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Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group 1 released its forth report on the Physical Science Basis for Global Climate Change.
For those who are interested, their summary report can be accessed here.
This panel which consists of scientists and government officials from 113 different countries made the following conclusions.
quote:Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level
quote:Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations
quote:In this Summary for Policymakers, the following terms have been used to indicate the assessed likelihood, using expert judgement, of an outcome or a result: Virtually certain > 99% probability of occurrence, Extremely likely > 95%, Very likely > 90%, Likely > 66%, More likely than not > 50%, Unlikely < 33%, Very unlikely < 10%, Extremely unlikely < 5%.
In this Summary for Policymakers the following levels of confidence have been used to express expert judgments on the correctness of the underlying science: very high confidence at least a 9 out of 10 chance of being correct; high confidence about an 8 out of 10 chance of being correct.
That's the report by a broad based panel of international experts.
Now for why I used the word "hoax" in the title of this thread. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank which receives substantial support from Exxon Mobile and has strong links to the Bush administration has offered to pay $10,000 to scientists to dispute the claims made in the IPCC report. link In letters they sent to scientist in Britain and the US the AEI wrote that the IPCC is:
quote:"resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".
As many time as I've heard the right wing maintain that Global Warming is a "hoax" by Environmental Extremists, I have never seen any clear evidence that scientists are being rewarded with directly or indirectly by an environmental organization for reports that show the climate is changing. Now we have yet more evidence that the opposite is indeed happening. A group funded by Exxon Mobile has offered to pay scientist for reports that dispute the consensus scientific opinion.
So those of you who continue to be skeptics of Global Climate Change Science, I challenge you to produce evidence comparable to what I have posted which indicates a significant conflict of interest on behalf of scientists who support the consensus of the IPCC or any othe scientific organization.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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"The American Enterprise Institute...has offered to pay $10,000 to scientists to dispute the claims made in the IPCC report."
AEI is being extremely cheap. The "some scientists who disagree with the GlobalWarming scenario" so often quoted in the newspapers and AEI/Cato/AmericanPetroleumInstitute/Hoover/etc reports are annually being paid 1to3times their academic/etc salaries in "honariums for lectures" to the already*convinced.
* Or rather willing to tolerate lies because they are making big-to-HUGE money by keeping "things the way they are."
posted
I don't believe Global Warming is a hoax, I'm also wing-less. I'm have no stake in trying to discredit one side or another with a Google witch-hunt. What I did want to address Rabbit, is that the intellectual dishonesty is not just one sided on this issue. What happened with Christopher Landsea & the IPCC definitely hurts the latter's credibility with me. The only reason I really remember the story is because I'd seen the guy on MSNBC a few times.
Dr. Landsea was a contributing author for the 2nd and 3rd reports' hurricane sections. However, during last year's violent hurricane season, the IPCC had a press conferences where they planned to announce that scientists had concluded that increased hurricanes were due to global climate change. Dr. Landsea had not even made his report yet, nor had any other scientists. He assumed that this was a mistake, contacted the IPCC guy doing the press conference, and asked what was going on. The last two previous IPCC reports had found no link between global warming and hurricanes. There had also been no new studies establishing any link.
After using an open letter to question the IPCC on their erroneous reporting (with private ones going unresolved), he was not invited to participate in this last report. You can read the letter here.
Does this incident somehow discredit any of the evidence for global warming? Of course not. What it does to is make me wonder if the IPCC is any better than those right-wing oil guys: they both seem to be willing to do anything they can to promote their particular ideology at the expense of truth.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Is it odd that somewhere in my mind I want to give additional credibility to a guy named "Landsea" on the issue of global climate change?
Other than Dr. Atmosphere or Dr. Climatology, it has to be the best name for an environmental scientist. If his first name was "Noah" it'd make it even better (for a variety of reason).
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quote:So those of you who continue to be skeptics of Global Climate Change Science, I challenge you to produce evidence comparable to what I have posted which indicates a significant conflict of interest on behalf of scientists who support the consensus of the IPCC or any othe scientific organization.
I suppose first you'll have to find someone who is a skeptic of "Global Climate Change Science."
What a strange call for evidence. We could discuss global warming on Mars, Jupiter, Titan and Earth; we could discuss variations in solar activity, correlation of global temperatures with C14 concentration and sunspot activity and CO2 concentration. But instead the evidence is to be who gets grants? This is truly a *political* argument, not a scientific one.
Still, if it's true that if who gets the most money really determines who's right (!), maybe someone could find a clearinghouse of grant announcements related to climate change. I'm certain there's more funding out there for climate change research than a single $10K grant.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Is it odd that somewhere in my mind I want to give additional credibility to a guy named "Landsea" on the issue of global climate change?
Other than Dr. Atmosphere or Dr. Climatology, it has to be the best name for an environmental scientist. If his first name was "Noah" it'd make it even better (for a variety of reason).
TBH Lyr, that's really the reason I remember him from TV a couple years ago. He was talking about hurricanes and I thought it was the coolest name. So when I saw his name in some articles awhile back it sort of stuck with me.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Will B: Still, if it's true that if who gets the most money really determines who's right (!), maybe someone could find a clearinghouse of grant announcements related to climate change. I'm certain there's more funding out there for climate change research than a single $10K grant.
Doing scientific research costs money so the question is not as simple as determining which side of the allegde controversy get the most money. Most of the money for Global Climate Change research comes from sources like NOAA, NSF and NASA which are at least nominally a political. Although the process isn't perfect, proposals sent to these agencies are funded based on the quality of the proposed science rather than the stance of the scientists involved. Results from these studies are submitted for peer review and they are either rejected or accepted for publication based on the quality of the work.
When a scientist gets a grant from the NSF or DOE or NOAA, those agencies never have the right to vet the data before it is published. In contrast, private companies and foundations like Exxon/Mobile generally negotiate the right to review a grantees results before they can be submitted for publication. If the results are seen as unfavorable to the private grantor, they are either never published on funding is cut to the grantee.
If you could show that scientists who had grants from the NSF to research GCC but published papers which seriously questioned the validity of the theory were less likely to receive renewed funding than scientists whose research supported anthropogenically caused GCC, that would be significant. But I've never seen such data.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: IAfter using an open letter to question the IPCC on their erroneous reporting (with private ones going unresolved), he was not invited to participate in this last report. You can read the letter here.
Not quite. The first line in the letter you linked reads:
quote:After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Reading through the letter it is clear that Landsea was invited to participate in thre report but withdrew because of objections to statements which had been made in a press conference.
It is also worthy of note that the IPCC summary report that was released today agrees with Landsea's assements stating:
quote:There is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones.
Absent a detailed report of the press conference that Landsea criticizes, it is difficult to determine whether the IPCC or Landsea was actually politicizing the event.
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quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: What happened with Christopher Landsea & the IPCC definitely hurts the latter's credibility with me.
Bao, I'm very curious about the source of the information you have on C. Landsea.
I've just spent a bit of time investigating the issue but I clearly don't have all the details yet. From what I've read, C. Landsea resigned from the IPCC because of statements made by Dr. Kevin Trenberth in a press conference.
In the press conference Kevin Trenberth was introduced as the Lead Author on the IPCC Hurricane panel but Dr. Trenberth clearly stated he was not representing the panel in his statements.
The influence of global warming on Hurricanes, Typhoons and Tropical cyclones is undoubtably one of the the hotly debated controversies in science. Trenberth and Landsea are clearly on opposite sides of the debate. Trenberth has published a number of paper in the past two years on hurricanes and global warming as has Landsea.
Dr. Landsea was invited to participate in the panels 4th report but declined because of fear that the process had been politicized. Because he withdrew, there is not way to determine whether his views would have been accurately included in the report if he had participated.
If Landsea had remained on the panel and his reports had be censored by the committee, then we would have evidence of bias on the committee.
As it is he withdrew from the committee in protest, yet the committees report still reflects his conclusions.
As best I can tell, Trenberth's statements at the Harvard press conference made claims about Hurricanes which are not yet agreed apon in the scientific community. These statements are consistent with his own research although they are still highly controversial. During this press conference, he should have made it more evident that he was not speaking for the IPCC but for himself.
I can understand why Landsea was displeased that Trenberth's comments in the media were reported as a statement by the IPCC. Its unclear whether this was the fault of Trenberth or the media or both.
I'm interested to know whether Landsea objects to the conclusions that were made in this most recent IPCC report. My sense is that they do include the concerns expressed by Landsea but since I am not a hurricane expert there maybe subtilties I don't clearly appreciate. I suspect that Landsea has disagreements with the report but wonder whether he feels his side of the debate was accurately reported. In a highly controversial area such as hurricanes, it is unlikely that the IPCC report will agree wholely with the view of any one scientist. The best we can hope for is that it clearly communicates that a controvery exists rather than implying high levels of confidence.
If Landsea is at odds with the conclusions of the IPCC report, it is impossible to know whether this is because the Panel has become political or because Landsea refused to contribute to the debate. Once you recuse yourself from the discussion, you have to expect that your views will no longer be accurately reflected in the report.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Is it odd that somewhere in my mind I want to give additional credibility to a guy named "Landsea" on the issue of global climate change?
Other than Dr. Atmosphere or Dr. Climatology, it has to be the best name for an environmental scientist. If his first name was "Noah" it'd make it even better (for a variety of reason).
OK, I know I'm completely off-topic, but I'm reminded of this one sign I see all the time and it always cracks me up. Pester and Co. Taxes hehehe
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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I'm not sure if it even matters what report is right when it comes to global warming. Is there any realistic thing we can do to stop it?
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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If CO2 caused global warming, we could slow it down a little by switching all our power plants to nuclear power and installing fuel cells in all the autos. But China and India would still be pumping out ever-increasing amounts.
So: no, not really, not for now.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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"Is there any realistic thing we can do to stop it?"
1) Legislation to dramatically increase the minimum levels of fuel efficiency for automobiles and trucks. The technology has been in place to do this for a generation.
2) Emissions legislation for industry.
3) Stop buying your water in plastic bottles. Use tap water instead.
4)When you go to a resturant, ask for no straw with your drink. Have your companions do the same.
5) Eat locally grown food as much as possible.
6) For 1st Class mail mail marked "Address correction requested" or "Return postage guaranteed:"
Ink out the barcode and write: "Return to Sender - Refused by Addressee" and "Please remove my name from your mailing list" on the front of the envelope. Return it to the sender.
For bulk mail, call and remove your name from the mailing list.
7) Make sure you recycle your oil when you get an oil change for your car.
Good start for a few major things we can, and a few things you can do as an individual, to help slow the effects and possibly stop it if enough people get on board with protecting the earth.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:6) For 1st Class mail mail marked "Address correction requested" or "Return postage guaranteed:"
Ink out the barcode and write: "Return to Sender - Refused by Addressee" and "Please remove my name from your mailing list" on the front of the envelope. Return it to the sender.
For bulk mail, call and remove your name from the mailing list.
This really works???? Geesh, why didn't anyone ever say so before! I'm sick to death of throwing away 90% of my mail unopened. (And having to shred another 5% because it's those blank checks you get from the credit card companies...THAT should be illegal.)
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: "The American Enterprise Institute...has offered to pay $10,000 to scientists to dispute the claims made in the IPCC report."
AEI is being extremely cheap...
No kidding. Real scientists will spend that much on coffee consumed during the discussion.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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>1) Legislation to dramatically increase the minimum levels of fuel efficiency for automobiles and trucks.
Let's suppose we can double fuel efficiency. US autos produced about 1,939.2 MMT in 2004. So if the transportation sector doesn't grow (which it will), we could cut about 1 billion metric tons.
>2) Emissions legislation for industry.
Also assume doubling fuel efficiency for industry. I don't know if this is reasonable. US industry provided about 1,682.3 MMT; we could cut about 0.8 billion metric tons.
>3) Stop buying your water in plastic bottles. Use tap water instead.
No significant effect except that you save money and look less pretentious.
>4)When you go to a resturant, ask for no straw with your drink. Have your companions do the same.
No significant effect on CO2 production (!).
>5) Eat locally grown food as much as possible.
No significant effect, especially if you live in places where "as much as possible" means "hardly at all."
>6) For 1st Class mail mail marked "Address correction requested" or "Return postage guaranteed:"
No significant effect. Junk mail is annoying, but it just doesn't compare to the volume of the entire US manufacturing and agricultural sectors!
>7) Make sure you recycle your oil when you get an oil change for your car.
No effect on CO2 production, although it's certainly better for local water quality.
So we get to cut about 1.8 billion metric tons. Let's assume that I'm wrong and we actually spend 1/8 as much energy on soda straws and Evian as we do on all US manufacturing (!); so we get to add .2 billion and get 2 billion metric tons. That's out of 6 billion we emit, or out of about 24 billion in the world. 2/24 -> 1/12, or about 8%.
That's the *easiest* part: vastly increasing fuel efficiency in one of the countries that has the most money to throw at the problem, and assuming zero population growth and zero growth in the economy.
So we get 92% as much CO2 per year. Based on the graph of increase in world CO2 emissions at http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/co2.htm , that means we delay reaching any given threshold by about 2 years. So, assuming that the theory's correct, and that longer growing seasons and flooded beachfront property constitutes doom for mankind, we get The Day After Tomorrow in, oh, 2042 instead of 2040. Maybe I was way, way too pessimistic, and the end is delayed by twice that. So humanity lasts till 2044.
Still a bummer, though. As much as climate varies w/o human industry, though, we can take comfort in this: if global warming constitutes disaster, well, the earth has entered significant warming and cooling periods before (the latter being called "ice ages"), without benefit of modern industry. We could knock ourselves out (to the point of starving most of humanity), and the earth *still*, at some point, will significantly warm or cool itself. It's done it many times before.
[ February 05, 2007, 12:30 AM: Message edited by: Will B ]
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Meanwhile, new scientific evidence keeps challenging previous assumptions. The latest report, for instance, takes greater note of the role of pollutant particles, which are thought to reflect sunlight back to space, supplying a cooling effect. More scientists are also studying the effect of solar activity on climate, and some believe it alone is responsible for recent warming.
All this appears to be resulting in a more cautious scientific approach, which is largely good news. We're told that the upcoming report is also missing any reference to the infamous "hockey stick," a study by Michael Mann that purported to show 900 years of minor fluctuations in temperature, followed by a dramatic spike over the past century. The IPCC featured the graph in 2001, but it has since been widely rebutted.
Nice to see that the report itself is starting to take the science seriously, in spite of all the doom and gloom scenarios being shouted about in the summary.
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I'm with Will. The reason I hate climate change discussions is that everyone wants to get me worked up, but there's really nothing I can do about it. I rent, so the insulation and appliances are beyond my control. I can't afford a new car, and I don't think my Honda's that bad even if it is a decade old.
Quit telling me the world's going to end if you only want the big important folks to fix it. I don't run factories or make big purchasing decisions. I don't decide what trees to cut down for new development or how many fish to harvest.
None of it's up to me, but I'm supposed to get really mad about it? I don't think so.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:"Is there any realistic thing we can do to stop it?"
1) Legislation to dramatically increase the minimum levels of fuel efficiency for automobiles and trucks. The technology has been in place to do this for a generation.
2) Emissions legislation for industry.
3) Stop buying your water in plastic bottles. Use tap water instead.
4)When you go to a resturant, ask for no straw with your drink. Have your companions do the same.
5) Eat locally grown food as much as possible.
6) For 1st Class mail mail marked "Address correction requested" or "Return postage guaranteed:"
Ink out the barcode and write: "Return to Sender - Refused by Addressee" and "Please remove my name from your mailing list" on the front of the envelope. Return it to the sender.
For bulk mail, call and remove your name from the mailing list.
7) Make sure you recycle your oil when you get an oil change for your car.
Do you think doing all of these would actually stop global warming from happening, though? I find that pretty doubtful, because even if we did these things, the following groups would still be polluting. -Businesses who, by their nature, are set up make decisions that help their bottom line rather than act in the long-term benefit of the earth. If that is their goal, stopping global warming does not benefit them. -People who are uninformed about scientific reports on the environment and global warming in general. I'd bet this is the majority of the population. -People in other parts of the world which do not consider stopping global warming to be a priority.
I have my doubts that any report or study, no matter how dire, will significantly influence the behavior of the above three groups. The only question is whether it will influence US enough to make us willing to incur serious costs in order to force the above three groups to change their ways.
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First, thanks for correcting me. You're right, he withdrew due to his own convictions, he was not forced to withdraw by the IPCC.
From my understanding of the situation, Harvard scheduled a somewhat politically charged press conference entitled, "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity." This was right after the 2004 hurricane season, which was a bad one. Dr. Trenberth, the IPCC’s Lead Author for the hurricane section, was a main speaker. He was invited to speak in part because he supported the press conference topic as well as being a member of the IPCC. He made statements to the effect that directly linked hurricane activity to global warming.
I listed my problems with this in numbered format just to make my thought process clearer. 1) The conference was a scare tactic, using the severe 2004 hurricane season as a catalyst. 2) The lead author of the IPCC's fourth report made unsubstantiated claims that were not supported by even one peer-reviewed scientific study. 3) On the contrary, every peer-reviewed study as well as the previous two IPCC reports determined that there was no clear connection between global warming and hurricane frequency and intensity. 4) The IPCC leadership had no problem with this, and didn't issue any statements clarifying what the actual consensus science was, even when they were specifically made aware of it by Landsea.
I just want to leave it there with the Landsea incident. There are other reasons (Mann's false hockey stick for example) for distrusting the intellectual integrity of the panel that certainly influenced the way I think about the IPCC and biased me. Also, I found Landsea a fairly credible source. In addition to being a widely recognized expert in the field, he actually holds with the majority view on global warming. This makes me think it wasn't some sort of stunt to try to discredit global climate change science. Another detail is that he did not publish the open letter online. It was actually sent to 40-odd colleagues, one of which published it on the Internet. This makes me believe he probably didn't do it to get a bunch of attention.
Anyway, I know you are an expert in climate studies Rabbit, but I hope that helps explain where I'm coming from.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: I listed my problems with this in numbered format just to make my thought process clearer. 1) The conference was a scare tactic, using the severe 2004 hurricane season as a catalyst.
Do you have evidence to support this? I have not been able to find a report of this press conference. What is your source for this information and why do you conclude that it was a scare tactic?
quote: 2) The lead author of the IPCC's fourth report made unsubstantiated claims that were not supported by even one peer-reviewed scientific study.
Since I can not find a link to the statements Trenberth made at the press conference, I can not assess the validity of this statement. If what Trenberth claimed was that more and stronger hurricanes are a likely result of global warming there are numerous peer reviewed scientific studies to support this claim. Here are a few such references.
K. Emanuel 2005: Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature, 436, 686–688.
Trenberth, K. E., and D. J. Shea (2006), Atlantic hurricanes and natural variability in 2005, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L12704, doi:10.1029/2006GL026894.
Trenberth, K. E., 2005: Uncertainty in Hurricanes and Global Warming. Science, 308, 1753-1754.
Anthes, R. A., R.W. Corell, G. Holland, J. W. Hurrell, M. MacCracken, K.E. Trenberth, 2006: Hurricanes and Global Warming: Potential Linkages and Consequences. Bull. Am. Met. Soc., 87, 623-628.
Knutson, T. R., and R. E. Tuleya, 2004: Impact of CO2-induced warming on simulated hurricane intensity and precipitation: Sensitivity to the choice of climate model and convective parameterization. J. Climate, 17, 3477–3495.
quote: 3) On the contrary, every peer-reviewed study as well as the previous two IPCC reports determined that there was no clear connection between global warming and hurricane frequency and intensity.
Refer to the list of peer-reviesed studies that do come to the opposite conclusion. I could also provide you with a list that agree with Landsea. This is an area of legitimate scientific controversy
quote: 4) The IPCC leadership had no problem with this, and didn't issue any statements clarifying what the actual consensus science was, even when they were specifically made aware of it by Landsea.
Please share your source for this with me. I searched and can find no evidence to support this. If Trenberth represented his comments as the position of the IPCC and the IPCC did nothing to correct it there is legitimate reason for criticism but I haven't been able to find any evidence other than your word that this is what happend. If you have evidence that this actually happened and isn't a misreporting of the incident by some group with a political agenda to discredit the IPCC, then please show me the evidence.
quote: Also, I found Landsea a fairly credible source. In addition to being a widely recognized expert in the field, he actually holds with the majority view on global warming.
Landsea is a credible source but so is Trenberth. They both hold equally impressive credentials and have both published extensively on this subject in the peer reviewed literature. This is a point of legitimate scientific controversy and in my brief purusal of the literature both of the scientists admit that there is room for disagreement within the existence knowledge base.
quote:This makes me think it wasn't some sort of stunt to try to discredit global climate change science. Another detail is that he did not publish the open letter online. It was actually sent to 40-odd colleagues, one of which published it on the Internet. This makes me believe he probably didn't do it to get a bunch of attention.
I don't think Landsea was trying to discredit climate change science. I think he had legitimate concerns. I also this its like that those who are trying to discredit climate change science have siezed on his letter and are interpreting it ways that Landsea did not intend. That is why I keed asking you for your sources on this story. I am not willing to believe based on your word alone.
Put your self in my position. The one link you gave us disproved your initial claim that the IPCC had excluded Landsea because of his complaint. In a brief search of the scientific literature I found unequivacal evidence that 2 of your 4 claims were false. Why then should I believe your summation of the rest of the story without evidence?
Finally, There are groups like the AEI who are trying to discredit the IPCC for political reasons. As long as that is the case, people should be highly skeptical of all claims made that would discredit the IPCC. That doesn't mean they should be rejected. But it does mean that you shouldn't accept such claims with out substantial evidence to back them up.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:There are other reasons (Mann's false hockey stick for example) for distrusting the intellectual integrity of the panel that certainly influenced the way I think about the IPCC and biased me.
Take a deeper look at the Mann's hockey stick example. The original paper was published in the peer reviewed scientific literature in 1998. At the time of the the 3rd IPCC report (2001), it was widely accepted in the scientific community. In 2005, a paper was published (also in the reviewed scientific literature) which claimed that the "hockey stick effect" was an artifact of the way Mann et al had processed their data. Mann and others have since refuted this claim in Nature. It is correct to say that Mann's original hockeystick graphs are now controversial. It would be inaccurate to conclude that they are widely discredited as has been done by many who wish to discredit the IPCC.
In 2007, some of the data which was used in the 2001 report has become controversial. But this was never the sole basis or even key basis for the conclusions of the 2001 report. Even without this data, the scientific evidence for climate change is stronger now than it was in 2001.
What I'm uncertain about is why the hockey stick controversy is taken as evidence to support a scientific hoax. To me, it suggests exactly the opposite. It shows that the scientific community is doing its job to skeptically question the theory. If a substantial fraction of the scientific community were trying to pull over a hoax, then papers that question key findings wouldn't be published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Scientist who questioned the reports would be drummed out of the field. Yet this is exactly the opposite of what is happening.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Meanwhile, new scientific evidence keeps challenging previous assumptions. The latest report, for instance, takes greater note of the role of pollutant particles, which are thought to reflect sunlight back to space, supplying a cooling effect. More scientists are also studying the effect of solar activity on climate, and some believe it alone is responsible for recent warming.
All this appears to be resulting in a more cautious scientific approach, which is largely good news. We're told that the upcoming report is also missing any reference to the infamous "hockey stick," a study by Michael Mann that purported to show 900 years of minor fluctuations in temperature, followed by a dramatic spike over the past century. The IPCC featured the graph in 2001, but it has since been widely rebutted.
Nice to see that the report itself is starting to take the science seriously, in spite of all the doom and gloom scenarios being shouted about in the summary.
Don't trust the Wall Street Journal. I've read the report and this is a very inaccurate representation of both the report and the science.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:More scientists are also studying the effect of solar activity on climate, and some believe it alone is responsible for recent warming.
I would really like to see a reference for that. The key articles I see referenced by the top scientists looking at the effect of solar activity on climate conclude that changes in solar activity can not account for more than 10% of the observed surface warming.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Well, we can take hope... the last major warm period (the Medieval Climate Optimum) boasted some annual temperatures a degree or two centigrade warmer than the present, likely due to an upswing in C02 coming from the 90% deforestation of Europe (yikes). Then, the bubonic plague and other epidemics wiped out large chunks of the world population, villages and farms were abandoned, the forests took back over, and pretty soon the Little Ice Age cool things right back down (regardless of th IPCC's poo-pooing of the LIA).
So the earth will eventually fix herself up... killing a bunch of us off. There is hope after all.
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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I have no idea where your conclusion came from, DB. It looks like a pretty big non sequitor to me. Could you explain your logic?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by David Bowles: Well, we can take hope... the last major warm period (the Medieval Climate Optimum) boasted some annual temperatures a degree or two centigrade warmer than the present, likely due to an upswing in C02 coming from the 90% deforestation of Europe (yikes). Then, the bubonic plague and other epidemics wiped out large chunks of the world population, villages and farms were abandoned, the forests took back over, and pretty soon the Little Ice Age cool things right back down (regardless of th IPCC's poo-pooing of the LIA).
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Oh, Rabbit, if you have anything more substantial to say against the MWP or LIA, I'm all ears. I am not denying global warming, nor humanity's contribution to it, but pointing out a time in our past when we also devastated our environment. The massive deforestation of Europe, China, Mesoamerica (under the Maya), Easter Island... do you want to argue that they had negligible effects on earth and only modern civilization can doom it?
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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Ah it's so complex though. First of all, I'd be highly surprised to find that all of the deforested areas of Europe actually grew back in the time frame you're suggesting, I'd be surprised even a decent chunk of it did. Old growth forests don't just magically appear. They take hundreds of years to come into being, and even artificial efforts to spur them along still come up short of what mother nature gets done.
Further, what we do now is more of a one-two punch. We're STILL deforesting at an alarming rate, stripping the world of natural carbon sinks, and at the same time pouring thousands of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Despite efforts made at protecting forests, and replanting, we're still losing old growth forests by the hundreds of acres a DAY, worldwide.
The situation is monumentally worse, I almost wonder how one compares the two. I wonder though, your model seems to suggest that the death of much of Europe led to a massive repopulation of trees which led to the ice age that cooled the earth back down. I'm sure there's much, much more to it than that.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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And any explanation using European deforestation as a trigger would have to explain why the deforestation of the far larger North America (the US alone is about as big as all of Europe) did not have a similar effect, or provide evidence that it did have a similar effect.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I'm sorry, I really don't have the time to do much of this, work is pretty crazy right now. However, I did read what you wrote. I don't expect you to take me at my word, and I'm trying to find links for you. However, its been two years, and I'm having trouble digging all this up from memory. You have every right to be skeptical about what I'm saying, but also please continue be open-minded. I'm trying to do the Google leg-work here, but it takes awhile, considering how old this is.
I'm not going to keep quoting, because it would be really long, so I'll just respond. 1) This is strictly a matter of opinion, but when you hold a conference 1 month after one of the worst hurricane seasons in years in order to state that global warming is causing worse hurricanes, this qualifies as a scare tactic. I consider other similar situations outside the the realm of science to be scare tactics too, for example, pushing drilling the ANWR after gas prices skyrocketed.
2) I believe the conference took place in 2004, which predates all but one of your peer reviewed papers; they did not exist at the time he made his claims. He included the 2004 study that you posted in his analysis here. So I don't believe you refuted that claim of Landsea's. From his letter:
quote: I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.
Reading Landsea's letter, he clearly states that he was not aware of any peer reviewed studies at the time of the conference that could support Trenberth's claims. As he is an expert in the field, I have to trust his assessment that there were no relevant studies at the time.
3) I refer you to the date of those studies discussed in 2.
4) I provided a source, Landsea's word.
quote: Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy.
My concerns go beyond the actions of Dr. Trenberth and his colleagues to how he and other IPCC officials responded to my concerns. I did caution Dr. Trenberth before the media event and provided him a summary of the current understanding within the hurricane research community. I was disappointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC. (emphasis added)
I need to clarify here: I'm not saying that Trenberth stated that he was representing the official IPCC position, he did however strongly tie himself to it, IMO. His self-introduction at the conference, emphasis added:
quote: This is Kevin Trenberth from NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I might add also that I was a lead author on the 2001 IPCC report for Working Group One, which deals with the science of climate change, and in fact I was involved in developing some of the information that is in that report dealing with hurricanes.
In my mind when someone belongs to and frequently represents an organization of that nature, it is their responsibility to clarify that they are NOT speaking for the organization in this case. This is especially important when speaking in the public arena. You can look through the transcript here. What he says is certainly more nuanced than media summaries, however he also makes several claims that were unsubstantiated at the time (if you considered substantiated to be peer-reviewed studies).
Hockey Stick In response to the hockey stick, it's really a topic in and of itself, and I can't discuss it any more. I just don't have the energy to pursue two engaging topics- frankly I don't know how you do it Rabbit.
McKitrick and McIntyre published a peer-reviewed paper that showed that you could put a completely random set of data into Mann's algorithm, and it would come out as a hockey stick. They also found multiple errors in the methodology. There are rebuttals back and forth. Their website is here: M&M Project We still hear about the last 10 years being the hottest ever, when one of the original tools used to make that observation is at the very least hotly contested if not discredited. That's why its so important to get the science right.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I just have to agree that someone named Landsea seems fated to participate in this kind of science. Like Dick Dick, the urologist my mom once worked with. (Really. No lie.)
Sorry to not contribute to the thread. Back to your regularly scheduled discussion. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Yeah, I'm sure there is a lot more to it than that, such as changes in solar activity and the earth's natural motions... in fact, those probably make up the majority of the causes. However, I find it irritating that people want to discount the anthropogenic contributions to previous warm-ups... I find such denials to smack of a Luddite revisionist view of the past as cleaner and more wholesome than the present, which is pure poppycock.
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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fugu, might it not be possible that the deforestation of North America HAS had a substantial impact on the environment (possibly including the end of the LIA)?
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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The scale you're suggesting for the deforestation of Europe is nowhere near a comparison for the US.
The LIA is considered to have ended when, the mid 19th century? By 1850, American settlers hadn't progressed much past the Mississippi, at least not to the degree of the settling of the east, and even the east was still heavily, HEAVILY forested.
You're comparing that to the 90% deforestation of Europe?
Europe cuts down all their trees, that eliminates a major carbon sink and makes the world hotter, then a bunch of people die, and all the trees grow back magically fast, then America cuts down a bunch of trees and the LIA ends when we all warm up again.
Doesn't work. It ignores way too much.
Edit to add: I should also add that I don't discount the past effects that mankind has had on the environment, but THAT particular scenario has too many holes in it for me.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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From what I've read, Kerry Emanuel believes that GlobalWarming will cause more-powerful(strength)hurricanes and more(number)powerful-hurricanes, but that there may be fewer NorthAtlantic hurricanes in total. I wonder what his take is on GlobalWarming and SouthAtlantic hurricanes.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:I believe the conference took place in 2004, which predates all but one of your peer reviewed papers; they did not exist at the time he made his claims. He included the 2004 study that you posted in his analysis here. So I don't believe you refuted that claim of Landsea's.
As with all things, there is a time lag in publication of scientific papers. In several of the papers I referenced, Trenberth was a coauthor and so he would clearly have had knowledge of the work in 2004. Furthermore, scientific research results are commonly presented at scientific conferences prior to their publication so the fact that reference I listed didn't appear in press until several months after Trenberth conference appearances really means nothing.
The final reference I gave, Knutson 2004, was published before the press conference and in fact Trenberth references in the conference.
I skimmed through the press conference and read all of Trenberth's comments. I could not find anything in his statements is not supported in the peer reviewed scientific literature. Given that he gives references to his sources in the press conference, I don't see how any one could claim that his statements were not supported by even one peer reviewed scientific article. The impact of climate change on hurricanes is controversial in the scientific literature. Trenberth and Landsea are on opposites of this controversy. Both are respected scientists and in time I suspect this controversy will be resolved.
I've read M&M's peer reviewed article as well as Mann's rebuttals to their criticisms. I am an expert in the statistical techniques that are the subject of M&M's criticisms and agree with Mann and others that there are critical flaws in their analysis.
The key mistake you make here, however, is that Mann's "hockey stick" is not the only of even original tool to identify the warming trend in the last 30 years. This is supported by numerous other studies. What's more, since the publication of Mann's paper several other researchers have analyzed the same data using different statistical techniques that do not have the biases M&M claim to have identified in Mann's work. All of these researchers have identified the same basic trends and reached the same conclusion as Mann.
Even if Mann's results were skewed by his statistical treatment of the data, it doesn't matter because there are many other studies which come to the same conclusion using completely different methodologies.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by David Bowles: Oh, Rabbit, if you have anything more substantial to say against the MWP or LIA, I'm all ears. I am not denying global warming, nor humanity's contribution to it, but pointing out a time in our past when we also devastated our environment. The massive deforestation of Europe, China, Mesoamerica (under the Maya), Easter Island... do you want to argue that they had negligible effects on earth and only modern civilization can doom it?
Sorry about the eye rolling. There are just so many scientific fallacies in your original post.
It is quite clear that human activity has had devastating consequences to regional climate since the dawn of civilization. It is widely accepted that eforestation, grazing and farming dramatically altered the climate through out the mediteranian millenia ago. But there is no clear evidence of any connection between deforestation in Europe and either the MWP or the LIA. Furthmore, there is no evidence that human activity had more than a regional influence on climate prior to the modern industrial era.
The ancient greeks were able to trash greece by deforestation, over graizing, and poor agricultural practices but it was pretty much just their on region that was effect. There is no real evidence that what was going on in greece influenced the climate in China or South America. Until the last century, human activity just wasn't significant enough to change things on a global scale.
What's happening now is on a totally different scale. Because the human population is so much greater and industry allows us to consume so much more per person, we are now making changes that are inpacting the entire planet and not just one region. The gas we burn driving our cars in the USA is causing sea levels to rise in the South Pacific.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Thanks for taking the time to explain. I'm coaching Academic Decathlon and this year the science topic is climatology... I'm a newcomer to the science and require a bit of babying along...
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: From what I've read, Kerry Emanuel believes that GlobalWarming will cause more-powerful(strength)hurricanes and more(number)powerful-hurricanes, but that there may be fewer NorthAtlantic hurricanes in total. I wonder what his take is on GlobalWarming and SouthAtlantic hurricanes.
Here is the abstract from one of Emanuel's recent papers (published in nature and reference given in my previous post)
quote:Theory and modelling predict that hurricane intensity should increase with increasing global mean temperatures, but work on the detection of trends in hurricane activity has focused mostly on their frequency, and shows no trend. Here I define an index of the potential destructiveness of hurricanes based on the total dissipation of power, integrated over the lifetime of the cyclone, and show that this index has increased markedly since the mid-1970s. This trend is due to both longer storm lifetimes and greater storm intensities. I find that the record of net hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature, reflecting well-documented climate signals, including multi-decadal oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and global warming. My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential, and—taking into account an increasing coastal population—a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century.
I haven't found any comments from Emanuel on south atlantic hurricanes.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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As ever, Rabbit, you're a credit to your field and to scientists and educators as a whole. Thanks for a very enlightening thread. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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