London-based critic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) David Henderson has made some suggestions for reform of the IPCC process in a mini-report titled ‘Challenging the IPCC Monopoly: The Way Ahead’, Download file (104 Kb).
Henderson acknowledges the enormousness of the challenges facing the IPCC and its considerable achievements including in bringing together 2,000 specialists to write and publish “three massive and agreed reports covering the range of issues relating to climate change”. In achieving this Henderson notes that, “the IPCC has established itself in the eyes of its member governments as their sole authoritative source of information, evidence, analysis, interpretation and advice on a whole range of issues relating to climate change.”
That was perhaps the situation in Australia, but since Tim Flannery published the Weather Makers, well according to our federal environment minister, it now informs government policy on climate change issues. 🙂
And this was perhaps the situation prior to the publication of the House of Lords Select Committee Report and the recent US Senate Select Committee Hearings (mentioned in this earlier post).
Building on the momentum from the House of Lords’ Report, Henderson wants the IPCC process to:
1.Include more economists including the central economic departments of participating governments and/or for the OECD to prepare an economic assessment in the context of the upcoming fourth assessment report (due out in November 2007).
2.Replace the ‘peer review’ process Further to the peer review process, establish a formal audit procedure to sit behind ‘the science’ in the fourth assessment report. Henderson makes mention of the American Economic Review policy which requires that data and computer code in sufficient detail to permit replication by others be submitted as a precondition for publication of articles based on the same.
3. Support the publication of “an alternative and rival overall assessment to that of the IPCC”. Henderson provides as an example,the establishment by the US government in the 1970s of an alternative assessment by a small group of experts of the Soviet strategic threat in addition to advice provided by the “authorised established source” which was the CIA. The group of experts, which became known as ‘Team B’, apparently provided a useful report. Given the number of critics of the IPCC process – what about giving them an official role?
There are indeed many credentialed scientists and economists who could be brought in to provide an official counterpoint. Henderson suggests this be through “an international consortium of think-tanks”.
I prefer the idea of a small group of well qualified expert critics forced to work within the United Nation’s IPCC framework and with full access to the drafts of the developing fourth assessment report.
…………..
I am reminded of a comment from Richard Epstein:
“When I’m confident I’m right, I want people to disagree with me out of hand. Otherwise, I run the risk of a kind of complacency which can lead to the loss of a cutting edge. I’m perfectly used to living in a world in which most people disagree.”
UPDATE No. 1
November 2nd, 1pm. I have received comment that David’s report (see link above) states that the audit process should ‘further’ rather than ‘replace’ the peer review process. I have modified the relevant paragraph accordingly.
UPDATE No. 2
November 2nd, 10.30pm.
Ian Castles has asked that I provide a link to the McKitrick paper title ‘Science and environmental policy-making: bias-proofing the assessment process’ TO DOWNLOAD FILE CLICK HERE (204KBS). Ian commented that, “As the initial postings on your site have immediately talked about the ‘hockey stick’ debate, and one of them has questioned whether David is ‘fair dinkum’ because he cites McKitrick, I think that it would be useful if you could provide a link to this paper by one of the two Canadians who initiated the debate. He provides a useful summary of the debate as it stood last April, and also gives some thoughts about improving the IPCC process.
Note that Ross quotes Australian Minister Ian Campbell (p. 287) & explains why Campbell (and the world’s governments) are wrong in assuming that the IPCC processes are rigorous.”
UPDATE No.3
November 3rd, 9.30am
David Henderson has emailed the following issues with my summary of his report (report can be accessed at link in above post):
1. You say that I ‘want the IPCC process’ to ‘Support the publication of an overall and rival assessment’. I don’t say this: I suggest that governments should set up such a mechanism, outside and independently of the IPCC. This is a fundamental point: the suggestions I make go beyond your summary description of them as ‘suggestions for reform of the IPCC process’.
2. I do not suggest that ‘an international consortium of think-tanks’ ‘could be brought in to provide an official counterpoint’. Only governments can take official action, and the idea of a consortium comes under my last heading of ‘The unofficial critique’.
3. I didn’t suggest that ‘more economists’ should be brought in ‘to prepare an economic assessment in the context of [AR4}’. What I say about improving the treatment of economic issues is not closely linked to AR4.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I agree with points 1 and would be interested to know whether there is in fact any impediment to an economist getting involved in IPCC work.
On point 2…. that sounds a little dodgy. “Formal audit process” might sound impressive, but getting agreement on the rules will be hard – peer review works pretty well and the entire world gets to scrutinise the paper. I’m not convinced that there are any problems with access to data of researchers. I think that there is a fair likelihood that this ‘formal audit process’, whatever it is, would be prone to corruption and bias to a greater extent than peer review.
Point 3 – i fully support this. Currently there are a multitude of Team B’s out there with zero credibility, but who still get put before US Senate Committees and interviewed on the news and counterpoint and places like that ad nauseum, and who set up their own weblogs to spread their twisted message. A formal ‘Team B’ sounds like a good idea – so the skeptics can be subject to a high level of public scrutiny as well.
Jen – Yep fair enough …
BUT
(1) economists will get involved in debates on internal rates or retrun, intergenerational equity etc – hope their analysis actually helps. And how many dollars do we put on a Bangladeshi peasant’s life versus a well educated public servant from Canberra or a banker from New York ?
(2) the atmosphere doesn’t really care about any analysis or economic system; while we’re debating it’s doing its physical thing. SO don’t think economics can stop the tide coming in.
(3) yep anyway lah de dah – so let’s do some better economic analysis – but nothing stopping that now as Steve above says. And IPCC should be using the latest and best techniques.
(4) Team B has to be fair dinkum – none of the nonsense that the current spectics and sophists peddle and their analyses and codes need to be put up as well. Can’t have it both ways.
(5) What’s better than peer review in the end. Might need stronger peer review, defined peer review with mandatory checks, or review of the peer review. But having some all powerful controlling body worries me. Isn’t that our politicians job ?
But the issue of fair dinkum worries me – for example Henderson’s document still peddles the McKitrick line despite the facts.
The facts being (a) they still haven’t overturned Mann – analysis holds up
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=199
(b) there are other corroborating reconstructions
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/10/increase-in-temperature-in-20th.html
(c) does anyone understand the complex multi-variate stats involved ??
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/ 2005-11-01
The Big Picture article
(d) anyway if Hockey Stick was wrong – who cares
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=114
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000618invitation_to_mcinty.html
So given Henderson knows all this (or ought to !!) his persistence with the Hockey Stick attack makes me feel he’s not fair dinkum….
But if they want to do a proper job – bring it on !!
Comment sent to me ‘offline’:
You say “I prefer the idea of a small group of well qualified expert critics forced to work within the United Nation’s IPCC framework and with full access to the drafts of the developing fourth assessment report.”
There’s no way that this can happen. There are established processes, agreed to by 180 governments or thereabouts, which restrict the circulation of draft IPCC chapters to those selected by the Working Group writing teams for the purpose of reviewing the chapters. The review comments go to the lead authors only (after the publication of the report they are supposed to be placed in a public archive for 5 years, but I’ve had no answer to requests I’ve made for access to review comments of sections of the last Assessment Report).
A proposal to bring in “expert critics” for AR4 wouldn’t be within the IPCC framework & wouldn’t be agreed to by governments.
In response to (d) Who cares?”, let me quote from a posting made by Willis Eschenbach yesterday on Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog:
The Hockeystick Discussion is important because:
1. It speaks to the integrity of science. I know of no other branch of science where it is the norm to refuse to reveal scientific methods and data. Yet among climate scientists this is common practice, particularly among paleodendrochronologists.
2. It speaks to the scientific rigor of the IPCC. The hockeystick, and the hockeystick alone, was the reason for the claims that this was the warmest century in the last long time. It was accepted without replication, and inserted in the IPCC document by one of the IPCC lead authors. The IPCC is supposed to be about solid, verified, proven science, not a lead author
Ian,
1. MAnn et al. didn’t withhold data
2. The hockeystick has been replicated by multiple groups
3. The smear of Mann et al. is completely misleading and wrong. He didn’t withhold data, you can replicate his results, and this was pointed out in MAnn et als response to that ridiculous Barton letter.
You could take a read of discussion relating to Mann et als work by doing quick search’s at this website: http://www.timlambert.org or http://www.realclimate.org
both of which would offer a good counterpoint to McIntyre’s website.
Maybe you could give Jennifer some material to post on the economic analysis – I hear you have done good work in this respect.
Phil Done: You say that McIntyre & McKitrick (M&M) “still haven’t overturned Mann – analysis holds up”,.
Let’s take it point by point:
(1) Mann Bradley & Hughes (MBH) said that their method is “robust” with respect to the different proxies they used.
(2) M&M have shown that the MBH result depends virtually entirely on a study of some North American bristlecones, which are an infinitesimal proportion of the full suite of proxies used.
(3) In any case, no expert (least of all the scientists who produced the bristlecone series in question) regards the bristlecone series as a temperature proxy.
(4) MBH have provided NO answer to this criticism.
(5) Instead, they completely contradict their claim of robustness by saying that to test the model for its sensitivity to bristlecones is to “throw away data”. How does one test for the presence/absence of bristlecones except by doing the analysis with and without bristlecones?
I submit that the analysis DOESN’T hold up unless someone can show that one or other of propositions (1), (2), (4) or (5) is wrong. (I believe that (3) is right also, but demonstrating that (3) is wrong still wouldn’t save the MBH analysis.
Steve, Thank you for your comment. I’m familiar with both of the websites you mention. Could I suggest that you read the essay by Hans von Storch, the head of Germany’s respected GKSS (Coastal Research Institute) at
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000486hans_von_storch_on_b.html
I draw your attention in particular to Professor von Storch’s statement that:
“The IPCC has failed to ensure that the assessment reports, which shall review the existing published knowledge and knowledge claims, should have been prepared by scientists not significantly involved in the research themselves. Instead, the IPCC has chosen to invite scientists, who dominate the debate about the considered issues, to participate in the assessment. This was already in the Second Assessment Report a contested problem, and the IPCC would have done better in inviting other, considerably more independent scientists for this task. Instead, the IPCC has asked scientists like Professor Mann to review his own work. This does not represent an “independent” review.
The NSF [i.e. The US National Science Foundation] seems to have failed to ensure that sufficient information is provided about work done under its auspices.
Rep. Barton should also have asked the editors of ‘Nature’, why the original manuscript was accepted for publication even though the key aspect of replicability was obviously not met by the MBH manuscript … I believe the reasons for Nature were the journalistic reasons – namely the expected broad interest in the subject. One should also ask why after the critique [by] McIntyre and McKitrick only MBH got the opportunity for a correction of his paper, whereas the short manuscript of their opponents was rejected.”
You might also like to glance at the article “How Global Warming Research is Creating a Climate of Fear”, by Professor von Storch and a German colleague which appeared in “Der Spiegel” and is available online in an English version.
Finally, on your statement that “The smear of Mann is completely misleading and wrong”, I would be interested to know whether you believe the letter purporting to be from Professor Mann, and sent to the Dutch journalist Marcel Crok, which is available at http://www.natutech.nl/nieuwsDetail.lasso?ID=2565 , is genuine. If it is, do you still think that Mann is the one being smeared? Crok was not intimated by Mann’s bluster and wrote an excellent review of the MBH saga, which has already won at least two prizes for journalism.
Ian – Professor Mann complied with all reasonable requests for data. 4 or 5 other teams of scientists managed to duplicate his work from the supplied data. As neither M&M are climate scientists or indeed scientists at all they had difficulty and of course blamed Professor Mann et al.
Von Storch is entitled to his opinion however his stance is quite clear from this article http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/von_Storch/perspective.pdf
where he says
“we are not claiming that the present concept of global warming is flawed. We are convinced that greenhouse gases are accumulating in the air, and strongly believe that near-surface temperatures are rising in response”
Also he has completed a study of Mann etals methods and the conclusion is that:
“Specifically, von Storch and Zorita show that in a GCM model emulation of the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH) method, changing the PC normalisation technique makes no difference to the eventual reconstruction (i.e. it is not the normalisation that creates the ‘hockeystick’), consistent with earlier conclusions”
Wow – look at them chase that bunny …
Here we go Hockey Stick debate 5,020 !
We could send the meter off into infinity on the subject.
I think this whole area has now become so muddied and tarnished that we could blog each other into oblivion on pros and cons.
Let’s take 2 propositions to move forward to save the argument
(1) is there independent evidence of Mann’s work – yep
(2) what would happen if Mann was wrong anyway – AGW story diminished by 5% at best – the story doesn’t hinge on that graph
BUT McKitrick et al have been found wanting in the washup to date. No doubt they’ll be pot-shotting at each other a bit more – filling up those journals.
Time to move on … and by the time we get to 4AR things will be so much stronger not weaker on the whole case.
And just think for a moment – if the Medieval warming was greater than today’s temp and worldwide in scope – well with the current level of CO2 I’m even more worried….
“Research misconduct” indeed – jeez you Lavoisier guys are soooo creepy.
Thanks, Ender. I’ve been following M&M’s efforts to prize data out of Professor Mann for years
Phil you say *jeez you Lavoisier guys are soooo creepy*
Who’s a Lavoisier guy?
Is that someone who doesnt agree with you?
Your arguments are so complex, convoluted and nuanced; you are your own worst enemy.
Elsewhere Ender employs the termite analogy and guess what, I see Billy Bunter on the telly using the same re terrorist threats. Must have white ants on the brain.
Syncopation, synchronicity or serendipity you urban warriors are weird.
Phil Done: I thought I was responding to your claim that M&M’s analysis “still holds up”, Is your comment beginning “Wow” intended as a response to my point-by-point explanation that it doesn’t?
Ender – see if the response count gets to a record. They think they’re onto something.
Don’t you love Hockey Stick debates – let’s start yelling … hey you look at my information – no you look at mine … etc etc etc
Rog – yes yes – go back to being the cheer squad role or otherwise encounter a deceased Ursus americanus .
Phil,
Ian Castles has made some pretty specific and testable comments about bristle cone data. This seems to be a key issue of interpretation because the comments imply the hockey stick conclusion is based on weak data. Your response so far gives the impression of ignoring the point. Since you previously had mocked the hockey stick akeptics the onus lies with you to treat this comment seriously: so whats the response?
I suspect our usual suspects don’t actually understand PCA (oltherwise known as Factor analysis) and the statistics involved, let alone the realisation that correlations between two physical phenomena is not proof of causation – the logical fallacy that as my cat has 4 legs as my dog, then my cat is a dog.
As for Lavoisier types, we pay to be members of that Group, and I find the ad hominem problematical.
I asked for raw temperature data and was sent off to the Jone’s site – the only raw data are the absolute temps of the reference year, in an ascii file that has no metadata to explain what is what – one has to then read Jones et al 1999 to work it out, which I will in due course, of course.
As for Mann et al, they still have not released their code – and from the statistical dissection Steve McIntyre and others performing on the issue, I would think twice before supporting the Hockey Stick team.
detribe – and it’s all old news….read my original post this thread …
Steve, This is in response to your inquiry about whether there is in fact an impediment to economists becoming involved in IPCC work.
Some eminent economists were involved in the IPCC Assessments in the 1990s, including Nobel Laureate Jo Stiglitz and the late Professor David Pearce who was the Specialist Adviser to the recent House of Lords Committee inquiry into The Economics of Climate Change which made the strong criticisms of the IPCC to which David Henderson refers in his paper. In evidence to that Committee, the environmental economist Richard Tol, who was a lead author for the Second and Third Assessment Report, said that he had not been nominated by the government of his adopted country (Germany) because “for working groups 2 and 3, only people with close connections to the Green Party have been nominated to the IPCC, and that excludes me immediately.”
Ross McKitrick said in his written evidence to the House of Lords Committee that the IPCC “appears to have little or no working relationship with the mainstream academic economics community”, and noted that “none of the participants of our annual research study group [of economists working in the fields of natural resources, energy and environmental economics], numbering close to one hundred members drawn from universities across Canada and the US, is involved with the IPCC or had any hand in the SRES Report.” (There was no Australian among the 53 authors and 89 reviews of the SRES.) McKitrick also noted that John Reilly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had said that the SRES exercise was “in my view, a kind of insult to science” and the method was ‘lunacy'”. (Asked if the scenarios were an insult to economics, Reilly said, “Well, to anything; an insult to serious analysis”).
Ross McKitrick also made the obvious point that, by choosing to use the same emissions scenarios in AR4 as were used in the Third Assessment Report, even after serious flaws had come to light, “the IPCC has effectively communicated to the scholarly community that external criticism will have little impact on its work. This further diminishes the incentive for outsiders to bother checking over the IPCC reports.”
Louis – you’re still working out means and moving averages so I think PCA might be tad much for you.
Phil Done,
you have not argued any contrary points in this debate – merely showed your obviously excellent skills in cutting and pasting url’s.
Now from your comments about David Henderson we must add to your CV of what you don’t know the subject of economics.
Impressive CV – summa Cum Laude in not knowing Atmosphere Physics, Statistics and now economics.
Phil Done,
Like a termite Phil, I attack the raw foundations of the issue, not the superficial statistical superstructure that seems to fascinate and mesmerise your cohort.
Louis – you never argue anything through – just utter metaphysical incantations that defy most scientific opinion on most subjects. With usually no justification. Your little effort on means and moving averages now explains that you are truly clueless. And fancy putting a blog site that lays in on thick and hard but is immune from comment. What a sham.
Meanwhile go back to cheerleading with Rog – or perhaps add some “information”.
Thye Australian Bureau can supply you with the Australian raw data – start there to gte yourself orientated – – why accept their means anyway – you should go right back to the raw daily data and sort out any errors, check with Warwick to see if the station has moved or is heat island affected. Surely such a cynic as yourself wouldn’t accept their even preliminary analysis?
Letting standards slip old boy ! I believe the international set is around 200 Gb (pers comm) – are you up to it?
And by the way – I said at the outset that the IPCC could and should use some more economic input, but that is not the sole arbiter of the matter. However to the point that it would be a fair-handed addition I had some reservations.
And on the matter of Mann – I have asked two questions to expedite us …
(a) are the other reconstructions incorrect
(b) does it all hinge on Hockey Sticks anyway.
And I have said a Team B is also fine if Ian Castles applies the same intellectual blowtorch to all analyses. So we’d be swapping cosine errors for degree/radian errors would we not. And getting both parties sorted.
Phil,
Yes I read them when you posted them, so where do they address the bristle cone data issue?
A nerve I have hit, to be sure.
Phil, We don’t want the OZ data, but the WORLD data.
And we do accept their means but where are they? We are not arguing that the means are miscalculated, but the in the process of aggregating those means, geographically, possibly serious errors might have been made, but not having the data we are hamstrung.
As for metaphysical incantations, perhaps you could give an example?
And as a blog that lays it on thick with no comments – precisely my goal – time your lot got some back.
Louis – under the current level of uncertainty – don’t accept the means at all – obviously you haven’t worked with met data before. I know Warwick is much more studious than this and has found a number of inconsistenices. And don’t take on the world if you cannot handle the local scene.
And yes you have hit a nerve – it’s called the funny bone. You’ve been a wonderful tonic. Keep up your blog by all means – it’s our daily source of mirth.
Phil,
better have a think about your last post
I wrote metadata
You wrote met data. You have no idea at all what metadata is.
And you know Warwick Hughes? I have, on and off since 1971.
Louis I’m saying you of all people shouldn’t believe the metadata about the met data. And Warwick has pointed out his work to us in recent weeks.
QED
Please note that I have just added the Ross McKitrick paper titled ‘Science and Environmental Policy-Making: Bias-Proofing the Assessment Process’ to the original post above, see the update above.
Also, it would be good if comments could be related to ‘the issue’ rather than ‘the person’ and be polite. I trust we are all interested in the truth, rather than simply point scoring.
No problem,
Jen, I assume this from Benny’s latest newsletter?
I haven’t seen Benny’s latest newsletter.
Sent just now
Ian – so MBH98 made errors. Again the whole AGW debate does no hang on MBH. Small errors were corrected. Tell me how other teams managed to replicate the work if there was not full disclosure of data?
Here is the standard spiel – MBH is an interesting study of past climate events using proxy data …
The value of the IPCC report is alerting the political world to the fact that human actions and activity may alter our Earths climate. No-one is claiming that it is perfect or that the people that compiled it are perfect scientists. They are human and will disagree. Scientists do not make political decisions that is for polititians for better or worse. Polititians need information so they commission professionals to evaluate the current state of climate science and evaluate the risk. This is what the IPCC is.
rog – the analogy that you seemed unable to understand is that hunger etc are pressing problems however addressing climate change is possibly a higher priority problem because climate change could make efforts to reduce hunger wasted as crops wither from changes in climate. Also efforts to stop disease will also need to be altered as warming changes the distribution of diseases.
To more pressing issues:
Helen Pollock of Wooleen is struggling with her cancer.
Brett and his family cope, as they did, do, and will.
They have my total support.
Phil Done,
You really haven’t answered Ian Castles’ points. References to web discussions are fine, but when they are as long as the ones you have quoted, which has many arguments and counterarguments attached, they must be more specific. You also need to specify clearly the point you are making. Your points a) to d) don’t do this well – they are too vague to provide the basis for a focused discussion.
Moreover you take a dismissive and contemptuous tone (e.g. “yep anyway lah de dah”), which will not help rally people to your position. Downright insults (“jeez you Lavoisier guys are soooo creepy”) are even less persuasive, and besides, they befog the field with personalities, emotions and questions of political allegiance that are a distraction in resolving scientific issues.
Let me nevertheless meet me you more than half-way by responding to what you identify as your two key points. The first is that Mann’s work has been supported by others. You put this in different ways:
– “they still haven’t overturned Mann – analysis holds up/there are other corroborating reconstructions”
– “is there independent evidence of Mann’s work – yep”
– “are the other reconstructions incorrect”
I think I get your point, but I also think you are confused on a number of levels. First, the existence of other reconstructions vaguely similar to Mann’s would not guarantee that Mann’s result is right. Second, the other reconstructions generally quoted in support (Briffa, Jones, Crowley et al) are NOT the same as Mann’s. On this, I invite you to consider carefully the comments of Lubos Motl (“Lumo”) on the page you yourself reference: http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/10/increase-in-temperature-in-20th.html. Third, those studies may be wrong too; indeed, since they all differ significantly, no more than one of them can be right. Fourth, as you know, there are further studies that come to opposite conclusions to Mann – notably Esper, Soon and Baliunas.
My personal answer to the last version of your question – “are the other reconstructions incorrect” – is “yes”. And that goes for both the ones that support the IPCC line, and the dissident ones. In my view they all give a spurious impression of the accuracy with which we can reconstruct the temperatures of past centuries. Their proxies are inadequate – particularly tree rings, which dominate. Tree rings respond to rainfall as well as temperature. They are sensitive to extremes of both cold and heat. They are only temperature sensitive either way for a few weeks a year. There are a host of possible confounding factors which are rarely taken into account in the proxy collections – CO2 fertilisation, landscape changes, logging effects etc. etc.
This was well known in the field for many years before politics entered in. Both the 1990 and 1995 IPCC reports had access to proxy reconstructions, but did not arbitrarily select one. Instead, they gave a general overall impression of the evolution of temperatures, based on all known proxies, as well as historical and literary records of weather conditions. This was sensible, because the fundamental limitations of tree rings were clear. It was only in the Third Assessment Report, after the Hubert Lamb had died in 1997, that Mann took over the relevant IPCC chapter and gave enormous prominence to his own “mathematical” study, in which tree rings predominated.
Your second point is also expressed in several ways, but let me just take one:
– “what would happen if Mann was wrong anyway – AGW story diminished by 5% at best – the story doesn’t hinge on that graph”
You are probably right if you mean that the case for man-made global warming does not hinge on Mann’s contribution to the hockey stick graph – i.e. the proxy reconstruction up to 1980. It hangs more on the second uptick at the end – which is not Mann’s own work, but the instrumental temperature aggregate of Phil Jones. This Jones series is really the cornerstone of the IPCC “line”. It makes the first bullet point on the first text page of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. It also forms the first graph, and, attached to the Mann series, the second graph. It is also the reference series for “proving” the reliability of models (See pages 2, 3 and 11 of the Summary for Policymakers here: http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf).
The real point if “Mann is wrong anyway” is that the story of Mann’s paper, the use he was able to make of it, and his behaviour in defending it, highlight the dangers to science of the intrusion of politics and bureaucratic interests. Mann’s is far from the worst of the papers that supports the AGW theory and political project. Epstein’s and McMichael’s on the spread of malaria and dengue are much worse. Easterling’s and Petersen’s on urban heat and daily temperature range are shockers. Some “sceptical” papers have also had errors and others are little more than kite-flying. But Mann has an outstanding record so far for obfuscation, innuendo and smear in place of scientific argument: http://www.natutech.nl/nieuwsDetail.lasso?ID=2565 .
On the original subject of this thread, I support Henderson’s initiative, and I hope it demolishes faulty ideas in this debate, regardless of which side they come from or the political or commercial interests behind them.
As long as greenies put nebulous concepts such as “the weather” ahead of the real issues of disease, hunger, poverty (which given sufficient resources ie $$$ are curable) their continued failure is assured.
David Brewer’s contribution is a telling demonstration of why an alternative and rival overall assessment to that of the IPCC is sorely needed. My statement about Ross McKitrick’s characterisation of IPCC processes (Jennifer’s update of Nov. 2) was perhaps too broad a generalisation, but McIntyre and McKitrick (and Castles and Henderson) have certainly demonstrated that IPCC processes are far from watertight. Peer review alone is not a protection against serious error if, as is the case in many areas of the IPCC’s work, the peers are all drawn from the same milieu.
Ender says that “No one is claiming that it [the IPCC report] is perfect or that the people who compiled it are perfect scientists.” This claim may not be made in so many words, but governments, many peak science bodies and the IPCC itself habitually present the Panel as the sole source of authoritative information, and imbue it with an aura of infallibity.
Consider, for example, the following statements by Paul Holper, Executive Officer, CSIRO Climate, and CSIRO
David Brewer – thank you for a most considered post – my apology to yourself for my introductory tone but perhaps in dealing with the “usual suspects” on this thread some of us have developed a certain predisposition.
And yes I recognise the difficulties with these studies and use of proxies.
And I was not asserting that Mann was “exactly” right but other studies had broadly supported his position or not subtantially changed the overall thrust of the conclusions. From the public references and opinions I cited.
I understand you are saying that the overall situation is that we may not know who is “wrong” or “right”. I myself feel that there have been reams written on this subject and the whole area is now so muddied with claim and counter-claim – I’m not sure how the average person would make sense of it.
On Mann’s behaviour – he has been less than perfect of course – but how would any of us behave in this extraordinary pressure cooker. In the debate on issues of science of lesser importance (or perhaps fame) these things would be worked out slowly and quietly over a decade, in a quiet exchange of paper and counter-paper, and the use of bristlecones etc – which PCA technique etc would either be rejected and replaced, or otherwise. Cosine and radian errors would be rectified.
And I would also suggest that Mann’s main critics M&M have also been less than perfect in their case of dissent. And a number of sceptics have used every trick in the book. It has of course become too personal as has this thread.
Perhaps aptly Prometheus has decided to call and end to this style of interaction and get us to move on…
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000618invitation_to_mcinty.html
So the debate should not be allowed to get this personal. Unless of course you ascribe to a conspiracy theory which many here do – that the IPCC is some part of a UN plot to destroy our prosperity and way of life. Assuming that we conclude for now that the IPCC are in the main a bunch of well motivated scientists attempting to do their very best, I think we have to be very careful about the use of Senate committees and the tone of sacking people for misconduct. If start rigorously applying this punitive style of research you can kiss goodbye to any serious new finding and people wanting to undertake science. We will only have the critics left to argue among themselves..
And as I said at the outset I support further economic analysis and use of B Team if the intention is fair dinkum, outcomes not pre-determined, that the B team and economists are also scrutinised to the same level as the current IPCC establishment. To Jen’s question ?
The issue becomes for the rest of us and our politicians is that they have to make some decisions on global warming in the absence of ultimate proof and final outcomes. If we wait until we have triple pre-industrial CO2 and then decide to act – what climate consequences will we have to bear. Do we believe those consequences may be severe enough for 6B odd humans who are now considerably affected by droughts, floods, tropical storms, heatwaves and severe weather. Can we tech our way out? Or are lives expendable for the good of the economy.
So for my part I suggest we hasten the research and make a decision soon. A number on this blog would suggest that every single piece of AGW research is flawed. And of course perhaps most research has some innate flaws. But I find it incredible that all of it is flawed and the entire broad body of evidence is wrong.
And if there is a natural explanation to the broad warming we are seeing and that our understanding of the interaction of CO2, radiation and the atmosphere is so wrong – well I’d seriously like to hear it.
Phil,
Your reponse to David Brewer is very welcome and obviously well thought through.It quite clear that excesses in rhetoric occur right across the spectrum of opinion.
But your comment, in it’s broadness, leaves aside scrutiny of one particular point that is testable by examination of actual data, namely the influence of one particular data set – bristle cone series from (?California). As you are silent about this issue, are we to conclude that you acknowledge that this data series may be a source of significant uncertainty about the medieval warming period, and that as yet, based on the tree ring data as a whole, current rises in temperature are not exceptional, despite a very recent trend that may lead to that situation?
As far as the common call for prompt action, I would argue there is at least as much hazard in rushing forward with bad global policies that are difficult to reverse and which affect the welfare of billions of mostly poor people, as there is in some delay until better policy options evolve.
And on another broad point. Implications in related areas like economics and agriculture are beyond the current competance of IPCC, so “outsider debate” is particularly helpful on these issues. It seems IPCC got off the rails a bit straying into economics where its expertise is limited. Also many comments (by others) about malaria trends and food security are full of ambiguities. High carbon dioxide improves crop yields, and if warming occurs, cold areas like northern Russia become more productive farms. Either way, food security over the coming half century and other issues of land use remain a crucial related global issue, arguably they more important than climate, but the politicisation of AGW is frequently causing these other issues to be sidelined.
Phil,
I think that there is potentially a lot to learn from people like Ian Castles. No process is beyond criticism. We shouldn’t just grudgingly accept the presence of skeptics, we should embrace it as a means to help improve our knowledge.
And of course, there is always the difficult task of choosing where to source your info, and who to listen to, who to ignore. That’s why a formal team B instead of a motley crue screaming from all fronts is a great idea.
In choosing who to listen to/debate with, might I suggest (again!) you are better off responding to Ian and ignoring the likes of Louis. This thread was shaping up to be a good meeting of opposing arguments, until you contributed to it being sidetracked with troll feeding.
Ian, are you formally involved in the next IPCC report? are you trying to be involved? Or are you contributing from outside the process?
Detribe – Yes I think the issues of bristlecones and tree rings are problematic. How problematic I’m not totally sure – to be more certain one needs to get out of the blog rampant opinion spectrum and back into the literature. There is also debate about the regional versus global nature of the Medieval Warming but we are probably limited by relatively less Southern Hemisphere data.
However in the event that the Medieval warming was warmer (and I’m saying “if”) – then I would be more concerned about what the CO2 forcing will mean in terms of temperature response.
In terms of CO2 fertilisation – have blogged on this before. Yes North American and Russian wheat belt could benefit from additional temperature. But only if the rain comes with it.
{Wouldn’t it be interesting, and maybe George Bush knows this, that if the Pacific Ocean adopted a more El Nino-like mean state due to global warming, that the USA wheat belt would be warmer, wetter with more CO2 while Australia would be in more drought. Perhaps God has favoured WASP North Americans 🙂 }
CO2 isn’t magic fertiliser – it’s just one component.
And there may be also greater insect and diseases prevalence to contend with as well.
Many of our insects being poikilotherms would love some additional temperature in temperate areas.
And there are different plant metabolisms – C3 and C4 in particular. Many of our temperate crops plants are C3, in savannas grasses tend to be C4 and shrubs C3. So this goes to the heart of how plants use CO2 in photosynthesis, use water and what their temperature thresholds are. If C3 shrubs do better and we supress fire – much our grazing land may become woodland thickets – a form of this is now happening in Qld, South Africa and southern USA (caused by fire and human management at this stage). I think it would be very hard to statistically detect CO2 fertilisation of plants in the field at current levels of CO2 increase, but that will change rapidly in coming decades as CO2 increases dramatically. And of course CO2 fertilisation experiments (Free Air Carbon Dioxide Experiments – FACE) have sometime shown counterintuitive results.
Don’t ask me what happens to desert adapted plants like cacti and succulents that use a modified C4 pathway called crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM).
How climate, food production, natural ecosystems, pest and disease, populations, economics and technology all interact is very important. Climate is just one driver.
Please note I have just posted an update no. 3 (see above) with comment from David Henderson. David suggests that my summary is in error on a couple of key points, see above and read his entire report. Of most significance perhaps is the issue of the ‘official B Team’. It seems I have picked up on some ideas/examples in David’s paper and turned this into a recommendation. It is a recommendation that many (David included) consider impractical – I consider it to have merit. I understand David suggests instead an unofficial critique (but please read his whole report). I fear that any unofficial critique would be ignored – rather than seen as a genuine counterpoint.
Thanks Phil. I’m prompted by your response to David Brewer, and detribe’s response to you, to draw attention to some recent papers that bear on the issues discussed in these postings.
Last year the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia asked three leading scholars to examine the issue of uncertainty and climate change, and of how Australia might respond to and manage uncertainty in the quest for effective domestic and international policies. Their responses are gathered together in “Uncertainty and climate change: the challenge for policy”, which is available at http://www.assa.edu.au/publications/op.asp?id=75 The contributions come from Dr.John Zillman, President of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and for 25 years Director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Professor Warwick McKibbin, ANU Economist, a member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia and of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council; and Professor Aynsley Kellow, Professor of Government at the University of Tasmania.
All three have long experience in aspects of climate change research (in fact, all three made presentations at a symposium on climate change convened by the National Academies Forum in 1997, six months before Kyoto). It is regrettable that the views of scholars such as these receive little attention in the media, compared with those of scientists such as Dr. Tim Flannery.
Secondly, the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, to which David Henderson’s paper provides a link. The unanimous report came from a Committee consisting of 6 Conservative, 3 Labour, 2 Liberal Democrat and 2 non-aligned (I’m not sure that’s the correct description) peers. It included two former Chancellors of the Exchequer (Lord Nigel Lawson and Lord Lamont), a former Governor of the Bank of England (Lord Kingsdown), two former Secretaries of State for Energy (Lord Lawson and Lord Wakeham), two authors of acclaimed biographies (Professor Lord Skidelsky, biographer of John Maynard Keynes, and Lord Paul, biographer of Mahatma Ghandi) and several more members with experience, distinctions and publications too numerous to mention. The thoroughness with which their Lordships approached their task is evident in the 400-odd questions that were put to those appearing before them (including, among others, Dr Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, Sir John Houghton, Sir David King, and Professors Colin Robinson, David Henderson, Richard Lindzen, Bjorn Lomborg, Richard Tol, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Dennis Anderson and Mchael Grubb). As David Henderson notes in his paper, the Committee made serious criticisms of the IPCC, and important recommendations for change. The Stern Review is almost certainly an outcome.
Finally, Phil provides a link to the challenge issued by Dr Roger Pielke Jr. to Steve McIntyre and Michael Mann to say why the hockey stick matters. “Pielke’s challenge” is the subject of many perceptive comments on the Climate Audit site: I recommend, in particular, Willis Eschenbach’s response (#35). Incidentally, Roger A Pielke Sr., Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at the University of Colorado and Colorado State Climatologist, resigned from the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) on 25 August last. In his statement of resignation, Professor Pielke said that the Chapter of which he was Convening Lead Author (“What measures can be taken to improve the understanding of observed changes?”) “was essentially rewritten independent of me … [and ]was circulated to the committee where it was quickly adopted by a subset of the members, the editor and the editorial staff person.” Professor Pielke also said in his statement that “It is highly misleading to characterize me as a climate skeptic as certain members of the media have done.” This seems to be another instance of the “dangers to science of the intrusion of politics and bureaucratic interests” to which David Brewer refers.
In response to Steve’s inquiry, I am not formally involved in the IPCC process. As noted in an earlier posting, the IPCC has in fact formally designated David Henderson and me as purveyors of disinformation and as “so-called ‘two independent commentators'” (press release at the COP meeting in Milan, 8 December 2003). In the version originally issued to the press, I was described (incorrectly) as a member of the Lavoisier Group, which in turn was described (also incorrectly) as a group “which is opposed to everything that would protect the environment” (I do not have the exact text in front of me). Of course I don’t believe that “the IPCC is some part of a UN plot to destroy our prosperity and way of life”, but a good deal of damage can occur when national governments effectively outsource policy advisory functions to international bodies which are not subject to the accountability checks that organisations within countries such as Australia take for granted. I may say more about this in a later posting.
Steve – again apologies for nourishing trolls but one is sorely provoked. I will endeavour to do better.
Without being obsequious Ian Castles is obviously a very serious erudite person and his views deserve to be listened to. However analysis of the alleged behaviour of Mann is quite strong and talk of people losing their jobs for misconduct is, in my opinion, over the top. I know that strong views are obviously held and we could spend all day on this. You can see Mann as a conspirator – or just the guy in the spotlight.
However, all our behaviours in these matters need some analysis. As I said personalising the debate to this degree is not healthly for robust thought and strong science. The debate has now become the end in itself, and its own sideshow.
Is it not time to learn lessons about bristlecones, PCA, cosines and radians and move on.
And while we squabble the atmosphere just keeps going – disregarding our debates, economics and society. We can’t simply rule it out of order or haul it before a committee to chastise its behaviour.
We can make some decisions about increasing atmospheric CO2 or let it rip and see what happens !
Steve – I think that you are being a little harsh on Phil, I thought the post was really balanced. We can learn from Ian and I try to do just that. Some of the emotion comes from being sick of this distraction, the hockey stick, to the real problems of global warming and climate change. Also M&Ms and MBHs conduct in the affair leaves a lot to be desired. Accusing professional scientists of conspiracy to fraud the scientific process is possibly the most heinous charge that can be brought against any scientist. Coming from someone in the scientific community is bad enough but from 2 people who are not scientists and do not publish within the scientific community of checks and balances did generate a lot of bad feeling and BOTH sides responded pretty badly.
nuff said.
ditribe – the issue of what proxy set is included or excluded has been pretty settled. There is an upswing no matter what you do – the trend is there . Von storch et al concluded that the trend was there no matter what you did. Please leave this point as it is getting really tiresome.
Everyone – The IPCC has done what it was tasked to do – look at the available evidence and find a consensus position that could be used to formulate policy. So you don’t agree with it – get over it! Put input into the next report. If you can provide enough evidence to change this consensus position then this will appear in the report if you present your case properly.
Thanks Phil,
Your response makes me look forward to learning from your other useful comments.
Ender,
When it comes to data and misinterpretation I don’t make any apology for NOT leaving the issue; it may be tiresome, but until the doubts are resolved in an ethical fashion, it is scientifically improper to ignore them. You might note Ender that I dont question a late upswing in the temperature data – my comments were about the earlier period proxy evidence. Phil properly responded with a rationale for still interpreting them as worrying, and I’m happy to think thru whether I agree with his opinion.
Having just read the McKitrick 2005 policy paper posted by Jennifer it is quite clear artifactual recent upswings in tree-ring proxies have been detected by at least McKitric 2005. Hence I question your argument to sweep them under the rug merely because they are tedious. In public debate those experts who already know everthing are still obliged to answer the questions of the rest of us who still have lots to learn, and to answer in a way that the answers can be verified.
Is it not time to learn lessons about bristlecones, PCA, cosines and radians and move on.THE PIOINT IS- these factors affect the welfare of billions
And while we squabble the atmosphere just keeps going – disregarding our debates, economics and society. We can’t simply rule it out of order or haul it before a committee to chastise its behaviour.THE POINT is THE WORLD ECONOMY IS a similar beast, and that other forces than CO2 such as the sun’s radiance need to be addressed
We can make some decisions about increasing atmospheric CO2 or let it rip and see what happens ! THE POINT IS what are these decisions we should make and how should they be made: Just any old decision about an issue with a trillion dollar impact won’t do.
So Phil, you need to craft more instructive rhetoric,on these points
Ender, I don’t know whether I am among those you are addressing when you say to “get over it”, use good arguments to convince the IPCC next time etc. I think you have misunderstood the findings of the last IPCC report, and especially their implications for policy.
The terms of reference for the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios specifically laid down that NONE of the scenarios would include ANY future policies that explicitly address additional climate change initiatives – e.g., NONE of them explicitly assumed implementation of emission targets under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol (SRES, p. 23). Even under these assumptions, the projections in the B1 marker scenarios had atmospheric concentrations of CO2 peaking at around 550 parts per million (ppm) by about 2100 (see Table II.2.1 in “Appendix II SRES Tables” of Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis”: note that the ‘reference’ scenarios for both ISAM and CC-BERN models both peak at 550 ppm or below).
Other scenarios in the B1 family had lower emissions profiles than the B1 marker. In a February 2003 paper, I gave eight reasons why the lowest of all the emissions scenarios (B1T MESSAGE) still did not go to the lower bound of possible outcomes WITHOUT climate change policies: I said that “lower emissions levels can be projected on the basis of assumptions that are fully defensible,” The Australian Government submission to the AR4 scoping process (March 2003), which is available on the IPCC website, agreed with this to the extent of proposing that for AR4 the IPCC consider developing another scenario with lower economic growth rates in the developing countries. Presumably the Government thought that this was a realistic possibility. However, the IPCC decided in its wisdom that no new scenarios would be developed, that the set published in 2000 was suitable for use in the Assessment Report to be published in 2007, and that there was no foundation whatever for the Castles and Henderson view that the use of market exchange rates to convert GDP led to overstated emissions (two years later, the House of Lords Committee acknowledged the judgment of Professor Bill Nordhaus of Yale that “the jury is still out” on this matter).
However, the Government now apparently believes that the IPCC’s B1 scenario is impossible, let alone the scenario with a lower emissions profile that it suggested the IPCC produce for AR4 (you’d think Australia would have the expertise to produce some scenarios itself: our Treasurer, unlike the IPCC, knows that you must use PPP converters: speech to Lowy Institute, 21 September).
According to a news report last Thursday, Australia’s Environment Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, told Matt Price of The Australian (
Ian – I am not sure. I do not really know what you are saying. The IPCC may be flawed however this does not stop action on AGW. You need to state your postion a bit more clearly.
Ian says:
“… Tim Flannery has been more influential than the IPCC.”
I don’t think Tim Flannery has been more influential than the IPCC.
It sounds like you think Australia is doing much more than the IPCC says it should – I don’t think so.
Most of our current efforts, while significant sounding, are still fairly token, with the possible exception of reductions in land clearing.
Campbell’s comments should be taken with a grain of salt – he is a politician after all.
I read his comments as being a good way of improving the australian govt’s poor reputation among both the Australian public and the international community on global warming, while still allowing for nothing significant to be done other than funnelling millions of taxpayer dollars to the coal industry for clean coal and geosequestration – the winner-picking ‘technology’ ‘solution’, as opposed to a technology-neutral kyoto solution.
Politics.
Prior to the Energy Paper last year, just about all of the Howard Government’s greenhouse policies were established as a result of buying the democrats vote on the GST.
Since last year, we have some energy efficiency measures, some solar industry funding to keep Origin Energy and BP happy, and then millions for clean coal.
————-
Ian, why did the IPCC classify you as a purveyor of disinformation?
Steve
“Ian, why did the IPCC classify you as a purveyor of disinformation?”
How can you expect Ian to answer a qurstion that the IPCC should answer? He would need to be telepathic!
Thanks Ender. My posting was confusing by trying to make too many points. Let me try and reformulate.
You say that “The IPCC … does not stop action on AGW.” But as detribe says “THE POINT IS what are these decisions we should make and how should they be made: Just any old decision about an issue with a trillion dollar impact won’t do.” Future levels of emissions are affected by a multitude of policies and actions that make sense whether the world warms or not: policies to constrain energy use for energy security reasons, policies to improve air quality through control of pollutant emissions from cars, power stations, etc. (I don’t consider CO2 a pollutant in this connection, because noone would care about constraining CO2 emissions in the absence of climate change considerations).
Whether the world needs to do things for climate change reasons that it wouldn’t otherwise have done is one question. If the answer is “Yes”, a further set of questions arises as to what: mitigating emissions by a massive injection of new technology under all possible options, as the Australian Government seems to envisage; or a higher priority to adaptation expenditures. The House of Lords Committee urged the UK Government “to ensure that greater efforts are made to understand the relative costs and benefits of adaptation compared to those of mitigation.”
The Committee argued that “nearly all of the public debate on global wasrming is about mitigation – reducing emissions – rather than about adapting to climate change and assisting the most vulnerable societies in the world to adapt to the risk they may face” (para. 45).
In evidence to the HoL Committe, Dr. Indur Goklany of the US Department of the Interior “argued that mitigation can do little to reduce many of the impacts from warming, whereas investment in adaptation now would both reduce the baseline risks that will occur even without any warming, and the warming impacts as well.”
If the Australian Government has given consideration to these arguments, there is little sign of it on the public record. Yet an all-Party Committee of the House of Lords obviously thought that they had merit.
Maybe adaptation doesn’t get any news because it is not so interesting?
In any case, work on adaptation is happening. See here at the Australian Greenhouse Office website:
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/impacts/index.html
The major barrier (at least as I see it! :-)) to work on adaptation is that it relies on getting good information on regional and local impacts. CLimate models mainly look at the big picture, and research to look at localised impacts is much newer.
Australia is certainly doing plenty of work to understand local impacts, as you could easily find if you browse through the AGO website, the CSIRO atmospheric research website, or any of those (annual?) CSIRO reports on climate change in Australia.
Detribe, I don’t expect Ian to have THE ANSWER, I am just interested in his opinion on why the IPCC decided, or on what the IPCC told him, if anything.
detribe …
The lessons about bristlecones etc are how to develop a more rigorous scrutinised and less personal process that delivers better research and avoids US Senate committes and the media circus. The Hockey Stick debate will go on – but it is not essential for the future.
And indeed WHAT should be done is very important and the costs of what could be done in emissions reductions are important versus the costs of adaptation versus the cost of doing nothing.
Personally I’d like to make that decision (or lobby my local pollie or PM to support) on the basis of best climate science, assessment of human suffering, impact on natural systems, and economic assessment.
There are likely to be winners and losers – in my mental climate scenario – USA may come out better off and Australia and Bangladesh may lose. A semi-permanent El Nino-like mean state doesn’t sound good to me.
However as we have argued much on this blog that many of us have no faith at all in all climate science. Nor journals. Nor peer review. Nor the UN. No Tony Blair. Nor Tim Flannery, Ian Lowe or our governments.
We’re in for some warming – that’s now inevitable – we’re likely to need some adaptation meaures – but how far will we/should we let CO2 go before we want to reign it in ??
Face it we have debated:
(1) the existence of the greenhouse effect or not
(2) the role that CO2 plays or not
(3) Hockey Sticks galore
(4) whether glaciers are melting or not
(5) the reasons for Artic and Antarctic melting
(5) paleo-climate changes
(6) that urban heat islands have contaminated the climate record and whether we have a trend or not
(7) whether we have more intense tropical storms or not
(8) whether climate models are credible/useful
(9) whether future CO2/technology scenarios are relevant
(10) the political motivations of climate researchers
And we’ve been pretty rude about it in the clinches.
Do we mutually agree on anything ????
Some of readers here would argue that should do absolutely nothing. And there is no need to do anything. And that climate researchers have wasted billions of dollars.
THIS is the backdrop to OUR discussions.
Ian – the problem I have with adaption is this.
Imagine saying to an inhabitant of Bangladesh “OK we have to relocate your village because your village is about to be inundated. We do not want to change our lifestyles and wasteful energy use so your village has to pay” Do you see what I am saying? Why should Bangladeshi villagers have to adapt when it is us first world countries doing most of the Greenhouse emitting. We keep saying that reducing greenhouse gases will affect the economy and it is not cost effective yet we will not bear most of the adverse effects.
Most of the effects of global warming will in fact impact the 3rd World who are not enjoying the benefits of the energy use that is leading to climate change.
It is fine to say adapt however I am reasonably sure that you are not thinking of adapting yourself and are expecting others to do the adapting. I am not saying that you are doing this delberately but it is a very human thing to make adaption a “somebody else’s problem” just as long as you can continue to party along. And really that is what we are doing. We are using these fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow in the most wasteful ways imaginable and enjoying the benefits of ‘thousand mile ceasar salads’ and grapes from Chile and airconditioners etc while others starve.
We need to make sure that we are doing all we can to emit less greenhouse gases and use fossil fuels more wisely before we can ask anyone to adapt.
*Imagine saying to an inhabitant of Bangladesh “OK we have to relocate your village because your village is about to be inundated. We do not want to change our lifestyles and wasteful energy use so your village has to pay”*
Imagine an inhabitant of Bangladesh telling you to mind your own business and p1ss off!
At no point in the discussion has the views of the maybe-about-to-be-submerged Bangladeshi been canvassed. The delta is notorious for flooding and subsequent loss of life yet people have continued to populate the area. Why? – because it is so productive.
Perhaps Bangladesh would like the opportunity to earn enough $$$ to manage their own affairs. Perhaps they want to be energy users too!
Ever asked?
rog – the point is that they are not being asked. Also that is not the point of the post.
Any takers for how much atmospheric CO2 increase we will tolerate before we do something about – 2x 280ppm? 3x? 4x?
Anyone believe that with current status of the debate(for better or worse), the developed world’s response, and India and China industrialising – that we’re not at least easily heading between 2 and 3x?
The point Ender is that you are projecting your own feelings and thoughts onto someone else.
Phil asks whether anyone believes that we’re not at least easily heading between to between twice and three times a CO2 concentration of 280 ppm. I don’t think we’re heading for these levels, and I tried to explain why in the post that Ender said he couldn’t understand. Have you read the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, Phil? Or the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Report 2004, which projects emissions to the year 2030 on various assumptions? Or the US Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Outlook 2005, which makes similar projections to 2025? I’ve read all of these and more, and I DON’T believe we’re head for 600-700 ppm or anything like it.
In my posting above I quoted the unanimous view of a distinguished all-Party Committee of the House of Lords that the balance between mitigation and adaptation in the response to climate change should be moved towards “adapting to climate change and assisting the most vulnerable societies in the world to adapt to the risk they may face.” I agree with that view, as I believe would most development economists. Several subsequent dissenting postings appear to be based on the premise that such an approach would work against the interests of the world’s poor. I can’t give a full explanation here of why I believe that that premise is mistaken, but there is a good deal of relevant material in the Lords Committee Report itself, the 300-odd pages of oral and written evidence published as Volume II of the Committee’s Report and the Policy Paper published by the Academy of the Social Sciences that I cited in an earlier posting.
Phil
You seem to be saying there is a lot of futile disagreement and perhaps are implying that this disagreement is deliberate stone walling. Why don’t you just move on to the more important issue of explaining the merits of one policy option over another. As you say, the issues are important, so don’t get distracted by the noise of dissent and move on to providing the explanation of which policy settings for the future are the best.
The big policy issue is Kyoto versus the alternatives, either Bush-Howard-China-India and whatever else. How about analysing for us the PROS and CONS of these various options, but putting up front the weaknesses of your favorite option, as a sign of your intellectual integrity? Woulnt that be a constructive start?
I see no problem with listing disagreements and doubts and also getting on to formulating better policies. They are not mutually exclusive. The main relevance though of keeping scientific uncertainty such as hockey stick nonsense “up front” is that if politicians dont treat the uncertainties accurately and honestly,but say that dealing with the facts is “tiresome”, it shows you can’t trust em to be honest in other more subtle aspects of policy.That why I expect the uncertainties to be kept up front -as a measure of good intent and honesty.
For a start, Bjorn Lomborg does a pretty good job listing the huge downside to some of the Kyoto like policy options. Bills of trillions of dollars cant be brushed aside. How do we know that a pro-technology a la Bush-Howard stance, or a better variant isnt the best way forward?
detribe – well I’m just pointing out the history of discussion. Fair bit of malarky really. But we typically have not even gotten to first base.
I don’t think Kyoto will achieve anything in emissions growth – will simply move the curve a year of two parallel … it has been instructive in getting carbon inventories and carbon trading operational. And at least showing us how incredibly difficult emissions controls and international policy actually is. Australia of course has doen a fiddle with claiming compliance (albeit not a signatory) but actually just doing a fiddle with Qld trees (paid for by Qld graziers and Qld govt – bizarre !! Thanks guys …)
Just because you’re inclined on AGW doesn’t mean you’re a Kyoto advocate.
The Asia Pacific pact sounds good – but is it just to secure mobile fuel reserves via coal oil gasification – Fischer Tropsh …and whoops we won’t get around to the CO2 sequestration. Depends what you believe !! (or want to believe!).
Of course we could start a Peak Oil debate about NOW !
Will that do for starters detribe …
So it’s on to adaptation. And this is where we need to decide what probability of exceedance levels we need for critical infrastructure.
IAn – on CO2 – still compiling …
Ian – why don’t you believe it? If we keep pumping it into the air what do you think will take it out?
It is not enough to say ‘I believe’ as you must have some supporting data. CO2 growth is about 2ppm/year at the moment and is increasing. CH4 is actually decreasing and N2O is increasing as well.
Do you have tables that show a decrease in greenhouse gases without action or are you assuming that action to reduce CO2 emissions will work and we will not see 500ppm.
Ender, Please read again the posting that you said that you could not understand. My supporting data are the IPCC projections, as tabulated in Appendix II of the Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report. The assumptions are the IPCC’s, not mine. As I explained, these projections do NOT assume any action to reduce CO2 emissions (or emissions of other GHGs) for climate policy reasons. I don’t understand why I’m being asked “what do you think will take it out”? That’s a question that you should be addressing to the climate modellers. My criticism has been that the emissions profile in the input models is higher than would be generated by the socio-economic assumptions as stated. If you believe they’d be still higher, I think the onus is on you to say why.
Yes, CH4 concentrations are actually decreasing. This was one of the 8 reasons I listed in my paper of February 2003 for believing that the lowest of the IPCC emissions scenarios was still too high. Every one of the 40 IPCC scenarios has CH4 emissions levels continuing to rise for at least 30 years. Each of the six illustrative scenarios shown in Appendix II has CH4 concentration levels going on rising. Why?
The IPCC has decided these scenarios are suitable for use in the AR4. Any business enterprise that explained that it hadn’t updated forecasts made 7 years ago because it was too much trouble would be in serious trouble with the corporate watchdogs. Team B could ask such questions of the IPCC, if we had a Team B.
A number of comments have pointed to the fact that there are studies other than those by Mann et al which have supposedly come to the same or similar conclusions, thereby implying that the MBH errors don’t matter, e.g.,
Phil Done: “There are other corroborating reconstructions.”
Steve: “The hockeystick has been replicated by multiple groups.”
Ender: “4 or 5 other teams of scientists managed to duplicate his work from the supplied data.”
Phil Done: “I s there independent evidence of Mann’s work – yep.”
Phil Done: “… I have asked two questions to expedite us … (a) are the other reconstructions incorrect.”
Various points have been made in response – e.g., other studies have by no means come to the same conclusion and they can’t all be right.
Also relevant is a point that was made by Steve McIntyre yesterday, on the Real Climate websute:
“… the lack of independence in authorship in the majority of commonly-referenced multiproxy studies can be seen merely by inspecting the names of the coauthors: Briffa et al [2001] with coauthor Jones is obviously not
Ian – I hear your viewpoint. And you appear to have some personal knowledge of the authors involved. From my assessment – and I can assure you I am genuine in this – I have to say my perception how M&M engaged MBH seemed fairly aggressive, crusading and personal. However this is all now lost to observors such as myself in a flurry of claim and counter-claim, mired by blog posstings, comments and editorials. All involved including the cheer squad have had a good hit of testosterone.
So perhaps instead of hunting scientists down like dogs till the bitter end and driving stakes through hearts – we should learn from this taudry episode – de-personalise things somemore and not put all the responsibility on one individual. Cripes – 20 years ago we wouldn’t have given a hoot about this stuff. Who would have thought where this would go – it would be rare for any paper in Nature or Science to get the level of scrutiny this has gotten. I acknowledge from observation Mann’s reponse has been indignant. I would stop short of saying he is gulty of any misconduct.
This is not to excuse less than 100% best effort in every publication of course. But viewpoints are usually challenged and some jousting works things out.
This would normally have been settled gently in the literature. And this is still going on. Have just been reading last night copies of the latest – Huybers and also von Storch and Zorita – heavy going for me but you may eat PCA for brekky …
Realclimate sums up as : (some on this blog would say spins as)
“Two more teams in the seemingly endless jousting over the ‘hockey-stick’ have just made their entry onto the field. In the first two (of four) comments on the original McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) (MM05) paper in GRL, von Storch and Zorita, and Huybers have presented two distinct critiques of the work of M&M.
The two comments focus on the ‘PC normalisation’ issue raised in MM05 which we discussed previously. Specifically, von Storch and Zorita show that in a GCM model emulation of the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH) method, changing the PC normalisation technique makes no difference to the eventual reconstruction (i.e. it is not the normalisation that creates the ‘hockeystick’), consistent with earlier conclusions. Huybers comments that neither of the two suggested normalisations are actually optimal, and proposes a third method which looks like it gives results halfway between MBH and MM05. However, given the von Storch result, this too is unlikely to matter in the final reconstruction.
Huybers additionally makes an interesting point regarding the calculation of significance levels in MM05 and shows that a crucial step (the rescaling of variance of the proxies to match the variance in the instrumental calibration period) was missed out. Including it produces results identical to MBH.
For each comment comes a reply, and in the M&M responses, they introduce a number of further complications and focus on the quality of some of the proxies that were input data into the MBH methodology. We note as an aside that this is quite a different criticism than claiming that MBH’s methodology contains ‘coding errors’ (to quote one of the Ms). Indeed, the quality of paleo-climatic data and its relationship to climate variables has been discussed all along (see for instance MBH99).
Their further calculations will take time to assess, but of the original claims in MM05, the first (the PC normalisation issue) demonstrably makes no difference to the reconstruction, and the second (the calculation of the significance of the RE statistic) was just wrong. So for this round at least, it looks like ‘Hockey Team: 2, MM: 0’.
Look out for the next bout coming to a journal near you…
Comments (89) ”
Note – 89 comments !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And there are other supporting analyses which we may care to discuss :
http://www.realclimate.org/RuthetalJClim2004.pdf
Moberg et al. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=122
Schmidt and Amman http://www.realclimate.org/dummies.pdf
and
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/MBH_reevaluation.html – although I’m not sure these have been published as yet….
And Ian do you have a “reasonable” upper bound estimate of what CO2 equivalent forcing you think we are likely to receive with the SRES scenarios?
And what it might stabilise at.
(given of course current knowledge and technology assumed).
And also on the aspect of “equality” or lack of it in the global warming impacts story. How do we balance off possible impacts on Bangladesh, Sahelian Africa with a more productive USA (assuming that scenario is possible).
Of course serious professional economists would see this as an issue. But if economics only is defined narrowly as banking, finance and business interests, one might consider that these relatively undeveloped nations are expendable to the stockmarket.
By asking this question you can already tell I’m not an economist – but I am interested in resource economics and full cost accounting of our actions.
Thanks for these comments, Phil.
The main response I’d like to make is that the issues in the hockey stick debate turn on scientific integrity and the integrity of the processes of the IPCC, not on Mann and his cohorts personally. Ross McKitrick places it in this context in his paper to which a link is provided in Jennifer’s Update No. 2 above.
Of course the personalisation of the debate is regrettable, but Michael Mann (in particular) made it so by his reactions to the initial criticism of MBH98. I don’t think the initial M&M paper was “aggressive, crusading and personal”: in fact, I believe that it was quite moderate considering the way that Mann had stuffed McIntyre around in the preceding months.
To me, the most damaging aspect of all is the way that so many in the IPCC and the mainstream science establishment “gang up” on critics, not only rubbishing the criticism but the critics personally.
CSIRO Publishing has just published “Climatic Change: Turning Up the Heat” by Barrie Pittock, with a glowing endorsement from the Chair of the IPCC, Dr. Pachauri. This is what Dr. Pittock has to say about M&M and MBH:
“There is a further attack on the temperature reconstructions in Figure 1 [of the IPCC Report] by McIntyre and McKitrick in the journal “Energy and Environment, 14, 751-771 (2003). The argument centres on the different selection and correlation of data. Mann and co-authors are the recognized experts in the field, and thus best qualified to make the expert judgments on data quality and representativeness needed.” Have you read McKitrick’s paper? Do you think, in the light of the history there recounted, that Pittock’s view is a reasonable one?
Dr. Pittock also has some things to say about Castles and Henderson, to which I want to respond. So I’ll have to ask you to excuse me from trying to answer your other questions.
Ian – if we are questioning Mann et al that their motives perhaps M&M’s motivation and credentials should be examined in the same light.
Ordinarily mining engineers and economists do not comment on climate science research. They are sponsored by the Marshall Institue, a conservative think tank that is partly funded by fossil fuel interests. They cannot by any means be called independant disinterested researchers.
They were attacked because the published critiques of a scientific paper outside the normal process of scientific checks and balances. By not submitting their papers to peer review they left themselves open to the charges that were brought against them.
The ‘Hockey Stick’ debate is a classic example of wedge tactics. It is obvious that by casting doubt on one aspect of the IPCC arguments the people behind this extraordinary attack on science hope to bring doubt into the whole AGW debate. In the main this has worked as discussions about climate change, instead of focussing on the important issues, generally descend into a hockey stick slinging match as this one is doing.
Ian – You said “My criticism has been that the emissions profile in the input models is higher than would be generated by the socio-economic assumptions as stated. If you believe they’d be still higher, I think the onus is on you to say why.”
OK so lets have a look at it – this is one area that does not need a supercomputer just a spreadsheet.
Assumptions:
1. No action to reduce CO2 use
2. Increase economic activity produces increased CO2 output.
3. Deforestation remains constant
4. The oceans warm
5. CO2 is initally increasing at 2ppm/year
6. Present CO2 is 330ppm
7. The rate of CO2 increase increases 10% per year
Given these assumption and a spreadsheet I did a simple compound increase. Increasing the rate of increase by 10% is justified on the following grounds.
1. Economic activity is almost entirely fossil fuelled so any increase in activity will cause a corresponding increase in CO2 emissions.
2. As the oceans heat up they absorb less CO2. With the rise in CO2 there is a corresponding observed rise in ocean temperatures.
3. As the permafrost of arctic regions thaw out, as they are being observed to be doing, they release trapped CO2 into the atmosphere.
4. Deforestation is not decreasing reducing the amount of land based carbon sinks.
Right now the Earths carbon cycle is in imbalance and this is not improving. Adding all these factors together it is not unreasonable to assume that the rate of CO2 increase will increase by 10% per year. So given these assumptions it is easy to show that with a simple calculation on a spreadsheet that:
Year Rate CO2 Level
2006 2.00 332.00
2007 2.20 334.20
2008 2.42 336.62
2.66 339.28
2.93 342.21
.
.
2040 51.10 872.05
56.20 928.25
I will post the spreadsheet at my blog if you want to have a look at it however it is nothing special. The positive feedback of rising temperatures contributing to the natural net release of more CO2 is what will increase the amount of CO2 more that what you would think from this simple model.
So you can question my assumptions however you now have to justify why you think that this will not happen. The CO2 you emit now will still be there 70 or 80 years later so the time frame 2005 to 2040 is reasonable.
Basically you have to supply data or a study that shows that CO2 will not build up in the way I have shown ie: that something will scrub it out. This is the only way the CO2 we wmit now will not build up in the atmosphere.
Ender
Since the policies reponses to climate change and the generation of CO2 are intimately related to technology and economics it is entirely appropriate for engineers and economists to be involved, in fact one of the problems is that they may not have been involved enough!
By your characterisation of hockey stick discussions as “an attack on science” rather than a criticism to be addressed by due process, you are unfortunately not assisting resolution of scientific issues. Why not concentrate on better communication of scientific arguments as a way to clarify things? Sound arguments speak for themselves, especially if responded to badly.
Ender, I am appalled by your comment. In the paper to which Jennifer provided a link at my request (Update No. 2 above), Ross McKitrick states that: “Neither McIntyre nor me are paid for this research. My day job is as an economics professor. Steve left his job in 2003 and has been working on this project for two years now, completely unpaid.” To the best of my knowledge M&M ARE independent disinterested researchers (as are Castles and Henderson) – do you have any evidence to the contrary?
In any case, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the validity or otherwise of the MM analysis whether they were funded by Exxon or the Dalai Lama. The original paper WAS submitted for, and passed, peer review, and the subsequent history fully vindicates the reviewers, whoever they were. It also brings into serious question the effectiveness of the “normal process of scientific checks and balances” of leading scientific journals (and the IPCC).
It was revealing that when I quoted the serious criticisms of the IPCC process and of “Nature” that had been made by Hans von Storch in “Prometheus”, you responded that “Von Storch is entitled to his opinion however his stance is quite clear from this article” (giving VS’s opinion on global warming). This completely missed the point.
Your characterisation of the M&M work as “an extraordinary attack on science” recalls the shameful attempt by “Scientific American” to discredit Bjorn Lomborg’s “The skeptical Environmentalist.” The failure of most (not all) climate scientists to condemn Mann’s behaviour, as revealed in McKitrick’s article, is extremely disturbing.
Ender, In a further posting you challenge me “to supply data or a study that shows that CO2 will not build up in the way I have shown ie: that something will scrub it out.”
The main relevant study is the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, which was conducted over four years by 53 authors and 89 expert reviewers. The database used in the SRES included the results of 416 scenarios from 171 sources. I’m surprised that you think you can do better in a few minutes’ work on a spreadsheet.
At an IPCC Expert Meeting on Emissions Scenarios in Amsterdam in January 2003, Dr. Tom Wigley, a leading climate change scientist (Australian-born and educated, as it happens) said that “the extreme [SRES] scenarios in terms of the 2100 forcing pattern”, which he believed captured “the total range of possible variation”, were the A2 IMAGE scenario (780 ppm) and the B1T MESSAGE scenario (480 ppm).
In my presentation to the Expert Meeting, I gave a number of reasons for believing that the lower bound of possible variation was well below the B1T MESSAGE level. By contrast, your spreadsheet yields a much higher level of CO2 concentration at the end of the century than the highest of the 35 scenarios modelled by Dr. Wigley.
Perhaps you should send your spreadsheet to Dr. Wigley and invite his comments.
It appears that you haven’t looked at the SRES Tables included as Appendix II to the Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, to which I referred you in an earlier comment. I think that you would save yourself time by studying the sources I’ve mentioned before making further postings.
Ian – that is because it is a simple model however it would seem to indicate that the higher end is more likely. Again you have failed to give any evidence other than the IPCC studies to suggest a mechanism that would limit the growth of CO2 and I would like to hear it. You stated that you do not think 700ppm is likely and I would like to know why.
The lower limits modelled involve cutting CO2 emissions coupled with tree planting etc. Your stated scenrio involves no reduction of CO2 yet you still maintain that 700ppm is not likely. I simply modelled unrestrained CO2 growth which is adequately done with a simple spreadsheet. Your task was to supply a mechanism that would change this simple unrestrained growth. Asking me to send it to Dr Wrigley is ridiculous as I am sure Dr Wrigley can use Excel at least as well as myself.
Here is the question – what do you think will limit unrestrained CO2 growth and thereby limiting the rise in atmospheric CO2 to less that 600ppm or 700ppm as you have stated?
“In my presentation to the Expert Meeting, I gave a number of reasons for believing that the lower bound of possible variation….”
Perhaps you could send me the presentation as this would answer my questions. I am sure that you reasons are valid I would just like to know what they are for my own education.
Ian “I am appalled by your comment. In the paper to which Jennifer provided a link at my request (Update No. 2 above), Ross McKitrick states that: “Neither McIntyre nor me are paid for this research”
This is a link to Climate Audit http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=202 that details a sponsored presentation by the George Marshall Institute. Why would such an organisation sponsor such a presentation. Why did M&M accept this presentation when they knew that it was connected with such a think tank.
And it DOES matter who sponsors the critisism. If 2 researchers had published through the peer review process errors in the original MBH study and that had been accepted, then none of this would have happened. Instead M&M’s, both of whom are not climate scientists, non-peer reviewed work was released. Then a US Congressman in a totally unprecedented move asked MBH to explain their research. The congressman involved has documented links ($500 000 from the oil industry) to fossil fuel interests. How many times has this happened in the past – NONE.
I am sorry please forgive me if I am a little suspicious of M&Ms real motivations. Perhaps they are as you say. Then in that case they are being manipulated by much larger players with trillions to lose. Again by saying “It also brings into serious question the effectiveness of the “normal process of scientific checks and balances” of leading scientific journals (and the IPCC).” you are confirming my belief that M&M are just a wedge to discredit all AGW research.
BTW that is quite enough about the ******** hockey stick.
Ender, You asked me for evidence of a mechanism that would limit the growth of CO2 emissions and I referred you to an IPCC Report of more than 600 pages. Then you say that I’ve failed to give you any evidence other than the IPCC studies! What more do you want? Please read the IPCC Report: it’s available online.
Your assumption that “any increase in activity will cause a corresponding increase in CO2 emissions” is palpably ridiculous. Global CO2 emissions per head in 2002 were at exactly the same level as in 1971: 1.12 tons (Source: CDIAC database of US Department of Energy). Global economic activity per head increased by more than 60 per cent over the same period.
Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have got just as much right to accept an invitation to present at the George Marshall Institute as climate change scientists and (for example) M&M’s strong critic, the journalist David Appell (who’s given a presentation side-by-side with McIntyre at the Institute). Are you suggesting that it’s all right for Appell to accept such an invitation but not for M&M to do so? As McIntyre has explained, he received no expenses, whereas other participants in these presentations are paid for their time by research institutes.
As for the rest of your second posting, I can only regret that you haven’t taken detribe’s advice.
Ian – I would like your mechanism for reducing CO2 emissions which you have skirted around supplying. I asked quite reasonably, for my own education, a copy of “my presentation to the Expert Meeting, I gave a number of reasons for believing…” so I could see what your reasons are.
All I want is for you to say what you think will reduce the growth of CO2 so that it does not reach 700ppm as you stated. Is that clear enough. YOUR answer, unless you wrote that section of the IPCC report, is not there so telling me to read it an go away like a good chap will not do.
The IPCC report you mention has a number of scenerios, you have favoured one over the other – why?
You question one of my assumptions – does that mean the others are OK? Are you denying that the world’s energy use is increasing?. I did not say the the ratio of economic output to energy use is increasing but the absolute amount of energy consumed by industry and domestic use is increasing. Hence the call for nuclear power as this seem to be for some people the only way to supply increasing energy needs.
Can you please answer the question I posed instead of avoiding it by belittling me.
I’ll have to find it in previous blog posts here – but the relatively cleaner CO2 signal in Antartica is closer to exponential (non-linear at least)…
Ender – scenarios for reducing CO2 emissions could be assumptions of:
(1) less emissions per person – why – cost or more efficient production techniques, some technology improvement or renewable energy subsitution
(2) CO2 scrubbing or massive cO2 sequestration techniques get invented (unlikely)
(3) planting trillions of trees (unlikely)
(4) unknown sinks – ocean or stimulating oceans with iron filings ? (unlikely)
Could there be any other options… just doing a checklist off the top of the head (yes not peer reviewed …being lazy this arvo)
Ian – Don’t worry about an answer. I googled your name and found the information I wanted. Funnily enough it would seem that we are closer in thinking than you would imagine. I read the same things by Jim Hansen and sort of had a think about some of my basic assumptions as well.
If you had just said this at the start the series of posts would not have happened. Mind you I still disagree about M&M however we can agree to disagree on that one.
Phil – all of these things would work and a guy called Klaus Lackner suggested a Solar Tower like object to scrub CO2 from the air. I used it in my Solar Methane idea. Planting trees is great – stopping them from being cleared is better as when they are cleared they are usually burnt.
Ender, I’ve just read your latest post. Thank you. I’m glad that peace has broken out, and hope that nothing in the post below, which I’d already prepared to send you, leads to a further outbreak of hostilities.
I’m sorry I overlooked sending you a copy of my presentation to the IPCC Expert Meeting. You’ll find it on pages 170-73 in an article available free online in “Energy & Environment” at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2003/00000014/F0020002/art00004
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to get access to the papers by experts such as Dr. Tom Wigley and Professor Martin Parry upon which I was commenting because the IPCC has never published a report on the meeting.
I apologise if anything I’ve said leaves you feeling belittled and can assure you that that wasn’t my intention. I honestly don’t understand what you are putting to me. You say that “The lower limits modelled involve cutting CO2 emissions coupled with tree planting etc.” but that my (Castles’s) stated scenario involves no reduction of CO2″. How can this be? My stated scenario IS the lowest IPCC scenario, so I don’t see how it can involve cutting CO2 emissions when the Panel says it but not cutting them when I say it.
Yes I questioned one of your assumptions, and no, that doesn’t mean that the others are OK – e.g. on my understanding the present level of CO2 concentrations is over 370 ppm, not 330 ppm. I’m not competent to make a judgement about assumptions (2), (3) and (4) in your second list, and I don’t understand how my view helps if you have the IPCC’s assessment.
I’m getting a little weary of being told what I “have to” do. I “have to justify why (I) think that this will not happen”, I “have to supply data or a study that shows that CO2 will not build up in the way [you]have shown ie: that something will scrub it out”, and so on.
Well, I’ve supplied the data and the study, and you tell me that I’m giving you the IPCC’s assessment, not mine. So far as the science goes, that’s true. If you’re asking me to tell you the mechanism – the “something” that’s scrubbed it out, the answer is that I simply don’t know. I’m obliged to rely on the IPCC’s climate models. I’ve got more faith in them than I have in your spreadsheet.
According to the International Energy Agency’s “Alternative Scenario”, which “considers those policies that countries are currently considering or might reasonably be expected to adopt taking account of technical and cost factors, the political context and market barriers”, annual CO2 emissions from fuel combustion in 2030 will be even lower than under the B1T MESSAGE scenario that leads to a 480 ppm CO2 concentration in 2100 (according to Tom Wigley’s MAGICC model).
I got into this argument because Phil Done asked rhetorically “Anyone believe that with current status of the debate (for better or worse), the developed world’s response, and India and China industrialising – that we’re not at least easily heading between 2 and 3x?” You can’t do this sort of a calculation on the back of an envelope. I’ve been critical of the socio-economic assumptions underpinning the IPCC models, but I don’t doubt that the modellers know that India and China are industrialising. As for the International Energy Agency, they’ve published in some detail their assumption about output, energy use by source, etc. till 2030.
Incidentally the IEA
Ian – so getting back to it and for some clarity – what’s your stabilisation CO2 equivalent number? 480 ppm
1.7x pre-industrial ?
And in 25 years fuel consumption emissions will be less than today ?
And any thoughts on Sahelian peasants vs Iowa farmers?
Ian – Fair enough and thanks for the link. I am still not 100% sure where you stand on the whole debate however I am prepared to see what transpires over time if you keep posting here.
This is an attempt to respond to Phil’s questions. On the question of the stabilisation CO2 equivalent number, it gets increasingly difficult every day to talk about baseline projections of output, energy use, mix of energy sources, etc. on the assumption that there won’t be any policies directed at combating climate change, which the SRES Terms of Reference required of the SRES Writing Team.
Fuel consumption emissions less than today in 25 years time? The SRES modelling suggests this isn’t necessary to get to (say) 500 ppm CO2 equivament. (e.g. B1T MESSAGE projects an increase in annual fossil CO2 emissions of 40 per cent between 2000 and 2030). It’s probably impossible to stay below 400 ppm even ikf extremely drastic action were taken. I don’t believe that publics would support such costly action.
I don’t think that policymakers should kid themselves that there’ll be agreement about the threshold level at which GHG concentrations could be a “dangerous interference with the climate system”, or that, even if they could, that level could be realised through actions that could be enforced. The Government in Country A isn’t going to lose the next election because people look across the border into Country B and and see that fuel costs are only half as great or less. So there has to be an element of “suck it and see” – as Warwick McKibbin discusses in the ASSA paper I mentioned (see from page 28 onwards). Sorry not to give a number, but I don’t believe that that’s possible or even desirable.
On Sahelian peasants vs. Iowa farmers, I don’t believe we know enough to predict regional change or even to know why observed regional changes have occurred. I’ll paste in here a recent news item that surprised me:
“Climate change may mean green Sahel
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Rainfall over parts of Africa’s Sahel appears to be rising but its greening could prove a mixed blessing if the population surges as a result and drought follows, a leading ecologist said on Monday.
“Climate change models suggest the Sahel should be getting drier but observations suggest it is currently getting wetter,” Jon Lovett of the University of York in Britain told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference on climate change in Johannesburg.
“This could lead to an increase in food production and population, but this will be bad if it suddenly goes into another cycle of drought which cannot support all of the additional people and livestock,” he said.
“It has cycles of boom and bust.”
Lovett said the Sahel was relatively green during the 1940s through to the 1960s but since then it has gone into a dry phase that seems to be ending.
Intriguingly, he said research done more than a decade ago linked a wetter Sahel to increased hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico — and this appeared to be occurring in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“This shows that what is happening in Africa can have an affect on the Gulf of Mexico,” he said.
[End of quote]
I take with a grain of salt the bit about a green Sahel leading to a surge in population that would cancel out the effect. Population growth in these countries is already among the highest in the world: rising incomes would probably leaad to a slower population growth rate, not the reverse. We see the worst (Niger) on our TV screens: some of the other Sahelian countries are doing quite well. The challenge for policy is to work out why. One of the reasons that economic analysis helps is that those questions you asked at the beginning of this thread about how does one value a Bangladeshi peasant’s life versus a well educated public servant from Canberra or a banker from New York are already being answered every day. There’ll be a cast of 10,000 or more at the forthcoming COP11 meeting in Montreal: the cost of these people flying around the world might have been better devoted to saving Bangladeshi lives NOW, not in 50 or 100 years time. And when Bangladeshis are as rich as the Dutch are now, they may be able to protect themselves from a rising sea level.
Enough for now.
Phil Done,
Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I really feel I understand your position better now, and I also have more sympathy with it.
You are seized with the urgency of a problem which you believe to be clearly demonstrated by a number of converging lines of evidence. You see the problem largely from a biological viewpoint, in terms of impacts on life of CO2 levels and warming.
One thing I find interesting in this debate is how the balance of opinion shifts according to professional background. Biologists seem generally to be very impressed with the greenhouse case, chemists fairly impressed, physicists a bit more sceptical, and economists hostile.
This may reflect just personalities and interests, but perhaps it also reflects the strength of the orthodox AGW case in the respective fields. Biological impacts of CO2 and warming are unquestionable; chemistry provides a reasonably strong case for human influence on atmospheric composition; physics suggests a rather small influence of CO2 on temperature, at least without hypothesised feedbacks; economics suggests that mitigation costs are likely to outweigh benefits and that the Kyoto Protocol is not well designed.
Like you, I am not too optimistic that we are going to see each other’s point of view in a hurry. The AGW issue is very broad and it is only natural that people take their basic stance on the part of it they feel they understand, and transfer their belief or rejection of this bit to the “package” as a whole.
Let me just sound you out a bit on an area where you obviously know more than I do: sequestration of CO2. You list four possibilities:
(1) less emissions per person – why – cost or more efficient production techniques, some technology improvement or renewable energy substitution
(2) CO2 scrubbing or massive CO2 sequestration techniques get invented (unlikely)
(3) planting trillions of trees (unlikely)
(4) unknown sinks – ocean or stimulating oceans with iron filings ? (unlikely).
Why do you think 2) to 4) are unlikely? On 3), Ender suggests that “Planting trees is great – but stopping them from being cleared is better as when they are cleared they are usually burnt”. Is this right? Would it not be better to harvest trees, use them for furniture, paper etc., and then plant another stand so that the sequestration process can continue? Don’t mature forests get to the stage where their absorption of CO2 through growth is balanced by their emission of CO2 from rotting etc.? Or have I got this wrong?
Of course there is another major way of reducing CO2 emissions that does not involve sequestration: nuclear power. I used to be very against this, but have changed my view, and now feel I had an exaggerated impression of the risks.
In this respect, I must disagree with Steve when he describes the Kyoto process as “technology neutral”. Decision 17 of the 7th Conference of Parties agreed that “Parties included in Annex I are to refrain from using certified emission reductions generated from nuclear facilities to meet their commitments under Article 3, paragraph 1”, effectively barring nuclear power in developing countries as a Kyoto mechanism.
Nuclear power already supplies about 16 per cent of world electricity, and has been shown to be able to provide up to 75 per cent of large countries’ needs cost-effectively. Banning it from the Kyoto process in the developing countries that are going to account for the bulk of the future increase in electricity demand seems like tying our hands behind our backs in addressing the CO2 issue.
The Sahel is the meteorologist’s nightmare – from memory (excuse lack of references) I think there have been explanations ranging from feedback effects of land clearing towards interdecadal oscillations and even global dimming.
But I should have been clearer – I was simply trying to setup a (plausible) hypothetical argument based on the Pacific becoming a more El Nino like mean state of sea surface temperatures. El Nino typically favours and disfavours whole regions differently. Australia and part of Africa remain dry. While USA can be wetter (this of course is very simplistic and apologies to serious meteorologists).
I was trying to explore the “economists” position of a more profitable first world versus a worse plight for the third world. Is there a moral dilemma etc – do we put values on lives based on GDP per capita ? 10,000 Bangladeshis for 1 Australian or whatever ?
And of course yes we should do more now – but that as well … and some countries need to help themselves. But the CO2 “problem” is largely the first world’s doing, and fundamental to our standard of living including my own.
on the issues of dsyfunctional responses to drought – well that’s another few blog posts for Jen I’d suggest. Big topic … some global issues discussed at the International Drought Center in Nebraska are worth a Google.
David Brewer
On nuclear – unlike Ender – and we have done this debate before with some respect for each others position – as a nuclear genie out of the bottle is a disturbing thought. We have had our Chernobyl and Three Mile Islands – Sellafields in the news etc ..but France has run reactors safely for a long time. I believe reactor designs are now greatly improved.
Add up the deaths from coal mining (ongoing and see China particularly) versus nuclear accidents. Very big differences. And perhaps better for us to have the uranium than the Chinese from a military viewpoint (safeguards and inspections withstanding).
So you start to ponder reactors in the middle of Australia linked into the power grid with superconducting transmission lines. Storage of waste in geologically stable CAmbrian rocks perhaps in synroc ?? But anyway not wanting to start a major shoot-out on this – but you have to ponder the risks of nuclear versus a globally warmed world. It’s a calculated risk assessment. Ender I’m sure will make a spirited case for renewables. Perhaps we are limited by our selfish needs for instant and continuous energy everywhere that prevents a serious analysis.
In the end I suspect the immediate economic analyis will strongly favour coal or gas – so someone just burst my fantasy nuclear bubble … it’s unlikely.
On the other issues 2,3,4 as you ask – this is from memory of much reading and listening to others. So again without references.
CO2 scrubbing – unsure of the costs, technically feasibility and energy loss from doing so. You then have to store the CO2 somewhere.
Cleaner burning coal – have to support the Australian initiatives here such as the Coal CRC in Qld.
CO2 in aquifers – Great Artesian Basin – old oil fields – maybe an idea – lots of interest but far from proven, costs, long term stability and any side effects on ground water etc… Would like to believe it.
CO2 in oceans – well some have postulated increasing the activity of plankton using iron fertilsation – but practically how and cost of doing so, ecological impacts of extra ferruous and ferric salts etc. What happens in the long run – does it simply re-emit later and elsewhere?
Pumping CO2 in deep oceans – another form of sequestration – many many technical difficulties and stability of the solution unknown.
Think a recent Scientific American did a review on geological and maybe oceanic sequestration.
Planting and harvesting trees. A very big area. Lots of dodgy arguments about new trees taking in more CO2 – but you have to look at the long run balance. The Land Use and Forestry parts of Kyoto are specialist stuff. Clearing trees – and their subsequent burning, and carbon rundown in the disturbed soil are big sources of emissions – how indeed Australia has fiddled so-called Kyoto compliance. Some tree products have very short life cycles – paper rots and re-emist quickly unless recycled. Timber in furniture and houses are given calculated life times.
Cropping usually runs down soil carbon compared to forests.
Of course woodland thickening is an issue – as most of our savannas are a fire-mediated sub-climax. There are many 100s of megatons sequestered in woodland and shrub thickets in overgrazed or fire-suppressed woodland/grassland landscapes in Australia (esp Qld), South Africa amd southern USA. However Kyoto only assigns the change in the rate of sequestering as anthropogenic – sorry graziers … i.e. even though the cause of all thickening may be anthropogenic it was going on anyway and not a conscious new mitigation activity.
In the end – planting trees is difficult stuff. We have lots of trouble in many parts of Australia getting things back from grasslands. Planting trees is hard and sometimes soul destroying work. Fire and drought take a toll just when you think you’ve gotten somewhere. Tropical forest soils run down very quickly if cleared and cropped.
I guess I feel personally despondent that society will get behind large scale tree planting. I also suspect if you do the numbers – that our capacity to burn fossil fuels way outstrips our capacity to sequester the CO2 back into vegetation.
Millions of years of fossil fuel production – all liberated back into the atmosphere in 200 years !!
Despite my bearishness on carbon sequestration – there are active trades on carbon occurring on some stock exchanges and the value had increased significantly in recent years. But you really need to be in Kyoto to play.
The other issue of course is feedback effects which probably occur in the geological record. An orbital change perhaps starts a warming – thew arming burns off some biospheric CO2 – this warms the place some more and some more is liberated. i.e. a feedback effect.
This may be occuring now as northern tundra, permafrost and peat bogs in Canada, Alaska and Russia start to melt and release CO2 and methane. See recent posts on issue this blog some weeks ago. This could be a major unknown reinforcer…
Why I am interested in Ian’s assessment of a stabilisation CO2 level. (and seems to be close to 2x !!)
Ian – far be it from a dabbler like myself to attempt to dicuss economics withh you but have you seen Climatic Change 68: 11–19, 2005…..
Do we get the right (same) answer for wrong reasons?
PPP CORRECTION OF THE IPCC EMISSION SCENARIOS –
DOES IT MATTER?
BJART J. HOLTSMARK1 and KNUT H. ALFSEN1,2
1Research Department, Statistics Norway, P.O. Box 8131 Dep., N-0033 Oslo, Norway
E-mail: bjj@ssb.no
2CICERO – Centre for International Climate and Environment Research, Oslo
Abstract. Ian Castles and David Henderson have criticized IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions
Scenarios (SRES) (IPCC: 2000, Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 595 pp. http://www.
grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/index.htm) for using market exchange rates (MER) instead of purchasing
power parities (PPP), when converting regional GDP into a common denominator. The
consequence is that poor countries generally appear to be poorer than they actually are. An overstated
income gap between the rich and poor countries in the base year gives rise to projections of too high
economic growth in the poor countries, because the scenarios are constructed with the aim of reducing
the income gap. Castles and Henderson claim that overstated economic growth means that greenhouse
gas emissions are overstated as well. However, because closure of the emission-intensity gap between
the rich and the poor parts of the world is another important driving force in the scenarios, we argue
that the use of MER in the SRES scenarios has not caused an overestimation of the global emission
growth because, as far as global emissions are concerned, the overstated income gap is effectively
neutralized by the overstated emission-intensity gap.
“But the CO2 “problem” is largely the first world’s doing, and fundamental to our standard of living including my own.”
I’d just like to point out that the atmospheric CO2 “problems” needs a solution that affects all the major CO2 users, first world or not, and that most likely the most immediate solutions are going to come from the first world because it has better educational, research, and economic resources. Analysing future scenario’s by keeping the “blame the first world” position too high on the agenda is counterproductive; much better to keep on asking where are realistic solutions going to come from.
Its also wonderful to see “peace breaking out” and useful comments such as Dave Brewer’s flow even more freely. If we all think a while while taking our bex’s, we might realise that no-one would type away so intently for so long on this issue if they wern’t truly intent on seeing better outcomes.
The changing status of nuclear energy is an example of a more general and unfortunately too common problem: frozen inflexible and unjustified ideology based stances being real roadblocks to consideration of a full range of solutions. There are other areas than “nucular” in which similar ideological roadblocks occur – for example tree harvesting as a commercial proposition being thought to be bad because it involves profitable business ($$$!!!), new techniques for minimum tillage being banned in Australia because Green voters in the cities have been made to dislike them by dopey idealogy, and so on. (But the atmopheric benefits of minimum tillage are now very well documented, so its really astonishing that Governments that ban this techniques also clain to be Green and Clean with a straight face. I’m not mentioning these issues to inflame the discussion (truly) but to point out the problems created when so many stakeholders are unwilling to consider them with an open mind. ( Any blog readers here might believe me better on this if I remind them that I come from a tradition where any misgiving is allowed on the table, however unfashionable,in an effort to uncover what we dont understand.)
One good thing about the current hurricane GW media hysteria is that these topics are slowly being put back on the discussion table.
A few other bits to illustrate a dabbler’s paranoia …
http://www.ametsoc.org/amsnews/warmerworld.pdf
Is a warmer world a wetter world?
I’m also informed that methane is now trending upwards in last two years after declining in the early 2000s… maybe than darn peat bog in Russia ?
A friend also just passed me some information on possible CO2 levels….. follows….
“Further, emerging evidence from India and China is now suggesting that all IPCC emission scenarios for the coming few decades may be underestimates. To quote some recent work from the centre for Strategic Economic Studies at Victoria University (Peter Sheehan) “A reference (unchanged policy) projection for global CO2 emissions is constructed, which shows CO2 emissions rising from 6.5 billion tons of carbon in 2002 to about 10 billion by 2010 and to 17-18 billion by 2030. This implies an atmospheric CO2 concentration in excess of 550 ppm by 2050 and in excess of 800 ppm by 2100, with strong global warming through the 21st century.” It is my understanding the IPCC and IEA predicted a doubling of energy use in the developing world over a ~30 year period. India and China will achieve a doubling in approximately 6 years going on current trends…”
And as I said above there are various feedbacks from the biosphere that need adding in … melting of tundra, permafrost, and peat bogs. Increased temperature will also speed up decay of organic matter, woody debris, soil carbon etc world-wide. These fluxes may be considerable.
Then there is the global dimming issue whereby radiation may increase if we reduce aerosol pollution. So do we already have more warming than we know if all the radiation got through.
And add to this some pretty keen coal to oil gasification by the Asia Pacific pact in front of perhaps Peak Oil one wonders what might be in store. So Ian – if you have some doubts on bristle cones – don’t stop there.
Of course it’s interesting what we trust – Ian is distrustful of Mann on the evidence perhaps. Louis distrusts greenhouse gas theory. Warwick distrust the temperature record. In general, many are distrustful of recent paleo records, surface temperatures (but haven’t heard any attacks on the latest satellite stuff), melting glaciers, melting Artic and Antarctic, faster tropical storms, more El Ninos. All are not perfect and other explanations (soem desperate) have been advanced in this blog.
But I find it remarkable how much we’re prepared to trust furture scenarios with all the technological, societal and biophysical process unknowns. Yes Ian I know it may be at least a bounded problem. And it’s also interesting that those so distrustful of the present measurments this century are happy to accept little bubbles in ice or what the Permian may have been like at 6.45am in the morning.
So maybe we need a C Team !!!! The C team will be explore the higher end and shock us from our perhaps blind spots (and they of course like the B Team and IPCC main team will be studied, reviewed, poked and prodded as well – and if found wanting taken out the back for a ruddy good trashing).
And maybe we need some good cognitive psychologists to examine our own reactions of bias, denial, fear and hope. Neville Nicholls wrote a wonderful paper on how illogical we all are with climate probabilities and forecasts – why would any of this issue be that different. Most of us are not good at probabilities – particularly if its gets personal.
OK – please excuse the unscholarly speculation of the above – but this is a blog after all – not a journal. Just for discussion.
And so “miles and miles to go before we sleep”.
Hmmmm …. out of Bex – time for a Valium and lie down for a while at least.
Phil, Yes I’ve seen the Holtsmark and Alfsen piece in “Climatic Change”, and another H&A paper in “Climate Policy” which was written later but published earlier (and takes a somewhat different line). The paper in “Climatic Change” had been published as Statistics Norway Research Department Discussion Paper No. 366, February 2004. There’s an interesting difference. The Statistics Norway version (and also a version of the paper published under a different title by CICERO, a Norwegian Government environment research body) says EIGHT times that the IPCC Report made “mistakes” or “errors”. In the “Climatic Change” version, all of these references have been rephrased to remove the connotation that there were errors in the IPCC Report. An interesting example of the workings of the peer review process.
The question of the effect (if any) that the IPCC’s use of the wrong GDP measure had on emissions projections is still being examined,
and the Lords Committee report referred to the view of Professor Bill Nordhaus of Yale that “the jury is still out” on the question.
The more important point is that, whether or not emissions projections are affected, the GDP projections and energy intensity reductions ARE all wrong. So the IPCC made a serious mistake in deciding that the SRES was OK for use in AR4.
There’s a good discussion of all of this in the House of Lords Committee Report (paras. 52-72 and 107-108).
By the way, I’m in friendly electronic communication with Bjart Holtsmark, who recently alerted me to serious errors in an article published by the Washington-based think-tank Resources for the Future.
Ian – I’ll obviously have to get up even earlier to tell you anything you don’t know… (meant nicely)
Anyway in my opinion as a dabbler – I think the IPCC should review the scenarios in the light of biospheric feedbacks, and a double check on China, India and future technology assumptions.
I find myself indulgent either way.
detribe – why do Greens dislike Min Till ?? They’d prefer our cane fields bare?
Phil, I haven’t seen the Victoria University study (can you give me an electronic link?) but I’d have to say that an increase in CO2 emissions from 6.5 to 10 billion tons between 2002 and 2010 seems highly improbable. Global CO2 emissions per capita were the same in 2002 as in 1971 (1.12 tons Carbon equivalent). The 10 billion tons figure implies a rise to 1.55 tons per capita or thereabouts by 2010.
You say that “Ian is mistrustful of Mann”. I’d say the point is rather that the IPCC was blindingly trustful of the MBH studies. I heard the late Rhys Jones, anthropologist at the ANU, tell the National Academies Forum on Climate Change in 1997 of all of the evidence for the Medieval Warm Period – why Greenland was called Greenland and all the rest. Then three climate change researchers produce a diagram showing little change in temperature from 1000 to 1850 and it is seized upon the IPCC and given extraordinary prominence in the Third Assessment Report.
Watson, the former Chair, told a COP meeting in 2000 that it was “beyond dispute” that the last two decades of the 20th century were the warmest of the millennium. Now, through McIntyre’s efforts, it’s emerged that the rewrite of climate history depended on the evidence of a handful of bristlecones, and that Mann knew of this, didn’t disclose it, and marked the file “CENSORED”. OK, I am distrustful.
Sorry Ian – the Victoria Uni study was a pers comm. – it may be on Sheehan’s web site (I apologised in my post for lack of references). My source is serious person so I have no reason to doubt its validity.
On the Medieval warming – and not wishing to open up range wars again on the subject (1) there is dispute as to whether the “Warming” was worldwide or regional (2) some of my previous posts with references are still disputing the validity or otherwise of the “outcomes” of analysis (3) we might conclude that we “really don’t know well enough” to be definitive either way. (4) need to watch how much time we spend on this issue versus the last 100 years, the here and now, and the next 30 years, and then the next 100 years. I hope it will be gently solved in the journal literature and then we may have a quiet beer and reflect on the episode ….
Anyway my point was (I will delete you as an exmaple to progress it) is that it is very interesting what data we find easy to believe and what we don’t. I’m suggesting our critical faculty is perhaps not uniformly applied. i.e. many have no problems with the paleo records yet dispute the last century (perhaps they may be justified) – but I think there’s some cognitive dissonance going on with all of us – hence needs for B and maybe C teams to play sweeper. Trust noone – including yourself !!
and Ian – don’t forget about the biospheric feedbacks – another big issue – does SRES count them in – see Siberian peat bog discussion this blog … area bigger than France is thawing.
P.S. Jen – wish your blog search tool was better so I could find this quickly for Ian !!!! or maybe I don’t know how to drive it.
The main problem here is that we do not know really anything about what our actions will cause. We are conducting a grand experiment here and just guessing at the result.
CO2 sequestration is OK however like nuclear waste it is a long term problem and we are a short term species. To us a thousand years is a long time whereas in geological time this is an eyeblink. Rock strata that seems stable from our knowledge now in 100 000 years may allow the CO2 to escape. Quite apart from just being able to kill people from bubbling out in a rush do we really want to pollute the future in this way? Is our lifestyle that important that we leave these gotchas of toxic nuclear waste and CO2 for the future?
You do not have to be a greenie to think like this. I do not know that answers. To me the IPCC report was flawed however as a political document it was a success. Polititians need something to work from. As Phil says if you ask a biologist, a physist, and a economist about AGW you will get 3 different answers. The IPCC report is intended as a synthesis of available knowledge for polititians to act on. It is not about hockey sticks, or feedbacks, or GCMs but a document of the best available consensus knowledge and in this it suceeded. Perhaps the economic part can be beefed up for the next one.
If you read this link you can see what CO2 can do.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mhalb/nyos/nyos.htm
How about
Climate warning as Siberia melts
11 August 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Fred Pearce
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11 June 2005
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Jon Pelletier, University of Arizona
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THE world’s largest frozen peat bog is melting. An area stretching for a million square kilometres across the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts, according to Russian researchers just back from the region.
The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
The news of the dramatic transformation of one of the world’s least visited landscapes comes from Sergei Kirpotin, a botanist at Tomsk State University, Russia, and Judith Marquand at the University of Oxford.
Kirpotin describes an “ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming”. He says that the entire western Siberian sub-Arctic region has begun to melt, and this “has all happened in the last three or four years”.
What was until recently a featureless expanse of frozen peat is turning into a watery landscape of lakes, some more than a kilometre across. Kirpotin suspects that some unknown critical threshold has been crossed, triggering the melting.
Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some 3
Phil, At risk of appearing stubborn, I have to say that dispassionate examination of the historical (1000-1850) period is of the highest importance, and that the MWP is significant whether it was global or regional. If it was global, that bears on the question of whether recent temperature changes and levels are outside the range of (reasonably recent) global variation. If it was regional, that means that much of the current policy response is predicated on an assumption about the capacity to predict regional change which is unjustified.
I’ll paste in here an extract from David Brewer’s first posting on this thread:
“They [tree rings] are only temperature sensitive either way for a few weeks a year. There are a host of possible confounding factors which are rarely taken into account in the proxy collections – CO2 fertilisation, landscape changes, logging effects etc. etc. This was well known in the field for many years before politics entered in. Both the 1990 and 1995 IPCC reports had access to proxy reconstructions, but did not arbitrarily select one. Instead, they gave a general overall impression of the evolution of temperatures, based on all known proxies, as well as historical and literary records of weather conditions. This was sensible, because the fundamental limitations of tree rings were clear. It was only in the Third Assessment Report, after Hubert Lamb had died in 1997, that Mann took over the relevant IPCC chapter and gave enormous prominence to his own “mathematical” study, in which tree rings predominated.”
I think it is another serious mark against Mann and his co-authors that they said in their 1999 paper that “Lamb never suggested that this [the MWP] was a global phenomenon”. In fact, Lamb had written in 1965 that “Multifarious evidence of a meteorological nature from historical records, as well as archaelogical, botanical and glaciological evidence in various parts of the world from the Arctic to New Zealand … has been found to suggest a warmer epocj lasting several centuries between about A.D. 900 or 100 and about 1200 or 1300.” I’m not saying that Lamb’s statement was soundly based. I do find it outrageous that three experts should assert 30 years later that he never said it, and have their paper relied upon by the IPCC within months of publication.
I think your question about biospheric feedbacks would be better directed to a climate scientist – there were scores from Australia who were involved in the main scientific report that produced the 1.4 to 5.8 deg. C projection, and some of them are involved again in AR4.
It was a very serious climate scientist who reminded me !! The Siberian stuff is fairly new -2005.
And apology for last post – last time – it generated a lot of questions.
Ian – so nothing here of merit ?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=64
Ian to be precise my institutional climate science friend said biospheric feedbacks really kick in over 2C warming – he said that was unaccounted for in SRES currently – but I think we’re seeing surprise feedbacks now ! I think scientists are genuinely surprised at the degree of Artic and temperate northern melting and the degree of global warming phenomena in general. Of course we need an estimate of the overall potential flux…
To do these SRES VII scenarios at their very best we need the biologists, climate scientists, economists and energy technologists need to get together and sort it !
Not to mention the oceans absorbing less CO2 as they warm up.
http://www.energybulletin.net/7650.html
“”If we maintain our current course of fossil fuel emissions or accelerate our emissions, the land and oceans will not be able to slow the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the way they’re doing now,” said Inez Y. Fung at the University of California, Berkeley, who is director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center, co-director of the new Berkeley Institute of the Environment, and professor of earth and planetary science and of environmental science, policy and management. “It’s all about rates. If the rate of fossil fuel emissions is too high, the carbon storage capacity of the land and oceans decreases and climate warming accelerates.””
Phil, I don’t want to suggest that there’s NOTHING of merit on the real climate site, but in general I think it’s pretty feeble compared with the climate audit site run by Steve McIntyre. Steve is the most active contributor to his own site and engages with the participants, some of whom are obviously very able scientists. Although Mann was one of the founders of the real climate site, he stays away from the debates (which in any case aren’t about defending MBH but about criticising M&M and defending some of the partial defenders of MBH).
Re your comment that it was a very serious scientist that reminded you – I didn’t intend to suggest otherwise. I observe the scientific evidence put forward by you and Ender, and I also see much that goes in the opposite direction, including from serious scientists, on the real climate site and elsewhere.
I’m not competent to reach an opinion on the merits of the science arguments, although I’m sure that the alarmist findings get far more coverage in the media than those that don’t fit the warming paradigm. For example, It’s my understanding that, one small peninsula excepted, the ANTarctic is now colder than it was 60-70 years ago. Scientists are presumably just as surprised about this as the Arctic phenomena, but in the present climate (pun intended), we seem to hear more about some phenomena than others. (With current search resources, I believe this could be demonstrated, and perhaps someone should try). Meanwhile, a Team B exercise could correct the balance a bit.
Feeble !!! hmmmm …
Ian – without resorting to a “me too”. My advice is the Antarctic record is patchy and unclear. Also a cooler interior and perhaps increased snowpack is not inconsistent with the GW theory or a faster circumploar vortex caused by …!!
Interestingly the CO2 record there is non-linear – getting exponential.
Phil, I’m not going to be drawn into an argument on specifics. There are lots of GW theories and increased snowpack is not inconsistent with some of them. There are lots of GW doubts and the melting Arctic is not inconsistent with some of those. The purpose of the IPCC is to provide a policy-relevant assessment. The Lords Committee Report , and some submissions made to the inquiry by eminent scientists, are ample evidence that the Panel has lost credibility among intelligent non-scientists.
By the way, on the degree of Arctic melting and the scientists’ surprise about it, let me quote from a 1939 book:
“
I meant to say that the IPCC has lost credibility among SOME intelligent non-scientists.
CO2 rising exponentially at the Antarctic? I wonder if that is due to Mt Erebus and the increased CO2 rate might be a harbinger of another eruption event……
And why on earth should CO2 accelerate in concentration at the Antarctic?
Ian – the Siberian peat bog (backed up with carbon dating which is why I referenced above ) hasn’t thawed in 8,000 to 10,000 years…
The issue with the 1939 book is OK and interesting but unsatisfactory without a mechanism. I guess you can bring in some sort of long term oscillation – but how does it work ?
Close to this theme …
Other explanations to global warming seem to get quoted as “the world is just coming back after the last Ice Age..” has a nice ring to it – but why – what does it mean – a solar mechanism ? orbital ? long scale ocean oscillation ? I haven’t seen anyone run a reasoned argument of a plausible alternative. But would have thought contrarians would have given one a good run for it … just saying “oh well things have changed before” is intellectually unsatisfying – why are they changing then and now??
Louis has teased us before on why Greenland does what it does – and I thought at some point he might advance a theory from above or get into Atlantic circulation (conveyor) area but he’s declined to add further. So we await his views.
Louis – I will dig up the CO2 curve reference. Was explained to me as a signal less affected by El Nino and seasonal variations etc. The CO2 curve as you know at Mauna Loa type latitudes wiggles about in response to these things ….
Wasn’t trying to make huge amounts of the Antarctic issue – just interesting.
Louis BTW “a degree” of peace has broken out in this thread with Ian Castle’s facilitation and we have exchanged substantial points of view. Perhaps even listened and not shouted (well in the main hey Jen). Not withstanding some still robust debate.
Louis – was buried in a previous post some months back… was in a debate about the linearity of the CO2 increase.
The South Pole CO2 has only a small annual cycle which makes the trends clearer.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/spo121e_thrudc04.pdf
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-spl.htm
From the graph one can see that the growth rate 1995-2005 is larger than 1985-1995. So rates are growing !
For the future, CO2 is expected to be the dominant contribution to the radiative forcing. e.g. from 2000 to 2050 SRES A2 has CO2 going from 370 to 531 ppm and CH4 from 1793 to 2836 ppb. The respective radiative forcings are 1.93 W/m^2 and 0.36 W/m^2.
Phil, Do you realise that the SRES A2 scenario that you have cited assumes a world population of 15 billion in 2100? The United Nations Population Division publishes three population projections – low, medium and high – and the A2 assumption is well above the high projection. Many (maybe most) demographers believe that global population will reach a peak of 9-10 billion during the second half of the century and then decline.
And Louis – looked up all the background on CO2 absorption bands and CO2 physics.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 see comment 54 !
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
Yes Ian – was about magnitudes of maximum forcings and out of context. CO2 in Antarctica was the issue.
Louis – Your question – how do know CO2 is from human activity
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87
and for good debate on CO2 physics
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=168 see comments 19 – 26…
Phil,
I down loaded the data and fitting a linear trend to the time periods results in a slightly higher increase for 1995 to 2004, there being no data for 2005. I also fitted a trend to 1985 to 1994 which was slightly lower in rate of increase.
However close inspection of the data shows that while R2 is close to .98, it is a composite trend in which there was a distinct flattening of CO2 increase from 1999 to 2001, followed by a slightly sharper increase. I personally would seek an explanation for this linear drift from the longer term trend geologically.
As the biggest CO2 emitter in the Antarctic is Mt Erebus, I would look to it as the source of CO2 down there, as well as submarine volcanoes which we only “accidentally” find out when surveying is actually done.
As I have shown on my post here there is also a very good correlation between increasing population growth and CO2.
Poor me, getting deluged with more URL’s.
I feel like being bombarded with quotations from someone who has had a recent conversion of the Damasque type.
Well, linking to my site does not work here
http://lhcrazyworld.blogspot.com/2005/11/atmospheric-co2-as-human-population.html
So there it is.
Yes Louis – had already lurked on your site – for daily dose of outrage and blood pressure elevation – my presence probably set off your perimeter motion detectors – I imagine you would be using quantum cryptography … my sheer observation would have disturbed the balance.
Hence post on CO2 & human causes.
And no Damascus … you just seemed open for business… so I thought I’d slip you some info relevant to the debate.
CO2 physics is some serious reading for our long standing debate on greenhouse gases – not taking a partisan line – these guys get down to the excitation bonds, photons and molecular collisions. I think you’ll like it. Also little known history of the “effect”.
And where is Rog – not sulking I hope.
Ian – you have to be kidding. Real Climate is written by a team of 10 scientists all with peer reviewed papers to their credit. Climate Audit is a one subject blog written by a mining engineer.
This is from the man himself posted at
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000618invitation_to_mcinty.html
“Your suggestions as to my motives are completely off-base. I became interested in MBH because it seemed promotional (as you point out) and I was simply interested in how the promotion worked. I did it entirely for personal interest without any plans or expectation of writing academic papers.
I am not personally advocating any alternative theory. At some point in the future, I might, but, for now, I’m trying to completely analyze the existing offerings – something that no one else seems to have done. I would have thought that this would be viewed as a worthwhile undertaking by people in the field, rather than being resented.
I am absolutely not attacking the “entire field of paleoclimatology”. I think that there are many substantial and valuable studies in the field and I find the discipline very interesting. I happen to be very unimpressed with the writings of one small subgroup in the field – sometimes known as the Hockey Team – and it is grandiose to identify their output as being equivalent to the entire discipline.
Posted by: Steve McIntyre at November 3, 2005 06:50 PM”
Sort of reinforces my view that the whole hockey stick thing is really a side show and even Steve M acknowledges it. Also confirms his credentials as a climate scientist.
I would really suggest very strongly that Real Climate has a greater chance of posting science that is closer to the truth.
Loius – the CO2’s origin is determined by its isotopic ratio. Fossil CO2 has a definite signature.
Some numbers may help us assess our opinions on various points. [Sorry I am so earnest by the way. I notice that even Ian is now indulging in witticisms and I got a jolly good laugh out of rog
David – what determines CO2 sensitivity ? serious question – model formulation ? you can see I am wrestling with CO2 physics while trying to get Louis at least doing some reading.
Seems we need a checklist of possible exceptions.
Relative magnitude, direction…
India & China
Best guess on technology of generation, use and sequestration
Biological feedbacks from warming 70BT of methane in Siberian bog !
End of Oil type interactions with fuel consumption habits
Nuclear option?
Potential for renewables
Will SRES AR4 sort these out?
At what CO2 level and current scenario can and should we intervene ! And how given Kyoto’s problems ? Or is it cheaper to wear the hit ?
Ender, No I’m not kidding. Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick now have 5 peer-reviewed papers to their credit on the hockey stick debate. A number of scientists with peer reviewed credentials have declared their belief that M&M are right, and I’ve no doubt that others would do so but for the politically-charged nature of the debate. Climate audit is not a one subject blog: there have been fascinating discussions on a range of issues, some of them going wider than climate science. And it’s not written by one person. Steve McIntyre keeps up a good flow of new postings, but there are many other contributors, including quite a few who have had papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
Real Climate is well presented but in my view fairly boring. Recently it lapsed into almost total silence for a month. I’m very unimpressed with their practice of holding up postings from Steve and some others until the whole team give their seal of approval. In my view, some of the best postings are the ones from the Climate Audit group who get through the gate.
David, re CO2 emissions. Yes, the BP figures show large increases in China in the last few years, but surprisingly small increases in India. The International Energy Agency scenarios published last year, with evidence of the Chinese surge available to the modellers, put emissions in 2030 at the low end of the IPCC range. But I agree that there is a strong case for removing the Kyoto ban on nuclear power in developing countries, whether or not CO2 concentrations surge.
“detribe – why do Greens dislike Min Till ?? They’d prefer our cane fields bare?”
Dont even think they dislike it. All I know is Green activism has hampered the further improvement and sensible adoption of this technology (no-till is collateral damage), probably because of poor judgement by labor Premiers other than Beattie, who see Clean and Green as an advertising slogan, rather than something where you have to have scientific evidence of benefit.
Ian – I can only find 1
Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance
S McIntyre, R McKitrick – Geophysical Research Letters, 2005 – deas.harvard.edu
Ross McKitrick Department of Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario,
Canada Received 14 October 2004; revised 22 December 2004; accepted 17 …
Perhaps you can list the other 4.
Finally this from Mann:
“9) Was MBH98 the final word on the climate of last millennium?
Not at all. There has been significant progress on many aspects of climate reconstructions since MBH98. Firstly, there are more and better quality proxy data available. There are new methodologies such as described in Rutherford et al (2005) or Moberg et al (2005) that address recognised problems with incomplete data series and the challenge of incorporating lower resolution data into the mix. Progress is likely to continue on all these fronts. As of now, all of the ‘Hockey Team’ reconstructions (shown left) agree that the late 20th century is anomalous in the context of last millennium, and possibly the last two millennia.”
PS: Yes Real Climate is a bit boring however I think the scientists involved are a bit busy with research to post that much and are not confused with the notion that quantity is better than quality.
What determines the sensitivity of temperature to CO2?
Good question. I am no expert, but since I have vowed that this will not stop me from answering, here goes.
It is generally agreed that extra CO2 would alter the flow of infrared radiation from the earth back to space. There is a pretty ingenious presentation in Zillman’s recent account here, page 10: http://www.assa.edu.au/publications/op/op22005.pdf
Kininmonth’s account is not much different:
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/climatechange.pdf By the way, he might be part of the dreaded Lavoisier, but I don’t think Bill Kininmonth is creepy.
There are many other accounts. Lindzen and Emanuel, foes on the hurricane/CO2 connection, managed to agree on this encyclopaedia article:
http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/198_greenhouse.pdf from which:
QUOTE If changes in greenhouse gas concentration were the only factor involved, it would be straightforward to calculate the resulting temperature change in the atmosphere and at the surface. For example, doubling the carbon dioxide concentration would increase the global average surface temperature by about 1 degree C. The complexity of the climate problem arises from the great number of feedbacks in the climate system. For example, raising the temperature of the atmosphere may increase the amount of water vapor, a greenhouse gas, thereby giving an even greater increase in temperature. UNQUOTE
Lindzen and Emanuel go on to describe some of the complexities introduced by water vapour. Notice that their figure 2, which incorporates water vapour effects, reverses an aspect of the Zillman graph, which only shows radiative effects. If only radiation changes are considered, greenhouse warming is greatest at the surface, and declines with altitude. If water vapour is taken into account, warming may increase with altitude up to the upper troposphere, before falling away to cooling in the stratosphere. This is closer to the orthodox view, reflected in climate models.
Until the sixties or early seventies, sensitivity to CO2 in practice was calculated by a variety of theoretical or empirical methods, most of which yielded answers close to or below the 1 degree calculated for radiative effect alone. The empirical methods relied on observed temperature responses to other perturbations of forcing, e.g. volcanic dust, solar variations. Rasool and Schneider famously estimated CO2 doubling sensitivity as 0.67 degrees in 1971, and this was typical of opinion at the time. Their result implied that water vapour and other feedbacks were net negative. Lindzen and some others still adhere to this view, see e.g. here http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/allfeedbacks.htm
However, early climate models, especially those developed from 1963 by Syukuro Manabe at Princeton, produced positive feedbacks from water vapour effects, and yielded average surface warming of 3 degrees or more for CO2 doubling. Many models still do, but since their handling of water vapour and more particularly of clouds is still unsatisfactory, and since the magnitude and even sign of some other forcings are not known or not included in models, there remains a large area of uncertainty.
For many years the IPCC has used a sensitivity range of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C for CO2 doubling. This originated in a 1979 US National Academy of Sciences report headed by Jule Charney. Rumour has it that Charney arrived at the range by ringing up the relative handful of modellers active at the time and writing down their guesses.
A recent IPCC workshop reconsidered sensitivity and although model estimates were still all over the place, decided to narrow the range for their Fourth Assessment Report, AR4, to 2.6 to 4.0 degrees. So-called sceptics had mostly stayed away, and were not too impressed with the outcome. They pointed out privately that the new range invalidated the IPCC’s own demonstration in the Third Assessment Report, TAR, that a model sensitivity of 2.5 degrees could mimic the evolution of the surface temperature record. See TAR Summary for Policymakers, page 11, which does not, however, mention the sensitivity level used.
By the way, the agreement on the sensitivity and the fact that the old scenarios are going to be reused virtually fixes the range of projections likely to come out of the first draft of AR4: i.e. 2.5 to 5.1 degrees warming from 1990 to 2100.
Given the present state of models it is likely to be many years before we see a substantial and widely agreed narrowing of the uncertainty range for the sensitivity of temperature to CO2.
Your question on M&M’s other peer-reviewed papers on the hockey stick, Ender. There have been two in Energy & Environment (one in October 2003 and one about February 2005), and two more in Geophysical Research Letters (both within the last month, commenting, respectively, on Van Storch & Zorita and Huybers). There’s another one currently under review at GRL, commenting on another critique that GRL had originally rejected. GRL initially advised M&M that they didn’t need to comment on this one, then reversed their decision and wrote to M&M requiring a response within 21 days. The reasons behind GRL
PS. Ender, here are a couple of recent comments on Climate Audit on Real Climate which illustrate one of my problems with RC:
(1) Looks like you got a brief explanation on RealClimate as to why 192 got posted up and then taken away: “If your comment was deleted, then you stepped over the invisible line. Have another go, but more carefully
Ian – you realise you’re responsible for Jen’s blog counter going off the scale here – I’m told the counter is only held as a 7 bit integer so we may be close to trouble 🙂 OK Jen – what’s the record ! Do we all get little certificates or something ?
Ian – OK back into the fray – my two bobs worth is that Realclimate is only boring as it’s heavily into the science more than the political intrigue. They’re NOT totally pure but they are pretty good – some of the threads have substantial debate – far from universally censored. And you get in depth information – a reasoned argument which you may wish to agree with or not (usually with references).
In the main I find the anti-sites are usually fairly shrill – grabbed by the shirt collar – “you just have to listen to me … preposterous … UN plot etc “.
My Lavoisier unkind comment was from the indsicriminate list of rants and references they have on their site. MAny have arguments well answered and there seems to be a lack of balance. A list of “commonly held assumptions” by proponents or “a really good alternative explanation” would be good. Also we usually seem to get into a position where we give everyone a good flogging, sack them, and then all go home. No way forward is suggested….
(and all that is my very biased account definitely without references).
David Brewer – thanks for your substantial post. I’m off reading… would be pleased for your opinion on
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L03202, doi:10.1029/2003GL018765, 2004
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003GL018765.shtml
Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the
increasing greenhouse effect
Rolf Philipona,1 Bruno Du¨rr,1 Christoph Marty,1 Atsumu Ohmura,2 and Martin Wild2
Will email you if you can’t access easily – just email me and I will send PDF ..
Also
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2004GL020937.shtml
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L22208, doi:10.1029/2004GL020937, 2004
Greenhouse forcing outweighs decreasing solar radiation driving rapid temperature rise over land
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023624.shtml
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L19809, doi:10.1029/2005GL023624, 2005
Anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and strong water vapor feedback increase temperature in Europe
David – Hasn’t the latest revision in satellite measurements and radiosondes to a warming troposphere put a hole in Karner quoted by Hughes.
Thanks Phil. I don’t want to divert you from your exchange of papers with David Brewer, but I do want to comment on your remark about Lavoisier. I wondered who you were addressing when you said “jeez you Lavoisier guys are soooo creepy”. Of course I’m not a Lavoisier guy, but because I’d been told that some of the IPCC fraternity thought that I was, I made the following statement at the opening of my presentation at the Expert Meeting at Amsterdam:
“Although I have spent most of my life working for Australian Governments, I need to make clear that I am not now affiliated with any government agency, nor indeed with any other organisation involved in climate change matters.”
That seems clear enough to me, but it wasn’t good enough for Professor Nakicenovic and his 14 SRES colleagues, who without troubling to check with me included the following footnote in their response (May 2003) to Castles and Henderson:
“In his introductory remarks at the Amsterdam meeting … Mr Castles asserted that he is ‘not affiliated with any … organization involved in climate change matters; ,,, whereas he is a member of the Lavoisier Group … that deals almost exclusively with climate change matters. This begs the question whether other statement and criticisms advanced in his contribution to this issue of Energy and Environment are equally misleading. We believe that this is the case with many of the assertions that the SRES scenarios are ‘unsound'”.
David and I patiently explained in our next article (July 2003) that the assertion that I was a member of the Lavoisier Group was untrue, and so was their assertion that I had made a misleading statement on the subject.
Again these appear to me to be statements that a primary school student should be able to grasp, but Dr. Pachauri issued a statement to the world’s media at the COP meeting in Milan on 8 December 2003, asserting once again that “Mr Castles is a member of the Lavoisier Group, an Australian organisation that opposes everything that would help the environment” (rather a difficult task for an organisation that “deals almost exclusively with climate change matters”!). I haven’t got the text of the press statement in front of me, but I can assure you that the substance is as I have stated here, and that the press statement was widely circulated.
The most objectionable aspect of this outrageous behaviour by the IPCC and their supporters is that I am forced into the position of denying membership in a way that some people (such as you) are likely to interpret as confirming that Lavoiisier is beyond the pale.
That is not my view at all. The Lavoisier Group states quite clearly what its objectives are, unlike Real Climate that purports to be an unbiased public source but behaves in the way indicated in my previous posting. Nor do I agree that the Lavoisier site is “an indiscriminate list of rants and references.” They provide access to the Castles & Henderson papers, for example (unlike the IPCC, which has never published a report of the Expert Meeting at which I made a presentation at their invitation, or the Australian Greenhouse Office, which refused my request that they facilitate access to these papers).
Lavoisier also provides access to the paper that Aynsley Kellow, Professor of Government at the University of Tasmania, gave to their annual meeting one year. Aynsley is a political scientist with peer-reviewed authored or co-authored books both on environmental science issues and on Kyoto. I’d say he’s as well qualified as anyone in Australia to have an informed view of the latter issue.
I think I am correct in saying that another lecturer at a Lavoisier meeting was Professor Graeme Farquhar, FAA, FRS, a Lead Author of the carbon cycle chapter in the IPCC Third Assessment Report. I don’t suppose you put him in the “non-scientist” basket?
I believe your comment that Lavoisier should provide “a really good alternative explanation” [of global warming, I assume] is unreasonable. The science is uncertain (see John Zillman’s paper for ASSA to which I drew attention: incidentally, John launched Bill Kininmonth’s book at the last Lavoisier meeting). The fact that Lavoisier isn’t able to provide an alternative explanation doesn’t mean that they are precluded from drawing attention to the serious questions raised by the consensus explanation. I’d say that the bland certainties we get from the Australia Institute and the ACF are far more reprehensible than the serious assessments that are available on the Lavoisier site.
I haven’t combed through the whole site to see whether there’s anything “shrill” there, and even if you found some I wouldn’t resile from the position that Lavoisier are providing a valuable service. That includes facilitating access to papers by Richard Lindzen, Fred Singer and Garth Paltridge, FAA (formerly head of the Antaractic CRC), all or whom are highly qualified scientists with many peer-reviewed papers to their credit.
Finally, I’d like to place on record that I know of the case of a leading CSIRO scientist who wanted to involve himself with Lavoisier after his retirement. CSIRO promptly told him that if he associated with Lavoisier his Honorary Fellowship with CSIRO would be withdrawn (with loss of access to library facilities, etc.). Understandably, he chose not to become a member of Lavoisier.
Next time you’re tempted to describe Lavoisier guys as “creepy”, just take that Bex and remember that you are making it easier for CSIRO to behave in this fashion.
Sorry to go on about this, but I feel very strongly about it. Yesterday’s Canberra Times (page B1) tells the story of Dr Tyndale Biscoe, a CSIRO Honorary Research Fellow at the division of Sustainable Ecosystems who criticised recent directions of CSIRO at a launch of his book some months ago. According to the report, the chief of the division “flew to Canberra and formally warned all the honorary research fellows against making public comments about the organisation.” The chief is reported as saying that the Honorary Fellows “are guests of this division… They have been told they are not entitled to make independent comment.”
Dr. T-B chose not to renew his CSIRO Fellowship and is now at the ANU, working on a joint research project with Professor David Lindenmeyer. The failure of peak science bodies to condemn CSIRO is the sign of an unhealthy culture, which is being fostered by attitudes only too prevalent on this thread.
Ian – Energy and Environment is not a peer reviewed journal so that leaves the GRL stuff. Again I am glad M&M finally got a paper together worth publishing after 5 years of trying.
Look I do not know who to trust however in my experience with doctors, tradesman etc I tend to go for the ones with the qualifications. M&M allegedly found errors in the PCA analysis of ONE study on paleoclimate, MBH98. This does not then make them qualified to study climate science or necessarily that they have any real in depth knowledge either on the scienfific method or the subject.
RC has posts from working, qualified climate scientists employed in research labs studying the climate amongst other things. I am going to continue to read it and learn. If you want to get your information on climate science from a mining engineer and economics professor then go for it. If you want to read posts from people that cannot get papers published because they are not good enough then also you are free to do this.
Mann et al did make one critical mistake. They underestimated the sheer bloody persistance if his detractors. Surely this debate is inprecendented in the history of science. M&M with their Vogon like determination to pick holes in a PCA analysis of MBH98 have generated the wedge that anti-AGW people needed.
Why don’t M&M turn their fabulous audit skills to medical research and start analysing the dodgy reports that come out from drug companies about the effacy and safety of their drugs. They could start with Vioxx perhaps. Also I am sure string theory is a bit of a con – 11 dimensions rolled up – what balderdash – those scientists need a shake up.
Also I cannot wait for the MBH analysis of the current IR laws or the possible economic impact of the new US reserve governor or perhaps they can have a crack at how high oil prices will affect the global economy. As an economics professor yourself I am sure that you would welcome with open arms physical scientists picking apart your economic theories. In your critique of the IPCC report you are of the opionion that the economics was botched. Perhaps it was because it was scientists that did it. Yet you then go on to say that M&M are fully qualified to produce a critique in areas totally out of their expertise.
The comments of others had led me to the conclusion that you were a member of the said society. I should have checked at source. I retract totally and apologise.
I also know John Zillman, whom I have considerable respect for, launched the book but did not nessarily agree with Bill’s philosophy (from the transcript). I am know Graeme Farquhar is indeed a scientist of considerable substance in GHG matters. I’m not going to judge scientists by their free choice of association. And of course CSIRO will hold a diversity of views. That’s fine.
However, I remain convinced the list of papers and web sites they list is indiscriminate and should be edited. e.g. Realclimate does not list every greenie site that might be as shrill in the opposite direction. And a number of the anti-sites seem to be “screaming”.
For example let’s now acknowledge the change of science with warming of the troposhere from the satellites.
These sites have a high degree of influence and if they’re “fair dinkum” they need to have their own level of review, up-keep and need to prune material. If they’re not fair dinkum – well – cool I suppose – but don’t expect me to take them seriously.
And while they don’t have to offer alternative explanations it seems unsatificatory to me – just to shrug and say “dunno”, when we have well documented (IHMO) physics as per my last selection of tediously physics references posts.
And OK given I am on the spot – I retract the use of the word “creepy” as an emotional response.
Tbanks Phil, I appreciate your comments (about me). We’ll have to agree to disagree about Lavoisier. I think that you’re pretty tough saying that such an organisation, that runs entirely on volunteers, should “have their own level of review, up-keep and need to prune material”, “offer alternative explanations”, etc. when organisations like CSIRO and the Australian Greenhouse Office, with massive government funding, refuse to facilitate access to alternative views and (at least in CSIRO’s case) use their position of power to stifle dissenting views.
Of course I didn’t intend to suggest that John Zillman agreed with everything in Bill Kininmonth’s book – John’s stance on the issues is well known and eloquently stated, including in the ASSA paper that I’ve put forward as recommended reading. Bill is another Australian scientist who features in the peer-reviewed literature (Energy & Environment again, for one) and his voice should be heard. I didn’t mean to do more than say that John Zillman recognised that (John has been my friend for decades. I have the greatest respect for him as a scientist and for his contribution to interdisciplinary understanding between scientists and social scientists, and I suspect my appointment to the Advisory Board of the Bureau of Meteorology three years ago was an outcome of his recommendation).
By the way, I mispelled Professor Farquhar’s name and you’ve also done so, presumably as a result – he’s “Graham”, not “Graeme”.
Ender, I’ve just noticed your posting which begins
“Energy and Environment is not a peer reviewed journal so that leaves the GRL stuff. ” Before getting around to looking at the rest of what you have to say, can you (a) define what you mean by “peer-reviewed journal” and (b) explain to me why E&E doesn’t fit the definition.
I comment here ( http://lhcrazyworld.blogspot.com/2005/11/co2-shooting-in-foot-syndrome.html) on accelerating CO2 concentrations in antarctica, and compare it to the temperature record.
Dear Louis,
Louis we degreed types sometimes use a variety of literature not only our well dog-eared RC site which I suspect you have ignored at your peril. I have given you some excellent reading to progress your education on CO2 physics yet you have spurned me Dear Louis. I am heart-broken that you reject my attempts to cross the void that separates us.
Alas you seem to think that CO2 will cause an equal reaction everywhere. But unfortunately this is why climate scientists have had to resort to climate models. Luck would have it that a major review of Antarctic climate was been recently completed (see below).
We have no conclusive temperature trend in general. A very interesting interaction with El Nino which we have had more of since 1976. And perhaps an enhanced circumpolar vortex – perhaps an interaction between decreased stratospheric ozone and increased tropospheric greenhouse gases.
Of course all explained in “ ta-da” http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=18 but you reject their efforts to help you.
Titled cheekily perhaps ….. Antarctic cooling; Global warming – Louis the RC authors caution against jumping to conclusions alas what you have done.
SO it’s actually exactly what you would expect from global warming.
The CO2 graph I suggest is just a clearer signal of CO2 growth – that’s all.
I look forward to your retraction and further dianoetic on your site.
Regards Phillipe !
**********************
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ozone-depletion/antarctic/ – some general background
Interpretation of Recent Southern Hemisphere Climate Change
David W. J. Thompson,1* Susan Solomon2
Science, Vol 296, Issue 5569, 895-899 , 3 May 2002
Climate variability in the high-latitude Southern Hemisphere (SH) is dominated by the SH annular mode, a large-scale pattern of variability characterized by fluctuations in the strength of the circumpolar vortex. We present evidence that recent trends in the SH tropospheric circulation can be interpreted as a bias toward the high-index polarity of this pattern, with stronger westerly flow encircling the polar cap. It is argued that the largest and most significant tropospheric trends can be traced to recent trends in the lower stratospheric polar vortex, which are due largely to photochemical ozone losses. During the summer-fall season, the trend toward stronger circumpolar flow has contributed substantially to the observed warming over the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia and to the cooling over eastern Antarctica and the Antarctic plateau.
1 Department of Atmospheric Science, Foothills Campus, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
2 Aeronomy Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 325 South Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305, USA.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY
Int. J. Climatol. 25: 279–294 (2005)
Published online 11 February 2005 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/joc.1130
ANTARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE DURING THE LAST 50 YEARS
JOHN TURNER,a,* STEVE R. COLWELL,a GARETH J. MARSHALL,a TOM A. LACHLAN-COPE,a
ANDREW M. CARLETON,b PHIL D. JONES,c VICTOR LAGUN,d PHIL A. REIDe and SVETLANA IAGOVKINAf
a British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK
b College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
c Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
d Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St Petersburg, Russia
e National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia
f Department of Dynamical Meteorology, Main Geophysical Observatory,
http://south.aari.nw.ru/publication/climate_change/climate_change.pdf
This paper has examined the temporal variability and change in some of the key meteorological parameters at Antarctic stations. The temperature trends are very variable across the continent: rapid warming has occurred over the Antarctic Peninsula, which stands out as a clear and consistent region of rapid change, whereas conditions have been much more variable in other sectors. Whereas earlier studies (e.g. Raper et al., 1984; Doran et al., 2002) have derived mean temperature trends for the continent based on all the station trends, we have deliberately not attempted to produce such a figure as we feel that this gives an oversimplified view of change in the Antarctic and does not reflect the regional variability. Invariably, such mean figures give a small warming trend, but this is always dominated by the large warming on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. A more realistic picture of temperature change over the Antarctic is obtained by noting that, of the 19 stations examined in this study for which annual trends could be computed, 11 stations have experienced warming over their whole length, seven stations have cooled, and one station had too little data to allow an annual trend to be computed. However, it should be noted that only three of these trends are statistically significant: Faraday/Vernadsky on the peninsula, Novolazarevskya in East Antarctic, which are both warming, and Amundsen–Scott at the South Pole, which has cooled. The cooling at Amundsen–Scott has not been investigated in detail to date, probably as a result of the lack of reliable synoptic-scale analyses on the plateau.
In addition, there are very limited amounts of metadata available for the station, precluding any investigation into the possible effects of changes in instrumentation or the location of the meteorological instruments. However, as can be seen in Table V, the wind speeds at the station have decreased at a statistically significant level in three of the four seasons and in the annual data. A decrease in wind speed would result in a more stable boundary layer and colder conditions at the surface, which would explain the trend towards colder surface conditions. Without reliable surface-pressure analyses it is not clear why the winds, and therefore the pressure gradient, has changed, although the modelling investigation by van den Broeke and van Lipzig (2002) has shown that surface conditions in the interior of Antarctica are sensitive to variations in the circumpolar vortex.
Although there is no evidence of Antarctic-wide warming or cooling over the last 40 to 50 years, Table II
does suggest that there has been a broad-scale change in the nature of the temperature trends between 1961–90 and 1971–2000. Ten of the coastal stations in Table II have long enough records to allow 30-year temperature trends to be computed for both these periods; of these, eight had a larger warming trend (or a smaller cooling trend) in the earlier period. In the Antarctic Peninsula region there were some very cold years during the 1960s and suggestions that there was more extensive sea ice (King and Harangozo, 1998). Since there is a close association between near-surface temperature and sea-ice extent in this area, it may be that there was more sea ice to the west of the peninsula in the 1950s and 1960s compared with later decades; but there are few sea-ice observations prior to the late 1970s, so this is difficult to investigate.
The Antarctic Peninsula is the region of the continent where there is the strongest influence of the El
Nino–southern oscillation, with a Rossby wave train often extending towards the Bellingshausen Sea from
the tropical Pacific during El Nino events (Turner, 2004). In recent decades, El Nino events have been more frequent and of greater intensity, raising the possibility that tropical forcing may have played a role in some of the climatic changes observed in the Antarctic Peninsula. However, as discussed in Turner (2004), El Nino events, on average, result in fewer depressions/greater blocking over the Bellingshausen Sea, which results in more southerly winds and, therefore, colder conditions. So, stronger and more frequent El Nino events would tend to give colder conditions rather than the warming observed. So, at the moment, the role of changes in tropical forcing on the climate of the Antarctic is not clear.
The clear decrease in surface pressures at the coastal stations over the full periods of the station data
is indicative of the SAM moving towards a high-index state in recent decades. The SAM is a seesaw of
pressures over high and mid latitudes and the trend towards high pressures at Orcadas is consistent with
this out-of-phase relationship between surface pressures over the Antarctic continent and at lower latitudes.
The climate record from Orcadas started at the beginning of the 20th century and provides a longer term
perspective on the variability of the SAM. As can be seen from Figure 5 and Table IV, the recent trend
towards high surface pressures is a result of relatively low pressure during the 1970s, but before this the
trends were quite variable, switching sign several times during the first 70 years of the 20th century.
Phil
“And we have no conclusive temperature trend in general…”well, there we have it.
Finally Done,
this is why the argument has changed from global warming, for which there is no conclusive temperature trend in general, to climate change, which can easily accomodate no temperature trend in general because it changes all the time.
Well Done.
Phil
Thanks for the references, and yes please e-mail me the pdf of the Philipona paper, I would like to check it out.
The sensible thing is to wait till I receive this paper, see if I can understand it, and then give my views. Actually I will wait until I really make up my mind. But in the meantime I am happy to follow normal blog etiquette of trying to apply my pre-existing prejudices to an abstract I can barely follow and immediately offer a spirited if inexpert critique of a paper in a leading scientific journal.
So here goes. Philipona et al appear to have measured trends in longwave radiation at the surface in Europe. Longwave (infrared, IR) radiation is expected to increase at the surface with increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs). Philipona states that the increase in measured IR lines up with observed warming, but that this warming is three times as much as he would expect from the increase in anthropogenic GHGs alone. [He is a bit naughty to call them that; he should have said the observed increase in non-H20 greenhouse gas concentrations.]
So he has got warming and increased IR over Europe, one third of which he attributes to increased non-water GHGs, and two thirds to increases in humidity. Actually, that’s perfectly plausible, and in line with both surface and satellite temperature measurements, both of which show substantial recent warming in Europe.
Philipona then infers that the warming from the non-water GHGs caused the increased humidity, i.e. that there was an immediate positive feedback that tripled the original GHG forcing. Well, maybe, but it is one of those things where you really have to rule out all alternative explanations, and there must be a lot. I sure hope they have checked that incoming solar radiation did not increase – surely people at Davos and ETH Zurich would do this, though the abstract doesn’t mention it. Second, could the extra humidity be caused by something else, e.g. more frequent southerly winds, or changes in ocean circulation that have brought warmer currents to European shores?
Then again, to employ that time-honoured blog phrase, so what? The temperature increase mentioned is 0.8 degrees, and the time scale is eight years. That is roughly 5 times the observed rate of GLOBAL warming, so whatever is happening in Europe is not typical for the earth’s atmosphere as a whole. Incidentally – horrible thought – they didn’t start the eight years during the Pinatubo volcano (effects from 1991 to 1994) did they? That would really stuff up their radiation measurements. I might even become shrill (though I doubt it).
Anyway please send it along. As you can see, I am getting interested.
On another matter, namely, “hasn’t the latest revision in satellite measurements and radiosondes to a warming troposphere put a hole in Karner quoted by Hughes?” Yes, at least a small hole. Karner would have to re-do his calculations with a warming trend of 1.2 degrees a century in the satellite record instead of whatever he used. He had a fair margin though – a Hurst exponent of 0.27 when positive feedback only starts at 0.5, so I don’t know whether the adjustment would overturn his finding of overall negative feedback.
[Or as we bloggers say, why on earth don’t you just go and re-do Karner’s ruddy calculations yourself, you evil, rotten sod!]
That was a joke by the way, please do not take offense. My real view is that the question whether feedbacks are negative or positive overall has still not been resolved. I will say though that I doubt the feedback is positive, triple and immediate, as Philipona proposes. If this were the case, the climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling would be 3 degrees C, of which we should have seen more than 2 already (including increases in CH4, N2O, CFCs), whereas observed warming is less than 1 degree, and some of this has to be ascribed to solar factors.
Incidentally I think the reference to Karner is by Doug Hoyt on Warwick’s site, rather than by Warwick himself, but that’s not important.
Looking forward to actually reading what I am shooting my mouth off about!
Louis – pls read my reponse – it’s close to what you expect from GW (even worse as we have a GHG/ozone interaction). Note the change in circumpolar vortex. Not fully Done at all.
I’m actually thinking poor Louis he’s missed it (no offence meant either).
Have a read of what I’ve supplied !
Dave – pdf sent !
Louis – So you see global warming doesn’t necessarily mean everything warms (in the first instance)… and maybe long term …
How convenient for me that the Antarctic review was just Done.
And if the Greenland melt caused the conveyor to shut down you know what would happen …
And how’s your appreciation of infra-red exciting those CO2 molecules going? And they get so excited they bump into other molecules.Excitation is exciting don’t you think.
Wow – inter-blog discussion – what sophisticated apes we are…
In your ice cube – the bubble can’t move around. But the little CO2 molecule that could (like the little train that could choo – whoo , choo-choo … sorry getting silly – been playing with kids and bed time stories), might bump into N2 or and O2 in its excitement (“excuse me Mr N2 – oh that’s alright I was quite bored anyway”) and get them moving. And then get excited by another photon over and over again.
Which is why Mars having more CO2 isn’t warmer than Earth as there is nothing much else to bump into.
Phil,
We’ll leave it that – I think your last comment explains it all.
Ian – you know what, you are right the Energy and Environment is a peer reviewed publication. MBH98 is dead.
Now read the popular result
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17130673%255E25717,00.html
right wing commentators trumpeting that Mann is wrong so the planet is not warming.
Thanks Ender, glad you now agree that Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal and that MBH98 is dead.
In the notes accompanying “Climate Change: Turning Up the Heat”, just published by CSIRO Publishing, Barrie Pittock refers readers to “ongoing policy discussions in a number of journals”, and lists six such journals. I was puzzled at the reason for the omission of Energy & Environment from the list. In my view it has been the main medium for ongoing discussion on policy-related climate change issues in recent years. Do you have any thoughts about why E&E was omitted?
Well …… hate to bring it up but …
The journal’s editor, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, a reader in geography at the University of Hull, in England, says she sometimes publishes scientific papers challenging the view that global warming is a problem, because that position is often stifled in other outlets. “I’m following my political agenda — a bit, anyway,” she says. “But isn’t that the right of the editor?”
From…
http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/CR-problem/Chronicle%20of%20High
er%20Education.030904.pdf
As to “peer review,” Ms. Boehmer-Christiansen has acknowledged in an email to Dr. Tim Osborn of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (U.K.), that in her rush to get the McIntyre and McKitrick piece into print for political reasons Energy & Environment dispensed with what scientists consider peer review (“I was rushing you to get this paper out for policy impact reasons, e.g. publication well before COP9”). As Ms.
Boehmer-Christiansen
added, the “paper was amended until the very last moment. There was a trade off in favour of policy”.
From… http://branch.ltrr.arizona.edu/mann_barton_response.pdf
Perhaps the peer review is an optional extra after all?
Bont worry, thats a very relevant and appropriate post Phil. It underlines the fact that peer review policy is only the first safeguard for assessing evidence, and that much contestable stuff gets past the watchguards. Its worth noting tha the eminent journal Science even has a policy of publishing more controversial stuff “in the public interest” and the Lancet has published stuff (the celebrated Putszai paper)knowing it to be shoddy to get it out to be further scrutinised. The journal Nature also has a few blemishes like this in recent years – eg the Losey 1999 Monarch butterfly paper is one.
Respected Melbourne scientist David Vaux gives a great talk on how much invalid stuff get published in high qulity journals and the examples he gives are a shock to anyone who actually believes all scientic papers prove what they claim. Thats why challenges to both the hockey stick argument and counter argument are part of normal scientific practice, and in fact, why efforts to suppress such debate or ridicule it are unethical.
Am I too late to join this exciting debate?
Early on, someone said: The hockeystick, and the hockeystick alone, was the reason for the claims that this was the warmest century in the last long time.
But if you actually read the IPCC TAR (does anyone?) it says “Globally, it is very likely7 that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the instrumental record, since 1861” and “the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely7 to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. It is also likely7 that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year”. What is *doesn’t* say is that the 20C was the warmest.
The amusing thing, of course, is that everything the TAR said about the hockey stick remains valid for all the reconstructions subsequently published (see http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/10/increase-in-temperature-in-20th.html).
I had more to say, but your comment software said it was questionable content, so please see http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/11/your-comment-was-denied-for.html