Crossposted with TheGreenGrok.com, the blog by the dean of Duke's Nicholas School
Scientific mistakes of mythic proportions.
For the record, it should be noted that Fox News is not my primary outlet for keeping abreast of the news. So normally I wouldn't have seen this August 6 "Fox and Friends" piece on global warming (sorry -- you'll have to view a commercial to see it). But the media watchdog group Media Matters for America contacted me for my comments on it. So I figured I'd watch and what I saw compelled my comments here.
Fox News called the three-and-a-half-minute segment "Climate Change Myths: Separating Fact From Fiction" -- an apt name because as far as the science is concerned, there's very little that could be characterized as fact, and a whole lot that could pass for fiction.
The segment was pegged to what the morning hosts called a new NASA study which, in their words, "seems to debunk whether [global warming] is actually manmade." Since that paper [pdf] (by Roy Spencer and William Braswell) has been pretty thoroughly debunked in places like RealClimate and ClimateProgress, I will focus on the rest of the segment.
Next up was a Rasmussen poll finding that 69 percent of Americans believe scientists have lied to support their theories about global warming. Viewers, I suspect, are intended to receive this result as an indictment of global warming science. But hold on a minute. Suppose you're convinced that global warming is "manmade" and that skeptics are cooking the books to advance their viewpoint, would you not answer yes to that question? And so I'm not at all sure what this poll means.
Following the brief poll discussion the really good stuff begins. For the "real story" and "the facts" the morning hosts bring on meteorologist Joe Bastardi, the chief forecaster of the consulting firm WeatherBell.
After a quick recap of the recent record-breaking hot weather and why it's not a sign of global warming (with Bastardi making note of what he claims was the "far worse climate" of the '30s-'50s), the meteorologist makes his case for "Why CO2 Can't Cause Warming."
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Bastardi advances arguments by beginning with basic science and then tortuously applying it to support his own unscientific point of view.
For one example, he argues that:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) can't warm the atmosphere because it would violate the first law of thermodynamics.
Wow. The first law of thermodynamics -- that's heavy stuff. Far be it from me or any other self-respecting scientist to go against this law, arguably the most basic in all of physics, which says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
Bastardi correctly points out that this law (also known as the conservation of energy) requires that if the atmosphere is heating up, there must be an external source of energy. So far, we're on the same page. But then he slips up, arguing that CO2 cannot cause warming because it is not a source of heat.
Can this man really have that poor an understanding of atmospheric physics or is something else at play? You be the judge.
Of course CO2 is not the "source of heat." The heat source is the Sun. CO2 causes the warming by trapping more of the Sun's energy in the atmosphere, causing the temperature to rise.
Consider this analogy. It's a cold night (hard to imagine with this summer) and you're chilly so you add a blanket to warm up. The blanket doesn't create heat; it's not the source of energy. It merely acts as an insulator, trapping your body's heat. CO2, via the greenhouse effect, does a similar thing.
Realize that Bastardi's essentially arguing that the greenhouse effect does not exist. This effect is something we have known about for more than 100 years, the basic physics of which were worked out by some of the 19th century's greatest scientists, such as Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius. Without the greenhouse effect, simple thermodynamics, including the first law, predict that the Earth's temperature would be at or below the freezing point of water. Without the greenhouse effect, we could not explain the high temperatures of Venus.
You gotta hand it to the guy -- trashing the work of Arrhenius and Fourier takes chutzpah, not much smarts but lots of chutzpah.
Next up is a discussion of Le Chatelier's principle which begins with an embarrassing exchange that makes clear that nobody on the show bothered to research the pronunciation of the French chemist's name -- including, it would appear, Bastardi.
Le Chatlier's principle states that a system at equilibrium that is disturbed or pushed from that equilibrium will oppose the change and act to restore the equilibrium.
So, Bastardi argues, the atmosphere will inevitably return to its pre-global-warming temperature -- he in fact boldly predicts that on the basis of this principle, global warming has already ceased and temperatures will shortly return to the temperatures of the 1970s. Why the temperatures of the 1970s and not the Ice Age temperatures or the extremely warm temperatures of the Eocene? Alas, he does not say.
Folks, this is total nonsense.
Le Chatlier's principle applies to an isolated system at equilibrium. If perturbed, that system will tend to oppose the perturbation, and if left alone, it will tend to return to its original state. It does not say that the system will actually return to its original state, and if continuously perturbed, the system clearly will not. The principle also does not rule out the possibility of the system moving to a completely different state if the perturbation is large enough.
Let's consider another analogy -- in this case a rubber band. Apply an outward force on a rubber band (i.e., stretch it), and its shape will change. Let go of that stretched band, and it will relax more or less to its original shape. A nice application of the principle. But now imagine that you don't let go of the band but continue to stretch it. It will contract against your fingers, trying to get back to its original shape but it will not actually contract.
In the case of global warming, we are continuously adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, effectively stretching and stretching that climate rubber band. Under those conditions, Le Chatelier's principle does not predict that the atmosphere will return to temperatures before the warming occurred. Now, if we suddenly stopped emitting CO2, the atmosphere would slowly (as it turns out, extremely slowly -- see here and here ) relax back to cooler temperatures. But that's a big if and not exactly the context for Bastardi's comments.
And there's another important aspect of this. If you keep on stretching that rubber band, it will eventually break. And if that happens, the rubber band will never return to its original shape.
Could the same snap happen to the climate if we keep adding CO2? Probably. When will it snap? We're not sure; we'll have to wait and see. But there's one loud snap that has already been heard: Joe Bastardi has stretched his scientific credibility beyond the breaking point.
Correction: August 12.
This post was corrected to clarify that it was Fox News who characterized Roy Spencer's study as a NASA study.
Follow Bill Chameides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/theGreenGrok
That is obviously going to change the climate, right?
(let's see how many people deny this simple fact....;)
Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) global warming scientist Bob Carter acted to Hide The Incline in global warming, as statistician Tamino demonstrates.*
SPPI global warming scientist Bob Carter is a leader of and/or contributor to several other of the most prominent organizations that are "skeptical" of man-made global warming as well, including:
* The Heartland Institute
* The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
* The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
* The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
ICSC Executive Director Tom Harris has repeatedly refused to address SPPI global warming scientist Bob Carter's de facto fraud here on HuffPo, despite the fact that the SPPI global warming scientist is also the ICSC's Chief Science Adviser.**
Dear Orkneygal,
Isn't SPPI global warming scientist Bob Carter committing de facto fraud by tweaking down the increasing global temperature trend line until it is deceptively flat?
Isn't that like a scam, a hoax, a deception, a lie, misrepresentation, fraud etc.?
SPPI global warming scientist Bob Carter is also a founding leader of the "skeptical" New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC). You Orkneygal have indicated that you live in New Zealand - what relationship do you have with the NZCSC, if any?
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* http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/bob_carters_trend_lines.php
** http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Publicola/climate-change-impacts-water-resources_n_911152_101378826.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/social/Publicola/climate-change-denial_b_896543_97738177.html
Unstoppable Solar Cycles: The Real Story of Greenland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP3bRZl8Xmk
Moose: "MIT... Solar leads CO2"
Changes in incoming solar radiation has historically generally lead increasing CO2 concentrations, yes.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
And in other Breaking Science News, scientists discover that the world is not flat.
MIT (2009):
------------------------------------
Climate Change Odds Much Worse Than Thought
New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates
The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html
We'll be waiting to inform everyone of the TRUTH by revealing the scientific DATA that does NOT support the alarmist position.
Sea level? Slowing down - http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
No where near 'unprecedented' rate - ~20 meters in ~1000 years = ~20mm/year - http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/09newworld/background/occupation/media/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_600.jpg
CO2 and temperature, currently at a LOW point for BOTH over the last 400 million years - http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Hurricanes / Tornadoes, no correlation - http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg
Drought/Flood, no correlation (USA) - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/drought/wetdry/bar-mod-110-00/190001-201002.gif
Past warming and cooling has been more each way and changed faster - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
Warmist scientists at he UK MET are forced to admit the SUN affects global temperature - hhttp://tinyurl.com/6jhfp3k
"We now believe that [the solar cycle] accounts for 50 per cent of the variability from year to year,” says Scaife. "
The deniers continue to maintain that there is nothing to see here folks.
Only the hard core deniers and the professional climate disinformation campaign headed by front groups such as Heartland are beating the drum that everything is ok. Nothing to see here, go back home, is the Heartland approach. Big Energy just wants to extract of few trillion more worth of fossil carbon, we'll worry about any problems later.
Addressing but one of Moose's science denier talking points:
Moose: "CO2 and temperature, currently at a LOW point for BOTH over the last 400 million years."
Wildly wrong on both counts, Moose.
Moose is yet another purported "skeptic" who has been taken in by a graph that blows the geologic timescale so far out of proportion that one cannot see the atmospheric CO2 levels over the past million years, most if not all of which had lower CO2 levels than today. One also cannot see the most recent Ice Age* that ended about 12,000 years ago, not long after which human civilization began, which was of course a significantly cooler time period than today.
Here's a hint, Moose: don't get your "science" from science denier blogs.
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* Technically a glacial period; in lay language however it is generally referred to as an ice age.
Burn.
“My forecast for next year is for sea ice to melt only to levels we saw back in 2005, or 06. If I had to put a number on it, I think it would be around 5.5 at its lowest.”
Actual Reality: Bastardi’s prediction is not even close! and the ice melting season has over a month to go!
Arctic ice extent is currently the second lowest on record, and for much of July 2011 it was the LOWEST on record for each day. The ice extent has already just about reached 5.5 million sq. km, and there is still over a month of melting season to go! which means that there is a high probability that it will end up below 5.0 million sq. km and is within shooting distance of the record low extent. The extent of melting has flat out exceeded 2006 and should break 2005 in a few days. It is currently the second lowest on record and, again, it may even break the record this year.
Conclusion: Bastardi has once again proven to be a lousy predictor of climate and FOX should be taken to task for presenting him as an expert whenever they pay him to talk. Since FOX is heavily linked to Exxon Mobil and Saudi oil financially, they need to be called out for misleading the public, quite possibly for corrupt monetary gain.
How Many Findings of the IPCC AR4 WG I are Incorrect? Answer: 28%
http://tinyurl.com/3vawjnn
As Toxicity pointed out, Pielke Jr. is a political scientist. It's his father Pielke Sr. who is a real scientist.
http://www.grist.org/climate-skeptics/2011-08-04-how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-conservative-white-men
The right’s climate denialism is part of something much larger"
"Scientific claims are now subject to ideological disputation. Rush Limbaugh is telling millions of people that they've taken the red pill and everything they once knew and could trust is a lie. They've woken up outside the Matrix and he is their corpulent, drug-addicted, thrice-divorced Morpheus. What could go wrong?"
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09-09-the-rights-climate-denialism-is-part-of-something-much-larger
I'd rather be skeptical than .. GULLIBLE.
Catastrophic?
For example:
http://bit.ly/oHQMnC
The full trend from 1975-present is in blue. The ten-year trend from 1987-1997 is in red. If this were 1997 instead of 2011, you'd be howling about how there's been no warming for ten years.
But the rest of us can see that the existence of a short term downward trend does not in ANY way mean that there isn't a longer term upward trend..
Here's a handy quote: "It’s the very nature of statistics that not only is it possible for false trend reversals to appear for no other reason than random noise, it’s actually inevitable."
Do you really not get this, or are you intentionally saying things you know to be misleading? Which is it? There's no third alternative.
"I'd rather be skeptical than .. GULLIBLE."
But, unfortunately, you're not skeptical, and you are gullible.
If that was actually true then we would be able to detect a HOT SPOT in the mid troposphere per your blanket analogy. It was a predicted outcome of CO2 warming that has NEVER been detected.
"Big names like Santer, Sherwood, and Schmidt admit that the models predict more warming 10 km above the equator than what the weather balloons could find. Each time they announce that they’ve resolved the differences, they have to start by admitting there are differences to resolve."
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/01/even-gurus-of-warming-admit-the-hot-spot-went-missing/
And another thing, Bastardi never said the green house effect doesn't exist so you're making a strawman argument. It exists, water comprises 95% of it, CO2's overall contribution is minor making our puny 3% addition totally irrelevant and, most importantly, UNMEASURABLE thus insignificant.
The whole basis of CAGW relies on the concept of POSITIVE FEEDBACK from water vapor the major player of greenhouse gases. No net positive feedback has ever been proven or detected in out climate.
Mid troposphere warming is a predicted outcome of ANY warming, punkin, and although the measured tropospheric warming has been on the low side, it has been within the error bounds of what was predicted.
What is a unique signature prediction for greenhouse warming, on the other hand, is cooling of the stratosphere, which is exactly what has been observed.
As for H2O accounting for 95% of the greenhouse effect, get real. Water vapour and clouds *combined* account for no more then ~80-85%, with CO2 accounting for ~15-20%.
And your human contribution of atmospheric CO2 of just 3% is a ludicrous result of a tortured number salad that completely ignores absorption of CO2 by the biosphere and ocean -- try 38%.
And as for the water vapour feedback, you seem to have missed the memo, or rather ignored it: atmospheric H2O has increased by 4% in response to enhanced geenhouse warming.
The whole basis of AGW/CC denial is cherry picking of facts, misunderstanding of facts, misrepresentation of facts, ignoring and denial of facts, and when all else fails, the making up of 'facts'.
Sara has nicely demonstrated all of those in one post.
1) Climate sensitivity to CO2 in the atmosphere is much lower that the models predict.
2) The IPCC models have the sign wrong for water vapour feedback.
3) There are other forcings not being taken into account by the models, ie cosmic rays, etc.
At seven years of age, I understood that testing an electric with one's tongue was not the proper method to find answers regarding the status of the fence.
Once skeptics have satisfactory evidence that significant positive feedbacks are occurring, we will already be screwed. While the discussion of climate change is in the abstract, the consequences quite real and terrifying. If you have a shred of competence you should find this graphic troubling.
http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/secc_edu/images/precipchanges.png
Note the 30% decrease of rainfall in portions of Va and NC during the growing season despite the fact that overall precipitation is increasing.
As for climate changing, show ONE period in earth's history when climate did not change? I suppose sea level stayed the same before we started burning coal? http://tinyurl.com/ykxuqot
http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/edu/k12/
Anyone interested in the Science of climate change will be interested in his commentary.
Here's the link-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/14/its-not-about-feedback/
Now that was good for a morning howler.
Good times.
"Its elephants all the way down!" (punch line of old joke)
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
My footprint is 0.18 metric tons of CO2 per year compared to 20.4 metric tons in the US or 11 metric tons for industrial countries or 4 metric tons world average. We need a
2 metric ton limit per person to combat climate change.
We still need a national effort to combat climate change as I have zero faith in individuals making changes in their lifestyles.