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The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award

Posted on 31 December 2010 by Peter Gleick

Welcome to the 2010 Climate B.S. of the Year Award.

2010 saw widespread and growing evidence of rapidly warming global climate and strengthening scientific understanding of how humans are contributing to climate change. Yet on the policy front, little happened to stem the growing emissions of greenhouse gases or to help societies prepare for increasingly severe negative climate impacts, including now unavoidable changes in temperature, rainfall patterns, sea-level rise, snowpack, glacial extent, Arctic sea ice, and more. These physical impacts will lead to sharply increased disease, military and economic instabilities, food and water shortages, and extreme weather events, among other things. Without appropriate risk management action, the United States will be hit hard. There is no safe haven. Yet confusion and uncertainty about climate change remain high in the minds of too many members of the public and Congress.

Why? In large part because of a concerted, coordinated, aggressive campaign by a small group of well-funded climate change deniers and contrarians focused on intentionally misleading the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change. Much of this effort is based on intentional falsehoods, misrepresentations, inflated uncertainties, and pure and utter B.S. about climate science. These efforts have been successful in sowing confusion and delaying action – just as the same tactics were successful in delaying efforts to tackle tobacco’s health risks.

To counter this campaign of disinformation, we are issuing the first in what may become a series of awards for the most egregious Climate B.S.* of the Year. In preparing the list of nominees, suggestions were received from around the world and a panel of reviewers – all scientists or climate communicators – waded through them. We present here the top five nominees and the winner of the 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award.

Fifth Place. Climate B.S. and misrepresentations presented by Fox “News.”

There are many examples of bad science, misrepresentations, omissions of facts, and distortions of climate reality coming from Fox “News” (far too many to list here, but we note that Joe Romm just gave Fox his 2010 Citizen Kane Award for “non-excellence in journalism” for their misrepresentations of climate science). It seems that Fox has now made it their policy to deny the reality of climate change and has told its reporters to misreport or cast doubt on the science. This policy of disinformation was implemented by Fox News executive Bill Sammon, who ordered staff to cast doubt on climate data in a memo revealed this month. Fox’s political commentators have long used this tactic in their one-sided and biased discussions on climate change but Sammon’s memo seems to direct News staff to slant reporting in direct contradiction to what the scientific facts and scientists actually say.

Fourth Place. Misleading or false testimony to Congress and policymakers about climate change.

While Congress held more hearings in 2010 on climate change than in other recent years, these hearings elicited some astounding testimonies submitted by climate deniers and skeptics filled with false and misleading statements about climate science and total B.S. Examples?

Long-time climate change skeptic Patrick Michaels testified before the House Science and Technology Committee and misrepresented the scientific understanding of the human role in climate change and the well-understood effects of fundamental climatic factors, such as the effects of visible air pollution. Including these effects (as climate scientists have done for many years) would have completely changed his results. Michaels has misrepresented mainstream climate science for decades, as has been noted here, here, and elsewhere, yet he remains a darling of the skeptics in Congress who like his message.

A newer darling of Congressional climate change deniers is Christopher Monckton, who claims to be a member of the British House of Lords (a claim rejected by the House of Lords). Monckton testified before a Senate committee in May and presented such outlandish B.S. about climate that experts (such as John Mashey, Tim Lambert, John Abraham, and Barry Bickmore, to name a few) spent uncounted hours and pages and pages refuting just a subset of his errors.

Third Place. The false claim that a single weather event, such as a huge snowstorm in Washington, D.C., proves there is no global warming.

In February 2010 a big winter storm dumped record piles of snow on the mid-Atlantic U.S., including Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, prompting climate change deniers to use bad weather to try to discredit the reality of global warming. Limbaugh said, “It's one more nail in the coffin for the global warming thing.” Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe got attention with an igloo on the national mall and labeled it “Al Gore's new home” (combining bad science with a personal attack). Senator Jim DeMint said, “It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.’”

Record snowfall is not an indicator of a lack of global warming, as has been pointed out in the scientific literature and many, many rounds of Congressional testimony. It merely means that there was a storm and temperatures were close to or below freezing. Indeed global warming can contribute to greater snowfalls by providing extra moisture. Many scientists testifying before the Senate and House of Representatives have explained the difference between a steadily warming planet and occasional extreme cold events in particular spots. But we can expect to see more examples of this kind of B.S. when it gets cold and snowy somewhere, sometime, this winter.

Second Place. The claim that the “Climategate” emails meant that global warming was a hoax, or was criminal, as Senator Inhofe tried to argue. In fact, it was none of these things (though the British police are still investigating the illegal hacking of a British university’s computer system and the theft of the emails).

Global warming deniers used out-of-context texts from the stolen emails to claim that global warming was a hoax or that scientists had manipulated data or were hiding evidence that climate change wasn’t happening. These claims are all B.S. A series of independent scientific and academic investigations in the U.S. and the U.K. unanimously concluded that nothing in the stolen emails made any difference to the remarkable strength of climate science (see, for example, the Penn State vindication, the Independent Muir Russell and Lord Oxburgh reviews, a British Parliamentary Panel review, and other assessments). Unfortunately, the media gave far more attention to the accusations than to the resounding vindications, and climate deniers continue to spread B.S. about this case.

The bottom line of “Climategate?” As a letter in Science magazine signed by 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences said in May 2010: “there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change.”

AND THE WINNER OF THE 2010 CLIMATE B.S.* OF THE YEAR AWARD

First Place goes to the following set of B.S.: “There has been no warming since 1998” [or 2000, or…], “the earth is cooling,” “global warming is natural,” and “humans are too insignificant to affect the climate.” Such statements are all nonsense and important for the general public to understand properly.

The reality is that the Earth’s climate is changing significantly, changing fast, and changing due to human factors. The reality of climatic change can no longer be disputed on scientific grounds – the U.S. National Academy of Sciences calls the human-induced warming of the Earth a “settled fact.” The evidence for a “warming” planet includes not just rising temperatures, but also rising sea levels, melting Arctic sea ice, disappearing glaciers, increasing intense rainfalls, and many other changes that matter to society and the environment. The recent and ongoing warming of the Earth is unprecedented in magnitude, speed, and cause.

This winning set of B.S. appears almost daily in the conservative blogosphere, like here and here and here, consistently in the statements of climate change deniers, and far too often in real media outlets. Actual science and observations from around globe have long shown the opposite (for example, here and here are nice rebuttals with real science). The planet continues to warm rapidly largely due to human activities, and average global temperatures continue to rise. The most recent decade has been the warmest decade on record and 2010 will likely go down as either the warmest or second warmest year in recorded history.

Associated B.S. argues that the famous “hockey stick” graph has been disproved. This graph shows the extraordinarily rapid warming of the twentieth century compared to the previous 1000 years. The graph and analysis have been upheld by subsequent researchers and numerous scientific assessments, including one from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

To the winners: congratulations, it is long past time your B.S. is recognized for what it is – bad science.

And to the public and the media: be forewarned: all of these and similar bad arguments will certainly be repeated in 2011. It is long past time that this bad science is identified, challenged, and shown to be the B.S. that it is.

The 2010 Climate Bad Science (B.S.) Detection and Correction Team

Peter Gleick, Kevin Trenberth, Tenney Naumer, Michael Ashley, Lou Grinzo, Gareth Renowden, Paul Douglas, Jan W. Dash, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Brian Angliss, Joe Romm, Peter Sinclair, Michael Tobis, Gavin Schmidt, John Cook, plus several anonymous nominators, reviewers, and voters.

[* “B.S.” means “Bad Science” doesn’t it?]

For more information, contact Dr. Peter H. Gleick or Nancy Ross, Pacific Institute, 510 725-2385. nross@pacinst.org.

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Comments 51 to 100 out of 101:

  1. #44: Anyone spot the contradiction(s)? a. "Stratospheric cooling and decreased IR emissions into space could simply be the result of the planet cooling off." b. "A warmer planetary surface system ... will ALWAYS have higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere." c. "the oceans have been acting as a "thermal blanket", trading heat with the atmosphere. Now the loss of heat energy is becoming measurable and the oceans are cooling." So: c. Oceans cool and atmosphere warms as they 'trade heat'. Except that a. planet is cooling, yet b. planet surface must be warmer as CO2 remains high. The only possible reply to that is: I see said the blind man to his deaf daughter, as he picked up his hammer and saw.
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  2. @Berényi Péter #50 "It's here. Between third quarter of 2009 and third quarter of 2010 the upper 700 m of oceans lost 1.015×1022 J. That's equivalent to a continuous net radiative heat loss at TOA (Top of Atmosphere) of 0.63 W/m2 averaged over the entire year." Is 0-700m "the ocean"? What about 700 or more (about 75-80% of all)? Why if "ocean" cooled, sea level continued to grow? Thermal expansion of sea water is about a half of sea level rise. Aren't you copying the structure of the "travesty"? If you thought that by "ocean cooling" Anne-Marie wasn't asking for general trends, why don't you answer that in this very moment -and any moment- about half of the ocean and half of the emerging lands are cooling much more than 0.63W/m2. If we are going to divide our subjects to make an argument I will tell that half of the ocean is more than 0-700m. It looks to me like your argument is just an exploit of the gap between the availability of different sets of recent data and the delayed publication of peer reviewed comprehensive analysis. After all, much of the claim for easy availability of raw data "to check it" had purposes like that, hadn't it?
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  3. Berényi Péter All this tells me is that there is variability within the system, as expected. What it doesn't tell me is how the cycles memoryvault refers to are responsible for the ongoing, long-term rise in temperatures. This is the point I was trying to get to (eventually) with regards to memoryvault's assertions that ocean cycles can explain recent temperature trends.
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  4. I have an early submission for the 2011 award. While listening to of all things, an organic gardening show on the radio. This guy (call-in) tells the host that he is having trouble with his tomato plants, which he believes is due to "aluminum". When ask why he thought the cause was due to aluminum, he said, "well, I don't want to get into conspiracy theories, but they have been putting aluminum oxide in the atmosphere and that's what's causing global warming".
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  5. I feel compelled to counter at least ad hominem memoryvault threw onto this thread about Arrhenius. I hope moderators allow it, because I've seen this comment show up elsewhere, too. Yes, Arrhenius was a board member of the State Institute for Racial Hygeine. Yes, he was involved in studying eugenics. But to link Arrhenius to the forced sterilisation programme of the Swedish government is downright evil. Evil, because that started in 1934, seven years after Arrhenius had died. Then again, I guess these same people think Newton's law are complete nonsense, considering he also dabbled in alchemy.
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  6. Memory Vault When you say Angstrom's "discredited" Arrhenius's theory - do you mean the experiment where Angstrom used faulty methodology? The end result being only Angstrom's work was discredited? Is that the incident you are referring to? It appears that as far back as 1900 the only way to "discredit" AGW was through bad science (just to tie this back to the original post). I bring all this up to yes, score debating points - but also because there is a sense that somehow AGW is a new, specially tailored theory that Al Gore dreamed up right after he invented the Internet. But the reality is that AGW is climate science. It is physics and it is chemistry and any other related science. If you understand the science you are a proponent of AGW (or at worst an informed skeptic). So the task for skeptics such as yourself is first to understand enough so you see why my statement is true. Otherwise you just spark the ire of folks who have walked people through this 100s of times before and know you will either get it (unlikely due to human nature, not climate science) or walk away thinking those folks at skepticalscience are irrational (sadly the more likely outcome). Once you understand the basic truth that AGW is physics and is climate science you are ready to be a skeptic and figure out how the core science is wrong. At that point you will have the undying gratitude of millions (plus quite a bit of money from entrenched energy companies that want nothing more than the right to pollute and profit in peace). Finally, if you don't mind me asking - what is your source of information? You said it was a high school education in the 1960s, then you said Arrhenius was discredited until he was dusted off in the 70s (presumably after you graduated from high school). And yet you not only know Arrhenius but you know about Angstrom's inept assistant and the bungled "discrediting"; and you are here on skepticalscience looking for answers - so it seems likely you have an additional current source of (perhaps faulty) information. Thanks.
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  7. memoryvault - When you wrote "The atmosphere does not "heat" the oceans. Not by radiative forcing nor by any other method. The oceans "heat" the atmosphere." you are quite correct. If when you mean "Heat" you mean net transfer of energy from the atmosphere to the ocean. The actual net (summed) flow is sunlight->ocean->atmosphere->space, or in more detail: Heat Transfer (net energy flow) sunlight->ocean and atmosphere ocean->atmosphere and space atmosphere->space The rate of any of these is dependent on the difference in temperatures between them. The thing is, a warm IR absorbing/radiating atmosphere reduces the effective temperature difference between the ocean and space (the final destination for the energy from sunlight). And hence it's harder for the ocean to dump energy at any particular temperature - it accumulates and warms the ocean. Radiant energy scales with T^4, so this isn't open-ended warming. These are pretty much greenhouse basics, memoryvault - I suggest you take a look at Has the greenhouse effect been falsified for an overview of the mechanics.
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  8. Again, BP likes to cherry-pick (in this case, depth of measurements) and claims trends over a 2-3 years periods, ignoring the laws of statistics. There used to be a time when his input was challenging, but now it feels as if he's not even trying anymore, and just throws around whatever he can, hoping something will stick.
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  9. Is there any credible news regarding ocean heat energy? Or are we still at Trenberth's tragedy? I don't spend too much time doubting significance of global warming, but when I do - it is because a trip up on where the heat is.
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  10. Did you see this one in September? http://www.skepticalscience.com/billions-of-blow-dryers.html
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  11. Re: actually thoughtfull (59) Or this one over at Climate Progress on December 15th? The Yooper
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  12. "And no, to my knowledge there is no reason why thermometers would be more sensitive (or respond quicker) to highs than lows." @Albatros, 10 Maybe Lindzen is right about his statement and maybe he isn't. To have any chance of being right there needs to be a theory of why it might be so. Can you imagine why highs might be more prevalent given more sensitive thermometers? I can. High temperatures generally occur during the day when for example it might be cloudy for most of the day but briefly have the clouds break and temperatures rise for a short time. The new sensitive, high sampling rate thermomenters will spot that shorter peak whereas the older mercury based themometers wont respond quickly enough to see it. Compare this to low temperatures which generally occur overnight and often early in the morning (say 5am) following long slow cooling overnight. The old mercury thermometers will generally have been able to follow those temperatures down all night and perhaps give a more realistic low reading. So in fact there could well be good reasons why Lindzen's proposal is correct. To dismiss the idea out of hand simply shows it hasn't been considered or investigated properly.
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  13. @TTTM: In other words, temperatures have up to now been underestimated? :-) Seriously, when your argument against AGW comes down to "thermometers are more precise now", you've already lost the debate. There's a reason why contrarians are getting increasingly more shrill and desperate...
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  14. @archiesteel The argument hasn't come down to that at all. When the AGWers continue to ignore alternative explanations without proper consideration then they will continue to blindy assume what they're told. @Daniel I've always thought it was warmer waters doing the melting and not increased LW radiation as per increased CO2 + feedbacks. From the article "Global warming is sneaky. For more than a century it has been hiding large amounts of excess heat in the world's deep seas. Now that heat is coming to the surface again in one of the worst possible places: Antarctica." So now the thing to determine is whether the warmer water is as a result of AGW or not. It has long been believed that deep ocean heat takes a VERY long time to accumulate and the article itself suggests the heat has been accumulating for more than a century...except the majority of the AGW heating is believed to have occurred much later. If it cant be shown that CO2 first caused the deep oceans to heat that much and then migrate to the poles in the timeframes allowed then AGW is going to have another problem.
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  15. TTT, Lindzen made the claim-- he provided no evidence to support his claim to the energy sub committee that newer instruments are more sensitive to highs than lows, now that is B.S. The onus is on him to support his claim in a scientific matter. You grasping at straws on his behalf and arguing hypotheticals doesn't improve matters. Your hypothesis doesn't explain the systematic trend towards higher night- time temperatures in recent decades. Finally, if the Lindzen's claim were true there would be a clear step change or discontinuity in the thermometer data which would be detected when climatologists homogenized the data. I am unaware Lindzen's issue being raised in the papers on data homogenization that I have read. Anyhow, maybe between the the of us we can dredge through the literature to either support or refute Lindzen's hypothesis. But until either you or he provides credible, quantitative support it remains just that, a hypothesis. I did find this with a quick search, but it speaks to a warm bias in earlier temperatures.
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  16. @Albatross "Lindzen made the claim-- he provided no evidence to support his claim to the energy sub committee that newer instruments are more sensitive to highs than lows" Actually the chairman made the claim. Lindzen was asked to agree or not. My hypothesis isn't trying to do anything more than support Lindzen's belief. Its certainly not trying to say anything about the more recent measurements. "Finally, if the Lindzen's claim were true there would be a clear step change or discontinuity in the thermometer data " The data is FULL of step changes with changes in both location and type of thermometer. Perhaps this has never been investigated. "until either you or he provides credible, quantitative support it remains just that, a hypothesis." Correct. But that sure beats a bunch of people laughing at Lindzen because they haven't thought through the issue. "I did find this with a quick search, but it speaks to a warm bias in earlier temperatures." I dont think a proxy for temperatures (especially tree rings which are known to be dubious) is an especially strong argument.
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  17. TTT@65, "....except the majority of the AGW heating is believed known to have occurred much later." There, fixed. The thermal inertia of the oceans has been calculated to be about 30-40 years and discussed much in the literature. You seem to have chosen to misread the article. They are not saying that the heat surfacing near Antarctica was added to the deep ocean en mass over a century ago. They are saying that it has been steadily (albeit slowly) accumulating in the deep oceans for more than a century and some of that heat is now surfacing near Antarctica. An important difference. There is more clearly much more heat in the pipeline, and that is a concern, not a refutation of the theory of AGW. Now until contrarians stop engaging in B.S., and entertaining conspiracy theories, and distorting the science they will continue to have no credibility. I will take it by your silence on the B.S. awards that you implicitly agree/support with the B.S that the award winners are guilty of. Now had you come here and first distanced yourself from the BS award winners' antics and then tried to take issue with my critique of Lindzen then you might have had some credibility. Too late for you to back peddle now.
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  18. TTT @66, Read the abstract that I linked to carefully. "We suggest that uncertainties in the choice of instrumental targets at the hemispheric scale, and instrumental data inhomogeneities at the Alpine and possibly also the hemispheric-scale are the most important factors in explaining this offset." And "Attention is drawn to possible warm biases in early thermometer shelters" Other papers have found warm bias b/c of poorly ventilated shelters used a long time ago. Yes, there are many step changes in the data-- and the response time of thermometers is something they take into consideration. See this post and embedded link. As for Lindzen--your latest comments are just obfuscation. I'll post the exchange between Lindzen and Baird for you and others here to read-- will take some time to transcribe it though.
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  19. ""....except the majority of the AGW heating is known to have occurred much later." There, fixed." Utter rubbish. Have you seen a paper that has described the warm upper ocean migrating towards the poles as the reason? It should be relatively easy to spot. No, its the deep ocean they're talking about, hence the title of the article "Deep Ocean Heat is rapidly melting Arctic ice" and its thermohaline circulation that drives that. It takes many hundreds of years for THC waters to migrate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
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    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Um, try again. It actually is titled: "Deep ocean heat is rapidly melting Antarctic ice".
  20. "And "Attention is drawn to possible warm biases in early thermometer shelters" Other papers have found warm bias b/c of poorly ventilated shelters used a long time ago." As opposed to thermometers placed ner acres of tarmac at airports which are then branded "low population" centres?
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  21. TTT, As opposed to thermometers placed ner acres of tarmac at airports which are then branded "low population" centres? I corrected you. Now please stay on topic and stop arguing straw men.
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  22. TTT@69, "Utter rubbish." Now this is what one of the lead authors had to say (here) "Martinson said that heat stored in deep waters far from Antarctica is being pushed southward and becoming entrained in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, a vast, wind-driven water mass that constantly circles the frozen continent. The evidence comes from 18 years of Antarctic voyages Martinson has made to measure water temperature, salinity and other qualities at different depths. He called the increases in ocean heat in the past few decades “jaw dropping.” Now feel free to go argue with Dr. Martinson et al.
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  23. Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Um, try again. It actually is titled: "Deep ocean heat is rapidly melting Antarctic ice". My bad on mistakenly typing Arctic. You can clearly see in the Thermohaline Circulation diagram in the Wiki where the warmer waters come from and goe to. And the timeframes believed to be involved.
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  24. "Martinson said that heat stored in deep waters far from Antarctica is being pushed southward and becoming entrained in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current" Now read it carefully. Is he saying that the heat stored in the deep waters is AGW in nature? Or are you reading that into it? This is what I would consider a very likely scenario and find his reasoning good. However the deep waters migrating is not obviously an anthropogenic effect is it. And the timeframes to heat the deep waters are all wrong too.
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  25. From testimony presented to the House Committee Science and Technology | Energy and Environment on November 17 2010. This exchange between Baird and Lindzen takes place about 50 minutes into the session for panel one. I provided a link earlier on this thread @10. Caveat: I did not use quotation marks b/c I am not a professional transcriber ;) Baird: Now here is the question is there disagreement with Dr. Meehl's analysis and Dr. Cullen's analysis that and Dr. Cicerone of of a greater portion of record highs in recent years relative to record lows. Lindzen: Ja, I don't think that they are meaningful statements. I mean during this whole period that he is referring to if you look at it it still looks like a random process one, and two, the instrumentation has changed dramatically during that period so the response time of modern thermometers is almost infinitesimal compared to the ones used in the earlier part of the record. Baird: Actually, I'll rephrase my question because I think it was pretty clear, but your answer did not address it. My question is-- is there any doubt that in recent years, and I'll state it as clearly as I can, that there is a greater preponderance of record highs than record lows? Unless you are suggesting that in the past the measurement devices were erroneous in one direction not another. Lindzen interrupts: Absolutely...because you will have a higher response time you will pick up perturbations. Baird: No I'm not talking perturbations....if you are suggesting that thermometers today are more sensitive to increases than to cooling. Lindzen interrupts: Ja, oh ja. Baird: That is right? That is your point? Lindzen; Ja. I think that is pretty much true. But I think there is another issue here, which is a bit weird, namely, why do we have record highs and record cold...? Baird: I don't want to ask the 'why' first, I just want to get the facts. Dr. Meehl, Dr. Cullen, Dr. Cicerone-- is it generally accepted scientific fact that there are more record highs today than record lows? Dr. Meehl? Meehl: Yes. Baird: Dr. Cullen? Cullen: Yes. Baird: Dr. Cicerone? Cicerone: Yes. Lindzen = B.S. End of story.
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  26. TTT @74, Enough already, please stop being so lazy and stop asking leading questions-- I am not playing this game. Read the article yourself. I provided a link which you clearly have not read, certainly not in its entirety. And if you have any questions, go and ask Martinson and get back to us. And if you think Hansen et al. are wrong about the time lag of the oceans, then at least try and demonstrate here why their calculations are wrong (and cut and pasting Wikipedia doesn't cut it). Can you please state for the record whether or not you support the 2010 winners of the Climate B.S. of the year award?
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  27. @Albatross "Lindzen interrupts: Absolutely...because you will have a higher response time you will pick up perturbations." This is the vital statement. And this is exactly the sort of thing I suggested might happen in my earlier post @ 62 and I gave the reasoning. If you believe the reasoning is faulty then please discuss why. If you are aware of a paper that has looked at this possibility specifically and come to some other conclusion then please let me know where it is. Until then Lindzen is entitled to have reasoned theories about things just the same as you are. If you believe Lindzen meant that thermometers LITERALLY measured highs better than lows then you're also entitled to that opinion but lets just say Lindzen is probably a lot smarter than you are so perhaps it is your understanding of his meaning that is faulty. "Can you please state for the record whether or not you support the 2010 winners of the Climate B.S. of the year award? " I consider the science and look at each conclusion and make my own mind up. I dont need to classify people before hearing what they say.
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  28. @Albatros "And if you think Hansen et al. are wrong about the time lag of the oceans, then at least try and demonstrate here why their calculations are wrong (and cut and pasting Wikipedia doesn't cut it)." Their calculations are simply irrelevent as relates to the melting Antarctic finding. Once again, this is the deep ocean being discussed. Below the thermocline. The sceptical science article you quoted is looking at ocean warming above 700m or thereabouts.
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  29. TTT@77, "If you believe the reasoning is faulty then please discuss why." I have already done that. You just keep repeating the same wishful thinking. You also need to learn the difference between a theory and a hypothesis. Additionally, suggesting that I'm not smart enough to understand you and Lindzen is not defense. With that said Baird, and Drs. Cullen, Cicerone and Meehl all disagreed with Lindzen's hypothesis (and reasonable people reading that transcript will probably agree with Meehl et al). Also, going by your logic, one can only conclude that you think they (Meehl et al.) are also not smart enough to grasp Lindzen's unsubstantiated musings. Poor misunderstood Lindzen. Lindzen is entitled to his opinions, but not to his own facts. In science, one is required to provide evidence/facts to support one's hypothesis-- Lindzen did not, and has not, and that is B.S. So please stop trying to spin and distort this. "I consider the science and look at each conclusion and make my own mind up." LOL TTT, you really missed your calling in life. You should have been a politician, maybe you are ;) OK, there are five award winners. Then please defend each one using science and explain to us why they are not guilty of B.S. Additionally, being a "true skeptic", I'm sure that you will be happy to add a few more examples of B.S. from the contrarians/"skeptics"/those in denial about AGW. Gleick et al. made their case, now you make yours. We are all ears.
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  30. TTT @78, I am not arguing with you on this anymore. Two reasons. First, it is OT. Second, you seem to be insisting on misunderstanding Martinson's research. But before I go, here is his abstract given at AGU: "Published literature is converging to a consensus that the accelerated glacial melt in western Antarctica is due in part to ocean heat. This talk will present the history of ocean heat on the western continental shelves of the western Antarctic, likely contributing to this accelerated melt. The record is from nearly 20 years of gridded ocean data from the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project situated in the heart of this critical region. Two fundamental points are covered: (1) what is the mechanism by which the warm water makes its way onto the continental shelf, and (2) what is the history of the ocean heat content with an emphasis on possible mechanisms responsible for what will be shown to be a dramatically large increase in the heat content (historical data from the same location extends the history of the ocean heat content back through the 1960s, showing a startlingly large increase in ocean heat content). Possible reasons for the increase are: (1) increased westerlies driving a stronger Antarctic Circumpolar Current flow, raising the isopycnals of the warmest waters to the height of the continental shelf for easy access via shelf upwelling, or (2) global warming of the world oceans deep waters have encountered southern flowing currents, delivering the warmed water to the ACC, eventually reaching the western Antarctic". Anyhow, maybe you can find someone to argue with on the appropriate thread, if you can find one.
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  31. "With that said Baird, and Drs. Cullen, Cicerone and Meehl all disagreed with Lindzen's hypothesis (and reasonable people reading that transcript will probably agree with Meehl et al). " The whole thing took place in maybe 30 seconds. I doubt any of the others had even seriously considered the possibility until that moment. Are you surprised it played out like it did? I am not surprised that AGWers continue to rubbish the possibility even after its been pointed out to them. Real scientists keep an open mind about such things. Re: Deep Ocean warming. To keep it more on topic, thats an issue for further discussion for another day in another thread.
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  32. The whole thing took place in maybe 30 seconds. I doubt any of the others had even seriously considered the possibility until that moment. Are you surprised it played out like it did? I am not surprised that AGWers continue to rubbish the possibility even after its been pointed out to them. Real scientists keep an open mind about such things.
    Real scientists ask for supporting data, which Lindzen has not provided. Real scientists keep an open mind, but limit it because they don't want their mind to fall out. Meanwhile, apparently modern plants and animals also react to perturbations more quickly, and this is why we're finding overwhelming evidence of northward migration of species (in the NH). Just an artifact of more accurate, more quickly reacting, organisms. And glaciers, too. Magically, just as thermometers became biased toward warm transient temps (but not cool ones, what's Lindzen's argument on this line???), so did glaciers. And arctic sea ice. Etc.
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  33. TTT @82, The whole thing took place in maybe 30 seconds. Honestly TTT, do you know no shame? Your posts now reek of desperation. The exchange (mostly) between Baird and Lindzen lasted 2 min. That was followed by another discussion on the same topic (preponderance of highs versus lows) between Meehl, Cullen and Baird which lasted another 2 min and 30 sec. Total discussion about greater preponderance of highs versus lows was about 4 min and 30 sec. Real scientists keep an open mind about such things. The climate scientists whom I know and work with are inherently open minded and curious. they have also have an insatiable need to solve problem, figure to what is happening and essentially understand how the climate system/biosphere works. Lindzen provided no evidence whatsoever to support his assertion. This reminds me of surfacestations.org repeatedly threatening to expose the soft underbelly of the USA SAT record. In the end it was Menne et al (real, working scientists), who actually did the number crunching and research and published a paper in the peer-reviewed literature on the reliability of the US temperature record. This is most annoying, all it seems "skeptics" have to do is make (sometimes wild) accusations or entertain intriguing hypotheses (for the purpose of sowing doubt), without actually following through. And what dhogaza said--there are multiple, independent lines of evidence that the planet is warming which do not require thermometers. Lindzen, like Watts, is chasing ghosts and, yet again, shamelessly engaging in B.S.
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  34. "This reminds me of surfacestations.org repeatedly threatening to expose the soft underbelly of the USA SAT record. In the end it was Menne et al (real, working scientists), who actually did the number crunching and research and published a paper in the peer-reviewed literature on the reliability of the US temperature record." For the heck of it, I visited surfacestations.org. Here's the lead: "NEWS Updated 07/16/2009" That's 18 months ago. Tee-hee!
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  35. " Total discussion about greater preponderance of highs versus lows was about 4 min and 30 sec. " With the chaiman phrasing and rephrasing the question, sure. Lindzen's responses were very brief and he went into no detail. From his "answer" point of view the exchange was considerably shorter. "And what dhogaza said--there are multiple, independent lines of evidence that the planet is warming which do not require thermometers. " One thing at a time. This is about rubbishing Lindzen because he made a claim that most people dont even begin to understand. He won an award for it in your eyes afterall.
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  36. Tim @86, OMG, you have to be kidding me. Argue strawmen much TTT? "This is about rubbishing Lindzen because he made a claim that most people dont even begin to understand." Except you, of course. And this is not about "rubbishing Lindzen"-- as has been explained to you several times now, it is about Lindzen engaging in B.S. The responsibility for that lies with him, and him alone. But if you insist on fighting his battles for him, the ball is now in your court to provide hard scientific evidence (not musings about hypotheticals or what ifs) which supports Lindzen's claim. So either put up, or please do shut up. "Lindzen's responses were very brief and he went into no detail" Exactly-- he made a baseless and unsubstantiated claim. He could have also submitted follow-up evidence in writing after the hearings to support his baseless assertions made at the hearing. He has, to my knowledge, not done that. The planet is warming TTT, deal with it.
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  37. Albatross, Lindzen is perfectly aware that during a warming period you will have more warm records than cold records. That is not the question that needs to be answered. That would only be the question to be answered if you were ignorant enough to believe there were zero natural variation in temperatures. Santer's "fingerprint for AGW" is purely statistical and based upon the assumption we know everything necessary to know about sources of climate forcing so as to rule out natural variation as the cause of statistical warming. People like to compare AGW statistics and people termed as deniers of it like smoking/cancer statistics and those who denied that. But for that to mean anything one has to ignore that just about every substance known to man at one time or another has been statistically linked to cancer and the smoking/cancer link just happens to be one eventually proven valid. The general population is aware of this (why aren't you?). Thus the statistical argument alone does not sway public opinion unless clearly linked to other evidence. People are not going to give up their life styles over a suspicion or irrational fear based upon a pure statistical correlation of warming to anthropogenic activities. People will follow trusted leaders but Climategate ended any chance that route will work. So those fools can go to bed at night knowing they are responsible for eliminating that method of alerting people without first having to experience actual negative effects from warming, if such effects ever occur. In fact the desperation of being unable to advance a carefully drawn and solid scientific argument must have been what led to using tricks to hide the decline and politically influence peer review processes as opposed to relying upon facts. Warmists would love to paint the other side with such behavior but for it to have the same impact you would have to first put them in charge of the IPCC so they look like the establishment and not just an ordinary Joe. Think about it! Indeed the planet is warming and it is likely to at least be in part due to AGW, or at least it was warming, not sure that still is the case. But there is no solid scientific argument that such warming is purely unnatural or dangerous.
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  38. #88: A lot of the usual unsubstantiated denialist rhetoric, all in one easy-to-debunk package. "rule out natural variation as the cause of statistical warming." Whatever 'statistical warming' means: See Climate's changed before or It's a 1500 year cycle. "give up their life styles" See Solving global warming "no solid scientific argument that such warming is purely unnatural or dangerous." Unnatural? See It's not us or The human fingerprint. Not dangerous? See It's not bad or Extreme weather for starters. "as opposed to relying upon facts." Facts? Was there a single fact in your rant? In a world where facts don't apply, you can go right along living happily ever after.
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  39. Thanks mucounter @89, I was going to reply to @88, but then decided that given the swaths of unsubstantiated claims and rhetoric (not to mention the litany of stereotypical denialist speaking points), that I'd be wasting my time. Is it me, or is SS being bombarded more frequently with zombie attacks of late? If so, perhaps that is a sign that John et al. are doing an excellent job, which they are of course.
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    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Must be the proximity to the Zombie thread...
  40. BillHunter @ 88 - Think about it! Indeed the planet is warming and it is likely to at least be in part due to AGW, or at least it was warming, not sure that still is the case. Bill, so many canards in one post!. I'll just reply to the one above: Given that 2010 is likely to be the warmest in NASA GISTEMP and perhaps the NCDC, and is in a statistical tie for 1st in UAH satellite data, no need to be unsure.
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  41. #90: Got your back, bro. And you're quite right, maybe the long winter nights are bringing out the snow jobs.
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  42. Re: 92 Agreed. And ditto. The Yooper
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  43. Billhunter:
    Lindzen is perfectly aware that during a warming period you will have more warm records than cold records. That is not the question that needs to be answered.
    Lindzen testified to Congress that it's not really warming, and that supposed warming is due to modern thermometers that magically records transient warmth more efficiently than older mercury-based thermometers, while at the same time not being more sensitive to transient colder events. So the question *you* need to answer is ... why did Lindzen testify to Congress that it's not really warming?
    People like to compare AGW statistics and people termed as deniers of it like smoking/cancer statistics and those who denied that. But for that to mean anything one has to ignore that just about every substance known to man at one time or another has been statistically linked to cancer and the smoking/cancer link just happens to be one eventually proven valid.
    You really believe that the smoking/cancer link has been proven valid??? Lindzen doesn't. He's been very clear that he thinks that smoking is mostly harmless. Rather than waste our time here, why don't you go argue with him about the fact that smoking is a very significant cause of cancer and heart disease? Methinks you probably don't understand what a crank Lindzen is when it comes to mainstream science.
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  44. But for that to mean anything one has to ignore that just about every substance known to man at one time or another has been statistically linked to cancer
    Also ... at the risk of being blunt ... this statement's simply false.
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  45. I would like to nominate for the B.S award Climate: the counter consensus By Robert M Carter For comments such as: 1 Climate has cooled since 1998 2 No increase in the rate of sea level rise. 3 Increase in level of CO2 maybe due to natural causes such as volcanoes. 4 The chance of producing an accurate weather forecast is the same as flipping a coin. 5 Enough strawmen arguments to feed a herd of elephants.
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  46. Speaking of Patrick Michaels (see 4th place in Glieck’s award article).. “The Koch Brothers' Climatologist” by Russell Baker (Huffington Post, Jan 14, 2011) does a nice job of explaining who Patrick Michaels is and what he’s up to. To access Baker’s article, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-baker/the-koch-brothers-climato_b_809014.html#postComment
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  47. The prize to FOX News raises and interesting point. How do we determine who is a large enough "side" of a story to warrant media attention? How do we measure this? Something like 3% of climate scientists are AGW skeptics. Among meteorologists only about 64% believe in AGW. What's the metric to determine who gets a megaphone? #88 muoncounter got most of the problems with this posting but, there's a few more. Billhunter made reference to the infamous climategate episode. This site and others have thoroughly debunked the idea that this non-event proved a criminal conspiracy to foist global warming onto an unsuspecting public. Here are some of the pages on this topic from skeptical science: Climategate CRU Emails Suggest Conspiracy CRU tampered with temperature data Peer review process was corrupted Skeptics were kept out of the IPCC? Climategate: Hiding the Decline? There are a lot of other pages for this, just type "climategate" without the quotes into the search field at the top left. Outside websites that pride themselves on their political neutrality and objectivity also found that climategate did not damage the evidence of AGW. So read: Factcheck Climategate Factcheck Climategate conclusions Politifact climategate debunks AGW Is global warming dangerous? That's a very multi-disciplinary question. Projections of changes in climate need to be provided to civil engineers, epidemiologists, and agronomists so they can analyze the effects on flooding, geographic ranges of diseases and crop yields. Then the economists need to say their piece about how that will affect society as a whole. From what I've read it seems like the economists regard AGW as dangerous. @96 mars, Straw actually has no nutritional value, except fiber I guess. So, the strawmen could provide comfy bedding for your herd of elephants, but to feed them you would need haymen.
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  48. Our skeptics have been called out, and rightly so, for making ad hominem attacks against scientists. Something needs to be said about the mean-spirited criticism of other people posting on this forum. It seems to be committed mostly by...what do we call people who agree with AGW theory? In any event comments like, "You have nothing to contribute to the discussion and never have," do nothing to strengthen one's own argument. They just make the writer look like a jerk. Let's elevate the dialogue by arguing the science with copious reference to the published scientific literature and the data. "The aim of argument, or of discussion, should be not be victory but progress." (Joseph Joubert)
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  49. The problem occurs when people join this discussion who truly have nothing to contribute besides strawmen, red herrings, and "nuh uh, I don't believe that" when their claims are addressed. Maintaining a civil discussion is essential for a productive end; however, patience (mine, at least) is a finite resource.
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  50. dehogza writes : "Lindzen testified to Congress that it's not really warming, and that supposed warming is due to modern thermometers that magically records transient warmth more efficiently than older mercury-based thermometers, while at the same time not being more sensitive to transient colder events." Would you care to speculate the conditions surrounding those "transient cold events" that might tend to effect the daily minimum for me?
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