Sunday
Jul172011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Gagging the sceptics
Jul 17, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Climate: solar Nigel Calder is reporting the remarkable news that CERN is forbidding its scientists from "interpreting" the results of Svensmark's CLOUD experiment. In other words, if it's a success, one is not permitted to note that it makes a big dent in arguments for catastrophic global warming.
H/T Matthu
Reader Comments (71)
@Dave
Also I'm aware that my responses may be coming across as hostile - but that certainly isn't the intention. And I'm not casting any aspersions on your motivation etc.
It's unfortunate that the facts just can't speak for themselves without any nudging or politicking from any quarter, but we're stuck with it.
I think we should also acknowledge Jasper KIRKBY who spent 10 years druming up for the CLOUDS research. Years in which he was knocked back several times because he held heratical views. So this should have all been know 10 years ago and could have stopped a lot of hockey sticks in the process
Bishop, the quote in the article sounds rather benign. If I were a leader in his position, I also would encourage those under me to refrain from trying to interpret the results in a broader context. In fact, the act of applying results to a presumed problem that it likely has only tangential relations to is why CAGW became the nonsense that it has become. Encouraging your scientists to stick to results/methods and not broader interpretations of meaning is exactly what all pillars of the scientific community SHOULD be doing.
Temps are falling again onoooo!
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
600mb AMSU satellite
So no, July will probably be coolish The AGW warming trend is not even happening folks!
It seems that, for all sorts of reasons, that it is now heresy to say "it's the Sun wot does it".
I don't think there is necessarily too much of a problem. More than 60 well respected scientists none of whom worked for CERN wrote to recommend that the Cloud experiment was worthwhile and of potential interest. Many of these including Svensmark himself will wish to analyse the results. So long as the data is released in a usable form on open file it will be hard to stop them from doing this and perhaps there isn't a problem.
The fact that CERN has seen the need to do this does rather suggest that the results may indeed be interesting.
Re temperature and clouds, the two charts linked below are from the Met Office site http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/
They show trends for UK mean temperature and sunshine hours.
UK Mean Temperature Chart:-
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/17/Tmean/UK.gif
UK Sunshine Hours Chart:-
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/17/Sunshine/UK.gif
They look very similar, only eyeballing, and it is only the UK. Also still trying to find the actual data.
If you have more sunshine hours you can expect an increase in temps? What controls the sunshine hours? Cloud formation?
Stephen Richards and others,
I see nothing wrong with the statement itself either. The question is why it has to be made just prior to the release of information that will, most probably, bolster the sceptics case?? Why not prior to some other announcement? Does he have inside information that leads him to believe someone in the group plans to do more than just present the data? Or is this code to underepresent the results?
Could someone please tell me what 'interpret' means, in this context?
Will there only be a Materials & Methods; Results' paper, without the 'Discussion'?
I would find that extraordinary.
Many of us are not particle physicists, and would find an interpretation very helpful.
I fail to see how such a section could play into politics.
Without such a section, this whole area of research might turn into something like a gnostic exercise, where only the worthy are allowed to access the knowledge.
That, to me, would be unacceptable.
If the 'no interpretation verdict' means that the scientists must refrain from giving press conferences and telling everybody that yes, CO2 doesn't matter/is the culprit, and we must do such-and-such, then I'd agree with that verdict.
So, please, somebody: explain!
Btw - I looked up the original German - and Calder's translation is spot on.
At Watts, a commenter, Anna, says the following:
Dave,
I only wish I had your faith that CERN is an oasis of extraordinary virtue and moral integrity as far as climate research and this experiment is concerned. I'd rather go by the sheer mountain of opposition the likes of Svensmark, Kirkby and indeed Calder have had to face down to get this far.
You write 'CERN is not in the business of producing controversial results which may have short term political implications.'
Well this then must be a rogue outlier, even before the first beam data from the full CLOUD experiment were in.
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/41723
This priority here seems to me to be more concerned with attempting to trash the Svensmark cosmic theory than advance anything else. Certainly the BBC duly reported it so.
Never mind the CERN DG, I can understand if he opts for a quiet life avoiding having his front garden or departmental car park full of braying painted placard waving eco-zealots dispatched by the local chapel of Greenpeace - or possibly more likely Greenpeace Luddite sock puppets trying to get kicks in at the next funding round.
The data - that's what's important.
A selection of popcorn seems like a must have to follow all this
I think CERN is a massive, huge scientific undertaking based on hard science. If they're smart they won't want to be tainted by being dragged into the Climate Wars. The CLOUD experiment is a relatively minor, but scientifically intriguing, side issue for them that they probably pursued for purely intellectual and scientific curiosity. Good for them. That's how I want science to play out. As long as they keep their skirts clean on their investigatory methodology and the completeness of the database they are going to release. The last thing these guys should should want is a CERNgate.
As previous posters said, the data, after analysis, could either partially or fully validate Svensmark, falsify his theory, be ambiguous in its implications, or lead to other and hopefully productive directions of scientific investigation regarding cosmic rays or other climate influences. Unless it is a complete uncontestable falsification of Svensmark, the scientific to-and-fro is going to look like a Cage Match as conflicting interpretations are hashed out on the Internet. So be it. (I'm stocking up on popcorn.)
Hot stock tip: invest in popcorn futures.
But keep the tip confidential, OK?
John
I apologise that I don't have time to engage as fully as I did yesterday, I'm on my way to a meeting. Although I would like to respond to each post individually, I don't anyway have a great deal to add to my posts yesterday.
I would, however, like make the following observations.
If you go looking for evidence of bias then you'll find it. Whether this is a real bias or just a case of twisting something to fit a prejudice is something else entirely. As a scientist, I'm aghast at the inferences being drawn here from basically nothing.
A subset of both the warmists and the sceptics appear to misunderstood scepticism. It means being sceptical of your own point of view as much as the view you contest, and asking yourself if the data really supports your suspicions. I've seen nothing in any of the comments or interview which suggests that CERN is doing anything other than performing this experiment in a disinterested way and will publish in an entirely correct way. Yet so many of you seem to have drawn conclusions based on very scant data - something you (rightly, often) accuse warmists of doing.
CERN really doesn't care one way or another how the experiment will go. Its core mission is particle physics and this is an interesting side product. It undoubtedly wishes to make sure its results aren't twisted but, given the comments and blog posts so far, such a fear would be justifiable.
If any of you are really concerned about the way CERN is handling this then I suggest you contact directly the CERN DG or experimentalists involved in CLOUD with specific questions. As long as the e-mails are polite most scientists are pleased to explain what they do and why. It seems that most are content to vent their suspicions on web fora rather than trying to find out more information.
Since there has been quite some counter-factual hypothesising going on here, I may as well abandon my hostility to this and join in. How do you think you would have reacted if the blog post, instead of containing sensationalist language i.e. "gagging", mentioned that "CERN restates the importance of disinterested experimental science and will publish basic results rather than confronting contentious models, which themselves contain large uncertainties, to the data and giving a stamp of "hypothesis dead"/"hypothesis alive" ? To put it another way, how many of you have been led by this blog to your conclusions rather than by the scant facts, which IMO, really don't permit any interpretation of bad practice in any respect.
Dave,
I drew what few conclusions I have about the experiment before ever coming to the Bishop's. I drew my conclusion about the director's statement based on the fact that the experiment has a history of tendentious dialogue, and that he aparently felt the need to make his statement. If they are doing the science as always, what made the director make this statement??
My opinion is that the experiment will somewhat support the hypothesis, but, not provide enough information on magnitudes in the atmosphere, which is what is needed to support either side. In other words there will be spinning by both sides. I find it ludicrous that the head of such an eminent institution made the statment he did. Why wasn't the statement to stay out of politics?? A scientist's job is to look at the data and hypothesize and come up with new experiments. Why are they being gagged?
I would appreciate it (as a non scientist) if someone could give me a quick run down on what the Svensmark theory is and what the implications are for AGW. Also what is the CERN experiement and what is the connection to Sven & AGW hypothesis.
Thanks in advance
Here are some links:
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/newsextra/2009/April/The-Svensmark-Cosmic-Ray-Theory-Explained-/
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073
Explained:
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~nvdelden/Svensmark.pdf
Time to question the received wisdom:
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f1e3eeb023e7d88eff0dda8a2&id=ed0b77bcc3&e=ac788faa66
Cloud experiment at CERN
http://vimeo.com/24241007
And one more explaining why it nearly didn't get off the ground because of politics:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-a1672ed1f684
Maybe we'll be proved wrong as time goes by but the Svensmark hypothesis seemed to me to make sense right from the word go unlike the CO2 nonsense which seems to lack any correlation whatsoever with climate reconstructions on any timescale. If CO2 is the major driver of global temperatures it's difficult to see how you could manage to have an ice age with CO2 at c 4,000 ppm, just for one example (late Ordovician).
I guess for many lay people just the mention of cosmic rays will immediately arouse scepticism, sounding like something out of an SF comic, although they'd be profoundly mistaken. The solar system passing through the spiral arms of the galaxy and consequently affecting the climate will surely tend to cause hackles to rise in derision, again quite unjustifiably. But what else comes near explaining successive ice ages?
One of the implications of this theory is that the cosmic ray flux may well be at an all-time high nowadays in the sense we are currently in an ice age, even if we're in an interglacial period at the moment resulting from a Milankovitch effect pushing up temperatures for a few thousand years or so. Nigel Calder suggests in his book that the cosmic ray flux is likely to be an order of magnitude greater when passing through the spiral arms, if memory serves, with the resulting effect on climate from a prolonged enhancement of low level cloud cover eventually causing the intense cold. So what I'm wondering is this: is there any evidence that the cosmic ray flux is currently at an unusually high level compared with those periods in the past 550 million years in between the great ice ages?
Of course if the flux is not currently high one possible explanation could be that we're coming out of the influence of the spiral arm which would have the attractive consequence that we're not likely to see the glaciers advance again in the coming millenia. On the other hand it might cast doubts on the whole idea.
Another thought occurs. Sceptics are quite fond of pointing to similar warming trends to the earth's on our neighbours in the solar system, but I can't see that a similar mechanism to that which Svensmark theorises could operate on the other planets, with their different atmospheres (or lack of them) , magnetic fields, meteorological conditions. So it may well be something of a red herring to point to thes data as confirming the sun's influence. If the sun was responsible the mechanism might be quite different to the one that operates on this world.