The Grist Grifters, Part IV

Now we get into the “why” about Global Warming. And the first is a doozy:

1. Climate models are unproven. Why should we trust a bunch of contrived computer models that have never had a prediction confirmed? Talk to me in 100 years. Response by Coby: Given the absence of a few duplicate planets and some large time machines, we can’t test a 100-year temperature projection. Does that mean the models can’t be validated without waiting 100 years? No.

Commence head scratching.

Now you have to be very careful predicting the future. You also have to be very careful when you deal with people who claim they can predict the future. You want to believe them, right? Obviously these are smart people, and they’ve got super-computers! And the computer can’t be wrong!

Beware the vague. Coby has bought into the Global Warming idea, and he’s trying to sell you the same snake oil. Lo and behold, he also has the results of warming predictions that have been proven right– so therefore there must be CO2 forcing of temperautre on a wide scale!

Now let’s look at the past 100 years and see what’s happening to the temperature. It’s been… increasing! In fact, we’ve come out of an ice age and things are still getting warmer. And Hansen was able to go before a committee and say, “It’s going to get warmer in 12 years!” And we’re to believe he’s some sort of modelling superman? I hate to break it to you, but it’s been getting warmer for the past 100 years, or so we’re being told. So Hansen’s model and prediction is really a reasonable guess based upon warming trends that have lasted 80 years before Hansen’s models even started out!

It’s similar to a psychic who tells you that the next day will be warm, and the days after that, much warmer still. He says I should be careful, because gas prices will rise– and they’ll rise just as I’m about to take a big trip. He also says I should travel west instead of east, and north instead of south, because if I go those other two directions, I will be threatened by violent storms.

It sounds pretty specific, right? Everything tailored to me and what I’m doing. He even knows I’m going on a trip. But stop for a second and think. Is what this psychic is saying really out of the normal?

It’s May. The summer solstice is still over a month away. Natrually the temperatures should increase. He warns me of gas prices– and that’s true, but only because gas prices peak around Memorial Day. He sees my wedding ring, notes my age, and assumes I have kids, so he’ll make a guess that I’m going on vacation with the family in the summer, so he throws out a “big trip” line. And he says I should travel west and north– away from the South and East which experience severe weather in the spring and summer, a logical conclusion.

But unless you thought about what the psychic said, you’d walk through the summer thinking, “Man, that pyschic was right on!“. And Hansen was right on. So was Arrhenius (although Arrhenius though the warmer temperatures would bring on a global paradise).

Take a look at Coby’s “convincing list”:

models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed;

And as oceans warm, they release far more CO2 into the atmosphere than humans can.

models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which has been detected;

As temperature goes up, so does relative humidity, which will trap more heat.

models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this;

As was noted with other large volcanic eruptions, dating back to the 1800’s.

models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening;

Which will happen from oceanic warming. (And Antarctica defies this prediction.)

and finally, to get back to where we started, models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the surface, and so far they are correct.

Every single conlcusion here is cylclical logic. Humans make CO2 which warms the earth which warms to oceans which warms the arctic and warms the earth.

The only problem with such thiniking is that it excludes any possibility of other phenomena which is causing the Earth to warm. Solar variance, geothermal oceanic influence, current shifts– anything that causes a temperature change is ignored because it’s not politically convenient. But note the important ocean impact. If humans cause a little change that warmed the oceans, the amount of CO2 that would come from the oceans would cause immediate impact on climate. And, most importantly, there would be nothing humankind could do that would stop this event from running away and causing rapid, uncontrollable and devastating warming to the planet.

But we’re still here. Planetary tempratures have risen some, and CO2 is building in the atmosphere. And everything the models predict don’t differentiate between natural and artificial global warming.

2. Models don’t take clouds into account. Clouds are a large negative feedback that will stop any drastic warming. The climate models don’t even take cloud effects into account. Coby: All of the atmospheric global climate models used for the kind of climate projections synthesized by the IPCC take the effects of clouds into account. You can read a discussion about cloud processes and feedbacks in the IPCC TAR.

Convinced? Don’t be. Here’s what he says later:

The ultimate contribution of clouds to global temperature trends is highly uncertain, but according to the best estimates is likely to be positive over the coming century. There is no indication anywhere that any kind of cloud processes will stop greenhouse-gas-driven warming, and this includes observations of the past as well as modeling experiments.

No links here. Just some hand-waving. More of a “don’t pay any attention to the man behind the curtain” statement than anything substantial.

As the world gets warmer, here’s what we know:

• The amount of water in the atmopshere will go up.
• As a result, there will be more water trapped in the atmosphere.
• More water = more clouds (especially with increased pollution)
• More clouds = more reflectivity and more heat trapping
• More clouds could equal more rain, which increases the rate of removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.

The big question is: will greater cloud cover slow temperature rise, or will it accelerate it with heat trapping?

Coby and his ilk seem to think it’ll give a positive feed to the planet’s temperature. Again, if this is true, then any substantial release of CO2 from the oceans would cause a runaway greenhouse effect.

In fact, we should see a dramatic temperature rise in the tropics, but we don’t. In fact, humid areas give the slowest response to a warming change.

3. Aerosols should make the Southern Hemisphere warm faster. Scientists claim that global warming from greenhouse gases is being countered somewhat by global dimming from aerosol pollution. They even claim that aerosol pollution caused the cooling in the mid-century. But GHGs are evenly mixed around the globe, while aerosols are disproportionately concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. It follows that warming should be greater in the Southern Hemisphere — but that’s the opposite of what is happening. Clearly climate scientists do not know what is really going on.

Whoever makes this objection should know enough about land mass to undestand there’s more in the North than in the South, which means there’s more ocean in the south. The truth of the matter is that the oceans regulate temperatures in the south due to the fact that humidity trumps CO2 as a warming factor. The heat capacity of the oceans is a great sink for energy, and it diffuses through the billions of gallons of water in the oceans. In the north, CO2 over dry land has a notable affect, and as there’s more land, there’s more heating.

The aerosols don’t really play into affect here, something anyone who knows about land masses should be arguing, which makes me wonder if the question was just something they “heard” (made up).

4. Observations show climate senstitivty is not very high. Taking into account the logarithmic effect of CO2 on temperature, the 35 percent increase we have already seen in CO2 concentrations represents about three-quarters of the total forcing to be expected from a CO2 doubling. Since we have warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius so far, we should only expect about 0.3 degrees more for a doubling from pre-industrial levels, so about 1 degree total, not 3 degrees as the scientists predict. Clearly the climate model sensitivity to CO2 is much too high.

Coby rearranges his shells here. Pay attention to the shell with the ball:

We don’t yet know exactly how much the climate will warm from the CO2 already in the air. There is a delay of several decades between forcing and final response. Until an equilibrium temperature is reached, present day observations will not tell us the exact value of the climate’s sensitivity to CO2.

If we don’t know how CO2 is going to affect the climate, then how on Earth can the models be correct? How can we know what the hell is going to happen in 20, 50, 100 years? It’s all guessing, and these people want us to change everything we’re doing based upon a hunch!

The truth of the matter is we have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen. Lindzen, who Coby tries to debunk, makes it clear that the increase of CO2 is not going to be as disasterous as people claim. I highly recommend reading the entire slideshow. It was made in 2006 so the science is still current. Coby knows most people won’t sit through it, so he’ll say “the log scale is wrong” and then get it into your mind that everything Lindzen says is wrong, when, in reality, it’s really interesting reading.

We’ll be heading to part five next week before my hiatus.

The Grist Grifters pt III

Today I’ll deal with the “consensus” issues, as that seems to be where most of the confusion around anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and observational global warming (GW) come in.

1. Global Warming is a hoax! Global warming is a hoax perpetrated by environmental extremists and liberals who want an excuse for more big government (and/or world government via the U.N.). First and foremost, there has been a warming of the planet. If it’s a hoax, it’s one of extraordinary magnitude, as the temperature readings for 100 years have had to have been manipulated to make it a hoax. The UN hasn’t been around that long.

That doesn’t say there aren’t people economically invested in the fearmongering of AGW. We’ve all heard the rants of the Goracle and how he’s so worried about the environment that he owned a polluting zinc mine and buys carbon offsets from a company he’s a majority stockholder in (Hey! Look at me! I just paid myself money to offset the carbon generated by my mansion! Give me a tax break!)

What’s worse is the idea of “carbon offsets“. In the Middle Ages, these were called “indulgences“, and they’d buy you some time out of Purgatory. This “carbon credit” bought does something “environmentally nice” in order to offset your crazy consumin’.

For example, suppose I have a 5000 sq ft. mansion. To heat/cool the place year-round I have to pay $15,000. Now all that energy that goes into cooling/heating comes at a price– something has to be making that energy, whether it be the natural gas I’m burning (generating CO2), or the electric (which comes from a coal-burning power plant) to run my heat/air conditioning.

Now to compensate for this usage of energy, I buy some “carbon offsets” from EnviroBiz. These offsets come as “credits” which will compensate for the carbon I spew. EnviroBiz will plant trees in Brazil, build solar/wind farms, increase power-line sharing from a local wind farm, invest in wind/solar research– you get the idea.

The only problem is that many of these companies are hoaxers. It’s not just the FT who thinks so, either.

Now, I’ve strayed a little from Grist, so let me get back to there. Coby lists a host of organizations who think AGW is real. I will rebut it in the next section, because the two go hand in hand.

2. There is no consensus. Climate is complicated and there are lots of competing theories and unsolved mysteries. Until this is all worked out, one can’t claim there is consensus on global warming theory. Until there is, we should not take any action. Coby lists a series of organizations that state AGW is real. The endorsements are all there, from scientific and political bodies.

But what does it take to endorse the idea? Simply put, it’s a majority of the signatories to the idea. Note that’s majority, not totality. The truth of the matter is that in every organization that’s signed on the AGW, there are a minority of dissenters who voted against the idea.

Let me list some scientific principles that there is consensus about:

Newton’s laws of motion.
The speed of light.
The number of chromosomes in the human cell.
The shape of atomic orbitals.

All of these topics have total support, not a majority of support. Newton’s laws are flawed, but the consensus of scientists agree that the laws can be applied to non-relativistic systems without serious error.

When you have predicitive science, you’re relying on computer models. You’re also relying on your own assumptions, and those assumptions can be tainted with a bias towards the outcome you expect.

Just today there’s a paper out on the variability of Earth’s climate and its dependence upon the Great Ocean Conveyor for temperature regulation, and how it seems to go through a “see-saw” of temperatures that include the melting and forming of glaciers and a variability in local climates.

What’s most amazing about the article is what the authors are forced to put into the paper so they’re not viciously attacked by people like those who run Grist.

In agreement with most other climate researchers, the Lund group is not concerned about a complete shut-down of the Gulf Stream as envisioned in the apocalyptic film “The day after tomorrow”. However, future warming induced by anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions may influence the system.

We don’t know with certainty what will happen. Some attempts at measuring ocean currents suggest a recent weakening of the Gulf Stream, and the transport of heat to the North Atlantic region may well decrease in the future as a result of increased precipitation. Such a scenario might lead to less warming in Europe than predicted by the IPCC, but we will probably not face an arctic climate, summarizes Svante Björck.

So the Lund group is saying that climate is dependent upon ocean currents to a serious degree, but they have to throw in the idea that “AGW could still be the cause of all warming”. They don’t have any evidence that CO2 changes have propagated climate shifts in the past 10,000 years, but they still have to pay homage at the AGW temple or face excommunication.

It’s like Copernicus. He found that the Earth revolves around the sun. But he was afraid to publish what he knew because the Church might kill him, so he published on his deathbed. Do we really want to go back to those times?

3. Position statements hide debate. All those institutional position statements are fine, but by their very nature they paper over debate and obscure the variety of individual positions. The real debate is in the scientific journals. Coby agrees that the real debate is in the scientific journals. But if there’s debate, there’s no consensus, right?

Well, according to Coby and Naomi Oreskes, there is consensus. Just do a search on “global climate change”, he suggests, and you find 928 papers which support the idea. None of them reject climate change.

Well, Naomi’s simple research leaves much to be desired. Firstly, all climatologists will agree that if there’s one thing you need to know about climate is that it changes. To publish an article with “global climate change” from a climatology standpoint would be silly, simply because it’s an obvious statement. If I published a paper titled “anions reacting with cations”, I would be laughed at because it’s the essential basis of chemistry. Secondly, it discards any similarities. For example, what about the papers that have “global climate variability” in the title? Or “global temperature trends” or “carbon dioxide traps far less heat than water” or even “global warming is a load of horse dung”? No. One search and we’ve got consensus.

Not to mention the press of the issue. How do you get attention on Global Warming? Title your paper “CO2 indicates global climate change!” I’ve read papers about special variations in ocean surface zones and found a ringing endorsement of Global Climate Change, even though the evidence presented had nothing to do with Global Climate Change. However, would I have read the paper had it not had a tie-in to Global Warming? Probably not.

4. Global Warming consensus is collusion. More and more, climate models share all the same assumptions — so of course they all agree! And every year, fewer scientists dare speak out against the findings of the IPCC, thanks to the pressure to conform. Just ask Laurie David. Does this look like intimidation? Or this? This one? Or this?

Or how about you’re just like the Nazis if you don’t think AGW is happening? And what about the state climatologist who can’t use his title because he’s disagreeing with the state leadership about AGW?

Just a message to those who disagree– we’re watching you. Right, Laurie & Coby?

I’m running out of time and won’t address 5. simply because I already did that in 3.

We’ll get into the second section later, which deals with more of the science. I’ll include the section I omitted above down there because it really belongs in the science discussion.

The Grist Grifters, Part II

Here I go through a short section, contradictory evidence. I call it short simply because they take a lot of time to present allegorical evidence. Let’s take a look.

1. It’s cold today in ‘Wagga Wagga‘. It was way colder than normal today in Wagga Wagga, proof that there is no global warming. Coby rightly states “Does this even deserve an answer…? And he’s right, it doesn’t. Simply because it’s below average in Location A, doesn’t mean that the temperature as a whole is getting colder, or that there is no average temperature increase.

But that didn’t stop Global Warming maven Laurie David from saying something like it.

2. Antarctic ice is growing. The Antarctic ice sheets are actually growing, which wouldn’t be happening if global warming were real. Coby state the following:

First, any argument that tries to use a regional phenomenon to disprove a global trend is dead in the water.

Given that this is done many, many times with glacier pictures from Kilimanjaro, or South America, or Alaska to support a global warming argument shows a “we can do it, but you can’t do it” type of mentality. I agree that localized phenomena cannot be solely attributive to a global trend.

However, the fact the central ice sheets are thickening in Greenland and Antarctica while the exteriors melt is interesting, and, as Coby states, not contradictory to global warming theory. As there is more precipitation, there should also be thickening at the center of the ice sheet.

BUT.. and it’s a big but– the global warming disaster oracles are stating that droughts are going to result, as well as flood, severe weather, disasters, etc. So, what gives? What’s going to happen, and what big variable is being ignored?

I’ll tell you– clouds. The biggest generator of terrestrial reflectivity is cloud cover. Clouds are white and as we all know white surfaces have a high reflectivity. Another reflective source is ice, but given that the biggest ice masses are at the poles, the amount of light reflected by the icy regions pales in comparison to the surface area of clouds outside of the arctic and antarctic circles. Because cloud cover is so variable, it’s hard to put into modelling programs, but I will tell you this– greater water content in the air will lead to more clouds, especially with the increase in pollution from a larger population.

Another dirty little secret is that warmer planet means that there is more water vapor in the atmosphere. Water is a tricky chemical– it regulates temperature by absorbing heat and reflecting light (clouds, ice). What’s more, the warmer the planet, the wetter the planet and the greater the amount of CO2 scrubbed from the atmosphere by rain.

All of these influences act like buffers– even though there’s an increase in CO2 concentration, there are corresponding increases in the amounts of water vapor, clouds, and factors that decrease CO2 longevity in the atmosphere. Additionally, increases in water vapor increase the “greenhouse effect”, but they also blunt any impact of CO2, which will in turn regulate and CO2 mediate increase in temperature.

3. The satellites show cooling in the tropics. Satellite readings, which are much more accurate, show that the earth is in fact cooling. Of course, Coby throws in a snarky comment:

I wonder how long before this one stops coming up?

But the reality is it was a legitimate argument. Satellites sent into orbit to track average temperatures of the tropics kept reporting a decline in surface temperatures while other temperatures were not. It’s a simple case of satellite error– the data reported from the satellites were actually records at night because of an error in programming data collection times. As a result, temperatures recorded were significantly lower, and, low an behold, corrections do indeed show a warming (however, it is still a modest warming.)

What really surprises me about the Coby’s post here is that he starts off by attacking satellite measurements instead of just reporting the errors in the data processing.

The complications arise from many things, including decay of the satellite orbits, splicing together and calibrating records from different instruments, trying to separate the signals by the layer of atmosphere they originate from, etc. It is a little ironic that the same people who distrust the surface record so happily embrace this even-more-convoluted exercise in data processing!

Even stranger, he then goes on to lean on those satellite measurements as the gospel truth.

In short, this long-running debate turned out to be a great validation of the models and a real death blow to the “earth is not warming” crowd.

My problem here is not with the satellite data, which has confirmed what we already know (the Earth is warming). My problem is with the assault on technology if it says what you don’t want it to say and then embrace the very same technology if it says what you want it to say.

I’m sure George Tenet is getting lauds from his latest book attacking the Bu$$hitler, but he was vilified in 2002 for calling the Iraq data a “slam dunk”. It’s the same issue. Good if he supports us, bad if he’s against us.

4. What about mid-century cooling? There was global cooling in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, even while human greenhouse-gas emissions were rising. Clearly, temperature is not being driven by CO2.

Sulfates are the prime culprit in the mid-century cooling. It is believed that man-made pollutants in the post-WWII economic boom contributed to the global cooling, and that government restrictions on those emissions resulted in a corresponding drop in temperature.

This opens an intriguing possibility: use sulfates as a counter to global warming.

Just don’t mind the acid rain.

5. Global warming stopped in 1998. Global temperatures have been trending down since 1998. Global warming is over. To use 1998 as a baseline is a little deceiving, mainly because it was such an anomalously hot year that it still dwarfs the temperature anomalies we’re currently seeing. But statistics says to beware outliers.

What is interesting is that 1998 was hot– very hot– and the world barely batted an eye at it. Current global averages are below what was seen in 1998– and that’s 10 years later. Why is this a problem for the AGW folks? They claim it’s not, but there’s a trend line that needs to be seen:

Notice that the anomaly heats for the past few years are pretty much the same and that the trend line seems to be “cresting”. Now that data is from 2005, and 2006 was reported as the “fifth warmest year on record”. Now, considering #2 was 2005, #3 was 2003, and #2 was 2002, having a 2006 at #5 seems to trend a drop in temperature anomaly. But that’s just data analysis. It is entirely possible 2006 is just lower on average than the other years. But it’s dangerous to take from 1990 on and ride that curve to an anomaly of +10 degrees and it screams of “chicken little”.

1998 is an outlier, but the 2000 years seem to have hit a maximum. Given that CO2 values are still rising as the Bu$$$hitler thumbs his nose at “consensus”, it would seem contraindicatory that the global average temperature should average out.

6. But the glaciers are not melting! Sure, some glaciers are melting. But if you look at the studies, most of those for which we have data are growing. Coby is now about to dazzle you with a little shell game. In statistics we call these “averages”. Let me relate a little story.

A man stands in a pot of boiling water, while his head is encased in ice. When asked how he felt, temperature-wise, he said “I feel about average.”

Averages are a tricky thing, and you have to understand a little bit of recent history in order to understand something about glaciers.

We were in a “Little Ice Age” from about 1050 to 1850, when the world began to warm up (with our help, some suggest). Glacier National Park had many glaciers. Glaciers blocked lakes in Alaska. Everywhere there were glaciers. But as the world warmed, the strangest thing happened– the glaciers began to recede!

Coby brings out the “global glacier mass balance” graph, a graph that shows overall mass in glacier changes, on average, around the globe. He suggests “sure there are some glaciers growing”, but he discards that data set and never bothers to ask “why”? Bear in mind that the glacier data set is also anomalous because it takes into effect other things besides heat on ice. Coby himself warns us that we should avoid using data from regional environments because the climate effects on those regional environments are affected by local climate just as much as global climate. (see point 1 above)

But here he points to the glacial mass loss as concrete evidence of warming!

Again, it’s a case of “I can use that evidence, you cannot”. Or, as Grist likes to say, the “balance of evidence.”

7. Antarctic sea ice is increasing. Sure, sea ice is shrinking in the Arctic, but it is growing in the Antarctic. Sounds like natural fluctuations that balance out in the end. Here we have a real thorn in the AGW theory. Antarctica continually defies predictions of global warming, probably due to its isolated nature. Coby states that we should see a greater influence on planetary temperatures in the north- and that makes sense, as there is more land mass and more arid climes in the north which would support the AGW theory. But the Southern Hemisphere doesn’t exhibit much warming, and the arid wastes of Antarctica are surely one locale that will show warming.

But it doesn’t. And the ice is thickening and growing in Antarctica.

One big, scary event was the ice shelf collapse. Coby brings it up in passing, coyly suggesting it was an event precipitated by warming. Unfortunately for him, ice sheets of that size regularly collapse under their own weight. Was a warmer current partially to blame? Possibly, but the ice shelf was quite big when it collapsed.

But again, we have to weigh the balance of evidence. And here is a little game the AGW supporters like to play– they equate global warming and anthropogenic (or man-made) global warming.

All of the “global warming” predictors that have everything “falling in line” do happen under warming conditions. However, the sourceof the warming is irrelevant in these cases. If the planet gets warmer, the north should heat faster than the south because of the ratios of land mass.

The most disturbing angle of the GW model is that it mustbe man that accounts for the warming. While I will concede a small portion of the warming is due to an increase in carbon dioxide, AGW proponents completely discard any impact the sun may play on the warming. As a skeptic I do not argue that the world is warming. I do, however, discount the idea that CO2 is only (or primary) culprit. I make a distinction between AGW and GW because the source of plain ol‘ global warming is likely to be multiple inputs, most notably of which would be the sun.

8 & 9. Sea level in the arctic is falling. Some sites show cooling. As it’s very late and I’m about to pass out, I will simply say that 8 is mostly dependent upon geological compressions. (Interesting that Coby posts a graph saying “the seas are rising!” then goes on to say “We really don’t know what’s causing the sea level rise, but it doesn’t mean AGW isn’t happening!”) For 9, again, local climate has an impact on temperature changes.

You’ll notice that I did skip one bullet point, “Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high.” I did this on purpose, because it really deserves a detailed examination of the chemistry behind CO2, water, and global warming.

Until then, goodnight.

The Grist Grifters Part 1

There’s a “global warming awareness” site on the internet called grist.org. Big hitters in the global warming arena such as Adam Browning, founder of a non-profit solar consortium, Adam Stein, co-founder of a website/organization, Amanda Griscom Little, who… writes for grist, Andrew Sharpless, co-founder of Oceana (another non-profit), and Anna Fahey, communications strategist. Of course while people like these are easy to deride, there are actual scientists who post to Grist, and they are Andrew Dessler and Michael Tobis, both Ph.D. holders, Andrew in atmospheric science and Tobis in oceanography. I give a reluctant nod to the graduate students in their midst, Yolanda Crous, Stephanie Ogburn, Kif Schuer, and Julia Olmstead. (A reluctant nod because I’ve known many graduate students and there are those who know what they are doing, those that don’t know what they are doing, and those who pretend to know what they are doing. Additionally, two of these graduate students are in agriculture, and the other two don’t say what they’re studying, although they are at a Environmental Institute.)

The other 40 or so contributors are all artists, directors of non-profit organizations, web editors, writers, or some other non-science related field.

That’s not to say these people couldn’t know what they are talking about. However, they have no training in the field. That, of course, doesn’t stop them from making fun of people like Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen, two actual climatologists.

On this site, there’s the “gristmill” which is supposed to grind up the “skeptic” arguments and churn them out. It’s like Ann Coulter’s “How to Argue with a Liberal”, except it’s the reverse, green, and smells like patchouli oil.

The topics are broken down and well organized (and it should be, given the number of web developers working there) so when you hear a skeptic say something, you can run to the website and find the proper rebuttal.

Except that they aren’t so much rebuttals as vagaries and misinformation. In the next few days, I’ll provide a detailed response to the sections in the Skeptics Gristmill and explain if the claim is correct, incorrect, or just plain bogus.

We’ll start with the list in general. It starts with the There’s Nothing Happening and gives some “standard” arguments from “those in denail”.

• 1. There is no evidence.
• 2. One record year is not global warming.
• 3. The temperature record is simply unreliable.
• 4. One hundred years is not enough
• 5. Glaciers have always grown and receeded.
• 6. Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect.
• 7. Mauna Loa is a volcano.
• 8. Scientists aren’t even sure.

There are the bullets. Now let’s discuss them.

1. There is no evidence. Despite what the computer models tell us, there is actually no evidence of significant global warming. Most skeptics will agree that the world is warming, on average. They are disputing the cause, not the effect.

2. One record year is not global warming. So 2005 was a record year. Records are set all the time. One really warm year is not global warming. Taking single data points and drawing conclusions from them is poor form. Taking a small set of data points (the past 30 years) and running around like Chicken Little isn’t much better.

It is important to recognize that our ability to measure temperature directly (with a thermometer) dates back to, well, the invention of the thermometer (around 1714). To detect temperatures beyond that, we have to figure out some other way of determining temperature, and that can be radioisotope absorbence of various items. While this is useful, it can only provide a rough estimate of global temperature because the comparisons are to other eras. For example, if in 1932, 1958, and 1964, the global temperature was X, the emissions of pollen in antarctic ice cores would have count Y. So, getting a core from 1015 and seeing the count as Y, the extrapolation is that the temperature in 1015 was X.

It’s an oversimplification on my part, but it illustrates how temperatures from the past are guessed at, and that leads to the next statement.

3. The temperature record is simply unreliable. The surface temperature record is full of assumptions, corrections, differing equipment and station settings, changing technology, varying altitudes, and more. It is not possible to claim we know what the “global average temperature” is, much less determine any trend. The IPCC graphs only say what the scientists want them to say.

Grist software engineer Coby Beck states the following:

There is actually some truth to the part about the difficulties; scientists have overcome many of them in turning the hundreds of thousands of measurements taken in many different ways and over a span of more than a dozen decades into a single globally averaged trend.

Now, be careful here because there’s a bait and switch. What is the bait? The skeptic warns about the unreliability of the temperature record going back before 1750. Coby spends his time here debunking that the past 100 years are unreliable, when they are quite reliable. He’s avoiding answering the real question and is instead dressing his answer as though all of the temperature record is behind him.

4. One hundred years is not enough. One hundred and some years of global surface temperatures is not long enough to draw any conclusions from or worry about anyway. Again it’s not something I hear from the skeptics that often. What I do hear is how the current 100 years compare to other times in our history.

Strangely, the information on that page actually contradicts the idea that this is the hottest time on our planet ever, which would have easily been explained had they hired some scientists to vet their data (so these graphs could conveniently be hidden).

Here are the two most curious that Grist has posted:

Notice that in the Holocene temperature average, it looks like (on the blue line) that the temperature variations matched or surpassed our current global temperature. Now look at the Volstock graph just below it. Anyone with scientific training should be able to look at the bottom graph and determine that there is a regular pattern of hot and cold on the planet, and it looks as though we should be in a hot period. Certainly would explain the global temperatures.

What is also clear is that the variability here is certainly caused by some external factor that goes through prolonged cycles. Every 100,000 years or so there’s a temperature spike that follows a prolonged cool period. It looks like we’re in for a “spike”, or we were in the middle of a spike when the Industrial Revolution rolled around.

5. Glaciers have always grown and receded. A few glaciers receding today is not proof of global warming. Glaciers have grown and receded differently in many times and places. It should be noted that glaciers are a localized effect. For example, Kilamanjaro’s glaciers are vanishing because of a lack of moisture, not because of a drastic change in temperature.

Coby contradicts himself here:

Firstly, it is more than “a few glaciers” that are receding; it is a pervasive, sustained, and accelerating global trend.

Then:

But no one claims that melting glaciers are proof of global warming.

Then why mislead?

6. Global Warming is due to the Heat Island Effect. The apparent rise of global average temperatures is actually an illusion due to the urbanization of land around weather stations, the Urban Heat Island effect. My response– you’re a moron if you think this is true. The UBIs cannot provide the energy necessary to heat a globe. They have their effect on local climate, but the impact on global climate is minor at best.

But, this is an important bit, and I’ll get to it later, because the flip side of the argument, the GW Truthers, use the same reasoning to say GW is happening.

7. Mauna Loa is a volcano! CO2 levels are recorded on top of Mauna Loa … a volcano! No wonder the levels are so high. If there was a sequestering problem, it would show up in comparison to other CO2 recordings from non-volcanic sources.

8. The scientists don’t even know if the world is warming! Even the scientists don’t know that the climate is changing more than normal and if it’s our fault or not. If you read what they write it is full of “probably,” “likely,” “evidence of” and all kinds of qualifiers. If they don’t know for sure, why should we worry yet?

Probability is the language of science. There is no proof; there are no absolute certainties. Scientists are always aware that new data may overturn old theories and that human knowledge is constantly evolving. Consequently, it is viewed as unjustifiable hubris to ever claim one’s findings as unassailable.

Given that climate is variable, and those variables haven’t been clearly categorized, and that the direct temperature record is very short, there’s very little that’s “highly likely” in any current observations. In addition, models which predict climate status up to the year 2100 are making many assumptions and are highly unreliable. Such graphs could have been constructed in 1920 but would have run into a problem in the little cooling zone we had in the 50’s and 60’s.

I also take exception to the idea that probability is the “language of science”. Science is an expression of ideas which are experimentally tested and refined and prove resistant to falsifiability.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. CO2 is going up. So is the temperature. There’s the science, right?

Mmm, not really. While all the statements are true, it has yet to be shown that there is a correlation between them all. I will say that an increase in CO2 concentrations should give a corresponding increase in temperature, but the wide changes in temperature predicted by the IPCC are just silly, and the biggest objection I have comes from the misperception of a global average temperature.

Take the man who stands in a bucket of boiling water with a block of ice on his head and ask him how he feels on average, and he’ll say his average temperature is room temperature.

It’s the same concept with GW. The biggest temperature changes come from cold, dry areas and temperature anomalies during the winter. Average these in with tropical and summertime temperatures and you’ll seen an overall increase in temperature, even though the tropical and summertime temperatures do not change.

In addition, as I’ve stated before on this blog, the amount of energy required in places like Siberia (where the temperature change is significant) to heat the entire rest of the planet is enormous. Don’t forget that even trapped heat diffuses back into space. In addition, given that CO2 levels are constant and global, we should see corresponding temperature spikes, but we don’t. Instead we see large anomalies which throw off the average but mask the true nature of the warming, which has to do with other factors than CO2 concentration.

I’ll have more on this on Thursday.