Climate Data Re-examined (updated)

An anonymous reader writes "An important paper that re-examines historical climate data was published on 28 October in the respected journal Energy & Environment. (The paper is also available here.) According to an article in Canada's National Post, the paper shows that a "pillar of the Kyoto Accord is based on false calculations, incorrect data and an overtly biased selection of climate records." (USA Today also has a story.) This paper will undoubtedly be controversial and should stir a vigourous data review." Update: 11/05 14:54 GMT by T : newyhouse points out a similarly contrarian 2001 Economist article by Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist .

Comments

National Post

[befletch]

In case it isn't obvious, the National Post is a very right wing paper, at least in Canadian terms. That doesn't mean they are wrong, but they have a history of taking any opportunity to attack the Kyoto Accord.

As a case in point, I offer the title, subtitle and byline for the article:

Kyoto debunked
A pillar of the Kyoto Accord is based on flawed calculations, incorrect data and an overtly biased selection of climate records, an important new paper reveals

Tim Patterson
Financial Post

I would say, for instance, that a more cautious interpretation would be that an important new paper suggests flaws in the research, not that it reveals it. Particularly if I were a writer for a business & economics paper, not a climate change researcher. And then there is the title itself...

To give credit where it is due, he does tend to use the phrase 'climate change' rather than the older 'global warming', which is a more accurate description of what the body of research underpinning Kyoto actually suggests. Usually you can spot biased participants in debates like this by their choice of language.

Personally, I have never taken sides over whether climate change is likely to be a reality or not. I don't need it as a justification for my environmental leanings. I think there are many national security and economic justifications for taking such actions as improving energy efficiency throughout society without relying on theories such as climate change that are far beyond my ability to competently analyze. So go ahead and tear Kyoto apart if you care to, but don't use that as an excuse to increase dependence on Middle East oil, for example.

And I haven't seen a big appetite for new nuclear or coal power plants in the US as of late either.

This is Microsoft Excel's fault

[MillionthMonkey]

You seem, however, to have left out your scientific criticism of their methodology and results.

The original 1998 paper by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes was not in error. McIntyre and McKitrick screwed up their data when they published this paper. Somebody exported the raw data in the original paper to Excel but somehow exported 159 columns of data into a 112 column spreadsheet. M&M did not compare the spreadsheet and produced a "correction" to the original paper that was based on nothing but errors, since the full paleoclimatic data series of 159 columns is required to properly audit the analysis done in the 1998 paper. More information here and here. The world really is melting.

The authors of the original paper have already published a rebuttal to this M&M paper with further details about how M&M faithfully replicated neither the data nor the procedures in their audit.

Re:I see..

[Eivind]

The Briksdalen glacier, rigth ?

I know it. Rather well. I grew up about hundred kilometers further west, in Nordfjordeid.

Anyways, it is true like you say that the glacier went a lot further down in the valley in the middle 1800s. But here's the thing: For the last 30 years or so its been *growing* quite a lot, on the order of 3-5 meters a year.

The glacier is actually a lot *bigger* now than it was when I was small. Now this is not due to colder climate, but rather due to more snowfall in the winthers, but still, the briksdalen glacier is a very poor choise for examples of global warming and ice melting. :-)

This is not true. The rest of the story.

[rufusdufus]

If you follow the links provided in the parent post, you will find the rebuttal by the authros where they state:
We did not ask for an Excel spreadsheet nor did we receive one.
If you read the rest of their rebuttal, it becomes clear that Mann just made the excel error up! No really! Go read!

Re:Follow the money...

[Zocalo]

Actually, you have some factual errors too since displacement is relative to *mass* not to volume. Water is kind of funny in that the solid has more volume than the liquid for a given mass due to the chemical structures, so 1KG of ice has more volume than 1KG of water, as you state. But if you put some ice cubes in a glass, fill it to the brim with water and then let the ice melt, it will still be full to the brim with no overflow because the mass remains constant. And that's in an ideal world, before you account for the losses due to evaporation. The section of the ice sticking out of the water is the difference in *volume* between the mass of the water in the ice cube in its liquid and solid states.

People getting confused when relating this to the melting of the polar caps is due to the fact that while the northern cap is largely over water and they think of the ice cube in a glass thing. But that's not the end of the story. The bulk of the southern ice mass *is* over land, and a good chunk of ice in the north is too, plus the temperature rise necessary to melt the caps would almost certainly cause a rise in the snowline and meltage of other inland ice.

In a nutshell, ice mass supported by the oceans can melt without causing the seas to rise, but ice supported by land will cause the seas to rise. Note: I seem to recall that "supported by" is not the same as "directly over", but it's a *long* time since I did any geography.

Re:Paradoxically

[Eivind]

Perfectly true. This only illustrates the uncertanity around all this.

Some people say the glaciers are melting is a sign of global warming. The person I responded to seemed to think that the briksdalen glacier being smaller now than in the 1800s is an example in this category.

Then I point out that actually, the Briksdalen glacier is *growing* and has been for like 3 decades.

And you come along tell me that warmer air can carry more moisture, thus more snow, thus the glaciers grow.

So it would seem, if the glaciers grow, it's evidence for global warming. And if the glaciers shrink, it's also evidence for global warming.

I hope you see the problem with this line of reasoning :-)

Bias is a two way street:

[gowen]

Please note that the editor of "E&E" is one of the few environmental scientists who agreed with Bjorn Lomborg "Skeptical Environmentalist", and a self-confessed environmental sceptic. As stated there, the journal itself has a "stance [that] is critical of conventional wisdom".

Now, I don't read E&E (I tend to read the mainstream geophysics journals: GAFD, JGR(Oceans) and GRL -- "E&E" is not a mainstream geophysics journal), but I am slightly concerned about work published in a journal with an agenda. One may also be concerned about the suitability of referees selected by an editor out to prove a point, rather than to publicise good science.

The actual figures, if you care

[caitsith01]

"Except that China and India are the big polluters of the day."

Check out:
http://www.ioe.ucla.edu/publications/report0 1/Gree nhouse/Fig1P19.gif

Compare the population one with the energy use one, and the per capita one. The US is EASILY the biggest per capita AND net user of energy.

If you prefer a measure of straight pollution to energy use, try:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.ns f/cont ent/emissionsindividual.html
http://yosemite.epa. gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/cont ent/EmissionsInternational.html

USA totally dominates others in pretty much all respects. Try basing your posts on actual math next time.

Re:The actual figures, if you care

[lobsterGun]

That data is five years old. Do you have links to any more recent data?

Re:The actual figures, if you care

[cluge]

BTW the original debate was about the apparent fact that the original author of a study that showed global warming as a serious problem was wrong. In essence someone got their math wrong by accident, or perhaps ignored certain data to further their point (ie get funding for more research).

USA totally dominates others in pretty much all respects. Try basing your posts on actual math next time.

Actually, if the truth be told Indonesia has the largest per capita greenhouse emmision of any country (1997-2001). Yet the have a very low per capita energy use. Energy use doesn't necessarily mean greenhouse gas emitter - while the two ar related they are not inexorably tied. For example: Google (your favorite accurate research tool *cough*) France and her Nuclear power and compare it to Saudi Arabia.

It seems that natural occurences can still produce way more greenhouse gas than the little ole US can. Below is a select quote from new scientist. BTW, last I checked those peat bogs were still burning.

From New Scientist:
" ... Now a team of scientists from Britain, Germany and Indonesia has reported that as Indonesia's forests burned in 1997, the smouldering peat beneath released as much as 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon into the air.

That is equivalent to 40 percent of the global emissions from burning fossil fuels that year, and was the prime cause of the biggest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 levels since records began more than 40 years ago."

cluge

Thought of evaluating the data, not the biases?

[Tau Zero]

Now, I'm not a climate researcher. But I do know that there's a lot of spectacular evidence supporting the claim that global warming exists and is accelerating, and a pretty firm body of theory rooted in physics to show how it occurs. I don't see how you can dismiss things like the retreat of glaciers around much of the globe (to sizes unprecedented in history or the recent archaeological record) and claim that nothing is going on.

No, they have an agenda. They have a belief that they feel strongly about, and they want others to either believe it too, or at least be held to the constraints that those beliefs create.

That's like claiming that people who oppose promiscuity because it spreads AIDS are puritanical, or people who promote condoms to prevent AIDS are libertines because condoms make promiscuity relatively safe. Both arguments are fallacious.

The problem with your statement is that you're ignoring the fact that there is a gray area.

The problem with yours is that there are other costs to fossil fuels. Coal, for example, puts enough mercury into the environment that it's unsafe for people to eat fish steadily in my state. Becoming more efficient can often be done at a negative cost, completely aside from pollution or climate considerations. Then there is the net present value of the (uncertain and climbing) future cost of many fuels, including natural gas. If there is a gray area, it starts at a much lower level of energy consumption than we have today; the purely economic arguments for cutting back a good ways are solid without even thinking about climate change.

Funny you say that when the article mentions NOTHING about any business being involved in the contradicting studies.

University of Guelph. One of Canada's biggest exports is energy, mostly from the province of Alberta. The value of several large corporations could evaporate if e.g. the tar sands were regarded as too polluting to exploit. Corporations have lobbyists, their employees vote their personal interests. You do the math.

Re:Biased Bush administration energy whores?

[jmichaelg]

Why do people think environmentalists would be biased, anyway?

Possibly because they admit it?

In John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid, David Bower, the former director of the Sierra Club, admits he just made his numbers up. McPhee asks Bower where he found the data for the 'The U.S. has 6% of the world's population but consumes 40% of the world's resourcess' quote. Bower's response was it sounded about right.