Debunking AGW: Ten of the Best Climate Research Papers (Nine Peer-Reviewed)
zobon
A Note from Cohenite
September 10 2008.
The accusation of a lack of peer review (PR) by those who mount
arguments against anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is at the heart of
the elitism, consensus and ad hominem approach used by many supporters
of AGW.
It is a red herring.
Science should be like the Law; transparent and universally accessible.
It should not be used by specialists to dominate the general populace,
or to promulgate ideological based alterations to the social and
economic structure.
Nor should it be used to stifle debate because, apart from anything
else, the importance of science is diminished by such oppression.
Because the AGW advocates have used such tactics, and been supported by
a sizeable proportion of the mainstream media, the importance of blogs
has grown.
Their importance has also been highlighted by the degree of vitriol
leveled at anti-AGW sites.
Most of all the PR argument is simply wrong.
As a layman my AGW education curve has been steep.
But it has been informed by a number of peer reviewed papers which have
provided substantial critiques of AGW.
In the interest of providing a rebuttal to the insidious PR stigma I
present my 'top 10' papers which mount arguments against AGW, nine of
them peer-reviewed.
I have had to exclude a number of valuable articles; the McLean and
Quirk paper on the Great Pacific Climate Change was my first exposure to
the misrepresentation of temperature base periods; the first Beck paper
is a notable exclusion; the castigation against Beck was particularly
condescending and elitist, no doubt because he does not have a PhD;
likewise none of the valuable contributions made by Monckton, Watts,
Castles, Hughes, Lucia, Bob Tisdale or Steve Short are eligible.
But I am going to list 10 papers, and start with a non peer-reviewed
paper as an exception because of his sustained and exemplary efforts,
any one of which is worthy of a Doctorate.
1. Steve McIntyre's Ohio State University Address;
How do we "know" that 1998 was the warmest year of the millennium? (May
16, 2008)
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/ohio.pdf
This is a seminal paper which synthesizes all the errors and
obfuscations to do with the Hockey Stick. It also demonstrates McIntyre's
methodical, scientific and unadorned approach to the issue.
2. Craig Loehle's paper;
A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-tree ring
proxies, Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058. 2007
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025
This paper was important because it was a counterpoise to Mann's
tree-ring data and provided good support for the Medieval Warming
Period, a major obstacle to AGW.
3.Douglass, Christy et al; this is the first of the GCM critiques;
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions.
International Journal of Climatology, 2007
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3058
This paper really touched a nerve and the level of hostility leveled at
it was astounding; it mostly boiled down to nit-picking about Raobcore
data and whether a falsification was distinct from a bias. The second
link is to an addendum to the paper; comments 69-74 are entertaining.
4.Koutsoyiannis et al;
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/850
Assessment of the reliability of climate predictions based on
comparisons with historical time series. Geophysical Research
Abstracts, 2008
This link is to the first presentation. This was a crucial paper; it
covered the 18 year predictive history of the GCM's on a regional basis;
regionalism is the Achilles Heel of AGW.
5.Stockwell;
http://landshape.org/stats/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/article.pdf
Tests of Regional Climate Model Validity in the Drought Exceptional
Circumstances Report. 2008
This paper did the job on CSIRO and demonstrated the political imput
into the AGW science.
6. Misckolczi;
Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary Atmospheres. Quarterly
Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Vol. 111, No. 1,
January-March 2007, pp. 1-40.
http://met.hu/doc/idojaras/vol111001_01.pdf
This is my favourite. It has everything; the dead hand of AGW
censorship, and the demolition of the AGW's semi-infinite opaque layered
atmosphere. People have quibbled about the Kirchhoff equations but
Miskolczian -ve feedbacks have been established.
7. Essex, McKitrick, Andresen;
Does a Global Temperature Exist? Journal of
Non-EquilibriumThermodynamics, 32 (1) 1-27. 2007
http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/JNETDY.2007.001?cookieSet=1
The fallacy of a global average temperature was taken to task in this
paper, and, again, the reaction was hostile. This paper wittily compared
averaging temperature to averaging the phone book; an important addition
to the regionalism lexicon.
8. Spencer and Braswell;
Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A simple
Model Demonstration, Journal of Climate.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008JCLI2253.1No list would be complete without Mr Cloud and -ve feedback. As well,Spencer has been a bastion of reliable temperature data. This was stilla close call. Minschwaner and Dessler's paper on RH decline as aresponse to increasing CO2 is a crucial paper, conforming to Miskolczi'sfeedbacks.9.Chilingar;Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO2 Emission, Energy Sources, Part A:Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects. Volume 30, Issue 1,January 2008 , pages 1 - 9http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15567030701568727An important paper about convective heat transfer which relegates CO2radiative heating to its proper subordinate position; and incorporatesatmospheric pressure as a heating factor. Thanks to Louis for alertingme to the paper. An honourable mention to the Gerlich and Tscheuschnerpaper on the fallacy of the greenhouse concept and a host of othererrors AGW science makes.10. Pielke Sr et al;Unresolved issues with the assessment of multidecadal global landsurface temperature trends. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol 112.2007.http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/R-321.pdfAn elegant paper which uses Stefan-Boltzman to support regionalism andshow that the notion of a radiative imbalance is defeated by regionaltemperature based energy differentials. Somewhat superfluous since AR4,FIG 1 shows no global radiative imbalance.Given the above, what 10 papers can AGW supporters produce to vindicateAGW?--Warmest RegardsBonzo: "They don't tell you, that, in their computer models, it's assumedthat CO2 drives global warming. In other words, you assume the resultand say the computer model proves we were right. It's garbage in,garbage out. If you don't program the computers to cause temperatures torise with CO2, then you have nothing." Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, ProfessorEmeritus Geology, Western Washington University
Lloyd
> Ten of the Best Climate Research Papers (Nine Peer-Reviewed)
>
> A Note from Cohenite
>
> September 10 2008.
>
> The accusation of a lack of peer review (PR) by those who mount
> arguments against anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is at the heart of
> the elitism, consensus and ad hominem approach used by many supporters
> of AGW.
>
> It is a red herring.
>
You are a fool.
> Science should be like the Law; transparent and universally accessible.
>
> It should not be used by specialists to dominate the general populace,
> or to promulgate ideological based alterations to the social and
> economic structure.
Yeah, and let's let amateurs do brain surgery too.
>
> Nor should it be used to stifle debate because, apart from anything
> else, the importance of science is diminished by such oppression.
>
> Because the AGW advocates have used such tactics, and been supported by
> a sizeable proportion of the mainstream media, the importance of blogs
> has grown.
>
> Their importance has also been highlighted by the degree of vitriol
> leveled at anti-AGW sites.
>
> Most of all the PR argument is simply wrong.
Liar.
>
> As a layman my AGW education curve has been steep.
LOL
>
> But it has been informed by a number of peer reviewed papers which have
> provided substantial critiques of AGW.
>
It has not.
> In the interest of providing a rebuttal to the insidious PR stigma I
> present my 'top 10' papers which mount arguments against AGW, nine of
> them peer-reviewed.
>
> I have had to exclude a number of valuable articles; the McLean and
> Quirk paper on the Great Pacific Climate Change was my first exposure to
> the misrepresentation of temperature base periods; the first Beck paper
> is a notable exclusion; the castigation against Beck was particularly
> condescending and elitist, no doubt because he does not have a PhD;
> likewise none of the valuable contributions made by Monckton, Watts,
> Castles, Hughes, Lucia, Bob Tisdale or Steve Short are eligible.
>
> But I am going to list 10 papers, and start with a non peer-reviewed
> paper as an exception because of his sustained and exemplary efforts,
> any one of which is worthy of a Doctorate.
>
> 1. Steve McIntyre's Ohio State University Address;
Yeah, an address is a peer-reviewed paper. You are a fool.
>
> How do we "know" that 1998 was the warmest year of the millennium? (May
> 16, 2008)
>
> http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/ohio.pdf
>
> This is a seminal paper which synthesizes all the errors and
> obfuscations to do with the Hockey Stick. It also demonstrates McIntyre's
> methodical, scientific and unadorned approach to the issue.
>
McIntyre is not even a scientist.
> 2. Craig Loehle's paper;
>
> A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-tree ring
> proxies, Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058. 2007
>
"According to a search of WorldCat, a database of libraries, the
journal is found in only 25 libraries worldwide. And the journal is
not included in Journal Citation Reports, which lists the impact
factors for the top 6000 peer-reviewed journals.
The journal remains unknown to most scientists. “I really don’t know
what it is,” says Jay Famiglietti, editor-in-chief of Geophysical
Research Letters."
> http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025
>
> This paper was important because it was a counterpoise to Mann's
> tree-ring data and provided good support for the Medieval Warming
> Period, a major obstacle to AGW.
NAS validated Mann's work.
>
> 3.Douglass, Christy et al; this is the first of the GCM critiques;
>
> A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions.
> International Journal of Climatology, 2007
>
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/904914/A-comparison-of-tropical-temperature...
>
> http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3058
>
> This paper really touched a nerve and the level of hostility leveled at
> it was astounding; it mostly boiled down to nit-picking about Raobcore
> data and whether a falsification was distinct from a bias. The second
> link is to an addendum to the paper; comments 69-74 are entertaining.
>
> 4.Koutsoyiannis et al;
>
See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/how-red-are-my-proxies/
> http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/850
>
> Assessment of the reliability of climate predictions based on
> comparisons with historical time series. Geophysical Research
> Abstracts, 2008
>
And says nothing about AGW.
> This link is to the first presentation. This was a crucial paper; it
> covered the 18 year predictive history of the GCM's on a regional basis;
> regionalism is the Achilles Heel of AGW.
>
Sorry, you misunderstand the topic entirely.
> 5.Stockwell;
>
> http://landshape.org/stats/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/article.pdf
>
> Tests of Regional Climate Model Validity in the Drought Exceptional
> Circumstances Report. 2008
Uh, you said peer-reviewed papers. When and where was this published?
>
> This paper did the job on CSIRO and demonstrated the political imput
> into the AGW science.
>
> 6. Misckolczi;
>
> Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary Atmospheres. Quarterly
> Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Vol. 111, No. 1,
> January-March 2007, pp. 1-40.
Oh, the reknown Hungarian journals now. No self-respecting western
journal would publish him.
>
> http://met.hu/doc/idojaras/vol111001_01.pdf
>
> This is my favourite. It has everything; the dead hand of AGW
> censorship,
No, the standards of science.
>and the demolition of the AGW's semi-infinite opaque layered
> atmosphere. People have quibbled about the Kirchhoff equations but
> Miskolczian -ve feedbacks have been established.
>
> 7. Essex, McKitrick, Andresen;
>
> Does a Global Temperature Exist? Journal of
> Non-EquilibriumThermodynamics, 32 (1) 1-27. 2007
>
> http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/JNETDY.2007.001?cooki...
>
> The fallacy of a global average temperature was taken to task in this
> paper, and, again, the reaction was hostile. This paper wittily compared
> averaging temperature to averaging the phone book; an important addition
> to the regionalism lexicon.
So why wasn't it published in a journal dealing with climate science?
>
> 8. Spencer and Braswell;
>
> Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A simple
> Model Demonstration, Journal of Climate.
>
> http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%...list would be complete
How about all the articles in Science, Nature, et al? They outnumber
your list by several orders of magnitude. And some of yours you do
not give a citation for, and some are not even real journals. Some
were published in second or third-rate journals after being rejected
by the top journals.
us...@otaku-chan.com
I look foward to someone tackling it item by item.
bjacoby
> Amusing as it is try this 1000+ peer review papers skeptical of ACC/AGW
>
> I look foward to someone tackling it item by item.