Global warming denialism, continued

I’ll take the WSJ article by Strassel that Ex-Marine linked to as my starting point.

She makes a series of sensational-sounding claims to buttress her argument that a growing number of  global warming skeptics are turning the tide against the consensus scientific view:

• the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming
• …today only 11% of the [Polish] population believes humans play a role in global warming
• French President Sarkozy may send Claude Allegre as his minister of Industry/Innovation
• New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program
• Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N
• Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief.
• Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.”

This isn’t the complete list of her claims, but it’s what I’ve decided to tackle for now.

• Her article contains a list of opponents, but there is no evidence that there are more or less people worldwide that consider global warming a serious threat. If she had included trend data on opinion polls over the past 10 years, that would be interesting. Or looked at the number of signatories to the Kyoto Treaty. Bear in mind that for the rest of this I am reviewing her anecdotes about individuals or groups that oppose the scientific consensus, not making a judgement about whether critics are increasing or decreasing in strength.

Back to the 7 bullet points above:

• the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming
  • Info available here, including this comment by Alex Verlinden:
    • the original statement in Polish is located here. I sent an email to the PAS and got a reply from Prof. Dr. Andrzej Zelazniewicz, who is President of the Committee of Geological Sciemces (of the) PAS … he confirmed that this committee issued the statement … he also pointed out that “… Please also note that there are more than 90 scientific committees in PAS which means that not necessarily everybody in PAS shares our position …”
  • It’s impossible to review the paper, because it’s only available in Polish.
• …today only 11% of the [Polish] population believes humans play a role in global warming
  • Interesting… but what does this prove? Public opinion varies around the world.
• French President Sarkozy may send Claude Allegre as his minister of Industry/Innovation
  • Mr. Allegre made his views clear before a Senate committee in 2006, and I reply to it in detail below.
    
• New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program
  • True. However, the National Party still agrees that that greenhouse gases should be reduced, and is committed to meeting the Kyoto Protocol. 42% of NZ say climate change is a “problem now” and another 35% say it’s “urgent and immediate”.
• Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N
  • No citation for this, but it’s not an argument. Counting scientists who agree with you is kind of sad, it’s more interesting to look at the argument they’re making, as I’m happy to do.
• Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief.
  • I read the letter she sent, and I disagree with Strassen’s summary. She wants both sides to stop attacking each other personally, and focus on the scientific arguments, such as reviewing the 10-year TRMM data.  Her quote is “I decided to keep quiet in this controversy until I had a positive contribution to make”, this hardly seems like she is “finally free to talk”.
• Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.”
  • His book is only available in Japanese, so I can’t review it. However, I would point out that he says the sensational title and chapter headings (“Lies and Traps in Global Warming Affairs”, “The Worst Scientific Scandal in the History”)were forced on him by the publisher: “despite the impression from its sensational title (due to the publisher)”.

OK, now on to the substance of Mr. Allegre. Note that this all comes from his October 2006 testimony/press release for the Senate/Inhofe, so it may be a bit out of date. But the moral of the story is that I am happy to address any substantive criticism you have of the consensus scientific view on climate change. Further, nothing you have said or linked to yet has demonstrated that the scientific community has failed to respond honestly to the criticisms of skeptics. Skepticism is welcome in science; it’s how we improve. But if your criticisms are found to be invalid, owning up to your mistake would be the sportsmanlike thing to do.

Each of these claims comes from the Senate press release.

Claim — “Observational evidence does not support today’s computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future.”

Rebuttal – This is a claim made in a letter to the editor, and does not point to references. This is not an argument, it’s an assertion. Back it up with data, and we can discuss.

Claim — If there are big, inherent fluctuations in the system, as paleoclimate studies are showing, it could make determining the Earth’s climatic future even harder than it is.  Link to WaPost article.

Rebuttal – Yes, climate prediction is complex. In the past 3 decades of warming, the “usual suspects” that one looks to as sources of natural global warming (solar variation, volcanoes, Milankovitch cycles) have been comparatively quiet. “It’s complex” is not a reason to give up, nor is it logical to say that because climate sometimes changes without the activity of man, man is incapable of causing climate change. Needless to say, the scientist in the study cited by the WaPost, Simon Brassell, is not a climate change denialist.

Claim — “peer-reviewed research shows that the Sun was responsible for up to 50% of 20^th-century warming.” As evidence, he points to a paper by Scafetta and West: (http://www.acrim.com/Reference%20Files/Scafetta%20&%20West_2007JD008437.pdf).

Rebuttal – Scafetta and West are exhaustively rebutted here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/11/a-phenomenological-sequel/, but the summary is as follows: The paper does not show that the Sun was responsible for 50% of the 20^th century warming, it proposes one computer model that if followed under particular circumstances, could give this answer. They do not claim to have discovered any new mechanism for how the Sun could have such an impact.

Claim — Bonus Claim! There is also a common argument from the denialist side that mainstream scientists have forgotten, suppressed, etc., the effect of the sun on global temperature changes.

Rebuttal – The most recent IPCC report (http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_TS.pdf) includes an entire section on the influence of the sun: TS.2.4: (http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf). Summary goes like this: We now have 28 years of consistent data tracking the radiative output of the sun. The irradiance striking the earth varies about .08% over the 11-year sunspot cycle, with no significant long-term trend. This results in even less of a solar impact on climate change than was believed at the time of the previous IPCC report, although the authors report that direct evidence for the sun’s influence on earth temperatures is still poorly understood.

Claim — Global warming stopped in 1998 — cites a University of East Anglia study as evidence.

Rebuttal – Short-term warming and cooling cycles are not abolished, nor are individual cold (snowstorm) or hot (hurricane) events. What’s interesting is the trend.

1998 was a particularly hot year, and choosing that as the “maximum” is rather dishonest. Looking at the temperature charts since ~1850 shows a clear trend:

Image came from: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif

The specific East Anglia “cooling assertion” study is critically reviewed here (http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/82).

Etc. If you find this interesting, pick a few topics where you disagree with my approach, and we can debate further.