U.S. Dept. of Ag report: Climate change is damaging America . . . now

Great Debates
241

[QUOTE=jshore]
Repeating something that is not true enough times does not make it true.
[/quote]

Absolutely.

If any lurkers are still reading this, take a look at the solid blue line in the second graph on the last page of this paper. See how it’s steadily increasing from 2001 to 2006? What would seem to be being alleged here is that the “Had/CRU” measurement of temperatures is positive and steady from 2001 to 2006.

Ok, here’s a more recent graph:

Take a look at the jagged gold line. Just eyeballing it, there’s no obvious positive trend from 2001 to present.

Why the difference? My guess is that it’s (1) two years of flat temperatures (2006 to 2008); and (2) the paper cited by jshore averaged in temperature increases which took place BEFORE the IPCC actually made its predictions.

242

[QUOTE=matt]

We’ve explained the ice ages? When did that happen?

I agree that ice ages are evidence against strong negative feedback, but they don’t disprove it. Explanations for the ice ages are partial and tentative in the first place. Besides which, one possible source of negative feedback isn’t an issue. It’s the combination of all feedbacks positive and negative, and the resulting climate sensitivity, that’s important.
[/quote]

Matt, we pretty much agree…The point is that from what we understand of the ice ages (and other paleoclimate events), the evidence seems to favor a climate sensitivity in the moderate range, i.e., around what the IPCC believes is most likely (if not higher).

I would be cautious of concluding much from this. The Loehle study appeared in Energy and Environment, a journal that is not really considered to be very reputable and there have been significant criticisms of the paper.

Likewise, the Soon and Baliunas study that you link to a press release concerning also got their study published in Energy and Environment. It also appeared in fairly obscure journal that was trying to be a reputable journal in the field, but the way the editorial process failed in that case caused such a stir that several editors resigned (including Hans vanStorch, who is hardly one of Mann et al.'s great supporters, having written a paper arguing that their technique underestimates past variability). The publisher, while defending the editorial process in general, admitted that it failed in this particular case in allowing such a seriously-flawed paper to be published. A good discussion of the whole saga is given here.

Here is a plot showing various temperature reconstructions from the peer-reviewed literature, while some do seem to show more variability than Mann et al. (mainly by having a cooler Little Ice Age rather than a warmer MWP), note that they all seem to suggest that we are warming now than during the medieval warm period.

243

[QUOTE=jshore]
I would be cautious of concluding much from this. The Loehle study appeared in Energy and Environment, a journal that is not really considered to be very reputable and there have been significant criticisms of the paper.
[/quote]
As you say, we don’t really disagree on much! I’m just less certain than you. To be honest, my reasons for the uncertainty probably aren’t all that rational. Mostly it’s the politics of climate change making me uneasy.

For example, the link on Energy and Environment is mainly critical of the fact that it publishes contrarian views. But journals should welcome contrarian views, if they’re based on data and soundly presented! Loehle’s paper may or may not be flawed, but the very fact that it was published in Energy and Environment shouldn’t count against it. I worry that it was only published in Energy and Environment because other journals felt it was risky to publish it. Not because it was bad, but because it was contrarian.

In climate politics, AGW sceptics are called cranks, energy company shills, and no different from holocaust deniers (my personal favourite.) That is an enormously coercive pressure on editors, journalists, academics, research associates and grad students, and it’s dangerous. It’s especially dangerous in a field where is is commonplace to apply adjustments to all sorts of measurements. Sometimes it feels like a giant Asch conformity experiment is in progress. I’d be a lot happier if the IPCC devoted, say 10% of their activity to a Devil’s Advocate group who actively looked for weaknesses in the data, models and hypotheses supporting AGW. Because people should be doing that, without risking their careers or reputations.

The Soon and Baliunas study is admittedly dire, and shouldn’t have passed anyone’s peer review. The story about the Climate Research journal was an interesting read; thanks for that.

244

[QUOTE=matt]
. I’d be a lot happier if the IPCC devoted, say 10% of their activity to a Devil’s Advocate group who actively looked for weaknesses in the data, models and hypotheses supporting AGW. Because people should be doing that, without risking their careers or reputations.
[/quote]

I totally agree. In the same way that the U.S. Supreme Court publishes dissenting opinions, the IPCC should too.

Arguments against CAGW deserve attention, as a matter of sound policy.

245

[QUOTE=matt]
I’d be a lot happier if the IPCC devoted, say 10% of their activity to a Devil’s Advocate group who actively looked for weaknesses in the data, models and hypotheses supporting AGW. Because people should be doing that, without risking their careers or reputations.
[/QUOTE]

Gods, NO!. The IPCC process is essentially a literature review. If denialists want to be taken seriously, then they should risk their reputations by publishing in the reputable literature (rather than their own vanity rags), just like every other scientist does.

They believe their ideas have merit, after all, so they should put their cocks on the peer-review block. As it were.

It’s not like there isn’t considerable precedent for established ideas being overturned when the facts were on the contrarian’s side (everything from tectonics to prions). Anyone pleading that the establishment is biased (while essentially true - science is conservative) tweaks my ulterior-motive meter. After all, the global warming proponents had to build their case in the literature too, and certainly weren’t in the majority as little as 30 years ago, IMO. And contrary to what some believe, I think science journal editors LOVE to publish controversial ideas, as long as the research stands up. So now, the denialists are just coming across as sore losers and poor scientists (when they’re scientists at all).

If the ideas of the anti-side actually stood up to review, they’d be considered by the IPCC already. It’s the marketplace of ideas, after all. You’re asking that the IPCC essentially changes its model from literature review to literature review + special pleading. That’s like mandating time for ID in science class. And for the IPCC to be doing the supporting of that 10%, when it’s not actually in the business of doing research, I take it. So this 10% gets consideration (and funding, I suppose) out of proportion to its ratio, just in order to ensure there’s enough dissent? That’s not how science works.

Plus, I’m sorry, but 10% is way overinflated in comparison to the actual amount of doubt and denial there is, in the field. We’ve shown, repeatedly, that the number of working climate scientists who are not in agreement with the IPCC can’t be shown to be more than a fraction of a percent, maybe a couple of percent at most if you’re charitable.

246

[QUOTE=brazil84]
I totally agree. In the same way that the U.S. Supreme Court publishes dissenting opinions, the IPCC should too.
[/QUOTE]

Science isn’t a matter of “opinions”, but of facts. If dissenters have the facts, let them publish them in the literature, and the IPCC will then have to include them.

247

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Gods, NO!. The IPCC process is essentially a literature review. If denialists want to be taken seriously, then they should risk their reputations by publishing in the reputable literature (rather than their own vanity rags), just like every other scientist does.

They believe their ideas have merit, after all, so they should put their cocks on the peer-review block. As it were.

It’s not like there isn’t considerable precedent for established ideas being overturned when the facts were on the contrarian’s side (everything from tectonics to prions).
[/quote]
I think however that the current situation is unprecedented. There is a political agenda to fundamentally change the way humans use energy, with enormous economic implications. Nobody was arguing that supporters of plate tectonics were shills of one political lobby or another, or comparing them with holocaust deniers. It’s something that makes me very uncomfortable.

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Anyone pleading that the establishment is biased (while essentially true - science is conservative) tweaks my ulterior-motive meter. After all, the global warming proponents had to build their case in the literature too, and certainly weren’t in the majority as little as 30 years ago, IMO. And contrary to what some believe, I think science journal editors LOVE to publish controversial ideas, as long as the research stands up.
[/quote]
I sincerely hope you’re right and I’m wrong. I just don’t think the establishment has been this biased in living memory. Remember, AGW proponents are trying to effect some tremendous changes in the world, and are convinced that it’s for the good of humanity. I can’t fault such motives, but it makes them incredibly hostile to the notion that they might have things wrong. It’s way beyond simple conservative attachment to existing theories.

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
You’re asking that the IPCC essentially changes its model from literature review to literature review + special pleading. That’s like mandating time for ID in science class.
[/quote]
I don’t believe that’s a good analogy, but I take your point.

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
And for the IPCC to be doing the supporting of that 10%, when it’s not actually in the business of doing research, I take it. So this 10% gets consideration (and funding, I suppose) out of proportion to its ratio, just in order to ensure there’s enough dissent? That’s not how science works.
[/quote]
I agree the idea was poorly thought out, and I admit pulled the figure out of my arse. Which perhaps is where both it and the idea itself belongs! I don’t want special pleading; I want reputable climate scientists to be able to say e.g. “the satellites show there was a lot more LW radiative heat loss from the tropics in the 90’s than in the 80’s - maybe there’s a negative feedback there that we’ve missed” and investigate that idea. Lindzen did just that, and proposed a mechanism for it that on investigation could not be verified. And straight away, a reputable climate scientist and a lead author in the third IPCC report became an evil oil industry shill. That should not happen. He should have been able to publish the research without any risk of personal vilification. The anomaly he was trying to explain is quite real, and may or may not be significant. Lindzen’s sin was to theorise that it could indicate a negative feedback, and look for evidence of it.

248

There’s also a political agenda to maintain the status quo. A well-funded agenda, I might add.

I haven’t seen the latter - unless you mean the use of the word “denialist” in itself.

Not seen practicing evolutionary biologist’s responses to IDers?

I happen to think the changes would be for the good of humanity anyway, and are changes we should make, and don’t go far enough. But then I’m as far left as it’s possible to be.

I’m not seeing the actual hostility you’re talking about, even in the blogosphere. I’m seeing a certain amusement that this is being blown out of proportion, and irritation at having to debunk the same points over and over..

Lindzen is still an MIT professor, still does research (I suppose - not seen anything post-2006) and is still considered a scientist, so it’s not as though his career has been ruined over this. It’s not his science that’s been vilified, as much as his public pronouncements and media presentations, which have often been , you must admit, linked to conservative think tank/corporate backing. On the science side, I don’t think he’s been dumped on for trying as much as not proving his case and still going on as if he had, and mostly outside the literature at that. So he’s not being dissed as a scientist, but as a spokesperson. Especially when he started in on all the debunked talking points like the MWP.

249

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
I haven’t seen the latter - unless you mean the use of the word “denialist” in itself.
[/quote]
I linked to it earlier, but here it is again: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/ . I’m okay with denialist.

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
I happen to think the changes would be for the good of humanity anyway, and are changes we should make, and don’t go far enough. But then I’m as far left as it’s possible to be.
[/quote]
I’m not unsympathetic to that point of view. From 2005:

250

[QUOTE=matt]
I linked to it earlier, but here it is again: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/.

Ta. I see what you mean, although thinking about it I have to wonder who should be castigated more - the person who’s a holocaust denier because he hates Jews, or the person who’s a GW denier because it pays well? OK, it’d be the racist, but the other guys don’t really get much sympathy from me either. I mean, none of the pro-AGW climate scientists I know of are paid $10 000 a pop just to write a paper.

251

[QUOTE=matt]

I want reputable climate scientists to be able to say e.g. “the satellites show there was a lot more LW radiative heat loss from the tropics in the 90’s than in the 80’s - maybe there’s a negative feedback there that we’ve missed” and investigate that idea. Lindzen did just that, and proposed a mechanism for it that on investigation could not be verified. And straight away, a reputable climate scientist and a lead author in the third IPCC report became an evil oil industry shill. That should not happen. He should have been able to publish the research without any risk of personal vilification. The anomaly he was trying to explain is quite real, and may or may not be significant. Lindzen’s sin was to theorise that it could indicate a negative feedback, and look for evidence of it.
[/QUOTE]

I basically agree, and I think that Lindzen’s arguments deserve serious attention.

252

[QUOTE=brazil84]
I basically agree, and I think that Lindzen’s arguments deserve serious attention.
[/QUOTE]

They’ve gotten serious attention - the many opposing journal articles supporting positive feedback since then are exactly the way this sort of disagreement between scientists should be conducted. I’ d say all the work that goes into publishing a scientific paper should count as serious, wouldn’t you?

253

[QUOTE=matt]
I want reputable climate scientists to be able to say e.g. “the satellites show there was a lot more LW radiative heat loss from the tropics in the 90’s than in the 80’s - maybe there’s a negative feedback there that we’ve missed” and investigate that idea. Lindzen did just that, and proposed a mechanism for it that on investigation could not be verified. And straight away, a reputable climate scientist and a lead author in the third IPCC report became an evil oil industry shill. That should not happen. He should have been able to publish the research without any risk of personal vilification. The anomaly he was trying to explain is quite real, and may or may not be significant. Lindzen’s sin was to theorise that it could indicate a negative feedback, and look for evidence of it.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry…but I am going to call total “B.S.” on this interpretation of how Lindzen has been treated. First of all, the third IPCC report was prepared well after Lindzen had proposed his hypothesis and was already well-known as a skeptic, so if he was a lead author on that report that speaks for itself. The NAS also put him on their committee in 2001 to answer the questions about climate changed posed by the incoming Bush Administration. Given that Lindzen is one of the only skeptical scientists with a decent publication record in the field, this seemed to be bending over backwards to include as broad a range of views as possible.

Second of all, to the extent that Lindzen has received any vilification, he has pretty much brought it on himself. For example, after the 2001 NAS report was published, Lindzen published an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he essentially disavowed the introductory summary of the report and then argued that the media had misinterpretted the rest of the report, then proceeding to explain how they should have interpretted it…which strangely seemed to coincide more closely with Lindzen’s own views than those actually expressed in the report. Now, I don’t know if there are any official rules on this, but I believe it is generally considered very bad form to participate in a consensus report such as this NAS report, sign off on it, and then go around and publicly try to convince everyone that it says not what it actually says but what it would have said if you had written it alone.

Lindzen has also not helped his scientific credibility by publicly associating himself in editorials with claims like the one that the climate stopped warming in 1998.

Look, science is a rough-and-tumble world and scientists should expect to have their work critiqued, sometimes harshly. However, I think what Lindzen’s case shows is, in fact, how far the scientific community has gone to include someone who has actually been quite a bad actor in response.

254

[QUOTE=jshore]
First of all, the third IPCC report was prepared well after Lindzen had proposed his hypothesis and was already well-known as a skeptic, so if he was a lead author on that report that speaks for itself.
[/quote]
Yes, that at least is a good sign.

[QUOTE=jshore]
Second of all, to the extent that Lindzen has received any vilification, he has pretty much brought it on himself. For example, after the 2001 NAS report was published, Lindzen published an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he essentially disavowed the introductory summary of the report and then argued that the media had misinterpretted the rest of the report, then proceeding to explain how they should have interpretted it…which strangely seemed to coincide more closely with Lindzen’s own views than those actually expressed in the report.
[/quote]
The title of that editorial is “The Press Gets it Wrong.” The thrust of it is that the “Summary for Policymakers” part of the IPCC report is written by government representatives, not by scientists, and that’s the part the press concentrated on. In fact, to quote Lindzen:

“The full IPCC report is an admirable description of research activities in climate science, but it is not specifically directed at policy. The Summary for Policymakers is, but it is also a very different document. It represents a consensus of government representatives (many of whom are also their nations’ Kyoto representatives), rather than of scientists. The resulting document has a strong tendency to disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence.”

If that’s true, then I’m damned glad he said it. If it’s not true, then show me.

As for the NAS report, Lindzen said: “CNN’s Michelle Mitchell was typical of the coverage when she declared that the report represented “a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room.”” Whereas right in the first paragraph of that report, it says:

“The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.”

In the second paragraph it says:

“Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).”

Don’t you think he had a point? Don’t you think Michelle Mitchell’s statement was too strong? If you sign off on a report that qualifies its statements and the press ignore those qualifications, shouldn’t you speak up about it?

255

[QUOTE=brazil84]
If any lurkers are still reading this, take a look at the solid blue line in the second graph on the last page of this paper. See how it’s steadily increasing from 2001 to 2006? What would seem to be being alleged here is that the “Had/CRU” measurement of temperatures is positive and steady from 2001 to 2006.

Ok, here’s a more recent graph:

Take a look at the jagged gold line. Just eyeballing it, there’s no obvious positive trend from 2001 to present.

Why the difference? My guess is that it’s (1) two years of flat temperatures (2006 to 2008); and (2) the paper cited by jshore averaged in temperature increases which took place BEFORE the IPCC actually made its predictions.
[/QUOTE]

It speaks volumes how in response to my links to two peer-reviewed sources, you respond with the link to a plot of unknown origin by God-knows-who (who may or may not have plotted the data correctly) that has been conveniently truncated to support their point. (They also conveniently show the HADCRUT data but not the NASA GISS data, since the latter would not support their point-of-view.)

At any rate, trends over short periods of times are dominated by climate variability and can be all over the place, as this discussion shows. Individual runs of climate models show similar sorts of variability leading to huge error bars in predicted short term trends (see here).

As for your guesses: (1) The less than one year-and-a-half of additional data from what I have shown is not enough to make a significant difference in the long-term trend. (2) As explained above, it is necessary to look at trends over a long enough period of time that the trend is resilient. Furthermore, the IPCC runs start in 1990 and that is the beginning of the time period from which the envelope of the model simulations expands. The IPCC did not make a prediction specific to the period 2001 to the present. They have never tried to claim that the temperature will be consistently increasing over every 7 year time period because such a prediction would clearly be silly

256

[QUOTE=jshore]
has been conveniently truncated to support their point. (They also conveniently show the HADCRUT data but not the NASA GISS data, since )
[/quote]

Correct. It’s unfortunate that you won’t apply the same level of skepticism to stuff that supports your own point of view.

But any way you slice it, there’s no positive trend in the Had/CRU temp between 2001 and the present.

However, I will concede that climatologists are great at predicting stuff that’s already happened.

In your view, what’s the minimum number of years that must be looked at for this purpose?

257

[QUOTE=jshore]
They have never tried to claim that the temperature will be consistently increasing over every 7 year time period because such a prediction would clearly be silly
[/QUOTE]

P.S. They supplied a graph with a line, surrounded by a shaded area. Most reasonable people would understand that to mean that they are predicting future temperatures would fall in the shaded area.

258

[QUOTE=brazil84]
In your view, what’s the minimum number of years that must be looked at for this purpose?
[/QUOTE]

Well, the answer is that it would depend on how accurately you want to obtain the trend. The way to do this correctly is to carefully compute not only the trend but the error range in that trend…which is a fairly subtle task with autocorrelated data.

However, roughly speaking, by looking at both observational data and results from individual runs of climate models, I think you could say that the trends over intervals of 10 years or less are quite problematic, by 12 years they seem to be settling down, and they seem fairly robust by 15 years or so.

Actually, most reasonable people would either read what is written about what the shaded area means and/or would think a little bit about what it could possibly mean. If you read about it, you find that Rahmstorf et al. say, “The dashed scenarios shown are for a medium climate sensitivity of 3°C for a doubling of CO2 concentration, whereas the gray band surrounding the scenarios shows the effect of uncertainty in climate sensitivity spanning a range from 1.7° to 4.2°C.” So, in other words, these are trend lines spanning different climate sensitivities and are not lines meant to show the range of internal variability.

A little thought would also make it obvious that there is no way that the IPCC would expect the temperature for individual years to all fall within that shaded region when, for years not too far after 1990, the width of the shaded region is still much smaller than the year-to-year variability in the global temperature. (Also, if you thought all the data points were supposed to be within the shaded region, I’d ask whether you think this is true for annual-averaged global temperature, monthly-averaged global temperature, daily-averaged global temperature, or what, since averages over shorter times tend to show a larger variability.)

It is the trend lines that are expected to be within that envelope…and it is the trend lines that are indeed within that envelope (and, at least through 2006, closer to the high end than the low end of the envelope), while some individual years have been outside the envelope on both the low and high sides.

259

[QUOTE=matt]
Yes, that at least is a good sign.

The title of that editorial is “The Press Gets it Wrong.” The thrust of it is that the “Summary for Policymakers” part of the IPCC report is written by government representatives, not by scientists, and that’s the part the press concentrated on. In fact, to quote Lindzen:

“The full IPCC report is an admirable description of research activities in climate science, but it is not specifically directed at policy. The Summary for Policymakers is, but it is also a very different document. It represents a consensus of government representatives (many of whom are also their nations’ Kyoto representatives), rather than of scientists. The resulting document has a strong tendency to disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence.”

If that’s true, then I’m damned glad he said it. If it’s not true, then show me.
[/quote]

The IPCC process involving the summary is complicated and Lindzen’s summary is not very accurate. It is true that, in order that all the nations of the world feel they have ownership of this document, the summary that the scientists write up has to be approved by government representatives…who can recommend changes to the document to make things clearer or whatever, but the scientists are involved in making the changes in order to insure that the summary remains scientifically accurate. Here is what the NAS report said about the process:

[QUOTE=matt]

Don’t you think he had a point? Don’t you think Michelle Mitchell’s statement was too strong? If you sign off on a report that qualifies its statements and the press ignore those qualifications, shouldn’t you speak up about it?
[/QUOTE]

If Lindzen had a problem with the way the press handled the report…and, sure, they weren’t perfect…then, the best way would be to involve his fellow authors on the report. By “going it alone”, and making some rather strange statements about the report, I think Lindzen probably rightfully pissed off some of his fellow authors of the report.

At any rate, be that as it may, I think my main point is that I can see no way in which Lindzen has been treated unfairly by the remainder of the scientific community. And, politically, there is certainly nothing in his treatment that can even remotely compare to what Michael Mann has had to endure that even some of moderate Republicans like Sherwood Boehlert found reprehensible.

260

[QUOTE=MrDibble]

[QUOTE=matt]
I linked to it earlier, but here it is again: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/.
[/quote]
Ta. I see what you mean, although thinking about it I have to wonder who should be castigated more - the person who’s a holocaust denier because he hates Jews, or the person who’s a GW denier because it pays well? OK, it’d be the racist, but the other guys don’t really get much sympathy from me either. I mean, none of the pro-AGW climate scientists I know of are paid $10 000 a pop just to write a paper.
[/QUOTE]
Gosh, that’s great of the pro AGW folks to do all that work for free … wait, what? You mean that those pro-AGW people are actually being paid to write their papers? You say many of them are also getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the US Government to do their research?

Who knew? One thing’s for sure, though. You can’t trust a word the pro-AGW folks say, their opinions are obviously bought and paid for by the US Government …

[/sarcasm off]

w.

PS - If you are truly wondering “who should be castigated more”, let me suggest that you could start by castigating people who make puerile ad hominem arguments such as “I don’t believe his scientific arguments because I don’t like the people he works for”.

From there, you could move up (or down) to people who want to compare people they disagree with to Holocaust deniers …