changing and anyone who tells you that they want to preserve the planet and save all the creatures in it clearly doesn't understand the concepts of geomorphology or evolution.

Third, it is inherently misleading to compare all changes in weather to the time right before the industrial revolution. If you only study the time during which Earth's atmosphere has been receiving anthropogenic CO₂, then, chances are, your going to find effects driven by anthropogenic CO₂...There is, however a problem with doing this -- it's almost impossible to interpret accurate climate cycles at high resolutions. This is exactly my point -- we cannot focus on 2 centuries worth of data out of 10 million centuries worth of data. Would you invest your life savings in the stock market based on one minute's worth of data?

The point is that we cant possibly know that it is CO₂ so why are we saying that there is no possible alternative.

(I have edited the above, primarily to correct some formatting and a couple of spelling errors, and removed some parts that did not add to Mr. Koban's points. However, if you believe I did so to change his meaning or quoted him out of context, feel free to read his full comment linked above. - dce)

Much like my discussion with my brother-in-law, Mike brings up points that should not be ignored by the AGW faithful or the skeptics. There are still too many unanswered questions to say "the science is settled" or that "the evidence is incontrovertible". There are still too many unanswered questions that cannot be ignored. Until the answers are found we must not take action that will impoverish the developed nations and trap the developing nations into economic stasis and perpetual poverty, all in the name of "saving the planet."

After the excoriation they received after publishing their letter questioning the validity of the conclusions by some climate scientists as a WSJ op-ed, the "Sixteen Concerned Scientists" have answered their critics with a second piece, asking even more poignant questions about the science, climate models, and what they see as an unreasonable push for draconian measures to combat something that may not even exist.

One of their biggest concerns is the reliance on climate models that have not lived up to their hype, failing to predict the actual global temperatures, including those in the past.

I've mentioned this before. It's called hindcasting and it uses climate data from 70 or 80 years - generally from 1900 onward, for instance - to predict the temperatures for the following 20 or 30 years. To date, every climate model has failed miserably, overestimating the actual temperatures by a wide margin. This means the models don't work and shouldn't be used to predict temperatures over the next 10 years, let alone the next 100 years. Nor should we base any corrective actions based on these seriously defective models. But of course that hasn't stopped the AGW faithful from claiming that we have to "Do Something!" right now or we're all doomed because the climate models say so.

One of the best comments to this second piece came down to a phrase in Latin that is the basis for all scientific inquiries - Nullius In Verba - which means "Take no one's word for it" and is the motto of the Royal Society. And when it comes to the claims that human activity is the major cause of global warming, nullius in verba should be kept in mind until all the work, data, and experimentation has produced repeatable results. So far we haven't reached that point. And until we do I'll maintain my skepticism.

And to quote another non-climate scientist, John Maynard Keynes, whose words should also be kept in mind - "When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do?" That is a question we should be asking all of the AGW faithful. Their answers would be illuminating.

Keeping in mind that Europe has been suffering yet another bitterly cold winter with some areas seeing snowfalls not experienced in decades, would anyone like to try to convince those living under those conditions that it's all the fault of AGW?

Somehow I think anyone trying to sell that idea would be laughed right out of town, assuming the folks they're trying to convince didn't beat them to death instead.

Another thing I have found with the ongoing debate about Anthropogenic Global Warming climate change has been the constant claims by the warmist camp about "consensus" in regards to the findings by tens of thousands ten thousand a thousand 99% of climate scientists that It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans. This in itself is enough to discredit their 'proof', as science in no way, shape, or form is about consensus. It means they truly do not understand the scientific method or how proofs are made.

This is something the late author and physician Michael Crichton addressed during a guest lecture at Cal Tech back in 2003.

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.

The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus: Period.

Crichton went on to list a number of major failures in regards to "consensus science", some of which caused the loss of many lives. Others destroyed careers, even though later it was discovered that those who went against the consensus were right and everyone else was wrong.

Albert Einstein had his own take on consensus, having once stated "It doesn't matter if ten thousand scientists agree with me. It only takes one to prove me wrong." One of the smartest men in the modern era understood the fallacy of consensus science.

And this is the weakness of the 'theory' of Anthropogenic Global Warming. At the moment it's all consensus and no hard proofs. People, many of them non-scientists, look at some of the presented data and see a correlation between global average temperatures and the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. They come to the conclusion that the increase in carbon dioxide is the cause of the temperature rise. They've fallen into the Correlation Trap. Unfortunately, so have some of the so-called climate scientists, like Al Gore.

As anyone who deals with data and statistics can tell you, correlation does not imply causality. This means just because two factors correlate to each other does not automatically mean that one caused the other. There may be other factors that affect both and cause the correlation but have not been discovered, or have been discounted through ignorance, bias, or conscious decision.

Another possibility the correlation may show but that the warmists have chosen to ignore: CO₂ concentrations have changed because of changing temperatures, something ice core samples from Antarctica have shown to be the case over the past 400,000 years, where CO₂ levels have lagged temperature changes, not led them. But why should they let that data change the narrative? After all the 'consensus' is that it's all our fault, meaning no further discussion is needed or wanted.

Yeah, that will work out well for all of us.

Not.

It seems I just can't get away from AGW this week.

As a follow on to my previous two posts is this piece about the reconstruction of global temperatures over the past 2,000 years. (Well, actually 1,995 years, but who's quibbling?)

This latest reconstruction used a host of proxies from all over the world, but excluded tree-ring proxies - something used by a number of climate researchers, including Mann - because of their unreliability.

...Loehle notes that many long-term reconstructions of climate are based on tree rings, but "There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not capture long-term climate changes (100+ years) because tree size, root/shoot ratio, genetic adaptation to climate, and forest density can all shift in response to prolonged climate changes, among other reasons." Furthermore, Loehle notes "Most seriously, typical reconstructions assume that tree ring width responds linearly to temperature, but trees can respond in an inverse parabolic manner to temperature, with ring width rising with temperature to some optimal level, and then decreasing with further temperature increases." Other problems include tree responses to precipitation changes, variations in atmospheric pollution levels, diseases, pest outbreaks, and the obvious problem of enrichment that comes along with ever higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Trees are not simple thermometers!

Instead, Loehle used such things as "borehole temperature measurements, pollen remains, Mg/Ca ratios, oxygen isotope data from deep cores or from stalagmites, diatoms deposited on lake bottoms, reconstructed sea surface temperatures, and so on." Loehle's reconstruction used everything except tree-ring data.

His results show both the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods as well as the Little Ice Age, which Mann's did not. Loehle's results also mirrored those of Svensmark, who used Carbon-14 data to determine solar activity over the past 1,000 years. Others have taken that even farther, going back almost 3,500 years. Loehle's global temperature chart mirrored that of the solar activity plotted by Svensmark and others, giving us further clues into another driving force behind climate change.

Could this be another bit of ammunition to use against the Global-Warming-Is-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans theory of climate change? Maybe.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

One of the most bothersome things I've noticed about those supporting AGW as fact is their constant citing of CO₂ data as the only thing we need to concentrate on. They seem to think that 'heat trapping' by atmospheric CO₂ is a linear relationship, meaning as the concentration of CO₂ increase, it's heat trapping increases likewise. But it doesn't. More than a few studies show that after it reaches a critical concentration, further increases have little effect on heat trapping. We're already past that point, meaning the CO₂ effects have reached saturation.

The AGW faithful also ignore such things as solar activity, claiming it's variations to be so small as to be meaningless. But they overlook or ignore other effects variations in solar activity can have that has nothing to do with its radiance. Certainly Svensmark's work implies they are discounting a very big factor that affects Earth's climate. (It certainly seems to affect surface and atmospheric temperatures on Mars, the Jovian and Saturnian moons, and Pluto!)

This topic will continue to generate a lot of commentary. I won't say it will create a lot of debate because you cannot debate with true believers, particularly with those of the AGW faith.

And so it goes.

While not quite as prominent in the media as it has been, the debate about Anthropogenic Global Warming still goes on.

As I posted recently, sixteen concerned scientists wrote and signed a letter stating there is no need to panic about global warming. When I wrote that post I had barely skimmed through the 2700+ comments. Now that I've had a couple of days to look them over, it appears the AGW faithful came out in full force, decrying the sixteen and doing their best to diminish the stature of those scientists. They also kept repeating the same old discredited talking points as if that's all the justification that was needed. Others seemed to pull numbers, 'facts', and statistics out of thin air with no relevant cites to back up their claims about CO₂. Some tried to very hard to discredit any AGW skeptics by claiming they had been bought and paid for by the oil companies, again with no corroborating evidence to back up their claims. Far too many of them had no basic understanding of scientific method and what it meant when data sets of climate data were 'destroyed', making it impossible to check the results of "tens of thousands" of climate researchers. (That was another thing that bugged me as well as some of the commenters - claims by the faithful that "tens of thousands" climate scientists all agreed that AGW was fact. Somehow I doubt that there are that many researchers out there studying this issue. It seems like just another 'fact' pulled out of thin air. A few commenters challenged these claims but no backing evidence or cites were ever produced.)

Calls for drastic actions to 'save the planet' were made again and again, but not one of saying they were needed could give us any details about what we puny humans could possibly do to affect the chaotic system that is called climate to save something that needs no saving, other than to 'decarbonize' our civilization, which usually entails impoverishing the West.

Again we have to ask the question of the faithful: Cui bono?

The case for the "incontrovertible" and "settled Science" of AGW has suffered yet another series of blows. First, it appears there has been no warming over the past 15 years, claims by the warmists notwithstanding. The the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, home of ClimateGate and ClimateGate 2.0, reports that there has been no appreciable warming in that time period.

None of that stops the AGW faithful, who aren't letting things like actual data get in the way of their beliefs.

Then sixteen prominent scientists sign a letter saying there is no need to panic about global warming. The letter pokes holes in some of the claims made by AGW proponents and questions the motivations of those who have abandoned any pretense of scientific objectivity.

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Cui bono? indeed.

As more evidence points to climate change being a natural phenomenon one has to ask this question of the AGW proponents: Who are the 'deniers'? The AGW faithful who pick and chose data that backs their claims while ignoring data that contradicts their beliefs? Or those who look at all the data and find it does not support the claims for AGW?