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Further to my post 4135 (re the Met Office Hadley Centre’s Vicky Pope’s most interesting article in the Guardian today) I recommend a look at Bishop Hill’s current offering. The good Bishop reminds us of Ms Pope’s comment in the article that “Apocalyptic climate predictions’ mislead the public ” comparing that with a presentation she made two years ago where she made – er, apocalyptic predictions. Well done that Bishop!
PS: ignore my 4144 and 4145.
The BBC has favored me with a response to my complaint about the Susan Watts inauguration night report.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=156
It’s interesting that, if the Met Office’s Ms Pope’s predictions (see #4151) that the 2014 anomaly would be 0.3C higher than 2004 (I think 0.447C – Max?) are to be met, the 2014 figure would be 0.747C. That’s a lot higher even than the 1998 peak and would mean an increase from today of over +0.4C. I doubt if even Peter expects such a massive turnaround in the next few years. Yet she now warns about the dangers of making apocalyptic predictions.
Further to all this, the usually alarmist BBC had an article yesterday reporting that “The UK’s plans to cut emissions by 80% by 2050 are fundamentally flawed and almost certain to fail, according to a US academic.” And today the equally alarmist Guardian had, as well as Ms Pope’s article, a piece headed “Climate scientists blow hot and cold Antarctic warming isn’t evidence of climate change – despite what scientists would have us believe”
What is going on?
Robin,
Vicki Pope is making an appeal for science journalists to try to get it right rather than over or understating the seriousness of the problem.
I would say that the prediction of an ice free Arctic last year is probably the most famous overstaement. I’m not sure if this was ever made , but if it was, it can’t have been by anyone with any scientific training. A quick glance at the NSIDC graph for sea ice extent in Aug (posted in 4138) is enough to show that prediction was never going to be correct.
Even if the methods of contrarian science had been adopted and an extraploation made from the two worst points of 2006 and 2007, it still wasn’t going to happen!
It bad enough that the Arctic sea ice is on track to completely disappear in summer some time later this century.
Incidentally, the NW passage is just about on the verge of being open to conventional shipping for the first time ever. The ‘open’ season will be initially very short but could be extended with the use of icebreakers. So President Obama may not be as dumb as some may be trying to make out!
Hi Peter,
“So President Obama may not be as dumb as some may be trying to make out!”
Don’t believe anyone would try to imply that President Obama is “dumb”.
He is extremely intelligent, as I am sure even Brute or JZSmith will acknowledge (despite the fact that they may not agree with many of his ideas).
He is also an excellent orator that can captivate an audience as very few politicians ever could or can today.
Two that come to mind in recent history (at opposite ends of the political spectrum) were FDR and Adolf Hitler.
Like with many politicians, it can happen that President Obama is sometimes poorly advised or not completely knowledgable on a particular subject and could therefore make an incorrect or unwise decision.
Authorizing the purchase of another icebreaker is probably not such a case, in view of most recent temperature trends, particuarly in the USA.
Regards,
Max
Peter: Ms Pope goes much further than “the prediction of an ice free Arctic last year”. She specifically says
That’s a clear warning against the repeated focus in the alarmist media (i.e. most of it) on the alleged implications of recent Arctic sea ice reduction. And I would add against the fruitless trading of statistics about it in this thread and talk of “first time ever” etc! As for the ice being “on track to completely disappear in summer some time later this century”, that’s an unproven conjecture: it may be – or it may not.
As I said at 4135, she’s trying to get to a position where she cannot lose. If the summer ice retreats, the useful headlines (and doomed polar bear scares as repeated in the otherwise excellent BBC programme, Nature’s Great Events [stunning photography], last night) will continue. If it doesn’t, well, as she says, these short-term scares
As we’ve discussed before: AGW is a hypothesis that can never be disproved. Therefore, it’s a poor hypothesis.
Hi Peter,
You wrote (4154): “Vicki Pope is making an appeal for science journalists to try to get it right rather than over or understating the seriousness of the problem.
I would say that the prediction of an ice free Arctic last year is probably the most famous overstatement. I’m not sure if this was ever made, but if it was, it can’t have been by anyone with any scientific training.”
Peter, I do believe it is more than just “science journalists” who are guilty, as you postulate.
As Robin pointed out, “scientists” at the Met Office are some of the greatest offenders in this regard with their annual predictions of “record heat next year” in press releases, which never turn out to be right. But maybe Ms Pope is signaling that the Met Office is no longer going to make unrealistic disaster predictions for the future – who knows? It would be a welcome change!
But back to your statement, “I would say that the prediction of an ice free Arctic last year is probably the most famous overstatement. I’m not sure if this was ever made, but if it was, it can’t have been by anyone with any scientific training.”
Googling “Arctic will be ice free due to global warming”, I got 125,000 hits.
On top was an article by Robert McKie, science editor of The Observer (August 2008).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/10/climatechange.arctic
“Scientists warn that the North Pole could be free of ice in just five years’ time” [i.e. by “summer 2013”].
KcKie quoted Mark Serreze, of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado and cited a study by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
“Using US navy supercomputers, his team [Maslowski] produced a forecast which indicated that by 2013 there will be no ice in the Arctic.”
The second hit from June 2008 was from CNN entitled, “The North Pole may be briefly ice-free by September as global warming melts away Arctic sea ice, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado”
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/weather/06/27/north.pole.melting/
“’We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is ‘does the North Pole melt out this summer? and it may well,’ said the center’s senior research scientist, Mark Serreze.”
“It’s a 50-50 bet that the thin Arctic sea ice, which was frozen in autumn, will completely melt away at the geographic North Pole, Serreze said.”
The third hit was an article (June 2008) by Steve Connor, science editor of The Independent, headlined “Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-no-ice-at-the-north-pole-855406.html
Conner also quoted Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado in saying “the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer”.
I would argue that both Dr. Serreze of NSIDC and Prof. Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School are, indeed, “individuals with scientific training” so your suggestion that this “most famous overstatement” [i.e. of imminent melting of Arctic sea ice] “can’t have been by anyone with any scientific training” is obviously incorrect.
Other studies were more factual, projecting that the Arctic could be ice free after the annual summer melt within 40 to 100 years, if the past trends there were to continue into the future.
So, Peter, you have to agree that the “wolf cries” are not only coming from science journalists but from scientists as well. These do give the scientific community a bad name when they turn out to be totally false, as Vicki Pope of the Met Office points out.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Just a comment to your exchange with Robin on the Vicki Pope article:
As a result of his professional education and experience, Robin understands the expressed and implied meanings of words much better than you or I, who (alas!) tend to concentrate more on numbers and facts than on words (just look at all the graphs the two of us have posted here!).
So when Robin points out (4156) that Ms Pope is actually telling us a bit more than just what it appears at first glance, I take notice and see if I can find any hidden innuendos that may not have been apparent to me at first glance.
Then I ask myself: Why does Ms Pope of the Met Office suddenly start chastizing scientists for proclaiming disaster scenarios (when the Met Office scientists have been some of the worst offenders in this regard)?
Robin analyzed that “she’s trying to get to a position where she cannot lose.”
By taking the “high ground” in arguing against exaggerated hysteria, she can, in effect, clear the Met Office in this regard.
If ice continues to retreat, the Met Office predictions of continued warming are directly vindicated by the evidence at hand.
If (as the Met Office apparently now fears) Arctic sea ice starts to recover and even to grow significantly, she can play the “I told you so” card, implying that climate change is an extremely complex subject that is definitely happening today even if some of the external signals seem to belie it (cooling temperatures, growing sea ice), but that these signals are the result of some offsetting short-term natural cooling factors (La Nina, etc.), which will obviously not help us long-term, as they again reverse and AGW takes over with a vengeance.
So she has set herself up for the “punch line” (the real message of exaggerated hysteria) that there is no doubt that our climate is changing with “profound implications” unless we take action to “cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically and swiftly over the coming decades”.
It’s great!
Robin may be right when he says that AGW is a poor hypothesis because it can never be disproved no matter what the facts show.
But I think we all three have to admit that this is a super “snow job”. Hats off to Vicki!
Regards,
Max
Max/Pete,
I was teasing about the ice breaker in terms of……on the one hand they are telling us that the ice will “disappear” in the next 5 years (Al Gore – Climate Expert)….but, the fact remains that if Obama is seriously accepting advice from lunatics like Gore and Hansen he would be foolish to spend 88 million dollars on a boat that probably won’t be finished being built before the Arctic ice is gone (according to Gore)……………mixed messages.
I don’t think Obama is stupid; he is frightening in his world view, his naiveté and his complete failure to grasp any concept of history are what worry me. He’s an idealist and a dreamer…..he has no concept of what the real world is like and is being pushed around, manipulated and used. It won’t be long before some event occurs that will wake him up and shatter his idealistic bubble of everyone holding hands and blowing kisses at each other……I just pray that it’s not at the expense of innocent people. I also don’t believe that he is as powerful as many (including Obama himself) think he is.
Eavesdropping on your conversation with Robin folds in here, in that people on your side of the fence always over reach…….they go too far and sabotage their cause. We all get a little sardonic here but the constant gloom and doom and prophecies of apocalypse detract from the goal. Of course there are serious “environmental” problems that need to be addressed, but these knuckleheads have put all of their eggs in one basic and the constant shrill proclamations of the end of the world because of productive human activities turns people off.
Just a footnote:
Here’s a “pre Vicki Pope” Met Office press release of exaggerated hysteria (the thing Vicki now opposed in her article).
http://www.dawn.com/2007/08/11/int8.htm
Phil Jones even performs a very adroit “two-step” in this article. (See if you can find it.)
Max
Hi Brute,
Yeah. I agree that a major contributor to the current trend of growing disbelief in global warming predictions within the general public has come from the exaggerated “hysterical wolf cries”, exactly as you suggest.
When an activist like James E. Hansen misuses his taxpayer-funded office to try to frighten the US Congress (and the general public) with obviously exaggerated “tipping point” predictions with “irreversible deleterious effect”, he is only shooting himself (and his cause) in the foot.
It may well be that the intent was to get some AGW-mitigation actions started quickly before the weaknesses in the supporting scientific argument were exposed, and in that sense Hansen’s shrill predictions of doom were probably a shrewd move.
But in the longer term this approach has cost the AGW movement a major loss of support among the general public.
We’ll see how the new governing politicians in the USA play this one out, but I predict that Obama will not be a very strong proponent for drastic AGW-mitigating action at this time, with all the other problems he has and with the flagging support among his population.
Sure, he’ll talk about “doubling wind and solar power” (from <1% to <2% of the total in 5 years, when overal demand will grow by at least 3 times this amount, even with the current recession). Sounds good but doesn’t mean much.
Regards,
Max
Hello Max,
Mrs. Brute here. My husband tells me that you are quite scholarly regarding the topic of
Hello Max,
Mrs. Brute here. My husband tells me that you are quite scholarly regarding the topic of “climate change”.
I am currently writing a college thesis on the topic. My thesis statement is:
Climate Change: Is it a Crisis or Canard?
For the past several years Global Warming, or more recently Climate Change, has been touted as the next mega-disaster facing the planet earth. Unless drastic changes are made now, the planet is certainly doomed. While there are fundamentally good reasons to recycle, lessen our dependence on foreign oil and develop other forms of energy to replace fossil fuels, there is little evidence to suggest that these measures will change the earth’s temperature.
Can you please point me in the right direction to find resources to support my assertion?
Mr. Brute refuses to help me.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
Re: 4163
Be nice you guys.
No salty language and the utmost respect please.
Dear Mrs. Brute,
Your husband and I (along with others) have had some very enlightening exchanges on this blogsite concerning the many unanswered questions relating to the science and especially the politics of anthropogenic global warming (recently re-branded as “climate change”, now that temperatures appear to be cooling worldwide, rather than warming).
I am of course quite flattered that your husband would tell you that I am quite scholarly regarding the topic of “climate change”. I am not a doctor or professor in climatology, so cannot profess to being an expert in this field, but I would be very happy to provide a few tips for your forthcoming college thesis: “Climate Change: Is it a Crisis or Canard?”
Your thesis statement seems well thought out and formulated. I can only agree that you have captured the essence of the debate and that your research will help to answer the very basic question which the title of your thesis raises.
I can only suggest that you start your research efforts with the basic scientific principle of rational skepticism.
Question every claim made and insist on scientific evidence. In your country I believe you have an expression, “I’m from Missouri, so show me!” Follow this simple principle. It will serve you well.
Rational skepticism is the very core of scientific discovery. Unless a hypothesis can be verified by actual physical observations, do not accept it as fact.
Shy away from computer model projections, as these are only as good as the assumptions that have been programmed in, no matter how many millions of dollars were spent for the computers. They do not in any way represent scientific evidence for a theory or hypothesis. In fact, they do not represent “science”; they are simply tools (as was the slide rule in bygone days).
If physical observations lead to one conclusion while computer model projections profess another, stick with the actual physical observations over the model studies every time.
By extremely leery of agenda-driven pseudoscience, which is masquerading as “science”. This includes convoluted theories of impending disaster based on shaky scientific principles that cannot be proven one way or the other.
Follow the money trail. If you find that “science” is being used to support a policy agenda involving obscenely large sums of taxpayer money, be doubly skeptical.
Do not listen to the exhortations or warnings of impending disaster from politicians. Remember the words of H.L. Mencken, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Also remember another quotation, “The most dangerous man [or woman] to any government is the man [or woman] who is able to think things out for himself [or herself], without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.” Be that “most dangerous woman” in pursuing the truth for your thesis.
Be aware that scientists are just human beings. They should not be put on a pedestal. They are, on average, no more intelligent than other humans. Like all humans they are susceptible to “group think”, sometimes referred to as the “herd instinct”. This tendency is enhanced by inbred “peer review” processes involved in the reviewing of new scientific studies or publications.
Reject hyperbole and hysteria of any kind. These have nothing to do with scientific principles, but are used to “sell a proposition”.
Read the treatise by Thomas Kuhn on “paradigms” and how these influence scientists, often making it difficult or even impossible for them to think “outside the box” of the accepted paradigm.
Read the book “The Black Swan”, by Nassim Taleb, which points out why “experts” in a field are more likely to make incorrect predictions for the future in their field than non-experts, and why it is not so important “what an expert knows” as it is “what he/she does not know”.
Reject any prediction that covers a time period of more than a year or two. Remember the quotation by your famous baseball player, coach and philosopher, Yogi Berra, “It is rough to make predictions, especially about the future”. And his later quotation, applicable to climate scientists today (now that temperatures are not rising as they predicted), “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
Try to engage in open discussions with others who may have differing views on the debate surrounding the topic of your thesis. Listen to what others have to say, examine their arguments with rational skepticism and then make up your own mind, rather than simply swallowing a popular but unproven mantra just because someone tells you that it represents the combined wisdom and judgment of a vast majority of “mainstream scientists”.
Do not accept the premise, “the science on climate change is settled, now it’s time for action.” This is a crude attempt to thwart further scientific investigation and to muzzle anyone who is rationally skeptical of the current paradigm.
I am sure that you will be successful with your thesis if you follow these principles.
Listen to input from your husband, Mr. Brute occasionally, but (like my wife. Mrs. Max does) don’t let it sway your opinion too much.
Lots of luck with your study. When it is published I would very much enjoy reading it.
Sincerely,
Max
Mrs Brute,
Nice to meet you. But I must say I’m a bit hurt that you’ve asked Max rather than me :-(
If you want a more mainstream scientific view: American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Royal Society (UK), CSIRO (Australia), and just about every other recognised scientific body that we both can think of then I’d be pleased to help.
Rgds
Peter Martin
PS We aren’t all doomed!
PPS Mr Brute is almost certainly wrong on this issue.
Dear Mrs. Brute,
Peter Martin (one of the many bloggers on this site) has expressed an opinion in order to also assist you in your study.
It is not an opinion totally without merit.
I can only encourage you to listen to his advice, and then to apply the basic scientific principle of rational skepticism in screening the opinions of the groups he has cited.
Try, where possible, to make a “sanity” or “reality check” of what is being presented.
In so doing, I would suggest that you do not worry too much about the conclusions reached by the “mainstream scientific view: American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Royal Society (UK), CSIRO (Australia), etc.” as Peter suggests, but rather examine and evaluate these opinions plus the many others out there (along with the physically observed evidence provided) both critically and rationally, in order to come up with your own opinion.
Remember, you are free to make up your own mind based on the physical evidence presented, rather than just accepting someone else’s opinion (no matter how imminently “qualified” that individual or group of individuals may seem).
You should not be intimidated by the postulations of professors, doctors, etc., or, even less, of scientific groups and assiciations who want to present a “politically correct” view. Remember that they are just human beings, not all-knowing “oracles”.
In your endeavors to arrive at the truth, rational skepticism will serve you well. Simply accepting the opinion of others, no matter how “well qualified” they may seem, will not.
Regards,
Max
Mrs Brute
Good morning. The past often has lessons for us, that climatologists- who like to look at just the last thirty years- would do well to heed.
The Americans tend to be more religious than us Brits, but I feel this this quote sums it up
looking at this from a historical viewpoint.
“Ecclesiastes 1:9] What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
Research your history and you will find that climatically there is truly nothing new under the sun. Good records exist of the ancient civilisations-Mesopotamia, The Romans, and in the more modern era The Vikings, The Brtitish Empire and private companies including The Hudson Bay co, all able to give lie to the assertion that current temperatures are unprecedented. The climate references assembled by the Byzantine Empire 383-1453 are also instructive
Max has already pinched my favourite quote by HL Mencken so try William Gladstone instead; “Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.”
This by Tolstoy (thanks Luke)could have been written for the closed minds of the scientific establishment and their acolytes.
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives L Tolstoy”
In your research don’t forget the motto of the Royal Society
“Nobodys word is final” Not even that of James Hansen or Al Gore
Good luck
TonyB
TonyB
I got as far as 43 theses in Jan ’07 but they were a ragtag* bunch which I began to structure into:
context, evidence, causes, bad analysis, distorted presentation, alarmism, bad economics, political distortion and so on
In researching the context in more detail, I then fell down the rabbit hole of the scientific method and haven’t returned yet (at least sanely).
I think any public action like this would also need a clear link to further info.
* I even had Pepys’ quote from January 1660/61:
It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.
Peter: I was intrigued by your PS to Mrs Brute (good morning ma’am) that “We aren’t all doomed!”. Now I would hardly expect the sceptics here to think we are all doomed – after all, they’re inclined to disbelieve the warnings about the dire consequences we face if mankind does not radically curtail his CO2 emissions. But you, Peter, are at the forefront in issuing such warnings. And you must have noticed that CO2 emissions are not being curtailed – viz the failure of Kyoto and the ever increasing emissions by China, India etc. – nor is there any realistic sign that they will be curtailed – viz the aforesaid Chinese and Indian emissions, the failure of EU climate change policy (see #4147) and the failure of the Poznan conference. So why do you think we are not all doomed? Or have you perhaps been exaggerating your case? Surely not.
Dear Mrs. Brute,
TonyB has given you some good advice.
He points out that the motto of the Royal Society is:
“Nobodys word is final” Not even that of James Hansen or Al Gore.
I’m sure that the RS would agree with adding the phrase, “nor that of the Royal Society”.
Regards,
Max
Luke 4169
Perhaps 95 theses is rather too many in this age of the short attention span of media and public :) (and it would make a very large gouge in the Met office tree when nailed to it)
How about substituting that for shaking the ‘seven pilars of AGW wisdom’ (with apologies to TE Lawrence)
Temperatures to 1850 are accurate/meaningful
Arctic ice melt is unprecedented
Doubling co2 will cause the earth to melt
UHI is barely measurable
The MWP is an outdated concept
Sea levels will rise by 20 feet by 2100
Computer modelling is real science
Any one else like to alter any of the seven pillars? Perhps Mrs Brute would like to argue for and against them in her forthcoming theses?
TonyB
Pete,
I just happened to think of something while on vacation….a question for you.
If we ceased emitting CO2 (as a species) completely and the levels dropped from +/- 388 to +/- 280…….what do you think would happen?
Do you believe that all hurricanes/cyclones, droughts, floods, thunderstorms, snowstorms, tornados, etc would simply stop? Are you of the Joe Romm camp that think that “today
Pete,
I just happened to think of something while on vacation….a question for you.
If we ceased emitting CO2 (as a species) completely and the levels dropped from +/- 388 to +/- 280…….what do you think would happen?
Do you believe that all hurricanes/cyclones, droughts, floods, thunderstorms, snowstorms, tornados, etc would simply stop? Are you of the Joe Romm camp that think that “today’s” thunderstorms/hurricanes are more intense and more frequent than those of yesteryear? Al Gore asserted in his award winning farce, I mean, scientifically accurate “docudrama” that hurricanes will become more intense as the years go by…..this has been absolutely disproven…….(or did you forget about that?)
Will the Sahara Desert become a Savannah as it was during the last ice age?
Again; we’re back to what are the “normal” conditions of this planet. If we (for instance) lowered CO2 levels and the Sahara did become grassland again, wouldn’t that threaten the habitat of some desert plant, insect or animal that thrives there? The Saharan Desert Dung Beetle may not have big round eyes like a baby seal, but does that makes its place in the hierarchy any less valuable?
After all, human intervention (you say) is causing the planet to “die”….what if we get it wrong?
Hi TonyB,
The “seven pillars” underpinning AGW are good.
I’d suggest you may want to consider a few more (maybe as side issues rather than “pillars”, since these should be limited in number):
-Long-term projections are more accurate than short-term ones
-AGW will cause higher incidence / intensity of extreme weather events
-The “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature” is a meaningful indicator of our planet’s “temperature”
-A consensus of 2,500 scientists cannot be wrong
-AGW is occurring today, even if its effects may be masked temporarily by compensating natural factors
-Scientists know essentially all there is to know about the causes of climate change
Regards,
Max