According to the New Zealand Herald:
“A group of leading climate scientists has announced the formation of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, aimed at refuting what it believes are unfounded claims about man-made global warming.
“We believe this is a significant development in opening up the debate about the real effects of climate change and the justification for the costs and other measures prescribed in the Kyoto protocols,” said the coalition’s secretary, Terry Dunleavy.
He said members of the coalition had had enough of “over-exaggerated” claims about the effects of man-made global warming and aimed to provide a balance to “what is being fed to the people of New Zealand”.
He said that the coalition’s three main roles would be:
* To publish and distribute papers and commentaries produced by members of the coalition;
* To audit statements by other organisations, both in New Zealand and overseas, which are published in New Zealand, or are expected to influence New Zealand public policy and public opinion;
* To audit the forthcoming United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
The coalition has registered a website domain name, www.climatescience.org.nz, which it expects to have running within a day or two.”
And I received the following comment from a reader of this weblog with the link to the newspaper:
“A newspaper snippet on New Zealand contrarians banding together to defeat the IPCC forces of darkness !
I can only hope you give these contrarian guys as much stick as Hansen and the IPCC. Any spurious arguments or hanging one on, and you should be up them for the rent.
And have a look how many contrarian blogs still have the MSU satellite* story the wrong way around.”
I am of course keen to publish criticisms and comments on information at the new New Zealand Climate Science Coalition website, email short essays to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .
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* For those wondering what the MSU data is, here’s a snippet from ABC Online last August, click here. The article explains how satellite measurements suggesting cooling rather than warming in the troposphere were an artifact of a wrongly calibrated satellite.
It is interesting to read what the explanation HAD BEEN at Global Hydrology and Climate Centre on 14 June 2000 before the calibration problem was discovered:
Global temperatures have been monitored by satellite since 1979 with the Microwave Sounding Units (MSU) flying on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) TIROS-N series of polar-orbiting weather satellites. Data from nine separate satellites have been combined to provide a global record of temperature fluctuations in the lower troposphere (the lowest 5 miles of the atmosphere) and the lower stratosphere (covering an altitude range of about 9-12 miles). The global image above shows monthly-averaged temperature anomalies (departure from seasonal normals), while the graph shows point or area-averaged anomalies for the entire period of record (since January 1979).
The lower tropospheric data are often cited as evidence against global warming, because they have as yet failed to show any warming trend when averaged over the entire Earth. The lower stratospheric data show a significant cooling trend, which is consistent with ozone depletion. In addition to the recent cooling, large temporary warming perturbations may be seen in the data due to two major volcanic eruptions: El Chichon in March 1982, and Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991.
Was this explanation just sweep under the carpet when the scientists found that the satellite data was showing a warming trend? In hindsight how credible was this explanation?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jen,
Do you expect any different views ( from either side ) this time round?
Jim
I expect the New Zealand group with Bob Carter will be as hardline as the IPCC group with James Hansen.
The New Zealand group will have the advantage that they won’t claim to be able to predict the climate and Bob, who has a tremendous knowledge of past climates based on a deep knowledge of geological record, will probably continue to remind us that it’s been both hotter and colder in the past.
Let a thousand flowers bloom…
Jennifer. This has been sitting in my mail box for a couple of months, so I will post it here.
There are papers due out this year that confirm the modest-to-not-much side of tropospheric warming, including more from Christy and Spencer.
Christy and Spencer response in summary:
We agree with C. Mears and F. J. Wentz (“The effect of diurnal correction on satellite-derived lower tropospheric temperature,” 2 Sept., p. 1548; published online 11 Aug.) that our University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) method of calculating a diurnal correction to our lower tropospheric (LT) temperature data (v5.1) introduced a spurious component. We are grateful that they spotted the error and have made the necessary adjustments. The new UAH LT trend (v5.2, December 1978 to July 2005) is +0.123 K/decade, or +0.035 K/decade warmer than v5.1. This adjustment is within our previously published error margin of ± 0.05 K/decade (1).
We agree with S. C. Sherwood et al. (“Radiosonde daytime biases and late–20th century warming,” 2 Sept., p. 1556; published online 11 Aug.) that there are significant, progressively colder biases in stratospheric radiosonde data, as we and others have noted (1, 2). We further agree that many daytime radiosondes are plagued by spurious cooling in the troposphere as well (3). However, there are also instances in which spurious warming occurs in both day and night soundings. Such a circumstance is not properly accommodated by the day-minus-night (DMN) procedure, a possibility mentioned by Sherwood et al., but not specifically addressed. For example, when the Australian/New Zealand network, prominent in the Southern Hemisphere in Sherwood et al’s Report., switched instrumentation from Mark III to Vaisala RS-80, both day and night warmed approximately 0.4 K [(3, updated], with tropospheric night readings warming more than day readings. On the basis of this relative difference, the DMN method assumes that a correction for spurious cooling should be applied, when in fact the real error is large and of the opposite sign.
DMN values are useful indicators for pointing out radiosonde changes, but they are often not useful in assessing magnitudes and in this case overestimate the trend.
Further, the DMN-adjusted tropospheric trend for 1958–97 of +0.253 K/decade for the 75% of the globe south of 30°N is more than 2.5 times that of the surface (+0.092 K/decade) and thus very likely to be spuriously warm. [Note that B. D. Santer et al. (“Amplification of surface temperature trends and variability in the tropical atmosphere,” Reports, 2 Sept., p. 1551; published online 11 Aug.) indicate a ratio less than 1.4.] Direct, site-by-site comparisons between radiosondes and UAH LT data at 26 U.S.-controlled stations (nighttime only) from tropics to polar latitudes yield a difference in trends of less than 0.03 K/decade, showing consistency with the more modest UAH LT trends (1) [(3), updated through 2004].
I assume this Coalition is self-appointed? If they are true democrats concerned with good government shouldn’t they contact all NZ climate scientists and set in place a democratic process to form such a coalition and/or a consensus process so that the body of NZ scientists can lobby the NZ government?
MOre in the NZ newspapers, just filing this here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10379821
What has democracy/consensus to do with science?
How do these Kiwis explain the melting of the artic and antartic ice caps ?
“Those of us involved in forming this coalition believe that now is the time for individual countries like New Zealand to assemble their own national expert panels, so that these panels can form larger groupings with like-minded panels from other countries so as to be ready to deal with the reports to be published by the IPCC next year.”
How do you suggest, rog, that such “expert panels” be formed?
It doesnt matter how many panels, committees, societies are formed, the science will remain the same. This is purely politics.
I agree Rog, this is purely politics. But that’s the way it is with science.
Consensus has everything to do with science.
The operation of the universe may stay consistent regardless of the panels, committees, societies that form.
But our understanding of this operation, ie science, is something that is stored in our heads. And we need consensus to determine whose ‘science’ is the most correct or worth listening to.
A lone heretic or a political panel of NZ climate skeptics might eventually be proven correct, but a lay person wouldnt (shouldn’t?) assume that this is the case until a consensus of people are willing to reject the mainstream and accept the heretics view, ie the heretics view becomes the consensus.
Scientific research is principally aimed at disproving a hypothesis and the sceptics are adopting scientific principles by rejecting the AGW hypothesis.
Uh-huh rog.
scientific research is also aimed at confirming a hypothesis.
The sceptics are a offering a dissenting viewpoint. Time and the weight of opinion will ultimately determine whether their views represent ‘science’ or politics masquerading as science, or just bad research.
Ernie,
The kiwis don’t have to explain the melting of the Arctic (Greenland) and Antarctic ice caps, because neither is.
A flurry of papers in the last year or so has shown that both ice caps are accumulating ice across their summits (i.e. growing), whilst – as is entirely usual – at the same time they lose distal ice by melting around their edges.
In the case of the sea-ice in the Arctic ocean, it has been retreating for a number of years, and temperatures have been rising, so that the climatic position is about the same that it was in 1940, the terminating year of the last major (and natural) Arctic warming. Nothing untoward there yet, so far as we can see.
In the case of Antarctica, two important details. First, the area of sea-ice around Antarctica has been increasing (consistent with interior cooling) over the last decade or more. Second, the Antarctic Peninsula (which hosts a very small amount of total Antarctic ice; about 3% from memory) has indeed been warming, and the land-based glaciers there receding. This relates to regional atmospheric and probably especially oceanographic factors (West Antarctica sticking out as it does into the relatively warm Antarctic Circumpolar current) and has nothing necessarily to do with global climate.
Cathy
I disagree Steve, the sceptics are saying that forecasting is not science.
Just recently Hansen from NASA has said that we are heading for a super el-nino starting ~July 2006.
Other scientists disagree.
Which is the better science? – none, at best they can only ever be expert opinions, and we all know from experience that expert opinions are used by both sides in court cases with only one side ever winning.
“NASA scientists expects wet weather next winter
Source: AP
ALBUQUERQUE — One of the country’s leading climate scientists is expecting a wet winter.
NASA researcher James Hansen says there’s a good chance for a “super El Nino” — a powerful warming in the Pacific Ocean linked to wet winters in the Southwest.
That according to a copyright story in today’s Albuquerque Journal.
In a draft paper to colleagues, Hansen argues that ocean conditions now are similar to those that preceded the extreme El Nino in the winter of 1997 and 1998.
Hansen blames global warming for increasing the chance of extreme El Ninos.
He says the system can wreak weather havoc worldwide.
University of New Mexico climate researcher Dave Gutzler says it’s too early in the year to make a forecast.”
“Those of us involved in forming this coalition believe that now is the time for individual countries like New Zealand to assemble their own national expert panels”
Something like the Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand perhaps?
http://www.royalsociety.org/displaypagedoc.asp?id=13619
Oops. Not the conclusion they want, better for a different group with a clear political agenda…
Lots of caveats in that statement – clearly written with a political objective in mind.
Statement meaning the one issued by the NZ academy titled: THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE eg “We recognise IPCC as the world’s most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus.”
Paul Biggs
Re your post above, might you contact me via email directly on this?
Cheers
Louis Hissink
Just filing this here, another MSU explaination,
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s378.htm
February 17, 2000 — Parents trying to determine the temperature of a feverish child may stick a thermometer under the tongue and under the arm and get slightly different measurements. Scientists trying to learn if the Earth’s temperature is rising also rely on measurements taken at various places—the Earth’s surface and its atmosphere—which also often produce different readings.
In both cases, the mere fact that the measurements in different places give slightly varied answers does not necessarily mean that one or the other is wrong. This issue is investigated in two papers published in the Feb. 18 issue of the journal Science.
“Scientists have puzzled over the difference between the findings from the satellites, which measured temperatures in the atmosphere, and those measurements that were obtained from the surface observing systems,” said Dian Gaffen, a research meteorologist with NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory in Silver Spring, Md, lead author of one of the papers. Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA, is the lead author on the other paper; Gaffen is a contributor. Both papers involve scientists at a number of different institutes.
“Our findings support the idea that the difference is largely real and that it may be due to a combination of natural and manmade factors,” said Santer.
Gaffen and colleagues used data from radiosondes (weather balloons carrying instrument packages) to obtain independent data on both surface and lower-troposphere temperature change. The troposphere is the area of the atmosphere where weather occurs, extending about seven miles from the Earth’s surface to the next layer, the stratosphere. Their findings show that the temperature trends are consistent with the satellite and surface results since 1979.
“Previous work with the satellite data suggested little or no temperature trend in the past twenty years, while the surface data show marked warming. We find that a third observing system, radiosondes, shows the same pattern as the satellite and surface data in the tropics, where the surface and tropospheric temperature change show the largest differences,” said Gaffen. “The radiosondes also show that the tropical atmosphere has become slightly more unstable since 1979, when the satellite data began. But when we look further back, to 1960, we see more consistent warming at the surface and in the lower troposphere, which tells us that the past two decades might not be representative of longer-term changes.”
In the companion paper, Santer and colleagues found that the discrepancies can partially be attributed to the fact that the surface observing system does not cover some parts of the globe, unlike the satellite system. Computer model simulations of the climate system indicate that the remaining differential cannot be explained by the natural variability of the climate system or by climate change resulting from increases in greenhouse gases alone.
The Santer et al. paper shows that different climate “forcing factors” may have had quite different influences on surface and atmospheric temperature. Increases in greenhouse gases probably act to warm the troposphere more than the surface. In contrast, the combined effects of aerosols from major volcanic eruptions (such as that of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991) and human-caused decreases in stratospheric ozone may act to cool the troposphere more than the surface.
Climate models have often been criticized for their failure to reproduce warming of the surface relative to the troposphere. Such criticism is usually based on model experiments involving changes in greenhouse gases alone. “Our work shows that the correspondence between modeled and observed temperature changes is much closer if the model experiments include a combination of human-caused and natural climate effects over the past twenty years, and not just changes in greenhouse gases,” said Santer.
Similar issues were addressed in a recent report of the National Research Council. Gaffen and Santer were part of the 11-member panel that dealt with the issue of why the satellite data apparently show little or no warming of the troposphere, while ground-based thermometers indicated marked warming of the Earth’s surface. The panel concluded that this discrepancy “in no way invalidates the conclusion that the Earth’s temperature has been rising.” The research described in both Science papers supports this conclusion.