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Comments matching the search Willie Soon:

  • 2015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry

    Bob Loblaw at 00:49 AM on 11 January, 2023

    This is a very old thread, Long. Topal notes in comment #1 that all funds go to the Smithsonian, not individual scientists, but there are some catches to that.


    Some of the links in the post are dead, but the "Climate Sceptic’s Fossil Fuel Funding Exposed" page is alive, and at the bottom of that article there is a link to original documents.


    One of those documents is a 2008 contract between The Smithsonian and Southern Company Services Inc. The contract includes the proposal from Soon, and part of the proposal includes the items the money is to be spent on. That covers the following:



    • 494 hours of Soon's labour, valued at $25,209. (That would put Soon's salary for a 2000-hr work year at roughly $100,000).

    • Program administration

    • Secretary

    • Leave and Fringe benefits (i.e., overhead costs related to labour)

    • "Direct Operating Overhead @ 30%".


      • This would be Smithsonian's cut, to cover things like office space, etc.


    • Travel

    • "Printing and reproduction"


    The way I would interpret this is that at least part of Soon's salary at Smithsonian is (was?) not coming from general Smithsonian funds, but from grants and contracts that Soon pulls in. This is not uncommon, AFAIK.


    So, Soon's salary is (was?) probably fixed by his employment arrangements with the Smithsonian, but the Smithsonian gets off the hook for finding money to pay Soon - or at least, partly off the hook. Soon does not get rich by having a lot of contracts, but his continued employment at the Smithsonian would be made much easier by virtue of having industry cover his salary.


    ...and having grants or contracts to cover travel makes it a lot easier to participate in the contrarian talking road show. (The details in that contract cover travel to a "Scientific meeting, San Francisco". Possibly the AGU, at a guess?)


    I certainly would not argue against you in speculating that gas and  oil money will be a lot easier for Soon to get than regular government research grants.

  • 2015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry

    Long Knoll at 11:46 AM on 10 January, 2023

    There's something I don't get about Willie Soon. Even though he's received huge amounts in grants from oil companies, presumably he hasn't got rich off them, because scientists don't get rich even off large grants as pointed out elsewhere. So why is he taking the grants from oil, as oppose to the government grants he once received? What's the advantage? It only seems to undermine his credibility. Is it because he is incapable of getting public money due to the poor quality of his research? 

  • It's the sun

    MA Rodger at 22:04 PM on 3 August, 2022

    cgfree59 @1301,
    The best initial assessment of any work by the Connolly brothers or Willie Soon is to assume it is yet another pile of their usual nonsense (I was much surprised recently seeing an NSIDC blog actually citing one of their papers for real!!) and given the lengths they go in obfuscating and misdirecting folk, this is not entirely a falacious use of an ad hominem argument.


    There are responses to this particular serving of nonsense Connolly et al (2021) 'How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate' (thus a layman's efforts or a reply from the numpties themselves to a criticism of press coverage of their paper) but I do not see anything here at SkS.



    The conculsions of Connolly et al (2021) are to assert that the IPCC is premature with its conclusions as it ignores certain estimates of TSI and thus solar forcing which provide radically different results to the global warming attribution reached by the IPCC.



    "Different TSI estimates suggest everything from no role for the Sun in recent decades (implying that recent global warming is mostly human-caused) to most of the recent global warming being due to changes in solar activity (that is, that recent global warming is mostly natural)."



    You could expend time and effort trawling though Connolly et al (2021), picking out the obfuscation and misdirection they employ but the crux of it is the crazy method they use. That is they the employ blind curve-fitting of their preferred solar-caused climate forcing onto some crazy NH temperature estimates and only after this first-step into the lunatic asylum do they then get to attributing the left-overs of any temperature trends to anthropogenic forcings.



    So the results are pure nonsense.



    Further a rather telling observation is that of these TSI estimates which they claim are being ignored (TSI High Variability Estimates all plotted out in their Fig 3), only two would allow any naive correlation between rising global temperature with TSI through the all-important "recent decades."
    One of these two exceptional TSI estimates was scaled from a postage-stamp-size graphic in Ammann et al (2007), a paper which contradicts the muppets in that it concludes:-



    "Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century.



    The second is cherry-picked TSI estimate is from yet another tiny graphic (Fig 5b of Egorova et al 2018) in turn the trace being based on Muscheler et at (2016) which employs proxy data to create estimates of TSI, so not a precise method you would want to put much faith in.

    The numpties offer no comment on such an obvious problem with their grand thesis, that it has such a narrow and less-than-reliable basis for the singularly important calculation within their account. Such an omission is a sign that you have strayed from reasonable analysis and entered the lunatic asylum.

  • 2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37

    KR at 22:58 PM on 14 September, 2020

    NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), responsible for much of US weather prediction, has hired David Legates as new deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for environmental observation and prediction, a position that would report directly to acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs.


    Legates has a long history of climate denial, including a series of poorly written papers coauthoring with Willie Soon. This is likely another move by the current adminstration to put climate denialists and industry boosters into environmental posts, and to influence science reports with political oversight. 


    DesmogBlog write-up on David Legates


    Washington Post article on his hiring


    The next administration, assuming it's not Trump and company, will have a great deal of work to do reversing this dismantling of the US environmental and climate frameworks. 

  • It's the sun

    scaddenp at 10:31 AM on 20 December, 2019

    This particular paper is execrable. You can look at takedown here but also note that Soon simply ignores any dataset that doesnt fit what his fossil fuel funding masters want. eg marine data (no urban heat sources there). Hard to believe this is still circulating in denier land.

    It seems you are frantically on a search for anything that might indicate a problem in the science, no matter what the cesspool. Good luck. Have you actually looked at IPCC WG1 summary of climate science instead?

  • Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump

    nigelj at 08:32 AM on 20 July, 2017

    Thoughtful @50,

    Thanks, but here are a few thoughts in response:

    You said "I read that it is has been practically impossible to get any research paper published unless it supports the AGW view, that a scientist can lose funding / job if not on board with the AGW view."

    You don't say where you read this, and certainly provide no proof or credible information. Anyone can make outrageous claims like this so, surely you dont take them at face value?.

    Willie Soon and Nicolas Scafetta are climate sceptics, and have published papers, just do a simple google search. They have not complained that anyone is stopping them publishing to my knowedge. The trouble is their ideas have not stood up to scrutiny and are in a minority.

    It just seems that in general terms you take sceptical material on wattsup and places like this at face value, without checking any of it.

    "I read that NASA has been falsifying data to support the AGW agenda,"

    Where and on what basis? Wheres the evidence? You provide nothing of any substance.

    Again anyone can make any ridiculous claim? Do you always believe such simplstic claims without checking them? Even if  you just checked a few things on denialist websites the holes would become apparent to you.

    We are also not reliant just on nasa. For example there are numerous sets of temperature gathered in different ways by different organisations. Even the raw, unadjusted data shows strong warming. 

    "I have no way of knowing which scientists and which organizations on which sides are really not motivated by personal agendas "

    Yes you do. Just do some research and I have already given you specific examples on specific scientists.

    Polls discussed on this website show conservatives are more sceptical of climate change than liberals. Clearly political agendas / ideologies have at least some influence. I'm not claiming they are the only thing.

    There is also a big diffrence depending on funding. I think its rather unlikely that governments would want scientists with public funding to come up with some global warming nightmare. No government wants this! Scientists have simply discovered a problem by doing what they do: namely research. In comparison scientists funded by the fossil fuel lobby will be expected to find a certain result, if they want more work. Ultimately just apply some commonsense, as well as critical thinking.

  • Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump

    nigelj at 06:43 AM on 20 July, 2017

    Thoughts @38, with respect, you are entirely missing the point. Certainly some scientists deny climate science, including a very small number of climate scientists, and some other scientists.

    But there's evidence that at least some of these people have various ulterior motives, rather than just purely scientific objections and this could extend to various fears, beliefs and vested interests that colour their conclusions on the science. I would suggest you will find the vast majority have these motives.

    For example some sceptical climate scientists have been funded by fossil fuel lobbies like Willie Soon. Now are you seriously going to claim this doesn't alter their mindset? Of course it could, because these lobbies will expect a certain result. 

    www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/21/climate-change-denier-willie-soon-funded-energy-industry

    Roy Spencer is a sceptical scientist, and has strong religious convitions that "man couldn't fundamnentally destabilise" the planet. He also has strong libertarian political leanings so would definitely be suspicious of carbon taxes etc. Its perfectly reasonable to conclude these things colour his conclusions about the science to some extent.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Climate_change

    Richard Lindzen is a sceptic, and has expressed something very similar that the planet is self correcting.  He also has or had interests in the coal industry.

    Other sceptical scientists I have come across have strong fiscally conservative views, or libertarian leanings,and may be worried about government involvement or taxes. Its reasonable to think this could be a cause of their scepticism of the science.

    I think you will find many sceptical scientists, probably most are influenced by a range of ideological issues, personal interests, and fears.

  • James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus

    DPiepgrass at 09:34 AM on 13 July, 2017

    I am curious who the four authors of 69,406 are that rejected AGW in peer-reviewed literature. Anyone know? I only know of 4 prominent contrarian climatologists – John Christy, Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, and Willie Soon – but only the first two are still publishing in the scientific literature AFAIK, and most likely Roy Spencer and John Christy would not attempt to publish something that explicitly rejects AGW.

  • New publication: Does it matter if the consensus on anthropogenic global warming is 97% or 99.99%?

    nigelj at 07:19 AM on 5 May, 2017

    JARWillis @3, I agree I can't see the point of nitpicking over the exact figure. Anything over 90% is a convincing consensus to me. If the split was nearer 60 / 40 I would be concerned.

    I think James Powell means well, but has got things wrong. He certainly can't assume that papers that dont express any opinion on cause, support agw. You are unlikely to get a 99.9% consensus, because you have various vested interests types of issues, and political / ideological issues absent from the plate techtonics issue. We know Willie Soon got funding from certain vested interests and could have vested interests himself as well.

    Just purely on my observations of climate scientists opinions, anything from 90 -97% certainly sounds right. I admit that's rather anecdotal, but it's consistent with the findings of various polls. The methodology used by Cooke looks very sensible to me.

    Regarding your comments, would we move and do something if sceptics admitted there was a 5% chance the planet was in danger? Hard to say, and interesting question. I dont know that it would be check mate for everyone as some people are just crazy. It would probably be checkmate in many peoples minds, if things were expressed the way you have expressed them.

    However I doubt you would get a sceptic to put a probablility on how right they think there are. Firstly you have a point that admitting say a 5% risk immediately becomes a significant question given the huge degree of risk. 

    Secondly once a sceptic admits any quantity of uncertainty, even a tiny degree, they will have to provide reasons, which will draw them into a rational debate, where they will have to accept they might have to alter their position on the science, which is what they are trying to avoid. It's similar to the way Trump never admits error, because if he does the whole house of Trump cards comes crashing down. The bluff is exposed.

  • Just who are these 300 'scientists' telling Trump to burn the climate?

    Nick Palmer at 00:31 AM on 2 March, 2017

    I thought I'd see how many of the usual suspects were in it. Interestingly, I didn't find Christy or Peiser in there...

    ABDUSSAMATOV, Habibullo Ismailovich
    ANDERSON, Charles R
    BALL, Tim
    BARTLETT, David
    BASTARDI, Joseph
    BELL, Larry S
    BOEHMER-CHRISTIANSEN, Sonja A
    BRIGGS William M.
    D'ALEO, Joseph S.
    DOUGLASS JR.
    DYSON, Freeman
    EASTERBROOK, Donald J.
    EVANS, David M. W.
    HAPPER, William
    HUMLUM, Ole
    IDSO, Craig
    LEGATES, David R.
    LINDZEN, Richard
    MANUEL, Oliver K.
    MISKOLCZI, Ferenc Mark
    MOCKTON, Christopher
    MOORE, Patrick
    MORNER, Nils-Axel
    MOTL, Lubos
    SCHMITT, Harrison H.
    SINGER, Fred S.
    SOON, Willie
    SPENCER, Roy W.
    WHITEHEAD, David

  • Will the health dangers of climate change get people to care? The science says: maybe

    chriskoz at 13:45 PM on 15 July, 2016

    Humans are selfish beings, they care primarily about their vested interests, and that is universal rule regardless of their political opinion or "intelligence". It affects everyone from FF moguls to ordinary citizens, like farmers whose lives are destroyed by droughts, from politicians to scientista even climate scientists. Climate science denial by FF moguls' vested interest is obvious, no need to elaborate. Farmers do not deny because they know they are affected. But they do care about science not because of species extinction or because of ocean acidification. They do care because their life is ruined. Frame the issue of AGW as such to them and they would likely become deniers, because the required mitigation action means e.g. limitted use of diesel machinery and artificial fertilisers on their cropland. Even among climate scientists, most (if not all) deniers (or more politely "contrarians" in this case) have vested interests in FF, an interest they sometimes try to hide, as in case of Willie Soon.

    Bottom line, to achieve the best "response" or best "understanding", you have to frame the issue specifically to target the vested or at least subjective interest of the news recipient. Examples of recipients and most successful "framing" of AGW in each case:

    - Donald Trump: SLR destroys sea side golf courses, millions of env migrants from Bangladesh will swarm US this century (he has very good understanding of these problems although his action will be to just build walls at infinitum)

    - Koch Bros: the FF empire will crash soon, time to start investing in renewables, or at least diversifying th eprotfolio.

    - US REP  politicians: your electorat will turn away from you, you won't be reelected for the next term, the party is doomed (first signs of it are already happening: the nomination of a farcical person as their presidential candidate)

    - farmers: your crops will be devastated, leaving you pennyless, as said above

    - tourists in AUS: there will be no GBR in couple dosen years

    ...and so on.

  • The climate change generation gap

    chriskoz at 11:23 AM on 23 April, 2016

    All of those "gaps" can be explained by differences in vested interests. One group has different vested interests than the other regarding climate change mitigation. Therefore, the group with higher vested interests in maintaining status quo of FF burning, tries to rationalise their interests and develops higher perceptive bias against the established scientific facts and laws of physics. The control group will still have some bias (individual or subjective perception of reality is always biased one way or the other) but their bias will be smaller in that particular aspect.

    For example, older generation, say baby boomer whose current remaining lifespan in US averages some 25-35 years, would have lived in the climate that is still preferable, so they feel happy and don't want to change anything. Wheareas the millenial generation (born ~20y ago) whose current remaining lifespan is some 65-75 years, would have not lived their lifespans before the situation changes radically. So, because the first group does not see GW as a threat to themslves, their cognitive bias (because GW is a threat to civilisation) will be larger than that of the second group.

    The vested interest indiced bias exists even among the climate scientists. Those 3% AGW contrarians have been repeately shown to be so biased as to be clearly wrong in some cases. Some individual cases have indicated FF interests have induced the contrarian congnitive biases. For example, the famous case of Wili Soon, who accepted energy industry money without disclosing it. I think I've heard of an attempt to quantify the contrarian FF interest bias but I'm unsure if it was ever published. I would not be surprised if such attempt actually confirms such bias is larger than in a random group of climate scientists.

  • The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU

    ryland at 19:44 PM on 22 December, 2015

    @3 The quotation I should have used is "as ye sow so shall ye reap".  Your comments directed to me on SkS have always been, unlike many at this site, both temperate and  courteous hence my comment.  With regard to your remark "Being courteous isn't enough. If you work in climate and communicate your results, you will be attacked." perhaps you are being "tarred with the same brush" as other, less pleasant, climate scientists and their acolytes   However,  these attacks are not by other scientists who work in climate as is the case with Christy, Curry and Spencer.  All of these scientists and others such as Willie Soon, work in climate and are regularly  attacked by their peers as well as by those whose knowledge of science is less extensive.

  • Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists

    One Planet Only Forever at 04:15 AM on 27 November, 2015

    This article, and many other reports of deliberate unacceptable actions that clearly have been taken in the hopes of delaying the global development of the better understanding of what is going on and the required changes, address 'generalized groups' or the 'fronts of the action' because of the difficulty identifying the trouble-makers hiding within such organizations or trying to influence the actions of other 'poster-fronts' like Willie Soon.

    'Exxon' did nothing. Some 'powerful people able to influence Exxon leadership or within Exxon' did many unacceptable things hoping to be disguised within Exxon or otherwise be difficult to 'identify as responsible for the unacceptable actions'.

    The same game is played by those unacceptable people trying to pull the strings of other groups like the Tea Party (which include some 'desirable traits' hoped to mask the unacceptable pursuits attempted to be achieved throughh their disguise).

    The legitimate science funded by Exxon is a completely separate matter that was probably hoped to be able to be abused as a mask for the stench of the easily understood to be unacceptable things that some very undeserving wealthy and powerful people hoped to get away with.

    The potential power of deliberately misleading marketing is clearly the biggest threat to the future of humanity. It is a major factor in the promotion and defense of far more unacceptable people than the ones engaged in trying to unjustifiably maximize their personal benefit from the burning of fossil fuels. It is clear that it is specific people behind the actions of organizations (or of others like Willie Soon) who need to be identified and be kept from any further success (and be penalized for any willful deliberate actions they could understand would eventually be understood to be unacceptable. I believe it is fair to argue that every person in a position of leadership, political or business, has no excuse to be less informed that someone like me is about this matter).

  • Global warming deniers are an endangered species

    mancan18 at 10:19 AM on 25 July, 2015

    In Australia, Climate Change denial does pay. Australia is one of the world's largest coal exporters, a significant proportion of it's power generation comes from coal, and coal products are an important component the national income that underpins Australia's wealth. As a result, attitudes towards climate change follows party lines, with one party, Labor, promoting it as a serious issue and the other, Liberal/National Party, while giving it token support, take a "lukewarmer" position. This is the reason that the Government has implemented it's clayton's climate change policy, "Direct Action" and has attacked the climate advisory bodies, climate change funding arrangements for developing needed technologies, and promoted many climate change deniers to important positions upon it's economic advisory bodies.

    The reason for this is actually quite simple. One of the main Liberal/National party policy think tanks is the Institute of Public Affairs (the IPA). It is Australia's equivalent of the George C Marshall Institute. The IPA, along with other Liberal Party policy think tanks like the Menzies Research Centre and the H. R. Nicholls Society, all actively promote Climate Change denial. Scientists like climate change deniers, Ian Plimer and Bob Carter are attached to the IPA, providing advice related to climate change policy. Plimer is also an important member of the Mining Council of Australia, having been it's chairman, and he influences it's political stance. Gina Reinhart, Australia's wealthiest person, who made her money from huge mining projects, is also related to the IPA. She funded a Christopher Monkton speaking tour of Australia, at the height of the ETS/Carbon Tax debate when Labor tried to introduce an ETS. The IPA is also an important source of climate change denial material and underpins the political stance of Murdoch media outlets who reach around 83% of the Australian population, where right wing commentators like Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, and Piers Ackereman, and right wing shock jocks like Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, disseminate IPA inspired climate change denial material to their readers and listeners.

    Also, the IPA, through it's journal, provides climate change material to its readers, and it's latest effort comes in the form of a book called "Climate Change - the Facts 2014" with contributions from Ian Plimer, Richard Lindzen, Bob Carter, Nigel Lawson, Bill Kininmonth, Willie Soon, Christopher Monckton, Garth Paltridge, Richard Tol, Brian Fisher, Bob Carter, Donna Laframboise, Anthony Watts, Alan Moran amongst others and other climate change deniers. Also, this book seems to form the basis of Matt Ridley's latest essay in June's Quadrant magazine "How the Climate Wars Undermine Science", where John Cook's Consensus Project is discredited, (in their eyes), by referring to it as being biased and unrepresentative.

    Now I don't know about you, but, I don't think that climate change deniers are being marginalised in Australia. If anything, they are still pre-eminent due to the IPA's political and media reach. Trying to take effective action to tackle climate change in Australia has already seen the toppling of two prime minsters and a leader of the Liberal Party who did think that the issue was important. It will be a significant issue in the next election but whether the electorate will embrace it, after a fear campaign related to the hip pocket nerve and xenophobic fears related to asylum seekers, is questionable.

    While it is easier to have a debate with like minded people; what is happening in Australia, while the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian do present material properly conveying the 97% consensus; demonstrates why climate change advocates need to be more engaged with the climate change deniers from the IPA, the Murdoch press, and the right wing shock jock community, because, at the moment the denier/lukewarmer argument is still pre-eminent and not getting it's proper voice with Australia's public.

  • Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned

    One Planet Only Forever at 14:54 PM on 4 June, 2015

    chrisoz,

    Based on other observations of what is going on around the planet it appears to be quite likely that there is a correlation of the publishing of the Monckton document with funding to key individuals in the publishing organization by parties like the ones that fund Willie Soon's making-up of claims.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    CBDunkerson at 03:47 AM on 26 February, 2015

    Inside Climate News has the best writeup on the Soon debacle that I have seen thus far.

    Quoting Soon: "For polar bears... you do want to watch out for ice. Too much ice is really bad for polar bears."

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    John Hartz at 02:17 AM on 25 February, 2015

    Re SkS rebuttals of Willie Soon, we sometimes fail to see the forest for the trees...

    This “it’s the sun” claim is an extremely popular argument with climate change doubters — according to the website Skeptical Science, it is the second most popular anti-global warming argument of them all, second only to “climate’s changed before.” So is there any truth to it? After all, regardless of who supports his research, if Soon is actually right on the substance then we may be getting all worked up about global warming for nothing.

    No, the sun isn’t driving global warming by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Feb 23, 2015

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    Tom Curtis at 20:58 PM on 24 February, 2015

    jgnfld @10 & 11, perhaps you should read my comments again.  Particularly the sentence where I say:

    "For example, there is no evidence that Willie Soon stated opinions he did not hold in order to gain funding."

    There is evidence, however, that he gained funding because he held (or at least, was prepared to propogate) certain opinions.  If the deniers want to turn that around and say that there is no evidence that the 97% of climate scientists state opinions they do not hold, but that they gain funding because of the opinions they hold, they are still left grasping at straws to explain why 97% of climate scientists disagree with them.  As in so many areas, we can have a reasonable discussion of the problems in certain funding methods, whereas the deniers cannot, for the deniers require a reason to believe that 97%  of climate scientists are not guided by the evidence, and such a reason does not exist.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    Tom Curtis at 10:37 AM on 24 February, 2015

    jgnfld, a small addendum to my prior post.  You say:


    "It simply is a mistake in my opinion to go after him for funding sources as pretty much every other comment has done. Go after the science."


    The fact is that Soon has not published a paper recently (SFAIK), but that his funding is in the news.  Ergo it is no surprise, and no problem that comments discuss what was in the news.  If the comments had equally focussed on his funding after a post criticizing one of his papers, you would have had a valid point.

    Unfortunately, there is no such post on SkS (contrary to my prior impression and claim in the preceding post), although there are posts directly assessing the general thrust of his arguments that do not mention him by name.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    Tom Curtis at 10:27 AM on 24 February, 2015

    jgnfld @1 and @6, providing a link to a story that is in the news in the weekly digest hardly constitutes "going after" Willie Soon.  It is in the news, and it is relevant to the public debate on climate change.  Further, as it is going to be in the news, it is worthwhile discussing the issue to make sure we know which claims are justified, and which are not.  That includes defending Willie Soon from claims that are unjustified, but which have been made by some people.  For example, there is no evidence that Willie Soon stated opinions he did not hold in order to gain funding.  Rather, he sort and gained funding from people who liked the opinions he was known to hold.  In another example, a clause in the contract relating to his funding from Southern Company Services has been interpreted as allowing Southern to review and request ammendments to his research, wheras interpreted in context it allows Southern that right only with respect to publicity for Soon's research (ie, press releases and the like).

    Of course, the same process does find ethical issues with Soon's funding arrangements.  Directly, and most obviously is Soon's failure to disclose the source of his funding, even where explicitly required to do so by conditions of publication in journals.  Also of concern is his failure to deliver on the explicit research contracted for, but substituting general anti-AGW research and conference appearances as adequate substitutes - a substitution accepted as adequate by Southern.  While this does not suggest Soon was expressing opinions he did not hold, it does suggest that he and Southern understood the funding to be for opposition to AGW rather than for some specific piece of research.

    I entirely agree with you that these points should not be the main focus, or even a major focus in discussion of Willie Soon's work.  As purportedly scientific research, it stands and falls on the science - something more than adequately addressed at SkS as pointed out by the moderator.  That they are not a major focus, and not relevant to the validity of the research, however, in no way implies that it should not be discussed.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    John Hartz at 06:54 AM on 24 February, 2015

    From today's edition of the Climate Nexus broadcast email Hot News:

    Big Money for Denier Research: Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, a scientist favored by climate deniers, received over $1.2 million from energy industry companies, lobby groups, and billionaires for his research 'deliverables,' new documents show. Soon pushes the widely-discredited theory that the sun is responsible for climate change, not greenhouse gas emissions. He appears to have violated the ethical guidelines of at least eight journals by his failure to disclose this conflict of interest. Soon, often described as a 'Harvard astrophysicist,' has a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering and is employed by the Smithsonian Institution at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. (News: New York Times $, Guardian, InsideClimate News, Science Magazine, Tech Times, Mic, ThinkProgress, The Verge, Boston Globe $. Commentary: Mother Jones, Kevin Drum column, Discover Magazine, Tom Yulsman column)

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    michael sweet at 05:13 AM on 24 February, 2015

    It is concerning that the supporters of Willie Soon have recently chosen to pay him off through Donors Choose.  That is an organization that is designed to make it impossible for people to determine who is influencing the people they finance.  If all of Soon's money had come from Donor's Choose it would be difficult to show that they were in charge.

    Hopefully as these issues get more vetting in the press rules will be passed to make Donor's Choose and their like release who is financing them.  I for one am not holding my breath waiting for that change.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    One Planet Only Forever at 01:31 AM on 24 February, 2015

    The comments on the NY Times article include some hints of how the people who create and try to prolong any success of deception or misrepresentation of what is going on (including "Climategate"), will respond to this.

    There are posts indicating that the focus should be on the impressions of scientific merit of the creations of the likes of Soon, not the actual validity of it just the public perceptions of it, and there should be no consideration of the potential motivations of the likes of Soon or awareness of the connections between the participants in the creation and dissmination of information like Soon's.

    And that type of irrational defense will work in the minds of people who have personal interests that motivate them to uniquely filter each piece of information to maintain their preferred beliefs by establishing perceptions of validity. And such a person would make no connections between contradictory beliefs they hold or the irrationality of such beliefs if better understanding things would challenge their preferred beliefs and interests.

    I have my doubts that Willie Soon (and the people who fund his creation of reports, and the powerful people who refer to and rely on his creations), have duped themselves about what they are doing. I believe it is likely they are well aware of the unacceptability of what they are doing. And I believe that all parts of the chain from the "funding fathers of the creations like the Kochs" through to the "Loudspeakers like Inhofe and Fox News pontificating and disemminating the creations " are connected and aware of the full chain of unacceptable pursuers they are a part of.

    Hopefully the exposure of this case of attempted cover-up and deception will lead some of those who were easily impressed by past actions of the participants in this group to question the validity of what they had previously allowed themselves to believe about this group. However, anyone who still holds perceptions of validity related to "Climategate" cannot be expected to change their mind.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B

    Tom Curtis at 17:15 PM on 23 February, 2015

    Further on Willie Soon, in his report to Southern, says:


    "The goals of this research project have been completely and successfully executed with the following list of deliverables:"


    Among the "deliverables" listed are:

    1) Temporal derivative of Total Solar Irradiance and anomalous Indian summer
    monsoon: An empirical evidence for a Sun–climate connection
    , which does not acknowledge the funding by Southern, despite the journal requiring that:


    "All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest."


    Variation in surface air temperature of China during the 20th century, but I cannot determine from the abstract if the conflict of interest was acknowledged.

    2) Research to date on Forecasting for the Manmade Global Warming Alarm, a report prepared as evidence for testimony to Congress by its principle author (not Soon).  The conflict of interest is not acknowledged.  More importantly IMO, the report contains no reference to "sun", "solar", "tsi", or any term related to solar forcing.  The overt purpose of the funding from Southern was to publish two papers, one on solar influence on temperatures in the United States, and one on solar influences on temperature in China (from the ammendment to the agreement).  The second article under point (1) satisfies the ammended agreement, but the article on the US was never published.  (In his report on that phase of the agreement, he does mention papers on Polar bear populations as "deliverables" that "completely and successfully execute" the agreement.)

    The complete absense of reference to solar forcing, however, shows that the "Research" report was not even tangentially connected to the overt purpose for funding.  It is, however, directly connected to providing a smokescreen for fossil fuel interests.  Apparently Soon understood that that was what Southern was interested in, and was prepared to provide it.  The closer look at the documents means I have changed my mind.  These documents are prima facie evidence that Soon sort funding, and recieved funding not for research, but to provide a voice opposing AGW.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B

    Stephen Baines at 15:24 PM on 23 February, 2015

    I agree with TC on this.  There is not enough information to prove that Willie Soon is selling his science to fossil fuel companies, as opposed to the fossil fuel companies seeking out someone of the "right" opinion.  He may have strongly held beliefs that align with the fossil fuel industry for a number of reasons — he really likes the sun, he really hates the CO2 crowd, he is politically motivated, he thinks his garden will grow better.

    It also doesn't really help to simply discredit his science simply because it is associated with the FF industry, because that makes it OK (in the minds of the antigovernment black helicopter brigade) to discredit mainstream climate because it is funded by agencies trying to justify their own existence.  Arguments by association are only convincing to those already aligned on either side, and will generally do little to convince those on the fence.

    What we should note is that Soon is just flat out wrong on the science of climate change. There really is no other way to put it, and there is no way to look at the data without realizing it.  The money he receives completely distorts the process of science, keeping alive his groundless ideas in the public sphere like a voodoo doctor animates zombies.  Plus, he is dissembling, breaking conflict of interest disclosure rules common to journals.  That is the truly destructive thing at the core of this debacle.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B

    John Hartz at 14:33 PM on 23 February, 2015

    Another take on the recent revelations about Willie Soon...

    Willie Soon, a prominent global warming skeptic, says “no amount of money can influence what I say or do or research or write.” If recently released documents are accurate, he is a liar.

    Contrarian Scientist Who Says Sun is Responsible for Global Warming is Accused of Taking Corporate Cash for Science by Tom Yulsman, Discovery, Feb 21, 2015

  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B

    wili at 14:14 PM on 23 February, 2015

    Full disclosure: I am not, nor have I ever been, nor am I soon to be, Willie Soon. (Just plain old wili.) '-)

  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B

    jimlj at 10:31 AM on 23 February, 2015

    M Sweet @11

    It's not even necessary for Soon to be disciplined.  Breitbart already has a headline, 'NYT SMEARS SCIENTIST WILLIE SOON FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘GLOBAL WARMING’ .  In Denialistan, smear=telling the truth about a 'no global warming' 'expert', while fair comment=lying about a climate scientist.

  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B

    John Hartz at 01:13 AM on 23 February, 2015

    More details about Soon's employer...

    The documents reviewed by Markey’s staff were obtained by Greenpeace, the environmental group, through the Freedom of Information Act. They show a relationship between Dr. Willie Soon, a solar researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and several fossil fuel companies who’ve funded his research on climate change. The Cambridge-based center is a joint project of Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution, though Soon is employed by the Smithsonian side. The center has previously said that Soon’s views are his alone and not reflective of the institution.

    Senator Markey questions climate studies by Sylvan Lane, Boston Globe, Feb 22, 2015

  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B

    Tom Curtis at 22:28 PM on 22 February, 2015

    chriskoz @7, in an Australian context, I would be astonished if the contract were between the researcher and the funder rather than between the researcher's institution and the funder.  The former arrangement would leave to much opportunity for dubious practises, and for funding for outcomes rather than quality of research - ie, of buying an convenient scientific opinion.  As it happens, at least one of the contracts was with the Smithonian.  Specifically, the sole document of those obtained by Greenpeace that was by the Times shows a contract between Southern Company Services and the Smithonian, initially signed for the Smithonian by William J Ford (p 19), with an ammendment signed for the Smithonian by Brian Baldwin (p 21).  The contract is explicitly for "... 4 months of [Wili Soon's] salary and benefits, as well as minor costs for salary and benefits for administrative and clerical work specific to this research effort" (p 27).  The costs are itemized on page 28, and show over $37,000 of the initial $60,000 grant, and presumably an equivalent amount of the $60,000 additional grant signed for in the ammendment.  (Presumably Willie Soon benefited at similar rates for the entire $1.2 million contracted from all sources revealed by the FOI request, or by approx $750,000 over a decade from contracts that more or less tell the results that will be obtained before the putative research is conducted, and which lists talks at the Marshall Institute among its "deliverables".

    The upshot is that the Smithonian certainly new about the sources of the funding, presumably read Soon's papers and should have noted failure to list funders as ethically required, yet took no disciplinary actionk, action to get Soon to list his funding sources publicly until it became a news story.  That represents a serious failing of governance by the Smithonian.

  • How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming

    Stranger at 11:21 AM on 4 February, 2015

    I’ve been having an exchange over the Cook et al paper and would like some information concerning Willie Soon and also Craig D. Idso’s claim that they were mischaracterized in the survey as being neutral instead of showing that they were in opposition. I’ve looked for a response to the claim but I’ve been unable to find it. Can someone steer me to an explanation?

  • How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming

    barry at 16:25 PM on 23 November, 2013

    Question:

    Of the scientists that were surveyed to rate their own papers, did you include Alan Carlin, Craig D. Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nils-Axel Morner, Nir J. Shaviv, Richard S.J. Tol, and Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon?

    I ask because Anthony Watts, referring to a PopTech article regarding those scientists' comments on the paper, says that they were not contacted. But the scientists themselves say nothing about that.

    Do you have a list of the scientists you attempted to contact, perhaps in supplementary material?

    Any leads appreciated.

    Barry.

  • Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation

    KR at 10:29 AM on 12 October, 2013

    joeygoze - I see you've been reading the denial site notrickszone, as those appear to be the first 10 links from one of Gosselin's posts. 

    However, the actual content in those papers really doesn't match Gosselin's rhetoric, does not contradict the general view of AGW. As but one exemplar: the second link, Stephen Po-Chedley and Qiang Fu 2012, is a discussion of errors detected in the satellite temperature record. If those errors are real, and are properly accounted for, the satellite data is in far better agreement with surface temperatures - and provides additional support for anthropogenic warming. In fact, if they are correct about the errors in the satellite record, arguments from the 'skeptic' producers of some of that data (Spencer and Christy) is considerably weakened. Clearly that paper wasn't actually read or understood when compiling the list...

    Many (most?) of Gosselin's links are from PopTech's list - a cherry-picked list of papers (and op-eds) that he (mis)interprets as possibly (in PopTech's opinion) contradicting AGW, despite in several cases objections from the authors of said works. They do include some works that directly disagree with AGW - including several from Scafetta (curve-fitting), from W. Soon (over the top misrepresentation), etc. And many of those have been refuted/debunked

    Link-bombing (as in Gossilen's post) only works if you don't actually read the links, or don't consider that even with a few cherry-picked articles, the vast majority of the work in the field finds those views to be unsupported outliers. If you feel that there are significant objections, I suggest you discuss them directly, rather than posting bare links.

  • The 97% consensus on human-caused global warming is a robust result

    0^0 at 16:15 PM on 5 September, 2013

    Appears there is a new paper http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-013-9647-9 by the team David R. Legates, Willie Soon, William M. Briggs and Christopher Monckton of Brenchley "Climate Consensus and ‘Misinformation’: A Rejoinder to Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change" claiming that the consensus is at 0.3% level. 

    Unfortunately that is hidden behind paywalls so I have not been able to read the details. However, it seems like they must be using some sematic "tricks" to reach their conclusions as self rating of the authors should be proof enough to clarify any doubts. 

     

     

    celebrated in WUWT etc challenging the consensus paper 

  • Roy Spencer's Catholic Online Climate Myths

    Alexandre at 08:00 AM on 2 May, 2013

    Contrarians often contradict one another (well, they often contradict themselves...) For example, Spencer says it's some random cloud feedback that drives climate, whereas Willie Soon says it's the sun.

    Would it be possible to assemble an "alternative theory" database to compare just how heterogeneous the small "skeptic" lot is? Is there already such a thing somewhere?

    The Climate Misinformer database here at SkS is great, but each misinformer page looks more like a Gish Gallop (understandably) then the alternative theory the guy in question defends.

     

    Just for the record, I have never seen a climate skeptic say publicly that some fellow skeptic was wrong - even though each of them proposes very different things.

  • We're heading into an ice age

    DSL at 03:34 AM on 16 February, 2013

    DM, you're being generous.  Kevin might want to take a look at some of the other studies that E&E has published.  

    Kevin, you might also look at the Soon & Baliunas (2003) affair, and also what Willie Soon is capable of trying to pull over on his target audience.  What a world it would be if fake skeptics gave the same level of scrutiny to those they pedestalize as they do to the studies that do not support their worldviews.  

  • We're heading into an ice age

    Kevin at 02:48 AM on 16 February, 2013

    Here is a source for wine in UK CfA Press Release
    Release No.: 03-10
    For Release: March 31, 2003 20th Century Climate Not So Hot

    Cambridge, MA - A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.

    Smithsonian astronomers Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, with co-authors Craig Idso and Sherwood Idso (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change) and David Legates (Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware), compiled and examined results from more than 240 research papers published by thousands of researchers over the past four decades. Their report, covering a multitude of geophysical and biological climate indicators, provides a detailed look at climate changes that occurred in different regions around the world over the last 1000 years.

    "Many true research advances in reconstructing ancient climates have occurred over the past two decades," Soon says, "so we felt it was time to pull together a large sample of recent studies from the last 5-10 years and look for patterns of variability and change. In fact, clear patterns did emerge showing that regions worldwide experienced the highs of the Medieval Warm Period and lows of the Little Ice Age, and that 20th century temperatures are generally cooler than during the medieval warmth."

    Soon and his colleagues concluded that the 20th century is neither the warmest century over the last 1000 years, nor is it the most extreme. Their findings about the pattern of historical climate variations will help make computer climate models simulate both natural and man-made changes more accurately, and lead to better climate forecasts especially on local and regional levels. This is especially true in simulations on timescales ranging from several decades to a century.

    For more information, contact:

    David Aguilar, Director of Public Affairs
    Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
    Phone: 617-495-7462 Fax: 617-495-7468
    daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu

    Christine Lafon
    Public Affairs Specialist
    Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
    Phone: 617-495-7463, Fax: 617-495-7016
    clafon@cfa.harvard.edu

  • SkS: testimony to the potential of social media and the passion of volunteers

    Mal Adapted at 02:15 AM on 23 September, 2012

    Old Mole:

    Thanks for your comment. I came across Timmer's post while looking for the source of the "$75 BILLION" figure. He was responding to Jo Nova's tu quoque calumny that climate scientists who support the consensus are only in it for the gold. I agree that his analysis of how that G$75 is spent could have been more thorough. He did show that climate research accounts for a small fraction of the total, and he affirmed that none of it goes to line the pockets of the scientists, who thus have no incentive to distort their findings. A case in point is provided by Scott Mandia: a detailed accounting of how he would spend a $437,233 grant, and why it would have no effect on his personal income.

    Countering denier claims, it's easy to show there's a lot of money potentially available for research that supports denial. It's a little harder to show that particular scientists are getting any of it. I'm aware that Willie Soon, for example, has received more than $1 million in funding from fossil fuel interests. I'm not aware that Soon spent any of that money on himself, rather than on his research.

    Soon also gets funding from sources like NASA, incidentally contradicting the denier claim that government funding is unavailable to "skeptical" researchers. Mandias provides more counter-examples.

    You concluded Timmer "doesn't know any actual scientists" because he didn't point out that "they do what they do because they love doing it and couldn't imagine doing anything else." While he didn't do so explicitly in that post, he did in a previous one:
    It's tempting to respond with indignation; after all, researchers generally are doing something they love without a focus on compensation.
    You and I understand that very well. The average non-scientist may need convincing, unfortunately.
  • Solar cycles cause global warming

    KR at 03:56 AM on 13 September, 2012

    From the William Briggs blog, a rather curious statement:

    Luis Dias on 7 September 2012 at 11:34 am said:
    "Leif Svalgaard [refers to posts on WUWT] seems to take great exception to your solar radiation curve."

    He’s extremely up in arms about it. What do you have to say about what he says, mr Briggs?
    Briggs on 7 September 2012 at 2:07 pm said:
    Luis,

    Asked Soon. He said “we can make this independent of any TSI curve. I really meant it when I said, we got evidence for Arctic, China and USA temperatures to very co-varying somewhat similarly.” I’ve seen several of these other plots and can verify. For instance, we sent four to the Washington Times; they printed just the one. Willie and I are hunting around for other outlets (with more exposure than this small blog) to show the others.

    Willie also asks, in the proper spirit, “Svalgaard knew his curve is correct?”
    (Emphasis added)

    I find it quite odd, in an article on the relationship between TSI and temperature, to state that "we can make this independent of any TSI curve". Regardless of the (as yet not provided) provenance of their TSI data, that statement seems to call into question the entire Soon and Briggs article...
  • New research from last week 36/2012

    Albatross at 00:34 AM on 11 September, 2012

    Great papers Ari!

    Willie Soon needs to read Pasini et al. (2012) ;)

    NIce to see that Trenberth and Fasullo put an end to the speculation about the Russian heat wave and Pakistan floods. Weather on steroids.

    And to compliment/corroborate Hansen et al's recent work, researchers find that exceptionally warm temperatures over Europe are increasing in frequency.
  • Dear Heartland, Stop using Arthur Robinson's Trick to Hide the Incline

    Mark Boslough at 11:59 AM on 31 May, 2012

    Sorry for my slow response.

    To CoalGeologist: Very good observation. The station "S" data that Lloyd Keigwin plotted in his 1996 paper was averaged in a different way than the data that Willie Soon sent me (which is what the Robinsons had). The hydrographic data were obtained every two weeks, but there are a lot of dropouts, especially in the '50s (and I think there was a funding lapse in the '70s with a long dropout). In one case each measurement anomaly was given equal weight, which is not really a proper way to do a time average. In another case the anomaly was calculated for each calendar month, and then the months were averaged. Still not a very good way to do it. But that's the data that was given to the Robinsons.

    I obtained the raw data (individual measurements) and did a time-weighted anomaly average just to see what it would look like. That reduces the scatter a lot, but there is still a similar increasing trend. It is worth noting that using calendar years is arbitrary. If we used climatological year, or some season-based year, we'd get different annual anomalies but the long-term trend would be the same.

    With regard to the 7th diagram, the "stated method" was “A value of 0.25 °C, which is the change in Sargasso Sea temperature between 1975 and 2006, has been added to the 1975 data in order to provide a 2006 temperature value.” But if you look at the 1975 temperature (the value that the Robinson's had) you can see that this is not what they actually plotted.

    To oldfueler: I didn't bother to analyze the solar irradiance graph. As my friend David Morrison once said, “Pseudoscience is like spoiled food; you don't have to eat it all to know something is badly wrong. Just a few bites will do."
  • Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal

    Andy Skuce at 08:42 AM on 13 March, 2012

    ianw01: That speaker would probably be Chris de Freitas. I attended a lunchtime talk given by him sometime in the 1990's (it may well have been the same one you went to) hosted by the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists. I too recall being a little shocked by his snarky attitude and the reaction of the audience. Had this been a talk on any other scientific subject, I doubt that the audience would have reacted the same way; it was most unprofessional.

    De Freitas subsequently, in 2002, published a paper in the Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology. I have since learned that that paper was reviewed by Willie Soon and Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, who were hand-picked by the journal's then editor, Tim de Freitas, Chris's brother.

    This particularly irks me because the Bulletin is otherwise a fine scientific journal. Earlier in the 1990's, I published a paper in the Bulletin and also acted as a reviewer. Because of the CSPG's unscientific and politicized stance on climate change, I choose no longer to be a member of the society.
  • A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

    muoncounter at 13:45 PM on 22 February, 2012

    Misrepresentations of Keigwin's Sargasso Sea temperature data seem deeply embedded in denial-world.

    Our good friends Art Robinson and Willie Soon beat the esteemed viscount to it by quite a few years. Unfortunately, the Olson paper exposing this fraud has vanished from UT's earth and space science project website.

    Also see the abstract of this 2010 GSA presentation: Misrepresentations of Sargasso Sea temperatures by Arthur B. Robinson et al

    These are outright lies masquerading as valid science. But that's ok if you put your hands over your ears and repeat 'not listening' over and over again.
  • Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse

    muoncounter at 03:21 AM on 12 December, 2011

    Eric#38: "even though there are likely some weather effects."

    That still is mere conjecture.

    #40: "But there is still the medium range evidence of a GCR control knob (Mercurio link above)"

    Mercurio is a summary article written for the 'Encyclopedia of Human Ecology,' whatever that is. His 'evidence' consists largely of rehashed Svensmark with some Willie Soon graphs thrown in. A hodge-podge of other concepts shows up as well:

    In my hypothesis for the control of climatic cycles by geomagnetically modulated GCR levels, greater inclination of the earth with relation to external gravitational attraction results in stronger geomagnetism and therefore lower GCR levels which, in turn, result in less condensation and low cloud cover and generally warmer conditions.

    External gravitational attraction results in stronger geomagnetism? Did I miss when that relationship was established?

    But at least he's up-front about his 'hypothesis':

    I do not know whether the values of geomagnetic intensity on my curves indicating glacial-interglacial chronology are what would be necessary to modulate GCRs to develop the climates predicted for them.

    In other words, it's pure correlation without a mechanism. But let's call it evidence anyway.

    Much of the remainder is good old climastrology:

    The next ~80 year cycle maximum is likely to be around the year 2013 and this is one of the reasons it has been getting warmer over the last several decades since the last minimum around 1975

    And here's a prediction (circa 2002):

    Dust Bowl type droughts on the North American western Great Plains and Southwest as occurred on and off for several years following the last solar minimum around 1997 should not occur in the years following the next solar minimum around 2007. Dust Bowl type droughts could be expected around and after the minimum of the following antiparallel solar cycle around 2020 or a little over 22 years from 1997.

    So 2011 droughts should not have happened until 2020. That merits an "Oops."
  • Climate's changed before

    Bob Lacatena at 03:31 AM on 6 November, 2011

    294, lancelot,

    appinsys MWP

    This section goes to great length to try to claim that the MWP is global and had temperatures greater than we are seeing currently, when this is patently false.

    Part of their argument:
    This IPCC statement is at odds with the findings of other scientists. For example, research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics report on a recent paper using proxies, which verifies the occurrence of the MWP: [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0310.html]
    The linked paper by Willie Soon (an astrophysicist, not a climate scientist) is notorious for it's failings, and the resulting resignation of half of the publishing journal's editorial board in the ensuing controversy.

    They go on to say:
    Many studies can be found exhibiting the MWP. One example is shown in the following figure.
    This is a common skeptic trick, and a great example of presenting individual proxies that for that one location seemingly show similar warming, yet their graphs stop before more recent temperatures.

    Another common problem is that the MWP is very loosely defined as occurring from 950 to 1250 AD. The warming in any particular location might be a 50 year span peaking at 1000, 1100, or 1200 AD. They're all treated as contemporaneous. Can you imagine if current temperatures were computed by taking the highest temperature in a 300 year span from each separate location on the globe?

    In their example shown here the peak is just prior to 1000 AD.



    They also term this a "Northern Hemisphere" reconstruction even though 9 of the 14 proxy sites used lie above the 60˚ north, and 13 of the 14 above 45˚ north. It's more appropriately a sub-arctic reconstruction.

    And yet even their graph hows that current global temperatures exceed those around 1000 AD at that latitude. If you were to instead plot temperatures in the same band, you'd see this:



    [Source: GISTEMP... click on the image to view]

    Imagine the 1 to 3 degree increase added to the Cook graph, which are representative of the same sites used in his study and on his graph, instead of the temps appinsys added.

    The Cook paper is available here.
  • CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate

    Tom Curtis at 23:54 PM on 30 September, 2011

    Jonathon @119:

    1) The most dominant feature of the solar signal is the 11 year solar cycle, whose fluctuation between peak and trough is very large compared to the rise of the smoothed signal from c 1910 to c 1950. That large cycle leaves no obvious imprint on the changes in Arctic temperature such as we would expect if variations in solar output where the main driver of variations in Arctic temperature.

    2) The variations of the temperature signal above and below the smoothed TSI signal are of a similar magnitude to the rise in the smoothed TSI signal from 1910-1950 indicating that at least one other factor of similar importance the rise in TSI influences the temperature signal, even if we assume (which we are not entitled to do on this data) that most of the rise in temperature from 1910 to 1940 is due to the increase in TSI.

    3) Contrary to your claim, the greatest disconnect between temperature and smoothed TSI is in the early 21st century. That disconnect is greater than is indicated in that the next few years of the TSI which would bring the TSI to the same endpoint as the temperature signal show a continued decline.

    From (1) and (2), it follows that TSI is at most 1 of several factors influencing Arctic temperatures over the course of the 20th century. I doubt statistical analysis would show it to be responsible for more than 25% of the variation in the signal, and more than 66% of the early 20th century trend. (3) on the other hand shows clearly that changes in TSI become decreasingly important to variation in the late 20th century and early 21st century, and indeed, because of the opposite trend of TSI and temperature in that period, we know that TSI is responsible for none trend in temperature in that period. Indeed, the more responsibility TSI has for the early 20th century trend, the more changes in TSI are counteracting a stronger influence which is responsible for the late 20th/early 21st century trend.

    We know independently that that stronger influence is a combination of enhanced greenhouse warming and the ice/snow albedo effect.

    None of this is relevant to the main point of posting the graph, which is to show the absurdity of presenting Willie Soon's graph as evidence in 2011. Soon's graph was obsolete when he made it, and is doubly so now. Its reconstruction of TSI is known to be in disagreement with direct observations of TSI by satellites. In fact, it was known to be so by Soon when he first prepared the graph. What has not been specifically commented on in this thread (although alluded to by Skywatcher), Soon's "Arctic temperatures" are not "Arctic temperatures", but rather based on a small number of Icelandic, Scandinavian and one Russian station from north of the Urals. Apparently Soon's Arctic includes neither Alaska, the Canadian Archipelago, nor Siberia. The exclusion of three quarters of the Arctic from Soon's "Arctic temperatures" was necessary to have a mid century temperature peak as strong as that in the early 21st century, a peak needed to match the c 1950 TSI peak.

    Soon is an astronomer, so he may not known about the flaws in his temperature index the way he certainly knew of the flaws in this TSI index. But that certainly does not mean it is appropriate to use that flawed index today, when we certainly do know better.

    Finally, while on the subject, Soon would certainly have known that the CO2 forcing does not rise linearly with CO2 concentrations. Consequently displaying a "correlation" between CO2 concentrations and temperature instead of CO2 forcing and temperature is certainly calculated to mislead. That makes two graphs in one paper by Soon which he knew where deceptive and misleading, both reproduced here by tblakeslee. He may not have known the misleading nature of the graphs before now, but he certainly does now.

    Because Soon knowingly published two such misleading graphs, we can be sure his intent is not to inform. We know also of anybody using those graphs that they are not true skeptics, whatever they claim, but rather are simply seeking confirmation of beliefs they find convenient without sufficiently high premium being placed on those beliefs being true.
  • CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate

    Bob Lacatena at 12:53 PM on 30 September, 2011

    tblakeslee,

    It amazes me that you'll fight and claw to prove that a long-shot theory like GCR is it, while you'll dismiss overwhelming evidence for theories that you don't want to be true.

    You'll take a graph off of a disinformation site that is riddled with errors. If you were at all skeptical, you'd look at half of those pages on appinsys, see for yourself how wrong they are, and know you couldn't trust anything there.

    Your two graphs are from the 2005 paper by the infamous Willie Soon. Read about his funding sources here. Read about his polar bear debacle here. Or read about him right here at SkS.

    I wish I could find someone who bothered to debunk that particular paper, but it seems to have been pretty much just ignored by everyone, probably because (a) the author is not credible and (b) the argument has been debunked in so many ways that a silly attempt to "argue" a strong solar correlation in the way he did is itself pitiable.
  • CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate

    Tom Curtis at 08:35 AM on 30 September, 2011

    tblakeslee @107:

    1) Why did Willie Soon use an obsolete (1995) reconstruction in 2005 rather than one of the more recent reconstructions that calibrate against satellite observations? As Willie Soon is an astronomer, he would certainly have know that direct observations contradict his chosen reconstruction over the period 1978-2005.



    2) Given that six years is a long time in science, why are you not using one of the even more recent reconstructions, such as this 2010 effort by Krivova et al.



    3) Do you really think the flat or declining insolation since c.1950 explains the rising Arctic temperatures? Or that the solar minimum lower than any other since 1910 over the last few years explains the record low actic sea ice extent in 2007 (and nearly matched in 2011)?
  • CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate

    Albatross at 07:39 AM on 30 September, 2011

    tblakeslee @107,

    Quite compelling graph that Willie Soon produced for the Arctic there ;) Have you been truly skeptical about the data and methods he used? I have, and I suggest that you might want to be a true skeptic before uncritically posting stuff that supports your beliefs.

    Nowhere in his paper does Soon make reference to cosmic rays or GCRs, so odd that you are citing a paper to support your assertions about GCRs that does not even mention GCRs.

    Why would one expect regional temperatures to mimick CO2? A more appropriate measure of the influence of solar would have been the incident solar energy over the Arctic.

    Regardless, why use TSI reconstructions from Hoyt and Schatten (1993) when those data are at odds with those form Lean et al. (1995), Solanki and Fligge (1998) and Lockwood and Stamper (1999)? Why choose an outlier?

    And for the record, Willie Soon has, shall we say, a rather dubious track record when it comes to publishing papers. So citing him does not do one's credibility much good.
  • Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science

    PrezMulkeyUnity at 07:44 AM on 29 August, 2011

    In order for these politicians to have credibility with their anti-science arguments, they must damage or dismiss the credibility of our most trusted scientific institutions. I have seen this strategy before. I recently had the displeasure of sharing a podium with Willie Soon. Soon began his talk with ad hominem attacks on Holdren, Cicerone, and Lubchenco. His statements about the first two implied that they had an ulterior motive and were in collusion. The logical extension of his remarks is that there is a vast conspiracy at the top to control U.S. science. For Lubchenco, his remarks were more personal, suggesting that she knows that she is propagating falsehoods about ocean acidification and that she is seeking personal gain by doing so. I suspected that Soon had been coached, and it seems likely that he is well rewarded for his efforts. In contrast, my colleague and I from the University of Idaho were at the symposium to present the view of legitimate science, and we were certainly not well paid. Soon's attacks and bogus science were well received by an audience full of partisans, most of whom held advanced degrees.

    We should be deeply concerned with the fact that leading presidential candidates have assailed the credibility of our best scientific institutions. As reviewed by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the list of organizations and academies endorsing the basic tenants of AGW is exhaustive . l believe that it is urgent that each of us speak up to defend the legitimate science and the organizations that support science. It can be argued that scholars who remain silent in the face of explicit scientific falsehoods are turning their backs on the ethical imperative that comes with the privilege of their position in society.

    We need not be political in defense of science. We need not be blatantly partisan or personal in our responses. The peer-reviewed science is solid and it speaks for itself. We need only reference the enormous body of coherent scholarship that has been produced over the last 35 years. We should do so calmly and consistently and relentlessly in the face of political manipulation of the science. My message to my colleagues regarding the use of climate science is simply this: Use it or lose it. Specifically, if we fail to articulate the valid science to the public, our institutions may be dismissed, defunded, and incapable of responding when the public needs us the most. To be sure, AGW will become blatantly apparent as this century progresses, and the public will increasingly need what we do. We should all be teaching sustainability science to our students. In the meantime, such partisan misuse of science can do a lot of damage and continue to delay desperately needed programs in mitigation and adaptation.

    I am president of Unity College in Maine, which is a small college with an explicit environmental mission. I believe that it is entirely appropriate for me to use my position to educate the public about the valid science of climate change. It is only fitting that I use my credibility to speak to the misinformation that is abundant in political discourse. I do not speak in partisan terms, but I do speak out as a scientist and scholar, and I will continue to do so as long as necessary. I can no be silent because fear of personal retribution. I sincerely believe that it is my ethical obligation to speak up. To my peers, presidents and scientists, I say, "Where is your voice?" We need you to speak up.

    Stephen Mulkey, PhD
  • Polar bear numbers are increasing

    CBDunkerson at 04:11 AM on 23 August, 2011

    Oh look! Willie Soon... so this goes right back to the 'climate skeptics and their myths' thread. :]

    Setting that aside, the statement that polar bear numbers are impacted by seal populations is amusing... considering that seal populations are also declining due to global warming;

    Global warming -> sea ice melts earlier in the year -> seal dens on the ice melt away -> seal pups drown -> fewer seals -> fewer polar bears.

    So again, 'polar bear numbers are not declining due to global warming'... they're declining due to things CAUSED by global warming. :]
  • Polar bear numbers are increasing

    Bob Lacatena at 03:45 AM on 23 August, 2011

    21, Eric the Red,

    You post comments and links, but you didn't bother to actually follow the link I already gave you which rebuts that particular "study" (which is actually an audit on the quality of the studies used in "....nine government reports were written to help U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managers decide whether or not to list polar bears as a threatened species."

    Rebuttal of “Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public-Policy Forecasting Audit”

    In particular, this study by actual scientists in the field of study found that the study you linked to was "mistaken or misleading on every claim."

    The "qualified scientists" who authored your paper are:

    J. Scott Armstrong, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

    Kesten C. Green Business and Economic Forecasting

    Willie Soon, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
  • Polar bear numbers are increasing

    Robert Murphy at 03:40 AM on 23 August, 2011

    "Do you think a social sciences journal is likely to be able to give a competent peer review to a paper on polar bear populations?"

    There's that and the fact there isn't a polar bear specialist among the three authors. 2 are in marketing/economic forecasting. The other is Willie Soon.
  • A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths

    Chemware at 11:42 AM on 19 August, 2011

    I would suggest a division of these into two groups:

    (a) Skeptics who are merely doing poor science (eg: Roy Spencer, Murray Salby), but who do publish in journals.

    (b) Spin doctors who have never published in any scientific journal.

    You may also like to add in links to funding by coal and oil companies, so called "think tanks", and people like the Koch brothers.

    ps: want to add Willie Soon as well ?
  • It's the sun

    Eclipse at 17:15 PM on 10 August, 2011

    This next argument seems to be another version of "It's the sun" that good old Willie Soon (and his $million from Exxon) have written.

    New Willie Soon paper

    Does anyone know any peer-review work on this yet? Is the journal it is in actually an authentic climate journal? Is it legitimate science about a LOCAL Chinese phenomenon or a hyped up local phenomenon that fraudster Denialists are using to try and confuse people about GLOBAL climate change?
  • The Medieval Warm(ish) Period In Pictures

    muoncounter at 01:51 AM on 26 July, 2011

    More bad news from the Sargasso Sea:

    The graph shown in the source cited in #28 (Bluemle), attributed as 'modified' from Keigwin's original work, is really the misrepresentation done by Art Robinson, Sallie Balliunas and Willie Soon (originally published in 1998 by that prestigious climate source, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons; apparently they liked it so much they published it again, under the same title, in 2007).



    The lower panel in this composite is the version in Bluemle; the upper is Robinson. Neither contain all of the data published by Keigwin 1996.

    This is clear-cut scientific dishonesty, yet the meme lives on. Olson's work is a must-read.
  • Peer review process was corrupted

    les at 19:31 PM on 7 July, 2011

    Interesting article on Soon:
    Climate sceptic Willie Soon received $1m from oil companies, papers show
  • Roy Spencer on Climate Sensitivity - Again

    neilrieck at 22:41 PM on 3 July, 2011

    Not sure how many people know that the industry sponsored deniers were at it again in Washington D.C. (June-30 to July-1)

    climateconference.heartland.org

    The usual suspects include: Roy Spencer, Harrison Schmitt, Willie Soon, Anthony Watts, S. Fred Singer, to only name a few
  • A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial

    Chemware at 12:42 PM on 27 June, 2011

    One aspect of climate change denial that has not been commented on as yet is that of psychological projection:

    projection ... is a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people.

    I, and most others here, have observed that many climate change deniers project their own disowned attributes, feelings, and thoughts onto those who disagree with them, and accuse climate scientists of their very own mis-deeds and mis-behaviors. For example:

    It would be interesting to have some comment from trained and experienced psychologists on this aspect of climate change denial.
  • Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming

    Daniel Bailey at 04:15 AM on 12 May, 2011

    ExxonMobil is connected to nine of the top ten authors of climate change denial papers, according to a “fact-check” website.

    Analysis by The Carbon Brief found that the ten authors are responsible for 186 of the over 900 peer-reviewed papers skeptical of man-made global warming.

    The most prolific climate-skeptic author on the list was Sherwood B. Idso, president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a think-tank which the Carbon Brief said has been funded by ExxonMobil. Idso authored or co-authored 67 of the 938 papers analyzed, or seven percent of the total.

    The second most cited is Patrick J. Michaels, with 28 papers. Michaels has said that he receives about 40% of his funding from the oil industry.

    Researchers Willie Soon and John R. Christy are both affiliated with the George C. Marshall Institute, which receives Exxon funds, the website found. Another author, Ross McKitrick, is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, which also benefits from Exxon funding, the Carbon Brief said.

    Eight of the ten have direct links to ExxonMobil, the analysis found, while a ninth researcher, Bruce Kimball, is linked to the oil giant because all of his papers were co-authored with Sherwood Idso.








  • It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

    Adam at 06:41 AM on 14 April, 2011

    KR,

    "Soon is not known for his quality of science, and appears to have neglected the last 30 years of data in his graph. "

    If you had actually looked at the graph presented in Soon's paper you would see that he clearly includes the last 20 years. His data goes all the way up to 2005.

    I am not pushing a strawman argument. If there is no correlation, that shows that there is no significant causation. But the strong correlation between Arctic temps and the sun shows that the sun is most likely the Arctic's dominant driver and not CO2.

    And Rob Honeycutt just so you know Willie Soon has written a much more detailed paper on the link between the sun and the climate, which carries on from his 2005 paper.

    'Solar Arctic-Mediated Climate Variation on Multidecadal to Centennial Timescales: Empirical Evidence, Mechanistic Explanation, and Testable Consequences' by Willie Soon published in 'Physical Geography' (2009)
  • It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

    Adam at 06:19 AM on 14 April, 2011

    Albatross, first of all that graph is based on the entire Arctic, which is not what I was referring to. I was referring to the current climate on the Greenland ice sheet. And as shown by Jason boxes graph, apart from the two anomously warm years 2003 and 2010, the current Greenland temperature is matched with the temperature it was 70 years ago.

    Secondly, I suggest that you read this paper

    'Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years' by Willie Soon published in 'Geophysical Research Letters' (2005)

    Albatross Arctic temperature changes show a much better correlation with changes in the sun, than changes in CO2 concentration.



    Albatross, the current Arctic climate is very difficult to be explained by co2, and shows a much better link to natural forcings.

    Alabatross, the perfect correlation with changes in the sun, and the lack of any correlation with co2, surely support the argument that the Arctic climate is dominated by natural variability and not CO2.
  • Is it safe to double atmospheric Carbon Dioxide over a 200 year period?

    Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 21:08 PM on 24 December, 2010

    “Faulty Forecasting Procedures” - incorrect assessment of the risks of global warming - is a fundamental objection - skeptics - to the theory of AGW proponents. About this - not the climate - for example, often says economics professor Vaclav Klaus.

    You may not like: J. Scott Armstrong, Kesten C. Green and Willie Soon ..., but they have excellent academic achievements - an important peer-reviewed publications.
    So why did they write in their report (May 4, 2010.)?:
    - “Most of our findings have been published in the peer-reviewed literature and all have been presented at scientific meetings.”
    - „The alarming forecasts of dangerous manmade global warming are not the product of proper scientific evidence-based forecasting methods.”
    - “As with many conclusions from scientific research on forecasting, this conclusion derives from a finding that is not intuitive: in complex situations with high uncertainty, one should use methods that are conservative and simple (Armstrong 1985; Armstrong 2001).”
    - “The forecasting procedures described in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report violated 81% of the 89 principles relevant to climate forecasting.”

    Atte Korhola, author important peer-reviewed paper about past climate: “Decision-makers should make sensible choices regarding the overall benefits in the environment of uncertainty. We shouldn't expect anything magical from the climate change panel that it is incapable of producing.”
  • What would happen if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels?

    archiesteel at 07:25 AM on 14 December, 2010

    @Henry Justice: "The trigger for the initiation of sunspots is the falling of celestial bodies (comets, asteroids and others) from the Oort cloud and Koiper belt onto the Sun."

    There is no indication whatsoever that a comet falling into the sun will trigger sunspots.

    I don't think you realize what the size difference between a comet and the sun is. Also, it is unlikely a comet would ever get through the ultra-hot corona to reach the sun's(relatively) cooler surface.

    There is also no solid evidence we are heading to a new Maunder minimum, and that this will somehow offset the current warming trend.

    Was the article in question peer-reviewed? (I saw there was a reference to a Willie Soon, which makes it highly suspect in my view.) After all, we should expect to be as skeptical of such claims as you seem to be about established science
  • It's the sun

    archiesteel at 15:11 PM on 23 October, 2010

    @oxymoron: temperature mid-century fell mostly because of aerosols, not a drop in solar energy.

    CO2 and aerosol forcing are an order of magnitude larger than solar variations. Don't get hoodwinked by scientists-for-hire like Willie Soon.
  • Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change

    Berényi Péter at 01:05 AM on 16 October, 2010

    Posted by gpwayne on Friday, 15 October, 2010 at 14:59 PM
    Climate change skeptics like Marc Morano employ gross exaggeration to dismiss or diminish the potential disruption that climate change is likely to bring about. In the Inhofe EWP press blog, Morano made much of this statement [...]

    That blogpost is more than three years old, dated 9:39 AM ET, July 30, 2007.

    Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt
    Posted By Marc Morano

    What he says is not entirely unsupported. For the sake of fairness you could at least dig up references from that post or peer reviewed literature backing them.
    1. Annals of Glaciology
      Volume 46, Number 1, October 2007 , pp. 209-214(6)
      DOI: 10.3189/172756407782871558
      20th-century glacier fluctuations on Disko Island (Qeqertarsuaq), Greenland
      Jacob C. YDE & N. Tvis KNUDSEN
    2. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
      VOL. 33, L11707, 5 PP., 2006
      doi:10.1029/2006GL026510
      Greenland warming of 1920–1930 and 1995–2005
      Petr Chylek, M. K. Dubey & G. Lesins
    3. Science 11 November 2005:
      Vol. 310. no. 5750, pp. 1013 - 1016
      DOI: 10.1126/science.1115356
      Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland
      Ola M. Johannessen, Kirill Khvorostovsky, Martin W. Miles & Leonid P. Bobylev
    4. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH
      VOL. 111, D11105, 2006
      doi:10.1029/2005JD006810
      Extending Greenland temperature records into the late eighteenth century
      B. M. Vinther, K. K. Andersen, P. D. Jones, K. R. Briffa & J. Cappelen
    5. Science 16 March 2007:
      Vol. 315. no. 5818, pp. 1559 - 1561
      DOI: 10.1126/science.1138478
      Rapid Changes in Ice Discharge from Greenland Outlet Glaciers
      Ian M. Howat, Ian Joughin & Ted A. Scambos
    6. Science 6 July 2007:
      Vol. 317. no. 5834, pp. 111 - 114
      DOI: 10.1126/science.1141758
      Ancient Biomolecules from Deep Ice Cores Reveal a Forested Southern Greenland
      Eske Willerslev, Enrico Cappellini, Wouter Boomsma, Rasmus Nielsen, Martin B. Hebsgaard, Tina B. Brand, Michael Hofreiter, Michael Bunce, Hendrik N. Poinar, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Sigfus Johnsen, Jørgen Peder Steffensen, Ole Bennike, Jean-Luc Schwenninger, Roger Nathan, Simon Armitage, Cees-Jan de Hoog, Vasily Alfimov, Marcus Christl, Juerg Beer, Raimund Muscheler, Joel Barker, Martin Sharp, Kirsty E. H. Penkman, James Haile, Pierre Taberlet, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Antonella Casoli, Elisa Campani & Matthew J. Collins
    7. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
      Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report
      3.2.1 21st century global changes
      Table 3.1. Projected global average surface warming and sea level rise at the end of the 21st century.
    8. The Holocene 12,1 (2002) pp. 49–58
      DOI: 10.1191/0959683602hl519rp
      A mid-Holocene shift in Arctic sea-ice variability on the East Greenland Shelf
      Anne E. Jennings, Karen Luise Knudsen, Morten Hald, Carsten Vigen Hansen & John T. Andrews
    9. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
      VOL. 32, L17605, 4 PP., 2005
      doi:10.1029/2005GL023740
      One more step toward a warmer Arctic
      Igor V. Polyakov, Agnieszka Beszczynska, Eddy C. Carmack, Igor A. Dmitrenko, Eberhard Fahrbach, Ivan E. Frolov, Rüdiger Gerdes, Edmond Hansen, Jürgen Holfort, Vladimir V. Ivanov, Mark A. Johnson, Michael Karcher, Frank Kauker, James Morison, Kjell A. Orvik, Ursula Schauer, Harper L. Simmons, Øystein Skagseth, Vladimir T. Sokolov, Michael Steele, Leonid A. Timokhov, David Walsh & John E. Walsh
    10. GLOBAL WARMING
      Notes on Climate Change
      Syun-Ichi Akasofu
    11. Earth and Planetary Science Letters
      Volume 207, Issues 1-4, 28 February 2003, Pages 13-22
      doi:10.1016/S0012-821X(02)01155-X
      Modern spectral climate patterns in rhythmically deposited argillites of the Gowganda Formation (Early Proterozoic), southern Ontario, Canada
      Gary B. Hughes, Robert Giegengack & Haralambos N. Kritikos
    12. Global and Planetary Change
      Volume 40, Issues 1-2, January 2004, Pages 177-182
      Global Climate Changes during the Late Quaternary
      doi:10.1016/S0921-8181(03)00108-5
      New perspectives for the future of the Maldives
      Nils-Axel Mörner & Michael Tooley
    13. CLIMATE RESEARCH
      Vol. 23: 89–110, 2003
      Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years
      Willie Soon & Sallie Baliunas
      Energy & Environment
      doi: 10.1.1.124.3216
      Reconstructing climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years: a reappraisal (2003)
      Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Craig Idso, Sherwood Idso & David R. Legates
    14. Science 11 August 2006:
      Vol. 313. no. 5788, pp. 827 - 831
      DOI: 10.1126/science.1128243
      Insignificant Change in Antarctic Snowfall Since the International Geophysical Year
      Andrew J. Monaghan, David H. Bromwich, Ryan L. Fogt, Sheng-Hung Wang, Paul A. Mayewski, Daniel A. Dixon, Alexey Ekaykin, Massimo Frezzotti, Ian Goodwin, Elisabeth Isaksson, Susan D. Kaspari, Vin I. Morgan, Hans Oerter, Tas D. Van Ommen, Cornelius J. Van der Veen & Jiahong Wen
  • Sea level rise: the broader picture

    Rob Painting at 23:24 PM on 2 September, 2010

    Ken Lambert (henceforth KL) @ 68 - "And Dappledwater (DW in short in future): pray tell us if the decent sized La Nina's are sending heat out to space or redistributing heat around in the Earth system (atmosphere, land, ice, oceans)?"

    Sounds like a silly question to me KL. The answer is of course - 42. Ever wonder why the global sea level rises and falls in response to ENSO KL?. Like El Nino for instance, wasn't that heat already in the ocean?.

    KL @ 60 - I'll just put to one side your misrepresentations of the satellite trends, that donkey is so dead it's fossilized. Others have explained that sufficiently IMO. As to the energy budget, yeah looks to be a lot missing (maybe)



    Looks like you're not the only one concerned about the inability to account for it (yet).

    Kevin Trenberth: Where's the missing heat?

    KL if the missing heat is way down deep (I recall Chris steering toward some papers on the topic) then it'll soon be coming to an atmosphere near you. (The word "soon" being very subjective - and no relation to Willie)
  • Hotties vs Frosties?

    KR at 02:49 AM on 13 July, 2010

    Ken's and BP's arguments seem to center on a reductionist approach, or at least the "solid science" approach generally used by people I will (IMO) label 'denialists'. Note - I want to talk about the tactics, not label people whose discussions have from time to time shown elements of these tactics.

    An issue (real or not) with a single piece of evidence does not invalidate an entire theory - it never has. Yet certain groups have frequently claimed this.

    For example: risks of acid rain, risks of smoking and secondhand smoke, the ozone hole, DDT, shortcomings of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and now climate change. Each scientific issue has been faced with shouts about singular issues, with the claim that any error whatsoever invalidates the entire issue.

    And oddly enough, everything I just listed is discussed here in "Merchants of Doubt, where the authors point out that exactly the same people (S. Fred Singer, Robert Jastrow, Willie Soon, and others) have been involved in almost every one of these issues. That's not a convincing track record!


    I have a family connection with denialists - my brother used to be one of the major public faces for a large tobacco company, denying the effects of second-hand smoke. A few months after he started that job he handed me a copy of "Thank You For Smoking", and said "This is my job - I AM Nick Naylor!" He used every one of the tactics above repeatedly - and every day political decisions were delayed meant money for his company. He never did tell us how much a soul went for, though...


    "Sound science", calls for absolute evidence (More study! More study!), and nitpicking individual pieces of evidence as 'proof' that entire bodies of science are invalid are all examples of 'denialist' tactics. The evidence is never 'absolute', but when a massive preponderance of evidence accumulates, we can certainly be sure enough to act!
  • How climate skeptics mislead

    Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 19:28 PM on 14 June, 2010

    J. Scott Armstrong (Ph.D., MIT, 1968), a Professor at the Wharton School of Management, University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Long-range Forecasting, the creator of forecastingprinciples.com, and editor of Principles of Forecasting (Kluwer 2001), an evidence-based summary of knowledge on forecasting methods. He is a founder of the Journal of Forecasting, the International Journal of Forecasting, and the International Symposium on Forecasting, and he has spent 50 years doing research and consulting on forecasting. (Armstrong@wharton.upenn.edu)
    Kesten C. Green of the International Graduate School of Business at the University of South Australia is a Director of the International Institute of Forecasters and is co-director with Scott Armstrong of the Forecasting Principles public service Internet site (ForPrin.com). He has been responsible for the development of two forecasting methods that provide forecasts that are substantially more accurate than commonly used methods. (Kesten.Green@unisa.edu.au; and
    Willie Soon ...:

    "Our research findings challenge the basic assumptions of the State Department’s Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report (CAR 2010). The alarming forecasts of dangerous manmade global warming are not the product of proper scientific evidence-based forecasting methods. Furthermore, there have been no validation studies to support a belief that the forecasting procedures used were nevertheless appropriate for the situation. As a consequence, alarming forecasts of global warming are merely the opinions of some scientists and, for a situation as complicated and poorly understood as global climate, such opinions are unlikely to be as accurate as forecasts that global temperatures will remain much the same as they have been over recent years. Using proper forecasting procedures we predict that the global warming alarm will prove false and that government actions in response to the alarm will be shown to have been harmful. [... !!!]"
  • What does past climate change tell us?

    NewYorkJ at 06:18 AM on 21 October, 2009

    "Ironically, when skeptics cite past climate change, they're in fact invoking evidence for climate sensitivity and net positive feedback. Higher climate sensitivity means a larger climate response to CO2 forcing."

    In fact, "it's the Sun" skeptics tend to support the idea of a positive climate feedback because it's required to boost the impact of relatively weak solar forcing. Skeptics of the "Hockey Stick", claiming larger variance than all multi-proxy studies indicate, need an even stronger positive feedback to explain such variances with natural factors. Here is an example from Willie Soon, who believes reduced solar output will result in substantial global cooling (which hasn't happened yet despite a decade of solar activity trending down):

    "1. A reduced energy input from a dimmer sun will result in less heating of the oceans' surface, which would lead to less evaporation from the ocean surface. The result of this would be a decrease in water vapor, which is by far the earth's major greenhouse gas."

    Positive water vapor feedback - check

    "2. Less water vapor would result in a decrease in high cirrus clouds, which trap more heat than they reflect."

    Positive cloud feedback - check

    "3. A reduced energy input from the sun would equal less energy to bring water vapor high into the atmosphere, so more would end up collecting a few kilometers from the surface, resulting in more low clouds. Low clouds are much more effective at reflecting sunlight, which would produce a net cooling effect."

    Positive cloud feedback - check

    http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2009/04/plausible_scenarios_of_a_dimme.html

    Willie Soon is essentially supporting the idea of not only positive water vapor feedback but positive cloud feedback as well, with negative forcing leading to more reflective low clouds and less heat-trapping high clouds. One has to wonder, then, what Soon's complaint with the scientific consensus is? It seems then that he must then be disputing the direct forcing component of CO2, rather than the feedback that other skeptics generally dispute. Soon and Lindzen should debate the issue, perhaps at the "contrarian-only" Heartland Institute political conference. But that would violate their doctrine "speak no evil of other contrarians". Still, it would be nice to see two contrarians take turns calling each other "alarmists".
  • Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?

    Philippe Chantreau at 09:17 AM on 14 September, 2008

    The Oregon Institute of Science and Medecine? Willie Soon, of the Soon and Baliunas fraud? Are you trying to suggest that this is a science paper? How closely did you check this? You must apply the same standards of scutiny to these sources that you apply to RC, otherwise you're not skeptical, you're just biased.

    RC alone in their belief? Which one, the fact that there is no detectable D-A cycle in past 10000 years (at least)? What scientific references do you have to contradict that fact? Did you consider that real scientists don't even know of Beck's existence because he does not do science, does not publish anything and is totally irrelevant to any real science debate? Beck is not an author.


    It is not a belief but a fact that all the serious reconstructions (based on real data) put the present times warmer than the MWP. Why don't you check real science papers and see where their conclusions are going? You can leave out Mann if you think there has been too much controversy around it already.

    Tha fact that Beck makes up cycles that are nowhere to be found in data and then manages to skew his own made up graph in a way that wouldn't fool a high schooler does not bother you, yet you accuse the RC contributors of defending beliefs without substantiation? What the heck?

    On the other hand, you subscribe to Fairbridge hypothesis that he himself did not have enough confidence in to actually publish, but that's not acting on faith?

    Look, you can believe whatever you want. This blog is about saying exactly what the exisiting SCIENCE (published in peer-reviewed science publications) says on one subject, and there is really no doubt on that side.

    You can argue ad nauseam about why what you believe is not in the existing published science, I won't discuss that any more, it is in fact off topic in the context of this blog.
  • Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?

    Quietman at 02:22 AM on 14 September, 2008

    Philippe

    Apparently Beck is not the only author that puts yhe medieval temperature maximum higher than today.

    "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" by ARTHUR B. ROBINSON, NOAH E. ROBINSON, AND WILLIE SOON, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junc tion, Oregon 97523:

    "current Earth temperature is approximately 1 °C lower than that during the Medieval Climate Optimum 1,000 years ago"

    But the graphs that accompany the above paper do not look anything like Becks. This does not confirm (or deny) Becks paper but does show that the time period was warmer than today which confirms the many other articles I have read on the medieval warm period. I did look at RC but they appear to be alone in their belief.


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