Of all the many Congressional hearings this week (see here), the one you can’t miss is the House Ways and Means Committee “Hearing on Scientific Objectives for Climate Change Legislation.” In announcing this hearing, Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) said:
The development of climate change legislation will be a priority for the Ways and Means Committee during the 111th Congress. The Committee must define the environmental objectives that we hope to achieve with climate change legislation before we can design such legislation. These objectives must be based on science.
What makes this a destination webcast are the witnesses:
- Dr. James Hansen, Adjunct Professor, The Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York, New York
- Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, Climate Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists
- Dr. John Christy, Director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Hansen, of course, is the nation’s leading climate scientist, who has arguably been right longer than any other U.S. scientist and thus always deserves our attention (see “Right for 27 years: 1981 Hansen study finds warming trend that could raise sea levels“).
Christy, of course, is one of the nation’s few remaining seriously credentialed deniers (or, more accurately, a delayer, inactivist, and denier-eq), who has arguably been wrong longer than any other serious denier-eq and thus deserves our inattention and scorn (see “Should you believe anything John Christy and Roy Spencer say?“). [A denier-eq is someone who pretends to accept the science as laid out by the IPCC, but who advances arguments and policy proposals that are no different from those who deny the science.]
Hansen and Christy have “met” before, and Hansen bitch-slapped him made a series of scientifically far more persuasive arguments:
In the Vermont case on the state’s effort to embrace California’s tailpipe GHG emissions standards, the car companies brought in Christy as an expert witness to rebut Hansen (see here). In one footnote on the sea level rise issue, the judge noted, “it appears that the bulk of scientific opinion opposes Christy’s position.” By the way, for all you deniers/delayers/doubters/denier-eqs, let me quote further from the judge:
There is widespread acceptance of the basic premises that underlie Hansen’s testimony. Plaintiffs’ own expert, Dr. Christy, agrees with the IPCC’s assessment that in the light of new evidence and taking into account remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last fifty years is likely to have been due to the increase in GHG concentrations. Tr. vol. 14-A, 145:18-148:7 (Christy, May 4, 2007). Christy agrees that the increase in carbon dioxide is real and primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, which changes the radiated balance of the atmosphere and has an impact on the planet’s surface temperature toward a warming rate. Id. at 168:11-169:10.
Christy also agreed that climate is a nonlinear system, that is, that its responses to forcings may be disproportionate, and rapid changes would be more difficult for human beings and other species to adapt to than more gradual changes. Id. at 175:2-174:11. He further agreed with Hansen that the regulation’s effect on radiative forcing will be proportional to the amount of emissions reductions, and that any level of emissions reductions will have at least some effect on the radiative forcing of the climate.
Christy is (mostly) a delayer or denier-eq these days, now that his denier disanalysis has been dissed and the real science is well verified by real observation.
Indeed, Christy was wrong — dead wrong — for a very long time, which created one of the most enduring denier myths, that the satellite data didn’t show the global warming that the surface temperature data did. As RealClimate wrote last year:
We now know, of course, that the satellite data set confirms that the climate is warming, and indeed at very nearly the same rate as indicated by the surface temperature records. Now, there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes when pursuing an innovative observational method, but Spencer and Christy sat by for most of a decade allowing — indeed encouraging — the use of their data set as an icon for global warming skeptics. They committed serial errors in the data analysis, but insisted they were right and models and thermometers were wrong. They did little or nothing to root out possible sources of errors, and left it to others to clean up the mess, as has now been done.
Amazingly (or not), the “serial errors in the data analysis” all pushed the (mis)analysis in the same, wrong direction. Coincidence? You decide. But I find it hilarious that the deniers and delayers still quote Christy/Spencer/UAH analysis lovingly, but to this day dismiss the “hockey stick” and anything Michael Mann writes, when his analysis was in fact vindicated by the august National Academy of Sciences in 2006 (see New Scientist’s “Climate myths: The ‘hockey stick’ graph has been proven wrong“).
The Vermont judge concluded:
Christy criticized the Hadley and Canadian models, suggesting that they were extreme and were downscaled unreliably. Tr. vol. 14-A, 121:13-122:4 (Christy, May 4, 2007). Although Christy testified that he had used climate models, however, he did not claim to be an expert on climate modeling. Id. at 78:20-79:3. In fact, his view of the reliability of climate models does not fall within the mainstream of climate scientists; his view is that models are, in general, “scientifically crude at best,” although they are used regularly by most climate scientists and he himself used the compiled results of a variety of climate models in preparing his report and testimony in this case.
You go, judge!
In December 2003, Christy said in a debate:
Restained glee. Yes, that’s going to be the reaction to widespread desertification, loss of the inland glaciers, mass extinction, sea level rise for century after century….
Christy has simply not earned the right to be paid attention to on climate, except by the conservatives who picked him as a witness and revel in the same disinformation.
Let’s hope that once again Hansen bitch-slaps him makes a series of scientifically far more persuasive arguments.
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I grow furious that once again we have to ponder whether this is idiocy or evil.
This is a crime. It may not have a name a clear as treason or treachery, but my future is robbed by such denialism, delay and distraction. Whether it is moronic or economic.
And Congress again disappoints by its rapt attention and false respect paid to such dangerous delusionalism.
I know that my glee is VERY restrained these days…
“This is a crime. It may not have a name a clear as treason or treachery”
Actually, it does: Crimes Against Humanity.
“You decide. But I find it hilarious that the deniers and delayers still quote Christy/Spencer/UAH analysis lovingly”
Contrarians (deniers/delayers) don’t care in the least about the quality of sources or data they are using. Their opposition to climate science isn’t about science. It’s about public relations. Since there isn’t credible science that disputes the consensus, they have no problem scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Actually there is a science that is studying the behavior that leads to deniers having the affect they do–and this is above and beyond any economic incentive (which, in this case is a crime against humanity), it is called motivated reasoning. Another example of it is Hansen writing his recent letter to President Obama in London after a flying there, or each of us who did not bicycle to work today . . .. It is the nature of motivated reasoning that we do not see our own contradictions as clearly as we can see those in that infamous “other.”
Christy and Spencer are well published in the literature. The satellite data ‘error’ was 0.035C, which was within the quoted margin for error of 0.05C. Slight cooling or slight warming, makes no difference, the missing greenhouse warming ‘fingerprint’ is still being debated in the literature. Also still debated in the literature are the unresolved issues and warm bias in the near surface data.
Paul Biggs,
Actually, there were a series of errors (discovered so far) in the Christy/Spencer dataset and some quite substantial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Satellite_temperature_measurements#The_satellite_temperature_record
One was a 40% global upward correction:
http://www.ssmi.com/papers/mears_science_2005.pdf
To expand on Joe’s point, this faulty data, picked apart numerous times, was used as a smoking gun among contrarians. Some of the articles are still promoted. One from 1997:
“During the past 20 years, atmospheric temperatures have actually tended to go down, as shown in the second chart, based on very reliable satellite data, which have been confirmed by measurements from weather balloons.”
http://www.junkscience.com/news/robinson.htm
They even had the gall to claim the data was “highly reliable”. Who should you tend to believe going forward?
Vernon,
You’re confusing the Wegman Report, a non-peer-reviewed document commissioned by a politician, with the NAS report.
Academy affirms hockey-stick graph
http://www.nature.com/ nature/ journal/ v441/ n7097/ full/ 4411032a.html
There is legitimate scientific dispute with the early reconstruction, namely with the statistical significance and confidence level applied to the full 1000 years of data. The NAS concluded less than high confidence can be applied to data beyond 400 years (which doesn’t mean little or no confidence). The dispute is a bit of a red herring. There have been numerous reconstructions since then, some with a bit more variability, but all indicating that global temperatures in recent decades have far exceeded anything seen the past 1000 years and likely 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Most recently, Mann and colleagues have updated their reconstruction, specifically with recommendations from the NAS, and published them in PNAS:
http://www.realclimate.org/ index.php/ archives/ 2008/ 09/ progress-in-millennial-reconstructions/
The “deniers” quote Christy and Spencer for two reasons: One, the erroneously believe the satellite data supports their claims of no warming. It doesn’t. The UAH group has been reporting a long-term global warming trend since the late 1990s. For whatever reason, people on both sides of this issue seem to be unable to wrap their brains around that simple fact, probably because it does not support their political agendas. And we all know that a political agenda is more important than something as esoteric and irrelevant as reality.
That is the second reason the deniers hang their hats on their own misanalyses of the UAH data: Because they (like the warming believers) want more than anything else to be proven right. Nothing else matters. If the data doesn’t support your side, resort to insults, half truths and outright lies. And the great tragedy in this is that a once meaningful environmental movement has apparently learned all too well the right-wing techniques of guilt by accusation, distortion, misrepresentation and insult. B-tch slap that.
Vernon,
Read the NAS report. What part of “overheating the planet just so some entrenched industries like coal can make a few more bucks is morally bankrupt, sick, inhuman” don’t people like you get?
Seriously! What part?
Mike
Richard Pauli –
The crime is called fraud: a false statement, or omission, of a material fact, made with knowledge (scienter) of its falsity, which is made with the intention of inducing another to rely on it. The denier argument is false, and they know it, but they keep on recycling the discredited positions in hopes that with enough repetition Americans will believe them. They have good reason to be optimistic.
The tobacco industry, and the toxic waste dumpers, are other examples. Money talks, and it lies. Theirs is not a scientific argument, but a political one, which is aimed not at the educated, but the ignorant.
Restrained glee, indeed. Rejoicing at global disaster is beyond weird.
Vernon,
Stale old evil nonsense. Ick. Feeble minded propaganda leaking from the stink tanks.
What’s next, volcanoes? Cosmic rays? Pirates?
It is interesting how deniers remain fixated on the decade-old pioneering work by Mann et al when there are at least a dozen better, more recent reconstructions that basically agree with Mann’s original work. Most of the other reconstructions differ from Mann’s in that they show a deeper “little-ice-age” (all the reconstructions show similar MWP temperatures). So why aren’t deniers “auditing” those reconstructions?
Mann et all have also followed up with another reconstruction published last year where they specifically address concerns about shortcomings in the original (decade-old) reconstruction. The new reconstruction shows more temperature variability in the past than the original did, but is largely similar (still a hockey-stick, with a bit more wiggly “handle”).
[sigh] Here’s Vernon again. He’s the equivalent of someone who thinks that if he finds and removes a pebble in the base stone of a pyramid that every pyramid in Egypt will collapse.
As far as his obsessing over the proclamations of Wegman, it was dissected long ago: http://www.realclimate.org/ index.php/ archives/ 2006/ 07/ the-missing-piece-at-the-wegman-hearing/ – conclusion:
“So what would have happened to the MBH results if Wegman and his colleagues had been consulted on PC centering conventions at the time? Absolutely nothing.”
Vernon: “I have to go with Wegman on this….”
I’ll go with Dr. Thomas Crowley, Professor of Earth Science System, Duke University: “The conclusions and recommendations of the Wegman Report have some serious flaws.”
Mark B – The log of satellite data corrections is here:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/ data/ msu/ t2lt/ readme.03Jan2008
See the satellite data 1979 to present:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
The issues with the near surface data remain unresolved.
You’re also way off with your ‘hockey stick’ claims – the NAS panel accepted virtually all the criticisms by M&M, and advised against the use of strip-bark bristlecone pines. Supporting hockey team studies shared flawed data and methodology:
The multiproxy studies illustrated in the NAS panel to support the hockey stick, and their relevant flaws were:
Mann and Jones 03 (bristlecones)
Moberg el al (Use of grey data, bristlecones, hilarious use of Glob bulloides proxy)
Hegerl et al (Cherrypicked data, secret data)
Esper et al(bristlecones/foxtails, use of dodgy Polar Urals site, cherrypicked data, secret data)
Osborn & Briffa (Uses the hockey stick itself, naked cherrypicking of hockey stick shaped series).
The NAS panel never explained how they could condemn the use of bristlecone pines as proxies but still cite studies based on them in support of the hockey stick.
The recent attempted PNAS HS resurrection (2008) has been the subject of comment and reply by M&M and Mann et al (PNAS, 2009).
Joe Romm — Do we have to put up with Vernon?
[JR: No.
Sorry I have been so busy blogging that I let this go so far. As I have said many times, you can certainly post long-debunked disinformation on the web, but just not here. It is a calculated effort to confuse some and waste the time of others.]
For what it is worth, here is my hypothesis relative to the motivated reasoning in play in this thread. The problem consciousness creates is that of terror. Among invertebrates, fear is the most evolved response to stimulus/feeling. Denial withstanding, our first response to any stimulus is fear–even if an awareness of that fear is subconscious; even if the fear is associated with positive things. To be constantly afraid is to be terrorized. This condition exhausts an organism. Since neuropeptides are the communication mechanisms of our neurological, endocrine, and immune systems (via a shared receptor mechanism), the peptides what are the experience of fear will exhaust the immune system to the point of death if we do not have a means of mitigating our sense of fear.
This is where motivated reasoning comes to the rescue. During motivated reasoning contradictions are resolved in the part of the brain where feelings are processed and once processed, the part of the brain that rewards us with dopamine for getting the right answer is stimulated. In the process of motivated reasoning the frontal lobes, where critical reason occurs, are not activated. Because motivated reasoning is a non-rational process, trying to be rational with a person who is thinking this way is, well, non-rational.
Since individual human organisms are simply not evolved enough to deal with our constant state of fear by ourselves, social support for our mitigating motivated reasoning systems is high among the reasons we are social creatures.
I have argued in other comments posted to this blog that that which evokes motivated reasoning in an individual and/or is a social meme is that which is, by another name, religion. Religious arguments and wars are arguably never rational.
To the degree this is a helpful framework for thinking about the argument in this thread, the way to change the conversation is to live what you believe. i.e. I need to ride a bike, not travel for vacations, only eat food that is produced locally, not heat my home with fossil carbon, and even then, limit as much as possible the cellulose carbon I do oxidize for heat. I need to only purchase product that is locally and sustainably produced then in a process by which a living wage has been paid. I need to only invest in such companies and services, not fart (add to the atmospheric methane), etc.. Anything less is simply non-rational and another example of motivated reasoning.
Needless to say, any male who even come close to living with integrity as rationally as that (except, possibly, for that last point) wis going to have a hard time competing for female partners with males who do not . Hummm. Maybe this is another reason motivated reasoning is so popular!
Paul Biggs,
You’ve misrepresented the NAS as well as the magnitude of the Christy/Spencer errors. See my above posts, and…
From your link regarding the TLT record (corrections at least 0.01 C, most recent listed first):
“The net effect on this
change was to increase post-Oct 2005 temperatures slightly, and thus the
global trend is increased by about 0.01 C/decade.”
“The new
global trend from Dec 1978 to July 2005 is +0.123 C/decade,
or +0.035 C/decade warmer than v5.1. ”
“Preliminary results
suggest trends could be very slightly warmer, but less than 0.02
C/decade different.”
“The net effect on the trend was
about 0.02 C/decade (more positive)”
“The net change in the overall trend was toward a more
positive value by +0.012 C/decade.”
“The time series is virtually
identical to the earlier version, with the trend
becoming more positive by 0.013 C/decade.”
Which direction have these changes gone in? Add them up. Note a comment after one of their earlier corrections (the one listed immediately above this paragraph):
“The overall 79-01 trend under the new algorithm
is identical to the old (0.044 C/decade).”
…the “old” being after at least one correction. The per decade trend from their current dataset is now around +0.13. Given their horrendous track record of significant errors, why would anyone prefer their dataset?
Regarding the temperature reconstructions, I encourage you to think beyond the boundaries of McIntyre. You’ll find more problems with his critique than the subject of his critiques. You’ll also find he’s more interested in making dubious claims about climate scientists and promoting a political agenda than doing objective research.
Paul,
Perhaps you forgot to read the entire article Joe posted above? Christy being “well-published” doesn’t make him right, and a judge agrees that the weight of the scientific evidence does not favor his position.
Also, I note that your web site, which has the neutral name “Climate Research News” appears to be solely devoted to the denialist camp. The last 20-30 titles listed (that is all I had the stomach to view) all show a clear and severe bias and would be better titled “Tidbits Suggesting a False Glimmer of Hope That Global Warming Isn’t Occurring”
haha! longer growing seasons? really? i don’t see extended droughts, year after year, as an extended growing season.
the fires in australia are case in point…they used to be a huge grower of rice…after years of drought, they stopped growing it.
the skepticism is here to do one thing–postpone legislation. by taking advantage of folks who still don’t know the truth, and also by taking the edge off of activists.
i say we do what obama’s camp did–everytime mccain/palin said something stupid, send out a “money bomb”–a request for money. if we did that with climate change, we’d probably have enough money to fight the lobbyists on capitol hill, who are there, every single day, 50 from exxon alone…sorry, the little things you pick up while living close to dc…
I borrowed this from another site.
[JR: Denial stuff snipped.]
To sum up, whereas GHGs do not appear to have ever caused a climate change event for the past 680 million years, that is no reason to suspect it cannot do so in compliance with our will. Measuring it will be a cinch. All you have to do is develop tha ability to distinguish our maximum future fantasy 2C and 6 meter signal from the natural up to 16C and 52 meter signal produced from the aforementioned reliable, dramatic and unavoidable natural global climate change.
All of this while completely ignoring (denying) rainforest devastation which can be observed in perhaps one tenth the timeframe by the geometrically increasing human population.
Now do you understand denial? I think not.
[JR: More denial stuff snipped.]
You probably think this winter is just an anomaly, right? So this is another fact/fiction permeability test for you. The sun has gone very quiet as we enter solar cycle 24 at the same time as the two largest oceanic current cycles have both switched to their cool modes. In case you had not noticed these facts, you may soon come to understand that if GHGs can do what some may believe they are capable of, they had better get about doing it. We are overdue for both an ice age and an intelligence upgrade.
[JR: Congrats, you're on permanent moderation.]
Joe,
Would you please delete the rambling denialist drivel posted by Mike Smith? There are plenty of places on the web where such stuff can be (and is) posted, but it certainly doesn’t belong here.
Thanks.
Mike Davis,
Interesting ramblings. I’ll focus on one or two.
“You probably think this winter is just an anomaly, right?”
This leads me to believe the author wrote this in Jan/Feb of 2008, which was cooler than the trend due mainly to a fairly strong la Nina peak. We’re still in la Nina (a bit milder), but last month’s global temperature anomalies were about the same as the 5-year mean and tied for 5th warmest on record. Those in Michigan of parts of western Europe might find that hard to believe. As for those just about anywhere else…
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/ cgi-bin/ gistemp/ do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=01&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=01&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
The claims are quickly becoming outdated and a little silly. With all these natural cooling factors mentioned (some more credible than others), that are apparently coming together at the same time (extended solar sunspot low, la Nina, ocean cycles), why haven’t temperatures plummeted? What’s keeping them up? 2008 was both the warmest la Nina-influenced year on record and by far the warmest at a solar cycle minimum (and a long one at that) – more remarkable when you combine the two influences.
Regarding claims of an imminent ice age, we probably won’t have to worry about one for awhile. Ice age cooling likely won’t even begin for tens of thousands of years.
http://www.scienceonline.org/ cgi/ content/ summary/ 297/ 5585/ 1287
Even if already well underway, the timescale and cooling rate is much smaller (0.1 C per century perhaps) than the current warming rate and expected 21st century warming. I’m more concerned about the next 100 years as opposed to the next 10,000.
They say a frog, immersed in slowly heated water, will contentedly adjust until boiled to death.
Mike Davis’ long winded post reveals his inability to grasp the very simple concept that greenhouse gases can act as either an amplifying feedback to an initial warming, as they do at the end of a glaciation, OR as a direct forcing when added directly to the atmosphere. That’s quite shocking for someone who claims to be a professional geologist/hydrogeologist.
One has to wonder if he has ever bothered to calculate the increase in solar insolation that the Milancovic Cycles provided at the end of the last glaciation and asked himself where the rest of the heat to do the job of melting the Wisconsin ice sheet came from, because solar insolation alone quite clearly could not have done the job. Not even when you factor in the change in albedo as the ice sheet shrinks. Only when you also include the warming boost provided by rising CO2, methane and water vapour can you come up with enough energy to do the job.
One has to wonder, would this fact simply have escaped a professional geologist/hydrogeologist, or is Mr. Davis in denial of this fact?
Or, is he, in fact, a professional geologist/hydrogeologist?
Furthermore, one has to wonder at Mr. Davis’ assertion that “at 11,500 years old this interglacial, the Holocene, is getting a little long in the tooth. No other interglacial dating back to the MPT has lasted this long.” Another quite shocking statement from a self-described professional geologist/hydrogeologist.
Again, has he simply neglected to examine the Milankovic Cycle matrix? How else does one account for his ignorance of the similarity between the current orbital and axial configuration and that of the interglacial of 400,000 years ago. The one that lasted around 40,000-50,000 years?
One now has no choice but to question Mr. Davis’ assertion that he is in fact a professional geologist/hydrogeologist.
I’m sure most of you have heard that the Heartland Institute has mounted a campaign to get Jim Hansen fired. We posted a story on this today at:
http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=2413
We included a link to sourcewatch.org, who have done an in-depth analysis of this “Institute.”
Like we said, “Mr. President, don’t listen to these people.”
Greg Robie, thanks for your great post on motivated reasoning. Well said.
I watched Sen Boxer’s hearing this morning. Dr. Happen believes that we can survive just fine with co2 levels 3-4 times what they are now. He said the CO2 increase will not change life as we know it today.
Needless to say, Sen Boxer was stunned by his comments.
Sen Inhofe was a complete ASS as usual. What a creepy guy.
Thanks for letting us know about these hearings, Joe.
I called the committee person and heard that a transcript of the committee meeting should be posted on line in 2 to 3 weeks.
She also said that any submissions will also be posted and be part of the Congressional record. ( Anyone can make a submission – Nice place to post some climate rants )
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/ hearings.asp?formmode=detail&hearing=655
Both testimony and submitted postings can even be corrected … so what we heard today may be different that what we read in the record. (sigh)
Did anybody tape, capture, or record?