The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
[POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
Steve Fielding
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
easily swayed.
Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for
the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
breaks for the winter.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the
cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light
of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through
her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about
the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any
indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on
the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
drowning in a sea of medievalism.
Reality has become just another special interest group.
> The Climate Change Climate Change
> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
> legislation.
> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
> Steve Fielding
> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
> even, if less reported, the U.S.
> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
> and-trade program.
> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
> Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
> published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
> underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
> printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
> columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
> pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
> including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
> beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
> sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
> scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
> The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
> like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
> his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
> delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
> get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
> easily swayed.
> Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
> renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
> attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
> skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
> assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
> team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
> This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for
> the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
> science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
> breaks for the winter.
> Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the
> cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light
> of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through
> her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about
> the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any
> indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on
> the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003:
Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand,
pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The Relationship
Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
287 pp.
And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there is
the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well. It
takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at times,
but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a response
trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that
there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturateda myth explained
by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabeđs modeling of over 40 years
agobut up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting
to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments.
Explain, teach, explain.
Mike
On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>
wrote:
> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> Reality has become just another special interest group.
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
>> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
>> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
>> legislation.
>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
>> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
>> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
>> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
>> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
>> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
>> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
>> Steve Fielding
>> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
>> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
>> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
>> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
>> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
>> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
>> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
>> even, if less reported, the U.S.
>> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
>> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
>> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
>> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
>> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
>> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
>> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
>> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
>> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
>> and-trade program.
>> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
>> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
>> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
>> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
>> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
>> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
>> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
>> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
>> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
>> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
>> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
>> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
>> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
>> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
>> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
>> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
>> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
>> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
>> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
>> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
>> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
>> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
>> Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
>> published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
>> underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
>> printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
>> columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
>> pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
>> including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
>> beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
>> sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
>> scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
>> The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
>> like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
>> his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
>> delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
>> get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
>> easily swayed.
>> Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
>> renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
>> attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
>> skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
>> assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
>> team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
>> This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for
>> the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
>> science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
>> breaks for the winter.
>> Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the
>> cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light
>> of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through
>> her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about
>> the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any
>> indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on
>> the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global warming
based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a big
number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The honest
position is that everything we think we know about climate science, none of
which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and
is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong influence of
sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and
there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no
sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation for 4
events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is
greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects, etc. etc.
If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the deniers. Take
the position that the science is not well established, it is qualitative,
and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the proxy
record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not too
distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP
INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW.
Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
-gene
_____
From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
[mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
Cc: Geoengineering
Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to address
these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of these. See:
MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003:
Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand,
pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The Relationship
Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
287 pp.
And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there is
the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well. It
takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at times,
but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a response
trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that
there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth explained
by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over 40 years
ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting
to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments.
Explain, teach, explain.
Mike
On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>
wrote:
That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
drowning in a sea of medievalism.
Reality has become just another special interest group.
On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote:
The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
[POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
Steve Fielding
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
easily swayed.
Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for
the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
breaks for the winter.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the
cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light
of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through
her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about
the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any
indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on
the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
I'm not aware of a single person who thinks geoengineering is anything but
an insurance policy. As such, the only useful question is when to deploy
it, if ever. (OK, when to deploy each of the various geoengineering
approaches.)
The only reason a geoengineer would have in the causality of warming is to
ensure the geoengineering response will work in light of the causal
elements. Hence, if CO2 increases are not the major source of warming, then
OIF is not going to be much of a solution. Same for other capture or
sequester approaches. But such concern is quite small for solar radiation
management.
So, let others argue about the need. Just think about when to deploy,
especially in light of the political infeasibility of getting a global
agreement (think China and India).
d.
On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 10:06 AM, Eugene I. Gordon <euggor...@comcast.net>wrote:
> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global warming
> based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a big
> number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The honest
> position is that everything we think we know about climate science, none of
> which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and
> is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong influence of
> sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and
> there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no
> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation for 4
> events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is
> greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects, etc. etc.
> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the deniers.
> Take the position that the science is not well established, it is
> qualitative, and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However
> the proxy record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not
> too distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP
> INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW.
> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
> -gene
> ------------------------------
> *From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:
> geoengineering@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Mike MacCracken
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
> *To:* Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
> *Cc:* Geoengineering
> *Subject:* [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to address
> these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of these. See:
> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003:
> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, *Bulletin of
> the American Meteorological Society*, *84*, 1711-1723.
> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand,
> pp. 63-70 in *Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The
> Relationship Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories,
> Universities, Government, and Industry*, November 1-2, 2003, Rice
> University, Houston TX, 287 pp.
> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there
> is the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well.
> It takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at
> times, but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a
> response trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and
> Barrie Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that
> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturateda myth explained
> by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabes modeling of over 40 years
> agobut up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting
> to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments.
> Explain, teach, explain.
> Mike
> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> Reality has become just another special interest group.
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The Climate Change Climate Change
> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
> legislation.
> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
> Steve Fielding
> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
> even, if less reported, the U.S.
> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
> and-trade program.
> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
> Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
> published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
> underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
> printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
> columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
> pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
> including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
> beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
> sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
> scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
> The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
> like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
> his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
> delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
> get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
> easily swayed.
> Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
> renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
> attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
> skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to
> address these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple
> of these. See:
> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl,
> 2003: Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment,
> Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really
> understand, pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and
> Society: The Relationship Between Policy and Research in National
> Laboratories, Universities, Government, and Industry, November 1-2,
> 2003, Rice University, Houston TX, 287 pp.
> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then
> there is the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of
> others as well. It takes time (and time away from real research) and
> is frustrating at times, but simply has to be done. I am very
> surprised that there was now a response trying to address the
> concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie Pittock being in
> Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like
> that there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturateda
> myth explained by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabes
> modeling of over 40 years agobut up comes the myth again, and
> again, and again.
> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not
> reverting to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types
> of arguments. Explain, teach, explain.
>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street
>> Journal indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that
>> it is what you believe that counts, not empirical confrontation
>> with experience.
>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but
>> is now drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure
>>> him
>>> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
>>> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate- >>> change
>>> legislation.
>>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a
>>> member of
>>> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
>>> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is
>>> preparing
>>> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
>>> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
>>> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
>>> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
>>> Steve Fielding
>>> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
>>> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
>>> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again
>>> shifting.
>>> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
>>> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
>>> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
>>> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan
>>> and
>>> even, if less reported, the U.S.
>>> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
>>> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
>>> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
>>> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
>>> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's
>>> new
>>> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre
>>> was
>>> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
>>> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
>>> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
>>> and-trade program.
>>> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma
>>> Sen.
>>> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
>>> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
>>> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
>>> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
>>> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
>>> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
>>> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
>>> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
>>> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
>>> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
>>> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its
>>> position
>>> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
>>> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
>>> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
>>> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
>>> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
>>> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
>>> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
>>> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that
>>> would
>>> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
>>> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
>>> Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
>>> published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
>>> underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its
>>> fifth
>>> printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
>>> columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
>>> pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
>>> including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
>>> beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have
>>> shown a
>>> sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
>>> scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
>>> The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd,
>>> elected
>>> like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
>>> his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
>>> delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
>>> get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
>>> easily swayed.
>>> Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
>>> renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
>>> attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
>>> skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
>>> assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the
>>> Obama
>>> team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
>>> This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting
>>> for
>>> the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
>>> science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
>>> breaks for the winter.
>>> Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to
>>> the
>>> cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in
>>> light
>>> of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push
>>> through
>>> her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about
>>> the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any
>>> indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re- >>> engage on
>>> the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
Bill Fulkerson, Senior Fellow
Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment
University of Tennessee
311 Conference Center Bldg.
Knoxville, TN 37996-4138
wf...@utk.edu
865-974-9221, -1838 FAX
Home
865-988-8084; 865-680-0937 CELL
2781 Wheat Road, Lenoir City, TN 37771
Dear GeneWhat I would propose to explain in clear terms is just what is in
the IPCC reportsand in other major, well-reviewed assessments. I would not
be intending to put forth new views and alternative insights, , except in
very rare cases like sea level rise where there was a lot of authoritative
discussion about the IPCCđs presentation of the summary results. In my view,
we scientists have our opportunity through the IPCC process to offer their
personal comments, and in explaining to the public, we should be sticking to
the views agreed to in the authoritative assessmentsand very carefully
identify and explain any departures.
Mike
On 6/28/09 10:06 AM, "eSubscript...@montgomerycountymd.gov"
<euggor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure? Certainly
> CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global warming based on
> reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a big number or high
> percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The honest position is that
> everything we think we know about climate science, none of which has been
> subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and is causing some
> of the warming but not all because the strong influence of sunspots has been
> clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and there are thousands
> of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no sunspot data to go with it.
> So the best data and perfect correlation for 4 events we have is sunspots. The
> best qualitative science we have is greenhouse effects, There are other cloud,
> ocean current effects, etc. etc.
> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the deniers. Take
> the position that the science is not well established, it is qualitative, and
> we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the proxy record of
> 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not too distant future we
> will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC
> CO2 TOMORROW.
> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
> -gene
> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com]
> On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
> Cc: Geoengineering
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to address these
> types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of these. See:
> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003:
> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin of the
> American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand,
> pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The Relationship
> Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
> Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University, Houston TX, 287
> pp.
> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there is
> the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well. It
> takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at times, but
> simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a response
> trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie Pittock
> being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that
> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturateda myth explained by
> Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabeđs modeling of over 40 years
> agobut up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting to
> the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments. Explain,
> teach, explain.
> Mike
> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
>> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
>> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
>> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
>>> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
>>> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
>>> legislation.
>>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
>>> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
>>> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
>>> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
>>> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
>>> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
>>> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
>>> Steve Fielding
>>> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
>>> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
>>> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
>>> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
>>> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
>>> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
>>> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
>>> even, if less reported, the U.S.
>>> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
>>> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
>>> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
>>> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
>>> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
>>> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
>>> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
>>> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
>>> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
>>> and-trade program.
>>> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
>>> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
>>> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
>>> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
>>> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
>>> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
>>> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
>>> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
>>> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
>>> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
>>> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
>>> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
>>> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
>>> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
>>> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
>>> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
>>> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
>>> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
>>> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
>>> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
>>> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
>>> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
>>> Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
>>> published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
>>> underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
>>> printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
>>> columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
>>> pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
>>> including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
>>> beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
>>> sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
>>> scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
>>> The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
>>> like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
>>> his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
>>> delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
>>> get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
>>> easily swayed.
>>> Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
>>> renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
>>> attending the
Not right! Truth takes more than work; and it doesn't always prevail.
However, the truth is that the temperature of the Earth is headed up, way up
to 25 C, and it will get there even if the CO2 were brought down to 280 ppm
tomorrow to stay there until the current Malenkovitch cycle ends. The
current temperature rise is partly accelerated by anthropogenic CO2 but it
will rise in any case and ultimately will doom most human life on this
planet, perhaps sustaining a much smaller number in polar areas or in domed
cities. If we want to have some semblance of current climate and current
lifestyle; climate control via geoengineering will be essential. Nothing to
do with CO2 or cutting out fossil fuels!
_____
From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
[mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of William Fulkerson
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 10:54 AM
To: mmacc...@comcast.net
Cc: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley; Geoengineering
Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
Dear Mike: You are exactly right. The truth takes work.
The best,
Bill
On Jun 28, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Mike MacCracken wrote:
Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to address
these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of these. See:
MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003:
Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand,
pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The Relationship
Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
287 pp.
And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there is
the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well. It
takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at times,
but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a response
trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that
there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth explained
by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over 40 years
ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting
to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments.
Explain, teach, explain.
Mike
On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>
wrote:
That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
drowning in a sea of medievalism.
Reality has become just another special interest group.
On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote:
The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
[POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
Steve Fielding
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
easily swayed.
Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for
the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
breaks for the winter.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the
cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light
of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through
her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about
the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any
indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on
the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
Bill Fulkerson, Senior Fellow
Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment
University of Tennessee
311 Conference Center Bldg.
Knoxville, TN 37996-4138
<mailto:wf...@utk.edu> wf...@utk.edu
865-974-9221, -1838 FAX
Home
865-988-8084; 865-680-0937 CELL 2781 Wheat Road, Lenoir City, TN 37771
I would say this is a fitting moment for an op-ed rebuttal from
someone with the altitude to properly counter-- important not to let
these missives go unanswered. The speedier the better.
One of the centerpieces of this article is a recent book "Heaven and
Earth", by a prominent Australian geologist. The book has drawn a
pointed critique from a fellow countryman, Barry Brook, also at the
University of Adelaide.
> Not right! Truth takes more than work; and it doesn't always prevail.
> However, the truth is that the temperature of the Earth is headed up, way up
> to 25 C, and it will get there even if the CO2 were brought down to 280 ppm
> tomorrow to stay there until the current Malenkovitch cycle ends. The
> current temperature rise is partly accelerated by anthropogenic CO2 but it
> will rise in any case and ultimately will doom most human life on this
> planet, perhaps sustaining a much smaller number in polar areas or in domed
> cities. If we want to have some semblance of current climate and current
> lifestyle; climate control via geoengineering will be essential. Nothing to
> do with CO2 or cutting out fossil fuels!
> _____
> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of William Fulkerson
> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 10:54 AM
> To: mmacc...@comcast.net
> Cc: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley; Geoengineering
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Dear Mike:
> You are exactly right. The truth takes work.
> The best,
> Bill
> On Jun 28, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Mike MacCracken wrote:
> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to address
> these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of these. See:
> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003:
> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin of the
> American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand,
> pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The Relationship
> Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
> Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
> 287 pp.
> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there is
> the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well. It
> takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at times,
> but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a response
> trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
> Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that
> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth explained
> by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over 40 years
> ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting
> to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments.
> Explain, teach, explain.
> Mike
> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> Reality has become just another special interest group.
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The Climate Change Climate Change
> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
> legislation.
> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
> Steve Fielding
> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
> even, if less reported, the U.S.
> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
> and-trade program.
> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
> Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
> published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
> underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
> printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
> columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
> pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
> including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
> beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
> sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
> scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
> The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
> like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
> his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
> delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
> get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
> easily swayed.
> Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
> renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
> attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
> skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
> assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
> team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
> This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for
> the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
> science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
> breaks for the winter.
> Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the
> cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light
> of the economic crisis. If
In the past, the Wall Street Journal has refused to publish op-eds that do not agree with their editorial policy, so I think it would be a waste of time. On the other hand, the news portion of the Wall Street Journal has published an article which is more or less reasonable about geoengineering, and they even posted an interview with myself and Dale Jamieson, although not very long. You can see these at:
There are really two different parts of the WSJ. When I asked the reporter, Bob Hotz, why the WSJ would publish these articles that propose a solution to a problem that they claims does not exist, he told me that the news part of the wSJ believes in using evidence to support what they write. The editorial part just believes.
Alan
Alan Robock, Professor II Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
> I would say this is a fitting moment for an op-ed rebuttal from > someone with the altitude to properly counter-- important not to let > these missives go unanswered. The speedier the better.
> One of the centerpieces of this article is a recent book "Heaven and > Earth", by a prominent Australian geologist. The book has drawn a > pointed critique from a fellow countryman, Barry Brook, also at the > University of Adelaide.
I see no reason why a rebuttal needs to show up in the same paper... either the NYT or WaPo would be perfectly acceptable alternates for instance. Perhaps with the WaPo as a slight preference in that there was an "inside the beltway" framing to the original piece.
I agree that it is probably unlikely that you would get equivalent positioning if it were in the WSJ. Though it is pure supposition on my part, I imagine that the hand of our dear friend Mr. Murdoch may be showing here... there have been some interesting pieces recently on the numerous small and not so small changes that have occurred since the transition. I have definitely gained a new appreciation for the strength of the investigative reporting and other facets of the old WSJ organization under the Bancrofts, slanted though it was.
D
On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Alan Robock <rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu>wrote:
> In the past, the Wall Street Journal has refused to publish op-eds that do > not agree with their editorial policy, so I think it would be a waste of > time. On the other hand, the news portion of the Wall Street Journal has > published an article which is more or less reasonable about geoengineering, > and they even posted an interview with myself and Dale Jamieson, although > not very long. You can see these at:
> There are really two different parts of the WSJ. When I asked the > reporter, Bob Hotz, why the WSJ would publish these articles that propose a > solution to a problem that they claims does not exist, he told me that the > news part of the wSJ believes in using evidence to support what they write. > The editorial part just believes.
> Alan
> Alan Robock, Professor II > Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program > Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction > Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222 > Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 > 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu > New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock<http://envsci.rutgers.edu/%7Erobock>
> On Sun, 28 Jun 2009, DW wrote:
>> I would say this is a fitting moment for an op-ed rebuttal from >> someone with the altitude to properly counter-- important not to let >> these missives go unanswered. The speedier the better.
>> One of the centerpieces of this article is a recent book "Heaven and >> Earth", by a prominent Australian geologist. The book has drawn a >> pointed critique from a fellow countryman, Barry Brook, also at the >> University of Adelaide.
Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the strong
influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling
cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record
but no sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation
for 4 events we have is sunspots." -- especially for the perfect
correlation. You may have done this in earlier posts as I know that you
have mentioned it before, but I have not been able to find a reference in
your earlier contributions. Margaret
-- Margaret Leinen, PhD.
Climate Response Fund
119 S. Columbus Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
202-415-6545
> From: "Eugene I. Gordon" <euggor...@comcast.net>
> Reply-To: <euggor...@comcast.net>
> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:34 -0400
> To: <mmacc...@comcast.net>, 'Ken Caldeira'
> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>, 'Dan Whaley' <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global warming
> based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a big
> number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The honest
> position is that everything we think we know about climate science, none of
> which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and
> is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong influence of
> sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and
> there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no
> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation for 4
> events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is
> greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects, etc. etc.
> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the deniers. Take
> the position that the science is not well established, it is qualitative,
> and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the proxy
> record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not too
> distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP
> INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW.
> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
> -gene
> _____
> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
> Cc: Geoengineering
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to address
> these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of these. See:
> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003:
> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin of the
> American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand,
> pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The Relationship
> Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
> Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
> 287 pp.
> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there is
> the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well. It
> takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at times,
> but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a response
> trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
> Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that
> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth explained
> by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over 40 years
> ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting
> to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments.
> Explain, teach, explain.
> Mike
> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> Reality has become just another special interest group.
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The Climate Change Climate Change
> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
> legislation.
> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
> Steve Fielding
> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
> even, if less reported, the U.S.
> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
> and-trade program.
> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
> Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
> published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
> underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
> printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
> columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
> pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
> including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
> beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
> sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
> scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
> The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
> like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
> his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
> delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
> get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
> easily swayed.
> Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
> renewed science debate that he
One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95%
significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust,
smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of
science.
Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but
correlation should not be confused for causality.
Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with
will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some
other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
Sent from a limited typing keyboard
On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
> wrote:
> Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the
> strong
> influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/ > cooling
> cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy
> record
> but no sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
> correlation
> for 4 events we have is sunspots." -- especially for the perfect
> correlation. You may have done this in earlier posts as I know that
> you
> have mentioned it before, but I have not been able to find a
> reference in
> your earlier contributions. Margaret
> -- > Margaret Leinen, PhD.
> Climate Response Fund
> 119 S. Columbus Street
> Alexandria, VA 22314
> 202-415-6545
>> From: "Eugene I. Gordon" <euggor...@comcast.net>
>> Reply-To: <euggor...@comcast.net>
>> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:34 -0400
>> To: <mmacc...@comcast.net>, 'Ken Caldeira'
>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>, 'Dan Whaley' <dan.wha...@gmail.com
>> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
>> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global
>> warming
>> based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a
>> big
>> number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The
>> honest
>> position is that everything we think we know about climate science,
>> none of
>> which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a
>> role and
>> is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong
>> influence of
>> sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling
>> cycles, and
>> there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but
>> no
>> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
>> correlation for 4
>> events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is
>> greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects,
>> etc. etc.
>> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the
>> deniers. Take
>> the position that the science is not well established, it is
>> qualitative,
>> and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the
>> proxy
>> record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not
>> too
>> distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE
>> STOP
>> INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW.
>> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
>> -gene
>> _____
>> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
>> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
>> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
>> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
>> Cc: Geoengineering
>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to
>> address
>> these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of
>> these. See:
>> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
>> Karl, 2003:
>> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment,
>> Bulletin of the
>> American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
>> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really
>> understand,
>> pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The
>> Relationship
>> Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
>> Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University,
>> Houston TX,
>> 287 pp.
>> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then
>> there is
>> the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as
>> well. It
>> takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at
>> times,
>> but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a
>> response
>> trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
>> Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
>> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones,
>> like that
>> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth
>> explained
>> by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over
>> 40 years
>> ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
>> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not
>> reverting
>> to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of
>> arguments.
>> Explain, teach, explain.
>> Mike
>> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu
>> wrote:
>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street
>> Journal
>> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is
>> what you
>> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but
>> is now
>> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure
>> him
>> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
>> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
>> legislation.
>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member
>> of
>> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
>> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
>> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
>> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
>> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
>> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
>> Steve Fielding
>> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
>> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
>> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again
>> shifting.
>> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
>> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
>> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
>> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan
>> and
>> even, if less reported, the U.S.
>> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
>> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
>> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
>> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
>> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
>> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
>> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
>> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
>> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
>> and-trade program.
>> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma
>> Sen.
>> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
>> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
>> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
>> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
>> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
>> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
>> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
>> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
>> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
>> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
>> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its
>> position
>> that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
>> refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
>> The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
>> inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
>> since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
>> research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
>> hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
>> crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
>> require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
>> Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes
Oh for crying out loud. Go look at the most recent Scafetta papers which
use a 30 year time scale for the correlations, and then look at the
backcasted estimates. Then make your wager.
On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Ken Caldeira <kcalde...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95%
> significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust,
> smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
> Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of
> science.
> Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but
> correlation should not be confused for causality.
> Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with
> will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some
> other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
> Sent from a limited typing keyboard
> On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
> > wrote:
> > Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the
> > strong
> > influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/
> > cooling
> > cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy
> > record
> > but no sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
> > correlation
> > for 4 events we have is sunspots." -- especially for the perfect
> > correlation. You may have done this in earlier posts as I know that
> > you
> > have mentioned it before, but I have not been able to find a
> > reference in
> > your earlier contributions. Margaret
> > --
> > Margaret Leinen, PhD.
> > Climate Response Fund
> > 119 S. Columbus Street
> > Alexandria, VA 22314
> > 202-415-6545
> >> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> >> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> >> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
> >> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global
> >> warming
> >> based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a
> >> big
> >> number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The
> >> honest
> >> position is that everything we think we know about climate science,
> >> none of
> >> which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a
> >> role and
> >> is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong
> >> influence of
> >> sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling
> >> cycles, and
> >> there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but
> >> no
> >> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
> >> correlation for 4
> >> events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is
> >> greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects,
> >> etc. etc.
> >> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the
> >> deniers. Take
> >> the position that the science is not well established, it is
> >> qualitative,
> >> and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the
> >> proxy
> >> record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not
> >> too
> >> distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE
> >> STOP
> >> INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW.
> >> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
> >> -gene
> >> _____
> >> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
> >> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
> >> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
> >> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
> >> Cc: Geoengineering
> >> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> >> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to
> >> address
> >> these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of
> >> these. See:
> >> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
> >> Karl, 2003:
> >> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment,
> >> Bulletin of the
> >> American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
> >> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really
> >> understand,
> >> pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The
> >> Relationship
> >> Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
> >> Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University,
> >> Houston TX,
> >> 287 pp.
> >> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then
> >> there is
> >> the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as
> >> well. It
> >> takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at
> >> times,
> >> but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a
> >> response
> >> trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
> >> Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
> >> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones,
> >> like that
> >> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth
> >> explained
> >> by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over
> >> 40 years
> >> ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
> >> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not
> >> reverting
> >> to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of
> >> arguments.
> >> Explain, teach, explain.
> >> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street
> >> Journal
> >> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is
> >> what you
> >> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
> >> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but
> >> is now
> >> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> >> Reality has become just another special interest group.
> >> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> The Climate Change Climate Change
> >> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
> >> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
> >> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure
> >> him
> >> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
> >> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
> >> legislation.
> >> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member
> >> of
> >> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
> >> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
> >> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
> >> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
> >> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
> >> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
> >> Steve Fielding
> >> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
> >> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
> >> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again
> >> shifting.
> >> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
> >> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
> >> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
> >> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan
> >> and
> >> even, if less reported, the U.S.
> >> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
> >> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
> >> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
> >> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
> >> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
> >> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
> >> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
> >> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
> >> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
> >> and-trade program.
> >> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma
> >> Sen.
> >> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
> >> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
> >> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
> >> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
> >> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
> >> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
> >> chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
> >> warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
> >> Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
> >> religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
> >> Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its
> >> position
> >> that the science
<kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu> wrote:
> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal
> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you
> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now
> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> Reality has become just another special interest group.
So after years of science by consensus and UN authority the rules
change?
The 'deniers' can produce as much 'science' as the 'warmers'. Isn't it
about time that science returned to a basis of comparison and exchange
of research and thought? It seems that as the rice bowel appears to be
coming into jeopardy the AGW rhetoric becomes even more sustained and
frantic.
How can AGW science be considered legitimate when the believers are
unwilling to put their beliefs to the harsh tests of research
comparison and debate?
I am not going to take exception to what Ken or Tip Rouse says with respect
to climate science. My two cents plain (when I was growing up that was CO2
in water, called seltzer) is that they are over generalizing. I believe that
science is practiced as it has been in the last 350 years since the Royal
Society of London was organized. However, climate science has emerged into
the public arena and the public is the consumer. It is now climopolitical
science, corrupted by lawyers, politicians and VCs etc. who see fortunes to
be made by manipulating and distorting the science. In that arena it is
surely what the public believes that counts. The Republicans were in; now
the Democrats; the proclaimers, now the deniers. Give it 4 or 8 more years
and it will change again. And what better medium than the WSJ?
[mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Tip
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:20 PM
To: geoengineering
Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
On Jun 28, 1:35 am, Ken Caldeira
<kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu> wrote:
> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal > indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what > you believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is > now drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> Reality has become just another special interest group.
So after years of science by consensus and UN authority the rules change?
The 'deniers' can produce as much 'science' as the 'warmers'. Isn't it about
time that science returned to a basis of comparison and exchange of research
and thought? It seems that as the rice bowel appears to be coming into
jeopardy the AGW rhetoric becomes even more sustained and frantic.
How can AGW science be considered legitimate when the believers are
unwilling to put their beliefs to the harsh tests of research comparison and
debate?
Sometime back there was quite a literature about sunspot correlations with economic activity
So far as I recollect, its intent was to warn about infering causality from correlation
I used to ask my students whether the clouds were hurrying by because the trees were tickling their tummies ? or was it just that the trees were waving goodbye to the passing clouds ?
Sometimes they got the point
Peter
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@gmail.com>
To: "Margaret Leinen" <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org>
Cc: <euggor...@comcast.net>; "Mike MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net>; "Ken
Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>; "Dan Whaley"
<dan.wha...@gmail.com>; "Geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:11 PM
Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95%
> significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust,
> smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
> Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of
> science.
> Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but
> correlation should not be confused for causality.
> Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with
> will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some
> other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
> Sent from a limited typing keyboard
> On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
> > wrote:
>> Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the
>> strong
>> influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/
>> cooling
>> cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy
>> record
>> but no sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
>> correlation
>> for 4 events we have is sunspots." -- especially for the perfect
>> correlation. You may have done this in earlier posts as I know that
>> you
>> have mentioned it before, but I have not been able to find a
>> reference in
>> your earlier contributions. Margaret
>> -- >> Margaret Leinen, PhD.
>> Climate Response Fund
>> 119 S. Columbus Street
>> Alexandria, VA 22314
>> 202-415-6545
>>> From: "Eugene I. Gordon" <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>> Reply-To: <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:34 -0400
>>> To: <mmacc...@comcast.net>, 'Ken Caldeira'
>>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>, 'Dan Whaley'
>>> <dan.wha...@gmail.com
>>> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
>>> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global
>>> warming
>>> based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a
>>> big
>>> number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The
>>> honest
>>> position is that everything we think we know about climate science,
>>> none of
>>> which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a
>>> role and
>>> is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong
>>> influence of
>>> sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling
>>> cycles, and
>>> there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but
>>> no
>>> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
>>> correlation for 4
>>> events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is
>>> greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects,
>>> etc. etc.
>>> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the
>>> deniers. Take
>>> the position that the science is not well established, it is
>>> qualitative,
>>> and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the
>>> proxy
>>> record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not
>>> too
>>> distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE
>>> STOP
>>> INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW.
>>> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
>>> -gene
>>> _____
>>> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
>>> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
>>> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
>>> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
>>> Cc: Geoengineering
>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to
>>> address
>>> these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of
>>> these. See:
>>> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
>>> Karl, 2003:
>>> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment,
>>> Bulletin of the
>>> American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
>>> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really
>>> understand,
>>> pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The
>>> Relationship
>>> Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
>>> Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University,
>>> Houston TX,
>>> 287 pp.
>>> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then
>>> there is
>>> the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as
>>> well. It
>>> takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at
>>> times,
>>> but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a
>>> response
>>> trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
>>> Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
>>> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones,
>>> like that
>>> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth
>>> explained
>>> by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over
>>> 40 years
>>> ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
>>> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not
>>> reverting
>>> to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of
>>> arguments.
>>> Explain, teach, explain.
>>> Mike
>>> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu
>>> wrote:
>>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street
>>> Journal
>>> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is
>>> what you
>>> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
>>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but
>>> is now
>>> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
>>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure
>>> him
>>> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
>>> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
>>> legislation.
>>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member
>>> of
>>> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
>>> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
>>> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
>>> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
>>> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
>>> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
>>> Steve Fielding
>>> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
>>> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
>>> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again
>>> shifting.
>>> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
>>> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
>>> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
>>> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan
>>> and
>>> even, if less reported, the U.S.
>>> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
>>> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
>>> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
>>> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
>>> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
>>> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
>>> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
>>> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
>>> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
>>> and-trade program.
>>> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma
>>> Sen.
>>> Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
>>> U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
>>> summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
>>> receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
>>> last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
>>> nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
>>> chemist who contributed to
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 9:45 AM, Peter Read <pre...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> Sometime back there was quite a literature about sunspot correlations with
> economic activity
> So far as I recollect, its intent was to warn about infering causality from
> correlation
> I used to ask my students whether the clouds were hurrying by because the
> trees were tickling their tummies ? or was it just that the trees were
> waving goodbye to the passing clouds ?
> Sometimes they got the point
> Peter
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@gmail.com>
> To: "Margaret Leinen" <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org>
> Cc: <euggor...@comcast.net>; "Mike MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net>;
> "Ken
> Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>; "Dan Whaley"
> <dan.wha...@gmail.com>; "Geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:11 PM
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>> One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95%
>> significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust,
>> smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
>> Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of
>> science.
>> Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but
>> correlation should not be confused for causality.
>> Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with
>> will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some
>> other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
>> Sent from a limited typing keyboard
>> On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen <
>> mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
>> > wrote:
>> Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the
>>> strong
>>> influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/
>>> cooling
>>> cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy
>>> record
>>> but no sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
>>> correlation
>>> for 4 events we have is sunspots." -- especially for the perfect
>>> correlation. You may have done this in earlier posts as I know that
>>> you
>>> have mentioned it before, but I have not been able to find a
>>> reference in
>>> your earlier contributions. Margaret
>>> --
>>> Margaret Leinen, PhD.
>>> Climate Response Fund
>>> 119 S. Columbus Street
>>> Alexandria, VA 22314
>>> 202-415-6545
>>> From: "Eugene I. Gordon" <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>>> Reply-To: <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>>> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:34 -0400
>>>> To: <mmacc...@comcast.net>, 'Ken Caldeira'
>>>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>, 'Dan Whaley'
>>>> <dan.wha...@gmail.com
>>>> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
>>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>>> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
>>>> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global
>>>> warming
>>>> based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a
>>>> big
>>>> number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The
>>>> honest
>>>> position is that everything we think we know about climate science,
>>>> none of
>>>> which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a
>>>> role and
>>>> is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong
>>>> influence of
>>>> sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling
>>>> cycles, and
>>>> there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but
>>>> no
>>>> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect
>>>> correlation for 4
>>>> events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is
>>>> greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects,
>>>> etc. etc.
>>>> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the
>>>> deniers. Take
>>>> the position that the science is not well established, it is
>>>> qualitative,
>>>> and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the
>>>> proxy
>>>> record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not
>>>> too
>>>> distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE
>>>> STOP
>>>> INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW.
>>>> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
>>>> -gene
>>>> _____
>>>> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
>>>> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
>>>> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
>>>> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
>>>> Cc: Geoengineering
>>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>>> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to
>>>> address
>>>> these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of
>>>> these. See:
>>>> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
>>>> Karl, 2003:
>>>> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment,
>>>> Bulletin of the
>>>> American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
>>>> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really
>>>> understand,
>>>> pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The
>>>> Relationship
>>>> Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities,
>>>> Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University,
>>>> Houston TX,
>>>> 287 pp.
>>>> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then
>>>> there is
>>>> the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as
>>>> well. It
>>>> takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at
>>>> times,
>>>> but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a
>>>> response
>>>> trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie
>>>> Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
>>>> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones,
>>>> like that
>>>> there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth
>>>> explained
>>>> by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over
>>>> 40 years
>>>> ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again.
>>>> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not
>>>> reverting
>>>> to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of
>>>> arguments.
>>>> Explain, teach, explain.
>>>> Mike
>>>> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <
>>>> kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu
>>>> wrote:
>>>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street
>>>> Journal
>>>> indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is
>>>> what you
>>>> believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience.
>>>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but
>>>> is now
>>>> drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>>>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
>>>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>>>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>>>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>>>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure
>>>> him
>>>> on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
>>>> proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
>>>> legislation.
>>>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member
>>>> of
>>>> the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
>>>> to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
>>>> to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
>>>> number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
>>>> doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
>>>> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
>>>> Steve Fielding
>>>> Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
>>>> majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
>>>> through Congress is because the global warming tide is again
>>>> shifting.
>>>> It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
>>>> media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
>>>> disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
>>>> scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan
>>>> and
>>>> even, if less reported, the U.S.
>>>> In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
>>>> challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
>>>> President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
>>>> the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
>>>> Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
>>>> ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
>>>> among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
>>>> geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
>>>> government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
>>>> and-trade program.
>>>> The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma
>>>> Sen.
>>>> Jim Inhofe now
This is all very interesting but we all know that correlation doesn't infer
but does suggest causality. It should be sensible. However, do we forget
global warming and anthropogenic CO2 as simply an interesting correlation?
If there is some technical sense to the correlation it takes on a higher
significance. It is also true that the Maunder Minimum was a prolonged
period of no sunspots and apparently led to what turned out to be a
disastrous prolonged cooling. That was a particularly significant
correlation. There were also shorter correlations in about 1850 and 1960 and
current. I think the correlation has been perfect for a very limited number
of events for which there is data.
It is also true that global warmings and coolings have been recorded for
hundreds of thousands of years in ice core data and also in pacific mud
deposits. The core record is similar to the temperature change record of the
last 1000 years. Since the related CO2 data trails the temperature;
something else has got to be going on and sunspots are as good a possibility
as anything I know.
What I find so strange is that I would expect that such a strong correlation
would lead to a strong research activity to see if the causal aspects could
be established. I am not aware of such research except maybe some in Denmark
on clouds. That tells me that truth, understanding and science are not the
issue. It can tell you whatever you like. To each his own.
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Read [mailto:pe...@read.org.nz] On Behalf Of Peter Read
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:46 AM
To: Ken Caldeira; Margaret Leinen
Cc: Eugene I. Gordon; Mike MacCracken; Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley;
Geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
Sometime back there was quite a literature about sunspot correlations with
economic activity So far as I recollect, its intent was to warn about
infering causality from correlation I used to ask my students whether the
clouds were hurrying by because the trees were tickling their tummies ? or
was it just that the trees were waving goodbye to the passing clouds ?
Sometimes they got the point
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@gmail.com>
To: "Margaret Leinen" <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org>
Cc: <euggor...@comcast.net>; "Mike MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net>; "Ken
Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>; "Dan Whaley"
<dan.wha...@gmail.com>; "Geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:11 PM
Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95% > significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust, > smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
> Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of > science.
> Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but > correlation should not be confused for causality.
> Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with > will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some > other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
> Sent from a limited typing keyboard
> On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen > <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
> > wrote:
>> Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the >> strong influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 >> warming/ cooling cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles >> shown in the proxy record but no sunspot data to go with it. So the >> best data and perfect correlation for 4 events we have is sunspots." >> -- especially for the perfect correlation. You may have done this in >> earlier posts as I know that you have mentioned it before, but I have >> not been able to find a reference in your earlier contributions.
>> Margaret
>> --
>> Margaret Leinen, PhD.
>> Climate Response Fund
>> 119 S. Columbus Street
>> Alexandria, VA 22314
>> 202-415-6545
>>> From: "Eugene I. Gordon" <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>> Reply-To: <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:34 -0400
>>> To: <mmacc...@comcast.net>, 'Ken Caldeira'
>>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>, 'Dan Whaley'
>>> <dan.wha...@gmail.com
>>> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
>>> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global >>> warming based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you >>> produce a big number or high percentage then you are as bad as the >>> deniers. The honest position is that everything we think we know >>> about climate science, none of which has been subject to rigorous >>> test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and is causing some of the >>> warming but not all because the strong influence of sunspots has >>> been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and there >>> are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no >>> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation >>> for 4 events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we >>> have is greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current >>> effects, etc. etc.
>>> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the >>> deniers. Take the position that the science is not well established, >>> it is qualitative, and we simply do not know enough to be >>> quantitative. However the proxy record of 540 million years says it >>> will get warmer and in the not too distant future we will need to >>> control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 >>> TOMORROW.
>>> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
>>> -gene
>>> _____
>>> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com >>> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike >>> MacCracken
>>> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
>>> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
>>> Cc: Geoengineering
>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to >>> address these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple >>> of these. See:
>>> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
>>> Karl, 2003:
>>> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin >>> of the American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
>>> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really >>> understand, pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and >>> Society: The Relationship Between Policy and Research in National >>> Laboratories, Universities, Government, and Industry, November 1-2, >>> 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
>>> 287 pp.
>>> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then >>> there is the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of >>> others as well. It takes time (and time away from real research) and >>> is frustrating at times, but simply has to be done. I am very >>> surprised that there was now a response trying to address the >>> concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie Pittock being in >>> Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
>>> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like >>> that there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a >>> myth explained by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's >>> modeling of over 40 years ago-but up comes the myth again, and >>> again, and again.
>>> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not >>> reverting to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types >>> of arguments.
>>> Explain, teach, explain.
>>> Mike
>>> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" >>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu
>>> wrote:
>>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street >>> Journal indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it >>> is what you believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with >>> experience.
>>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but >>> is now drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
>>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure >>> him on the science of man-made global warming. When the >>> administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote >>> against climate-change legislation.
>>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member >>> of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives >>> prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is >>> preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A >>> growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens >>> once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
>>> [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
> This is all very interesting but we all know that correlation doesn't infer
> but does suggest causality. It should be sensible. However, do we forget
> global warming and anthropogenic CO2 as simply an interesting correlation?
> If there is some technical sense to the correlation it takes on a higher
> significance. It is also true that the Maunder Minimum was a prolonged
> period of no sunspots and apparently led to what turned out to be a
> disastrous prolonged cooling. That was a particularly significant
> correlation. There were also shorter correlations in about 1850 and 1960
> and
> current. I think the correlation has been perfect for a very limited number
> of events for which there is data.
> It is also true that global warmings and coolings have been recorded for
> hundreds of thousands of years in ice core data and also in pacific mud
> deposits. The core record is similar to the temperature change record of
> the
> last 1000 years. Since the related CO2 data trails the temperature;
> something else has got to be going on and sunspots are as good a
> possibility
> as anything I know.
> What I find so strange is that I would expect that such a strong
> correlation
> would lead to a strong research activity to see if the causal aspects could
> be established. I am not aware of such research except maybe some in
> Denmark
> on clouds. That tells me that truth, understanding and science are not the
> issue. It can tell you whatever you like. To each his own.
> For my taste sunspots are important.
> -gene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Read [mailto:pe...@read.org.nz] On Behalf Of Peter Read
> Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:46 AM
> To: Ken Caldeira; Margaret Leinen
> Cc: Eugene I. Gordon; Mike MacCracken; Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley;
> Geoengineering
> Subject: Re: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Sometime back there was quite a literature about sunspot correlations with
> economic activity So far as I recollect, its intent was to warn about
> infering causality from correlation I used to ask my students whether the
> clouds were hurrying by because the trees were tickling their tummies ? or
> was it just that the trees were waving goodbye to the passing clouds ?
> Sometimes they got the point
> Peter
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@gmail.com>
> To: "Margaret Leinen" <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org>
> Cc: <euggor...@comcast.net>; "Mike MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net>;
> "Ken
> Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>; "Dan Whaley"
> <dan.wha...@gmail.com>; "Geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:11 PM
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> > One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95%
> > significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust,
> > smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
> > Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of
> > science.
> > Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but
> > correlation should not be confused for causality.
> > Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with
> > will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some
> > other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
> > Sent from a limited typing keyboard
> > On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen
> > <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
> > > wrote:
> >> Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the
> >> strong influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4
> >> warming/ cooling cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles
> >> shown in the proxy record but no sunspot data to go with it. So the
> >> best data and perfect correlation for 4 events we have is sunspots."
> >> -- especially for the perfect correlation. You may have done this in
> >> earlier posts as I know that you have mentioned it before, but I have
> >> not been able to find a reference in your earlier contributions.
> >> Margaret
> >> --
> >> Margaret Leinen, PhD.
> >> Climate Response Fund
> >> 119 S. Columbus Street
> >> Alexandria, VA 22314
> >> 202-415-6545
> >>> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> >>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> >>> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
> >>> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global
> >>> warming based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you
> >>> produce a big number or high percentage then you are as bad as the
> >>> deniers. The honest position is that everything we think we know
> >>> about climate science, none of which has been subject to rigorous
> >>> test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and is causing some of the
> >>> warming but not all because the strong influence of sunspots has
> >>> been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and there
> >>> are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no
> >>> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation
> >>> for 4 events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we
> >>> have is greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current
> >>> effects, etc. etc.
> >>> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the
> >>> deniers. Take the position that the science is not well established,
> >>> it is qualitative, and we simply do not know enough to be
> >>> quantitative. However the proxy record of 540 million years says it
> >>> will get warmer and in the not too distant future we will need to
> >>> control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2
> >>> TOMORROW.
> >>> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
> >>> -gene
> >>> _____
> >>> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
> >>> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike
> >>> MacCracken
> >>> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
> >>> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
> >>> Cc: Geoengineering
> >>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> >>> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to
> >>> address these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple
> >>> of these. See:
> >>> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
> >>> Karl, 2003:
> >>> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin
> >>> of the American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
> >>> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really
> >>> understand, pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and
> >>> Society: The Relationship Between Policy and Research in National
> >>> Laboratories, Universities, Government, and Industry, November 1-2,
> >>> 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
> >>> 287 pp.
> >>> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then
> >>> there is the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of
> >>> others as well. It takes time (and time away from real research) and
> >>> is frustrating at times, but simply has to be done. I am very
> >>> surprised that there was now a response trying to address the
> >>> concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie Pittock being in
> >>> Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
> >>> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like
> >>> that there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a
> >>> myth explained by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's
> >>> modeling of over 40 years ago-but up comes the myth again, and
> >>> again, and again.
> >>> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not
> >>> reverting to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types
> >>> of arguments.
> >>> Explain, teach, explain.
> >>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street
> >>> Journal indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it
> >>> is what you believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with
> >>> experience.
> >>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but
> >>> is now drowning in a sea of medievalism.
> >>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
> >>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
Sunspots can affect weather thermally and perhaps via some form of radiation affect cloud condensation.
Weather changes would certainly affect food production.
World food production is likely to influence levels of optimism, market sentiment, financial confidence etc. and so the incidence of recessions. It is a bit harder to see how crooked bankers can change solar physics.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering and Electronics
University of Edinburgh
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3JL
Scotland
tel +44 131 650 5704
fax +44 131 650 5702
Mobile 07795 203 195
S.Sal...@ed.ac.uk
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
Eugene I. Gordon wrote:
> This is all very interesting but we all know that correlation doesn't infer
> but does suggest causality. It should be sensible. However, do we forget
> global warming and anthropogenic CO2 as simply an interesting correlation?
> If there is some technical sense to the correlation it takes on a higher
> significance. It is also true that the Maunder Minimum was a prolonged
> period of no sunspots and apparently led to what turned out to be a
> disastrous prolonged cooling. That was a particularly significant
> correlation. There were also shorter correlations in about 1850 and 1960 and
> current. I think the correlation has been perfect for a very limited number
> of events for which there is data.
> It is also true that global warmings and coolings have been recorded for
> hundreds of thousands of years in ice core data and also in pacific mud
> deposits. The core record is similar to the temperature change record of the
> last 1000 years. Since the related CO2 data trails the temperature;
> something else has got to be going on and sunspots are as good a possibility
> as anything I know.
> What I find so strange is that I would expect that such a strong correlation
> would lead to a strong research activity to see if the causal aspects could
> be established. I am not aware of such research except maybe some in Denmark
> on clouds. That tells me that truth, understanding and science are not the
> issue. It can tell you whatever you like. To each his own.
> For my taste sunspots are important.
> -gene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Read [mailto:pe...@read.org.nz] On Behalf Of Peter Read
> Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:46 AM
> To: Ken Caldeira; Margaret Leinen
> Cc: Eugene I. Gordon; Mike MacCracken; Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley;
> Geoengineering
> Subject: Re: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Sometime back there was quite a literature about sunspot correlations with
> economic activity So far as I recollect, its intent was to warn about
> infering causality from correlation I used to ask my students whether the
> clouds were hurrying by because the trees were tickling their tummies ? or
> was it just that the trees were waving goodbye to the passing clouds ?
> Sometimes they got the point
> Peter
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@gmail.com>
> To: "Margaret Leinen" <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org>
> Cc: <euggor...@comcast.net>; "Mike MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net>; "Ken
> Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>; "Dan Whaley"
> <dan.wha...@gmail.com>; "Geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:11 PM
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>> One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95% >> significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust, >> smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
>> Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of >> science.
>> Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but >> correlation should not be confused for causality.
>> Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with >> will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some >> other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
>> Sent from a limited typing keyboard
>> On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen >> <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
>>> wrote:
>>> Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the >>> strong influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 >>> warming/ cooling cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles >>> shown in the proxy record but no sunspot data to go with it. So the >>> best data and perfect correlation for 4 events we have is sunspots." >>> -- especially for the perfect correlation. You may have done this in >>> earlier posts as I know that you have mentioned it before, but I have >>> not been able to find a reference in your earlier contributions.
>>> Margaret
>>> --
>>> Margaret Leinen, PhD.
>>> Climate Response Fund
>>> 119 S. Columbus Street
>>> Alexandria, VA 22314
>>> 202-415-6545
>>>> From: "Eugene I. Gordon" <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>>> Reply-To: <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>>> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:34 -0400
>>>> To: <mmacc...@comcast.net>, 'Ken Caldeira'
>>>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>, 'Dan Whaley'
>>>> <dan.wha...@gmail.com
>>>> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
>>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>>> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
>>>> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global >>>> warming based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you >>>> produce a big number or high percentage then you are as bad as the >>>> deniers. The honest position is that everything we think we know >>>> about climate science, none of which has been subject to rigorous >>>> test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and is causing some of the >>>> warming but not all because the strong influence of sunspots has >>>> been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and there >>>> are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no >>>> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation >>>> for 4 events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we >>>> have is greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current >>>> effects, etc. etc.
>>>> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the >>>> deniers. Take the position that the science is not well established, >>>> it is qualitative, and we simply do not know enough to be >>>> quantitative. However the proxy record of 540 million years says it >>>> will get warmer and in the not too distant future we will need to >>>> control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 >>>> TOMORROW.
>>>> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
>>>> -gene
>>>> _____
>>>> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com >>>> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike >>>> MacCracken
>>>> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
>>>> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
>>>> Cc: Geoengineering
>>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>>> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to >>>> address these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple >>>> of these. See:
>>>> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
>>>> Karl, 2003:
>>>> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin >>>> of the American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
>>>> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really >>>> understand, pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and >>>> Society: The Relationship Between Policy and Research in National >>>> Laboratories, Universities, Government, and Industry, November 1-2, >>>> 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
>>>> 287 pp.
>>>> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then >>>> there is the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of >>>> others as well. It takes time (and time away from real research) and >>>> is frustrating at times, but simply has to be done. I am very >>>> surprised that there was now a response trying to address the >>>> concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie Pittock being in >>>> Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
>>>> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like >>>> that there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a >>>> myth explained by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's >>>> modeling of over 40 years ago-but up comes the myth again, and >>>> again, and again.
>>>> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not >>>> reverting to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types >>>> of arguments.
>>>> Explain, teach, explain.
>>>> Mike
>>>> On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" >>>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu
>>>> wrote:
>>>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street >>>> Journal indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it >>>> is what you believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with >>>> experience.
>>>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but >>>> is now drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>>>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
Eugene I. Gordon wrote:
> This is all very interesting but we all know that correlation doesn't infer
> but does suggest causality. It should be sensible. However, do we forget
> global warming and anthropogenic CO2 as simply an interesting correlation?
> If there is some technical sense to the correlation it takes on a higher
> significance. It is also true that the Maunder Minimum was a prolonged
> period of no sunspots and apparently led to what turned out to be a
> disastrous prolonged cooling. That was a particularly significant
> correlation. There were also shorter correlations in about 1850 and 1960 and
> current. I think the correlation has been perfect for a very limited number
> of events for which there is data.
> It is also true that global warmings and coolings have been recorded for
> hundreds of thousands of years in ice core data and also in pacific mud
> deposits. The core record is similar to the temperature change record of the
> last 1000 years. Since the related CO2 data trails the temperature;
> something else has got to be going on and sunspots are as good a possibility
> as anything I know.
> What I find so strange is that I would expect that such a strong correlation
> would lead to a strong research activity to see if the causal aspects could
> be established. I am not aware of such research except maybe some in Denmark
> on clouds. That tells me that truth, understanding and science are not the
> issue. It can tell you whatever you like. To each his own.
> For my taste sunspots are important.
> -gene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Read [mailto:pe...@read.org.nz] On Behalf Of Peter Read
> Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:46 AM
> To: Ken Caldeira; Margaret Leinen
> Cc: Eugene I. Gordon; Mike MacCracken; Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley;
> Geoengineering
> Subject: Re: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
> Sometime back there was quite a literature about sunspot correlations with
> economic activity So far as I recollect, its intent was to warn about
> infering causality from correlation I used to ask my students whether the
> clouds were hurrying by because the trees were tickling their tummies ? or
> was it just that the trees were waving goodbye to the passing clouds ?
> Sometimes they got the point
> Peter
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@gmail.com>
> To: "Margaret Leinen" <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org>
> Cc: <euggor...@comcast.net>; "Mike MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net>; "Ken
> Caldeira" <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>; "Dan Whaley"
> <dan.wha...@gmail.com>; "Geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:11 PM
> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>> One out of every 20 time series show spurious correlation at the 95% >> significance level ( and even more if you let me choose how to adjust, >> smooth, truncate, or detrend the data).
>> Causal mechanisms leading to successful prediction are the hallmark of >> science.
>> Correlations are good motivators to look for causal explanation but >> correlation should not be confused for causality.
>> Who would like to wager that the correlation that Eugene comes up with >> will not depend on detrending, smoothing, truncation of data, or some >> other manipulation to acheive it's purported statistical significance?
>> Sent from a limited typing keyboard
>> On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56, Margaret Leinen >> <mlei...@climateresponsefund.org
>>> wrote:
>>> Eugene, Can you provide reference(s) for the sunspot work: "the >>> strong influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 >>> warming/ cooling cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles >>> shown in the proxy record but no sunspot data to go with it. So the >>> best data and perfect correlation for 4 events we have is sunspots." >>> -- especially for the perfect correlation. You may have done this in >>> earlier posts as I know that you have mentioned it before, but I have >>> not been able to find a reference in your earlier contributions.
>>> Margaret
>>> --
>>> Margaret Leinen, PhD.
>>> Climate Response Fund
>>> 119 S. Columbus Street
>>> Alexandria, VA 22314
>>> 202-415-6545
>>>> From: "Eugene I. Gordon" <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>>> Reply-To: <euggor...@comcast.net>
>>>> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:34 -0400
>>>> To: <mmacc...@comcast.net>, 'Ken Caldeira'
>>>> <kcalde...@globalecology.stanford.edu>, 'Dan Whaley'
>>>> <dan.wha...@gmail.com
>>>> Cc: 'Geoengineering' <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
>>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>>> Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure?
>>>> Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global >>>> warming based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you >>>> produce a big number or high percentage then you are as bad as the >>>> deniers. The honest position is that everything we think we know >>>> about climate science, none of which has been subject to rigorous >>>> test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and is causing some of the >>>> warming but not all because the strong influence of sunspots has >>>> been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and there >>>> are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no >>>> sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation >>>> for 4 events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we >>>> have is greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current >>>> effects, etc. etc.
>>>> If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the >>>> deniers. Take the position that the science is not well established, >>>> it is qualitative, and we simply do not know enough to be >>>> quantitative. However the proxy record of 540 million years says it >>>> will get warmer and in the not too distant future we will need to >>>> control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 >>>> TOMORROW.
>>>> Knee jerk reactions are not useful.
>>>> -gene
>>>> _____
>>>> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com >>>> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike >>>> MacCracken
>>>> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM
>>>> To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley
>>>> Cc: Geoengineering
>>>> Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
>>>> Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to >>>> address these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple >>>> of these. See:
>>>> MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T.
>>>> Karl, 2003:
>>>> Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin >>>> of the American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723.
>>>> MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really >>>> understand, pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and >>>> Society: The Relationship Between Policy and Research in National >>>> Laboratories, Universities, Government, and Industry, November 1-2, >>>> 2003, Rice University, Houston TX,
>>>> 287 pp.
>>>> And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then >>>> there is the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of >>>> others as well. It takes time (and time away from real research) and >>>> is frustrating at times, but simply has to be done. I am very >>>> surprised that there was now a response trying to address the >>>> concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie Pittock being in >>>> Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.).
>>>> But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like >>>> that there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a >>>> myth explained by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's >>>> modeling of over 40 years ago-but up comes the myth again, and >>>> again, and again.
>>>> We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not >>>> reverting to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types >>>> of arguments.
>>>> Explain, teach, explain.
>>>> That something like this would be published in The Wall Street >>>> Journal indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it >>>> is what you believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with >>>> experience.
>>>> Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but >>>> is now drowning in a sea of medievalism.
>>>> Reality has become just another special interest group.
>>>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> The Climate Change Climate Change
>>>> The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
>>>> By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
>>>> Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure >>>> him on the science of man-made global warming. When the >>>> administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote >>>> against climate-change legislation.
>>>> If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member >>>> of the Australian Senate.
It is news that someone can actually predict sunsot activity . Assuming that is the case we can expect increased warming and more urgent need for geoengineering. We cannot predict reliably tomorrows' weather but we can predict next years climate???
The combination of low sunspot activity and La Niña has led to cooler
global temperatures since 1998. However, despite this, the Arctic sea
ice has been retreating and breaking records (see Albert's email
yesterday on the "Geoengineering seminar" topic).
Thus there is now a significant possibility* of a seasonally ice-free
Arctic ocean within two or three years. Suppose SRM with stratospheric
aerosol proves problematic. If we are to get the Salter/Latham cloud
brightening technique working and scaled up, sufficient to cool the
water entering the Arctic, we need to press ahead. It is a matter of
will. This is not like putting a man on the moon!
Cheers,
John
*P.S. Any probability over 1% would be extremely significant, given
the risks from methane out-gassing, etc., if the ice disappears.
Eugene I. Gordon wrote:
It is news that someone can actually predict sunsot activity . Assuming that
is the case we can expect increased warming and more urgent need for
geoengineering. We cannot predict reliably tomorrows' weather but we can
predict next years climate???
-----Original Message-----
From: John Nissen [mailto:jn@cloudworld.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 4:41 AM
To: wigley@ucar.edu
Cc: euggordon@comcast.net; 'Peter Read'; 'Ken Caldeira'; 'Margaret Leinen';
'Mike MacCracken'; 'Ken Caldeira'; 'Dan Whaley'; 'Geoengineering'
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism
Concerning sunspots, we can expect much increased activity over next few
years:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/Sunspot-bfly.gif
And here is some news about El Niño:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1908533,00.html?xid=rss-topst
ories
So we can expect global temperatures to rise, and possibly the Arctic sea
ice to retreat even faster!
Are we prepared?
Cheers,
John
Tom Wigley wrote:
Gene,
You never responded to Margaret's question (or perhaps I missed it).
Tom.
+++++++++++++++++++
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