Bishop Hill St Andrews debate
Apr 27, 2012 Climate: Sceptics John Shade, of Climate Lessons blog, sends this report on my debate at St Andrews.
On a wet and windy day, off to St Andrews, where the School of Geography and Geosciences was holding a discussion meeting on climate as one of its World Series Seminars. Speakers: Andrew Montford, and Tom Crowley, a recently retired professor of paleoclimatology. Chaired by Dr Robert Wilson, who said that he was a great believer in discussion where there was discord, and that there was discord in the climate world. He gave Andrew a pleasant and welcoming introduction, noting that he had been quoted in one newspaper report as believing that CO2, all things being equal, will make things warmer.
Before Andrew’s presentation Dr Wilson, tried a quick straw poll of the roughly 60 or 70 people present (my guess, and I also guess that most were undergraduate or graduate students). He asked who believed there had been global warming, and that man had contributed to it – which was a disappointing note since the crucial areas of debate are not on those beliefs, but on the magnitude and other details of climate change over the next 50 to 100 years or so. Then he asked who saw themselves as sceptical. I raised my hand both times, albeit a bit hesitantly the first time. Not many raised their hands the second time – a ‘few’ was how Robert described it.
Andrew’s topic was ‘The Global Warming Debate After Climategate’. He recapped the basic details of Climategate, and of the serious allegations that were raised about climate scientists as a result. He talked through each of the three enquiries and demonstrated that they were all inadequate and had failed to directly address the allegations, thereby earning Andrew’s epithet of ‘whitewashes’. He said people have noticed that these were not serious attempts to get at the truth, and this destroyed trust. He returned again to this theme of lost or damaged trust, noting the IPCC standing by the hockey stick plot even when it knew it was wrong, and of the sleight of graph involved in splicing instrumental readings on to a time series plots of reconstructed temperatures when the reconstructed values turned sharply down instead of up. He noted the curious amount, and direction, of adjustments to temperature records – always to make the present warmer and the past cooler. He did not know whether or not the adjustments were justified, but merely noted that they made him uneasy.
He maintained that trust needs to be rebuilt in climatology, noting that he did not believe all climatologists were corrupt, but that there were some bad eggs in there. He welcomed the willingness of some to discuss issues in a civilised way, and said that both sides need to work very hard to be nice to each other. As more recent development, he noted the facile claim of accelerating warming by doing successive straight-line fits to sections of the temperature record, showing the illustration (due to Paul Matthews) of how this worked in a similar way when done to a simple sine wave. Why did some talk of acceleration based on this?, he asked and noted it as an example of the sort of thing that has to stop. He recalled being told by one climatologist who had posted a 5* review of HSI on Amazon, that he had done so anonymously to avoid repercussions. Turning to recent global temperature reports, he noted that the lack of warming was catching the attention of such as Phil Jones, and of people he had met in the Met Office recently. He noted that climate models had not been working well at the global level, and at the regional level were even worse, and showed a plot contrasting predictions made through the IPCC in the year 2000 diverging up and away from the actuals which were fluctuating about an approximately horizontal trend (chart due to Lucia on the Blackboard blog). He asked if these such models were fit tools for government policy, and said he though not. In winding up, he reiterated that trust has been destroyed, and that the phrase ‘Trust Me, I’m a Scientist’ doesn’t hold water anymore.
Recently retired, Professor Tom Crowley was the other speaker, and his subject was ‘Progress in Understanding Climate of the Last Millenium’. He started by saying he was feeling as bit wrong-footed by Andrew’s talk being different from what he had expected, an observation he was to make again a couple of other times. I think he had been expecting Andrew to be talking mostly about the hockey stick plot.
His introductory slide was of a roadside sign for the ‘Chaos Café’, and this stayed up for quite a while until he got into his main materials. Before then, he invited us to be concerned about the recent high temperatures being reported in the States, with averages in March being 8.6F above normal. He said this was a colossal warming.
He spoke very highly of the IPCC reports, and returned several times to this later. He had used the 1st and 2nd assessment reports as core material for classes he had taught back then on climate. He said virtually nobody has disputed what they have said, and noted that some 50,000 comments on drafts have been responded to. He noted that government representatives had voted sentence by sentence on the Summary Reports.
He showed showed a new plot (not yet published) which had the hockey stick shape using tree rings from 1801 to 1984, constructed using simple averaging of the reconstructions used. He noted that while individual records may be flawed, this averaging helped produce a more reliable result. He talked to some of the major features on the earlier part of the plot, generally referring to volcanic eruptions as likely causes, and then later, from about 1900 onwards by aerosols due to industrial pollution. He showed a plot of sulphate depositions found in Greenland ice – in the flight path of the prevailing winds from the US. These showed a drop in the 1930s which he associated with the Depression of those years, a drop which was not recovered from on the plot until 1954, roughly following a similar performance in the Dow Jones Index. The Clean Air Act in the 1970s led to improvements, but before that there was a surge of readings from abour 30ppb to 200ppb at their peak. This he described as great wads of sulphur, having earlier asked any gardeners present if they would deliberately pack sulphuric acid powder around the base of their valued plants.
He showed another plot with global temperatures (mostly as per Hadcrut means as I recall) , with CO2 growth almost perfectly superimposed from about 1800 to the present, and once again invited our concern. A further, yet to published plot due to Levitus, showed substantial heating in the upper ocean. All this he described as rock solid.
He said the IPCC view was that doubling of CO2 would lead to global mean temperatures rises of 2 to 3C in 30 years from now, and these would be the highest in a very long time (I cannot decipher my notes on the actual time period). He repeated the assurance of the IPCC about continued warming, and his confidence in the IPCC.
My notes are a bit scrappy for the question and answer session which followed, and which was ably handled by Dr Wilson, since I was from time to time formulating questions or comments of my own.
An early question concerned differences in variability displayed on different sections of plots shown by Tom – described by the questioner as ‘huge differences in uncertainty’. Another questioner argued that a detailed re-analysis of tree-ring data was called for in general. The question of how much longer a period without warming would cause people to say something was wrong with the models and/or the claims of a warming threat. Tom suggested that if warming not resumed by 2020, that would cause concern. A questioner noted that there were massive leaps being made from projected temperature rises to talk about climate impact in general – impacts that have not been remotely justified e.g. talk of floods and droughts and famines and so on.
The excess winter deaths in Scotland were raised to illustrate more harm from cooling than warming here. An audience member claimed that climate scientists were intrinsically sceptical – that was part of science, and that it was very misleading to think of a simple divide between climate sceptics and true believers. The same person also praised peer review as one of the strengths of climate science, and urged sceptics to get engaged and try to get published. There was some mention of Arctic ice thinning, the high variability Arctic sea ice and thickness so that even a dramatic summer melt at the pole would not be unprecedented even in the last 100 years, of sub-tropical drought forecasts and poor guidance to the Australian government about permanent drought down there (with desalination plants build not long before floods due to very heavy rains appeared and the plants were mothballed).
The Clausius-Clapeyron relationship was raised to note airborne water vapour would increase with rising surface temperatures, and that led to questions about negative feedbacks involving clouds tending to counter such rises). Someone noted that economic models also needed a lot more examination. What should be done? Bets were bandied about about temperature rises in the near future. It was noted that the self-interest of developing states such as India and China may not coincide with greenhouse gas reduction. Tom said it would be in the self-interest of the States to reduce dependence on imported oil, and that in general people should try to do what benefits their own country. A questioner had asked if it seemed that global governance was the only way to go if greenhouse gas reductions were to be addressed.
The climategate scandal was mentioned, and Tom said that it had nto affected the science, and that anyway, scientists were human beings. He felt that if there was 1 dodgy paper out of 100, that one would be blown up out of all proportion by the blogosphere. A suggestion of massive oil funding by an audience member was greeted with derision by the ‘sceptics’ present, and when Tom started to talk of Exxon in particular, there was a remark from the audience to the effect that going down that line would make ‘us’ no better than the sceptics, and that produced an approving murmur in the audience and the topic was dropped. A questioner asked what would it take to change a sceptic’s mind – for example, if they saw there was only a 1 in 20 chance that the projections were right about CO2, what would they do? The case of the resigning editor and reviewers at the Remote Sensing journal was raised, by Andrew I think, as an example of something wrong with the science – if a weak paper gets through, why not simply print a rebuttal, why resign, and why, in particular, apologise to Trenberth – a man not in the speciality in question. Andrew raised the question as to whether peer review was adequate in climate science, and the politicised situation. I think there was consensus that peer review is not perfect and that moves to open peer review were a good development. Several people pointed out that both sides of the debate had been politicised.
The discussion had been, as they say, wide-ranging and often lively. But always temperate, and my impression was that everyone would have felt they had some opportunity to be heard. Dr Wilson helped keep an even keel, and invited us all to another room nearby for refreshments and further discussion. All in all, a worthwhile event with some good communication of perspectives and bits and pieces of ‘facts’. Would that such events, in such an open and courteous atmosphere, could be held far and wide. They weren’t in the past, and we were told by some that the debate was over. I think for most of us, it has in fact scarcely begun. Back to the car park to find some of the West Sands had been spread there by the wind to give a slightly Saharan look to the place."
Reader Comments (365)
Dr Wilson is not listening. All, please do save yourselves the trouble of trying to explain to him anything...he will still not listen.
The fact that this obviously leaves him a total ignoramus of anything that is discussed on this website, is apparently not a concern for him. Why? Because he is not listening.
He won't even notice what kind of sorry figure he's cut of himself now, despite having started from the enviable position of having actually sat through a presentation by the Bish.
Anyway, I am not feeling sorry for him, as I actually envy the people who don't understand...they'll always be the ones beaming about, happy and content.
Dr Wilson, "I am afraid many of you sort of fell into my trap."
No, doctor, you fell into our trap by misinterpreting our responses as genuine when all we were doing was playing along with your little game. Honestly, man, how about showing a little maturity instead of carrying on like this? Your initial response was typical of what sceptics have to listen to all the time. Since most of us have never heard of you, is it any wonder we took your asinine comments at face value?
And thanks so much for giving us all of three hours and fifty-two minutes to read your papers before revealing your cute little charade. If we can be expected to digest your life's work in so short a space of time then perhaps it isn't worth reading. We'd all like to have the part-time lifestyle of university students and many of their teachers but some of us actually do have to work for a living.
(only briefly and in general)
Dr. Wilson, you write:
Perhaps you know that models aren't experiments and that Benoit Mandelbrot took into consideration that climate is chaotic. I read for example once a book by Marco Wehr: "Der Schmetterlingsdefekt. Turbulenzen in der Chaostheorie" which deals, among others, with the subjective determination of mathematical statements. Wehr wrote that like in an ant colony, thousands of publications are compiled to towers of knowledge, whose foundations are not always positioned in safe ground. In the case of chaotic climatology classical mechanics, number theory, analysis, complexity theory, statistics, topology, mathematics (just to name a few) are mixed to an opaque blend. With few ill-founded speculations the runway was paved, from which then less conscientious thinkers took off in their intellectual free flights to a cloud-cuckoo-land. I guess besides to processing capacity, rounding algorithms, number representations and programming language the used approximation procedures are of importance for the quality of the results.
You write:
What is it now? Are the changes sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, uniformly or completely erratic? We all know that in 'chaos' the smallest uncertainty in initial conditions can lead to completely different system dynamics. A computer can only generate periodic patterns, or not? Since many/all events depend on a vast number of factors, one is often forced to abandon an analytic description and to help onself with statistical methods. About 'statistics' respectively 'politics' from 1782 confer also for example http://bilderberger-konferenzen.de.tl/Forum/thema-1-Test_Edit-01.htm : "Diese Wetter-Tabellen werden verglichen, daraus für die Physik und economie Schlüsse gezogen" (translation: Climate-tables are compared, from which shall be drawn conclusions for the physics and economics".).
Apr 27, 2012 at 10:50 PM - chris
"Perhaps the most pressing change required is to make the scientfic literature more accessible.."
Yes, yes. yes 100%!
But 100% of all of it, data, code etc.
"If scientific enquiry becomes a free-for-all in which every polarized view, often held for reasons rhat have little to do with science, becomes equivalent, then we're pretty much at the mercy of the bullies."
I am sure you do not realise, but you have just described "Climate Science" over the last decades. It has been at the mercy of the bullies and has capitulated.
There are bullies in all walks of life and you are the only one that can face down those in your walk of life!
Why did you feel the need to lay a trap Dr Wilson?
"Chris - what do you have to say about the lack of expected warming in the first decade of the 21st century?"
good question diogenes. I'd say we're temporarily in one of those periods where interannual variability is predominantly on the cooling side. So the solar outputs have drifted downwards a tad since the mid 1980's and we've experienced a very prolonged minimum betwen solar cycles 23 and the upturn into cycle 24. We're not surprised that quite a bit of potential enhanced greenhouse warming has been temporarily countered by an anomalously prolonged solar cycle downturn from the cycle 23 max near 2000 to the current not-far-from-minimum now. ENSO has been in a predominanly coolish mode in recent years too.
Despite that 2005, 2007 and 2010 are as warm/warmer than 1998 in the GISS analysis, and 1998 was boosted around 0.2 oC above the trend by the strongest El Nino of the 20th century. Considering 2010 is the wamest year on record (NASA GISS), in the midst of an anomalous solar minimum, I don't think we can be that surprised by recnt global temperature.
Global temperatures "fell" between 1980/1 and 1992/3 for example but I doubt anyone would assert this didn't occur during an overall warming period. That's the nature of interannual natural variability that moduates the effects of enhanced radiative forcing on surface temperature...
Rob are you in fact Zed?
This Jack-in-the-Box has a Clown Face.
===============
"We're not surprised that quite a bit of potential enhanced greenhouse warming has been temporarily countered by an anomalously prolonged solar cycle downturn from the cycle 23 max near 2000 to the current not-far-from-minimum now. ENSO has been in a predominanly coolish mode in recent years too."
the IPCC modellers seem to have been surprised. How could that be?
So. Chris if the temp goes down it is the Sun and if the temp goes up it is the CO2?
Rob Wilson said:
'I am afraid many of you sort of fell into my trap. I purposely posted a goading statement to test the waters. I got what I expected which was a pity.."
What a strange thing to do? Why not just try to engage in a debate without playing games? I guess maybe that's what comes of spending your life in academia as opposed to living in the real world.
Interesting thread - is this the Rob Wilson who 'believes' in AGW and regularly travels the world by airliner in order to discuss the problem with equally concerned colleagues?
And was this the Tom Crowley that colluded with Phil over the 'delicate question of which paleo reconstruction to use'.
Great scientists - one and all - no doubt.
"I am sure you do not realise, but you have just described "Climate Science" over the last decades."
No, I don't think so Green Sand. Climate science has made extraordinary advances in the last couple of decades largely through the efforts of a large number of first class scientists. We can bully Dr. Jones all we like but his extraordinary dedication to high quality surface temperature reconstruction has been independently reproduced in its essentials by NOAA, by NASA GISS, by the recent BEST team and by numerous bloggers that have the nous to access the data and do the Maths. We can bully Dr. Mann all we like but his essential conclusions have ben replicated by a whole host of subsequent groups.
So I'd say that climate science has made extraordinary strides through the classical scientific method of collecting data, making observations, devising and performing great experiments, advancing technology, and analyzing and publishing this stuff. It's had to do so under the stresses of extraordinary bullying from individuals and groups with vested interests in misrepresenting the science.
There's no question that the nature of disseminating scientific research is changing. 10 years ago pretty much no-one deposited supplementary information with scientific papers, but that's standard now as electronic deposition has become increasingly viable. The NIH and UK charities require that their funded work is published in open access mode ('though this costs the NIH/charities), and increasingly work is published in open access journals. All NASA Giss publications are freely available from the NASA Giss web site and you can download scientific papers from authors websites. Vast depositories of surface temperature, ice core, and other plaeodata now exist...
...but scientists will continue to be bullied when their results appear to contradict the points of view of those with non-scientific interests
Apr 27, 2012 at 11:53 PM | chris
I'm left totally speechless by that load of crap.
"So. Chris if the temp goes down it is the Sun and if the temp goes up it is the CO2?"
That's a little silly Tucker! After all the large jump in surface in 1998 had little to do with CO2 and quite a lot to do with the largest El Nino of the 20th century. I doubt anyone would think that the falling part of the solar cycle doesn't resut in a small negative forcing (that will offset enhanced greenhouse warming). I don't believe anyone considers that solar variation has no effect on surface temperature!
not "totally" spechless Jimmy Haigh, since you did manage a few words. Well done!
chris (11:53 PM),
I seem to remember, for example, that some data from Dr. P.J.'s research were lost -- do you have the data to reproduce the "high quality surface temperature reconstruction"?
The "essential conclusions (of Dr. M.E.M.) have be[e]n replicated". With how many proxy trees?
...err...would that be bullying like: 'Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !' or would that be bullying like 'Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him.'
Climatology is so complex: bullying only happens to climatologists, climatologists do not have to be concerned about falsification or validation, temperature rises are caused by CO2, but temperature declines are caused by changed solar output (sorry - forcing), etc.
No wonder only the most intellectually gifted (like chris) are able to comprehend Michael Mann's statistics.
Looking at the CV that Rob Wilson invites us to link to - the collaborators on his tree ring papers over the years and the fact that one of his three employment references is Keith Briffa makes me a bit doubtful about his latest statement :-
"..you might be happily surprised that I do not follow any dogma and am actually rather sceptical."
The nasty sceptical side of my nature makes me wonder if his first post wasn't the "real Rob" and the second one "the trap".
Not that it matters really.
You can't have it both ways Chris.
What a great example Dr Wilson has set for his students by the use of his childish prank.
Apr 27, 2012 at 11:29 PM chris
Many thanks for your reply
Climate science has made extraordinary advances in the last couple of decades largely through the efforts of a large number of first class scientists
I agree that there has been a great deal of effort from a large number of first class scientists, but you need to quantify the "extraordinary advances" because they are far from evident in the real world.
We can bully Dr. Jones all we like but his extraordinary dedication to high quality surface temperature reconstruction has been independently reproduced in its essentials by NOAA, by NASA GISS, by the recent BEST team and by numerous bloggers that have the nous to access the data and do the Maths. We can bully Dr. Mann all we like but his essential conclusions have ben replicated by a whole host of subsequent groups.
Chris, as I said before you do not realise you have just related, you just can not see who the bullies actually are. Nobody, but nobody, has every suggested that Jones and Mann were bullied before their papers. But afterwards they were questioned and quite rightly so, why not, what makes them different from any others? And what makes that bulling?
So I'd say that climate science has made extraordinary strides through the classical scientific method of collecting data, making observations, devising and performing great experiments, advancing technology, and analyzing and publishing this stuff. It's had to do so under the stresses of extraordinary bullying from individuals and groups with vested interests in misrepresenting the science.
Good, so show me the results. I do not see them, either in what you write now or what is happening in the real world.
...but scientists will continue to be bullied when their results appear to contradict the points of view of those with non-scientific interests
... but scientists will continue to bully especially when their results appear to contradict their points of view.
Chris, many thanks for the forthright communication through it we will both have the opportunity to learn, not now, but eventually.
Thanks
GS
Hi folks
May I respectfully request that you give Rob Wilson a chance to engage?
I realise he made a provocative remark, but I do think he has a track record of being open-minded and being prepared to objectively consider arguments from sceptics. A book I once read called 'The Hockey Stick Illusion' seemed to suggest this anyway, and I think some emails did too...? :-)
Cheers
Richard
Richard - "engage" like "communication" implies two sides. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Dr Wilson wants to do anything else but communicate in one direction, with him listening and us staying very quiet first, then proceeding to agree with him.
I would like to see that evidence before wasting my time with another clever guy who believes he knows exactly what I think, even BEFORE listening to what I have to say.
I'm afraid if we asked Dr Wilson to explain what people commenting on this blog think about climate change, he would spout the usual nonsense. It's all very different in your case and Tamsin's, where I don't have the impression to talk to a wall.
Ooops..."with him TALKING and us LISTENING"
ZT, I believe the "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow .." refers to the Soon/Baliunas paper that was one of those dreary anti-science papers that was so bad that half the editorial board resigned and the publisher stated that the paper shouldn't have been published in that form. Is that what this relates to?
You're allowed to call rubbish, rubbish ZT, especially in private emails. As it turned out nothing was "kept out" so this isn't an example of bullying!
Pat Michaels erased Hansen's "most plausible" emissions scenario (to leave "scenario A") in his misrepresentation to the US Senate Commission in 1988. No doubt you consider that Michaels misrepresentation is fine but being angry about this is "bullying". As it turned out no one's crap was beaten out of them...so no on was bullied (except Dr. Hansen who's work was grossly misrepresentd in pursuit of a creepy agenda to mislead)...
I think you're highlighting the creepy things that people do when they want to discredit scientists but can't address the science itself....
No, climatologists aren't the only scientists that are bullied/misrepresented ZT. When NIH scientists established strong evidence for a link between aspirin taking in children and Reye's syndrome that work was widly misrepresented on behalf of some elements of the pharma industry. Science relating to the effects of ciggie smoking was misrepresented for years. Science relating to a strong genetic element to homosexuality (in males!) was misrepresented on behalf of various pseudoChristian groups; the science on the causal link between HIV and AIDS was misrepresented for years; evolutionary science is constantly under dreary attack by pseudoscientisits....that's par for the course. Inconvenient science is always attacked by those who's interests are perceived to be threatened.
Hi folks
"May I respectfully request that you give Rob Wilson a chance to engage?
I realise he made a provocative remark, but I do think he has a track record of being open-minded and being prepared to objectively consider arguments from sceptics. A book I once read called 'The Hockey Stick Illusion' seemed to suggest this anyway, and I think some emails did too...? :-)
Cheers
Richard
Apr 28"
No probs Richard. And his track record of open-mindedness can be found where?
Richard Betts
Hi folks
May I respectfully request that you give Rob Wilson a chance to engage?
------------------
He had it - and he blew it. [Snip -manners] And no doubt pleased as punch with himself for managing to confirm his tatty beliefs.
I still don't even have a clue what that crap exercise was about. Is it supposed to demonstrate moral or intellectual superiority?
I dont feel like I've been played - I feel like I've been spat at.
With regard to Rob Wilson, DO let us engage.
Let's discuss as one layman to another, without either of us claiming particular expertise on the study of insects or contagious disease, the treatment of Paul Reiter by the IPCC.
If you believe the IPCC behaved responsibly and justifiably, can you articulate why you believe so? Why would a world-class expert be driven out of the process of forecasting impact of climate change -- the effect of presumably changing temperatures on malaria and other insect-borne tropical diseases? Why would a renowned scientist NOT be allowed to contribute to the work?
If you believe the IPCC behaved badly with regard to this one professional, do you suppose the collective forces in play produced only this one, exceptional, bad result. Or do you suppose that perhaps other experts in various trends of economics, energy, demographics, sea-level, etc etc -- might also have been in-or-excluded in a manner calculated to justify a predetermined position?
If you did have concern that forces at work in the IPCC, besides pure science, influenced the publications and the selection of contributors, how would you go about either confirming or refuting the hypothesis? Do you assert that the IPCC's "Trust us, we're all experts." position is a valid statement of fact -- even though your ability to assess that in matters other than climate is not significantly better than my own or any other scientifically trained person in other disciplines.
Is CO2 worse than PuO6? If we have to choose between investing in nuclear power or in fossil fuels, or in technology to sequester the wastes of either process, where would you -- again, speaking as a layman -- prefer to invest?
Are you in fact willing to engage in general discussion or do you prefer to lecture from the podium in your narrowly qualified authority as a climate expert?
chris
Are you saying that when Ben Santer says 'I'd really like to talk to a few of these "Auditors" in a dark alley."' is he is misrepresenting himself?
Climatology is the most sophisticated of doctrines.
"good question diogenes. I'd say we're temporarily in one of those periods where interannual variability is predominantly on the cooling side. So the solar outputs have drifted downwards a tad since the mid 1980's and we've experienced a very prolonged minimum betwen solar cycles 23 and the upturn into cycle 24. We're not surprised that quite a bit of potential enhanced greenhouse warming has been temporarily countered by an anomalously prolonged solar cycle downturn from the cycle 23 max near 2000 to the current not-far-from-minimum now. ENSO has been in a predominanly coolish mode in recent years too."
Typical question with a predictable answer. The better question is why was warming so pronounced in the 1980's and 1990''s? SkepSci has a very helpful series of posts of why solar, PDO, cosmic rays, etc cannot explain "global warming". But in all of those posts it can be seen that those were very positive factors in the 1980's and 1990's and prior (In some cases they obfuscate that fact using selected moving averages and ignoring the fact that warming lags the warming influences. They warn often about the CO2 warming in the pipeline while ignoring the exact same pipeline for natural warming factors.)
Strip away the extra warming from the 1980's and 1990's (and stop pretending that low solar in the late 2000's has overcome thermal lag already) and there is nothing left but a modest warming from CO2, at most 0.3 degrees from 1980 to 2010 which lines up well with the lower bound Hansen's 1980 prediction of warming. The lower bound was for sensitivity of 1.4C
It's had to do so under the stresses of extraordinary bullying from individuals and groups with vested interests in misrepresenting the science.
I have to wonder why my "vested interest" is. I have post-graduate Chemistry, so I'm not particularly anti-science. I vote left (and have never voted right), so it's not political. I have spent my life not running the rat race but choosing jobs I like and value (currently a Maths teacher) so it's not valuing money over everything else. I reckon you can't find a vested interest to explain why I do not believe that CO2 is a demon.
Moreover I reckon you would struggle to find one for most sceptics. There's the odd nutter, true, but the pro-AGW camp is full of eco-mentals too.
The whole "they only argue that because of vested interests" is crap. In truth it amounts to a massive ad hominen argument, and sensible people should be above that.
Rob Wilson was one of the first on the 'establishment' side to constructively engage with Steve McIntyre at CA. He made hundreds of comments, and always struck me as a very fair, and he frequently went out on a limb with respect to the vagaries of dendroclimatology and his colleagues' sensitivities. Who could ever forget the "Dendro Truth Squad"? I think that his little 'trick' was to see how many were aware of this history, or whether you would (unsceptically) take his words at face-value. When I read his comment above, I seriously wondered if this was the same 'Rob Wilson' (it is not an uncommon name). Obviously it is, so you should consider these gems from the CG2 archive:
**********************
CG2 #1408
date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 07:43:00 -0000 (GMT)
from: C.Goodess@uea.ac.uk
subject: cafe eavesdropping
to: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, t.osborn@uea.ac.uk, p.jones@uea.ac.uk
Dear all
Thought you might be interested to hear of my encounter this afternoon,
sitting anonymously (without name badge) in a cafe round the corner from
the AGU venue.
The two sitting at the next table turned out to be Stephen McIntyre (no
afiliation on his name badge) and Rob Wilson (Edinburgh). They were
talking so loudly it was difficult not to follow the conversation in full.
This included a critique of Mann, Moberg, von Storch, Wigley etc. etc and
most disturbingly a discussion of the peer review system. Tim and Keith
featured quite prominently in the latter!
It was tempting to reveal my identify - but more interesting to listen in
detail. I can tell you more next week!
BEst wishes Clare
**************************
CG2# 4241 - Dr Wilson experimenting with Mannian technques:
" The reconstructions clearly show a 'hockey-stick' trend. I guess this is precisely the
phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.
It is certainly worrying, but I do not think that it is a problem so long as one screens
against LOCAL temperature data and not large scale temperature where trend dominates the
correlation.
I guess this over-fitting issue will be relevant to studies that rely more on trend
coherence rather than inter-annual coherence. It would be interesting to do a similar
analysis against the NAO or PDO indices."
*********************************
If the establishment climatologists were all of Dr Wilson's ilk, we would not be having this discussion, so give him a break. He is an ally for the cause of good science.
Rob Wilson,
"I am afraid many of you sort of fell into my trap.
I purposely posted a goading statement to test the waters. I got what I expected which was a pity.
If you actually took the time to read some of my papers..."
Are you kidding me? Might I suggest that in the future you try being straightforward and honest? I think it really helps with the communicating thing.
Am I right in thinking that your "trap" was to show that people wouldn't bother to read your papers if you first goaded us? Is that method generally successful in getting people to choose to take the time to read the particular papers that you think they should read? I would have thought there are far better ways of achieving that.
If your intention was to annoy everyone here by goading them, then you've done pretty well. Not sure how it helps, but well done.
Apr 27, 2012 at 11:53 PM | chris:" ...but scientists will continue to be bullied when their results appear to contradict the points of view of those with non-scientific interests"
I am using a new "$CAGW$ Rorschach language translator" (TM) that I have invented.
Please see the results for the first run.
"Bullied"
Translated-Submitting papers/asking normal questions by email/pointing out mistakes etc.
See some examples below..
1/Point our problems with 14 highly weighted bristecone pine series previously studied by Graybill and Idso.
2/Pointing out sensitivity analysis carried out by Mann "NOAMER/BACKTO_1400-CENSORED" led to reconstruction which matched his his critics McIntyre/McKitrick.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/fallupdate04/update.fall04.html
3/Pointing out tree ring divergence problems.
http://webcenter.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publications/divergence2007.pdf
4/Pointing out no dendro reconstruction using Tiljander sediments and waiting for a corrigendum
http://climateaudit.org/2011/12/13/ar5-and-mikes-pnas-trick/
5/Pointing out where wilson generated random generated time series..and found "The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about."
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=4191
6/Pointing out Severinghaus attempts(unsuccessfully) to get an explanation of the “divergence” problem from Mann
http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/28/severinghaus-and-hide-the-decline/
7/Point out that Lead IPCC AR4 author Richard Alley spotted the divergence problem.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/456-5/#more-12663
8/And the coup de grâce
http://www.webcommentary.com/images/wegman-fig4dot3.jpg
"appear to contradict"
Translated=Contradict claims.
"of those with non-scientific interests"
Translated=WTF???..is this a gag.? :)
ps..The program did have a problem translating this line due to its inherent weirdness.
None of the critiques are from people with non scientific interests..
Your Grace:
Could we have Mike Haseler’s comment (Apr 27, 2012 at 11:00 PM) as a separate thread? It’s too good to lose in the dross.
Geoffchambers at 7:31
I agree. I was considering asking Mike if I could quote his experience elesewhere.
Dr Wilson probably doesn’t realise it, but a large number of those replying to his first post were new names here, suggesting that the St Andrews “event” (since apparently we’re not supposed to say “debate”), and the possibilities it seemed to open up, has widened the sphere of active sceptics, encouraging many more to participate.
His second comment is therefore all the more unfortunate, since it was addressed, not to battle-scarred old hands, but to people entering the fray for the first time.
Dr Wilson’s behaviour can only weaken those like our host who bend over backwards to keep the discussion polite, and strengthen the “rejectionists”. Would he like at least to admit that his choice of words was unfortunate?
Good Morning,
As some have noted, I have posted many times on Climate Audit and on the whole I have great respect for Steve Macintyre and his statistical prowess. I agree with many (not all) of his analyses.
In a similar way, I really enjoyed meeting Andrew (the Bish as some of you fondly call him) and felt that a very decent and calm discussion/debate was had by all. We may not always have agreed, but that is debate for you.
As I did not know the Bishop Hill audience, I felt that being a little provocative would be the best measure of the overall “opinions” of many of the individuals visiting the site. I did not intend to be dismissive and I am sorry if I came across as arrogant - perhaps “trap” was not quite the most PC term I could have used. :-)
Having skimmed through most of the posts, I do not believe that this is the appropriate arena for debate. It is simply not possible to address all comments and people seem to get annoyed if their comment is ignored.
As an olive branch, all I can offer you is that I would be very happy to come to any community organised debate or seminar series where I would gladly try and present evidence for anthropogenic warming while at the same time highlighting those areas in the science where there is still much ambiguity and debate.
On this friendly note, I sign off
Rob
chris (1:08) -
[From a personal perspective, my first reading of the graph, based on Hansen's testimony, was to infer that scenario B assumed mild emissions reductions.] However, the Hansen et al. paper of 1988 used other terms to describe the scenarios; in particular scenario B is said (fairly) to be "perhaps the most plausible of the three cases."You wrote "Pat Michaels erased Hansen's "most plausible" emissions scenario (to leave "scenario A") in his misrepresentation to the US Senate Commission in 1988." While I agree with you that it would have been far preferable to have retained all the curves in such a rebuttal, here's how Hansen described them in his 1988 Senate testimony:
What then can one make of scenario A, which included a totally hypothetical forcing (from "ozone, stratospheric water vapor, and minor chlorine and fluorine compounds") which amounted to a 30% increase in forcing by the end of the extrapolation interval in 2050, over the admittedly excessive forcings from an exponential increase in emissions? It seems misrepresentation - to use your word about Michaels -- to call such an overbounding "business as usual."
When I went to hear Rob Wilson lecture in St Andrews a year or so ago, he discussed the divergence problem ("It is a problem") and also discussed the inability of the models to replicate the MWP. As Richard Betts says, we should be encouraging people like Rob. That said, I'm not sure Rob's "trap" was wise.
If everyone could calm down, I think we would get a thread with more light and less heat.
Well, that is what we call a drive-by. Goodbye, Rob Wilson.
Andrew - rest assured I am perfectly calm. Perhaps you and Richard could have an offline conversation with Dr Wilson so he can figure out he has no clue about what the debate is about:
The question is not whether temperatures have risen or whether mankind has affected the climate. Temperatures have always risen and fallen and mankind has always affected the climate. The question is whether we have a problem on our hands. The poor performance of the climate models suggests that the problem is much less than we have been led to believe.
Those, of course, are not my words. 8-)
Apr 27, 2012 at 9:14 PM Rob Wilson
Glad I did not join in your little game.
I'm a simple-minded soul so I find it hard to understand why it is necessary to "discuss" the inability of the models to replicate the MWP.
As far as I know virtually every scientific discipline (and including economists and historians) takes the MWP as a given so if the models have a problem with it then the models are w-r-o-n-g! What am I missing?
I'm sorry to say that Dr Wilson's approach turns out (with hindsight) to have been quite predictable. Make a provocative statement which people are likely to take at face value then when they do take it at face value and react accordingly claim "I told you so. There's no debating with these people."
Ivory Tower Syndrome.
Personally I thought my response was quite reasonable, Dr Wilson, on the basis that I did take your statement at face value, and I thought most other responses I read were as well. Did we perhaps show an understanding of the problem that you hadn't expected?
Come on Bob do all the yards where better to have a debate than on Bishop Hill with people who have been following the story for years.
Rob - thanks for your follow up this morning and apology for your poor choice of words. I'd just like to second Geoff's point that few of responses were from the Bishop Hill hard-core. Quite a few of the regulars seem to have wandered off in recent months, for a number of reasons. As you now know, some here can be spiky, but that is for good reason - many come from engineering and science backgrounds and are more than qualified to critique the many vagaries of climate science, but nether-the-less their views are are often dismissed and misrepresented by so called scientists signed up to 'the cause', and by people in the media who seem to take everything on a Greenpeace or WWF (and IPCC) press release at face value. So all I am saying is don't judge BH on a few comments on one thread, and bear in mind also that there are many many more lurkers than commenters. Thanks for your efforts in organising the St Andrew's gathering, unfortunately I could not attend, despite being not that far away on the north of the Tay.
I also second/third Geoff and Philip's call for a new thread on Mike's comment.
Chris, I read your comments last night, but couldn't bring myself to respond. Did you really suggest that that 'changing rainfall patterns' are evidence of AGW? And that NOAA's GCHN and NASA's GISS datasets are credible indicators of global temperatures?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/13/warming-in-the-ushcn-is-mainly-an-artifact-of-adjustments/
CRUtem3 - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/30/spencer-shows-compelling-evidence-of-uhi-in-crutem3-data/
CRUtem4 - http://www.real-science.com/smoking-gun-that-crutem4-is-useless
GISS and UHI - UHI, GISS USA, Norfolk International airport UHI compared with Norfolk city graphs - http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425723080040&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425723080000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
GISS adjustments to Icelandic data - http://www.real-science.com/poor-science-at-nasa
GISS USA adjustments - http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/1998changesannotated.gif?w=500&h=355
Sea level - the recent Envisat adjustment - http://www.real-science.com/sea-level-rise-retroactively-triples-at-envisat-overnight
http://oi41.tinypic.com/2en2e6f.jpghttp://www.real-science.com/sea-level-rise-retroactively-triples-at-envisat-overnight
While I am happy to agree that there was a little warming in the northern hemisphere in the late 20th century (or to be more precise fewer cold winters) I simply do not trust any of the datasets from NOAA, GISS, CRU and even the UK Met Office/Hadley, as it is beyond doubt that they have been corrupted by spurious adjustments. And please don't quite BEST, Muller's team used the same spurious GCHN data but just crunched it in a different way; you can't polish a turd. Wake me up when the North Atlantic starts to warm up again - http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-101.png . In the meantime I suggest you learn some climate history so you can put the recent slight warming in context. Tony Brown's essays are a good place to start:
"Historic variation in Arctic ice" - http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
"A short anthology of changing climate", - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/a-short-anthology-of-changing-climate/
"The Long Slow Thaw" - http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
[Snip - I've asked you not to post about your theories on unrelated posts]
I thought I'd post here urban dictionary's highest rated definition of "troll":
That said, I can see the funny side because I'm familiar with Rob's posts from ClimateAudit. While I don't always agree with Rob, at least he doesn't fall into the trap of dismissing all sceptics as cranks. That this trait should make Rob should stand out probably tells us more about the public face of climate science than it tells us about Rob.
But it should be noted that trolling is considered bad form. SRS BSNS, teh interwebz.
I had missed Rob's apology this morning. OTOH I haven't missed a thing. He is still not listening.
Perhaps there will be a chance when and if he will stop labeling people, so that Montford and McIntyre are ok because they've published whilst we the unwashed cannot be spoken to unless as if to little children.