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thingadonta at 13:30 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Your argument still misses the point. Skeptics are primarily concerned about exageration. Even the more extreme skeptics concede that c02 causes warming, the question is how much (negative /positive feedbacks), and that necessarily means exageration on various levels is a key issue. They key quesiton is overall climate sensitivity, and urban surface temperatures, for example, are being used to bolster up higher climate sensitivity estimates and formulate policy. Urban heat islands are not melting glaciers, but skeptics contend that glaciers are melting largely naturally, and superficially enhanced urban surface temperatures are being used to falsely bolster the case for higher climate sensitivity. There is another isuse skeptics are concerned about which your arguemnt doesn't mention or understand in the slightest. I would call it a 'manufactured' or 'superficial consensus'. Now before you stop reading, this doesnt mean conspiracy, it is simply human bias, or noble cause corruption. Some people's basic philosophical position is to bring 'order' and 'consensus' to a chaotic world, but skeptics contend this can be a dangerous or two-sided basic philosophical foundation, because inconsistency and disorder (chaos) is a fundamental principle of both nature and society, which means it is very easy for a 'manufactured consensus' to ignore the scientific reality (change/disoder/chaos). Skeptics contend that 'manufactured consensus' goes on all the time, and is very dfficult to eliminate, as in "The Hithchikers Guide to the Galaxy" when two war lords are at the table and one of them mutters something which turns out to be offensive to the other's mother without realising it, and all out war in unleashed. It happens (almost) without intent. Skeptics contend that claiming a 'consensus of evidence' with current climate data is a form of noble cause distortion/corruption. Whenever something crops up which doensn't fit the model, some research is carried out which inevitably comes up with an angle which 'makes' it fit, but in many cases such a 'fit' is entirely ambiguous. The bandwagon followers then proclaim, 'it turns out that is supports strong AGW etc etc', when the data makes no such conclusion. Skeptics contend this happens frequently. Therefore, there is no 'consenus of evidence', and overall climate sensitivity is still rightly debated. People in other fields such as anthrolopolgy and physics understand this process a bit better it seems. No one claims that 'dark matter' for example is a given because the data is still ambiguous. Anthrolopoloigsts consistenly find bones of hominids exactly fitting the model they were trying to prove, until somone finds another set of bones which leads to a different interpretation. They accept this sort of human bias, but they dont want to change the economy because of it. Becuase of this frequent distortion of 'consensus', skeptics are always trying to pick holes and weaknesses in the arguments, which is entirely reasonable given the process of human bias above. But your argument suggests all such is misguided. We should trust the funding and peer review process, the scientists. I think the diasgreements come from a different perspective of basic human nature, and a learned lack of faith in the current peer review process. I'll give some concrete examples, off the top of my head. There is no evidence that volcanism was stronger in the Cretaceous and that is why the c02 levels were higher and T was warmer. It is a superficial consensus focred to fit into the 'model'. Possibilities ignored include continental configuration and changes to ocean currents. There is no evidence that oceans acidified dramatically fast during mass extinction events and coral reefs collapsed in short periods of time, the process appears to be very slow, meaning we don't know how ocean chemistry responds to very short term c02 rises. Evidence ignored includes the oceans not diverging more than 0.6pH in the last 300 million years, which implies they are strongly buffered to c02 changes (eg dissolution/precipitaiton of carbonate sediments in the subsurface, which is larger in area than all the worlds coastal shelfs). To say that coral reefs will 'become eroding structures in 30 years' by ignoring this sort of doubt is simply following a constantly manufactured consensus. I am not using these examples as particually good examples of underlying doubts, just examples of where ambiguous data is made/manufactured to fit into a general model. It goes on all the time. We dont know cloud cover during the Little Ice Age or the MWP and how this affected T. We dont know overall climate sensitvity. Many other examples could be given. Skeptics will continue to focus on small pieces, big pieces, the big picture and the small picture, for as long as there is human bias, and until we have very strong confidence in overall climate sensivity, which even the politically charged, 'we exagerate for political reasons' IPCC, is unsure about. -
ProfMandia at 13:17 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berényi Péter: How much has the population grown over the oceans? Must be a lot of UHI there because T trends over those regions are pretty close to those over land. Why does this dead horse keeping trying to get up? Scott A. Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences Selden, NY My Global Warming Blog -
mothincarnate at 12:10 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
That's more or less my general argument; that there are so many lines of evidence and impacts that the argument of AGW is pointless, meaningless and provokes inaction in the face of so many issues. One thing that I'd like to say, however; I wouldn't say that "species are becoming extinct". More accurate would be to say that current extinction rates are being further exaggerated by climate change. We know that our land change use is already having a massive impact on biodiversity, but with climate change impacting on distribution (tending to shift further from the equator) and ecological cues (ie. first bloom, nesting etc), this is having a detrimental effect on species and community fitness. Then acidification of surface waters... These are happening, regardless of the first comment here "not much warming is left" of which I'm happy to provide a list of papers. Cheers, Tim -
Uncle Pete at 12:10 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Actually air conditioners do at least contribute to global warming, as most of them are in the US and they suck up untold Megawatts of electric power , which in turn is mainly generated by coalfired powerstations. :) -
Berényi Péter at 11:31 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#11 David Horton at 11:26 AM on 13 June, 2010 how do I explain that to the glaciers? No need to explain them, they are not sentient. Just filter out soot from smoke. -
David Horton at 11:26 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
"Not much warming is left. " Phew, there's a relief. But how do I explain that to the glaciers? -
Berényi Péter at 11:15 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#6 Dan at 10:04 AM on 13 June, 2010 It is hard to worry much about "sloppy" surface data No, it is not hard. Just criticism is largely misplaced.
The Global Average Urban Heat Island Effect in 2000 Estimated from Station Temperatures and Population Density Data
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
You can see, as UHI is roughly proportional to the logarithm of population density, the problem gets really serious only with stations in the least densely populated areas.
UHI effect is roughly logarithmic with
ΔT = 0.23×log(0.66×d)
where d is local population density per km2.
As global population density between 1900 and 2008 has increased fourfold, in first approximation this effect alone can explain about a 0.23×log(4) ~ 0.32°C increase in global average surface temperature during this period as measured by meteorological stations.
However, as relative abundance of stations flagged rural in GHCN has increased recently, the actual figure must be higher (because at low population density the curve is steeper).
Not much warming is left.
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Marcus at 11:08 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
@ Dan (post #7). I think This video really highlights the point you're making about people padding their resumes to make themselves sound more credible on this issue. Like the guy says (ok, so I'm paraphrasing here)-"would you go see a GP to get brain surgery done? NO-then why do we trust weathermen or Classics Graduates for their OPINIONS on climate change?" -
Marcus at 10:56 AM on 13 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
No, PW, Monckton's presentations are loaded with FALSEHOODS-not errors. He KNOWS that what he is presenting is WRONG, but continues to give the presentations anyway. Just look at his initial reaction to Abraham's criticisms-he refused to admit a single error (even the obvious ones) & instead focused on ad-hominem attacks of Abraham (all the while demanding a level of respect that he has failed to show to others-the HYPOCRITE). Compare that to Abraham's very calm & measured rebuttal of Monckton, & its all too easy to see who the con-man is, & who the genuine scientist, following correct lines of inquiry, is-its just a shame that you can't figure it out. For the record, I personally don't like Al Gore that much, but his presentation in "An Inconvenient Truth" was not filled with the deliberate lies & misrepresentations that Monckton uses. Indeed, his documentary involves interviews with the *actual* scientists in the field-something Monckton would *never* do, because he KNOWS they won't support his outlandish claims. Also, I've yet to hear Gore attack his detractors in the same venomous, ad-hominem way that Monckton attacks his detractors. You also hilariously claim that if people want to believe Monckton's lies, then that's *their* business. Yet when those people who choose to believe him control our ability to take action to reduce the world's Greenhouse Gas emissions, I'd say it actually becomes *everyone's* business. Your assertion is akin to saying "oh sure that cult leader is encouraging his flock to commit murder, based on his misrepresentation of the bible, but it's *their* right to believe him". What complete & errant nonsense. So I applaud Abraham's efforts in debunking Monckton, because then maybe more people will treat his message with a little more *genuine* skepticism. However, when I read the posts of people like yourself, PW, who desperately try to defend Monckton-even after all his LIES are laid bare-I realise that some people who are only "skeptical" when it suits their interests. Lastly, in spite of your claim above, its obvious to anyone reading that you have a VENDETTA against Abraham because he has attacked your beloved Monckton. From the moment you started commenting on these posts, you've shown a barely restrained HATRED of Abraham-using the most pedantic things to attack his credibility on-whilst letting Monckton completely off the hook. Again, this makes me doubt your self-proclaimed "neutrality" in this matter-a view I'll continue to hold until you can provide something approaching GENUINE PROOF that Abraham has deliberately sought to mislead his audience. -
Tenney Naumer at 10:49 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
This is an excellent post because it is both clear and succinct. -
scaddenp at 10:30 AM on 13 June 2010Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
TOP - because H2O is FEEDBACK. Any forcing,= that raises the temperature of atmosphere will increase the water content and thus the GHG effect from it. If you want to know about the FORCING due to increase in anthropogenic gases then you need to filter out the feedback. -
Dan at 10:20 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Keep up the good work. You're doing a great service. By the way, another common method (this is not news, I'm sure) by which climate skeptics mislead is by bluffing credentials and experience. It is as effective as twisting facts, but safer, because they are rarely challenged. People are too busy and too aware of their own lack of science training to find out things. It is usually fairly effective to believe an expert. So, self-appointed climate rebels who feel that AGW is all a hoax spend a fair bit of their argument with falsehoods about their own positions as "renowned" scientists, the smartest and the first, etc., when the opposite is usually true. The British have a good word for it: puffery. A complete nobody in climate science can look into the TV camera and say "I am one of the few people qualified to speak about climate change", and people believe the next malarkey that comes out of his mouth. Amazing. The deniers get away with arguing from (falsely attributed) authority because the future of the planet is not important enough for the rest of us to challenge personal claims. That could be embarrassing. -
TOP at 10:05 AM on 13 June 2010Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Curious but when showing changes in absorbtion of infrared why is the contribution from H2O always filtered out? It would seem to me that this would become more positive as the atmosphere warms. -
Dan at 10:04 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
It is hard to worry much about "sloppy" surface data weather collection when we see results like this: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-US-Surface-Temperature-Record-Reliable.html Quote: "The work of surfacestations.org is useful in clarifying one point - microsite influence has imparted little to no warming bias in the U.S. temperature record." -
villabolo at 09:59 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
John Cook says: "Skeptics claim thermometers are unreliable because surroundings can influence the reading. They reinforce this by showing photo after photo of weather stations positioned near warming influences like air conditioners, barbeques and carparks. The Skeptics Handbook goes so far as to say "the main 'cause' of global warming is air conditioners"." I remember in grade school seeing a wall unit air conditioner running full blast on a hot summer day with a shimmering appearance right outside the window that gave the impression of something rising up right from behind the A/C. That was the hot air exhaust. The fact is that hot air rises immediately, not after it travels 20 or more feet horizontally to swirl around the thermometer. -
penguindreams at 09:50 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
I like E. O. Wilson's term consilience. Evidence converges towards one conclusion from a wide variety of directions. Any given line (every line) has some possibilities for error. But those possibilities and routes of error are different between the different lines. There is consilience between lines of evidence as wildly different as sea level, global thermometer networks, and the times of flowers blooming in the spring. (And many, many, more.) They all have sources of error, but each source of error could as easily point to cooling as warming. Yet there is consilience that the earth is warming. mattj: I haven't read a lot of the 19th century literature about collecting surface air temperatures and sea surface temperatures, but some. I think it's quite a stretch to condemn people 100 years ago for not having collected their data in ways that we in 2010 wish they would have. If you read their work, they were clearly trying to collect the best possible observations, in the best possible way, as they understood it at the time, and for the purposes they were collecting the data at the time. 30, 70, 130 years later, we're trying to do different things with the data, in different ways. That's our problem. Calling them 'sloppy' for not anticipating our interests and methods doesn't strike me as fair to anybody, or useful for anything. -
gallopingcamel at 09:47 AM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
caerbannog (#39), As you point out there was a huge spike in C14 in the 1960s which swamps any changes due to increased burning of fossil fuels. I guess that idea won't fly. doug_bostrom (#21), That article you linked is the one I must have read earlier. I forgot that it concerned C13/C12 ratio. As that article is six years old I tried to find something more recent: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/ Now I am really confused. -
Berényi Péter at 09:38 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
neglecting the full picture Scientific approach is not about pictures and it is definitely not holistic. Whenever pieces of the full picture don't withstand analytic scrutiny, those pieces should be abandoned, even if they seem to be consistent with multiple lines of evidence. This is the nature of the scientific method. Techniques suggested by the way people contemplate on Rorschach figures may be indispensable heuristic tools, but as soon as a hypothesis is formed, one should switch from vision to cold logic.
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ProfMandia at 09:19 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
John, It is a good idea that you keep recycling this theme lest some get lost in the straws. I keep stating that there are three conclusions: 1) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts agree about much of the tenets of AGW and are honest. 2) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts are ignorant about their own expertise in a sudden and collective manner. (Claims of group think included.) 3) These scientists have all agreed to conspire to delude the billions of folks on the planet and just a very tiny percentage of them (and mostly oil-funded and unpublished) are trying to save us all from this mass hoax. Common sense and a sense of probability should lead one to the likely correct choice above. Scott A. Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences Selden, NY My Global Warming Blog -
MattJ at 09:17 AM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
This article is good, but I think it misses at least one important point. True, other lines of evidence do support global warming, but scientists did themselves and the world a disservice by such sloppy methods for gathering surface temperature data. The sarcastic rejoinder "global warming is caused by air conditioning", is all too potent a tool for a political PR slogan. Remember: science alone cannot stop global warming. Radical political action is needed as well. Such action will happen: the question is whether it will happen now, with little bloodshed, or later, with massive bloodshed and loss of life due to emerging diseases and vanishing habitat. -
chris at 03:53 AM on 13 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Passing Wind at 15:15 PM on 12 June, 2010 You suggest in relation to the graphs Monckton showed as a backdrop to his assertion that ""....the Medieval Warm Period was real, was global, and was warmer than the present. That is the scientific consensus.....", that "..he was absolutely correct in using them.” Since at least 6 of the graphs don't support his assertion at all it's difficult to understand your approval, unless you consider that it's immaterial what one shows when asserting blatant falsehoods. Let's look at one of these in more detail. Monckton shows a sketch of broad climate regimes attributed both to” Dansgaard (1969)” and to “Schonweise” [sic] “(1995)”. The Dansgaard paper was written 40 years ago at a time when our understanding of past climate was poor in detail and before the major warming of the last 30-odd years that we obviously have to consider when assessing (as Monckton claims to be doing) the relationship between present temperatures and the MWP. However Schonwiese (1995) is rather more recent. This presumably refers to a book [Schonwiese, C.D. (1995): Klimaanderungen, Daten, Analysen, Prognosen. Springer Verlag, Berlin] which I can't access. It isn't from the single paper that Christian Schonwiese wrote in 1995 as can be easily determined by inspection: Schonwiese C D and Bayer D (1995) Some statistical aspects of anthropogenic and natural forced global temperature-change Atmosfera 8, 3-22 Luckily we can look at a paper Dr. Schonwiese wrote in 1997 which contains a slightly modified version of the graph that Monckton shows (see top middle graph in Figure 2 of the article at the top of this thread). What can we conclude about Dr. Schonwiese's understanding and depiction of the relationship between current temperatures and temperatures during the MWP in 1997? The graph is shown in Figure 1 of: Schonwiese CD (1997) Anthropogenic and natural signals in climate variations Naturwissenschaften 84, 65-73 This graph shows essentially the same sketch as depicted in Monckton’s Powerpoint slide, but extends the temperature to the present as well as predicting 100 years into the future. The MWP has a temperature max ~15.4 oC. It’s not easy to determine what the current temperature is since Schonwiese has a rapidly rising temperature squashed into the right hand side of the plot and it’s not completely obvious where the current temperature becomes the projected temperature. However current temperatures seem to be in the range ~15.7 - ~16.3 oC. Incidentally he considers that temperatures will continue to rise in the 100 years (from 1997) to around ~ 19 oC although he labels a range between 17.5 – 20.5 as uncertain (“unsicherheit”). In other words it’s very difficult indeed to consider that Dr. Schonwiese’s work from the mid-1990’s could be used to support the assertion that the MWP was warmer than now. Again the opposite interpretation seems warranted from Monckton’s supposed source. Likewise it would seem that Dr. Schonwiese was rather concerned in 1997 about very significant warming in the coming decades. Note that we can’t use this figure to say anything about the global nature of the MWP since it’s clear that the sketch refers to Northern hemisphere temperatures. If we’re not totally certain (since Dansgaards and Schonwiese’s figure copied by Monckton is obviously a sketch) we could look at Dr. Schonwiese’s more recent work. In a paper published earlier this year [*] he assess likely anthropogenic contributions to warming since 1860. The total warming is around 0.8-0.9 oC globally (1.0-1.1 oC in the NH).; Schonwiese determines that pretty much all of this (less around 0.2 oC natural contributions) is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, somewhat tempered by atmospheric aerosols. If we add this temperature rise to the temperature around 1860 in the Dansgaard/Schonwiese sketch that Monckton shows, then the current temperature is around 16-16.1 oC compared to 15.4 oC at the MWP max. [*]Schonwiese CD, Walter A, Brinckmann S (2010) Statistical assessments of anthropogenic and natural global climate forcing. An update. Meteorologische Zeitschrift 19, 3-10. In other words the Dansgaard/Schonwiese graph that Monckton shows in support of his bogus assertion actually supports the conclusion that the MWP was significantly cooler than now. Now, most people might say that it’s difficult to draw major conclusion about past temperatures from a sketch. However you (Passing Wind) have asserted that Monckton is ”absolutely correct” in using this to accompany his bogus assertion about what the scientific evidence shows. -
Doug Bostrom at 03:36 AM on 13 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
PW, while the debate is about politics the science leading to that debate is quite separable from that discussion and in fact will more or less continue on its trajectory regardless of what happens in the political arena. -
Doug Bostrom at 03:33 AM on 13 June 2010There is no consensus
Daniel, while it may be true that 20% of earth scientists have problems with the concept of anthropogenic warming, the number of scientists who have published work supplying a strong workable alternative hypothesis that meshes well with a complicated web of other findings not even necessarily directly related to issues of climate is essentially nil. An opinion is not science. -
caerbannog at 03:00 AM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
You would expect a rise in C14 if vegetation was responsible. The reason C14 isn't a reliable indicator now is due to nuclear weapons tests in the 50s/60s. As a method for distinguishing fossil-fuel carbon from carbon taken up by living (or recently living) vegetation, the C14 method is still useful. It is true that atmospheric nuclear tests added C14 to the atmosphere -- but that means the amount of C14 present in living vegetation has been boosted, making it even easier to differentiate living sources of carbon from (completely C14-depleted) fossil sources. The boosted C14 background level, if anything, might make it *easier* to detect the introduction of C14-depleted carbon. Furthermore, the impact of nuclear testing on atmospheric C14 concentrations has been well-studied, allowing scientists to make the necessary calibrations/adjustments for C14 dating. But in the case of fossil fuels vs living vegetation, we don't need to do any fine-grained dating calculations, because we know that fossil-fuel carbon is completely C14 depleted (no need for hair-splitting calculations re: C14 concentrations). That is, either the material has C14 or it doesn't. Furthermore, the last atmospheric nuclear test was conducted over 35 years ago, so there haven't been any really recent nuclear perturbations of atmospheric C14 concentrations. -
Philippe Chantreau at 01:46 AM on 13 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
PW, why did you not check Monckton's claims in the first place? That would have been a better way to sort things out. -
Paul D at 01:05 AM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Re caerbannog. Yeah, just looked at the New Scientist myth busting page and fossil fuels are distinguished from veg by the lack of C14. Thanks for that snippet. You would expect a rise in C14 if vegetation was responsible. The reason C14 isn't a reliable indicator now is due to nuclear weapons tests in the 50s/60s. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter.html -
Paul D at 00:54 AM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Yes but Marcus, is not the CO2 stored in the ocean a mixture of vegetation and non-vegetation sources? That's what is bugging me a bit about the C13/C12 issue. -
Passing Wind at 00:12 AM on 13 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus, Clearly you are uncomfortable unless you are pigeonholing opponents. If I wanted to make easy points I would have posted on what you call a "denialist" blogs and sat back to bask is glory because nobody there would have questioned my arguments at all. For the record, my view is that the science is far from settled, and both sides are manifestly overstating the certainty of their case. Monckton is showman and not a scientist, so a) it doesn't surprise me if his presentation contains errors, and b) I would not turn to a showman for anything other than entertainment. He is no more credible and just as error prone as Al Gore. What galls me is how Abraham's claims have been swallowed whole by the pro AGW blogs - errors and all. How many people that are posting congratulatory comments have bothered to fact-check even one single claim Abraham has made? I'll bet you that some of those, "I'll swallow whatever claims my side makes guys", have for the first time actually looked at some of the underlying questions because of these exchanges we have been having. What about all those people that think Monckton is presenting a true and factual show without cross-checking his claims, I hear you ask? If they want to believe showmen, that's there problem. I don't, and I doubt you do. I am demanding a higher level of accountability and scrutiny from all sides. Right now Abraham is in my sights because he stuck his head up to attach Monckton. When Monckton releases his promised rebuttal, I will scrutinize his work too, only doubly so, because I will check his rebuttal against his original claims as well. Like it or not, AGW is as much a political debate as it is a debate about the science. -
daniel at 00:04 AM on 13 June 2010There is no consensus
Clearly this article shows that approximately 1 in every 5 earth scientists could not say that AGW was a fact. Also that 1 in every 4 non-climatoligists could not say that AGW was a fact. I know that's not a majority for the anti-AGW view and you could say that it is a general consensus for the pro-AGW view but when expressed this way (rounding to the nearest integer of course) I believe the true extent of dissent is portrayed. What is frustrating is that in the media the word "consensus" is used often with the catch phrase "a handful of dissenters" or "deniers" or "trouble makers" or something like that, but that is clearly not the case. ~20% is not an insignificant figure. I also make the point that those of us in fields other than the earth sciences who criticise climate science for poorly collected and presented data coupled with poorly argued conclusions (in my/our opinion of course), specifically on AGW, would not have a high level of respect for the publications that come from climatology and to a lesser extent earth sciences on this issue. You are not providing much of an argument to us by quoting phrases like "peer-review" and "consensus" when refering to climate science. If wikipedia's explanation of the peer-review process is accurate then in light of the figures given in the article above, the "peer-review" process in the field of climatology (or more widely in earth sciences) may be a very biased excercise indeed. Here is a link to the article: The wikipedia article seems to imply that only a few reviewers are needed as a minimum and the editor of a journal does not need a consensus amongst them since their role is advisory only. The wikipedia article implies that only "experts in the field" would be invited to review and so the survey results provided in the article above reveals an obvious potential for group think during the peer-review process. A survey of scientists outside of these disciplines would be much appreciated. How often is it said that climatology is a relatively new field? Well then... let some of the professors in the more distant fields of Physics, Chem, Mathematics and Statistics "Peer-review" these articles and we will see what kind of conlcusions are published then. It is ultimately a discipline on trial and I would ask the question "Are experts from other disciplines even bothering to spend time critiquing publications on climate science or are the police left to police themselves?" You may then say that the list of endorsing scientific organisations in the article above implies that the level of dissent in a broader scope of disciplines is roughly matched by the survey. Then please provide figures of % endorsed of worldwide scientific organisations etc. and I will be more willing to accept that. However, if the level of dissent within these sci. orgs is greater than that portrayed in the survey above then the picture of a "handful of dissenters" in my opinion may fall apart. Only the heads or a majority of the higher management of these organisations need to support the AGW view in order for the entire sci. org. to be listed. Many dissenters within these organisations may not be speaking out about their position on AGW even in private to their colleagues due to the potential for work place friction on this highly emotive issue. They may also be fearing dis-favour with their own organisational heads/management, who have already made their position offically known. I'm not talking about a conspiracy just the complications of work place issues that arise when speaking out about this subject. Sure majority rules and you may have it.. but don't tell me you have an overwhelming consensus until you can provide the overall numbers. -
Marcus at 23:56 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
I think the point, The Ville, is that CO2 released from non-vegetation sources (such as the CO2 stored in oceans) will release CO2 in virtually equal levels of C-12 & C-13. Whereas the CO2 from burning fossil fuels will have a signficantly higher level of C-12 rather than C-13. Not surprisingly, there is strong evidence that, until the mid-20th century, levels of C-12 & C-13 versions of CO2 have remained about equal, but over the last 60 years, the levels of 12-CO2 have risen sharply, whilst levels of 13-CO2 have remained largely unchanged. The only difference is the significant increase in burning of fossil fuels. Either way, though, it definitely shows that the ocean can't be the source of the CO2. -
Marcus at 23:48 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Like I said, PW, warmer in the Sargasso Sea does not imply warmer across the entire ocean-nor does it say *anything* about land-surface temperatures in that same region, or globally (after all, in the first part of the 21st century, Ocean temperatures cooled slightly whilst land-surface temperatures continued to rise). Keigwin is rightly circumspect in his conclusions, but Monckton happily misrepresents his work by turning this warming in one corner of the world's oceans into proof that the entire planet was warmer than in the present day. Yet rather than deal with this-& all of other Monckton's gross misrepresentations (like those highlighted by Chris above)-you'd rather Crucify Abraham for saying "Significantly Warmer" rather than "Warmer" in his e-mail to Keigwin. It's clear that you're being so pedantic as a desperate bid to deflect attention away from Monckton-who rightly deserves to be hung out to dry for his constant bastardization of Climate Science. -
caerbannog at 23:35 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Wouldn't this confuse the C13/C12 ratio issue, so that it would be difficult to distinguish fossil fuel CO2 from general vegetation CO2? That's where C14 comes in. C14 is radioactive, with a half-life of around 5800 years (approx figure, too lazy to look up the exact number). Fossil-fuel carbon is depleted in C14, while carbon in vegetation isn't. So fossil-fuel carbon is depleted in both C13 and C14, which makes it easy to distinguish from other sources (including vegetation). -
Paul D at 23:24 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Well I'm glad isotopes were brought up. When I read the article I was wondering why this wasn't mentioned. I thought however that C12 was preferred by vegetation in the photosynthesis process and hence why fossil fuels have higher levels of C12? In which case couldn't the seas release CO2 with more C12 as well? Wouldn't this confuse the C13/C12 ratio issue, so that it would be difficult to distinguish fossil fuel CO2 from general vegetation CO2? Feel free to correct me! -
Marcus at 23:10 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Wow PW, the lengths you'll go to in order to defend your mate Monckton are truly beyond belief. Any last semblance of credibility or neutrality you had has just vanished with your most recent posts. For the record, if someone asked me the question "is your understanding of current temperatures that they are higher than the MWP and/or are a cause for concern?" I could easily see myself saying "You're absolutely right"-or, to expand on that "You're absolutely right, that *is* my understanding of current temperatures-& I would very much like to have the chance to explain why that's my understanding". You see, nothing loaded in the question, & the response from Keigwin is perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. Even if he was responding to Part 3 of Abraham's e-mail, it would constitute the same answer as if he gave a simple Yes answer to his final question. That you simply refuse to see this simple fact, & would instead rather accuse Abraham of misrepresentation shows that you're simply so scared of Monckton getting knocked off his pedestal that you're prepared to plumb the depths of pedantry to "shoot the messenger". Unless you can provide PROOF that Professor Abraham has willfully misrepresented Monckton-the way that Monckton has willfully misrepresented the work of *dozens*-if not *scores* of scientists, then you're really just exposed as a partisan denialist looking to score cheap points. If that's what you are, then you'd really be better off at a place like WUWT than at a site like this, which is more interested in the SCIENCE of climate change than the POLITICS. -
chris at 23:01 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Passing Wind at 15:15 PM on 12 June, 2010”I would argue that where one knows a scientist has changed their view because it is common knowledge, then one should say so. With regard to the MWP, Monckton is claiming the IPCC wanted it to disappear, and he presents 9 slides out of a claimed 700 papers to show that it did once exist. He should have said that some of those scientist out of the 9 slides he shows have since claimed the MWP was slightly cooler than today. But he was absolutely correct in using them.”
That’s a travesty of even the bare minimum of an ethical approach to communication of science. You’re proposing that in purporting to present the consensus view of a scientific field [*] it’s acceptable to make unsupported assertions that are completely contradictory to the scientific consensus, to cherrypick a handful of graphs of known or unknown provenance, to misrepresent the science related to these specific sets of data, and to hunt back into the old scientific literature to find bits of analyses which give the impression of supporting your assertion even when the authors of this data have subsequently reassessed their data and analyses. One of the problems with Monckton’s presentation is that it’s vague, and that gives you latitude to jump around from one position to another in your defense of his scientifically illiterate presentation. Monckton's claims about the IPCC and the MWP are bogus since the IPCC have always acknowledged the presence of the MWP and no one suggests that it doesn't/didn't exist. But Monckton made a rather specific assertion about the current consensus on the MWP [*] so we can address that quite specifically; let’s remind ourselves what Monckton was asserting as he showed his selection of graphs (on Figure 2 of the top article of this thread): [*]”Here are just a few papers, 8 or 9 of them, out of the papers contributed during the last 20 years by more than 700 scientists, from more than 400 institutions, in more than 40 countries establishing that the Medieval Warm Period was real, was global, and was warmer than the present. That is the scientific consensus if you do science by consensus which the UN says it does”
Dr Abraham (and me for that matter) is judging Monckton’s (patently scientifically false) assertion that the papers “establish that the Medieval Warm Period was real, was global, and was warmer than present. That is the scientific consensus…”. Monckton shows zero evidence for the “more than 700 scientists” and supports his assertions only with this single Powerpoint slide, so that slide is what we are addressing. It’s straightforward to show that at least the bulk of the graphs don’t support his bogus assertion at all: ONE: We’ve already seen that the work of Huang et al (1998) and Esper and Schweingruber (1994) cannot be used to support Monckton’s assertions. Each of these groups has concluded that in their spheres of study (Huang global boreholes; Esper and Schweingruber extratropical NH and Alps) the MWP was less warm than current temperatures. Their data lends itself to a diametrically opposed conclusion to Monckton’s. TWO: We can eliminate Wilson et al. (1979) and Dansgaard (1969) as evidence in support of Monckton’s assertion. After all he did assert that his analysis referred to “papers contributed during that last 20 years” and these are 30 and 40 years old respectively. As Dr. Abraham states in his top article, very old papers are less likely to be reliable contributors to the “consensus” and in any case miss out much of the warming of the last 30-odd years that Monckton is specifically referring to when he makes his bogus assertion about the relationship between temperatures during the MWP and “the present”. THREE: Monckton cites Schonweise (1995) in support of his scientifically unjustified assertion. Note that typically he gets this wrong (it’s “Schonwiese”). More problematically it’s easy to show that Christian Schonwiese’s papers strongly support the conclusion that present temperatures are warmer than during the MWP. If I have time I’ll make a brief post on this. FOUR: Monckton cites Noon et al (2003) in support of his assertion. However this is problematic for reasons further than those discussed by Dr. Abraham. The first relates to the reliability of the temperature proxy since this hasn’t been calibrated against a period of measured temperature. So, for example, the proxy hasn’t captured any of the very marked warming (more than 1 oC) directly measured in the region during the last ~100 years. The second relates to the temporal period of apparent warming. This is shifted around 200 years later than the period of the MWP in the NH. Clearly this data set can’t be used to support assertions that the MWP was warmer than now, or that it was global, if by global one means “globally synchronous”. FIVE: Monckton cites Keigwin (1996). This data set refers specifically to a location in the Sargasso sea. If one was to address this particular data set scientifically, one would likely conclude that it was consistent with a growing consensus that the temperature variations during MWP (and to a lesser extent) during the LIA, were significantly related to ocean current and wind transport regime changes (solar driven?) that changed the distribution of global heat, with a large contribution involving “Gulf Stream” heat transport to the high Northern latitudes. It’s not surprising that temperatures in the Sargasso sea are particularly sensitive to these. In support of this interpretation Keigwin and Pickart (1999) have shown that if one samples historical temperatures from cored proxies in the Laurentian Fan area to the NW of the Bermuda Rise, Sargasso Sea data, that sea surface temperatures were apparently much colder during the MWP compared to the LIA, and the temperatures of the Bermuda Rise-Laurentian Fan vary in “antiphase” as current regimes change. So if Monckton were to have selected Keigwin and Pickart (1999) rather than Keigwin (1996) he would have come to the opposite conclusion. If 6 out of the 9 studies that Monckton uses as "eye-candy" to front his false assertion [*] don't actually support his assertion at all then it doesn't leave very much in the way of corroboration of his assertions. Hwever, we know anyway that his assertion [*] is demonstrably false, just as we know that Monckton's aim is specifically to misrepresent the science. -
Esop at 22:59 PM on 12 June 2010It's cooling
It has been unusually quiet from Mr. Svensmark and the rest of the "it's the sun" fraction of the denialist movement over the last six months. For good reason. Instead of continuing cooling as they predicted in 2008 and early 09, temperatures bounced back with a vengeance once the La Nina calmed down. The last 12 months is the hottest 12 months in recorded history, with even the skeptic run UAH dataset setting records, despite continuing tweaks to bring the anomalies down. With all time high temperature records being set when the cooling effect from the deepest solar minimum in more than a century is at its peak, Svensmarks hypothesis has failed in a spectacular fashion. It would be good if the MSM would start focusing their attention on the massive failures of the denialist predictions instead of harassing the real scientists. -
Passing Wind at 22:51 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
doug_bostrom. Misrepresentation - false or misleading statement. Dishonest - behaving or prone to behave in an untrustworthy or fraudulent way. Notice the difference. If Monckton said "warmer", but Abraham claimed he said "significantly warmer", it is fair and reasonable to say Abraham misrepresented Monckton. At least we can agree on this "It's hard to take that sort of incoherence seriously." Indeed. -
Passing Wind at 22:48 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus, Keigwin's response, "You are absolutely right" can only be in reply to a statement of fact. Of which, there are three statements of fact contained in the body of the email. 1. "Pardon this interruption but I am a professor of thermal sciences and I frequently give public lectures on global warming." States a) Abraham is a professor that, b) frequently gives GW lectures. 2. "I noticed that recently, Christopher Monckton has been giving presentations where he uses your research to suggest that the MWP was significantly warmer than today and that the recent warming is not of concern." States a) Monckton has been giving presentations. b) Uses Keigwin's research to suggest the MWP was significantly warmer than today, and c) that the recent warming is of no concern. 3. "I don’t believe that is your conclusion but I wanted to verify this." States Abraham does not believe that is the conclusion Keigwin. The final sentence, which is composed of a two closed questions, asks: 4."Can you tell me, very briefly, whether your understanding of current temperatures is that they are higher than the MWP and/or are a cause for concern?" Could be answered by Yes and Yes. No and No, No and Yes, and Yes and No. No other permutations exist. You are absolutely correct is not a suitable answer to a two-part closed question. It is, of course, a suitable answer to any of the three proceeding questions, with the most likely candidate being the third question. Simply stated, You are correct to say my 1996 paper did not conclude that the MWP was significantly warmer than today or that the current warming is of no concern. It's worth noting that Abraham has amped up Monckton's claim that the MWP was warmer than today, to significantly warmer. Also, if you would care to take a look at Keigwin's 1996 graph is significantly warmer than the 1996 present it applied to. Keigwin's graph shows current temperature at 22.8, and peak MWP at about 24.2 - 1.4 C warmer. What isn't so clear is exactly where year zero BP is. Even if year zero was 1900, 1.4 C gives us plenty of latitude for observed warming since then and still allow the MWP to qualify as warmer than today - 2010. Here are some quotes from Keigwin 1996 These results are exciting for a few reasons. First, events as young and as brief as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period have never before been resolved in deep sea sediments from the open ocean. The Sargasso Sea data indicate that the Medieval Warm Period may have actually been two events separated by 500 years, perhaps explaining why its timing and extent have been so controversial. Second, it is evident that the climate system has been warming for a few hundred years, and that it warmed even more from 1,700 years ago to 1,000 years ago. And some quote from Keigin in a letter to ExxonMobil dated December 2000. I should point out here, a key element in this discussion centers on the Medieval Warm Period. Most authors would acknowledge that this interval was probably warmer in the North Atlantic region, but few feel strongly that it was global. My data make it seem that it was warmer then than now, but it is very misleading to use those data to argue against important climate changes that began a century ago. -
James Wight at 22:18 PM on 12 June 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
Regarding the argument “450 peer-reviewed papers are skeptical of AGW”, the Popular Mechanics list is now up to 700. (That’s what the title says anyway; I haven’t actually counted them.) -
Doug Bostrom at 16:59 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
It's not considered cricket here to quote prior posts but sometimes that rule necessarily must be bent. PW, post: I have never claimed Abraham was dishonest Later, in the same post: ...please take the time to read my post post on Deltoid for evidence that Abraham asked Keigwin a loaded and heavily biased question that did indeed misrepresent Monckton's claim. It's hard to take that sort of incoherence seriously. -
Marcus at 16:28 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Here is Abraham's question to Dr. Keigwin "Can you tell me, very briefly, whether your understanding of current temperatures is that they are higher than the MWP and/or are a cause for concern?" & this is Keigwin's reply "You are absolutely right, & if someone was willing to send me down to St. Thomas, I'd be delighted to explain it in person." How is that a loaded question? In what way has Abraham misrepresented either Monckton's position (he claims that 700 scientists support his contention that the MWP was real, global & warmer than today) or Keigwin's reply? Monckton's claim represents yet another audacious statement which, upon even modest scrutiny, just doesn't stand up! -
Marcus at 16:22 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
It was only warmer in the Sargasso Sea region-& using methodologies which, by today's standards, might not have a high level of accuracy (again, look at the inaccuracy in the earlier data of Briffa or Mann, & compare it with the more accurate data people are getting over the past 5-6 years using more advanced techniques & a greater reliance on multi-proxy analyses). Other studies using better methods-& in other regions-show temperatures *lower* than the late-20th century & some again show temperatures only marginally warmer than the late-20th century. What *none* of them show is that global temperatures were warmer at the height of the MWP than today-which makes Monckton's claim FALSE! I read Abraham's e-mail to Keigwin, & see nothing loaded in it at all. I also see nothing factually wrong in Abraham claiming that Monckton was wrong to use Keigwin's data to back his claims of a global MWP that was warmer than today. It follows from this that Monckton's claims of 700 scientists that support his view are equally fallacious-& that Abraham has rightly exposed that. For the record, claiming that someones "facts" don't stand up to close scrutiny, & saying scientists might change their views because it no longer "supports the company line" are accusations of LYING. If you're going to make such accusations, then you really owe it to readers to present EVIDENCE to back up the claim-as Abraham has done with Monckton. -
Passing Wind at 15:57 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus, I have never claimed Abraham was dishonest and I have provided very detailed evidence that Abraham's evidence is as flawed as he claims Monckton's is. I am not supporting Monckton and have not claimed so. Marcus, please take the time to read my post post on Deltoid for evidence that Abraham asked Keigwin a loaded and heavily biased question that did indeed misrepresent Monckton's claim. Keigwin's response that "you are absolutely right" is to Abraham's claim that: "I noticed that recently, Christopher Monckton has been giving presentations where he uses your research to suggest that the MWP was significantly warmer than today and that the recent warming is not of concern. I don’t believe that is your conclusion but I wanted to verify this." In other words, Abraham is correct in saying that Keigwin's paper did not concluded that the recent warming is not a concern. Also, Keigwin says he's never hear of Monckton. But Keigwin's paper does conclude that the MWP was warmer than today by a bit over 1 K. Monckton was wrong to use Keigwin to support his claim that the MWP was global when Keigwin's paper is only about the Sargasso Sea. Keigwin doesn't support Monckton's claim the MWP was global. A fairer question would have given more context, and have at least provided a link to Monckton's presentation. It also would have put Monckton's claim accurately. -
Marcus at 15:49 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
You obviously don't get it, do you PW? If a person like Monckton is going to interpret the conclusions of another persons work-as he sees fit-then he really owes it to the scientists, & himself, to make sure he has got the interpretation correct-unless, of course, Monckton was planning to misinterpret the conclusions (which seems more likely). From my reading of most of the papers presented above, the majority that Abraham looked at *at no point* claimed that the MWP was a global phenomenon-or that temperatures were globally warmer than the global average today. That is merely what Monckton is claiming the papers say-& HE IS WRONG! He is also wrong in claiming the IPCC wants the MWP to disappear (when each update shows the MWP & Little Ice Age more clearly than the one before-that's a strange way to make it disappear). Indeed, Climatologists *like* the existence of the MWP & LIA-as it *proves* the climates sensitivity to forcing (in this case changes in volcanism & TSI-as you'd know if you'd BOTHERED to read any of the papers I cited). Lastly, if Monckton is going to claim that 700 scientists support his contention that the MWP was global-& warmer-than today, then he really should provide more than a mere handful of papers which-at best-are ambiguous about how extensive the range of the warming was, or how warm it actually got compared to the Modern Era. You also still haven't addressed Monckton's tendency to cherry pick the data he uses in his figures, his failure to provide proper citations for his figures & his deliberate mis-citing in several figures. Of course, this is to be expected from someone who is determined to defend the behaviour of Monckton even in the face of OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that he is engaged in falsehoods. Your attack on Abraham (& on the scientists he has contacted-via your claim about them just towing "the party line") is just a blindingly obvious attempt to distract people's attention away from just how full of holes Monckton's presentation actually is, & highlights again the fact that you're not some objective witness-no matter how often you try to claim otherwise. Anyway, I'm really bored arguing with you, as you clearly show NO INTENTION of listening to facts that threaten to undermine your opinion of Monckton. -
gp2 at 15:46 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
@Coalgeologist You are right, i should have said that the anomalous fluxes are negative(positive) for el nino(la nina) over the tropical pacific and that this signal dominates the global ocean carbon flux anomalies. However i think that this relationship(correlation between land carbon fluxes/ENSO and anticorrelated oceanic fluxes/ENSO) is not surprising, it is well known that el nino reduces rainfall over tropical land masses, during 2009/2010 el nino for example several countries had severe droughts and drastically reduced hydropower generation so there's no surprise that el nino decrease gross primary productivity and increase plant and soil respiration thus leading to higher atmospheric concentration after some months. -
thingadonta at 15:17 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
Excerpt from Wiki on Ocean acidification: "Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[36] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.[37]" This process doesn't have to happen sometime in the 'future' as stated above, any change in ocean pH would be expected to have an immediate impact on the rate of dissolution/precipitation of carbonate sediments, meaning the ocean is naturally buffered (to what extent is the issue) with regard to atmospheric C02 changes. This sort of negative feedback with regards to ocean pH is just one example that has been completely ignored by (some) coral reef researchers. -
Passing Wind at 15:15 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus. I do not know what academic training you have, and therefore, how much you know about the rules of citation. Please forgive me if I am explaining something you already know but have not expressed well. Here's an example from Wikipedia "A prime purpose of a citation is intellectual honesty; to attribute to other authors the ideas they have previously expressed, rather than give the appearance to the work's readers that the work's authors are the original wellsprings of those ideas." Another site, covering the ethical dimension as well. Academic Integrity and Ethics Simply stated, there is there is no such an academic indictment as "failing to contact the scientist whose work he presents". Abraham is using this devise to deflect the fact that Monckton accurately cited paper about regarding the MWP and to paint Monckton as dishonest for not having contacted them. Anyone writing an academic paper is entitled to take a written work as it stands. Even if they are claiminbg the earth is flat. If this were not the case, people could publish anything they wanted, then claim you misrepresented them for quoting it because they have changed their mind, or the opinion they expressed is no longer the "company line". I would argue that where one knows a scientist has changed their view because it is common knowledge, then one should say so. With regard to the MWP, Monckton is claiming the IPCC wanted it to disappear, and he presents 9 slides out of a claimed 700 papers to show that it did once exist. He should have said that some of those scientist out of the 9 slides he shows have since claimed the MWP was slightly cooler than today. But he was absolutely correct in using them. -
Sean A at 15:09 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
gallopingcamel, doug_bostrom brings this up and provides a link in the comments above. -
gallopingcamel at 15:04 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Marcus (#29), Ad nauseam, to many of the faithful on this blog I have pointed out that correlation does not imply causality. I have also said that cause should precede effect. Consequently, I am with you when you reject Hocker's hypothesis unless it can be shown that a rise in temperature preceded a rise in CO2 concentration. -
gallopingcamel at 14:41 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
HumanityRules (#28), Thanks for that WUWT link. However, I think that Willis Eschenbach has got his carbon isotopes confused. C12 and C13 are stable but C14 is not. C14 is created in the atmosphere by incident cosmic rays. Once living creatures die the proportion of C14 in their remains falls as the C14 decays (5,730 year half life). Fossil fuels buried underground are shielded from most cosmic radiation so the C14 is not replaced when it decays. Thus fossil fuels have much less C14 than atmospheric carbon has.
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