Hockey stick mended again 12 May 05

Sceptics are increasingly being seen as on the loony fringe of society. With this final, very public, outing of Bellamy’s methodology and sources, and the conformation of the Hockey stick graph, we must move on. We have now convinced people of climate change. We have carefully explained why to deny it would be to deny the whole basis of modern science/medicine etc. It is time to slowly and carefully explain contraction and convergance, why we should not be driving 4×4s in cities, and why we must oppose new airport runways. Sometimes the loony fringe has to be left behind, or we they will bring the planet down with them.

that no matter what bonafide science comes up with, contrarians (they go way beyond regular science skeptics) will still find a way to argue that we should not be saving money through energy efficiency/conservation or alternative energy (our wind powered electricity has just this month become cheaper than conventional GHG producing energy).

And here in the U.S. there is huge cultural & psychological inertia on GW that seems larger than ocean thermal inertia. GW is just not a topic at all where I live.

On the bright side, PBS’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer had a segment on global warming affecting Alaska last night – the first mention of GW I’ve seen on that program in years (though I don’t always see the program) – or except a few months ago they did briefly mention that “some” scientist thought melting glaciers (or whatever) was due to GW. Anyway, I plan to write them saying, “Bless you, bless you, bless you!” That’s what it’s come to, the media look like saints if they even lip the words “global warming” these days.

I have learned a lot on this board and searching out various answers to questions. However, this posting and previous postings makes it sound like all the answers have been found regarding GW and causes for it. They have NOT been all found. We don’t know if particular climate patterns are a glitch or if it’s caused by the sun or made man or whatever. Causation is very much in debate from what I have seen.

I think it’s important to ask questions and to challenge what is touted as the “final answer.” My small amount of investigation found that climate statistics is complex, involving large amounts of data. The results are multi-dependant on a lot of variables some of which are the data used, the programs which carry out the calculations, the formulas used and the particular models employed which the formulas are based upon. I am finding a lot of conflicting information with opposite views depending on which blog site and which journal article you read. Some of it is valid criticism. Some is dogmatic allegance to a particular view.

For those interested, I found this excerpt about the IPCC hockey stick study plotting the temps of the last 1000 years on earth apparently using tree ring data and also more modern temperature data form. It was published in Der Speigel in February 2005 by Hans Von Storch. He is one of the orginators of climate statistics modeling. It was not a criticism raised by McIntyre and McKitrick (Some on this board immediately discount). It was translated into English.

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”...Public statements by noted German climate researchers give the impression that the scientific bases of the climate problem have essentially been solved. Thus science has provided the prerequisites for us now to react appropriately to the goal; meaning, in this case, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible.

This does not at all reflect the situation in the scientific community. A considerable number of climatologists are still by no means convinced that the fundamental questions have been adequately dealt with. Thus, in the last year a survey among climate researchers throughout the world found that a quarter of the respondents still harbor doubts about the human origin of the most recent climatic changes.

The majority of researchers are indeed of the opinion that global climate change caused by human activity is occurring, that it will accelerate in the future, and that it will thus become more readily apparent. This change will be accompanied by warmer temperatures and a higher water level. In the more distant future, that is, in about 100 years, a considerable increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases is foreseen, together with an increase in precipitation in our latitudes; in some regions there could be more powerful storms, in others weaker ones.

But again and again, there are scientists to whom, true to the alarmists’ maxim in Crichton’s book, this does not sound dramatic enough. Thus, more and more often they connect current extreme weather events with anthropogenic climate change. To be sure, this is usually carefully formulated; interviews sound something like this: “Is the flooding of the Elbe, the hurricane in Florida, this year’s mild winter evidence for the climate catastrophe?” Answer: “That’s scientifically unproven. But many people see it that way.” Neither of these statements is false. In combination, however, they suggest the conclusion: Of course these weather events are evidence. Only no one dares to say this explicitly either.

The pattern is always the same: the significance of individual events is processed to suit the media and cleverly dramatized; when prognoses for the future are cited, among all the possible scenarios it is regularly the one with the highest rates of increase in greenhouse gas emissions – and thus with the most drastic climatic consequences – that is chosen; equally plausible variations with significantly lower emission increases go unmentioned.

Whom does this serve? It is assumed that fear can motivate listeners, but it is forgotten that it mobilizes them only in the short term. Climatic changes, however, demand long-term reactions. The effect on public opinion in the short view may indeed be “better,” and thus may also have a positive effect on reputation and research funding. But in order for this to function in the long run, each most recent claim about the future of the climate and of the planet must be ever more dramatic than the previous one. Once apocalyptic heat waves have been predicted, the climate-based extinction of animal species no longer attracts attention. Time to move on to the reversal of the Gulf Stream. Thus there arises a spiral of exaggeration. Each individual step may appear to be harmless; in total, however, the knowledge about climate, climate fluctuations, climate change and climatic effects that is transferred to the public becomes dramatically distorted.

Sadly, the mechanisms for correction within science itself have failed. Within the sciences, openly expressed doubts about the current evidence for climatic catastrophe are often seen as inconvenient, because they damage the “good cause,” particularly since they could be “misused by skeptics.” The incremental dramatization comes to be accepted, while any correction of the exaggeration is regarded as dangerous, because it is politically inopportune. Doubts are not made public; rather, people are led to believe in a solid edifice of knowledge that needs only to be completed at the outer edges.

The result of this self-censorship in scientists’ minds is a deaf ear for new and surprising ideas that compete with or even contradict conventional patterns of explanation; science degenerates into being a repair shop for popular, politically opportune claims to knowledge. Thus it not only becomes sterile; it also loses its ability to advise the public objectively.

One example of this is the discussion of the so-called “hockey stick,” a temperature curve that allegedly depicts the development over the last 1000 years, and whose shape resembles that of a hockey stick. In 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the committee of climate researchers appointed by UNO, rashly institutionalized this curve as the iconic symbol for anthropogenic climate change: At the end of a centuries-long period of stable temperatures, the upward-bent blade of the hockey stick represents the human influence.

In October 2004, we were able to demonstrate in the specialist journal “Science” that the methodological bases that led to this hockey-stick curve are mistaken. We wanted to reverse the spiral of exaggeration somewhat, without also relativizing the central message – that climate change caused by human activity does indeed exist. Prominent representatives of climate research, however, did not respond by taking issue with the facts. Instead, they worried that the noble cause of protecting the climate might have been done harm.

Other scientists lapse into a zeal reminiscent of nothing so much as the McCarthy era. For them, methodological criticism is the spawn of “conservative think tanks and propagandists for the oil and coal lobby,” which they believe they must expose; dramatizing climate change, on the other hand, is defended as a sensible means of educating society.

What is true for other sciences should also hold for climate research: Dissent is the motor of further development, Differences of opinion are not an unpleasant family affair. The concealment of dissent and uncertainty in favor of a politically good cause takes its toll on credibility, for the public is more intelligent than is usually assumed. In the long term, these allegedly so helpful dramatizations achieve the opposite of that which they wish to achieve.

By doing so, however, both science and society will have wasted an opportunity.

Hans von Storch, 55, heads the Coastal Research Institute of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht and is considered one of the pioneers of computerized climate statistics. Together with Nico Stehr, 62, sociologist at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, he has conducted ongoing research into the public perception of climate change.

DER SPIEGEL – January 24, 2005 URL: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,338080,00.html

Copyright DER SPIEGEL 4/2005

http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/</block>

The new study by the IPCC reveals they are trying to validate the original data model. The fact they “amended” the current graphed data to me suggested there were some problems with the earlier statistical modeling of the the data and better formulations needed to be performed. Challenges to this new data (and graph) may or may not be valid. I don’t know because I don’t have a degree in statistics. But I do know the new improved chart does not show causation of anything. That is still up for much debate. It simply reflects the temps on the earth. Temps which apparently have risen a whole half a degree celsius (.5 C). I’m getting out my sunscreen!

Yes Lynn,

You are totally correct. If the sea rises 20 meters tomorrow from melting ice, then Norbert may still argue that it was caused by natural causes and any correlation to modern times was just a mere coincidence.

Jim Lehrer did a really good job. I watched it. For me, it was still too much an emphasis on the indigenous people and not enough on the effects to everyone and our collective contribution to the problem. But, it is a step forward and since we are so far behind, I guess it will take time for the public. Only so much information can be divulged in 20 minutes anyway.

The dialogue in the UK seems constant compared to us. We have more dialogue on this blog in one day than what I see in our network news in a decade. If our public news system gives 20 minutes, I would say our network news gives 20 seconds once in a while. OK, maybe 40 seconds but not much more than that.

Sometimes, I wonder if our friends in the UK understand our information void over here. Many here do not know what a contrarian is because they are not even aware of a debate going on!

That is why Norbert writes on this blog, because like us, he gets lonely to want to talk about these issues with people who actually know something about them. He knows we will listen and respond back.

Best,

Dan

There is no ‘final answer’. There is only information that is useful and compelling for human policy decisions.

I appreciate your searching for information. Hopefully with information comes wisdom, which includes contextualizing and placing into the larger picture.

This von Storch has already been discussed and put to bed.

The survey he mentions was from a septic site. anyway,

Of course some of the fundamental questions haven’t been dealt with. Nor have they in medicine, astrophysics, chemistry, vulcanology, botany…

von Storch is lamenting the politicization of science and the ignorance of the media. Pielke’s post today reflects this, and the underlying point in Roger’s work is reflected there today.

I respectfully suggest you understand Roger’s post today. von Storch is lamenting the fact that science doesn’t have a good vehicle to make it’s findings useful to policymakers. This is what your bolded text means.

He is not – I repeat, not saying the science is corrupt, biased, or whatever the Indy-funded doubt-sowers want the rubes to believe.

Not.

HTH,

D

Good post, but i think you posted the same link 2 times…

I think you missed the point of the post. I read your link(s) and wondered what what scientists lobbying congress has to do with the research points.

As far as a reference to some survey I have no idea what your talking about. This makes me wonder if you even read my posting? You sure seem to easily, and seemingly flippantly, dismiss one of the pioneers of statistical climate modeling. But, I guess you know more than him.

His basic points were:

Global warming is generally agreed as occuring but the cause is not.

The research as of now has not predicted what the future climate will truly look like.

Yes this is no “final answer” but some posting sure seem to push that envelope…

I didn’t know that a layman asking questions and challenging lines of thought was such as radical construct.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Henry David Thoreau

or it may be in danger at times of becoming an oxymoron.

Lately it seems to be more political science.

Scepticism provides a healthy balance to cleanse the researcher’s soul, er… I mean methodology.

I, too, love to save $$$ through energy saving ways. Some very simple. The most recent example was to add pressure to my tires… increased mileage from around 35-36 to 37-39!!

1. von Storch referred to a survey.

2. I did the same linky on purpose.

3. The rest is me pointing out that the link and the text you bolded are related, and why.

HTH,

D

And we should check them anyway (according to a traffic school I had to go to because of a ticket), because properly inflated tires mean less chance of accidents. And, of course, tires then last longer, so it’s a win-win-win situation. I like those situations.

I agree skepticism is good in science. I sort of see much of science like a bell-shaped curve—there will be bonafide outliers on either side making opposite claims, but eventually science will self-correct and come to a better understanding of what is going on & the whole curve will slowly move in one direction or the other. I’ve been reading science articles about GW since 1990 (now I mainly read only the abstracts due to lack of time), and the curve has slowly been moving toward greater support for GW. I think that source you cited the other day from Germany (didn’t read the whole thing) sounded like healthy skepticism, which I would call bonafide skepticism.

However, I also think there are people who go beyond the extremes of the scientific bell-shaped curve. I suppose we could call those GW supporters “extremists” and the GW deniers “contrarians.” Layperson, as they are not scientists, can go on either side, according to the fears & concerns.

I tend to be more on the “extremist” side because I know how conservative and slow moving science is, we could reach a point of no return before science establishes certainty, and because except for a tiny interest in some natural gas inherited from my family (I earn about $12 a year on it), I don’t really have anything to lose from shifting away from a less carbon-intensive economy, and great savings to be gained.

On the other hand I can understand economic contrarians zonked into their fossil fuel interests – but they’d be smart to start diversifying their portfolios.

One argument I have with ideological contrarians - those who fear we will lose our freedoms if we address GW - is that the longer we put off voluntary reduction of fossil fuel use (or going along with minor regs, like the Kyoto baby steps), the more likely we really will lose our freedoms or devolve/erupt into widescale conflict and bloodshed. A great novel to read on this is THE GALILEO SYNDROME. In other words, I think contrarians are pushing us into a totalitarian, conflict-ridden world that might possibly make previous world history look like a picnic; while they appearantly think that’s what they’re trying to save us from.

I’ve been motivated by the possibility that my high GHG emissions is causing harm & death to people & nature. The well-established facts that my generation of GHGs for the most part involves the generation of other pollutants & environmental destruction (on which people depend for survival), has absolutely nailed the argument for me reducing energy & resource consumption. There is absolutely no argument left for continuing our current levels and certainly not for increasing them.

It is merely a great bonus that I can reduce energy & resource use to a large extent, while saving money & not lowering my living standard – but I’ll be willing to do that once I’ve done everything I can that is cost-effective.

Now let’s talk about REDUCE-REUSE. American culture is really bad on this, but when I visited Germany I was impressed with how products are made to last a really long time, though they are quite expensive. I was impressed with the idea that in the long run it was cost-effective to buy such durable goods, but the American in me just would allow me to cough up the higher upfront price. It just goes against our cultural “instinct” to do so, even if we save money & save the environment. And it is really hard to change culture—but not quite as hard as changing biology. Can you Europeans on this blog see what an uphill battle we have here in America, even on this point.