I woke up on Tuesday, 17 Nov 2009 completely unaware of what was about to unfold. I tried to log in to RealClimate, but for some reason my login did not work. Neither did the admin login. I logged in to the back-end via ssh, only to be inexplicably logged out again. I did it again. No dice. I then called the hosting company and told them to take us offline until I could see what was going on. When I did get control back from the hacker (and hacker it was), there was a large uploaded file on our server, and a draft post ready to go announcing the theft of the CRU emails. And so it began.
From that Friday, and for about 3 weeks afterward, we were drafted into the biggest context setting exercise we’d ever been involved in. What was the story with Soon and Baliunas? What is the difference between tree ring density and tree ring width? What papers were being discussed in email X? What was Trenberth talking about? Or Wigley? Or Briffa or Jones? Who were any of this people anyway? The very specificity of the emails meant that it was hard for the broader scientific community to add informed comment, and so the burden on the people directly involved was high.
The posts we put up initially are still valid today – and the 1000’s of comment stand as testimony to the contemporary fervour of the conversation:
I think we did pretty well considering – no other site, nor set of scientists (not even at UEA) provided so much of the background to counter the inevitable misinterpretations that starting immediately spreading. While some commentators were predicting resignations, retractions and criminal charges, we noted that there had not been any scientific misconduct, and predicted that this is what the inquiries would find and that the science would not be affected. (Note, the most thorough inquiry, and one that will have to withstand judicial review, is the one by EPA which, strangely enough, has barely been discussed in the blogosphere).
Overall, reactions have seemed to follow predictable lines. The Yale Forum has some interesting discussions from scientists, and there are a couple of good overviews available. Inevitably perhaps, the emails have been used to support and reinforce all sorts of existing narratives – right across the spectrum (from ‘GW hoaxers’ to Mike Hulme to UCS to open source advocates).
Things have clearly calmed down over the last year (despite a bit of a media meltdown in February), but as we predicted, no inquiries found anyone guilty of misconduct, no science was changed and no papers retracted. In the meantime we’ve had one of the hottest years on record, scientists continue to do science, and politicians…. well, they continue to do what politicians do.
manacker @135
Ignoring or underplaying uncertainty would be a problem, but I’ve yet to see any real evidence of it in the literature or the IPCC reports.
Exaggerating (overplaying?) uncertainty in an attempt to undercut the need to address AGW, which is your pitch, is a serious problem, one for which you provide abundant evidence.
@Ray Ladbury
150
C’mon, Ray. They tell us what the assumed most likely range of a parameter is based on the assumed data.
Your assumption that I posit much larger ones…based on NO data, NO analysis and No clue is based on (well, you said it) “NO data, NO analysis and No clue”.
In fact, though, Ray, it’s based on empirical data derived from actual physical satellite observations (how inconvenient) by Spencer et al. on net cloud feedbacks or Lindzen + Choi on the Earth’s energy balance, which both point to an insensitive climate with a 2xCO2 CS of somewhat below 1C.
Now you may not “like” these data (and I can fully understand that), but they are out there, Ray, like ’em or not.
Max
[Response: Oh please. Spencer doesn’t show that at all – in fact his latest paper indicates that he thinks it can’t be done using short-term radiation fluxes. And he didn’t like Lindzen and Choi either (along with everyone else), so pretending that they are all in some agreement is nonsense. Both of them clearly want to find evidence for a small sensitivity – but neither have. And more importantly, neither ever spend any time dealing with the plentiful evidence for the mainstream view. Funny that. – gavin]
@Rick Brown
It goes both ways, Rick (151). IPCC projects that AGW may cause alarming warming, but there is a considerable amount of “uncertainty” in the IPCC projections, as Dr. Curry has told us.
Are they understated? Are they overstated?
Since IPCC is specifically in business to “sell” us a political message of the dangers of AGW and the need for remedial action, I think the likelihood of understatement is far less than the likelihood of overstatement. What do you think?
Overplaying the threat to emphasize the need for immediate painful action is no different from underplaying the threat to avoid immediate painful action.
What counts is the “return on investment” of the proposed “immediate painful action”.
I have seen no “actionable proposals” for immediate painful action, which make any kind of sense. Have you?
Pardon me, but don’t trot out the IPCC AR4 WG3 report; it contains no “actionable proposals” – i.e. specific actions, which could be undertaken with a specific global warming benefit and a specific cost.
Instead it just mentions a “carbon cost” of between $20 and $100 per ton of CO2 emitted, which would be around $600 billion to $3 trillion per year at today’s level, without going into the nitty-gritty detail of exactly who should pay this rather large chunk of money to whom and what specific impact it would have on our climate.
Once you can point to these specific “actionable proposals” we can discuss the cost/benefit analysis of each, to see if they are good investments. Until then, it’s all just empty political talk (i.e. “reduce CO2 emissions to X% of what they were in year Y by year Z”) with no “actionable proposals” of how to get there, what these would cost and what amount of warming they would avert.
Max
PS Don’t tell me that no matter what the cost/benefit analysis shows, the actions are necessary to save our society, our environment, most existing plant or animal species or our planet. Come with specifics instead.
The overriding theme of what came into clearer focus as a result of “climategate” is that disagreements about climate change are not so much about the science, but rather about a clash of underlying values, ideas (e.g. related to risk perception) and ideals. Scientists are caught in the middle of this trying to defend the science against various distortions (while also having their own values, ideas and ideals of course).
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/climategate-lessons-learned/
This is my attempt at a more dispassionate look at the changes that resulted from this sorry affair.
A more opinionated piece on what was so scandalous about the hack (assuming it was a hack) is here:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/climategate-scandal-that-wasnt-and-scandal-that-was/
manaker,
Parroting something Judith Curry wrote doesn’t necessarily make it any more coherent, or true.
Dan H 144: This is not a confirmation in the belief in global warming, and should not be used as evidence of a consensus.
BPL: 97% of climatologists agreeing isn’t a consensus? What kind of standard are you using? The Ivory Soap version?
Max 145: Your certainty (140) that massive GH warming WILL happen is based on faith in the models to be able to project what COULD happen PROVIDED the assumptions made are correct.
BPL: No, it’s based on knowing the physics involved. I don’t need the models. I have an article coming up about that, too, in Advances in Space Research.
Max 146: Your “5% chance” is an assumption
BPL: No. It is a measurement. You need to crack an introductory statistics book, Max.
Max: As far as “betting humanity’s future” that is a bit hyperbolic here. With or without AGW, “humanity” will survive
BPL: Sure. Maybe as much as 1% of the population in 2050 will still be alive in 2100. The species will still be here, certainly.
Max: and (most likely) even thrive, as it has over the past and certainly is today in comparison with 100 or 200 years ago (when the climate may have been a smidgen harsher). I am not as pessimistic as you appear to be, BPL.
BPL: You’re not as well-informed, either. Once advanced civilization falls, it will be a damn long time before it arises again. Our own civilization has already used up all the easily available fossil fuels, metals, and useful plants and animals, and the oceans will be dead. The cattle, sheep, and pigs will go when the famine hits. Horses and other creatures will follow before we turn on each other. Can you imagine trying to build a high-tech civilization without A) horses, B) cattle, C) good farmland, D) copper or iron or tin, E) fish, or F) plants like the willows we get aspirin from and the cereals we make bread from? Do you really expect future humanity to “thrive” after a global harvest failure?
Ken Coffman 148: Dear Philip M. I would love to see the reference to back up this statement in your presentation:
“CO2-driven warming can be demonstrated in the lab.”
BPL: I’ll describe the lab setup you’ll need. You’ll actually perform the experiment, right?
You need a box of IR-transparent glass filled with carbon dioxide. Put a thermocouple in the box and connect it to the appropriate interface to a thermometer. Put an IR lamp of known luminosity against one face of the glass; put a photometer at the other. Turn off all other lights and wait until the room is at an even temperature. Estimate the warming that will come from the lamp itself.
You will observe the following effects:
1. The IR will be absorbed by the carbon dioxide.
2. The carbon dioxide will get warmer.
3. The room will get slightly warmer than it would from the IR lamp alone. To verify this, run the experiment without the box and photometer, using just the IR lamp and the thermocouple/thermometer. Better yet, use ten rooms with and ten rooms without.
Voila.
[edit – too far OT]
I think what “climategate” and even the whole debate on climate change shows us is lessons in human psychology. The evidence for bad science and nasty scientists in the emails were weak. Yet people use it to confirm their already held beliefs (either way), even if their belief was one of mad extreme.
How the media portrayed all this was dreadful but expected, it’s quite depressing. I really like Didactylos comment #77 as I think it’s 100% true. We see this everyday in the media as they write story after story of a sports person or other celebrity. First they are good/bad, then the media show “their other side” etc.
Some trigger in the near future will present the opportunity for the media to swap sides again, this time behind the climate scientists. For awhile.
Therefore whenever the media present you in a story, expect to be misrepresented at some point and don’t take it personally.
#131 Max Anacker
Let’s take your argument on another path toward the Nth degree.
How obscene is the tax on your body for aging? I mean, you pay for your life with cellular degradation. That’s a ‘tax on humanity’ that you are paying for the benefit of living.
If you think such a tax on humanity is obscene, do something about it. Either figure out a way to keep your body alive forever, or stop paying the tax.
Economics: Balancing Economies
October Leading Edge: The Cuccinelli ‘Witch Hunt”
—
Fee & Dividend: Our best chance – Learn the Issue – Sign the Petition
A Climate Minute: Natural Cycle – Greenhouse Effect – Climate Science History – Arctic Ice Melt
Max 153: Overplaying the threat to emphasize the need for immediate painful action is no different from underplaying the threat to avoid immediate painful action.
BPL: How do you “overplay” the death of most of humanity and the end of large-scale advanced civilization?
Wow, Max, did you even read Spencer’s paper? Or Lindzen & Choi–and their subsequent revision after their initial paper was eviscerated? ‘Cause your interpretation of them is “surprising”?
Max, I rather doubt you have the mathematical literacy to compute a simple average. There are very well tested and accepted methods for computing probabilities and their confidence intervals. Maybe you ought to learn some of them.
All I can say is that I’m glad you are on the other side.
Barton, John, Max specializes in what he’s doing. Look at his work elsewhere.
Thanks for your proposed experiment, BPL. Can we agree that this equivalent experiment was (unintentionally) performed by Roslyn M. Gleadow1 et al here:
http://www.biolsci.monash.edu.au/staff/gleadow/docs/gleadow-2009-cassava-online.pdf
“Mean day⁄night temperatures, measured at 5 min intervals, were (±1SE)
28.5 ± 0.2 C⁄ 19.2 ± 0.1 C in each greenhouse chamber.
The CO2 concentration was measured continuously with a Vaisala Carbocap IRGA GMT222 and fumigated as required between 06:00 and 18:00 h daily. The resulting mean concentration of CO2 in each greenhouse (ppm ± 1SE) was 359 ± 2, 546 ± 1 and 709 ± 1.”
manacker wrote: “IPCC is specifically in business to ‘sell’ us a political message of the dangers of AGW and the need for remedial action”
That’s a lie.
And a really, really stupid lie at that.
Perhaps you forgot which site you were posting on? The “UN black helicopters” stuff doesn’t really work here.
Hank, thanks for the tip, I recall his work here in RC from the past as well
I highly recomend Rays #169
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/11/sea-level-rise-the-new-york-times-got-the-story/comment-page-4/#comment-191781
response to my #168
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/11/sea-level-rise-the-new-york-times-got-the-story/comment-page-4/#comment-191777
ust to tickle the humerus ;)
Actually, I don’t think Max Anacker would recognize the first rule of economics if it ran him over in an oil truck.
Gavin (152) (and Ray): while admitting his period is too short for bona fide trends, Spencer says, “…would correspond to a rather trivial 0.6 deg. C of warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2…” and “but as averaging times get longer…. translates to about 1 deg. C of warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2)… ” as late as 2008. Has he refuted that recently? Or why do you say he doesn’t say what he says?
[Response: Spencer and Braswell (2010): “Although these feedback parameter estimates are all similar in magnitude, even if they do represent feedback operating on intraseasonal to interannual time scales, it is not obvious how they relate to long‐term climate sensitivity.” – gavin]
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation), what exactly is the first rule of economics that max (and I guess me…) misses?
Ken Coffman@166,
Unlikely. If I were looking at factors that affect plant growth, temperature is one of them I would control for–and the stability of the temperatures reported would indicate this was the case.
Rod W. Brick
It has been phrased many ways, but it is oft repeated in economics classes:
There is no such thing as free.
aka. everything has a cost
Translated into direct libertarian construct:
Liberty has a cost.
Military: Freedom isn’t free.
Democracy, republicanism, dictatorship, Keyensianism, expansion, production, work, play, food, breathing, living, et cetera.
In other words, no matter what you are talking about, there has to be a cost or a trade off somewhere.
You can’t transmogrify anything from one form to another without a cost, an exchange, a transfer of energy.
Or as my economics teacher once said, if someone gives you something for free, don’t forget that someone paid for it.
#173, John P. Reisman,
Yes, Manacker and Brick recognize neither the free services nature provides nor the “externalities” fossil fuel use imposes. They just don’t want to capture true costs and values…
“BPL: And you’ve got a 5% chance of the actual figure being outside 2.1-4.5 K, which means a 2.5% chance that it’s really low. And you want to bet humanity’s future on that?”
My understanding is that the studies show that the chances of a sensitivity lower than 2.1 K are less than a sensitivity higher than 4.5 K.
I completely agree with you, Ray. How did they control the temperature to counteract the significant warming from increased CO2 concentration? I’d love to know. Generally you control the temp in a greenhouse by opening vents to increase circulation, but that option is not available in a greenhouse where you’re trying to set the CO2 concentration to a specific value. They couldn’t use an air conditioner, because that needs outside air. I suppose they could modulate the insolation with screens or something, but that would skew the experiment by adding another variable…you wouldn’t want to do anything to change the light on the leaves.
How did they do it?
Ken Coffman, I don’t see the problem. If you keep the temperature above amb-ient, heating would not pose a significant problem. And running chilled water through radiators, you could effectively cool a small greenhouse quite nicely.
@174: Yes, Manacker and Brick recognize neither the free services nature provides nor the “externalities” fossil fuel use imposes. They just don’t want to capture true costs and values ..
Because I suspect, they recognize “wealth is the result of exploitation”, which is another way to look at the “free lunch” capitalism promises.
@BPL (158)
To put it very mildly, I believe you are grossly exaggerating the projected consequences of a few hundred added ppmv of atmospheric CO2 over the next century.
Maybe James E. Hansen would support a part of your “doomsday scenario” but IPCC certainly does not go that far.
But, hey, everyone to his own belief, BPL.
Max
PS We have discussed and re-discussed this point ad nauseam, so I do not believe it makes any sense to repeat it any more. If you have something new you’d like to discuss (that relates to the topic of this thread), I’d be glad to engage. Otherwise bye-bye!
Ken #176, the warming in an actual greenhouse is dominated by trapping of hot air (prevention of convection). Secondarily, there’s trapping of IR by the glass walls/roof. The radiative effects of elevated CO2 in the greenhouse aren’t going to be significant. (The heat given off by the burning of gas to produce CO2 might, though.) And yes, you could use an air conditioner if you particularly needed to; they exchange heat, not air.
Are you just here to play games with us, or do you have a point you plan to make?
@Gavin
Re ur comment 170. Yes, Spencer & Braswell were very cautious about whether the observed short-term negative feedback from clouds translates into the same net negative feedback on a longer-term basis, as you pointed out.
Since this study, however, Spencer has published additional work, more specifically relating to the longer-term effect.
In this report, he concludes, based on Aqua and TERRA satellite observations:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/
So the question of climate sensitivity is still open.
Max
[Response: Wishing for it doesn’t make it so. Don’t you wonder why Spencer’s statements in papers are so much more constrained than on a blog? Something to do with having to convince reviewers and editors that the conclusions need to be drawn from the actual results and not be in contradiction to all the other evidence perhaps? – gavin]
#178 flxible
Just a few points: While I do understand your perspective, Capitalism itself is not the prime suspect. But to see that you need to look at the other suspects that were present at the scene of the crime.
Capitalism in its most healthy form is based on the transparency of market function thus allowing market considerations such as exploitation to be a part of the construct. Though long term thinking in this area of market function is a new paradigm in many ways, the bigger culprit is in oligarchical and plutocratic influence that reduces or eliminates the market transparencies that are needed for such healthier function of the market system.
The world really is a big market system. The atmosphere trades with the oceans, the biosphere trades with the atmosphere and oceans, the minerals trade with the biosphere.
Just a big market place really.
Now that we see the functions of the market and our impacts, we need to adjust our view so that we are considerate of the long term in relation to the short term and adjust our shopping habits ;)
But there is no free lunch.
Pretending there is (a free lunch) also has a cost.
Economics: Balancing Economies
October Leading Edge: The Cuccinelli ‘Witch Hunt”
—
Fee & Dividend: Our best chance – Learn the Issue – Sign the Petition
A Climate Minute: Natural Cycle – Greenhouse Effect – Climate Science History – Arctic Ice Melt
@165–“Barton, John, Max specializes in what he’s doing. Look at his work elsewhere.”
Yep. Soon as I saw the “Manacker” handle on the list of comments, the only unknown was precisely which detail would be picked over.
CM, I don’t want to misquote you…you’re saying that doubling the CO2 concentration in a greenhouse won’t lead to a 1.5 to 6 (give or take) degrees C temperature increase?
[Response: The issues are completely distinct. Why should the global mean sensitivity apply to a greenhouse? – gavin]
Gavin, an update on the latest Spencer & Braswell would probably be a good RC article.
Max,
I agree. The issue of climate sensitivity is still open. Some seem to think otherwise. Spencer is not the only one believing that clouds represent a negative feedback, and the possibility of a negative cloud feedback would dramatically reduce many of the quoted sensitivities. The IPCC listed 1.8/CO2 doubling before cloud feedback was included. I do not think this is merely wishful thinking, but good scientific procedure to accurate portray this factor.
[Response: Sure, but it is also good scientific procedure to look at the plentiful evidence that climate sensitivity is higher than that derived from top-down measures that implicitly include all feedbacks. It isn’t just a case of adding in one thing at a time. – gavin]
Ken #184, yup. If you’re not just here to play silly games, these recent posts might help clear up the confusion.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/a-simple-recipe-for-ghe/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/the-key-to-the-secrets-of-the-troposphere/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/09/introduction-to-feedbacks/
#184, #187–
Ken, it may possibly help to know that Fourier, when he deduced the existence of what would later come to be called “the greenhouse effect,” didn’t know what the physical mechanism was, precisely. He was able to infer more or less what was happening in general, and to calculate a heat budget, but didn’t know what, exactly, about the atmosphere was “trapping heat.” He used the simile of the “heliothermometer,” an instrument somewhat similar to a miniature greenhouse; but the mechanisms of the two are unfortunately not the same.
Dan H. wrote: “Spencer is not the only one believing that clouds represent a negative feedback, and the possibility of a negative cloud feedback would dramatically reduce many of the quoted sensitivities.”
Meanwhile:
Emphasis added.
@Gavin’s Response (186)
When you say the top down measurements, are you talking about the satelite data sets (to calculate climate sensitivity)? Would you give a quick description of how the different timescales could be taken into account? For instance I would guess that cloud cover and formation/dissipation would be quite variable over short timescales but must “average” (not in a statistical sense mind you).
JPR@182 yes, Manacker and Brick are [some of] the “main suspects”, yearning for that “free” lunch . . . . because they recognize “wealth is the result of exploitation” as I said.
@Secular Animist
Key word in your highlighted summary (189) is the first one: “IF”.
A small word with a very large significance.
Max
We won’t resolve here whether the net cloud feedback is strongly positive, as per all the climate models cited by IPCC or strongly negative, as suggested by the satellite observations of Spencer & Braswell.
But we must agree that this makes a very big difference.
IPCC calculations attribute 1.3C of the 3.2C average 2xCO2 climate sensitivity to a strongly positive cloud feedback, so it is clear that a net negative cloud feedback would have a major impact on the 2xCO2 CS.
Do clouds act as a “natural thermostat” by reflecting more net energy out to space with warming or do they increase net warming by enhancing the GH effect?
That is the big unresolved question that no one here can answer for sure.
As IPCC stated in its AR4 WG1 report:
Max
Max, there’s a really big problem with your “clouds will save us” Hail Mary. The climate sensitivity is constrained to be around 3 degrees per doubling by about a dozen independent lines of evidence. If you look at the evidence, it is actually remarkable that the favored value for all of these lines of evidence is right about 3. What do you suppose the chances of that are if the sensitivity were substantially less. The fact is that if CO2 were significantly less, then Earth’s climate wouldn’t look like Earth. Let me know when you’ve figured out a way around that, will you…or when you have some evidence…or when you have a clue.
Gavin (170), thanks for the response and link.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) (173), Thanks.
Walter Pearce, quit making up crap about what you think I say and believe — evidently with no evidence other than what’s in your behind. For the record, I think externalities should be costed. I just think it out to be done smartly with accounting finesse and not stupidly with an ineffective sledge hammer and snow plow.
flxible, HA! Capitalism promises free lunch???? I know; the debble made you do it…
@Ray Ladbury
All you have written (194) sounds great, but it does not change the fact (as IPCC has conceded):
And, until this “largest source of uncertainty” is cleared up, we just won’t know whether your conclusion of a 2xCO2 CS of 3C is right or Spencer’s conclusion of a 2xCO2 CS of around 0.6C is right, will we?
And that, Ray, is what Dr. Curry means by “uncertainty”.
Max
[Response: Or maybe 5 deg C – that’s what’s called being honest. Plus you still haven’t said how you reconcile 0.6 deg C with the history of paleo-climate. Explain the LGM if you can. It is not that we know nothing about sensitivity, despite you ignoring all of it, in order to grasp the straw of uncertainty. – gavin ]
#191 flxible
I understand you point. Important to be aware that everything exploits everything else though. Context is key. It’s over exploitation we need to worry about.
Max Anaker
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/richard-lindzen
Unfortunately the evidence is pointing the other direction.
HR 165: Barton, John, Max specializes in what he’s doing. Look at his work elsewhere.
BPL: Then how in hell did he get the idea that a confidence interval is an “assumption?”