Top scientist Freeman Dyson says global warming isn't real.

[Grrr]

Article here.

Basically a 91yo scientist with more credentials can shake a stick at says global warming isn’t real. He blames crappy computer models and a generation of agenda driven scientist.

@Dyson

“That is to me the central mystery of climate science. It is not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?”

“It’s very sad that in this country, political opinion parted [people’s views on climate change]. I’m 100 per cent Democrat myself, and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on this issue, and the Republicans took the right side.”

“What has happened in the past 10 years is that the discrepancies between what’s observed and what’s predicted have become much stronger. It’s clear now the models are wrong, but it wasn’t so clear 10 years ago. I can’t say if they’ll always be wrong, but the observations are improving and so the models are becoming more verifiable.”

For example, NASA has admitted that it is unable to explain a 17-year hiatus in an average global temperature increase, which has led to 95% of manmade global warming projections being false.

So is this basically an old man shaking his cane at us youngsters? Or does he have a valid point?

[GIGObuster]

@Grrr

So is this basically an old man shaking his cane at us youngsters? Or does he have a valid point?

To the first question, yes.

To the second one, no.

Dyson has missed what is going on. To begin with, the evidence is there that points that the hiatus was a mirage.

Is Earth’s temperature about to soar?

A recent blog post on RealClimate by Stefan Rahmstorf shows that when it comes to recent claims of a “pause” or “hiatus,” or even a slowdown in global surface temperature, there just isn’t any reliable evidence to back up those claims.

Does the data prove there’s been no slowdown? Of course not, that’s simply impossible to do. But the actual evidence, when subjected to rigorous statistical analysis, doesn’t pass muster. Not even close. Those who insist there definitely has been a “pause” or “hiatus” in temperature increase (which seems to include all of those who deny the danger from man-made climate change) either don’t really know what they’re doing, or — far worse — they do know what they’re doing but persist in making claims despite utter lack of evidence.

I will predict, however, with extreme confidence, that in spite of the lack of valid evidence of any change in the trend, and even if we face rapid and extreme warming in the near future, there’ll be no “pause” or even slowdown in faulty claims about it from the usual suspects.

NASA and NOAA

Those in denial of global warming, its human causation, and/or its danger, have been trying their best to convince everyone that global warming has mysteriously “paused” or exhibited some “hiatus.” They do so by turning their focus on an all-too-short time span:
The frailty of their belief is even more obvious if we zoom in on the data since 1970, and add trend lines (by linear regression) estimated from data since that time:
The data during “denial time” continues to follow the trend, plus the same amount of up-and-down fluctuation that global temperature has always shown, and always will. But if you’re in denial, it’s all too easy to see random fluctuation as a meaningful pattern whether true or not. If you have an ideological motive not to believe in global warming, it’s difficult not to do that.

The last two years have made the “pausemaniacs” a bit hot under the collar; 2014 set a new record for hottest year, and — as is clear from the data — 2015 is well on its way to break that record. That leaves “pausemaniacs” only two choices: either ignore what’s happening recently at earth’s surface (where we live), or just refuse to believe the data, usually based on slandering the scientists who provide it. You know, all those scientists from NASA and NOAA who have spent their lives studying climate.

Of course to make that work, it’s not enough to accuse just NASA and NOAA scientists of being lying fraudsters, you also have to believe that of scientists from the meteorological office of Great Britain, and from the Japan meteorological agency, and yet more. Once you start down the slippery slope of making global warming into a giant conspiracy, you can’t stop with just the U.S.

But I digress.

Since 1970 global temperature has marched steadily upward (together with those up-and-down fluctuations that are always happening). The warming rate is, according to NOAA data, 0.0166 +/- 0.0027 deg.C/yr, while using NASA data it’s 0.0174 +/- 0.0027 deg.C/yr. The two estimates are well within each other’s confidence intervals. Applying the same tests used here, where I demonstrated just how non-existent the non-existent “pause” is, we find no evidence that the rate has changed since 1970.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

Freeman Dyson is not an expert in climatology, and the oft repeated claim that the the average global temperature hasn’t increased since 1998 is based upon a very selective sampling of atmospheric data which specifically excludes locations that do show heating. However, ocean average heat content down to 700 m, where most of the Earth’s external heat is stored and which most influences climate, has shown a consistent and dramatic rise from about 1977 through the present day. Ocean heat content below 700 m (down to 2000 m, the deepest at which consistent measurements are taken) has also shown a consistent rise.

Stranger

[jimbuff314]

I’m gonna vote 91 year old guy is not magically smarter than thousands of scientists who have been investigating this in myriad ways for years and years and years (that’s 6 years, minimum). The only reason he is being given a platform is because his name is Freeman Dyson. The only people who will pretend to accept him will be those who want to use his name to advance their oppo wars, be they Big Oil, United Statesian Republicans, or even our own home-boy loonies.

In fact, I predict that before many more posts in this thread, several will show up citing … aw, screw it. That’s not a prediction since there’s no chance it will not happen. Dyson’s wrong. Also, he’s always had enormous ears. (With GIGO and Stranger weighing in, what else do I have to contribute but ad hominems?)

[GIGObuster]

BTW the interview was made by The Register, whose articles on climate science always support the denier side. They also point in the end to this:

If anything, Dyson’s disputation of manmade global warming just adds to the list of scientific voices who are bucking the received “consensus” on temperatures.

And they pointed to trash from Dr. David Evans, an electrical engineer who is married to Jo Nova, one of the most virulent AGW deniers out there. It is not surprising to find that he is part of the 3 percent that thinks that it is onto something. No serious researcher is impressed.

Not even partially correct

David Evans has a whole series of posts on Jo Nova’s blog where he discusses his discovery. I’ll just comment on the aspect that I was discussing with him and which he discusses in this post. He says

The basic model relies heavily on partial derivatives. A partial derivative is the ratio of the changes in two variables, when everything apart from those two variables is held constant. When applied to the climate, this means everything about the climate must be held constant while we imagine how much one variable would change if the other was altered. 

As far as I’m aware, this is simply untrue. A complex GCM certainly solves a set of partial differential equations, but these are the standard Navier Stokes equations which are evolved in time and space; it doesn’t, however, require holding everything constant while we check how one variable changes if another is altered. The model simply evolves all the different variables with respect to t, x, y and z.

…

So, as far as I can tell, David Evans’s startling discovery is simply him being confused about how climate models actually work. Miranda Devine’s article includes that

Dr Evans is an expert in Fourier analysis and digital signal processing, with a PhD, and two Masters degrees from Stanford University in electrical engineering, a Bachelor of Engineering (for which he won the University medal), Bachelor of Science, and Masters in Applied Maths from the University of Sydney. 

Not only did David Evans bring up his qualifications in our discussion on Bishop Hill, but his expertise in Fourier analysis and digital signal processing doesn’t seem to have helped him in the past. What Miranda Devine’s article mainly illustrates is that some people will promote anything as long as it appears to suggest that there are major problems with climate science, even if it is written by someone who seems to thinks that where they got their PhD is somehow relevant. Some might call that irresponsible.

[Kenm]

Dysan’s dotage.

[Jackmannii]

@Grrr!

a 91yo scientist with more credentials can shake a stick at

@GIGObuster

the list of scientific voices who are bucking the received “consensus”

Such statements are drearily familiar to anyone who is following “controversies” about vaccination, water fluoridation, aspartame etc. etc. etc.

On the one hand we have abundant evidence compiled by experts in their respective fields which lead to consensuses on these subjects. It’s the evidence these experts find compelling, not a blind urge to follow the leader.

On the other hand there’s a sprinkling of people who almost always are not experts in these fields, who are portrayed as Brave Mavericks bucking the vast majority of pointy-heads (who are foolish and/or nefarious and ignoring the obvious Revealed Truths that the special interests don’t want us to know).

Here we see a theoretical physicist who’s expounding on a subject in which he does not have expertise. Add in what I call the Emeritus Factor (the tendency of scientists to embrace crankery as they age*) and I am so not impressed. Give me some real arguments backed by facts and I’ll listen, but can the tired insinuations.

*so as not to appear ageist, please note there are plenty of younger cranks, some of whom are afflicted by the Nobel Disease.
**yeah, I know Gigobuster was quoting someone else.

[Smapti]

For example, NASA has admitted that it is unable to explain a 17-year hiatus in an average global temperature increase, which has led to 95% of manmade global warming projections being false.

There is no “17-year hiatus in average global warming temperature increase” unless you willfully ignore (like most denialists do) that 1998 was the year of an abnormally large El Nino and global temperature averages spiked accordingly. You may as well argue that the murder rate in New York City dropped by 90% from 2001-2002.

[Martin_Hyde]

Dyson is wrong on both the modern models and climate science specifically, but even he’s not actually saying humans aren’t causing climate change, either in the interviews or the foreword to the paper he wrote. He spends a lot of time bashing careerist scientists, his belief that too much focus is put on CO2, bashing computer models as “wrong” and etc; but he still actually concedes that the seas are rising and the earth is getting warmer, albeit you have to dig to find that this is his position. I suspect even though he is 75% on the denial side, the fact that even he won’t outright say there is no human-caused climate change at all is being obscured a bit I think to maximize the political impact of what he has said by the outlets that try to promote climate change denialism.

Dyson did actually study climate in the 80s, albeit it wasn’t a major part of his career. I suspect his present predicament is a result of being really old, criticizing younger scientists for the same stuff he did in his career (like chase grant money for example) and just being a general curmudgeon PLUS, he’s a smart enough guy that his ego has let him think his 30 years out of date, relatively brief foray into climate science, makes his knowledge superior to modern day experts in the field. Even really smart people (and Dyson was certainly that for at least the majority of his life), can get egotistical, curmudgeonly and wrong in their old age.

[TBG]

No true scientist would say such things.

[Princhester]

@Martin_Hyde

Even really smart people (and Dyson was certainly that for at least the majority of his life), can get egotistical, curmudgeonly and wrong in their old age.

Linus Pauling was a great scientist and great guy who won Nobels for both chemistry and peace, if memory serves. He then turned into one of the world’s highest profile quacks, advocating for example high dose vitamin C therapy for which there is basically no evidence.

I suspect you get really used to being a very smart guy whose views turn out to be spectacularly right, and then you get old and crusty and forget you are renowned scientist because your interesting thoughts often turned out to be experimentally confirmed, not because your interesting thoughts are inherently accurate or great.

[running_coach]

@Martin_Hyde

Dyson is wrong on both the modern models and climate science specifically, but even he’s not actually saying humans aren’t causing climate change, either in the interviews or the foreword to the paper he wrote.

It’s probably his vast experience in zero atmosphere conditions that makes him feel he understands the air currents that influence weather.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

[I know it’s wikipedia, but each item is cited in the bibliography:

Dyson agrees that anthropogenic global warming exists, and has written that “[one] of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas.”[55] However, he believes that existing simulation models of climate fail to account for some important factors, and hence the results will contain too much error to reliably predict future trends:

The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world we live in …[55]

and, more recently:

What has happened in the past 10 years is that the discrepancies between what’s observed and what’s predicted have become much stronger. It’s clear now the models are wrong, but it wasn’t so clear 10 years ago.[56]

He is among signatories of a letter to the UN criticizing the IPCC[57][58] and has also argued against ostracizing scientists whose views depart from the acknowledged mainstream of scientific opinion on climate change, stating that “heretics” have historically been an important force in driving scientific progress. “[H]eretics who question the dogmas are needed … I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies.”[55]

Dyson says his views on global warming have been strongly criticized. In reply, he notes that “[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.”[59]

More recently, he has endorsed the now common usage of “global warming” as synonymous with global anthropogenic climate change, referring to “measurements that transformed global warming from a vague theoretical speculation into a precise observational science.”[60]

He has, however, argued that political efforts to reduce the causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority:

I’m not saying the warming doesn’t cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I’m saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.[61]

](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Climate_change)ETA: In fact, the quotes and citations in the Wiki article seem to directly contradict the stuff in the OP, or at least to suggest that they are taken out of context.

[Fubaya]

@jimbuff314

what else do I have to contribute but ad hominems?)

You had this to contribute:

@jimbuff314

for years and years and years (that’s 6 years, minimum).

Heh. I don’t of that’s a common joke but I like it and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[GIGObuster]

@Snowboarder_Bo

I know it’s wikipedia, but each item is cited in the bibliography:ETA: In fact, the quotes and citations in the Wiki article seem to directly contradict the stuff in the OP.

Things is that after years of seeing what is going on, Dyson is playing the innocent card by claiming that “Heretics are needed” or that scientists are ostracizing the skeptics for no reason at all.

Sorry to say **he is acting like if he was born yesterday **and he clearly should know better, not just as a scientist but he should be aware of what is going on with many of the “heretics” out there.

Work of prominent climate change denier was funded by energy industry

A prominent academic and climate change denier’s work was funded almost entirely by the energy industry, receiving more than $1.2m from companies, lobby groups and oil billionaires over more than a decade, newly released documents show.

Over the last 14 years Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, received a total of $1.25m from Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a foundation run by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, the documents obtained by Greenpeace through freedom of information filings show.

According to the documents, the biggest single funder was Southern Company, one of the country’s biggest electricity providers that relies heavily on coal.

[Poto]

This is like barely interesting. Almost like that other old fart that had some death bed conversion to religion.

[Larry_Borgia]

I’m not sure why this is news. Freeman Dyson has been saying similar things for more than a decade.

[GIGObuster]

@Snowboarder_Bo

In fact, the quotes and citations in the Wiki article seem to directly contradict the stuff in the OP, or at least to suggest that they are taken out of context.

Sorry to say this was also seen before, interviewers like The Register do get choice quotes from scientists that already know what fame they have (Not much respect among scientists, a lot of respect among deniers). If the quotes are taken out of context the sad reality is that many times the ones that are playing the “ignorant” game also want to get those “out of context” lines out there, so as to try to get any support among their former peers and to keep plausible deniability among the deniers. (Pun not intended)

A very similar situation is seen with now loopy skeptic Judith Curry in many recent interviews. On a recent interview she again did go for the debunked talking points against the hockey stick and computer models in a Daily Mail interview. When other more prominent scientists and experts criticized her about it she claimed that she was misquoted, but the reality is that in her blog the misconception is enhanced and she is not taking the same or very similar criticisms she has against most of the scientists back; like Dyson she has to keep many of her “skeptic” fans happy.

They are talking from 2 mouths depending on what audience they are dealing with.

[rbroome]

@Grrr

Article here.

Basically a 91yo scientist with more credentials can shake a stick at says global warming isn’t real. He blames crappy computer models and a generation of agenda driven scientist.

So is this basically an old man shaking his cane at us youngsters? Or does he have a valid point?

I read some of the things Dr. Dyson has said on climate change and he certainly isn’t denying the idea. He is simply saying that models don’t handle sources and sinks as well as they handle physics. He is certainly correct on that. He also says that the older model results aren’t holding up very well. That is certainly disputable but interesting to look at. The newer model results, containing better sources and sinks, do better. As for, the basic idea that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is happening at the same time as an increase in planetary average temperatures, no one has to model that. That is simply what the observations show. Models certainly show that CO2 levels and average temperature are linked as well as correlated. There is nothing in Dr. Dyson’s comments that I have read that challenge the basic premise of global warming. Articles such as the linked one simply make up stuff that doesn’t exist.

[Voyager]

@GIGObuster

Sorry to say this was also seen before, interviewers like The Register do get choice quotes from scientists that already know what fame they have (Not much respect among scientists, a lot of respect among deniers). If the quotes are taken out of context the sad reality is that many times the ones that are playing the “ignorant” game also want to get those “out of context” lines out there, so as to try to get any support among their former peers and to keep plausible deniability among the deniers. (Pun not intended)

I read the Register, and they are quite good on technology news. Science news, not so much. They know as much about it as Dyson knows about climatology.

Unlike Gilligan’s Island, real professors don’t know everything about everything. And Pauling, mentioned above, is a great example.