Friday
Oct182013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Worst BBC programme of all time?
Oct 18, 2013 BBC Climate: Sceptics 
BBC Radio 4's Feedback programme looked at the space given to global warming sceptics in the period covering the release of the Fifth Assessment Report.
The programme was shameless, stupid and dishonest.
But you knew that.
Reader Comments (154)
I have just posted the following on the BBC feedback blog, so if it gets moderated out, at least it is here. (The BBC have so far let my previous comments stand):-
May I indulge the patience of the hosts and readers of this thread by quoting one of the comments Patrick Moore left on the Telegraph thread I referred to above authored by Prof Steve Jones, as it directly challenges him, and is pertinent here? I apologise for the length.
'patrickmoore •2 years ago:-
A much as I agree with Professor Jones on many issues he really ought to question his own motives on global warming. He's branding climate sceptics as Luddites, my word not his, because they do not accept the politically correct view that global warming is entirely the consequence of human activity. In his view the scientific concensus of today is of greater value than individual scientific objectivity. If you do not accept the concensus then you are a heretic and in the middle ages you would have been be burnt at the stake for your heresy. Today, political bandwagons demand conformity and the penalty is merely ridicule and professional isolation rather than death. At least we seem to be heading in the right direction!
I'm not saying that the ever increasing burning of fossil fuels is irrelevant. It is not. Pumping large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will have an effect on the climate and possibly on evolution. Millions of years ago plankton began pumping out oxygen into the atmosphere and it eventually gave rise to us. And that happened totally without our assistance.
The trouble with the concensus view is its lack of objectivity. The world may be warming and carbon dioxide emissions may be a contributor. But there are other contributors, definitely on a much grander scale than we mere mortals can manage, that are totally ignored. Solar activity, the Sun, that great giver of life that set this entire Solar System up to where we are today; volcanic activity particularly along the mid-Atlantic ridge; mountain building and the effect it has on wind and weather systems; ocean currents and their thousand year time lag; the enormous heat transfer engines in the Earth's mantle; plate tectonics and let's not forget the Earths 26,000 year precession around the pole. And if you thought that that is enough to be going on with just consider this. The last time the Earth and the Solar System were in this particular bit of space, with its own particularly special spatial conditions, in our Milky Way Galaxy, was 250 million years ago. So why should the last 25 years be so spectacularly significant?
Don't even bother to consider where our Milky Way galaxy was in the entire Universe 250 million years ago and what affect that may have had on our climate!
We have no idea what affect those conditions may have on our planet and if we did we would be powerless to counteract them. But I am not a doomsayer.
What I am is a realist. I cannot countenance spending huge sums of money trying to fight something which is at best speculative and at worst beyond our control.
What we can do is to place our future energy needs on nuclear power rather than fossil fuel. The nuclear industry has the best safety record of any in the energy industry, and it is free of carbon dioxide emissions. It has radioactive waste to consider but we have the means to control that.
In Japan it wasn't the nuclear reactors which caused so many deaths, it was the earthquake and the tsunami. Ask yourself carefully how many deaths you might have expected had that power station been coal, oil or gas fired. It would have been dozens. At Fukushimi it was none!
In conclusion, Professor Jones, please be a bit more circumspect about how you describe your peers. Make sure that you have considered all options before you pontificate on an alternative view. All who do not agree with you are not necessarily barking up the wrong tree. Some who take an alternative view may well espouse the correct approach. Political correctness and general consensus are not always right.
Witness Gallileo. He argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Political and religious concensus argued the opposite. After many years of intellectual in-fighting Gallileo bowed to both. He was silenced on pain of death. We all know now that Gallileo was right.
You would do well to remember that, Professor Jones. It is a scientist's responsibility to take into account all possible scenarios, not just those imposed by his political masters. A theory must not be upheld by political concensus. Rather, it must be validated by experimental result.
Messenger
Up arrow is 'like' and down arrow 'dislike' I think.
The site layout is a bit awkward. To view all one has to click on All Comments, then screw your eyes up to read black text on a very dark blue background where it has NEXT to get the next page.
The Big picture is more important than this 1 complaint against Carter
- I made my official complaint . There were a number of legal issues to warn them before they break the law again in the repeat, so rushed & I MISSED a couple of important points. So if you put in a complaint also you can make those points.
- The big picture is the main thing not this single Carter case the dramagreens are dramagreening about.
1. It's not 1 person complaining ..can I say I can see 25+ here who would second my complaint
2. We have a large number of complaints The GreenDream activists have hijacked almost every aspect of BBC output (with a handful of honourable exceptions).
So every 2 days Climate Skeptics have cause for concern as there is some kind of large misrepresentation in a BBC program.
- The greendream believers have an almost total grip on BBC things so it is absolutely astounding that dramagreen complaining one time should be given so much weight.
3. Thankyou BBC for airing Prof Carter it was the right thing for the BBC, the public, skeptics and IPCC true believers.
- He was the right expert it's his job to dissect IPCC reports and he has expertise and experience to do it well + he is out of the IPCC loop so no afraid to comments others might like to but are afraid to.
- For Green Activists it was a great opportunity to further dissect his talk and point out what errors they spot. If they did this successfully they would strengthen their case
4. and may it be the first of many times that he and other such EXPERTS are invited to share their information..thus further the public's understanding of the IPCC & current state of Climate Science.
- BBC Get your act together on GreenDream issues
TRUTH MATTERS
@Pharos: a very good post. I have been moderated out on many blogs for suggesting CO2-AGW is near zero, easy to prove. The real AGW has been polluted clouds with lower albedo, now saturated. My paper on this was rejected by Nature after 48 hours with the request I go through the Physics' literature. That will take about 3 years because I have developed a replacement for the incorrect aerosol optical physics of Sagan so high standard of proof is needed because it totally throws his theories of the Venusian Atmosphere.
In the US, their top Cloud Specialist at Colorado S U saw exactly the same as me but from satellites, except he hasn't worked out the key physics' innovation. He has also apparently been prevented from publication too.
The fact is, IPCC Climate Alchemy is plain wrong. The likes of Steve Jones and Paul Nurse, who clearly haven't the faintest idea of the real physics have apparently ceased to be scientists, becoming High Priests of the New Religion.
Further to my Oct 20, 2013 at 10:07 AM |
Re Bob Carter I think this is one of his best presentations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TQ3W45Cq18
AlecM
Thanks, but it was all Sir Patrick Moore's. Not bad going for nearly 90 years old.
I like this cameo comment
Moore believed himself to be the only person to have met the first man to fly, Orville Wright, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, and the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. (Wiki)
Well, they let my comment stand.
They have allowed Sir Patrick Moore, with infinitely more scientific listener reverence but more to the point infinitely more scientific background relevance to Earth and planetary influences on climate matters than the censorious Steve Jones, the present favoured Guardian/BBC darling, a snail expert with outspoken left-leaning social views who for example once described private schools as a "cancer on the education system" who wants to totally eradicate any public platform for sceptics at all; they have allowed Sir Patrick Moore to castigate and rebuke him in no uncertain terms from beyond the grave.
It gets even better, upthread- they have let through detailed caustic commentary on the 28-gate seminar wayback machine revelations.
All this on a feedback blog specifically debating BBC 'impartiality' concerning sceptic participation in the climate debate.
Pharos:
What confused me was the top instruction where it says [and I can't paste an arrow]
Order by: (square) Oldest First (down arrow) Highest Rated (up arrow) Lowest Rated
Messanger
Yes, I think the arrows in that case refer to the ratings stack pointing from high to low rating order. To rate comments BTW, you must log in.
Dave Salt
I looked at your Popular Technology link on sceptic papers and read a few. The bar was set so high that any paper giving a climate parameter below the IPCC average was classified as "sceptical". Nice propoganda, but not a realistic sample.
DaveS
Consider Bob Parker's contribution to the programme. He said (more or less) "Climate has changed naturally in the past , therefore the recent changes in temperature, sea level and extreme weather are also natural."
He has no evidence and no demonstrable natural mechanisms to support his statement.
His statement is not even logical. He jumps from "Climate has changed naturally in the past" to "the recent changes in temperature, sea level and extreme weather are also natural". There is nothing to justify this leap, when there are other valid possibilities such as AGW.
The best that can be said of his comment is that it recognises that climate change is affecting temperatures, sea levels and extreme weather. This may not have been his intended message!
I am inclined to agree with the commenter above, who complained about the lacklustre performance of the sceptics interviewed. If the sceptic case is so strong it should be possible to do much better than warmed over propganda.
diogenes, stewgreen.
If you read AR5 and the papers in the reference lists on which it is based, you will find observation, measurement and analysis in support of AGW. generated by a large nunber of scientists across many fields of study. Their output fits together into a coherent and consistent paradigm describing the past and present behaviour of Earth's climate system. This is much more than opinion.
When you can put together something on the same scale, with the same level of evidence,reliability and internal consistency, then I will be accept the sceptic view as something more than opinion. Until then I agree with Steve Jones.
entropic man (Oct 20, 2013 at 11:27 PM), I never provided a link to Popular Technology so you're confusing my comments, which you still haven't addressed, with someone else's.
To re-quote Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and so far no one's produced anything like reasonably sound, let alone extraordinary, evidence to support CAGW... not even the IPCC! However, if you know better, please let me know.
entropic man (Oct 21, 2013 at 12:15 AM), I note you choose your words very carefully when refering to AGW rather than CAGW.
I don't think many here would argue that some degree of AGW exists but most would argue that there's no evidence to support the catastrophic levels that Jones and others believe. The fact that AR5 won't specifiying sensitivity in the dogmatic manner of previous ARs speaks volumes for their confidence in a "coherent and consistent paradigm" for the Earth's climate... I honestly wonder just how you can manage to convince yourself otherwise?
David Salt.
Sorry, the Popular Technology link came from robotech master.
Regarding evidence, behind AR5 are 3000 years of physics, 650million years of paleo data, 130 years of temperature records, 32 years of satellite data and 9 goodyears of ARGO data. They show a warming temperature trend, both in direct readings and proxies such as glacier retreat, Arctic and Antarctic ice melt , sea level rise, migration of climate and biogeogaphical zone boundaries.
The satellite data shows an ongoing deficiency in outgoing radiation relative to insolation, the difference correasponding to the increasing energy content of the climate system.The deficiency is in the bands associated with the three main greenhouse gases; CO2, water vapour and methane. The change in CO2 due to industrial activity would be expected to produce changes in radiation balance consistent with the temperature changes observed. This gives a valid mechanism to explain the observed changes. while no other mechanism can be found as an alternative. Uncertainties are defined for all these parameters and small enough to give confidence in them
In response the sceptic position is based on vague comments the the uncertainties are larger than claimed ( though unspecified and without evidence to back up the assertions), that all this evidence is wrong, that it's all natural variation (again unspecified) and that its all a conspiracy anyway.
"I honestly wonder just how you can manage to convince yourself otherwise?"
The weight of evidence is strongly on my side.
David Salt
Incidentally, you do realise that only the sceptics use CAGW to mean Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming? The rest of us use it to mean Carbon dioxide induced Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Since the two possible meanings can cause confusion, I've stopped using the term here.
entropic man wrote ...
I've been following this debate since about 2005 and AFAIR this is the first time I've seen anyone mention this as an ambiguity.
A Google search for "Carbon dioxide induced Anthropogenic Global Warming" (with quotes) yields a whopping six hits (at time of writing), none of which use it to define the initialism in question.
How do you explain this?
entropic man
"The change in CO2 due to industrial activity would be expected to produce changes in radiation balance consistent with the temperature changes observed."
This is an assumption and is a flaw in your argument. A change in temperature requires a mechanism where real heat is transfered to the surface i.e. how does back radiation cause a change in the surface temperature in the presence of an atmosphere and where water can freely evaporate.
Models do not account for real surface reactions as you need experimental data for this. And as such may be overestimating this effect. This is the crux of the sceptic argument. There may be a valid mechanism but you need to show it. Not just assume it because you can't think of anything else.
And by the way, a change in radiation balance theoretically only causes 1.2 degrees C at most (as per Hansen). You need to invoke positive feedback to get a larger change. Another mechanism that is untested.
EM, my advice would be to stop being a teacher on this, having faith in the knowledge, and start being a scientist about it, where you look for experimenal evidence about specifics.
Funnily enough, Steve, I was wondering what you thought about this. [I sometimes feel embarrassed sharing just one name with a notorious member of "the team" who spends quite a bit of time issuing calumnies against those who disagree with him or point out his errors.]
I shan't be buying any more of Steve Jones' books.
entropic man (Oct 21, 2013 at 1:00 AM) you should be a politician the way you avoid answering questions then make a generalised statement that feigns authority. I'm not impressed and certainly not convinced by what you say.
Trying to redefine terminology doesn't help either... I start to wonder if your teaching career was limited to infants.
@Micky H Corbett: the positive feedback mechanism depends on the assumption of 33 K ghe. This comes from 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf. But If should you remove ghgs, no clouds or ice would increase surface SW warming by 43%. hence the real ghe is 11 K, the 3x positive feedback a clever hoax.
As for the 1.2 K from doubling [CO2], that depends on the assumption of no radiative mechanism that bypasses the '15 micron CO2 bite'. There is such a mechanism, ergo no significant CO2-AGW.
EM (Oct 21, 2013 at 12:03 AM): as you cannot get the professor’s name right, despite its repeated use in this thread, as well as in the BBC blog, one has to wonder how much diligence you apply to other “truths” you espouse.
As Prof Bob CARTER had just a few moments to make his point, he merely stated what he knew, probably with the evidence to back up his statements should they be challenged. As for the leap “climate has changed in the past” to “the recent changes … are also natural”: where is the lack of logic in that? The Sun has risen naturally in the East every morning in the past; the increasing daylight and temperatures with the Sun rising in the East tomorrow is also natural. Is that an illogical argument?
Thanks for drawing attention to this very strange radio programme. It occurred to me to wonder what (if anything) Dr Jones knows or understands about climate. I don't see any objection to him being given time to broadcast his strongly held layperson's opinions about climate science as long as equivalent time is given to a layperson with different views on the subject.
AlecM
As I've probably said before I don't believe we are disagreeing. All I am saying is that if the theory says that back radiation causes surface heating then go and test it. If the theory changes and you realise that back radiation is much less you still have data as to a specific effect in case it proves useful in the future. Or in simpler words, you can't get bad data. It's always useful in some way.
And much more useful than theory.
Ah, Patrick Moore (Pharos, Oct 20, 2013 at 7:13 PM); a true giant, who now strides with the likes of Einstein, Darwin and Newton. A man for whom no accolade is too grand to be deserved, be it “Sir”, “Lord”, or “Your majesty”; however, considering some of the reprobates, present and past, who hold or have held those titles, I think his greatest accolade would be just to be referred to as “Patrick Moore”.
Just posted the following on the BBC Feedback blog:
Roger Bolton writes: “After the World At One gave airtime to a climate change denier, Bob Carter, Feedback listeners questioned whether this was impartiality gone mad. We speak to Professor Steve Jones, who wrote a report for the BBC Trust on the impartiality and accuracy of the BBC's science coverage, about where to draw the line.”
In fact, “climate change denier, Bob Carter” is Professor Bob Carter who is an Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA, Melbourne). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist, environmental scientist and writer with more than 40 years professional experience, and holds degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and the University of Cambridge (England). He has held tenured academic staff positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where he was Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999. In contrast Professor Steve Jones is a geneticist.
Why does Roger Bolton fail to use Professor Carter’s correct title? Is he trying to diminish Professor Carter’s standing or is Mr Bolton just ignorant?
On 26 January 2006 the BBC held the notorious “28Gate” event when the BBC [has] “held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus.” (Source: BBC Trust document, “FROM SEESAW TO WAGON WHEEL Safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century”, page 40). The BBC refused to divulge the names of the “best scientific experts” who had attended the January 2006 seminar. The BBC even spent licence payers’ money successfully defending in court its refusal under FOI legislation to divulge the names of the experts whom they had consulted.
Shortly after the BBC’s “victory”, at our expense, in court, Maurizio Morabito discovered that the names of the “best scientific experts” had been in the public domain all along. It turned out that these 30 (not 28) advisers were not “best scientific experts at all”. They included, for example, the Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace, the Advocacy Director, Tearfund, a Director, Npower Renewables, an Insurance Industry Consultant and representatives from the Church of England and the US Embassy. There was only the odd scientist and no climate scientists amongst them. No wonder the BBC wished to conceal the names of their advisers. As a person who had requested the names from the BBC, I felt then, and still feel, deceived by the Corporation.
In deceitfully promoting the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming religion, the BBC has harmed its reputation for speaking truth to the world. This can only be damaging to the BBC.
@Mickey H Corbett: no lower atmosphere warming in 16 years. No 0-700m sea warming for a bit less.
AlecM
That's all good supporting data but it isn't the same as isolating and characterising the effect. It's just the other side of the coin that EM uses.
IR forcing is used in the food industry and for high energy physics. Low power density forcing doesn't appear to be of that much interest yet there's a multibillion pounds industry relying on it. It seems a little odd.
As an aside Climate Science often resembles Homeopathy in that a very small signal that is supposed to produce an unmeasurable effect over most laboratory time scales is then supposed to be the main driver of the Earths climate. Nothing about the more realistic chance that it just gets lost in the noise.
@Micky H Corbett: qdot = - Div Fv where qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat transfer to matter/unit volume and Fv is the monochromatic radiation flux density. Div is the divergence operator. Integrate this over all wavelengths and you get the difference between two S-B equations. This is the basic law of conservation of energy. 'Back radiation' breaches that law because only the vector sum of Radiation Fields can do thermodynamic work. This is absolute physics; no alternative!
AlecM
I appreciate what you are saying but for example in a vacuum where you can only get radiative transfer things aren't as black and white.
Case in point. I have a plasma inside an ion thruster at 450 degrees. Surrounding it but electrically and physically isolated from the discharge walls I have an earth screen. The earth screen is perforated and made of steel. The chamber is molybdenum. If I change the emissivity of the steel or if I paint the discharge walls black I can change the temperature of the discharge by 50 degrees. Purely by changing the properties of the material I can influence the overall system as it can only radiate being in a vacuum. The Discharge is heated by plasma the earth screen isn't. It's passive and at a lower temperature. According to your net flux idea it appears that it doesn't matter what I do with the earth screen. Even though it reflects back IR and I can test the resulting temperature difference in using different metals and shapes of screen as in bigger holes in the perforation
Which by the way I have done since I built ion thrusters for almost 10 years.
Now the minute I introduce any gas in there and apart from arcing, the temperature quickly homogenise.
Micky: I spent a long time in process engineering. We were a group developing the first non-contact pyrometry in metallurgical plants, including much of the other stuff you mentioned (continuous painting, drying etc.) We measured coupled convection and radiation with difficult materials. The fact is, and you can check this in data tables in McAdams, for 0.9 emissivity horizontal steel, the radiative heat loss only exceeds convective >~100 deg. C. For Al it's ~300 deg C.
We had to use a 2-colour optical pyrometer, the first of its kind, to measure that difficult emissivity curve. No-one has ever measured the Earth radiating to the atmosphere at black body real energy flux. That's the Radiation Field; same units but a potential energy.. In reality, the operational emissivity of the surface is about 0.3 relative to the 160 W/m^2 SW heating because the self-absorbed ( new physics) water and CO2 ghg bands at black body level mutually annihilate the same wavebands at the surface. Most of the energy, about 2/3rds goes to space via the 'atmospheric window', the rest is non self-absorbed water bands which thermalise at clouds and a bit to Space. The reason why the meteorologist imagine clouds heat the surface is because clouds have a higher temperature than the cosmic microwave background (2.7 K), so less heat is lost by radiation from the surface.
There can be no 'back radiation at the ~0.7 emissivity level from the atmosphere - it vanishes at the surface because the RFs interact according to the vector sum (for a collimated beam at a flat optical heterogeneity). There is no perpetual motion machine. Sorry
AlecM
I'm not arguing for a perpetual motion machine and I appreciate you have spent time meauring these things you talk about, but even in your example the vector sum for even something like "back radiation" is less than for free radiating. The div of the flux for simplicity is in the z (vertical direction) . By your own statement if the gradient is smaller the rate of heat exchange is smaller. If you have the same internal power source or are heated in the UV (as for the Earth) the temperature of the body would rise over all frequencies to compensate as the area hasn't changed. It has to, it's simple thermodynamics.
The problem is that there is an atmosphere, the heat exchange cannot be related to radiative flux alone.
Now add in convection and surface conduction and suddenly radiation does not need to dominate. That's the Least Energy Principle. You also get the opportunity to cool the surface. Or the thermal losses at the interface are small on the grand scale, but on the local scale of the order to 4 to 10 W/m2. I don't know you'd have to test it. This is something that is more realistic. If it turns out to be wrong then so be it but it is testable.
What you say sounds interesting but it needs to be broken up and simplified (relatively) so the sense and logic can be demonstrated. It also needs definitive tests to show how it differs from conventional physics.
If you have this new physics you need to show that it fits all the other observations. I appreciate you have spent time on this but at the moment it is not as clear to myself or others. And that makes my scientific spidey sense tingle.
Micky: MODTRAN is the modelling route I have used. The radiation transfer calculations work in the atmosphere because the errors in the 2-stream approximation (which has no physical reality) cancel out.
However, you can't apply that approximation at an optical heterogeneity. This is absolute. Only net radiation in coupled convection and radiation is a real energy flux. You get at this by using three bidirectional rate equations.
Experimental proof is easy. The beach windbreak reduces convection so temperature rises to make convection plus net LW radiation equal to the incident SW radiative energy. Thinks about it. Last time I was working on this stuff was the oven to cure the glue making the body of a very expensive sports car!
AlecM
I don't doubt it. It'd be nice to see your maths. I'd like to see how you address surface loss though. It might be small but it'll still be there.
Anyway nice talking.
Micky
@Mickey H Corbett: no lower atmosphere warming in 16 years. No 0-700m sea warming for a bit less.
Oct 21, 2013 at 12:28 PM | AlecM
250cubic km per year ice losss from Antarctica, 250cubic km per year from Greenland, 75% loss of Arctic sea ice volume, receding glaciers, 3.2mm/year rising sea level. Global land/ocean temperature for 2013 currently running at anomaly 0.575C, second highest on record. Ocean heat content rising, insolation/radiation imbalance continuing. 2012 minimum Arctic ice extent on record.
Jack Haye
Rgarding GAGW
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/CAGW
that Feedback is copy of Guardian article ? Bizarre coincidence
I had a quick glance it seems to use many phrases the same
I'm busy so some one please take a look
- Seems a bizarre coincidence that the Feedback item is very similar to Steve Jones in an article in the Guardian from the week before .. seems to use many phrases the same
..so was Feedback just a normal listeners complaining or more orchestrated ?
EM (Oct 21, 2013 at 10:32 PM): not sure if the site you sent us to is being cynical or serious: “…a snarl word (or snarl acronym) that global warming denialists…”; “… Global warming is "bad" for a number of reasons.”; “… While the crazies over at the Media Research Center…”. Three different subjects, all showing balanced, rational discussion quite plainly – NOT! Without wishing to explore it further, is it a serious site, or a spoof?
Whichever it is, I feel its conclusions can be treated with a cartload of salt. I have asked on several “pro-“ sites for the meaning of CAGW; the answers so far are “CATASTROPHIC Anthropogenic Global Warming”; none even suggest your idea of “CO2 induced”.
Then there is this: “[Sound science]…When used by scientists it means robustly supported science, confirmed by multiple peer-reviewed studies." “Peer-reviewed studies”! That argument has already been ground down to nothing; what we need is not “peer-reviewed studies”, it is replicable trials, experiments, tests, all producing concrete results.
BTW, you have yet to answer the point I raised in the “Disagreement over nothing" thread (Oct 18, 2013 at 10:17 AM). Care to indulge me?
Give the BBC a break over their IPCC coverage A Science Media Centre article that deals with people making a huge issue of the one time Bob Carter was on
- blogpost by Tom Sheldon, Senior Press Officer at the SMC.
Another in the Spectator
Greg Barker: BBC gives too much coverage to climate change sceptics
commenting on another article in Guardian : Greg Barker Oct 9th
- Jeez is the Guardian running a campaign. I mentioned the first Steve Jones article was Oct 1st then this one
entopic man
Two hypotheses supported in a single post!
The choice of site supports the hypothesis that you are nowhere near as reasonable as you try to make out, and the fact that it in no way aids your case that the term 'CAGW' is ambiguous supports the hypothesis that you are apt to get a bit carried away with your passions and start making things up.
Could it be that this latter tendency interferes with your objectivity, I wonder?
Radical Rodent
Bob Carter's statement says that "If A is true in one situation it must be true in another". This is not valid when there are alternatives to A.
He is making a debating point of dubious validity, not a scientific statement.
If it were true, you should be able to specify which of the possible natural variations has produced the observed effects. Include appropriate timescales and energy budgets.
Incidentally, for those complaining that a geneticist should not comment on climate change, remember that your resident climate change buff, Andrew Montford, is a chartered accountant.
Radical Rodent
Regarding your October 18th, 10.17 post.
Read AR5 and the supporting references for the details. It would, and has taken , thousands of pages to do a complete description of the evidence and analysis involved. You should also research the climatic events mentioned below.
Very briefly, the paradigm of feedback interaction between temperature and CO2 (plus other secondary and incidental forcings) successfully explains a wide variety of climate phenomena. These include snowball earths, the Permian extinction, the Pliocene, the effect of the Deccan and Siberian Traps, the PEMT, the onset of ice ages, the Milankovich cycle driven interglacial and glacial periods, the size and timescales of the cyclic changes in CO2 and temperature that accompany them, the Holocene climatic optimum, the cooling over the 1500 years to 1850 and the 20th century warming. The associated evidence and mechanisms form a coherent and consistent pattern within which all the above events fit like jigsaw parts. Some details are missing, because the science is not entirely settled, but the overall pattern has been established
By contrast, the arguments by sceptics are disorganised and disagree among themselves; often flatly contradicted by obsevation and measurement. They are negative attacks on the quality of climate research. They do not provide alternative explainations for observations, let alone valid evidence for alternative hypotheses. The arguments are often not scientific, but couched, as Parker did, as debating points.
If you want me to accept your paradigm for the climate behaviour of the Earth you will need to do much more than cast vague doubts and try to score debating points. You must present an alternative paradigm which explains 600 million years of climate better than mine.
entropic man (Oct 21, 2013 at 1:00 AM & Oct 22, 2013 at 1:48 AM) teaches us that there is indisputable evidence for CO2 being a greenhouse gas. What he does not address is the evidence to show that the Basic Greenhouse Effect (i.e. the effects of radiative absorption) is being amplified into the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect (i.e. addition feed-back effects from water vapour, clouds, etc.).
For most ‘sceptics’, this is the important question and one that David Lilley’s comment (Oct 21, 2013 at 4:31 PM ) in the ‘wilson-on-millennial-temperature-reconstructions’ thread summed up so well. Moreover, it’s an issue that AR5 has deliberately stepped back from with respect to its estimation of ‘sensitivity’.
Of course, none of this would matter if it were of purely academic interest. Unfortunately, the answer to this question has now become a driving factor in global energy policy, which is why ‘sceptics’ are so concerned and demand more evidence than a simple outline of basic greenhouse gas theory. Anything less shows a lack of understanding on the proponent’s side... or is a deliberate attempt to insult our intelligence!
Entropic man you are clearly very widely read, have a deep interest in climate and related matters and embedded within the IPCC consensus and paradigm that CO2 is the major controlling factor on Earth's climate. I respect that position. I would respect it more if you would debate under your real name. I believe that you are an ecologist and have had your own long running blog that has a strong focus on what you think is misinformation and misrepresentation of the science.
Several times in this discussion you have referred to the palaeo-data and in particular 650 ma of palaeo records. This takes us back to just about the time of the last snowball Earth events. Yo refer to the strong paradigm that CO2 can explain Earth's climate over this time period. My concern is that if that is so then it should be straightforward to ab initio determine climatic trends through this time period, explain the apparent long term periodicity of ice ages on Earth, have some predictive power to first and second order of eustatic sea level changes and explain anomalies such and glacial events during periods when background CO2 levels were 14 to 18 times greater than the present. The first order greenhouse effect might also have something to say about the faint young sun paradox.
Yes GCM and energy balance models have been run for periods in the past. Almost always they don't adequately reproduce the details of Earth surface temperature as we understand it from proxies such as latitudinal temperature gradients etc. Too often the data are 'shoe horned' into fitting a paradigm. Take snowball Earth as an example. I don't think anyone doubts that the major contributing factor to widespread ice development is a runaway albedo effect. It might be that fluctuations in CO2 levels had a part to play in initiating and terminating such events. The truth is we don't know. The carbon cycle models for these periods involve a lot of hand waving, ifs, ands and buts. As an example take one model which involves development of significant anoxia, release of large amounts of methane to provide a strongly enhanced greenhouse effect. This results in greater rates of continental weathering and drawdown of CO2 into bicarbonate and carbonate in the oceans thus a lowering of the atmospheric CO2 level. Suddenly, by some mechanism, perhaps oxidation of all the methane in the atmosphere, a cessation of global anoxic conditions etc. the methane levels in the atmosphere fall. Thus the total greenhouse capacity of the atmosphere reduces quickly because the response time of the oceans is too slow for CO2 to recover. The Earth cools, ice sheets develop, runaway albedo takes over and the planet continues to cool. Similar long chains of events are also called for at the termination of snowball Earth involving volcanic outgassing and the restoration of a super greenhouse world.
It can be argued that some of the carbon isotopic excursions that are reported from these deposits match such models. However, others do not and are conveniently forgotten about. Alsoi the excursions may be explained by other processes.
As far as I am aware the only attempt that comes close to an ab initio description of Earth's climatic variation over 3.5 billion years is the Veizer, Shaviv, Svensmaark cosmic ray model for climate. Let me explain by ab initio in this context. The cosmic ray dose received by the Earth is related to the solar systems position in the galaxy. Computing this position over geologic time allows an independent estimate of the cosmic ray dose (Shaviv's approach). Svensmaark took a different approach and used star and cluster catalogues to compute cosmic ray dose. Both approaches produce similar dose-time histories. These histories are periodic and correlate strongly with factors such as the periodicity of ice ages, eustatic sea level changes, the carbon isotope record etc.
I'm not aware of any successful attempts using the CO2 record, or models of CO2 evolution.
Now, be very clear I am not claiming that the cosmic ray theory of climate is correct. It is a theory that does from first principles explain some of the features of Earth's climate evolution. Similarly greenhouse theory also explains some features of Earth's climate. However, none are an entirely adequate description. It is almost certain that as our understanding develops we will have a far better understanding.
Now let me refer to something that Judith Curry mentioned on her blog the other day. She said that doing palaeoclimate studies is difficult. By this she meant the development and validation of proxies, their application to suitable suites of natural materials and the interpretation of data. In contrast modelling is relatively easy. The problem is that the modellers often believe that their models are experiments. Wrong! The real experiments are those that test the predictions of models and often find them wanting. To test these predictions in the palaeo record requires unbelievable amounts of time, dedication, effort and creative thinking. It also requires luck for example in finding the right geologic sequence that has not been thermally altered during diagenesis or metamorphism. Hence the record is patchy and incomplete.
As an example I've just spent more than five years working on the development of a mass spectrometer to make robust clumped isotope measurements. This has taken me into ion optic theory (yes I designed the ion optics myself and developed a new geometry for isotope ratio mass spectrometers), engineering (yes I did all the engineering drawings myself), electronics (yes...you know what's coming), software and data acquisition (yes.....). Only now are we beginning to understand some of the difficulties associated with making these measurements and the limitations of some of the early studies. The project will last for many, many more years and probably long after my retirement.
I'm not unusual in this respect. There are many innovative geochemists and geophysicists who take such an approach. Our deep embedding in the issues and knowledge and understanding of the extreme paucity of data and questions that still need to be resolved gives us a deep appreciation of the fact that paradigms as you describe them do not do very well when trying to explain the evolution of Earth's climate.
So let's have a little less of a paradigm that explains the past 650 ma of Earth's temperature record and a little more humility and respect for the experimental scientist.
So today i will be carrying out tests to understand ion-molecule interactions in the ion source of my mass spectrometer so I can better understand the data it is producing and can better tackle the question of Earth surface temperatures through geologic time. What will you be doing?
Paul Dennis (Oct 22, 2013 at 9:03 AM), many thanks for your very constructive input... scientific reasoning should always trump a politically correct 'consensus'.
Unfortunately, cognitive dissonance tends to disrupt such rational thinking in even the brightest of people.
David Salt, Paul Dennis
Let me give you two quantitative examples to show how I've derived the strength of secondary effects myself.. I use the standard CO2 forcing calculation ; delta F(W/M2)= 5.35 ln (C/Co). delta F is the change in forcing, C is the later CO2 concentration, Co is the initial concentration and 5.35 is the constant of proportionality. This gives a change in W/M2, which can be interconverted to a temperature change using the IPCCs estimate that an increase of 3.7W/M2 in energy input produces an equilibrium temperature increase of 1C.
If you examine temperature and CO2 concentration changes over the last 25,000 years you find a change from 10C and 200ppm CO2 during the last glacial period to 15C and 280ppm at the Holocene climatic optimum. (based on Marcott et al and related work)
The proximate cause is an increase in insolation of 4W/M2 due to orbital changes. This produced a direct temperature increase of 1.1C.
The increase in CO2 produced a direct wattage increase of 5.35 ln(280/200) = 1.8W/M2.
This corresponds to a temperature increase of 0.5C.
The overall change is 5C from glacial to interglacial. 1.1C is due to orbital effects and 0.5C to the direct effect of CO2. The remaining 3.4C is due to secondary forcing from reduced albedo, water vapour etc. That corresponds to an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 5/1.6 = 3.13, since the system has had time to fully adapt to the change.
An alternative calculation from the temperature record gives an increase of 0.8C from 1880 to the present, accompanied by a CO2 increase from 280ppm to 400ppm.
The direct effect of the CO2 increase is a wattage increase of 5.35ln(400/280) = 1.9W/M2
This a temperature change of 1.9/3.7 = 0.5C. This gives a transient climate response, including secondary effects, of 0.8/0.5 = 1.6. Note that the equilibrium climate sensitivty will be higher than this since there is still an imbalance between insolation and outgoing radiation, indicating that we have not yet reached equilibrium.
By the way, I have no blog. I'm a retired science teacher whose children prefer not to be embarassed on Google by my strange hobby.
Entropic Man, first my apologies for mis-identifying you. I wouldn't worry about embarassing your children. It's a lot better than dancing in front of them!
Thanks for posting your calculation. First I see you are using 5 degrees C for the global temperature change between the lGM and the pre-industrial period. This estimate is based on land temperature proxies. If you use the oceanic CLIMAP reconstruction estimate you will get just 3 degrees. Second you are assuming that there are just two components to the radiative forcing: (i) driven by orbital changes, and (ii) that associated with CO2 and accompanying feedbacks and that these are well understood. Your estimate of just 5.8W/m^2 are somewhat lower than other estimates which have ranged up to 7W/m^2.
Let's just take the reduce estimate of global temperature change and redo your calculation you find that just 1.4 degrees C is due to secondary forcing. This, by your calculation, reduces your equilibrium climate sensitivity to less than 2.
Now if one tries to include other factors such as estimates of the radiative forcing associated with cosmic ray flux changes then the equilibrium climate sensitivity reduces even further.
There is a growing body of literature on these estimates that calculate equilibrium climate sensitivity over a range of different time scales including the modern, LGM-modern, 11 year solar cycle, the Eocene and mid-Cretaceous and the whole of the Phanerozoic. These show that taking ab initio estimates of CRF flux changes into account then all these estimates converge on an equilibrium climate sensitivity is close to 0.35 K per W/m^2. This gives a Delta T for a doubling of CO2 at about 1.3 degrees C.
These estimates are close to the more recent estimates based on the modern temperature record that have been published and well discussed on this and other blogs.
I hope that I have indicated just how difficult it is to arrive at a climate sensitivity using palaeo data. First one needs to have an accurate assessment of the temperature changes and even for the LGM to present day this is difficult. Does one base it on land based proxies or the marine record. Perhaps one should include both? Do we understand the changes in radiative fluxes. We can calculate the orbital driven changes, and that associated with CO2. What about albedo changes? What about CRF changes. Irrespective of the mechanism there does appear to be an amplification factor for solar changes.
I think I'd probably argue that your estimate lies at the high end and is probably somewhat out on a long tail of the probability distribution. The new, lower estimates appear to lie much closer to the peak of the PDF's.
Anyway Entropic man do look through some of the literature. I'd like to know what you think about some of these approaches. If anything they are stimulating and provocative and force us to think more deeply about climatic processes and sensitivity.
The work I reported on here is by NIr Shaviv and colleagues.
Ziskin, S., & Shaviv, N. J. (2012). Quantifying the role of solar radiative forcing over the 20th century. ADVANCES IN SPACE RESEARCH, 50, 762–776.
Shaviv, N. J. (2008). Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing. J. Geophys. Res, 113(A11), A11101–. doi:10.1029/2007JA012989
Shaviv, N. J. (2005). On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget. Journal of Geophysical Research.
You'll notice that these are published in main stream, well respected journals and the arguments are presented in great detail.
Please will you guys stop ruining threads by letting trolls draw you off the topic and into underground tunnels
- either don't feed the trolls
- or if you want to discuss radiative physics etc..Click DISCUSSION on the toolbar at the top of the page, then you can create your own thread and have a discussion there ... your discussion will be tidy there
- and the topic here will be tidy aswell
Paul Dennis
My last post was an illustration to David of the scale of secondary forcings and how I tend to do my own calculations where possible, rather than just relying on what I'm told. As you say, by taking values such as past insolation from different sources one can produce higher or lower sensitivities. It can be tempting to pick the highest or lowest to suit your preference, something to be resisted!
I like doing my own calculations where possible. I've validated the connections between insolation/radiation imbalance, ocean heat uptake, ice melting and sea level and had the energy values and observations balance like company accounts. This strengthens my own confidence in the paradigm, that different segments of observation and physics match so well.
Your middle link failed. I found the others unconvincing. Shaviv has a tendency to assume that a non-solar component such as cosmic rays is a driver when a more conventional secondary forcing would do the same job. To convince anyone mainstream he would need to be much more rigourous in excluding other possible causes.
I have also read what's been released by the ongoing CLOUD experiment group at CERN. On the basis of their results so far, variations in cosmic ray intensity experienced in modern times do not have enough effect to significantly affect climate. A nearby gamma ray burster or supernove might produce a significant effect, but we'd be fried by the radiation dose and in no position to care about minor climatic effects!
Entropic man, rather than continue the debate here as stew has requested let's take it elsewhere if you'd like to. I think it is an important topic and one that is gaining traction. You will easily find my email on the web.