An example of important climate change research hidden, lest it spoil the media’s narrative

 The big lie of the mainstream media narrative of climate science is that the issue is settled.  This is one in a series of articles showing the rest of the story, which is slowly seeping through the cracks into public view.  At the end are links to the FM reference pages about science, linking to a wide range of research, and other resources.

“Rise of sea levels is ‘the greatest lie ever told’“, The Telegraph, 28 March 2009 — “The uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.” 

About the author (from Wikipedia):

Mörner is the former head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University, having retired in 2005. He was president of the International Union for Quaternary ResearchCommission on Neotectonics (1981-1989). He headed the INTAS (International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union) Project on Geomagnetism and Climate (1997-2003).

For more information about this, see these articles by Anthony Watts at Watts Up with That, including links and pictures:

• “Sea Level Graphs from UC and some perspectives“, 6 April 2009
• “Despite popular opinion and calls to action, the Maldives are not being overrun by sea level rise“, 19 March 2009

Links to some of Dr. Morner’s publications

• “Sea Level Changes in the Past, at Present and in the Near-Global Aspects Observations versus Models“, Final Conference for International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 437, September 2003
• “Estimating future sea level changes from past records”, Global and Planetary Change, January 2004 — Abstract

Excerpt

“Rise of sea levels is ‘the greatest lie ever told’“, The Telegraph, 28 March 2009 — “The uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.”  Excerpt:

If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.

Although the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only predicts a sea level rise of 59cm (17 inches) by 2100, Al Gore in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth went much further, talking of 20 feet, and showing computer graphics of cities such as Shanghai and San Francisco half under water. We all know the graphic showing central London in similar plight. As for tiny island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, as Prince Charles likes to tell us and the Archbishop of Canterbury was again parroting last week, they are due to vanish.

But if there is one scientist who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world it is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner, who for 35 years has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe, is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.

Aerosols (pollutionants, like soot) as a driver of climate change

It’s common for advocates to focus on a narrative that they believe will convince the public of the urgency of their cause.  Unfortunately this can blind them to research indicating that the problem is more complex then the simple story they push — and hence that their well-intended solutions might be ineffective, or even counter-productive. 

I believe that’s become true today about climate science.  This is another in a series of articles about research showing the complexity and uncertainty in the current models of climate change.  Previous articles have focused on solar influences.  Here are a few discussing the role of atmospheric particles.  Brief excerpts appear below for these two articles.

(1)  “Impure as the Driven Snow“, Scientific American, 8 June 2007 — “Soot is a bigger problem than greenhouse gases in polar meltdown.”  This discusses “Present-day climate forcing and response from black carbon in snow”, Mark G. Flanner, Charles S. Zender, James T. Randerson, and Philip J. Rasch, Journal of Geophysical Research, June 2007 — Abstract.

(2)  “Climate response to regional radiative forcing during the twentieth century”, Drew Shindell and Greg Faluvegi, Nature Geoscience, March 2009 — Abstract, NASA’s summary.

There is a large body of research about effect of particles on Earth’s climate.  Here are a few other articles, with no expcerpts given:

• “Strong radiative heating due to the mixing state of black carbon in atmospheric aerosols“, Mark Z. Jacobson, Nature, 8 February 2001
• “Soot More Culpable in Climate Warming Than Expected“, Scientific American, 23 December 2003
• Aerosol formation and climate, Part I, Bart Verheggen (Dept of Air Quality and Climate Change , Energy research Institute of the Netherlands), RealClimate, 13 April 2009
• Aerosol effects and climate, Part II: the role of nucleation and cosmic rays, Bart Verheggen, RealClimate, 15 April 2009
• Yet more aerosols: Comment on Shindell and Faluvegi, Drew Shindell, posted at RealClimate, 21 April 2009

Of course, it’s important not to let the proles know about such research (aerosols possible role as both warming and cooling agents).  Hence Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, was careful not to mention this during his interview with Associate Press in which he discussed using aerosols to geoengineer the Earth’s climate.  Don’t spoil the simple narrative!

Excerpts

(1)  “Impure as the Driven Snow“, Scientific American, 8 June 2007 — This discusses “Present-day climate forcing and response from black carbon in snow”, Mark G. Flanner, Charles S. Zender, James T. Randerson, and Philip J. Rasch, Journal of Geophysical Research, June 2007 — Abstract.  Excerpt:

Belching from smokestacks, tailpipes and even forest fires, soot—or black carbon—can quickly sully any snow on which it happens to land. In the atmosphere, such aerosols can significantly cool the planet by scattering incoming radiation or helping form clouds that deflect incoming light. But on snow—even at concentrations below five parts per billion—such dark carbon triggers melting, and may be responsible for as much as 94 percent of Arctic warming.

A story illustrating one of the most important aspects of the climate science debate

Summary:  Information is power, and so elites of all kinds wish to control its flow.  One of the most important effects of the Internet is its power to force open to public view previously closed social processes, thereby stripping elites of their control of information — and thereby reducing their power.  As Glen Reynolds (the Instapundit) says, we have created an “Army of Davids.”  Elites cannot be expected to like it, and hence resist.  We see this today in climate science.  (This post gives a slightly expanded version of material from this article at Climate Audit)

The primary complaint of skeptics about anthropogenic global warmings concerns the limited availability of data and methods used to produce the results on which advocates urge major public policy changes.  Without this information replication is impossible for scientists or interested “outsiders”.

The response has been a grudging release of data, often partial and poorly documented.  The battle has been surprisingly difficult considering that most journals require release of this information at publication.  Even more striking, much (most?) of this research is publicly funded — and hence keeping it secret usually violates  regulations of the funding agencies.

As a response to this outcry the National Academies of Science Committee on Science, Engineering & Public Policy initiated this project:  Ensuring the Utility and Integrity of Research Data in a Digital Age.  A timely response on a vital topic.  Results to date?

Lost voices in the climate science debate

As the the mainstream media close ranks to defend their narrative about global warming, many expert voices are closed out — masked from public view.  One of these is Syun-Ichi Akasofu.  Who is he?

Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Centerof the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and its Director since its establishment in 1998 until January 2007. Previously he was director of the Geophysical Institutefrom 1986 -1999.  He has been Professor of Geophysics since 1964. Dr. Akasofu has published more than 550 professional journal articles, authored and co-authored 10 books and has been the invited author of many encyclopedia articles.  The Wikipedia entry about him lists some of his many publications and academic honors.

This post lists some of his essays about climate science written for a general audience. Excerpts appear below.

1. “Is the Earth still recovering from the “Little Ice Age”? A possible cause of global warming“
2. On the Fundamental Defect in the IPCC’s Approach to Global Warming Research, 15 June 2007
3. “Why has “global warming” become such a passionate subject? — Let’s not lose our cool“

Here is an example of his recent work, describing climate drivers other than greenhouse gases.  No excerpt provided.

“Two Natural Components of the Recent Climate Change“, Syun-Ichi Akasofu (International Arctic Research Center, U Alaska Fairbanks), 23 March 2009 — This discusses:

1. The Recovery from the Little Ice Age, a Possible Cause of Global Warming
2. The Multi-decadal Oscillation, the Recent Halting of the Warming

Excerpts

(1)  “Is the Earth still recovering from the “Little Ice Age”? A possible cause of global warming” — Abstract

There seems to be a roughly linear increase of the temperature from about 1800, or even much earlier, to the present. This warming trend is likely to be a natural change; a rapid increase of CO2 began in about 1940. This trend should be subtracted from the temperature data during the last 100 years. Thus, there is a possibility that only a fraction of the present warming trend may be attributed to the greenhouse effect resulting from human activities. This conclusion is contrary to the IPCC (2007) Report, which states that “most” of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. One possible cause of the linear increase may be that the Earth is still recovering from the Little Ice Age. It is urgent that natural changes be correctly identified and removed accurately from the presently on-going changes in order to find the contribution of the greenhouse effect.

(2)  On the Fundamental Defect in the IPCC’s Approach to Global Warming Research, 15 June 2007 — Excerpt:

George Will: climate criminal or brave but sloppy iconoclast?

Summary:  Pundit George Will published a sloppily researched and composed column about global warming in the Washington Post.  The response was a deafening call for his execution (i.e., of his career).  Through a stroke of luck so great it must be intervention of the Blue Fairy,  he may have accidentally stated the situation correctly.  This episode, esp the reaction of his critics, illustrates important aspects of decision-making in 21 century America.

The subtitle for this post:  Tonight’s prayer is ”let me be so lucky as George Will.”

Contents

1. About “Dark Green Doomsayers“, George F. Will, Washington Post, 15 February 2009
2. “Off with his head” scream the green defenders of the faith
3. The Blue Fairy intervenes, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center confesses
4. About Will’s other errors
5. What have we learned from this?
6. Updates

This post is a follow-up to The media doing what it does best these days, feeding us disinformation (18 February), about Michael Asher’s article which kicked off this debate.

(1)  George Will, the sloppy pundit

 The critics focused on this paragraph:

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

There are several things wrong with this text.  First and worst, he is using without attribution the work of another:  “Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979“, Michael Asher, Daily Tech, 9 January 2009 (per the WaPo ombudsman here).  Second, Will inaccurately repeats Asher’s conclusion. 

A puzzle – can you find a solution?

Pro-AGW comments on the FM site often strike me as bizarre.  Investigation often — not always — shows them actually  to be bizarre (esp notable examples are here and here).  The extraordinary aspect of this lies in the people making these bizarre comments, as they often have long records of knowledgeable and insightful comments on this site.

Does adopting “anthropogenic global warming” as a religion — or a doctrine of an “environmentalist religion” — distort people’s thinking?   This post concerns the public aspect of the climate change debate, which has great influence on public policy.  Fortunately the actual science continues on despite all this.  At the end of the post are links to articles discussing environmentalism as religion; I recommend looking at these.

Which brings us to Oldskeptic’s comment in response to Important new climate science articles, 11 January 2009.  Another test case (others are listed at the end of the post).  Here it is, in full:

“FM:  I subscribe to the New Scientist, so I know the article which you have misquoted. So you have moved into ‘ad hominan’ arguments; this is beneath you. Stop it now.”

So again I must ask the readers of the FM site for help.  Can anyone explain this?  It makes no sense to me.  Oldskeptic is one of the most consistently sharp commenters on this site.  I have learned much from his comments, including that I was wrong about the degree of social mobility in the US (see this post).  Perhaps I have misunderstood this comment.

The objectionable text is, I believe, the section appearing below.  It seems quite simple.

• My quote from the New Scientist is the first 4 paragraphs in full;  the GRL abstract follows.  So  no misquoting.
• There is no mention of anyone, so no possibility of an ad hominem argument (Latin: “argument against the man”).

High school science facts prove global warming! Skeptical scientists humiliated by this revelation!

One astonishing thing about laymen’s debates about climate science is the bizarre pro-AGW arguments from educated and intelligent people (AGW = anthropogenic global warming).  This is one of the things that gives me the ”debating folks distributing religious tracts at the airport” feeling.

For example, here is a comment by Oldskeptic, one of the most consistently sharp commenters on this site.  I have learned much from his comments, including that I was wrong about the degree of social mobility in the US (see this post).

But when it comes to climate science we get comments like this (shown below).  Weird stuff.  A grade school lecture on basic science, that he apparently considers sufficient to dismiss the work of the many eminent scientists who disagree with AGW theory.  First you see my reply; Oldskpetic’s comment follows. 

(1)  Does high school science suffice to dismiss the work of scientists skeptical of AGW?

A frequent rebuttal by laymen to skeptics’ concerns is to describe AGW as an obvious result of high school science facts.  In this vein, Oldskeptic provides his “BASICS PHYSICS (very simplified)” rebuttal; another example in the comments on the FM site is here.  There are others on the FM site, but not as clearly expressed.

The “basic science” rebuttals tell us little about climate science, as the debate is far more complex.  Solar forcing, limitations of the data inputs. feedbacks (higher temperature, more evaporation, clouds, lower albedo) … there is a long list of complex factors involved.  But that is not an important objection.

They are IMO a low grade of propaganda, the equivalent of disproving the Theory of Relativity by looking at your child riding a bike.  No changes in mass or relative size! Einstein was wrong!  But that is an insignificant objection.

What’s valuable about this logic?  Such comments tell us much about the thinking of the pro-AGW folks who write them.  Oldskeptic concludes his “BASICS PHYSICS rebuttal with this wonderful line:

As the greatest engineer in history once said “ya canna defy the laws of physics”.

He appears to believe that the many scientists on the other side of the debate are unaware of high school science facts. For a current example of a someone questioning many aspects of AGW theory, consider the work of Prof Roger Pielke Sr — see this post, from which you can go to his website and review his papers.  Who is Prof Pielke Sr?  From Wikipedia:

Emeritus professor of the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, he has served as Chairman of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Weather Forecasting and Analysis, as Chief Editor of Monthly Weather Review, … has served as Editor-in-Chief of the US National Science Report to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, as Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and as Editor of Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere.

I suspect the Professor remembers much of his basic science, although it appears Oldskeptic disagrees (yes, email him also!).  Stay with me please, because it gets even better. 

An important new article about climate change

The Fall meeting of  the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco (15 – 19 December 2008) had many valuable presentations about climate change.  The mainstream media will report those supporting forecasts of global warmings — esp anthropogenic warming.  But they will not tell us about the rest of the story…

Such as another fascinating paper by Don J. Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus in the Deptment of Geology at Western Washington University:  “Solar Influence on Recurring Global, Decadal, Climate Cycles Recorded by Glacial Fluctuations, Ice Cores, Sea Surface Temperatures, and Historic Measurements Over the Past Millennium” — Hat tip to Anthony Watt’s Watts Up with That.

Abstract

Global, cyclic, decadal, climate patterns can be traced over the past millennium in glacier fluctuations, oxygen isotope ratios in ice cores, sea surface temperatures, and historic observations. The recurring climate cycles clearly show that natural climatic warming and cooling have occurred many times, long before increases in anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 levels. The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age are well known examples of such climate changes, but in addition, at least 23 periods of climatic warming and cooling have occurred in the past 500 years.

Each period of warming or cooling lasted about 25-30 years (average 27 years). Two cycles of global warming and two of global cooling have occurred during the past century, and the global cooling that has occurred since 1998 is exactly in phase with the long term pattern.

• Global cooling occurred from 1880 to ~1915; global warming occurred from ~1915 to ~1945;
• global cooling occurred from ~1945-1977;, global warming occurred from 1977 to 1998;
• and global cooling has occurred since 1998.

All of these global climate changes show exceptionally good correlation with solar variation since the Little Ice Age 400 years ago.

The Senate Minority report is out: “More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims”

I will look at this during the weekend, and post any reviews I find.  Please do the same in the comments!

“More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims“, Minority Staff Report, U. S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, 11 December 2008, 231 pages.

Introduction:

Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 231-page U.S. Senate Minority Report report — updated from 2007’s groundbreaking report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” — features the skeptical voices of over 650 prominent international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC.

This updated report includes an additional 250 (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the initial release in December 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer reviewed studies, analyses, real world data, and inconvenient developments challenged the UN and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.” On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following:

1. global temperatures failing to warm,
2. peer-reviwed studies predicting a continued lack of warming,
3. a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick,
4. inconvenient developments, and
5. studies regarding CO2, the Sun; clouds, Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland, Mount Kilimanjaro, hurricanes, extreme storms, floods, ocean acidification, polar bears, lack of atmosphieric dust, the failure of oceans to warm, and rise as predicted.

In addition, the following developments further secured 2008 as the year the “consensus” collapsed.

Alert for a potentially interesting report from the Minority members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Their 2007 report was a major advance in the debate, with valuable new analysis. We shall see if this new report does the same. Here is their news alert. The style is too breathless for my taste, but the material looks interesting.   Timing is crucial as the Obama Administration plans vast new regulations, programs, and taxes to fight global warming.

“UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims” (link), Marc Morano (bio), posted at the blog of the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, 10 December 2008 — Opening:

The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.