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Ned at 22:03 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent writes above: As I mentioned yesterday in a post that needs to be re-written [...] 2008 had the 3rd coldest winter since thermometers were created in 1775. Your repeated posting of vague and unsourced claims makes it very hard to have any kind of useful discussion. In that earlier comment, you said "in 2008 the temperatures were the third coldest since thermometers were invented in 1775" -- nothing about "winter". I replied here, pointing out that 2008 was nowhere near "3rd coldest year since 1775" -- in fact, it was the 10th warmest year since 1880. Every year since 2001 has been in the top 10! Now you are saying that "winter 2008" was the third coldest since 1775. That's a little bit less wrong, but not much (actually, it's the 106th coldest winter since 1880). Please try to be very precise in your claims (if you're talking about temperature trends in certain months vs the whole year, or in certain places vs the whole globe, make that clear) and please try to provide a link or a source. Thanks. -
chris at 21:50 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
HumanityRules at 10:19 AM on 8 May, 2010 your comment:You could argue a little of the reverse appears in the AGW arguement. Using CG words from any earlier post. Because CO2 is the biggest (or only) knob controlling contemporary climate change then we have to have theories that exclude all others. There is a little of this in Trenberths ideas on the 'missing energy'. The argo bouys have to be wrong or the energy has to be in the deep ocean because AGW says it has to be somewhere.
That's not really true HR - I wonder whether you wrote it in an unguarded moment! There is no serious science on global warming that doesn't consider all known "knob"s "controlling contemporary climate change". Attribution of the relevant factors ("knob"s) include as much as we know about solar, volcanic, aerosol, black carbon, natural variability, and other feedbacks and contributions. So we are clearly not pursuing "theories that exclude all others" (i.e. you "knob"s). That's a strawman argument. Your last sentence is a strawman argument too. If there is a question about the location of "missing heat" it is not "because AGW says it has to be somewhere.". If there is a question about the "missing heat" it's because there is a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere that has driven earth land, sea and atmospheric temperatures upwards and stratospheric temperatures downwards especially during the last 40 years, and the evidence indicates that this hasn't "stopped". Once again it's a poor argument that relies on selective omission of information that bears on the subject. Trenberth (and me for that matter) isn't overly concerned about the very short period of anomalous heat accounting in the earth system with respect to our understanding of contemporary global warming. He wants to have an improvement in the monitoring system that allows us to account for short term variability. Our understanding of AGW doesn't depend on a single bit of data from a tiny period of time, and we all recognise that short term variability is almost by definition anomalous in the light of long term trends. Your comment does raise an interesting point that's relevant to this thread 'though. Loehle published in a magazine a bit of "show and tell" concerning 4.5 years of ARGO ocean heat data. He took the tiny bit of ARGO data, smoothed it and fitted a regression line to it. And that's it - no science in sight![*]. Unfortunately, Loehle's note was already superfluous and irrelevant as it hit the pages. Scientists know that there have been and perhaps still are some problems with the ARGO and XBT data [***] and the idea that one can draw any meaningful conclusion about what's really happening to upper ocean heat content (not "The Global Ocean" as Loehle put it) and its significance from this short period is dumb. But of course that's not the point of these publications. Loehle's unnecesary and poorly scientific analyses are spread all over the web and used to fuel the sorts of anti-science attacks that Loehle was apparently so concerned about 20-odd years ago that he wrote a letter to Nature on the subject. ---------------------------------------------- [*] Wouldn't it be great if we all did that with various bits of data downloaded off the web or sent to us by scientists. We could publish a dozen "papers" each a year - every one of us. Of course we don't do that (lots of people do so on the web!) partly because there are scientific standards that should be met for publishing in scientific journals. Since science journals have significant elements of quality control, but there seems to be an imperative in some quarters to have a drip feed of the stuff that Dr. Loehle has taken to producing in recent years, there are some limited magazine outlets for this stuff. Energy&Environment is sadly one of these.] [***] see for example: DiNezio P. N. and Goni G. J. (2010) Identifying and Estimating Biases between XBT and Argo Observations Using Satellite Altimetry J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 27, 226-240 Reverdin G,. et al. (2009) XBT Temperature Errors during French Research Cruises (1999-2007) J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 26, 2462-2473 Willis J. K. (2009) In Situ Data Biases and Recent Ocean Heat Content Variability J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 26, 846-852 Ishii M and Kimoto M (2009) Reevaluation of historical ocean heat content variations with time-varying XBT and MBT depth bias corrections. J. Oceanograph. 65, 287-299. Levitus, S. et al. (2009) Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems. Geophys. Res. Lett.36, L07608. Leuliette, E.W., and L. Miller. 2009. Closing the sea level rise budget with altimetry, Argo, and GRACE. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L04608. Domingues, C.M. et al. (2008) 2008. Improved ocean-warming estimates: Implications for climate models and sea-level rise.Nature 453, 1,090–1,093. etc. etc. Some of this has been discussed on this site here, here, and here -
Ned at 21:46 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Chris Canaris writes: Significantly, 90% of the membership of the NAS did not sign. Five hypotheses suggest themselves. a) Nobody approached them, b) They don't believe in AGW, c) They don't trust the climate scientists (not the same as not believing in AGW), d) They don't feel they have the requisite expertise, e) Any combination of the above. Chris, this is addressed in the original post at the top of this thread. The organizers only circulated the letter within those sections of the NAS most closely related to climate science: "Moreover, only a small fraction of National Academy members were asked to sign (the signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but were not speaking on its behalf). Because of a desire to produce a statement quickly, the coordinators of the letter focused on those sections of the NAS most familiar with climate science and the ongoing debate." -
Ned at 21:40 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech writes: Riccardo, I have much longer lists of skeptical scientists than the NAS letter, one I self compiled and others by third parties. Having looked at your list of "skeptical scientists" I can confirm that it is in fact useless. There are people on there who are indeed good scientists, but who are not remotely in doubt about the existence of anthropogenic global warming. (For example, Dennis Lettenmaier: "It's happening ... Where it's going to lead is uncertain. But I think it's untenable to pretend we can keep pumping this stuff into the atmosphere at current rates and it's not going to make any difference.") There are also people on there who are indeed opposed to the idea of GW, but who aren't actually scientists (e.g., Richard S. Courtney, E.-G. Beck). The list is padded with sections of "meteorologists" (some of whom, like Anthony Watts, are just TV personalities), economists, and so on. It's also got quite a few names of people who are deceased. Given that the NAS letter in Science was just published this week, I'm not sure how confident we're supposed to be that somebody who's been dead for five or ten years opposes the letter in Science. Can I assume that Einstein, Maxwell, Newton, Galileo, and Eratosthenes would all support the NAS letter? (Joking aside, over the past decade several of the largest skeptical arguments have collapsed -- see, for example, the repeated corrections of errors in the UAH record that changed it from cooling to warming -- so I don't think one should assume that someone who was dubious in the past would still doubt the existence of AGW today.) Finally, I'd just add that the list contains a very, very large number of names of people that (how can I put this politely?) are not even remotely credible on this subject. I mentioned Watts and E.-G. Beck and Courtney above, but that's just the beginning. Who on the scientific side is going to be convinced by your inclusion of Piers Corbyn, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Steve Milloy, Tim Ball, Zbigniew Jaworowski, Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Bob Carter, Luboš Motl, Joseph D’Aleo, Gerhard Gerlich, Louis Hissink ... You've got the entire Robinson family on there (Arthur, Noah, and Zachary -- aka the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine). I could go on and on ... the point is, every name in this paragraph adds negative credibility to your list. In summary, I don't think comparing your list to the letter published in Science this week strengthens your case. Quite the opposite, in fact. -
J Bowers at 21:39 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Here's another Wood For Trees set to play around with (CO2 at top). Wood For Trees ten year temperature trends offset every five years since 1880 And temperature with solar, sea ice and CO2 -
BC at 20:59 PM on 8 May 2010University of Queensland talk wrap-up
One point that I have trouble with and that came to mind again during the talk is that with higher temperature we have more water in the atmosphere. This brings to mind a hotter, wetter jungle type and fertile enviromnment yet your talk mentioned more droughts and dryer conditions. The handout at the talk mentioned that Australia has had 1C temperture rise in the last four? decades. I hadn't realised that we were warming faster that the world average. -
BC at 20:46 PM on 8 May 2010University of Queensland talk wrap-up
It was a very good talk so be encouraged to do some more. The people from the St Johns Wood sustainability group near me were also impressed. I had two queries about the slides and they were covered by Nichol at 13 above - slide 10 not showing any H2O yet its one of the strongest greenhouse gasses and slide 11 being blank for the US and Canada. This one I noticed during the talk.Response: Slide 11, the map of downward infrared radiation, comes from Wang 2009. It shows the trend in downward infrared radiation over 1973 to 2008 and only includes stations that have at least 25 years worth of data. There's no U.S. or Canadian data because they switched their cloud observation method from human visual measurement to instrumental in the 1990s. -
MarkR at 19:46 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
"Marcus you want to recheck your facts. Even the NASA GISS facts don't dispute that the temperatures have been declining on a global basis since the year 2000. Agree with me or not the facts are there. so we'll just let this one go and agree to disagree." I'm going to disagree with you on this one. The least squares linear regression fit to UAH satellite data from Jan '00 to April '10 is +0.013C/yr. In HadCRUT3 it is +0.006C/yr. In RSS satellite it is +0.002C. In GISTemp it is also positive. Thanks to Ian Forrester, you can play around on the site he gave you or just google the data to play for yourself. Ofc, we already know that short term measurements (1-2 decades or less, say) are probably not telling you much about climate, and Tamino has a more rigorous post. -
chris1204 at 19:37 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Marcel Bökstedt @ 63 'The present letter explicitely states that is not under the umbrella of the National Academy' Fair point - I missed the footnote. But then again, it was but a footnote. The Devil is in the detail - the footnote is easily overlooked. Realistically, my trust in Climate Science as presently conducted is of marginal relevance to the issue under discussion. Consequently, I would not have signed the letter even if I moved in equally august circles. Significantly, 90% of the membership of the NAS did not sign. Five hypotheses suggest themselves. a) Nobody approached them, b) They don't believe in AGW, c) They don't trust the climate scientists (not the same as not believing in AGW), d) They don't feel they have the requisite expertise, e) Any combination of the above. As regards trust in scientific integrity, I can only speak of my own field - psychiatry - where I have encountered some seriously shonky practice (and thankfully many fine clinicians and scientists). I suspect most honest scientists would say much the same about their respective fields. I really don't want to sound like curmudgeonly contrarian but doctorates, professorships, and memberships of prestigious bodies are no guarantees of virtue. -
MarkR at 19:32 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Skepticstudent, RE #1: How do snowy winters indicate declining temperature? Increased precipitation in Greenland (for example) goes hand in hand with greater moisture, which is probably caused by warming further away. If your average temperature is below 0C, then warming may well increase snowfall. After all, Antarctica is the coldest place on the planet and also the world's largest desert. The ACC causes part of this but climate models expect warming to lead to increased snowfall there so there is a link. Your argument also disagrees with measurements of decreasing NH snow cover averaged over the year. And it disagrees with surface thermometers, radiosondes and MSUs that all show warming. -
Marcel Bökstedt at 18:50 PM on 8 May 2010What causes Arctic amplification?
If you naively look at the charts for arctic sea ice extent, it seems that 2007 started a new seasonal pattern. Each of the years 2007-2009 (and possibly 2010) have a pattern of unusually fast summer melting, or more precicely, a fast diminishing of ice extent. One could speculate that this has something to do with the general thinning of the ice. On the other hand, the summer surface temperatures do not seem to have gone up much. Does the particular study that we are discussing in this thread have anything to say about such a shift in the seasonal pattern? -
chris at 18:39 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
HumanityRules at 10:19 AM on 8 May, 2010 HR, if you're going to keep quoting CoalGeologists sentence please quote the whole sentence! CoalGeologist wrote: "That said, the presumption that there has to be some other explanation than AGW, because AGW couldn't be true, is what distinguishes denialism from skepticism." Just like the discussion of Loehle's paper and Mann's work and science in general valid argument requires knowledge of the whole story. Otherwise one might question the motive of the individual who misrepresents the facts by seletive omission..... -
Philip64 at 18:39 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
@ skepticstudent "Einstein was laughed out of numerous houses of academia because he had not proven his theory of relativity. He went from one to another with the same results." This is untrue. Einstein was unable to secure academic employment following graduation. But his papers of 1905, including 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies' (where Special Relativity is set out) were taken very seriously by the scientific world, in spite of their radical nature. Seven months after publication Einstein wrote: "My papers are meeting with much acknowledgement and are giving rise to further investigations." The world renowned Max Planck, among others, was an immediate supporter. If you are going to reference great men in your arguments, it might help to get your facts right, instead of relying on myth and hearsay. -
Riccardo at 18:27 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech, as in the case of wingding's comment and you're answer, it's clear that that list is just your personal judgment on what that papers say, probably just a superficial impession without really going them. Just going rapidly through part of your list and considering just the paper i've actually read i more strongly confirm that it's meaningless and unsupported. It's usefull only for you to not discuss the science and try a brute force attack. -
Marcel Bökstedt at 18:15 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
chriscanaris> I feel that the problems with the OISM petition is different. The present letter explicitely states that is not under the umbrella of the National Academy, but that the 255 signatories are among its (approximately two thousand) members. That's a pretty good turnout. I don't see any problems in the fact that these people are not specializing in climate research, since they are not pretending that they are. On the contrary, I read the letter as support and as a declaration of trust from a large section of the general science community (as represented by the NAS) to climate science. -
chris at 18:14 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
HumanityRules at 01:48 AM on 8 May, 2010 Not really HR. Mann is absolutely explicit in stating that his reconstructions are N. hemispheric reconstructions when they're N. hemispheric, and the value of the very limited S. hemisphere data for a global or S. hemisphere reconstruction. The paper from his group we're discussing [*] is six pages long; 5.5 pages of these are a description of NH data (plus intro, methods and references). The description of SH reconstruction is a single caveat-loaded paragraph, and a caveat-loaded half paragraph in the discussion. There are no Figures of SH reconstructions in the paper. There is a massive information loaded supplement that has some SH reconstructions. Everything is completely clear and straightforward. I don't really see the issue you have with it. Incidentally, I think you’re allowing yourself to get drawn into a tedious, and rather contrived game where science is relegated to a back seat while some rather unpleasant attempts are made to trash the science (accordingly this thread is a rather un-SkepticalScience-like bargy!) . We’re interested in the Earth temperature and its variability in previous times, how temperature variations were distributed at the hemispherical and longitudinal level, and the factors involved. To a considerable extent due to the efforts of Mann, but now encompassing many groups, we know quite a lot. One of the things that stands out in analyzing Mann’s work is the fact that the NH MWP temperature reconstruction from 1999 has not really changed that much through 12 years of subsequent paleoanalyses by numerous groups. That's the essential point if we're inerested in the science. We don't have to join in the frenzy of attacks on scientists. [*] Mann et al. (2008) Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 13252–13257 -
monckhausen at 18:03 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
I see that there are no Canadian researchers on that list. Canadian climate denial is centred in Calgary. The latest tenor is that CO2 has essentially no effect. A CO2 denier talk has made it into next week's GeoCanada 2010: http://www.geocanada2010.ca/program/program-schedule/tuesday/pm-2/climate-change-through-time.html We are running a small but fine blog taking on these deniers with something they do not have: humour. Check it out and pass us on to their friends and colleagues - and join us: http://friendsofginandtonic.org/page1/page1.html -
actually thoughtful at 17:09 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
The (non-trivial bits of) the commentary above raise an interesting question. We (anecdotally)appear to be in a period of increased seismic activity. Could that be due, in part to the earth shifting from the loss of ice mass? It seems far-fetched, but I am very far from up to speed about the loss of ice volume. -
chris1204 at 16:34 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
John, I recall your earlier post: Thursday, 11 March, 2010 Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project in which you very rightly questioned the credentials of the signatories. Of course, the present signatories include scientists of great repute - no doubt, all seriously intelligent, well read, and committed to a better outcome for our planet. The letter is well-written and thoughtful. A significant number of signatories however (based on reported academic affiliations) would lack the expertise to comment as climate scientists. As such, many really ought not to have signed the letter. They are entitled to barrack for their views. However, they should do so as private individuals and not under the umbrella of the National Academy of Sciences. Otherwise, I fear we may be applying a double standard no matter how distinguished the signatories. I don't want to nitpick. However, scientific integrity requires that experts carefully observe the boundaries of their expertise. -
RSVP at 16:28 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
In truth, (since the times of James Watt), thanks to science and engineering the current levels of fossil fuel output and combustion could never have been achieved. Ironically, the public is being asked to place its trust in scientists for a "problem" labeled "anthropogenic", (as if to blame people as opposed to technology). -
johnd at 16:06 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Marcus at 12:54 PM just to put a different spin on your statement, "I find it ludicrous that you can pump *millions of years* worth of geo-sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere, in the space of less than 200 years". In those millions of years about 10,000 billion tonnes of carbon were locked up as fossil fuels, plus about 40,000 billion tonnes as sediments deep under the ocean (as limestone?) We are releasing about 6.5 billion tonnes of carbon annually through burning fossil fuels. By comparison deforestation releases perhaps 2 billion tonnes of carbon per year. If that deforestation could be halted and reversed, then not only would the release of the carbon be halted but the additional plant growth would go a long way to offsetting that released by the fossil fuels. -
Jeff Freymueller at 15:56 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
#46 johnd, there are indeed paired belts of uplift and subsidence, and the uplift and subsidence are mostly due to recoverable elastic deformation, and are cyclical. To a first approximation, the areas that subside between earthquakes uplift during the earthquake, and vice versa. In general, there is much larger horizontal motions as well. The figures on this page at the Geological Survey of Canada illustrate it pretty well. In Alaska, the area that subsides today is mostly offshore (including in Prince William Sound), and this area uplifted greatly back in the 1964 earthquake (still the 2nd biggest ever recorded). Farther inland, we observe uplift, and an area that subsided significantly. The rapid vertical motions are the main reason that none of the Alaska tide gauges have been used in estimates of sea level change, but that is likely to change within a few years because we can now measure the vertical motions precisely enough calibrate the tide gauges, at least in the places where the tide gauge records are linear with time. -
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Skepticstudent, You made a few references to temperatures in 2008, as well as temperatures in Alaska specifically. If you agree that short term regional data is not the same as long term global trends, how are these references relevant? Why is temperature in 2008 relevant to the question of long term global warming? Please explain your reasoning and specifically how this information undermines AGW. Yes you also made the claim that global temperatures have gone down in the past 10-20 years, but you neglected to provide your sources for this information. Please provide relevant data to back your claim. -
Steven Sullivan at 13:57 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
#13 ominlogos "Lest we forget: it took 80 years for the evidence of pre-Cambrian fauna to be accepted. [/quote] That's in significant part because the evidence was ambiguous, until definitive detailed fossils in non-sedimentatious rock were identified. You're also talking about a period of 1860s to 1950s and for at least half of that, deep-time paleontology was in a state of infancy. That very solid evidence is required to overturn a well-accepted model, is not something to fault science for. [quote]Ironically, Nature magazine rejected one of the most compelling proofs, as it was presented by a "nobody", only to change their mind when finally a renowned scientist bothered to check things out.[/quote] So, in fact, the paper by the 'nobody' grad student Misra, which challenged the dominant paradigm, *was* indeed published ,in Nature, after extensive peer review. Thanks for reminding us. Now remind us that crap papers sometimes get published after peer review too. -
Marcus at 13:40 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Yes it was global average temperatures of roughly 6 degrees C above the 1961-1990 mean, not F (I'm an Australian, so Fahrenheit is not a concept I'm familiar with ;)). Also note that these temperatures occurred during a period when the sun was 10% cooler than today, & at a time when the continents were in very different positions to what they are today. That said, there is a *reason* why agriculture first flourished in a relatively narrow climate band of the planet-its because rainfall & temperatures were *just right* for agriculture to exist-South or North of this zone Agriculture largely failed to take hold. Now technology has certainly helped agriculture to survive in slightly more hostile environments, but its nonsense to believe that agriculture could cope with a further 0.6 to 1 degree C increase in average temperatures. -
Tom Dayton at 13:34 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent wrote "So could it be that it is not so catastrophic." The term "catastrophic" is a strawman. For concrete, detailed points about the effects of global climate change, see It’s not bad, and also CO2 is not a pollutant, and oh, yeah, Animals and plants can adapt to global warming. -
Ron Crouch at 13:30 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Sooner or later someone is going to point out that the NAS has 2100 members and 350 foreign associates and claim that it's a poor representation of numbers. However the membership is spread over 31 disciplinary Sections and therefore not all members would be able to speak to the subject of climate change. See here. For clarification that would be 6C and not 6F would it Marcus. Regardless of which it is it refers to "global" temperature. 6F humanity might be able to cope, but at 6C -- well -- kiss it goodbye. -
carrot eater at 13:23 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech: That's simply bizarre. No, CO2 is not the forcing that initiates a glaciation or deglaciation, at least in the last few ice age cycles. How does that, in itself, support skeptic arguments? Do skeptics think that all climate variations are initially due to orbital forcings, just because that's what kicked off those events? I hope not. And then, you simply dismiss everything else is 'speculation and unsubstantiated'? Why, just because you don't like it? This really isn't helpful. Do you think the ice-albedo feedback is also 'speculation and unsubstantiated', just because it's a feedback that is thought to be active during the ice age cycles, along with CO2? -
Tom Dayton at 13:22 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent, for an even more detailed exposition of the fact that global temperatures have not decreased since 2000, see Tamino's "Hottest Year". For more fundamental evidence, see the Skeptical Science post It’s cooling. -
Phila at 13:16 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
#87 e, "Perhaps a new skeptic argument is in order: "Scientists won't release the raw data". If nothing else, it would be great as a compendium of raw data and software sources to expand on what Ned listed." Enthusiastically seconded. -
Marcus at 13:13 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Yes the Earth was still turning back then, but mammals weren't part of that Earth-& nor were most of the plants which make up the current biosphere (& on which the bulk of our agriculture relies). Life at that time had evolved-over millions of years-to thrive in a relatively high CO2/high temperature world. Similarly, the life which exists in the Quaternary Era has evolved, over millions of years, to thrive in a low-CO2/low temperature world. So what we're doing is setting the climate clock back to a time for which current life on Earth is not adapted-& in a period of decades to centuries-not millions of years as has happened previously. Previous "rapid" changes in climate-(on the order of centuries to millenia)-caused massive extinction events. To suggest that our actions now won't have a bad-if not worse-consequences for life on this planet (& human life in particular) represents the worst combination of arrogance & ignorance imaginable. Oh & as for your ad hominem-it was claiming that everyone here has been "taught" to be alarmist & that apparently we can't think for yourself-& at the same time implying that somehow only people like you & Camel have access to the real *truth*! That constitutes ad hominem in my books, but fortunately it was since deleted from the site. -
barry1487 at 13:09 PM on 8 May 2010University of Queensland talk wrap-up
The slide show is a great progression of the evidence. Just a couple of nits to pick on the language. From page 2 of the PDF:The first step is to work out how human activity is affecting the atmosphere. This graph shows how much carbon dioxide we’ve been emitting over the last 6000 years.
Might want to rephrase that. How about - "This graph shows atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 6000 years. The upswing on the right is CO2 we've emitted since the industrial revolution." Or something better. Near the end:Another impact that will have a significant impact on humanity is sea level rise.
Too many impacts :-) Maybe something like - "Sea level rise will also have a profound impact on humanity." I've bookmarked the slide show for future reference. Nice job. -
skepticstudent at 12:59 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
42Thank Jeff. That was pretty much my point, although I didn't word it as succintly as you. People are always making accusations without looking at certain regions on the globe which are acting totally different. 48. Marcus...6 degrees warmer... and yet today the earth is still spinning just like it was then isn't it. So could it be that it is not so catastrophic and maybe more cyclical in natuer. You can't have your cake and eat it to. And What was my ad hominem? I couldn't find one. -
Marcus at 12:54 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
SkepticalStudent. Nice to see that you won't let the facts get in the way of a good story (I noted that, when against the wall, you resorted to ad hominem attacks again-the hallmark of someone whose position is incredibly weak) GISS shows a modest warming of 0.012 degrees for 2000-2009, in spite of that decade being dominated by a deep solar minimum (i.e. it *should* have cooled). Yet 10 years do not a trend make-because the results are statistically insignificant. 30-60 years of continuous data do provide the correct amount of statistical significance because the signal-to-noise ratio is much better, & all this data is showing a *strong* warming trend. BTW, I was never *taught* to be "alarmist". As a scientist I carefully reviewed *all* the scientific literature-both for & against-before I came to the conclusion that global warming was occurring, & that humans were the most obvious cause. Common sense also dictates my position on the issue-because I find it ludicrous that you can pump *millions of years* worth of geo-sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere, in the space of less than 200 years, & not expect it to have a measurable impact on the biosphere. When the basis for our oil & coal were being laid down, the planet's CO2 concentrations were 10x higher than today-& the planet was a good 6 degrees warmer than today too. Coincidence? I think not! -
Ron Crouch at 12:51 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
"One would have to assume that if ice grows back that quickly, that much that it is fairly cold, not rising catastrophically." I'm not sure what you mean at the end of this statement, but as far as cold temperatures and sea ice growth are concerned. There is much more that has to be taken into consideration than the temperatures on their own. You need to also take into consideration such factors as ocean currents and atmospheric pressures in order to make any definitive conclusions surrounding sea ice growth. The analysis of conditions posted at NSIDC on April 6, 2010 illustrates this very well. Quote: "This March, low atmospheric pressure systems persisted over the Gulf of Alaska and north of Scandinavia. These pressure patterns led to unusually cold conditions and persistent northerly winds in the Bering and Barents Seas, which pushed the ice edge southward in these two regions." but Quote: "This winter's strong negative mode of the Arctic Oscillation was moderated through the month of March. Average air temperatures for the month nevertheless remained above average over the Arctic Ocean region. Overall for the winter, temperatures over most of the Arctic were above average, while northern Europe and Siberia were colder than usual. and Quote: "Ice extent was above normal in the Bering Sea and Baltic Sea, but remained below normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Baffin Bay, and the Canadian Maritime Provinces seaboard. Extent in other regions was near average. and Quote: "The late date of the maximum extent, though of special interest this year, is unlikely to have an impact on summer ice extent. The ice that formed late in the season is thin, and will melt quickly when temperatures rise." And the latter statement is being borne out if you look at the graph of current Arctic sea ice extent. -
johnd at 12:48 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Jeff Freymueller at 12:28 PM, can any of the rising parts of land be associated with subsidence elsewhere, or the reverse? Only some materials would be compressible but even those would require something to be drawn into their structure as the pressure reduced. -
Jeff Freymueller at 12:38 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Now back to the original topic? The letter is a fine letter, and as a scientist I would be proud to sign it myself. If there is a supporting petitition, I'll gladly add my name, whether such things count for anything or not. I found it right on the money. I particularly liked the sentence, "Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong." [referring to the age of the Earth and the age of the universe]. That's absolutely correct. -
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Skepticstudent, Nearly all your claims run counter to the bulk of mainstream peer-reviewed scientific literature, as you can see linked to profusely on this site. So, yes, you will need to provide some reliable references to back your claims. -
wingding at 12:29 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Re notcynical 40. If too many sign the skeptics will just claim they were coerced to sign, or felt pressured to sign or just didn't want to appear not to sign. -
Jeff Freymueller at 12:28 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Too much noise here this time. Repetitive posting of discredited arguments does not stimulate any useful discussion. Among the many fallacies presented here were a couple of comments about Alaska. Given that I live and work there, I'll respond to those. (1) 2008 was indeed a miserable, wet, rainy cold summer. The worst in many years. So the obvious question is, what about 2009? It was nearly the opposite! Far warmer and nicer overall than 2008. Was it an incredible warming trend in 2008-2009? No, this is what we call weather, and to say anything about climate you need to average over a lot of years of weather. (2) Along most of the southern coastline of Alaska, vertical motion of the land is much faster than the change in sea level. Some parts of southeast Alaska are rising faster than 30 mm/yr due to the rebound of the crust from melting ice. See Chris Larsen's website for a sampling of the results, if you don't want to track down the original papers. Along many parts of the Pacific coast from the Aleutians eastward, the land is subsiding due to the buildup of strain leading toward great thrust earthquakes at the Alaska subduction zone. Further inland, we find uplift (for example, along Cook Inlet) for the same tectonic causes. In many places the land level change, in either direction, is significantly faster than sea level change. So extreme changes in relative sea level in Alaska tell us nothing about global sea level rise or climate. -
Tom Dayton at 12:28 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent, there are data on snow cover over the entire northern hemisphere, which although less than global is hugely more than the tiny regions in which you have lived. Details in Tamino's post "Snow." -
Tom Dayton at 12:20 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Really, people, if you want to argue over the number of scientists that are skeptics, you need to do it over at There is no consensus. It's fine to post one or two narrow comments on a broader post, but after that it's redundant and distracting. -
notcynical at 12:14 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
RE: Riccaro @#9 Yes, I'd bet that most would agree. However, NAS has over 2000 members. Even though only some sections were asked to sign, it would be more persuasive if we could say that 90%, say, of those requested did sign. The relative number (ie the percentage) of those signing is a more compelling statistic then the absolute number, in my opinion. -
wingding at 12:12 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent: "Marcus you want to recheck your facts. Even the NASA GISS facts don't dispute that the temperatures have been declining on a global basis since the year 2000." NASA GISS shows a warming trend since 2000. On a global basis. -
Ian Forrester at 12:11 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Oops the graph didn't show up. It can be seen here: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2000/plot/gistemp/from:2000/trend -
Ian Forrester at 12:10 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
scepticstudent said:Marcus you want to recheck your facts. Even the NASA GISS facts don't dispute that the temperatures have been declining on a global basis since the year 2000.
Not true skepticstudent. Here is the GISTEMP graph for 2000 to 2010: -
Tom Dayton at 12:10 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
johnd, "natural cycles" cannot explain the recent warming. See John Cook's green-box Response to this comment in the thread on the It’s just a natural cycle thread. Also click on the links in Riccardo's comment on that thread. -
johnd at 12:03 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Marcus at 11:39 AM re What *is* proof of global warming is the 30 year warming trend-from 1979-2009-occurring in spite of a decline in Total Solar Irradiance over a similar period. I would consider that the said warming trend was more so proof that the post WW2 30 year cooling trend had ended, similar as it had previously done so as indicated by the various natural cycles identified and traced back centuries, many of which are still not fully understood. -
Ian Forrester at 11:54 AM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent, you seem to be confused about the relationship between CO2 and temperature over geological time scales. May I suggest you review The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History by Dr. Richard Alley. -
wingding at 11:53 AM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Papers "supporting" skepticism of manmade global warming turns out to be a license to include papers which skeptics misunderstand or misinterpret to be an argument against manmade global warming. To pick a rather extreme example to make a point - I have bumped into skeptics that claim co2 is heavier than air so human emissions can't get into the atmosphere. It would therefore be the case that a paper which stated co2 is heavier than air could be listed as a paper "supporting" skepticism of manmade global warming. To pick an actual example - Caillon et al 2003 is on the 700 list. Caillon et al 2003 report that co2 rise lags temperature rise by 800 years in a certain part of the ice core record. The only way this can be percieved as "supporting" skepticism of manmade global warming is that it supports the argument that "co2 lags temperature, not the otherway round". But such a conclusion doesn't come from the paper or any other paper, it is "original research" by skeptics, just like the "therefore co2 cannot get off the ground". Caillon et al 2003 itself doesn't in fact support such a claim and even explicitly contradicts it at the end of the paper. Realclimate even has an article guest written by Jeff Severinghaus, one of the co-authors of Caillon et al 2003, further explaining why the "not the otherway round" argument is wrong.
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