Bishop Hill Glikson on the MWP
Sep 23, 2011 Climate: MWP Climate: Sceptics Australian scientist Andrew Glikson has a very strange article in the Conversation. He appears to believe that we sceptics are like something out of 1984.
Ideologically dominated or totalitarian societies – such as George Orwell’s famous “1984” Ingsoc – are marked by:
- attempts to alter reality (“2 + 2 = 5 if the party says so”)
- elimination of history (“He who controls the past, controls the future”)
- rewriting collective memory (“Oceania is at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia”)
- The corruption of logic through aleration and elimination of language “Newspeak”
- mind control (“thought crime”).
But even science fiction writers such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley or Doris Lessing did not envisage a civilisation that would knowingly, against the best scientific evidence, devastate its own atmosphere and ocean system as comprehensively as has been and continues to be done through anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change.
He goes on to list some alleged sceptic transgressions, among which one of the highlights is the claim that we are engaged in
3) Negating empirical scientific measurements by misciting the literature and propagating unreferenced plots from unknown sources. An example is the exaggeration of the Medieval Warm Period, which reached less than 25% of 21st century warming.
Given that his criticism is "unreferenced plots from unknown sources", it is unfortunate that he doesn't actually give any source at all for his claim about the MWP. This is known in the trade as a "carcrash", I believe.
But what a strange claim it is - only 25% of 21st century warming? Can this be correct? Here's the graph from the Fourth Assessment Report:
Andrew Glikson is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.
Bishop Hill
Glikson has responded in the comments and says his source is
- this paper by Hansen
- the IPCC.
Which is strange, because the IPCC clearly doesn't support his case and I can't find any mention of the MWP in Hansen.
I wonder if he was involved in writing the Times Atlas of the World?
Bishop Hill
Andrew Glikson has responded again. When he says:
An example is the exaggeration of the Medieval Warm Period, which reached less than 25% of 21st century warming.
he is actually referring to a theoretical modern warming - he suggests that warming would have been much greater were it not for the mitigating effect of aerosols. Amusingly, he refers to this theoretical greater warming as the "real temperature rise".
Reader Comments (64)
You can almost smell the fear.
Psychological projection, the warmist camp has it down to a fine art.
"I wonder if he was involved in writing the Times Atlas of the World?"
I love the smell of sarcasm in the early morning ;-)
I found the line in one of his comments...."Climate scientists focus on the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere system, not on ideology" to be just as amusing! He quotes Hansen but we all know Hansen is famous for his lack of ideology ....sarc off!
He also claims:
Global temperature has already exceeded the upper target of a +2°C relative to pre-industrial levels set by the international community at both Copenhagen and Cancun.
Thus, atmospheric greenhouse gas-forced energy rise (solar heat trapped in the atmosphere) has now reached levels equivalent of +2.3°C.
This figure is masked only by a short-lived -1.1°C cooling effect, caused mainly by industrially emitted sulphur dioxide stratospheric aerosols – particles, which partly block sunlight from reaching the surface and warming the earth.
Incredibly the +2°C target is still discussed in political and economic reports as if it hasn’t been reached.
Incredibly? Huh?
That’s our best and brightest, you are not in his league to go criticizing the man.
Oh, I should tell you how great our political leaders are, world leaders they are... true! One even won another international award recently for ecconomics. World leaders I tell ya.
A big boy done it and ran away.
reg Cavanagh
Yea, verily and foresooth (scuse spelin pl.)
Tim Ball's insight during the early days after the climategate revelations is still profound to me:
Take your pick!
It'll all pass unnoticed.
Hardly anyone down here has heard of Glikson.
It'll be interesting to read Glikson's reply to your more recent comment there - as I think BBD mentioned a while back, it is always best to ask for the numbers. But his argument seems to be that the temperature rise would have been 4x MWP if it hadn't been for sulphate emissions. But how convincing is that?
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/16/mid-20th-century-global-warming-part-ii/
Click HERE.
An article so laden with irony and hypocrisy I have never read in my life.
Can't this brain washed fool see that he is the one engaging in doublethink, newspeak and climate babble. Why can't he see that the likes of Mann have banished the Medieval Warm period and every other climate cycle to the memory hole.
This analogy is so perfect it should run and run but I rather fear 'tis the other way round from that which Mr. Glikson doublethought.
I wonder where this idea that sceptical enquiry is some sort of witch-hunt came from?
It seems to be something evident from the start... in Mann's early correspondence with Steve M... nobody else in paleo seems to have had it in the early days... but over time were then infected with the belief that there is a concerted effort by the vandals at the gates of Rome to destroy them.
It's also been noted in Climategate emails that others in paleo thought Mann's emotional reactions to things were a bit odd, but they're all at it now.
From this side of the issue it seems that the AGW enthusiasts are the Orwellians - burying inconvenient facts, requiring complete commitment to the cause, justifying total control by reference to a largely . fictional threat. It does not occur to Glikson to wonder whether "pro-carbon lobbyists" may be less indoctrinated or ideologically committed than the members of the AGW lobby.
Glikson's view of science as "systematic, evidence-based, testable and self-correcting" is sound as far as it goes, but who is to say that the self-correction to climate science has already been applied? He cannot mean that the self-correction mechanisms in the scientific method ensure that scientific theories are error-free, as that would fly in the face of the entire history of science. So why should the current consensus on climate science be regarded as inviolable?
As psychologists say: "If you want to know what your opponent is doing and thinking, simply listen to what they accuse you of doing and thinking."
I have updated the Times Atlas with new information, it felt the right thing to do.
"Amusingly, he refers to this theoretical greater warming as the "real temperature rise""
Now that is putting interpretation ahead of the facts.
Like NuLiebour once you start spinning you can't stop and in the end a Tornado results.
It's sort of like Kim Jong-Il accusing South Korea of warmongering...
When you start with the assumption you could never be wrong and they get total fixed on that idea , its very easy to find that others can never be right . Being a 'scientists' makes no difference to this problem but it does mean they should be very familiar with why such a approach has nothing to do with science .
But they given the seem to have an issues in knowing the difference between reality and what they want reality to be , that is perhaps understandably .
- attempts to alter reality (“2 + 2 = 5 if the party says so”)
"he is actually referring to a theoretical modern warming - he suggests that warming would have been much greater were it not for the mitigating effect of aerosols. Amusingly, he refers to this theoretical greater warming as the "real temperature rise".
hmmm...
Has the car crash turned into a multi car pile up?
Glikson is misinterpreting the graph, but I can see how he gets the number. In the graph shown, the MWP anomaly is at about -0.25 C, dropping to -0.5 C for the LIA, and then rising to 0 C around 1980 when they stopped collecting/including data, and the instrumental record is pasted on to give a rise to 0.5 C over the 20 years from 1980 to 2000. He is evidently comparing the MWP-LIA = 0.25 C with the year 2000 - LIA = 1.0 C to get his 25%. Of course, this is 20th century warming, not 21st.
Where he goes wrong is in misinterpreting the spread of reconstructions as an error estimate, and assuming that the reconstructions and instrumental record have the same resolution. The reconstructions supposedly reconstruct a smoothed climate signal that would blur out any short-term variations lasting only 10-20 years, partly by deliberate construction (for clarity), partly due to problems like dating uncertainties and noise. Taking the overlap of many reconstructions only blurs this further (and is a statistically invalid thing to do, anyway).
And of course the error bars on those reconstructions are far wider than the spread would suggest. Does anyone really think that we can detect and compare changes of less than 0.25 C in the global average using trees as thermometers?! You'd be pushed to get that sort of accuracy with mercury-in-glass in just one location.
And given that a lot of the same sources are used, and the selection is biased, there will be systematic errors, too.
This is what some statisticians call "The Emperor of China's nose" fallacy.
You can't just paste on the instrumental record, with its different characteristics, and compare the magnitude of its variation with that of the reconstructions. This is 2+2 = 5 stuff, although a little less obviously so.
Yes, Dr Glikson is remarkably light on references. Here's some references -
Dr Dennis Jensen, the only member of both Australian houses of Parliament with a science PhD, asked to table them to use as references during a speech he was going to make in the house.
Request refused. Reason none. There certainly won't be any of Dr Glikson's "elimination of history" from Australian parliamentary records. They won't let it get there in the first place.
As our PM (a lawyer) said in May when debating her "Carbon Pollooshun" tax - "We can’t let this debate be waylaid by people who don’t accept the science". Much better to listen to a true believer like Dr Glikson. More here
In warmism, the Map is the Territory.
Yeah, it's, like, deep, man.
You people are all being very nasty and insensitive to a man who clearly has a well-known problem known as the "Dunning-Kruger Effect". People with DKE can't help themselves. They are people who are so stupid they don't even know how stupid they are.
So be kind and understanding. Pat him gently on the head. Say "there, there". Then push him downstairs and hope for the best.
It's truly mind-boggling. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.
He accuses sceptics of an Orwellian attempt at "altering reality", and then he comes up with this:
"... in fact temperatures have risen by +2.2C but are mitigated by SO2 aerosols to the extent of -1.1C."
You guys just don't get it, do you? The virtual warming is more than the observational warming. Therefore we've crossed a tipping point. Trust him - he's a doctor.
Just one more case of the
time-honouredtime-worn tactic of turning the sceptics' arguments back onto them. No originality. Monbiot loves doing that.It's hard to believe that Bish's comments are rated negatively on his site.
I was initially happy to give him the benefit of doubt and believe this was a mistake. The way to deal with this is to admit it and move on. It would look a lot better if he had said "You are perfectly correct Bish, I am using a rather unconventional definition of 'real' temperature and will update this post to prevent any further misunderstanding."
Now I suspect that a more honest response would be "Yes, I was using this unconventional measure to spread fear and alarm and, to that end, I though it was important not to disclose the convoluted provenance of this misleading 'fact'"
Aerosols, the Holy Spirit of climatology.
The AGW crowd are taking multiple potshots at the skeptic community, but the problem is, they're doing it like one of those circular firing squads.
Agree with Frosty, pure projection.
Us silly Skeptics. How many times do we need to be told: 'Reality isn't what actually happens, it's what they say SHOULD have happened'.
In an Orwellian twist, the comments seem to have disappeared from http://theconversation.edu.au/an-orwellian-climate-3243
The Conversation appears to be over.
If that was a proxy error, removing them from me only, please delete above comment :/
Is it me or is the Hansen paper link broken? Seems to point back to Glikson's article.
Pause for a Lewis Carroll moment:
But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
Sep 23, 2011 at 9:07 AM | LevelGaze
Is this the same level-headed LevelGaze that used to post in the Guardian's discussion forums, oh, about 5 years ago?
This really is la la land stuff. It's the models that are telling us the temperature should
be 2C so in order to make the models correct they've added in unknown and unproved aerosols until the temperature to the observed state. Where's the proof for these aerosols?
You can spot the effect of the aerosols by observing how much colder China and Asia are than, e.g., the Southern Ocean. If it's aerosols, then the areas with clean air should be warming much faster than those under the brown cloud.
When the scientific (sic) paper on aerosols cooling the world was published, Judith Curry sardonically remarked that the answer to global warming then was that China should burn more coal, which they were going to do anyway.
Glikson's use of real, as in "The real temperature rise...", reminds me of a scene in The Princess Bride, where one of the characters is told "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Extremists are commonly seen projecting their motives onto those whom they target as the enemy.
NiV,
"You can spot the effect of the aerosols by observing how much colder China and Asia are than, e.g., the Southern Ocean"
Heh, Good Plan! Let's check with GISS.
Many years ago, I majored in psychology while an undergraduate, but since then I have gone through a number of other careers only to return to it in my dotage. I find BH a fascinating behavioral laboratory, not only for some of the comments but also the countless articles such as today's masterpiece.
Yes, Frosty, quite right. But don't miss the paranoia as well.
I suspect the some of the warmists are in need of a good dose of lithium carbonate -- about 300 mg t.i.d. or q.i.d. as they often also show signs of bipolar syndrome. (I am a physiological psychologist by graduate training).
I suggest that Glikson could go to Greenland and teach the Innuit to grow oats if he thinks it is so warm there. Silly man.
The psychological stuff is interesting. I do believe that if anything good is to come out of the mess of modern climatological politicking then it will be an improved understanding of how scares spread and are exploited by those who spot advantage in them. I suspect Glikson is more of a victim than a primary 'exploiter' but what led him to his present condition? How can he, and probably the many hundres or even thousands like him, get over it?
Strewth!..................Pretty strong grog down under [I mean it must be!], whatever you're drinking Gliko, can you send some up here, mind blowing!
I would be very interested to see a quantitative reconstruction of the extent of the MWP/MCA that is reasonably reliable. There are at least three necessary conditions for "reasonably reliable". (1) The data (temperature proxies) must be sufficiently robust to be able to support the claimed reconstruction. (2) The methods used combine proxies to deduce temperature anomalies must be reasonably free from known artifacts and biases. (3) Temperature anomalies must be accompanied by error estimates that encompass all major sources of uncertainty.
I am not aware of any published multi-century global reconstruction that meets any of these criteria.