Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Warmer1]

Scientist(s) to lose funding?

The word on the street is that if scientists aren't alarmist and refuse to claim that AGW is happening, that they will lose their funding. According to some people which adhere to that idea, this scientist has broken ranks with the international conspiracy to falsely promote AGW, which has now successfully infiltrated every single academy of science worldwide.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/12/us/drought-study/index.html?hpt=hp_t5

"The drought in Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota was the worst since record keeping began in 1895, even eclipsing the notorious Dust Bowl droughts of 1934 and 1936, said study leader Martin Hoerling, a NOAA meteorologist.

"The event was rare, and we estimated maybe a once in a couple of hundred years event," Hoerling said. "But for as extreme as it was, it didn't have any strong indications for early warning."
OMG! How dare he say that! Bye Bye funding!

[snip]

"The study was prepared by 20 scientists from several universities and NOAA."

So allegedly now 20 more that will lose their funding as well!??

Although he states that he is an advocate of global warming some people might say that he would not have received any funding at all unless he made the following claim;

"I'm an advocate of global warming because science tells me that greenhouse gases have warmed the planet by about 1 degree Celsius in the last 100 years. So there's no question about that," he said".

If these scientists don't lose some or all of their funding perhaps the proposed international alarmist conspiracy could become more suspect?

Or not

 

[CapelDodger]

If these scientists don't lose some or all of their funding perhaps the proposed international alarmist conspiracy could become more suspect?

Or not

My money's on not . Big surprise, eh?

The study is already being criticised, so Hoerling will be (no doubt unwillingly) promoted as a "climate heretic" under attack by "the Team". Direct quotes such as you provide will not be much in evidence. That's my prediction, anyway, for what it's worth. Not very "scientific" I'll concede, but then neither is AGW denial.

 

[CapelDodger]

I find this interesting (from the US National Science Foundation)

Thin, Low Arctic Clouds Played an Important Role in Widespread 2012 Greenland Ice Sheet Melt
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=127438&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click

Clouds over the central Greenland Ice Sheet last July were "just right" for driving surface temperatures there above the melting point, according to a new study by scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The study, published in the April 4 edition of the journal Nature, found that thin, low-lying clouds allowed the sun's energy to pass through and warm the surface of the ice, while at the same time trapping heat near the surface of the ice cap. This combination played a significant role in last summer's record-breaking melt.

This suggests that last summer's unusual melt-area in Greenland is more likely to be an outlier (like 1998 in the global surface temperature record) rather than a harbinger of future Greenland melt. Which is to say, not an immediate cause for alarm. Only time will tell, of course, but there's no obvious reasion for increased Greenland surface-melt to feed back into more cloud of this type.

"Clouds are still one of the greatest uncertainties in climate models. Even though the current climate models are generally correct, we need better measurements to improve them," said Walden, a professor in the geography department at the University of Idaho. "We're doing this to avoid future surprises, and we need to expand our knowledge of the details of how the climate operates."

I, for one, am glad that such work is being done. Uncertainty is not our friend.

 

[macdoc]

Yeah - they know of another similar melt 100 years or more back. A couple in the next decade would change things tho.

•••

While on melting - snips from the full article linked below

New Insight Into Accelerating Summer Ice Melt On the Antarctic Peninsula

http://images.sciencedaily.com/2013/04/130414193437-large.jpg

Edited by LashL: 

Changed hotlinked image to regular link.

Apr. 14, 2013 — A new 1,000-year Antarctic Peninsula climate reconstruction shows that summer ice melting has intensified almost ten-fold, and mostly since the mid-20th century. Summer ice melt affects the stability of Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers.
........

Lead author Dr Nerilie Abram of The Australian National University and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) says, "We found that the coolest conditions on the Antarctic Peninsula and the lowest amount of summer melt occurred around 600 years ago. At that time temperatures were around 1.6°C lower than those recorded in the late 20th Century and the amount of annual snowfall that melted and refroze was about 0.5%. Today, we see almost ten times as much (5%) of the annual snowfall melting each year.
"Summer melting at the ice core site today is now at a level that is higher than at any other time over the last 1000 years. And whilst temperatures at this site increased gradually in phases over many hundreds of years, most of the intensification of melting has happened since the mid-20th century.".......

Dr Abram concludes, "This new ice core record shows that even small changes in temperature can result in large increases in the amount of melting in places where summer temperatures are near to 0°C, such as along the Antarctic Peninsula, and this has important implications for ice instability and sea level rise in a warming climate."

This research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. Dr Abram is an Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Fellow.

complete article
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130414193437.htm

 

[Zeph]

There is couple of parts of the "climate scientists are lying to feather their own nests" conspiracy theory which I have yet to grasp. Maybe some of the believers, or those who study the believers, could explain.

How is it that pretty much every national academy and major scientific society in the world - north, south, east, west, capitalist, socialist, communist - has after study endorsed the basic premises of AGW? Only a small portion of the overall scientific community are climate scientists per se; for the bulk, diverting finite government science funding to climate science will if anything reduce their own funding, so they have a financial interest in being skeptical about AGW, to preserve their own budgets. And there are plenty of, say, physicists who even if not specializing in climate change (say, because they study solar dynamics) are extremely capable in sufficiently related fields as to be pretty well equipped to understand and analyze the publications of climate scientists. What mechanism is supposed to motivate the broader community of scientists to go against their self interest to so nearly uniformly support the claims of a relative few climate scientists, other than being honestly convinced by the evidence?

Also - while there is a kind of "common sense" appeal to the idea that climate scientists could gain funding by claiming that major climate changes are happening (raising the alarm), how would it be in their interest to say additionally that they have already almost certainly determined the major causes, and that those are largely human caused? In general, the way to increase your budget for future research is to say "we don't yet know but it's critical to find out". What would motivate nearly all of them to additionally endorse the unnecessary and perhaps counter-productive (to their funding) anthropogenic aspect as well? A lot of ongoing controversy over the causes combined with certainty that is IS happening, would make funding even higher priority.

By naming humans as the main cause, scientists are also shifting much of the attention (and potential funding) to mitigation and adaptation projects - to seawall engineering and land use policies and carbon trading and species migration paths etc. Having pointed the finger at carbon emissions, they are in essence calling for a far larger share of budgets than they receive, to go to other areas in which they can play at most a very minor role (compared to keeping center stay by saying "we don't know yet")? Why would they endorse *A*GW if that results in wasteful and unneeded mitigations and adaptations which they will themselves have to help pay for, if keeping the cause "uncertain" would provide better research funding without such unhelpful side effects?

Even for those who cannot honestly evaluate the fundamental science competently for themselves, a common sense look at the self-interest conspiracy theories in a little more depth seems to completely debunk their fundamental premises. The underlying model is that scientists are motivated by some mixture of objective scientific analysis and career self interest; the premise of the conspiracy theory is that the career self interest is so powerful that it has cause nearly all climate scientists from cultures around the world to nearly uniformly abandon scientific integrity in favor of self interst; but in fact the conspiracy requires that most of the world's scientists would have to endorse views which are both known to be scientifically false AND which are against their own self interest (with a statistically few exceptions on the latter point) - swimming upstream against both currents.

By contrast consider another hypothesis: what effect would we expect to see in the real world if the science was actually fundmentally sound? In that case we might expect that many scientists of many disciplines might after study publicly endorse the fundamentals of AGW - whether it was a benefit or detriment or irrelevant to their own funding - from some combination of (1) objective scientific evaluation, and (2) self interest as inhabitants of the planet which is being affected. That is, because it seems to be true and seems to be important (perhaps even important enough to override their immediate career self interest in some cases), to the best of their judgement. A small number would still be expected to hold to various different opinions, either because of a genuine difference in objective interpretation, or because they have some vested financial or psychological interest in not following the evidence - the system will never be free of all noise and bias, even if most scientists agree. And that "common sense" prediction of the real world results if the science was sound, seems to be exactly what IS happening. Unlike the conspiracy theories, there are no huge loose ends in explaining human motivations.

So how do the conspiracy theorists deal with these aspects? I'm not an expert on their thinking, but I've read some of their blogs, and I've never seen the points I mention here addressed there. Why do most scientists who will not benefit and may lose funding nevertheless endorse AGW, and what factor would drive a near seamless conspiracy to falsely and unnecessarily attribute the cause to humans?

(Yah, sure, perhaps you can find some scientists who just hate humans, or who are radical environmentalists, or who believe aliens want us to do this - but we need an explanation which covers nearly all scientific bodies around the world, from diverse economies and political systems and religions and cultures).

 

[Reality Check]

How is it that pretty much every national academy and major scientific society in the world - north, south, east, west, capitalist, socialist, communist - has after study endorsed the basic premises of AGW?

Because these national academies and major scientific societies consist of scientists who can evaluate the evidence and see that it is overwhelming for global warming and very strong for AGW.

So how do the conspiracy theorists deal with these aspects?

They deal with them by thinking that it is a conspiracy !
Usually they just ignore or deny them though.

 

[CapelDodger]

There is couple of parts of the "climate scientists are lying to feather their own nests" conspiracy theory which I have yet to grasp. Maybe some of the believers, or those who study the believers, could explain.

batvette tried to lay it out on page 218, and it seems to come down to "well they would, wouldn't they?", and doesn't actually require a conspiracy - they just all respond to the same stimuli in the same way. Unlike, say, batvette, who ploughs his own furrow.

Your point about the diversion of funding from other fields of study has always been the most glaring problem with the nest-feathering claim. Work that even threatens to do this is going to be subject to quality-checking like no other, unless one postulates that climate science is so specialised that only those involved (the enlightened ones) can judge it. Which it isn't, obviously.

The claim implicitly credits climate scientists with knowing that warming was coming before it was evident, but not because of AGW. Either that or they got seriously lucky, since had there been no warming, careers built on fabrication would have been terminated. Which, according to some, means every career in climate science except Christy's. (Emeritus doesn't count as in-career .) As it is it's not climate scientists who've been laughed off the stage, it's Monckton.

As you point out, if climate science is honest and competent the world would appear very much as it does. Only a strong need can conjure a conspiracy out of it.

 

[aleCcowaN]

...

So how do the conspiracy theorists deal with these aspects? I'm not an expert on their thinking, but I've read some of their blogs, and I've never seen the points I mention here addressed there. Why do most scientists who will not benefit and may lose funding nevertheless endorse AGW, and what factor would drive a near seamless conspiracy to falsely and unnecessarily attribute the cause to humans?

Replied in the thread devoted to that topic.

 

[macdoc]

Replied in the thread devoted to that topic.

Yes can we PLEASE keep this thread on climate science and mainstream AGW instead of giving the deniers a soapbox for their nonsense.

•••

'First Step' in Addressing Effects of Climate Change

Apr. 18, 2013 — A new report on the potential effects of climate change on NOAA's Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary uses existing observations and science-based expectations to identify how climate change could affect habitats, plants and animals within the sanctuary and adjacent coastal areas.

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130418154417.htm

The task ahead is to see regional forecasting come of age with regard to pending changes due to AGW and provide a basis for policy decisions region by region and eco-system by eco-system as many of the emerging changes cannot or will not be avoided and must be dealt with.

 

[Megalodon]

All the ones that think scientists are "fakin' it fo' tha moneyzz" should take a good look at a scientists paycheck... Because it's not like you're going to give yourself a raise and a pat in the back if your funding suddenly doubles. Might get you tenure and a couple of post-docs, but millions it won't.

Of course there are perks... long research cruises away from your family, exhausting and dangerous field trips to the poles, and routine work in freezers.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I am still waiting for one or many global warming deniers to answer to the question about sea level. To give more clues,





you have here the global mean sea level time series, raw and the one with signal removed (can you explain the reason for the signal that is removed and how it works?).

If you take a close look, there are periods of two years and more when the sea level remained unchanged, but they continued to tell us that the oceans were accumulating heat and the glaciers and ice sheets continued to melt but, no sea level change? However, there is a reasonable explanation (or would it be a excuse?) about all this.

Dear global warming denialist: can you conclude from this that global warming is a sham?
Dear global warming proponent: how can you stay so cool when this is really happening?

 

[macdoc]

All the ones that think scientists are "fakin' it fo' tha moneyzz" should take a good look at a scientists paycheck... Because it's not like you're going to give yourself a raise and a pat in the back if your funding suddenly doubles. Might get you tenure and a couple of post-docs, but millions it won't.

Of course there are perks... long research cruises away from your family, exhausting and dangerous field trips to the poles, and routine work in freezers.

Meanwhile every year delay in putting stricter carbon controls in place puts millions if not billions of additional dollars into the fossil fuel profits.
Just who IS motivated to mislead and confuse.....it's not the scientists....it's the ones like Koch and Exxon who stand to profit.

Well worth watching if you have not already
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

Yes Virginia there IS a conspiracy over climate change...
it's not however on the part of the science community.

 

[Mikemcc]

As a bit of a historic note, it's 75 years since fossil fuel use was first linked to temperature increases:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/apr/22/guy-callendar-climate-fossil-fuels

The original paper and review comments can be seen in full here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49706427503/pdf

 

[macdoc]

In April 1938, British amateur climatologist Guy Stewart Callendar wrote a paper that confirmed for the first time that the Earth is warming up. It helped kick start research into one of the world’s biggest scientific conundrums.

That happened exactly 75 years ago.

snip

“People were sceptical about some of Callendar’s results, partly because the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere was not very well known and because his estimates for the warming caused by CO2 were quite simplistic by modern standards,” Hawkins said in a statement.

Callendar’s estimates for the amount of observed warming have stood the test of time and agree remarkably well with more modern analysis of the same period, said Hawkins.

http://thestar.blogs.com/worlddaily/2013/04/75-years-ago-this-man-confirmed-global-warming.html

 

[metzomagic]

Very powerful film on the topic closest to our hearts released yesterday, Earth Day:

Thin Ice

It puts a face to a lot of the scientists we read about in the climate realm. The filmmaker made a few trips to Antarctica, and other remote places, to visit the climate scientists where they work: at the coal face, so to speak.

Hopefully, this will be more than just preaching to the converted. I didn't think much of the film's trailer, but the film itself turned out to be spot on.

 

[Warmer1]

Very powerful film on the topic closest to our hearts released yesterday, Earth Day:

Thin Ice

It puts a face to a lot of the scientists we read about in the climate realm.

Great program thanks!

All that hard work and dedication and yet the single most important evidence, in my opinion, that the scientific community cannot grasp is that they are on the defensive and effectively losing the war for hearts and minds. They are losing at the social game of selling and marketing this issue.

Some people would like to see the subject matter of this thread to be more focused on the relevant science, and that sounds great but the scientific community is losing this battle unless someone would like to show me evidence that great change is underway. Are there any regulars on this forum that believe that enough is being done?

Now we can all sit back once again and feel so wonderful about how the science is settled and hug each other while the Keystone XL gets approved.

As much as I feel that deniers can't, or refuse to try to understand climate science I believe that the scientific community also refuses to try to understand that they not winning the sales and marketing of the threat of AGW.

We are so collectively good at marketing that Lord Moncton can be considered credible and hold and audience.

So what should the scientific community do? We have answered a similar question on this thread. If you want the best understanding of climate science find the people that are the best in that field of science. If you want expert advice on sales and marketing go the the experts in that field.

I once again contend that warmer alarmists will not make the desired progress without the help of excellent sales and marketing people.


My humble opinion

 

[Warmer1]

75 years later and now 97% of the scientists agree with the science and yet what?, more science is needed??? or do a greater percentage of the public need to have a better understanding of what the world will be like for their children?

 

[macdoc]

Fantastic film - I begged them to keep it online for free and ask others to do the same - there is a contact link on the main page.- it's just too important. Circulate as much as possible. Thanks so much.

 

[macdoc]

Warmer - the US is not the centre of the universe and it's not up to the science community it's up to the policy makers.
Other countries are moving forward on emissions controls and so is Obama. Decent success on the coal front.
Ontario closes it's last coal station this year going from 25% coal for electricity to zero in a decade.

There is $7 trillion dollar fossil industry at stake in this and they will and are fighting back and buying votes in the US and elsewhere for slowing implementation of policies that will make them responsible for emissions of C02 and increase their cost of doing business.
Coal plants in the US are a very iffy investment these days and refurbishing old ones a non-starter.

Using terms like alarmist is counter productive and buys into the mind set the AGW deniers want to foster.

Industrial civilization is dealing with a risk with AGW and a serious one just as dealing with anti-vaxxers where there is a risk to public health.

Some countries, regions, cities, corporations and individuals are taking the AGW risk seriously and doing something about it and too many are not.
The film above may just move some of those not taking the risk seriously to do so.

 

[CapelDodger]

All that hard work and dedication and yet the single most important evidence, in my opinion, that the scientific community cannot grasp is that they are on the defensive and effectively losing the war for hearts and minds. They are losing at the social game of selling and marketing this issue.

I'm sure they're well-aware of that, but the social game is not really their business. Quite a few are getting involved as individuals - Hansen's going full-time, I think he's developed a taste for it - but they're amateurs in a professional league. Against a team fielding the entire Murdoch Press they have little to no chance.

The failing is in politicians, who have broadly recognised that there's a serious problem for at least fifteen years and yet have got no further than Kyoto (meant to be proof-of-principle, not the entire plan) and a binding pledge to agree a binding pledge in 2015.

That said, the politicians and diplomats are constrained by the international system, which is to say sovereign nation states and the UN as an all-purpose forum (or perhaps "stadium", to milk the sports analogy beyond all reason). It's better suited to an alien invasion than a home-grown, trans-national, unintentional and unprecedented emergent situation like this. The Montreal accord on CFC's flattered and deceived.

In national governments economic ministries (notoriously conservative and the longest-established) will continue to dominate cabinets, and will always find that this year is not a good year to do anything substantial about AGW, while fully acknowledging the seriousness - long-term seriousness - of the subject. Diplomats are framing a 2015 final statement that appears to satisfy the binding agreement to make a binding agreement without actually agreeing to bind anybody to anything until at least 2020 and preferably 2025.

We can confidently predict that fine words will be said about the seriousness with which this whole slow train-wreck is being observed. It's the future of our children at stake. Strict targets must be set. Challenging targets. Achievable targets, of course, not sudden "next year" targets which would simply discredit the whole vitally important endeavour. Our grandchildren's futures yadda-yadda. But one has to appreciate that AGW is but one element of the Early 21stCE Cluster-Hump (as history will no doubt refer to this period).

If I cared I'd despair, but I never expected anything different. The new world system which will emerge this century - the one which prises the dead hand of nation statehood from our necks - is what I prefer to speculate on, not least because I'm unlikely to survive long enough to be disappointed by it.