Worldview: Global Warming
by A Concerned Citizen
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Retired on 31 December 2007
Global Warming Menu
Introduction
Some Basic Articles
Review of the Articles
Middle Ages Were Warm
Mann's Rebuttal to M&M
Climate Sensitivity
Introduction (April 06): As an engineer, I am a priori skeptical that climate science can predict the long-term future with any reliability, since the global mechanisms are so complex and computer power is so limited relative to such a task. It may well be that the 'average temperature' has been increasing for the last several decades, but it is a huge leap to conclude that this will continue at an alarming rate or that humans are primarily to blame. I have read much anecdotal evidence to bolster my skepticism, despite the alleged 'consensus'. One rather suggestive piece of evidence is that in the 1970s there was a 'consensus' for global cooling and the imminent return of an ice age ('telltale signs are everywhere'). A geophysical process cannot change that quickly! More likely, statistics are being applied carelessly, where a random deviation is misinterpreted as a trend, or the analysis of the data is otherwise in error.
Notably, this article by award-winning science writer Marcel Crok describes an investigation by Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, which alleges flawed statistics in the analysis that Michael Mann used to generate the famous 'hockey stick' graph describing recent global temperature increase. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) incorporated this graph into the Kyoto Protocol, as key evidence of global warming in the past century. Neither McIntyre nor McKitrick is a climate scientist, but McIntyre did study pure mathematics at the University of Toronto, were he ranked high in his class, and was offered a graduate scholarship to study mathematical economics at MIT. These are pretty good credentials for criticizing somebody's statistics! To be sure, these critics have been rebutted here and elsewhere. I have not yet studied the rebuttal [see below], but the Crok article seems rather persuasive by itself. It alleges that there were highly suspicious irregularities in the way that a certain 'PCA method' was applied, and that when the method is applied properly the case for global warming is severely weakened. On his blog, McIntyre says that Mann's misuse of PCA 'effectively mines a data set for hockey stick patterns', even from 'meaningless random data'! This entire post should be read. And check out this comment by an applied statistician on the subjectivity inherent in the PCA method. At the least, there is serious justified doubt about the methodology, which, by the way, was never reproduced and verified by the committee that drafted the Kyoto Protocol. Nor, according to one eminent climatologist, have Mann et. al. released the details of their analysis for public scrutiny.
Another leading climatologist has also criticized the Mann hockey stick; this same expert gained attention as a critic of the review process involving a paper by global warming opponents Soon and Baliunas, which suggests a lack of bias on his part. And here's another criticism from somebody whose opinion should matter. Clearly there are problems!
Speaking of rigor, the global warming advocates keep referring to 'peer reviewed' literature by 'climatology experts' as the only sources worth considering, but I do not trust a small clique of paleoclimatologists to be able to use a fairly esoteric statistical method in a reliable way, especially when they are not forthcoming with the details. (The vaunted peer-reviewed literature does not provide all of these details; it is really only a summary of the work performed.) Statistics is a lot more slippery than most people realize. Peer review by itself is no guarantee of correctness. Indeed, one might demand that the paleoclimatologists be peer-reviewed by real statisticians! Consider the following comments by Steve McIntyre regarding the peer review process:
IPCC proponents place great emphasis on the merit of articles that have been 'peer reviewed'. However, peer review for climate publications, even by eminent journals such as Nature or Science, is typically a quick unpaid read by two (or sometimes three) knowledgeable persons, usually close colleagues of the author. It is unheard of for a peer reviewer to actually check the data and calculations.In 2004, I was asked by a journal (Climatic Change) to peer review an article. I asked to see the source code and supporting calculations. The editor said no one had ever asked for such things in 28 years of his editing the journal. There is nothing at the journal peer review stage in climate publications that is remotely like an audit. It's my view that this is all the more reason why source code and data should be archived.
Then there is the issue of the computer models on which global warming predictions over the coming centuries are based. Simply reading this article by MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen strongly suggests that one should take these models with a considerable grain of salt. In a word, the models are as limited as their shaky assumptions, sparse or skewed data and cartoon-like faithfulness to nature. For example, according to Lindzen, clouds and upper atmosphere water vapor are poorly modeled but make a major difference to the earth's heat budget. Furthermore, a certain crucial greenhouse fingerprint is evidently missing from the satellite data (see also here). It should be emphasized that not only are the models highly complex, they are also highly nonlinear, which means that a small change here can produce a large change there, and even a complete reversal of behavior. That is why the weather is so hard to predict! These small changes may come through altered assumptions as well as through the uncertainty in the 'data'. Climate scientists are often not candid about the uncertainty in their models, since, after all, their reputations and careers are at stake.
Note that apparent agreement between a model and a brief segment of a measured random sequence, especially a single random sequence, like so-called average temperature during the last several decades, does not validate the model. The agreement may be a mere coincidence. A more subtle point is that models with many adjustable parameters can be 'tuned' to match a fair amount of past data in a spurious way that cannot provide a reliable prediction of the future. Furthermore, agreement between different models is no indication of reliability. Such consistency may merely reflect the possibly erroneous assumptions held in common by a handful of 'experts', who talk to each other and influence each other. And those with similar temperaments or political agendas may be more likely to talk to each other! Finally, all these considerations do not even take into account the problematic nature of the measurements themselves! The very definition of 'average temperature' and how to measure it is far more controversial than you might suppose. The average person may think it is as simple as looking at a thermometer, but it is not.
To tell the truth, I would not be surprised if many climate scientists are being swayed by the PC culture on campus, as are many politicians, including influential ones such as Al Gore and Tony Blair. I have already discovered to my astonishment how our universities can grossly fail at their duty to tell the truth, by whitewashing militant (i.e. orthodox) Islam, as they did Communism. It could well be that such a psychology has spread into an uncertain and only superficially 'hard' science such as climate research. The claim of climate research to be based on 'physics' is in fact rather disingenuous, since there is a world of difference between formulating the basic laws of physics and obtaining a solution in a highly complex situation, something the public may not appreciate. (This is not to denigrate the sincere efforts of sober and competent climate experts. Rather I am criticizing the exaggerated and unjustified claims of some.)
An alarming indication of the politicization of the debate, in favor of lefty/green advocates, is the discrimination against dissenting experts, as mentioned in the Lindzen article above and a newer one here, as well as in an article by Hans von Storch, an expert who has been on both sides of the debate. This discrimination has been not only verbal but has affected funding (even within the prestigious NSF) as well as public policy (with international organizations if not with the US Senate). Such politicization should be considered an academic crime but is becoming the academic norm. As far as the academic 'consensus' is concerned, the earlier Lindzen article (ca. 1992) cites a poll showing that most reputable climatologists are global warming skeptics rather than believers. The more recent article opines that many experts have now been cowed into silence due to threats to their funding. It is alarming to see major scientific organizations and journals, like Science and Nature, behaving in a less than even-handed manner, as alleged in the Lindzen papers. Also, note that there is an important distinction between a true climate expert and an 'environmentalist', though this can cut both ways, when too much faith is placed on the 'peer review' process, as I mentioned already. (By the way, the slander against Fred Seitz is rebutted here.)
The stakes are quite important, since a drastic effort to alter our economy could produce a disaster; there are already enough dangers looming on the horizon, such as our massive debt and trade deficit. Besides, as the price of oil inexorably rises, there will be gradual and natural incentives to switch to cleaner and better technologies, as is already happening. Is there really need for drastic action now? Or are self-interested researchers creating hype for the sake of their own importance and funding? It is easy to do this without even realizing one's own motives, if they are masked by a righteous and crusading sentiment. Nevertheless, I have yet to study this topic in detail, so for now I will list some articles as I find them and study them as time permits.
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Some Basic Articles
Critics
Advocates
Other
Note: This list is still in progress.
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Review of the Articles (20 Apr 06): OK, I've read most of the material that is on this list (see above) as of today, and it is clear to me that the predictions of apocalyptic global warming are uncertain, to put it mildly. It would be foolish to ratify the Kyoto Protocol at this time. There are enough eminent and informed critics that one cannot say that the science is 'settled'. For once, I am in favor of corporate influence over the White House, since it has blocked the fanatics from having any influence over public policy. As one critic said, a much more urgent environmental concern is simple garbage, which is piling up in mountains everywhere. Unfortunately, garbage is not a sexy topic, especially for the Davos crowd.
One lesson I have learned from the global warming fad is something that I had always suspected. Most people, including those pleased to call themselves intellectual and political leaders, do not really study issues in depth, but rather rely on second-hand accounts. And these second-hand accounts are amplified by a kind of echo-chamber effect, associated with politico-cultural groups that mostly talk to each other, until the echoes are simply accepted as the truth. This explains why so many of the 'educated elites', from Al Gore to Tony Blair to intelligentsias and UN/Davos types everywhere, are now true believers. And what a coincidence! These are the same people who believe that 'Islam means Peace'! Could there be a similar politico-cultural dynamic at play? I think so.
But sometimes the repercussions do spread further than the elites from which this groupthink originates. A right-wing Christian conservative like President Bush was brainwashed into thinking Islam is a religion of peace and that the war in Iraq would be relatively easy, with peace and democracy loving Muslims embracing US troops upon their arrival. Now you may think that corporate interests will prevent the global warming craze from taking over conservatives, but don't be too sure. Already we are seeing propaganda from the National Wildlife Federation, which reaches hunters and fishers, a rather conservative group. The global warming hysteria could take over the GOP at the grass roots level. On the other hand, Hillary might win! Now she's a shrewd lawyer ... perhaps smart enough to do her own first-hand research. What a great way to triangulate the business community into support for the Democrats, so that the disenchantment of the environmentalists could be neutralized.
Nevertheless, despite my considerable suspicions so far, I will continue to study this complex problem, in the spirit of true scientific inquiry. Perhaps I may change my opinion, in which case I'll update this chapter. I may update it even without a major change of opinion, if I learn something particularly interesting.
UPDATE (31 Mar 06): I've hardly touched this section in the past year, but today I just put up a 2004 article by Berkeley physicist Richard Mueller called Global Warming Bombshell. He basically confirms the work of McIntyre and McKitrick that the statistics of the famous (or notorious) Mann hockey stick graph are bogus. This graph was the key element in the influential IPCC Report that started the global warming craze. That does it for me! Muller's professional testimony has convinced me that all of the work done to date on global warming needs to be scrutinized by top physicists who are certifiably unbiased. (Note how shocking it is that Nature refused to publish M&M's work! Note also that Muller is actually somewhat sympathetic to the global warming hypothesis, but he demands that it be settled with good science.)
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Middle Ages Were Warm (23 Apr 06): This 2003 article mentions interesting evidence by Soon and Baliunas that during the middle ages, from 800 to 1300 A.D., many parts of the world were warmer than today. Tree ring data from Northern Europe is corroborated by 'plenty of anecdotal evidence' that vineyards flourished in Scotland and England and that Vikings established colonies in Greenland that died out later when the weather turned colder. (That must be where 'Greenland' comes from!) This also agrees with a finding in the Crok article that when flawed mathematics in the influential 'hockey stick' research of Mann et. al. were corrected, the 15th century turned out to be about as warm as today. The recent increase in the temperature during the last century or so may partly be a rebound from the 'Little Ice Age' depicted in paintings by Bruegel and others. Also, the sun may be a driving force more influential than gases emitted by humans.
I cannot gauge the work of Soon and Baliunas, though the 'merely anecdotal' evidence of Greenland and Scotland seems at least as persuasive to me as the questionable gyrations of an abstruse crystal ball statistical technique, especially in light of the embarrassing article by Crok, which at the very least suggests that all of the climate research from Mann and related groups should be investigated by many independent experts in statistical methods. So-called 'replication' of results by Mann and related groups, as heraled by Schneider, cannot be trusted, nor can their denunciation of skeptics like Soon and Baliunas. The latter do make an important point about consensus, when they claim that it is unhealthy for science. (Schneider really tries too hard on his website to dismiss the critics as fringe 'contrarians'.) It is entirely possible for a 'consensus' of like-minded scientists to be simply replicating each other's errors, especially if the clique is small, inbred and politicized. Indeed, the scientific method thrives on challenging the consensus. The current efforts of the global warming gurus to discredit the critics should offend scientists everywhere. They are not simply rebutting the critics; they are trying to eliminate them as valid players, based on the alleged 'consensus'. Talk about the fox guarding the hen-house!
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Mann's Rebuttal to M&M (24 Apr 06): Now let's take a stab at the rebuttal of McKitrick and McIntire's work (as described in Crok and mentioned already in the second paragraph of the Introduction). This rebuttal comes from a website run in part by Michael Mann, the chief originator of the so-called 'hockey stick' graph. This rebuttal is filed by a 'Mike', which I will assume is Mann, as there is no other Michael in the list of contributors. He presents his rebuttal as a debunking of 'myths'. Let us take the myths one by one and see what we can find on the web to help us assess Mann's defense.
Myth 0: Evidence for 20th century global warming rests on the hockey stick.
Mann argues that there is other strong evidence:
I have already expressed by skepticism regarding models above. It is not acceptable to rely on the apparent agreement between any model and a geological time snippet such as the 20th century. A model must pass many different falsifiability tests before it becomes even plausible. But even the 20th century record has problems. As discussed by Baliunas, the 20th century has three distinct trends: warming from 1900 to 1940, cooling from 1940 to the late 1970s, and wrming since then. Now most (over 80%) of the increase in human-generated greenhouse gases has occurred since the 1940s. That means that the first upward trend cannot be due to such gases. Furthermore, the post-1940 cooling contradicts the 'anthropogenic' global warming hypothesis. So two-thirds of the 20th century data contradicts the basic hypothesis of the alarmists, even before we get to the 'modeling'! She then goes on to mention the missing greenhouse fingerprint in the satellite data, already touched on above, and she hypothesizes that the sun may have a stronger influence than man on long-term terrestrial climate trends.
Myth 1: The 'Hockey Stick' Reconstruction is based solely on two publications by climate scientist Michael Mann and colleagues (Mann et al, 1998;1999).
Mann says that nearly a dozen different models and datasets 'all suggest that late 20th century warmth is anomalous'. I have already explained how agreement between models indicates little, especially if the different researchers are more or less closely associated in the same clique, as seems to be the case. So, the fact that these models agree with each other as well as with the late 20th century data means little in itself. All this seeming consistency does not necessarily increase credibility, unless the consistency is meaningful. That can only be determined if the models are tested with many independent datasets by which they could be falsified. In addition, they must be scrutinized in detail by truly independent researchers, especially experts in statistics, which Mann and company have resisted. Besides, as explained above, the 'data' are controversial too, as they are not based on straightforward measurements like looking at a thermometer, but are the result of 'processing' (i.e. manipulation) of 'proxies' (indirect and approximate indicators of temperature such as tree rings) by a statistical technique whose use (or misuse) by Mann and others has come under severe fire by people who should know what they are talking about. Note that both the proxies themselves and the statistical techniques are uncertain, which compounds the problem.
Well, I would have expected the strongest points in the rebuttal to come first, and so far I am not impressed. Perhaps it is unfair not to consider the rest of the points at this time, but I will stop here. If I find any evidence that McKitrick and McIntyre have been effectively rebutted, I will update this section.
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Climate Sensitivity (13 May 06): Lubos Motl makes an important point about climate sensitivity on his blog. Climate sensitivity is the global temperature increase expected with an increase in CO2 (carbon dioxide). The CO2 absorbs heat reflected from the earth's surface at certain frequencies, which is also called the 'greenhouse effect'. There has been much talk about a 'runaway effect', but Motl argues that this simply doesn't exist, due to the nonlinear nature of CO2 absorption. That is, as CO2 increases in the atmosphere, it absorbs less infrared radiation. Without any 'feedback effects', that is, if we consider just the absorption properties of CO2 but neglect further complications such as cloud cover, then the temperature increase will be only about 1 degree Celsius by 2100 (with presumably a much slower increase after that). Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, an eminent climatologist and global warming critic, estimates that the temperature increase will probably be even less with all the feedback mechanisms included. In other words, there is no runaway effect and nothing to worry about. In fact, we have already achieved about 75% of the warming that is ever expected to occur due to industrialization. If this 'basic fact' is more or less accepted, then what is all the fuss about?
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Some Lucid Discussion
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An Article by Richard Lindzen (30 Oct 06): In this section, I will present extracts from some of the more lucid and persuasive articles that I encounter. I was prompted to do this by a concise and well-argued article recently published by global warming skeptic Richard Lindzen of MIT. It is invaluable to have articles such as this, which reduce a complicated mass of data and discussion to essentials for the benefit of the layman. Here are his main points:
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The Deniers Series (3 Jun 07): I just discovered the following series of articles by Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post of Canada, called The Deniers. It does a particulary good job of exposing serious, first-rate scientists who are skeptical of the global warming hysteria. Some highights follow:
Freeman Dyson (bogus models)
Freeman Dyson is one of the most eminent theoretical physicists in the world. Here is what he says:
'I have studied their climate models and know what they can do', Prof. Dyson says. 'The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.' Prof. Dyson explains that the many components of climate models are divorced from first principles and are 'parameterized — incorporated by reference to their measured effects.
'They are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behaviour in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere', he states. Prof. Dyson learned about the pitfalls of modelling early in his career. . .
Paul Reiter (epidemiology and politics)
Paul Reiter, Professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is chief of its Insects and Infectious Disease Unit and a specialist in the natural history and biology of mosquitoes, the epidemiology of the diseases they transmit, and strategies for their control. The Pasteur Institute is the recipient of eight Nobel prizes. You would think that his opinion on disease transmitted by mosquitoes and other insects. Not necessarily:
Because of his history of excellence in researching diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and other insects, the U.S. State Department in 2001, upon the recommendation of its own health authorities, nominated Prof. Reiter to be a lead author of the IPCC's next health chapter. Global warming was increasing the habitats for mosquitoes, many feared, putting hundreds of millions of people in the tropics at risk of contracting malaria and dengue, and raising the spectre that these diseases would spread around the world. Prof. Reiter, in the view of U.S. health experts, was particularly well placed to address this research.
The IPCC selected two other candidates, more suitable in filling the role required of them. At the time of their selection, neither was distinguished by having published peer-reviewed articles dealing with mosquito-born disease. Both were distinguished by their conviction about the dangers to human health of climate change.
Prof. Reiter was not entirely surprised that the IPCC passed him over — he has been a critic of the science it has disseminated. And neither was he surprised at the IPCC's failure to select scientists specializing in mosquito-borne diseases, despite the outsized role of malaria and dengue in previous IPCC reports. The IPCC faced an impossible task in finding such an expert.
'I know of no major scientist with any long record in this field who agrees with the pronouncements of the alarmists at the IPCC', states Prof. Reiter, whose history in his research field spans three decades and five continents, and who is well familiar with the scope of work occurring in the mosquito-borne research community.
'On the contrary, all of us who work in the field are repeatedly stunned by the IPCC pronouncements. We protest, but are rarely quoted, and if so, usually as a codicil to the scary stuff.'
Edward Wegman (bogus statistics)
Edward Wegman is a professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University, chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and board member of the American Statistical Association. Few statisticians in the world have CVs to rival his.
Wegman became involved in the global-warming debate after the energy and commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives asked him to assess one of the hottest debates in the global-warming controversy: the statistical validity of work by Michael Mann [author of the famed 'hockey stick'] ...
Mann's findings were arguably the single most influential study in swaying the public debate, and in 2001 they became the official view of the International Panel for Climate Change, the UN body that is organizing the worldwide effort to combat global warming. But Mann's work also had its critics, particularly two Canadians, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who published peer-reviewed critiques of their own.
Wegman accepted the energy and commerce committee's assignment, and agreed to assess the Mann controversy pro bono. He conducted his third-party review by assembling an expert panel of statisticians, who also agreed to work pro bono. Wegman also consulted outside statisticians, including the Board of the American Statistical Association. At its conclusion, the Wegman review entirely vindicated the Canadian critics and repudiated Mann's work.
Wegman found that Mann made a basic error that 'may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimate studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians.' . . . Worse, the problem also applied more generally, to the broader climate-change and meteorological community, which also relied on statistical techniques in their studies. . . . In other words, Wegman believes that much of the climate science that has been done should be taken with a grain of salt — although the studies may have been peer reviewed, the reviewers were often unqualified in statistics.
Henrik Svensmark (cosmic influences on climate)
For more than a decade, Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center has been pursuing an explanation for why Earth cools and warms. His findings — published in October in the Proceedings of the Royal Society — the mathematical, physical sciences and engineering journal of the Royal Society of London — are now in, and they don't point to us. The sun and the stars could explain most if not all of the warming this century, and he has laboratory results to demonstrate it. Dr. Svensmark's study had its origins in 1996, when he and a colleague presented findings at a scientific conference indicating that changes in the sun's magnetic field — quite apart from greenhouse gases — could be related to the recent rise in global temperatures. The chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change, the chief agency investigating global warming, then castigated them in the press, saying, 'I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.' Others accused them of denouncing the greenhouse theory, something they had not done.
Svensmark and his colleague had arrived at their theory after examining data that showed a surprisingly strong correlation between cosmic rays — highspeed atomic particles originating in exploded stars in the Milky Way — and low-altitude clouds. Earth's cloud cover increased when the intensity of cosmic rays grew and decreased when the intensity declined. Low-altitude clouds are significant because they especially shield the Earth from the sun to keep us cool. Low cloud cover can vary by 2% in five years, affecting the Earth's surface by as much as 1.2 watts per square metre during that same period. 'That figure can be compared with about 1.4 watts per square metre estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the greenhouse effect of all the increase in carbon dioxide in the air since the Industrial Revolution', Dr. Svensmark explained. . . .
Dr. Svensmark has never disputed the existence of greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect. To the contrary, he believes that an understanding of the sun's role is needed to learn the full story, and thus determine man's role. Not only does no climate model today consider the effect of cosmic particles, but even clouds are too poorly understood to be incorporated into any serious climate model.
Duncan Wingham (Antartic melting)
Antarctica represents the greatest threat to the globe from global warming, bar none. If Antarctica's ice melts, the world's oceans will rise, flooding low-lying lands where much of the world's population lives. Not only would their mass migration spawn hardships for the individual families retreating from the rising waters, the world would also be losing fertile deltas that feed tens of millions of people. . . .
But much confounding evidence exists. As one example, at the South Pole, where the U.S. decades ago established a station, temperatures have actually fallen since 1957. Neither is Antarctica's advance or retreat a new question raised by the spectre of global warming: This is the oldest scientific question of all about the Antarctic ice sheet.
Enter Duncan Wingham, Professor of Climate Physics at University College London and Director of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling. Dr. Wingham has been pursuing this polar puzzle for much of his professional life and, but for an accident in space, he might have had the answer at hand by now. . . .
Dr. Wingham has been collecting satellite data for years, and arriving at startling conclusions. Early last year at a European Union Space Conference in Brussels, for example, Dr. Wingham revealed that data from a European Space Agency satellite showed Antarctic thinning was no more common than thickening, and concluded that the spectacular collapse of the ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula was much more likely to have followed natural current fluctuations than global warming. . . .
Last summer, Dr. Wingham and three colleagues published an article in the journal of the Royal Society that casts further doubt on the notion that global warming is adversely affecting Antarctica. By studying satellite data from 1992 to 2003 that surveyed 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet (72% of the ice sheet covering the entire land mass), they discovered that the Antarctic ice sheet is growing at the rate of 5 millimetres per year (plus or minus 1 mm per year). That makes Antarctica a sink, not a source, of ocean water.
Richard Lindzen (IPCC politics)
Richard Lindzen is a critic from within, one of the most distinguished climate scientists in the world: a past professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a lead author in a landmark report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the very organization that established global warming as an issue of paramount importance.
Dr. Lindzen is proud of his contribution, and that of his colleagues, to the IPCC chapter they worked on. His pride in this work matches his dismay at seeing it misrepresented. '[Almost all reading and coverage of the IPCC is restricted to the highly publicized Summaries for Policymakers which are written by representatives from governments, NGOs and business; the full reports, written by participating scientists, are largely ignored', he told the United States Senate committee on environment and public works in 2001. These unscientific summaries, often written to further political or business agendas, then become the basis of public understanding.
As an example, Dr. Lindzen provided the committee with the summary that was created for Chapter 7, which he worked on. 'Understanding of climate processes and their incorporation in climate models have improved, including water vapour, sea-ice dynamics, and ocean heat transport', the summary stated, creating the impression that the climate models were reliable. The actual report by the scientists indicated just the opposite. Dr. Lindzen testified that the scientists had 'found numerous problems with model treatments — including those of clouds and water vapor'.
When the IPCC was stung by criticism that the summaries were being written with little or no input by the scientists themselves, the IPCC had a subset of the scientists review a subsequent draft summary — an improvement in the process. Except that the final version, when later released at a Shanghai press conference, had surprising changes to the draft that scientists had seen.
The version that emerged from Shanghai concludes, 'In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.' Yet the draft was rife with qualifiers making it clear the science was very much in doubt because 'the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of internal variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing.'
The summaries' distortion of the IPCC chapters compounds another distortion that occurred in the very writing of the scientific chapters themselves. Dr. Lindzen's description of the conditions under which the climate scientists worked conjures up a scene worthy of a totalitarian state: 'throughout the drafting sessions, IPCC coordinators would go around insisting that criticism of models be toned down, and that motherhood statements be inserted to the effect that models might still be correct despite the cited faults. Refusals were occasionally met with ad hominem attacks. I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their green credentials in defense of their statements.' Note something interesting. Both the Iraq war and global warming are reckless crusades based on emotion rather than solid knowledge. In both cases, the powers-that-be have perverted the analysis for political purposes. In both cases, the media has largely failed at its duties. In both cases, a large portion of the public is swept away by a mania, which acquires a political life of its own independent of the mistaken views from which it originated. The main difference is that a righteous war appeals to 'the right', while a green crusade appeals to 'the left'. You might argue that at least the foolish greens aren't killing people. Don't be so sure. Something like the Kyoto treaty has the potential to kill millions in the third world or to stunt their future.
Meanwhile, we are in massive denial about enormous and verifiable problems that have been swept under the rug, such as our gargantuan debt, the approaching flood of retiring baby boomers, the cancer of the military-industrial complex (and of empire in general), the hemorrhaging of our industry to foreign competitors, the dismal failure of our schools, the growing gap between rich and poor, the corruption of our politics by the corporate elite, and God knows what else. Maybe we're all on drugs or something...
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Misleading Press (22 Jun 06): Lubos Motl's post (above) describes how the recent NAS report on global warming is 'schizophrenic'. Let's take what seems to be a relatively clear conclusion of the report, namely, that temperatures are now probably the warmest in 400 years but before that we can say little with confidence. A mere 400 years is not nearly enough to reach sweeping conclusions about human-induced climate change! (Not to mention that there was a little ice age about 4 centuries ago, so we may only be 'rising' out of that depression! And that many believe that the sun rather than human activity is driving warming! And that atmospheric CO2 may follow temperature changes, rather than forcing them! Indeed, any prediction of the effect of a doubling of CO2 must rely on complicated and shaky computer models, where a slight tweak of numerous uncertain parameters may produce a dramatic change in the predictions. And so on and so on. See the comments to the Climate Audit link above.)
Yet consider how the widely-read MSNBC website spins the report, intentionally or unintentionally. Notice how it starts out showing the reader the classic 'hockey stick' graph, which strongly suggests stable temperatures for 1000 years with a big spurt in recent decades. This is flatly contradicted by the conclusion just mentioned that we don't know for sure before the last 400 years! Yet most people will have their impression formed by the visual, and then they will read vague language that the report sort of confirms the global warming hysteria. This is misleading and dishonest! Besides, in parts of the 'schizophrenic' report, the methodology behind this famous hockey stick is seriously criticized, if I can believe Motl, Climate Audit and other intelligent correspondents. Therefore this graph should not appear at all, at least not without explicit qualifications right in the caption. The apparent 'stability' until recent decades becomes quite misleading if only the last 400 years are kept. Stated otherwise, the recent spike in temperatures becomes much less impressive without the long period of alleged stability. Anyhow, with flawed methodology, nothing in the graph can be trusted, not the recent increases, and not the longer timescale backdrop. This shows how even a scientific report can be spun, especially when it is unclear and inconsistent! The NAS has performed poorly, which is shameful given the importance of the matter and the reputation of the NAS.
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In The Great Global Warming Swindle Al Gore is shown claiming this proves the theory, but palaeontologist Professor Ian Clark claims in the documentary that it actually shows the opposite. He has evidence showing that warmer spells in the Earth's history actually came an average of 800 years before the rise in CO2 levels.
Prof Clark believes increased levels of CO2 are because the Earth is heating up and not the cause. He says most CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the oceans, which dissolve the gas.
When the temperature increases, more gas is released into the atmosphere and when global temperatures cool, more CO2 is taken in. Because of the immense size of the oceans, he said they take time to catch up with climate trends, and this 'memory effect' is responsible for the lag.
Scientists in the programme also raise another discrepancy with the official line, showing that most of the recent global warming occurred before 1940, when global temperatures then fell for four decades. It was only in the late 1970s that the current trend of rising temperatures began.
This, claim the sceptics, is a flaw in the CO2 theory, because the post-war economic boom produced more CO2 and should, according to the consensus, have meant a rise in global temperatures.
The programme claims there appears to be a consensus across science that CO2 is responsible for global warming, but Professor Paul Reiter is shown to disagree.
He said the influential United Nations report on Climate change, that claimed humans were responsible, was a sham. It claimed to be the opinion of 2,500 leading scientists, but Prof Reiter said it included names of scientists who disagreed with the findings and resigned from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and said the report was finalised by government appointees.
[. . .]
Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, is featured in the programme, and has just released a book claiming that clouds are the real reason behind climate change. The Chilling Stars was written with Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark who published a scientific paper, claiming cosmic rays cause clouds to form, reducing the global temperature. The theory is shown in the programme.
Mr Calder said: 'Henrik Svensmark saw that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars — when there are more cosmic rays, there are more clouds. However, solar winds bat away many of the cosmic rays and the sun is currently in its most active phase, which would be an explanation for global warming.'
[. . .]
'So knowing which scientists to talk to is part of the skill. Some, who appear to be disinterested, are themselves getting billions of dollars of research money from the government. The few millions of dollars of research money from multinationals can't compare to government funding, so you find the American scientific establishment is all for man-made global warming.
[. . .]
Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London , who also features in the film warned the issue was too complex to be down to one single factor, whether CO2 or clouds. ... Mr Stott said the film could mark the point where scientists advocating the greenhouse effect theory, began to lose the argument. April 2007
[. . .]
In many other respects, the ill effects of warming are overblown. Sea levels, for example, have been increasing since the end of the last ice age. When you look at recent centuries in perspective, ignoring short-term fluctuations, the rate of sea-level rise has been relatively uniform (less than a couple of millimeters a year). There's even some evidence that the rate was higher in the first half of the twentieth century than in the second half. Overall, the risk of sea-level rise from global warming is less at almost any given location than that from other causes, such as tectonic motions of the earth's surface.
Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now. Interpretations of these studies rarely consider that the impact of carbon on temperature goes down — not up — the more carbon accumulates in the atmosphere. Even if emissions were the sole cause of the recent temperature rise — a dubious proposition — future increases wouldn't be as steep as the climb in emissions.
Indeed, one overlooked mystery is why temperatures are not already higher. Various models predict that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will raise the world's average temperature by as little as 1.5 degrees Celsius or as much as 4.5 degrees. The important thing about doubled CO2 (or any other greenhouse gas) is its 'forcing' — its contribution to warming. At present, the greenhouse forcing is already about three-quarters of what one would get from a doubling of CO2. But average temperatures rose only about 0.6 degrees since the beginning of the industrial era, and the change hasn't been uniform — warming has largely occurred during the periods from 1919 to 1940 and from 1976 to 1998, with cooling in between. Researchers have been unable to explain this discrepancy.
Modelers claim to have simulated the warming and cooling that occurred before 1976 by choosing among various guesses as to what effect poorly observed volcanoes and unmeasured output from the sun have had. These factors, they claim, don't explain the warming of about 0.4 degrees C between 1976 and 1998. Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is a poor substitute for evidence, and simulation hardly constitutes explanation. Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn't account for the warming that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the medieval warm period from the observational record — an effort that is now generally discredited. The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El Nino and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many years, even centuries.
Is there any point in pretending that CO2 increases will be catastrophic? Or could they be modest and on balance beneficial? India has warmed during the second half of the 20th century, and agricultural output has increased greatly. Infectious diseases like malaria are a matter not so much of temperature as poverty and public-health policies (like eliminating DDT). Exposure to cold is generally found to be both more dangerous and less comfortable.
Moreover, actions taken thus far to reduce emissions have already had negative consequences without improving our ability to adapt to climate change. An emphasis on ethanol, for instance, has led to angry protests against corn-price increases in Mexico, and forest clearing and habitat destruction in Southeast Asia. Carbon caps are likely to lead to increased prices, as well as corruption associated with permit trading. (Enron was a leading lobbyist for Kyoto because it had hoped to capitalize on emissions trading.) The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem. The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle — Al Gore's supposed mentor — is worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate. Carleton University science professor Tim Patterson said global warming will not bring about the downfall of life on the planet.
Patterson said much of the up-to-date research indicates that 'changes in the brightness of the sun' are almost certainly the primary cause of the warming trend since the end of the 'Little Ice Age' in the late 19th century. Human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas of concern in most plans to curb climate change, appear to have little effect on global climate, he said.
'I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere', said Patterson. 'The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles.'
Patterson explained CO2 is not a pollutant, but an essential plant food. An open letter sent Tuesday by 38 scientists, including the former heads of Britain's academy of sciences and Britain's weather office, called on producer Wag TV to remove what it called 'major misrepresentations' from the film before the DVD release — a demand its director said was tantamount to censorship.
Bob Ward, the former spokesman for the Royal Society, Britain's academy of science, and one of the letter's signatories, said director Mark Durkin made a 'long catalog of fundamental and profound mistakes' — including the claim that volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than humans, and that the Earth's atmosphere was warmer during the Middle Ages than it is today.
'Free speech does not extend to misleading the public by making factually inaccurate statements', he said. 'Somebody has to stand up for the public interest here.'
Durkin called the letter 'loathsome'. May 2007
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December 2007
Back to Global Warming Menu
Richard Lindzen: Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus [more]
Fred Singer: Hot Topics, Cold Truth [more]
F. Seitz and R. Jastrow: Do People Cause Global Warming?
Marcel Crok: Kyoto Protocol Based on Flawed Statistics
The M&M Project: Replication Analysis of the Mann et al. Hockey Stick
M&M on 'Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) proxy data base...'
M&M on 'Hockey Sticks, Principal Components, and Spurious ...'
Climate Audit: McKitrick: What the Hockey Stick Debate is About?
Richard Muller: Global Warming Bombshell
Junk Science: Greenhouse, global warming ... and some facts [more]
T.J. Nelson: Cold Facts on Global Warming
Jay Lehr: National Geographic promotes Global Warming Myths
Harvard Gazette: Global Warming Not So Hot (1003 was worse)
Michael Crichton: Impossibility of Prediction [more]
Reason Magazine: Venting on Global Warming
Monte Hieb: A Chilling Perspective on Global Warming
H. von Storch: How GW Research is Creating a Climate of Fear
Soon and Baliunas: Consensus Can Be Bad for Climate Science
George Will: Cooler Heads Needed on Global Warming
Jonah Goldberg: Seeing Red over 'Green Scare'
World Magazine: Greener Than Thou
IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IPCC: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis of Global Warming
IPCC: Climate Change 2001: Summary for Policymakers
IPCC: Climate Change 2007: Summary for Policymakers
IPCC: Climate Change 2007: Working group draft
Real Climate: Myth vs. Fact Regarding the 'Hockey Stick'
Stephen Schneider: An Overview of the Climate Change Problem
Stephen Schneider: Climate Science
Mark Hertsgaard: While Washington Slept
Grist: How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic
Ill Considered: How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic
Physics Today: The physics of climate modeling
Physics World: The climatic effects of water vapour
AIP: The Discovery of Global Warming
AGU Position Statement: Human Impact on Climate
National Research Council: Climate Change Science
NASA: Earth's Fidgeting Climate
Soon and Baliunas have been criticized for drawing 5% of their funding from the American Petroleum Institute, but this seems petty to me, and we have seen allegations that traditional funding sources are biased towards global warming alarmists. Ultimately, the research itself should be what matters. Interestingly, this research has been dismissed by the same Mann whose methodology was criticized in the article by Crok. If Mann did blunder as alleged, then he should be more circumspect regarding the professionalism of others. All of these accusations regarding methodology in climate science suggest to me that the entire discipline may be operating in a loose way. One doesn't often hear particle physicists blasting their colleagues like this.
Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence in support of this conclusion is the evidence from so-called "Detection and Attribution Studies". Such studies demonstrate that the pattern of 20th century climate change closely matches that predicted by state-of-the-art models of the climate system in response to 20th century anthropogenic forcing (due to the combined influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations and industrial aerosol increases).
BBC: Global warming risk 'much higher'
Pete du Pont: Don't be very worried
NCPA: Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts
Greg Easterbrook: From Global Warming Skeptic to Convert [more]
Paul Campos: Cool to Warming Controversy
Science: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Houston Chronicle: Al Gore's telling whoppers again
Robert Tracinski: Al Gore is a Brave Truth Teller?
Younger Dryas Cold Period: Global warming in perspective
Debra Saunders: Global Warming Fever
Canada Free Press: Scientists respond to Gore
Ronald Bailey (in Reason): Gore as climate exaggerator
Lubos Motl: Global warming update: NAS report
Climate Audit: Reaction to the NAS report (good comments)
Grist Magazine: NAS Hockey Stick Report
Think Progress: Gore responds to spinning skeptics
Ill Considered: Hockey Season Finally Over?
Article by Richard Lindzen
The Deniers Series
Over the past 100 years, the 'globally averaged surface temperature' has been estimated to have risen by about half a degree, a value that is associated with 'substantial error bars'.
This slight and tenuous warming could occur in a 'turbulent and heterogeneous' system like the Earth's climate without any forcing at all (such as human carbon dioxide pollution).
Thus, there may indeed be a slight warming, but this is neither 'certain or indisputable'. The alarm comes not from this slight increase in temperature but from various 'notoriously inadequate climate models', which guesstimate the amplifying effect of water vapor and clouds on carbon dioxide. With all other factors held constant, doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would only add 1 degree Celsius to the temperature, and quadrupling the CO2 would only add another degree, as there is diminishing returns. Thus the amplifying effect of the other gasses is crucial to the hysteria.
How do we know that the computer models are providing unreliable guesstimates of the amplification factor? Lindzen cites the primary 'consensus' document, the Scientific Assessment of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has noted that 'modelers at the United Kingdom's Hadley Centre had to cancel two-thirds of the model warming in order to simulate the observed warming'. Global warming advocates simply assume that the ad hoc (and unexplained) cancellation will disappear in the future. Yet as the IPCC notes, water vapor and clouds are major sources of uncertainty in the models. (Harvard string theorist Lubos Motl claims that the data suggest that clouds may actually reduce rather than amplify the warming effect of carbon dioxide.) The reasonable person will conclude that the computer models are simply unreliable. (By the way, methane, the other human contribution to global warming, has simply stopped increasing in recent years, for reasons no one knows.)
Neither does the recent temperature record provide reason for concern. For the past five years, the 'global mean temperature' has held flat to within a few hundredths of a degree (well within the measurement uncertainty). In fact, there has been no statistically significant change in the past 10 years.
Lindzen then speculates, not unreasonably, on the political motives behind the hysteria.
Coming from a major climate expert, though a dissenter, I am persuaded that we need do nothing drastic at the present time about global warming. The fact that Lindzen is in the minority is not too disturbing. It seems that political correctness has taken over the other experts, perhaps due to the notorious university ambience. They are helped along by the fact that even the expert can, if he wishes, and perhaps without realizing it, draw sloppy conclusions from computer models that are both complex and uncertain. (Actually, according to Lindzen, there is no consensus on global warming.) Let us remember the global cooling prognostications of the 1970s, when humans were polluting much as they are today. (Lindzen errs slightly and insignificantly when he refers to the price of oil, which does tend to go up in the long run, for reasons having nothing to do with climate.)
THE GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Times, 2 Jun 07
I could go on. You get the idea. There are many more revealing examples in this well-researched series of articles. I'll take Freeman Dyson over the IPCC any day. Clearly, there is more than enough reason to doubt the global warming research and to hold off on ruinous and futile expenditures to alleviate a problem that may not even exist.
Richard Lindzen (WSJ): There Is No 'Consensus' On Global Warming
Think Progress: Lindzen Piece Relies on Flawed Study
P.J. Saunders & V.C. Turekian: Warming to Climate Change
U.S. Senate: AP Incorrectly Claims Scientists Praise Gore Movie
Bjorn Lomborg: Climate change can wait. World health can't
Robert Samuelson: The Real Inconvenient Truth
John Stossel: Gore's Convenient Lie
Mark Hertsgaard (The Nation): The Truth on Global Warming
Robert Samuelson: Greenhouse Guessing
Telegraph: Leading scientific journals are 'censoring debate'
Tom Carter (WT): Gore's 'Truth' splits hurricane scientists
Lubos Motl: CO2, Temperatures and Ice Cores
Lubos Motl: New official confirmation of McKitrick & McIntyre
CO2 Science: Solar activity and recent global warming
James Glassman (TCS Daily): Science In the House of Pain
CNS News: 1930 Global Warming Records Untouched
Lubos Motl: Green Alps in the Roman empire
Breitbart: Greenland's glaciers have been shrinking for 100 years
Meteorology professor emeritus William Gray: 'It's a big scam.'
Lubos Motl: Southern hemisphere ignores global warming
US Senate: Nuremberg trials for global warming skeptics
Richard Lindzen: The temperature is as likely to go down as up
Seattle Times: Seafood scare similar to global warming
Lubos Motl: Greenland cooled down since 1930s
TBO: Hurricane Predictions Off Track As Tranquil Season Wafts Away
U.S. Senate: Skeptic's Guide to Global Warming
Lubos Motl: 2006: a bad year for climate fearmongers
Weather Channel climate expert calls for decertifying GW skeptics
Real Climate: The global cooling myth
Houston Chronicle: Climate scientists feeling the heat
CNS News: UCS funding comes with liberal 'strings attached'
Christopher Monckton (Telegraph): Climate chaos? Don't believe it
IPCC: Climate Change 2007: Summary for Policymakers
IPCC: Climate Change 2007: Working group draft
Canada Nat'l Post: Series on global warming
George Will: Inconvenient Kyoto Truths
New Yorker: An Historic Report on Climate Change
Timothy Ball: Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?
Anne Applebaum: Global Warming's Simple Remedy
Robert Samuelson: We Have No Global Warming Solution
Nigel Calder: Experiment hints global warming wrong
Hindustan Times: Indian experts question global warming
Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions
Patrick J. Michaels: Novel science fiction on global warming
Patrick J. Michaels: Greenhouse sceptics to congregate in Oz
Nat'l Geographic: Mars melt hints at solar cause for warming
UK DOCUMENTARY: GLOBAL WARMING IS LIES
Life Style Extra, 4 Mar 07
One major piece of evidence of CO2 causing global warming are ice core samples from Antarctica, which show that for hundreds of years, global warming has been accompanied by higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
S. Fred Singer: The Great Global Warming Swindle
Canada Post: Prominent French scientist now a skeptic
Joan Feynman: Has Solar Variability Caused Climate Change...?
Danish scientist: No global temperature
Bjorn Lomborg: Europe's dirty little secret on global warming
Lubos Motl: Borehole climate reconstructions
THE CLIMATE CHANGES. SO WHAT?
Richard Lindzen, 16 Apr 07
The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.
SCIENTIST: SUN ALMOST CERTAINLY THE CAUSE
Cornwall Standard Freeholder, 26 Apr 07
The current debate about global warming is 'completely irrational', and people need to start taking a different approach, say two Ottawa scientists.
SCIENTISTS DEMAND CHANGE TO SKEPTICAL GW FILM
Yahoo News, 25 Apr 07
The Great Global Warming Swindle aired on British television in March and is coming out soon on DVD. It argues that man-made emissions have a marginal impact on the world's climate and warming can better be explained by changing patterns of solar activity.
Lubos Motl: IPCC AR4 WG1: full text
Daily Telegraph: Expert: Ocean currents to blame for warming
Real Climate: The lag between temperature and CO2
Lubos Motl: Decay of the hockey stick
Alexander Cockburn: Hysteria Rules on 'Climate Change'
The Independent: Global warming 3X faster than worst predictions
Lawrence Solomon: Deniers Series: They call this a consensus?
Alexander Cockburn: Dissidents Against Dogma
Timothy Patterson: Sunspots predict global cooling
Lubos Motl: RealClimate: Saturated confusion
Daily Tech: Less than half of all published scientists endorse GW
Hansen, Schneider: Catastrophic new ice age by 2021
Bjorn Lomborg: Chill out on global warming
Bjorn Lomborg: An inconvenient Peace Prize
Daniel Botkin: Global Warming Delusions
Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming