Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Rogues or respectable? How climate change sceptics spread doubt and denial
23 June 2011, 2.54pm AEST


The Galileo Movement co-opts the father of science’s name to pursue an anti-science agenda.

CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: Professor Ian Enting takes a look at
the front groups and published texts of Australia’s climate sceptics.

The “name-calling” in what passes for public debate on climate was recently discussed .. http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-science-establishment-versus-sceptic-1050 .. in The Conversation by Garth Paltridge.

“It seems appropriate to expect the establishment to take the first steps in any attempt to bridge the divide between the sides,” he said, proposing we should, “recognise that not all climate sceptics are rogues and vagabonds.”

“The very first step should be for climate scientists to make a conscious effort to read some of the documentation appearing in the more respectable sceptic weblogs,” he argued.

Garth should get out more.

Many of us, including most of the authors of this series, have engaged with the arguments of self-styled “sceptics”.

We’ve looked at not just the blogs, but also the information from organised groups, the few published scientific papers and the books in which these their claims are presented in detail.

As a counter proposal, I would argue that any self-styled “sceptic” who claims to have a genuine case should do what normal scientists do and dissociate themselves from those who practise fabrication and misrepresentation, those who in Garth’s words might be called “rogues”, if not “vagabonds”.

The reality is that the most prominent pseudo-sceptical scientists are doing the opposite: gathering together to provide apparent respectability to front organisations that are designed to spread confusion.

This is the message from Merchants of Doubt: .. http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/ .. How a Handful of Scientists Obscured Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

Authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, backed up by documents obtained in the course of tobacco litigation, show that not only was greenhouse denial using the same misinformation techniques as the tobacco industry, but that it was often the same groups and the same people. These anti-science activities hide behind names such as “Friends of Science”.

In Australia we have a similar phenomenon, with the additional twist of often using names that aim to capture a “martyr for science” image. They present themselves as being ignored by an entrenched establishment, when in reality they are ignoring or distorting the accumulated scientific knowledge.

An early starter was the Lavoisier Group .. http://www.lavoisier.com.au/index.php .. – a single issue organisation similar in structure and name to organisations like the Bennelong Society (on indigenous affairs), the HR Nicholls society (on industrial relations) and the Samuel Griffith Society (on constitutional matters and support for the monarchy). But for the Lavoisier Group, the “martyr for science” ethos is a bit of a stretch – Lavoisier was executed for his activities as a tax collector.

The latest entry is the Galileo Movement, .. http://www.galileomovement.com.au/ .. again co-opting the name of a “martyr for science” for an anti-science activity. The Galileo Movement’s founders funded the previous visit to Australia by Viscount Monckton. The movement’s “Independent Climate Science Group” includes Monckton, Bob Carter, S. Fred Singer and Ian Plimer as well as Garth Paltridge.

Monckton’s extravagant claims were described by John Abraham earlier in this series. Monckton’s recent testimony to the US Congress has been extensively refuted by a larger group of scientists.

The title of Bob Carter’s book Climate: The Counter-Consensus captures the problem succinctly. There is no such counter-consensus. What groups such as the Galileo Movement present as a alternative to mainstream view of climate is not an alternative consensus, but rather a collection of wildly conflicting and extensively discredited fragments designed to create confusion.

Singer’s book (with John Avery), Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years proposes a natural 1500 year cycle for global temperature. I find this unconvincing, with no evidence provided for the claim that Imperial Roman times were as cold as the Little Ice Age 1500 years later.

I am also puzzled as to how a man who claims we are in a natural warming cycle until about 2300 could be part of the Heartland Institute group. which convinced Senator Steve Fielding that the Earth is cooling.

But in Australia, it is Ian Plimer’s book Heaven + Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science that has had most impact. Kurt Lambeck, President of the Academy of Science at the time, put it aptly when he stated that Heaven + Earth is not a work of science.

The book is extensively referenced with 2311 footnotes. But oddly many of these references directly support the mainstream view of climate change.

Plimer repeatedly quotes the paper that says “climate sensitivity greater than 1.5 degrees C has been a robust feature of the Earth’s climate over the last 420 million years.”

In other words, the geological record shows that doubling CO2 causes an increase in temperature of at least 1.5 degrees. That is what “climate sensitivity” means: how much warming CO2 causes.

This aspect of Heaven + Earth was recycled last year by Cardinal George Pell in a letter to the Senate, claiming that temperatures in Roman times were two to six degrees warmer than now, (the opposite of what is implied by Singer’s book).

While Pell cited the references in Plimer’s book as evidence, the reality is that Plimer’s whole section on “Roman Warming” cites seven scientific papers and none of them support this claim.

One of the scams used in Heaven + Earth is to plot graphs on different scales to claim that different data averaging gives different trends.

This device was used in Michael Crichton’s novel State of Fear as a simple fictional example of how to fool a gullible jury, though it also seemed to fool many gullible readers.

But, it is Plimer’s misrepresentation of the cited references in Heaven + Earth that really justifies Kurt Lambeck’s statement. Some of these are downright silly, the claim that New Orleans subsided a metre in the three years prior to hurricane Katrina, for example.

Comparable is the claim that the 1991 eruption of volcano Mount Pinatubo emitted large quantities of chlorofluorocarbons, citing a paper that says nothing of the sort. The serious fabrication arises when claiming that satellite measurements of temperature don’t show warming while citing a reference that says the opposite. So far, my analysis of Plimer’s references .. http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91 .. shows 28 cases in which he misrepresents the content of his cited sources.

Finally, there is Garth Paltridge’s own book, The Climate Caper. This contains little science at all.

It is mainly about the institutional pressures that act on scientists. I agree with much of what Garth says, but my observation is that the pressures have largely acted in the opposite direction, inhibiting communication of mainstream climate science when governments found the implications inconvenient.

Thus organisations such as CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology remain muted on the inadequacy of proposals from both sides of politics.

Even those who support Garth’s views think that his book would have been more credible, more “respectable” perhaps, if he had chosen someone other than Monckton – indeed almost anyone other than Monckton – to write the foreword.

Scientists who claim genuinely respectable scepticism destroy their own case when they link their arguments to those who mis-use and misrepresent the processes of science.

Such links expose the activities of groups like the Galileo Movement for what they are: exercises in spreading confusion for political ends.

This is the eleventh part of our series Clearing up the Climate Debate. To read the other instalments, follow the links below:

Part One: Climate change is real: an open letter from the scientific community.
http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-is-real-an-open-letter-from-the-scientific-community-1808

Part Two: The greenhouse effect is real: here’s why.
http://theconversation.edu.au/the-greenhouse-effect-is-real-heres-why-1515

Part Three: Speaking science to climate policy.
http://theconversation.edu.au/speaking-science-to-climate-policy-1548

Part Four: Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
http://theconversation.edu.au/our-effect-on-the-earth-is-real-how-were-geo-engineering-the-planet-1544

Part Five: Who’s your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
http://theconversation.edu.au/whos-your-expert-the-difference-between-peer-review-and-rhetoric-1550

Part Six: Climate change denial and the abuse of peer review
http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-denial-and-the-abuse-of-peer-review-1552

Part Seven: When scientists take to the streets it’s time to listen up on climate change
http://theconversation.edu.au/when-scientists-take-to-the-streets-its-time-to-listen-up-1912

Part Eight: Australia’s contribution matters: why we can’t ignore our climate responsibilities
http://theconversation.edu.au/australias-contribution-matters-why-we-cant-ignore-our-climate-responsibilities-1863

Part Nine: A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial
http://theconversation.edu.au/a-journey-into-the-weird-and-wacky-world-of-climate-change-denial-1554

Part Ten: The chief troupier: the follies of Mr Monckton
http://theconversation.edu.au/the-chief-troupier-the-follies-of-mr-monckton-1555

Part Eleven: Rogues or respectable? How climate change sceptics spread doubt and denial
http://theconversation.edu.au/rogues-or-respectable-how-climate-change-sceptics-spread-doubt-and-denial-1557

Part Twelve: Bob Carter’s climate counter-consensus is an alternate reality
http://theconversation.edu.au/bob-carters-climate-counter-consensus-is-an-alternate-reality-1553

Part Thirteen: The false, the confused and the mendacious: how the media gets it wrong on climate change
http://theconversation.edu.au/the-false-the-confused-and-the-mendacious-how-the-media-gets-it-wrong-on-climate-change-1558

http://theconversation.edu.au/rogues-or-respectable-how-climate-change-sceptics-spread-doubt-and-denial-1557

kozuh, i hope you have many happy, healthy and cool years ahead .. you know i'm on
record as saying i would love to see all the science on global climate proved wrong, butt.....

===============

Cherry-picking contrarian geologists tend to obscure scientific truth

by: Mike Sandiford
From: The Australian
December 31, 2011 12:00AM

GINA Rinehart notoriously claims she has never met a geologist who believes
"adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate".

To listen to prominent "contrarian" geologists such as Ian Plimer, you might imagine she never could.

But, despite the bluster, our contrarian geologists are out of kilter with their own community and seem deeply confused about the way the greenhouse effect - by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, for example - has shaped both the past and the present.

All geology students learn of the importance of the greenhouse effect. It's simply impossible to understand the geological record without it.

In his 2001 award-winning book A Short History of Planet Earth, Plimer has numerous references to the greenhouse effect.

He explains what all young geologists learn as the faint young sun paradox:

"The early sun had a luminosity of some 30 per cent less than now and, over time, luminosity has increased in a steady state.

"The low luminosity of the early sun was such that the Earth's average surface temperature would have been below 0C from 4500 to 2000 million years ago. But there is evidence of running water and oceans as far back as 3800 million years ago." The question is, what kept the early Earth from freezing over?"

Plimer goes on to explain: "This paradox is solved if the Earth had an enhanced greenhouse with an atmosphere of a lot of carbon dioxide and methane."

Here's another quote from Plimer, referring to a time 100 million years ago when the dinosaurs roamed the planet: "The peak of 6 per cent carbon dioxide was at the time of a protracted greenhouse and maximum sea level. At this time, mean annual surface temperatures were 10C to 15C warmer than now."

The problem is, although his temperature estimate is about right, his CO2 estimate is about 50 times too high. CO2 levels were more like 0.12 per cent. At just three times present levels, this is a target we are on track to reach early next century.

Jump forward to 2009 and in his book Heaven and Earth Plimer seems to have quietly forgotten those geological lessons in stating: "Over geological time there is no observed relationship between global climate and atmospheric CO2."

Exactly which Plimer are we

to believe?

Scientists are notoriously sceptical of the data collected by others. But ignoring a respected source is reprehensible. Cherry-picking only the data that fits is borderline. Deliberately misrepresenting data or making it up is just not on.

Here's an example. In a section from his new book, How To Get Expelled from School, as reprinted in The Weekend Australian recently, Plimer claims: "Antarctic ice core (Siple) shows that there were 330 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air in 1900; Mauna Loa Hawaiian measurements in 1960 show that the air then had 260ppm carbon dioxide."

Plimer goes on to say: "Either the ice core data is wrong, the Hawaiian carbon dioxide measurements are wrong, or the atmospheric carbon dioxide content was decreasing during a period of industrialisation."

The implication is there must be something terribly wrong with the orthodox climate science and we are all being taken for a ride.

The problem is that the primary data sources explicitly state the Hawaiian Mauna Loa CO2 measurements for 1960 were in the range 313-320ppm, and that Siple air of age about 1900 has a CO2 content of 295ppm, with the 330ppm concentrations having an estimated air age of 1962-83, entirely in keeping with Mauna Loa.

Who has been taken for a ride?

Sadly, this is not an isolated case. Plimer has persistently claimed that volcanoes contribute much more CO2 to the Earth's atmosphere than do our own activities, blithely ignoring US Geological Survey reference data showing just the opposite - volcanoes emit CO2 at about 1 per cent of the rate of anthropogenic emissions.

Another common meme promoted by our contrarian geologists is that it is now a fact that the climate is cooling.

But may we ask by whose data is this a fact?

Certainly not NASA's, which showed last year was the hottest on record, followed by 2005, 2007, 2009 and 1998. In fact, NASA ranks nine of the hottest 10 years ever recorded between 2001 and last year. You'd reckon NASA had learned a few lessons about being careful with data.

Variations on decadal timescales are more relevant to climate trends than annual variations. NASA shows the average temperature over the decade 2000-09 was a full 0.2C higher than in the 1990s - the biggest decadal rise in temperature ever recorded.

With an increase of more than 0.5C over the past 40 years, the decadal trend is now warming faster than ever. It beggars belief that any serious scientist could assert the climate is cooling.

Our contrarian geologists also avoid the devil in the detail. NASA's data shows that winters are warming faster than the summers and the Arctic faster than the tropics. While the lower atmosphere is warming, the upper atmosphere is cooling.

These characteristics provide diagnostic fingerprints of the heat trapping expected for a greenhouse effect. They provide the smoking gun that points to rising greenhouse gas levels as

the cause, and rule out warming because of additional heat input from the sun.

Could that be why you won't hear our contrarian geologists refer to such data? Could their real agenda be in manufacturing doubt rather than the search for scientific truth?

If so, it wouldn't be a first, as Naomi Oreskes points out in her recent book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

Now here's a point for those who, like Rinehart, think all geologists toe Plimer's contrarian line.

Oreskes is a noted geologist. Having published groundbreaking research on the origin of the giant South Australian Olympic Dam deposit, she has arguably contributed more to the understanding of Australian mineral wealth than has Plimer.

Now just imagine a meeting between Rinehart and Oreskes - that would be interesting!

Mike Sandiford is professor of geology at the University of Melbourne

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/cherry-picking-contrarian-geologists-tend-to-obscure-scientific-truth/story-e6frgd0x-1226233605954

===============

How do we know more CO2 is causing warming?
Link to this page
The skeptic argument...

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
'While major green house gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor green house gases such as CO2 have little effect.... The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature.' (Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide)

What the science says... Select a level... Intermediate [this] .. Advanced ..
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm

An enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 has been confirmed by multiple lines of empirical evidence. Satellite measurements of infrared spectra over the past 40 years observe less energy escaping to space at the wavelengths associated with CO2. Surface measurements find more downward infrared radiation warming the planet's surface. This provides a direct, empirical causal link between CO2 and global warming.

The greenhouse gas qualities of carbon dioxide have been known for over a century. In 1861, John Tyndal published laboratory results identifying carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas that absorbed heat rays (longwave radiation). Since then, the absorptive qualities of carbon dioxide have been more precisely quantified by decades of laboratory measurements (Herzberg 1953, Burch 1962, Burch 1970, etc).

The greenhouse effect occurs because greenhouse gases let sunlight (shortwave radiation) pass through the atmosphere. The earth absorbs sunlight, warms then reradiates heat (infrared or longwave radiation). The outgoing longwave radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This heats the atmosphere which in turn re-radiates longwave radiation in all directions. Some of it makes its way back to the surface of the earth. So with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we expect to see less longwave radiation escaping to space at the wavelengths that carbon dioxide absorb. We also expect to see more infrared radiation returning back to Earth at these same wavelengths.



Read more: http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm .. with links ..