'The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?'
Last Updated: 11:20pm GMT 17/03/2007
'The Great Global Warming Swindle', broadcast by Channel 4, put the case for scepticism about man-made climate change. The programme sparked a heated debate and charges of scientific inaccuracy. Here, its director, Martin Durkin, responds to the critics.
On March 8, Channel 4 broadcast my programme. Since then, supporters of the theory of man-made global warming have published frothing criticism. I am attacked for using an "old" graph depicting temperature over the past 1,000 years. They say I should have used a "new" graph - one used by Al Gore, known as the "hockey stick", because it looks like one.
But the hockey stick has been utterly discredited. The computer programme used to generate it was found to produce hockey-stick shapes even when fed random data (I refer readers to the work of McIntyre & McKitrick and to the Wegman Report, all available on the internet). Other than the discredited hockey stick, the graph used by us (and published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the standard, accepted record of temperature in this period. advertisement
A critic claims that one of the graphs cited by us, illustrating the extraordinarily close correlation between solar variation and temperature change, has since been "corrected". It most certainly has not. The graph was produced by Prof Eigil Friis-Christensen, the head of the Danish National Space Centre, who says it still stands. But if the global-warmers don't like that graph, there are plenty of others that say the same thing.
No one any longer seriously disputes the link between solar activity and temperature in earth's climate history. I urge readers to look up on the net: Veizer, Geoscience Canada, 2005; and Soon, Geophysical Research Letters, 2005.
In the film, we used three graphs depicting temperature change in the 20th century. On one there was an error in the dates on the bottom. This was corrected for the second transmission of the programme, on More4, last Monday. It made no difference. Global-warmers can pick whichever graph they like. The problem for them remains the same. The temperature rise at the beginning of the century (prior to 1940, when human emissions of CO2 were relatively insignificant) was as great, most graphs show greater, than the temperature rise at the end of the century.
So what else do they hit me with? Prof Carl Wunsch, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who appeared in the film, later claimed he was duped into taking part. He was not.
The remarkable thing is not that I was attacked. But that the attacks have been so feeble. The ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again and again as evidence that carbon dioxide 'drives' the earth's climate. In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.
During the post-war economic boom, while industrial emissions of CO2 went up, the temperature went down (hence the great global-cooling scare in the 1970s). Why? They say maybe the cooling was caused by SO2 (sulphur dioxide) produced by industry. But they say it mumbling under their breath, because they know it makes no sense. Thanks to China and the rest, SO2 levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why isn't it perishing cold?
Too many journalists and scientists have built their careers on the global-warming alarm. Certain newspapers have staked their reputation on it. The death of this theory will be painful and ugly. But it will die. Because it is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Arguing with CO2 advocates is a bit like arguing with creationists. It's a case of dealing with people for whom belief and vested interest comes first and the actual evidence comes way down the line. And as with creationists.....if you demolish one facet of their argument.....they simply move on to another until the whole argument goes round in a circle and back to the start ( by which time they hope everyone has forgotten the original objections ).
The documentary quite correctly asserts that for many, man made global warming IS almost on par with an article of religious faith. There's some great rational and scientific minds in the CO2 advocate camp, and I respect them, but for the vast majority the whole thing has that religious rather than scientific zeal, and questioning the precepts meets a sort of 'shock horror' response almost like you'd stepped into a Pentecostal church and announced that God does not exist.
The vested interests and religious zeal skew the entire debate. There's just too many people around now for whom their entire job and livelihood rests on CO2 warming being real. Too many politicians like Al Gore have staked their reputations on it. Too many 'Stop The Chaos' marches.
It seems to me that it has long since passed the stage of anyone listening if someone in the crowd stands up and proclaims ' the emperor is not wearing any clothes'.
It's obviously the anti-global warming brigade who are the creationists in the debate. All the undistorted scientific facts point to human produced climate change.
How people can believe that billions of human beings can believe that billions of human beings can churn out billions of tons of extra CO2 and other pollutants without it having a large effect on the climate beats me.
And, of course, those in the pay of industries whose interests depend on such pollution, like Martin Durkin, presumably, don't really believe it, unless they are duped by their own propaganda.
Obviously it's the anti human-produced global warming brigade who are the creationists.
How anyone can believe that billions of human beings can churn out billions of tons of extra CO2 and other gases without radically changing the climate beats me, and just is unscientific thinking.
And, of course, those in the pay of industries whose interest it is that people continue to produce such pollutants, like Martin Durkin, presumably, don't really believe what their saying unless they are duped by such propaganda.
Yet another reference to 'scientific facts' that are nothing of the sort.
Quantum mechanics is the most succesful scientific theory of all time. It has passed every predictive test in almost 100 years. No experiment out of thousands and thousands has ever shown even the tiniest discrepancy from prediction. Yet quantum mechanics is still regarded as a THEORY.
So one kind of wonders how the rather flimsy ( by comparison ) evidence for CO2 warming somehow gains the status ( as I keep seeing refered to ) of 'scientific fact '. Howcome relativity, quantum mechanics, and most of the other major science of the 20th century are all still theories....even evolution is still a theory.... ( and still debated and even critiqued by scientists )....yet all of a sudden this holy cow of CO2 warming gets a rubber stamp of 'fact'.
Originally posted by Chi Squared: Yet another reference to 'scientific facts' that are nothing of the sort.
Quantum mechanics is the most succesful scientific theory of all time. It has passed every predictive test in almost 100 years. No experiment out of thousands and thousands has ever shown even the tiniest discrepancy from prediction. Yet quantum mechanics is still regarded as a THEORY.
So one kind of wonders how the rather flimsy ( by comparison ) evidence for CO2 warming somehow gains the status ( as I keep seeing refered to ) of 'scientific fact '. Howcome relativity, quantum mechanics, and most of the other major science of the 20th century are all still theories....even evolution is still a theory.... ( and still debated and even critiqued by scientists )....yet all of a sudden this holy cow of CO2 warming gets a rubber stamp of 'fact'.
This just confirms what I just said. This is a Creationist argument. Why believe in evolution? it's only a theory, after all... Ignore all the museums full of the fossilised remaind of extinct animals etc.
Evolution is a Theory that essentially says that through survival of the fittest (those creatures that live long enough to reproduce) the gene pool of a species will change through the generations to be better able to cope with the adverse changes in their environment that caused the premature deaths.
You can achieve similar results with selective breeding (speed it up) so it's pretty well established and I'd contend that evolution as a process is a fact. That doesn't mean it is necessarily the only process that causes adaptation.
Underlying evolution is genetic mutation which can be caused by many things so changes can occur even if they make no difference to the ability of a species to adapt eg there may be another but useless mutation on the same gene that is driving the important evolutionary change.
Or maybe an electric spark in the right conditions triggered the creation of the first self organising molecule.
Similarly CO2 has a greenhouse effect (fact) but it is by no means the only possible and necessarily single cause of current climate change.
Ignore all the museums full of the fossilised remaind of extinct animals etc.
Can't say I've ever visited IPCC headquarters.
Evolution, relativity, and quantum mechanics are all generally accepted because they make testable predictions that can and have been verified. That is not to say that ( just as relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics ) any of these could not be replaced by a better theory that gives better results but is based on an entirely different premise. Thus, Newtonian mechanics has never actually been dismissed as 'wrong' ( it did, after all, get man to the Moon )....even though technically it is.
And that to my mind is the real issue. A theory can 'explain' things with 99.99% accuracy in most ordinary conditions and yet still be inherently 'wrong' in its basic premise. Solar system accretion models are a good recent example. That is why in science things are theories and hypotheses rather than rubber stamped 'facts'.
Evolution is a special case, because basically there ARE only two possible ( rather than many potential ) explanations of how life got here. But in most science there's a plethora of alternative theories that could give the same results.
Originally posted by Son of Mulder: Evolution is a Theory that essentially says that through survival of the fittest (those creatures that live long enough to reproduce) the gene pool of a species will change through the generations to be better able to cope with the adverse changes in their environment that caused the premature deaths.
You can achieve similar results with selective breeding (speed it up) so it's pretty well established and I'd contend that evolution as a process is a fact. That doesn't mean it is necessarily the only process that causes adaptation.
Underlying evolution is genetic mutation which can be caused by many things so changes can occur even if they make no difference to the ability of a species to adapt eg there may be another but useless mutation on the same gene that is driving the important evolutionary change.
Or maybe an electric spark in the right conditions triggered the creation of the first self organising molecule.
Similarly CO2 has a greenhouse effect (fact) but it is by no means the only possible and necessarily single cause of current climate change.
the hockey stick has not been ''utterly discredited''. if anything the eveidence produced by M and M has more flaws in it. Recently an article by Osborn and Briffa in Science backed the assumption of the rise temp in the latter part of 20C as per original HS.
How can a serious Director on channel make a schoolboy error in one of his graphs. Feeble.
Hope he gets the chance to make a real chump of himself on the new C4 debate.
It's just a pointless rant telling as many fibs in order to justify new fibs eg.
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During the post-war economic boom, while industrial emissions of CO2 went up, the temperature went down (hence the great global-cooling scare in the 1970s). Why? They say maybe the cooling was caused by SO2 (sulphur dioxide) produced by industry. But they say it mumbling under their breath, because they know it makes no sense. Thanks to China and the rest, SO2 levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why isn't it perishing cold?
Obviously, because there is now a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there was in the late 1940s. While aerosols (such as SO2) only live in the atmosphere for a year or two and hence can't build up, CO2 builds up and up having a lifetime in the atmosphere measured in centuries.
As a scientist, can I just say that there is no problem with anything being labelled a theory. A scientific hypothesis is something scientists throw out for peer review to ask the question does this theory fit the observations. This doesn't mean that another theory won't also fit the observations.
The best theory is the one that stands up to scientific rigour - I say this again - scientists are their own worst critics. That's why the IPCC report has such high uncertainty - it is by nature a conservative document (which should scare you).
If anti-global warming scientists are right then scientific rigour, not who shouts loudest, will prove their point. If natural global is the right theory then anthropogenic global warming theory will disappear from the literature and we can all breath a sigh of relief.
Personally I'm turning down my heating by a notch or two just to be on the safe side...
Originally posted by Chi Squared: Yet another reference to 'scientific facts' that are nothing of the sort.
Quantum mechanics is the most succesful scientific theory of all time. It has passed every predictive test in almost 100 years. No experiment out of thousands and thousands has ever shown even the tiniest discrepancy from prediction. Yet quantum mechanics is still regarded as a THEORY.
<sigh> As is the theory of gravity, of continental drift, of evolution, and every other scientific theory. So what? What scientific method regards as a 'theory' is pretty strong 'fact' in lay terms, a theory being accepted by the scientific community only after the hypothesis that generated it has been rigorously and often brutally peer-reviewed. The characteristics of to scientific theories are that (amongst other things):
* they're backed up by rigorously-obtained empirical evidence * they're disprovable * the experiments backing the theory are replicable * they don't contain significant holes
Theories, including such stalwarts as Newtonian Mechanics, are continually under attack by researchers eager to pick holes in them and thus make their names in the community.
Now, to compare Quantum Mechanics to theories of anthropogenic climate change is either disingenous or just plain dishonest. In QM you can carry out experiments in controlled conditions where a particular variable can be isolated, so for instance you can show the truth of the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle by attempting to measure the velocity and position of an electron. You can then say for sure that you can either observe its velocity or its position, but not both - a simple, clear result.
With climate change, as with evolution, you can't carry out such controlled experiments because of the immense amount of variables involved and the inherent instability of climatic and meteorological systems. What you have to do is use controlled experiments on particular small aspects of climate (rate of evaporation, say) and use these to painstakingly and slowly construct complex computer models, which have to be continually cross-checked against empirical data being gathered all over the globe from a huge number of disparate recording devices, both current and historical. As you can never record all the data you need to model the climate, or for that matter tomorrow's weather, with 99% or better accuracy, as you get in controlled experiments, you can only express probabilities that anthropogenic global warming, or evolution, is happening. Which of course leaves the door open for 'sceptics' <cough> who can rightly claim that it's not "certain" that global warming or evolution is happening.
That's the very essence of such scientific theories, that try to model and explain multi-variant chaotic phenomena. To compare such theories to easily-testable phenomena such as QD is just plain wrong, like comparing chalk and cheese. To misuse the word "theory", as creationists, flat-earthers, and global warming 'sceptics' do, to make it appear that theories are just bright ideas that have popped into scientists heads, which is the lay meaning of the word, rather than rigorously-tested hypothesis backed up by a barrage of empirical evidence, is just plain mendacious.
The best theory is the one that stands up to scientific rigour - I say this again - scientists are their own worst critics. That's why the IPCC report has such high uncertainty - it is by nature a conservative document (which should scare you).
Quite. The IPCC report only included statements which could be shown to have 90% or better probability of being true. What was left out were the seriously scary positive feedback loops which at the moment can only be expressed with 50-60% confidence. The IPCC report was Global Warming Lite, a pre-watershed version especially watered-down for 'statesmen' and politicians.
With climate change, as with evolution, you can't carry out such controlled experiments because of the immense amount of variables involved and the inherent instability of climatic and meteorological systems. What you have to do is use controlled experiments on particular small aspects of climate (rate of evaporation, say) and use these to painstakingly and slowly construct complex computer models, which have to be continually cross-checked against empirical data being gathered all over the globe from a huge number of disparate recording devices, both current and historical. As you can never record all the data you need to model the climate, or for that matter tomorrow's weather, with 99% or better accuracy, as you get in controlled experiments, you can only express probabilities that anthropogenic global warming, or evolution, is happening. Which of course leaves the door open for 'sceptics' <cough> who can rightly claim that it's not "certain" that global warming or evolution is happening.
I gave the example elsewhere of models of solar system accretion. A very good analogy because at the time scientists only had one example to go by, just as we only have one Earth to model.
As with AGW, all the parameters were painstakingly considered, and models developed. And lo and behold, those models predicted systems just like ours. A match ! Surely the model must be correct.
NOBODY predicted what was found when the first extra-solar planets were discovered. In fact the initial assumption was that the observed data must be wrong...or maybe what was being observed was not planets at all.
Nothing in the standard model predicted 'Hot Jupiters'. And as more and more such systems were discovered, it became clear that OUR system was the exception rather than the rule.
So you then have to ask......howcome the models predicted a system just like ours ? The answer being that the models are based entirely on a range of parameters centered around what scientists EXPECT. With nothing else to go by, the parameters will by definition be set around those things that are thought to be primary factors. Donald Rumsfeld's ' unknown unknowns ' come into play, because you cannot nodel a factor that you just don't know about.
Of course, now the models have been changed to explain hot Jupiters ( its caused by orbital decay due to dragging on the accretion disk material ).....but clearly there was originally a factor in the model that has not been accounted for.
And that is the point I am making with AGW. Once again Rumsfeld's 'unknown unknowns ' are lurking there ready to pounce. The model is only as good as the assumptions made !
chi squared, Again you cannot compare models of dynamic systems that have not been closely observed with modelling of the earth.
As you say, if you take a model of accretion disks it is unlikely to correctly predict all systems, and it is unlikely to predict the details of an infrequent phenomenon (I don't know - such as impacts of a nova outburst for example) partly because of the dynamism of such phenomena, and partly because the original structure of the accretion disc is unknown (because we can't directly observe it).
A climate model is essentially a giant energy balancing equation to compare the predictions of GHG theory with reality. GW from CO2 was predicted long before models were around.
The basic models work reasonably well at reproducing the structure of the climate, and importantly, the structure of the effects of GW. As we add more and more detail and feedbacks we do not find that the basic premise breaks. So given that we have detailed observations with which to compare the model, it is reasonable to assume that a model is a reasonable simulation of a physical system similar to earth, and that it will respond in a similar way to earth.
Improvements continue, but there are no physical processes identified that are likely to automatically balance the effects of GHGs. Models are not the end of the story, they are a tool to help understanding.
When I started out in astronomy the first seminar that I went to was about trying to unite the physical phenomena of some 60 novae systems under one theory. So I know where you are coming from, and have held your opinion about models in the past.
Originally posted by Chi Squared: Arguing with CO2 advocates is a bit like arguing with creationists. It's a case of dealing with people for whom belief and vested interest comes first and the actual evidence comes way down the line. And as with creationists.....if you demolish one facet of their argument.....they simply move on to another until the whole argument goes round in a circle and back to the start (by which time they hope everyone has forgotten the original objections).
So, you're saying that mainstream scientists' views are clearly distorted by the grubby lure of vested interests...
But apparently, you're not troubled by the fact that Anti-AGW lobby has vested interests of its own -- both commercial and ideological.
There's abundant evidence of the massive vested-interest support for the anti-AGW position.
Where is the corresponding evidence to show that the majority of AGW-supporting scientists are secretly being funded -- via green "think tanks" or whatever -- by all the big corporations who stand to profit from action on climate change?
Without evidence, your accusation looks suspiciously like an excuse for ignoring what pro-AGW scientists have to say (particularly when they identify flaws and distortions in the anti-AGW argument).
quote:
The documentary quite correctly asserts that for many, man made global warming IS almost on par with an article of religious faith. There's some great rational and scientific minds in the CO2 advocate camp, and I respect them, but for the vast majority the whole thing has that religious rather than scientific zeal, and questioning the precepts meets a sort of 'shock horror' response almost like you'd stepped into a Pentecostal church and announced that God does not exist.
Clearly there are domgatic zeolots on both sides. I think a lot of people support one or other point of view in this debate primarily because they sympathise with the corresponding polical perspectives; conservatives, US republicans and libertarians on the anti-AGW side - liberals and environmentalists on the pro AGW side.
Where I disagree with you is the suggestion that the majority of *scientists* treat AGW theory as a religious article of faith. I've heared a great many scientists talk about climate change science and read a lot more... and over and over again, they take pains to emphasise uncertainties and unknown factors.
The IPCC has never said that it was a matter of certain, incontrovertible fact that human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming. What they do say is that the evidence tells us this is highly probable.
Fundamentalists don't acknowledge ANY degree of doubt in their beliefs. I know a few pentecostalists -- and if I were to ask them if they would accept that there's a 5% chance that God doesn't exist, they'd accuse me of blasphemy!!
On that note -- do YOU accept the possibility that, in spite of your skeptical reservations, the AGW lobby might be right after all?
If not, then who's the zeolot here?
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The vested interests and religious zeal skew the entire debate. There's just too many people around now for whom their entire job and livelihood rests on CO2 warming being real.
How many is that, exactly? Do you have any evidence -- any numbers?
In fact, most of the leading scientists studying climate change are tenured college professors. Their livelihoods do not depend upon the continued acceptance of any particular theory. On the contrary, they depend on society's need for good science -- for the furtherance of human understanding of the natural environment and our interaction with it.
Even if they discovered that CO2 isn't as important a factor as previously thought, there's every reason for them to continue studying climate.
* Free-thinking does not just mean choosing to believe whatever makes you feel good. There's no thought at all in that. *
this -- which shows how climate models take into account of a wide range of factors, inclusing aerosol pollution, solar variation etc. The graph is based on a study published by Meehl et. al, (2004)", in the Journal of Climate.
What it demonstrates is that contrary to Durkin's claims, climate scientists aren't at all embarassed by the cooling phase between the 1940s and the 1970s. They can explain it. At that time, the rise in atmospheric CO2 due to human emissions was signficant, but not huge; the dimming effects of rising SO2 and other aerosol pollutants where therefore the dominant factor. Since then, C02 levels have risen dramatically, making CO2 the most dominant factor. Despite a reduction of S02 emissions in the west due to clean air legislation, global levels continued to rise until the 1990s and have doubtless risen since then with the industrialisation of China. But the cooling effect is insufficent to cancel out the warming effect of CO2 emissions. Incidentally, Meehl et. all are meticulous in explaining their rigorous methodology; the time histories and forcing effect of each factor was determined in advance of creating the computer model -- and they were not then adjusted to make the outcome fit the temperature curve. That's the real climate science for you... I've no doubt that before to long, everyone will finally realise that Durkin and his oily cronies were just wrong, wrong, wrong.
* Free-thinking does not just mean choosing to believe whatever makes you feel good. There's no thought at all in that. *
The ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again and again as evidence that carbon dioxide 'drives' the earth's climate. In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.
Actually, they do -- and the explanation is simple. Anyone with reasonable, educated-layman acquainced with climate science should know the answer.
It's not an EITHER OR, CAUSE or EFFECT situation. In reality, sometimes temperature drives CO2 -- but sometimes it's CO2 that drives temperature. The 800 year time lag is evident at the start and end of warm, interglacial periods -- and it's well known what causes the temperatures to start rising... its an astronomical effect, called the Milankovich cycle; periodic variations of the earth's angle of tilt on its axis etc -- altering the amount of solar energy that warms the earth. This is what causes the onset of interglacial warm periods. The initial warming stimulates the biosphere, causing the natural carbon cycle to release CO2... which then AMPLIFIES the warming trend; a classic positive feedback loop. At the close of the interglacial warm phase, the Milankovich effect kicks in again, lowering temperatures. As the biosphere responds, CO2 levels gradually fall -- and the reducing greenhouse effect amplifies the cooling trend.
* Free-thinking does not just mean choosing to believe whatever makes you feel good. There's no thought at all in that. *
