Once again, the press is in a tizzy over the Bush Administration’s “censoring of science.” The case against the Bush Administration this time is that it edited testimony presented to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) by Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The testimony, originally 14 pages, was cut to six.
However, the narrative of a scientific cover-up is overwrought to say the least. The hearing was on the potential impact of global warming on human health, an exercise in speculation. It appears, if press accounts are correct, that what the Bush Administration cut from the director’s testimony was more speculation than settled science.
Read the entire article: Science vs. Expert Opinion: Did the Bush Administration Really Censor Science?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
This article refers to Paul Reiter, whose testimony to the House of Lords convincingly demolishes all the scare mongering about health effects of climate change at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we21.htm
People like Tony McMichael of ANU who continue the scaremongering and whose opinions were the basis of the health effects in the Stern report, have abandoned objective science and are making political statements.
Well if he deliberately carpet bombed Iraqi orphans after fabricating evidence of pre war WMD to create cover for his staged “attacks” on the WTC just so his family and Haliburton could steal all the oil , before causing Katrina by not signing an international treaty, then a little bit of censorship is neither here nor there I would have thought.
I mean it’s not as if the press are so artless that they can only perceive Bush through a comforting simplistic, stereotype is it?
Remember – “Four legs good , two legs bad!!
or as it translates today – ” Bush lied , kids died!”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/mclean-disband_the_ipcc.pdf
MB, your reference to the Parliamentary Report above is just another example of why the IPCC should be rubbed out and started again, for being biased and incompetent.
This was so ably analysed and documented by John Mclean in the reference I have provided.
As somewhat bemused layman, I have trouble working out whether droughts, floods, heat waves, hurricanes, autumn leaf color (OMG), are cited as examples of the well established scientific fact of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), or as observations which further add weight to to probability of AGW.
As mentioned many times before, the whole subject has become almost impossible to discuss rationally.
For a start, the very language has been polluted.
If ‘climate change’ impliedly means anthropogenic global warming (AGW), how does one describe climate change of any kind that occurs and always has, independent of human existence?
How does one distinguish the difference?
For a start, I wish those espousing the AGW theory were more precise in their language.
Or is it a deliberate tactic to muddy the waters in the public mind?
chrisgo
the problem for the AGW camp is that global temperatures seem to have stabilised since 1998 while CO2 emissions have skyrocketed.
Now in a scientific sense, this fact would falsify the AGW theory but as AGW isn’t science, we find that the goal posts have been moved.
AGW is now deemed to be Climate Change – an idea that can’t be falsified (Refutation implies no change which, not to put too fine a hone to it, is freaking ridiculous).
We are dealing with the political left who hijacked climate science, just as Charles Lyell did 2 centuries ago when geology was hijacked.
Chrisgo – gee dat’s a hard one. I don’t know – have you ever thought of reading the AR4.
Something about a physical basis. No wonder there’s earthquakes eh.
But tell us Louis – your methodology is a tad wonkiferous – given you have said repeatedly you can’t actually have a global temperature then how do know there’s been a change anyway?
“Gee hadn’t thought of that” says Louis to God and disappears in a negative logic inversion. This excellent science video will illustrate your problem.
Louis
it was the deniers who invented the term ‘climate change’, because they didn’t like “Global Warming”. Don’t blame us.
A new paper by Professors Scott Armstrong and Kesten Green (2007), leading experts on forecasting, shows that expert opinion is notoriously unreliable. “Comparative empirical studies have routinely concluded that judgmental forecasting by experts [rather than scientific forecasting] is the least accurate of the methods available to make forecasts.” They also show that, “Agreement among experts is weakly related to accuracy,” when it comes to forecasting.
I’ll have to save that. Have a feeling I’ll get the opportunity to site it often.
You mean “cite” – you can “site” it on the dunny. About what it’s worth. Don’t kid yourself that these economists know anything at all about climate science. More E&E crappola.
I think I get it now (no thanks to Luke).
Climate change is a common noun and Climate Change is a proper noun.
Climate Change is climate change but climate change is not necessarily Climate Change, unless the effects are detrimental (and they can always be found if one looks hard enough), in which case over 50% of the change is over 90% likely to be due to us.
Got it.
Luke I have another question for you – because hell if you don’t know, who does?
Al Gore’s movie was recently found out to be using a copy of Mann’s hockeystick, mislabeled as a Thompson ice core thermometer, and then reused as a support of the Mann hockeystick.
In a discussion forum elsewhere, a person named Walt said, “Even if the Mann reconstruction is false, the overwhelming amount of redundant evidence proves global warming is real.”
Even Al Gore’s Academy Award winning movie had to use subterfuge to find one bit of evidence that agreed with Mann’s hockeystick (since it was the exact same graph the agreement was unsurprizingly perfect.)
My question for you – what is this evidence that makes Mann’s hockeystick redundant? It isn’t obvious or prominently displayed by AGW websites such as Real Climate or Open Mind. They usually point toward some indistinct mound of abscurate such as the IPCC AR something or other – as if it is upon me to dig though that great heap to support their outrageous arguments.
Show me the redundant Luke.
As if the Earth Mother’s life depended on it.
Well you’ve got a problem haven’t you James. You want to know but don’t want to know any detail.
Reality is that unless you want to dig into this in some detail like Arnost you are not going to know anything except what either side’s cheer squad seems to be saying.
You should sit yourself down and read some of the 4AR section. It will take you an hour a piece but at least you’ll know what they’re on about. Problem is that most people don’t – and go on and on about what they believe the IPCC are saying based on newspapers and blogs. Read it at source.
You ask what the overwhelming evidence is that something is going on even if Hockey Sticks have issues? I think that’s what you’re asking?
Well my two bobs:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas – there is a massive amount of science how this gas works in the atmosphere to redirect radiation back down to the Earth’s surface. You want the detail – well see the 4AR.
A massive warming globally over 30 years that does not have a solar driver (that stands up to any serious debate – cosmic rays included).
The stratosphere is cooling while the troposphere is warming show the satellites. A cooling stratosphere is not what you’d expect with a solar influence.
There are empircal (not modelled) measurements of the increased downward radiation from below and spectral windows observed changing from space above. All what you’d expect.
A rapidly warming Arctic (decadal influences not withstanding).
A major row over hurricane intensity – saying peak storm intensities have increased in ALL ocean basins. No agreement on numbers. Perhaps AGW even means less.
Worldwide glacial retreat (albeit with some exceptions due to local influences)
Changes in the prevalence of drought globally.
Species changing behaviour – expanding their range, blooming and breeding earlier.
Increased snow pack on Greenland and Antarctica.
So we have all these things all happening at once – no apparent solar mechanism – an interlinked set of evidence pointing to an increased greenhouse effect. You tell me.
Again – read the 4AR synthesis reports – most of this is listed out in very dry fashion.
All these changes are also immersed in a good helping of natural variation. Lines wiggle. But is the trend up and up. Yes !
And yes it still all depends on the Sun – as CO2 is only recycling the Sun’s energy as it is re-radiated from a warmed Earth.
And for heavens sake – Al Gore is an irrelevance in all this as a source. The IPCC don’t use Gore. Gore uses them !!
Oh come on, Al Gore is hardly irrelevant. He won the academy award and the Nobel peace prize. He is the single most influential figure in climate change. But I think it speaks volumes that you want to disown him.
Mann’s hockeystick, or more generally paleoclimate reconstructions, are the key to the debate. They point out (or try to suppress) climate variability of the past which we know were not driven by anthropogenic causes.
When you talk about global temperatures, species migration, Arctic warming, hurricane intensities, glacial retreats droughts, increased snowfall, these are all symptoms that have resulted from natural climate variability in the past.
Stratospheric cooling – This is the odd man out. How about giving me some linkie linkie.
This bit you lost me on. “There are empircal (not modelled) measurements of the increased downward radiation from below and spectral windows observed changing from space above.”
What are you talking about here?
Better yet write a post about stratospheric warming, so we can all talk about it.
Let’s forget about Al – you’re graduating into science now – not politics. Al is a bit of a tosspot. Ok back to your post.
James you have just contradicted yourself – at one point you’re banging on about past climate changes due to “natural” causes. Solar causes.
Then when we get to a period where we have no driver except CO2 you throw your hands up and invoke “natural”. Yuck – come on man – this is friggin science – no Mother Nature bullshit here.
Don’t think all these trends seem to be happening at once with all of a sudden in 30 years more or less as predicted. You’d have to be bloody lucky – 1,000,000 to one shot.
And so you want linkie linkie eh? You’d better think about then and not be an idiot ….
James said: “This bit you lost me on. “There are empircal (not modelled) measurements of the increased downward radiation from below and spectral windows observed changing from space above.”
What are you talking about here?”
Well here you are James – all wasted on you I’m sure.
Note these works are about measured not modelled !!
Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=4114
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003GL018765.shtml
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2004GL020937.shtml
Anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and strong water vapor feedback increase temperature in Europe
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005…/2005GL023624.shtml
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0538.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/busy-week-for-water-vapor/ explanation
Stratospheric cooling:
http://www.wunderground.com/education/strato_cooling.asp
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=58 read the comments too – just as good ! Gavin gets “owned” . Ha hah. But story is the same.
Luke That link to Real Climate you posted is inaccessable due to heavy traffic.
My God boy, you must be a hit with the AGW believers, cause RC’s server melted with just your one link.
Last thirty years?
Since the end of the little ice age, the temperature has gone up about a steady rate of .6C a century. This includes the time before and after you propose that CO2 became the driver.
I think I know why you are so bent on the last thirty years. This is as long as you have been around, and the satellite stuff is so much more appealing – because who can say what is the norm for stratosphere temp when we didn’t know it was there until 1903 and didn’t start measuring it’s temp until much later.
So are we going to talk about causes of the MWP? Because your side has been bent on pretending there was no such thing. Solar power explains the MWP? Through what mechanism? Are you claiming an increase in direct insolation? Or are you back pedaling on that cosmic ray/cloud creation/increasing the albedo of the Earth hyothetical?
Wiki claims that a thermohaline thingy did the dirty for the MWP and the IPCc says it only happened in the North Atlantic.
But even in their own link they are talking about the MWP in California, Alaska, Japan, Africa, Australia, and Antactica. WTF?
You tell me how a thermohaline change, which according to the IPCC was so mild that it barely raised the temperatures in Europe to present values, and even then just in the summer, the mechanism of which there is zero evidence in the present when we are supposedly in the midst of mortal danger due to the greenhouse effect, can cause climate change in medieval Japan!
Now listen James
You asked for information and you got it. The deal is this: you digest the information you asked for and make some intelligent comment or I’m not going to respond to you in the future. I had my doubts about wasting time providing you with any material.
Don’t just raise 20,000 other worries like a headless chook. Focus on what you’ve asked for once.
Some minor reponses against my best judgment:
(1) Realclimate has been busy of late. It just worked for me – try again.
(2) why last 30 years – well unless you’ve been unconscious to the debate here solar output hasn’t appreciably changed in the period
(3) the stratospheric cooling is predicted and very marked – it’s NOT what a solar influence would look like
(4) Solar change is implicated in the earlier 20th century temperature rise. You should know by now if you don’t combine solar + volcano dust + CO2 TOGETHER in the climate models you don’t reproduce the temperature of the last century.
(5) cosmic rays are still bunk (IMO)
(6) I’m not even going to talk Little Ice Age until you find the relevant write up in the 4AR and quote it to me. None of this making up shit – OK !?
Now instead of rambling all over drug ridden California like a crazed hippie – how about a bit of critical focus. Deal ?
You wouldn’t be down on rambling drug ridden California if you tried it. 😉
I tried your link again. It’s a bit fuzzy on the connection between strato cooling and GHG. Solar heating of the stratosphere is straight away. The sun is at minimum, completely blank with regard to sunspots. No sunspots means less UV to be intercepted by ozone, which I have heard is having it’s own problems. Less UV plus less ozone equals strato cooling.
Simple.
Now why would someone feel the need to invent a link between that elegant system and GHG?
And it still doesn’t address what is normal for stratosphere temperature? By your own links, the scientists have never measured the stratosphere sans ozone depletion.
Cooler stratosphere is a proxy for a thinning ozone layer or weaker solar irradiance – in that order.
It tells us nothing about GHG.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
Here’s a picture of the sun. Kind of pretty without any spots.
Don’t be such a dickwit. The cooling stratosphere was predicted by AGW theory before it happened. Check the drop in the graph above. If you don’t think that’s a whopping trend then nothing will save you. It’s global. Not a local south pole ozone issue.
Check the pics here.
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
Mean solar irradiance is not weakened over the period bean brain. James you are really getting stupid now. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle figure 4 – do you see a sine wave in tne stratosphere cooling trend at http://www.wunderground.com/education/strato_cooling.asp or except for Mt Pintatubo a major decline in temperature. Do you see a trend in the Figure 4 graph like that – no !! Or in TLS in figure 7 in the remss link above. No !.
Try to at least be half serious.
And you’ve only looked at 10% of references and issues you’ve been given. I’m not impressed.
Drat left out the main link –
Looking at the relative contributions of cooling effects – yes it has been done.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/aboutus/milestones/ozone.html
All wasted on James… attention span of a gnat.
Ya Luke I was thinking about taking a ski trip and spaced you out there. Sorry.
We were saying increased temperature in Europe and measured not modeled.
I’ll refute it thus.
http://www.welove2ski.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=201&id=79
Official confirmation of Austria’s awesome start to winter has come with the news that 26 of the nation’s ski areas are firing up their lifts this weekend – far in advance of their planned opening days.
http://www.welove2ski.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=510
http://www.welove2ski.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=201&id=78
Heavy snow this morning in France
“We haven’t had a foot of snow in the village on 14 November since 1996, and it hasn’t stopped yet. We’re forecast -20º and snow showers for tomorrow, then another heavy fall on Sunday or Monday. The snow cannons are running non-stop, and by the time the lifts open on 1 December we should have the best base for decades.”
http://www.welove2ski.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=201&id=80
Whistler to open a week early.
“Does anyone else have the feeling we’re in for a special season? Hot on the heels of news that 26 Austrian lift systems are opening early this weekend comes the announcement that five lifts on Whistler mountain in British Columbia will be running from Saturday.”
Heh.
Notice that I included the Canada link there for you.
That’s so you don’t start squeeking “only regional”.
That one link in there showing Mt. Pinatubo eruption’s effect on stratosphere temperature, it got me thinking.
There were no observations of the SST, as near as I can tell, until the 70’s. Same situation with the ozone hole.
This might have led to a false notion of “normal” SST.
Here’s how I figure it. The particulate drawn up in a vulcanic cloud penetrates the lower SS where it catches sunlight – this warms the SS, causes more ozone to form, and lowers the temperature of the planet overall.
Now check this out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Worldwide_nuclear_testing.svg
How high do H-bombs toss material? Stratosphere?
How much more heating of the SS could we expect from 2000 Pinatubo’s spaced out over 30 years?
Of course, eventually countries stopped doing atmospheric tests, so some or maybe even most of these 2000 explosions didn’t effect the SST. On the other hand some of them did. All of the nuke tests prior to the partial test ban treaty certainly did.
What I suggest to you is that the chilled lower stratosphere is an atmosphere returning to normal after an extended nuclear sunburn.