Continuation of the older threads. Please scan those (even briefly) to see whether your point has already been dealt with. Let me know if there is something worth pulling from the comments to the main post.
In the meantime, read about why peer-review is a necessary but not sufficient condition for science to be worth looking at. Also, before you conclude that the emails have any impact on the science, read about the six easy steps that mean that CO2 (and the other greenhouse gases) are indeed likely to be a problem, and think specifically how anything in the emails affect them.
Update: The piece by Peter Kelemen at Columbia in Popular Mechanics is quite sensible, even if I don’t agree in all particulars.
Further update: Nature’s editorial.
Further, further update: Ben Santer’s mail (click on quoted text), the Mike Hulme op-ed, and Kevin Trenberth.
The denialists are DESPERATE! I eat dinner at the same restaurant 5 days a week. There is one waiter who has been listening to me on the subject of global warming. One manager is DESPERATELY trying to convince the employees that global warming is a hoax.
The whole hack thing was done in desperation. The “conservatives” or “denialists” or whatever are scared to death of an idea! How unAmerican, how strange, in a free country, to be afraid that an idea might spread!
Astounding!
Think of That, Hedda!
#261 Hugh Hickey.
You mean you have been trawling through other peoples emails for your own squalid interest to see if you can find any tidbits.
Since you asked I read those particular emails and I can find nothing much out of the ordinary. The only comment that could conceivably be so was a request that was refused by the editor anyway. Even here, without the context, it is impossible to make any conclusions about what was actually meant. There are any number of interpretations, most of which would be completely benign.
Andrew
Richard Steckis (270) “The invocation of Venus is a red herring. Venus has an atmosphere that is 98% CO2. The conentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere is 0.038%. Also the geology and planetary dynamics is completely different from Earths.”
It is likely that Venus’ atmosphere was not too different from ours. Then things went really wrong see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse
As the son of a professor, I’ve personally witnessed the politics and spitefull behavior involved in the peer review process. The attempt to stack the deck for or against any theory happens all the time and will continue. Money is sometimes at stake either with respect to funding or for personal profit.
I’m not a scientist, so I have to rely on the opinions of others with respect to AGW. According to the following article, I understand that McIntrye has made himself somewhat of a nuisance in his requests for information and that some feel he is doing so just to be a disturbance, so I can understand the desire not to cooperate with him.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/12/gerald_north_interview.html
However the phrase in one of the emails “think of RC as a resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put forward by the McIntyres of the world.” is troublesome to say the least. That and the nefarious tone in questioning people’s motives is not helpful as you’ve found out. Stick to the science.
Norman (#289):
Start here: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/
Pages 6 and 7 are the most relevant, but you’ll want to read the whole thing.
Mike (#294):
Google “Radiative Transfer”
295: …BBC…interview…details the struggles of the CRU programmer, and decides that the poor guy was trying to organise data with a programme that was not fit for purpose…
There is a clear conclusion here, for those who are not a-priori hostile – the CRU is underfunded compared to the task given to it.
Also, its a bit iffy linking to Mike Hulme; in his other writing, he seems infected with post-modern critiques of science.
The link to Trenberth’s paper (previous CRU email thread) appears to be dead.
[Response: should be fixed now. -gavin]
Hmmm, I think a more apt analogy is that you are standing in the middle of the road with a blindfold and really good earplugs. You can’t see the bus, and when you know it is there it’ll be too late.
Re 247:
Bruce Williams writes: “Global Cooling in the 70’s”
Bruce, this statement is an indication that you need to do more background reading before you start throwing out insulting statements toward Gavin. You may not know it, but he is 1 person with an actual job and responsibilities other than responding to every question (often multiple times) every newbie to this field can think up to post here. Do yourself and Gavin a favor and start reading some of the early articles here on Realclimate, then you can work your way up to speed.
As far as the global cooling in the 70’s myth, you might want to start here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html
or here:
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf
“Third, even if it is in fact due to reduced sensitivity of the trees, this does not mean that the historic T estimates are necessarily in error, as a substantial, valid calibration period still exists in almost all cases.”
If some of the tree-ring data were randomly omitted, then yes, it would be enough to just have long enough available sample. However, it is completely clear in this case that data were selectively omitted because it didn’t correlate with measured temperature. This IS going to bias results and invalidate conclusions.
[Response: No. Read the Briffa et al 1998 paper, and then read about some of the other reconstructions that don’t use these proxies. – gavin]
Norman, 289:
The NASA WISE telescope is looking at the IR coming from outer space: asteroids, planets, and whatever else. To get a good look, you launch the thing into space, to avoid greenhouse gases absorbing the IR coming from the asteroids.
Based on that, you are then trying to infer something that doesn’t follow about the IR emitted by the earth. I think you’re basically trying to say the greenhouse effect is already saturated. I recommend reviewing this: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
Mike says:
3 December 2009 at 6:04 PM
Maybe researches should copy right their e-mails.
There’s no need to, it’s already copyrighted!
Re: 285
B.D. writes:
“While it’s not the CRU’s job to curate the raw data, they would have been doing the community a great service by not deleting or losing that data … I think that speaks volumes about the CRU’s commitment to the science.”
They have done the science community a great service. Anyone remotely familiar with climate science over the past 30 years knows that.
Some magnetic tapes (probably not readable even if they did still exist) and boxes of hardcopy got misplaced during some office moves over 20 years ago (before Dr. Jones was even there) means CRU isn’t committed to science? You’ve got to be kidding?
It sure would be nice if governments funded science in such a way that every group had their own highly skilled (or should we say infallable) archivist so nothing would ever be lost again. And a complete staff of technical writers, that would thoroughly document everything so anyone (even people from other countries decades in the future with no understanding of the science) could ask any question and get satisfactory answers within 24 hours, would be nice.
But alas, we live in the real world where scientist are overworked, underpaid, challenged by rude uninformed people at every opportunity, and regularly accused of evil.
There is a news report today that Andrew Weaver had a couple of break-ins late last year and some of his colleagues at the University of Victoria had some attempted hacks and people trying to impersonate network technicians in the past few months.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=2300282
The media commentators are missing the biggest point about the CRU emails.
As is typical, it’s never quite clear what the deniers are claiming, but claiming it’s all a “scam”
implies a great deal of collusion in deception among the scammers. In effect, you
would need a Vast Conspiracy to explain the different, changing, internally debated
but in the end scam supporting data and models. Many deniers explicitly invoke
a conspiracy.
But, you’re looking at the private records of people who must be an important part of
the hypothesized conspiracy. You can find some things to pick at, but you don’t find a trace of the extensive discussion and arrangements that would be necessary to run the scam.
This is proof that no such conspiracy exits.
Suppose I claim the Free Masons are conducting a secret evil conspiracy to rule the world
After scanning their secret transactions I triumphantly announce proof that
they are evil, because I can prove they fixed some parking tickets. Now, if that’s the worst I can find in their secret records, my claim is disproven, not
supported.
““the current warming is neither unique, nor a crisis.” What has uniqueness got to do with it? It’s not like we’ve got the evacuation of half of Bangladesh down to a fine art.”
I think this is not a helpful comment. The link between warming and sea-level rise is uncertain, in my opinion, beyond the direct thermal expansion. Because of this uncertainty, of course uniqueness has everything to do with the risks.
“the “skeptics” make mistakes that would earn college students F’s on their exams. For example, taking the time-derivative of temperature and SOI data before correlating them and then drawing the wrong conclusion about how much of the observed warming is due to the SOI might be such a mistake (I see a good exam question for college students here).”
I of course agree with you on the specific examples. But I think that the people on the AGW have run their share of the spurious regressions of persistent variables.
Nobody wants AGW to be true. – gavin
What about Phil Jones’ email:
Tim, Chris, I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020. * * * I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying where’s the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.
[Response: The desire to make silly people look silly is completely dwarfed by everyone’s desire not to see dangerous anthropogenic interference in climate. I would readily forgo the pleasure at seeing of Bob Carter having to admit that the planet was still warming, if in fact it wasn’t. However, it is, and so given that I am human, there might be a tiny silver lining to the very large black cloud. Other reasons for wry smiles are the fact that the same people who are declaring that the CRU data is compromised, messed up the CRU data that they use in their logo, and in fact need to rely on the CRU data itself for their contention it hasn’t warmed this century. Oh the irony. But don’t confuse light entertainment with the risk to society posed by increasing emissions. They are not commensurate. – gavin]
“Third, even if it is in fact due to reduced sensitivity of the trees, this does not mean that the historic T estimates are necessarily in error, as a substantial, valid calibration period still exists in almost all cases.”
If some of the tree-ring data were randomly omitted, then yes, it would be enough to just have long enough available sample. However, it is completely clear in this case that data were selectively omitted because it didn’t correlate with measured temperature. This IS going to bias results and invalidate conclusions.
[Response: No. Read the Briffa et al 1998 paper, and then read about some of the other reconstructions that don’t use these proxies. – gavin]
Gavin — I have read some of those papers, and will of course continue. I know enough statistics that I do know, beyond reasonable doubt, that selectively omitting data that doesn’t fit the model will overstate the fit. Perhaps I don’t understand the exact question to which you are responding “no.”
“Believe me, the only thing that will work is full disclosure, honesty and transparency.”
How’s that diesel emissions startup going, Max?
Some people, not Eli I hasten to add, might think that Richard Steckis is trying to mislead when he says
and those same people, but not Eli, would perhaps ask whether Richard hallucinates that there are no feedbacks that make the climate system response ~3 K/doubling of CO2.
I’ve noticed the tar baby behavior of trolls, though I think they don’t necessarily present proxy targets. You usually can’t reason with them, but you can get under their skin if you put your mind to it. (I’m not recommending trolling the trolls here.)
There’s also a similarity to road rage and some other behaviors that feed off a dehumanized abstraction of a person or group. Implicit in much denialist nonsense is not only an absence of awareness of the breadth and depth of scientific activity, it’s checks and balances, but an inability to properly identify with the face-to-face social activity of doing science.
Some people are really tying themselves in knots to justify sticking it to uppity scientists who think they’re so damn smart just because they do hard stuff and have the nerve to look happy about it.
R Simmon (#305). Thank you for your response to my post on WISE IR telescope. I am not a thermodynamics expert. The links you posted were the charts of energy balance I have seen before. I do have a potentially dumb question, All the energy entering our system does not have to be converted to heat. Isn’t a lot converted into varies forms of kinetic energy (with friction will gradually turn into heat), like wind, turbulence, waves, motion of all kinds.
tharanga (#311). Thanks for your response to my post on IR and WISE telescope. I did read the link. I am not sure I can comprehend the logic however. In my thinking, it does not matter on what side of window pane you are on to see through it. If the Earth’s atmosphere is far from saturation (as your link suggests by using a desert nighttime temp drop)then why wouldn’t NASA put the IR telescope in a desert and cool it with liquid helium. It would save the $300 million in launch costs also it is only good for 10 months before its hydrogen coolant is exhausted. On the ground you could run it for years.
Also I am not sure how CO2 could get to the upper atmosphere and stay. CO2 and H2O are both heavier molecules than O2 or N2. Shouldn’t they tend to stay in the lower atmosphere?
“The information contained in this e-mail and any subsequent correspondence is private
and confidential and intended solely for the named recipient(s). If you are not a named
recipient, you must not copy, distribute, or disseminate the information, open any
attachment, or take any action in reliance on it. If you have received the e-mail in
error, please notify the sender and delete the e-mail. ”
That standard disclaimer/privacy notice, is often seen at the bottom of emails. When one hits reply, it gets copied automatically to the bottom of your reply.
Most of the alleged UEA emails, are strings of repiles, but these privacy disclaimer notices are almost totally absent. If you dont believe me, search for
“private” in the document set. It comes up as “private industry” and “private bag” often, but in just one disclaimer in the entire set. And that disclaimer seems to be under a UEA signature, which suggests UEA staff had access to such disclaimers, and could use them.
Other mundane details that usually get copied as well – senders, servers, signatures, etc – are present as expected.
Why are the privacy disclaimers absent? Presumably as someone went through the emails, and edited them out.
Who? The leakers have more reason to do this, than academics . People aren’t going to read the leak, if the document regularly tells them, this is private stuff, you are not the intended recipient, you are not supposed to be reading it, please delete it at once.
Which brings me to the key point. If the hackers did edit the emails – the emails have in short been tampered with, have lost their integrity and cannot be taken at face value.
A large scale forgery, isnt likely and would be quickly spotted. But small scale tampering certainly is possible, and hidden among millions of words, would be hard to detect. Adding a sentence here and there, changing a word, “sexing up”, so to speak.
The integrity of the leak, is now in question. I for one am no longer prepared to take the emails, as genuine. There may be only small parts altered – but as I have no way of knowing which they are – the whole lot, is tainted, and cant be used.
ironically – the supposed revelations, that some people are jubilating over – may not have come from Jones et al. They may have been edited in, by the leakers own colleagues.
Nobody wants AGW to be true. – gavin
Better phone James Hansen and remind him that he really doesn’t want it to be true.
“Tim, Chris, I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020”
There is a more subtle point in this statement as well: if one believes that indeed it is likely that the climate sensitivity is high, and if one believes that natural variability can in fact mask climate sensitivity for decadal periods, then there is the worry that a combination of high climate sensitivity with masking by natural variability and other factors like aerosols might result in a delay in mitigation. This delay would then likely increase the costs of later mitigation as well as increase the level of inevitable warming that must be adapted to.
In the case that climate sensitivity is indeed high, I, for one, would prefer to see slightly faster warming sooner in order to send the right signals to mitigate. Additionally, warming is best dealt with spread out over time… a pause in warming followed by accelerated warming is likely worse than a steady rate of warming that reaches the same temperature in 2100.
Therefore, we have a set of possibilities:
High CS, No Near-Term Warming: Bad!
High CS, Near-Term Warming: Also bad, but better chance of mitigating, and probably slower temperature change.
Low CS, Near-Term Warming: Some danger of “over-mitigating”, which would have some cost to society… but really, we’re not in danger of much mitigation at all yet, so I think worrying about over-mitigating at this point is silly. I’d also argue that over-mitigation is easier to correct in 10 years when the science improves than under-mitigation.
Low CS, No Near-Term Warming: Best scenario! We probably don’t mitigate, and then it turns out we didn’t really need to mitigate!
No Near-Term warming may make it a little more likely that we’re in a low-CS world (by Bayesian updating) but given that most of the constraint on CS is not from past-century historical temperature but rather from paleoclimate and other data, my understanding is that this reduction in estimated CS will be slow. (absent some unexplained major cooling in the near future)
It’s not a conspiracy, folks. Its an SEP field.
http://everything2.com/user/Tmaq/writeups/Somebody+Else%2527s+Problem+Field
-Tom
Not really on topic but I am really puzzled how people seemingly competent in the SW development claim throughout the discussion that there are hacks in the FORTRAN code while the code they quote is clearly IDL. http://nstx.pppl.gov/nstx/Software/IDL/idl_intro.html#INTRO
Forgive me if this has already been said but I have given up trying to read every post. (I don’t know how Gavin et al have kept up).
As another person (CMB) has pointed out on ‘Open Mind’, now that the denialists have denied themselves the use of CRU because it is ‘corrupted’, then they will have to use GISS data (or equivalent).
In which case 2005 is the hottest year ever and 1998 is only equal 2nd place with 2007. Cooling anyone?
David B. Benson
I wrote (229):
“What is also “settled science” is that it has not warmed since the end of the 20th century despite continued all-time record increase in CO2, but has cooled instead by around 0.1°C (same caveat on the temperature record as above).”
You did not address this statement, but countered (281) with:
“This decade is the warmest on record; use any of the four major global surface temperature products.
The fact that you are wrong about this small, easily checked, matter should suggest to readers here that other of your assertions may well also be flawed.”
Sorry, David.
You are changing the subject. We are not talking about absolute “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly”, but rather about warming/cooling trends, and the records all show that it has cooled since the end of 2000.
Get the difference?
So (to put it eloquently, as you did) the fact that “you are wrong about this small, easily checked, matter should suggest to readers here that other of your assertions may well also be flawed.”
It’s really not that difficult to grasp if you put your mind to it. You are a smart guy, and I’m sure you can figure it out if you try.
Max
Secular Animist (267)
You wrote:
“Will there be some satisfaction in having science that is “strong” enough to permit us to observe, document and fully understand in great detail the process of extinction of most life on Earth, including the human species, while it is unfolding before our eyes?”
Amen, brother! The end is near unless we repent and change our ways NOW.
The last guy I heard screaming this was wearing two cardboard signs on his body that proclaimed, “The end is near!”.
That’s not science.
That’s fundamentalist religious voodoo.
Max
Transparency and Complexity, Part I of IV
Sufferin’ Succotash wrote in 292:
Another favorite — which sometimes overlaps with the “disagreement in the details denotes uncertainty regarding the fundamentals” point that you have noted is the quote-mining, that is, deliberately going out and looking for passages that can be misquoted (by means of what Ayn Rand refered to as “context-dropping” where the context — which is generally given in the text itself — conditions the application and meaning of what is being quoted) in order to support the conclusions of the individual doing the quoting rather than the individual being quoted. We have seen plenty of this — basically with respect to virtually all of the so-called “incriminating evidence uncovered” by the “Climategate” burglars.
The problem of quote mining by creationists became so bad that proponents of evolutionary biology devoted a large section of a website to uncovering instances of it:
The Quote Mine Project
Or, Lies, Damned Lies and Quote Mines
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html
*
Then there is moving the goal-posts — which is a common strategy with creationists.
I give the following regarding Michael Behe (a “leading intellectual” at the Discovery Institute) in an essay at the British Centre for Science Education:
Transparency and Complexity, Part II of IV
Something similar exists with respect to the request for “100% transparency”…
Manacker requests in 238 that climatologists be
Seems fairly reasonable — but for the word “now.” Does he mean right this moment? Do you suppose was stomping his foot while typing this?
John MacQueen is a little more “transparent” in 156:
Transparency and Complexity, Part III of IV
Marcus points to the same sort of moving the goal-posts strategy here:
Gavin Schmidt makes the same point in a letter to Ben Santer dated December 2, 2008 as quoted by Elizabeth May:
… and I make the same point at some length here in relation to a request that for transparency and documentation with respect to land temperatures here:
321
Eli Rabett says:
3 December 2009 at 11:29 PM
“and those same people, but not Eli, would perhaps ask whether Richard hallucinates that there are no feedbacks that make the climate system response ~3 K/doubling of CO2.”
Not at all. Feedbacks are real but the relative importance and measurability of the feedbacks are not well covered. AR4 chapter 8 Section 8.6.4 states:
“A number of diagnostic tests have been proposed since the
TAR (see Section 8.6.3), but few of them have been applied to
a majority of the models currently in use. Moreover, it is not yet
clear which tests are critical for constraining future projections.
Consequently, a set of model metrics that might be used to
narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and
climate sensitivity has yet to be developed.”
This quite clearly indicates that the modelled feedbacks that give you your ~3K per doubling are not cast in stone and are yet to be verified.
The fact is that most of the feedbacks are not measureable given current technology.
Transparency and Complexity, Part IV of IV
The request for full transparency seems simple enough. So does a grade school pencil. But as Leonard E. Read has a “pencil” observe:
*
Incidentally, the quote mining and moving goal posts aren’t the only things these auditors of science have in common with the creationists. Just within this thread someone was bringing up the argument that the greenhouse effect violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Barton Paul Levenson addressed the argument in 193:
Creationists make a similar argument that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics – which demonstrates the same sort of creative accounting. And earlier in this thread (80 someone pointed us to an essay on the break-in approvingly quoting McIntyre at EvolutionNews. That blog is owned by the Discovery Institute, an outfit that was recently recycling the “scientific creationism” of the 1980s — with the same results, roughly 30 years later.
Then again, some things are a little different. Intelligent design (the recycled scientific creationism) had one major institute being largely funded by a Howard Ahmanson — a reclusive millionaire. Climate denialists have an entire armada that has been funded to the tune of $16 million by Exxon between 1998 and 2005 — that has also received over $260 million from Scaife, Bradley, Koch and Coors foundations between 1985 to 2007. It would seem that climate denialists have a little more money to play with — and the consequences would likewise seem to be on a greater scale.
I read with dismay that PJ has stepped down from his position and MM is “under investigation”. It reminded me of the following quote from Sagan’s masterpiece “Demon Haunted World – Science as a candle in the dark”…
“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces… I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us – then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
I had to cut the word pre sript ion from the quote
303
o says:
3 December 2009 at 9:25 PM
“Richard Steckis (270) “The invocation of Venus is a red herring. Venus has an atmosphere that is 98% CO2. The conentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere is 0.038%. Also the geology and planetary dynamics is completely different from Earths.”
It is likely that Venus’ atmosphere was not too different from ours. Then things went really wrong see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse”
O. try reading beyond wikipedia. It is not a particularly good reference source.
Could one of you who believe in global warming please answer these questions: What is the optimal temperture for human life? Should our aim be static tempertures? In the OH river valley 700 years ago it was much warmer that it is today. We know this from remains found in Indian camps. What causes this warming and the subsequent cooling? Were the Indians driving SUV’s? Why is global warming bad? I would like to be wearing shorts and playing golf next Christmas here in OH. If the oceans are rising why is Key West still the same size it was in 1968? PLease submit your ideas and I will peer review them with several friends and we’ll get back to you. BTW Could I interest any of you in my new Carbon Debit business?
I don’t find the notion of combating disinformation troubling in the least.
Why do you find the notion of combating disinformation troubling? Are you afraid that claims that the world is only 6,000 years old might be combatted? Or the claims that the 150-year old basis for our physics-based understanding that increasing CO2 will warm the earth are false might be combatted?
At risk of being seen as importunate, I would like to reiterate: A new aspect to this crisis is about to hit the mainstream media fan. BBC Newsnight has an interview with a programmer who has looked at the CRU codes, the “HARRY_READ_ME.txt” and found them wanting. He details the struggles of the CRU programmer, and decides that the poor guy was trying to organise data with a programme that was not fit for purpose.
The denialists are going to have a field day. It is going to muddy the waters at Copenhagen big time – unless we can show visually to the people that the warming trends are still present even with the CRU input removed.
It seems to me, an amateur, that the most expeditious way to unmuddy the waters would be to pull all the CRU work out of the equation and present a new composite 1000y temperature graph.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png
Not because the CRU work is necessarily wrong, but because they are now perceived to be wrong, under public suspicion, bringing climate science generally under a cloud of doubt.
We can be confident that the Spaghetti Graph, relieved of one or two strands, will still show significant warming.
Is that technically possible, or is the CRU data present in all temperature data?
Prompted by the discussion on here, I have been trying to understand how robust is the ‘data’ on which the value-added’ datasets are founded, and how data is audited to ensure their validity. I came across the following which shows how fragile any conclusion may be.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/gistemp-quartiles-of-age-bolus-of-heat/
For the surface station database, the ‘n’ in any analysis is clearly critical and it looks variable to say the least.
[Response: This guy’s analyses are extremely screwy, but the good news is that you can check it on your own. The Data Sources page has direct access to the code and database. – gavin]
Matthew L:
GCMs long ago predicted more droughts in continental interiors from global warming.
In 1970, 12% of the Earth’s land surface was “severely dry” by the Palmer Drought Severity Index. By 2002 that figure was 30% (Dai et al. 2004).
How do you think that trend is going to affect human agriculture?
Ref: Dai, A., K.E. Trenberth, and T. Qian 2004. “A Global Dataset of Palmer Drought Severity Index for 1870–2002: Relationship with Soil Moisture and Effects of Surface Warming.” J. Hydrometeorol. 1, 1117-1130.
Max:
BPL: No matter how many times you repeat this classic denialist lie, it still won’t be true. Warming continues:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Ball.html
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Reber.html
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/VV.html
How many times do I have to post the same links before you read them? How many times do people have to tell you warming is still going on before you look at the primary data and do a regression yourself? Why can’t you learn?
Dr. Lovins,
Thanks for writing in! I’ve been a fan since the days of “Soft Energy Paths.” Would that people had started listening to you back then. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.
John Macqueen:
Exxon-Mobil, Consolidated Coal, the Heartland Institute….
Richard Steckis:
BPL: Read and learn: http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/NewPlanetTemps.html
Different, but hardly completely different. And that doesn’t much affect the greenhouse effect going on in the atmosphere, aside from the question of how the CO2 got there. BTW, the “planetary dynamics” of Venus would be its motion through space.
chris mcv:
Right! And I think you should direct military policy in Afghanistan, too. After all, you’re paying for it. They should turn over all their tactical and strategic and logistical plans, or better yet, publish them on the internet.
What you want is called “micromanagement,” and it is the worst possible way to get anything done. You don’t hire an expert and then continually jog his elbow. You assume he’s competent until proven otherwise and let him get on with the job.