Global Warming Debate

[Jonathan]

The IPCC did issue a statement recently on their website, addressing the Himalayan glaciers.

[romeo.juliano]

well you guys can make independent act from today

start planting tree and stop using plastic bag

[Alcuin]

Fish.

Barrel.

Shoot.

[inked]

Worthy of a wry grin and chuckle, Alcuin.

Although, Fish-Barrel-Shoot, when rendered as an anocronym, FBS, lends itself to other potential interpretations.

Fully Bovine Sediment, for example.

[The Gaffer]

Nice to see you are still peddling lies unashamedly

I'm sure your children will understand.

[Earniel]

And because Jonathan Leake is just such a trustworthy source of correct information.

[inked]

Science News good enough for ya?

http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/...scientists_say

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Science News good enough for ya?

http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/...scientists_say

From the article

The climate-science community, of which he is a part (he was a co-chair of an IPCC working group) largely dismissed the news revelations as accounts of bumbling behavior by well-meaning if overworked scientists. It didn’t appear “that this would be a very big deal for anyone,” McCarthy explained, because none of these revelations altered the weight of the evidence indicating that climate has been changing rapidly and that human activities appear to be fueling much of that change.

But in retrospect, he now says, complacency over those revelations “was wrong.” For many people not grounded in science, or at least not in climate science, “the question arose as to whether the validity – the robustness – of the underlying science relating to climate should now be called into question,” McCarthy acknowledges.

Ignoring public concerns over the emails and IPCC errors was a public relations blunder, he and others at yesterday’s panel said.

Then again, “Scientists are not very good at public relations,” observed Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and climate scientist.

By not “stepping up” to defend the general strength of climate science in the wake of recent public challenges, the panelists acknowledged, bloggers and television pundits have been free to spin the revelations as evidence that most climate science is now suspect. And it most assuredly is not, the panelists maintained.

For instance, when a reporter asked what the scientists who were involved in the recent climate scandals did wrong, Rees responded: “We have no reason to believe they did anything wrong. . . . But of course the press coverage leads the public to believe we do need some reassurance.” And that is what several ongoing inquiries into the scandals is meant to do, he said. Offer reassurance that nothing is being swept under the rug – and likely demonstrate that any wrongdoing constitutes “a minor element in the overall climate-change-science scenario, which is crucially important in formulating public policy.”

So, yes, according to the article, there were public relations problems, but that doesn't alter the basic fact that human activities are driving climate change.

McCarthy then goes on to (rightly) level some criticisms at IPCC both for its review procedure and for its response to criticism.

Other scientists quoted then go on to call for greater openess in handling data, while pointing out problems with some of the demands of skeptics:

The question, Gerald North of Texas A&M University wanted to know, “is just how much is enough?” One glaciologist he knows was asked to track down early glacial-melt data. Which, it turns out, were on the type of punched cards used in computers typical of the mid-1970s. The glaciologist couldn’t even remember where he might have packed away those boxes of cards.

Or maybe some data were analyzed by a now-obsolete program, like Fortran. Must a scientist find a copy of the program for a challenger, North asked – and teach him or her how to use it? And what if the challenger also wanted to probe influence on the interpretation of the data. Would it be reasonable, he asked, for that person to request that you turn over all emails ever exchanged between you and colleagues referring to the work?

Indeed, Cicerone charged, some climate scientists “are now receiving requests that are bordering on harassment.” They’re being asked, he said, for all of the data that went into a publication, sometimes in addition to all data analyses, all equations used in interpretations, detailed descriptions of all statistical techniques, all computer programs used – even access to any physical samples. These are fishing expeditions. And the demands they make, he said, often “are simply not feasible or are too costly.”

That’s why Cicerone called for the development of new standards and practices that define, by scientific discipline, what constitutes reasonable access to data

.

So, the article says that

-the basic contention that human activities are causing global warming is correct and has not been undermined by any revelations from the 'scandal'.

-scientists were slow to react to the spin from bloggers and television pundits who used this
issue to falsely claim that it undermined the scientifc concensus on global warming.

-the IPCC made some mistakes on the Himalayan glacier issue and should review both its vetting procedures and its public relations

-though some of the critics of global warming are simply engaging in harassment, standard procedures for data release should be put in place.

So what would the panelists do differently if a new climate scandal erupted tomorrow?

Not clear. And that's the problem. Maybe it’s time for a climate-integrity summit where the research community rolls out an action plan. One that would dispatch a rapid-response truth squad to investigate alleged errors or misconduct. One that also, where appropriate, takes on closed-minded critics (as opposed to intellectually honest agnostics) and publicly drowns them with a tsunami of double- and triple-checked data.

Sounds good to me.

[inked]

I think you highlighted what needs to be done, GM. So some of the true believers or climate baggers need to communicate LIKE SCIENCE NEWS SUGGESTED instead of pretending that there are not serious problems with their "facts" (prove them to the reasonable standard of science) or their "PR" (we know best so give up your hamburgers and your cars and your electricity and don't let the third world improve).

Get the idea?

[The Gaffer]

Yes, we get it. You and your corporate-funded cohorts have nothing to offer in the way of facts to this debate.

There are not "serious problems with their facts". There may be serious problems with their PR. There are definitely serious problems with people like you conflating PR with facts.

IMO it would be a mistake for the IPCC to bow to this pressure. We know that it is malicious and ultimately stems from industrial lobby groups who stand to lose from any action to curb CO2 emissions.

They should stick to their guns and call a spade a spade.

[Count Comfect]

While I hate to impugn anyone's honest presentation of facts, inked, I do agree with The Gaffer and GrayMouser that you appear to have significantly misread the last article you posted. The article nowhere suggests that there are "serious problems with their 'facts'" relating to climate change; in fact, it makes the opposite statement, as GrayMouser highlighted. The article is entirely about the PR effort to refute the public perception of questionable facts despite the reality of well-substantiated conclusions.

[inked]

Okay. Let's say I'm not the only person who might misunderstand. Apparently, so do some publishing scientist sorts.

"Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study "strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results". The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.

Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...etract-siddall



Coastal Engineering Manual

This interesting discussion from the Coastal Engineering Manual, which pre-dates the blow-up over “Climategate,� “Glaciergate,� and all of the other “gates� that the science has experienced lately:

Before engineering and management can be considered, a fundamental question must be asked: Is sea level still rising? During the last decade, the media has “discovered� global warming, and many politicians and members of the public are convinced that greenhouse gases are responsible for rising sea level and the increased frequency of flooding that occurs along the coast during storms. Most scientists accept the findings that the concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere have increased greatly in the last century, largely due to industrial and automobile emissions. However, the link between increased gas in the atmosphere and changing sea level is much more difficult to model and verify. Wunsch (1996) has pointed out how difficult it is to separate myth from fact in the politically and emotionally charged issues of climate change and the oceans. The Environmental Protection Agency created a sensation in 1983 when it published a report linking atmospheric carbon dioxide to a predicted sea level rise of between 0.6 and 3.5 m (Hoffman, Keyes, and Titus 1983). Since then, predictions of the eustatic rise have been falling, and some recent evidence suggests that the rate may slow or even that eustatic sea level may drop in the future (Houston 1993).

(b) Possibly more reliable information on Holocene sea level changes can be derived from archaeological sites, wave-cut terraces, or organic material. For example, Stone and Morgan (1993) calculated an average rise of 2.4 mm/year from radiocarbon-dated peat samples from Santa Rosa Island, on the tectonically stable Florida Gulf coast. However, Tanner (1989) states that difficulties arise using all of these methods, and that calculated dates and rates may not be directly comparable.

(c) Based on an exhaustive study of tide records from around the world, Emery and Aubrey (1991) have concluded that it is not possible to assess if a eustatic rise is continuing because, while many gauges do record a recent rise in relative sea level, an equal number record a fall. Emery and Aubrey state (p. ix):

In essence, we have concluded that ‘noise’ in the records produced by tectonic movements and both meteorological and oceanographic factors so obscures any signal of eustatic rise of sea level that the tide gauge records are more useful for learning about plate tectonics than about effects of the greenhouse heating of the atmosphere, glaciers, and ocean water.

They also state (p. 176):

This conclusion should be no surprise to geologists, but it may be unexpected by those climatologists and laymen who have been biased too strongly by the public’s perception of the greenhouse effect on the environment….Most coastal instability can be attributed to tectonism and documented human activities without invoking the spectre of greenhouse-warming climate or collapse of continental ice sheets.

(d) In summary, despite the research and attention devoted to the topic, the evidence about worldwide, eustatic sea level rise is inconclusive. Estimates of the rate of rise range from 0 to 3 mm/year, but some researchers maintain that it is not possible to discover a statistically reliable rate using tide gauge records. In late Holocene time, sea level history was much more complicated than has generally been supposed (Tanner 1989), suggesting that there are many perturbations superimposed on “average� sea level curves. Regardless, the topic is sure to remain highly controversial.

The papers cited here are as follows:

* Wunsch, C. 1996. Doherty Lecture: “The Ocean and Climate – Separating Myth from Fact,� Marine Technical Society Journal, Vol 30, No. 2, pp 65-68.
* Hoffman, J. S., Keyes, D., and Titus, J. G. 1983. “Projecting Future Sea Level Rise; Methodology, Estimates to the Year 2100, and Research Needs,� Report 230-09-007, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC.
* Houston, J. R. 1993. “Responding to Uncertainties in Sea Level Rise,� The State of Art of Beach Nourishment, Proceedings of the 1993 National Conference on Beach Preservation Technology, The Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association, Tallahassee, FL, pp 358-372.
* Stone, G. W., and Morgan, J. P. 1993. “Implications for a Constant Rate of Relative Sea-Level Rise During the Last Millennium Along the Northern Gulf of Mexico: Santa Rosa Island, Florida,� Shore and Beach, Vol 61, No. 4, pp 24-27.
* Tanner, W. F. 1989. “New Light on Mean Sea Level Change,� Coastal Research, Vol 8, No. 4, pp 12-16.
* Emery, K. O., and Aubrey, D. G. 1991. Sea Levels, Land Levels, and Tide Gauges, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY.

see here:
http://www.vulcanhammer.org/2010/02/...ea-level-rise/

I submit that the data need to be questioned, substantiated, and verified, and some folks are NOT doing that. The paradigm problems with the current models are real.

[Count Comfect]

Did you read the actual retraction as well as the Guardian article, inked? (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...l/ngeo780.html)

They screwed up in the model, pretty clearly; it's not robust (which means it doesn't give useful data) for the twenty-first (and twentieth) century. It looks like the problem is that they were using a bad time step - which I'm pretty sure means they were analyzing temperatures/sea levels over a certain period of time, like a year [unlikely, given the scale] or a decade, and that period is either too long or too short for a valid analysis of the modern period (I'd guess too long, but that's not in the retraction) - and so the model just doesn't work for the modern period. Of course, that means that they have no model for the modern period, not that the model somehow turns back on itself and says sea levels will drop or stay constant. It just means they have no working model, so they had to withdraw the paper.

[The Gaffer]

But CC, don't you realise? One paper has been withdrawn, therefore everything that has ever been written about global warming should be withdrawn and all climate scientists should be burnt at the stake.

[inked]

A glacier error here, a time step error there. It's only one paper at a time....

[GrayMouser]

I think part of the problem is that climatologists are at the stage biologists were a couple of decades ago when they were dealing with creationists.

A creationist from someplace like Answers in Genesis would challenge a biologist to a debate about evolution, and some well-meaning paleontologist or evolutionary biologist would accept it, expecting a good faith argument based on accepted scientific standards.

Instead he would meet a professional debater with a well-organised mixture of half-truths, quote-mining and plausible-sounding but totally unbased accusations of malfeasance. Another favorite tactic was to take a minor disagreement and cast it as throwing doubt on the whole field. All delivered in rapid-fire cadence, with each item having to be unfolded and explained by the hapless scientist before it could be refuted- by which time the denialist would have thrown in half-a-dozen more, all put together by a well-oiled organisation and laid out before an audience unfamiliar with the basics of the argument, and usually with an organised claque of supporters primed on when to cheer and when to jeer.

Starting to sound familiar?

Like biologists and paleontologists, climatologists are working scentists who don't want to have to spend their time debating with professional skeptics when they could be out doing science.

The answer was to put togther support groups like TalkOrigins which could counter the organised shoutfests of the creationists with the scientific facts laid out in explainable formats, and issue fast-reaction responses to whatever the latest talking point was- something like what was suggested in the article inked referred to.

The problems with climate denialists are even worse than with creationists because there's a huge amount of funding from interested parties like Exxon and an ideological base on the Right that is always ready to provide an echo chamber.

And the "he said she said" style of reporting of the modern media means that no matter how small a fraction of the scientific community the denialists represent, or how often they've been proven to be unreliable, the same group of skeptics keep getting quoted over and over.

[The Gaffer]

Great post, GM.

Particularly important to recognise:

take a minor disagreement and cast it as throwing doubt on the whole field

and

the "he said she said" style of reporting...the same group of skeptics keep getting quoted over and over

giving the impression that there is doubt where there is little or none.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

I think part of the problem is that climatologists are at the stage biologists were a couple of decades ago when they were dealing with creationists.

Whats sad is even today despite all this work only 39% of Americans say they believe in evolution. And that figure has actually gone DOWN in the past ten years... Truly scary... So we are in for a long fight on the climate change issue if we are decades behind... Americans are more likely to believe according to their political/cultural group values then based on basic facts. Its all in how you approach it really. I heard a report on the radio the other day saying that the number of people who agreed with the notion that there is a climate change crisis increased when it was given in the context of "we need more nuclear power plants rather than coal burning plants". Apparently that is more along the lines of talking their language then saying "we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels" to which they simply react in a viscerally political way ("git yer hands off my guns and my SUVs!").

[The Gaffer]

No way. 39%???

I think the expression is WTF? GTFO.

Oh dear. Sincere condolences.

One thing you can say about the US, once you do decide something needs to be done, you generally do it. CFCs for example, you guys were decades ahead of everyone else.

So things like the classification of CO2 as a pollutant are a big step forward.

[inked]

Climate Change, yes. Global Warming, no. But there is bright side, apparently, at least in Great Britain....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...re-fiddle.html

Apparently, indoctrination via nursery rhymes is cancelled due to daftness in rhyming AND speciousness of the claims......

Those non-rhyming nursery rhymes were atrocious. Better to die of global warming (if it exists) than endure such, wot?