2010 has not been kind to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This U.N. sanctioned body is supposed to issue periodic reports that summarize the state of the science of global climate change based upon a comprehensive review and synthesis of the relevant peer-reviewed scientific literature. In the past few weeks, however, it has been revealed that the IPCC’s 2007 Working Group II report on “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability” contains claims about the projected impacts of climate change that are completely unfounded, based upon non-scientific (let alone peer reviewed) sources, or misrepresent the underlying scientific literature.
The first revelation was that there was no scientific basis for the IPCC’s widely-hyped claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. This projection is off by a few centuries, at best. When an Indian climate researcher first challenged this claim, suggesting there is no evidence (yet) of warming-induced glacial retreat in the Himalayas, IPCC chief Rajenda Pachauri was dismissive. Now, however, he’s changed his tune, and the IPCC has acknowledged the error. This was more than a simple mistake, however, as it appears the IPCC was informed of the error before the report was finalized, but failed to make any changes, nor was Pachauri quick to acknowledge the error once it was brought to his attention.
It has also become clear that the IPCC report systematically misrepresents the peer-reviewed literature on the effect of climate change hurricanes and natural disasters. Specifically, the report falsely claims there is evidence that human-induced climate change is producing an increase in extreme weather events and associated losses and includes a graph that is not based upon published, peer-reviewed work. Yet the studies upon which the IPCC purports to base its claim — including one that was not peer-reviewed and should not have been cited at all — say no such thing. Worse, when the IPCC’s erroneous claims were challenged during the review process, an IPCC author fabricated a response to defend the erroneous claim. In response, the IPCC now claims it “carefully followed” its official procedures. Yet as Roger Pielke Jr., one of the researchers whose work is misrepresented in the report, responds, this claim is simply false as the IPCC “relied on an unpublished, non-peer reviewed source to produce its top line conclusions in this section,” ignored the complaints of reviewers, and fabricated a defense of the claim. Indeed, when the then-unpublished, un-peer-reviewed paper upon which the IPCC purported to rely was eventually published, it rejected the climate-disaster loss link asserted by the IPCC.
But wait, there’s more.It turns out that other claims in the IPCC’s WGII report were also based upon non-scientific sources, including magazine articles and reports by advocacy groups. For instance, the IPCC’s claim that climate change could endanger up to 40 percent of the Amazonian rain forest is based upon a report issued by an environmental advocacy organization, not a peer-reviewed scientific study, and the advocacy report misrepresented peer-reviewed studies to reach its conclusion. It also appears other IPCC claims about glaciers in the Andes and Alps were based upon a magazine article and student’s dissertation.
What’ s interesting is that all of these errors are in the WG II report — the report that is supposed to highlight the practical effects of a gradually warming climate — as opposed to the WG I report, which focuses on the underlying scientific evidence that increases in greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change. For this reason, these revelations do not dissuade me that human activity is likely contributing to atmospheric warming. But it does provide further evidence that many scientists have adopted an unscientific, advocacy stance in which they seek to convince the public that there is incontrovertable proof of an impending climatic disaster so as to build the case for drastic action. This problem is actually exacerbated by the IPCC process, which seeks to formulate an “official,” government-approved, scientific “consensus,” as I explained here.
Climate change is a serious concern, even if it does not threaten to eradicate Himalayan glaciers in my lifetime or wipe coastal cities off the map. If we are to have a serious and honest debate about climate policy, we have to have more honest and responsible conduct by climate scientists. While ClimateGate and the above-mentioned IPCC errors may have been the work of only a handful of climate scientists, unless the climate science community does a better job of policing its own, and accomodating legitimate dissenting views, it will become increasingly unable to inform and enlighten the policy debate.
UPDATE: In the comment thread to a prior post, some asked why I still believe in anthropogenic global warming, and support certain climate policy measures, after repeated instances of misconduct by climate scientists. Given the thrust of many comments below, I thought I’d restate my answer here:
My belief that human activity is contributing to climatic warming is based upon my understanding of the accumulated scientific evidence about how our climate works and the effect of increasing contributions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that I have reviewed and considered over the past 15-plus years during which I’ve been following and often working on this issue, including the nine years I spent at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, during which time I edited this book on climate change policy and authored a 1998 National Review cover story on how many risks of climate change are overstated. Much of the relevant scientific research is summarized (if occasionally exaggerated) in the IPCC’s Working Group I report on the basic science of warming (which is a separate report from the Working Group II report on impacts, some claims from which are unfounded and/or not properly cited).
Most so-called “skeptics” within the scientific community also accept the basic claims about the likely anticipated effect of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The primary areas of disagreement are over the nature and extent of various feedback mechanisms in the climate which could augment or dampen greenhouse warming and the practical effects of climatic warming. So, for instance, noted climate skeptics Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling Jr. write in their recent book for the Cato Institute, Climate of Extremes: The Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know, that there is a warming trend and that human activity shares some of the blame. As they summarize on page 27: “AGW (anthropogenic global warming), yes. But DAGW [dangerous anthropogenic global warming]? We think not!”
I believe that certain policy responses are justified because even if one accepts a fairly “skeptical” view of the science, the best estimate is that human activity will produce some warming that will have deleterious effects in some parts of the globe, particularly in areas that have not done much to contribute to the warming. As I explain in this paper (and in shorter pieces here, here, and here), these effects should be sufficient to justify a policy response, particularly if one believes in the importance of property rights, as I do. I also believe that taxes on consumption, including energy consumption, are preferable to taxes on income, and so would welcome a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Abdul Abulbul Amir says:
The bottom line is that the IPCC has been doing something other than science. It is possible that something that organization has published is true. However, everything that organization has published lacks credibility.
January 31, 2010, 11:24 amroad2serfdom says:
I went to dinner once and saw the cook not wash his hands after using the bathroom. I will never eat dinner there again. Of course, I still eat lunch there as my prior belief that he washes his hands during lunchtime hours has yet be disproven.
January 31, 2010, 11:37 amThe Colonel says:
What evidence is required for the chattering classes to actually call the global warming industry what it is… Fraud. Coppenwhat?
January 31, 2010, 11:41 amCharlie B says:
Yet another case of follow the money!! As long as the political class including our esteemed president remain convinced that global warming is a disaster waiting to happen, government money will continue to influence/bribe/flow to global warming advocates.
The truly objective climate scientists will be forced to find funds in the private sector opening them to claims by the true believers that their science unlike the government funded work is tainted.
January 31, 2010, 12:01 pmlgm says:
What’s the difference between a scientist and a lawyer? A scientist is trained to seek the truth. A lawyer is trained to advocate for one side of the other. If there are two sides to any controversy, and each side having a lawyer, then about half of all lawyers are on the wrong side of the truth. That’s where VC is on global warming.
Global warming is upon us. Every week, Science Magazine or Nature Magazine reports more confirming evidence. Yet you continue to nitpick the science, without actually understanding it.
You are willing to call out anti-vaccine nuts. You should recognize that you look just like them.
[RESPONSE: lgm -- Do you actually read what I write? I constantly reiterate my belief in global warming, even when pointing out the bad behavior of some climate scientists. JHA]
January 31, 2010, 12:05 pmTim says:
I’m with you. This is the most elaborate intellectual hoax ever perpetuated on humanity.
January 31, 2010, 12:06 pmA. Criminal says:
Well, yeah, the UN is a political organization and it “does” politics. Their pronouncements and analyses have all the veracity of campaign promises, and I’m surprised that anyone is surprised about the IPCC nonsense.
January 31, 2010, 12:06 pmkdackson says:
Seems to this non-lawyer that if the prosecution has a habit of lying and misrepresenting the facts to suit their own agendas, it tends to destroy the “reasonable doubt” thingie. But here we are convicting the industrialized world and making them pay a fine in the untold billions of dollars to aussage our collective guilt. Once the cash is paid and the hype proven to be bogus, do we get our money and reputations back?
Or do we hold the IPCC to a lower standard just because they are trying to do the right thing? Without conclusive proof.
Seems kind of back-assward to me.
These people are forwarding a theory, so they must prove their case. They haven’t because they can’t.
January 31, 2010, 12:10 pmepignosis says:
Charles Dickens often employed the opposing themes of wealth and poverty in his novels. In “Little Dorrit” the banker, Mr. Merdle, delivers many wealthy Londoners to poverty in his Ponzi scheme. Similar to the affair of Mr. Madoff, some 180 years later. Nothing changes under the sun. Beware when someone appeals to your proclivity for greed. You will be easily separated from your wherewithal.
We also have a tendency for guilt reaction. After all, do we not despoil the land with our structures? Do we not generate refuse, including carbon dioxide, like all creatures? Do we not consume plants and animals? Beware when someone appeals to your tendency for guilt reaction. Deception is aforethought and you will be easy to manipulate.
The sky is not falling and the planet is not being overwhelmed. Note that the researchers, drilling ice core samples in Greenland, discovered evidence of an ancient forest underneath one mile of ice. Long before humans learned how to rub two sticks to ignite wood, the Greenland was without the present ice sheet due entirely to natural causes. Climate changes. Stop yielding to guilt reaction and demand the facts! All the facts!
January 31, 2010, 12:18 pmMike from MN says:
Another issue the IPCC is that it doesn’t address Multi Decade Oscillation of the ocean currents. It now appears that any projections for temperatures increasing due to CO2 emissions have been greatly exaggerated because the natural temperature increases due to being on the warm side of the MDO hasn’t been factored into the projections. It now appears that we are entering a cold phase of the MDO for the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
January 31, 2010, 12:22 pmJohnF says:
The trouble infecting all of this is that the cops are crooks. The peer review process has been corrupted, at least in large part, by a core group of crooked scientists who have betrayed the scientific method to advance their pet theories, and their careers. That is the harm that was revealed by the Climategate files.
There must be a vast weeding out of all materials infected by this disease, and a new start given to serious research, and efforts to replicate whatever may be salvaged from the wreckage of this enterprise.
Jonathan, I appreciate your integrity, but many of the sources I think you are relying on have this infection, or at least need to be examined to see if they do. The feedback mechanisms that the global warming models rely on to predict disasters just do not seem credible, and without them CO2 warming is trivial.
January 31, 2010, 12:37 pmArchitect says:
Because its in Science, does not make it science–
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/science-magazine-evidence-of-agw-prejudice/
January 31, 2010, 12:39 pmMike McDougal says:
Winning a Nobel makes you soft.
January 31, 2010, 12:40 pmJohn Skookum says:
Global warming may or may not be upon us. The satellite observations don’t agree all that well with the surface station readings, and there is now good reason to believe that the surface temp data sets have been cooked to show warming where none exists. Even if the surface data can be trusted, global
January 31, 2010, 12:51 pmwarming seems to have taken a breather since 1998 that is not explained by any CO2-based model. And it’s not enough to cry “global warming!”. The burden of proof is on the alarmists to show that this episode of warming is anthropogenic and unrelated to similar episodes of natural warming and cooling have occurred since the dawn of creation.
JAY says:
Climate change is a serious concern, not as serious as who wins the Super Bowl, but really serious.
January 31, 2010, 12:56 pmAlast says:
We are in an interglacial period, where it is fully expected that the temperature will increase, and the North pole will be free of ice. It has happened before, and will happen again — with or without man’s help (or hindrance).
January 31, 2010, 1:00 pmtamerlane says:
Here’s some science for you: The primary factor determining the earth’s climate is the flux of solar radiation. The next most important factor is the combined effect of the Milankovitch cycles. The third most important may be various natural sources of trace atmospheric gases, e’.g, volcanic eruptions, the carbon cycle, etc. (I say “may be” because some climatologists have argued that the path of the solar system’s revolution around the galaxy may be an important contributing factor to climate outweighing the effects of trace atmospheric gases.) The total contribution of mankind’s entire industrial and agricultural output to changes in concentrations of trace atmospheric gases is a couple of thousandths of one percent of the annual total variation in the atmospheric concentrations of these gases. Furthermore, complex feedback mechanisms attenuate the effects of any one or several temporary increases in any one or more of these trace gases.
Global climate models do not incorporate the first two — and predominant factors — at all. They apply enormously more weight to human contributions to trace atmospheric elements than the data suggest is appropriate
Furthermore, the most trustworthy data do not supprt the modelers’ predictions: ARIMA analysis of over thirty years of sattelite temperature data suggests that average global temperatures have shown no trend over this period. Fluctuations in the temperature time series correlate with time series fluctuations in solar radiation levels. When the effects of solar radiation are controlled for, there is no significant correlation of time series fluctuations in average global temperature with time series fluctuations in average atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
Any statistician reading this post will be aware that ARIMA techniques are the most elementary statistical technique for studying time series data. Most, who have not tracked the issue, might be shocked to hear that the peer-reviewed literature dealing with temperature time series analyses in the climatological “sciences” almost invariably uses discredited techniques such as building trends by fitting curves to moving averages of temperature time series. This isn’t science; it’s voodoo.
January 31, 2010, 1:04 pmJohn Skookum says:
Also, I would point out that this means nothing if there is a selection bias at work at these journals, which others have shown is very much the case, and the exposure of the Climategate “peer” “review” cabal confirms.
If you want to study the mating habits of squirrels, you’ll scratch for a pittance of research money, and your results will be published in the Journal of Small Mammal Reproductive Biology. Your mom will be so proud.
If you want to study the effect of global warming on the mating habits of squirrels, and the likes of Mann and Hansen think your work supports their biases, you’ll be showered in funding from George Soros tentacles and your work will be published in Science and Nature. Your mom will be so proud, and you’ll be invited to join the IPCC, and you’ll be quoted in the press as one of the ten zillion “climate experts” who have reached an “overwhelmimg scientific consensus.”
January 31, 2010, 1:06 pmron says:
“seems to have taken a breather since 1998 that is not explained by any CO2-based model.”
January 31, 2010, 1:06 pmAccording to this:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1182488
It has to do with water vapor:
“Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapor near the surface. But this is different — it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect,”
So far this is being called a ‘pause’ in the trend, but since it is still causing the effect, the term ‘pause’ might not be correct.
Regardless, the effect is now ‘officially’ recognized and, as the pull quote mentions, it was not expected.
If you are to argue that a coming catastrophe means massive portions of the economy should be in the hands of the government based on your predictions, it should give you at least a bit of humility to be blind-sided by a decade-long (and counting), unforeseen, ‘pause’ in the trend.
EvilDave says:
The US should take a page from the EU’s book.
Declare Universal Jurisdiction and try these swindlers for their Crimes Against Humanity.
Of course, the Obama administration can’t even be bothered to try Black Panthers for voter intimidation. Well, I assume that is because trying black people for crimes would be racist.
January 31, 2010, 1:19 pmbpbatista says:
If Global Warming really were caused by human activity, the IPCC, Al Gore and other Global Warming Alarmists would not need to fabricate, hide and manipulate the evidence, data and science.
Global Warming and its Alarmist con-men have been exposed as an abject fraud.
[RESPONSE: bpbatista -- You're a lawyer. You know full well that even lawyers who are on the "right" side sometimes fabricate evidence or overstate their claims. In such cases it's proper to call out the lawyers for their misbehavior, but we also need to faithfully examine the remaining evidence. JHA]
January 31, 2010, 1:22 pmkdackson says:
Ron:
The Science article also points out that this new “explanation” can only account for 1/3 of the variability.
Langmuir would be so proud.
January 31, 2010, 1:23 pmVehical Driver says:
The trouble is, that the environmental movement has chosen a “solution” to global warming that will leave us impoverished and under a totalitarian system of government. When it became obvious that socialism didn’t produce a workers paradise at the end of the cold war, the totalitarians needed to find a new excuse for state control of the means of production, and quickly jumped on environmentalism (which, prior to the decline of Communism, wasn’t particularly a politically partisan issue).
If the solution offered by the environmental movement was nuclear power, it really wouldn’t be that contentious an issue. We would shift to a cleaner, cheaper, better source of energy… we would send less money overseas to unstable anti-American governments… In general, there would be massive benefits, and we could continue to live the lifestyle that we do now pretty much unchanged. Therefore, if the evidence for global climate change was a bit flawed, it wouldn’t matter. The negative consequences of fighting climate change would be overwhelmed by the positives. We could all get behind fighting climate change.
However, the current solutions to climate change being offered is essentially massive deindustrialization in the developed world, and a massive transfer of wealth to developing countries who will not be forced to abide by the same CO2 restrictions. Massive government regulations, control, and rationing will be the result. The cost will be extremely high except to the political class and their cronies who will be at the top of the power structure. Middle class people in the developed world will suffer horribly. So, in that case, since the cost of “fighting climate change” (it isn’t likely to work) will be so high, the effects so devastating, that people who understand what is happening expect 100% irrefutable proof that climate change is going to destroy the planet. The science may suggest that CO2 is causing climate change, and that will cause significant damage… but the science is not strong enough to basically turn our country into Cuba or North Korea.
When the environmental movement starts talking about a massive project to build nuclear reactors, then a lot of the “skeptics” might be won over by your evidence for climate change. But when our only option to deal with climate change is to become impoverished serfs, well your evidence better be pretty much airtight.
January 31, 2010, 1:29 pmBarbara Skolaut says:
I’ll never trust anything the UN or AlBore says, including the words “a,” “an,” and “the.”
Of course, I didn’t trust them before. Now they’ve very kindly given me proof of why I shouldn’t. If AGW were so true, there would be no need to LIE to make people believe it and give up our hard-won way of life (which these lying clowns don’t intend to give up themselves).
There’s 12 inches of Global Warming sitting on my deck. Think any of these fools will come down to the “Sunny South” and shovel it for me?
A pox upon them ALL.
January 31, 2010, 1:44 pmMikee says:
“…the climate science community… will become increasingly unable to inform and enlighten the policy debate.”
The climate science community has been co-opted by its leadership to reach a political end, and has not sought “to inform or enlighten” anyone. Their goal has been to subvert the scientific community into a servant of social and political revolution.
The purge of the malefactors involved needs to be deep and broad for their malfeasance to be revealed and corrected. The re-assessment of climate data needs to be extremely transparent , down to public availability of every handwritten notebook entry and every email and every calculation by every scientist involved.
I once received photocopies of a retired scientist’s lab notebooks for work he did 40 years previously. It confirmed his published results, showed me his data, his calculations, his experimental methods and his thought processes, and led me to feel inadequate the rest of my scientific career. There are right and wrong ways to do scientific inquiry. Climate science has followed the wrong path for far too long.
January 31, 2010, 1:45 pmIchthyophagous says:
Even if we do believe that such warming as has occurred is anthopogenic, we still need to know how much of it is due to the use of fossil fuels and how much is due, for example, to the urban heat island effect or other causes. If the use of fossil fuels is responsible for only 25% of the warming, then clearly restrictions on fossil fuels are a waste of time.
January 31, 2010, 1:58 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
IIRC, the NASA database has 1934 as the hottest year on record for the US. Now the US has and had the best record keeping and the best instrumentation.
Think about that for a minute. The way the whole world was not considered hotter in that year is by including lesser quality data, extrapolations, and “adjustments.”
January 31, 2010, 2:16 pmdearieme says:
Have they done any more than follow Prof Jones’s plan to redefine what is meant by the peer-reviewed literature?
January 31, 2010, 2:20 pmRuss says:
The basic global warming position can be summed as as “Humans=bad.”
And I think you might be able to get a few more people to at least objectively look at stuff if the solutions weren’t so totalitarian.
January 31, 2010, 2:30 pmDangerMouse says:
The basic global warming position can be summed as as “Humans=bad.”
And I think you might be able to get a few more people to at least objectively look at stuff if the solutions weren’t so totalitarian.
Global warming is the left’s new religion, and they want to persecute non-believers to the pain of death. This really has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with their need to believe in something. What a shame that they can’t believe in one of the traditional, civilized religions like Christianity or Judaism. Nope, they’ve gotta be screwy and believe in global warming.
January 31, 2010, 2:44 pmlonetown says:
Geebus, the science is so shakey! surface temperature readings appear open to interpretation, having been reduced from 6000 sites to 1500 “representative” sites. Peer review is next to meaningless. Scientific ethics non-existent. CO2 activity hardly understood at all.
It may even be that heroic carbon consumers have forestalled the next ice age.
Its certainly NOT settled science. and as a scientist myself, I’m embarrassed for my less skeptical colleagues.
January 31, 2010, 3:00 pmFiftycal says:
Define what a “revenue neutral” solution is. If I am taxed $100,000 for fuel for my trucking company, say, would it be “neutral” to give 100 people $1,000 to pay for their electricity that has risen 50%? Or to give 1000 people $100 to pay for the public transit that has risen from $1 a ride to $3 a ride? Or do you tax cars and give bicycles to the PO’? Where is this new “right” that only “revenue neutral” policys can be put forward?
January 31, 2010, 3:03 pmLarryA says:
Whatever you think about AGW, I find it touching that you believe in the political possibility of a revenue-neutral tax.
January 31, 2010, 3:10 pmLee says:
Prof. Adler, or anyone with knowledge of British law…
There seems to be a debate brewing whether or not the offenses committed as part of ‘Climategate’ are prosecutable. The initial response from the ICO was that, based on the emails from the FOIA2009 folder, there was evidence of wrongdoing but the offending parties could not be prosecuted because they fell outside the statute of limitations.
It appears that there may be a misreading of the relevant British statutes, and that the ICO, by clearly stating that chargeable offenses were committed, may now have painted themselves into a corner. Christopher Booker has an interesting take on this, and believes that the Magistrates Law reads 6 months from when officials become aware of the offenses and not 6 months from the date of the actual offenses.
I was hoping someone could weigh in and provide some clarity if possible. The primary statutes that are in question are linked below.
Thanks.
Magistrates Courts Act 1980 (Section 127)
UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Section 77)
January 31, 2010, 3:19 pmJustin Levine says:
If I might offer a constructive criticism Mr. Alter, you (and many who speak about this issue) seem to have a ‘peer review’ fetish that is ultimately unhealthy for this debate.
Let’s emphasize an important notion – “peer review” does NOT guarantee the accuracy of a theory. It means two or three other people in a similar field of science have looked at the article and assured themselves the methodology and sources behind it seem valid enough. Most of the time, they don’t replicate any findings themselves (a common mis-perception).
Its time to do away with the ‘peer review’ seal of approval in this debate.
More about this issue at these links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/health/02docs.html?_r=1
http://decodingliberation.blogspot.com/2008/02/problems-with-peer-review-part-one.html
January 31, 2010, 3:19 pmyankee says:
The rise of environmentalism as a partisan issue is mostly a result of the ideological purification of American political parties. Conservative southern Democrats and liberal northeastern Republicans are largely creatures of the past. Universal healthcare and the Clean Air Act were both Nixonian initiatives, but today’s Republican party is uniformly opposed to both universal healthcare and a new Clean Air Act (aka capntrade).
January 31, 2010, 3:35 pmMark Buehner says:
When you feel free to redefine your terms as you like you can prove just about anything. Sorta like defining carbon dioxide as a poison. Any wonder people take a little more convincing to ban CO2 as opposed to sulfur-dioxide? For that matter Conservatives have nothing against universal healthcare, which in fact we have now. Government run universal health insurance, on the other hand, is different.
January 31, 2010, 4:14 pmA. Zarkov says:
A peer review is not an audit. Very few reviewers check every step and replicate the calculations. Indeed they couldn’t even do the calculations if they were inclined to because the author won’t release his data. Peer reviews are necessary but not sufficient, and we should not go off changing the economy of the world without a complete audit of every aspect of what’s in the IPCC reports.
January 31, 2010, 4:25 pmA. Zarkov says:
Exactly. In fact I think wavelet analysis is the way to go. See here for a collection of articles on wavelet analysis of temperature data by Scafetta. He claims to have found solar activity signals that others have missed. He claims his empirical models fit the observed temperature data better than the GCMs.
January 31, 2010, 4:33 pmA. Zarkov says:
Adler writes,
There are many other areas of disagreement including but not limited to:
1. Problems with the GCM models. See Freeman Dyson
2. The effect of cosmic rays on cloud formation.
3. Poor time series analysis methods.
4. Discrepancy between the satellite and surface temperature data.
5. Adjustments to surface station temperature data.
6. A shrinking number of surface stations with stations in cooler areas dropped.
7. Failure to predict the stable temperatures over the last ten years.
8. Unresolved questions as to whether the climate system is chaotic.
9. Defective IPCC network and topology for the world’s climate structure. This leads to an upward bias on the human contribution to warming.
10. The lost Medieval Warming Period.
11. Contributions from total solar irradiance to warming.
12. Problems with ice core data.
13. Fraud in the reconstruction from tree ring data.
14. Fraud in computer programming.
15. Loss of original data at CRU which appears to have been deliberate.
We have so many reasons to doubt the IPCC and the AGW cabal at NASA, and CRU that the whole enterprise needs careful review by independent auditors who have no stake in the climate change enterprise.
January 31, 2010, 4:51 pmMark Buehner says:
Those are the known issues- stuff just starting to come out includes NOAA playing games with the (supposedly) raw temperature data, and GISS playing the same selection game CRU has been accused of. For the record, thats all 3 out of the 3 labs in the world creating climate datasets, and since the CRU raw data has disappeared NOAA is the sole repository of historical temp data in the world. This is far from trivial. Selection bias is hard at work on level after level. By the time you get to the actual studies the data has been massaged in all kinds of ways- but all with the same expectation of a warming world. Past temps get lowered (why historical ‘raw’ temperature should ever be adjusted, much less on this scale, is a HUGE question) and modern temps rise, of course you end up with a warming trend.
January 31, 2010, 5:13 pmMike McDougal says:
I really don’t care either way. Assuming that global warming is happening, you still have to convince me that I should do something about it instead of simply adapting.
January 31, 2010, 5:25 pmNobody At All says:
This has been discussed, ad nauseum.
January 31, 2010, 5:48 pmrpt says:
Were that this technical scrutiny, which is beyond my background, was applied to other issues, such as WMD in Iraq, on a nonpartisan basis. That would have saved us trillions.
January 31, 2010, 6:14 pmEvilDave says:
Let us review the stages of Leftism:
Brown -> national socialism, discredited in 1945 (although it lasted in Spain until the 70s)
Red -> economic-based international socialism, discredited in ~1989 (although still popular in universities)
Green -> environment-based international socialism, currently popular although cracks are showing.
I wonder what color will come next.
January 31, 2010, 6:19 pmAnonsters says:
This is such a ridiculous thread, it defies belief.
January 31, 2010, 7:19 pmAnonsters says:
Although I would note again that a good chunk of people whinging about (ZOMG) TEH AGW CABAL cite economic points when discussing this.
If you’re all so scientifically pure and just coming to conclusions on the basis of the scientific evidence, what difference does it make what the motives or whatever are? Attack the science on scientific grounds.
Otherwise, you end up looking like a bunch of batshit crazy wingnuts.
See above.
January 31, 2010, 7:22 pmdavid says:
My brother did climate modeling at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies when he was a student at Columbia during the 1990s. At that time, he told me that some (maybe many?) of the scientists that he worked with did not believe in global warming, but they did research on it because it was by far the easiest way to get funding for supercomputers, which could then be used part time for more legitimate research that did not benefit from politically correct government funding.
Because climate modeling involves so many complex, inter-connected variables (if I recall correctly, my brother worked on models with 30+ variables even back then), a small change to the assumptions underlying just one variable could have a big impact on the forecasting, and there many ways that apparently plausible arguments could be made to justify adjustments to the inputs that produced the modeling results favored by those paying the bills.
My brother didn’t tell me that he observed any outright fabrications, but the political and funding pressures he described could certainly lead to distorted results even without outright fabrications.
January 31, 2010, 7:58 pmrpt says:
The “Left” is whatever is bad and/or you don’t like; no intellectual coherence necessary.
January 31, 2010, 8:34 pmron says:
Anonsters says:
“If you’re all so scientifically pure and just coming to conclusions on the basis of the scientific evidence, what difference does it make what the motives or whatever are? Attack the science on scientific grounds.”
Didn’t read the article? Nor quite a few of the comments? Those addressed the ‘pure’ science involved in the claims.
January 31, 2010, 8:35 pmAnd, BTW, it is not up to critics to disprove a claim; it is up to the claimants to *prove* it. Not only haven’t they done so with respect to the catastophism required for drastic government action, they have been discredited on both pure science *and* on the motives which would cause a bias explaining that failure.
Is that clear enough for you?
Ricardo says:
Someone never told William F. Buckley. He wrote an editorial praising Franco as “an authentic national hero” in the pages of the National Review.
January 31, 2010, 9:19 pmBleepless says:
“Climate change is a serious concern,” you claim. Not if the anthropogenic contention is a total phony.
January 31, 2010, 9:35 pmAnonsters says:
I would suggest to you that a paragraph break in a comment doesn’t mean that the separate paragraphs are unrelated. So maybe the point I was making there was related to the point I made in the preceding paragraph.
Is that clear enough for you?
I can use crayons if you’d like.
January 31, 2010, 9:44 pmSarcastro says:
Pretty good, EvilDave. You missed some other socialisms, though:
Black -> Islamic socialism, discredited 2004 when Bush was reelected (though still popular with the US President.)
Blue -> United Nations socialism. Boy, I hate the UN! *I really hate those guys!)
Dark -> Sith socialism, discredited when Darth Vader pushed the Emperor down the power shaft (though always two sides there are.)
January 31, 2010, 9:48 pmMark Buehner says:
That is a different discussion. You seem to have been addressing the homogenized datasets, not the raw data adjustment. There are problems with that as well, and your response wasn’t particularly enlightening- the fact that there was a net zero plus-minus to the adjustments isn’t useful. If you subtract 1 degree to every year before 1950 and add 1 degree to every year after 1950, you invent a warming slope but the average adjustment is still zero. This is what appears to have happened in a wide variety of places in the chain, lowering historic temps and raising modern. That could be as simple as changing the data or by eliminating stations regionally that dont tell the right story.
Strange, I didn’t see you address what exactly NOAA was doing adjusting raw data decades old in any event. If they are going to be doing that, their documentation better be damned explicit and open to review. Which is not the case.
January 31, 2010, 9:57 pmAnonsters says:
I think you meant Powder Blue.
Unless you meant to impugn all and sundry shades of blue, perhaps even the missing shade?
January 31, 2010, 10:00 pmChad says:
Mr. Adler,
I’m not here to challenge your convictions and beliefs – belief is a core tenet of personal faith. I am here however to express my horror that you – like so many others – use that belief to cling to a fraud of the first order.
Anthropogenic climate change is a non-provable hypothesis. The data has been clearly doctored, NOAA and other organizations have been engaged in systematic bias to make the data warmer, the leaders of the AGW cause all personally profit greatly from their claims, and the only charge you have to defend them is that scientists like myself are “skeptics.”
Well, skepticism is the core of science. In my studies as a geologist and my own passion into meteorological physics I have never found any evidence to support the claim that man is altering the global climate. That evidence is *required* for AGW to have any grounding at all as science requires the purveyor of a hypothesis to provide the data to support their claim.
These charlatans have never done anything even remotely scientific to defend their money-making operation. Their fundamental claims about greenhouse gases have absolutely no supporting research anywhere in physics. And their data is openly corrupt.
So please, continue believing. But if you’re going to slander the myriad of scientists trying to save real science from these profiteering cretins by using ad hominem attacks then you’d best pull yourself out of your bubble before you make yourself any more the fool.
January 31, 2010, 10:09 pmRicardo says:
Did you read this last paragraph for potential inconsistencies before posting?
January 31, 2010, 10:13 pmSarcastro says:
Good point, Anonsters! The socialism rainbow is a continuous spectrum, since the socialism what lurks in the hearts of men is of infinite variety.
January 31, 2010, 10:25 pmron says:
Anonsters says:
January 31, 2010, 10:27 pm“I would suggest to you that a paragraph break in a comment doesn’t mean that the separate paragraphs are unrelated. So maybe the point I was making there was related to the point I made in the preceding paragraph.
Is that clear enough for you?”
Oh, you bet it is and was; I read and addressed them both. But perhaps my response was a bit too complicated for one who favors crayons?
James N. Gibson says:
I had to read through all of these to verify this before I said anything. As JHA points out at least two of these recently found errors came from advocacy groups. What he didn’t mention is they came from the same group, the WWF. An important point that needs to be made is regarding diversity of sources (as well as using multiple sources for the same information). Having two IPCC report errors originating from material supplied by the same organization is very damming.
Outside of this, in my book we are in a period of time of patron science and patron history. We have had the patron history best represented by Michael Bellisiles and Saul Cornell on early American history and now we seem to have Patron science in the form of Global Warming/Climate Change. And the worst part of this, Like the Patron historians who charged their opponents were in the pay of the NRA or the Gun industry, the Climate change advocates have for years charged their opponents as being in the pay of big oil and coal.
Finally, as some have noted, we seem to have a lot of climate data that doesn’t appear in the Climate change research. Such as the fact that in the winter of 1939 it was so cold it broke records going back half a century. The channel even froze at its narrowest point. How did I relearn this piece of trivia, and old episode of the World At War series of the 1970s.
January 31, 2010, 11:03 pmo says:
If you’re relaying on previous scientific measurements, etc…
Stop.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/01/025499.php
January 31, 2010, 11:07 pmSarcastro says:
Now that is a great article. Here are some of the clearly unbiased samples that discuss why you should never trust previous science on AGW:
In other words:
1. Don’t trust the data.
2. there are totally awful problems
3. Totally bad problems!
You cannot stand up to powerline’s thesaurus of powah!
[I am amused by the howls of rage that Adler still thinks there may be AGW, followed by links to 'evidence' that is basically ipse dixit.]
January 31, 2010, 11:22 pmvic says:
sorry for going off topic
January 31, 2010, 11:30 pmbut iraq wmd was based on faulty intellegence which at the time neither repubs or dems questioned
lgm says:
You say you believe global warming, but your actions don’t make a strong case. Your update argues that global warming dangers are overblown and thus that action is not urgent. Where is your post criticizing global warming deniers like you criticize vaccine deniers?
I believe nobody on this thread is a climate scientist. All the disproofs of global warming (This measurement doesn’t match that one. They’re using baby statistics.) are lifted from right wing global warming denialists. They have been answered in the scientific literature. I don’t believe anyone posting on this thread has the personal scientific expertise to evaluate the correctness of the claims.
No successful professional scientist who works in the US science system seriously thinks global warming is a vast conspiracy. That’s laughable.
January 31, 2010, 11:59 pmCareless says:
Yeah, clearly there’s nothing to worry about if the climate is going to go to hell by natural causes.
February 1, 2010, 12:12 amron says:
Careless says:
“Yeah, clearly there’s nothing to worry about if the climate is going to go to hell by natural causes.”
Care to tell us the exact mean temperature the world should be?
February 1, 2010, 12:19 amCareless says:
The person I responded to suggested that there was nothing to worry about if we had, say, another ice age, as long as humans didn’t cause it. Think about that for a second, read my post again, and realize why your post was ridiculous.
February 1, 2010, 12:22 amLee says:
lgm…
I do not think it requires one to be a ‘denier’ to accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas but at the same time be skeptical of the claims made with respect to past climatic conditions or future predictions based on computer modeling. I always thought skepticism was a good thing in science…but I’ve been wrong on many occasions before.
Frankly, the field of climate science is so immense that I honestly believe that most scientists tend to blindly agree with the research in areas that they do not focus their attention on. However, within most of these subsets there is either disagreement with IPCC claims (e.g. Chris Landsea) or a vigorous debate as to the actual mechanisms and how they work (e.g. Richard Lindzen, Roger Pielke Sr., etc.). So I would take umbrage with the whole science is settled line based on anything the IPCC says, and I believe most scientists feel the same way.
By the way, I’m not really sure if there is a so-called climate scientist out there. Mann is a dendrochronolgist, Hansen is an astronomer, Thompson is a geologist, etc.
February 1, 2010, 12:37 amJohn Dale Dunn says:
As Sen Benson said during the debate–I know . . .
Well I know Pat Micheals, I was following his work many years ago before he ran into the buzzsaws of Virginia. I know his book,and I Know Robert Balling and I know Chris Horner of CEI which you were associated with when you wrote of global warming, and I know the majority of the prominent global warming skeptics, since I work with the Heartland Institute, and I presented on human health effects research at the Heartland’s 2008 and 2009 New York Meetings on climate. I lectured a little and learned what the skeptics have to say. I hope you will come to the meeting this spring in Chicago.
I do the human health effects because I am an emergency physician with interests in envirnomental law and public health. I also an immunized and non practicing attorney, so I know a little of the law, evidence,environmental law and administrative law issue from research, teaching and writing. I admire your work and have read your essays and commentary.
I disagree with your statement that a fair assessment of the skeptic position is that human activity is causing warming and that that conclusion justifies your position that warming should be curbed by action. The skeptics say no such thing. They say this is a false crisis built on bad science and that any action, governmental or non governmental would be ill advised and irresponsble. Period. May not make the IPCC happy, but that’s what they think and that’s what they say.
You set up Robert Balling and Patrick Micheals so that you could feel comfortable saying something should be done. That’s getting past the important stuff on the cheap, and I must object.
The arguments of the body of skeptical critics from McKittrick to Lindzen, not to minimize Micheals and Balling, is that we are dealing with a hoax, not a done deal that justifies your assertion that some policy making and regulatory load on economies is justified. They would disagree with you. You took the Micheals and Balling statements about ghgases and warming and set them up to support your position. Well the majority of the skeptic community of scientists would protest that you misrepresent and create a straw man argument. Pat Micheals hasn’t been getting beat up for years so you can set him up as a weak “me too” guy. Remember the CRU guys talking about how they would like to hurt him if they see him at a meeting. A nice guy like Micheals? Imagine.
I know your successor Chris Horner at CEI and He would never agree to your position that the human caused warming deserves action. Never.
The discussion about the deceptions of the IPCC and the GW advocates by Micheals and Balling in their book and elsewhere are deep and wide and not weak admissions that humans are warming the planet.
The skeptics, like Micheals and Balling, and Singer and so many others, have a multi level argument–they would argue that warming is a trend starting long before industrialization coming out of the little ice age, that warm is something that has occurred to varying degrees in the past, for example the Roman and Medieval warming periods in recent history and many other epochal warmings that sure didn’t have much to do with industrial production of green house gases, and they argue that the association of green house gas increases with warming is not proof of anything.
Sure there is a greenhouse effect, sure carbon dioxide could contribute to it and we contribute a very small percentage (3-5%) to the very small percentage of carbon dioxide in the air (0.038%) so our contribution is a cumulative 0.0014% of the total. Professor Adler, you wanna sell the contribution of humans to carbon dioxide as a potential catastrophe?
One could make a better case for water vapor, which is 20% of the GHGases, but then where does water vapor come from–those mean old lakes, rivers and oceans. Carbon dioxide is a convenient scary thing and also a product of industrial activity. IPCC and their allies see a chance for a new form of control and currency. And you jump right into their trap–what’s a little control and gee, how about some kind of sophisticated, lawyerly idea like carbon currency, bonds, or capping and trading (all of them taxes).
Well I have a hard time swallowing the idea that IPCC is just a do gooder band, but for sure the climate models are not reliable and the exaggerated claims of catastrophic warming by the IPCC are irresponsible. I learned a lot of that from skeptics like Micheals and Balling, whom you portray as confessed half warmers. They might object, and I will give them a chance with a copy of your essay and my response.
Professor, I would suggest that you go a bridge too far by claiming the science, what there is of it, shows that warming could be deleterious on balance to the condition of the human race and the planet–there is plenty of evidence to the contrary–warm is better for biodiversity, human health, precipitation, growing seasons, and it is not a cause of extreme heat events–those are caused by local conditions like humidity and cloud cover, and weather and such events, including extreme weather events of all kinds I am told by meteorologists are mitigated by warming.
If there is warming, it would mostly affect cooler climes, winter and nightime temps(laws of thermodynamics at work). Any warming would be much less than the difference in temperature from morning to afternoon. Tropical warm would be little effected because of the humidity. Desert extremes are not about average planet temperature, but local conditions.
The oceans and atmosphere are gigantic sinks with circulations and phenomena that can’t be modeled because they are too complex. You propose we should do something–because the governments want to do something–because you are worried?
People are properly skeptical of uncertain science and cheating for political and economic reasons, don’t accept the premise, Professor.
So you may feel comfortable with the idea that “policy” should be to stop warming, and that ghgases cause warming, and there is a good temperature and we should be what we are now? Says who? Is 57 average ideal for the globe when its way to cold in Siberia and they could use some relief? What if we left our cars running and that could actually effect temps, and those folks got a little easier winters?
The skeptics have a stronger argument than you give them–they say that the average temp is rising, no doubt, but the IPCC climate theories and modeling are not reliable at all, that warming is historically part of the changing conditions of the planet, that were here long before industrial activity, and that there is no reliable evidence that warming of a few degrees would be anything but a benefit to the planet.
We already know that carbon dioxide doesn’t lead, it follows warming, so when will you reject the premise, after 10 years of no warming, with rising economic activity. They now are dancing around saying that it’s because of some ciruclation things they didn’t anticipate. Really?
Isn’t that a good reason to evaluate the IPCC tendency to push forcers (positive feedback) and fail to recognize mitigators (negative feedback)? There is a reason we live on a pretty livable planet–its because feedbacks dampen, they don’t increase effects, and the modelers are ignoring that in favor of the chicken little approach.
Modeling with no negative feedback is always catstrophic–which goes against the reality of our existence. Besides, we contribute less than 10 percent to the GHG load in all categories, water vapor is the most important, carbon dioxide only accounts for 0.038 or 0.039 percent of ambient air by volume and we only contribute a little less than 5 % of it–and we are going to bring on the apocolypse on an earth where thousands of years ago living things thrived with much higher temperatures and much higher levels of carbond dioxide and other ghgases.
Why are you so hesitant to say these people who are so anti progress and misanthropic are lying and in fact are foisting a fraud for political and economic reasons?
The IPCC has big problems because they were and are a propaganda outfit, on climate and on theories of how warming might be harmful. their models don’t work, their projections on sea level are phony, their projections on weather effects even if warming occurred are wrong, and they are now explaining why the globe is not warming. No need to talk about how their claims of catastrophe as a result of warming are speculation, since they don’t know what warming of a few degrees would do to cause catastrophe–but I know, with certainty that warmer is better for me and you and the plants and animals. the global average temp is about 57 Degrees F, which is a little cool for living things. Remember that. Living things, operating around 98 degrees internally in a wet environment with no protection or way to preserve heat, at 57 degrees suffer.
so far their climate modeling can’t even reproduce what has happened, and they have no basis for projecting catastrophe or even hardship-January is the deadliest month of the year in the northern hemisphere, extreme cold events kill many more than extreme warm events (see the research of Indur Goklany that summarizes the findings of many and shows the IPCC allies to be cherry picking and data dredging for harm) and warm has a mitigation on severe weather.
The claims of apocolypse are about a grab for power and control of energy and progress, and a dislike of industrialism and the human race–don’t play footsey with the tyrants, Professor–they’ll take your compromise, put it in their satchel and ask you for more. Don’t accept the premise that industrial activity is the cause of the trend, Micheals, Singer, Soon, Christy, Idso,Gray, Lindzen, Legates, Monckton, and so many other distinguished scientists around the world do not accept the premise the way that you portray it. 30,000 scientists signed the Oregon petition, hundreds signed the Leipzig Declaration and the Heidelberg Petition.
You seem so willing to assume that Micheals and Balling, who are associated with CATO mean more than the CATO petition that was published in all the major newspapers across the country last year that completely rejected the Global Warming hypothesis and pleaded for common sense and no gov actions based on bad science.
The skeptics do not agree with the IPCC on the major points–their is no agreement on the claims of the IPCC and you should be reluctant to accept a halfway position on warming that allows the continuation of the IPCC fraud.
Don’t accept the premise, and don’t portray the scientists who object to the thuggery and deception of the IPCC and their efforts to supress dissent. Don’t misrepresent what the skeptics say in order to find some middle ground.
Sometimes one must expose charlatans and intellectual tyrants. Ask senior scientists in the meteorology community who have been denigrated and sneered at.
The skeptics have been vindicated, but the press and the academy pretend things can go on and we must do something about warming? That is what you say in your essay. That is why I think you should reconsider your position that its innocent to move on with policies and actions to prevent warming that will have the effect of harming economies world wide.
You went to George Mason, so I surely don’t have to mention Fred Bastiat.
You have accepted the premise that warming is man made and then characterized Micheals and Balling to say the same thing. They do not. Ask Micheals and he will say that there are modeling problems that are still a long way from a solution.
The Skeptics say that at this point the evidence shows the IPCC is wrong and working a fraud and is unwilling to participate in genuine scientific inquiry. They are in full propaganda mode.
Your proposal to do something, besides violating Bastiat’s warning, assumes the precautionary principle, which is never a scientific tool, it is a tool for government expansion and nannyism, which I know you reject.
February 1, 2010, 2:42 amA. Zarkov says:
The “vast conspiracy” is a straw man. Nevertheless many “successful professional scientists” are critical of the AGW theory. Here’s a few that come to mind immediately.
Freeman Dyson
Fred Singer
Richard Lindzen
Garth Paltridge
Nir Shaviv
Willie Soon
Roy Spencer
Jan Veizer
However a body count of who is for and who is against AGW is largely irrelevant. It only takes one person with the right argument to demolish a bogus theory. The point is we have not established AGW with enough certainty to start changing the world’s economy.
February 1, 2010, 3:39 amRicardo says:
The concentration of CO2 steadily increased from 315 ppm in the late 1950s to 380 ppm. If you do the math, that works out to a 20% cumulative increase or a 0.376% annualized growth rate.
Where does your 3-5% contribution from humans come from and over what time frame is it supposed to be? Over one year, over 50 years, since the Industrial Revolution?
Even the 20% number is not supposed to fully capture the amount of CO2 humans have emitted from industrial sources. The amount we emitted is likely to be far greater than 20% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere: the excess has been absorbed by the oceans and any net growth of vegetation that may have occurred in the past 50 years.
February 1, 2010, 8:16 amK Dackson says:
Ricardo:
I suggest you revisit your Langmuir.
February 1, 2010, 8:28 amRicardo says:
This is a pretty obtuse comment. Do you have a citation to back up John Dale Dunn’s claim that only 3-5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is the result of human activity?
February 1, 2010, 9:14 amlgm says:
I disagree. A significant fraction of the denier movement, see posts in this thread, claim that scientists are conspiring (for reasons of their own) to promote a global warming theory they themselves know is false. Some read the “climategate” emails in that way.
It’s an important claim or the deniers because otherwise they have trouble answering the question how almost all top scientists could be so wrong. Normally, a non-scientists would accept the findings of a majority of scientsts, just as we accept medical diagnoses. In global warming, there have been independent second and third opinions.
February 1, 2010, 10:45 amflyovertard says:
Stats and lying damn stats
“20% cumulative increase or a 0.376% annualized growth rate”
or looking at it differently:
315 ppm to 380 ppm is a change of
0.0315% CO2 to 0.038% CO2 or a change 0f 0.0065%
Thats whoppingly large and scary considering sitting in an office with the door closed for 30 minutes you can change the %CO2 in that office by several hundred percent.
February 1, 2010, 11:55 amDan Weber says:
Against my better judgment, I’m trying to enter this conversation once again.
What is this supposed to prove? “CO2 is such a small portion of the atmosphere, so it’s impossible that doubling it or tripling it will change how our planet reflects and absorbs heat.” Seriously?
I myself am not convinced of AGW, but so many of the people arguing against it are such complete goofs. As much damage as the AGW crowd does to themselves by trying to paper over the CRU emails, the anti crowd does a lot worse with all the scientific tripe they spew.
February 1, 2010, 12:20 pmflyovertard says:
If I throw a marble in the ocean I have definitively raised sea level just as raising the %CO2 in the atmosphere by 0.065% definitively raises the quantity of infrared radiation received at the earths surface. Both are true but might be a little difficult in quantifying either on paper or in the field.
No comment that I can possibly make on this blog will impact the political game called AGW. The science will sort itself out in the long-run.
- onegoofytard
February 1, 2010, 2:02 pmDan Weber says:
Global warming isn’t caused by the total quantity of the atmosphere. N2 is pretty inert.
Some gasses warm the planet, and this is very fortunate for us because the blanket of water vapor, methane, CO2, and ozone in the atmosphere warms us up to a level where we can have liquid water.
Now, if you wanted to make a somewhat cogent complaint, you could say “CO2 is only about 10% of the global warming component, so we’re only talking about growing the warming by a few percent.”
February 1, 2010, 2:32 pmflyovertard says:
Thanks for the lesson on the greenhouse effect. Now I won’t be so goofy and will be able to make cogent complaints.
February 1, 2010, 4:01 pmzuch says:
Not exactly.
Cheers,
February 1, 2010, 7:37 pmNobody At All says:
As a factual matter – and whatever you believe regarding the strength of the analysis – this is the question answered.
February 1, 2010, 7:51 pmRicardo says:
In other words, nobody wants to defend the claim that only 3-5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by human activity.
February 1, 2010, 8:58 pmJohnW says:
Ricardo,
Would you like to defend your assumption that all changes in CO2 concentration are due to anthropogenic sources?
February 1, 2010, 10:35 pmRicardo says:
I didn’t assume that. Someone else assumed that 95-98% were not anthropogenic. Why aren’t you asking him to defend his quite explicit claim rather than asking me to defend an assumption I did not make?
February 1, 2010, 10:57 pmLee says:
Ricardo…
According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, which is part of the US Department of Energy, and located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the percent of CO2 that can be attributed to the burning of fossil fuels is 14%. The other primary source of CO2 is land use alteration, which has received very little attention from the likes of the IPCC, much to the consternation of Dr. Pielke Sr. who is very vocal about land use changes and the effects on climate.
The source for this information is located here.
I hope this helps.
February 2, 2010, 3:19 amA. Dawson says:
AGW is the new eugenics. We’ll revisit this topic in a few decades and see what sort of hijackings have taken place.
February 2, 2010, 1:14 pmChrisTS says:
Thank you. Who cares if humans are primarily responsible for what might be disastrous conditions for humans? We are not responsible for epidemics, for the most part, but we still try to prevent them.
In fact, many of the human-caused environmental effects that might contribute to overall climate change clearly do contribute to other types of environmental degradation. So, why not address those? If it happens that doing so also meliorates dangerous climate change, it’s a double-win.
February 2, 2010, 6:20 pmLee says:
ChrisTS and Careless –
There has never been any evidence that our climate has experienced runaway heating or cooling caused by CO2. The glacial cycles appear to be much more in tune with Milankovitch Cycles. And in the that respect, there ain’t much to be done about that!
If there was past evidence of runaway climate caused by excess or decrease of GHGs then you might have a small point, but otherwise, I believe that is a strawman intended to scare those who do not know any better.
I am firmly skeptical with respect to a number of the claims (but I do not question the physics of the greenhouse effect. I have to put that in like the Seinfeld gay disclaimer…”not that there’s anything wrong with that.”) touted by the IPCC and others. However, I consider myself very environmentally friendly…and agree that we should all be diligent about the environment.
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May 18, 2010, 10:19 am