[Vision2020] More Junk Climate Science Hoodwinking the Public...Or "How to cook a graph in three easy lessons"

Sun Apr 4 18:34:38 PDT 2010

I find it hard to believe you seriously believe some of your statements on
this subject, but I'll play along anyway, assuming someone might find the
information of value...

On 4/3/10, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:

>    If your research comes up with conclusions that are contrary to the
> political consensus, you won't get as much funding next year.

You would need to reference numerous well documented cases of this occurring
for your contention to be credible that *politics has broadly biased climate
science towards the claim that human impacts on climate are profound.  In
fact, there is evidence the reverse is true, that politics and powerful
economic forces have been biasing science and/or science reporting in the
media, toward downplaying human impacts on climate.*
**
NASA's climate scientist James Hansen, perhaps the most publicly well known
climate scientist, has in the past faced budget cuts and attacks on his
professional status, not to mention threats against his personal safety,
linked to his scientific work on anthropogenic climate warming.

Consider reading Mark Bowen's (PhD. Physics, MIT) well documented book on
the attacks against NASA's James Hansen, and the science regarding
anthropogenic climate warming:  *"Censoring Science: Inside the Political
Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming."*

http://www.mark-bowen.com/book_cs.html

http://www.amazon.com/Censoring-Science-Inside-Political-Warming/dp/B001C2E452/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

----------------------
Again, there is evidence that *climate science has been politically and/or
economically biased to refute the science showing human impacts on climate
are profound, involving efforts of corporations with very deep pockets, such
as Exxon/Mobil, the coal industry, et. al. There are also psychological and
sometimes religious motivations to deny that humans are dramatically
altering the Earth's climate.  *

*Paul Rumelhart wrote:*

>   .
>
> The reason this can happen is the fact that the entire debate is incredibly
> politicized.

This statement is in fact false, given the history of the science
regarding anthropogenic climate warming.

First, the scientific question of human impacts on climate is not a
"debate," it is important to emphasize, at least in the manner many in the
media and Internet cast it, with ad hominem arguments and attacks (the
science is questionable because the scientists are after grant money and/or
political and career favor) and incredible conspiracy
theories (hidden and/or manipulation of critical data as a widespread
international problem across numerous scientific organizations).  Climate
science is matter of objective scientific research and theory.  While this
is rather obvious, it is amazing how few approach the subject from this
perspective.  I suppose in part this is because there is distrust or lack of
respect among many for the scientific method and institutions involved.

Second, there are thousands of climate scientists who have devoted decades
of objective scientific work on the issue of potential human impacts on
climate, from Arrhenius (sometimes called the father of modern climate
science) in 1896, to the current date, many of whom labored in obscurity,
before anthropogenic climate warming became a well known issue to
politicians and the public.  Thus the earlier work of these scientists
occurred before the current so called "debate," in the public and political
sphere.  This history is discussed in detail at the American Institute of
Physics website below.  I recommend reading all of the online material
regarding anthropogenic climate warming presented by the AIP:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

To further illustrate the extent to which climate science had addressed the
impacts of atmospheric CO2 before the widespread climate change "debate" in
the political and public sphere, at the website below is a large sampling of
the scientific studies on the issue of "climate sensitivity," one of the
fundamental questions in climate science, the impact of doubling of
atmospheric CO2 level on average global temperature.  Note how many studies
occurred, from 1896 to the 1980s, before NASA's James Hansen's famous 1987-8
US Congressional testimony on anthropogenic climate change made headlines
((Newsweek" cover, July 1988 "The Greenhouse Effect":  :
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/xNewsweek.htm )

http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html

  Study Year Estimate (° K.) Arrhenius 1896 5.5 Hulbert 1931 4.0 Callendar
1938 2.0 Plass 1956 3.8 Möller 1963 9.6 Manabe and Wetherald 1967 2.36
Manabe 1971 1.9 Rasool and Schneider 1971 0.8 Sellers 1973 0.1 Sellers 1974
1.32 Weare and Snell 1974 0.7 Manabe 1975 2.3 Manabe and Wetherald 1975 2.93
Ramanathan 1975 1.5 Temkin and Snell 1976 1.7 Augustsson and Ramanathan 1977
1.9 Ohring and Adler 1978 0.78 Manabe and Stouffer 1979 4.0 Manabe and
Wetherald 1980 3.0 Idso 1980 0.26 Ramanathan 1981 2.25 Chou et al.
1982 2.29 Hall
and Cacuci 1982 2.42 Nicoli and Visconti 1982 2.30 Gilliland and Schneider
1984 1.6 Hansen et al. 1984 4.2 Washington and Meehl 1984 3.5 Wetherald and
Manabe 1986 4.0

-------------------------
*Paul Rumelhart wrote:*
**
"If the threat of global climate change is so dire, then it would be in
everyone's best interest to make sure that all aspects of the problem are
being looked at.  The scientists involved should not be fighting requests
for information because they think the person requesting it only wants
access to poke holes in it. Let's grow up a little here."

My response:

You are blowing out of proportion the actions of a few scientists, who are
human beings, after all, with flaws, while making no credible argument based
on facts that there is widespread supression of critical data that would
alter the conclusions of climate scientists from many nations and scientific
organizations around the world regarding human  impacts on climate (
http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf
and http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf ).

Humanity needs to take responsibility, to "grow up," given the probable
profound effects of our actions in altering climate that will dramatically
effect our planet for centuries, even millenia, given CO2 atmospheric
lifespan and other climate feedbacks.  We are at a critical period in
history when our impacts on Earth will reach crisis proportions, if we do
not humbly accept our dominant role as the planet's caretakers.  To not
address the problem aggressively is, as Thomas Friedman commented today on
Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" on CNN, playing "Russian Roulette" with the planet's
future.  He made the point that even a 50% chance of human actions
profoundly altering climate is sufficient to justify action:
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/

Junk science claiming to have refuted anthropogenic climate warming science
should be publically exposed as junk, given that the promotion of this
"science" on the Internet and other media is misleading the public regarding
the probability for anthropogenic climate change.  This is profoundly
important, given I think it is clear that only via widespread public
involvement to push for political, economic and technological change, will
this problem be addressed aggresively, because the economic and political
forces working to not address the problem are entrenched, and have a poweful
influence in politics and business.

To borrow a common phrase, "Orwell rolls in his grave" when the careful and
objective work of thousands of climate scientists over decades, in
rigorously peer reviewed studies, is cast aside as the outcome of fraud,
incompetence or politics, because of widely promoted while not rigorously
peer reviewed pseud-science, on the Internet, and in other media, that
hoodwinks the public into a widespread distrust of climate scientists.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

>
> --- On *Sat, 4/3/10, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: More Junk Climate Science Hoodwinking the Public...Or "How to
> cook a graph in three easy lessons"
> To: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "Vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Saturday, April 3, 2010, 11:50 AM
>
>
>  I did not bother to suffer through Warren Meyer's pseudo-scientific
> presentations.   I only briefly scanned his written analysis. The analysis
> below from Bennett Kalafut (bio here:
> http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/46102/bennett_kalafut.html )
> supports my belief Meyer is not worth my time.  And regardless of Kalafut's
> dismantling of Meyer's analysis, that I have pasted in below, there are
> published climate scientists whose work is far more worthy of study, even
> scientists who question the probability of severity of future impacts of
> human activity on climate, for example, Roger Pielke, retired professor of
> atmospheric science, interviewed at the website below:
>
> http://www.ecoworld.com/global-warming/interview-with-roger-pielke-sr.html
>
> http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/
> ---------------------
>
> Paul Rumelhart wrote:
>
> "I do think it's possible that, despite the thousands of hours of work that
> climate researchers have performed that they may have painted themselves
> into a corner for many of the reasons cited in the PDF.  Namely that more
> pedestrian conclusions don't bring in the grant dollars."
> ----------
> The ridiculous claim that the work of thousands of climate scientists over
> decades, on anthropogenic climate warming, involves widespread scientific
> fraud of some sort, to bring in grant dollars, is laughable, were it not for
> the fact so many people actually believe this nonsense.  For it to be true,
> it would involve an international conspiracy among thousands of scientists
> working in numerous scientific organizations.
>
> I would expect fraud, manipulation of data or ethical violations to occur
> among some climate scientists, just as any profession, doctors, lawyers, law
> enforcement, computer programmers, teachers, etc. has a percentage of
> unsavory behavior among its ranks.  But to perpetrate a widespread
> scientific fraud on anthropogenic climate warming science, as you allege,
> for grant dollars, would require the complicity of most climate scientists
> to not point out the scientific errors that such a fraud would entail, or
> that most climate scientists are duped by a secret cabal of
> scientists manipulating data...
>
> This is simply an incredible claim!
> -------------------------
>
> http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-warren-meyer-and-feedback.html
>
> Sunday, December 6, 2009
>  On Warren Meyer and feedback<http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-warren-meyer-and-feedback.html>
>
> *Elsewhere*<http://goldwaterstate.blogspot.com/2009/11/few-words-about-warren-meyers-bona.html>,
> FOTB Martel Firing asks for my take on a bit of *'blog science*<http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/>:
> (would-be) "Climate Skeptic" Warren Meyer's thoughts *regarding feedback*<http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2009/06/its-all-about-the-feedback.html>.
> The request is as follows:
>
> Ben,
> I must admit that I'd find the papers beyond my knowledge as I remember
> nearly nothing from HS Chemistry decades ago. But thanks for the offer.
> My point was simply that I think you were a bit harsh on Meyer, who
> although he has a good scientific/engineering education admits to being an
> amateur -- kind of like Benjamin Franklin and thousands of other amateurs
> who kept meticulous climate records before there was a single climatologist.
> For example, the world-wide effects when Krakatoa blew up in 1883 were
> chronicled in great detail mostly by amateurs. (See: Krakatoa by Simon
> Winchester)
> If you want to refute Meyer's argument about AGW, I'd really like you to
> respond succinctly to his questioning of positive feedbacks needed to
> justify the catastrophic AGW climate models, e.g. what is the source of the
> positive feedbacks assumed by the models and what physical phenomenon and
> measurement thereof justifies a theory or run-away temperatures? (Less than
> 200 words, please, and no math. Thanks.) (...) See
> http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2...e-feedback.html and be sure to review
> the links therein, including the video.
>
> The "no math" request is a plea for a reason for the claimed positive
> feedback which seems rare in nature.
>
>
>
> 200 words is a bit short for such a big lump of errors, and to address
> feedback without math is a bit like trying to make a baby without using
> testicles, but I'll give it a go, anyway, with the caveat that I don't
> usually have patience for video, especially for video from people who can't
> get things right in the appropriate medium, which is writing, so the
> following addresses only the text. Here goes:
> ------------------------------
>
> Naming positive feedbacks is easy. In paleoclimate, consider the effect of
> albedo changes at the beginning of an ice age or the "lagging CO2" at the
> end. In the modern climate, consider water vapor as a greenhouse gas, or
> albedo changes as ice melts. In everyday experience, consider convection's
> role in sustaining a fire. Consider the nucleation of raindrops or
> snowflakes or bubbles in a pot of boiling water. At the cellular level,
> consider the voltage-gated behavior of the sodium channels in a nerve axon
> or the "negative damping" of hair cells in the cochlea.
>
> On to the meat of Meyer's argument: he seizes on one word ("feedback") and
> runs madly, from metaphor to mental model. Metaphor: "like in an ideal
> amplifier". Model: The climate experiences linear feedback as in an
> amplifier--see the math in his linked post or in the Lindzen slides from
> which he gets the idea. And then he makes the even worse leap, to claiming
> that climate models (GCMs) "use" something called "feedback fractions". They
> do not--they take no such parameters as inputs but rather attempt to
> simulate the effects of the various feedback phenomena directly. This error
> alone renders Meyer's take worthless--it's as though he enquires about what
> sort of oats and hay one feeds a Ford Mustang. Feedback in climate are also
> nonlinear and time-dependent--consider why the water vapor feedback doesn't
> continue until the oceans evaporate--so the ideal amplifier model cannot
> even be "forced" to apply.
>
> Meyer draws heavily from a set of slides from a talk by Richard Lindzen
> before a noncritical audience. These slides are full of invective and
> conspiracy talk, and their scientific content is lousy. Specifically,
> Lindzen supposedly estimates effective linear feedbacks for various GCMs and
> finds some greater than one. The mathematics presented by Lindzen in his
> slides does not allow that, and he doesn't provide details of how such
> things even could be inferred. An effective linear feedback greater than one
> implies a runaway process, yet GCMs are always run for finite time, so there
> cannot be divergence to infinity. Moreover, as far as I know, all of the
> GCMs are known to converge once CO2 is stabilized.
>
> In short, Meyer has the wrong idea about models (they don't take an
> amplifier-like feedback as a parameter), the wrong mental model of feedback
> (feedback in climate is nonlinear and time dependent) and he relies on a
> situationally unreliable source for numbers.
>
>  Posted by B. Kalafut at *9:52 PM*<http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-warren-meyer-and-feedback.html>
> * *<http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=4748718710584527356&postID=1691640156679040095>
> * *<http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4748718710584527356&postID=1691640156679040095>
> Labels: *climate modeling*<http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/search/label/climate%20modeling>,
> *climatology*<http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/search/label/climatology>,
> *meta* <http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/search/label/meta>, *requests*<http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/search/label/requests>,
> *Warren Meyer*<http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/search/label/Warren%20Meyer>
>  ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 4/2/10, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=godshatter@yahoo.com>>
> wrote:
>>
>>   The "rebel skeptic" thing was an obviously failed attempt at humor.  I
>> happen to know what my intentions are perhaps better than anyone else.
>>
>> I do think it's possible that, despite the thousands of hours of work that
>> climate researchers have performed that they may have painted themselves
>> into a corner for many of the reasons cited in the PDF.  Namely that more
>> pedestrian conclusions don't bring in the grant dollars.
>>
>> Also, I'm not claiming that Warren Meyer is a god, just that he brought up
>> some interesting points.  Not all of them may be valid.  He also thinks that
>> Greenland was named based on it's climate during the MWP.  This is not true
>> - it was named Greenland as a sort of marketing ploy to attract settlers.
>>
>> What did you think of either the PDF or the video presentation?
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> --- On *Fri, 4/2/10, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=starbliss@gmail.com>
>> >* wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=starbliss@gmail.com>
>> >
>> Subject: More Junk Climate Science Hoodwinking the Public...Or "How to
>> cook a graph in three easy lessons"
>> To: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=godshatter@yahoo.com>
>> >
>> Cc: "Vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com<http://mc/compose?to=vision2020@moscow.com>
>> >
>> Date: Friday, April 2, 2010, 1:40 PM
>>
>>
>>  [Vision2020] A Skeptical Layman's Guide to Anthropogenic Global Warming
>> http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2010-April/069550.html
>>
>> From post above by Paul Rumelhart:
>>
>> "We rebel skeptics?"
>>
>> For one thing, many of the "skeptics" are trying to disprove the
>> anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, so your statement that "we rebel
>> skeptics are not trying to disprove the AGW hypothesis" I quoted at the
>> bottom here, is simply false.
>>
>> Perhaps more importantly, your comment misrepresents the hard work of
>> thousands of scientists who have worked for decades on understanding our
>> planet's climate.  *As if scientists, who are skeptics by training, have
>> not been rigorously and skeptically* *analyzing and testing the
>> fundamental physics regarding CO2 atmospheric impacts (and other climate
>> variables), for over a century?  Now "rebel skeptics" are rebelling against
>> conformist scientists, who are no longer skeptics?*
>>
>> Why should I trust Warren Meyer's analysis or presentation of climate
>> science, that I have gathered in part relies on MIT's Richard Lindzen's
>> climate science theories (that have been peer reviewed and found to be
>> faulty)?  You wrote you thought Meyer did "rather well" with presenting
>> science.  Really?
>>
>> Meyer is exposed as presenting questionable, actually, faulty, analysis on
>> climate science by Bennet Kalafut (what a name!) a PhD student in physics (
>> *Bio:
>> *PhD student, single-molecule biophysicist *Education/Experience:
>> *MS, physics, U. of Arizona; BS, physics and mathematics, magna cum
>> laude, Tulane University
>> http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/46102/bennett_kalafut.html )
>> on his blog at the following website.  I'll offer an excerpt:
>>
>> http://stochasticgain.blogspot.com/search/label/Warren%20Meyer
>>
>> "I just caught Meyer claiming--despite my link to his original post, and
>> despite the link to Lindzen in his, that he never claimed that climate
>> models "use" feedbacks, that I'm making a straw man argument, and that he
>> didn't use an obviously bad analysis of feedback from a set of Lindzen
>> slides as reference. It's "I don't know what Kalafut's talking about, it's a
>> straw man argument!" in a way to make me seem like a liar and a loon. Again:
>> Not cool. Mr Meyer: you've been caught. Perhaps your understanding of the
>> science has matured in a year, but that doesn't retroactively correct your
>> past blunders nor does that retroactively turn criticism of your past
>> statements into straw-man arguments."
>>
>> ------------------
>> For those who are interested in climate science from a reliable source, I
>> recommend the following websites, from the
>> American Institute of Physics, on the history of the science regarding CO2
>> impacts in our atmosphere, etc.
>>
>> http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
>>
>> http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
>> ------------------
>>
>> I would dismiss your "rebel skeptics" efforts with a shrug and a laugh, if
>> it were not for the fact that the junk science promoted (for whatever
>> reasons) in general is blocking efforts to address human impacts on climate,
>> that have a high degree of probability, according to well researched and
>> rigorous science, of causing profound changes to our planet.
>>
>> The public, and many politicians and corporations, are being hoodwinked
>> into accepting continued and increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, by
>> clever pseudo-scientific garbage, some of which is exposed in the
>> analysis "How to cook a graph in three easy lessons" from well published
>> climate scientist Raymond Pierrehumbert (
>> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/raymond-t-pierrehumbert/
>>  ):
>>
>> How to cook a graph in three easy lessons
>>
>>
>> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/how-to-cook-a-graph-in-three-easy-lessons/
>> ------------------------------------------
>> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>>
>> On 4/1/10, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=godshatter@yahoo.com>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Keep in mind
>> that we rebel skeptics are not trying to disprove the AGW hypothesis,
>> we're merely, well, skeptical of some of the claims and some of the
>> science.  Read or watch more to find out some reasons why.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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