[Vision2020] 79 Skeptic Arguments at Skepticalscience.com Re: FBI Investigates Death Threats Against Climate Scientists
Paul Rumelhart
godshatter at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 28 18:34:53 PST 2009
I've been pretty busy with work and being out of town for a while, but I
decided to take a look at the first of the 79 skeptic arguments.
Here is a link to the page you get when you click on the first link:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
Here is the argument:
"Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in
the numbers of sunspots, at the time when the Earth has been getting
warmer. The data suggests solar activity is influencing the global
climate causing the world to get warmer."
"What the science says:"
"Solar activity has shown little to no long term trend since the 1950's.
Consequently, *any correlation between sun and climate ended in the
1970's* when the modern global warming trend began."
Well, first off, I didn't realize that the modern global warming trend
began in the 1970's. That was news to me. When you look at the chart
they supply on the page, you see a reasonable correlation between
temperature and total solar irradiance (TSI) until about 1980 or so.
So, OK - I thought I'd go see what the CO2 trend was for that period of
time. If the global warming trend began in the 1970's, I'd expect to
see a big jump there. Something you could combine with the graph of TSI
to get a good composite graph, since they seem to be saying that TSI
dominated things until that time period came around.
Here is a chart of CO2 levels since about 1960 or so, which is the
farthest back our actual CO2 measurements go:
http://co2now.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=28&Itemid=32
(look for the chart labeled "Atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory").
I was surprised to find that it looks pretty linear. It doesn't match
the temperature graph up to 1970 nearly as well as the TSI one does, and
there is no discernible sharp increase in the 1970's like I was
expecting to see. At best, the CO2 graph shows the general warming
trend, but fails to show the oscillations in the temperature data.
I conclude from this that CO2 and TSI may both play a part in the
warming that is apparently happening (questions about temperature
datasets aside), but neither one is clearly the driving force on it's
own. Furthermore, the two together don't seem to explain everything, so
there are likely other inputs that are also contributing to the warming
trend.
It comes down to the difficult question of exactly which inputs are
having how much of an affect.
Paul
Ted Moffett wrote:
> Who said/wrote that "skeptics" regarding anthropogenic climate warming
> are "one homogeneous bunch?" I don't know why you write you have
> failed to make a point that any thinking person knows is true anyway,
> after you have made this point clearly repeatedly. There is no need
> to make this point, unless you are approaching those with a penchant
> for oversimplified stereotypes, which are, however, apparently in
> abundance. There are a wide variety of mindsets involved in a spectrum
> of viewpoints on human contributions to climate. There is no doubt,
> however, that the issue has become "binary" to many, to quote NASA's
> climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, from the quote offered below, no
> doubt due to the very emotional responses climate change inspires.
>
> The scientific topics you mention are discussed in great scientific
> detail on Realclimate.org to address skeptical arguments... But then I
> seem to recall you stating you don't read the content offered on this
> website? Though the scientists who contribute "officially" to this
> website all appear to believe that there is compelling scientific
> evidence and theory that human contributions to climate change are
> profound, Realclimate is an excellent resource to study the more
> skeptical science regarding the extent of human impacts. In the
> Realclimate.org post below, by NASA's climate scientist Gavin Schmidt,
> you can read his thoughts on the often heard phrase "settled science"
> when applied to climate science:
>
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/
>
>
> Unsettled Science
>
> — gavin @ 3 December 2009
>
> Unusually, I’m in complete agreement with a recent headline on the
> Wall Street Journal op-ed page:
>
>
> “The Climate Science Isn’t Settled”
>
> The phrase “the science is settled” is associated almost 100% with
> contrarian comments on climate and is usually a paraphrase of what
> ’some scientists’ are supposed to have said. The reality is that it
> depends very much on what you are talking about and I have never heard
> any scientist say this in any general context – at a recent meeting I
> was at, someone claimed that this had been said by the participants
> and he was roundly shouted down by the assembled experts.
>
> The reason why no scientist has said this is because they know full
> well that knowledge about science is not binary – science isn’t either
> settled or not settled. This is a false and misleading dichotomy.
> Instead, we know things with varying degrees of confidence...
> ------------------------------
>
> Another website that offers a bonanza of arguments or points against
> anthropogenic warming, is Skepticalscience.com. They currently list
> 79 skeptical arguments or points arguing against the reliability of
> the science showing anthropogenic warming:
>
> http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
>
>
> Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says
>
> Here is a summary of what the science says on each skeptic argument.
> You can also view arguments sorted by popularity
> <http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=percentage> or
> taxonomy <http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=taxonomy>.
>
> http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
> I must hang out with a higher class of skeptic than you do.
>
> I read posts about sea ice extent, CO2 partial pressures and
> solubility curves, solar magnetism, surface temperature adjustment
> anomalies, statistical techniques, historical agrarian sites in
> Greenland, and other technical topics.
>
> I don't doubt that there are gleeful idiots out there spouting the
> most insane rubbish. The point that I've failed completely to
> make is that skeptics are not one homogeneous bunch and should not
> be treated that way.
>
> Paul
>
> Ted Moffett wrote:
>
> Paul Rumelhart wrote:
> "Simply making up motives for climate skeptics out of whole
> cloth does not make them true."
> You might be suppressing, hiding or manipulating data. The
> evidence that Anthropogenic climate change "skeptics" (a
> description that is misleading, given all good scientists are
> skeptics who question their theories and will alter them if
> new data reveals this is necessary) are intent to "find dirt,
> " "skew meaning" "destroy reputations" and so forth is more
> than ample. The manner and extent to which the hacked private
> alleged e-mails from the UK East Anglia University's Climatic
> Research Unit are being taken out of context and presented in
> a scientifically distorted fashion intent on creating doubt
> about anthropogenic warming on many blogs and websites and
> other media, is extreme. Read the article from the Union of
> Concerned Scientists on this subject posted to Vision2020:
> http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html
> ------------------
> Of course there are "skeptics" who are not unethical, but
> only attempt reasoned factual scientific disagreement with
> anthropogenic global warming. Did Santer make the broad claim
> that all "skeptics" are unethical? If so, I must have misread
> his letter, which I just read again, because I cannot find
> such a broad claim.
> I previously posted to Vision2020 threatening e-mails that
> NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who is arguably the most
> publicly well known and most frequently attacked climate
> scientist, has received(
> http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080804_TripReport.pdf
> <http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2008/20080804_TripReport.pdf>
> <http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2008/20080804_TripReport.pdf>
> page 18). How would you describe the following statements?
> "...I will destroy you, Jimmy,,, no doubt about it..." and
> "...I will do all within my power to destroy you
> professionally and personally..."
>
> Whoever is engaging in the alleged conduct described in the
> Guardian article below, is evidence of "skeptics" who are
> using death threats etc. to disrupt the work of climate
> scientists. A short excerpt from the Guardian article below:
> Tom Wigley, previous Director of CRU and now at the National
> Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, US, has been
> horrified by the e-mails he and other colleagues have
> received. "They are truly stomach-turning and show what sort
> of venomous monsters we are up against,"...
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/hacked-climate-emails-death-threats
> Hacked email climate scientists receive death threats
> CRU scientists receive torrents of abusive and threatening
> e-mails since leaks that began in mid-November 2009.
>
> * Kate Ravilious for *environmentalresearchweb*
> <http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/home>, part of the
> *Guardian Environment Network*
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/network>
> * guardian.co.uk <http://guardian.co.uk/>
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Tuesday 8 December
>
> 2009 09.28 GMT
> * Article history
>
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/hacked-climate-emails-death-threats#history-byline>
>
> Two of the scientists involved in "Climategate" – the e-mail
> hacking incident at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the
> University of East Anglia, UK
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/hacked-climate-science-emails>
> – have been emailed death threats since the contents of their
> private e-mails were leaked to the world. No further
> information can be revealed about these particular threats at
> present because they are currently under investigation with
> the FBI in the United States.
>
>
> Many other CRU scientists and their colleagues have received
> torrents of abusive and threatening e-mails since the leaks
> first began in mid-November 2009. Tom Wigley, previous
> Director of CRU and now at the National Center for Atmospheric
> Research (NCAR), Boulder, US, has been horrified by the
> e-mails he and other colleagues have received. "They are truly
> stomach-turning and show what sort of venomous monsters we are
> up against," he told environmentalresearchweb.
>
> The scandal, dubbed "Climategate", broke on 19 November this
> year when hundreds of messages between scientists from CRU and
> their colleagues around the world were posted onto websites.
> Since then, segments of the messages have been used by
> climate-change sceptics to undermine the scientific case for
> climate change
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change> being
> caused by humanity's greenhouse-gas emissions.
>
>
> In the UK a police investigation is underway to uncover how
> the material was hacked or leaked. Meanwhile, the University
> of East Anglia has ordered an independent review into the
> allegations against CRU and Phil Jones has temporarily stepped
> down as director of CRU, until the investigations are completed.
>
> Many of the accusations being made by climate-change sceptics
> are based on fragments and selected phrases from e-mails sent
> by eminent climate scientists, dating back to 1996. The
> scientists involved are confident that they can counter all of
> the claims against them. "None of it affects the science one
> iota," said Wigley. "Accusations of data distortion or faking
> are baseless. I can rebut and explain all of the apparently
> incriminating e-mails that I have looked at, but it is going
> to be very time consuming to do so."
>
> In particular Wigley vigorously denies that any data was ever
> destroyed. "We did not destroy any primary records," he said.
> "All these data came from National Meteorological Services,
> and the originals are still there for anyone to access. Indeed
> other groups such as GISS and NOAA have independently accessed
> these data and independently reproduced our results."
>
> Climate scientists not caught up in the scandal agree that the
> independent investigation is necessary, but don't believe that
> the CRU science will be discredited or any misdoings
> uncovered. "CRU is just one of many climate-research
> institutes that provide the underlying scientific basis for
> climate policy at national and international levels," said
> Dave Reay, a climate scientist at the University of Edinburgh,
> UK. "The conspiracy theorists may be having a field day, but
> if they really knew academia they would also know that every
> published paper and data set is continually put through the
> wringer by other independent research groups. The information
> that makes it into the IPCC reports is some of the most
> rigorously tested and debated in any area of science."
>
> And some scientists express little surprise at the tactics
> being used to try and undermine the science. "We have always
> had a very vocal minority of people who have long since
> decided to ignore the science and the data and take a
> deliberately and completely contrarian view, and who have
> always and constantly accused (all) climate scientists of
> falsehood and being in it for the money," said Andy Ridgwell,
> a climate scientist at the University of Bristol. "They have
> been playing Chicken Little and claiming the sky is falling in
> on climate science for a decade. There is nothing left that is
> new or different that they can (falsely) claim or accuse us of."
>
> Nonetheless there are now concerns that the e-mail leaks could
> derail some of the objectives due to be set at the UN climate
> summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, next week. On Friday 4 December
> Saudi Arabia's lead climate negotiator, Mohammad Al-Sabban,
> told BBC news that the hacked e-mails suggest climate change
> does not have a human cause, and that he thought it could have
> a huge impact on agreeing limitations of greenhouse gases at
> the summit. Meanwhile, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the
> Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was reported
> by the BBC as saying that the claims were serious and needed
> to be investigated.
>
> For now the scientists involved in the scandal are anxious to
> get back to doing their research. "We must continue to do the
> science," said Wigley. "As time goes by the evidence mounts –
> it is already overwhelming – and we must continue to report
> this through normal channels in peer-reviewed scientific
> journals. We must continue to strive to understand the
> complexities of the climate system better and to improve
> climate models so that we better know how to respond to future
> climate changes."
>
> But Wigley fears that time may be running out. "As time goes
> by, however, we are approaching the point where any actions we
> might take will be inadequate to protect humanity and the
> planet from dangerous climate change," he said. "Those people
> – the hackers, the sceptics, the luddite bloggers – who are
> hindering and slowing down the process of response will, I
> hope, eventually be held accountable. They already have much
> to answer for."
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 12/18/09, *Paul Rumelhart* <godshatter at yahoo.com
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>>> wrote:
>
> Simply making up motives for climate skeptics out of whole
> cloth
> does not make them true. Among other things, he has
> claimed that
> skeptics are trying to "find dirt", "skew meaning", "distort",
> "misrepresent", "take out of context", "destroy
> reputations", and
> "destroy scientific careers". This indicates a failure of
> understanding that I've seen in many places on the web -
> skeptics
> are not attacking climate scientists just because they've
> run out
> of puppies to torture. They simply question what is almost
> always
> stated as an undeniable truth. These scientists need to work
> towards understanding the motives of the skeptics. They might
> find that they have more in common than they realize.
>
> Ted Moffett wrote:
>
>
>
>
> http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/ben_santer_open_letter/
>
>
> Ben Santer: Open letter to the climate science community
>
> /Posted on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 /
>
> Climate scientists are being subjected to slanderous
> attacks
> by demagogues in high office and the global warming
> disinformation campaign. Climate Science Watch is posting
> here an “Open letter to the climate science community”
> by Ben
> Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Santer
> says: “We are now faced with powerful ‘forces of
> unreason’—forces that (at least to date) have been
> unsuccessful in challenging scientific findings of a
> warming
> Earth, and a ‘discernible human influence’ on global
> climate.
> These forces of unreason are now shifting the focus of
> their
> attention to the scientists themselves. They seek to
> discredit, to skew the truth, to misrepresent. They
> seek to
> destroy scientific careers rather than to improve our
> understanding of the nature and causes of climate change.”
> *Open letter to the climate science community*
>
> Dear colleagues and friends,
>
> I am sure that by now, all of you are aware of the hacking
> incident which recently took place at the University of
> East
> Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). This was a criminal
> act. Over 3,000 emails and documents were stolen. The
> identity
> of the hacker or hackers is still unknown.
>
> The emails represented private correspondence between CRU
> scientists and scientists at climate research centers
> around
> the world. Dozens of the stolen emails are from over a
> decade
> of my own personal correspondence with Professor Phil
> Jones,
> the Director of CRU.
>
> I obtained my Ph.D. at the Climatic Research Unit. I
> went to
> CRU in 1983 because it was - and remains - one of the
> world’s
> premier institutions for studying the nature and causes of
> climate change. During the course of my Ph.D., I was
> privileged to work together with exceptional scientists
> - with
> people like Tom Wigley, Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, and
> Sarah Raper.
>
> After completing my Ph.D. at CRU in 1987, I devoted
> much of my
> scientific career to what is now called “climate
> fingerprinting”, which seeks to understand the causes of
> recent climate change. At its core, fingerprinting is a
> form
> of what people now call “data mining” - an attempt to
> extract
> information and meaning from very large, complex climate
> datasets. The emails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit
> are now being subjected to a very different form of “data
> mining”. This mining is taking place in the blogosphere, in
> the editorial pages of various newspapers, and in radio and
> television programs. This form of mining has little to
> do with
> extracting meaning from personal email correspondence on
> complex scientific issues. This form of mining seeks to
> find
> dirt - to skew true meaning, to distort, to
> misrepresent, to
> take out of context. It seeks to destroy the reputations of
> exceptional scientists - scientists like Professor Phil
> Jones.
>
> I have known Phil for over 25 years. He is the
> antithesis of
> the secretive, “data destroying” character being
> portrayed to
> the outside world by the miners of dirt and disinformation.
> Phil Jones and Tom Wigley (the second Director of the
> Climatic
> Research Unit) devoted significant portions of their
> scientific careers to the construction of the land
> component
> of the so-called “HadCRUT” dataset of land and ocean
> surface
> temperatures. The U.K. Meteorological Office Hadley Centre
> (MOHC) took the lead in developing the ocean surface
> temperature component of HadCRUT.
>
> The CRU and Hadley Centre efforts to construct the HadCRUT
> dataset have been open and transparent, and are
> documented in
> dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers. This work
> has been
> tremendously influential. In my personal opinion, it is
> some
> of the most important scientific research ever
> published. It
> has provided hard scientific evidence for the warming
> of our
> planet over the past 150 years.
>
> Phil, Tom, and their CRU and MOHC colleagues conducted this
> research in a very open and transparent manner. Like good
> scientists, they examined the sensitivity of their
> results to
> many different subjective choices made during the
> construction
> of the HadCRUT dataset. These choices relate to such
> issues as
> how to account for changes over time in the type of
> thermometer used to make temperature measurements, the
> thermometer location, and the immediate physical
> surroundings
> of the thermometer. They found that, no matter what choices
> they made in dataset construction, their bottom-line
> finding -
> that the surface of our planet is warming - was rock solid.
> This finding was supported by many other independent
> lines of
> evidence, such as the retreat of snow and sea-ice
> cover, the
> widespread melting and retreat of glaciers, the rise in
> sea-level, and the increase in the amount of water vapor in
> the atmosphere. All of these independent observations are
> physically consistent with a warming planet.
>
> Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. The claim
> that our Earth had warmed markedly during the 20th
> century was
> extraordinary, and was subjected to extraordinary scrutiny.
> Groups at the National Climatic Data Center in North
> Carolina
> (NCDC) and at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies
> in New
> York (GISS) independently attempted to reproduce the
> results
> of the Climatic Research Unit and the U.K. Meteorological
> Office Hadley Centre. While the NCDC and GISS groups
> largely
> relied on the same primary temperature measurements
> that had
> been used in the development of the HadCRUT dataset,
> they made
> very different choices in the treatment of the raw
> measurements. Although there were differences in the
> details
> of the three groups’ results, the NCDC and GISS analyses
> broadly confirmed the “warming Earth” findings of the
> CRU and
> MOHC scientists.
>
> Other extraordinary claims - such as a claim by
> scientists at
> the University of Alabama that Earth’s lower atmosphere
> cooled
> since 1979, and that such cooling contradicts “warming
> Earth”
> findings - have not withstood rigorous scientific
> examination.
>
> In summary, Phil Jones and his colleagues have done a
> tremendous service to the scientific community - and to the
> planet - by making surface temperature datasets publicly
> available for scientific research. These datasets have
> facilitated climate research around the world, and have
> led to
> the publication of literally hundreds of important
> scientific
> papers.
>
> Phil Jones is one of the gentlemen of our field. He has
> given
> decades of his life not only to cutting-edge scientific
> research on the nature and causes of climate change,
> but also
> to a variety of difficult and time-consuming community
> service
> activities - such as his dedicated (and repeated)
> service as a
> Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
> Change
> (IPCC).
>
> Since the theft of the CRU emails and their public
> dissemination, Phil has been subjected to the vilest
> personal
> attacks. These attacks are without justification. They are
> deeply disturbing. They should be of concern to all of
> you. We
> are now faced with powerful “forces of unreason” -
> forces that
> (at least to date) have been unsuccessful in challenging
> scientific findings of a warming Earth, and a “discernible
> human influence” on global climate. These forces of
> unreason
> are now shifting the focus of their attention to the
> scientists themselves. They seek to discredit, to skew the
> truth, to misrepresent. They seek to destroy scientific
> careers rather than to improve our understanding of the
> nature
> and causes of climate change.
>
> Yesterday, Phil temporarily stepped down as Director of the
> Climatic Research Unit. Yesterday was a very sad day for
> climate science. When the forces of unreason win, and force
> exceptional scientists like Professor Phil Jones to leave
> their positions, we all lose. Climate science loses. Our
> community loses. The world loses.
>
> Now, more than at any other time in human history, we need
> sound scientific information on the nature and causes of
> climate change. Phil Jones and his colleagues at CRU have
> helped to provide such information. I hope that all of you
> will join me in thanking Phil for everything he has
> done - and
> will do in the future - for our scientific community.
> He and
> his CRU colleagues deserve great credit.
>
> With best regards,
>
> Ben Santer
> ——————————————————————————————————————
> Benjamin D. Santer
> Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> Livermore, CA U.S.A.
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
>
>
>
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