Evidently, the APS (American Physical Society) is inviting papers to debate a very specific conclusion of the IPCC:
There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion.
Interesting choice of questions to debate.
Oh… I’m sure there are some who think anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not primarily responsible for global warming since the time of the Industrial Revolution. Yes… there may be a few…
But, when I read that issue, I remembered something.
I recently ran across the term “framing”. I read it in the context of global climate change. Specifically an article in EOS that advised scientists to “reframe” questions before answering them. Evidently, “reframing” a question involves:
a) hearing the question.
b) deciding it’s one you don’t want to answer.
c) answering a different related question you’d rather answer.
We voters see this behavior all the time. There’s an election in November; I count on seeing lots of reframing when politicians debate the issues. They do it to avoid answering questions that make their position appear weak.
I’m not so used to seeing intentional “reframing” in sciences. Before I read the EOS article, I didn’t suspect this was going on. But, having read it, and now reading the APS call, I can’t help but wonder. After all, that stated debate topic would seem out of place at most blogs and forums I visit. It leaves out the luke-warmers who agree CO2 causes warming, but debate the magnitude.
Off the top of my head, it seems the real world debate about IPCC conclusions, predictions or what-not revolve around questions more like these:
- Are the central tendencies of IPCC projections or predictions of warming biased high or low? I should think whether we should expect 1 C/century or 6 C/century over the next century has immense implications for public policy?
- Are the uncertainties in our ability to predict or attribute warming fairly conveyed by IPCC documents?
- Are current temperatures the warmest in the last 1,000 years? Or 2000? Or 3000? There has been an awful lot of debate over this issue.
If the APS limits debate to the specific question in their call, I anticipate we’ll see the responses used as proof that scientists nearly universally agree with the consensus position. However, from a policy point of view, the exercise will be almost pointless. To guide policy, we need the scientists to debate magnitude of projected warming.
Let’s hope the APS expands the debate to include the aspects of the debate that spawn actual arguments at blogs and forums. Otherwise… well… sigh…
I did not interpret it in the way that you did. We experienced a period of fairly rapid warming from 1980-2000 which has been entirely attributed to CO2 by the IPCC. Various skeptics argue that only a portion of that warming can be attributed to CO2 for different reasons (i.e. Cosmic Rays, Clouds, ENSO, etc.). In other words, it is possible to answer the questioned posed without claiming that CO2 has no effect or claiming that there will be no warming in the future due to CO2. i.e. the counter argument to ‘primarily responsible’ can be ‘partially responsible’.
I find myself agreeing with both Raven and Lucia. But I favor Lucia. It is the “very probably likely to be primarily responsible”. I have found that each modifier can used by the “host” to reframe the question to avoid the part that makes their argument appear weak.
re previous what time frame at current trends falsify warming? Its seems maybe that we may not after have to do this calculation. Even mainstream Australian papers are apparently doing a major U turn
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24036602-5000117,00.html
and this major U turn from the guy who was responsible for emmission targets Kyoto for Australia!
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24036602-5000117,00.html
sorry second Australian link here
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html
Your #3 (Are current temperatures the warmest in the last 1,000 years? Or 2000? Or 3000? There has been an awful lot of debate over this issue.) would certainly be a necessary question to address when answering the APS question. If it was warmer during the MWP than it is now, that makes it much harder to argue that 20th century warming must be anthropogenic by default.
When I look at the APS climate change policy, I see the debate as being consistant with a desire to convince people that their policy is correct. The idea that there would be no further debates on magnitude of the warming would seem to be inconsistant with their policy. Thus, I would be hesitant to consider this a framing issue.
They have already posted the first abstract on their site, and an excellent one by Christopher Monckton.
He makes a case against the IPCC conclusions. His case is based on the equations at the heart of the IPCC case and their .313°K W–1 m-2 radiative forcing assumption. He then goes on to show that the assumption is too high and leads, using their equations, to exponential warming (run away warming) as that did not occur even when the planet was 8C warmer and CO2 20 times higher.
His conclusion. Either the radiative assumption is much to high or the equations(linear) are flawed.
I also found his following quote very interesting:
Thus the IPCC cites only two papers that cite two others in turn. None of these papers provides any theoretical or empirical justification for a value as high as the κ ≈ 0.313 °K W–1 m2 chosen by the IPCC.
Looks like this story ended up getting Drudged and APS had to issue a clarification:
APS Climate Change Statement
APS Position Remains Unchanged
The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:
“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.” This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.
Also, it seems like Monckton isn’t really the best of choices to argue about climate sensitivity, as least if they want the climate science community to take the arguement very seriously…
With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion. This editor (JJM) invited several people to contribute articles that were either pro or con. Christopher Monckton responded with this issue’s article that argues against the correctness of the IPCC conclusion, and a pair from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, David Hafemeister and Peter Schwartz, responded with this issue’s article in favor of the IPCC conclusion. We, the editors of P&S, invite reasoned rebuttals from the authors as well as further contributions from the physics community. Please contact me (jjmarque@sbcglobal.net) if you wish to jump into this fray with comments or articles that are scientific in nature. However, we will not publish articles that are political or polemical in nature. Stick to the science! (JJM)
Forum on Physics & Society
The Forum on Physics and Society (FPS) is a division of the American Physical Society, organized in 1971 to address issues related to the interface of physics and society as a whole. The support of APS members is vital to the work of the Forum, both because Forum activities are coordinated by its active members and the financial support the Forum receives from the APS depends on its membership. All APS members may join two Forums free of charge.
FPS Newsletters
Physics and Society (P&S), a quarterly newsletter is available here back to 1993. It includes original research articles, reports on Forum-sponsored APS sessions, letters and regular book reviews. It is sent free of charge to all Forum members.
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/
Lucia, interesting observations. As the climate change issue clearly involves government action, with differing groups benefitting from either inaction or action of one kind or another, each interest group has of course struggled to frame the debate in the manner it deems most advantageous to its interests and to capture politicians and bureaucrats. This is standard games theory-grounded “public choice” analysis along the lines of Gordon Tullock. It’s useful to pay attention to framing, so we can know when when side or another is trying to con us. Unfortunately, since humans don’t think clearly (though we like to think that we do), we are very susceptible to good framing.
The environmentalists are no exception, but the framing from the fossil fuel side is rather clear.
I’m not sure about how deliberate the editor of the APS newsletter was in framing the question the way he did, but I agree with you completely that it is not helpful. Whether the human influence HAS BEEN the primary climate driver isn’t the real scientific question, but rather whether it has been and is likely to be, given continued rapid growth in GHG emissions, a significant driver. Ancillary scientific questions relate to the ways in which the influence is/will be manifested and what methods may be useful to abate the consequences. Even if human influence is relatively minor to natural variation, we know that small forces consistently applied can exert significant effects, and we also know that the earth’s climate is only metastable.
Of course it may be useful for the APS to have a debate among its members on some of the scientific issues, but the APS framing has already been abused by the witting or unwitting foils for the fossil fuels industry: “50,000 physicists vs. Gore”, indeed.
Your reaction to this statement is very weird. Surely all 3 of your questions are pointless if
the scientific community agreed that human contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is of little or no consequence to changes in global temperatures ?
In theory you could stop trying to find patterns in weather data and just say its nature and its chaotic.
Lucia & Tokyo Tom,
Sorry but the debate has already been framed ,for the general public at least, by the IPCC and the likes of James Hansen precisely in the terms that warming in the latter part of the 20th C is the result of man’s actions. You can’t open a newspaper or switch on the TV without constantly encountering that mantra.
In this context the P & S initiative is, hopefully, a breath of fresh air!
Monckton’s paper is about climate sensitivity – feedback, basically. The question really is how the climate responds to the amount of warming that a given rise in CO2 will deliver. Its not where it comes from but the reaction to any small warming amount. Don’t know about framing, but is this not the really critical question? If the reaction to it via feedback is low, the CO2 may not be important. If its high, we have to explain why the MWP did not deliver the feedbacks and thus the increase in warming, or if it did, why it stopped.
So at least from the evidence of this paper, and whether its right or wrong in its assertions, they are debating the issue at the heart of the matter. Your own material on how much warming there is now is also fundamental. But this is the other half of the puzzle, how much should it, however great it is, produce in the future, given a right understanding of feedbacks.
Dave–
I agree the question is framed by the IPCC. But, I think it often gets reframed more narrowly at blogs etc.
For example:
If one discusses whether or not the IPCC projections for the future are valid, some want to reframe that to a debate on whether or not the temperatures rose in the past, in particular since 1900.
Of course everyone agrees the temperature rose from 1900-now. But that doesn’t resolve the real question. During 2000-2100, will it rise at the rate we saw from 1900-2000? Or will it rise up to 6C– nearly 10 times as much?
The issue of sensitivity is very important. And, sometimes it seems to me, the dynamic is to seem to prove consensus on “not zero”, and then act as if there is consensus on 6C for 2000-2100.
So, text that sounds like it might be doing that is now making me a bit leery.
But, of course, I could be misinterpreting entirely. It’s happened before.
TokyoTom
What fossil fuel framing are you talking about? I know Shell is now funding a biofuels web site, funding From, Connelley and other vocal propoenents of AGW. Is there other clear framing you are aware of? (I rarely read what energy companies have to say about global warming. Does anyone?)
The numerical value of the sensitivity has been an issue for over 50 years. Here’s a comment from a Peer-Reviewed paper from 45 years ago:
“Because of these values the entire history of climatic changes by CO2 variations is becoming questionable.”
F. Moller, “On the Influence of Changes in the CO2 Concentration in Air on the Radiation Balance of the Earth’s Surface and on the Climate”, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 68, No. 13, pp. 3877-3886, July 1, 1963.
Lucia,
Framing is a concept developed by Lakoff. I ran into his work long long ago when I used to study
metaphor and rhetoric and linguistics.
wiki is your friend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff
PS, his book, Metaphors we live by is a good easy read for non linguists. I havent read his recent work
on Framing political debates, however, you can see how metaphors frame the climate science debate
when you see people use terms like “denialist” or flat earther, or creationist. And on the other side
you see people using analogies to Einstein, Piltdown man, etc.
Essentially the thesis is that our conceptual framework, the way we understand things, is governed
by metaphor. and you know what Frost said about metaphor.
Lucia,
I wouldn’t say this particular editor speaks for the APS as a whole.
Now as to Monckton’s paper, I haven’t delved into his equations, but he makes a large mistake in misreading figure 9.1 from the IPCC report. I think I’ve discussed this mistake here before and at CA, and you can read my post at Watts if you want to know more.
I would imagine APS is not too happy about giving someone like Monckton a forum, especially a forum connected to them.
http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/edbypo.html
here. education by poetry.
Steven-
That people frame doesn’t necessarily both me. But, I was a bit perplexed by an EOS article. It’s online. You’ll find the link here.
Much of the advice is useful for everyone. Use words people understand etc.
The abstract includes:
The section on reframing says,
Oh? How does Susan Hassel know the essence of the question some person is asking? But evidently she knows what they want to ask, and she tells us:
This really made me wonder what was going on in EOS. First, if you think someone phrased a question poorly, the only way to know what they really want to know is to ask them. You can ask: Do you want to know whether global warming caused Katrina? Or do you want to know if it affected the probability of hurricanes?
If it turns out they reallywanted to know about Katrina, the answer is “No”. You should say that. Of course, may then elaborate. And if you don’t answer, the question they actually asked, the person who asked the question is likely to jump to the conclusion that you are acting like a used car salesman or politician.
If it turns out Susan Hassel is right, after the person clarifies the question, you can answer it. As far as I can tell, the real scientific answer is: We don’t know. Judy Curry says “A”. Roger Pielke Jr. says B. Kerry Emmanuel currently seems to agree with Roger Pielke Jr. (I’m not sure I can keep track of Kerry Emmanuel’s current position. But, given the flurry of papers on either side, saying something like “the science suggests warming is increasing hurricanes” and stopping there is clearly tendentious. )
So, in fact, when we take Susan’s example as an illustration of framing she telling scientists to:
a) assume the person asking is linguistically challenged and doesn’t ask what they mean to ask.
b) change the simple question to a more complicated question you’d prefer to answer and then
c) give a tendentious answer that distorts the balances of scientific evidence on the issue of hurricanes by failing to mention that there is violent debate on the issue of hurricanes.
Had this talk been targetted towards public relations officials for a private company, a politician, those in advertising or an action group, I wouldn’t be at all perplexed. We all expect businesses to advertise, politician’s to take lessons in spin, advertisers to promote, and action groups to push agendas.
But why was this in EOS?! It unsettled me a bit.
Haiku interlude:
I ask my question.
The politician answers
a different question.
Lucia,
Your comment about “framing” reminded me: Way back when, I took a course in Classical Mechanics from Professor “X”. If he was asked a question he couldn’t answer, he would turn the words around to “frame” the query as a question he could answer. He did it often enough that it was called the “X” Transform.
Regards,
Bill Drissel
Grand Prairie, TX
The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:
“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
Read full APS Climate Change Statement ( http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm ) (http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm).
Lucia,
IMHO the important element here is not so much the “framing” itself. Rather, it is that the editor of the APS explicitly acknowledges that there are many in the scientific community who do not agree with the IPCC’s conclusions. The fact that the APS has not [yet] amended its official position matters little. Key here is that it’s the editorial board that sets editorial “dogma” and thus the “tone” of that particular publications/station. Thus the articles which appeared in the NYT and Boston Globe [both staunchly pro-AGW] in early January, 2008, explicitly voicing questions about the AGW hypothesis, the IPCC’s conclusions and the purported “consensus/the science is settled” were groundbreaking not because of their content, but because they appeared at all, something rest assured, that would never have happened without the blessings of the respective newspapers’ editorial boards. I think we should see the importance of what is happening at the APS in the same light.
You write that there may be “a few” who question whether anthropogenic CO2 was the primary cause of global warming since the time of the Industrial Revolution. As the editor at the APS correctly points out there are many, many out there who have serious doubts about that statement, and many more who have to date kept quite about their misgivings but who are now starting to speak up.
As I have pointed here and on other blogs, there exists no proof – either from first principles or from reliable data- for the AGW hypothesis. Interesting hypothesis, but no proof. And lest we forget, Arrhenius’ thesis, the work on which the entire CO2/AGW hypothesis rests, has been shown to be flat out wrong and it’s a mystery to me why it is still trotted out as somehow relevant other than for political convenience.
Lucia,
I guess my point is this. The concept of reframing through metaphor is a tactic being taught
by certain media consultants with certain political biases. Just go google reframing or framing
and lakoff. So, today’s scientists are being media trained. Funny side story ( email me for details) I had an interview with a reporter the other day and we just kept reframing each other. what a mess.
Lucia,
Framing science is not new: it even has a blog! http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/
I also think that your question #3 is irrelevant. I know there’s a whole lot of debate about it, but it is still irrelevant. It could have been 2C warmer at the time of the Romans, and this would still mean nothing as to whether anthropogenic GHG’s disrupt climate, because it could be due to some other forcing that is not present today. Knowing the past temperatures is only relevant if you also know all the associated forcing variations. Only then can it help you determine such forcings effects, and help you disentangle the observed effect of these forcings and the recent additional anthropogenic GHG forcing. In particular, one really wants to know the climate sensitivity to solar forcing (whether direct or indirect), since that is, apart from volcanoes, almost the sole factor affecting climate. Mind you, it would also be important to know the history of the CO2 concentration, since that could also reveal some hints about its role.
So the real question is: how much does anthropogenic GHG forcing changes the mean temperature of the Earth? (Hey, I’m good at reframing too!)
Finally, if someone were to ask me: “there has been almost no hurricane last year, is that because of global warming?”, what should I answer?
Francois, part of the argument that was stated above wrt temperatures being warmer in the past relates to the claimed “positive feedbacks” and the follow-on claim of “runaway warming” or “exponential temperature increase”. So the question is, if it was warmer in the past, why didn’t we cross a tipping point and have runaway warming? What could have changed to make the earth behave different now? If you say CO2 concentration, I believe that Al Gore pointed to CO2 correlating strongly to the previous temperature changes (although which came first temp change or CO2 change wasn’t discussed).
James,
Agree that the past demonstrates the implausibility of the “tipping point” theory. I don’t think too many scientists, apart from Hansen’s sect, believe in the tipping point.
Really what I meant is that the question of past temperatures is a “sub-question” of the main question. It is not central to the argument about whether or not more GHG’s are dangerous. The “hockey stick” has value as a promotional tool, as Steve McIntyre has demonstrated. But in terms of scientific significance in the determination of climate sensitivity, it’s pretty minor.
There have been attempts at determining the solar sensitivity using temperature and solar activity reconstructions for the past millenium, with a GCM to link the two, or just statistical analysis. But reconstructions vary a lot (the spaghetti graph), both for temperature and the Sun, so you can get almost any result you want. Not very convincing, unless you’re already convinced one side or another.
I’ve come to wonder why all those big IPCC reports, when what you want to know is really just a number, in degC/(W/m2), and a clear mathematical demonstration based on empirical measurements. The logorrhea is symptomatic of the fact that such a clear demonstration does not exist. So let’s just talk and talk and talk for 600 pages, and the reader will maybe forget what it’s all about in the end.
Boris,
yes, you tried to twist out of what the IPCC clearly intended and presented with their pretty pictures. GG warming is represented by Picture C. We do not have data showing C as a possibility. CO2 is a GG. Therefor any warming of note was not caused by CO2.
Now, there is an extremely slim possibility that CO2 could still have contributed a noticeable amount to the warming from 79-98. If so, the models have falsified themselves by pointing to a non-existent fingerprint of CO2 warming.
Any more questions Boris??
No. As the caption clearly indicates, the models were fed the forcings from 1890-1990. The forcing for GHG and solar were not equal, so the individual response in the plots was not equal. Even though solar forcing was lower, a tropical tropospheric hot spot is still visible in panel 9.1a.
Lucia,
If you want to see a truly disgusting example of “framing”, pls see what the APS did to Christopher Monckton yesterday. The APS “framed” Monckton by disavowing the very paper they invited him to submit and which was published earlier this week, claiming [N.B.] that it wasn’t “peer reviewed”. Monckton’s reaction is on Berny Peiser’s CCNet. It shows up a major internal divide in the APS and one a good flavour of the sandbagging politics that underlie the AGW “debate”. How low can the dogmatists stoop?
tetris,
Where can I find Monckton’s comments on the latest move by APS? Google does not turn anything up.
First off, the APS did not invite Monckton. An editor of a newsletter did, so this indignation of how they could “invite” him and then change their mind is ridiculous.
Second, Monckton’s paper contains the error I’ve already pointed out–a misreading of figure 9.1 from the IPCC report. I haven’t delved into M’s equations, but based on his sloppiness I’m confident it’s more junk.
Third, Monckton’s paper was NOT peer reviewed. The newsletter in question is not a peer reviewed publication. Monckton seems to think that if he shows his paper to a physicist who agrees with him that this is some sort of rigorous peer review.
The denialists are truly desperate: tying their hopes to Monckton, a bumbling classicist with a penchant for threatening lawsuits, claiming that an obscure newsletter publication constitutes the APS reversing their position on AGW, and now, on Anthony Watts site, linking themselves to anti-science ideologues at Uncommon Descent. It is fun to watch. 🙂
Kudos to the APS for acting quickly to clarify their position and to point out the true nature of Monckton’s “paper.”
Boris,
The models were fed forcings and came up with the IPCC result. Wow.
It has been widely documented that the models, whilst improving, are not really very representative of the Earth’s climate system. They have multiple problems which were eloquently outlined in Stainforth et al, Phil. Trans.R Soc. (2007) 306, 2145-2161. The authors saw little prospect of models of the complexity required being “available soon” and doubted that current climate models “provide decision relevant probabilities”.
Whether models are right or wrong is immaterial to Monckton being wrong. He is wrong in claiming that models show a tropical tropospheric hot spot ONLY for GHG warming.
I disagree about how “reframing” works. It certainly is used to deal with questions. But it isn’t by answering a question that wasn’t asked.
“Reframing” excludes what can be considered in such a way that one party cannot lose.
e.g.
First Party: Well, I have presented my plan; we should first focus on building nuclear plants to wean ourselves from natural gas and coal generated electricity. Would you tell us your plan?
Second Party: Since we (excluding)CANNOT build nuclear plants your plan is impossible. Therefore, as I argue, (excluding even further) ONLY solar and wind can replace coal and natural gas.
Provided the new Frame is accepted only the Second Parties ideas can be discussed.
+++++++++
The most useful course I ever took was called something like “Argument 101”. Almost sixty years ago. A very formal course based on Greek philosophy. I have since forgotten the classic name for each technique – the Greeks and/or Romans indeed had a word for it – but the techniques themselves don’t change.
Boris,
Third, Monckton’s paper was NOT peer reviewed. The newsletter in question is not a peer reviewed publication. Monckton seems to think that if he shows his paper to a physicist who agrees with him that this is some sort of rigorous peer review.
In a scientific literature, in this case a newsletter, what is the distinction between a “reviewed article” and a “peer reviewed article”?
I draw your attention to the Physics and Society Newsletter: July 2008.
At the top of the page we have (emphasis mine):
The Forum on Physics and Society is a place for discussion and disagreement on scientific and policy matters. Our newsletter publishes a combination of non- peer- reviewed technical articles, policy analyses, and opinion. All articles and editorials published in the newsletter solely represent the views of their authors and the Editors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Forum Executive Committee nor those of the American Physical Society.
At the bottom of the page we have (emphasis mine):
Physics and Society is the quarterly of the Forum on Physics and Society, a division of the American Physical Society. It presents letters, commentary, book reviews and reviewed articles on the relations of physics and the physics community to government and society. It also carries news of the Forum and provides a medium for Forum members to exchange ideas. Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum. …
I think Boris has missed the point several times over. That this sponsored publication calls for a new debate is a repudiation of the myth of “settled” science. That alone is remarkable.
Monckton’s credentials are not at issue since he makes no secret about mobilizing outside talent to produce these position papers. Can we similarly dismiss AGW because it gained popular prominence from a book and movie done by a divinity school dropout politician?
The alleged “error” with respect to the tropospheric fingerprint is a red herring. The refusal of the lower troposphere to warm at all much less at a rate well ahead of rates of any surface warming is a major problem for AGW alarmists. That is Monckton’s point. Recent rather silly attempts to ignore radiosonde temperature readings in favor of wing shear modeling of temperature is the kind of desperation Boris wrongly attributes to skeptics.
We still don’t have a solid, proven numeric measure for actual CO2 forcing. It is important to revisit this important fact rather than genuflecting before the Great Consensus or papering over the issue with new assumptions and modeling that simply beg the question.
I suppose the reply to Monckton’s paper will include the usual harrumph about settled science since Arrhenius, a Tamino-style graph using Hansen’s endlessly revised data from 1970-something to very early 2000-something and a rehash using the assumed forcing quantities without ever explaining why they aren’t currently forcing much of anything. Boris will presumably be pleased with that.
The trouble is Monckton is primarily a politician and prone to exaggeration to make a point and deserves criticism for his rhetoric. OTOH, the APS response is simply confirming everything that the skeptics have been saying about the politicization of the scientific establishment. If the APS was really interested in science they could have addressed Monckton’s claims by issuing a new release confirming their earlier statement (which they did) and placing a link to that news release at the top of the Monckton article. They could have also indicated that subsequent issues of the newsletter will include a rebuttal of the claims made by Monckton.
The pathetic appeal to authority that they ended up posting simply indicates that they don’t have much interest in science.
Come on George, a guy who is going to smash the consensus should at least be able to read a caption correctly.
As for the rest, it looks like Tim Lambert is the first to slog through the mess:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/moncktons_triple_counting.php
One point that the AGW’s may have is this: If the oceans are cooling should we not see quite soon a drop in atmospheric Anthropogenic C02, as the cooler oceans absorb C02?
Boris,
We all know you don’t like Monckton and his ilk, and are possibly even pleased to see him sandbagged this way. The APS’ behaviour is beyond the pale. Any talk of “consensus” is now mere pretense and the APS’s attempt to put a proverbial “finger in the dyke” will not stop it from washing away.
Meanwhile Tobin [# 4317] is spot on. Pls read his comments again.
And what do you do with the fact that ALL relevant temperature metrics – land surface, sea surface, deep ocean, lower tropsphere, etc., are down and have been declining for the better part of a decade [other than simply deny them..]. Not even GISS and Hadley can any longer manipulate the data to obscure this fact. Not to mention that both the PDO and AMDO are entering cold cycles? As Lindzen, Pielke Sr. and a good number of other observers have been pointing out, the Earth’s climate system is shedding joules: the “Warming” is not “hidding” anywhere and any purported causal relationship between increases in CO2 ppmv and global temperatures – never proven- is increasingly becoming a figment of the imagination. If you have hard verifiable proof -either from first principles or from reliable data sets [GISS no longer qualifies] to the contrary- I and no doubt many others would greatly appreciate being educated.
Meanwhile the divide that runs through the APS is there for all to see, and the most important self inflicted collateral damage caused by its red flagging Monckton’s paper after the fact is the organization’s scientific reputation and integrity. It does nothing to bolster the dogmatist argument.
Maybe all the carbon( trees, volcanoes, ect) has been here all the time so “extra” release by humans = not relevant. garbage in = garbage out? = no effect. Again has anyone here considered that temps may actually fall? ( for the next 100 years)
Tim Lambert is an idiot who censors anyone who disagrees with him. Monckton comes for a long tradition of amateur aristo scientists. Most of the early important discoveries were made by them, they have the time, money, and are beholden to no-one. Boris is using a very dirty trick of finding a small error and using it to discredit the whole thing. What does Boris say about the Hockey stick, or Wegman, or Mann and Co?
Silence……
Lucia added: Please, no calling people idiots.
Look’s like David Evans is continuing the Australian’s War on Science and Monckton’s paper isn’t even good for bathroom reading.
Notice I could have merely said that Monckton was an idiot who likes to threaten lawsuits. Instead I showed a specific example of why he is an idiot. If Lambert is wrong, you should be able to show it. And BTW, Lambert doesn’t censor that I have seen. He even gave Tilo Reber his own thread at Deltoid.
When Monckton’s “tiny error” is corrected, his whole paper falls apart.
Thank you, tetris, for outing yourself as a conspiracy theorist.
MarkR–
No calling people idiots. If you think someone’s argument is weak, it’s more persuasive to point out the flaws.
Lucia,
It is difficult to call Boris’ arguments weak, as he never has any argument. He himself seems to think that calling people names is a sufficient scientific argument. What about this:
“a bumbling classicist with a penchant for threatening lawsuits, claiming that an obscure newsletter publication constitutes the APS reversing their position on AGW, and now, on Anthony Watts site, linking themselves to anti-science ideologues at Uncommon Descent.”
Refuting Monckton’s rather well written paper, giving specific examples backed with data, seems too much for him. Of course, he talks about a “gross mistake”, but what exactly is that mistake. Can we have convincing data to back this up? No, we’re only told that Monckton “can’t read a caption”. Isn’t that calling him an idiot?
I strongly suspect that Mr. Boris has no scientific background, and can’t even handle college level mathematics, and he only relies on what others (ie. Lambert) say to give him arguments.
But of course, since he will never reveal his true identity, we will never know.
Monckton (quoted) says, “On the basis of Lindzen (2007), the anthropogenic-ear radiative forcing as established in Eqn. (3) are divided by 3 to take account of the observed failure of the tropical mid-troposphere to warm as projected by the models”
Lambert says Monckton is wrong because, “…Lindzen (2007) does not say that (ALL– My emphasis) CO2 radiative forcing is too high by a factor of three. In fact, he specifically says that (ALL) ΔF2x “is about 3.5 watts per square meter”.”
Lindzen (quoted) says, “…we can reasonably bound the anthropogenic contributions to surface warming since 1979 to a third of the observed warming,”
See the problem? Lambert thinks Monckton is talking about all CO2 forcing, but he is in fact only referring to anthropogenic derived CO2 forcing.
Lindzen can’t ne clearer, specifically says, “..we can reasonably bound the ,anthropogenic contributions to surface warming since 1979 to a third of the observed warming“.
Then Lambert goes on to say that Chylek (2008), and McKitrick on Urban Heat Islands, are wrong. Referring back to a long discredited Real Climate propaganda piece, and a piece echoing his previous failed attempt to discredit McKitrick. So presumably it’s OK to slander McKitrick, but others are protected?
FrancoisO
It is true that Boris will never convince people because he likes to do argue by telling people his real argument is buried somewhere over in comments at Anthony Watts site, yet, does not provide use the link.
Maybe Boris posted some brilliant rebuttal to Monckton over there, but no one is going to bother to hunt for Boris’s argument in some post, somewhere on the web. Since no one has a clue what Boris’s argument is, most just move on to the next argument.
I missed the “bumbling classisist” name calling. I’m clearly going to have to find a plugin that detects name calling, and add words to the list: idiot, denialists, warmer, bumbling….
I hate to do it though. What if someone uses the word bumbling in some innocent non-name calling way?
Lucia,
I wouldn’t think of calling Boris names or ad hom him. You don’t do that to one of your favourite trolls. 🙂
Tetris–
I don’t consider Boris a troll. He sometimes posts useful information. But, with regard to the flaw he perceives in Monckton’s article… I don’t know what it is because there is no way I’m assigning myself a 5 minute task of visiting Google and running an advanced search on Anthony’s site with various search terms like “Boris Monckton”.
No one is going to do that.
Lucia,
You have to be very careful in implementing word search and destroy systems. On one site I used to frequent, they were so intent on banning a well known four letter word, that any word that started with f and ended with ck was hashed out. We were, therefore, denied the use of such rude words as frock, flock, forelock, fetlock, flapjack, or feedback. Actually, to ban the use of the feedback word would cause havoc in climate discussions. 🙂
Our National Assembly (provincial parliament) has a list of insults that the MP’s cannot use within the Chamber. It turns out that the list gets longer and longer as clever MP’s keep finding new subtler and subtler ways of insulting each others, the most recent one being “wind vane”. Some odd sort of Red Queen effect, I guess.
I’ve repeated Monckton’s mistake ad nauseum.
Monckton uses figure 9.1 of the IPCC report to claim that a tropical tropospheric hotspot is a fingerprint of GHG warming. The figure in question is on page 675, here:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch09.pdf
(Note: Monckton does not give the number of the figure.)
Note the caption reads:
Here’s what Monckton says about this figure:
The word “fingerprint” appears nowhere near this figure in the IPCC report. Nor are the resulting plots characterized as “Temperature fingerprints of five forcings” as Monckton has retitled his figure.
Now, the question becomes: is Monckton correct in calling the plots from figure 9.1 “temperature fingerprints”?
The answer is no.
1) The plots from 9.1 were created with 20th century forcings. As a result, the forcing for GHGs is much greater than solar, so any tropical tropospheric hotspot is going to be more evident in the GHG plot (panel 9.1c).
2) The solar plot (9.1a) shows a tropical tropospheric hot spot, though it is not as pronounced as the GHG plot. This is, of course, due to the unequal forcings.
3) What happens when you do a true fingerprint analysis and run a climate model with equal forcings for GHG and solar? Well, you get a tropical tropospheric hotspot for both forcings. (Note that the true fingerprint–a cooling stratosphere–only appears in the GHG plot.)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/
So Francois, do you get it now? I take it you didn’t catch this rather obvious mistake in your reading of Monckton’s “rather well written” paper?
lol at my blockquote mess again.
edit:hmmm….never noticed the edit link before. Nice.
I don’t get Boris’ objection regarding the term “fingerprint.”
(1) The graphs and the caption were faithfully reproduced (originals can be found in working group final numbers: http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/ar4-wg1/ppt/figure09.ppt);
(2)Monckton’s use of the term fingerprint is entirely consistent with the IPCC glossary definition:
(3) The issue Boris keeps ducking is why tropospheric warming in excess of surface warming has not occurred as expressly called for by the models (even if one chooses to eschew the term “fingerprint”).
And (4) Boris’ proffered refutation of the fact that the observed temperatures aren’t jibing with the models is to tell us what the fellows at Real Climate say about what the models say about forcing and that, presumably, repeated personal meditation upon that unrealized ideal comprises “true” fingerprint analysis.
I don’t think Francois or anybody else will get “it”. I know I don’t.
lambert cant even get the dates of McKitricks papers right.
Lucia,
Re: 4336
Before you absolve Boris any further: In 4329, Boris ad homs me as a “conspiracy theorist”. Any better than “troll” with a 🙂 ?
With all due and well deserved respect to our host, I would advise all who are reading this thread to consult the latest postings on CA. I’m afraid it’s yet another rather troubling example of the ever so “subtle” and ostensibly minute “adjustments” that Hansen, Schmidt & Co @ GISS concoct into their “data set”. In the private sector, where I come from [PhD notwithstanding], this is called “cooking the books”. For anyone in doubt as to the consequences of doing so and being found out in the real world, pls ref: ENRON.
P.S.: As readers of the Black Board know, even Lucia has enough questions marks in the margin so as to treat the GISS data as something that is increasingly outside of the data pertinent to her own analysis.
P.P.S:
Boris. Any meaningful comments?
Well, tetris, when you say that Hansen and Hadley have been manipulating data to obscure cooling then I would say you are suggesting a conspiracy theory.
And George, no you haven’t gotten it. Maybe someone who does get it can explain better.
Boris. Why has “tropospheric warming in excess of surface warming …not occurred as expressly called for by the models”?
Since there is no tropical hot spot in the recent data, it suggests that the temperature variations are not being forced by any method. Rather, the temperature variations are simply unforced internal oscillations of climate.
No it doesn’t. Any warming at the surface would induce a tropical tropospheric hotspot. This is due to changes in the wet adiabatic lapse rate. If unforced variability warms the tropical surface, then the troposphere will warm more.
I agree with RC in that the data for the troposphere are not good enough. Since the troposphere is more responsive to el nino events, there’s a ton more natural variability in the area under discussion. As RC rightly points out, the graphs that Monckton cites are long term responses (1890-1990) so over shorter time periods there will be a lot of noise–yes even more than in the surface temps.
If the data are right, what would it mean? Well, it would mean the models are wrong, but that’s not as big a deal as some like to make out because the models wet adiabatic response is based on observation–and there are many observations that show a change in the lapse rate with surface warming.
And remember that models predicted a cooling stratosphere and the cooling stratosphere has been observed unambiguously. A cooling stratosphere and warming surface only happen with an enhanced greenhouse effect.
Doesn’t it also happen the initial state includes measurable amounts of stratospheric aerosols and the final state does not include them?
According to Roger Pielke, Sr at http://climatesci.org/2007/05/10/does-the-ipcc-statement-for-policymakers-accurately-present-the-observations-of-recent-global-temperature-trends/
“This data can be used to assess whether the warming trends reported in the 2007 IPCC SPM have continued in recent years. As shown clearly in Figure 7 on the RSS website>, the following conclusions can be made:
1. Since about 2002 there has been NO statistically significant global average warming in the lower and middle troposphere,
and
2. Since about 1995 there has been NO statistically significant cooling in the stratosphere.”
Pielke has also pointed out an interesting paper by Compo,G.P., and P.D. Sardeshmukh, 2008: Oceanic influences on recent continental warming. Climate Dynamics, in press.
The abstract reads
“Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land. Atmospheric model simulations of the last half-century with prescribed observed ocean temperature changes, but without prescribed GHG changes, account for most of the land warming. The oceanic influence has occurred through hydrodynamic-radiative teleconnections, primarily by moistening and warming the air over land and increasing the downward longwave radiation at the surface. The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences.â€
This could be the mechanism for the unforced temperature variations, driven by ocean temperature variations which in turn are driven by unforced changes in cloud cover that modulates the solar radiation heat uptake by the oceans. Since thermal IR is absorbed in the top few microns of the oceans, I doubt it is causing ocean temperatures to change.
In the introduction to the paper they say “Indeed we find compelling evidence from several atmospheric
general circulation model simulations without prescribed GHG, aerosol, and solar forcing variations
(Table 1) that the continental warming in Fig. 1a is largely a response to the warming of the oceans rather than directly due to GHG increases over the continents (Table 2).” In other words, they simulate the observed climate changes without any changes in greenhouse gases. Sounds like unforced variability is a viable explanation for the observations. If so, then greenhouse gas forcing of climate hasn’t risen above the noise.
Boris says:
“I agree with RC in that the data for the troposphere are not good enough.”
If the data in the troposphrere is not not good enough then you cannot plausibly argue that the data for the stratosphere is any better. This means we have no idea whether stratosphere cooling is actually going on. If you are willing to accept the stratosphere measurements at face value then you have to accept the troposphrere measurements on the same basis.
I’ve never heard this.
We’re back to short trends again. I don’t want to go there, but why 2002 for one and 1995 for the other?
Apparently they merely link the continental changes to the oceanic changes. Does Pielke say what has caused the ocean temp increase? I’m assuming it’s not land use changes.
That’s an odd sentence. Does anyone argue that land temp changes are caused directly by GHGs over land?
Why can’t I? It’s true. MSU data is good at detecting trends in large sections of the atmosphere. But it cannot pinpoint the hotspot in the tropics with enough accuracy. Even the lower tropospheric channel for RSS includes values from the stratosphere.
At any rate, we really should be looking at upper stratospheric temperatures, since that is where the GHE is dominant. Pielke is probably looking at RSS channel four which is the lower strat.
Go play with the ModelE runs at: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/transient/climsim.html
1) After volcano eruptions, the stratospheres warms dramatically. It looks like spikes– so if you averaged that into a baseline, the stratosphere looks warm during periods with volcanos erupting. (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/transient/Rc_jt.1.07.html)
Then look at tropospheric aerosols, indirect:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/transient/Rc_jt.1.10.html
So, at least according to Model E, varying the amount of aerosols, either volcanic or otherwise, seems to affect stratospheric temperatures.
Re:4349 and 4352
Douglas Hoyt
It should be clear by now that Boris will only consider whatever data supports his views and studiously disregard anything that might cause him cognitive dissonance [such as the issue of GISS’ and Hadley’s manipulation of data sets which has been analyzed in great detail several times over the past couple of years on CA -as late a yesterday in John Goetz’ post about GISS- and by Watts, McKintrick and others..].
Now he causally intimates not only that Christy’s and Spencer’s, et.al. work is not up to snuff [simply because Gavin and Co. at RC say so] but that it’s really no big deal that the models are wrong. This truly pushes the bounds of credulity since these various models are held up as reliable “fact” to governments and policy makers by the IPCC, GISS, NCAR, NOAA, et.al. and so are causing those folks to commit billions, nay trillions of taxpayers dollars to “combat” AGW/ACC.
Boris does make one very good point though: if the satellite data is right [and there is no compelling evidence to the contrary] then the models are wrong, quite wrong. And that is a very big deal, indeed.
Boris doesn’t seem to understand what Compo and I are saying. Palle has shown that the albedo of the Earth varies over time and this time variation is caused by variations in cloud cover. The resulting variations in incident solar radiation on the oceans is huge compared to the variations due to GHGs, being 3 to 9 times larger. These variations in incident solar radiation will dominate any changes in ocean temperature. The large changes in radiation also imply a low climate sensitivity. Here is what Pielke,Sr. has to say about the Palle papers:
“A 2004 Science article by E. Pallé, P. R. Goode, P. Montañés-RodrÃguez, and S. E. Koonin
entitled “Changes in Earth’s Reflectance Over the Past Two Decades†(see; subscription required) and a follow-on 2005 Geophysical Research Letters paper by Pallé E., P. Montañés-Rodriguez, P. R. Goode, S. E. Koonin, M. Wild, and S. Casadio entitled “A multi-data comparison of shortwave climate forcing changes†(see; subscription required) provide support as a reason for the recent observed upper ocean cooling that is reported in Lyman et al (see). The two Pallé et al papers are excellent scientific contributions on the monitoring of the radiative imbalance of the climate system. [and thanks to Francois Ouellette who also noticed the importance of the Pallé et al research in a Comment on the Climate Science weblog].
The abstract of the Geophysical Research Letters article reads,
“Traditionally the Earth’s reflectance has been assumed to be roughly constant, but large decadal variability, not reproduced by current climate models, has been reported lately from a variety of sources. We compare here the available data sets related to Earth’s reflectance, in order to assess the observational constraints on the models. We find a consistent picture among all data sets of an albedo decreased during 1985–2000 between 2–3 and 6–7 W/m 2, which is highly climatically significant. The largest discrepancy among the data sets occurs during 2000–2004, when some present an increasing reflectance trend, while CERES observations show a steady decrease of about 2 W/m 2.—
It seems like the APS is starting to prepare itself for a shift.. Just in case temps keep going down or flat for next 1000 years!
“There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution,”
That statement itself was countered by the declaration it
“does not represent the views of the Executive Committee of the Forum on Physics and Society.”
I enjoy your posts usually, Lucia, but you are off beam here and Dave Andrews is right. While you personally as a statistician are mainly concerned with the actual temperatures, and their assessment and prediction, the political question was actually ‘framed’ as such from the start by an aggressive green lobby and taken up by a strident counterculture and a quasi-hysterical media: ‘It’s our fault, so we must now pay more taxes/drive less/fly less/use eco-lightbulbs etc. If you are really concerned about dishonesty and bad faith, you might do better to examine the eagerness of so many to believe we caused it with our nasty factories and cars.
And yes, there are indeed a lot of people out there who do not accept that CO2 is causing GW, and are concerned that the cure proposed will not only be worse than the disease, but isn’t even a cure anyway. 32000 of them (9000 PhD) recently signed a petition to that effect.
SteveUK–
What I was thinking is, the “framing” is a set up.
Let me try an analogy. Supposed I wanted to “prove” people should not be permitted to have pet dogs in the an apartment complex. There are arguments for and against. Many of the arguments bring up details like the size of the dog etc.
So, suppose I were a slick operator, and I wanted to “prove” that dogs are a bad, I set up a debate but instead of discussing dogs, I insist that we all discuss whether or not pit bulls should be permitted. Pit bulls are a subset of dogs. I know in advance that there will be many more people concerned about pit bulls than say, chihuahuas.
We have the debate. By framing on “pit bulls” get everyone to agree on an issue somewhat related the full issue– which is dogs in general. The consensus is proven.
And from now on, whenever the discussion of dogs come up, I point to the debate, show that there was a consensus, but I say “on dogs” when the consensus was on “pit bulls”.
So, what I was wondering is this: Was the APS framing by having a debate on the question more people agree on? And then later, when “consensus” is shown, the people who set up the debate would switch to insisting this means there is consensus on the more tenuous IPCC claims or findings — like the projections for the 2000-2100.
In the end, I think it’s clear the APS was not framing anything. It reads as if the APS acts like many organizations run by group of strong minded individuals. The editor has one view. Some governing board has another. Needless to say, each individual member of APS has yet another.
Lucia, I disagree. This whole debacle is meaningless; it seems to be the machinations of a single editor acting on his own impulses. While we’re imagining motives and framing, however, allow me to suggest another plausible one:
The “consensus” argument is not the proponent’s best friend, but rather the skeptics’, because it has two very strong refutations: 1) Science does not work by democracy, and 2) There are people who disagree, so there is no consensus. It dismays me whenever this “consensus” issue comes up, because what is important is not how many people support a theory, but whether or not there are valid, competing theories in the scientific canon or whether or not legitimate holes have been punched in the theory.
My theory on “APS-gate” is that this editor was himself framing the issue in the second way referenced above. By publishing Monckton’s piece, he was attempting to lure out not refutations for a legitimate debate, but rather further pieces by skeptics. Then, the second tactic referenced above would become heavily reinforced. The same thing happened with the Oregon Petition Project; although it is meaningless in terms of the first tact referenced above, it reinforces the second.
The goal would not be to lure out scientific critiques of AGW theory. It would be to compile like-minded papers under one banner to shatter the “consensus” meme. It’s politicking, plain and simple, meant to bolster an argument which is brought up time and time again.
Counters–
At this point, I have to admit, I have no idea what the heck was going on when the editor proposed this debate!
I agree the consensus argument is a weak argument for any scientific theory. After all, science is neither a beauty contest nor a popularity contest.
I’m always surprised proponents of any theory fall back on consensus. After all, those in favor of the more-or less spherical earth don’t fall back on consensus to prove it. If the encounter a flat-earther, they can point to all sorts of evidence against the flat earth. (The fact that we can circumnavigate the earth. Boats “appearing” and “disappearing” as the go past the horizon. Pictures from space. Etc.)
I have to say that, once the editors pronouncement was a fait accompli, the APS’s decision to officially squelch the conversation was probably unwise — particularly politically.
Lucia, it was likely a knee-jerk damage control reaction. The story was spun far and wide that the APS was officially denouncing climate change, which it wasn’t. I agree that there will be political ramifications of this, particularly to strengthen distrust of the scientific establishment among skeptic circles.
As a proponent of AGW, I might be able to offer an explanation as to why we so often fall back on the consensus argument: frustration. It’s absolutely frustrating dealing with many skeptics because they are often completely ignorant of the field of atmospheric science as a whole. You often discuss issues with volcanoes and their fingerprint on datasets in your posts, so allow me to share an example you might appreciate:
Although not completely intuitive, a basic theory in atmospheric science and geology helps explain whether or not a volcanic eruption will influence the atmosphere globally. It boils down to several factors: location of the eruption, size of the eruption, and contents of the eruption. It’s the type of stuff that will come up in passing in an atmospheric science class at university, and makes a great essay question for a final exam. However, over at Watts Up With That, a commenter who was dismayed that a recent volcanic eruption in Alaska wouldn’t affect global climate had the audacity to claim that my refutation of his assertion was mere hand-waving. How am I to react in a situation when someone is too stubborn to accept a basic, textbook concept?
I try to post on skeptic blogs on occasion to correct the most ridiculous misinformation being circulated in comments. However, it often gets me nowhere, as the most recent post on the APS issue over at WUWT evidences.
The spirit of debate is high among the AGW-proponent community – clearly it is, or else Gavin Schmidt himself wouldn’t bother discussing your experiments on this very website. However, it seems to us that most skeptics aren’t interested in debate – they’re often just interested in politicking.
counters–
I’ve read the excuse that people fall back on the consensus argument out of frustration when they can’t convince people of things. But, the difficulty is that, quite often the inability to convince others is the frustrated person’s own fault. If a person advances poor arguments, they will generally fail to convince people.
This will happen even if the claim is correct.
Also, what makes anyone think convincing people will happen quickly? That you don’t need to repeat things? Etc.
On the volcanic eruption– you were one up on me. I didn’t even know one had erupted. I googled and found:
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Okmok.php
Wikipedia puts the stratosphere near the poles at 5 miles. So, 24,000ft/ 5280 ft/mi = 4 .5 miles.
So, right now, we have an eruption that is near the poles and not stratospheric. We shouldn’t expect much effect on global temperatures.
Hi Counters, Re: “The spirit of debate is high among the AGW-proponent community – clearly it is, or else Gavin Schmidt himself wouldn’t bother discussing your experiments on this very website. However, it seems to us that most skeptics aren’t interested in debate – they’re often just interested in politicking”
I’d have to disagree with this particular example. After all, Gavin’s (and other’s) blog, Realclimate, wouldn’t publish/accept responses from Mcintyre to their early criticisms of his work. (they might have finally accepted a post or two from him sometime much later on?) It most likely wasn’t Gavin’s idea to not accept them, but that doesn’t sound like a very good debate to me. (Note, that’s a criticism of the Realclimate blog, not Gavin)
Mike
(edit: I should have also mentioned that I do see a lot of healthy debate on climate blogs in general, I guess I was mainly criticizing your example due to a Realclimate affiliation, which I suppose wasn’t very objective of me. 😉
counters-
I cannot say that the substantive quality of argument is any better or worse among skeptics than among alarmists visiting climate blogs. However, I do think there are three rather tedious but defining characteristics of the alarmist style:
(1) any indication of confirmation however small, short-term or tangential is or “could” be evidence of climate change. However, any contrary evidence (11 years of cooling, no tropospheric warming..) requires far more certainty and a longer time frame to support a anything (and is probably based on bad measurements).
(2)The in vitro scientific basis of AGW has not played out particularly well in nature but the fact that it exists is the basis of the “alarmist 2-step”: If we can prove any fraction of AGW as probable or well-grounded then we also must accept the 5-6 degree catastrophe scenario as proven fact. This is I think akin to what lucia identifies as the “framing” issue, a conscious refusal to separate catastrophism from the possibility of mere lukewarmism (as the evidence better suggests) much less the possibility that AGW is simply wrong.
(3) All who disagree on the whole or even in part with AGW alarmism are presumptively (a) pawns of the oil companies (b) innately malevolent and/or (c) stupid. In contrast, there are no ideological, emotional, political or financial pressures in support of AGW–it is an emanation of pure altruism.
The skeptics did not frame this debate nor did they establish its tone. The fact that some guy on a blog did not understand that a volcano in Alaska may not be a significant climate event is not particularly troubling to me. I am more concerned that the head of NASA’s weather and climate program appears to be massaging key data while calling for mass arrests. I am also “frustrated” that I see a dozen idiotic climate-change-is-scaring-the-animals-and-causing-disease stories out in the mainstream media every day during a decade when there hasn’t been any measurable climate change.
counters– though I fully credit your sincerity in this instance, I am always a tad skeptical of “frustration” about the lack of enlightened skeptic argumentation because, frankly, attacking the low-hanging fruit of speculation from amateur skeptics while circling the wagons around utterly, indefensibly lame products such as Mann’s hockey stick against highly substantive criticism is kinda the MO of alarmism. A lot of straw men have been sacrificed to preserve The Consensus.
Lucia: “What fossil fuel framing are you talking about?”
I imagine you are aware of the Global Climate Coalition and the Luntz memo? Sure, Shell first and now Exxon have changed their official tune, but first they deliberately copied and funded the PR tactics that the tobacco industry had followed.
“Was the APS framing by having a debate on the question more people agree on?”
It seemed to me that thte framing was in the skeptics’ favor, by looking at the more difficult question of whether the human-induced forcing played the primary role in the experienced climate change, rather than the easier one of whether we have made a substantial contribution.
Dave: “the debate has already been framed ,for the general public at least, by the IPCC and the likes of James Hansen precisely in the terms that warming in the latter part of the 20th C is the result of man’s actions.”
I think this is an overstatement. Though it may be true to some degree, the main scientific point is that we are making a significant contribution to climate change.
“It has been widely documented that the models, whilst improving, are not really very representative of the Earth’s climate system.”
Of course the models are imperfect, but that doesn’t mean they are not useful.
Steven: “Framing is a concept developed by Lakoff.”
Actually, framing is something advertizers and politicians have been doing for millenia. Lakoff has made some observations from the left, but framing has been very prominent (and more successful) from the right. Think “Contract with America”, flip-flopping, weak on defense, the Luntz memo, fear of Islamofascists, fear of gays, fear of enviro-fsacists, etc.
Francois: “the past demonstrates the implausibility of the “tipping point†theory. I don’t think too many scientists, apart from Hansen’s sect, believe in the tipping point.”
Actually, the paleo record is replete with rapid changes in climate. These happened because we hit tipping points.
“So let’s just talk and talk and talk for 600 pages, and the reader will maybe forget what it’s all about in the end.”
Maybe astute readers will overlook that those pages provide alot of evidence that climate is changing and is very sensitive to the forcings we’ve introduced?
Douglas: “In other words, they simulate the observed climate changes without any changes in greenhouse gases.”
It seems clear that you are misreading Pielke Sr. who, far from saying that GHGs might NOT contribute to observed climate change, is asserting that the mechanism by which our GHG forcing is expressed is largely via ocean warming.
George: “The skeptics did not frame this debate nor did they establish its tone.”
Who do you mean by “skeptics”? The fossil fuel firms, industry associations and the political support they purchased and managed? The scientist skeptics who they continue to manage and package in petition drives organized by their PR firms? Lindzen does science, but his WSJ pieces are pure politics.
“All who disagree on the whole or even in part with AGW alarmism are presumptively (a) pawns of the oil companies (b) innately malevolent and/or (c) stupid. In contrast, there are no ideological, emotional, political or financial pressures in support of AGW–it is an emanation of pure altruism.”
Sadly, I agree that this is relatively fair observation – typical for ANY political battle – though overstated. But let’s not forget that of course the “skeptics” do EXACTLY the same thing:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/08/mind-games-bret-stephens-of-the-wall-street-journal-panders-to-quot-skeptics-quot-by-abjuring-science-and-declaring-himself-an-expert-on-quot-mass-neurosis-quot.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/08/lubo-motl-the-cool-headed-overheat-to-this-rational-quot-scientist-quot-i-m-a-freedom-hating-hypercommunist-nazi-who-should-be-quot-jailed-or-executed-quot.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/19/cool-rationalists-or-conservatives-and-neocons-on-the-environment.aspx
You have a vivid imagination. I’d never heard of either. I googled both.
I only knew of Shell’s current support of AGW proponents because Atmoz blogged about it.
Dave didn’t suggest models were useless. He said they are improving, but are inaccurate It’s important to identify and judge the accuracy or of models so that we can use them properly. Attempts to shift to subject to whether or not the models are “useless”, is counterproductive. It distracts us from focusing on the more important discussions. These includes,
a) What is the accuracy of the predictions? Presumably, those who run the models would wish to discuss this, rather than reframing the debate to whether or not the models are useless. This reframing gives people the impression the models just might be useless!
and
b) Do we have any decent estimate of the magnitude and speed of climate change? Will it be 1C over the next century? or 6C? Models predict a whole scatter shot of results. Is the truth even inside the range they predict? Or do we simply not know?
Whether we can predict well, or horribly, that’s something voters, policy makers etc. need to know.
TokyoTom,
In general, people around here and CA ignore the behavior of the skeptics whilst the behavior of AGW proponents is scrutinized and mocked.
Imagine if Gavin Schmidt had erased lines from a skeptic’s graph rather than Patrick Michaels removing them from Hansen’s.
Whatever excesses the AGW proponents may have committed pale when compared to those of the so called skeptics.
Boris–
Who exactly are “people around here”? I think you are mistaken as to “people” (who ever they may be) ignoring behavior of skeptics.
I have no idea what Patrick Micheals did to any graph, in what context he did anything to any graphs, nor what argument he made based on any edited graph. Does Pat even have a blog?
As for me: I’ve posted to critcize claims of skeptic bloggers. For example, I’ve pointed out GISS Temp seems no better or worse than others. I’ve also pointed out that Tilo guest blogging at Anthony’s was premature to state the 11 year trend was flat.
As for Gavin, I haven’t been saying anything bad about him. I only refer to Gavin’s posts in so far as they touch on things I happen to be doing. He has blogged about whether or not one can falsify models with 7 years of data. He didn’t link me, and he didn’t specifically cite my argument, describe it or link it. So, in some sense, we can’t even be sure whose argument he is rebutting– particularly as the various blog posts seem to interlace a variety of things to create an argument no one has made.
Then, this non-argument is rebutted.
I would ordinarily ignore bloggers jousting with strawmen. However, so far as what Gavin discusses at RC touches on what my arguments, and seems to suggest he has vanquished it, I am obviously going to engage his argument and explain why I think it is valid or invalid. Due to his rhetorical style which studiously avoids actually stating the arguments he seems to be rebutting, I also often have to clarify how his argument does or does not touch on any claims I’ve made. If I don’t clarify, readers can’t distinguish between what Gavin has shown and what that has to do with what I’ve been arguing.
If this seems like criticism, so be it.
But, the fact that I’ve responded to Gavin (and Tamino in his turn) has nothing to do with responding only to AGW proponents.
I’d respond exactly the same way to anyone who seems to be pointing out a flaws in my analysis. I do so primarily because I want to see if the criticism is valid. If it is, I will correct my analysis and adjust my general conclusions, and caveats.
My response would be the same whether the person commenting on my stuff is a skeptic or AGW proponent.
In any case, I believe AGW. And as far as I can tell, the amount of tendencious twaddle in both “camps” is about equal.
Lucia,
I think that Boris was referring more to the general tone of commentators on this site rather than the content of your posts. You do have to admit that the apparently dominant view among the responses here is that AGW is a largely, if not completely, bunk. There is more overlap here with the Watts and CA crowd than, say, the Realclimate or Tamino crowd, though this place certainly serves a better middle ground than most.
Perhaps we can just chalk it down to the unfortunate tendency on both sides of the issue for confirmation bias; people who have a preconception go out to look for any criticisms of the other side to reinforce their views, even if they might harbor more extreme opinions than those of the critic. You primarily criticize shortcomings of climate science, so you get the climate change is a hoax crowd. Gavin primarily criticize the skeptics, so he get the climate change is going to kill us all crowd. Those of us occupying a more rational middle ground lurk in both communities and try to urge a modicum of moderation.
Zeke. You seem to be surprised that the content on uncensored boards like Climate Audit, Lucia’s, and Rabett Run, have a higher level of skepticism than the highly censored in favour of AGW Real Climate, Tamino, Deltoid. Generally speaking, the pro AGW sites restrict debate, giving the appearance that they have a strong case, that’s why they seem to be surprised when they read a debate which is free and open.
I think Zeke nails it on the head. Mark, I believe you’re neglecting a fundamental difference among the site you mention: RC, Tamino, and Deltoid tend to deal in higher-level scientific issues, often involving work published in the peer-reviewed literature, or debunking pseudo-scientific “work” appearing in the op-eds and blogosphere. On the other hand, the “unmoderated” (and let’s be clear – CA and WUWT, while open, are heavily moderated, and often the moderator at those blogs injects in-appopriate, inline condemnation of posts which critique blog entries or other skeptic comments) blogs tend to favor political arguments and straight editorials.
They draw different crowds; that’s all. IMHO, skeptics tend to love the political side of the debate, while proponents tend to love the scientific side.
Zeke–
Yep. My blog does mostly draw from two groups:
1) those who want to any and all short comings of anything associated with AGW. Some are outright denialists.
2) those who are curious to figure out how well the predictions are coming up. Many are luke-warmers, or undecided skeptics.
I get assorted other visitors too. Some are AGW activists who want to question results. (Their comments actually often lead to other analyses.)
The reason I draw a lot of group 1 is because the tests are coming out showing the IPCC projections are coming up short. The result is, I get links from people who want to show this result.
If the outcome for tests of projections were otherwise, I’d might attract more AGW advocate commenters. (Though, I might not. The primary AGW advocate sites tend to be less conversational, don’t often link out to conversations at blog, and mostly link out through the blog roll. That type of thing doesn’t really result in much traffic.)
Oddly, I suspect if the AGW advocate sites admitted some short-comings, I’d also get less traffic! The reason I suspect this is that the skeptic/luckwarmer group would be getting answers at the AGW advocate sites! Unfortunately, from the point of view of real skeptics, many AGW advocate sites just don’t answer questions that lukewarmers or skeptics actually ask. So, those people look for other blogs.
The result is new blogs, which get traffic. Since there are a lot of lukewarmers and skeptics, the non-advocate sites seem to get more traffic than the advocate site.
So.. that was long. But I think I just explained my theory of why Susan Hassol’s advice to “reframe questions” and then answer the reframed question backfires. The advocate reframes. The person who asked their question still doesn’t have an answer. They keep looking for the answer. Ultimately, they find another source for the answer.
I don’t get this impression based on blog comments at the various blogs. That said, I’m not going to do a statistical study!
It might be interesting if someone in some appropriate field studied comments from frequent commenters at various blogs as part of a Masters thesis. (Assuming the study could be done!)
counters. You have it exactly the wrong way round. Lucia’s statistical analysis of her chosen subjects is of a far higher standard, and more transparent than any of the AGW blogs. Climate Audit is also of a far higher standard in the areas persued. The whole area of tree ring thermometry has been debunked. Data collection methods have been savaged. It’s even got to the stage where NASA GISS are unattribuatably adjusting there model and data following criticism on CA. (Apparently NASA GISS have treated themselves to a new computer to replace the 25 year old IBM 6150 thing they’ve been using.) Also on CA you will see a whole series of threads by Gerald Browning which cut the usefullness of models on climate forecasting at the very root. Unless there is perfect knowledge of the existing climate, and the factors that will change it, the models are destined to spiral out of control very quickly unless arteficial constrants are put on them. You won’t find any admission on RealClimate that the Hockey Stick has been debunked, that the data collection and homogenisation methods are corrupted.
For those who complain about the poor scientific understanding of blog commenters (not authors), come on! 99% of the population understands zilch about climate science, or any more than basic high school science in general. O.K. make that 95% to be safe.
Who really understands the whole of climate science enough? Maybe 0.01% of the population, ie. those who actually have a graduate degree in climate science.
Then you may have 4.9% who are educated enough to be able to follow a scientific argument, and I think that’s fairly optimistic.
AGW proponents don’t seem to care that a immensely large fraction of the population does not understand the science, as long as they agree with them. It only bothers them when some don’t agree.
I started being interested in this issue when I noticed (or became annoyed) that the media put more emphasis on the “consensus” argument. Being a scientist, I thought it was weird that one would insist on the consensus, rather than on the actual facts. So I started digging for facts, and I started looking for dissenters.
IMO, blogs have made a tremendous contribution to the debate, and probably have increased the level of scientific understanding in the population by some small, but nonetheless ultimately significant fraction. Some blogs have also started to challenge the scientific publication system, a weird institution that has as many qualities as it has drawbacks, and that changes only at snailpace.
My own view is that we must ensure that there is a true scientific debate. I know the publication and grant system well enough, and I’ve studied enough of the history and sociology of science to figure out that in the current context, we are dangerously drifting towards a very bad situation where valid arguments against the established view are not allowed to be heard, and we could ultimately regret it. This has happened in the past. The fact that I tend to side with the dissenter view is really an attempt at playing the devil’s advocate. IOW let’s really put that theory to the test. Something which, in my opinion, one should always do when looking at a theory, or scientific paper: always ask yourself what could be wrong with it.
The whole point of the consensus argument is that it’s a policy issue. When you have a policy decision to make, you base it on the views of experts in whatever field. The media don’t understand the scientific arguments, so they can’t judge whatever “debate” is underway. But when every scientific body on the planet agrees, that’s an important data point in terms of defining policy. You don’t need to know the ins and outs of HIV to know that a broad (and deep) consensus on the issue dictates a certain policy. Otherwise dangerous inaction will occur as society becomes Buridan’s ass.
People instinctively understand the importance of consensus in decisions they are unqualified to make.
Boris–
But in the policy context, the problem with the “consensus” argument is that no one will state which points have consensus support.
Is it just the general notion that GHG’s introduced by man have resulted in warming? That would appear to the the question the APS article wanted debated.
Or is the consensus that models can predict the magnitude within’X’C over the next century? That the oceans might rise… how much? Etc.
The fact is, when I read the consensus claim, I never read any sort of list of just what people agree on. If there is a consensus, it must be possible to say about what!
That’s what the IPCC report does.
Boris–
Is there consensus on every specific sentence in the IPCC report?
If we summarized the IPCC findings into bullet points, is there a consensus on every one of them? It’s obvious there is no consensus on the projections. After all, we have Hansen saying they are too conservative. Pielke Sr. has criticized the understatement on the uncertainties.
As far as I can tell, the true, broad consensus is limited to:
a) It’s been warming since the industrial revolution, b) some measurable amount caused by human action c) of the part due to people, quite a bit is due to ghg’s and d) we expect it will keep warming up some amount.
But the IPCC report contains quite a bit more verbiage than that. It also contains quite a few results from recent research . The research area is sufficiently new and the tools sufficiently approximate, that one might expect quantitative statements to contain lots and lots and lots of uncertainty. Certainly more uncertainty that suggested by the rhetoric of many AGW advocates.
Lucia. This is how the original AGW “framing the question” was done:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/10th-anniversary/anniversary-brochure.pdf
The IPCC are only looking for AGW, they only publish selected science which supports that theory, they only encourage groups who support that theory. The stated aims of the IPCC are to assess scientific information relevant to:
human-induced climate change,
the impacts of human-induced climate change,
options for adaptation and mitigation.
See, it’s in their mandate. They have to find AGW.
Boris,
“People instinctively understand the importance of consensus in decisions they are unqualified to make.”
Why do think that people are not qualified to make those decisions? I believe that people are perfectly qualified to take those decisions exactly know what is important. Everybody who has a little sense of history knows that solutions for problems lies in the future. We laugh and make fun about the concerns our ancestors had. People instinctively understand that poverty, conflicts, wars, etc are of a much bigger concern than Climate Change / Global Warming.
We instinctively understand that Climate Change is part of Nature, (partially) man-made or not, despite what some scientists are saying. And we will adapt as we have done in the past.
We instinctively understand that Climate Engeneering isn’t possible with our current technology. We are not able to control hurricanes and thunderstorms (despite soem efforts in the past), or direct precipitation to certain locations with droughts.
We (or at least me)instinctively do not rely on computers and computer models, especially when they make predictions or projections. This I rely on my common sense and promote R&D on energy and fossil fuels and elevate life in Third World countries. The IPCC-reports have been a nice finger excercise, but that’s it. We have to move on to more important issues.
What’s funny about this is that the statement is clearly wrong. Or at least it’s wrong if “people” means “all people” or “the vast majority of people”, or even “many people”.
Huge numbers of people know that blind acceptance of consensus has lead to horrible atrocities in the past. This is, of course one of the reasons, most American’s cling violently to our right under the first amendement and also to universal suffrage. That way, we can bring forward our own arguments and also vote for those we find convinceing, balancing what we each judge, individually to be best.
Boris says:
“People instinctively understand the importance of consensus in decisions they are unqualified to make.”
But people have to believe that they can trust the experts who are deciding the consensus. This is difficult to do when experts start talking and acting like priests defending a faith instead of like scientists. The outright presecution of people who dare to question any part of the consensus mantra is a sign that something is seriously rotten in the scientific establishment and that a major house cleaning is desperately needed.
TokyoTom writes:
“It seems clear that you are misreading Pielke Sr. who, far from saying that GHGs might NOT contribute to observed climate change, is asserting that the mechanism by which our GHG forcing is expressed is largely via ocean warming.”
From the Compo & Sardeshmukh paper:
“In summary, our results emphasize the significant role of remote oceanic influences, rather than the direct local effect of anthropogenic radiative forcings, in the recent continental warming. They suggest that the recent oceanic warming has caused the continents to warm through a different set of mechanisms than usually identified with the global impacts of SST changes. It has increased the humidity of the atmosphere, altered the atmospheric vertical motion and associated cloud fields, and perturbed the longwave and shortwave radiative fluxes at the continental surface.”
“There is a hint of an underestimation of simulated decadal SST variability even in the published IPCC Report (Hegerl et al. 2007, FAQ9.2 Figure 1). Given these and other misrepresentations of natural oceanic variability on decadal scales (e.g., Zhang and McPhaden 2006), a role for natural causes of at least some of the recent oceanic warming should not be ruled out.”
“Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn from our analysis is that the recent acceleration of global warming may not be occurring in quite the manner one might have imagined. The indirect and substantial role of the oceans in causing the recent continental warming emphasizes the need to generate reliable projections of ocean temperature changes over the next century, in order to generate more reliable projections of not just the global mean temperature and precipitation changes (Barsugli et al. 2006), but also regional climate changes.â€
The above are also excerpted by Pielke Snr here:
http://climatesci.org/2008/07/21/oceanic-influences-on-recent-continental-warming-an-important-new-research-paper-compo-and-sardeshmukh-2008/
and the full paper is available here:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/gilbert.p.compo/CompoSardeshmukh2007a.pdf
Far from asserting that the mechanism by which the oceans warm is GHG forcing, Pielke Snr and Compo & Sardeshmukh remain uncommitted. And considering the import of the paper, which argues that much of the continental warming can be attributed to the influence of the oceans, and Pielke Snr also mentioning Spencer’s recent work on low climate sensitivity due to predominate negative feedbacks, they all seem to conclude that the radiative forcing due to GHGs is on the low side.
Oh, and of course, Hoyt never said that GHGs do NOT contribute to any warming. Hoyt in comment 4359 writes: “The resulting variations in incident solar radiation on the oceans is huge compared to the variations due to GHGs, being 3 to 9 times larger.” THe focus is on the magnitude of the contribution of individual forcings. Why do many AGWers hate this focus on magnitude?
TokyoTom seems to be ‘framing’ the debate in the comments and verballing other commenters/bloggers at the same time.
“People instinctively understand the importance of consensus in decisions they are unqualified to make.â€
Actually, no. Very few policy makers understand the importance of consensus because there are no areas in which a consensus exists. Not in defence policy, economic policy, foreign policy, education policy, health policy, etc., etc. There are always differences of opinion, about the problem(s) or indeed whether something is a problem, about the manner in which to tackle the problem(s), about the liklihood of success of a particular policy, etc. Policymakers learn to deal with vigorous disagreements and uncertainties by considering the evidence and the alternative explanations and arriving at their own judgements.
I have a general question, what is the correct temperature of the earth? What is the correct concentration of CO2? If we decide that we need to control these, it seems that we need a setpoint. Especially since there is so much talk about carbon sequestration. Is there a concentration that is too low that could results in ill-effects for plant life? Where do we set the controls for the planet?
Do we optimize crop growth in the tropics while freezing people out of the higher latitudes, or maybe keep growth conditions productive for the US midwestern region? Do we try to make it more comfortable in the deserts like Phoenix and the middle east? What is the end goal of controlling the climate, and why is the best temperature similar to recent history and not the MWP or something?
Lucia “As far as I can tell, the true, broad consensus is limited to:
a) It’s been warming since the industrial revolution, b) some measurable amount caused by human action c) of the part due to people, quite a bit is due to ghg’s and d) we expect it will keep warming up some amount.”
Yes, but don’t forget:
(d) climate change is presently imposing costs on us (and that benefits are not equally distributed, and
(e) our ongoing and increasing forcing poses significant climate change risks (risks for direct economiuc damage and damage to unowned public goods), some of which may occur soon.
A third, but implict part of the consensus, based on the level of concerns expressed by scientists is (f) the level of risks posed by our current forcing and likely future increase of that forcing under BAU merits action now, both to mitigate (possibly lower our forcing) and to adapt to consequences that are already manifest and that are expected to grow.
Mark: “See, it’s in their mandate. They have to find AGW.”
Which administration signed the UNFCCC? And who are the IPCC, other than a loose grouping of scientists who provide backward-looking digests of the scientific literature, which digests are approved by a very wide group of very different governments?
dover_b: Since Ocampo et al. specifically say that “The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences,” I believe that I am perfectly correct in saying that Doug Hoyt’s conclusion (that “In other words, they simulate the observed climate changes without any changes in greenhouse gases.”) is not a fair conclusion of the Ocampo paper.
“Far from asserting that the mechanism by which the oceans warm is GHG forcing, Pielke Snr and Compo & Sardeshmukh remain uncommitted.” It’s difficult to provide a summary of a summary, and I may have stepped too far in saying that they believe that ocean warming is the primary means by which the forcing from GHGs is exerted. However, certainly Pielke Sr does NOT “remain uncommitted”. He has stated that he believes that the direct contribution of GHGs to AGW is about 25%.
Did I say that “Hoyt … said that GHGs do NOT contribute to any warming”? If not, what point are you triying to make?
“THe focus is on the magnitude of the contribution of individual forcings. Why do many AGWers hate this focus on magnitude?” I can’t speak for other “AGWers” (like Lucia or Pat Michaels!), but I certainly have no objection to an analysis of various forcings. I know Jim Hansen doesn’t, as he comments specifically from time to time on carbon black and ocean/albedo/methane feedbacks from albedo decreases.
Even AGWers in industry, like Exxon, speak of the long-term forcing provided by GHGs. Why is it that so many “skeptics” “hate” this focus on what man DOES do?
“TokyoTom seems to be ‘framing’ the debate in the comments and verballing other commenters/bloggers at the same time.”
Drats, foiled again! Yeah, I’m tricky that way in trying to signal all of my minions. Lucia and others here must be very grateful that they have sharp-eyed guys like you to catch on to my devious ways.
Actually, of course, evil TokyoTom (whom because he’s evil we must address in the third person) has very little power, especially given his weird status outside the AGW mainstream as a libertarian-leaning blogger. Even Lucia doesn’t seem to have a place for me in her “tree” of denizens who prowl her blog, looking for the unwary. But, gratefully, she has thrown me a bone, like linking to my blog discussion on rebated carbon taxes (and letting me sneak in mentions of other corrupting ideas, like the government cutting citizens royalty checks as a way to move ahead on ANWR and OCS: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/16/breaking-the-senseless-impasse-on-anwr-and-ocs-exploration-and-development-a-tax-and-rebate-proposal.aspx).
TT
Trees have many branches, and I don’t believe in excess pruning. 🙂
I actually don’t have much to say for a change, except I enjoyed reading this debate in this thread. Thanks for posting it, Lucia. Even Boris had some good ideas.
I’d say “most people.”
Take for example a person faced with a decision on whether or not to undergo a surgery. If that person consults 20 doctors and 19 recommend the surgery and one does not, then that person will almost always follow the course recommended by the majority. In fact, this is a logical choice to make. We don’t have the luxury of embarking on a medical education to evaluate the arguments.
Now, of course consensus is wrong sometimes, and sometimes with disastrous results. But the consensus is right in the vast majority of cases in the sciences because the consensus is based on the best evidence and the best understanding.
But to see how ignoring a consensus can also have disastrous consequences, one need only look to the HIV/AIDS debate. AIDS dissidents, as they call themselves, refuse the consensus treatment and, as a result, die. The entire editorial board of a denialist magazine died. A prominent denialist refused treatment for her baby, who died of AIDS at the age of two. Luckily the denialist movement is relatively small.
It’s funny that this thread has shifted to the notion of consensus, because that is a great example of “reframing”. The AGW proponents, principally those at the political level (environmentalists, etc), have done a great job at moving the debate from the factual question “are GHG’s warming the climate?” to “Is there a consensus that GHG’s are warming the climate”, and sometimes even further to the simple question “Is there a consensus”, period. Of course, as Lucia points out, that allowed the proponents to play with the rather vague notion of a “consensus”.
The way the IPCC states its conlusions, in the Summary for policy makers, for example, is a fantastic example of how you can get scientists to agree on a statement that means one thing for them, and something entirely different for the general public. Note the careful wording: that it is “likely” (or very likely, whatever) the a “majority” of the warming of the past “50 years” is due to “human influence”. That statement is full of “exit doors” for the scientists. After all, something that is likely, or even very likely, could very well be false anyway. And a majority of the warming could be anywhere between 50.0001% to 100%. In other words, if the warming is entirely natural, the statement of the IPCC remains true! So to a scientist, that is a very acceptable statement, because it actually means nothing. But then it is presented to the general public as a scientific consensus that GHG produce a dangerous warming! Talk about reframing!
The sociologists have a name for that. It’s called a “boundary object”, ie. a statement that is used to get together two different groups. The boundary object by essence means different things to the two groups, so they both agree about it. I have a nice paper by Shackley and Wynne (can’t find a free pdf link, sorry) about how “uncertainties” are also a boundary object: uncertainties mean different things for a scientist and a lay person, or a policy maker. Yet the use of uncertainties is endemic in the climate debate.
For those interested, here’s a formal definition of the “boundary objects”, from the said Shackley and Wynne paper:
“To have purchase across social worlds, boundary objects must have sufficient flexibility to allow actors belonging to different social worlds to interpret their meaning differently while, at the same time, affording the actors an opportunity to share some interpretations” (Shackley and Wynne 1996)
The link to the paper (not free) is: http://sth.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/275
Boris says:
I find medical examples to be a useful comparison to climate science because it is very difficult to prove causation in medicine as well and that it is probably true to say that the link between HIV and AIDS has not been “proven” in the mathematical sense. However, in medicine, each individual afflicted represents an independent experiment which means it is possible to infer causality by analyzing the results of a large number of experiments and it is also possible to make accurate predictions regarding the course of the disease in other individuals.
In climate science we only have a single patient and climate models are no substitute for reality because they are built with a set of assumptions that could be wrong. This means we can never hope to have the level of certainty which medical disciplines have nor can we have any confidence in the predictions of the future.
This uncertainty affects the weight that people will put on expert claims. For example, what would you do if your doctor told you that you have a slight fever and that is a sign that you were exposed to a toxic substance and that it is necessary to immediately amputate your legs to prevent death? I am pretty sure you would demand more than a “consensus” theory developed with assistance of tests on lab rats. At a minimum you would likely insist on waiting to see whether the fever goes away on its own even if that means the treatment will be more difficult in the future.
Boris–
Are you going to try to pull the AIDS trick? Or liken the consensus of doctors to the consensus of climate scientists?
When trying to argue by analogy, it’s best to avoid obviously flawed analogies.
In some circumstances, individuals go with a consensus. But,in others they don’t. After all, I’m sure we could interview astrologers and discover there is a broad consensus among practicing astrologers that astrology works! The consensus on genetics once promoted eugenics. The consensus of Roman Catholic priests is The Trinity Exists (among other things). They’ve taken lots of theology classes, so they should know! 🙂
When you try to compare climate science to medicine, people are automatically going to ask: But is climate science like medicine. The answer is likely “Hell NO!”
When I, or most people I know, are deciding the weight to give to a consensus, we examine evidence about the group holding the consensus, it’s history and whether or not it’s regulated. They also look to reputation held by those outside the field.
Then, they decide where on the “astrologer” to “doctor” spectrum place the importance of the consensus.
Medicine is a well established field. And, for many treatments, nearly all doctors agree generally on the course of treatment. Outcomes have been studied, proven and replicated. The people judging the efficacy of treatments are entirely extrenal to the group promoting a treatment.
In recent history, doctors also don’t tend to oversell what they can or cannot cure. When they can’t do something, they say so. And we know this based on observing many doctors and many outcomes. Doctors undergo licensing. Doctors have a basic product they could “sell” even without pushing any none-working cures for diseases.
So, we have specific “signs” that tell people to trust doctors generally.
These signs that say “trust the consensus” are largely absent for climate science.
While no one claims climate science falls in the “astrologer” camp, it’s not clear the field is sufficient mature to result in accurate predictions into the future. Climate scientists may be very smart, well read, grounded in physics, but there are still fields where results are tenuous. Those in neighboring fields who run models involving conservation of mass, momentum and energy know the difficulties in running these approximate models, and know how tenuous the results can be when approximations are made.
Do we know what those in neighboring fields say about the predictive accuracy of climate science? Has anyone found out whether researchers who run models involving fluid dynamics, heat transfer, mass transfer, thermodynamics think about the likely accuracy of climate modelers? These people include meteorologists, some oceanographers, and many engineering disciplines.
The general public is not familiar with transport modeling per se, but the history of consensus projections is hardly encouraging. In fact the history is consensus projections is short– beginning around the 90s. Moreover, the projections were inaccurate. Certainly, the 3C/century consensus projection by the IPCC in the FAR published in 1990 was off by a lot. Other “projections” only look half-way decent by “validating” with data that existed before the projections were published. So, the TAR doesn’t look so bad– but only because “projections” published in 2001 were compared to data from 1990 forward!
Based on the IPCC reports, climate scientists writing the reports have tended to be over-confident in their predictions. Or, at a minimum, to state uncertainties rather obscurely. The workings of the IPCC are not transparent to the public. Data supporting published papers are not widely available.
So, after looking at the history, a person might check to see if the methods used by climate science are subject to thourough, impartial external review. For example, FDA reviews medical research, or the NRC reviews studies related to safety of nuclear power plants. This does not occur in climate science. The IPCC is not an extrenal group– it consists of people citing their own work! (If climate scientists were subject to such external review, the sorts of things McIntyre asks for would be easily available through FOI, and NASA would be publishing reams of grey literature detailing all sorts of nit-picky details about models.)
So, given the vast difference between the practice of climate science and medicine, why would members of the public automatically transfer their willingness to trust the consensus of physicians to climate scientists?
Of course they might do so. But they won’t do so automatically. People aren’t stupid, so I suspect suggesting the consensus of climate scientists is somehow similar to the consensus of physicians is likely to induce eyerolls in any audience listening!
But, of course, even if they would trust the consensus of climate scientist, they would still need to believe it exists and figure out precisely what there is consensus about. When one asks that question, the answers are evasive of silly. (Example: That’s what the IPCC reports tell us! Well… it appears there is broad consensus on only a very small fraction of the contents of the IPCC reports.)
I’d actually agree with the first part of this statement.
However, important aspects of climate models have been verified–stratospheric response, Mt. Pinatubo response (which includes the most important feedback, water vapor), and many others. Skeptics like Gerald Browning ignore these successes when they speak of models.
Boris,
Does Gerald Browning have a wide following among skeptics? Or any sort of following at all? 🙂
The history of modeling shows that piece meal validation (like Pinatubo response) is necessary but not sufficient to prove accuracy. Qualitatively, the models do predict that if you do manually sprinkle aerosols in the stratosphere, and insert forcings that will say t hey result in colling, the full model earth will cool relative to the condition before sprinkling the cooling.
This is unsurprising, and not a particularly strong proof of model fidelity. Of course, if it hadn’t worked, that would disprove them models. But the fact is, even if models predicted the averge temperature of the earth incorrectly (as they do) we would still expect that adding aerosols to the stratosphere would result in cooling, relative to the level without aerosols.
So, the troubling thing is that models, in general, have a cold bias. And, while the do robustly predict that the poles are colder than the equator, they get the relative distribution wrong.
The question that I ask is: Given the sorts of inaccuracies we see in models, can we expect the models to accurately predict GMST over the next century?
Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t To find out, we need strict comparisons to data.
Boris says”
“However, important aspects of climate models have been verified–stratospheric response, Mt. Pinatubo response (which includes the most important feedback, water vapor), and many others. Skeptics like Gerald Browning ignore these successes when they speak of models.”
Gerald and other critics have not ignored the Pinatubo response but have instead argued that correctly predicting short term responses to transient forcings does not mean that the underlying physics is correct or that the long term predictions are meaningful.
I also don’t think successfully predicting the stratospheric response tells us anything about the usefulness of the models for the surface temperature predictions because the stratosphere does not have any clouds or water vapour. CO2 is only an issue because the climate models predict positive feedbacks due to clouds and water vapour.
I also think any claims of a success have to judged using the same standards that the modellers use to refute envidence of failures. For example, if the tropospheric non-warming is not evidence of model problems because the models have a sufficiently wide spread and because of data problems then the successes must have similar caveats put on them.
Boris:
What many physical predictions have models made? Nearly all are either
a) trivial. For example, GCM’s predict the poles are hotter than the equator. Volcanic eruptions cool. These are predictions that don’t require GCMs. They general behavior can be explained using simple energy balance models, with very simplified physics.
b) inaccurate and/or imprecise by any objective measure. ( The full green house effect is 33K. In that regard, being off 10% on the base temeperature of the planet is a lot — particularly as this is something people are really going to try hard to get right.)
c) Claimed untestable due to poor data. (Is there a tropospheric hot spot at all? It seems not, but people say the data aren’t good enough to tell.)
d) Some models predict the feature; others don’t.
The only way to claim there are many physical predictions is to not describe them.
When estimating the likely predictive accuracy of a model, applied to those things that have not yet been observed, we must examine the level of accuracy, and focus on things it can’t predict.
In any case, I believe AGW.
See all you denialists! Lucia supports the consensus that Al Gore is right and the temps will rise 6C and seas rise 28 meters! Of course her statement may or may not mean that (I have no idea what her specific beliefs are), but see how easy it is to add someone to a consensus by using a general term and including other specific beliefs under it. I’m sure in AGW alarmist circles she, like Steve McIntyre, are considered denialists because they have posted data and calculations that don’t support extremist positions even though they believe the general theory.
Just because someone believes in AGW doesn’t mean they believe in the doomsday scenarios or that mitigation is possible or even desirable, but the advocates often attack anyone professing the latter as not really believing in the former. If you don’t accept all the dogma then you must be a heretic.
BTW, your reference that the IPCC predicted 0.3degC per decade in 1990 doesn’t sound right. Are you sure this wasn’t the prediction for the entire 21st century? IIRC, the best guess for 2100 in the FAR was 3C.
The Mt. Pinatubo response was not trivial at all. It was a confirmation that the models had water vapor feedback correct. That goes a huge way towards understanding climate sensitivity.
BarryW–
I support the consensus position as described by FrancoisO. And, if you really read the IPCC documents and create bullet points of the “consensus”, the points are rather narrow.
That’s why, when someone says “there is a consensus”, I want to them to finish the sentence and state specifically on what.
Boris– my 3C/decade is from the AR4. The climate scientists writing that compared it to data since 1990, and treated it as applying from 1990-2007. They didn’t suggest in any way that the projection was for far off times.
Boris– predictiing cooling after a volcano eruption is trivial. It doesn’t confirm anything.
The fact that you think the cooling was the important aspect shows you need to do some more reading on this issue.
Boris says:
“The Mt. Pinatubo response was not trivial at all. It was a confirmation that the models had water vapor feedback correct.”
Then show me an analysis that includes the error bounds for the cooling predicted by the models and if those error bounds are as wide as the error bounds used to refute the issues with tropospheric trends then I doubt the predicted cooling has any statistical significance.
I also think it worth pointing out that the Pinatubo happened to co-indicide with the trailing edge of the solar cycle which means that any attempt to use the solar cycle to explain the current cooling trend would imply that the sun had a similar effect during the Pinatubo event.
An interesting point in this whole debate on consensus is that there can be a consensus, or at least a majority agreement, on a policy, WITHOUT having a near perfect consensus on the science. I guess what annoys a lot of people (like me) is that very insistence on the need for a scientific consensus as a pre-requisite for policy consensus. Yet there only needs to be an agreement that AGW is a POTENTIAL problem to garner support for a policy response. Furthermore, such an agreement would probably help determining what is the “optimal” policy response.
For all the talk and debate about climate sensitivity, no one really KNOWS what it is. While there seems to be a small possibility that it is large (say larger than 3C), the possibility still exists, and one would have difficulty finding, even amongst the skeptics, honest protagonists who would argue that the probability is zero. So in fact, instead of insisting on the certainty of AGW, its proponents would be in better position if they argued about its uncertainty.
That being said, there are ways to design policies around uncertainties. One does not need to always go all the way, and prohibit fossil fuels altogether (the “precautionary” principle). That’s another topic of discussion, but let’s just say that I’ve learned a lot from my industry days about processes of product development. Developing a new product requires a lot of decision making in the face of a lot of uncertainties. A lot of new products fail because of a poor development process, that does not manage the allocation of resources well enough given the risk involved, and the uncertainties. Say you have an idea for a great new product, and you’re pretty damn sure it’s going to be a success, you can pour a lot of money into it, only to find that one of those things happen, like: (1) it does not work well, or (2) there is no market for it, or (3) it costs too much to fabricate, and so on, and so on. So one way around this is to go through stages (the so-called “stage-gate” method), where you only spend the amount of resource required to get you to next stage, where you re-evaluate the whole thing. At each stage, you try to minimize uncertainty. So you incrementally increase resources as uncertainty decreases, but leaving you the opportunity to stop the process at each “gate”, and cutting your losses. I think any “climate” policy should follow a similar process.
Sorry, I was trying to be funny, not make any comment about your position. My point was that it’s a very easy trick to take an umbrella where there may be a consensus (in this case AGW ) and add whatever position you want under it and claim there is a consensus on that specific point when there isn’t. Then when that particular position is questioned it’s proponents claim that you are denying the actual consensus.
I think your analogy argues in favor or:
a) No locked in international treaties. This permits flexibility without later resorting to negotiations by those who are benefiting economically whose may be found unnecessary.)
b) Making choices that are beneficial regardless of the magnitude of the sensitivity. (This would include taking proactive steps to fast track nuclear energy to ensure baseload. Something has to be done to overcome the regulatory hurdles.)
c) Implement better more prudent zoning. (We already have too many subdivision in places that are natural flood plains. When engineered protections fail, these people get flooded. We have developements that became flood plains after people built dams and levies upstream. These people get flooded because the water water that used to flood upstream neighbors now arrives in a surge down stream. Climate change aggravates this, but it’s not the only cause. )
d) Setting up objective tests of predictive ability of “consensus” climate science. Fund non-modelers to apply the tests — preferably people who don’t work closely with those making predictions. Predictions are best tested by those who don’t make them. If nothing else, it forces those making predictions to clearly communicate what they are predicting. (If a person reading the prediction finds it Nostradamus like, and can’t tell what it meant based on the words and figures published when the prediction was made, then, the “prediction” it is, by definition, not a prediction. )
BarryW–
No need for an apology. I was agreeing with you. In fact, that’s my major point.
The trick is to:
a) show consensus on something narrow.
b) afterwards, claim the consensus applies to a much broader range of things.
I agree that AGW has happened, is mostly due to man. GHG’s cause warming etc.
But there is a host of things in the IPCC documents I find puzzling or bizarre. I suspect there is no particular “consensus” over things like:
a) One can average over all models to predict what happens in the future.
b) the models are accurate.
c) the models are tested in the strict sort of way we test models predicting lift on airfoils of structural integrity of damn.
d) The model tunings are clearly “ok”. (The document uses the word tunings.)
Many things are said so vaguely that one can’t figure out what consensus means. I read fuzzy statemetns like “this gives us increasing confidence in models ability to predict”. (Not an exact quote– I don’t want to dig this minute. But, I think anyone whose read the sections on modeling knows what I mean.)
Well…ok. So confidence is “increasing”. From what baseline? Were they previously abject, and now they are kinda-sorta- ok? Or are they now as precise as aerodynamics codes?
Generally, when a modeler has a precise code, they don’t write ambiguous prose describing the strengths of the models. The brag about precision and accuracy, and make quantitative statements! That the “consensus” uses such faint hearted language when discussing the predictive ability of models may say reams about the consensus position about models.
Lucia,
All those things may be good. To pursue my analogy with the product development process, you need to advance one step at a time on all fronts. Current policy proposals (that all seem to amount to cutting emissions), try to solve the entire problem with one step, and huge expense, and we have no idea what the result will be.
Product development involves a lot of things. It’s not just, say, the technical part (which is what the engineers prefer, of course). It may originate with an idea, say, that too much CO2 will cause harmful changes to the climate. Or, that such a new type of laser would be a really great product. But then you need to figure out things on the marketing side, that is do market studies. The market studies should tell you what the size of the market is, what are the features that the customers really want, how much they’re willing to pay, etc. Market studies can be expensive. So at first you do a “preliminary” study, say a survey of the similar products available on the market, a quick survey amongst your customers to test the idea, etc. But concurrently, you need to assess the technical feasibility of the product. So, on to the technical feasibility study. But you must also not forget the production costs, because even if the product is technically feasible, it may cost too much to produce, or you just may not have the proper infrastructure to produce it. So you need to assess that too.
In the stage gate process, once you have done preliminary studies, every department involved reports on their results, and a decision is taken as to whether to proceed to the next stage or not (hence the “gate” part). You then set the objectives for the next stage. In the next stage, you can spend more on the marketing studies, you can start the technical development (with clear objectives), you can start planning for production, and so on, to the next product development review.
I guess a climate policy should have a similar short-term horizon, say around ten years, and then a reassessment, based on the initial objectives. During that period, you may want to: advance the science, advance the technology, take steps to reduce emissions. A lot can be done relatively cheaply in terms of reducing emissions, and I think it may be more productive to focus on concrete measures, instead of only on general “emission reductions”. Say, saving energy through better home insulation (in cold countries), or improving mass transit infrastructures, or adopting stricter standards for car emissions, or increase nuclear or renewable energy. You can also determine which areas would be most threatened by climate change in the short term, and have preventive adaptation measures taken.
If you start with those inexpensive, and more easily agreed upon measures, and at the same time advance the science (maybe by focusing again on the most uncertain aspects of it, instead of blindingly throwing money to modelers…), and at the same time start a vast program to develop new technologies, then in ten years time, you should be in a better position, because you will (1) have a better idea of the seriousness of the problem, via advancements in science, (2) maybe have better technologies to adress it, and (3) by reducing or stabilizing emissions, at least you haven’t made it worse. In other words, you’ve increased your preparedness, you’ve reduced the risks, and you’ve increased your knowledge of the said risk.
The current approach (international treaty for emissions reductions) is akin to throwing all the money into the technical development part of a product all at once.
Lucia,
I think your analogy argues in favor or:
e) Promoting concrete policy goals, such as reducing the US’s dependance on foreign oil, in such a way as to have the side effect of reducing carbon emissions.
One more thing with the stage gate process: you start each stage with precisely defined objectives that must be met if you want to pass to the next stage. That way, when you get to the next product development review, you can really compare the progress with the objectives.
With the IPCC, we have those periodic “reassessments”. But there is never a clear objective as to what you need to know better from one report to the next. And in between, we just let climate scientists do whatever they feel they like to do.
My own impression of this whole thing is that what we really need to know amounts to very little. We basically need to have as precise an estimate of GHG sensitivity as possible. To do that, we seem mostly to need a much better understanding of feedbacks, and especially water vapor and cloud feedbacks. So forget tree rings, forget the carbon cycle, forget everything else. Have a massive research effort that combines empirical measurements (lots of them) with modeling (until the model agrees PRECISELY with the measurements), and get that g/%”m number right once and for all! Sort of a Manhattan project for climate. And forget academia! That is not the place to do serious research! Bring together the best scientists, give them the best labs and the best instruments, tell them exactly what you want, and you’ll get those results.
You know, one company I worked for was making what was probably the most advanced fiber optic long distance communication system in the world. The company’s founder had assembled a team of the best of the best, and put them to work, with almost unlimited budget. Within months, they had results way better than anything that was published in the scientific journals. Even years after the company has closed (fiber optic crash of 2001), researchers in academia have not come close to what was achieved there.
Most of climate research is done in academic settings (even government labs like NASA are pretty much academic in the way they function). But if climate change is such a serious threat, that’s not the way to do it. Just don’t put the future of the Earth in the hands of academic researchers!!!
There seemed to be some uncertainty as to what the FAR predicted. Here’s a direct quote: “… we predict: Under the IPCC Business-as-Usual (Scenario A) emissions of greenhouse gases, a rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3 degrees C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2C to 0.5C per decade); this is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years. This will result in a likely increase in global mean temperature of about 1 degree C above the present value by 2025 and 3 degrees C before the end of the next century. The rise will not be steady because of the influence of other factors.”
So there. It looks like they actually made a prediction for 110 years, not just “a century”.
Lucia says:
I would add no carbon taxes and/or carbon trading schemes because once they are established they will create powerful vested interests that would fight against their removal even if it becomes clear that CO2 is not a significant problem. In the meantime governments can use industry specific regulations to encourage lower CO2 emissions without killing the industry in question.
The FAR was published in 1990. So, presumably, this means a “about” 1 C increase during 35 years. That means, they were predicting roughly 3 C/decade during the first 35 years and and that trend would continue.
When both an upper and lower are listed, this generally means the trend will be between 0.2 C/decade and 0.5 C per decade.
So, it sounds like they were saying the warming would be at least 0.2 C/decade and at most 0.5 C/decade. If the uncertainty range was constant– as implied by the trend being constant, then they seem to suggest the trend from 1990-2025 would be at least 0.2 C/decade, but the best estimate was about 3 C/decade.
So far, 0.3 C/decade has not happened since 1990. The newer documents (SAR, TAR, AR4) revised the prediction for the rate of warming from now until 2025.
It would appear the current consensus position is the FAR consensus projection for 1990-2025 was wrong.
TokyoTom:
Firstly, Ocompo? Secondly, Hoyts’ conclusion is fair because Compo & Sardeshmukh wrote in the second paragraph of their discussion and conclusion: “Although not a focus of this study, the degree to which the oceans themselves have recently warmed due to increased GHG, other anthropogenic, natural solar and volcanic forcings, or internal multi-decadal climate variations is a matter of active investigation (Stott et al. 2006; Knutson et al. 2006; Pierce et al. 2006).” Yes, you may have “stepped too far” indeed. As for Pielke Snr, I was speaking of the contributions to oceanic warming specifically as I thought you were and he was, not AGW in general. Warming due to GHGs in the vicinity of 25% is moderate in the extreme compared to the claims of the IPCC, etc. Thirdly, yes you did say that about Hoyt misreading Pielke Snr, in comment 4381 you wrote: “It seems clear that you are misreading Pielke Sr. who, far from saying that GHGs might NOT contribute to observed climate change, is asserting that the mechanism by which our GHG forcing is expressed is largely via ocean warming.” Another step too far. Forthly, who is denying the long term forcing of GHGs? Why would I or anyone else be concerned about the magnitude if we denied just that? Again, another step too far. Fifthly, my use of AGWers refers specifically to those who routinely avoid the question of magnitude, or are alarmists, or faithful devotees of the IPCC, and neither Lucia (a lukewarmer) and Pat Michael’s (the latter who I don’t care much for at all) do and are not. Fifthly, why would I care about what Exxon thinks? Sixthly, how else am I to address you other than with your blog name? Would ‘you’ or ‘he’ have been better? And, BTW, I don’t think you’re evil.
lucia July 24th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Isn’t this a little premature? With 17 years left till 2025 at .5 per dec you “could” get an additional .85 deg rise. Just like the NH ice melt could exceed last years even though it’s well behind right now.
dover_b, again, I believe that I am perfectly correct in saying that Doug Hoyt’s conclusion (that “In other words, they simulate the observed climate changes without any changes in greenhouse gasesâ€) was not a fair conclusion of the Campo (thanks for correcting my spelling) paper. It’s curious that Doug hasn’t taken issue with my criticism himself.
BTW, did you miss Hoyt’s initial comment, where he suggests that GHGs have no impact on climate? “Since there is no tropical hot spot in the recent data, it suggests that the temperature variations are not being forced by any method. Rather, the temperature variations are simply unforced internal oscillations of climate.”
I am pleased that you acknowledge “the long term forcing of GHGs”, but if you note, I never said you didn’t. I was just mirroring your strawman when you asked “Why do many AGWers hate this focus on magnitude?” If you don’t like it when people address a strawman/caricature of your position, then you might try to avoid doing it yourself.
Thanks for clarifying what you mean by “AGWers”. However, forgive me for thinking that you use it also as a strawman. Who are “alarmists, or faithful devotees of the IPCC”? Anybody who apparently disagrees with you, and thinks that we have enough information to justify changing personal behavior and to change economic incentives to move away from unfettered CO2 release from fossil fuels – such as much of the business world and political world? Are Lloyd’s of London and other large insurers “alarmists”? http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/16/marlo-lewis-cei-serves-up-refreshingly-distracting-climate-science-and-policy-distortions.aspx
There’s no particular reason to care what Exxon thinks. I was just pointing out that they seem to be, by your definition, an “AGWer”/alarmist/faithful devotee of the IPCC. Their scientists have been sitting on IPCC panels for years now, and they have said that we know enough to start taking action to mitigate, and that they favor carbon taxes.
BTW, the typical way one addresses another directly is by the second-person “you”. It was fair of me to note that you chose previously to refer to me indirectly in the third person, which is much more distant; in fact, your earlier remarks didn’t even invite my response, since they were addressed to everyone else.
Francois, Lucia and Raphael:
Except for lowering regulatory hurdles for nuclear power (which the Bush administration greatly increased via “homeland security” concerns, BTW) it is my humble opinion that you:
– ignore that, since we have a global atmosphere – that we certainly can’t budge much by ourselves – we need to coordinate climate policy across major GHG emitters;
– for the same reason, you are too concerned with developing “predictive powers” that are practically impossible. Other than purely domestic adaptation, to act on further information will require international coordination; and
– you suggest rather heavy-handed, one-off technical policy responses rather than less-intrusive approaches like carbon taxes that would make use of market signals to influence the economic decisions of millions.
TT, alarmists are those like Mark Lynas in his book ‘Six Degrees’, scientists like Hansen, Flannery, etc. who refer to ‘tipping points’, or imminent and catastrophic runnaway warming, sea level rises, ocean acidification, superdrougts, etc. They are not strawmen. Ragarding the IPCC, only today, Piekle Snr has blogged on the insularity of the IPCC. Do you really deny that there are websites like RC, Tamino, Deltoid, that defend any criticism of IPCC reports? Here I’m thinking of the flak Pielke Jnr, Pielke Snr, McIntyre, McKitrick, Douglass, Lucia, etc. have attracted merely for investigating in more detail the IPCCs projections, diagrams, figures, etc. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve simply been referred to its publications as if they are the first and the last word on climate science. What other purpose does the IPCC serve other than authorising the work of a (self-)selecting group of climate scientists?
“Anybody who apparently disagrees with you, and thinks that we have enough information to justify changing personal behavior and to change economic incentives to move away from unfettered CO2 release from fossil fuels” – Where have I suggest a do-nothing approach? I’m concerned partly about the obsessive focus on carbon emissions when LCC might in fact be a bigger contributor to AGW and our knowledge of areosols is so paltry. And we do not even know the magnitude of natural climate variability. I usually like to know more about a situation before I go about the business of influencing human behaviour (I think a libertarian would too) since this is an endeavour frought with uncertainty.
How wonderful of Exxon and Lloyd’s; its better on the inside then on the outside I suppose, especially when they include trips to Bali or other island paradises.
Don’t read to much into my use of the second or third person, TT. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
But let me ask you, if the magnitude of the forcing due to GHGs is minimal, 25% or less, would you re-consider your support for a carbon tax? Do we really need to recognise and cost an externality that may be this negligible?
Framing the Debate also includes tactics. If the starting extremes of a debate are represented by points A and B, then the extreme advocates will start making claims out in the area of Z. Now a moderate opinion appears to be somewhere between A and Z, whereas before it was between A and B. The debate has been recentered, to use an apposite analogy.
Some (most) on this board accept that CO2 causes global warming. There is no evidence from the Geological record, there is no evidence of correlation from the current record (even though Lucia claims the current mismatch is because the effects are “in the pipeline”. The models say there is, but the models don’t seem to reflect reality very well etc. As far as I know, no-one has done any realistic atmospheric experiment which shows that CO2 produces warming.
The debate has been tilted by outliers, such that what now seems to be reasonable and moderate center ground is in fact extreme and way out on a limb.
dover_b: “alarmists are those like Mark Lynas in his book ‘Six Degrees’, scientists like Hansen, Flannery, etc. who refer to ‘tipping points’, or imminent and catastrophic runnaway warming, sea level rises, ocean acidification, superdrougts, etc. They are not strawmen.”
Our climate history is replete with tipping points. Do you counsel that it is wise to use dismissive ad homs to refer to anyone who researches of has concerns about them – including essentially all of our corporate establishment? Yes, I wholly acknowledge that there are very, very many of them. Your use of “alarmist” to describe all of them shows that you’ve erected very high cognitive barriers to really listening to what they have to say, much less consdering any policy action. So are the scientists (and insurers) I linked to on my post about Lloyd’s and sea-level rises “alarmists”? Hpw about all of those from a wide arrange of groups, from AEI to George Will to American Council for Capital Formation (all famous capitalists) who support rebated carbon taxes? How about the scientists I’ve noted here, who point to climate AND albedo changes as both fuelling Western wildfires and disappearance of snowcaps? http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/25/alarmists-scientists-and-the-bush-administration-claim-quot-climate-change-quot-is-causing-western-wildfires-and-stressing-watersheds.aspx.
And are the rational ones those like Bret Stephens, who calls everyone but those who agree with him as irrational “believers”: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/07/mind-games-bret-stephens-of-the-wall-street-journal-panders-to-quot-skeptics-quot-by-abjuring-science-and-declaring-himself-an-expert-on-quot-mass-neurosis-quot.aspx? Or Czech scientist Lubos Motl, who calls for the “euthanasia” and “quarantining” of everyone who – Nazi-like – doesn’t believe that unlimited contributions to GHG concertrations are an inalienable human right? http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/08/lubo-motl-4-my-considered-plan-to-eliminate-enviros-they-should-be-treated-like-nazis-so-it-may-be-necessary-to-kill-millions.aspx
“Do you really deny that there are websites like RC, Tamino, Deltoid, that defend any criticism of IPCC reports?”
No, I don’t deny it. You might be right that these sites defend every criticsm of the IPCC, but I don’t spend enough time at them to confirm your view.
“I’m concerned partly about the obsessive focus on carbon emissions when LCC might in fact be a bigger contributor to AGW”
Well, I share your concern. Do you propose to do anything about albedo changes, or are you happy to spend your time bashing the GHG focus? Recognizing that change is occurring and is likely to further accelerate due to albedo feedback ought to put you at least in the inform the public and start adapting camp.
“Where have I suggest a do-nothing approach?”
Where have you suggested a do ANYTHING approach?
“I usually like to know more about a situation before I go about the business of influencing human behaviour (I think a libertarian would too) since this is an endeavour frought with uncertainty.”
Yes, it is indeed fraught with incertainty – uncertainties that are all very troubling. By the way, doing nothing IS doing something – it’s giving a free ride to industries and economic practice that export a portion of their costs to everyone else, and it’s ensuring that we do the “conservative” thing of letting powerful economic forces conduct unfettered and accelerating experiments on the global environment – not merely with warming but with ocean pH changes. It’s not libertarian to presume that the best government policy is always to do nothing. Rather, it’s libertarian to note that “environmental” problems arise when a lack of clearly defined or enforceable property rights and high transaction costs prevent the ability of people with different preferences to express them the good ol’ fashioned way – through market transactions. Obvious problems on each of these points characterizes climate change. We know when property rights don’t exist we have tragedy of the commons abuse of resources (which is why property rights evolved in the first place); how long do you propose that we continue our “conservative” experient before we start to address the glaring institutional deficiencies?
“How wonderful of Exxon and Lloyd’s; its better on the inside then on the outside I suppose, especially when they include trips to Bali or other island paradises.”
Nice knee-jerk reaction. Think about it for a minute; Exxon gets no financial advantage from shifting its position as logjam sponsor, as carbon taxes or cap and trade with dampen demand and prices for its products. Llyod’s and other insurers are looking a trillions + in potential losses; one might think you might be a little sympathetic or at least understanding when they point out risks to others in their industry.
d_b protests that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”, without acknowledging that sometimes it’s a forearm or a ten-foot pole.
“But let me ask you, if the magnitude of the forcing due to GHGs is minimal, 25% or less, would you re-consider your support for a carbon tax? Do we really need to recognise and cost an externality that may be this negligible?”
I would say to d_b that 25% is substantial, but that obviously we should be focussing on every significant factor that we can influence, based on a cost-benefit analysis. That means CFCs/bromides, N2O, NH4, CO2, and soot. We ought also to be considering geo-engineering options. I would also note to d_b that economists like Ross McKitrick have long acknolwedged that shifting the economy away from taxes on income, labor and capital towards taxes on consumption would result in net improvements to the economy. I would also note that there are a whole host of deregulatory ideas that would help improve energy and water use efficiency, such as deregulation, privatization and enhancements of competition and markets. It is puzzling that “skeptics” like d-b never seem to note these win-win opportunities to decrease government meddling. (BTW, just playin with ya there on using d_b instead of you. Notice any difference?)
Regards,
TT
MarkR, nice try, but not so fast. You might take a look simply at what scientists say about the risks posed by the Antarctic and Greenland icesheets (noted in my link about Lloyd’s) or my report on melting snowpacks, rising temps, droughts and wildfires out West noted in my preceding post. Are these all “extreme and way out on a limb”?
Certainly Gore and others frame, but please don’t ignore the very deliberate framing by fossil fuel interests/Bush administration on this topic (Luntz, etc.). That framing is crumbling now in the face of obvious climate change, and the Bush is finally releasing reports required by law to have been delivered four years ago only because it was convinced that climate change is an important enough risk that it do so. Even Pebody Coal doesn’t contest the IPCC.
Tom–
I do compare data to predictive tools. I’m curious to a) see if they work and b) to see whether we can have any sort of estimate of the trajectory of warming. You seay this:
Out of curiosity, are you agreeing that the claimed predictive powers of models are unsupported when predictions are compared to data, and going well beyond what I would suggest to say such predictive powers are practically impossible?
That said, if you read back, you’ll see many of us agree we don’t need, bang on accurate predictive power to act. So, why do you think I’m concerned with developing predictive powers that are beyond the realm of possibility? The opposite is true. On the one hand, I have no objection to advancing the models, or climate science. But, the reality is, I don’t think we need these detailed predictive powers at all. If they cut the budget for modeling and allocated that to research and allocated that the research and development on alternatives like nuclear power, I’d be happy.
I’m not sure why you point out that George Bush in particular ramped up the regulatory process for nuclear energy. I’m for fast tracking nuclear power and assisting producers to meet requirements no matter who put in place the regulations.
I have also begun to be worried by AGWers and their theories for the same reason as François 0. :
I started being interested in this issue when I noticed (or became annoyed) that the media put more emphasis on the “consensus†argument. Being a scientist, I thought it was weird that one would insist on the consensus, rather than on the actual facts. So I started digging for facts, and I started looking for dissenters.
However there is something infinitely more unacceptable and that is this fundamental tenet of every convinced AGWer that “We must change our personnal behaviour .”
Did you notice this ominous “we” ?
In their heads it doesn’t mean “I” whith which I would have no issues and if some want to adopt any kind of curious ways of living , I couldn’t care less .
No here this “we” means “you” and even worse , it means “you all” .
The AGWers are usually rather evasive about what that means so here is a list of concrete proposals of what “we must change” that I have already heard and read in Europe .
The list is of course not complete :
– quota of air miles /year for some individuals . Interdiction to fly for personnal purposes (holidays) .
– interdiction of using a personnal car alone (2 or more / car is tolerated) . Option1 : use of personnal car only with authorisation . Option 2 : interdiction to produce and use cars emitting more than X CO2 .
– interdiction of producing and using personnal motor boats (an Italian politician heard yesterday)
– use of air conditionning only with special authorisation
– maximum allowed temperature for house heating
– quota for electricity consumption per household (Germany) . Musings if wash mahines , microwave ovens and large TV sets should be authorised .
– interdiction of summer skiing
etc
Now as at this stage it would only be a wishfull thinking , so who says A must also say B .
And this B is enforcement .
Do not make the mistake to think that this “we must change” is a kind of option – no it would have to be strictly enforced all over the planet (remember : this is a global problem that asks that EVERYBODY changes and is forced to change his behaviour according to the norm edicted by some wise bureaucracy) .
Now in the history of mankind it happened only 2 times that a theory (and practice) demanded that “we must change” and consistently tried to enforce it all over the world .
One theory postulated that “we must change” because it was a scientific (historical) necessity and the other because it would make a better (stronger&cleaner) world .
Christian religion doesn’t qualify because every man is free to choose between good and evil and therefore can’t be “changed” .
With the AGW we have now a third attempt to create a “new man” , this time in the name of “fight against the global warming” .
I can’t begin to imagine what level of arrogance and utter lack of respect is necessary for somebody to say “YOU must change how you live and it is ME who will tell you how and what I will do to you if you don’t obey .”
As it happens , the tragedy of my grand parents was to live in a place where both above mentionned attempts at a “new man” creation have been done and out of 4 , 2 didn’t survive it .
That’s why I possess a hypersensibility on issues where somebody is normatively defining the personnal behaviour of everybody on this planet .
So to make it clear I will oppose all attempts to vote laws dictating how I should travel , at what temperature and with what fuels I should heat my home or what level of consumption I should have .
Should such laws be voted , I would not observe any of them and would join any initiative aiming at cancelling them .
And above all I absolutely and totally deny to anybody the right to tell me how I should live and what I should consume regardless of any level of “consensus” pretended or real .
I may take this or that course of action but it will be exclusively my own decision according to my ethics and it certainly will not be influenced by somebody’s visions of desirable levels of CO2 (whatever figure that may be) .
Ah! Taxes!… the solution to everything, isn’t it? A nice solution, because, it’s all about the government taking care of it. Once the tax is in place, no need to worry about the problem any more, it will solve by itself.
Second, we’re all wealthy, aren’t we? I mean, let’s face it, us in the developed world live like kings compared with the majority of the Earth’s population. There is no tax that will affect our standards of living significantly. I can attest to that because I live in a country (Canada) that just LOVES taxes, and we still are very wealthy.
So a tax is really something to make the OTHERS suffer!
The problem with any “carbon” tax is it’s more than likely NOT to reduce demand. As an empirical support for this, petrol is maybe twice as expensive as it was a couple of years back, and there has been no significant drop in demand, quite the contrary.
Why is that so? Well, clearly because there is NO economical alternative! The economic benefits that we get from oil far outweigh its cost. Our developed world was built on cheap oil, and oil is STILL cheap!
Another thing about taxes is that they have a bad habit of having unintended consequences. What would they be? Well, I don’t know, they’re UNINTENDED!
So why not, instead, put our money into developing those alternatives. Energy savings, for example, do just that: they SAVE you money. In many instances, one kilowatt-hour of saved energy costs less than producing the same kW-hr. In our affluent societies, we waste a LOT of energy. Simple incentives can be put in place that could be very effective. If you are paid to do something that will also SAVE you money, you’re very likely to do it. Such programs exist. For example, here in Canada, I recently got a $50 rebate by buying a dryer that met some energy savings standards. I’ll take rebates any time!
Nuclear? Why not! The only reason to be against it is the safety concern. But if you look at it objectively, it appears to be quite safe. Many European countries have most of their energy from nuclear, for almost fifty years now, and there have been no dramatic accidents. And safety keeps improving. It is, after all, but an engineering challenge.
Anyway, I don’t claim to have all the solutions, but I know that whining about those evil oil companies, and the capitalist system in general, will not solve anything. Leave that to academics!
Utter nonsense. US drivers are driving a lot fewer miles. And one of the benefits of a carbon tax is making alternative energy more competitive. And your example of cutting waste is exactly what a carbon tax would encourage people to do.
But TomVonk’s post is just the kind of selfish, narrow thinking that will get us nowhere on this issue. This is typical of many skeptics: deny the science because you don’t like the policy solutions that the science inevitably leads to.
Boris–
What makes you think Tom denies “the science” because he doesn’t like certain policy decision? And precisely which particular hypotheses or theory do you include in “the science” which he denies?
Those who accept “the science” (whatever that may be) vary in their preferred policy responses. Those who deny “the science” (whatever it may be) also vary.
For example, I think there is warming caused by us. I think GHG’s caused non-negligible fraction. But I suspect our current ability to select appropriate SRES or predict climate based on known SRES renders model predictions little more than heuristic tools. (That would mean, I think models useful in the sense that the “point” toward truthful things. However, given the collection of assumptions either in the GCM’s themselves, or the creation of the SRES, the final projections don’t appear particularly accurate or precise in any quantitative sense. Of course, I could be wrong, but that’s how the data comparisons look to me.)
So, since you are accusing people of letting their policy preferences dictate their acceptance of denial of “the science”:
a) If one accepts the truth of AGW, does that mean they deny or accept “the science”? Or is accepting AGW not enough to accept “the science”?
b) Tom seems to share my reservations about models. So, is having reservations about the predictive fidelity of models– specifically with regard to predicting the rate of change in the GMST, denying “the science”? If so, do you have any proof the past outcome of IPCC projections have been correct? And how do you deal with the fact that in 1990, the IPCC consensus was for 0.3 C/decade from 1990-2025, then they changed that to 0.15 C/decade for the same period, and now they changed that to 0.2 C/century? If the consensus of “the science” keeps changing, are we to fail to notice this? And point out that the methods to predict this are not particularly mature?
c) Now that you’ve diagnosed whether or not I deny or accept “the science”, could whichever you diagnose, is my denial or acceptance based on my preferred policy conquences? Recall: Because I accept there is a risk associated with CO2 emmissions, I’m for fast tracking nuclear energy to reduce dependence of CO2. I’m for shifting R&D money toward improving non-carbon technologies. I’m fine with a gas tax, but would prefer to see much of that go toward public transportation and maintaining roads rather than Hansen’s return all of it to everyone. (Mostly, I don’t believe any tax will ever be returned, so I’d prefer honesty. I’d also prefer discussing what the money will be spent on before the decision is made to waste it on pork.)
d) Finally, whatever you diagnose, then what about your denial or acceptance “the science”. Is it based on your policy preferences? And for that matter, what, precisely, are your policy preferences so we can decide how they line up with your acceptance of “the science”.
Boris,
Show me the numbers!!! Not some short term effect. Let’s talk trends and statistical significance, since it’s what this blog is all about!
I’m not saying a tax would have NO effect. I’m saying that there may be other, more efficient ways.
A general carbon tax may have unintended consequences, because sometimes, for some people, there are NO alternatives. And those people are certainly not the wealthiest ones. And whatever the promises are that the money will be “redistributed”, well, if you believe that…
It is my opinion that it may be better to target SPECIFIC areas, where a lot of improvement can be obtained at little cost.
When I said that we have built our modern world on cheap oil, there is a flip side to the coin. We are much more energy efficient than we were 30 years ago. Economical alternatives are always interesting if they are, well, economical. So there will always be a trend towards energy efficiency. But it does depend more on technological improvement than on people “changing” their way of life. I think we should ensure that there are fewer barriers and more incentives to technological improvements. Regulation, instead of taxes, can be an incentive, if you know that there is a technological possibility to do things better, but that industry is just too lazy to do it (or does not have the capital to do it). International regulation is even better, because it levels the field, and I believe it may be easier to implement than a Kyoto-like treaty.
And the nice thing about technological improvement, as opposed to a tax, is that it is a win-win situation. Even if GHG’s turn out not to be a major climate problem (a non-zero possibility), we still win, because energy efficiency earns you money anyway.
TokyoTom,
– ignore that, since we have a global atmosphere – that we certainly can’t budge much by ourselves – we need to coordinate climate policy across major GHG emitters;
Do we? Do we need to mitigate by reducing GHG emissions? What’s wrong with adaptation? Couldn’t we adapt to potential damages and mitgate their effects? Couldn’t we adapt after damages occur? Why is reducing GHG the only option? If domestic adaptation will prevent a major domestic disruption, tell me why we need policy for mitigation?
AR4 WG2 Chapter 18 not only suggests that adaptation alone can overcome the threat, but also suggests there is a balance between mitigation and adaptation, where trade-offs and synergy between the two can occur. Why are the current responses mitigation only? Perhaps because we don’t know what will happen, only that something will happen eventually? Could this lack of knowing be directly related to the accuracy of predictions?
But what are the risks associated with AGW from CO2? Every bad event that is related to the environment is blamed on AGW even when it was occurring before CO2 was an issue or when it’s related to other natural events (subsiding islands) longHow would they differ from a natural GW? Contrast warming with the devastating effects we’ve seen from global cooling. We know what happens with cooling warm periods have all been benign. Most of what I’ve seen are scare scenarios (reminds me of Y2K) that are based on extreme or physically impossible events. What if it’s not CO2 but Land Use changes? Many of the proposals for CO2 mitigation may exacerbate GW if the real problem is Land Use (or a combination) or create famines from diversion from food to fuel. CO2 appears to be greening the planet, why is that bad?
Lucia,
Thanks for your patience in “herding worms” on this thread. I would appreciate your indulgence to correct a few of Boris’s (I believe you, also, posted about) refusal to cite.
He said “However, important aspects of climate models have been verified–stratospheric response, Mt. Pinatubo response (which includes the most important feedback, water vapor), and many others. Skeptics like Gerald Browning ignore these successes when they speak of models.”
This is a strawman, and, as I believe you have noted, how Boris responds in terms of attribution. Jerry did not ignore these successes, per se. He had problems with models that PRECLUDED these successes being considered relevant to the (adjective of your choice…useful, mathematically correct, physically correct,…)ness of the model.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=674
In particular: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3086
Complaint 1. “Page 158
> We ensure that the loss of potential energy is exactly balanced by the gain in kinetic energy using a small global correction to the temperature.
This is an ad hoc method to keep the total energy in balance. There is no theory to support such an adjustment and the impact of the solution over time can be considerable.”
Complaint 2. “page 158
>Occasionally, divergence along a particular direction might lead to
temporarily negative gridbox masses. These exotic circumstances happen rather infrequently in the troposphere but are common in stratospheric
polar regions experiencing strong accelerations from parameterized gravity waves and/or Rayleigh friction. Therefore, we limit the advection
globally to prevent half of the mass of any box being depleted in any one advection step.
So one kluge (parameterized gravity waves) leads to the necessity
for another. Has anyone ever heard of negative mass?”
Source of complaints “The following statements are taken from the reference
“Schmidt, G.A., R. Ruedy, J.E. Hansen, I. Aleinov, N. Bell, M. Bauer, S. Bauer, B. Cairns, V. Canuto, Y. Cheng, A. Del Genio, G. Faluvegi, A.D. Friend, T.M. Hall, Y. Hu, M. Kelley, N.Y. Kiang, D. Koch, A.A. Lacis, J. Lerner, K.K. Lo, R.L. Miller, L. Nazarenko, V. Oinas, Ja. Perlwitz, Ju. Perlwitz, D. Rind, A. Romanou, G.L. Russell, Mki. Sato, D.T. Shindell, P.H. Stone, S. Sun, N. Tausnev, D. Thresher, and M.-S. Yao 2006. Present day atmospheric simulations using GISS ModelE: Comparison to in-situ, satellite and reanalysis data. J. Climate 19, 153-192.”
I will cite the page for each statement.””
IIRC, you have an engineering background. Complaint #1. The condition proposed for the GCM of Schmidt, et al., is true only for perfect adiabatic system. It is not true for any other real system, especially not phase changes as would occur in Boris’s “Pinatubo response (which includes the most important feedback, water vapor)”. It ignores entropy at the minimum. It would not be true for a system with convection or with chaotic modes as proposed by http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/full/nature06921.html which states “Although these multidecadal variations are potentially predictable if the current STATE (emphasis mine) of the ocean is known5, 6, 7, the lack of subsurface ocean observations8 that constrain this STATE (emphasis mine) has been a limiting factor for realizing the full skill potential of such predictions9” … Whose collary is that these states are NOT known.
Complaint #2. Lucia, do you know of any real systems with “negative “gridbox”” or other, “masses”? This is from Gavin’s own work. I hope that you don’t mind if I note Gavin was as forthcoming in his posts with Jerry and W. as with you? It is my own opinion.
Boris said:
“Boris July 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am
The Mt. Pinatubo response was not trivial at all. It was a confirmation that the models had water vapor feedback correct. That goes a huge way towards understanding climate sensitivity.”
I hate quoting Wiki, but none the less has the gist in compact form.
“”Global environmental effects
Space Shuttle (Mission STS-43) photograph of the Earth over South America taken on August 8, 1991, showing double layer of Pinatubo aerosol cloud (dark streaks) above high cumulonimbus topsThe powerful eruption of such an enormous volume of lava and ash injected significant quantities of aerosols and dust into the stratosphere. Sulfur dioxide oxidised in the atmosphere to produce a haze of sulfuric acid droplets, which gradually spread throughout the stratosphere over the year following the eruption. The injection of aerosols into the stratosphere is thought to have been the largest since the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, with a total mass of SO2 of about 17 million tons being injected—the largest volume ever recorded by modern instruments (see chart and figure).
This very large stratospheric injection resulted in a reduction in the normal amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface by roughly 10% (see figure). This led to a decrease in northern hemisphere average temperatures of 0.5–0.6 °C (0.9–1.1 °F), and a global fall of about 0.4 °C (0.7 °F). At the same time, the temperature in the stratosphere rose to several degrees higher than normal, due to absorption of radiation by the aerosols. The stratospheric cloud from the eruption persisted in the atmosphere for three years after the eruption.””
NOTE, it is not about water vapor correctness at all, it was not mentioned (Wiki, I know). It is about SO2 and aerosols. If you recall Boris cited Monckton for such a trivial mistake, yet not himself as seen here
“Boris July 18th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Lucia,
I wouldn’t say this particular editor speaks for the APS as a whole.
Now as to Monckton’s paper, I haven’t delved into his equations, but he makes a large mistake in misreading figure 9.1 from the IPCC report. I think I’ve discussed this mistake here before and at CA, and you can read my post at Watts if you want to know more.
I would imagine APS is not too happy about giving someone like Monckton a forum, especially a forum connected to them.”
(I also imagine all sorts of things…perhaps some are true and some are not 😉 😉 )
Boris, it was sulpher dioxide and ash. Simple mistake…not water vapor, nor condensation, water.
Lucia: “I don’t think we need these detailed predictive powers at all. If they cut the budget for modeling and allocated that to research and allocated that the research and development on alternatives like nuclear power, I’d be happy.”
Happy to see we agree that we don`t need detailed predictive powers. I`m sure private industry would find modelling valuable and would fund it, in which case it would be much less controversial than what we have today.
Although it`s clear that our best bet is a heavy push into nuclear power, I disagree about the government funding research; the government doesn`t have the information to choose what technologies to invest in, and doing so has proven a colossal waste. Carbon taxes to shift pricing (rebated so fair and politically sustainable) is primarily what we need from government, as well as starting to deregulate power (and water) so more competitive and efficient markets develop.
“are you agreeing that the claimed predictive powers of models are unsupported when predictions are compared to data, and going well beyond what I would suggest to say such predictive powers are practically impossible?”
I`m saying that the climate system is extremely complex and we will never have sufficient knowledge to really predict how climate will change. We can know that our actions are having and will have consequences, but we can`t say how high temps will go within a certain period of time or how soon we`ll hit tipping points in the Antarctic ice sheet. But it`s plain to see that there are substantial and expensive changes already underway and that a good portion of the Antarctic ice sheet is unstable.
As for Bush, since I come from the Republican side, I kinda enjoy pointing out how good they`ve been at moving policy in the wrong direction.
John F Pittman,
You are a tad confused. The important thing about the Mt. Pinatubo comparisons is the modeled accuracy of the water vapor feedback resulting from the cooling caused by sulphate aerosols. See Soden et al, among others.
TT, I pretty much agree with you on the policy side re carbon taxes and competitive markets for commodities like electricity, gas, water, etc. I actually like McKitrick’s T3 proposal re the former. Although I wonder how we would manage LCC efficiently.
“We can know that our actions are having and will have consequences, but we can`t say how high temps will go within a certain period of time or how soon we`ll hit tipping points in the Antarctic ice sheet. But it`s plain to see that there are substantial and expensive changes already underway and that a good portion of the Antarctic ice sheet is unstable.”
Firstly, there always have been “substantial and expensive changes already underway” which is partly a reason to prefer adaption to mitigation (not an either/ or; doing both makes sense). Secondly, that “a good portion of the Antarctic ice sheet is unstable” may have something more to do with regional changes in atmospheric and ocean circulation around the Antarctic peninsula then with increases in atmospheric concentrations of GHGs.
Your case is reasonable enough without having to portend these dire predictions.
BarryW,
many people pooh poohed Y2K. As a Computer Technician since 1973, starting on Burroughs mainframes in the USAF, I dealt with programmers and software that were specifically designed to save space by using only 2 digits (one byte) to contain year information. The way software dealt with this was not standardised and, results of not upgrading varied, but, in most cases were errors ranging from software failure to incorrect calculations. Later software that was not written to be so efficient simply did not have the issue and allowed some people to assume there wasn’t an issue. The money and effort spent to upgrade this legacy software was HUGE!! I worked for Charles Schwab and was involved in their very successful Y2K effort during the late 90’s.
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Burroughs/Burroughs.B2500B3500.1966.102646229.pdf (B3500 was my first job)
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Burroughs/Burroughs.OnlineDisk.1962.102646217.pdf (disk system, each cabinet = 10 Mega Bytes!!!!!)
If we had NOT put in the effort the world banking, trading, and exchange systems probably would have crashed. Many Schwab critical systems would have. Critical systems for other companies I worked for over the years would have also. I have no reason to believe that most other companies with legacy systems would not have been in the same situation.
I would point out that this issue had a CLEAR and TESTABLE basis and quantifiable results if not dealt with.
AGW does not fit this scenario in any way. The basis for the problem is nebulous and difficult to quantify. There is no group of people ABSOLUTELY familiar with the roots of the issue or with decades of acquired skills to deal with it. The solutions are varied, untested, and unquantified in their results in any meaningful way.
Those who did not believe in the Y2K issue COULD be shown the problem IN EXACT DETAIL AND SHOWN THE RESULTS OF NOT FIXING IT. The solutions were tested in depth before implementation for all critical systems and many non-critical. There also was a FIXED DEADLINE for each type of problem in this area.
The reason this was such a non-event was that it WAS so testable, planned for and FIXED. The results of not fixing it WAS so obvious and PROVABLE!! Few people in the industries with affected legacy systems were willing to “drive off the cliff” with such clear evidence just to save a few million dollars when their companies and customers would be at immediate risk.
Francois: “AGW proponents don’t seem to care that a immensely large fraction of the population does not understand the science, as long as they agree with them. It only bothers them when some don’t agree.”
That seems accurate. By why is it something other than what you`d expect or something you prefer different? Substitute war on terror or any other political issue.
– “I started being interested in this issue when I noticed (or became annoyed) that the media put more emphasis on the “consensus†argument. Being a scientist, I thought it was weird that one would insist on the consensus, rather than on the actual facts.”
Certainly the media can be criticized, but reporting that there is consensus opinion on some issues IS reporting “actual facts”. Note the media has been criticized at least as much for trying to maintain “balance” by reporting what outliers say whenever they report on climate science.
– “So to a scientist, that is a very acceptable statement, because it actually means nothing”
I disagree; my reading of the IPCC summaries is that they were designed to specifically clarify what terms regarding probabilities meant.
– “An interesting point in this whole debate on consensus is that there can be a consensus, or at least a majority agreement, on a policy, WITHOUT having a near perfect consensus on the science. I guess what annoys a lot of people (like me) is that very insistence on the need for a scientific consensus as a pre-requisite for policy consensus. Yet there only needs to be an agreement that AGW is a POTENTIAL problem to garner support for a policy response. Furthermore, such an agreement would probably help determining what is the “optimal†policy response.”
I personally agree completely, but for a number of reasons (chiefly the international aspects of GHG mitigation policy and the domestic political pull of the fossil fuel lobby) political agreement HASN`T been reached. That`s what underlies the drive from greater scientific consensus, so those blocking policy change will recognize the need (or be persuaded) to budge.
– “With the IPCC, we have those periodic “reassessmentsâ€. But there is never a clear objective as to what you need to know better from one report to the next. And in between, we just let climate scientists do whatever they feel they like to do.”
Really? I thought that a majority of the research efforts were being directed by governments. But that, said the IPCC certainly doesn`t direct or coordinate research; it has no mandate to. That the main reason why there is never a clear objective from one report to the next. Another factor is that the hurdles to action are political, not scientific.
– Your whole comment about taxes is confused. Using taxes doesn`t shift the problem to the government, but rather uses the government to let the whole economy, working through price signals, do all of the heavy lifting thereafter. Yes, there`s some cost-shifting, but not to unspecified others, but to those who activities are regarded as generating general risks. The regressive nature of a tax can and should be abated by refunding the proceeds on a per capita basis to others. A domestic tax certainly doesn`t shift any costs to people abroad.
It`s surprising that you think a massive economy and people`s lives can turn on a dime. Price changes are information that drive both immediate and long-term behavior. Changes in transportation costs will shift what people choose to drive, how far and with how many passengers, where they work and where they live, and where housing and transportation infrastructure are built. These changes can already be seen in the US.
– “So why not, instead, put our money into developing those alternatives.” This is what a carbon tax will do, all by itself. I don`t want the government picking and choosing what great new boondoggle it should waste taxpayers` money on.
– Nukes? Yes, by all means! New reactors are being ordered on the US, and carbon taxes would greatly shift demand away from coal steam plants.
-“Regulation, instead of taxes, can be an incentive, if you know that there is a technological possibility to do things better, but that industry is just too lazy to do it (or does not have the capital to do it). International regulation is even better, because it levels the field, and I believe it may be easier to implement than a Kyoto-like treaty. And the nice thing about technological improvement, as opposed to a tax, is that it is a win-win situation.”
I can`t believe some of the big government liberal things I`m hearing! It sounds like you`re in greater favor of making our all-wise, all-knowing governments even bigger, and instead of US people deciding how to cut carbon out of our energy system, having the government tell us all exactly what to do with the heavy hand of inflexible and coercive regulation. Are you an enviro?
TomV, you might not like all of those busybody enviros, but you out to understand them. You see, that atmosphere is a commons that we all effect. The only question is whether we will act relatively soon to use the market system to incentivize changes (that will then occur naturally w/o arm-twisting, like people moving away from suburbs, chosing small cars over SUVs etc,), or we will continue to dawdle, thus cranking up the social pressure. When we were fighting WWII there were similarly LOTS of busybodies around, making us “donate” metal, grow “victory” gardens, block out the lights etc. Other commons situation are managed via lots of shared rules that local busybodies enforce. Try getting a Maine lobster permit, and setting your traps wherever you please!
We`ve had enough information to start moving more rapidly toward nuclear and away from coal for 20+ years, but our government has done nothing except pander to essentially silly radiation and proliferation fears among the public while pandering to coal and oil behind our backs. Is there any wonder, in light of the evidence piling up of ongoing damage being imposed by climate change and further risks imposed by it (including ocean pH changes) that those who care about these issues are rampign up the public pressure?
Raphael, I agree with all of you post. Of course we have to adapt to climate changes – they are already happening – and of course we will, just like we`ve adopted to climate and weather in the past. This alone will require significant infrastructure investment.
I wasn`t trying to short-change the adaptation agenda; it`s crucial and also a good way to make people realize that “climate change” is not solely theoretical or political.
Rather, I was just following the convention of referring to “adaptation” (adjusting to climate change) and “mitigation” (trying to slow climate change) as conceptually two different things.
dover=b: Happy to see that we are really not so far apart.
“Your case is reasonable enough without having to portend these dire predictions.”
I`m not making any dire predictions, I`m just point out what the scientists who study the West and Antarctica have to say. They are all worried. And continuing to accelerate our forcing on the earth`s climate via GHGs and soot, etc. isn`t going to help.
Thanks for the clarification Boris. Reading the abstract, it makes your posts more understandable. And I will need to change the direction of my comment. Jerry’s complaints are still valid as posted above. I will read Soden and others (especially if you would link them;) ) to see what is said about using a perturbance in aerosols to show water vapor response for the system without aerosol perturbance. It is not immediately obvious that such an approach validates the model for water vapor without the perturbance. Nor can the two complaints I posted above, necessarily be reconciled with “modeled accuracy of the water vapor feedback resulting from the cooling caused by sulphate aerosols ” for accepting their usefullness or predictive power for future climate.
Boris, John,
Peilke Sr. has a different opinion on whether the water vapour feedback has been confirmed by the data: http://climatesci.org/2008/01/26/963/
Here is a paper which suggests that models over estimate the water vapour feedback: http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/R-337.pdf
Another post is here: http://climatesci.org/2007/12/27/third-follow-up-to-climate-metric-reality-check-3-evidence-for-a-lack-of-water-vapor-feedback-on-the-regional-scale/
Roy Spencer takes the position that obscuring the sun with aerosols is a different process than adding GHGs to the atomosphere which means the water vapour response to GHGs cannot be inferred from volcanic eruptions. He explains his rational here: http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
KuhnKat July 26th, 2008 at 12:32 am
I’m going OT here, but I agree with everything you say. Using Y2K was meant as an example of scare mongering. It was a straight engineering/programming problem with well known causes and fixes (no modeling needed). Few at the time thought that those systems would be around long enough for the two digit year problem to manifest itself. There also are systems that were developed that assumed that the internal clock would not “rollover” because they would never be in service that long for it to happen (guess what, they did).
What I was trying to use that for was that the problem with Y2K was really the apocalyptic media and professional scare mongers that made it seem like the end of the world. They had some people so panicked that they bought huge supplies of staples and even guns figuring that civilization was going to collapse.
We’re getting same with AGW. On one hand the media and “experts” are telling us we’re “polluting the atmosphere” with CO2 from our oil burning, on the other they are talking about running out of oil. The latter corrects the former, no? They say cars are the major part of the problem and we need to drive less. Price of gas goes up, driving goes down (gee market forces at work, where’s the problem). I’m being sarcastic, but my point is that the media and politicos are talking out of both sides of their mouths. Is the reduction in fossil fuel usage good or not? Are rising temps good or not? Y2K was a straightforward problem and the media made a mess out of it. AGW not straightforward, and they are having a field day with it. Come up with a doomsday scenario and somehow they’ll fit it into AGW. How about positive effects? Increased crop yields, fewer deaths from extreme cold, milder climate (poles warm causing less temp differential for storms, yeah I made that one up). Is global warming bad only because humans are causing it? If we returned to a climate like the Medieval warm period or the Roman why would that be a disaster?
TokyoTom,
Thanks for taking the time to reply. You ask: “Are you an enviro?”. Well of course I am! And for a long time. I’ve been bicycling to work for most of my life, composting, recycling, and what else, well before it became a fad. Was even with Friends of the Earth for some time. I do believe that a clean and healthy environment is required for a good quality of life.
On the other hand, I’m a scientist too. Ph.D. in physics and all. Been part of academia for quite a number of years. But then moved to industry, the “real world”…
And then there is a third side, which is my strong interest for the sociology of the scientific institution. Always been an interest of mine, but since I’ve got lots of free time now, I’ve been studying this by myself in depth for the past two years.
So my position in this debate has to do with those three “sides” of my personality.
I find it fascinating how “science” (whatever that means) is used in the public debate. The scientist side of me finds it regretable that it’s not the facts that are important, but only the “reputation” of science as an institution, which is used to promote what is evidently a radical environmentalist agenda, with strong religious connotations (repent! repent!). I find it unfortunate that many scientists participate in this endeavour, not aware that it will damage their reputation in the long term. Academic scientists are so naive!
But the academic world (which I know very well) has many flaws, and possesses its own dynamics. You think “governments” decide what research will be done? I’ve got news for you! Governments set up grant committees that are populated by the scientists themselves. THEY decide what will be funded or not. And that decision process is rather twisted. Getting a grant has more to do with how talented you are at writing something that will please the committee than with proposing something new and original. When you sit on such a committee, you’ve got to review litterally hundreds of proposals, within a couple of weeks, and typically less than 20% will get funding. Really twisted.
It is my opinion that most academic research is useless. That’s about 95%. The scientific institution has built a reputation for itself such that it can live off public support, even though the empirical evidence points to its uselessness. There are a number of historical, sociological, and philosophical reasons for that, too long to explain here.
The AGW issue has been seized by scientists because it boosts the status of the scientific institution, and sustains, and even increases, its legitimacy (they’re saving the world!). There is a convergence of interest with a radical environmentalist view that has become proeminent, because the environmentalist movement was itself running out of steam. I’m simplifying, but that’s the gist of it.
In the end, it’s not the actual facts that matter (what’s a fact but a “social construction”?), and it’s not the optimum solutions to a potential problem. It’s a social, ideological, and political struggle that has nothing, but nothing to do with science, which I myself define as “useful knowledge”.
Finally, my opinion on whether to tax or not is really just a personal opinion. We can debate about this ad nauseam, but it would be rather useless. I respect your opinion, but I’ll stick with mine. I know very little of economics. I do suspect economists not to know much more, however…
Have a nice day!
TokyoTom,
What I said is directly related to your counterpoints:
– ignore that, since we have a global atmosphere – that we certainly can’t budge much by ourselves – we need to coordinate climate policy across major GHG emitters;
If it is possible to mitigate the effects through adaptation, we most certainly can budge on our own. It is the mitigation of cause only response which requires coordination. Because coordination of major GHG emitters is not guaranteed, it heightens the need of proactive adaptation.
– for the same reason, you are too concerned with developing “predictive powers†that are practically impossible. Other than purely domestic adaptation, to act on further information will require international coordination; and
Before a proactive adaptation measures can be determined, the magnitude and timetable of threats needs a precision greater than it stands today. (note the lack of proactive adaptation in current scenarios)
– you suggest rather heavy-handed, one-off technical policy responses rather than less-intrusive approaches like carbon taxes that would make use of market signals to influence the economic decisions of millions.
Specific examples aside, the idea promoted by francios and expanded briefly can be less intrusive than the carbon tax. It is a matter of taking the general ideas and minimizing government involvment.
A staged response to develop our understanding. (francios)
Allow flexibility of our response.(Lucia a)
Making GW policy choices which are viable regardless of future understanding.(Lucia b)
Restrict development in areas that are already impacted by those things which Global Warming will intensify.(lucia c)
Clear tests of the methods of our understanding.(Lucia d)
Promoting current policy goals to have synergy with a mitigation. (Me e)
Raven,
I’m not sure what Roger Sr. is on about. He looks at one region (North America) and short trends (since 1998 or 2002) and ignores longer time series and global data. Of course, if ones uses all available data, then his claims about humidity fall apart.
Boris,
Roger Sr. is doing what Leif has been doing to the various pet solar theories that show up at CA, i.e. he is pointing out areas where the wiggles don’t show the relationship that the adovocates claim should exist which demonstrates that the theory is either wrong or needs more work.
Thanks Raven. That is the tack I was considering. I will read those links as time permits. Perhaps Boris can add other links to the other papers he alluded to.
Boris,
So you think only long time series are the only route to go? I suppose in particular when you “adjust” all the periodic [short term] sub sets that don’t “fit” so that they wind up supporting the AGW story line. For brilliant examples of this technique I refer readers to GISS’ 1895-2007 North American temperature series and, of course, Mann, Thompson, Jones and Co and the hokum Hockey Shtick.
TT, re your post,
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/07/25/alarmists-scientists-and-the-bush-administration-claim-quot-climate-change-quot-is-causing-western-wildfires-and-stressing-watersheds.aspx
and your request for someone to “rise to the occasion, soon, to contest these pernicious ‘facts'”, it appears some people have, Meko, D., C. A. Woodhouse, C. A. Baisan, T. Knight, J. J. Lukas, M. K. Hughes, and M. W. Salzer (2007), Medieval drought in the upper Colorado River Basin, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L10705, doi:10.1029/2007GL029988.
See Pielke Snr’s post here:
http://climatesci.org/2008/07/25/the-value-of-paleoclimate-records-in-assessing-vulnerability-to-drought-a-new-paper-meko-et-al-2008/
and the Meko et al paper here:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~conniew1/papers/2007GL029988.pdf
The ‘facts’ are never as clear as they seem.
The position of the APS Science and Policy Forum is peculiar to say the least:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/author_others/001485a_brief_account_of_a.html
dover_b: Neither Pielke Sr. nor the authors of the paper he cites disputes the ongoing Western drought. Evidence for past droughts and variability isn’t really news, but simply more data. In any event, data on past droughts doesn’t tell us that current events (hotter, drier, with earlier snowmelt and longer fire seasons) are NOT happening, much less that man’s climate forcing can’t be playing a role.
Given the record for past drought variability, Pielke Sr. probably has a fair point that climate models alone can’t “predict” the precise timing or length of future droughts, but I would venture that the authors of the Meko, Woodhouse et al. paper would disagree with his suggestion that we look only to the past and ignore how our own forcing activities are pushing the climate towards more drought. Woodhouse, for example has specifically said that “Assessments of future drought variability must tap paleoclimatic data, in combination with climate models, to understand the full range of natural interannual to interdecadal drought variability, and to estimate the human-induced climate changes that might occur, superimposed on natural variability.” http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/amsdrought.pdf.
In any event, information about past events doesn’t tell us much about why current events are occurring or the mechanisms for how man’s GHG forcing is manifested. Some discussions of that are here:
http://www.jisao.washington.edu/JISAO_admin/newsarchives/AZStar_04-21-08_IsOurDroughtASignOfLongtermCLimateChange.pdf
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n1/full/ngeo.2007.38.html
Francois, thanks for your response.
_ “The scientist side of me finds it regretable that it’s not the facts that are important, but only the “reputation†of science as an institution, which is used to promote what is evidently a radical environmentalist agenda, with strong religious connotations (repent! repent!). I find it unfortunate that many scientists participate in this endeavour, not aware that it will damage their reputation in the long term. Academic scientists are so naive!”
Except for your last sentence, I’d say that you’ve unhelpfully and unfairly over-generalized. The facts remain exteremly important and “science as an institution” is imprtant only because government bodies all over the world have asked their national academies of sciences and the coordinating IPCC to provide conclusions that can be acted on. Yes, to some inevitable degree this cooperation with government may damage the reputation of science, just as the coopting of science to produce and test nuclear weapons, napalm, Agent Orange and the like have damaged science and produced an anti-science backlash. Certain there are radical environmentalists who are pushing radical agendas, but they are hardly the global political, industrial and other leaders (religious or scientific) who support taking coordinated action to reduce human climate forcing and to improve our ability to adapt to changes now underway and anticipated.
Sure there’s an emotional tone that you call “religious”, but it’s nothing but good old-fashioned moral suasion that man has used for millenia to coordinate behavior with connmunity members with regard to commonly-used assets. And even scientists, as members of society (and investors in it, by dint of having children), have every right to push for changes they think are needed.
– Thanks for the information on the grant process. I’m sure there’s alot of things about it not to like, but at the end of the day, it’s bureaucrats and politicians who decide how many tax dollars will be spent on what types of matters. We invest much in climate change not because scientists want us to and make us, but because we have political leaders who think it’s a worthy investment (either to find something out, or to delay action).
– “most academic research is useless. That’s about 95%.” You may be right; I certainly agree that government funding of research tends to waste money and leads to politicization of science. But I see much of the research into climate change as being very useful and interesting.
– “In the end, it’s not the actual facts that matter (what’s a fact but a “social constructionâ€?), and it’s not the optimum solutions to a potential problem. It’s a social, ideological, and political struggle that has nothing, but nothing to do with science, which I myself define as “useful knowledgeâ€. ”
I agree with you and disagree with you. The struggle over climate change policy is a social, ideological, and political struggle, but because we live in representative democracies, the struggle has very much to do with science, or at least with what politicians think the public perception of science is. The struggle is principally one between the monied elites of our countries about their wealth, and whether the long-term matters as much as the short-term. For each side, the scientists, enviros, public policy shops, media and even politicians are just pawns. The short-term profits side has prevailed until now, but that they have started to lose and that the long-termers have started to get the upper hand should be rather evident. The game is shifting because the science is shifting the useful knowledge, and persuading even many in the fossil fuels industry that BAU means sacrificing too much for short-term gain.
On the carbon tax issue, feel free to have your own opinion; I’m not twisting any arms. I’m just pointing out how so many who seem opposed to carbon taxes offer up instead programs by an all-knowing government that are generally much more intrusive that a tax scheme. As should be clear by now, government is a field where special interests battle for insider deals that help them while hamstringing competitors. I’m not in favor of more of it, which is why I oppose a government-heavy cap and trade program, and call for any carbon taxes to be rebated.
Raphael: I’m really not disagreeing with you, just using a different lingo (which more accurately reflects the general practice): “mitigating” refers to measures that reduce man’s forcing (via reductions in GHG and soot emissions or inxcreasing albedo, or by CCS, geoengineering and the like), while adaptation means dealing with the changes as they occur (or in anticipation of them). Doing one doesn’t preclude the other, and certainly most adaptation is purely local or regional.
It is the mitigation measures that really require international cooperation (as few nations seem ready to rush off and unilatteral bear large costs in cutting back GHG emissions unless a significant group of others are prepared to join them), but each nation can largely handle adaptation on its own – except for the poorer nations where we have the same coordination problem of how wealthy nations share the burden of helping others.
I would love to see more middle ground on government policy, but what you, Francois and Lucia have offered is extremely vague and, where not, heavy handed:
– A staged response to develop our understanding. (Isn’t that what we’ve done for the past 20 years?)
– Allow flexibility of our response. (So far, our non-response has been extremely flexible. Any policy we make can of course be abandoned.)
– Making GW policy choices which are viable regardless of future understanding. (Care to expand? I’ve already made a number of suggestions that I think ought to work for even conservatives, like deregulating power, enhancing water trading.)
– Restrict development in areas that are already impacted by those things which Global Warming will intensify. (Very heavy-handed. Does this mean nobody can move to the West? To the coasts? What precisely does this mean, and do people really need the government to tell them what to do? Perhaps that government can just stop subsidizing moral risk (by leaving to private markets new road/infrastructure building and insurance premiums?)
– Clear tests of the methods of our understanding. (What does this mean, and why should government be doing it?)
– Promoting current policy goals to have synergy with a mitigation. (What does this mean, and why should government be doing it?)
TT, there is scant evidence in any of the studies listed in your earlier post that indicate with a high probability, leave alone conclusively, that the drought or temp. in the Colorado Basin are the result of GHG forcing. The LLNL/ Scripps study, for instance, was based on the downscaling of GCMs to the regional level. Considering the record of this methodology, see a recent papar by D. Koutsoyiannis, “Assessment of the reliability of climate predictions based on comparisons with historical time series” delivered to the EGU2008, I and many others have little confidence in the regional projections of GCMs. Meko et al’s paper suggests that rather than being unusual, the current drought is well within the natural variability of the climate for the Colorado Basin. The cause(s) of the current drought remain a matter for speculation.
dover_b: I don’t disagree with you that the attestation job (trying to link current climate change to man’s GHG and other forcings) is difficult, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done, much less that there is no such link. For some, it seems much easier to pretend that while man can materially alter the Earth’s heat balance, such changes have no material consequences. Certainly Pielke Sr doesn’t do that, but rather focusses on the severe limitations on trying to apply models of an extremely complex and still poorly understood system to make predictions with any degree of reliability or useful granularity.
By the way, when I suggested on my blog that someone may “rise to the occasion, soon, to contest these pernicious ‘facts’”, I was referring specifically to the following (there were other facts, such as the lengthening of the fire season by 78 days and increase in burned areas by 600% that I didn’t refer to here):
– A March 2008 study based on NOAA data shows that the 11 Western states have, over the five-year period 2003-2007 as compared to the 20th Century, heated up twice as fast as the global average.
– The Colorado River Basin is in the throes of a record drought, shrinking water supplies for upwards of 30 million people in fast-growing Denver, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego.
– Most of the Colorado River’s flow comes from melting snow in the mountains of Wyoming, Utah and Wyoming.
– Climate scientists predict even more and drier droughts in the future as hotter temperatures reduce the snowpack and increase evaporation.
– To date, the governors of Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington have signed the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), an agreement to reduce global warming pollution through a market-based system, such as cap-and-trade. The WCI calls for states to reduce their global warming emissions 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
Which of these does the Meko et al paper contest? It doesn’t seem that it takes issue with any of them, but rather notes that there paleo recors shows very significant natural variation.
Fine; as one of the Meko authors notes, our GHG and other forcings should be added to natural variability in trying to assess risks. I believe Pielke Sr agrees. You’ve previously said “Your case is reasonable enough without having to portend these dire predictions.” Are you now saying that you won’t be happy for the case for further action – mitigation or local adaptation – until we’ve ramped the forcing up to such levels that the signal from man’s activities is undeniable? That type of conservativism does cause problems with ramping up and coping with damage, as well as giving us a tougher job of trying to reduce our forcing.
“Are you now saying that you won’t be happy for the case for further action – mitigation or local adaptation – until we’ve ramped the forcing up to such levels that the signal from man’s activities is undeniable? That type of conservativism does cause problems with ramping up and coping with damage, as well as giving us a tougher job of trying to reduce our forcing.”
No, TT, that is not what I’m saying nor would any sensible conservative think that. The conservative position is to back the field, not the favourite. In this instance, the field includes natural internal variability, natural forcings, plus a number of other anthropogenic forcings including GHGs and LCC. Thats why I support a carbon tax starting on the low side, that is sensitive to new observations and findings, eventhough I tend to think that CS is around 1 degrees C or less, while doing a number of other things. Competitive markets for water, electricity, gas, etc. make sense irrespective of the likely forcing due to GHGs. My problem with current policy is that it is either backing the current favourite (GHGs) or one or two other horses, while ignoring or discounting the field.
Lucia
What strikes me and what is the reason why I come from time to time to this blog is that you analyse data and posts without filter .
That makes you rather immune to “reframing” and that is a good thing for a scientist .
I actually noticed that some time ago when I saw in a discussion that you understood my “dislike” for RANS despite being a practicing fluid dynamics person who according to my experience generally heavily reframe my reservations 🙂
As an opposite and it is surprising that you tolerate it on your blog , you have Boris who is a walking spectral filter .
Whatever signal somebody delivers as input in his black box , it is always the same Fourrier components that come out .
That is so dogmatic and so predictable that it never says something relevant about the input signal .
Indeed , my post had nothing to do with what I think or do not think about climate science per se .
It had everything to do with what I think about political responses that are concretely being voiced and more specifically what I think about the unsufferably arrogant demands that “we (all) must change our personnal behaviours .”
There is a Universe between saying “The use of public ressources (budgets) of most countries should be heavily oriented to nuclear power use and expansion .” (with which I happen to agree regardless of any AGW theories) and saying “You Mr Brown must fit a behaviour norm that I have devised for the whole mankind .” (at what I could only answer “You Mr X already fit the norm of a perfect moron and now go away .” regardless of any AGW theories) .
I look with extreme distrust at people who pretend to save the mankind , the planet , the Universe and who are unable to bring the proof that they are God .
Attempts to close everybody in a norm with adequate enforcement squads (why not green shirts ?) are in my opinion infinitely more dangerous than some degrees more or less in 1 or 2 centuries .
We are heading in a next glaciation anyway , it is only a matter of time so …
TokyoTom
Sure.
* Fast track nuclear energy in way that help providers deal with the regulatory hurdles that have been put in place.
* Promote basic and applied R&D for alternative energies sources.
Lots of people have been suggesting these on this thread, and rather repeatedly.
You may think of yourself as a full blown libertarian, and think that somehow jibes with taxing people to change their behavior, but many here think the it’s fine for the government to do things like build roads.
Well for one thing, monitor whether or not the predictive models are actually working. The government pretty much pays for roughly 99% of the effort right now, but sponsoring research at places like GISS, universities etc. But, if private parties wish to look at data, I’m all for that. So are most people here. 🙂
First, by asking why the government should do it, are you suggesting the government should promote no policies now?
As for this specific policy, technology that would have synergy with mitigation might be encouraging research or development into creating efficient co-generation power production facilities that also act as desalination plants to provide clean water in places where that is necessary. If we used nuclear as the method to create heat, we’d lower our carbon footprint and provide clean drinking water.
A policy to promote these would be one that encourages these in some quite specific way.
TomVonk–
I permit pretty open discussion at my blog. I figure the only way for people to actually learn what other people think is to read what they actually say. The discussions back and forth are pretty enlightening.
I share many of your reservations on RANS. But it can also be a good engineering tool used properly. I think we disagreed on….. it wasn’t chaos.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, the approximations inside climate models mean they are the type of code that must be heavily tested. It also means that we can’t assume because they get tested feature “A” correct, they will get untested feature “B” correct. The history of model development tells us that assumption doesn’t work when we use codes with course grids that can’t resolve the fine scale features of the flow (example: hurricanes), and/or when we need to use approximate models for physical phenomema (examples: clouds). Of course, they might get feature “B” more or less correct. You just can’t know until it’s tested.
With respect to the major argument, the IPCC’s main concrete projections is for GMST. People are interested in how it’s tracking. I suspect it will veer back up soon– but likely not at 2C/century between now and 2030. That said, I’ve been wrong before. So, I’m just describing what I find, and then hunting down information when people suggesting things.
And if the IPCC can switch there projection from 3C/century between 1990-2035 (projected in the TAR), to 1.5 C/century and finally 2C/century, then, presumably, I won’t be any more wrong with testing models than they have been!
Boris at comment 4465
“As an empirical support for this, petrol is maybe twice as expensive as it was a couple of years back, and there has been no significant drop in demand, quite the contrary.”
“Utter nonsense. US drivers are driving a lot fewer miles. And one of the benefits of a carbon tax is making alternative energy more competitive. And your example of cutting waste is exactly what a carbon tax would encourage people to do.”
What your response to FrancoisO ignores is that the reaction of US drivers to higher prices does not determine the overall world reaction. Your proposed carbon tax suffers from the same weakness. Recall Jevons’ Paradox. (Briefly, that if you reduce your consumption of some resource by improving the efficiency of its use, the overall consumption goes up.)
It is clear that the large countries of the developing world are not going to adopt measures (such as carbon taxes) to restrict their consumption of oil, coal and gas. So if the developed world reduces its consumption (by imposing carbon taxes to encourage more efficient energy use) overall consumption will increase.
Unfortunately the impact of Jevons’ Paradox on the carbon/AGW economic debate seems to have been totally ignored. Eg the Stern Report and now the Garnaut report in Aus.
I guess ultimately it may make little difference as peak oil, followed by peak coal, will soon put a damper on our fossil fuel follies. But in the meantime it would be nice to see some engagement with the real world.
The bigger framing: Good Intentions are confused with Good Outcomes. The Warmers want to save the Planet for Humanity (Hansen is a classic example), but don’t see that the Alarmist methods they use will ultimately lead to tragedy for Humanity. The Hockey Stick is wrong, the Models are unreliable (Lorenz would say impossible), the temperature record is corrupted, the empirical evidence for CO2 warming scant or non existant. No matter. The Warmers led by those who have corrupted or refuse to acknowledge the corruption of the Scientific basis for AGW will brook no interference, for they are “the Well Intentioned”.
TokyoTom,
The things we described are generalized concepts. I don’t think any of us intended to created a detailed policy response. Thus, by convention, our points are vague.
Should government be doing these things? I think we can agree that the government shouldn’t be doing many things it does. 🙂 But in anycase, if a particular level of government lacks the authority to implement an action, that action can be deferred to a lower level.
A general goal such as “restricting development” is no less heavy handed than “restricting consumption.” It is a matter of how the government implements that goal. For example an informational awareness program can restrict development in a location by manipulating the demand to build in that area. Of course, you might want details of “an informational awareness program.” I don’t have them. 🙂 But, it could be as simple as posting signs that say “Warning: This sign may be underwater by the year 2050.”
dover_b: “Thats why I support a carbon tax starting on the low side, that is sensitive to new observations and findings, eventhough I tend to think that CS is around 1 degrees C or less, while doing a number of other things. Competitive markets for water, electricity, gas, etc. make sense irrespective of the likely forcing due to GHGs. My problem with current policy is that it is either backing the current favourite (GHGs) or one or two other horses, while ignoring or discounting the field.”
Well, it seems we substantially agree, except that the current policy is to do nothing, except to grudgingly release studies – thus, it has been backing the fossil fuel/”the future looks bright” horse. The public discourse is a simplified one focussing too much on CO2 and CO2 emission reduction, while ignoring other GHGs, carbon black, albedo, an unavoidable need for adaptation, and policies other than CO2 emission reductions. But I think that among scientists and buisness and political leaders there is a more sophisticated discussion that includes these matters.
TomV: “you have Boris who is a walking spectral filter.” This reminds me of what Walt Kelly once said through his Pogo character: “I have met the enemy, and he is us!” To the extent that any of us is human, we each carry cognitive filters of the type that you criticize Boris for. As it takes effort to rejigger our mental maps, we all find it easier to interpret information in ways consistent with our current views and to ignore, dismiss or simply not notice inconsistent information.
– “the unsufferably arrogant demands that “we (all) must change our personnal behaviours.†There is a Universe between saying “The use of public ressources (budgets) of most countries should be heavily oriented to nuclear power use and expansion .†(with which I happen to agree regardless of any AGW theories) and saying “You Mr Brown must fit a behaviour norm that I have devised for the whole mankind.—
I’ve tried to explain before, this is wrong. Man’s very evolution of language and cooperative behahavior gave us competitive advantages in managing external threats and in accessing and managing common resources. Where our use of unregulated common resources led to problems, we often (but there are many failures ion the historical record) developed social institutions that improved management and avoided resource destruction.
Bruce Yandle, who is a free-market environmentalist (who is often critical of regular enviros) has a very brief and interesting piece (“The Commons: Tragedy or Triumph?”) that addresses these issues; it is
the last article listed here.
In short, when faced with problems relating to common-access resources, we naturally try to influence each other’s behavior via jawboning and social pressure; use of laws and formal institutions (like property rights) is a more sophisticated means to manage resources, but the efficacy of law and formal institution in fact relies very much on informal social acceptance and sanction.
Lucia and Raphael:
Where I blog, they don’t view anyone who advocates any government role in addressing a problem as a true “libertarian”, since they regard the costs of government action as always exceeding the purported benefits. So I’m a bit of an odd man out when I point out that economic efficiency improves if we tax consumption or “bads” rather than income, capital and labor, that taxes are much less heavy handed than many other policy choices that are being bandied about, and that libertarians are likely to be completely ignored if they simply refuse to engage. So perhaps it’s best to consider me and “underblown libertarian”!
I thank you for your indications of policies that you can support. These include:
– Making GW policy choices which are viable regardless of future understanding.
— I’ve already suggested deregulating power and enhancing water trading.
— You suggest (1) Fast track nuclear energy in way that help providers deal with the regulatory hurdles that have been put in place, and (2) Promote basic and applied R&D for alternative energies sources.
— I can agree with (1), but I think we also need to see a much greater public awareness campaign that compares the environmental and safety record of nuclear pwoer against coal, natural gas, water and renewables.
— As for funding R&D, I think I disagree, as the government isn’t really best situated to pick winners. But as carbon taxes would certainly incentivize R&D into carbon-lite or -free technologies, I think we agree that government can help to encourage new technology.
— Another way that the government can encourage R&D is by reducing corporate taxes (which get passed through anyway), or at least by a eliminating “depreciation” schedules (that mean that corporations when calculating income tax cannot deduct from current income all of their expenditures on equipment, but only a portion based on expected useful life).
– You suggest “Clear tests of the methods of our understanding.”
— “Well for one thing, monitor whether or not the predictive models are actually working.”
— Well, okay; I can support government doing that. Perhaps we should also monitor whether ocean pH is increasing, and that ice sheets seem more responsive and vulnerable? But I note that generally it sounds like you support government funding of the entire range of climate inquiry, as all aspects improve our understanding.
– You suggest “Promoting current policy goals to have synergy with a mitigation.”
— As an example, you suggest “encouraging research or development into creating efficient co-generation power production facilities that also act as desalination plants to provide clean water in places where that is necessary.”
— I appreciate your clarification of what you intend. I don’t suggest that government should have NO policy; I strongly think that the government should be encouraging the rapid replacement of fossil-fuelled power gneration (particularly coal) with nuclear and a transition to hydrogen-based transportation (fuel cells and liquid hydrogen). I just think that the government ought to do this by using the market; policies that rely on the government to do things often are counterproductive and distorting (like our interstate system, levees on the Mississippi, investment in synfuels and subsidies for ethanol).
— Raphael, if we wish to discourage development on barrier islands, or other areas of flood risk or drought/wildfire risk, we can do that best by not incentivizing risky behavior: stop subsidizing flood insurance, letting communities own, manage and be liable for the risks created by their own roads and levees, make them pay for their own firefighting, get the government out of the business of building water infrastructure, clarifying water rights (so that those who have it can sell it) and open up competition in urban water markets (so consumers face marginal costs of acquistion rather than blended rates that encourage consumption).
Regards,
Tom
I share many of your reservations on RANS. But it can also be a good engineering tool used properly. I think we disagreed on….. it wasn’t chaos.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, the approximations inside climate models mean they are the type of code that must be heavily tested. It also means that we can’t assume because they get tested feature “A†correct, they will get untested feature “B†correct. The history of model development tells us that assumption doesn’t work when we use codes with course grids that can’t resolve the fine scale features of the flow (example: hurricanes), and/or when we need to use approximate models for physical phenomema (examples: clouds).
For me the RANS is precisely a text book example that time averaging makes problems (with N-S) worse not better .
It forces to assumptions and to constraints that are neither present nor necessary in N-S .
Of course saying that the happy circumstance that there exists a sub set of flows where the ergodicity assumption is not completely silly , lead to the observation that RANS can deliver some answers for this category of flows for short periods of time would be … reframing what we of course will not do .
Terry Tao (Fields medal) has a very intersting paper on his blog “Why N-S is so difficult ?” .
At some point he is writing (quoting from head) that it would be a nightmare if after a long enough time , ANY divergence free field was a solution .
Obviously it would be a nightmare because it would mean that the ergodicity assumption is wrong for long enough times .
It reminds me of the string theory with its 10^500 vacua . 10^500 is not infinity but it is a darn huge number .
Unfortunately there can be no ergodicity assumption and that is one of the reasons why the string theory is (also) difficult among many other reasons that I don’t all understand .
I consider that this mathematical work on the very foundations of N-S is extremely relevant for the whole climate science .
Of course N-S is itself very relevant but what is perhaps more so are the questions about computability , predictability and ergodicity that appear when N-S is studied .
It would be probably interesting if T.Tao wrote a paper about the possible strategies of solving the “climate problem” by analogy to his N-S paper .
I wouldn’t be surprised if he found the same nightmare for the climate as the one he saw in N-S , namely non ergodicity .
Sofar the models follow all the same strategy based on the conviction that the climate is a well defined , well behaved beast that can be enclosed in statistical bounds of standard deviations and correlation methods .
I say conviction because like for N-S , there is no proof that it is so and there can NOT be a proof of this in a mathematical sense because the climate debate , here unlike N-S , is not lead in terms of solutions to some known set of ODE&PDE .
So what is left ?
Using statistical techniques on some available data and hoping that they are relevant , that correlations correlate and probabilities are computable .
All on the background of a huge data set of the real world out of which we extracted and infintesimaly tiny subset (both spatially and temporally) that will be tortured by statistics (what might be legitimate) and then the results extrapolated to a set many order of magnitude bigger (what is probably non legitimate) .
For the modellers the climate is at best deterministic (but not low order chaotic) and at worst ergodic and high order chaotic (like the subset of flows where RANS gives usable results) .
I am convinced that the first case is wrong and I am unsure about the second one .
Sofar I have read nothing that would state a convincing case for it and unfortunately it is very hard to prove .
The difficulty of the proof is similar to the P=NP conjecture (yet another Millenium problem along with N-S :)) because you don’t know how long to wait untill a computation/proof/verification is finished .
Of course there is the “weak proof” variant in which you can falsify a theory already on a small subset of observations and then don’t need to look for bigger ones .
Follows that the AGW theory is probably easier to be falsified , e.g could take less time to falsify if wrong than to be proven if right .
Lucia,
I decided to dig up this old post since it was more on topic then your reply to prevent the deprivation of high school students. And, I just need to rant a bit before I go off on the school system.
Today was the first “real day” of school here, and my oldest son, 16, is taking sociology. The first part of the text book they covered today starts with the question, “Why do couples marry?” Of course, my son being the good student that he is, asks me that question. (Ok, he actually just likes to see if there is anything I don’t know.)
Being the cynical, single father that i am, I replied, “Tax breaks.” Of course, he replied, “No.” So, of course I ask, “Oh? Then why?” Honestly, I thought the answer was going to be something like, “Conformity to social beliefs.” I was rather stunned when he said, “The answer is rather complicated.”
But then he handed me the book.
The first paragraph says 9 of 10 people will cite “being in love” as reason for,” Why do couples marry?” The second pargraph reframes the question to be, “Is the decision about whom to marry really so simple and personal?” The final paragraph gives examples on how society limits the choices about whom to marry.
After I read it, I told him, “No wonder you couldn’t answer, the book didn’t answer the question.”
But, as I was considering how to stimulate my son’s grey matter to consider the question, I realized the entire thing was an exercise in social engineering.
The final paragraph can be divided into two parts. If we were to ask the question, “Why do couples become couples?” the second part can be applied to the question. And we could draw the conclusion that society limits who we would consider as the second half of a couple. So, of course, if we then ask “Why do couples marry?” we can see that society had already limitted the couples, before they have a chance to “fall in love” and marry.
So why the linguistic gymnastics? The first part of the final paragraph points out “right off the bat” that U.S. society has laws which prohibit same sex couples from marrying. That portion of the response has nothing to do with the original question, as same sex couples do not marry in the majority of states. Nor does it limit who we marry. The question had to be reframed before the topic could flow smoothly into the issue.
Does a sociology book need to frame a question just to address the issue? No. The issue fits in so many catagories in sociology there is no need to reframe a question just to promote the ideology. heck, if you want to show that society limits our choices, simply ask, “Why don’t same sex people marry?”
So why? Every Evil Overlord knows you invoke an emotion response and then steer that response toward your agenda. What could invoke more response then for a child to consider why they would marry?
Disclaimer:
For the record, I believe in equal rights. The equal rights I believe in are not “equal but seperate” simply equal. My spiritual beliefs refuse to find fault in the altuistic love shared between two people. These two beliefs leave me no rational opposition to same sex marriage, and I voted against the amendment which was passed here in Ohio. Further , if I discuss the issue with someone who believes in the sanctity of marriage, I say, “Darn right! It is Sacred and Holy! What right does the Government have to regulate a religious belief? They should get out of the marriage business.”
Hmm…. Well, yes. It reads like they jump around on that question. Obviously, “Why couples marry?” is different from “Who do people marry?” and also “Why don’t some couples marry?”
All are clearly complicated questions. I didn’t take sociology in highschool. I did take religion from Nuns. 🙂
On the other hand, why same sex couples don’t marry is a no brainer. I most states, it’s illegal. Even if it’s legal in one state, the marriage might not be recognized in another. If you move, and your marriage falls apart (as happens to many couples) some states won’t provide a divorce. This turns what is otherwise a useful legal contract into a nightmare!
I think they should extend marriage to same sex couples. There would be many advantages for everyone.