Parliament UK
I am pleased to find that the Institute of Physics (IOP) UK has done its homework on ClimateGate and made a submission to Parliament in line with reality. I believe this may have been in response to pressure from members as much earlier they had adopted a Governmental Stance in relation to Global Warming.
Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics (CRU 39)
The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.
The Institute is pleased to submit its views to inform the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry, ‘The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia’.
The submission details our response to the questions listed in the call for evidence, which was prepared with input from the Institute’s Science Board, and its Energy Sub-group. What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?
1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.
2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.
3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:
· those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and
· historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of ‘proxies’, for example, tree-rings.
4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.
5. The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.
6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific ‘self correction’, which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.
7. Fundamentally, we consider it should be inappropriate for the verification of the integrity of the scientific process to depend on appeals to Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary. The e-mails illustrate the possibility of networks of like-minded researchers effectively excluding newcomers. Requiring data to be electronically accessible to all, at the time of publication, would remove this possibility.
8. As a step towards restoring confidence in the scientific process and to provide greater transparency in future, the editorial boards of scientific journals should work towards setting down requirements for open electronic data archiving by authors, to coincide with publication. Expert input (from journal boards) would be needed to determine the category of data that would be archived. Much ‘raw’ data requires calibration and processing through interpretive codes at various levels.
9. Where the nature of the study precludes direct replication by experiment, as in the case of time-dependent field measurements, it is important that the requirements include access to all the original raw data and its provenance, together with the criteria used for, and effects of, any subsequent selections, omissions or adjustments. The details of any statistical procedures, necessary for the independent testing and replication, should also be included. In parallel, consideration should be given to the requirements for minimum disclosure in relation to computer modelling.
Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate?
10. The scope of the UEA review is, not inappropriately, restricted to the allegations of scientific malpractice and evasion of the Freedom of Information Act at the CRU. However, most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other leading institutions involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change. In so far as those scientists were complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices, there is need for a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field.
11. The first of the review’s terms of reference is limited to: “...manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice...” The term ‘acceptable’ is not defined and might better be replaced with ‘objective’.
12. The second of the review’s terms of reference should extend beyond reviewing the CRU’s policies and practices to whether these have been breached by individuals, particularly in respect of other kinds of departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity.
How independent are the other two international data sets?
13. Published data sets are compiled from a range of sources and are subject to processing and adjustments of various kinds. Differences in judgements and methodologies used in such processing may result in different final data sets even if they are based on the same raw data. Apart from any communality of sources, account must be taken of differences in processing between the published data sets and any data sets on which they draw.
The Institute of Physics
February 2010
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Investigate Climate Crimes
Investor’s Business Daily
Climate Fraud: A senator wants an investigation of the false climate testimony before Congress and wants Al Gore to reappear. The illegalities may involve more than just lying to Congress.
At a hearing Tuesday by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, ranking Republican James Inhofe told EPA head Lisa Jackson that man-induced climate change was a “hoax” concocted by ideologically motivated researchers who “cooked the science.” More than that, Inhofe, in releasing a GOP report questioning the science used to support cap-and-trade legislation, hinted that such activities may be part of a vast criminal enterprise designed to bilk governments, taxpayers and investors while enriching those making the false claims.
In asking the administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation,” Inhofe called for Gore to be summoned to explain and defend his earlier testimony in light of the Climate-gate e-mail scandal and admissions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was essentially a work of fiction.
Since AR4 was released, Gore claims such as rising seas and endangered coastlines have been debunked. IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has been revealed as a collector of anecdotes and student dissertations who had to retract the claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Murari Lal, an editor of IPCC’s AR4 report, has admitted to Britain’s Daily Mail that he had known the 2035 date was false, but included it in the report “purely to put political pressure on world leaders.”
Even Phil Jones, head of Britain’s tainted Climate Research Unit, has conceded that, yes, the Earth was warmer in medieval times and there has been no statistically significant warming in the last 15 years.
As Charlie Martin of Pajamas Media reports, Inhofe is asking the Department of Justice to look into possible research misconduct or even outright criminal actions by scientists involved in questionable research and data manipulation. These include Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Inhofe’s report suggests that the products of such scientific misconduct, used by the EPA and Congress to support draconian legislation and regulations, may violate the Shelby Amendment requiring open access to federally funded research, as well as the Office of Science and Technology Policy rules on scientific misconduct. The report notes potential violations of the Federal False Statements and False Claims acts, which involve both civil and criminal penalties. Charges of obstructing Congress in its official proceedings are possible as well.
We should also follow the money. Researchers have lived off grants spawned by their claims of climate fraud. Oil and coal companies have suffered financially, as have their stockholders. Consumers have faced higher energy prices. Those who’ve made great sums are the very people who promote green energy and green companies in which they’re invested based on the false claims they’ve made.
When you add up the costs of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill and EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, all in the name of fighting climate change, you have a scam that dwarfs Bernie Madoff’s.
Vast sums are being made and will be made through the sale of carbon offsets and carbon credits. Perhaps the Securities and Exchange Commission should investigate the claims of such enterprises. Gore himself has achieved a net worth estimated by some to be in excess of $100 million by persuading investors to get involved in his enterprises. He’s been touted as possibly the world’s first “carbon billionaire.”
What if it’s all been a fraud all along? Inhofe may not get his investigation, but certainly it is well warranted.
Read full story and comments here.
Roger Pielke Jr. Blog
National Geographic reports yesterday:
“Declining fog cover on California’s coast could leave the state’s famous redwoods high and dry, a new study says. Among the tallest and longest-lived trees on Earth, redwoods depend on summertime’s moisture-rich fog to replenish their water reserves. But climate change may be reducing this crucial fog cover. Though still poorly understood, climate change may be contributing to a decline in a high-pressure climatic system that usually “pinches itself” against the coast, creating fog, said study co-author James Johnstone, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Last summer the San Francisco Chronicle carried a story about research on fog and climate with a different conclusion:
The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it’s about to get even foggier. That’s the conclusion of several state researchers, whose soon-to-be-published study predicts that even with average temperatures on the rise, the mercury won’t be soaring everywhere. “There’ll be winners and losers,” says Robert Bornstein, a meteorology professor at San Jose State University. “Global warming is warming the interior part of California, but it leads to a reverse reaction of more fog along the coast.” The study, which will appear in the journal Climate, is the latest to argue that colder summers are indeed in store for parts of the Bay Area.
More fog is consistent with predictions of climate change. Less fog is consistent with predictions of climate change. I wonder if the same amount of fog is also “consistent with” such predictions? I bet so.
See Roger’s post here.
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Another Bold Prediction: An Ice Free Arctic
By Mark Johnson
Al Gore trumpets the latest conclusions of Climate Change Advocate David Barber.
“Sea ice in Canada’s fragile Arctic is melting more quickly than anyone expected,” says University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System study released Friday. Barber is the lead investigator in the largest climate change study done in Canada.
Barber said before the expedition, scientists were working under the theory that climate change would happen much more slowly. It was assumed the Arctic would be ice-free in the winter by 2100.
“We expect it will happen much faster than that, much earlier than that, somewhere between 2013 and 2030 are our estimates right now. So it’s much faster than what we would expect to happen. That can be said for southern climates as well.”
“We’re seeing it happen more quickly than what our models thought would happen,” Barber said.
When you read the article, notice a few things:
1) The conclusions are ALL Based on CLIMATE MODELS.
2) Canada Government paid $156-million to Barber et al for the study.
3) The Inuit population are starting to chase the cash cow as well: “There’s also the need for economic development,”
Hmmmmmm.
We have finally heard from the Great Climate Change Advocate Al Gore. On his obscure blog, Al says “Its worse than we thought.” Are you kidding me?
See PDF here.
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We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change
By Al Gore, New York Times Op Ed
It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.
Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy - the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century. Read more here.
Enlarged here (source Indur Goklany).
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Stop Al Gore Before he Lies Again...and Again
By Alan Caruba, Warning Signs
The New York Times once again is Al Gore’s “enabler”, publishing a February 28 opinion editorial, “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change”, despite the mounting evidence that global warming was and is a complete fabrication.
In November 2009, the Telegraph, a British newspaper, carried a story, “Al Gore could become world’s first carbon billionaire”, so let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that Gore just wants to save the world. Heavily invested in the “carbon credits” scam and technologies whose success depend on people believing fairy tales about “clean energy” alternatives such as wind and solar energy, Gore has enriched himself by trumpeting the biggest hoax of the modern era.
It is no surprise that The New York Times published his latest collection of lies. The reportorial record of the Times has been decades of lies about global warming. Whatever patina of respectability it once had has been eroded by its participation in the fraud. Why should it stop now?
There is increasing discussion of whether testimony before Congress by Gore and other global warming advocates constitute criminal behavior that begins with lying under oath. On February 24th The Washington Times reported on a hearing of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget. “Republican James Inhofe told EPA head, Lisa Jackson, that man-made climate change was a ‘hoax’ concocted by ideologically motivated researchers who ‘cooked the science.’”
“More than that, Inhofe in releasing a GOP report questioning the science used to support cap-and-trade legislation, hinted that such activities may be part of a vast criminal enterprise designed to bilk governments, taxpayers and investors while enriching those making the false claims.”
The global warming hoax has been sustained for decades by reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) an agency of the United Nations Environmental Program. It is responsible for the Kyoto Protocol that required signature nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases said to be trapping heat. In July 1997 a unanimous Senate resolution rejected the Protocol.
Key players, the scientists who controlled and provided the data to support global warming, Phil Jones, head of Britain’s Climate Research Unit, and Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, are just two currently under investigation for alledgely deliberately providing and publishing falsified climate data. Based on thousands of emails leaked last year, it is clear they and others engaged in an effort to suppress any dissenting data from being published in peer-reviewed science journals.
Does that deter Al Gore? The very first paragraph of his opinion editorial claimed that the planet faces “an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale preventative measures to protect human civilization as we know it.”
He wrote this knowing that data from weather satellites have shown little warming trend of the atmosphere since 1979! He wrote that “January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States. Yet from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago.” Rubbish. He based that on the claim of a single Australian scientist that came from the same garbage can of equally absurd claims put forth for decades. In a similar fashion, IPCC claims that the Himalayan glaciers were melting and the countless other claims attributed to global warming were based on inaccurate, often deliberately distorted computer models and from dubious sources.
Dr. S. Fred Singer, president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a leader in the effort to reveal the vast global warming fraud, on February 27 wrote that “this apparent (global warming) consensus misled not only the media and the public, but also the wider scientific community, which had remained largely unaware of the ongoing debate and of the work of many reputable climate experts who disagreed with the IPCC.”
Dr. Singer summed up the entire global warming hoax as based on “temperature data (that) had been manipulated.” When you use bad data you get bad results. When you use it to enrich yourself, you are engaged in an activity worthy of a criminal investigation.
It was unworthy of The New York Times to lend itself to the continuing lies of Al Gore, but neither it is surprising since the credibility of this once respected newspaper has been trashed by its appalling biases and a succession of reporters who have been found to be plagiarists and fantasists. About the only thing left in which a reader can put any confidence is the date under the Times banner each day. Read more here.
By Lorner Gunter, Financial Post
Why does Climategate matter? Who cares whether the climate data on a computer at some obscure English university has been deliberately corrupted?
In one form or another, I have had to answer these questions from dozens of readers in the three months since thousands of e-mails and computer files were leaked from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.
There are plenty of ways in which these disclosures have been crucial, but the principal change has been the uncertainty creeping into the remarks of former True Believers. Some of those who for years have insisted the science is “settled,” are now admitting we don’t know all we need to before making trillion-dollar policy decisions.
Consider the remarks Phil Jones, the former head of CRU, made last week to the BBC. Prof. Jones, who has stepped down from his directorship of the CRU pending official investigations into the leaks, told the Beeb there has been no “statistically significant” global warming since 1995 - that’s the past 15 years!
It’s true, as some climate alarmist sites have pointed out, that what Prof. Jones said in full was that the warming since 1995 is almost significant, but not quite. The “trend (+0.12 C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.”
Admittedly, that is not the same as a complete about-face by Prof. Jones, but neither is it meaningless. When was the last time you recall an alarmist such as Phil Jones admitting there was any doubt at all about warming in the last decade and a half?
Haven’t we had it drummed into us ceaselessly that the past decade has been the warmest ever recorded? Prof. Jones’s admission to the BBC then is very significant.
If, instead of bleating for the past 15 years that the sky was about to burst into flame, major climate scientists had been saying the Earth was warming, but not to a statistically significant level, would you have been as worried as you were? Would there have been a Kyoto accord? A Copenhagen summit? Carbon trading schemes? Green taxes? Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth? David Suzuki’s call to throw politicians into jail if they fail to try to stop climate change?
In his BBC interview, Prof. Jones also conceded that the Middle Ages may well have been warmer than now, another key concession given that the CRU has for years denied the existence of the Medieval Warm Period. If the MWP can be made to disappear, then the warming that has occurred since 1900 would be abnormal and therefore something to fear. But if there was an even greater warming 1,000 years ago - before SUVs, coal-fired power plants and industrial carbon emissions - then the current warming might well be part of a nature cycle and therefore unremarkable.
Prof. Jones even admitted the science of climate change is far from settled. “There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties.”
Nothing scientific had changed since the Climategate leaks. No new data or discoveries have been added that would make the former CRU director change his tone so dramatically. So his new willingness to concede doubt must be solely the result of the embarrassing leaks last November.
That’s one of the ways in which Climategate matters: It has made the alarmists far more willing to admit the science isn’t settled.
It also matters because CRU is not just some no-name English university with one of thousands of environmental studies programs in the world. The CRU is one of three main sources of UN climate data.
Think of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a three-legged stool supported by the CRU, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Kick out one leg and the stool topples, taking everyone standing on it with it.
Reliance on one of these Big Three climate records has been repeated in hundreds - thousands - of academic studies, on everything from the calving of icebergs in Antarctica to the behaviour of Alberta bark beetles, the prevalence of sub-Saharan droughts to disappearing snow on hip Euro ski slopes.
So Climategate also matters because if one of the most critical sources of climate data is suspect, then the conclusions in all the scores of studies based on that data are suspect, too.
The implications are huge and wide-ranging.
Read more here.
Wall Street Journal
It has been a bad - make that dreadful - few weeks for what used to be called the “settled science” of global warming, and especially for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is supposed to be its gold standard.
First it turns out that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt anytime soon, notwithstanding dire U.N. predictions. Next came news that an IPCC claim that global warming could destroy 40% of the Amazon was based on a report by an environmental pressure group. Other IPCC sources of scholarly note have included a mountaineering magazine and a student paper.
Since the climategate email story broke in November, the standard defense is that while the scandal may have revealed some all-too-human behavior by a handful of leading climatologists, it made no difference to the underlying science. We think the science is still disputable. But there’s no doubt that climategate has spurred at least some reporters to scrutinize the IPCC’s headline-grabbing claims in a way they had rarely done previously.
Take the rain forest claim. In its 2007 report, the IPCC wrote that “up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state.”
But as Jonathan Leake of London’s Sunday Times reported last month, those claims were based on a report from the World Wildlife Fund, which in turn had fundamentally misrepresented a study in the journal Nature. The Nature study, Mr. Leake writes, “did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning.”
The IPCC has relied on World Wildlife Fund studies regarding the “transformation of natural coastal areas,” the “destruction of more mangroves,” “glacial lake outbursts causing mudflows and avalanches,” changes in the ecosystem of the “Mesoamerican reef,” and so on. The Wildlife Fund is a green lobby that believes in global warming, and its “research” reflects its advocacy, not the scientific method.
The IPCC has also cited a study by British climatologist Nigel Arnell claiming that global warming could deplete water resources for as many as 4.5 billion people by the year 2085. But as our Anne Jolis reported in our European edition, the IPCC neglected to include Mr. Arnell’s corollary finding, which is that global warming could also increase water resources for as many as six billion people.
The IPCC report made aggressive claims that “extreme weather-related events” had led to “rapidly rising costs.” Never mind that the link between global warming and storms like Hurricane Katrina remains tenuous at best. More astonishing (or, maybe, not so astonishing) is that the IPCC again based its assertion on a single study that was not peer-reviewed. In fact, nobody can reliably establish a quantifiable connection between global warming and increased disaster-related costs. In Holland, there’s even a minor uproar over the report’s claim that 55% of the country is below sea level. It’s 26%.
Meanwhile, one of the scientists at the center of the climategate fiasco has called into question other issues that the climate lobby has claimed are indisputable. Phil Jones, who stepped down as head of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit amid the climate email scandal, told the BBC that the world may well have been warmer during medieval times than it is now.
This raises doubts about how much our current warming is man-made as opposed to merely another of the natural climate shifts that have taken place over the centuries. Mr. Jones also told the BBC there has been no “statistically significant” warming over the past 15 years, though he considers this to be temporary.
All of this matters because the IPCC has been advertised as the last and definitive word on climate science. Its reports are the basis on which Al Gore, President Obama and others have claimed that climate ruin is inevitable unless the world reorganizes its economies with huge new taxes on carbon. Now we are discovering the U.N. reports are sloppy political documents intended to drive the climate lobby’s regulatory agenda.
The lesson of climategate and now the IPCC’s shoddy sourcing is that the claims of the global warming lobby need far more rigorous scrutiny. Read more here. See letters on this story here.
Students, residents and community leaders joined together on Friday, February 12, to demand a fair and independent investigation of Michael Mann and Climategate. The University has a conflict of interest, and should not conduct an internal investigation without external oversight. The Rally for Academic Integrity took place in front of the Hetzel Union Building (HUB) on Penn State’s University Park Campus (Pollock Road entrance) at 12:00. This Rally for Academic Integrity was jointly sponsored by PSU Young Americans for Freedom and The 9-12 Project of Central PA.
Background:
Penn State’s internal inquiry into Michael Mann’s alleged scientific misconduct concluded with the virtual exoneration of his behavior, and ignored key evidence in the Climategate scandal. As feared, this inquiry was little more than a whitewash - an assault on academic integrity.
First, the university’s internal review consisted of three Penn State employees who have strong incentives to protect the school’s reputation and the millions of dollars it receives from global warming research grants. There was no external oversight.
Second, the review consisted of looking at a mere 47 emails (out of thousands in question), interviewing Mann, analyzing materials he submitted, and asking only two biased sources about his credibility. Penn State hardly conducted a “thorough investigation” of alleged wrongdoing by Mann.
Consider the following extract:
“He [Mann] explained that he had never falsified any data, nor had he had ever manipulated data to serve a given predetermined outcome;
“He explained that he never used inappropriate influence in reviewing papers by other scientists who disagreed with the conclusions of his science;
“He explained that he never deleted emails at the behest of any other scientist, specifically including Dr. Phil Jones, and that he never withheld data with the intention of obstructing science; and
“He explained that he never engaged in activities or behaviors that were inconsistent with accepted academic practices.”
In short, Mann’s own claim of innocence is taken as proof of his innocence. Moreover, parts of the report are almost fawning in their description of Mann (e.g. “All were impressed by Dr. Mann’s composure and his forthright responses"). “This type of language would be more appropriate in a letter of recommendation than in a serious investigation,” commented Penn State sophomore, and YAF chair, Samuel Settle.
Third, Penn State’s internal review ignored key passages in the emails under scrutiny. While the committee examined the use of the word “trick” in correspondence between Mann and colleague Phil Jones, it failed to explore the purpose of Mann’s “trick” to “hide the decline [in global temperatures],” which clearly suggests a manipulation of the data.
Penn State’s internal review of a few emails by vested interests inspires no confidence that Mann did not engage in scientific misconduct - which is precisely why an independent and external investigation of Michael Mann and Climategate is essential in order to reach a credible conclusion.
As the old song goes, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
H/T Will Happer
Note: Mann in denial in this interview with Randy Olson.
By Paul Mulshine, The Star Ledger
Well it happened, right on schedule.
On Monday I interviewed Princeton physicist William Happer on the questionable science behind the great global warming scare. He pointed out to me that the alarmists have a “heads I win, tails you lose” philosophy. Any natural event that occurs can be made to fit into their theory.
Sure enough, a major magazine soon came out with an article in which the author pointed out that the snowfall blanketing the nation’s capital was actually the sort of thing you’d expect to see if the theory of man-made global warming was correct.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Happer when I spoke with him again Friday. “You hear of an event when the weather’s warm and it’s proof of global warming. Then if the weather’s cold, that’s proof of global warming as well.” And that reveals the problem with the theory that man-made greenhouse gases are causing a climate catastrophe, says Happer. It’s not falsifiable.
“Serious scientists, when they look at this, say this is an example of a theory that cannot be falsified,” he told me. “And a theory that cannot be falsified is not science. It’s religion.” The best example, said Happer, is that of the great scientist who spent so many years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Albert Einstein. When Einstein put forth his theory of relativity, he described three ways in which it could be tested. He went on to state that the theory would be debunked if it failed just one of those tests.
And then there’s that other great mind at the Institute, Freeman Dyson. Dyson was a darling of the liberal intelligentsia back in the 1980s when he was writing some truly scary stuff about the dynamics of nuclear warfare. Around that time, Dyson began to focus on a question that was of great interest to those in the nuke field: What happens when man pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? If CO2 could be proven to cause harm, that would be an excellent argument in favor of nuclear power.
Dyson found, however, there was no scientific evidence that increasing CO2 levels did any damage. Most of the CO2 at issue is in vegetation, not in the atmosphere, he said. And we still have little idea what’s going on at ground level. Computer modeling of the atmosphere is “a very dubious business if you don’t have good inputs,” he has stated.
That caused critics to accuse Dyson, who at 86 is old enough to have walked the campus with Einstein, of having gone senile. But Happer told me, “I know him very well and none of that is true.” Particularly amusing are the critics who attack the Princeton pair because they are “only” physicists and not climatologists. “All of climate science is physics,” he said. “We invented climate science.”
As for the cottage industry that has come to be known as climatology, there are all sorts of government grants and other sources of revenue for those who can fashion the most frightening scenarios, said Happer. And being an alarmist means never having to say you’re sorry. You can always claim your efforts helped to avert a catastrophe.
But when it comes to the sort of intellectual rigor expected in the field of physics, climate science falls short, Happer said. The issue is an immensely complicated one, but Happer reduces it to a simple question, one that I will now put to you, dear reader:
If someone handed you a magic wand that would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to pre-industrial era levels, would you wave that wand? Before you say “presto,” ponder this: You might end up killing millions of people.
“There would be mass starvation,” said Happer. That’s because CO2 causes plants to grow faster. Happer estimates that about 15 percent of the success of so-called “green revolution” in agriculture is linked to the higher levels of atmospheric CO2 of the post-industrial era. “Do you really want to throw away 15 percent of the world’s food supply to please Al Gore?” he asks.
And if you really want to make a green activist see red, tell him that a prominent Princeton physicist suggests that putting more CO2 into the atmosphere might actually improve living conditions. Farmers literally use CO2 as a “greenhouse gas,” pumping it into greenhouses to spur growth, and the same effect might be seen on a global scale, said Happer. Or maybe not. As a scientist, Happer has seen a lot of theories come and go.
“Everyone expects a good fraction of their theories to go crashing down in flames because they conflict with observations,” he said. “Some of the best theories I heard in my career went down in flames. But they were good theories.”
Happer in testimony to congress.
PRE-EMPTIVE MORON PERSPECTIVE ALERT
Whenever I write about science topics I seem to receive comments from some moron who assumes some sort of superiority in that regard. Don’t be that moron. I have years of experience in science reporting from a position I held prior to coming to the Star-Ledger and I know much better than you do the rules for evaluating competing claims by scientists.
I also enjoy books by such scientists as Dyson, Stephen Hawking, Richard P. Feynman and, most amusing of all, my fellow surfer Kary Mullis. So if you wish to establish your bona fides in the field of science, please precede your comment with a quote from one of the above authors. By the way, these guys often write highly amusing books. “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” is a great read.
As for “Dancing in the Mind Field,” by the man who discovered the polymerase chain reaction, it is one of the most amusing books I have read in recent years. nd remember this if you think you’re so smart, Dr. Happer is a lot smarter than you or anyone you know. If you think you can prove you understand the physical universe better than he does, start by answering his questions.
Do you know a test in which the theory of anthropogenic global could be falsified?
And more important: What do you think is the proper level of CO2 in the atmosphere?
Read more here.
By Tom Clarke
Update: See calls for another resignation from inquiry team here.
Within hours of the launch of an independent panel to investigate claims that climate scientists covered up flawed data on temperature rises, one member has been forced to resign after sceptics questioned his impartiality. See Steve McIntyre’s post The TeamThat Can’t Shoot Straight here.
In an interview last year with Chinese State Radio, enquiry panel member Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature said: “The scientists have not hidden the data. If you look at the emails there is one or two bits of language that are jargon used between professionals that suggest something to outsiders that is wrong.”
He went on: “In fact the only problem there has been is on some official restrictions on their ability to disseminate data otherwise they have behaved as researchers should.” Dr Campbell, was invited to sit on the enquiry panel because of his expertise in the peer review process as editor of one of the world’s leading science journals.
The journal has published some of the leading papers on climate change research, including those supporting the now famous “hockey stick” graph, the subject of intense criticism by climate sceptics.
Dr Campbell has now withdrawn his membership of the panel, telling Channel 4 News: “I made the remarks in good faith on the basis of media reports of the leaks. “As I have made clear subsequently, I support the need to for a full review of the facts behind the leaked e-mails. “There must be nothing that calls into question the ability of the independent Review to complete this task, and therefore I have decided to withdraw from the team.”
The interview, posted on the Bishop Hill blog, run by climate sceptic Andrew Montford, will come as an embarrassment to the enquiry’s chair Sir Muir Russell. At a press conference this morning to launch the panel, the experienced civil servant and former vice-chancellor of Glasgow University, emphasised his hand-picked panel’s impartiality.
A press release about the panel read: “They were selected on the basis that they have no prejudicial interest in climate change and climate science and for the contribution they can make to the issues of the review.”
Speaking this evening, Muir Russell said “I have spoken to Philip Campbell, and I understand why he has withdrawn. I regret the loss of his expertise, but I respect his decision.”
The revelation is evidence of the well-organised and highly-motivated campaign by climate change sceptics that has already used the emails leaked from University of East Anglia to make allegations about the validity of climate change science. They have also been swift to attack errors in the influential United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) report on the science of climate change, published in 2007.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Changement said: “Some commentators have already taken on the role of judge and jury, pronouncing on the guilt of those involved and calling for their resignations. “The Review team need to be fair to all concerned, but they may ultimately have difficulty persuading people to accept a verdict that does not match the conclusions that they have already reached themselves.”
According to Ward, those with dissenting views about the dangers of climate change feel they have not been represented on the enquiry’s panel. “They’re motivation here is probably because Nature published most of the papers on climate change that they are trying to discredit,” he said.
“Who is actually carrying out this review?” leading climate sceptic Steve McIntyre told Channel 4 News. I think you need to have some truly independent statisticians or even people who are from unrelated fields.” “Some of the habits in the field are quite deeply rooted, and people have lost perspective on the type of assumptions and statistical bodges that are being done in this particular field,” he said.
The Independent Climate Change Email Review will only be assessing the conduct of researchers at the UEA, not the conclusions of their scientific research.
They will examine the 1000 emails and 3000 other files hacked from the University, 160MB of data in total. Under scrutiny will be analyses based on tree ring data, weather stations and reference to a “trick” and “hiding the decline” included in the emails.
The panel will also examine how the UEA researchers conducted peer review and whether they manipulated or suppressed information or whether, as one of the leaked emails suggests, controversial data was deliberately deleted. This review is about scientific rigour and honesty,” Sir Muir said.
“We will investigate whether there is evidence of poor scientific practice and data management, which could call the CRU research into question. However, the University of East Anglia also announced today that they would be working with the esteemed Royal Society to reassess the scientific conclusions of researchers working at the university’s Climatic Research Unit.
“Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process, which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research,” said Professor Trevor Davies, the University’s Pro-Vice- Chancellor for Research. “Colleagues in the CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself.”
The six-member panel now has a vacancy and will examine whether researchers abused the scientific process or deliberately withheld information from the public after emails were hacked from the University’s servers. Like Sir Muir’s enquiry, the East Anglia review is due to report “sometime in the spring”.
See post here. See more on Watts Up with That with many interesting comments here.
As Bishop Hill adds: In the meantime we still have the issue of Geoffrey Boulton, the ex-UEA man who has spoken out strongly in the past in favour of the global warming position. Although he’s not as wildly inappropriate as Philip Campbell his position on the panel still makes it look somewhat unbalanced. I would suggest that either he needs to go too or he needs to be balanced with somebody of sceptical views.
By Washington Times on SPPI Blog
Record snowfall illustrates the obvious: The global warming fraud is without equal in modern science.
The fundamental problems exposed about climate-change theory undermine the very basis of scientific inquiry. Huge numbers of researchers refuse to provide their data to other scientists. Some referenced data is found not to have existed. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report that global warming activists continually cite invented a large number of purported facts. Consider a few of the problems with the U.N. report that came to light over the past few weeks.
• The Himalayan glaciers were supposed to disappear as soon as 2035. The United Nations didn’t base this hysteria on an academic study. Instead, it relied on a news story that interviewed a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. Syed Hasnain, the glaciologist in question, says he was misquoted and provided no date to the reporter. The doomsday account was simply made up, and the United Nations never bothered to confirm the claim.
• Because of purported global warming, the world supposedly “suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s.” The U.N. cited one unpublished study to prove this. When the research eventually was published in 2008 after the IPCC report was released, the authors backpedaled: “We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses.”
• Up to 40 percent of the Amazon rain forest was said to be at risk because of rising global temperatures. Again, the U.N. didn’t cite any academic studies but merely one non-refereed report authored by two non-scientists, one of whom worked for the World Wildlife Fund, an activist organization.
• The U.N. dramatically claimed that 55 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level when the accurate portion is 26 percent.
Getting facts wrong and citing dubious sources isn’t the worst of it. Rajendra K. Pachauri, the U.N.’s climate chief, remained silent when he knew information was false and denied he had been aware of the Himalayan glaciers error before the recent climate-change summit in Copenhagen, which made a big deal about this nonexistent crisis. He only grudgingly came partly clean when Pallava Bagla, a writer for the journal Science, pointed to e-mail correspondence from last autumn showing Mr. Pachauri already knew of the fraud.
Adolescent name-calling further exposes the weakness of the case for man-made global warming and how desperate the leaders of this cult are becoming. On Feb. 3, Mr. Pachauri defended the fudged IPCC report and slandered critics as “people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder. I hope that they apply [asbestos] to their faces every day.” This nasty piece of work tries to redirect attention away from his phony science by blaming skepticism about climate change on “business interests” that “spread a lot of disinformation.”
Man-made global warming theory isn’t backed up by science; it’s a hoax. The fact that the world has been asked to spend tens of trillions of dollars on global warming solutions without being able to evaluate the data upon which the claims were made should have been the first warning that something was seriously wrong. The public and world leaders have been sold expensive snake oil by charlatans like Mr. Pachauri. It’s time to admit it’s all baloney and move on. Read more here.