Coming out as a Global Warming Sceptic

[James Hannam]

I thought this article was quite sensible: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_cox/2008/06/cooling_on_warming.html

But I’d go further as I am, I’m afraid, becoming a full blown sceptic about global warming. I used to be less sceptical, but every year the hard data shows temperatures not rising, the consensus becomes ever harder to sustain.

The global warming consensus is built, I think, on three pillars:

1) The computer models provide accurate forecasts of climate over the next century;
2) The consequences of warming will be catastrophic;
3) It is possible to prevent said warming from occurring;

I’d counter these three points as follows:

1) We have seen no warming over the last decade. Models that extrapolate past trends are usually unreliable.
2) There is no agreement, as far as I can tell, on any of the direct consequences of warming. Increased rainfall, rising sea levels and worse weather have all been questioned. Several catastrophes such as the melting of the Antarctic Ice and the loss of the Gulf Stream are now off the menu.
3) Cutting carbon output to levels that anyone believes might be useful is both impossible and undesirable in the short term.

What to do:

1) Solve more urgent problems like protectionism, lack of food and vaccination.
2) Long term, we will need a big switch to nuclear power, but the market through the oil price is encouraging us in that direction anyway. Major contributions from wind power and other ‘sustainable’ energy sources are pipe dreams.
3) Adapt to rising temperatures if they occur.

Best wishes

James

[humphreyclarke]

All my thinking on this is much informed by Michael Burleigh's writings on political religions in 'The Third Reich a new history', 'Earthly Powers' and 'Sacred Causes'. There is a legitimate scientific debate on whether man-made global warming is happening and the consensus seems to be (at the moment) that it is, although I should mention Freeman Dyson has come out as a dissenter on EDGE.org. I feel that the science is unclear but that my tentative conclusion is that yes, man made warning is occurring but that it won't turn out to be as bad as everyone thinks; i.e the Stern review is an apocalyptic myth. The problem is that legitimate issues have a habit of spawning into sinister manichean ideologies, for example, the effects of rapid industrialisation into Marxism, the discovery of evolution into social Darwinism.

Being green, on the face of it, is superficially harmless; but there are dangers. Firstly we could end up placing so many restrictions on our economic system that we slip into recession and plunge our citizens into poverty. We could end up making peoples lives a misery with eco-restrictions and demonise those segments of society that aren't seen to be pulling with the rest of us. Most importantly, millions could end up starving because land is given over to biofuels rather than crops. In short, we should recognise the problems but we shouldn't get too carried away and should remain focussed on other important issues like global poverty. As Dyson says:

"All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the be-lief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice."

[Petersean]

Over the last 20 years, I have gone from moderately accepting the possibility of anthropogenic warming to full-throated skepticism.

My attitude developed from actually watching the evolution of the Global Warming position over the years.

Initially, in the late 80's/early 90s, the Global Warming ["GW"] position was presented with certain verifiable claims. One of those claims involved a prediction taht air temperature at various elevations would warm up.

Throughout the 90s, there were repeated tests, none of which confirmed GW.

Then, all of a sudden, GW was found at in an area that had never been predicted and, suddenly, every one announced GW as scientifically proven.

There were other predictions made about GW that haven't panned out - such as greater runoff of freshwater into the Atlantic Ocean - that haven't been supported by empirical evidence, and in fact have been contradicted.

Then we have the imminent extinction of polar bears, despite the fact that the polar bears managed to survive a period during the Middle Ages which were substantially warmer than today.

Now, we have evidence of a 10 year cooling period.

So, I'm a skeptic.

But I also went though this phenomenon one other time in my life when everyone agreed that AIDS was going to rip through the heterosexual population and cause widespread death among the majority population. There were a few skeptics that dissented, but they were tarred as reactionary and unscientific.

Now, though, it seems that they were right and that the gay activist commuity has moved on to matters of greater interest to those who define the agenda of gay activism.

My rule of thumb is that when the scientific community seems to universally embrace a trendy position that entails social programs favored by the political class and militates in favor of increased funding of that science, we ought to listen to the skeptics.

_____
N.B. I don't want to be heard as arguing against scientific research. The "Manhattan Project" style of AIDS research resulted in advances in anti-virals, and we are bound to learn a lot of useful information about climate science from the GW hysteria. I just wished that we didn't have to have the hysteria.

[humphreyclarke]

At the moment I'm pretty convinced by the IPCC and the current consensus. That said, I'm always sceptical when the predictions get too apocalyptic and it begins to look a bit too much like 'The Day after Tomorrow'. But I do believe that the earth's climate is changing and the effects will be deleterious to humankind. That leads into the next question which is how best to respond without merely flagellating ourselves back to the stone age. I question whether the best way to do that is to get modernist architects to build unsightly eco-towns and slap massive fines on elderly people for putting the wrong type of rubbish in the recycle bin. It all seems a little too much like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic for my liking.

If you guys can link to some reports on the climate change controversy that back up your views I would very much like to see them.

[Petersean]

Here are some posts I've written over the years concerning the evidence against GW and/or the purported scientific consensus on GW.

Prof. Philip Stott - a leftwing climate scientist - on Global Warming.

Freeman Dyson on Global Warming.

Michael Crichton on Global Warming.

New Satellite points to cooling phase until 2030 consistent with solar activity.

Data implicates solar activity as cause of climate change.

Bunch of stuff on GW.

Here is a post I did on changes in Alaskan temperature after I visited Fairbanks, Alaska during the Winter Solstice and heard from a cabbie in Anchorage about how much warmer Alaska was then (in 2005) than it had been in 1980. I thought that anecdote was interesting, so I investigated and found out that the truth was that there had been no increase in temperature between 1980 and 2005.

This Alaskan data is weird insofar as GW theory claims that is a correlation between CO2 production and GW, and if all those polar bears are in danger of extinction because of GW.

This is the site of the Alaska Climate Research Center with the data on increases in temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska plotted through 2007. You can see a rise in temperature from 1910 to 2007, but if you look at the period from 1980 to 2007, you can see that there has been no temperature increase during that period, and, in fact, it looks as if there is a slight cooling trend.

This is from the ACRC for climate trends for all of Alask. While the ACRC acknowledges an increase in temperature, it appears to be skeptical of claims that the explanation is due to CO2 but that it is better explained by something called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation:

Considering just a linear trend can mask some important variability characteristics in the time series. The figure at right shows clearly that this trend is non-linear: a linear trend might have been expected from the fairly steady observed increase of CO2 during this time period. The figure shows the temperature departure from the long-term mean (1949-2007) for all stations. It can be seen that there are large variations from year to year and the 5-year moving average demonstrates large increase in 1976. The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder than the period from 1977 to 2007, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations. The stepwise shift appearing in the temperature data in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase. Synoptic conditions with the positive phase tend to consist of increased southerly flow and warm air advection into Alaska during the winter, resulting in positive temperature anomalies.

I point to the ACRC data because approximately 4 years ago the New York Times claimed that the ACRC data supported its hysterical claims about Global Warming, to wit that Alaska had warmed up by 7 degrees. The ACRC data didn't support the claim, which it pointed out to the New York Times, which caused the NYT to issue an erroneous retraction to the effect that the data showed a 5 degree raise in temperature without any reference to the discrepancies between the data and GW theory.

Given the ACRC's subtle critique of GW theory on its site, I have problems accepting the claim that there is a consensus about GW.

[Jamie Robertson]

James,

I see you're eager to promote nuclear energy. I certainly think it's an important source of energy for us (and I get annoyed at those who refuse to consider it because it's evil, the world will all turn into Chernobyl, etc etc), but isn't it the case that nuclear energy is every bit as temporal as fossil fuels? After all, nuclear plants need uranium, and that is a finite resource... how much longer COULD we expect to have nuclear energy as an option, given that (eventually) we'll run out of feedstock?

[James Hannam]

Jun 4, 2008 21:23:21 GMT @Jamie Robertson said:

After all, nuclear plants need uranium, and that is a finite resource... how much longer COULD we expect to have nuclear energy as an option, given that (eventually) we'll run out of feedstock?

Hi Jamie,

As far as I'm aware, the stock of uranium are great enough to meet our needs for some time to come. But the eldorado of nuclear power is fusion for which the fuel is limitless.

So, I don't think we need worry about shortages for the moment.

Best wishes

James

[unkleE]

Well I'm a global warming believer, not on faith, but on evidence.

I worked for many years in the area of environment and water management, and here in Australia water is generally very scarce, so getting the predictions right is very important. The CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation) has a good reputation worldwide, and has done significant research into global warming and climate change. I have spoken to some of the researchers and read many of their papers.

This is a summary of those findings:

1. There have been massive and unprecedented rises in the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and in air and water temperatures, over the past 1000 years. Ice cores in Antarctica show current temperature and carbon dioxide levels are the highest in the past 400,000 years.

2. The available data has been modelled by the best climate modellers in the world, and the predictions are based on the models. The models show conclusively that the major causes of these changes have human origin (though there may be some natural causes also). The largest polluter is (you guessed it) the US with 23.5%, despite it only having 5% of the world's population. Other big contributors are China & the EU.

Some sections of the world, especially in the US, have opposed these conclusions from the beginning, and one cannot help suspecting their motives. Often the arguments are hearsay and unscientific - like asking why we're currently having a cold wet spell if global warming is true - and not based on the extensive modelling. You question the modelling, but I'm still not sure why.

I have written this up a little more here: innerandouterspace.blogspot.com/2007/07/maybe-just-maybe-were-starting-to-get.html, where I show a few of the graphs, which are pretty conclusive if you don't trust models which you can't see. I think Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" represents the facts pretty fairly, if a little dramatically.

It seems to me that it is human nature to avoid uncomfortable things until the last possible minute and then scramble to make up for lost time, with much suffering in the process. I can't help feeling we're doing the same here. After all, if the predictions are a little inaccurate, what will we lose if we take notice of them? We'll still be doing things that are environmentally helpful.

[Petersean]

Unklee,

I appreciate the temperate tone of your post, but I have a few questions/challenges, which are intended in the same spirit.

I worked for many years in the area of environment and water management, and here in Australia water is generally very scarce, so getting the predictions right is very important.

I would think that, all things being equal, a warmer world would be better for precipitation than a colder world.

After all, a colder world locks up water in ice, glaciers etc. and results in a generally dryer climate.

A warmer world, on the other hand, should release water into the evaporation/precipitation economy. This is one of the reasons why glaciation in areas like Greenland and Antarctica should increase - and in fact we are seeing that happen.

On the other hand, a wetter world means more clouds and more cloud formation means a lower temperature, which is why modeling is so difficult. [See Crichton's excellent lecture for an argument as to why it is wrong to assume direct, linear or simple relationships for something as complex as the world. ]

However, all things being otherwise equal, I would think that the predictions for Australia would be more precipitation, not less.

Is this what you've heard?

1. There have been massive and unprecedented rises in the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and in air and water temperatures, over the past 1000 years. Ice cores in Antarctica show current temperature and carbon dioxide levels are the highest in the past 400,000 years.

I understand that there have been unprecedented rises in CO2 in recent history, but I also understand that the volume of such emissions is still infinitesimal compared to the entire volume of the atmosphere. I also understand that the single largest greenhouse gas is water vapor, which dwarfs any contribution made by any man-made gas.

From >Junk Science:

Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

So, there has been a dramatic increase in CO2, but it remains a fraction of the significance of water vapor?

Also, Crichton, supra, points out something I've never seen mentioned in the mainstream press: CO2 is not like an accelerator on a car. It’s not linear (and by the way, neither is a car accelerator.)

Crichton is apparently referring to the notion that the correlation of CO2 with warming is logarithmic, not linear, which means that the more CO2 that's added, the less the marginal increase in temperature. It may well be the case that the Greenhouse Effect has reached its limits with respect to "trapping" the specific wavelengths that are a concern for the Greenhouse Effect.

The available data has been modeled by the best climate modelers in the world, and the predictions are based on the models. The models show conclusively that the major causes of these changes have human origin (though there may be some natural causes also).

But, according to the Freeman Dyson clip that I linked to previously, the models don't take into account the negative or positive impact that vegetation has on CO2 production, which, according to Dyson, could dwarf any effect caused by anthropogenic CO2.

Dyson's point is also something that I've never heard in any mainstream media discussion of Global Warming, and it causes me to wonder about the validity of such models.

Also, the latest reports of a 10 year cooling trend and the apparent lack of correlation between Alaskan temperature and CO2 make me suspect that the real answer is the Sun, inasmuch as CO2 has remained constant during the relevant time.

[unkleE]

Peter,

Thanks for questions. I'll do my best (since I retired, I haven't kept the relevant material, or contacts, as thoroughly as I once did).

I appreciate the temperate tone of your post

Ditto. We don't want to add to the problem, do we? : )

I would think that, all things being equal, a warmer world would be better for precipitation than a colder world........
However, all things being otherwise equal, I would think that the predictions for Australia would be more precipitation, not less.

I think the danger in all this is to think we can use what we would think as the criterion for discussion. After all, as you say, this is a complex world. We use weather models every day for forecasting and other models for all sorts of things, and I see no reason, provided they are suitably based on data, suitably verified and calibrated, etc, not to use them here. Yes, there are doubts and uncertainties, but it is much more probable that they are correct (within the limits of accuracy that are always stated by modellers though not always by the press) than that they are wrong.

I'm not sure of the effect on total worldwide precipitation but clearly there will be more water in the system, hence sea level rises. But I think there will be more evaporation and hence less where we need it on the ground, in some places at least. But the important thing is that there will be change.

In Australia, the change is in different directions in different locations. The following is predicted, and is already being experienced (some of it confirmed by statistics - weather is so variable, especially in Australia, which has the most variable hydrology of any developed country, so it takes longer time periods to verify):

• some parts will be wetter and some parts drier - unfortunately most of the more intensely developed (urban and agriculture) on the south east coast get less rain, whereas the increases either occur in the arid centre where anything would be an increase, and the wet northwest where they already have more than they need - yes we could pipe it across, but you're talking 3000-4000 km of enormous pipe capacity
  
• there is less "average" weather and more extremes, of both wet and dry - in statistical terms, mean rainfall in southeast Aust will reduce, while standard deviation will increase
  
• prediction of means is more reliable than of extremes
  

Similar variability happens elsewhere, so while I don't know the details, I've read that parts of Africa will have disastrous reductions in rainfall.

Also, the latest reports of a 10 year cooling trend and the apparent lack of correlation between Alaskan temperature and CO2 make me suspect that the real answer is the Sun, inasmuch as CO2 has remained constant during the relevant time.

I have quoted this as a summary of your several comments on CO2.

1. Short term weather changes like your ten year comment are much more likely to be caused by other factors - in Aust, El Nino and La Nina. These cause the variability, but global warming is like a longer term underlying trend. It is a trap to trust our experience, which is subjective and short term, when the models can factor in much more.

2. CO2 emissions are increasing relatively quickly, and atmospheric CO2 is rising relatively slowly - growth of 2 parts per million in 2005. Your main point seems to be that this growth is a very small percentage, but I can't see how that matters. If the science tells us it makes a difference, then that is the important fact. (e.g. some poisons require only enormously low dosages to be fatal, but we don't discount them for that reason.) The scientists know the concentrations are small, but their models show they are significant.

Here are some relevant references:

www.csiro.au/news/ps2im.html - CSIRO on CO2 emissions
www.csiro.au/resources/pfbg.html - CSIRO on impacts
www.bom.gov.au/silo/products/cli_chg/ - some data from Bureau of Meteorology

[James Hannam]

My problem with unklee's points is that I do think he places far too much faith in the computer models.

A model is tested by how well it predicts the future, not how well it has been calibrated to the past. It is very easy to produce a model after the event.

Over the last ten years, average global temperature has been static. As far as I am aware, an average rise of 0.6 degrees was predicted over this period by the models from the late 1990s. This did not happen. The models were wrong.

The models have now been adjusted but there is still no good reason why we should want to rely on them. The fact is that nature is presently not following the path the models ordained. She may do in the future, but we have no real reason to believe this for the moment.

Until we actually see global warming happening, which at the moment it isn't, I will remain sceptical but interested.

Best wishes

James

[unkleE]

James,

I'm afraid you're doing what I believe, and have said, is a sad mistake, and that is expect global climate models to predict micro changes - and changes on an annual and decade time span are often too small time periods to model accurately.

But in this response to the questions you raise (Refuting claims that climate forecasts are all up in the air), a climate scientist points out that, "1998 was the warmest year on record in the last 150 years. Although the eight years since then have not been warmer than 1998, they do include the globe’s second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh warmest years on record. The planet is not cooling."

So this decade is definitely the hottest decade ever; even though one year (1998) outside this decade is the hottest individual year, its decade was not as hot. And remember, we were already way above average temperature before this the 1990s, as the graph at that reference shows. So, yes, there is scatter in the plot, but the same causes that got us here are still in place, and there is nothing to indicate anything other than further temperature rises.

I honestly can't understand why christians seem to be at the forefront of doubting the science on this.

[James Hannam]

I think we will have to agree to disagree, unklee.

One quick question though. How long must temperatures fail to rise before you will begin to doubt the computer models?

If they are at or below today's level (taking a ten year rolling average) in 2015 or 2020, will that be long enough?

Then I'll know when to get back to you.

Best wishes

James

[unkleE]

James,

Yes, I had wondered how long I would continue, so agreeing to disagree is a good choice. I will just answer your question.

"How long must temperatures fail to rise before you will begin to doubt the computer models? If they are at or below today's level (taking a ten year rolling average) in 2015 or 2020, will that be long enough?"

I think these questions are fundamental to our difference. You are asking for some simplified criterion that "temperatures fail to rise" for some given time, whereas I think we need to use all the information. The models are not some black box that has mysteriously been handed down from Mt Sinai, but the best way scientists know to summarise all our knowledge.

So my answer is: when the models predict a different outcome.

Best wishes.

[bjorn]

Working with some world expert forecasters (with doctoral degrees in Statistics) and not Christians at all, I have the last year been convinced that Climate forecasts are a lot more uncertain than IPCC claims.

There is a big debate raging in Norway these days, after we gave Gore the Nobel Prize last year.

Gliding average for the last 34 month indicates definitely a global temperature fall, as indicated at www.climate4you.com.

So, the question then is for how long shall temperature keep falling, until IPCC will change either their forecasts or their claim for it's uncertainty estimated at less than 10 percent?