Discussion > Why Do Climate Scientists Believe That There's a Debate To Be Had
I really am not at all sure why Commodore Drake is trying to stir up a war with TBYJ (presumably a vanity thing), but I still wonder why no one thinks it interesting that Betts and Hawkins are using this GWPF publication to claim that "the science is settled" so let's concentrate on the policies, and why no one seems to be picking up that people such as Spence, who contribute to this blog, are pointing out that there are divergent views about the science, held by people such as Tsonis. Are Betts and Hawkins and co making a power-grab for funding against these other viewpoints?
Do people on this thread agree with the viewpoint that the science is settled? If you do not, then you should be pointing out to Betts and co that their models are WRONG.
diogenes
Diogenes,
We always knew there would be a period, as the consensus meme disintegrated, when they would start squabbling amongst themselves. Early adopters, and those with less entrenched interests, would become more amenable to lower CS estimates before the most deeply entrenched 'troughers'
The question is should we interfere, or leave them to it? What will speed the sinking of the good ship Catastrophe?
TheBigYinJames
Richard Drake:
> You haven't addressed my point much earlier that, ...
climate scepticism existed in the form of Richard Lindzen
and other scientists questioning the edicts of Al Gore and
James Hansen from 1988 onwards.
Was it addressed to me? I'm flattered. Lindzen and his friends had their reasons I guess, amongst them the $2500 a day consulting fees perhaps. As far as I'm aware despite 20 years effort they haven't falsified the CO2/AGW hypothesis.
> Sceptic blogs have come late to the game but the best read
of them all, Watts Up With That, has often given a platform
to Lindzen.
The "best read"? Are you serious? Have you seen the level of ignorance of the commenters there? Even I know they are barking. Have you seen the degree of stupidity of some of the articles? If that is the "best" scepticism has then it is a poor show. Then again the competition is not so hot, is it?
> Nigel Lawson ... recently called the MIT man the most
distinguished climate scientist on the planet.
What does Lawson know about it? Do you think he is a credible judge or that I respect his opinion?
> Lindzen has always said there is no doubt that humans
influence climate and that radiative physics would suggest
CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Well he'd be even more of a pariah if he hadn't.
> The question has been how much warming will take place for
an increase in CO2.
Whose question? Linzden's or sceptics'? Any dozen sceptics couldn't agree what "the question" was if locked in a room and denied lavatory rights until the decided. You'd have a perfect mess before any perfect agreement.
> The 0.7 deg C rise since 1850 (and the lesser one since
1950) have always suggested that sensitivity must be low.
No it hasn't. There's plenty of sceptics who (until their unlikely conversion in recent days) haven't even accepted that there has been a rise. One of these days I'll trawl back through BH and collect some quotes from those new converts.
> That's how the debate has always been framed by
'mainstream scepticism' as TBYJ called it - but his account
signally failed to do justice to this history.
Well TBYJ is one of the few here who I really believe haven't changed their views to "lukewarm" to fit the prevailing sceptic fashion.
> The blog/pseudonym bubble is its own trap.
What?
> Look at the broader sweep of history. One side has been
proved right. Hansen's scary projections in 1988 now look
exceedingly stupid.
Hansen made a variety of predictions I think. I had understood some of these have turned out to be quite accurate. Which predictions were stupid?
> The pause in globally averaged temperature anomaly rise
since 1997 is entirely in line with Lindzen's view nine
years before.
What pause? Why 1997? Temps have continued to rise since 1997. Lindzen predicted lower temps 20 years hence in 2004 but was apparently only prepared to bet on it if he got 50:1 odds. Seems like his confidence in his predictions is a little weak.
> Escaping the bubble requires facing up to these basic, and
for you unwelcome, facts.
Did you state some facts? I must have missed them.
TheBigYinJames:
> I have disagreed with just about everybody here at some
point, and now Chandra calls me a warmist :)
Actually it was a typo, sorry (from the quote following it, I think that was clear :-) You do seem unique here in not subscribing to the "adoration of the fossils" (as I think I've said before, I don't really take seriously the views of anyone who is unable to discuss honestly both the pro's and cons of fossil fuels - Johanna failed this test most recently on the "What so complicated..." thread). I'm not really sure whether we disagree about anything, although I guess there's bound to be something...
Chandra
Richard Betts writes:
HilaryThanks for the correction. In quoting Nigel Lawson see I incorrectly inserted an extra word, "any", making it an inaccurate quote.
In my post at Mar 10, 2014 at 1:14 AM, my second sentence should have said:
Only a month ago Nigel Lawson was on the radio saying things like "even if there is warming"….
(without the "any").
No "LOL" or "/sarc"? Really? :-\
Simon Hopkinson
Entropic Man writes:
Mike Jackson(my emphasis)The 1.2C per doubling calculated by Arrhenius is the primary forcing due to CO2 alone. You will find general agreement on this among even the sceptical scientists such as Pielke and Curry. There are sky dragon slayers who disagree, but it on the basis of normal physics.
The disagreement is about the secondary forcings, such as changes in water vapour, cloud cover etc. These can amplify that 1.2C. The total forcing is the climate sensitivity.
Can, could, might, may.. DO?
Amplify? Are you sure? Is anyone? Stick strictly to the science, please. Perhaps you think this is a minor detail, but the devil is in the detail and it is absolutely essential to get this resolved because everything pivots on it. You can't hand waive over this stuff. We're sick to the back teeth with people doing that, and it's precisely why we're where we are at right now.
Simon Hopkinson
Incidentally, EM, apart from the point I raised regarding the sign of the forcing and its impact, do please note that the rest of your post is just repeating back to us what we already said, just a page or so ago. Is this a refresher for your own sake or do you think it helps us? I really wanna know.
Simon Hopkinson
EM
I'm quite happy to along with Arrhenius even though he had two goes at it and who is to say he was right the second time?
But I'm not prepared to go along with the positive feedback. Warmists need the feedback to be positive or their whole raison d'être falls apart. So far there is not one shred of empirical evidence to support that assertion and increasingly over the last few years the climate itself and assorted papers have made it more likely that feedback may be marginally positive but is more likely to be neutral or negative.
You are the one who keeps looking for alternatives and falsification. Only the warmists' computer games have so far had any luck in falsifying Arrhenius. 1.2° is about the best you're going to get.
Mike Jackson
Simon Hoskinson, Mike Jackson
Your best one-stop -shop for forcing is Hansen et all 2013. You can download it here.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha08510t.html
Read pages 11, 12 and the top of 13 and come back.
Entropic man
Respect to Betts to reading and responding to Ostrov's placing of Lawson's words in context. I've made my point about other matters. Thanks to geronimo for a stimulating thread.
Richard Drake
Can you check your page numbers EM? On the pages you indicate, I only see projections based on simulations. Let me know new page numbers.
Simon Hopkinson
Given Hansen's track record, EM, why would I waste my time believing a word he says?
Any sign of New York being under water yet? The man's a panicmonger and always has been. The "science" comes a pretty poor second as far as he is concerned.
Mike Jackson
Given Hansen's track record, EM, why would I waste my time believing a word he says?
No need to bother looking, Mike.. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2013/2013_Hansen_etal_5.pdf states:
Our calculated global warming as a function of CO2 amount is based on equilibrium climate sensitivity 3°C for doubled CO2. That is the central climate sensitivity estimate from climate models
EM, I've said this so many times before, but probably not so often since you arrived on the scene: Climate models are not simulations of reality, they are not reality at all. Their product (simulation data) is not real data. A GCM is at best a very good look at a working hypothesis in the mind/s of climate modellers. As such, it has value.
However, it is simply not acceptable to defer to a climate model in preference over observation and describe that process as "science." It demeans the very word. The climatology community's habit of elevating simulation data to the level of regard afforded empirical evidence is immensely damaging not just to climatology but to all sciences. It has to stop.
Simon Hopkinson
diogenes
No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying let's focus the discussion on the areas of science that we are less sure of - i.e.: what the range of actual impacts of future climate change may be. Apart from anything else, it's more interesting - but also, an appreciation of what's well-known and what's uncertain is an important part of public (and policymaker) understanding of science.
As I've said before many times here, future impacts of climate change is an area where the certainty of imminent huge impact seems to be overstated in some quarters, and it concerns me that this could lead to bad decisions (eg. spending money on upgrading flood defences or transport / water infrastructure too early or unnecessarily).
geronimo
I do try to "tone down the panic forecasts" (for the reasons I state above) and, yes, some people don't like that. And yes, the reason I join conversations here is indeed to try to have a dialogue and understand where people are coming from - it's certainly not to "impart information".
There may indeed be some positives as well as negatives - see, for example, this article about a paper on which I am a co-author.
Richard Betts
Simon Hopkinson
See myreply (I'm sure you have!) to EM last night.
I seriously don't see climatology as a discipline going anywhere until its participants open their minds a little bit. They're busy preserving themselves, whether in aspic or alcohol I couldn't say.
Can they not get away from the idea that their first and only reaction to the likes of Lewis & Crok has to be "how can we prove this wrong?" I can understand that reaction from the organ grinder's monkey but from people who are supposedly scientists?
A bit off topic, this is exactly where their communication of the science falls down. I am quite prepared to believe that Lewis & Crok is wrong and that Hansen's 3° is right given some evidence (ie facts, not computer games). It is the blinkered refusal to believe that anything but their own computer modelsmust be wrong — regardless of what the real world is telling us all — that sticks in most people's craw. Nobody who calls himself a scientist has the right to be that certain.
Mike Jackson
There is a historical context to this (I really should finish writing that essay I said I'd post here.. oh years ago) - the 80s were a period when science was being attacked by Creationists in the classroom, and there was a real siege mentality in the US that science had to circle the wagons. It didn't help that the very early 'skeptics' (quotes deliberate) were actually the very same people who were pushing the creationist ideas - and tobacco denial, anti-abortion, anti-birth-control and etc.
From then on, science (and climate science) thinks it has been fighting this foe. They still think this is who is behind all dissent. The reason why establishment science appears to be behind them, is because of this misidentification of the enemy. No matter how shoddy the methodologies of Climate Science, there is no way Science was going to break ranks and criticise when faced with the anti-sciencers. Even shoddy science is better than bible-bashing.
The tragedy is that when scientific scepticism came along (and despite the howls, it's only been recently) the tribalism and siege mentality has set in. You're either for science or against it, and being for it means supporting bad swcience because the alternative is far worse.
TheBigYinJames
Hey, thanks for the answer finally, TBYJ! I don't agree if by scientific scepticism you mean the questioning of climate orthodoxy, an orthodoxy which began fully formed as suppressor of dissident views. See the important story in the Boston Globe in May 2010 of how Richard Lindzen got started in 1988 as the result of an extremely illiberal comment from Al Gore, then a senior Senator, in what should have been a relaxed social setting:
In 1988, he began questioning an emerging environmental issue: Man-made climate change. An economist had written him, saying he had been interrupted by then-Senator Al Gore at a Washington lunch for daring to suggest that there was uncertainty about the case for global warming.“That’s when I thought, wow, things have gotten really out of hand,’’ Lindzen said recently.
He reviewed the evidence and came away a skeptic about the projections of future catastrophe. He came to see opportunism in some of those loudly sounding the global warming alarm — especially as they raced to obtain a piece of the growing pot of federal research funding on the topic. The professor who once cast his presidential vote for Democrat Michael Dukakis became a Republican.
By September 1989 we have this being reported from MIT's Tech Talk:
Dire predictions of global warming through the greenhouse effect were roundly criticized last week by Professor Richard Lindzen of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
As can be seen from the Boston Globe and a host of other articles Dr Lindzen has never been accused of bible-bashing. Such misdirection has been at the heart of the very dishonest alarmist case from the start. So there we have it: illiberal from the start, dishonest from the start and using wholly inappropriate analogies with the Holocaust from the start. It took courage to stand up to all this from senior figures but Lindzen and others did and the arguments they used were always streets ahead of anything in the warmist playbook. I stick to that point of view.
Richard Drake
Yes, you like Lindzen, we get it.
TheBigYinJames
I like him, sure, but that's not the point, is it? You said five days ago:
Monty, there is some truth in that, I don't believe there's any mileage in denying it. When I first became interested in scepticism years ago, many (perhaps most?) vocal 'skeptics' were outright denying everything, denying there is a temperature rise, denying CO2 emissions, denying it was anthro, etc etc. It was not a position I shared, and I hope I've done my bit here by convincing a few people that the earlier extreme positions are not scientifically tenable.But things have moved on a lot in that time. This site has always been a lukewarmer site as long as I've used it. Steve McIntyre has always been a vocal lukewarmer, Watts is a lukewarmer. For at least five years, and possibly longer, MAINSTREAM climate scepticism has been lukewarmer. (Listens for screams from the gallery.. no?)
Unfortunately, the climate science community hasn't noticed this - they still think they are fighting the big-oil bible bashers they encountered years ago at the start. But we drummed them out of the house years ago. We still get the odd slayer and such like, we don't do hard-line policing here, but the general sceptical 'consensus' (if you like) is of lukewarming but with disagreement on the causes and magnitudes.
It has been this way a long time. We get annoyed when you still identify us as the mouth-frothers. They're long gone. Also the implications that "at last" "small mercies" we've been dragged into this position is also laughable. We've been here for years, we got here by ourselves, you just didn't notice.
Given what I've shown your account conceded some extremely important ground to alarmism (in the transient form of 'Monty') - ground it in no way deserves to hold. Rather than hand-waving generalities I thought I'd provide real quotes and references. Perhaps you would care to do the same next time.
Richard Drake
Unfortunately for your thesis, Lindzen doesn not embody, encapsulate or figurehead 'climate skepticism' even in the eyes of most climate skeptics themselves. So arguing what Lindzen was, did or said in the early days of the climate debacle does not affect what I said one bit. What matters is what climate science (and science in general) PERCEIVED and now perceives as their enemy, and for them in the early days this was big-oil deniers, who were and are very real. They're not us NOW, that's the point.
When we are trying hard to get science to go back on their steadfast denial about the shaky origins and shonky bedrock of the climate movement, there is zero mileage in trying to smokescreen where our side of the debate has been in the past. We need to hold ourselves to the same truth and integrity standards that we wish to hold them to, and if this means finally admitting this side has said some stupid and incorrect things in the past too, then more power to us.
The fact that you think I 'conceded' something is very indicative that you think we have dirty laundry to hide. They won't take us seriously until we are serious about admitting to and disassociating ourselves from the early origins of this side of the argument. Denying it ever happened by pointing to one single scientist you wish now to retro-fit as the face of 1980s climate skepticism is dishonest, and will get us nowhere except backwards.
TheBigYinJames
TBYIJ,
"...there is zero mileage in trying to smokescreen where our side of the debate has been in the past."
I'm going to disagree. My "side of the debate" has always come from the point that claims and predictions about the alleged harm of carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources has not been demonstrated and is likely net-beneficial. The computer climate models/predictions are completely inadequate, and will probably continue to be for a very long time. I've thought this since I learned of the theory in the 1970s.
Now, if you wish to make assertions about, say, oil (or gas? or coal?) companies indulging in bad behavior to protect/increase their profits, then you are free to do so, and I am not here to defend that behavior. It has sometimes undoubtedly been true. But that is also true of companies selling steel, or computer software, or pharmaceuticals. Selling ice-cream out of vans has also been a notoriously violent business in the past.
Selling oil/gas/coal is profitable because it is so valuable. It is valuable because we need it so much. It is going to be coming out of the ground for a long while yet, even if we have to suck out with a straw. Many of the people objecting to carbon dioxide are representatives of the same organisations who have been complaining about nuclear power, or chemicals, or just about everything 'industrial', for my entire life.
I think I can see where "their side of the argument" comes from. That is "where the debate has been in the past", and where it still is now, unfortunately.
michael hart
TBYJ, clearly there has been a paradigm shift. But I think your premise, that modern sceptics are themselves connected to the Big Oil shills, the tobacco industry or the the creationists, is flawed and wholly misrepresents the modern reality.
Though I find your argument compelling on the historical issues that faced science in decades past, it can perhaps explain (but not justify) scientists' reticence in giving credence to sceptics today. Nevertheless the truth is that sceptics of climate science today are not even the same breed as those science critics you identify in history.
It would be disingenuous to apologise for a creationist perspective we never held, for example, and there is no excuse for scientists' confusion here. They're scientists, and observing, and then coming to a rational understanding based on their observations is what they are supposed to be good at. The blame for failure to understand the reality and substance of the paradigm shift does not rest on the climate sceptics' shoulders. We sceptics would have to apologise for science's mistake. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Simon Hopkinson
Michael,
I'm going to disagree. My "side of the debate" has always come from the point that claims and predictions about the alleged harm of carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources has not been demonstrated and is likely net-beneficial.
You're proving my point - your 'side' only marginally overlaps with Lindzen's. I would call your view mainstream scepticism. There's a doubt about the effects of CO2 on global temperature, an acceptance that fossil fuels are a necessity and thus shouldn't be demonized, and a general disdain for the lefty ideology that drives a lot of their side of the argument. This is bog-standard, common-or-garden climate scepticism as it is observed on these boards every day. In my view, a reasonable position to hold.
But....
It has not always been this way, I remember - I was here.
This is a set of positions that the movement has evolved into, from less savoury roots Rational thinking people though discussion and analysis have come to the conclusions that there is enough wrong with the CAGW theory within the bounds of standard science that there is no need to invoke weird incorrect unscientific arguments to show it is flawed. We did not come fully-formed into the world with our current set of beliefs - we arrived here.
Even now, we have the remnants of the old 'denier' mindset on this board, and worse on others - we have not eradicated it. I doubt we ever will, but over time their voices become more marginalized.
What is more chilling for me is the rise of a new political denialism here - this time that there has ever been any wrong, that anything bad ever happened in past in the name of scepticism. This "always right" mind-set comes from politics - like its bedfellow 'consensus' - in that your argument now is somehow weakened because you admit to earlier errors. Scientific logic doesn't have a memory. If you're right, you're right, no matter how many times you were wrong in the past. And 'scepticism' as a movement has been wrong about so much in the past, if you think brushing it under the carpet and moving on increases your credibility, then think again.
Furthermore, I think this denial is likely to hurt or slow down the resolution of this climate war. The ideal solution to the climate war is that we arrive at the truth - science moves, and we need to move. The extremes of both sides need to move with the times. or shut up. The politicians within science who want to deny science ever got it wrong need to shut up. What we ABSOLUTELY don't need is a new breed of truth politician on this side denying we ever did anything wrong.
It's simply not believable and it will lead of an needless lengthening of hostilities.
Or is that what some people actually want? Do some people on this side enjoy the war better?
TheBigYinJames
Good points Simon:
It would be disingenuous to apologise for a creationist perspective we never held
Absolutely, I don't think we should. But to deny they ever occupied this same ground we now occupy is counter-productive. Explain that we are not them, but don't try to deny they were ever here.
TheBigYinJames
TBYJ, who are these anonymous "people" that you keep referring to?
It is certainly true that there has long been a strong fundamentalist religious streak in US politics, and that some of those views spilled over into scientific areas. This has been a cultural battleground since well before the 1980s, but the US is not the whole world. Nothing on a comparable scale happened in Australia, or in Europe or the UK as far as I know.
I fail to see what people's views on things like abortion and birth control have to do with science, either.
Climate sceptics have a range of religious and political views, although it is fair to say that the non-scientific sceptics are more inclined to centre-right politics, because of the massive and wasteful market interventions and taxes that have been promulgated in the name of "climate science."
Your posts have not explained in a way that I can understand what your issue is. None of us has to apologise for something that someone else may have done or said, no matter where they stand. We are accountable for ourselves, full stop.
johanna
Mike Jackson
The 1.2C per doubling calculated by Arrhenius is the primary forcing due to CO2 alone. You will find general agreement on this among even the sceptical scientists such as Pielke and Curry. There are sky dragon slayers who disagree, but it on the basis of normal physics.
The disagreement is about the secondary forcings, such as changes in water vapour, cloud cover etc. These can amplify that 1.2C. The total forcing is the climate sensitivity.