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Global Warming Debunked?
limbicsystem writes, "I'm a scientist. I like Al Gore. I donate to the Sierra club, I bicycle everywhere and I eat granola. And I just read a very convincing article in the UK Telegraph that makes me think that the 'scientific consensus' on global warming is more than a little shaky. Now IANACS (I am not a climate scientist). And the Telegraph is notoriously reactionary. Can anyone out there go through this piece and tell me why it might be wrong? Because it seems to be solid, well researched, and somewhat damning of a host of authorities (the UN, the editors of Nature, the Canadian Government) who seem to have picked a side in the global warming debate without looking at the evidence." The author of the Telegraph piece is Christopher Monckton, a retired journalist and former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher.
From the blurb: Can anyone out there go through this piece and tell me why it might be wrong?
I'm sure we got a couple thousand people here who will tell you why it's wrong... the question is; are they right?
I'm afraid that you're probably going to get a lot of shoddy answers to a legitimate question here.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
...but I don't look to newspapers for serious scientific research, I look to peer-reviewed scientific journals. But, that aside, the accusations in the article all seem to be things (relative role of solar forcing, the "medieval warm period", etc.) that have been discussed and dealt-with repeatedly in the literature, both as to their accuracy and their impact, there doesn't seem to be anything, on the first impression, new here.
Give me any conclusion on a topic involving a really complex process, and I'll find a way to poke a bunch of holes in it. I'll examine the process of investigation and nit-pick it to death, because no process is complete or fault-free. If necessary, I'll just go to the core assumptions and attack their validity. Easy enough.
Since none of the conclusions can be "proven", all we can do is go with our "best guess". In this case, the general concensus among scientists in the field is our best guess.
Granted I haven't had a chance to read the entire article yet, but it sounds like it's in line with what the climate scientists at my University have been saying for a while. Two things actually.
The first is that funding shapes science whether you want it to or not. If the general consensus is that global warming is happening, you're much more likely to get funded if you decide to do research on "why global warming is going on" or "what are the major contributors to global warming" etc. However, if you were to submit a proposal along the lines of "what if any effect has global warming had on climate change", good luck.
Therefore there's going to be a lot of science out there saying "Yes, global warming is happening and is the reason for climate change!", since that's what pays the bills, gets you published, and gets you invited to all sorts of posh international conventions on global warming. No one wants to invite the guy/gal that says "yes it's happening but it's not the cause, or certainly not the only cause behind global climate change".
Just my two cents. Keep and open mind, even when reading "science". At the end of the day scientists are human beings too, they have to pay the bills, report to a boss, have a reputation among their peers. Science is rarely about pure facts. The facts usually need to be teased out of the agenda, aggrandizing and ego of those doing the work.
whether global warming is happening. We know it is. We're recording it as it happens.
What is the issue is is this a natural process, a man-made process or a combination?
While we have evidence that warming and cooling cycles have happened in the past, this is the first time (that we know of) that the cycle has been recorded by man. If nothing else, it behooves us to study this phenomenon as critically as possible and determine if we are influencing things by our activities.
So no, global warming is not debunked. It is real and it is happening. The real question is why.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If you're a scientist, why not give them the raw data & your conclusions?
Good point. What I'd like to see is a place where I can download the state-of-the-art models. That is, I want to be able to review their code, all assumptions going into the model, all justifications for the assumptions, and all historical evidence so I can replicate the predictions myself.
Since this is science, that information *should* be publicly available somewhere.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
The article referenced goes through several studies and papers and points out poor methodologies and statistical analysis that is likely fraudulent. From this you can conclude, these studies are possibly flawed. So where does that leave you? Can you logically conclude from this that global warming is not occurring or even not occurring faster than any time in the past? Of course not. Discrediting a study does not prove the opposite of that study is true. It simply provides you a reason to place more weight on other, more credible, studies.
From my reading I have little doubt that global warming is occurring. Just look in peer reviewed journals and other credible sources. It may not be as dramatic as some would like, and the dramatic, but ill-concieved, doomsday scenarios painted by the popular media are entertainment, not fact. The truth is, there are very real indications of climactic problems, which will probably be gradual, but may be practically irreversible by the time they are apparent to skeptics.
Just be careful of your sources and pay attention. Both industrial concerns and people working for government grant dollars have incentive to obtain particular results. Look for peer reviewed results from experiments and observations that have been repeated by numerous scientific studies. Be cautious of interpretations of this data by the popular media, who are more interested in selling ads than presenting the truth.
Dear Submitter,
The reason the article seems correct and insightful is because of the limited scope. It doesn't take issue with the scientific consensus on global climate change, just with the recent report issued by the UN.
Oddly, though, instead of just pointing out why this report is wrong, it concludes that since the report is poorly written, then that proves there is no climate catastrophe.
I've actually come across other criticisms of the "hockey stick" graph that used it as a starting point for a discussion on good science vs. bureaucracy and the disadvantages of pegging all your arguments on a single "visual". (the biggest disadvantage? disprove the "visual" and that disproves your whole argument). Unfortunately that's not what we've got in this UK Telegraph article.
If you think about it the whole premise of any prediction is gouing to be wrong: "If we carry on as we're going now..." is not possible. China is industrialising. The price of oil will react to its scarcity. The percieved importance of rainforest is increasing as it becomes scarcer. Regional climatic shifts like what started the 1997 Indonesian smog will become more (or maybe less) common as ocean currents shift.
We can (and probably will) argue ad nauseum about the relative importance of the historical CO2 and temperature records, sunspots, methane from the tundra, oceanic absorption etc. but the basic fact is that we're releasing huge amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere whilst destroying the ecosphere's long-established buffers. Whether the system is stable unstable, metastable or whatever is probably impossible to predict with certainty. I would rather err on the side of caution. Those with a vested interest with us carrying on as we are would rather we ignore the doomsayers until it's too late^W^Wscientifically proven.
in anything." - G.K. Chesterton.
There ya go. From his preface. People believe in climate change because they have lost their faith.
If that's not his argument...why is this one of the first things he says?
Also, he cites the concept that all climate scientists are saying there's a problem so they'll keep their jobs...before he gets to any actual numbers.
Then he says this...This is not true.
Then he says.Which is a classic mistake of mistaking weather for climate..and local for global.
Then he says it's not greenhouse gases...but the sun that is getting hotter.So, uh, it's not even that it's "global warming" that has been debunked...it's that the U.N. is wrong about what is causing it.
(yes, the headline is wrong).
Then he goes into the calculations...none of which is data he personally gathered (because if he did, that would be he is a climate scientist...which would mean he couldn't be trusted...as he would then be being paid to study the climate).
So...yea..that's why it's wrong.
+&x
If there wasn't such a huge incentive for industry to fund research that "debunks" the theory of global warming, I might be a little more willing to listen. But the fact is, you've got researchers on one side, and believe me, there's absolutely no upside to telling Americans that dumping tons of pollutants into the atmosphere is going to have a bad effect, so researchers on one side who are going where the data takes them and researchers on the other who are paid handsomely to find out that there's absolutely no problem with spewing ever-growing quantities of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.
Who you gonna believe?
You are welcome on my lawn.
So they have to believe whoever in the media has the best song and dance show.
The media nowadays will publish whatever sells more advertising. That means: whatever sounds most sensational. Forecasting climate catastrophe sounds pretty sensational. It attracts more readers, generates more controversy, and (most important!) sells more advertising. So the media will go for it.
You not only don't have to "believe whoever in the media has the best song and dance show"; you're an idiot if you do.
You can look at the prediction track record of the people who are quoted. And understanding Monckton's criticisms is not rocket science. He says the graphs produced by the global-warming doomsayers in 2001 suppress the medieval warm period. By golly, he's right. The graph makes it look as though the current warming is exceptional, but it isn't. Fluctuations happen. The warming between 1000 and about 1400 AD was more than the current warming, and it's mentioned in many historical sources (e.g. Wikipedia) and has been confirmed by many studies. You don't need calculus to understand stuff like this.
It is prudent to be alert to risks of changing the climate. Modest measures to reduce our gross waste of fossil fuels would be sensible. For example, if the US raised its gasoline taxes to European levels, Americans might be less inclined to buy SUVs. But extreme and costly measures seem foolish.
There's also some discussion of it on a recent thread at RealClimate.
Monckton's rant is just the usual background noise. It's not hard to make up a story by selecting evidence carefully. The hard job is finding a story that is consistent with all the evidence. While we eagerly await the fourth IPCC assessment, the third IPCC assessment, the consensus of leading scientists in the relevant fields from 2001, is the best big picture we've got.
What some gadfly has to say should always be given due consideration, not less, but certainly not more. In the present case, not much.
mt
Because science adheres to the method of changing when new evidence comes out. This is not an attribute of religion. The end of the Christian Bible pretty much goes like this: "Anybody who changes this will not be going to Heaven."
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
And the consequences of over reacting in the other direction could be just as scary. Instaed of cooking like Venus we freeze like Mars. Maybe we are hastening our doom no matter what we do. The science on both sides looks questionable. Big gaps in data and lots of assumptions based on their emotional baggage. I'll just keep waiting until someone comes out with a model that is accurate for a few years and they can explain why it is.
As a someone with some graduate education in oceanography, I have a pretty direct interest in this, and I think you've hit on something very important. When Mann's paper came out, I was still skeptical about the anthropogenic nature of warming for several reasons. One was that I felt the uncertainties on many estimations were still rather large. For example, the lack of understanding on whether the ocean is presently a net source or net sink of carbon was a pretty big hole in the carbon budget. I don't think that one has been thoroughly resolved, but there's been progress.
o mment.pdf), including Mann wrote counter-criticism, Von Storch et all wrote counter-coutner-criticisms, etc., and notwithstanding the cute quote in this Monckton guy's PDF about "CENSORED_DATA", Mann's finding still looks to be an important one. Now models are models and not measured events, but the use of those findings was a pretty big step in modeling future climate change based on paleological proxy data. There are only a few credible scientists among this climate-change denier lot, and they themselves are pretty old guard (e.g. Richard Lindzen, William Gray).
Mann's original "hockey stick" paper is another such example. The criticism and counter-criticism of Mann's paper is a great example of good science in action. Van Storch and the other Canadian guys (McKitrick and McIntyre, one a geophysicist with an oil exploration company, and the other an economist) raised reasonable criticism about the type of noise fed in, and how the medieval warm period was treated. Others (e.g. http://web.mit.edu/~phuybers/www/Hockey/Huybers_C
For myself, the process around Mann's result did a lot to convince me that in fact the was certainty that humans are an important driver of the observed warming.
I'll go with the assumption that putting massive amounts of anything (C02) into a relatively stable equation probably isn't a good thing. Does the earth go through cycles? sure, but thinking we aren't influencing the direction of things is just folly.
So reducing our effect on the environment is probably a better plan than waiting till we find out it's too friggin late to do anything about it.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
... can somebody "debunk" the results from the EPICA ice cores? You know, the ones that record CO2 levels for at least the past 650 kYears, and conclude that current CO2 levels are nearly 2 times higher than they have ever been over the last 8 ice ages?
And then there was another set of results that showed how CO2 levels and global temperature are very closely related.
Before I'm willing to believe that global warming is bunk, somebody is going to have to convincingly refute the above evidence to the contrary.
http://outcampaign.org/
Imagine we are in a cooling cycle and all this CO2 we are pumping out holds off another ice age.
Not something I believe, but still possible. I personally think we should try and reduce pollution not only to minimize the effect in either direction to give us a chance for science to catch up, but also because I like clean air and fresh produce.
The bigger problem IMHO is over population combined with some kind of a cure to aging, Kim Stanly Robinson's Red Mars scares me the most.
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
You are correct for surfaces, reasonably thin atmospheric layers, pieces of clouds, and so on. You also get my point that the law can't be applied to a complicated, layered structure like our atmosphere, because the net result of all those small S-B blackbody and graybody fluxes from small layers does not necessarily lead to a net blackbody result when looking at earth from outside the planet. What is not easy for a nonspecialist to deduce from the original article (TFA in /.-speak) is that the 'lambda' being attacked is a sensitivity parameter based on whole-planetary considerations. The author of the article is asserting that you can throw away the detailed climate model and calculate lambda from Stefan-Boltzmann, and that is emphatically wrong. You can model it using very complicated radiative-convective models or you can estimate it from satellite data, but you can't pull it easily out of the blackbody equation.