Entropy versus Order – the central battle of the Universe.

Also the struggle within the realm of Science, trying to make global sense out of a very disparate, creative spectrum of study on Climate Change.

Here, at the very hub, we find the bubble of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC – a wide variety of people with a wide variety of knowledge and viewpoints all trying to establish a common perspective.

The management of this enterprise has been under review, and thought to be found partially wanting :-

http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/ReportNewsRelease.html

“InterAcademy Council Report Recommends Fundamental Reform of IPCC Management Structure : UNITED NATIONS — The process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce its periodic assessment reports has been successful overall, but IPCC needs to fundamentally reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments as well as the more intense public scrutiny coming from a world grappling with how best to respond to climate change, says a new report from the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an Amsterdam-based organization of the world’s science academies. “Operating under the public microscope the way IPCC does requires strong leadership, the continued and enthusiastic participation of distinguished scientists, an ability to adapt, and a commitment to openness if the value of these assessments to society is to be maintained,” said Harold T. Shapiro, president emeritus and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University in the United States and chair of the committee that wrote the report. Roseanne Diab, executive officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa and professor emeritus of environmental sciences and honorary senior research associate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, served as vice chair of the committee, which included experts from several countries and a variety of disciplines…These assessment reports have gained IPCC much respect including a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. However, amid an increasingly intense public debate about the science of climate change and costs of curbing it, IPCC has come under closer scrutiny, and controversies have erupted over its perceived impartiality toward climate policy and the accuracy of its reports. This prompted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC chair Rajendra K. Pachauri to issue a letter on March 10 this year requesting that the IAC review IPCC and recommend ways to strengthen the processes and procedures by which future assessments are prepared…”

http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/OpeningStatement.html

http://climate-l.org/2010/08/31/interacademy-council-delivers-ipcc-review-report/

“InterAcademy Council Delivers IPCC Review Report : 30 August 2010: The InterAcademy Council (IAC) has delivered its independent report into the processes and procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report was delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC Chairman Rajenda Pachauri during a press conference held at UN Headquarters in New York, US, on 30 August 2010. The review examined the management of the IPCC, its procedures for communication with the public, the use of non-peer reviewed literature and the incorporation of various viewpoints. The IAC’s recommendations will be reviewed by the IPCC at its 32nd Plenary Session, to be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 11-14 October 2010. The IAC report concluded that the process to produce its assessments has been successful but that the IPCC needs to reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures. The report recommends establishing an executive committee, including members from outside the IPCC, to act on the Panel’s behalf and ensure ongoing decision-making capability. It suggests the appointment of an executive director, and states that the IPCC Chair, Executive Director and Working Group Co-Chairs should be limited to one-assessment period. It highlights the need for: formal qualification requirements for the Chair and Bureau members; and a conflict of interest policy for all IPCC leaders, authors, reviewers and staff. On the review process, the IAC concludes that the existing process is thorough, but stresses the need for stronger enforcement of existing IPCC review procedures. It calls for review editors to reflect genuine controversies, and underscores the need for increased consistency in the characterization of uncertainty. The IAC also suggests the continued use of gray literature, noting that more specific guidelines for evaluating gray literature sources are required. On the response to revelation of errors, the IAC suggests that the IPCC implement a communications strategy that includes a plan for rapid but thoughtful responses in crisis highlighting the need for guidelines for who can speak on behalf of the IPCC. At the press conference, Pachauri welcomed the review, highlighting that “only by challenging scientific findings do we expose weak arguments and substantiate strong ones.” He underscored the IAC’s qualifications to conduct the review, as an organization to mobilize scientists and engineers to provide objective advice to international bodies…”

The IPCC and its leaders appear to have been doing the best that they can, given the structure in which they have been operating, and improvements offered by refinements, as in any human system, are always possible.

All very reasonable – which makes other commentary from this week’s news appear completely tangential, inappropriate and poorly thought-out, including this completely unwarranted attack piece from Geoffrey Lean (leaning towards what, I’d ask ?) :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7974521/IPCCs-Rajendra-Pachauri-is-damaging-the-world.html

“IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri is damaging the world : The IPCC’s head should quit to avoid harming the global warming cause further, says Geoffrey Lean. : By Geoffrey Lean : Published: 01 Sep 2010 : Beware of winning the Nobel Peace Prize – for the world’s highest accolade for the great and supposedly good, endowed by and named after the inventor of dynamite, has a nasty habit of blowing up in the face of those who ceremoniously receive it. For Barack Obama, things have only gone downhill since he was awarded the prize (prematurely, to put it at its kindest) last year. Al Gore has looked increasingly tarnished since getting it in 2007. Although most past winners have been praiseworthy choices, others have included Yasser Arafat, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (although the North Vietnamese revolutionary-turned-negotiator had the grace to refuse to accept). Yet no fall from grace has been so unforeseen as that of Gore’s co-winner, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Just two years after picking up the prize, the UN organisation – chiefly criticised until then for its caution in interpreting the growing evidence of climate change – was plunged into controversy, after it was found grossly to have exaggerated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting. Climate sceptics were quick to seize on other “errors” in the IPCC’s latest 3,000-page report – sometimes justifiably. Coinciding with the cold winter in Britain and the US, the controversy caused by hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and the disappointing outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit, the furore severely eroded public support for measures to tackle global warming. Now an inquiry carried out under the auspices of the world’s top 15 academies of sciences, including Britain’s Royal Society, has revealed shortcomings in the IPCC’s organisation and management. It strongly suggests that the panel’s controversial chairman, Rajendra Pachauri – who collected the Nobel Prize on his institution’s behalf – should not continue in his post…”

Geoffrey ! You are playing with words most nastily, in my view : “It strongly suggests that…Rajendra Pachauri…should not continue in his post…”

Nowhere in the report does the IAC suggest that Pachauri should be removed from post for any wrongdoing, which is what you appear to imply ! A trick of semantics !

“Plunged into controversy”, Geoffrey ? No, actually, there were no significant errors, as has been shown repeatedly and expertly, only lots of accusatory froth, flim-flam and smoke from the Climate Change deniers.

As for “Al Gore has looked increasingly tarnished since getting it in 2007″, that’s plain rude, and refers to a non-story about Gore’s private life.

For some reason, the Daily Mail appears to have capitulated to the ranks of the accusers and backbiters, after apparently finding somebody who could understand Science to report on Climate Change a few weeks ago :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1307446/UN-climate-change-experts-overstated-dangers.html

“UN climate experts ‘overstated dangers’: Keep your noses out of politics, scientists told : By FIONA MACRAE : 31st August 2010 : UN climate change experts have been accused of making ‘imprecise and vague’ statements and over-egging the evidence. A scathing report into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called for it to avoid politics and stick instead to predictions based on solid science.
The probe, by representatives of the Royal Society and foreign scientific academies, took a thinly-veiled swipe at Rajendra Pachauri, the panel’s chairman for the past eight years…”

The Daily Express appears to just make up world Scientific opinion on the hoof :-

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/196642/Climate-change-lies-are-exposed

“CLIMATE CHANGE LIES ARE EXPOSED : A damming report has highlighted questions over the credibility of a leading climate change body : Tuesday August 31,2010 : By Donna Bowater : THE world’s leading climate change body has been accused of losing credibility after a damning report into its research practices. A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming. It also said the panel had emphasised the negative impacts of climate change and made “substantive findings” based on little proof. The review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was launched after the IPCC’s hugely embarrassing 2007 benchmark climate change report, which contained exaggerated and false claims that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035…”

The Daily Telegraph proves it can fight on both “sides” of any debate about Global Warming, by interviewing researcher Myles Allen who recognises the inherent danger in messing with the IPCC community structure and management :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7974052/Overhaul-of-UN-climate-change-body-could-lead-to-more-mistakes.html

“Overhaul of UN climate change body ‘could lead to more mistakes’ : A major overhaul of how the UN advises the world on climate change could lead to more mistakes on the impacts of global warming, an Oxford academic has warned. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published: 31 Aug 2010 : In a damning report out earlier this week, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was criticised for making a number of errors about the potential impacts of global warming. The most notable mistake was wrongly predicting that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. The IPCC was also told to stick to the science rather than straying into the politics of climate change. The review, by the InterAcademy Council, called for “fundamental reform”, including a more formal review process. But a leading British academic said the recommendations are in danger of making the situation worse by imposing so much bureaucracy on reviewers they are unable to spend enough time actually assessing the science. There is also a risk it may lead to top scientists refusing to take part, leaving only Government scientists that are more likely to be influenced by politics. Dr Myles Allen, Head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the University Of Oxford, said wasting time on red tape could lead to more mistakes. He pointed out that all the authors and reviewers are unpaid volunteers. “They could actually make it worse because the more time scientists are spending on bureaucracy the less time they have to deal with the scientific questions they should be dealing with,” he said. Dr Allen said there was also a risk that the process could become even more political. “There is a real danger that the only people that are willing to do it are people put forward by the Government, which will further politicise the thing,” he added…”

George Monbiot is back on the side of right and light, and this time does not give in to the evil rumours and bay for any blood (like he did when he called for Professor Phil Jones to resign over the theft of the University of East Anglia (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) e-mails, a position he had to later retract) :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/sep/01/rajendra-pachauri-ipcc

“Press continue to hound Rajendra Pachauri despite his innocence : The profiteering Pachauri story joins a host of falsehoods about climate change which keep resurfacing despite being disproved : Rajendra Pachauri innocent of financial misdealings : George Monbiot : guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 September 2010″

One thing that could certainly improve about the IPCC is the reportage it gets from the Media.

Good thing that there’s stuff in the works to cover just that. I can’t reveal all the details of what is likely to happen, but I can point you at part of the trail :-

http://www.desmogblog.com/ipcc-fumbles-media-relations-strategy-must-review-basic-principles-public-relations

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/07/12/media-relations-101-for-climate-scientists/

http://mediaecologies.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/ipcc-errors/

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/frontmattersforeword.html

“The report confirms that our scientific understanding of the climate system and its sensitivity to greenhouse gas emissions is now richer and deeper than ever before.”

Who is meant by the ownership word “our” ?

It cannot mean the whole of humanity, since there are still a large number of people who have no idea about the Science of Climate Change, or who deny it.

I suspect that most Climate Change deniers would stop reading this report right there – as they don’t want to be included in the group of people who accept that Climate Change is real, happening and serious, too.

Notice that there’s no question that the Climate is sensitive to Greenhouse Gas Emissions accumulating in the Atmosphere. There’s no “likelihood” associated with that statement.

“The rigor and credibility of this report owes much to the unique nature of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme in 1988, the IPCC is both an intergovernmental body and a network of the world’s leading climate change scientists and experts.”

In order to accept this report, you need to accept that governments have legitimate authority in handling matters of science. At this point, a large group of people who are against any form of organised social management would stop reading. People who are “libertarian” or “self-autonomous” may try to blend in with what’s going on around them, but they don’t actually agree with governance of any kind. The basics of any human community are that not every person can fulfil every role, and group projects need to be facilitated – specialisation is necessary, and so is management. For example, unless we want to return to the days of rampant typhoid and cholera in the industrialised countries, somebody has to be responsible for treating sewage, even the sewage of free-thinking, free-speaking, free-marketeers.

If you are to carry on reading, you also have to accept that the knowledge, experience, research and the expertise of the scientists is what form the content of the report, and not some politically-motivated ideological chimera.

“The Summary for Policymakers was approved by officials from 113 governments and represents their understanding – and their ownership – of the entire underlying report. It is this combination of expert and government review that constitutes the strength of the IPCC. The IPCC does not conduct new research. Instead, its mandate is to make policy-relevant – as opposed to policy-prescriptive – assessments of the existing worldwide literature on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of climate change. Its earlier assessment reports helped to inspire governments to adopt and implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The current report will also be highly relevant as Governments consider their options for moving forward together to address the challenge of climate change…Many Governments have supported the participation of their resident scientists in the IPCC process…”

If you’re still reading, then you will know by now that there is an unstoppable, undeniable wave of acceptance of the IPCC science by the world’s official authorities.

Where that leaves the Media and Press people, I don’t know. They have shown signs of denial for years, and that’s not likely to cease just because the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists agree that Climate Change is a real problem.

Where’s the “you can’t believe everything you read in the papers” attitude that used to inform everyone ?

Scientists say Climate Change is real, it’s serious and it’s happening now.

Newspapers say “Things may or may not be problematic”. And this from information organisations who make their living out of sensationalising and scandalising every issue known to humankind (including the non-scandal of Climategate).

Who are you going to believe ?

“The chapters forming the bulk of this report describe scientists’ assessment of the state-of-knowledge in their respective fields. They were written by 152 coordinating lead authors and lead authors from over 30 countries and reviewed by over 600 experts. A large number of government reviewers also contributed review comments…The Physical Science Basis was made possible by the commitment and voluntary labor of the world’s leading climate scientists. We would like to express our gratitude to all the Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, Review Editors and Reviewers. We would also like to thank the staff of the Working Group I Technical Support Unit and the IPCC Secretariat for their dedication in coordinating the production of another successful IPCC report.”

That’s a large number of people to ask to work together perfectly well, hence the likelihood for some small slip-ups, that have been identified and admitted :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf

“IPCC statement on the melting of Himalayan glaciers, Geneva, 20 January 2010″

If there’s one thing about Climate Change nobody could be able to disagree on, it’s that there’s a huge amount of literature on the subject.

I figure it would be impossible for any one person to have a good grounding in the totality of the Science, spanning, as it does, most of humankind’s discoveries about the physical world.

It would be hard too to have an exceptionally well-rooted understanding even of the Synthesis of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

A human mind is surely not capable of remembering all the facts and figures and how everything relates. My personal forgettery is quite active in selecting what to drop after not using it for a while, and I’m sure others experience the same thing.

For example, I’m sure Dr Judith Curry, accomplished as she is in Earth Sciences, does not remember the entire field, and does not have the tools to look everything up quickly. Which is why she gives shorthand vague, answers on web logs which annoy other people so much :-

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/08/curry_jumps_the_shark.php

I reckon, though, people should give her a break for a while to let her compose herself, and get over the shock of the Anthony Watts “tribe” eating her heart out with steak knives after she published a proper piece of Science.

It distresses and appals me in equal measure that completely uneducated people make huge sweeping statements about the IPCC’s work without knowing anything much about the content of the Fourth Assessment Report.

It also troubles and irritates me that the public face of the Science can be so easily subverted by people who use emotive language, false accusations and constantly recycled errors to dismiss the work of the IPCC.

Have you, dear reader, been distracted from reading the IPCC by the Climategate revelations ? If so, you are one amongst thousands, perhaps millions of people, who have been treated to a smokescreen of nonsense and filibustering by the likes of Steve McIntyre.

If you want to research the culture of Climate Change, you do need to address the fact that so many people, who know next-to-nothing about it, are willing to adopt a contrary position to the body and work of the world’s largest, cooperatively-managed Scientific network (the IPCC).

In the annals of the philosophy of the history of Science (or the history of the philosophy of Science), one name stands out as having laid the foundations for dismissal of the whole project of Science – Thomas Kuhn.

His claim that Scientists form part of an enclave, an inwardly-focussed “paradigm” of theory and understanding, with its own internally maintained unassailable truth (whether really really true, or not), is an idea that has given a very useful stick to beat Science with.

Truth about the natural world, sceptics argue, is only valid within the “paradigm” of a particular Science community. Outside those ivory towers of academe, the real world can be a lot different, they claim. And sometimes, they assert, within the academic community, what is accepted as truth undergoes a shift, a radical Kuhnian “paradigm shift”.

Kuhn theorised that “paradigm shifts” would come about because of revolutionary new facts or theories – but his theory is only that – a theory. In the real world of Science, the society of co-labourers shifts in ways both large and small – but never really apocalpytically, catastrophically. Kuhn was wrong, and Climategate proves it – Science can withstand culture shocks without dissolution of the whole Scientific enterprise.

The promoters of the non-scandal known as Climategate hoped to create a “paradigm shift” in Science, by seeding a revolutionary idea in the mind of the general public, that anybody related to the IPCC and the University of East Anglia (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in particular, was not to be trusted.

The Climategaters hoped that public opinion about Scientific untrustworthiness would bleed into the structures of authority, causing a “paradigm shift” in the form of a loss of support of the IPCC work, which would then have repercussions within the academic community, causing a shift from the outside to push a shift on the inside.

To a certain extent, they got what they wanted – there have been enquiries, checks, balances, reports written on Science and Scientists, promises and pledges of more “openness and transparency”. But you know what, Science has come out unscathed.

Experts in specialist fields are still experts in specialist fields, and they are still consulted on. The reason ? It is impossible to know everything about the whole of Climate Change Science, and true expertise is something that a pitchfork-armed witch-hunt cannot unsettle.

We are not living in a “post-paradigmatic”, “post normal science” state – Science still goes on, truth is still discovered. The facts are still the facts and the data is still the data and the evidence is still the evidence.

The collective work of the world’s best minds on Climate Change is still our highest achievement as a species. And Governments are still trying to settle on policy to respond to the clear risks and threats from the changing Climate.

The IPCC are gearing up for their Fifth Assessment Report, and I think you’ll find the management of this exercise will have media outreach of the highest order.

The one thing that Climategate has taught us is that press relations are important when launching important information. In the case of Climategate, the information was pseudo- and dis-information, but they handled the media well, with a full spectrum dominance.

Now that Climategate is really quite dead (I date it to Robin McKie’s righteously angry missive in The Observer on 1st August 2010 “A dark ideology is driving those who deny climate change : People who claim that climate science is a conspiracy or the work of charlatans are talking rubbish…Will Hutton is away”), I think it’s time to come right back around to the substantive nature of the work of the IPCC.

After all, quite a few media commentators know nothing about it. You would have thought it would be in their best interest to know what the IPCC work is about, but no, they haven’t read it. They have views about it, gleaned from sceptic websites, but they haven’t actually read the actual text. They may have been given the unholy, unappetising task of reading every last one of Phil Jones’ e-mails, but they haven’t read the Science.

I read most of the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) from 2001, and so far, I have read chunks of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) from 2007 that I thought were the most changed from the previous report – the parts where new discoveries and research have added to our overall knowledge and strengthen our confidence in the conclusions.

However, it is time to read the whole thing, and that is what I intend to do here. I might not finish this little project because other things come in the way. I have studies to complete after all – my own primary, original research. But I do intend to read the whole thing, carefully, and make notes here.

I hope you can join me in this study and stop following the nonsense of the Climate Change sceptic-deniers. Together we can re-focus on the Science rather than the rabble outside the University gates with their grim faces and cynical accusations.

Let’s read the IPCC.

One such issue that they take is with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “consensus” method of operation. They seem to view the IPCC consensus as “blurred lines” – their conclusion is that the IPCC’s unified interpretation of the evidence is suspect.

When the Police want to interview eye-witnesses, and when a judge wants to hear witness evidence, the standard practice is to keep the witnesses apart, so that the lines of evidence can be as independent as possible.

By contrast, in Climate Change Science, there is a certain amount of collaboration between researchers during the course of their work, so you could say that no observations are made independently. However, this should not be labelled as “malicious collusion”, although many Climate Change deniers do do that.

In any particular dataset there may be issues of standardisation. Some satellites, for example, have had tracking errors which needed to be corrected. However, there are many lines of evidence, collected and collated by distinctly different groups, working on different areas.

Also, research articles are drawn up independently – the result being that there are often several different conjectures on the reasons for certain effects evidenced.

The IPCC reviews the most recent work in all the areas of research into Climate Change and synthesises the results.

The way that the IPCC works is that nothing appears in the final report unless it is accepted generally by the widely-spread team of reviewers, or is balanced by other opinion.

The normal case is that for those areas of the Science that are not sufficiently settled, or there has been abundant discussion in the scientific literature, the IPCC includes discussion of the varying results and opinions.

It may come as a shock for Climate Change deniers to know that well-known sceptics Ross McKitrick and Patrick Michaels have work on the Urban Heat Island effect reviewed in the IPCC report, as this was considered a valid piece of research.

The balance of evidence took the conclusions away from Ross McKitrick’s and Pat Michaels’ conclusions, however :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-2-2-2.html

For those findings of Science that are universally accepted by people with relevant knowledge, there is description, but often no discussion, as it is unnecessary.

However, this does not mean that the IPCC work is intolerant of other opinion. If there is other valid opinion, then it is discussed.

The challenge, surely, is to ask the Climate Change deniers to come up with some peer-reviewed, vindicated research that unsettles accepted Science instead of conducting a war of attrition in the blogosphere.

The “consensus” we see in the IPCC reports is a conservative agreement on what should be included – if any reviewer has been unable to accept something, and there is not alternative opinion with which to contrast it, or there has been no resolution in the scientific literature, it becomes categorised as “uncertain”, or is left out altogether from projections.

This is sometimes noted, as in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report detailing sea level rises where the calculations on contributions to sea level rise projected from measurements of various kinds of melting ice were excluded, and the exclusion noted explicitly :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains3-2-1.html
Table 3.1 : “Model-based range excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow”

If on the other hand there is strong agreement on what the empirical data is telling us, then this becomes a “robust” finding in the report.

A short summary is here :-

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/05/30/climate-change-robust-findings/

This is rigorous review of rigorous science.

So you see, IPCC consensus is good, not bad.

The straight-talking continues :-

http://www.jamespowell.org/Globalwarming/page0.html

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/30/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-climate-science-in-under-10-minutes/#more-30726

We shouldn’t have to keep restating the very obvious, but it appears that public understanding is very poor in some cases.

We could simply say, “Ah well. The general public doesn’t need to be convinced of the truth of the matter. We can just present the data to the decision-making authorities and they will do the right thing, so it won’t matter what the people in general think.”

Trouble is, there appears to be continuing interference in the patterns of thought of the decision-makers, from a range of sources, notably the mainstream media.

Tune in to the facts. Banish the pacifying voices. We are at war with ourselves, and if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, there will be an end to vast swathes of life on Earth.

Dear Steve,

Following Dr Judith Curry’s appeal on ClimateProgress regarding the recent RealClimate post from Tamino, that Joe Romm, and all of us, should be reading your work, I decided to take a brief look at your output on ClimateAudit in order to see what all the fuss from Judith Curry was about :-

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/25/hockey-stick-real-climate-montford-judith-curry-tamino-gavin-schmid/

“19. Judith Curry says: July 25, 2010 at 9:19 pm : …So if any of you have actually read as much as I have on this topic including Montford’s [Bishop Hill] book and the climateaudit threads particularly McIntyre’s most recent post, well then we might have something to talk about. Otherwise, we can just sit back and all be entertained by tribalistic wardances.”

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/

“107. Judith Curry says: 23 July 2010 at 12:44 PM : Once more people have read the [Montford, Bishop Hill] book, and if Montford and McIntyre were welcomed to participate in the discussion, then I would be interested in participating in a more detailed discussion on this.”

Now, I’m not going to get into the numeric, statistical or Scientific details of your posts, as that is the very thing that you want your readers to do, it seems.

Your goal, as it appears to me, is to create a flurry of contention and get people distracted by arguments over mere dots and dashes, thereby derailing their personal progress in understanding Climate Change Science.

I don’t understand why you insist on raising a duststorm over aspects of Climate Change Science. Your motives are hidden from me. What I do comprehend are the techniques that you are using to stir up chaos.

You may have some valid points to make about the Science, the numbers, the charts, the trends and the statistics, but your methods are those of a propagandist, first and foremost, and it appears you won’t let the facts get in the way of kicking off a good fist-fight.

This means that you are not acting like a genuine sceptic (skeptic), or even a denier on Climate Change. Your approach makes you more like an obstructer, a delayer, holding back the general public’s growing awareness of Climate Change Science, and in come cases, holding back scientists from doing their work.

As I have just said, I am not going to go into the Science details on your recent post. However, I am going to make general comments on your style, tone, use of language and what appear to be your obsessions.

http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/25/repost-of-tamino-and-the-magic-flute/

“Re-post of “Tamino and the Magic Flute” : Tamino’s realclimate post re-states points that I’ve discussed at length in the past. Here is a re-posting of a 2008 post on Tamino that deals with most of the issues in his realclimate post…”

http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/25/the-team-defends-paleo-phrenology/

“The Team Defends Paleo-Phrenology : Hansen’s twin pit bulls, Tamino and Gavin, have launched into a spirited defence of Mannian paleo-phrenology at realclimate here, with a counter-discussion at Bishop Hill here…”

1. Stop living in the past, Steve

I am amazed that you are still dragging up data and making accusations about dirt from Scientific discussions that are over a decade old !

The Science has moved on from 1998, as has the Climate, and you are displaying all the intelligence of a stubborn person in insisting that your points about the first “Hockey Stick” paper should still be endlessly discussed.

Your points, if they have had any validity, have been taken up and discussed, and then adopted or dispensed with, as appropriate. The majority of your criticisms have been answered, repeatedly. There’s no need to go dragging it all up again like a long-solved domestic dispute.

Endlessly sourcing people back to a diagram from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) assessment report from 1990 and claiming that later reports are less accurate is like pointing people to Victorian diagrams of tropical plants and animals and saying that modern photographic imaging is less accurate.

There hasn’t been a “plot” to remove the “Medieval Warm Period” or the “Little Ice Age” – although Scientists now prefer the term “Medieval Climate Optimum” or “Medieval Climate Anomaly” to “Medieval Warm Period”.

2. Stop denigrating people who have good intentions and good training

Some of the language you use is what I would call “schoolmaster-ly” – what others could call patronising, hectoring, bullying or just plain rude.

It could be considered insulting that you keep berating experts in their fields of research because they don’t agree with your views on a very narrow selection of Science.

You appear to want to criticise the ethics and motivations of Climate Change Scientists, without any justification whatsoever. Some could call that slander, plain and simple. Personally, I would like to be more charitable than that, because somewhere in me I feel that you are doing what you do from the best possible intentions. But maybe not. Maybe your motivations are not as noble as you would like us to think.

3. What’s with the tree rings, Steve ?

Surely it’s about time you gave up your obsession with tree rings and statistical techniques ?

A reconstruction is a reconstruction. It can never be perfect, never 100% accurate.

The point of the temperature reconstructions of the last two thousand years (and beyond) is to establish that very recent Global Warming is anomalous, unprecedented.

And that is what has been demonstrated. Reliably :-

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/Mannetal08-PNAS-d/Mannetal08-Sep2-PNAS-2008-Mann-0805721105.pdf

Your real problem is probably with the idea that Climate Sensitivity is higher than claimed by Christopher Monckton.

Why don’t you admit that instead of obsessing about dendrochronology, statistical “fudges” and paleoclimatological theories ?

So far, you haven’t found any accepted way to counter the evidence that Global Warming in the very recent past is happening much faster than it should be from natural causes alone, given everything we now know about periods of Global Warming in the past (from studying proxy data for temperature). In addition, the global temperatures today are much higher than they have been in the last few thousand years.

Your position and the manner of your approach have been refuted and reproached many times. Why do persist in being such an unhappy grumbler ?

And why do you have to be so mean to Climate Change Scientists ? Why do you think you need to undermine their reputations with accusations about their professional conduct ? How many independent reviews and reports of academic professionalism do you want us to waste our time and resources with before you will grudgingly accept your accusations are unfounded ?

What about your own reputation ? Do you recognise that your recent involvement in Climategate has made many people conclude you are a meddling, malicious interferer ?

Even despite what some have termed your “bad behaviour”, you still might not be entirely wrong about Global Warming. There may be some good reason why Climate Sensitivity is not as high as the Scientific consensus calculates.

Now, if you were to be kind enough to go right away and produce a killer argument that doesn’t revolve around people getting worn out and fed up with answering your Freedom of Information requests, and being forced to defend their professional reputations from unwarranted attack, then people might start taking you seriously.

Image Credit : Tamino, Open Mind

If the world stopped all unnecessary manufacture, production, power generation, transportation and building immediately, we could probably hold the fraction of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere pretty much constant.

Tom Wigley calculates that this “constant composition” or “CC” could lead to an eventual rise in temperatures, averaged, globally to over 1 degree Celsius.

Why is this so ? We have only seen a rise of 0.7 degrees C to date. Why should it climb from there ? Because there is a “time lag” in the Earth System in responding to the extra warming from the extra Carbon Dioxide up there :-

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5716/1766

“The Climate Change Commitment : T. M. L. Wigley : …Even if atmospheric composition were fixed today, global-mean temperature and sea level rise would continue due to oceanic thermal inertia. These constant-composition (CC) commitments and their uncertainties are quantified… The CC warming commitment could exceed 1 degree C…”

In the diagram above, I draw some simple lines and make some simple approximations of the integration of the area under the curve which represents the “added Carbon Dioxide burden” in the Atmosphere, and I arrive at a figure of 1.19 degrees Celsius.

Why do I conclude that only emissions up until 1980 have contributed to the warming experienced up until 2010 ? James Hansen and his colleagues have calculated a likely time lag :-

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/pdffiles/Hansen-04-29-05.pdf

“…Evidence from Earth’s history and climate models suggests that climate sensitivity is 3/4 +/- 1/4 degrees C per Watt per metre squared, implying that 25-50 years are needed for Earth’s surface temperature to reach 60 percent of its equilibrium response…”

Here’s what Tamino concludes :-

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/whats-up/

“Our planet has already felt about half the global warming due to the CO2 [Carbon Dioxide] we’ve already added to the atmosphere; the rest is “in the pipeline,” and the impact of that extra warming on the availability of food and water is likely to be unpleasant. We’ll be very lucky indeed if we don’t pay a heavy price for the changes we’ve already wrought…”

The question you should ask yourself is – what temperature rise are we going to see by 2070, given that Carbon Dioxide emissions are continuing at such a rate that Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is still rising sharply ?

“There once was a fella called Monckton,
Who claimed he’d been litigiously dumped on;
Twas patent absurd,
But steam could be heard
Escaping clenched teeth as Abr’am debunked him.”

If you want to show your support for John Abraham in his rebuttal of Christopher Monckton’s non-science, please comment here :-

http://hot-topic.co.nz/support-john-abraham/

Related Internet articles :-

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/06/16/is-the-telegraph-censoring-criticism-of-climate-change-deniers/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-tries-to-censor-John-Abraham.html

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/i_think_that_they_might_have_t.php

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/monckton_is_wrong.php

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/why_is_monckton_afraid_of_a_de.php

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/15/lord-monckton-censor-john-abraham/

http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/27/professor-abraham-debunks-lord-monckton-talk-video/

http://www.desmogblog.com/monckton-exposes-his-rebuttal-so-much-blather-so-little-substance

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/07/gold-amongst-dross.html

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/07/support_john_abraham_at_ht.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jul/14/monckton-john-abraham

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/shut-down-lord-monckton-latest-nonsense-support-prof-abraham-letter.php

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/07/monckton-urges-harrassment-of-abraham.html

http://climatecrocks.com/2010/06/06/monckton-stung-by-abraham-embarrasses-himself-further/

The John Abraham video :-

http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100046150/how-come-we-now-have-to-go-to-the-chinese-for-the-truth-about-global-warming/

A number of indignant inaccuracies and strident claims I will pass over, but here are a few I think I shall contest. Just to show that I do bother to read his work (even if I smirk about it most of the time).

“Let’s just pause for a moment to consider what’s at stake here. According to the IPCC’s projections – not even predictions, mark you, just projections based on deeply unreliable, garbage-in-garbage-out computer models…”

No, James, pet. The climate computer models are rather a good fit, actually. I doubt you’ve fully delved into any of the intricacies of the software that brought you the projections of the Third or Fourth Assessment Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Until you do, I really don’t think you should dare pass comment.

And why do you rail at computers in the Science of Climate Change, but accept without question computing in every other area of your life ? Do you trust the ATM will give you freshly ironed readies ? Do you trust that your telephone calls will be patched correctly ? Do you trust the weather satellites that will tell you if your end-of-week will be a barbecue weekend or not ? Er…actually, scrub that. Weather is difficult to compute. How about : do you trust computers to accurately store your work, render your family photographs (of kittens, for example) ?

“… – the world is on course for a period of catastrophic, unprecedented, man-made global warming which can only be prevented by drastically cutting carbon emissions and destroying the global economy.”

Destroy the global economy ? Not really. If, as a race, including all the big spenders and big industrialists, we choose to spend money in ways that enhance ecology, and de-carbonise energy and fuel, then it won’t destroy the global economy. In fact, it will rebirth it.

“… This will cost us all at least $45 trillion and prolong the recession indefinitely…”

You are, I trow, quoting the International Energy Agency (IEA) projection (What ? another “projection” ? And you believe this one ?) that the world, its corporations, governments and peoples need to invest $26 trillion between now and 2030 on new energy systems, fields and infrastructure; raised to $45 trillion if we want to make all those new investments green energy investments.

Lots of money needs to be spent on new energy because there’s been chronic under-investment recently, and a large number of oil and gas fields are depleting, and exploration is plummeting. I don’t want to go on and on. I’m just repeating the conclusions of excellent studies. A lot of this is in the IPCC reports, which you don’t appear to have read, but I would seriously (or jovially) recommend that you do.

“…And an official Dutch investigation now finds that this is all fair and proper and right, even though none of these “projections” is remotely grounded in empirical observation,…”

Not grounded in empirical observation ? You’re wrong there. Have you actually read any of the evidence presented in the fourth IPCC report ? It is freely and uncompromisingly available online, and even if you just deign to read the Technical Summaries, I’m sure you’d learn heaps.

The Data is out there. Really. In the IPCC reports.

“…though the link between the trace gas CO2 and catastrophic global warming remains no more than theoretical,…”

Wrong again, my little kitten ! If the Greenhouse Gases weren’t in the Atmosphere then the temperature of the Earth would be on average a knee-knocking 33 or 34 degrees Celsius colder than it is now. Bit of an icy, barren thought, non ?

And what if the mounting Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere due to burning Fossil Fuels and taking down trees is going to pile on an extra 6 degrees, on average ? Hell on Earth ? The difference between the Ice Ages and now was a temperature change of a similar amount…you do the logic…

“…and though the Climategate emails revealed that those scientists most close to the heart of the IPCC process are at best unreliable and incompetent, at worst corrupt, fraudulent and more interested in political activism than in honest science.”

That’s just conjecture, personal attack, professional attack, and random, scattergun, popgun, unthinking, unfeeling, baseless nonsense, James, and you do know it.

By the way, for readers interested in reading further, the ultimate proof that James has (had) kittens comes from his own paw :-

http://twitter.com/JamesDelingpole/statuses/2357986464

I wrest my case.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/21/pnas-study-climate-science-media-balance-deniers/

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/study-scientific-consensus-climate-change-411.html

As of this second, the report from the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences is not yet available to the public. But it will be, it will be…