Bishop Hill Testing scientific gullibility
Jul 6, 2012 Climate: other Many readers will be aware of Alan Sokal's famous hoaxing of the postmodernist journal Social Text (as well as the revenge of the humanities scholars some time afterwards).
Now, in an amusingexperiment, scholars at Imperial College have taken the hoaxing one step further:
What would happen if we took Sokal’s broad premise and turned it around onto scientists? Could we make scientists believe a hoax TV news story because it (a) employed familiar TV conventions and (b) it presented a flattering narrative of a lone scientist battling corrupt authority?
We set about constructing a four-minute TV news item about a visiting Japanese scientist called Shigeyuki Kagoshima, whose important climate-saving research had been thwarted by a cynical Chinese corporation. We studied science news clips on television to mimic common devices such as lab presentations and interview conventions. We presented our film to science undergraduates at Imperial College as a genuine news piece – and tested whether our audience could detect the content as fake. Finally, we revealed our hoax – and asked them for their reactions.
Find out what happened here.
Reader Comments (119)
Mmmmm. An interesting post. I don't think the outcome shows what the authors think it shows. The problem here is that the audience has no reason to doubt the presentation. Its partly human nature and partly an assumption that they are not being introduced to a bunch of liers. There is also no opportunity to check the facts. However there is a lesson to be learned (as others have noted above) that you never really know what's going on and a healthy dose of scepticism seems like a sensible strategy.
"Now, in an amusing experiment, scholars at Imperial College have taken the hoaxing one step further."
Maybe the scholars are trying to take the hoax two steps further and that we also are part of their experiment.
But this topic has already been amusingly covered by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, where the mice ran the experiments upon the humans.
This is from an article Michael E Mann, scientist, has tweeted. To thousands of his followers.
You can decide what kind of a guy he is, from what he finds worthy.
@Richard Betts - thanks for the Met Office contact details, email winging its way as we speak.
Cheers
w
Hilary Ostrov
Thanks for the links to your revelations. This demonstrates yet again the vulnerability of science, with its fragile traditional ethical morality of word-of-honour trust, to infiltration and abuse by those primarily motivated by radical political advocacy.
I posted the following comment to the 'revenge' site mentioned, the one with video of the hoax solar cell, but it didn't get through. I see nothing there about moderation and I logged into Wordpress correctly. Tried twice - it said duplicate post. Has anyone else here had similar difficulty?
@ Steve McGann
In reply to Sean you pose the rhetorical question: "But *was* Sokal’s hoax a valid experiment?"
Ah yes, 'valid'! A word beloved of the social constructionist bunch. But even so, you don't answer your question. You do tell us that some fellow named Hilgartner reckoned Sokal's hoax was highly unscientific but you don't say why. (BTW I don't want to pay the 19$ to read Hilgartner's paper.) By your:
"Epstein tested his hoax on a carefully selected list of 146 journals. Sokal?Just a single journal. Epstein performed a full statistical and qualitative analysis of results. Sokal? No analysis – just his own judgement. He simply declared his success in the media a month later!"
you imply that Sokal's hoax was statistically inadequate in some way and that that establishes its unscientificness (that word ought to exist). Leaving aside the question of there be [typo, s/b 'being'] *anything* at all scientific in the social so-called sciences or how one could tell, perhaps you could explain why statistics has to be brought into this in the first place. If you do, then while you're at it maybe you could tell us what *minimum* sample size Sokal should have used along with its *scientific* derivation.
But moving on, as they say, and skipping past the irony, as you call it, of Hilgartner's key point (a 'scientific' one no less, about social judgements being affected by perceived social status — well, quelle surprise!) you then move on to:
"Secondly, Hilgartner argues that Sokal had no academic expertise in social science, and yet assumed that his rather unscientific approach was perfectly sufficient given his expertise in another field of study."
So Hilgartner *argues* that Sokal had no academic expertise in social science, does he? Wow! Impressive. (But then seeing as Sokal is a physicist that's hardly surprising. In fact, even if he did have such expertise, I'd imagine he'd prefer to keep it very quiet — after all, he's got a respectable reputation as a physicist to consider.) But Sokal freely admits that he has no such expertise, or least one can reasonably infer that from what I recall of his revelation following his researches prompted by his reading of Gross & Levitt's 'Higher Superstition', so why the need for an *argument* to establish a rather boring and very simple *fact*?
By the way, despite Sokal's claim and what he says about it himself, I see it as wholly irrelevant whether his spoof is regarded as 'scientific', 'valid' or even an 'experiment'; it was a *hoax*, and it worked a treat.
As for:
"Sokal? No analysis – just his own judgement. He simply declared his success in the media a month later!" [SM]
As a boy I fired a stone at a window with my catapult to see if I could break it. I saw it break. It broke. No analysis – just my own judgement. As far as I can tell, Sokal's judgement there is as good as mine.
Look, never mind all that yakety yak about 'science', 'scientific', 'valid', 'experiment', 'statistical' or 'analysis', just get your boys to pull off hoax like Sokal's — get them to spoof up a physics paper and get it published [typo - 'in' missing] some half decent physics journal, then you can crow.
Given the many references here to the Sokal affair I hope it is not OT to clarify what was done there, for comparison with the very different Imperial College event. It clearly was a very different sort of test or "experiment" and Sokal is explicit that it was "uncontrolled" (as of course is the Imperial College event). Obviously it tested only one publication decision at one (then prominent and trendy) journal.
It requires some amount of argument and interpretation to say what exactly Sokal's hoax suggested about whole fields of endeavor, but it DID "prove" that one journal then regarded as a field leader would publish an utterly risible babbling sort of article, obviously without any editor or reviewer actually comprehending the many preposterous assertions contained therein. In addition to the many howlers about physics and science inserted throughout the text there is no analytical argument, it is just a kind of free association of wild b.s. For all of us familiar with the blather that became prevalent in some (far from all) sectors of the social sciences and humanities in recent decades, it is difficult to believe that many similar editors and reviewers with similar journals would not have fallen for the same hoax, but obviously only one instance was tested.
A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies
Alan D. Sokal
Department of Physics
New York University
[excerpt from intro]:
[excerpt from conclusion]:
Jul 7, 2012 at 3:26 PM | shub
Indeed. Consider also that (IIRC in February of this year) during the course of his apparently never-ending tour to promote his latest opus - which, IMHO, should have been called "Portrait of the Artist** as an Aggrieved Mann: A Novel" ...
at the Guardian's dedicated forum, in response to a question regarding the appropriateness of the use of the D-word in depicting those who did not share his views, Mann declared that because he had lost family members during the Holocaust, he would definitely know if there was any validity to the "association". Which led His Mannship to pronounce that those who objected to the use of the D-word were crying crocodile tears (or rather, his inept mangling of this common idiomatic expression!)
**According to no less an authority than Joelle Gergis, Mann is the "co-creator" of the hockey-stick [h/t Foxgoose via twitter] - an indication of an "artistic" endeavour - rather than a soundly based scientific finding - if ever there was one, eh?!
Re: Jul 8, 2012 at 3:53 AM | Hilary Ostrov
“According to no less an authority than Joelle Gergis, Mann is the "co-creator" of the hockey-stick [h/t Foxgoose via twitter] - an indication of an "artistic" endeavour - rather than a soundly based scientific finding - if ever there was one, eh?!”
Quite! And I don’t think there can be any better example of ‘scientific gullibility’ than the plaudits and citations Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ received from members of the Climate science fraternity.
Re: Jul 6, 2012 at 11:59 PM | Richard Betts
Richard, I was rather surprised when you wrote
“The Thompson data (which I'd not heard of until now) seems to be palaeo data. The Met Office statement was about 20th Century temperature change.”
Particularly when in your initial response to us on whether or not you regretted signing the Slingo petition you had confirmed that
“In its time, the hockey stick was of course of relevance to the issue covered in the second statement, ie: the causes of the observed warming, but even so, by 2009 it had been superceded by more recent (and better) palaeoclimate reconstructions.”
Jun 26, 2012 at 11:07 PM | Richard Betts
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/25/maddoprize.html?currentPage=2#comments
Perhaps, Richard,
“As someone who likes to check things out for myself (hence why I read the sceptic literature like HSI etc)” Jul 6, 2012 at 8:20 PM | Richard Betts
You would like to turn to page 259 of the Hockey Stick Illusion
Under the heading “AN interlude: Dr Thompson’s Thermometer you will find
“...There is indeed a mention of the Hockey Stick in An Inconvenient Truth, when Gore makes the case that the Hockey Stick is supported by ice core records:
[S]o-called global warming skeptics often say that global warming is really an illusion reflecting nature’s cyclical fluctuations. To support their view, they frequently refer to the Medieval Warm Period. But as Dr Thompson’s Thermometer shows, the vaunted Medieval Warm Period (the third little red blip from the left below) was tiny in comparison to the enormous increases in temperature in the last half-century – the red peaks at the far right of the graph. These global-warming skeptics – a group diminishing almost as rapidly as the mountain glaciers – launched a fierce attack against another measurement of the 1000 year correlation between CO2 and temperature know as the ‘Hockey Stick’, a graphic image representing the research of climate scientist Michael Mann and his colleagues. But in fact scientists have confirmed the same basic conclusions in multiple ways with Thompson’s ice core record as one of the most definitive.” 166
‘Dr Thompson’ was a reference to Lonnie Thompson, a distinguished paleoclimatologist who recreated temperatures from ice core records; his ‘thermometer’ was simply a reference to these temperature reconstructions. So according to Gore, Thompson’s ice core reconstruction confirmed Mann’s work – another independent confirmation to add to those shown by North in the NAS report”
166 Gore A. An inconvenient truth: the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it. Rodale Books; 2006.
As you will no doubt already be aware Al Gore’s movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was shown in many of our schools so even if you have ‘not heard of the Thompson data until now’ many of our schoolchildren will have done so.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/an-inconvenient-truth/
[One wonders if this is why the UK Govt saw the need to obtain the services of Al Gore as an advisor on Global Warming alongside those provided by the Met Office! ]
No doubt they too will be of the opinion that this ‘one of the most definitive’ ice core records falls under the Slingo petition statement that claimed
“... the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support of the scientific method...”
Except it doesn’t does it but is yet another example where the data is NOT archived.
Along with Forest et al 2006 ‘One of the seminal sensitivity estimates’
“One of the seminal sensitivity estimates is Forest et al 2006. Nic reports that he tried for over a year to get data for this study with Forest finally saying that the raw data was now “lost”.
"I have been trying for over a year, without success, to obtain from Dr Forest the data used in Forest 2006…. Unfortunately, Dr Forest reports that the raw model data is now lost."
Nic was able to to get data for two predecessor studies and has concluded that the calculations in Forest et al 2006 were done erroneously:
"If I am right, then correct processing of the data used in Forest 2006 would lead to the conclusion that equilibrium climate sensitivity (to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere) is close to 1°C, not 3°C, implying that likely future warming has been grossly overestimated by the IPCC."
This is important stuff. Nic is very sharp, Forest et al is an important paper and Nic’s conclusions are damning. It’s frustrating that, after all the controversy, climate journals don’t require authors to archive data and that IPCC authors continue to “lose” data.” "
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/25/nic-lewis-on-forest-et-al-2006/
Richard,
Despite my earlier request you have failed to “provide a link to the empirical evidence to support the statement that
"Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations"
from those scientists who are 'more representative of the climate science community as a whole'” and archive their data according to the scientific method.
Is there ANY substantive evidence such as claimed?
Marion, some people regard it as "not done" to ask embarrassing, awkward, unanswerable questions. Richard Betts knows the score all right: you're just making him feel bad.
NaughtyGood girl.Re: Jul 7, 2012 at 3:26 PM | shub
" "Cuccinelli lives in Virginia, so his family was endangered by the derecho. This man even endangers his own children’s futures with his climate change denialism. When I see pictures of him with all his innocent children, I am reminded of the pictures of the propagandist Joseph Goebbels with his innocent children who were all destroyed by poison and their father's mendacity."
This is from an article Michael E Mann, scientist, has tweeted. To thousands of his followers.
You can decide what kind of a guy he is, from what he finds worthy."
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Shub, when they're not appealing on behalf of 'the innocent children' they're trying to indoctrinate them.
"...This calculator helps children to determine how much of a "greenhouse pig" a person is by answering questions about how much the person spends and consumes. On the basis of these answers the calculator determines the person's CO2 consumption, which is depicted by making the cartoon "greenhouse pig" look bigger, fatter, dirtier and angrier. When the child has answered the questions they are instructed to click on a skull and cross-bones symbol to find out when the person should die, depicted by having the pig explode in a bloody cartoon mess leaving only a pool of blood and a curly tail...Aside from learning when they should die, children can also share in Greena's adventures as she battles against all sorts of politically incorrect villains. In Episode 10, which bears the subtitle "Meat Is Murder … But Who Is that Dodgy-Looking Sheep?" Greena sees a dim-witted skinhead eating lamb and drinking beer in a restaurant.[8] She consults her "Activist Tactical Field Guide," which tells her:
REMEMBER: Most meat eaters are total hypocrites. Try confronting them with a live version of their favourite meat. "
This sort of political brainwashing has no place in our schools.
http://mises.org/daily/2997
Not only is the hypocrisy staggering -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html
but it can also have an incredibly evil effect -
"Police marksmen shot dead a lone gunman carrying a bomb who had taken three employees hostage at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel near Washington DC...The suspect, James Lee, 43, had previously served two weeks in jail after staging a protest against the channel’s supposed lack of commitment to protecting the environment. .... When Lee organised a protest outside the same building in February 2008, he issued a six-page set of demands to Discovery, saying the channel “must broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet....At his trial, he said he became committed to that cause after being laid off from his job in San Diego. He said he had been inspired by “Ishmael,” a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn and by former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”. A lengthy posting on Lee's website said Discovery and its affiliates should stop "encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants...Instead, he said, the channel should broadcast "programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility." "Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is," reads the site. "Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!" it says.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7976513/Gunman-shot-after-taking-hostages-at-Discovery-Channel-headquarters.html
Re: Jul 8, 2012 at 11:08 AM | simon abingdon
"Marion, some people regard it as "not done" to ask embarrassing, awkward, unanswerable questions. Richard Betts knows the score all right: you're just making him feel bad. NaughtyGood girl."
Sorry, Simon, I'll try to do better ! ;->
Jul 8, 2012 at 9:53 AM | Marion
Hi Marion
OK, fair enough, I should have been aware of Thompson - I guess the name didn't register permanently when I read HSI. Sorry about that!
(Incidentally, just to prove I have actually read it, the passage you mention is on page 257 in my copy, not 259! I guess it changed when Andrew revised it last year - I have the 2011 edition).
But this still underlines my point that, in my view anyway, palaeo data is not the primary evidence for the late 20th Century warming probably being mostly human-caused. The uncertainties are clearly very large, so although I think it is worth studying palaeoclimatology in order to understand things better and try to narrow the uncertainties, I personally do not feel the need to rely on suggestions of "unprecedented warming" to be happy with the AR4 conclusion on probable human contributions to recent warming.
Nevertheless I do think that it was a mistake for IPCC to rely so much on the Hockey Stick for their top-level conclusions in the TAR, and similarly for Al Gore to do the same (because, as I say, the uncertainties are large).
For discussion of evidence, please go to Rhoda's discussion thread "Where's my best evidence?"
Cheers
Richard
Re: Jul 9, 2012 at 11:56 AM | Richard Betts
Hi Richard,
As I requested evidence of why you had signed the Julia Slingo petition stating that
"We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method. The science of climate change draws on fundamental research from an increasing number of disciplines, many of which are represented here. As professional scientists, from students to senior professors, we uphold the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which concludes that Warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."."
I can understand why you should wish to exclude palaeo as the evidence certainly disputes the section on "scientists ...who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method" which was somewhat misleading as far as that particular area is concerned.
However to clarify are you saying that your best
"empirical evidence to support the statement that
"Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations"
from those scientists who are 'more representative of the climate science community as a whole'” and archive their data according to the scientific method".
is the Harries et al paper in which case I would appreciate a link to that particular paper as requested (to avoid any possible confusion)
And do you believe it supports the policies on CO2 currently being implemented around the world?
Thanks,
Marion
The uncertainties are large indeed, and good palaeo evidence would work to reduce them. In fact when warmists had the hockey stick, they used it quite rightly to suggest that they had a handle on the range of natural variation if not the cause. Absent the hockey stick and in the face of past warm periods (of which the MWP is not the most convincing) I don't see how anybody can claim they really know what causes the variation. Suspect, maybe. But know? That means that any conclusion on attribution is little more than a guess. And in the case where one knows the answer beforehand, less than a guess. I think that is where you are with attribution. And any model failing to explain the holocene optimum or the roman WP or the MWP or the LIA all at once is not going to give you then answer.
In 1997, the late Dr Robert Stevenson, Oceanographer, wrote about "The Fraud of Environmentalism", http://american_almanac.tripod.com/globwarm.htm. Note that he is speaking about 1974:
"Not so long ago, in the early 1970s, climate scientists thought in 100,000-year cycles, or at least 10,000-year cycles, and were talking about global cooling. The National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences both began looking at the Ice Age concept, and beating the bushes to look for scientists who would research climate. The emphasis seemed to be not so much one of science, but of devising scenarios to explain how climate change might be very rapid--and might adversely and drastically affect human behavior, for example, forcing entire populations to move south. (Because of the cold!)
At the time (1974), the disaster-is-coming atmosphere was so thick, that I submitted, tongue-in-cheek, a proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) asking for funds to study the Polynesians. My
alleged rationale was that it would be useful to look at a population, which, for some reason, possibly environmental, had packed up all its members and possessions, and travelled via canoe thousands of miles to set up a new civilization on a faraway island. I requested funds for a three-year project that would outfit a large sailing ship, fully equipped, including medical specialists, in order to sail to the less-populated islands, and try to find out from the present residents, what events prompted their ancestors to move. (The idea of the doctors and dentists, was to offer islanders some services in exchange for their history.)
To my great surprise, the NSF was ready to fund this proposal; the funders were crushed to find out it was a joke! The science funding agencies in this period, also gave birth to computer climate modeling. That action buried the actual science of climate, based on study of the solar-astronomical cycles and their correlation with long-term climate changes."
The whole piece is well worth reading as an interesting history of the early deceptions around global warming.
Jul 9, 2012 at 6:34 PM | DennisA
I second the motion! Thank you, Dennis. It is indeed a fascinating read. And I suspect that that there are many parts that tie in quite nicely with BernieL's two recent essays (which I confess I have not yet had time to do more than skim!) on Madrid 1995: Madrid 1995 and The Quest for the Mirror in the Sky
So... still no link to an actual paper, Richard, on YOUR best evidence (as the reason you signed the Slingo petition), simply a link to someone else's where you make a brief cameo appearance simply to claim that the Harries et al paper shows ‘a large difference’ in CO2 effect.
Where elsewhere it is claimed that the differences shown in this paper could simply be an artefact of the different technologies involved some 27 years apart. And wasn’t the 2001 paper subject to a later errata
"Erratum: Increase in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997
JOHN E. HARRIES, HELEN E. BRINDLEY, PRETTY J. SAGOO & RICHARD J. BANTGES
Nature 410, 355; 2001
In Fig. 1a of this paper, the labels for the two curves were inadvertently switched. The grey curve represents IMG and the black curve represents IRIS."
What does this tell us about the ‘robust’ peer review process?
And anyway wasn't this report rather subject to interpretation bias?
http://landshape.org/enm/interpretation-bias/
One might consider yet again that your tactics are diversionary, Richard.
After all wasn’t the ‘Science’ you were defending when you signed the petition in December 2009
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/news/latest/uk-science-statement.html
the ‘Science’ published so recently before by the Met Office in October 2009 and still fresh in the public mind along with all the other hype we’d been subjected to prior to Copenhagen.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/a/quick_guide.pdf
Where it states that
“It’s now clear that man-made greenhouse gases are causing climate change. The rate of change began as significant, has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long-term”
“What is climate change – The Earth’s climate has changed m any times in response to natural causes. The term climate change usually refers to man-made changes that have occurred since the early 1900s”
“For several thousands of years the atmosphere has been delicately balanced, with relatively stable levels of greenhouse gases. Human influence has now upset that balance and, as a result we are seeing climate change”
“Even if global temperatures rise by only 2C 20-30% species could face extinction”
“Unless we limit emissions global temperatures could rise as much as 7C above pre-industrial temperature by the end of the century and push many of the world’s great ecosystems to irreversible decline”
“The main greenhouse gas responsible for recent climate change is CO2. This has been released in huge quantities by our modern way of life...Human activities are increasing other greenhouse gases too, such as methane and nitrous oxide...Both these gases have a powerful greenhouse effect and also contribute to climate change. However they have not been released in such large quantities as CO2 and methane does not last for as long in the atmosphere. So, while they make a significant contribution to climate change, it is man-made CO2 which has by far the greatest influence”
“Even if emissions peak in 2015 and decrease rapidly at around 3% every year after that, there may only be a 50:50 chance of keeping global temperatures rise below 2C”
And then lo and behold the mother of all hockey sticks on page 4 !!!!
“Aren’t all these changes down to the Sun and natural factors? – No. Many factors contribute to climate change. Only when all the factors are considered can we explain the size and patterns of climate change over the last century”
“Since industrialization CO2 has increased significantly. We now know that man-made CO2 is the likely cause of most of the warming over the last fifty years.”
“Are computer models reliable? Yes. Computer models are the only reliable way to predict changes in climate. Their reliability is tested by seeing if they are able to reproduce the past climate, which gives scientists confidence that they can also predict the future.” [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
“All the greenhouse gases combined (the main ones being water vapour, CO2, methane and nitrous oxide) are only a tiny part of the atmosphere, making up less than 0.5%. Yet it is scientifically proven that those gases trap heat, keeping the planet 30C warmer than it would be otherwise and able to sustain life. Any changes in the levels of these gases, such as those recently brought about by human activity, will have a significant effect on global temperatures”
No mention of ‘uncertainties’ here!
So isn’t it true Richard that in the public mind this is the ‘Science’ you were defending by signing the petition stating that “The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method”
And still no regrets after reading the Climategate mails and the Hockey Stick Illusion, really?
Hilary,
Glad you liked the Stevenson piece, you would also like this one, which deals with Trenberth's missing heat. It isn't missing:
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/ocean.html
Written in 2000, "Contrary to recent press reports that the oceans hold the still-undetected global atmospheric warming predicted by climate models, ocean warming occurs in 100-year cycles, independent of both radiative and human influences."
Hi Marion
Thanks for drawing my attention to the fact that old version of the "Warming" brochure is still available. The version you cite, which IMHO did get too close to advocacy, has been replaced with a toned-down version which drops the stuff like "alarming".
Nevertheless, the new version does still include the figure on page 4 which I am not happy with, because it does not properly show the uncertainties in the palaeo portion (they used this figure from the AR4 WG1 Technical Summary when I think it would have been better to use panel (c) from the equivalent figure in the main chapter). Rather sloppy, but I honestly don't think there was a deliberate attempt to downplay the uncertainties there, I think it was just seeing the Summary figure not the underpinning one. Apologies for that.
*BUT* regarding the issues of warming occurring and probably being mostly anthropogenic, I am still happy with the evidence and argument as presented in the IPCC AR4 attribution chapter. Please don't dismiss it simply because it's IPCC - please look at the underlying literature. Maybe it is easier for me to accept the literature than it is for you, since I have actually worked with many of the people in this field, have seen them give talks, discussed the work with them over coffee, etc. This is not an appeal to authority, just my personal experience. Happy to send any papers to you if you want to see them.
Also please note that the Met Office statement focussed only on the existence and probable causes of warming, not it's future magnitude or impacts. I would not, for example, have signed a statement that talked about catastrophic impacts unless we "act now".
Cheers
Richard
Re: Jul 10, 2012 at 2:07 PM | Richard Betts
"I am still happy with the evidence and argument as presented in the IPCC AR4 attribution chapter. Please don't dismiss it simply because it's IPCC - please look at the underlying literature."
Oh indeed I have, Richard, and isn't it true that just as we've seen cherrypicked data used in the palaeo reports prepared by 'Team' members, we've also seen an IPCC process that includes cherrypicked papers (and cherrypicked personnel for lead authors, co-ordinating authors and contributing authors) ie those that don't follow the CAGW meme are discarded in favour of those that do.
"The [IPCC] Bureau has, effectively, a free hand in picking Coordinating Lead
Authors, Lead Authors and Contributing Authors of the report.
Past Lead Author selections have been criticized by other Lead Authors as
being overly dominated by political considerations.
Coupled with the deficiencies in the peer review process, this opens up the
possibility that the IPCC Bureau can pre-determine the conclusions of the
report by its selection of Lead Authors."
"Lead Authors regularly review their own work and that of their critics,
thereby operating in an intellectual conflict of interest.
A large number of Lead Authors, including ones connected to half the
chapters in the Working Group I report and all the chapters in the Working
Group II report, are employed by or serve as advisors to environmental
activist organizations.
Since Lead Authors have the final say over the published text, the
participation of adversarial reviewers partway through the assessment
process does not mitigate the bias created by this situation."
http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mckitrick-ipcc_reforms.pdf
Donna Laframboise has provided an excellent IPCC expose in her book 'The Delinquent Teenager' , containing a summary of the invaluable and detailed information she provides on her website - this for example -
"The IPCC Insiders Club
... certain names pop up again and again in IPCC reports. If shadowy interests were trying to “control the message” in these documents, entrusting key tasks to a small group of people might be an effective strategy...Like Rosenzweig, Australian meteorologist David Karoly filled six separate IPCC roles. He served as a lead author and as a review editor. Along with Rosenzweig he was a lead author of a Technical Summary, a drafting author of a Summary for Policymakers, a member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report, and was also an expert reviewer."
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/25/the-ipcc-insiders-club/
So as for your comment
"Maybe it is easier for me to accept the literature than it is for you, since I have actually worked with many of the people in this field, have seen them give talks, discussed the work with them over coffee, etc." I make no apologies this time for reproducing an earlier comment -
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"As for Richard Betts claim
""I know David Karoly and am confident he'll help ensure that a good job is done. "
it does rather depend on what he considers to be a 'good job' !
As I've said David Karoly's critique of Bob Carter's book "Climate: The Counter Consensus" was nothing short of disgraceful. To my mind his misrepresentation of his colleague's book should come under academic misconduct.
This for example -
"Lets fall through a rabbit hole and enter a different world: the “Carter reality”. In that world, it is OK to select any evidence that supports your ideas and ignore all other evidence....
In the Carter reality, “there has been no net warming between 1958 and 2005.“ Of course, in the real world, there is no basis for this statement from scientific analysis of observational data. The decade of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s, which was warmer than the 1980s, which was warmer than the 1970s, which was warmer than the 1960s.
So where does Carter’s statement come from? In the Carter reality, he finds a hot year early in the period and a cold year much later, and says there’s been no warming. This would be like saying that winter is not colder than summer because a very hot day in winter might happen to have much the same temperature as a very cold day in summer, ignoring all the other days."
http://theconversation.edu.au/bob-carters-climate-counter-consensus-is-an-alternate-reality-1553
This sort of thing is lapped up by the non-critical AGW supporters, who pay undeserved homage to 'voices from authority' but it takes us sceptics to pursue the actual reality -
The term "no net warming between 1958 and 2005" comes from a Weather Balloon graph on p.61 of Carter's book entitled "Lower atmosphere mean global temperature radiosonde record HadAT2 (from Thorne et al., 2005)
.
The caption reads -
"Fig. 11a Estimated lower atmosphere global temperature records since 1958, based on measurements from weather balloon. Note the presence of (i) cooling from 1958 to 1977; (ii) warming, mostly as a step in 1977, frin 1977-2005; and (iii) no net warming between 1958 and 2005. Over the same time period there has been an 18% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Black dots denote times at which the temperature falls upon the zero anomaly line, ie. no net change has occurred between them."
And Carter makes it quite clear in the text that the temperature records from weather balloons "whilst highly accurate, are available only since 1958 (nearly two climate data points"
P. 59 Climate the Counter Consensus by Bob Carter.
Yet Karoly tries to pass this off as
"So where does Carter’s statement come from? In the Carter reality, he finds a hot year early in the period and a cold year much later, and says there’s been no warming. This would be like saying that winter is not colder than summer because a very hot day in winter might happen to have much the same temperature as a very cold day in summer, ignoring all the other days"
It's quite apparent to me which author provides the greater accuracy so it's interesting that Richard Betts is confident that Karoly will "help ensure that a good job is done" !!! "
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/12/science-by-lucia-cartoon-by-josh-173.html#comments
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Where was Karoly's 'professional integrity' in this absurd portrayal of Professor Bob Carter's book.
Perhaps you're just too close to these people, Richard, to be properly objective.
So I would certainly encourage all to read around the literature, this for example -
"NIPCC vs IPCC
Addressing the Disparity between Climate Models and Observations:
Testing the Hypothesis of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)" by Fred Singer
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/SingerNIPCCvsIPCC_2011.pdf
or this
http://nipccreport.org/reports/reports.html
which I would agree with Jo Nova that
"NIPCC (Nongovernmental-International-Panel-on-Climate-Change): cumulatively more than a thousand dense pages of peer reviewed references, purely scientific, non-politicized discussion of all the evidence. Unlike the IPCC it doesn’t quote activists, magazines, or ignore important papers."
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/dr-paul-bain-replies-about-the-use-of-the-term-denier-in-a-scientific-paper/
rather than your own view of it "drawing rather odd, unsupported conclusions"
and please do link to any reports that help your case but please not "Happy to send any papers to you if you want to see them.", link them here for ALL to see.
Jul 10, 2012 at 4:10 PM | Marion
Marion, Richard seems to have been quite pre-occupied today with his twittering. But I hope he will find time to (finally!) respond to this question - and to others you've asked.
Re: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/dr-paul-bain-replies-about-the-use-of-the-term-denier-in-a-scientific-paper/
A comment of mine in that thread earned me a *star*
Hilary [patting self on back!]
P.S. But if Bish were to award *stars* for comments here, I'd say that your work in this thread (and elsewhere) has earned you at least three *stars* ;-)
Jul 10, 2012 at 4:10 PM | Marion
Ah, the NIPCC report ... we're back on topic with "Scientific Gullibility"!
I'm sorry but this actually made me laugh out loud! There is no way that the NIPCC report can be credibly claimed to be more substantive, reliable and unbiased than IPCC! Have you actually read either publication for yourself? I mean actually read rather than just looked briefly at them, and listened to other people's opinions?
It would appear that the length of the NIPCC document is to some extent achieved by unnecessarily verbose language and repetition of references. The authors often seem to pad out the text with unnecessary phrases such as "At the start of the new millennium, Bard et al. (2000) listed...". Why not just say "Bard et al. (2000) listed..."? There are many examples of this. Also, each chapter contains short references lists after each section, and several papers appear in several of the lists in each chapter - why not just have one list at the end of the chapter?
Really? "Non-politicized"?? Is this phrase non-politicized?
It's from both the Preface and Appendix.
Actually NIPCC does ignore important papers. For example, the Chapter on Biological Effects of Carbon Dioxide Enrichment, a topic of particular interest to me, quite rightly points out that higher CO2 effects can have beneficial effects - but it ignores quite a lot of literature which shows effects smaller than those reported in the studies they cite. It's a rather one-sided discussion. They also give a one-sided discussion of other areas such as solar effects - eg: in the 2009 report they cite Carslaw et al (2002) in support of the cosmic ray hypothesis (even though it was a somewhat non-commital paper), but in the 2011 update they fail to cite Carslaw's more recent paper in which he says "That possible effect looks to be smaller than thought".
But most importantly, compare the way in which the evidence is presented in IPCC and NIPCC and whether their conclusions are actually quantitative and traceable. Lets compare the IPCC AR4 Radiative Forcing Chapter with the NIPCC 2009 Feedback Factors and Radiative Forcing Chapter.
The IPCC chapter lays out very clear, quantitative conclusions (with uncertainty estimates), and presents 15 tables and 24 figures giving quantitative details, very often systematically comparing the results of different studies.
In contrast, the NIPCC chapter does not give clear, quantitative conclusions, so it is difficult to see exactly what they are saying that is quantitatively different to IPCC. Also the NIPCC chapter is almost entirely text, with no tables and only 3 figures (and, incidentally, the 3 figures they do show are actually in agreement with the IPCC chapter anyway!!). Basically it's all very vague, waffly and hard to pin down.
So as a reader, I come away from the NIPCC report with the strong impression that it was intended to look like the IPCC reports in terms of size and style, but when you actually delve into it there is little actual substance.
To be honest I was very disappointed when I read the NIPCC report - I got it thinking "Great, the sceptical argument will be laid out clearly so I can see for myself where the challenges to the IPCC conclusions are!" - but it simply does not do that. NIPCC is style over substance, I'm afraid.
Sure, you can nitpick over IPCC about citing of WWF reports and stupid mistakes with Himalayan glaciers, but those affect a small fraction of the overall thing. An objective reader of the whole of the IPCC AR4 report (especially WG1) will see that almost all of it is deeply grounded in the literature. An objective reader of the NIPCC report will see that it is far less substantial and completely biased.
Jul 10, 2012 at 4:10 PM | Marion
Ah, the NIPCC report ... we're back on topic with "Scientific Gullibility"!
I'm sorry but this actually made me laugh out loud! There is no way that the NIPCC report can be credibly claimed to be more substantive, reliable and unbiased than IPCC! Have you actually read either publication for yourself? I mean actually read rather than just looked briefly at them, and listened to other people's opinions?
It would appear that the length of the NIPCC document is to some extent achieved by unnecessarily verbose language and repetition of references. The authors often seem to pad out the text with unnecessary phrases such as "At the start of the new millennium, Bard et al. (2000) listed...". Why not just say "Bard et al. (2000) listed..."? There are many examples of this. Also, each chapter contains short references lists after each section, and several papers appear in several of the lists in each chapter - why not just have one list at the end of the chapter?
Really? "Non-politicized"?? Is this phrase non-politicized?
It's from both the Preface and Appendix.
Actually NIPCC does ignore important papers. For example, the Chapter on Biological Effects of Carbon Dioxide Enrichment, a topic of particular interest to me, quite rightly points out that higher CO2 effects can have beneficial effects - but it ignores quite a lot of literature which shows effects smaller than those reported in the studies they cite. It's a rather one-sided discussion. They also give a one-sided discussion of other areas such as solar effects - eg: in the 2009 report they cite Carslaw et al (2002) in support of the cosmic ray hypothesis (even though it was a somewhat non-commital paper), but in the 2011 update they fail to cite Carslaw's more recent paper in which he says "That possible effect looks to be smaller than thought".
But most importantly, compare the way in which the evidence is presented in IPCC and NIPCC and whether their conclusions are actually quantitative and traceable. Let's compare the IPCC AR4 Radiative Forcing Chapter with the NIPCC 2009 Feedback Factors and Radiative Forcing Chapter.
The IPCC chapter lays out very clear, quantitative conclusions (with uncertainty estimates), and presents 15 tables and 24 figures giving quantitative details, very often systematically comparing the results of different studies.
In contrast, the NIPCC chapter does not give clear, quantitative conclusions, so it is difficult to see exactly what they are saying that is quantitatively different to IPCC. Also the NIPCC chapter is almost entirely text, with no tables and only 3 figures (and, incidentally, the 3 figures they do show are actually in agreement with the IPCC chapter anyway!!). Basically it's all very vague, waffly and hard to pin down.
So as a reader, I come away from the NIPCC report with the strong impression that it was intended to look like the IPCC reports in terms of size and style, but when you actually delve into it there is little actual substance.
To be honest I was very disappointed when I read the NIPCC report - I got it thinking "Great, the sceptical argument will be laid out clearly so I can see for myself where the challenges to the IPCC conclusions are!" - but it simply does not do that. NIPCC is style over substance, I'm afraid.
Sure, you can nitpick over IPCC about citing of WWF reports and stupid mistakes with Himalayan glaciers, but those affect a small fraction of the overall thing. An objective reader of the whole of the IPCC AR4 report (especially WG1) will see that almost all of it is deeply grounded in the literature. An objective reader of the NIPCC report will see that it is far less substantial and completely biased.
Re: Jul 10, 2012 at 11:05 PM | Hilary Ostrov
Hi Hilary,
Thanks, high praise indeed, and much appreciated especially coming from someone whom I both respect and admire. Your gold star was well-earned.
The Futerra reports are indeed troublesome and highly manipulative. We (as well as our children) are being subjected to a massive propaganda campaign, Interesting to see who the sponsors are and how they spend their income or should I say ours!
http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/RulesOfTheGame.pdf
http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/NewRules_NewGame.pdf
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/we_are_thinking_the_wrong_thoughts.pdf
Not surprising Mann & Co. prefer to spread their propaganda using twitter - very little depth required! After all debating social networking seems to have preoccupied some of the richest and most powerful members of the globe (that and global cooling of course!)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-order/
It seems to me that Climate scientists are either 'jacks-of-all-trades,masters of none' or else their 'expertise' is so limited that they are somewhat incompetent in other scientific areas in what appears to be an all-encompassing subject so ludicrous (and arrogant) to try and exclude others.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/21/the-ridiculousness-continues-climate-complexity-compiled/
And what a strange Orwellian world in which we live where words and their meanings are constantly changing, history can be revised and if the data doesn't fit the theory then the data must be wrong.
Oh, and models are the only reliable way to predict changes in climate!!
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/email-5134-dec-2008-phil-jones-is-much.html
Apologies for the multiple links but I, unlike our Climate 'scientists' believe that information should be freely available, and some few who may still take an interest in this thread may find them useful.
Re: Jul 12, 2012 at 12:49 AM | Richard Betts
Hi Richard,
"An objective reader of the whole of the IPCC AR4 report (especially WG1) will see that almost all of it is deeply grounded in the literature."
"Literature" ? Richard, I'd have more faith if you'd said it was deeply grounded in the science, perhaps your description is more apt, after all, what do the scientists say about the 'science' -
"<1939> Thorne/MetO: Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate theuncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary"
"<3066> Thorne: I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run."
"<1611> Carter: It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group."
"<2884> Wigley: Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...]"
"<4755> Overpeck: The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what's included and what is left out."
"<0414> Coe: Hence the AR4 Section 2.7.1.1.2 dismissal of the ACRIM composite to be instrumental rather than solar in origin is a bit controversial. Similarly IPCC in their discussion on solar RF since the Maunder Minimum are very dependent on the paper by Wang et al (which I have been unable to access) in the decision to reduce the solar RF significantly despite the many papers to the contrary in the ISSI workshop. All this leaves the IPCC almost entirely dependent on CO2 for the explanation of current global temperatures as in Fig 2.23. since methane CFCs and aerosols are not increasing."
"<2009> Briffa:
I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of
all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!"
"<2775> Jones: I too don't see why the schemes should be symmetrical. The temperature ones certainly will not as we're choosing the periods to show warming."
Politicised, Richard, well it's certainly that - what happened to 'objectivity' -
"<0714> Jones: Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital - hence my comment about the tornadoes group."
"<3205> Jones: Useful ones [for IPCC] might be Baldwin, Benestad (written on the solar/cloud issue - on the right side, i.e anti-Svensmark), Bohm, Brown, Christy (will be have to involve him ?)"
"<2495> Humphrey/DEFRA: I can't overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell theirstory. They want the story to be a very strong one and don't want to be madeto look foolish."
"<1485> Mann: the important thing is to make sure they're loosing the PR battle. That's what the site [Real Climate] is about."
http://foia2011.org/
And what about those 'reliable' models -
Email 5134, Dec. 2008, Phil Jones: "...Problem is much of this is down to wacky data. I'm beginning to think that the modelling has lost the real-world agreement between variables"
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/email-5134-dec-2008-phil-jones-is-much.html
Depressingly there's many many more -
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.uk/p/climategate_05.html
If the NIPCC report made you 'laugh out loud' what do you think these mails do to us?
And aren't these the very same people whom you said "I have actually worked with many of the people in this field, have seen them give talks, discussed the work with them over coffee, etc."
So I repeat perhaps you're just too close to them to be truly objective.
And talking of objectivity Richard, you still haven't responded to my comments on David Karoly, remember the guy you recommended as
"I know David Karoly and am confident he'll help ensure that a good job is done. "
well he seems to be at it again this time reviewing Mann's book saying
"Commentators with no scientific expertise, ranging from politicians such as Republican congressman ... to blog writers Stephen McIntyre...have repeatedly promulgated misinformation and sought to launch formal investigations into Mann’s research, claiming professional misconduct or worse, even though it had been peer reviewed and confirmed by other scientists."
So McIntyre 'no scientific expertise' 'repeatedly promulgated minsinformation', really??? this guy seems to have created a virtual reality of his own making.
The actual reality - as Anthony Watts states -
"McIntyre has no scientific expertise? Well he had enough expertise to find what peer reviewers missed, and with that knowledge, knocked your paper out of the running, and back to square one. If that isn’t expertise I don’t know what is."
Was the use of his expertise against suspect papers why you posed the question to him of whether or not he was 'a gratuitous troublemaker' or was it rather than he wanted greater transparency in the IPCC process?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/11/david-karoly-leader-of-the-climate-underground/
[Shame the link to Karoly's actual review is now broken...the least they should have done was withdrawn it with the reason why and issued an apology ... as I said what 'a strange Orwellian world' where history is erased before our very eyes]
As for nitpicking, Richard, isn't this exactly a description of your own words
"The authors often seem to pad out the text with unnecessary phrases such as "At the start of the new millennium, Bard et al. (2000) listed...". Why not just say "Bard et al. (2000) listed..."? There are many examples of this. Also, each chapter contains short references lists after each section, and several papers appear in several of the lists in each chapter - why not just have one list at the end of the chapter?"
As for this latter point I seem to remember that Wegman included references both in the chapters and at the end of his Congressional Review of the Science and was still accused of plagiarism!!!
So what are objective readers really to think - well I shall continue to link to the evidence and let them make up their own minds!!
Re the Wegman Report:
See
http://climateaudit.org/2010/10/12/copygate/
http://climateaudit.org/2010/10/18/bradley-copies-fritts/
and page 13/14
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf
Jul 12, 2012 at 12:49 AM | Richard Betts
"Nitpick[ing]"?!! If that's your "assessment" of the criticisms of the IPCC, perhaps you need a refresher course, Richard!
You might start with the IAC's findings and recommendations. And a re-reading of our host's The Hockey Stick Illusion probably wouldn't hurt. Ditto for Donna Laframboise's The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert.
Or perhaps you'd prefer to (finally!) respond to Marion's long-standing question regarding your praise of Karoly in light of his "review" of Bob Carter's book.
In case you hadn't noticed (or perhaps you would prefer not to acknowledge that you have!) ... in the interim, Karoly has compounded the increasingly well-founded doubts about his integrity and his competencies with his sycophantic "review" of Michael Mann's latest self-serving opus.
And as if that weren't enough, he seems to have done an encore of the latest and greatest in the art and artifice of climate science "publication": The Upside-Down-Under Publish’em and Hold’em trick! On second thoughts ... calling this particular now-you-see-it, now-you-don't act an "encore" at this point may be somewhat premature; it might turn out to be merely a "variant" :-)
I've little doubt that your mileage may very well vary; however, based on Karoly's recent "performances", he has given me (and perhaps a number of others) absolutely no reason to have any level of confidence in his ability to fulfill his responsibilities as a "Review Editor" for AR5's WGII Ch. 25.
Unless, of course, the IPCC chooses to ignore the recommendations of the IAC in this regard - and carries on with its past practice of requiring nothing more (and, who knows ... possibly sometimes less!) than a simple pro-forma sign-off from Review Editors.
I don't doubt that Karoly is quite capable of doing this. He has demonstrated that he has no trouble appending his signature to letters written by others; viz the Feb. 1/2012 letter to the WSJ - signed by him and a few dozen other luminaries in the climate science pantheon, such as Gleick, Mann and Trenberth.
Karoly's name also appears on the (undated but kindly hosted and posted by the Guardian on Feb. 17/2012) "An Open Letter to the (sic) Heartland Institute". Gleick's name was quite conspicuous by its absence on this one; but Mann and Trenberth joined Karoly in this chorus of immoral equivalence.
And I've no idea how conscientious or objective the WWF expects members of its so-called "Scientific Advisory Panel" to be. Perhaps, you might ask Karoly to fill us in on this, since he's a friend of yours (or at least a colleague of whom you appear to think quite highly) - and a member of WWF's SAP.
OTOH, during the course of an October 2011 interview (which coincidentally took place about a week after the launch of Donna's The Delinquent Teenager...), Pachauri appeared to have abandoned yet another of his previously omnipresent and frequently repeated favourite phrases.
"World’s leading experts” have evidently been downgraded in IPCC-speak to “objective, transparent, inclusive talent“. [links to source at Reforming the “non-policy-prescriptive” IPCC]
But ... even with this new, improved description of those who contribute to the production of the IPCC's reports, it seems to me that someone is going to have to ...uh ...redefine "objective" if Karoly is to remain on the roster - in any capacity!
Richard, I dutifully downloaded the "toned-down version" of the Met's 'Warming' brochure, and found it worthy of a school project supervised by the kid-exploding teacher in that infamous video.
Good grief man! Can't you see the activism behind it? To give just one example, the sunny blue-skied cartoon scene on the left (on page 01) is transformed into a foreboding black, white, grey and red depiction of nasty greenhouse gas emitting sources, including a car with an exhaust problem. Pure alarmist propaganda, and very very silly.
Thanks for example to Marion, Richard Betts, and Chris M! I seem to agree with Chris M: Brochures like those ones of the Met Office are hardly, if at all, helpful for the issue: "science".
For example, the so-called toned-down version (: Richard) asserts on page 01 (in a large font of that page):
Question 1: Richard (or others), did something change fundamentally since the latest IPCC so-called Assessment Report, 2007 (AR4)? I don't see how this statement (It's now clear [...]") is justifiable since, for instance, the AR4 reads in the Summary for Policymakers only (my highlight):The Met Office also tells us on the same page of this "essential guide" (: quote from Met Office's brochure):
First, in my opinion everyone (or everything) who (or what) claims to tell us everything shows overexaggerating. That is one of the poorest advertising strategies (Good advertising means that you stick to the facts and, for example, that you tell others how their lives are enriched by your product or what makes your product better than the others.). Second, I already wrote elsewhere (see my comment HERE (Jun 28, 2012 at 11:44 AM)) that the phrase "science tells us" is as inaccurate as authoritative: Science tells us nothing. Scientist do.But in my opinion one of the most famous (AGW) schticks are also at the same place (page 01), written in that brochure in blue colour:
One great schtick is that -- like the UN -- the Met Office defines climate change as man-made changes (...and furthermore as CO2-(C)AGW...). In "their" words/world "climate has changed [in the (long bygone) past?]" means "natural causes" (...as well as today's "stagnation of temperature"...).Another great schtick of that part includes the claim:
Question 2A: Richard (or others), what is the reference/source for the claim: "man-made [climate] changes that have occurred since the early 1900s"? The authors of AR4 suggest that the (temperature/climate) changes before ~1960 could be explained by natural variabilities alone, don't they?Question 2B:Respectively: What "man-made [climate] changes have occurred since the early 1900s"?
Marion
I was going to wait until I'd looked at Bob Carter's book before commenting on David Karoly's remarks about it, but since you and Hilary are keen for an answer, I'll give a view on Carter based on the information that I have available to me e.g.: this article
In this article, Carter makes several incorrect statements, e.g.:
1. He says:
This does not actually agree with what Loehle and McCulloch (2008) said themselves. While Carter shows the L&M figure indicating the MWP warmer than the end of L&M's proxy record (29-year period centred on 1935), he neglects to mention that L&M also point out that:
So actually it seems that L&M do not "confirm greater warmth of the Mediaeval over the Late 20th Century Warm Period"
2. Carter says:
Again this is incorrect. The 6.4 warming was not for a doubling, but for a CO2 rise of over 1100ppm which is more like 4 times pre-industrial CO2 - see the column for A1FI in this figure.
3. Carter says:
Again this is incorrect, as Ed Hawkins shows. The recent slow-down in warming is still within the range simulated by the models - although it is near the lower limit, and there are interesting questions about what is going on here.
So while this is just one article, I'm afraid that it does suggest that Carter seems to have difficulty in getting his facts straight.
Marion
I was going to wait until I'd looked at Bob Carter's book before commenting on David Karoly's remarks about it, but since you and Hilary are keen for an answer, I'll give a view on Carter based on the information that I have available to me e.g.: this article
In this article, Carter makes several incorrect statements, e.g.:
1. He says:
This does not actually agree with what Loehle and McCulloch (2008) said themselves. While Carter shows the L&M figure indicating the MWP warmer than the end of L&M's proxy record (29-year period centred on 1935), he neglects to mention that L&M also point out that:
So actually it seems that L&M do not "confirm greater warmth of the Mediaeval over the Late 20th Century Warm Period"
2. Carter says:
Again this is incorrect. The 6.4 warming was not for a doubling, but for a CO2 rise of over 1100ppm which is more like 4 times pre-industrial CO2 - see the column for A1FI in this figure.
3. Carter says:
Again this is incorrect, as Ed Hawkins shows. The recent slow-down in warming is still within the range simulated by the models - although it is near the lower limit, and there are interesting questions about what is going on here.
So while this is just one article, I'm afraid that it does suggest that Carter seems to have difficulty in getting his facts straight.
Chris M, September 2011
The brochure has been removed from the Met Office website.
Hi Hilary
I accept the IACs criticisms of IPCC, but I also note their headline conclusion in their news release accompanying their report was still:
This is consistent with my view that while there have indeed been problems, these do not invalidate the whole thing.
Cheers
Richard
Thanks very much Richard! I must say that I am impressed, even touched, by your rapid response to the flawed brochure. Its removal is something I would not have dreamt of asking for, much less expected. If this is a sign the Met Office is in the process of establishing itself as a voice of reason in this whole debate, that is very good news indeed!
Richard Betts, you write above at 1:10 AM: "The brochure has been removed from the Met Office website."
Perhaps we have a misunderstanding? I wrote above about the newer, so-called toned-down version of the brochure:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/b/a/Warming_guide_2_Oct2011.pdf
(Chris M commented this brochure too) and that brochure, Warming. A Guide to Climate Change (Met Office 2011), remains downloadable -- and unchanged (as it seems) -- at the same place.
So my questions (see above, Jul 13, 2012 at 1:04 PM) persist.
Richard,
Yes I can confirm that this version Warming_guide_2_Oct2011.pdf is still available online. Oh well ...
Seems that I spoke too soon, but at least your acknowledgment of our posts is positive, I would like to think. It could be viewed as a trivial matter, but because it is in a format that is likely to appeal to 9-16 year olds as school project material, I do believe it is of some concern, due to its bias and inaccuracy.
Richard,
I have been having a little glance at the material available through the Met Office's public portal, and haven't found the downloadable brochure yet, so perhaps you meant that the brochure is not accessible to the public via a link on the website itself?
What I did find though was this:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/impacts/high-end
which describes a 4 degree C warming scenario and includes the following assertions:
That is straightout advocacy for CO2 mitigation policy, which you have previously assured us the Met steers clear of. I don't wish to criticize your colleague, who looks perfectly pleasant, but there is a major gulf between the interpretation of the science as espoused by the Met and what most of the posters here would deem a more objective view.
Is it possible that the Met as an organization has never really gotten beyond the pre-Climategate "the science is settled" meme? And if so how do you, Richard, as one of the Met's senior climate scientists propose to address this issue? Have Judith Curry's protestations about uncertainty been like water off a duck's back? Is the Met in a time warp, or is climate change "orthodoxy" set in stone for evermore?
I'm feeling bemused and hope you can find the time to reply.
Re: Jul 14, 2012 at 1:03 AM | Richard Betts
"I was going to wait until I'd looked at Bob Carter's book before commenting on David Karoly's remarks about it, but since you and Hilary are keen for an answer, I'll give a view on Carter based on the information that I have available to me"
so where is your commentary on " David Karoly's remarks about it" - all you have given us is a diatribe against Carter and if your first example is anything to go by it is not Carter who has 'difficulty in getting his facts straight". As it appears to me that the phrase
"Even adding this rise to the 1935 reconstructed value, the MWP peak remains 0.07 Deg C above the end of the 20th Century values" Loehle and McCulloch (2008)
DOES actually
"confirm greater warmth of the Mediaeval over the Late 20th Century Warm Period"
so it would seem that we are still waiting for an answer regarding Karoly's remarks on both Carter's book, and now on his defamation of Steve McIntyre and whether you stand by your comment that you
"know David Karoly and am confident he'll help ensure that a good job is done. "
Jul 14, 2012 at 1:25 AM | Richard Betts
Interesting straw-man you've succeeded in introducing, Richard! Who has suggested that the "problems ... invalidate the whole thing"?! Whatever "the whole thing" might be! But that aside ...
I believe this comment of yours is in response to the intro of my comment of Jul 13, 2012 at 4:21 AM in which (to review the bidding, so to speak) I had written:
How very silly of me to even think that the importance of the conclusion(s) pertaining to that which IAC did review should be more worthy of note than that which they had made perfectly clear that they did not.
And I must have compounded my egregious "sin" by not giving sufficient weight to the "news release".
Had I done so, I would - of course - have come to the same (originally stated) "conclusion" as RB: i.e. that criticisms of the IPCC were - for all (his?!) intents and purposes - mere "nitpicking".
I would also note (as Marion has done) that RB has once again chosen not to address the Karoly issues as identified by the evidence repeatedly presented to him - but rather to engage in yet another of his (far too frequent for my liking) flippant and (deliberately?!) diversionary dances - and/or diatribes - to distance the discussion from the primary matter(s) of concern.
And let us not mince words here: the primary matters of concern are Karoly's behaviours and credibility. Not - as RB would appear to prefer that an unsuspecting lurker believe - that of Carter.
One wonders what RB will use as his next defense of Karoly. Maybe he'll wait a few days, then he'll drag in a quote from Karoly's - now-you-see-it, now-you-don't sycophantic "review" of Mann's latest self-serving opus ;-)
Richard Betts, re: your 1) above on Bob Carter, I find it interesting that David Karoly and Joelle Gergis themselves tried to make hay recently, with an insignificant difference of 0.09C in their (currently dubious) study Gergis et al (2012). These were oral remarks at the media conference for their paper. They emphasized at least 4 times that this (insignificant) difference of 0.09C they found for 1961-1990 temps above the medieval high somehow means that there is no "MWP" for Australasia. These are my notes of the presser but the audio can be listened to at the second link below.
What they both did claim is that there was no significant MWP at all for Australasia, which seems like a very strange thing to say unless the medieval temps are signficantly lower. AND, Karoly did claim specifically that the recent temps are the warmest in the past thousand years with "very high probability" -- a claim of significance not borne out by his data it would seem. If Carter is to be taken to task over 0.07C then in fairness Karoly and Gergis should also be taken to task in the same way over making so much of 0.09C:
Karoly and Gergis think finding 0.09C difference between recent and medieval temps means there was "no MWP" in Australasia
Gergis and Karoly both emphasize that they a found maximum medieval temp. for 1238-1267 was 0.09C below 1961-1990.
Karoly and Gergis say 0.09C difference means "no substantial MWP in the Australian region"
Karoly: their study "shows for the first time that there was no substantial MWP in the
Australian region."
Karoly: "so there wasn't a MWP affecting Australia"
Karoly: "and there has been no period in at least the last thousand years which as been as warm as the past fifty years, with a very high probability"
Re: Jul 15, 2012 at 6:27 AM | Skiphil
We must also remember the problems with the temperature monitoring sites and the data collected with numerous station 'drop-outs' -
"Smith finds the Australian dropout31 was mainly among higher-latitude, cooler stations after 1990, with the percentage of city airports increasing to 71%, further enhancing apparent warming. The trend in “island Pacific without Australia and without New Zealand” is dead flat. The Pacific Ocean islands are NOT participating in “global” warming. Changes of thermometers in Australia and New Zealand are the source of any change."
Look at the very interesting graph on p 32 of this report, the huge decrease in the number of temperature monitoring stations after 1990. Our climatologists then proceed to infil the missing data using computer models!!!
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
To my way of thinking it's a case of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) as far as the models are concerned!!
Also I would repeat Steve McIntyre's question of why Karoly and Gergis excluded the Law Dome data from their temperature reconstruction.
This data is used for the critical RF calculation
"For the RF calculation, the data from Law Dome ice cap in the Antarctic are used because they show the highest age resolution (approximately 10 years) of any ice core record in existence. In addition, the high-precision data from the cores are connected to direct observational records of atmospheric CO2 from Cape Grim, Tasmania."
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-3.html
"Despite the overwhelming importance of O18 as a paleoclimate proxy and the importance of Law Dome as a high-accumulation (high-resolution) core, the Law Dome O18 record shown here has never been archived (or even published by the authors.) "
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/03/gergis-two-medieval-proxies/
It would seem to me that the Law Dome data series is crucial for the use of palaeo reconstructions yet goes largely ignored - wonder why that is?!!
Re: Jul 14, 2012 at 2:52 PM | Chris M.
"Is it possible that the Met as an organization has never really gotten beyond the pre-Climategate "the science is settled" meme? And if so how do you, Richard, as one of the Met's senior climate scientists propose to address this issue? Have Judith Curry's protestations about uncertainty been like water off a duck's back? Is the Met in a time warp, or is climate change "orthodoxy" set in stone for evermore?"
I suspect it is the latter, Chris, a useful souce to find an organization's general direction is the Statement of Accounts where we can read the statements of their senior personnel.
"How is the Met Office continuing to drive
climate‑change science?
We have a vital role to play in developing and
communicating information about climate change.
We were the trusted partner of the Department of
Energy and Climate Change (DECC), chosen to brief
ministers and other participants at last November’s 17th
Conference of the Parties (COP17) in Durban, South
Africa. And we’re doing the same in the lead up to
Rio+20 — the United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development that takes place in Brazil in June 2012.
Although global economic challenges have led some
to engage less with climate change and its effects, one
simply can’t escape the fact there are more extreme
weather events occurring globally. We are grateful that
more people appreciate that what we’re doing at the
Met Office is critical. The recent £60 million investment
in a three‑year programme of Met Office climate science
by DECC and the Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra) highlights how important they consider
it that we understand the challenges of climate change....."
(Robert Napier, Chairman of the Met Office Board)
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc01/0122/0122.pdf
So it's thanks in part to Defra for £60 million investment and remember that Defra featured in the Climategate mails -
""<2495> Humphrey/DEFRA: I can't overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don't want to be made to look foolish."
- context re. the Weather Generator
(the sites of the validation stations are quite interesting!)
http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/media.jsp?mediaid=87941&filetype=pdf
Jul 14, 2012 at 11:15 PM | Marion
I have got my facts straight. The statement by Loehle and McCulloch on their conclusions, which I quoted and which you have re-quoted and cut short, was:
(my italics)
But anyway, I’ve now looked at Bob Carter’s book Climate: The Counter Consensus and also the paper Revisiting radiosonde upper air temperatures from 1958 to 2002 by Thorne et al (2005) on the HadAT radiosonde record that he cites.
Your concern was with a statement by David Karoly in his review of Carter’s book:
These comments by Karoly were about Carter’s figure caption which stated:
I disagree with your claim above on Jul 6, 2012 at 2:43 PM that Karoly "misrepresented Carter’s work". Carter’s figure 11a is based on Thorne et al’s Figure 9 (lower panel), which shows the global mean temperature anomaly at 500hpa. Let’s put aside the fact that this only goes to 2002, not 2005 as stated by Carter (it may just be a typo). Karoly is correct that Carter has used 2 individual years to support a statement about a lack of long-term warming. Carter’s statement of "no net warming" does not reflect the conclusion of Thorne et al themselves – in their figure 10, they show a warming trend of about 0.1 K/decade at 500hpa.
The point is, internal variability means that year-to-year temperatures vary up and down, so comparing two individual years does not give an accurate impression of longer-term changes in climate. It is important to look at runs of years not just individual ones, as "climate" refers to more than just one year. The first and last years in Thorne’s figure 9 are indeed at about the same temperature, but this does not represent the differences in longer-term averages - even just by looking at the figure by eye, it can clearly be seen that the last decade or so is (on average) warmer than the first decade or so.
Incidentally, the HadAT data are available here if you want to look at it for yourself. Currently data are available up to March 2012, and this month it will be updated as far as June 2012.
So to answer your original question: no, this does not at all reduce my confidence that David Karoly will ensure that a good job is done in the revisions to the Gergis et al paper.
I think it has been established beyond all doubt that Steve McIntyre's analytical and statistical skills surpass those of Karoly and Gergis by a large margin. Yet Richard's silence on Stephen's perspicacity and integrity remains deafening. What a sad state of affairs.
Re: Jul 16, 2012 at 11:49 AM | Richard Betts
"Karoly is correct that Carter has used 2 individual years to support a statement about a lack of long-term warming"
But is this true, Richard?
Far from selecting two 'individual' years as Karoly, and now it seems you, appear to claim, Carter was using the start point and end point (as used in Thorne et al 2005) of the then available radiosonde data (unlike so many Climate scientists who tend to 'truncate' the use of data). So Karoly was indeed misrepresenting Carter by claiming he simply 'finds' 'a hot year early in the period and a cold year much later, and says there’s been no warming' and that "Of course, in the real world, there is no basis for this statement from scientific analysis of observational data"
See again
"Fig. 11a Estimated lower atmosphere global temperature recors since 1958, based on measurements from weather balloon. Note the presence of (i) cooling from 1958 to 1977; (ii) warming, mostly as a step in 1977, from 1977-2005; and (iii) no net warming between 1958 and 2005. Over the same time period there has been an 18% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Black dots denote times at which the temperature falls upon the zero anomaly line, ie. no net change has occurred between them."
There were actually three black dots on the zero anomaly line on the graph, one at 1958, one at 1977 and one at 2002 (I'm inclined to agree with you that there has been some sort of transposition error in the caption as the graph does indeed only go up to 2002 and that 2005 in the captions should read 2002), which as Carter explains shows the cyclical nature of the temperatures
(i) cooling from 1958 to 1977
(ii) warming, mostly as a step in 1977, from 1977-2005 [2005 shd read 2002]
(iii) no net warming between 1958 and 2005 [2005 shd read 2002]
He was very much illustrating the cyclical nature of temperatures in a chapter headed "Dangerous Twentieth Century Warming? The short meteorological record"
It is Carter's contention that
"...climate change needs to be studied in the context of geological time-scales, and that these time-scales range all the way up to millions of years. Such conclusions, though are drawn from proxy, geological data, and need to be considered alongside the evidence from actual measurements of temperature..
[Doesn't this somewhat agree with your own statement that
"In its time, the hockey stick was of course of relevance to the issue covered in the second statement [in the Slingo petition], ie: the causes of the observed warming, but even so, by 2009 it had been superceded by more recent (and better) palaeoclimate reconstructions"]
"..The mercury thermometer was invented in the early eighteenth century, but estimating a global temperature requires accurate observational records from a suitable worldwide network of reliable thermometer observing stations.."
"...Warming, however, did not proceed in a single, steadily rising curve. Instead, and as for all extended climate records of adequate resolution, the thermometer data display a multi-decadal rythmicity with alternating periods of warming and cooling..."
"...Though it is in widespread use , the thermometer temperature dataset is far from perfect; for its earlier part is based on rather too few high quality station records, and its later part, since around 1980, is known to be contaminated by the urban heat island effect and by the closure of many rural stations in the 1990s..."
"...Warming through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries represents a recovery from the last severe stages of the Little Ice Age, superimposed on which are natural multi-decadal climate cycles.."
So isn't it true that in the greater 'context' Karoly was indeed misrepresenting Carter by claiming he simply 'finds' a hot year early in the period and a cold year much later, and says there’s been no warming, and isn't it also true that selecting just one or two decades "does not give an accurate impression of longer-term changes in climate"?
And wasn't the updated question waiting for an answer -
"regarding Karoly's remarks on both Carter's book, and now on his defamation of Steve McIntyre"
so can you possibly be agreeing with Karoly's comment that
"Commentators with no scientific expertise, ranging from politicians such as Republican congressman ... to blog writers Stephen McIntyre...have repeatedly promulgated misinformation"
and if not then how can you state that
"this does not at all reduce my confidence that David Karoly will ensure that a good job is done in the revisions to the Gergis et al paper". ??
Well, it has left my degree of confidence unchanged also, so I have to kind of agree with Richard.
Well I suppose if your confidence was rock-bottom anyway then it would remain unchanged but perhaps you'd care to clarify, Rhoda
Jul 16, 2012 at 4:37 PM | Rhoda Klapp
Oh, you are wicked, Rhoda ;-)
But that aside, a few things occur to me - apart from the fact that, once again, one has learned far more from that to which Richard chooses not to respond than from that to which he does. And that which I've learned is certainly reducing my confidence in his "assessment" skills and ability to be objective.
In previous discussions regarding the far from "gold standard" performance of the IPCC in so many areas, my recollection is that after mounting valiant but unsustainable defenses, Richard concluded by observing that the IPCC isn't perfect but it's the best we've got. So it is probably not surprising that his name is not found in the IAC's list of respondents to their questionnaire.
He is obviously choosing not to acknowledge Karoly's latest antics. As Chris M. has noted above, Richard's silence is deafening. One might add this silence to the little dances of diversion he did on the Maddox thread - where he hasn't been seen since June 28, when he chose to invest his time in a 226 word essay answering questions I had not asked, and using this as an excuse not to address issues in the original Gergis thread, which I note he exited on the same day with one of his flippancies.
All things considered, it comes as little surprise to me that Richard should now claim that he still has confidence that "David Karoly will ensure that a good job is done ...".
But I do wonder if his "translation" is more along the lines of Beddington's confidence that Oxburgh's report would be a "blinder well-played" (as it turned out to be, from his perspective!) than of any understanding we lesser beings might have of "ensuring that a good job is done".
Marion, sometimes I leave things short of total clarity, but your impression is correct.
Hilary, I am reluctant to ask too much of Richard. He has to deal with people like Karoly and the CRU. He can't be seen here casting doubt on their integrity and then go to meetings with them. He also has a limit on how much he can go against the position of his employer. It's fun to put him on the spot a little though.
Now if only he would come back with a response on my purely scientific question about the Harries paper..