The Institute of Physics (IoP) recently made a splash in the media through a statement about the implications of the e-mails stolen in the CRU hack. A couple of articles in the Guardian report how this statement was submitted to an inquiry into the CRU hack and provide some background.
The statement calls for increased transparency, and expresses concerns about the public confidence in science if the transparency is absent. The IoP statement, however, fails to note that the issue of transparency is far more general applicable than just to mainstream climate science. It should also involve the critics of climate change, as noted by New Scientist.
The statement also fails to clarify what level of transparency they expect the climate scientists to reach. Which scientific discipline should we use as a role model? I know of none that is more transparent than climate science, and in large part that s due to the IPCC. Ironically, without this transparency, the climate-change deniers would not get as much ammunition. For instance, note how the attacks on the NASA GISTEMP product have become more vehement in recent months even though the code base and data have been available for years and clearly demonstrate that the criticisms are bogus.
Another question arises is whether the IoP follows its own recommendations in its own publications?
The statement of the IoP was made on the behalf of its 36000 members, but as a member of IoP myself, this came as a surprise. According to the Guardian, there was only a small group of people behind this, and other IoP members was obviously not very impressed. The IoP did, however, make a second statement after their initial one was misrepresented by the climate-change deniers (there is some confusion about versions).
The irony of this affair is that the IoP will not disclose who were responsible for the original statement, thus not living up to the standards they set for others.
Furthermore, it’s a paradox that the IoP based the statement on stolen private e-mail exchanges, while putting disclaimers about confidentiality, especially as it asks people to delete any e-mail before they go astray:
This email (and attachments) are confidential and intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender, delete any copies and do not take action in reliance on it…
Transparency is essential for trust and confidence in science – as in all matters – but claims about lack of transparency are easy to make. It’s another question whether the alleged lack of transparency in climate science has had any impact on anyone’s ability to verify the science.
Update
‘Concerns raised over Institute of Physics climate submission‘ in Physics World
March, 19: Further Comment on DeepClimate.org
Mike M says: 7 March 2010 at 10:21 PM
“What I said on a comment on another article is that (to my knowledge) there really isn’t a single ONE-PAGE document anywhere that really PROVES the case.”
Sorry, friend, but that’s never going to exist, it can’t and in any case it would be pointless.
A single page “proof” of the type you mention results in a redaction that is completely porous to critical thinking and thus is not proof of any kind. In any case, a real skeptic would not balk at reading 50, 100 or 500 pages in order to follow an argument.
On the flip side, a person so dull or ignorant as to believe a one page “proof” is ipso facto going to be equally persuaded by the very next “proof” they’re told; such a person is shown to be completely malleable by their acceptance of such a faulty demonstration, so no permanent change in perception is possible.
Synthetic, situational paranoid psychosis is what’s blocking progress in this matter, a anthropogenic psychological artifact. The antidote is so far undiscovered.
RE- Comment by simon abingdon — 7 March 2010 @ 3:48 PM:
I am very sorry to have to explain to you that the intelligentsia can actually tell the difference between substance and what a copy editor does. This is so embarrassing.
Steve
Doug S, I have detected misapplication of reasoning in your post #148 that indicates some intent to rescind required activity that would result in a better life for most of the people on the planet, but a worse life for the few who make a lot of money off fossil fuels.
You want the money, Doug.
“144
Mike M says:
7 March 2010 at 10:21 PM
RE: #50: What I said on a comment on another article is that (to my knowledge) there really isn’t a single ONE-PAGE document anywhere that really PROVES the case”
I can give you the proof in three sentences, Mike:
1) CO2 traps IR but not visible light.
2) The sun shines bright in the visible, the earth shines in the IR.
3) We have produced stupendous amounts of CO2 in burning fossil fuels.
Give me a ONE PAGE PROOF that these are not extant here and therefore no proof of AGW.
“135
trrll says:
7 March 2010 at 4:29 PM
He is a careful and serious scientist, not a global warming ideologue. If things are looking bad to him,”
Maybe he should be more careful and serious about investigating the truth, then.
Not one thing that has been said in his defence either by him or his mates here has addressed post 33 (https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/a-mistaken-message-from-iop/comment-page-1/#comment-164834).
Why not?
Because his actions and words are indefensible.
So you go on the attack.
bill says:
7 March 2010 at 2:22 PM
“Re#108 and 115
Neither a denialist nor a warmist be: look for the data !
http://www.smhi.se/polopoly_fs/1.2956!/m%C3%A5nadstabell_temp.pdf”
But Phil Jones didn’t say that the Swedish data is not available from the Swedes themselves. Jones said that Sweden, amongst others, is preventing CRU from releasing the Swedish data on the CRU site. Can’t you understand the difference between those two positions?
Pictures sometimes teach better than text.
Good(!) images here: http://climate.nasa.gov/stateOfFlux/index.cfm
I partially agree with Mike M’s request for a one page outline of the evidence – on its own though this would be meaningless. What might help would be a series of outlines of the evidence, each more detailed than previous one and building on it. This would then allow anyone genuinely interested to choose the level of detail they are comfortable with. It would also address accusations of ignoring the subtleties – if anyone feels that a particular level of evidence oversimplifies the problem they could just look at the next level.
I don’t know who would provide the bottom turtle though.
I’m a bit late in responding in this thread but here goes anyway.
Firstly, I think the IOP are right to call for openness regarding data and methods. I thought that this would go without saying but clearly not.
Here is what I said in the letter:
“In my view, it is unfair to criticise the CRU on the basis that they did not comply with data sharing standards that, at present, don’t exist. There is clearly a need for rules regarding openness in relation to data and methods but it is foolish to retrospectively admonish people for not following them!”
A lot of people seem to have interpreted this has me saying that scientists should not be transparent about their work. I still can’t see how you’d come to that comclusion from my quote.
What I am saying is that, in relation to the IOP’s evidence submission, it is unfair to accuse the CRU scientists of “intolerance to challenge” and “excluding newcomers” because they did not follow a standard that the IOP propose in their submission. This is a poor argument that takes no account of the particular issues relating to a small percentage of the data used by the CRU.
This type of non-evidenced judgement is typical of the IOP evidence submission as a whole.
#144 Here’s ONE PAGE. Crisp, concise, easily understood by anyone with a fifth grade reading level.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html
@ David Colquohuon and others, you might be interested in this article by Robyn Williams, the presenter of the ABC’s science show – a radio broadcast that has been run since pussy was a pup (ie for just about ever).
This is an abridged version of the 2010 Commonwealth Day address he gave today to a lunch organised by the Commonwealth Day Council .
His strong words are warranted in my view, and scientists who say things that appear to support the skeptics bluff and bluster – like ‘they should be more open’, when climate science is the most open and transparent of any science, should take note.
As a taster, here is an extract:
(My bold for emphasis – because it’s also what I firmly believe and have stated on several occasions.)
I’m getting that way again after going quiet for a while too, and I really don’t have a lot of time to spare. But the national broadcasting service here in Australia (ABC) just had a series of blog posts on various aspects of climate change politics which brought out the local denial squad. I’m no climate scientist but I’ve got a half-useful brain and a reasonably functioning bulldust-detector, and I spent quite a bit of time pointing out inconvenient facts and inconvenient gaps in their “logic” – precisely because I get a fire in my belly when people peddle obvious bulldust.
Mike M (144): there really isn’t a single ONE-PAGE document anywhere that really PROVES the case.
BPL: That’s because science doesn’t PROVE anything. It can only disprove. And if you think that’s a weak power, you know nothing about science.
Want a quick precis of the argument and the evidence for AGW? Here it is.
1. Greenhouse gases warm the Earth’s surface (Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1859, Arrhenius 1896, etc.).
2. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas (Tyndall 1859).
3. CO2 is rising (Keeling et al. 1958 on and ice core data).
4. The new CO2 is coming mainly from fossil fuels (Suess 1955, Revelle and Suess 1957).
5. The Earth is warming (NASA GISS, Hadley CRU, RSS TLT, UAH MSU, glaciers, sea level, etc.).
6. The rise in temperature closely matches the rise in CO2 (http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Correlation.html).
Which of those points do you dispute, and why?
Which would you like more information about?
#134: Spelling lessons from people who fail to capitalize proper nouns are often ignored.
;)
“simon abingdon”, proper nouns should be capitalized.
[Response: Ok, enough from the grammar police whether ironically intended or not. – gavin]
RE: 149
Hey dhogaza,
I have been in the communications technologies, applications and systems field for nearly 50 years now and I have yet to accomplish your humble ability: “Thank God I’m a humble software engineer who just needs to make shit work.” Care to define how you do it… How do you get software to accomplish such a feat…?
Sad to say when what appears to be intelligent people getting their information from the popular press it greatly sorrows me. However, by the same token, when the science references and their application are not documented in a paper or requires an amendment to be issued directing subsequent questers to the information we are not helping matters. To go further to not include the experimental or analytic protocols, we justly may have our collective feet held to the fire. However, if that were the case both the Peer Review process and the access rights regarding the sharing of information or data bases needs to be re-examined.
To see former data which was in text or ASCII format to now require the use of C code, python, java, mathlab or a mainframe tcl/tkl tool to extract the data moves access out of the hands of the general population. This action does not serve science well. Access to data and the use of common tools to be able to replicate the works for the purpose to “see for themselves” is not the same as having someone peering over your shoulder. For many this is a means that the general population can see the real evidence and therefore it helps them to understand it. Nearly 30% of the population can only believe by doing, to expect them to trust you is asking too much, trust me….
Cheers!
Well I work on a field (stochastic properties of single ion channel molecules) where data and code are normally shared freely, so Ray Ladbury’s perspective on “how scientists view data” is not the same as mine.
I should perhaps qualify that by saying that it still rare to ask, or to be be asked, to supply raw data, but on the occasions when it has happened, it has never been refused. Our analysis programs are free, on the web, and anyone who wants the code can have it. Physicists seem unaware of the strong movement to making this freedom of information universal in biological, and already some journals make it a condition of publication that all data should be made available on request.
I think that part of the motive for this development is an increasing concern that competitive pressure may lead to distortion, and that openness is the best way to ensure honesty.
I’m not very impressed by the financial arguments. A major source of dishonest behaviour been pharmaceutical companies, who have only too often suppressed unfavourable data and refused to release it. (I’m speaking here of the regular pharmaceutical industry, not the alternative medicine industry which usually has no data: they just make it up.)
I think that if climate people want to increase their credibility (and I certainly hope that they will) they’d be advised to free themselves of agreements that prevent them from releasing data.
I suppose that what I an saying is that you can never have objective science when money is involved. (That isn’t true of tecbnology of course, because it is much easier to test the truth of claims in that area. If your mp3 player doesn’t work, you know it straight away.)
I simply don’t believe that anyone has the strength of mind to be objective about the outcome of an experiment if they have a direct financial interest in the outcome. That is why I’m not inclined to believe anything written about climate by an oil company. But it cuts both ways.
Re Lynn 143 “and the world’s religions seem on the whole to be quite dull indeed about AGW”
See http://www.ecobuddhism.org and “A Buddhist Response to The Climate Emergency” Wisdom publications 2009.
Extract from “Universal Responsibility and the Climate Emergency by The Fourteenth Dalai Lama
“The kind of consumer society we take for granted today is so toxic to the enviroment that continuing business-as-usual is a grave threat to our survival. To address out obsession with consumerism we need differetn perspectives that open up other possibilities. New technologies cannot save us without a new worldview, one that replaces our present emphasis on never-ending economic growth and technological growth with a focus on healing the relationship between our species and the Earth”.
“To a large extent, our ecological situation today is a greater and more fateful version of the perennial human predicament. Collectively as well as individually, we suffer from a sense of self that feels disconnected from other people and, and from the Earth itself”.
For each of us to try and practice following the ten commandments and the Golden Rule addresses the real cause of all our problems.
“168
David Colquhoun says:
8 March 2010 at 9:37 AM
Well I work on a field (stochastic properties of single ion channel molecules) where data and code are normally shared freely, so Ray Ladbury’s perspective on “how scientists view data” is not the same as mine.”
Please post your FTP site so I can download your data.
All of it, please, including intermediate code and development snapshots of all code used. Please include the source code of applications used, including the Microsoft OS of the computer you’re using.
(see how it can be, now?)
“159
OliverP says:
8 March 2010 at 6:02 AM
What might help would be a series of outlines of the evidence, each more detailed than previous one and building on it. ”
Which would be argued as being incomplete and missing out the alternative views until the mob has decided that they can go back to “GIVE ME ONE PAGE PROOF!!!!” and we start the denialist tango once more.
1) CO2 traps IR but not visible light.
I often wonder what you guys think the almighty CO2 molecule does with absorbed IR. Sure, it generally absorbs IR from one vector (earth outward) and re-radiates in all three dimensions, but surely you realize most of the CO2 molecule’s temperature is due to mechanical connection to the rest of the atmosphere. Our average temperature determines what we radiate, but the dominant factor in our earth’s average temperature comes from the sun heating water which in turn heats nitrogen and oxygen. Heat is most readily moved around by conduction and convection (and this includes the most prominent method of heating CO2). You guys get this, right?
Richard (#150), it’s not spelling mistake. I meant “pyric.” I did call the denialist wins and scores pyrrhic victory before, until I realized their ultimate win of perhaps even causing runaway warming will also be “pyric” (from the Greek for “fire”).
@David Colquhoun.
From what you’ve said, I’m thinking you probably generate all your own data or maybe occasionally use data from others who you know and with whom you collaborate. (How often to you get asked by an internet blogger for data that you got from another party?)
In climate science, a lot of scientists (probably the vast majority) take direct measurements and generate their own data. However, scientists whose research involves analysing global weather records rely on data collected by third parties and maybe fourth or fifth parties.
That means these scientists rely on the goodwill of the organisations / nations from whom they obtain the data. If those who collect the data (often national organisations) set conditions, then the scientists either abide by their conditions or don’t use the data at all.
Although from some people’s perspective it may be desirable, it’s not always possible for scientists “to free themselves of agreements that prevent them from releasing data” without compromising research into global climate.
Having said that, most national agencies that hold weather records offer it to any party on request, sometimes for a fee and often not. So it’s not as if the data is not available at all.
An occasional request for data from a colleague or even a non-scientist is a far cry from multiple requests every day from non-scientists who are mischievously making frivolous queries and more often than not don’t even know what they are asking for.
David Colquhoun finally gets closer to the meat of the matter …
And the same has been true in climate science. There’s a great deal of whipping the dog to make it do what it’s already doing going on here. The first version of the GHCN data was made available for download in 1992, just a few years after the term “data warehousing” was coined. That puts climate science quite early in the race to make data available for free over the internet, I believe.
Am I wrong?
Since then we’ve seen more and more data come online, for the most part not due to flogging by the likes of McIntyre, the IOP, or you, but because of the evolution of technology and notions of how to use it by research communities.
Personally, I think it’s mostly technology-driven, but that’s just opinion.
It doesn’t matter if you’re “impressed” or not. What matters is that they exist, and they exist largely due to political pressure on national met services to cover costs through the sale of data.
And what especially matters is that it’s not UEA or Phil Jones who are making the financial argument. They are being bound by agreements imposed by those national met services who make the financial argument. UEA and Phil Jones are bearing the brunt of criticism and, as you have done, calls for resignation because they refuse to break legal agreements.
Think about this (and for once, consider addressing it). You are calling for the resignation of people for properly rejecting a FOI which asked them to break legal agreements.
NASA GISS only uses the freely available GHCN data for computing their GISTEMP product. Ironically, until last November, the denialsphere argued that GISTEMP had less credibility than HadCRUT.
Why? GISTEMP only used freely available data, and by your way of thinking, that should’ve added to their credibility, right?
GISTEMP was declared not credible because it gives a slightly higher warming trend than HadCRUT. No other reason than that. That’s blog science for you …
This brings me back to the fact that you’ve been writing authoritatively in the Guardian despite being somewhat ignorant of reality. If you’re going to write authoritatively, you should have enough background to write “I wish UEA CRU only used GHCN data, as does NASA GISS, because they could then have been spared this entirely made-up, bogus controversy over the fact that they don’t own distribution rights to all of the data they use”. And that “it’s proper for UEA to reject FOIs asking them to release proprietary data owned by others, and a reasonable person would’ve been satisfied by the rejection letter that stated that UEA was working with those organizations to get the right to distribute it to others”.
And a bunch of other stuff, rather than the misinformed stuff you have written.
“172
Ken Coffman says:
8 March 2010 at 9:56 AM
1) CO2 traps IR but not visible light.
I often wonder what you guys think the almighty CO2 molecule does with absorbed IR.”
I wonder what you think your blanket does with all that absorbed heat from your body.
PS, what does this mean?
“but surely you realize most of the CO2 molecule’s temperature is due to mechanical connection to the rest of the atmosphere. ”
There’s no mechanical connection. A gas is not a linked system.
RE #169, Hi Hugh. I think nearly all the world’s major religions have made wonderful statements about how we need to mitigate AGW, that it’s a moral duty and responsibility of all people. But I don’t see that being translated into significant action on the part of the followers on the whole.
Take America, for instance. It’s supposedly a “religious” nation with most people belonging to the various religions that call for reductions in our GHGs, but have we actually made such reductions since nearly all mainstream religions called for us to mitigate 15 to 20 years ago? I think we’ve instead increased our emissions by 20% over the past 20 years. (Now, there could be some mainly Buddhist countries that are making greater strides on mitigating, and I understand that the Vatican is striving to be the 1st carbon neutral state, so there are a few good adherents to the various religions.)
Of course RE America, I’ve NEVER (since I was in grammar school in the early 50s) considered it to be a religious or moral country, and I guess I’ve been proven correct. So maybe I shouldn’t diss religion, since very few actually practice it.
I should have said, “and those who claim to adhere to the world’s religions seem on the whole to be quite dull indeed about AGW…”
Comment by Ken Coffman — 8 March 2010 @ 9:56 AM
Start here:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
Eppur si muove – Yet it moves
Fight for science.
David Calquhon,
Now again, please show me where I’ve ever spoken against sharing data. At most, I’ve pointed out that data sharing from secondary sources can be a vector for error propagation.
I’m iffier on sharing code, as 1)it can propagate errors; 2)undermine independent analysis; and 3)slow progress of science.
David, I presume that in your field, you generate most of your own data. Therefore, when someone comes to you, you can give them access with a clear conscience. However, what would you do if you had data from a colleague and someone requested it? I presume that you would ask your colleague’s permission before handing over the data, or more likely suggest to your requestor that he make his request of your colleague, no? This is after all only professional courtesy. And would your reaction be different if the request came not from a scientific colleague, but in the form of a FOI from an animal rights group bent on bringing research on lab animals to a halt?
I would point out that CRU had already pointed out that the data they could distribute were available on the web. They had further notified the individual who requested the data of its availability and explained why they could not release the rest. That the individual involved subsequently spammed CRU with over 40 FOI requests in a weekend indicates to me that his interest was not in furthering the scientific process.
So, really, David, openness is not the issue. Everyone is in favor of openness. CRU has been moving in that direction to the extent that their limited staff allows (I’m sure you understand this concern). The real issue is whether we will stand up forcefully to those who would undermine science–not just climate science–but science in general.
Science is a relatively recent human endeavor. It would be easy given the extent to which it has revolutionized human society to think it’s place is secure. Based on the harrassment of climate scientists, I contend that would be a mistake.
Ken, you really need to read the simplest explanation of the greenhouse effect. Seriously, even your mom could understand it.
Ken Coffmann says “I often wonder what you guys think the almighty CO2 molecule does with absorbed IR. Sure, it generally absorbs IR from one vector (earth outward) and re-radiates in all three dimensions…”
Strike one! Most CO2 relaxes in the troposphere via collisions with other molecules (mostly nitrogen and oxygen).
Ken: “…but surely you realize most of the CO2 molecule’s temperature is due to mechanical connection to the rest of the atmosphere.”
Steerike two! When the excited CO2 molecule couples to the rest of the atmosphere, the energy flow is predominantly to the atmosphere.
Ken: “Our average temperature determines what we radiate, but the dominant factor in our earth’s average temperature comes from the sun heating water which in turn heats nitrogen and oxygen. Heat is most readily moved around by conduction and convection (and this includes the most prominent method of heating CO2).”
Steeeerike three! Yer out! Ken, Dude, this is wrong in oh so many ways. All of the heat transfer from Earth’s climate system is due to radiation, or if you disagree, do please explain how convection or conduction would remove heat from Earth into the inky blackness of space.
> David C
> Physicists seem unaware of the strong movement to making this
> freedom of information universal ….
I refute it thus: http://www.google.com/search?q=open+access+physics
168 David wrote: “Well I work on a field (stochastic properties of single ion channel molecules) where data and code are normally shared freely” and “Physicists seem unaware of the strong movement to making this freedom of information universal”
Hi David. I’m not sure I agree that data is shared any more freely in the single molecule world than anywhere else. I’ve had requests for data turned down on more than one occasion. Students that I’ve worked with have had requests for data ignored. One person told me that Elsevier held the copyright to their data. Others have said that it was too much trouble to find the data. Although annoying, I never thought that having my requests for data turned down/ignored was part of a conspiracy. It always felt like the normal state of human affairs. Scientists aren’t always the most organized people in the world. Regarding making all data available I’ve discussed this with a colleague who gathers immense amounts of data with a 500 frame per second camera. Making the data that comes out of that thing publicly available is tough. For each paper he writes someone would need to provide close to a terrabyte of storage for the raw data.
Regarding “Physicists seem unaware of the strong movement to making this freedom of information universal”
Walter Goad who was a principal in founding genbank in the late 70s was a physicist.
“As one of the earliest bioinformatics community projects on the Internet, the GenBank project started BIOSCI/Bionet news groups for promoting open access communications among bioscientists. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GenBank
Also, David Colquhoun, do you receive government grants? If you can’t produce all of your data, intermediate calculations, and source code versions, you may be prosecuted by Sen. Inhofe.
More for David C.: I hope you’re following the updates closely here.
Rule one of database management — many pointers, not multiple copies.
William seems to have the best collection of pointers, updated often, on this subject. You really can inform yourself, if you’re willing to risk changing your mind and amending your published statements. I hope.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/03/weird_stuff_from_the_swedes.php#comment-2331425
Re:151 Richard Ordway says: 8 March 2010 at 1:44 AM
“… here are a page and a half or so of unrebutted phrases in juried peer reviewed scientific journals that explain a lot about about climate change. If fake they would have been rebutted. They have not been so are valid evidence that has held up to world wide scrutiny.”
Hey Richard, good stuff!
I’m trying to get the climate pages on my old website up to speed. My web-mistress is teaching this old dog some new tricks since she doesn’t want to do code,
I haven’t updated in ages.
May I cut and paste the references you have put together under something I’ll tentatively call:
Richard Ordways References and Guide to Enlightenment- with a link
…on my website: http://groundtruthinvestigations.com/climate_change.html
I’d probably make a new page. Your comments add insight into what one will be seeing.
As you see, mine are (too) neutral, references only web pages provided for those of us needing ready access to research documents and literature advancing the understanding of climate change.
I would welcome anyone to peruse the links and suggest links to add. Some links may have expired. If you see one let me know via the contact page, please, if you have the time. Any positive, instructive suggestion would be welcome.
New interdisciplinary journal on climate change http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123201100/home
Copy of editorial available at http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresArticle/articles.html?doi=10.1002%2Fwcc.3
From which this is taken:
TABLE 2 The 14 Knowledge Domains Around Which WIREs
Climate Change Is Structured, Together With the Editor Responsible for
Each Domain
Domain Title Domain Editor
1 Climate, history, society, culture Jim Fleming
2 Paleoclimates and current trends Neville Nicholls
3 Climate models and modeling Hans von Storch
4 Assessing the impacts of climate
change
Tim Carter
5 Climate, ecology and conservation Lee Hannah
6 Perceptions, behavior and
communication of climate
change
Irene Lorenzoni/
Loraine
Whitmarsh
7 Climate economics Gary Yohe
8 Climate, nature and ethics Dale Jamieson
9 Integrated assessment of climate
change
Brian O’Neill
10 Vulnerability and adaptation to
climate change
Jon Barnett
11 The carbon economy and climate
mitigation
Roger Pielke Jr.
12 Climate and development Daniel Murdiyarso
13 Climate policy and governance Harriet Bulkeley/
Michele Betsill
14 The social status of climate change
knowledge
Myanna Lahsen
Chu defends scientific process, challenges climate skeptics
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire
03/08/2010
Lauren Morello and Colin Sullivan, E&E reporters
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has challenged climate skeptics to use “real data and make their analysis transparent” when denouncing the science of global warming.
Addressing recent revelations that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report contained at least two errors, Chu said he believes those mistakes don’t negate “the huge amount of data” that supports the notion that human activities are a major cause of climate change. Nor, he said, have they affected his faith in the IPCC.
“There are times in science when some groups do things that are sloppy,” Chu told E&E Friday at a conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., organized by The Wall Street Journal. “It’s frustrating, but scientists are human beings.”
The best defense against such errors, he said, is peer review, including the IPCC’s recently announced plan for an outside review of its 2007 report.
“Scientists love to scrutinize each other,” Chu said, describing peer review as “a feedback mechanism that says ‘If you’re wrong, I’m going to get you.'”
Chu’s comments come as many prominent climate scientists find themselves defending the broad conclusions and purpose of the IPCC and re-examining how they communicate climate science to the public.
Some have taken aim at media coverage of the IPCC errors and e-mails that were apparently stolen last fall from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.
“The media has certainly portrayed the University of East Anglia situation as a crisis,” Bob Watson, a former IPCC chairman who is now the chief scientist for the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told a House of Commons committee last week. “In my opinion, there is absolutely no adverse effect on any of the conclusions of the IPCC.”
Others say fending off skeptics’ criticism is now a part of doing climate science, for better or worse.
“We all get hate e-mail,” Richard Somerville, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told reporters last week. “But I think that that just comes with the territory now. There is an ugly side to it, but I don’t overrate it, and I don’t think it’s a major concern at all.”
Tim Reeder, a scientist with the U.K. Environment Agency, said he was “surprised at how quickly public opinion seems to have moved” on climate in recent months.
“We were running up to Copenhagen with people on board, and then, for whatever reason — the e-mail, ‘Climategate’ issue came up with the University of East Anglia, and then we had IPCC issues with the Himalayans melting — I think that tied in also with the cold weather,” Reeder said. “And reaction perhaps to events at Copenhagen. I think it’s very unfortunate, and I’m surprised how quickly opinion seems to have moved.”
A ‘slightly dull occupation’ seeks new communication skills
In the United States, some recent polls show concern about climate change is fading. One survey by George Mason and Yale universities found a jump in the percentage of Americans who think global warming is a hoax. Across the Atlantic, a BBC poll last month found 25 percent of those polled did not believe climate change was happening — a 10 percent increase from an earlier poll in November.
Mark Maslin, director of the University College London Environment Institute, said he believes climate skeptics are becoming more aggressive in part because governments around the world are moving to enact national and international policies related to climate change.
“Climate change challenges how we make energy, how we actually live our lives, how we distribute resources around the world. It suddenly becomes increasingly important to several groups of people, so what we’ve seen now is a huge increase in lobbying in the United States against climate change,” Maslin said. “It’s become much stronger because they see there’s an implication to climate change.”
The difficulty for scientists is determining how to respond to skeptics, said British Antarctic Survey head David Vaughan.
“It’s a very fine line that we tread in not being overly scaremongering,” he said. “To some extent, [science] is a slightly dull occupation we have — communicating fact, rather than feelings or emotions or enthusiasms for perhaps certain policies. … You may appear to be a slightly gray person.”
Vaughan said scientists need to do a better job of understanding how the general public thinks of climate change and tailor their message accordingly.
“We do have stuff to learn, and we do have to understand why people find it easier to take up some messages and not others,” he said. “We’re not spin doctors, but we need to listen to the questions people are asking and answer them directly — not just stick to the stuff we’re most comfortable with.”
Sullivan reported from Santa Barbara, Calif.
I really appreciate you guys helping to make my point.
Ken Coffman says “I often wonder what you guys think the almighty CO2 molecule does with absorbed IR. Sure, it generally absorbs IR from one vector (earth outward) and re-radiates in all three dimensions…”
RL: Strike one! Most CO2 relaxes in the troposphere via collisions with other molecules (mostly nitrogen and oxygen).
KLC: Right, exactly. And this is a bidirectional process…most of the heat of all CO2 molecules is caused by colliding with nitrogen and oxygen and molecules like water vapor.
Ken: “…but surely you realize most of the CO2 molecule’s temperature is due to mechanical connection to the rest of the atmosphere.”
RL: Steerike two! When the excited CO2 molecule couples to the rest of the atmosphere, the energy flow is predominantly to the atmosphere.
KLC: Exactly so. And when the CO2 molecule’s neighbors are warmer, then they couple heat to the CO2 and that’s where CO2 gets most of its energy.
Ken: “Our average temperature determines what we radiate, but the dominant factor in our earth’s average temperature comes from the sun heating water which in turn heats nitrogen and oxygen. Heat is most readily moved around by conduction and convection (and this includes the most prominent method of heating CO2).”
RL: Steeeerike three! Yer out! Ken, Dude, this is wrong in oh so many ways. All of the heat transfer from Earth’s climate system is due to radiation, or if you disagree, do please explain how convection or conduction would remove heat from Earth into the inky blackness of space.
KLC: I’m well aware of our hot water bottle floating in space…all energy into and out of the system is via radiation. But the radiation is caused by our atmospheric temperature…everything all summed together (don’t you love superposition? I do.) It’s very interesting that IR absorbed by CO2 is a factor, but that factor is very small.
I agree with the insulating blanket analogy mentioned above. The cozy sleeping bag traps warm air…radiation has very little to do with my comfort. My body heats the air via conduction (and to a smaller degree by convection and to an even smaller degree by radiation) and the foam or down trap the warm air. Take away all of the CO2 in my sleeping bag system and I won’t even notice.
[Response: This is worthy of posting only to serve an example to the rest of us. Someone who thinks that the ‘greenhouse gas is like a blanket’ analogy is a statement that blankets keep us warm because of the radiative effect of CO2 is beyond parody (and reason). Please do not respond to this post, and Ken, please note that all further discussion of your confusion is OT. – gavin]
New interdisciplinary journal out on Climate Change
Editorial for free download here
http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresArticle/articles.html?doi=10.1002%2Fwcc.3
gives an outline of scope. 14 “domains” covered, each with its own editor.
RE: Ken Coffman says:
8 March 2010 at 9:56 AM
…
Yes he always says this. Of course, the whole forcing and feedback scenario is lost on him too. I know this from experience. Sadly. We have publishing disagreements as well. Coffman uses the same model there: vanity. Nice job, Ray Ladbury.
“Tim Berners-Lee is credited with having created the World Wide Web while he was a researcher at the European High-Energy Particle Physics lab, the Conseil Européenne pour la Recherche Nucleaire ( CERN), in Geneva, Switzerland. A tool was needed to enable collaboration between physicists and other researchers in the high energy physics community.” http://www.hitmill.com/internet/web_history.html
“Physicists seem unaware of the strong movement to making this freedom of information universal” David Colquhoun — 8 March 2010 @ 9:37 AM
“David is a good guy, a good scientist, and certainly nobody’s dupe.” John E. Pearson — 6 March 2010 @
“I’m not sure who is doing the misrepresentation here.” David Colquhoun — 6 March 2010 @ 3:56 PM
Hugh, 189, 191:
The whole thing is free! All PDFs are available for download, with HTML for online viewing. This is great, especially if it stays this way. I hope a lot of important submissions wind up here. I appreciate Ray’s advice to try the library, and it helps, but nothing beats the ease of download/read/concentrate/learn.
I think I’m going to start with “State-of-the-art with regional climate models”, and peruse “The idea of anthropogenic global climate change in the 20th century” and “Theory and language of climate change communication” when my brain starts to hurt.
Thanks, Hugh.
Hugh Laue says: 8 March 2010 at 12:40 PM
I don’t know if it’s only a temporary thing but Wiley’s new climate journal sports to full text of papers without a login.
Refining Hugh’s link slightly to point to the “cover”, find it here: http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresJournal/wisId-WCC.html
185: Pearson blathered about genbank.
After posting 185 it occurred to me that perhaps the climate science analogue of genbank is in order. I’m sure Senator Inhofe would support funding openness in climate science, or maybe he wouldn’t, but a central repository run by people who know how to do it is not a bad idea. Such a thing can’t be done as a hobby. It would take, time, money, effort, and full-time people to run it,
just like genbank.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/
Whether or not someone accessing data from genbank or the protein data base is a scientist with a “legitimate” interest in the data is simply not an issue. If you get curious about something you can go and start down-loading data immediately. You’re not swamping some poor professor who is trying to do science, teach, and juggle hundreds of FOI requests for data. It would not only take all the fun out of it for the malicious and it would facilitate the science.
David, I’m waiting for your data. And your emails. I have a couple of people in certain groups who would very much like to see all your BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS and the reasoning you have for your mutilation of life.
Well, that’s how they put it.
Come on, you have nothing to hide and you don’t want to appear to be hiding any nefarious experiments on living creatures do you?
(see how it gets creepy when you could be opened up to the partisan gaze of the fringes of the ALF, for example…)
Re: Post 151 by R. Ordway, March 8.
For the many folks who, like me, visit this blog primarily as readers to develop more in-depth knowledge of the climate sciences literature, Comment 151 on this Post is a tour-de-force contribution and I strongly commend it to you.
So, from the outer ring of readers/discussants: thanks for your help Mr. Ordway.
As a policy analyst, what’s noticeable for me at RC and other blogs is a lack of exploration and professional familarity of key social science literatures relevant to climate policy: law, management science, political science, environmental economics, governance studies, policy studies, etc. Work that sheds light on the unique challenges and difficulties the climate sciences are posing for government, law, and policy, national and international, society, and economies.
One drawback/consequence of this situation, perhaps, is the undue prominence given to what strike me clearly as *muddled* and at times *furtive* evaluations of policy/political/community of science issues surrounding AGW that have been launched and pursued by a very few, such as Drs. Piekle Jr. and Curry.
Dr. Oreskes seems to be emerging as a prominent antidote to this problem, but there are many other observers whose work needs greater exposure because it is research and analysis that is and will increasingly be essential to hammering out viable law, policy and executive actions.
The relative invisibility of relevant social science research and policy analyses seems to be an artifact and a serious weakness of credible (RC, Policy Lass) or well-intended (dot.earth) blogs devoted to climate science and policy.
@126 What does http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf have to do with science? “Like Big Tobacco before it, ExxonMobil has been
enormously successful at influencing the current
administration and key members of Congress.”
Ummh, Obama’s rhetoric about “those who deny the science of climate change” and the Cap & Trade bill somehow didn’t cause a blip on your radar screen? Anti-corporate rhetoric and poisoning the well comparisons with “Big Tobacco” are the ultimate examples of “Smoke & Mirrors”. I admit I’m not so young. The newspaper including my birth announcement way back in Jan. 1964 carry a front-page story announcing the Surgeon General has officially determined that smoking is dangerous to your health. 46 years ago, the science was settled. As long as I can remember,this warning has been clearly printed in black and white on cigarette packaging.It isn’t plausible that a well-funded, powerful Big Tobacco lobby could not manage to defeat this requirement.
Anyway, this is now off into red herring land. Just realize that this is the ridiculous propaganda that triggers legitimate skepticism.
The problem with being on the pro AGW side is that if you’re not 100% scrupulous in your approach then the Deniers jump all over you and claim it as proof of their case. I suspect the tone of the IOP submission was designed to demonstrate that nothing but absolute professionalism & integrity is acceptable on the pro side of the issue. Unfortunately the Deniers then immediately claimed the submission as justification of their case and the pro’s got upset because they felt it was too harsh. The IOP then issued a clarification intended to shut the deniers up & pacify the pros. This gets the conspiracy theorists hyper and leaves the Deniers, who never let the truth get in the way of their claims, still claiming IOP support.