The forcing of global climate towards higher energy/heat overal, through pumping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
It’s Water Vapor, Not the CO2
“Forget the CO2. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It controls the Earth’s temperature.”
It’s true that water vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect. On average, it probably accounts for about 60% of the warming effect.
...adding more water vapor to the atmosphere could produce a negative feedback effect. This could happen if more water vapor leads to more cloud formation. Clouds reflect sunlight and reduce the amount of energy that reaches the Earth’s surface to warm it. If the amount of solar warming decreases, then the temperature of the Earth would decrease. In that case, the effect of adding more water vapor would be cooling rather than warming....The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research.
...earth's greenhouse gases, most notably the increase in anthropogenic CO2, but also methane (which also has a strong human component) that is causing the warming.
Do try actually reading some of the applicable science. Any of the IPCC's Summaries for Policymakers are written to be intelligible for nonscientists. It might surprise you, probably would, to know that ALL of the relevant variables, including H20, and cloud cover are included and quantified and evaluated for significance. it seems like most of the deniers only read the denialist blogs and never look at the actual science, which proves what tommyrot the denisalists spout.
...many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC.
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2010 as the Climategate scandal — which involved the upper echelon of UN IPCC scientists — detonated upon on the international climate movement.
“I view Climategate as science fraud, pure and simple,” said noted Princeton Physicist Dr. Robert Austin shortly after the scandal broke.
Climategate prompted UN IPCC scientists to turn on each other. UN IPCC scientist Eduardo Zorita publicly declared that his Climategate colleagues Michael Mann and Phil Jones “should be barred from the IPCC process…They are not credible anymore.”
Zorita also noted how insular the IPCC science had become. “By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication,” Zorita wrote.
A UN lead author Richard Tol grew disillusioned with the IPCC and lamented that it had been “captured” and demanded that “the Chair of IPCC and the Chairs of the IPCC Working Groups should be removed.”
Tol also publicly called for the “suspension” of IPCC Process in 2010 after being invited by the UN to participate as lead author again in the next IPCC Report.
Other UN scientists were more blunt. A South African UN scientist declared the UN IPCC a “worthless carcass” and noted IPCC chair Pachauri is in “disgrace”. He also explained that the “fraudulent science continues to be exposed.”
Alexander, a former member of the UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters harshly critiqued the UN. “‘I was subjected to vilification tactics at the time. I persisted. Now, at long last, my persistence has been rewarded…There is no believable evidence to support [the IPCC] claims.
“Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!” — NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein who worked 35 years at the NASA Langley Research Center and finished his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.
Nobel Prize-Winning Stanford University Physicist Dr. Robert B. Laughlin, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1998, and was formerly a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said:
“In essence, the jig is up. The whole thing is a fraud. And even the fraudsters that fudged data are admitting to temperature history that they used to say didn’t happen…Perhaps what has doomed the Climategate fraudsters the most was their brazenness in fudging the data”
“I am an environmentalist,” but “I must disagree with Mr. Gore” — Chemistry Professor Dr. Mary Mumper, the chair of the Chemistry Department at Frostburg State University in Maryland:
“I am ashamed of what climate science has become today.” The science “community is relying on an inadequate model to blame CO2 and innocent citizens for global warming in order to generate funding and to gain attention. If this is what ‘science’ has become today, I, as a scientist, am ashamed.”
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Russian Scientist Dr. Anatoly Levitin, the head of geomagnetic variations laboratory at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
“Hundreds of billion dollars have been wasted with the attempt of imposing a Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory that is not supported by physical world evidences…AGW has been forcefully imposed by means of a barrage of scare stories and indoctrination that begins in the elementary school textbooks.”
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Research Chemist William C. Gilbert published a study in August 2010 in the journal Energy & Environment titled “The thermodynamic relationship between surface temperature and water vapor concentration in the troposphere” and he published a paper in August 2009 titled “Atmospheric Temperature Distribution in a Gravitational Field.” [Update December 9, 2010]
“The dysfunctional nature of the climate sciences is nothing short of a scandal. Science is too important for our society to be misused in the way it has been done within the Climate Science Community.” The global warming establishment “has actively suppressed research results presented by researchers that do not comply with the dogma of the IPCC.”
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Renowned engineer and aviation/space pioneer Burt Rutan, who was named “100 most influential people in the world, 2004″ by Time Magazine and Newsweek called him “the man responsible for more innovations in modern aviation than any living engineer.”
“Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytizing the new faith…My skepticism about AGW arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.”
Anyone remember when George Carlin was just the "hippy-dippy weatherman?"
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EboOdu6pbr4[/youtube]
Trump says he has to end press briefings in order to get on with the nation's business.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0wHX-Jb_Yo[/youtube]
Do try actually reading some of the applicable science. Any of the IPCC's Summaries for Policymakers are written to be intelligible for nonscientists. It might surprise you, probably would, to know that ALL of the relevant variables, including H20, and cloud cover are included and quantified and evaluated for significance. it seems like most of the deniers only read the denialist blogs and never look at the actual science, which proves what tommyrot the denisalists spout.
255 Leading Scientists, 11 Nobel Laureates Write Letter Supporting Climate Scientists & Climate Science
5
Published on May 7th, 2010
Tagged: climate scientists, Global Warming, Global Warming, NAS, National Academy of Sciences, Nobel, science
A stunning letter of support for climate scientists and climate science from hundreds of leading world scientists was published in the journal Science today.
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You could hardly ask for a stronger letter of support for climate scientists and the conclusions they have made. You could hardly ask for a more qualified group of people to independently confirm the work of climate scientists and deem it important that we act on their findings. This is a remarkable show of support for good-intentioned scientists who have been beaten down by the media and others in the past year.
255 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, have just published (today) a stunning “Lead Letter” in the journal Science.
The letter, titled, “Climate Change and the Integrity of Science,” starts off:
“We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular.”
As lead signatory of the letter, Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick, says in Huffington Post coverage of this inspiring climate change story:
“It is hard to get 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to agree on pretty much anything, making the import of this letter even more substantial.”
Rather than beat around the bush any further, here is the brilliant letter re-posted in full:
We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.
Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial— scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”
For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5bn years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14bn years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: there is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.
Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected.
But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:
(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
Much more can be, and has been, said by the world’s scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business- as-usual practices. We urge our policymakers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels.
We also call for an end to McCarthy- like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: we can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.
For names of the signatories, visit the “Climate Change and the Integrity of Science” page.
via Climate Progress
Image Credit: .David Blackwell. via flickr/CC license
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We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular.
....the Cjmategaters misinterpreted what they hacked.
Prominent physicist Hal Lewis resigned from American Physical Society, calling “Global warming the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life.”
UK astrophysicist Piers Corbyn was blunt about what Climategate revealed: “The case for climate fears is blown to smithereens…the whole theory should be destroyed and discarded and UN conference should be closed.”
As the global warming edifice crumbled in 2010, the movement lost one of its leading lights due to the Climategate revelations. Dr. Judith Curry, the chair of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at GA Institute of Tech, explained her defection from the global warming activist movement. “There is ‘a lack of willingness in the climate change community to steer away from groupthink…’
They are setting themselves up as second-rate scientists by not engaging,” Curry wrote in 2010. Curry critiqued the UN IPCC for promoting “dogma” and clinging to the “religious importance” of the IPCC’s claims. “They will tolerate no dissent and seek to trample anyone who challenges them,” Curry lamented.
“The IPCC assessment process had a substantial element of schoolyard bullies, trying to insulate their shoddy science from outside scrutiny and attacks by skeptics…the IPCC and its conclusions were set on a track to become a self fulfilling prophecy,” Curry wrote.
Curry called the Climategate fallout nothing short of a “rather spectacular unraveling of the climate change juggernaut…I immediately realized that [Climategate] could bring down the IPCC…I became concerned about the integrity of our entire field…While my colleagues seemed focused on protecting the reputations of the scientists involved and assuring people that the ‘science hadn’t changed.
Climate Scientist Mike Hulme took apart a key claim. Hulme noted that claims such as “2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate” are disingenuous. Hulme noted that the key scientific case for Co2 driving global warming was reached by a very small gaggle of people. “That particular consensus judgment, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts..."
Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails in the "Climategate" Manufactured Controversy
The manufactured controversy over emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit has generated a lot more heat than light. The email content being quoted does not indicate that climate data and research have been compromised. Most importantly, nothing in the content of these stolen emails has any impact on our overall understanding that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming. Media reports and contrarian claims that they do are inaccurate.
Investigations Clear Scientists of Wrongdoing
Six official investigations have cleared scientists of accusations of wrongdoing.
A three-part Penn State University cleared scientist Michael Mann of wrongdoing.
Two reviews commissioned by the University of East Anglia"supported the honesty and integrity of scientists in the Climatic Research Unit."
A UK Parliament report concluded that the emails have no bearing on our understanding of climate science and that claims against UEA scientists are misleading.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Inspector General's office concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing on behalf of their employees.
The National Science Foundation's Inspector General's office concluded, "Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct...we are closing this investigation with no further action."
Other agencies and media outlets have investigated the substance of the emails.
The Environmental Protection Agency, in response to petitions against action to curb heat-trapping emissions, dismissed attacks on the science rooted in the stolen emails.
Factcheck.org debunked claims that the emails put the conclusions of climate science into question.
Politifact.com rated claims that the emails falsify climate science as "false."
An Associated Press review of the emails found that they "don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions."
Background Information
Scientists Statement—An Open Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails (pdf)
Letter from James McCarthy, a former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author, to Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) (pdf)
Press Releases and Factchecks
Nov. 23, 2009—Contrarians Using Hacked E-mails to Attack Climate Science
Dec. 02, 2009—Members of Congress Advance Climate Change Conspiracy Theories
Dec. 02, 2009—More Scientists Join Call to Reject Stolen E-mail Claims
Dec. 04, 2009—Top U.S. Scientists Tell Congress Stolen Emails Have No Bearing on Climate Science
Dec. 17, 2009—Factcheck: Sen. Inhofe Can't Even Get the Dates Right on Stolen Emails
Dec. 18, 2009—UCS Urges Rep. Sensenbrenner to Stop Attacking Scientists
Dec. 23, 2009—Patrick Michales Falsely Blaims Content of Stolen Emails for Resignations at Climate Science Journal
Additional Resources
Real Climate has been following the hacked e-mail story with posts from scientists explaining what phrases in various e-mails mean.
Phil Jones did an interview with the The Guardian on the e-mails.
Michael Mann covered several of the claims on DeSmog Blog.
Michael Mann repsonded to an op-ed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the Washington Post.
Some news organizations have misreported critical aspects of the stolen email story. There is no evidence scientists did anything with temperature data they weren't already doing openly in peer-reviewed papers.
At this time, there is no evidence that scientists "fudged," "manipulated" or "manufactured" data. These unsupported claims, based on taking the emails out of context, are being promoted by long-time anti-science opponents of climate change legislation. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the University of East Anglia and Penn State University are separately looking into the contents of the stolen emails to assess these claims.
While the emails have raised some concerns, the email content being quoted does not indicate that climate data and research have been compromised. Most importantly, nothing in the content of these stolen emails has any impact on our overall understanding that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming. Media reports and contrarian claims that they do are inaccurate.
University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit Director Phil Jones wasn't "hiding" anything that wasn't already being openly discussed in scientific papers. He was using a "trick"—a technique—published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
This email exchange from 1999 seems to refer to scientists examining past climate data and communicating with one another about it. In particular, Jones is talking about how scientists compare temperature data from thermometers with temperature data derived from tree rings. Comparing that data allows scientists to derive past temperature data for several centuries before accurate thermometer measurements were available. The global average surface temperature since 1880 is based on thermometer and satellite temperature measurements.
The "trick" is actually a technique (in other words, a "trick of the trade") used in a peer-reviewed, academic science journal article published in 1998. "Hiding the decline," another phrase that has received much attention, refers to another technique used in another academic science journal article. In any case, no one was tricking anyone or hiding anything. Rather, this email exchange shows scientists communicating about different ways to look at the same data that were being discussed at the time in the peer-reviewed literature. Later the same data were discussed at length in a 2007 IPCC report.
In some parts of the world, tree rings are a good substitute for temperature record. Trees form a ring of new growth every growing season. Generally, warmer temperatures produce thicker tree rings, while colder temperatures produce thinner ones. Other factors, such as precipitation, soil properties, and the tree's age also can affect tree ring growth.
The "trick," which was used in a paper published in 1998 in the science journal Nature, is to combine the older tree ring data with thermometer data. Combining the two data sets can be difficult, and scientists are always interested in new ways to make temperature records more accurate.
Tree rings are a largely consistent source of data for the past 2,000 years. But since the 1960s, scientists have noticed there are a handful of tree species in certain areas that appear to indicate temperatures that are warmer or colder than we actually know they are from direct thermometer measurement at weather stations.
"Hiding the decline" in this email refers to omitting data from some Siberian trees after 1960. This omission was openly discussed in the latest climate science update in 2007 from the IPCC, so it is not "hidden" at all.
Why Siberian trees? In the Yamal region of Siberia, there is a small set of trees with rings that are thinner than expected after 1960 when compared with actual thermometer measurements there. Scientists are still trying to figure out why these trees are outliers. Some analyses have left out the data from these trees after 1960 and have used thermometer temperatures instead.
Techniques like this help scientists reconstruct past climate temperature records based on the best available data.
In another email, Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, wrote that systems for observing short-term annual climate variation are inadequate and complained: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't…. Our observing system is inadequate."
Scientists have high confidence about global temperature trends over recent decades because those observations are based on a massive amount of data. That's why we can say with certainty that over the past several decades, the Earth has warmed. We can also say with certainty that continuing to overload the atmosphere with carbon dioxide will cause it to warm further.
But scientists are still trying to understand how the climate shifts in the short term, on a year-to-year basis for instance. In this email, Trenberth is bemoaning the lack of monitoring equipment in the ocean and atmosphere around the world that would give scientists more information to help understand exactly how short-term climate variation happens. In particular, he references 2008, which was cooler than scientists expected, but still among the 10 warmest years since instrumental records began.
The sentiments in Trenberth's private email reflect his public communication. Trenberth talked about this same issue in a scientific paper in 2009 (pdf), in which he addresses this exact question.
There is no clear evidence to date that scientists violated important principles of scientific integrity. And the emails do not undermine the science.
Some emails relating to avoiding freedom of information requests and keeping articles out of journals have raised concerns about scientific integrity. Scientists should always be as open as possible with their data and methods. Transparency is critical for accountability on all sides. For his part, Phil Jones claims he didn't delete any email messages in response to freedom of information requests. If he did, that conduct would be wrong. But to date, there is no evidence that any emails were deleted.
Science must be viewed in context. When one places the emails in context, they don't amount to much—and as noted above, they do not undermine climate data or research. Likewise, it is important to understand the scientific integrity claims against the scientists in context.
Regardless of whether the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit staff complied with freedom of information requests, their data is still rigorous and matches the three other independent temperature data sets at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Japanese Meteorological Society.
Much has been made about emails regarding a certain paper that some scientists did not think should have been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. These emails focus on a paper on solar variability in the climate over time. It was published in a peer-reviewed journal called Climate Research, but under unusual circumstances. Half of the editorial board of Climate Research resigned in protest against what they felt was a failure of the peer review process. The paper, which argued that current warming was unexceptional, was disputed by scientists whose work was cited in the paper. Many subsequent publications set the record straight, which demonstrates how the peer review process over time tends to correct such lapses. Scientists later discovered that the paper was funded by the American Petroleum Institute.
In a later e-mail, Phil Jones references two other papers he didn't hold in high esteem. "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
Yet, the papers in question made it into the IPCC report, indicating that no restrictions on their incorporation were made. The IPCC process contains hundreds of authors and reviewers, with an exacting and transparent review process.
The fact that groups opposing action on climate change are crying "conspiracy" shows how desperate they are to discredit scientists.
The thousands of stolen emails span more than a decade. Whoever stole them could only produce a handful of messages that, when taken out of context, might seem suspicious to people who are not familiar with the intimate details of climate science.
Opponents of climate action have been attacking climate science for years. The fact that out-of-context personal attacks on scientists are the most successful argument they can offer speaks volumes about their failure to gain any traction by arguing against the evidence.
Their strategy has unfortunate consequences, too. On December 8, the Guardian reported that University of East Anglia scientists have been receiving death threats.
The timing of the publication of these emails should make us suspicious about the motivations of the people who hacked them.
The stolen emails were published just two weeks ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen. According to a British newspaper, they were originally hacked in October. Whoever published these emails likely wanted to spread misinformation about climate science to try to undermine the conference. The University of East Anglia, which housed the emails, has launched an investigation to determine who stole them.
Scientists are as human as anybody else.
Some of the other emails simply show scientists expressing frustration and—in one email—even talking (not seriously, we hope) about beating up someone who had, in his view, made an unfair, public attack on his colleague. Such chatter is not surprising to find in private emails. But they have generated widespread attention in part because they don't mesh with the public's image of scientists.
Scientists have a wide array of dispositions. But regardless of how scientists act, they should all advance their arguments through evidence and valid scientific interpretations. The process of science is what is important. Over time, rigorous analyses, vetted through expert peer review, tend to weed out poorly substantiated arguments. And only the best explanations for how the world works—such as the obvious evidence that excess carbon dioxide emissions are driving global warming—survive the process.
Once respected global warming stalwarts like NASA’s James Hansen descended into political and ideological activism by being arrested multiple times protesting coal use. Hansen also endorsed a book which calls for ‘”ridding the world of Industrial Civilization”. Hansen declared the author “has it right…the system is the problem.”
Hansen did this despite the fact that the book proposes ‘”razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine.” The Grist eco-magazine writer David Roberts noted in August 2010: “‘I know I’m not supposed to say this, but James Hansen managed his transition from scientist to activist terribly. All influence lost.”
