Thursday
Feb022012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Barry, Tamsin and Peter G
Feb 2, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Barry Woods has published an interesting email exchange between himself, Tamsin Edwards and Peter Gleick. This revolved around Gleick having publicly accused him of being offensive. Barry - possibly the politest tweeter there is - was understandably miffed and asked Gleick to substantiate his remarks. There's a happy ending, of sorts.
Reader Comments (60)
+1 to Foxgoose.
I asked Richard Betts why he had been sitting on his hands for the last 10 years instead of calling out his colleagues when they made ridiculous claims like "death trains" and "20m sea rises".
His reply was pure deflection - something like "I've only worked here for 9 years".
My point was that I am also critical of Mann et al. - sorry if I didn't phrase that clearly enough?
T
That all sounds very reasonable and I would have agreed with it myself not long ago.
The thing that stops me going along with it now is the growing evidence "climate science" was never really a proper science at all but, as Jack Hughes cruelly but elegantly put it just now - " an academic backwater .. turned into a perfect cover for a coalition of enviros, politicians, NGOs, and chancers".
When you go right back in history to the Club of Rome, Maurice Strong days, I think there is quite strong evidence that the foundation of the IPCC wasn't a geniune attempt to address a real perceived scientific problem - but rather a continuation of the political objectives of the embryonic environmental movement.
I know this has a whiff of conspiracy theory about it - but Donna Framboise's recent book about joined up a lot of dots when she exposed the way in which the whole IPCC process and many of it's scientists were infiltrated and suborned by activist groups.
That's really why I don't believe a small group of more open-minded scientists will make any progress.
I'm quite happy for them to try though.
I asked Prof Arnell, (Walker INstitute) about why not speak out against Greenpeace sillness, or HAnsens (who he agreed was making alarmist cliams)
The reposne still stagger me.. "Do not want to be seen as an advocate" !!
Greenpeace has a revolving door to Hunh, scientist NEED to tell thgem when claim are wrong. Greenpeace still has the 300,000 climate change deaths on their website. Whilst Katie no longer does.
IT's his (Arnell's duty to correct this sort of rubbish... imho
Maybe Richard could send his paper to Greenpeace (try Ben Stewart) and tell him it is 'not rigourous science'. When Greenpeace remove that cliam 'The Earth will be Freezing Over" let alone Hell.
must mot ytype too quickly on a smartphone again .. ever ;-)
Serioulsy KAtie HAyhoe has PULLED her slide with 300k cc deaths.
WHich scientist is going to tackle Greenpeace (or 10:10)
Or is it to be left to me - to be met with 'laughter' - and a twitter block( from Ben Stewart -Greenpeace)
I too am disappointed with Tamsin's reply to my question (re: evidence for water vapour being a positive feedback) as it absolutely fundamental to the whole AGW meme. But Tamsin has already stayed longer and been more forthcoming than the Antarctic Fox who both scurried away pretty sharpish when faced with some awkward questions (and then claimed to have been engaging with sceptics on the blogoshere). There's a lot at stake here and I don't think it is realistic to expect immediate results. Tamsin and Richard deserve more time considering they have at least had the decency to engage with us (unlike the vast majority of climate scientists).
Well, I think I largely agree with your last two posts Barry (if I've decoded them correctly ;-).....
... except for one point which I made previously.
The key point about the spurious 300,000 deaths figure is not that Kate Hayhoe took it out of her lectures on request - but rather that she, as a "Professor of Climate Science" and head of department, plucked an unsubstantiated activist BS figure out of the air and stuck it in her lectures without making any attempt to verify it.
That's not "professorial" science.
Lapogus
Give Tamsin a break. She has a day job.
The following is a cut'n'paste from my notes, so a wall of text. No apologies - you wanted references - here are some (abstracts only - you'll have to google for pdfs where available online):
Soden BJ et al. (2005) "The radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening" Science 310, 841-844.
Abstract: "Climate models predict that the concentration of water vapor in the upper troposphere could double by the end of the century as a result of increases in greenhouse gases. Such moistening plays a key role in amplifying the rate at which the climate warms in response to anthropogenic activities, but has been difficult to detect because of deficiencies in conventional observing systems. We use satellite measurements to highlight a distinct radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening over the period 1982 to 2004. The observed moistening is accurately captured by climate model simulations and lends further credence to model projections of future global warming."
Santer BD et al (2007) "Identification of human-induced changes in atmospheric moisture content" Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104 15248-15253.
Abstract: "Data from the satellite-based Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) show that the total atmospheric moisture content over oceans has increased by 0.41 kg/m(2) per decade since 1988. Results from current climate models indicate that water vapor increases of this magnitude cannot be explained by climate noise alone. In a formal detection and attribution analysis using the pooled results from 22 different climate models, the simulated "fingerprint" pattern of anthropogenically caused changes in water vapor is identifiable with high statistical confidence in the SSM/I data. Experiments in which forcing factors are varied individually suggest that this fingerprint "match" is primarily due to human caused increases in greenhouse gases and not to solar forcing or recovery from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Our findings provide preliminary evidence of an emerging anthropogenic signal in the moisture content of earth's atmosphere."
Rind D et al (1991) "Positive Water-Vapor Feedback In Climate Models Confirmed By Satellite Data" Nature 349, 500-503.
Abstract: "Chief among the mechanisms thought to amplify the global climate response to increased concentrations of trace gases is the atmospheric water vapour feedback. As the oceans and atmosphere warm, there is increased evaporation, and it has been generally thought that the additional moisture then adds to the greenhouse effect by trapping more infrared radiation. Recently, it has been suggested that general circulation models used for evaluating climate change overestimate this response, and that increased convection in a warmer climate would actually dry the middle and upper troposphere by means of associated compensatory subsidence1. We use some new satellite-generated water vapour data to investigate this question. From a comparison of summer and winter moisture values in regions of the middle and upper troposphere that have previously been difficult to observe with confidence, we find that, as the hemispheres warm, increased convection leads to increased water vapour above 500 mbar in approximate quantitative agreement with the results from current climate models. The same conclusion is reached by comparing the tropical western and eastern Pacific regions. Thus, we conclude that the water vapour feedback is not overestimated in models and should amplify the climate response to increased trace-gas concentrations."
[**] e.g.:
Zhang XB (2007) "Detection of human influence on twentieth-century precipitation trends" Nature 448, 461-465.
Abstract: "Human influence on climate has been detected in surface air temperature(1-5), sea level pressure(6), free atmospheric temperature(7), tropopause height(8) and ocean heat content(9). Human-induced changes have not, however, previously been detected in precipitation at the global scale(10-12), partly because changes in precipitation in different regions cancel each other out and thereby reduce the strength of the global average signal(13-19). Models suggest that anthropogenic forcing should have caused a small increase in global mean precipitation and a latitudinal redistribution of precipitation, increasing precipitation at high latitudes, decreasing precipitation at sub-tropical latitudes(15,18,19), and possibly changing the distribution of precipitation within the tropics by shifting the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone(20). Here we compare observed changes in land precipitation during the twentieth century averaged over latitudinal bands with changes simulated by fourteen climate models. We show that anthropogenic forcing has had a detectable influence on observed changes in average precipitation within latitudinal bands, and that these changes cannot be explained by internal climate variability or natural forcing. We estimate that anthropogenic forcing contributed significantly to observed increases in precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, drying in the Northern Hemisphere subtropics and tropics, and moistening in the Southern Hemisphere subtropics and deep tropics. The observed changes, which are larger than estimated from model simulations, may have already had significant effects on ecosystems, agriculture and human health in regions that are sensitive to changes in precipitation, such as the Sahel."
Allan, R P & Soden, B J (2008) Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes" Science 321, 1481-1484.
Abstract: "Climate models suggest that extreme precipitation events will become more common in an anthropogenically warmed climate. However, observational limitations have hindered a direct evaluation of model- projected changes in extreme precipitation. We used satellite observations and model simulations to examine the response of tropical precipitation events to naturally driven changes in surface temperature and atmospheric moisture content. These observations reveal a distinct link between rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods. Furthermore, the observed amplification of rainfall extremes is found to be larger than that predicted by models, implying that projections of future changes in rainfall extremes in response to anthropogenic global warming may be underestimated."
Gettelman A and Fu Q (2008) “Observed and simulated upper-tropospheric water vapor feedback” J. Climate 21, 3282-3289.
Abstract: “Satellite measurements from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) in the upper troposphere over 4.5 yr are used to assess the covariation of upper-tropospheric humidity and temperature with surface temperatures, which can be used to constrain the upper-tropospheric moistening due to the water vapor feedback. Results are compared to simulations from a general circulation model, the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), to see if the model can reproduce the variations. Results indicate that the upper troposphere maintains nearly constant relative humidity for observed perturbations to ocean surface temperatures over the observed period, with increases in temperature similar to 1.5 times the changes at the surface, and corresponding increases in water vapor ( specific humidity) of 10% -25% degrees C-1. Increases in water vapor are largest at pressures below 400 hPa, but they have a double peak structure. Simulations reproduce these changes quantitatively and qualitatively. Agreement is best when the model is sorted for satellite sampling thresholds. This indicates that the model reproduces the moistening associated with the observed upper-tropospheric water vapor feedback. The results are not qualitatively sensitive to model resolution or model physics.”
Brogniez H and Pierrehumbert RT (2007) “Intercomparison of tropical tropospheric humidity in GCMs with AMSU-B water vapor data” Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, Article Number: L17812
Abstract: “We make use of microwave measurements of the tropical free tropospheric relative humidity (FTH) to evaluate the extent to which the water vapor distribution in four general circulation models is faithful to reality. The comparison is performed in the tropics by sorting the FTH in dynamical regimes defined upon the 500 hPa vertical velocity. Because microwave radiation penetrates non-rainy and warm clouds, we are able to estimate the FTH over most of the dynamical regimes that characterize the tropics. The comparisons reveal that two models simulate a free troposphere drier than observed (< 10%), while the others agree with the observations. Despite some differences, the level of agreement is good enough to lend confidence in the representation of atmospheric moistening processes. A climate change scenario, tested on two models, shows a tendency to maintain the FTH to an almost fixed value be it an ascending or a subsiding regime” ',
@ Hengeist
On swallow does not a summer make. Daily there are posts on WUWT (and here) about some claim for AGW. Some clearly ludicrous (see numberwatch fro examples).
I don't see RC or SkS pointing out that the issues are nonsense. They seem happier to bleat about the blogs and the blogger who point out the bizarre cliems for AGW which are made.
As far as the Time Altlas goes, yes "reputable" scientists started making noises but so were the "disreputable" scientists and bloggers. It seems that (as is usual in climate science) only certain parties are listened to. If you're an engineer or a statistician people aren't suitably qualified to discuss maths based sciences.
Do you find that the weight of climate evidence points to a catastrophic event for climate? I just want to understand if this is a "straw man" or not.
Foxgoose (and Wildlandjeff)
Apologies, the 'get a grip' remark was because WLJ's posting had appeared six times. It's fixed now (thanks to BH, methinks). Point taken.
I can understand your position on scientific malfeasance and there clearly are plenty of activists or politically driven types involved. I don't think we differ much in that regard.