The Climate Change Debate that Shouldn't Be
Steve Running on the Perils of Pseudo Science
By Jessica Mayrer, 1-18-08
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University of Montana scientist Steve Running, who shares a piece of the Nobel Prize, told a packed City Club Missoula audience Friday that Americans need to learn how to decipher pseudo science from substantiated research in order to understand global warming.
Much of the discussion centered on Running’s canceled speech to a group of Choteau high school students last week. Some locals in the north-central Montana town complained Running's talk would contain only one side of the global warming debate. That concern prompted the school superintendent to cancel the discussion altogether.
“OK, what is the other side?” Running asked. “And how do people come to the conclusion that another side is needed?”
“Science argues just plain facts,” he said. Apolitical satellites report carbon dioxide accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere and send the data back, that’s undisputable, he added.
Running, a University of Montana professor of forestry and ecology, won the Nobel Prize as a scientist on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel formed the basis for much of Sen. Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
A small segment of our population will never see the truth about global warming, he said.
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| Steve Running of the University of Montana won the Nobel Prize as a scientist on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October. | |
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But many Americans simply have a tough time discerning good science from bad. The trick, Running said, is to encourage individuals to investigate whether information is coming from a credible source. And to slow global warming, it is essential that people educate themselves.
“It’s kind of ironic that I wasn’t allowed to speak to a high school,” he said. “If they are giving some of this pseudo-science, that would frighten me.”
Information overload too makes it tough for Americans to sift through a constant stream of messages to uncover the facts about global warming, he said.
“The next generation is going to have this in spades,” Running said.
Running held up a professional-looking pamphlet titled, “The Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” -- but it was put out by the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He underlined the importance of questioning the source of climate change information.
“I don’t think you want me doing heart surgery on you,” he said.
“Anybody can put up stuff like this and make it look legitimate.” Speaking of the Choteau residents, he said, “My suspicion is that some of these people were reading things like this.”
If someone proved that global warming was not a man-made phenomenon that would be big news, he said, not the type of information that gets slid under the door in an informational packet.
“I guarantee you it would be on the cover of Time,” Running said.
His work with the IPCC, which paints an alarming picture of planetary changes underway, met several rounds of peer review before presented to the public, he said.
And it’s ironic that an agricultural community like Choteau could end up winners in the battle against climate change. Shifting away from fossil fuels will trigger a growing demand for cleaner-burning bio-fuels, and may bring an economic boom to Montana agriculture.
“It’s going to emerge as a real winner in climate change,” he said. “I probably had good news for them.”
The lingering argument which disputes planetary warming as a man-made phenomenon centers on “natural variability,” maintaining current temperature changes are part of natural fluctuations in the earth’s climate.
But that line of thought doesn’t hold, Running said. If that was the case, there would be more deviation in temperatures. Some areas would cool while others heated up. Scientists can’t find evidence that things are cooling down, anywhere, he added.
“Then that isn’t natural variability.”
A member of the audience asked how global warming could be a fully understood phenomenon in light of the ever-changing nature of science.
Running responded that some laws of physics, like gravity, have remained stable for many hundreds of years. And he pointed to climate change theory going back more than 100 years. In the 1890s, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, postulated that burning fossil fuels may cause a build up in atmospheric carbon dioxide, ultimately causing the planet to warm.
And by 1970 or so, “the earth’s scientists were going, Oh oh,” he said.
Some pieces of the climate change puzzle are still uncertain, like the extent to which planetary changes are causing hurricanes, but other evidence, like the accumulation of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere remain fixed, Running said.
“There isn’t very much uncertainty on the bottom line of the issue,” he said.
A simple step an average American can make to ease (however slightly) the earth’s strain is to slow down their automobiles to no higher than 65 mph. “Just drive a bit slower, and that makes a difference,” he said.
While larger policy changes are tough to implement, some progress is being made, he said. Just before Christmas, Congress and the president raised the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard from 25 to 35 miles-per-gallon for cars and light trucks. And while the legislation is encouraging, reversing climate change is daunting.
“It’s like turning the Titanic. We need to start turning now.”
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Comments
If all members of a prize winning group were to be considered a Nobel Laureate or prize winner, then we would need to count all the members of Amnesty International as of 1977 (so does that make me a Nobel Prize winner?) or all the military personnel who were members of the United Nations Peacekeeping forces during 1988 and earlier years.
For the official list of Nobel Laureates, see:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/all/
An obvious analogy would be the Pulitzer Prizes: sometimes individuals are named as prize winners, and in other cases, only the newspaper is named. When the Los Angeles Times won the 2004 Pulitzer for breaking news reporting for coverage of wildfires, no individuals were named, and so no one person could be said to have received the Pulitzer or to be a prize winner.
http://tinyurl.com/2dv6nz
The fact is that the world in no longer warming. That is a fact. All the predictions made by the IPCC have not come to fruition. The whole deal is a scam and will be eventually be seen by almost everyone as such.
Please, please, please, respond to my requests that you enlighten us as to the field in which you earned your doctorate and from where and how it serves to qualify you to speak with credibility on this topic? It is only fair, since you preface all your comments with your title, to let us know what that title signifies. Do you have a PhD in physics or another form of climate science or are you, say, a chiropractor? Please let us know...
I'm amazed by you stating that "the fact is that the world is no longer warming. That is a fact." It's like saying "the world is flat. That is a fact."
You're so wrong. The world is definitely warming. That is a fact. All of the predictions made by IPCC will come to fruition. That is a fact.
Factually yours,
JonCheever
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011703472.html
If "laureate" is good enough for the Washington Post, shouldn't it be good enough for New West?
"Although Running’s award places him among a coveted elite, he views his honor with humility. A local radio personality who introduced him as 'Nobel Laureate Steve Running' this morning 'went a bit far,' Running said. 'I’m more like 1/600 of a Nobel Laureate.'"
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/ums_steve_running_wins_share_of_nobel_peace_prize/C8/L8/
Man made "fixes" to nature have a way of backfiring. It is a great ego builder to think that man is able to control nature, but it ain't gonna happen, it has been tried down thru the ages and will continue with the same results as long as humans exist. Fixers can destroy the economy of the great country we live in, but nature will ultimately rule.
Predictions are....predictions based on opinions. Look at the terrible hurricanes the last two years. Explained away by "the ocean cooled more than expected", well duh, it is called nature, it has always controlled man and always will despite those who believe they can control it if given enough power.
So, I'll grant your somewhat self-evident insistence that we can't control nature; but does it then follow as you seem to assume that we should--in order to keep our sacred acquisitive economy going strong--destroy the environment?
Dolts can always explain failures by assuming it is God's will, I suppose; but I prefer to keep trying to make use of our only advantage which is lodged between all of our ears--to one degree or another...
The science of man cause global warming is settled and it is no longer a theory. If you wish to keep your heads buried in the sand you better hope there is oxygen to breathe when you finally come up for air and join the real world.
I still cannot wait to hear a response from the esteemed "Dr." Coles.
See http://www.whrc.org/about_us/whos_who/staff.htm and please tell me where these guys fall short on credentials!
These guys are the cream of the crop for the science of climate change and ALL of them agree that man is causing global warming. If Running is a lightweight compared to them it is not because they disagree!
You really believe Jimmy Carter was our worst ever president?! Are you forgetting about our current administration?? Whatever the case, I HATE to see politics interfering, even peripherally, with any "debate" about global warming. It has no place here.
"Politics" was brought into this article by Jessica Mayrer, the writer, who attempts to provide validity by claiming Running is a Nobel Prize winner. The whole article is about an attempt by Running to disparage those who might disagree with him. THAT is political and not scientific. It is the old notion that when you can deal with the facts, attack, attack, attack, people!
The attitude of intolerance to dissent and the overconfidence of many global warming scientists and non-scientist supporters is heavily damaging too.
It is a point not to make too much of either way but there is published (and to my knowledge reputable and not refuted per se) data that after an usually high spike in 1998 average global temperature fell a few years and has not yet exceeded the 1998 level.
To me it reminds me of the Y2K issue. Let's posit that it was a problem, that programmers should have been using 4 digits instead of two to express a year. The real question was "so what?" I did nothing, and turned out to be right.
Global warming is real, but "do nothing" isn't an irrational decision in the face of it. That is the real burden "proponents" need to overcome.
I've read that there are several leading studies that show, with the exception of a relatively small penisula, Antarctica has cooled over last 30-50 years.
Does that negate general warming or concern about what that might do? No of course not. But it cuts against Running's statement. Do we know enough about regional patterns and even more importantly long run historical natural variability? I doubt it.
This is just one example of many where I read seemingly legitimate critique of the sufficiency of "established" science. The posture that we know enough about global warming- everything lines up- there is no room for debate- it is time for massive action before it is too late bloc is called into question when details are shown to be different than was held a few years ago. There have been other largely successful challenges to previous "consensus" statements about atmospheric temperature observations, when the hottest years ever were, the trends and behavior of artic ice, etc.
I want findings to be doublechecked and flaws revealed and estimates revised and then re-inserted in sounder form in the overall prediction models.
The role of water vapor in the global warming cycle vs CO2 is another big, to my view legitimate issue for further study & discussion based on what I read from Lindzen and others.
And not at the expense of prudent action against worst case scenarios- in addition to it. I think a "we are constantly learning more and listening to all input but this is our best estimate and advice now" posture would be more successful than a "case closed, there is no credible other view" posture.
But I could be wrong on the degree of adequacy of the science or wisdom of the political strategy. I have only read a 100+ articles and a few books and am clearly a layman not a career researcher. If to you the information base is very solid and the time as short I can understand making the policy choice that comes from it even as I disagree with the tactical style. In the friction of different perspectives hopefully a proper policy will emerge. Balanced to the extent it deserves balance.
More research, more discussion aimed at ever better understanding but also more action.
There are not two sides to everything. That's why CFCs were outlawed. Pointless to argue with them.
The political debate has really produced almost nothing yet in terms of meaningful action. Yes we have come a long ways to acknowledging the issue in the last 10-20 years but if the point of proclaiming everything necessary as known and settled was to produce major action that campaign has largely failed so far. The fundamental case and urgency may well be right but if it has failed to produce the desired action it would be wise to strengthen the science and review and improve the political tactics.
In my view the habit of calling virtually all contrary data and statements based on those findings "pseudo-science" is too broadbrush and hampers the scientific "climate" and predictably increases both the resistance to and effectiveness of the resistance to the scientific findings.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm
By the way, Colin: I realize the flaw of my question posted earlier. I asked you to "name one notable climate scientist who disagrees...". You cited Alfred P. Sloan and, for some reason, felt it necessary to shout (capitalize) the fact that he is connected with MIT. I assume you felt this would add some credibility. Would you like me to capitalize Harvard, Yale or any of the other schools or organizations who have scientists who strongly disagree with Sloan. The fact is that Sloan and a very, very small few like him stand against a massive network of equally credentialed scientists who, for good reason, believe he is wrong. I shouldn't have thought anyone couldn't quickly google or otherwise easily look up the inevitable wild card (Sloan).
Again, I challenge you to discredit the innumerable and well credentialed scientists you find on staff at Woods Hole Research Center and tell me Sloan is right and they are all wrong. Sloan is one of a very small minority of scientists in the world who disagree with the IPCC findings.
I hope you have some energy left for Bill's Cabela's column that has resurfaced.
1. The urban heat island effect was corrected when critics forced it to be corrected by noting its impact.
2. The recent temperature pattern does not follow the pre 1998 pattern as strongly as it did. The next few years will help demonstrate whether the down years were abnormalities or if climate is at a cyclic inflection point. Some models are calling for a few more down years.
3. I am not sure that the data is strong enough to say anything with finality about the Medieval Warm Period. We will probably know better later.
4. The IPCC prepares a range of models in part because their predictive power is not yet completely fine-tuned yet.
5. The technical issues with atmospheric data was identified by critics and not everyone is satisified that it has been fully addressed.
7. Carbon dioxide coming after a temperature rise in the historical data may or may not be pivotal but that information should be considered. If the future will be different, the rationale and evidence for that should be strong.
8. Statements about artic ice and hurricanes were often advanced too far by global warming consensus advocates including Gore.
9. The counter argument concedes that water vapor is the biggest factor in the greenhous effect- something that made obvious from the focus on CO2. There is not consensus from all experts that it is adequately and accurately built into the models yet. Such as Lindzen.
I'll correct one.
In 9. should be ... something "not" made obvious from the focus on CO2.
There are many, many more, but the idea is not to engage in a numbers game like schoolchildren. There is a sufficient number of highly qualified scientists who have serious doubts about various aspects of global warming theory to cancel out claims that "the science is settled" or that there is a "consensus." And that's what's wrong with Running's statements. They are not scientific statements about global warming. They are simple-minded attacks against anyone who disagrees with him, and they do not address the merits of the competing claims. Running tries to deny that there are any legitimate competing claims and he is wrong. So are you Elfman. Your global warming proponents have a strong belief in a correlation between CO2 increases and some minor temperature rises that certainly are not "global." Science 101 tells us that correlation is not causation. The proponents have not proven that rising CO2 is causing any temperature increases, especially not any disastrous temperature rises. They want to avoid listening to serious criticism by uttering the totally unscientific statement that the matter is settled and no criticism could possibly be valid. This is a political, not a scientific statement. In fact, it takes on the tone of obscure religious dogma!
Global warming caused by man is a theory, and those invested in it are absolutley determined that it not be tested, it be accepted.
Running did not do himself a favor by insisting there is no other side, that is not the statement of a scientist, nor even a thoughtful person.
I am not persuaded by those scientists who are employed--or ideologically convinced--by the sacred economy.
I am, however; very concerned that there are sufficient citizens whose self absorption--whose acquisitive desires--"he who dies with the most toys, wins"--will lead them to continue to piss in the soup with no concern for future generations who will have to consume soup which tastes like urine...
And a lot happens in 37 years. I am JUST old enough to remember the press lathering about a coming Ice Age back in the late Sixties.
Speaking of ice ages, what would the reaction be today if somehow, modern civilization with our current tech was ensconced upon the landscape of 10,000-15,000 years ago.
Can you imagine the screaming about Lake Missoula? The devaluing of lakefront lots left high and dry? The collapse of heli-skiing? Or of the shrinking coastline that would rise hundreds of feet? Or the tragic loss of the glacier-top ecosystem?
Why, we'd have to completely restructure society to stop it! And government would be the only way to enforce correct behavior! And, you betcha, it wouldn't make a dang bit of difference.
I don't have any direct knowledge of this situation, but it looks like that kind of pressure is a possible explanation.
Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!”
Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.” “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact,” Sorochtin wrote. (Note: Name also sometimes translated to spell Sorokhtin)
Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.
Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit,” Tennekes wrote. “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."
Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.
France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming – Myth or Reality? - The Erring Ways of Climatology. “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance. ... Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God ... fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!”
Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”
Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases."
Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong,” Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: “The earth will not die.”
Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: “To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”
Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,” Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.
India: One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”
USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”
Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."
New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and scientist Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so.”
South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”
Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”
Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”
Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”
China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively Exaggerated’ – Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan’s and Sun Xian’s 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated." Their study asserted that "it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change.”
Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”
Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: "CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”
Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”
Quick correction to your research.
There is not a scientists listed who is "from Woods Hole" as you stated. Robert Durrenberger "gathered" at Woods Hole in 1979 but is not a Woods Hole scientist. There is a strong consensus on the issue at Woods Hole.
That is tautologically correct from an institutional perspective that values obedient submission to Gaian AGW consensus precepts.
Respond if you wish but I am now going to attempt to back out of this debate. It has simply become boring. All that happens is a bunch of people throw around a bunch of scientific jargon in an attempt to seem smarter and more credible than the next guy.
I do not intend to debate anymore over whether the science is settled. I do, however, intend to do everything I can reasonably do to reduce my carbon footprint. if others wish to believe I am wasting my time... well, time will tell. If I am wrong you can say "I told you so".
Yawn.
And yet, to read the press reports, you wouldn't know that there's two sides to this story. Even in the case of the Choteau controversy, the press has pretty much portrayed Running as a hero and the Choteau critics as a bunch of backwards yahoos.
But how about it, New West? Why don't you, or someone else in the press, ask Running some tough questions? Aren't journalists supposed to be skeptics? Aren't they supposed to challenge their subjects, even if it means going against the grain of their own beliefs? It seems to me that there would be some interesting things to learn about why Running can declare the debate over, when it is really just beginning? Isn't Running's approach counterproductive? For that matter, it would be interesting to see an analysis of press coverage of this issue, and why it has been so skewed.
One topic that deserves special attention is why there has been so little attention paid to the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases--wildfires. Is the elephant in the room being ignored by the press because it is the politically correct thing to do?
I happen to come down on the same side of the controversial notion that our atmosphere is warming as Dr. Running; but, try as I might, I can't imagine anything he may have done to justify the cancellation.
Dakdo suggests that New West--or somebody--do the research for him.
I am wondering about his basis for suggesting that we blame Running for the the Superintendent's decidion to disinvite him...
1) We perhaps should waterboard Dr. James Hansen and some colleagues; I guess so they will denounce this climate change nonsense after torture. This would be a real improvement in the scientific method.
2) It is not clear if the skeptics of the science do not believe that any temperature change has taken place or if they don’t believe in civilization’s contribution. Careful reading of the blog seems to include both.
3) There are a lot of climate scientists that read the NewWest
4) Theorems and theory should be discarded in favor of facts.
5) Choteau High School students have covered differential equations, advanced physics, glaciology and other specialized sciences.
http://umt.edu/urelations/vision/2007/6a-warm.htm
The report you quoted from sounded pretty authoritative, so I checked it out. Thanks!
Upon reading it, it turns out to be a hodgepodge of contradictory statements from a variety of specialists, some of them from actual climatologists, packaged into a list of quotes from which the faithful can pick and choose from in order to do combat with people they disagree with.
It was assembled by the minority Republicans on the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which includes such political luminaries as:
-- David Vitter ("When I poke a ho it's because I'm a convertin' her"),
-- Larry "Wide Stance" Craig,
-- and Okalahoma's own James Inhofe (who, after 9/11 stated on the Senate floor that "God told him" that "“One of the reasons I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America is that the policy of our Government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them."). My impression of this august collection of Senatorial heavyweights: deep thinkers and respected scientists all.
Unfortunately, some of the scientists quoted in the report don't quite agree with the logic thread that assembles the quotes.
Somehow, we are supposed to believe that because there is some disagreement with specific aspects of the proposition that industrialization is changing fundamental aspects of our environment, then the entire theory must be incorrect.
Quickly scanning the list of scientists and their quotes, I came across one "doubter" listed as "Bill Patzert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory."
I know Bill. He used to "date" my ex-wife when she was 17 and he was in his mid-40's (no comment). Bill's a quirky but enlightened guy, the kind of "tread lightly on the earth" quiche-eater most of your colleagues despise. I'm surprise he showed up in this report. Bill has done some pretty cool things using synthetic aperature radar to detect changes in the physical properties of natural materials (oceans, primarily). But unfortunately, for a "doubter," his arguments don't quite bolster the theory that global warming is "fiction."
Bill's basic argument is that, in his opinion, C02 isn't the MAIN culprit in global warming, that land use and development is, particularly in California where reflective heat causes far more climate variation than C02 emissions. He argues that the warming trend is real, it could be mostly man-made, but it's source is more likely to be related to physical changes made to the planet (less vegetation, more thermal storage and reflectance caused by buildings, roads, parking lots, plowed fields, etc).
How his opinion somehow negates or disproves or conflicts with the general trend of global warming theory, (and proposed remedies), truely escapes me.
So Bill I know, but what about some of the lists other "experts"?
Another scan down the list reveals, "Meteorologist Brad Sussman, a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and Seal holder and past officer of the National Weather Association (NWA), is currently with WJW-TV in Cleveland, Ohio." Mr. Sussman, a TV weatherman, “debunks [global warming] theory by using logic and humor.”
Oh....well there. I guess we must be impressed. Why MEASURE climate change when we can sit in a bar and use "logic and humor" to debunk it. Very "scientific".
I could spend my afternoon going through this list, and I suspect there are some honest doubters with reasonable positions that have been misrepresented by Sen Inhofe's report.
Given the Honorable Senator's personal views of Al Gore, ("He's full of crap!") I suspect we should take the report at a little less than face value.
Sen. Inhofe is no stranger to a little controversy, (like when in 1999 the a large trove of pornography on his office's computers "messed up the senator's computer system," or when he termed our involvement in Iraq, “nothing short of a miracle” or the proposed $320 million bridge from Ketchikan, population 8,900, with the Island of Gravina, population 50 an example of “one of the few things in Washington that works.”), his antipathy to anything that impedes his sponsor's (the oil & gas industry and electric utilities are his primary campaign contributors) interests are legendary.
I suspect the Senate Republican's list of 400 "disbelievers" (appearing AFTER, and in reaction to, Al Gore's popular presentation on global warming issues) is a convenient way to get around having to wrestle with the social, political, cultural and economic trade offs caused by rather careless industrialization.
Your technique of regurgitating quotes assembled by a jaundiced and cynical political machine has little to do with scientific inquiry and a lot to do with blowing smoke. I'm not sure how this helps clarify us better understand why scientists should be banned from speaking at high schools.
I'm not sure how this helps us better understand why scientists should be banned from speaking at high schools.
>>>>>>>>>>
Montana shivered through a spectacularly cold night and some areas were still struggling at 9 a.m. to climb out of the deep winter chill.
Butte reported 33 below overnight, the lowest temperature of the state's major reporting stations. At 9 a.m. it had warmed to 29 degrees below zero with a wind chill of 45 below.
Billings was among the state's balmiest locations with an overnight low of 4 below. By 10 a.m., the temperature was up to 2 above with a wind chill of 17 below.
Other lows overnight were 23 below at Lewistown; 21 below at Great Falls; 19 below at Bozeman and Livingston; 17 below at Helena; 16 below at Miles City; 10 below at Baker; and 5 below at Glasgow.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
There is little so common as common sense...
What has happened to Irwin Horowitz? I miss his comments; I thought these last two blogs would have been exciting enough for him to participate.
Irwin, we miss your contributions.
I think that's what you would call a straw man argument.
My point was that there's something unseemly about a scientist declaring the debate over a scientific topic over and that he's won the argument.
Personally, it seems to me like the scientific evidence is pretty strong that the planet has warmed about a degree over the last century, but the degree of man's contribution to that warming is pretty wide open to debate. Is it 10 percent, or 50 percent, or 90 percent? I don't know any scientist who has shown or proven exactly what it is. Also wide open to debate is what should be done about it. And of course there are lots of other issues involved for which the science isn't settled.
Yet when scientists declare the debate over, they aren't just shutting down debate over the notion of the planet warming, they are in essence shutting off debate on the rest of the matter as well. I suppose they want to stay within their comfort zone; no one likes to be challenged. They want to go to their conferences where everyone will nods their heads in agreement and no one's feelings will be hurt and no one's government grants will be jeopardized.
Anyway, these are the kinds of tough questions I think the press should be asking scientists such as Running, but they never do. But you know, it would make much more interesting reading if we could have some stories in which the reporters could show some skepticism and challenge Running with tough but thoughtful questions, instead of just raising him up on another pedestal.
Dakdo, I agree with you, but we seem to no longer have a press interested in asking questions and getting answers, only in promoting their point of view. Sad.
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/01/22/news/mtregional/news06.txt
>>>>>>>>>>>
Missoula was in mid-commute Monday morning when the mercury dropped to the coldest point so far this season.
Between 8 and 9 a.m., the temperature in Missoula reached minus 11 degrees, but was 19 below with the wind chill. Seeley Lake and Potomac registered even colder - at 34 below.
The coldest spot in western Montana, however, was in Polebridge, where the temperature was a bitter 37 below.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Back in the 60's my brother and I went ice fishing when the temp was -40F one day. It was so cold that the rainbows wore parkas to keep from freezing to death flopping around on the ice.
You can stop posting stories about the temperature in MT. Don't worry. . . we all "get" your clever argument on how the current cold snap belies the notion that the earth is warming due to human action. Truly brilliant indeed; way to punch holes in the global climate change argument! Seriously, wow.
Check with the Choteau school board because they are probably ready to sign you up as a speaker - you can bring all of your anectdotal weather "science" with you.
It must be lovely to have such a simple view of the world. So comforting.
By your own logic, then, would you suddenly believe in global warming if it were 105 degrees in the middle of August and the mountains were on fire?
Did you ever notice that when its cold, it's a regional phenomenon, and when it's warm, that's "global," man. If the whole northern hemisphere were warm and the southern cold, they'd average the two and call it a "global mean temperature." Someone might even make the scientific statement that the "planet has a fever." Only science there--no anecdotes, right?
>>>>>>>>>>
North Atlantic warming not due to climate change
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
January 3, 2008
While overall temperature in the North Atlantic Ocean has risen over the past fifty years, it has not been consistent across all areas with subpolar regions cooling as subtropical and tropical waters warmed, reports a new study published in the journal Science.
The pattern can be explained by the influence of a natural and cyclical wind circulation pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation, rather than greenhouse gas emissions, say the authors.
"The winds have a tremendous impact on the underlying ocean," said Susan Lozier, a professor of physical oceanography at Duke University and leader author of the study. "The take-home message is that the NAO produces strong natural variability."
"The simplistic view of global warming is that everything forward in time will warm uniformly. But this very strong natural variability is superimposed on human-caused warming. So researchers will need to unravel that natural variability to get at the part humans are responsible for."
<<<<<<<<<<<<
Last I checked Greenland and parts of the Arctic border the North Atlantic.
Ever wonder what the differences are among a skeptic, denier, and an AGW zealot? AccuWeather's Paul Yeager has the answer: http://www.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp?traveler=0&blog=yeager&date=2008-01-14_14:25&m
You see Colin, despite the fact that every winter in Montana brings about subzero cold snaps (and every summer brings about a heat wave - neither reflects longer-term trend) - massive amounts of glacial ice are melting. This isn't "anectdotal" evidence, it is based on over 150 years of detailed obsevation. One set of observations reflects a long-term warming trend while the other reflects a four or five day temperature reading. You of course, are free to grasp on to whatever type of observation suits your fancy.
While the contrarian can always assert two sides to every debate, this does not mean that each side is equally supported by legitimate data or able to stand up to scrutiny.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2007-10-11-glacier-park_N.htm
"The last official count — in 1998 — pegged the number of glaciers here at 27, down from 150 a century ago. Today, Fagre's putting the final touches on a brand-new inventory, which surely will show far fewer than the 27 counted just a decade ago. Grinnell Glacier has lost 14 acres — 9% of its total coverage — just in the past 24 months, Fagre said, and that doesn't even count acreage lost this summer."
Anyway,
and the work of Jerry McManus, Associate Scientist
and Delia Oppo, Senior Scientist Geology and Geophysics Department Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=17906
Now couple that research with the recent findings of the North Atlantic warming due to natural variability.
Is it not reasonable to ask that scientists remain open to possibilites (being a skeptic) that question AGW orthodoxy while continuing discussion and research?
An ultrasound uses sound waves to create a picture of a fetus. I am pretty sure that those documenting the shrinking glaciers in Glacier NP have not been using them.
Capturing shrinking glaciers is actually pretty easy Marion, they have been using photographs.
See for yourself: http://nrmsc.usgs.gov/repeatphoto/gg_mt-gould.htm
Please, share with us the conspiracy of how these pictures are designed to take away your land and way of life. We are all anxiously awaiting.
See... http://www.whrc.org/about_us/mission.htm
After you understand these guys, their credentials and efforts please get back to me and tell me they are full of it.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm being consistent. Back in 2006 I wrote:
******************
...my opinion on climate change is pretty well summed up by professor L.M. Cathles at Cornell University. See: http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060711/OPINION02/607110308/1014
He writes:
>>>>There is also little dispute regarding natural climate change. Climate has never been static. Over the last few million years the climate has changed particularly dramatically and rapidly. Ice caps have developed in North America and Europe, melted, and then grown again 15 to 20 times. The ice takes about 90,000 years to grow, and 5,000 years or so to melt. The warm periods between glaciations last about 10,000 years. Ours has already lasted for this long. If the natural cycles of the past prevail, the climate should soon quite suddenly cool (over a few years or decades, although the climate switch may initially flicker). The North American ice cap will then expand to cover Canada, and reach Ithaca in about 50,000 years. Less dramatic cycles (the Holocene climate optimum, the little ice age, and the current warming) have affected humanity within our interglacial period. Natural climate change is real, rapid, and significant.
What we don't know is the relative magnitude of natural and human-induced climate change. The academy presidents of 11 countries quoted in the “Global warming is real” (Guest column, June 14) do not take a stand on this issue, saying only “It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activity,” which leaves open the possibility that natural cycles could control climate change despite human inputs. The situation is complex. Ice ages may start when warming melts ice in the Arctic and Greenland, and the meltwater turns off the haline convection that helps keep Europe warm. Global warming may thus cause global cooling, and human greenhouse gases may hasten the arrival of the next ice age. The sun, ocean circulation, and a host of “tipping points” make the future difficult to predict, and here there is no consensus at all...
<<<<<<<<<
************
My opinion still has not changed. The link no longer works. There is so much we don't understand about how things work. If the 'consensus' was wrong about the North Atlantic, then what else should people allow themselves to be browbeat into quiet submission because someone or ruling class has edicted that the debate is over?
Anyone heard of the Little Ice Age, a well-documented event, ENDING about 150 years ago? And the glaciers have been shrinking ever since then, which is at least fifty, perhaps a hundred years in advance of any significant industrial atmospheric loadings?
Given that I live in sight of the park, I would say I am sort of glad the glaciers there are not growing.
Never mind that growing up here, with two big glacial-gouged lakes and scarred rocks everywhere, moraines and shorelines up the wazoo, you grow up with a pretty keen eye for what glaciated geomorphology looks like.
One also develops a sense of proportion.
Elfman, did you read Capt Bob's post and compare it to mine? Obviously not. Capt Bob engages in a lengthy political diatribe against Sen Inhoffe and names two scientists, one of whom knew his wife.
My post listed 24 prominent, internationally recognized scientists together with a brief summary of their opinions on global warming.
You obviously never took logic 101. I've seen you're other statement that if nobody in these posts has disproven Woods Hole opinions, Woods Hole must be correct. But you've not provided any evidence of those Woods Hole opinions. I'll use your logic and say you don't provide those opinions because they must be wrong. That's how logical you are.
I dont believe a word that the Global Warming scientists say. They are willfully misleading the world. For this they should be ashamed. The more they cry the sky is falling the more it seems obvious they dont know what the heck they are talking about. Each scientist labors over little data-points, massaging them and modifying them to fit their particular view of history and nature. Each one confuses the other till they write a report which makes no sense to anyone.
If it were not such a serious matter this would be laughable. I just wish some more honest scientists arise who will put these sham scientists in their place. Then they can move on the the NEXT big theory....
"They being of course we members of the latter day commintern, eh, colon..?
Along with Elfman's illogic, we have Jedediah's less than witty comment about "commintern" (sic) which I definitely never mentioned or even hinted at. So, to be like these two luminaries, never copy anything, and always interpret someone else's comments in a way they never intended. This will prove your intelligence. What wonderful defenders of the global warming way!
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-122warmwaters,0,5683000.story
The title is: "Warm Seas May Mean Fewer Hurricanes" (pardon me for copying!)
But remember, "The Science Is Settled"!!
I respect you wingnuts and your ideologies...
>>>>>>>>>
No evidence in Canadian skies to back U.S. theory of jet condensation trails, York U. professor says
Jan 23, 2008 04:30 AM
Peter Calamai
Science Reporter
NEW ORLEANS–A York University professor has ignited a controversy by challenging a supposed prime example of man-made climate change – that jet condensation trails, know as contrails, act like clouds, cooling the Earth during the day and keeping it warmer at night.
Physicist William van Wijngaarden says he found no evidence to support this climate effect in Canadian temperature records for the contrail-free days immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
That contrasts with a 2002 study by U.S. researchers that concluded the temperature spread between day and night over the lower 48 states increased by 1.5C over long-term averages between Sept. 11 and 14 in 2001, when commercial air flights were mostly grounded over North America...
Heralded as evidence from a "natural laboratory," the U.S. findings after 9/11 have been widely quoted as demonstrating short-term human impact on climate, since the birth of jet travel in the 1950s, as opposed to the longer buildup of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
"There's been a lot of groupthink going on about this," Wijngaarden said in an interview in New Orleans at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society.
The York researcher said he decided to double-check the U.S. findings because the claimed temperature rise was so large, almost equal to the global average temperature increase from greenhouse warming.
"If it was that big, then I ought to have been able to see it in Canada," he said.
But when he examined the spread between day and night temperatures from 112 weather stations across Canada for Sept. 8 to 17 in 2001, there wasn't a spike during the no-fly period.
<<<<<<<<<<
My "politicial" diatribe against Sen. Inofe was nothing of the sort. I do not have any axes to grind in Oklahoma: if the good citizens choose to keep obvious nabobs in office, good for them. I vote Republican on occasion, but I never vote for, nor do I support, obvious boobs (regardless of their political affiliation).
My point, put bluntly, is that the report you cited, verbatim, as "objective" -- is nothing of the sort. It is an assemblage of quotes that suggest an alternative concensus but never quite gets around to demonstrating an alternative consensus.
The point of my post was that when you look carefully at that particular assemblage of quotes and scientific personas, one quickly discovers there is no actual consensus amoung the scientists cited in the quote. Their names and random quotes appear on the same page, but that does by no means prove they are "on" the same page.
The report createde by the minority side of the Senate Committee on Environment etc was not a scientific report. It did not report new data; it proposed no alternative statistical models based on existing research, instead, it listed a group of people who disagreed with some aspect of "global warming" theory (as if that can be reduced to some kind of conceptual shorthand).
In fact many of the "opponents" of global warming cited in the minority report agree that global warming exists (in the sense that the average temperature of the the planet is rising, and the rate of increase has accellerated since the late 1800's).
At the same time, it is evident that there is disagreement about the precise cause of the warming trend, and especially about what, if anything can be done about it.
Similarly with the papers cited by Mr. Moore: both papers hypothesized that global warming was altering ocean currents in unpredicted ways, perhaps altering them enough to make some parts of Europe colder. A difficult concept to grasp unless you've ever sat in a cold bath, then added hot water to it. The hot will displace the cold, until it all warms up. (Hmmm...actually, not too difficult a concept to grasp...)
It's very clear that these concepts pose dramatic challenges to entrenched political interests, and that rather than address the challenges head on, the energy and transportation industries are focusing their energy on supressing the message.
I think what irritates me the most is the political equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears while braying "la la la la la la la la I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" This is neither a responsible nor productive position and isn't persuasive. It clearly announces your presence to others who feel the same way, but it does nothing to engage people who feel pretty strongly that the proponents of man-made global warming theory make a pretty good case.
Not sure about the "whoopsie" you refer to. I just went on the York University website and found a link to this study that found that "Lake temperatures cooled despite global warming" (http://www.yorku.ca/mediar/archive/Release.asp?Release=1349)
I couldn't find any reference on the York website on William van Wijngaarden's findings (I did find a few papers on Canadian humidity indexes that he authored). I found the paper he presented to the AMA on their website.
What jumped out to me was just before his conclusion that there was no comparable change in Canadian diurnal temperatures attributable to lack of contrails on Sept 11, 12, 13 and 14 2001, was this sentence:
"Caution must
therefore be exercised when computing the
average DTR experienced by all stations in
Canada as the accuracy of any such number is
not limited by the number of stations but by the
different weather conditions that stations
separated by thousands of kilometers experience."
So, just before he says that there was no impact on Canadian weather, he says that the data, (and therefore the extrapolations), may not be an accurate picture of what actually happened.
In essence, he states that available Canadian data seems to contradict available US data, but that the difference is open to a variety of interpretations. If you actually look at his data, you see that in fact, there were some dramatic changes in temperature over this time period, but these changes were offset in changes in other monitoring stations. Further, he acknowleges that this could be a probelm caused by the sample set.
This is a fairly typical scientific conclusion, and one that may or may not support an alternative view to the idea that air travel directly alters climate.
Significantly, there is no analysis of the amount of average air travel over Canadian airspace vs. US airspace in his paper, so there's no accounting for differences in volume of emissions in the two different countries studied.
Why is this important? To get back to easy to understand examples: You are more likely to notice an impact by with fart in a car than a fart in a cathedral (i.e. the higher the fart-per-cubic-centimeter or fcc ratio, the more likely you are to measure some sort of effect). Dr. van Wijngaarden did not even attempt this important comparison.
Be that as it may, the conclusions of his paper certainly do not support the Toronto Star's headline: "Physicist questions validity of climate change finding; no evidence in Canadian skies to back U.S. theory of jet condensation trails, York U. professor says"
A journalist (or editor) coloring the truth!?!?! GASP! SAY IT AIN'T SO!!!
I'm not sure what your point is about the lake. Planting trees and brush along streams has been shown to lower water temperature through shading effects that do not affect ambient air temperature. That's part of the Big Hole river effort to save grayling.
Coloring the truth? You are not suggesting that we have crayon journalism are you?
He then wanders off into some fantasy that I was claiming the list I posted constituted an "alternative concensus"(sic), also something I never mentioned.
Before making those false claims, Jedediah claims that part of one of his previous posts was not a political diatribe against Senator Inhofe. Here is what Jedidiah said:
"Sen. Inhofe is no stranger to a little controversy, (like when in 1999 the a large trove of pornography on his office's computers "messed up the senator's computer system," or when he termed our involvement in Iraq, “nothing short of a miracle” or the proposed $320 million bridge from Ketchikan, population 8,900, with the Island of Gravina, population 50 an example of “one of the few things in Washington that works.”), his antipathy to anything that impedes his sponsor's (the oil & gas industry and electric utilities are his primary campaign contributors) interests are legendary."
I'll leave it to others to judge whether or not that was a "political diatribe." It certainly wasn't an intelligent addition to this line of posts, and it had nothing to do with global warming or Steve Running's actions. At another point Jedediah goes on about alleged "entrenched political interests" which certainly do exist, but they exist on different sides of an issure like global warming, although I suppose Jedediah wouldn't consider the environmentalist lobby as an entrenched political interest. Others would differ on that point.
In the post wherein I listed some 24 scientists with summaries of their views on global warming, I also clearly stated that
"..this neither proves nor disproves the theory of anthropogenic global warming. It does disprove the global warming proponents' (like Running's) claims that "the science is settled" and that there is a scentific "consensus" about AGW."
In other words, there was no attempt to create an alternative consensus. The list was partly in response to an earlier post fron Elfman when he asked if I could name more scientists who are skeptical of the theory of global warming. Let's remember that these posts began because Steve Running was quoted as saying, in effect, that there is no reasonable skeptical view among the scientific community. Well, there is such a view and, indeed, their opinions vary but they don't automatically fall in line with the so-called consensus on global warming. Jedediah works hard at being a hatchet-man, He should seek employment with Al Gore's coterie.
In terms of Oklahoma senator Imhofe’s list of 400 climate skeptics; all you have to do is look at the names and some of the creative accounting used to bulk up the list. For example, they’ve added pretty much all of the names of Lomborg’s “Copenhagen consensus,” even though most are not scientists. Then, there’s the trick of including, say, all the co-authors of the article, even though some of them certainly would not describe themselves as skeptics. There are a few real scientists plus a lot of nonentities whose lack of credentials you can spot just by running their names through Web of Science. If this is the best 400 names that Inhofe can scrape together, then the denialist crowd is really in bad shape. I don’t think it needs any more comment than that. Sure some competent climate scientists are skeptics. for example, Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences. But even he admits to the following (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 °C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds. Incidentally, Lindzen is a heavy smoker and doubts that smoking is a contributory factor to lung cancer. John Christy, who was at Alabama, headed the group taking satellite data measurements of the temperature in the troposphere. Their results showed that the temperature was cooling not warming contrary to the results from climate models. Unfortunately, Christy’s group had made a sign error in an equation, essentially taking temperatures in the dark and not daylight conditions. This is rather complicated to explain to the layman. However when corrections were done, the troposphere had indeed warmed and fitted the data predicted by climate models. Christy agrees to the changes that he had wrongly published. Both of these men are contrarians, but do agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and increases will lead to warming.
Interestingly, if you look at the people who are well versed in science but deny that warming will be significant and important are invariably cosmologists, for example Dr. Sally Baliunas or Dr. Nir Shaviv.
Finally the people who study climate change are a diverse lot comprising some 20 different scientific disciplines. They publish a large volume of reviewed work; they must be familiar with all of it, both the material that agrees and disagrees with their hypothesis. One often gets the impression that scientific progress consists of a series of revolutions where scientists discard all their past thinking each time a new result gets published. This is often because only a small handful of high-profile studies in a given field are known by the wider public and media, and thus unrealistic weight is attached to those studies. New results are often over-emphasized (sometimes by the authors, sometimes by lobby groups) to make them sound important enough to have news value. Thus "bombshells" usually end up being duds”.
You attempt to discredit me for supposedly lacking the ability to engage in logical reasoning. You are wrong about this but I see no need in debating my ability to be logical with you. This blog is not about logical reasoning. It is about spinning. Nobody has any authority or clout here and, frankly, the "debate" is a joke. Everyone just cuts and pastes whatever little (or massive) tidbits they find in support of their position and then throws it out there. Then, someone else cuts and pastes something the contrary. Back and forth. back and forth. boring.
You can be upset about this all you wish but the fact of the matter is that, in the big picture, global warming has been attributed to man (at least partially) by the bulk of the important scientists in the world. I know you hate that but you will just have to deal with it. You can refute that fact all you wish but, at least in regard to human psychology, perception is reality. In the case of most of the world's inhabitants the strong perception is that man is causing global warming or at least some portion of it. If the many scientists who make this claim are wrong then you will have your time of glory sooner or later at which point you can stick out your tongue and give everyone a big raspberry. If, on the other hand, the scientists are right then you can thank all of us who believed that it was better to be safe than sorry... that is, of course, assuming that our attempts at mitigation are successful and the world is still habitable after the next x number of generations.
I guess I will just say you are a fool for trying to make me look the fool...
I'm guessing the professor has you edit his stuff, eh, Craigie?
In reading all of the comments a few things strike me as being off base. First, a number of skeptics/deniers seem to imply that Dr. Running has declared the debate regarding AGW as settled and any disagreement with the "established orthodoxy" as lacking any validity. I do not see in the initial article any such reference by Dr. Running. He decries the use of pseudo-science in general, but does not declare the issue as being settled as far as I can tell.
Also, as seems to regularly occur whenever a hot topic like AGW is presented here at New West, the discussion takes rather bizarre turns into political polemics (on both sides). While I vehemently disagree with Senator Inhofe's assessment of the situation, he is a respected member of the US Senate. Similarly, I am equally annoyed by the rhetoric regarding former VP Al Gore. He seems to really bring out the worst in the skeptics/deniers.
Regarding the science of AGW, there are some things that are factually indisputable. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Its atmospheric concentrations have been rising steadily since the late-1950s, when the first attempts to track those values were undertaken by Charles Keeling. The present day value is at least 25-30% higher than at any time in the past 600,000 years, based on ice core samples taken from Antarctica.
Regarding the global surface temperature, satellite measurements show that there has been a steady increase in that value over the past few decades (since we first started measuring it). This increase does not correlate with any known changes in the solar constant. If it did, there would be no debate, and we would know that the warming was due to natural cyclical variations.
Is global climate a complex system? Absolutely. Has it undergone changes in the past? Without question. Is the present episode due primarily to natural causes (solar variations; orbital changes; vulcanism; forest fires; etc.) or to human activities (industrialization and the impacts that result from it)? That is a much more challenging question to answer. However, I would like to proffer the following thought.
Would it hurt us to start making changes in how we live our lives? Would we be better or worse off if we started to wean ourselves from our oil addiction? Would it be better for our economy? Would it improve our environment? Would it strengthen our national security? Would embracing alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydrothermal and yes, nuclear result in a net positive effect on our country (economically, in particular)?
When confronted with these questions, whether or not you agree with the basic assumptions of AGW, it seems to me that we can improve our nation and the world as a whole by embracing a 21st century version of economic opportunity rather than trying to grab onto the 19th century version that still holds us in its deathly grip.
Believe me, Jedediah, you need no help in that area.
This excerpt sums the whole GW issue up pretty well I think:
"One thing I've learned about coming to this conference over the years is that very few people agree on anything," said Bill Massey, a former hurricane program manager at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HURRICANES_WARMING?SITE=MTBIL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Meteorology----------57
Climatology-----------35
Physics---------------32
Geology--------------28
Atmospheric Science--23
Chemistry------------22
Cosmology------------20
Economics------------13
Math/Stats/Models----13
Biology---------------13
Engineering-----------10
Earth Science---------8
Oceanography---------7
Geography------------4
Paleoclimatology-------4
Polar Studies----------5
Nuclear---------------3
Marine Science--------2
Agriculture------------3
Medical---------------3
UNKNOWN------------7
Except for the 7 "unknown" they have good scientific credentials as listed, but I'm not claiming they are the top three hundred scientists in the world.
Each, as read, has expressed some doubt about some part of global warming theory. As Charles points out, and it's an excellent point, there is consensus on some basics of the theory. There is certainly consensus that there has been some warming and that there has been an increase in manmade CO2 in the atmosphere. I think there is also consensus that the CO2 has some part in the warming, but I also believe consensus starts to break down at that point. How big the role is of anthropogenic CO2 gets some debate. Whether it is or will be harmful gets a lot of debate. Whether it will be disastrous is really debated.
Then come the recommended fixes. Plans of the Kyoto type are also hotly debated as to whether they would work and if they are needed or if they cost too much for the anticipated results.
Consensus does not mean total agreement, and the existing consensus is very narrow.
There is much of what you write that most everyone can agree...the need to grasp the future and make sense of how we get there. The world does need to transition to other power sources regardless of GW issues. Clean abundant water, nutritious food, clean air, and wise land use depend on such vision and transitional planning steps.
I was excited to see Chevy coming out with a fuel cell vehicle. To me, that is the future of transportation.
What I object to, and continue to bow my back on, is using AGW as the fear factor to drive change. I don't like such deceit. Here's the formula that I see:
Climate change = Natural Varibility + Human Living Effects
One thing that gets only passing consideration is how humankind has interdicted natural balancing agents such as cutting down rainforests. Assigning values to the CC formula is the tricky part. However, and I think this is where some of us believe Dr. Running is saying the science is settled, to claim "And how do people come to the conclusion that another side is needed?” has some of us shaking our heads.
There is so much yet to discover and plug into the CC formula.