NAS - The National Association of Scholars : “Climategate”: A Different Perspective - Alarmist Kerry Emanuel
Flashback: Kerry Emanuel himself uses the term "denialist" - The Boston Globe
...Climategate is merely the latest in a series of coordinated [by who?], politically motivated attacks that represent an aggravated assault on scholarship that should be of concern to every member of NAS who, if they are like me, joined this organization because we were tired of seeing scholarship enslaved to ideology, particularly in academia.KerryEmanuelCV - Powered by Google Docs
...It is simply naïve to suppose that we never complain to each other about the unfairness of editors and reviewers and openly wish we could replace them, or that we sometimes wish we could keep data out of the hands of those we know are determined to misuse it.
... The proxy reconstructed temperatures and the instrumental temperatures agree quite well up to around 1960, but after that, some (not all) of the reconstructed temperatures disagree with the instrumental record. In the extensive scientific literature on the subject, this is referred to as the “divergence problem.” As the land-based instrumental temperatures are highly robust, as has been verified in countless scientific publications, no one in my profession thinks the reconstructed temperatures are correct after 1960; the real question is how reliable they are going back in time before the beginning of the instrumental record of global temperatures dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century.
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The land temperature records compiled by the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, and the computer codes used to analyze them, have been poured over by countless scientists, including some who have been critical of the CRU, and shown to be highly robust. This is only one of many lines of evidence about how and why the planet’s climate is changing. These include independent observational records, such as those of sea surface temperatures, sea level, sea ice extent, and mountain glacier extents, as well as basic theory and computational models, all pointing to anthropogenic climate change over at least the past few decades. The characterization of climate research as a “house of cards” simply does not bear scrutiny and is insulting to the many climate scientists who have devoted their lives to understanding the earth’s climate. It represents an ongoing attempt to politicize scientific research, a process NAS should strongly oppose rather than abet.
This brings me finally to the overarching question of the influence of politics (campus and otherwise) on science. In any discipline, one finds zealots, and climate science is no exception. Yes, there are environmentalist zealots who are happy to use global warming as an excuse to force us back into a golden stone age of happy hunter-gatherers unencumbered by modern transportation, electricity, and so on; one is right to question the objectivity of their research. So, too, are there reactionaries who reflexively deny the validity of any evidence that we are changing our climate. Whatever side of the issue, we scientists know who these colleagues are; one cannot imagine those colleagues changing their minds in the face of new evidence. I have been working in this field for 32 years and can attest that such ideologues constitute a tiny fraction of active scientific researchers.
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Dividing the entire field of climate research into “believers,” “skeptics,” “deniers,” and so on is a particularly egregious tactic deployed by those who wish to discredit climate research. Science is not about belief, it is about evidence. Projections of climate change by the IPCC are deeply skeptical, and there is no attempt to hide the large uncertainty of climate forecasts. The possible outcomes, as far as we have been able to discern, range from benign to catastrophic. Ironically, those labeled “skeptics” by the media are not in fact skeptical; they are, on the contrary, quite sure that there is no risk going forward. Meanwhile, those interested in treating the issue as an objective problem in risk assessment and management are labeled “alarmists”, a particularly infantile smear considering what is at stake. This deployment of inflammatory terminology has a distinctly Orwellian flavor. It originates not in laboratories and classrooms, where ideas are the central focus and one hardly ever hears labels applied to researchers, but in the media, the blogosphere, and political think tanks, where polarization attracts attention and/or turns a profit.
But it turns out that there are not enough mavericks in climate science to meet the media’s and blogosphere’s insatiable appetite for conflict. Thus into the arena steps a whole host of charlatans posing as climate scientists. These are a toxic brew of retired physicists, TV weather forecasters, political junkies, media hacks, and anyone else willing to tell an interviewer that he/she is a climate scientist.
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The issue of global warming has been used to advance all kinds of agendas, often obnoxious ones, like forced sustainability, high taxes, and so on.
[He's got a PhD in Meteorology, not climatology]Although Emanuel doesn't like inflammatory terminology like "denier", note that people with names like Phil Jones, Michael Mann, James Hansen, Stephen Schneider and Kerry Emanuel used it freely:
Flashback: Kerry Emanuel himself uses the term "denialist" - The Boston Globe
The uncertainties in the models, theory, and observations of climate change and associated risks and the sheer complexity of the problem provide many rounds of ammunition for the agenda-driven, be they apocalyptic or denialist.Email - Nature Aug 12
Olive Heffernan at Nature expects the Nature blog site to be hijacked by the deniers.Statement from Dr. Michael Mann
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Prof. Phil Jones
The committee found that there was no attempt to misrepresent or falsify data, and no withholding of access to raw climate data, despite the repeated accusations to the contrary by climate change deniers.NASA’s James Hansen on hacked emails
The “contrarians” or “deniers” do not have a scientific leg to stand on.Stephen H. Schneider: Hammering Out a Deal for Our Future
Redacted emails or those thought incriminating, appeared in gleeful synchrony on climate denier blog sites after the theft.
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9 comments:
Pwned! What a two-faced hypocrite Kerry is!!
You misunderstood Dr. Emanuel's point.
Dr. Emanuel is discussing the use of the terms “believers,” “skeptics,” “deniers,” by those who have a political agenda against climate science, e.g., Jame Inhofe.
For Emanuel, Jones, Hansen et al to use the term "denialits" to describe those who clearly buck the science for political reasons - including some scientists - is neither hypocritical or wrong. In fact, "denialism" is precisely the issue that is the root cause of the impediments to effective, rational policy actions.
This denialism that infects climate science is no different than other form of denialism. It is no different than evolutionary biologists having to deal with Creationists on school boards who deny the overwhelming evidence of evolution in favor of the Bible and want to give the Bible "equal time."
It is a scourge that scientists like Emanuel, who stayed out of the fray for so long, are forced to confront in the name of the scientific method, rational scientific inquiry, and critical thinking.
That you have to devote a post to this, rather than the actual point of his article, is actually illustrating his point.
The futility of trying to control climate
On average world temperature is +15⁰C. This is sustained by the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect 33⁰C. Without the Greenhouse Effect the planet would be un-inhabitable at -18⁰C. The Biosphere and Mankind need the Greenhouse Effect.
So just running the numbers by roughly translating the Greenhouse Effect into ⁰C:
• Greenhouse Effect = 33.00⁰C
• Water Vapour accounts for about 95% of the Greenhouse Effect = + 31.35⁰C
• Other Greenhouse Gasses GHGs account for 5% = ~1.65⁰C
• CO2 is 75% of the effect of all GHGs = 1.24⁰C
• Most CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, more than 93%:
• Man-made CO2 is less than 7% of total atmospheric CO2 = 0.087⁰C:
• so closing carbon economies of the Whole World could only ever achieve a virtually undetectable less than 1/10 ⁰C.
As the temperature reduction that could be achieved by closing the whole of the World’s Carbon economies is less than 1/10 ⁰C, how can the Green movement and their supporting politicians think that their remedial actions can limit warming to only + 2.00 ⁰C?
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy0_SNSM8kg
So the probability is that any current global warming is not man-made and in any case such warming could be not be influenced by any remedial action taken by mankind however drastic.
If this is really so, then the prospect should be greeted with Unmitigated Joy:
• concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be discounted.
• it is not necessary to damage the world’s economy to no purpose.
• if warming were happening, it would lead to a more benign and healthy climate for all mankind.
• any extra CO2 is already increasing the fertility of all plant life and thus enhancing world food production.
• a warmer climate, within natural variation, would provide a future of greater opportunity and prosperity for human development. This has been well proven in the past and would now especially benefit the third world.
Nonetheless, this is not to say that the world should not be seeking more efficient ways of generating its energy, conserving its energy use and stopping damaging its environments. And there is a real need to wean the world off the continued use of fossil fuels simply on the grounds of:
• security of supply
• increasing scarcity
• rising costs
• their use as the feedstock for industry rather than simply burning them.
The French long-term energy strategy with its massive commitment to nuclear power is impressive, (85% of electricity generation).
Even if one is concerned about CO2, Nuclear Energy pays off, French CO2 emissions / head are the lowest in the developed world.
However in the light of the state of the current solar cycle, it seems that there is a real prospect of damaging cooling occurring in the near future for several decades.
And now Man-made Global warming has become a state sponsored religion.
B.J. Edwards, do you mean to tell me that Emmanuel Jones and Hansen do not have a political agenda? It is really amazing to me how people can read or hear the same things and come away with such different conclusions. The denialism that infects climate science is nothing like evolution versus creation you dolt. Evolution was a relatively new discovery compared to co2 being discovered in the atmosphere. We also know that we have had far more co2 in the atmosphere Mr. Edwards. Mr. Edwards, maybe you shouldn't make any more comments if your going to express such extreme stupidity.
Well, anonymous, perhaps you would like to carefully and precisely detail what Dr. Emanuel's political agenda is?
I am willing to wager that you will find NO such political agenda but that you accuse him of that ONLY because he decided to speak out, as a scientist, against the political attacks on the integrity of the scientific method, the accumulated evidence for anthropogenic global warming, and the vast majority of climate scientists who accept that evidence.
In other words, anonymous, you will not admit to yourself that there is ANY legitimate dissent to your adopted political agenda. Neither do those who are intellectually dishonest in their political attacks on climate science, e.g., James Inhofe.
Yes, Creationists and religious fundamentalists have attacked evolutionary biology for 150 years. They have to deny the science and the scientific consensus, too, to advance their religious agenda.
Political attacks against science are only successful if one chooses not to think critically about what one is told. Creationists believe; nothing will shake that belief - science is irrelevant.
It's up to all of us to educate ourselves to understand the basis of scientific inquiry and I hope you will now choose to do so.
The mentality of many commentators in these columns is only exemplified by the abuse they believe it is necessary to throw at any person who contradicts their view point .
Not once,From Fart Tax to climate change , have these self professed experts provided figures or prctical proof that man can or will control the world temperatures . Opinion is not fact.
malcolm Rollinson
Like all AGW proponents, Emanuel absolutely refuses to use the word "hypothesis." He refuses to use it because the crucial hypotheses that AGW must have to explain and predict temperature increases beyond one degree this century do not exist. Everyone agrees that CO2 alone cannot cause more than one degree of warming this century. To explain increased warming, AGW proponents postulate the existence of "forcings," such as the effect of that one degree on cloud formation, and claim that these "forcings" will cause an additional two degrees of warming. But no one has created hypotheses which connect CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to phenomena such as cloud formation. The necessary hypotheses simply do not exist. If AGW proponents were honest, they would admit this fact and admit that their science is immature and incapable of predicting temperature increases above one degree. You can test my hypothesis and you can falsify it. Ask AGW proponents to state the hypotheses that explain how CO2 affects cloud formation. You will find that they will change the subject. Probably they will storm away angry. But they lack the crucisl hypotheses for the claims they make. Bringing up issues of risk management is irrelevant. Without the hypotheses there is no reason to believe that there is a risk to manage. Are you listening, Kerry Emanuel? Are you willing to talk about hypotheses?
@Anonymous,
Thanks for the calculation of the man-made CO2 effect on the temperature rise. This is just wehat we, readers need to know who to believe - alarmists or deniers.
@b.j.edwards,
Can you or your alarmist camp dispute the calculation?
Tell me, Sam NC, what is an "alarmist?"
Why?
Why would you dispute the entire body of science, the evidence and conclusions, that anthropogenic global warming is real and that the vast majority of climate scientists who agree with the science?
What purpose does that you serve you or us?
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