Don't shoot the messenger
Monday, December 7, marks the opening of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. At that meeting, the leaders of the world will gather to negotiate an agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The new agreement will be the world's road map for dealing with climate change, and the stakes are huge. It is fitting that the conference begins on the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, for the Copenhagen conference is sure to be an epic political battle. Indeed, the battle has already been underway for several weeks, with most of the action centering on a PR assault launched by the anti-CO2 regulation forces that sensationalized the contents of the hacked emails from the University of East Anglia. The Wall Street Journal has long been at the forefront of the battle to discredit the science of climate change and the scientists involved, and last week they launched a major offensive, publishing multiple opinion pieces. I'll critique one of these, a December 1 editorial by Bret Stephens which accuses climate scientists of having a vested interest in promoting alarmist views of the climate in order to get research funding. "All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God", Stephens wrote.
Money
It's always wise to follow the money when analyzing the motivations of people. However, Ph.D. atmospheric scientists are less motivated by money than, say, the typical reader of the Wall Street Journal. I am an example of that. Nobody owns more shares of Wunderground.com than I do, yet here I am criticizing the Wall Street Journal and some of the richest and most powerful corporations on the planet--hardly the sort of action that will generate more revenue for my company. Our top climate scientists are some of the most brilliant people on the planet. They could have easily made fortunes on Wall Street devising intricate schemes to hawk sub-prime mortgages or leverage obscure derivatives. Yet these people chose climate science as a career, out of a genuine curiosity about how the world works and desire to help find the truth of whether human-caused climate change poses a significant threat to humanity. The charges that these scientists are exaggerating the danger of human-caused global warming to get more funding is a personal attack on their integrity--a typical politician's ploy to avoid talking about the issues, when one has no valid arguments to bolster one's position. In my 29 years in the weather business, I've had the honor of working with many of the world's top weather and climate scientists. I can personally vouch for their integrity and commitment to pursue the scientific truth, no matter what that truth turns out to be. These are honest, incredibly hard-working public servants who are enduring a punishing assault on their integrity because they are the bearers of bad news. The Earth has plenty of pressing problems requiring the services of brilliant scientists; these public servants will always have a job, and have no need to exaggerate dangers or invent new threats in order to get more research funding. If one reads through the entire set of 3,000 emails hacked from the University of East Anglia--not just the choice few lines excerpted from chosen emails, and then spun by the anti-CO2 regulation lobby to make the scientists look bad--you will see that these scientists are the good guys. Never once is there a mention of fabricating data or fudging results to try to get more research funding. There is no conspiring to perpetate the massive "hoax" of human-caused global warming they have been accused of. Rather, we see a picture of some very smart, hardworking, and very human and imperfect scientists that are doing their best to learn the truth, and pass that information on to the rest of us. You don't get ahead in scince by fudging the data. It's publish or perish. While the peer-review system of publication is not perfect, it generally does an excellent job of rewarding those scientists who seek to publish the truth, and rejects those who do not. Published papers that turn out to be false will, in time, crumble under the weight of subsequent studies that do uncover the truth. Smart scientists tend to have big egos and hate being wrong, so there is additional motivation to publish truthful studies that will withstand the test of time and be validated by subsequent research.
Alarmism
Mr. Stephens uses the words "alarm" or "alarmist" four times in the editorial, and he is clearly trying to provoke an emotional reaction against those Chicken Littles guilty of raising the alarm. Speaking as an atmospheric scientist, I can tell you from long experience that we are not the wild-eyed, alarmist lot that the Wall Street Journal makes us out to be. This makes for some very dull parties (if you're not excited about discussing quasi-geostrophic theory), when we get together for a big bash. Very little alarming behavior takes place. (In fact, after I dragged my wife to three straight devastatingly dull departmental Christmas parties while I was in graduate school, she forbade me from ever requiring her to go to another.) Atmospheric scientists are not an alarmist lot--put us in quiet room with a window and give us a computer and pile of data to analyze, and we'll be as happy as a clam at high tide. The portrayal of climate scientists as alarmist, money-grubbing, dishonest hucksters out to destroy the economy to further their own selfish desires for money or fame is a common theme in climate change denial attacks, and is a very narrow-minded and ignorant one. It's more convenient to shoot the messenger than to acknowledge the truth of the bad news they're bringing.
Toleration of false alarms
It is possible that the alarms climate scientists are raising over climate change will turn out to be false. Environmental scientists have in the past issued false alarms over environmental problems that did not materialize as expected. However, we should expect and tolerate some degree of false alarms, given the uncertainty in forecasting these events. If our scientists never issue a false alarm, then the tolerance for issuing alarms is not correct. Would you criticize the National Weather Service for issuing a tornado warning when a possible tornado signature is spotted on Doppler radar, since less than half of these signatures result in in an actual tornado touchdown? Or the National Hurricane Center for issuing a hurricane warning, since only 25% of the warned coast receives hurricane-force winds, on average? No, some degree of false alarms must be tolerated. Our weather forecasters are dedicated public servants, doing their job of warning the public when their best scientific judgment indicates that there might be a significant threat. It is no different with our climate scientists. They are predicting that there is a greater than 90% chance that most of the observed global warming is due to human causes. Climate scientists are extremely concerned about what their scientific results are saying, and are doing their utmost to warn a public resistant to acknowledging the danger. This resistance runs very deep among conservatives. A 2008 Pew Center poll found that 75% of Democrats with a college education believed that humans were responsible for global warming, while only 19% of college educated Republicans believed that. Conservatives' core belief that a capitalist, free market economy with limited regulation is the best economic system in the world is challenged by acknowledging that human-caused global warming is real and a threat. I greatly respect conservatives who can objectively evaluate the validity of global warming science while holding that core belief, for it is difficult to accept that the best economic system in the world could spawn such a self-destructive force. But as I detailed in a post last week, corporations, by law, exist to make a profit. If scientific research shows that a corporation's products may be harmful to the public health, it the obligation of the company to its shareholders to employ whatever legal means possible to cast doubt on this science, in order to protect profits. The profits of the richest and most powerful industry the planet has ever seen--the fossil fuel industry--are currently so threatened. Thus, we are being subject to history's greatest campaign to deny science, and it is keeping us from much-needed action to curb the danger. These voices are telling us what we want to hear--the danger is not real, the scientists are corrupt and are falsifying their data, the uncertainties are great, and that we cannot afford to change. But the laws of physics don't care about ideology or free market economies or election cycles. The overwhelming majority of our top climate scientists are saying that the laws of physics dictate that massive amounts of greenhouse gases, when added to the atmosphere, will cause warming that will be very damaging to civilization. If we are to limit that damage, we must act soon, for the approaching storm will grow ever stronger the longer we wait. Don't shoot the messengers-- they are on your side.
Other posts in this series
Embattled UK climate scientist steps down
The Manufactured Doubt industry and the hacked email controversy
Is more CO2 beneficial for Earth's ecosystems?
Next post
My timing of my next post will depend upon the weather.
Our Climate Change expert, Dr. Ricky Rood, is in Copenhagen for this week's crucial COP15 climate change treaty negotiations. Be sure to tune into his blog for updates on the talks. Wunderground has provided financial support for several University of Michigan students to attend the talks, and I may be featuring portions of their blogs over the coming weeks.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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However, some of the emails in question were leaked long before the main hack/leak"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231763/BBC-weatherman-ignored-leaked-climate-row-emails.ht ml
BBC weatherman ‘ignored’ leaked climate row emails
The BBC has become tangled in the row over the alleged manipulation of scientific data on global warming.
One of its reporters has revealed he was sent some of the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia more than a month ago – but did nothing about them.
Despite the explosive nature of some of the messages – which revealed apparent attempts by the CRU’s head, Professor Phil Jones, to destroy global temperature data rather than give it to scientists with opposing views – Paul Hudson failed to report the story.
This has led to suspicions that the scandal was ignored because it ran counter to what critics say is the BBC’s unquestioning acceptance in many of its programmes that man-made climate change is destroying the planet.
actually yea, we had an inch of it this morning, I was fairly surprised
After Emergence of Climate Files, an Uncertain Forecast
Doc M, it has been described that the packaged zip file was placed on a public drive then accessed. The specific content of that zip file was not likely gathered by someone outside the organization. Time will tell.
Local Text Forecast for
Lake Worth, FL (33461)
Dec 7 Tonight
A few clouds. Low 67F. Winds light and variable.
Dec 8 Tomorrow
Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Dec 8 Tomorrow night
A few clouds from time to time. Low 71F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Dec 9 Wednesday
Mix of sun and clouds. Highs in the mid 80s and lows in the upper 60s.
Dec 10 Thursday
Mix of sun and clouds. Highs in the low 80s and lows in the mid 60s.
Dec 11 Friday
Mostly cloudy, chance of showers. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the upper 60s.
Dec 12 Saturday
Mix of sun and clouds. Highs in the low 80s and lows in the upper 60s.
Dec 13 Sunday
Isolated thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the mid 60s.
Dec 14 Monday
Times of sun and clouds. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the mid 60s.
Dec 15 Tuesday
More sun than clouds. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the mid 60s.
Dec 16 Wednesday
Scattered thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the low 60s.
oh wow, well you should go to a ski resort sometime!
I can definitely see tdude's point here... I usually ignore the most troll-ish posts, and reply only to the ones that fit 2 conditions:
1. someone is actually trying to understand/learn something, and
2. they will actually listen to what I have to say before blasting it.
That said... I don't respond to a whole lot in these debates.
BBC is very "centre / centrist" and is less likely to break anything controversial on what would have seemed like "hearsay" evidence than other British publications....
First of all, the subject of the thread is about far more than just AGW science, but also the politics around such So what I am posting is well within that topic, thank you.
And second, showing that the leaders of the movment to control carbon emissions are abject, two-faced hypocrites on the subject is highly relevant as to whether they should be heeded or not.
There is???!?!? I thought that everything outside the states is just big huge piles of dirt that mean nothing! (I say that with a GIGANTIC caveat of sarcasm and silliness)
exactly,
dont get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that everyone is willing to stand for what they believe, but for the past week or so the same arguments have been repeated numerous times, and is rather frustrating and obvious that no one is being "persuaded" to change their position on AGW/GW/CC
While the Gulf States have had snow, in the Bahamas (i.e. in the tropical zone) it's been consistently warmer than average all fall. A lot of people who argue for or against (mostly against) GW in the US tend to base their argument on local anomalies instead of world-wide trends (i.e. the Global in GW).
Well, you are among those who call for political action, so that makes it highly relevant when the response to such will impact my energy bill and the energy costs of hundreds of millions of people.
I hope u guys realize u are having 2 completely different arguments.....
just sayin'.....
when everyone else had a warm one
Summer Temp
I wonder what this coincidence in weather patterns
has on people living there on
their bias either way on the debate.
I won't deny global warming, but I think the politics and $ to be made are distorting the truth of whether man can even affect climate change through these programs being proposed.
NOTE: When I was in grade school in the 1970s, the scientists were telling us the next ice age was imminent. I went to school in Michigan and that what they were teaching in schools at that time.
does anyone know what mode created
the enormous SST anomaly in the south pacific,
it was even larger 2 weeks ago seems to be fading now:
SST ANOM
hmm look please stop perpetuating a myth,
perhaps your school teachers got it wrong
but it was never part of science even in the 70's!!
please read:
70's myth
from #774 Hydrus;
Even if man eradicated all pollutants linked to GW right now. it might have an effect decades from now, but if mankind's pollution has not had any effect on this rapid warming and its all natural, all of this arguing and debating is groundless.
One of the problems IMO, is that cause and affect are sometimes so separated that it is difficult to connect them. Almost any side of the debate can cherry pick numbers that support "their" version of whats happening.
Shortest day of the year is December 21 +- but it continues getting colder for a couple months.. Longest day is June 21 +- but it keeps getting warmer for months.. there is a delay between cause and effect.. I think global climate change is much the same and sadly we don't fully know how to interpret what is happening, much less what is causing it.
Personally, I can't for the life of me believe that man hasn't effected the global climate. If one volcano can affect us globally, surely all this mess WE are putting in the air is doing "something" Now how much can be contested day and night and "that" is, again, IMO, the big issue. In the meantime, we have scum who are promoting taxes and penalties to "fix" the problem...with the money going into "selected" pockets.
My idea;
Wanna fix it, reduce our global population and offer REWARDS for "green" programs/ideas/living.. not penalties. We have taxed cigarettes to the tune of several dollars a pack, yet folks still buy them and add their tobacco related illnesses to the overall health care burden. We tax liquor and beer.. doesn't stop anyone from drinking. The LAST thing America needs is Goldman Sachs stealing even MORE of our money.
Make "reward", not "penalty" the incentive.
change of topic;
I served on a submarine. When we broke a fluorescent tube, we treated the mess nearly as thoroughly as a radiation spill.. mercury is bad for peeps. In a closed A/C'd home it can remain contained where you live breath eat and raise children, it's accumulative in a bad way. IMO, (I have a lot of those I know) LEDs are a better lighting solution in the long run.
Show me a 1000 year graph... you can't. Not enough evidence to prove that modern man has caused this short-term trend you show.
I recommend that GW alarmist take some time to study the 'dark ages' where only a few hundred years ago, avg temperatures dropped about 10 degress in Europe for about a century. The earth is dynamic, and so is it's climate. No one can debate it is always changing, but how much of the change is the result of man-made CO2? No one knows.
I really don't know what was actually taught in StormHype's science classes.
Divergent opinion as to what can be achieved by the highly-anticipated UN climate summit in Copenhagen is reflected across much of European and US media. The opening day of the summit has drawn a range of views, from deep scepticism to hopeful optimism for the future of the planet.
In an unprecedented display of uniformity, 56 newspapers in 45 countries carry the same editorial, urging politicians to forget their differences and work together to forge an agreement.
"The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice."
Not really, in the context of what the proxies can show us:
18 proxies through 1935. If the cycle were repeated with the same periodicity and amplitude, you might say we are currently only halfway through a warming period.
From the paper: "While instrumental data are not strictly comparable, the rise in
29 year-smoothed global data from NASA GISS (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp)
from 1935 to 1992 (with data from 1978 to 2006) is 0.34 Deg C. 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, though the difference is not significant."
From: http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/Loehle/
And regardless of what you read on RC, remove the airports, water treatment plants, and other badly sited surface obs, and the trend for the last 100 years is tiny/undetectable. Almost as if global warming skipped all of the rural stations...
Thank you. Finally someone looking at the forest rather than the trees.
So what started the increase in CO2 ~2000 years ago? And how much of our current increase is natural and part of that cycle? (Yeah, is rhetorical as no one is certain about that.)
??? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ???
(Are you trying to read words in between the ones I typed?)
We covered this yesterday. It is a collection of available proxy studies. I think you should read the paper. But here: "The series used were: GRIP borehole 18O temperature (Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998); Conroy Lake pollen (Gajewski, 1988); Chesapeake Bay Mg/Ca (Cronin et al., 2003); Sargasso Sea 18O (Keigwin, 1996); Caribbean Sea 18O (Nyberg et al., 2002); Lake Tsuolbmajavri diatoms (Korhola et al., 2000); Shihua Cave layer thickness (Tan et al., 2003); China composite (Yang et al., 2002)"
The year is the publication date, the names are the authors.
You don't think that examining only the stations away from local influences in determining a quantitative effect of CO2 changes is a good idea!?!
You don't find it a little odd that a gas like CO2, having a long enough atmospheric lifetime to have a homogeneous distribution over the planet appears to effect temps more next to a runway than in farmland?
The crux of the theory is not at all about land use and our effect on temps in the presence of concrete/asphalt/jetwash/water treatment plants/autos/etc. Some of those cause higher nighttime temps by storing and retaining daytime heat far better than most any natural landscape.
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