[Vision2020] "...Compulsory Reading for Anyone Empowered to Pontificate on Climate Science..." Was: The green hijack of the Met Office is crippling Britain

[Ted Moffett]

Given the voluminous scientific research regarding climate science and
the physics of atmospheric CO2 radiative forcing, extending back over
a century starting at least as early as Nobel laureate Arrhenius in
1896 (Svante Arrhenius, 1896b, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in
the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, London, Edinburgh, and
Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (fifth series),
April 1896. vol 41, pages 237–275. ), that I have presented to
Vision2020 for years, I'll not now again exhaustively list the
numerous professional credible (and exhaustively debated, skeptically
analyzed and peer reviewed for decades) scientific sources on this
issue, that indicate human atmospheric CO2 emissions are now
dramtically altering Earth's climate, given a high probability climate
sensitivity (change of global average atmospheric surface temperature
from a doubling of atmospheric CO2) with positive and negative
feedbacks is over 2 degrees C., in fact very probably over 3 degrees
C.

A list and analysis of much of this research can be found at this
website: "Estimates of Climate Sensitivity":
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html

Also, read the recent MIT peer reviewed published study relating to
probable temperature increases from human impacts on climate, a study
based on years of research that is revealing higher probable
temperature increases than earlier research:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2863.1

"Sokolov, A. P., and Coauthors, 2009: Probabilistic Forecast for
Twenty-First-Century Climate Based on Uncertainties in Emissions
(Without Policy) and Climate Parameters. J. Climate, 22, 5175–5204.
doi: 10.1175/2009JCLI2863.1 "

Quote from abstract above:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Integrated Global
System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate
change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model’s first projections were
published in 2003, substantial improvements have been made to the
model, and improved estimates of the probability distributions of
uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections
are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections; for example, the
median surface warming in 2091–2100 is 5.1°C compared to 2.4°C in the
earlier study.
------------------------------
And as anyone making even a cursory study of this subject knows, the
hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 humanity is injecting into Earth's
atmosphere is acidifying the Earth's oceans, a serious enough problem
to indicate addressing CO2 emissions even without atmospheric and
ocean warming from CO2 radiative forcing.  Read scientific data on
this issue from a previous Vision2020 post here:  [Vision2020]
Clarification: Re: Coral Reefs: CO2 Source or Sink? Re: Four Levels of
Global Warming: A Climate Change Update:
http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2010-December/073292.html
------------------------
Also, the American Insitute of Physics website offers excellent
articles on the science regarding anthropogenic climate warming, some
of which are aimed at a general non-specialist public readership:

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

Basic Radiation Calculations:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm#L_0166
---------------------
I recommend anyone who thinks the science indicating human CO2
emissions are seriously altering Earth's climate is not well founded
to read Paul N. Edward's "A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate
Data, and the Politics of Global Warming."

The University of Idaho main library recently aquired a copy that
should be available.  I was the first person to check it out, it
appears:

A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of
Global Warming

by Paul N. Edwards

MIT Press: 2010. 528 pp.

As Myles Allen says in his review (at website below from "Nature"): “A
Vast Machine [...] should be compulsory reading for anyone who now
feels empowered to pontificate on how climate science should be done.”

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7302/full/466031a.html

Nature 466, 31 (1 July 2010) | doi:10.1038/466031a; Published online
30 June 2010
Embracing an uncertain future
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 1/6/11, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll just add that the attack against Climatolgy is a slap in the face to
> the Acadamy in general. Like other areas of discipline, they have their own
> peer reviewed process. To think that the whole lot of them could be out of
> whack -- with 5% of the studies being flawed, as you suggest -- is an insult
> to the process. And an insult to related areas of scientific enquiry, like
> geology.
>
>
> On Jan 6, 2011, at 12:10 AM, Andreas Schou <ophite at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's a little harsh. Sorry. Shouldn't send email at midnight.
>>
>> It's just bizarre to see someone who's normally so well-informed, and
>> a huge advocate of science, attacking literally an entire field of
>> science. Climatology's consensus around global warming is as uniform
>> and well-supported as biology's consensus around evolution. What's
>> left over is a motley collection of crank physicists, conservative
>> economists, conspiracy bloggers, geologists, and TV weathermen,
>> well-funded by the petroleum industry. They've produced an argument
>> that's superficially convincing to the myopic and managed to (since
>> the 1990s) disinform a plurality of Americans, who -- back in the
>> 1990s -- used to believe in global warming.
>>
>> I've tried to stay quiet, but the whole thing just makes me nauseous.
>>
>> --  ACS
>>
>>