The news that 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded in Australia comes at the end of a year in which, to the extent that facts can settle anything, the debate over human-caused global warming has been settled. Worldwide, 2005 was equal (to within the margin of error of the stats) with 1998 as the warmest year in at least the past millennium.
More significantly, perhaps, 2005 saw the final nail hammered into the arguments climate change contrarians have been pushing for years. The few remaining legitimate sceptics, along with some of the smarter ideological contrarians, have looked at the evidence and conceded the reality of human-caused global warming.
Ten years or so ago, the divergence between satellite and ground-based measurements of temperature was a big problem – the ground based measurements showed warming in line with climate models but the satellites showed a cooling trend. The combination of new data and improved calibration has gradually resolved the discrepancy, in favour of the ground-based measurements and the climate models.
Another set of arguments concerned short-term climate cycles like El Nino. The late John Daly attributed the high temperatures of the late 1990s to the combination of El Nino and solar cycles, and predicted a big drop, bottoming out in 2005 and 2006. Obviously the reverse has happened. Despite the absence of the El Nino or solar effects that contributed to the 1998 record, the long-term warming trend has dominated.
Finally, there’s water vapour. The most credible of the contrarians, Richard Lindzen, has relied primarily on arguments that the feedback from water vapour, which plays a central role in climate models, might actually be zero or even negative. Recent evidence has run strongly against this claim. Lindzen’s related idea of an adaptive iris has been similarly unsuccessful.
Finally, the evidence has mounted up that, with a handful of exceptions, “sceptics” are not, as they claim, fearless seekers after scientific truth, but ideological partisans and paid advocates, presenting dishonest arguments for a predetermined party-line conclusion. Even three years ago, sites like Tech Central Station, and writers like Ross McKitrick were taken seriously by many. Now, anyone with access to Google can discover that they have no credibility. Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science which I plan to review soon, gives chapter and verse and the whole network of thinktanks, politicians and tame scientists who have popularised GW contrarianism, Intelligent Design and so on.
A couple of thoughts on all this.
First, in the course of the debate, a lot of nasty things were said about the IPCC, including some by people who should have known better. Now that it’s clear that the IPCC has been pretty much spot-on in its assessment (and conservative in terms of its caution about reaching definite conclusions), it would be nice to see some apologies.
Second, now that the scientific phase of the debate is over, attention will move to the question of the costs and benefits of mitigation options. There are legitimate issues to be debated here. But having seen the disregard for truth exhibited by anti-environmental think tanks in the first phase of the debate, we shouldn’t give them a free pass in the second. Any analysis on this issue coming out of a think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently, after taking account of possible data mining and cherry picking. That disqualifies virtually all the major right-wing think tanks, both here and in the US. Their performance on this and other scientific issues has been a disgrace.
John Quiggin 
Dogz,
I would agree that the debate is not yet over – and I would also hazard a guess that it will never be. Modelling a system as complex as our atmosphere will never be an exact science (IMHO) and there will always be holes in whatever research is undertaken. We just have to act on the best information we have, provided we believe it is good enough, and make allowances for the fact that we are unsure.
To me at least some market based solution to reducing the quantum of outputs of GHG seems prudent, along with further research.
The problem is, of course, to get the incentives right – and that includes the incentives in the research. The reason that many to the AGW enthusiasts tend to go overboard is that, perhaps subconsciously, their incentives are to overstate the problem to increase funding, just as the incentives on the anti-AGW side are to understate or deny the problem to increase their funding.
PrQ is right to point out that the incentives on the anti- side are there, but is also (again, IMHO) not seeing that the incentives are there on the pro- side.
Andrew Reynolds says: “We just have to act on the best information we have, provided we believe it is good enough, and make allowances for the fact that we are unsure.”
I agree totally with Andrew on this point. Think of it this way- most of us take out insurance for our health and property not because we know we will need it, but because it is prudent to be prepared for any credible threat we may face.
It would be ludicrous and reckless to wait until every last skeptic is on board before taking ameliorative action.
Maybe you guys can help me, a simple layman, interpret and understand this quote from John Brignell dated 15/1/06 on http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/linearity.htm#consequences
“What are the consequences of incorrectly assuming linearity?
A good example of a serious error arising from a mistaken assumption of linearity is the so-called “Hockey stick� curve. This was adopted by the UN IPCC, resulting in potentially devastating economic consequences. The mathematical method employed by the authors was “principal component analysis�, which is a form of linear algebra applied to statistical data.
One of the main sources of data for this exercise was plant growth (tree rings).
It is easy to demonstrate that plant growth is a non-linear process. Plants require for growth nutriment, light, warmth and moisture. Consider just the last two of these. In the middle range of variables, increases in warmth and moisture both increase growth rates. However, at the extremes, this is not true. If it is very cold, then more moisture will impede growth, while if it is very dry, more heat will also reduce it. Thus plant growth is not only non-linear, it is not even monotonic, which implies a gross non-linearity and excludes the use of linear algebra.
The results of this analysis were used by the IPCC for the basis of a claim that phenomena such as the Little Ice Age and the Mediaeval Warm period never actually happened, despite the copious evidence to the contrary from history, art, archaeology, entomology etc. The error was compounded by arrogant dismissal of criticisms, attempts to prevent their publication and refusal to make public the computer programmes involved, but that is another story. It is curious that a prolonged and intricate argument has followed, when all that needs to be said is that the method used was not valid.
15/01/06”
It sounds like Brignell is a nutter. The IPCC do not say the Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age never happened. The IPCC website is http://www.ipcc.ch/. Questions are however best directed to http://www.realclimate.org, which is a site run by practising climate scientists, including scientists who were on the latest IPCC. Cheers.
You don’t know that you’re surely going to die in the next 5 years, but you do know the probability that you’ll die in that time (or at least your insurance company does). It’s straightforward: they just look at a comparable population and measure how many people die. From that they can easily calculate insurance premiums.
The problem with global warming is that we can’t measure the probability of different outcomes from an ensemble of similar situations (we only have one earth). So we have to estimate probabilities by modeling, which makes the veracity of the models critical.
The equivalent situation in life insurance would be writing a policy for a single member of a species for which we have no comparable statistical data, just a model of how the species functions. Makes it very difficult to price the premium.
Well, I guess Chris O’Neill is tired of discussing the issues, so he reprises a piece by John Hunter. In that piece, John abuses me for publishing in a journal which is not peer reviewed. (He notes that his reply to my article was also not peer reviewed.)
Now, my piece disagreed with John Hunter’s findings. Since then, he has been on a vendetta to discredit me, including putting the piece on his web site which Chris quotes.
Chris, perhaps you could explain to me what crime I’ve committed here? What is it you’re busting me for? John doesn’t like me because I showed that his results were in error. What is it you don’t like me for?
And more to the point … how about answering some of the questions I posed, and dealing with some of the issues I’ve raised? Your personal attack, unfortunately typical of warming enthusiasts, just demonstrates to all of us how little you care about the real issues. It shows how much you’d like to distract the readers from what you don’t want to deal with, by posting this bogus attack on my evil deed of publishing in a journal that’s not peer reviewed … sheesh. Get real, bro’. It doesn’t matter where I publish, any more than it matters if John Quiggin has a beard … what matters are John’s ideas, not his appearance.
And what matters is whether what I published was correct, not where I published it. John Hunter’s attack is pathetic. You likely didn’t notice, but John didn’t touch for one instant on what I wrote, just where I published it … coincidence? I don’t think so.
Are you really sure you want to repeat his error? … My advice is not to go down that road, but for all of us to address the issues, and not the beards, or whether John Quiggin’s blog is peer reviewed. Those are distractions, and are raised by those who are unwilling to address the issues.
w.
Steve, you say:
You are 100% wrong about the IPCC, which clearly says the MWP and the LIA didn’t really happen:
SOURCE: IPCC TAR, at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/070.htm
You are just as wrong about Brignell, but this margin is too small to contain the proof … however, rather than just calling him a “nutter”, perhaps you’d like to point out which of his claims about linearity (quoted above) are incorrect …
I doubt strongly whether you can disprove a single one of Brignells points.
w.
Thanks to Chris O’Neill for drawing attention to my paper for Online Opinion, in which I discussed James Hansen’s ‘Alternative Scenario’ as presented in his paper “A Brighter Future” (published in “Climatic Change, 2002, 52: 435-440). Hansen’s paper is quite short, and I’d suggest that those interested in his argument should read the full paper at stephenschneider.stanford.edu/ Publications/PDF_Papers/Hansen52-4ClimCh.pdf
Two points are of particular importance. First, Hansen didn’t say that his alternative was “likely to happen”: he said that “it is POSSIBLE to achieve such a climatically brighter path with actions that are not ‘economically wrenching’, indeed, actions that make economic sense independent of global warming.” (EMPHASIS added). Secondly, Hansen’s prescription emphasises actions (e.g., air pollution reductions) which bring immediate practical benefits rather than benefits in 100 years time. Similar arguments have been developed more recently in the submission of Dr. Indur Goklany to the House of Lords inquiry into “The Economics of Climate Change.”
I believe that Chris O’Neill has misunderstood the implications of Hansen’s statement that “In the alternative scenario, delta CO2/year decreases linearly from 1.7 ppm per year in 2000 to 1.3 ppm per year in 2050 and then linearly to zero in 2100;â€? All of these figures refer to the atmospheric concentrations of CO2, not to annual emissions. In the IPCC B1 marker scenario, for example, fossil CO2 emissions are projected to rise by over 70% between 2000 and 2040, and to be still around 70% of their current levels in 2100 – yet on the IPCC’s simple model projections delta CO2/year will by then have dropped to zero (see Appendix II, SRES Tables in “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis”).
I said in my Online Opinion article that I was not competent to assess the full implications of Hansen’s alternative scenario, but I thought (and still think) that the IPCC should do so – i.e. it should work backwards from Hansen’s projections of GHG burdens to the profiles of emissions that would yield such burdens, and then explore alternative patterns of economic and technological developments that would, on various assumptions, be consistent with such a profile. It seems to me to be quite absurd that the Panel should still be using, for its forthcoming report, emissions projections which were finalised nearly a decade ago. These should now be of only historical interest.
The criticism of the IPCC for being overly pessimistic is Hansen’s as well as mine. Maybe Hansen’s alternative IS overly optimistic, but this is not something that can be judged by “back-of-the-envelope” figuring. Generating alternative scenarios with realistic assumptions, on a base year of 2005 rather than 1990, is a relatively simple exercise with currently available IT capacities. But it’s obvious that the IPCC doesn’t want to do this, and that governments are not prepared to direct them to do so.
Willis, the quote from Brignell provided by Ray Soper says: “The results of this analysis were used by the IPCC for the basis of a claim that phenomena such as the Little Ice Age and the Mediaeval Warm period never actually happened…”
The IPCC merely say the current evidence does not support a global MWP and LIA. Once again I direct you to Mann and Jones (2004) which deals with the MWP furphy- http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=33
Dogz, your latest post is frankly oddball. Many “threats” will never be amenable to pin-point accurate modelling.
The threats of “terror” and “invasion” are two such examples. Should we therefore not “insure” against them through defence and intelligence spending?
As regards Brignell, the article on Wikipedia here has clearly been written by a supporter, but scroll down and you’ll find him denying the reality of the ozone hole. That tells us all we need to know, I think.
Brignell also argues that second hand smoke is not a health risk.
This guy sounds like Prof Fred Singer’s mini-me 😉
John, thanks for the post. You say:
There have been a number of scientists who have held very strange beliefs in certain fields. A number of them, for example, believe in an invisible being who has the power to create planets … no one has ever seen this mythical being, there is absolutely no evidence of his existence, and yet these scientists claim he exists. Strange, indeed …
However, their work in other fields may be unaffected by their strange beliefs. Thus, your claim that knowing one thing about Brignell is “all we need to know” is nonsense.
What we need to know is, was Brignell right in a particular claim, or was he wrong? The rest is a distraction. Nicholas Copernicus believed in astrology … is that “all we need to know” about Copernicus?
w.
Steve, to catch up on the topic of public misbehaviour, let me remind you that you accused me of lying about the MWP, and of lying about the effect of cold snaps. I invited you to tell us all just what the lies were that I was supposed to have told, or to apologize.
I assume, from your lack of response, that your accusations were false.
Now consider your behaviour. You accuse a man of lying, and then when you are caught making these baseless claims, you’re too pusillanimous to apologize, and too spineless to even publicly announce that your claims were just nasty cr*p.
While I suppose this fits right in with the other ad hominem attacks made on this site, it turns my stomach nonetheless … where I come from, a gentleman does not accuse another man of lying unless he is willing and able to back up his words. If he can’t back up his words, an apology is required.
Your move …
w.
I note with amusement that Willis Eschenbach and Ian Castles have a habit of tag-teaming when they engage in anti-AGW science trolling.
Note the following post from Ian Castles for example, on an Institute of Public Affairs shill’s website:
“In response to (d) Who cares?”, let me quote from a posting made by Willis Eschenbach yesterday … ” (2/11/2005)
And again:
“… I recommend, in particular, Willis Eschenbach’s response …” (3/11/2005)
(see http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000974.html)
At ClimateAudit.org one month we see that this sad little tryst continues:
Willis Eschenbach- “…oh, man, Ian, that’s bad, bad news…� (21/12/2005)
Ian Castles- “Yes Willis, I’ve been told … “ (21/12/2005)
Willis Eschenbach – “Ian, is there anyone we can write to in order to protest … “ (21/12/2005)
(see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=461)
And so it goes on …
Of course not, but equally we should not argue for their insurance by analogy with health insurance as you did. No one is arguing that we shouldn’t insure against bad stuff happening. We’re just arguing about how to calculate the risk. Risk is essentially trivial to calculate in common areas like life, health and car insurance, because of the existence of a large comparable population to draw from. It is much harder to calculate (or more accurately, has a much wider range) for something like global warming.
The terrorism risk is actually much more precisely defined than GW; we know for sure terrorists want to kill us, and we can estimate relatively accurately the probabilities of the various methods they might employ, from suicide bombs to nukes (invasion risk is well defined too, but less likely than terrorism and declining over time, which is why defense spending is continually evolving).
Hey Willis stop bleating about how you are treated here. I didn’t think I was rude to you but you couldn’t be bothered answering my questions, so if you feel free to ignore civility don’t whine about getting a serve.
BTW at least get it right about the use use of ad hom you’ve got no case on that one.
Simon, my apologies, I didn’t note that you had asked me questions and I hadn’t answered. Near as I can tell, you’ve asked me two questions:
Yes, certainly. The question relates to my saying that there is no consensus among cllmate scientiests. The study was by Bray and Von Storch. Wikipedia says:
The second one was:
One of the big difficulties I have with the AGW hoopla is that it takes money, time, and energy away from real environmental problems.
Chief among these are pollution in its manifold forms (air and water), and an overall loss of biodiversity in many environments.
Which of the other environmental problems are overblown? Only one that springs to mind is acid rain, which seems to have been hyped out of proportion to the problems that it actually causes. The rest of the environmental problems, generally, are tragically all too real.
Simonjm (or anyone), if I don’t answer a question, it may be that (as in this case) I haven’t even seen it. I try to keep up with the blogs, but there are a number of them, and I’m not always successful. Please let me know, as simonjm has, if I don’t get to your question.
Finally, simon, I didn’t understand your comment on ad hominem arguments. Are you saying that they are a perfectly fine example of logical argument, and we are all totally free to use them all we want?
w.
Now Steve Munn is trying to distract people from the fact that he called me a liar, and he won’t (because he can’t) back up his bogus, nasty, 100% false claims.
I called on him to put up or shut up, so he comes up with these “shocking” accusations …
His latest blockbuster charge seems to be that at times I agree with Ian Castles, and at times he agrees with me … whoa, stop the presses, this is big news on the ad hom hotline …
w.
OK, this is getting a bit out of hand, and with 468 comments I can’t easily work out who said what first. Please stop making, or responding to, personal attacks on other commenters.
Thanks, John.
Is this a record thread for you, JQ?
Very impressive in its consistency and (relative) lack of snark. It hasn’t changed my opinion, but I’ve learned a lot.
It reflects well on your commenters and your blogstewardship.
Ray Soper’s call for help in interpreting and understanding John Brignall’s observations on the hockey-stick controversy (17/1, 8.29 pm) has so far gone unanswered. Brignall’s contention that “the method used was not valid” may well be correct. For a discussion of some of the key points at issue, see the thread “Upside-down quadratic proxy response” at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=397.
Fyodor, I’m sure this is a record. But I’m hoping it will be beaten by ‘Peak Oil’, a comment thread on a post that had no content whatsover, just to prove that John is actually redundant.
I wouldn’t hold your breath, James. Last I saw, “Peak Oil” had peaked, but that might just be premature extrapolation on my part.
You know you’re in trouble when you start stoushing over monetary theory. That way lies madness.
Thanks Willis for the reply given the thread length I can understand it. Some people do indeed resort to claiming the victim while still dishing it out, if the shoe doesn’t fit no harm intended.
Poll fair enough but given the progress and work done since 96 it can be considered a bit dated.
Could you also read my post on Malaria. Is Reiter basically saying since there has always been Malaria in colder regions there is no need to fear AGW? Again on a lay understanding that is not the issue but the prevalence due to its increased optimal living zone.
As far as other environmental problems well that’s something I cannot dismiss you as one of the blanket there are no environmental problems crowd, which leads to ad hom. If you do a quick search back on my replies to Terje on the subject it pretty well covers it.
Willis – the reference you cited had this:
“a response of a value of 1 indicates a strong level of agreement with the statement of certainty that global warming is already underway or will occur without modification to human behavior… the mean response for the entire sample was 3.3 indicating a slight tendency towards the position that global warming has indeed been detected and is underway…. Regarding global warming as being a possible future event, there is a higher expression of confidence as indicated by the mean of 2.6.”
These results seem to confirm consensus. Most scientists if asked would express reservations on the accuracy of models as they have to work with their limitations all the time. Also while the survey was sent to 1000 scientists it is not clear whether they were 1000 CLIMATE scientists and whether they were actively engaged in climate research.
Also thinking about our discussions on malaria I have the same question as SimonJM If you regard the MWP as warmer than today and there was malaria then in England then this would seem to confirm that malaria will be more widespread with higher temperatures or as Simonjm asks IS Dr Reiter saying that it always has been around and is not affected by the temperature.
Ender, not sure what you mean about the study of climate scientists. If 1 indicates agreement and 5 indicates disagreement, a score of 3.3 means that there is absolutely not consensus that anthropological global warming is underway. The average score (scoring from 1 to 5) is 3, so this is less than 50% agreement …
Even regarding anthropological global as a possible future event, the mean score was only 2.6, slightly more favorable than average, but still a long way from consensus there as well. The reality is, the alleged “consensus” simply does not exist.
Which should be obvious, from the number of postings to this thread, as well as from the fact that the worldwide debate has continued for so long. The debate goes on, despite hubristic attempts to declare “the end of the global warming debate”, precisely because the science is not settled, and the questions are not answered. If they were settled and answered, the debate would be over — but it most definitely is not.
So I don’t get why you think the study shows consensus.
Regarding malaria, yes, there was malaria in England during the MWP, and there was malaria in England during the Little Ice Age. Not sure what your point is on this one either. When England got cold, the malaria didn’t go away …
Dr. Reiter is not saying that malaria is not affected by the temperature. Each species of malaria mosquito has a temperature range in which it can live best. The difficulty is that there are a wide variety of mosquitoes that can carry malaria, and between them, they cover the gamut not just of temperature, but a host of other environmental factors as well.
In the Solomon Islands, for example, one species of malaria mosquito lays its eggs in the small temporary freshwater puddles on the ground, another lays eggs in water caught in the cracks and hollows in trees, and a third lays eggs only in brackish (partly salt) water at the edge of the ocean. Because of this, a change for example in the amount of rain will favour one or more species over the others, but they all carry malaria. The same is true of a change in temperature, it may favour one mosquito over another, but once again, if they’re both carrying malaria, it makes no difference at all.
What Dr. Reiter said was that other things beside temperature were the major determining factors regarding the spread of malaria, and that malaria exists quite happily all the way up to the Arctic Circle. One of the larger malaria epidemics of modern time (some reports say 30,000 dead) occurred in Archangel, at about 65° north …
Thus, increasing temperatures are unlikely to increase the possible range of malaria in any meaningful way.
w.
Simon, thank you for your comments. I believe I have answered your malaria question in my post (just above) to Ender.
As you point out, I am very aware of the manifold environmental problems, and I am under no illusion about their importance. I consider myself an environmentalist.
This is one of the reasons why I am so unalterably opposed to things like the Kyoto Protocol, which even its supporters say will not make any measurable difference.
Call me crazy, but the idea of spending billions and billions of dollars to make an unmeasurably small difference in the world, when there is so little money and there are so many real pressing crucial environmental problems crying out to be addressed, seems unbelievably foolish to me.
w.
Willis – first of all the conclusion that 3.3 indicates more preference is not mine but the conclusion of the study. The study does not indicate the specialties of the respondents. If they are not climate scientists then the respondents can only be considered as informed laypeople. If the study was sent to 1000 known climate scientists then it would be more valid. Just because a person is a scientist does not guarantee that they know anything about climate science or global warming.
Finally I am not sure what Dr Reiter is on about still. This is from a a paper he wrote:
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2001/suppl-1/141-161reiter/reiter-full.html
“Climatic influences on malaria transmission in the tropics. Climatic factors are important in the tropics. Their influence is complex and varies according to region and the ecology of the vectors concerned.
Temperature. In theory, high temperatures should increase the likelihood of transmission because they reduce the extrinsic incubation period. However, activities such as biting and egg laying are also likely to be accelerated. These are high-risk activities, so survival rate, and thus transmission rate, may also be affected.
In equatorial regions, vectors such as An. gambiae are commonly found as high as 3,000 m above sea level, but endemic malaria disappears above 1,800-2,000 m (102,103). A limiting factor is presumably the temperature required for effective extrinsic incubation, analogous to the temperature limits defined by isotherms at high latitudes. ”
Surely even Dr Reiter must admit that if the areas that have endemic malaria have temperature increases then the chance of contracting malaria will increase? The argument that malaria has been in high latitudes therefore we do not have to worry about global warming seems to me to be a straw man. It would seem that high latitude infection and survival of the malaria parisite is a quite rare event as not many parasites survive at these temperatures. Surely even here higher temperatures will increase the rate of malaria.
Finally Dr Reiter seems to be all over the literature regarding this. There are very few papers not written by him that mention high latitude malaria. Most of his papers have as their starting point the fact that either global warming is not happening or even if it is then it will not affect the malaria range. The problem is that he says on the one hand the infection rate could increase with temperature however then he says that this will not happen. What is the truth here?
Willis:-
Ender seems to have a point about Dr Reiter, what is written in his papers does seem to indicate that increase in global temperature, anthropogenic or not, would increase incidences of malaria, specifically in areas where the parasite is only just ‘holding on’ due to the cold temperatures.
I’m not sure how even Reiter avoids to problem of increasing temperature, and its related effects on the parasite and mosquito, without increasing number of incidences of infection. Certainly to expect that because its warmer and more mossies will be biting, that more mossies will be swatted, and the effects will cancel each other is wishful thinking?
I was also wondering if you do believe that the MWP was global and not just localised? While you won’t accept that there is consensus on the AGW debate, from my reading on the subject there does seem to be a rather strong consensus on the fact that the MWP was a localised warming event.
Ender: “If the study was sent to 1000 known climate scientists then it would be more valid. Just because a person is a scientist does not guarantee that they know anything about climate science or global warming.”
One of the problems that we all face in the modern era is that none of ous can hope to be expert in all of the fields relevant to our own disciplines, let alone the wider issues. So far as I can see, John Brignill and M&M are suggesting that some of the climate scientists may not be on top of the statistics. Surely the solution to that problem is to bring in some statistics experts to have a look. They may well opine that the climate scientists are using valid approaches, and that John Brignill and M&M are off with the pixies.
Willis trots out same the hoary old chestnuts that seem to get repeated ad infinitum by those opposed to signing the Kyoto Protocol. He says:
“Call me crazy, but the idea of spending billions and billions of dollars to make an unmeasurably small difference in the world, when there is so little money and there are so many real pressing crucial environmental problems crying out to be addressed, seems unbelievably foolish to me.”
A number of studies have been done by various economists on the likely costs of Greenhouse emissions abatement. The figures they have arrived at vary from the “billions and billions” spruiked by Willis to very little indeed. Importantly, the the cost of action must not be considered in isolation from the cost of inaction. The following link is a statement signed by 2,500 economists including 8 Nobel prize winners, that says the cost of Kyoto compliance will be relatively small. (see http://www.rprogress.org/publications/econstatement.html)
One thing that has struck me in researching the AGW issue is the appalling record economists have for seriously inflating the costs of environmental legislation. Tim Flannery makes this point as follows:
“The economist Eban Goodstein has done a detailed analysis of past projections of regulatory costs as they relate to a variety of industries. Goodstein demonstrated that in every case, when compared with the actual costs paid, the estimates were grossly inflated. His examples range from asbestos to vinyl, and in all instances but one the cost estimates of regulatory change were at least double the actual cost paid, while in some cases estimates were even more exaggerated. This inflation of estimated costs holds regardless of whether industry itself or an independent assessor did the work, which suggests a systematic source of errors.” (see http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/civilisations-darkest-hour/2005/09/23/1126982230888.html)
Willis argues that Kyoto will acheive only minimal GHG emission abatement. It is true that Kyoto doesn’t go far enough. Accordingly the way forward is to build on Kyoto with a Kyoto Mark II, III and IV if necessary.
For Ray Soper’s information, Tim Lambert has statistical analysis qualifications and has extensively investigated, and I believe demolished, much of Brignell and M&Ms claims. (see http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/)
Thanks Steve, as an interested layperson it’s hard to spot the difference between the real issues and the fake.
Steve, thanks for your post on Kyoto.
I did not say, as you incorrectly claim, that Kyoto will achieve only minimal GHG emission abatement. I said that even the supporters of Kyoto agree, that even if Kyoto were to be adhered to (which is very doubtful, since few of the countries to date have met their targets) it would only achieve a ~0.06°C reduction in temperature. This is too small to be measured.
Regarding the costs of Kyoto, they are undoubtedly high. Canada is currently considering withdrawing from Kyoto. Why? Well, because of the cost … which makes a mockery of your claim that the costs are low. The Canadian Government has already spent billions of dollars on Kyoto, so your claim that it will somehow be cheap has already been proven wrong, and my claim that it will cost billions and billions of dollars has already been proven right. IT HAS ALREADY COST THAT MUCH IN JUST ONE COUNTRY, never mind all the rest of the countries which have spent comparable amounts. It boggles my mind, with billions spent on Kyoto already (not to mention how much the Montreal COP/MOP cost), that anyone could claim that it would be cheap, or would not cost money at all.
Regarding the economists you mention, including the Nobel Laureates, they signed a statement which says:
Well, that was awful nice of them, but I note that in some mysterious fashion, they neglected to say what those “policy options” are. This renders their statement rather toothless, wouldn’t you say? They also do not say that those low-cost options include the Kyoto Protocol options, do they? So why on earth are you bringing their statement up in regards to Kyoto, when they never mention Kyoto once?
If they really have these mystery options, they should trot them out for us. They have not done so, and so their claim is totally unsupported by any facts, plans, or description of the “policy options”. When they tell us what the “policy options” are, we can decide if they’re just blowing wind; but until then, the statement they have signed is simply meaningless, not to mention that it says nothing about Kyoto.
Despite the inflated claims on his blog, Tim Lambert has been unable to refute M&M’s facts about the abysmal science in Mann’s hockeystick paper. These facts have received support in peer reviewed journals. Lambert also has refused to take a principled stand on the refusal by Michael Mann to reveal his methods and data even after he (Mann) was served with a subpoena …
Steve, in closing, please note that I said nothing, I repeat nothing, about whether Kyoto would achieve only minimal emission abatement as you falsely claim. Read what I wrote. Your blatant attempt to make up words and put them in my mouth is … well, let me call it an interesting discussion technique and leave it at that. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice that you were claiming I said things that I never said?
w.
Willis, stop hyperventilating. I took the liberty of assuming that since you believe Kyoto will lead to a temperature reduction- albeit in your opinion merely 0.06C degrees- that you would at least acknowledge some GHG emission abatement as a result of Kyoto. I thought “B” logically flowed from “A”. However, it clearly doesn’t in your mind and hence I apologise.
The unprecedented serving of a subpeona on Mann, Bradley and Hughes is an absolute disgrace. I think it is one of the most horrifying examples of the “Republican War On Science” which Chris Mooney has written about. Have you seen PrQ’s post on this subject?
Realclimate.org contains a brief mention of this episode with links to statements by Mann, Bradley and Hughes. There are also links to protests from the head of the American National Academy of Sciences (NAS), American Association for the Advancement of Science, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) and more. As the NAS and EGU statements say, political inquisitions should have no place in science. Shame on you for lenfding your support to this tawdrey state of affairs.
Mann’s “abysmal” hockey stick thesis is independently corroborated by more than half a dozen other climate science models. I’m sure you already know this.
It is telling that NO, I repeat NO, skeptic has even attempted to produce an alternative climate model worthy of peer-review literature publication.
I have grown tired of chasing up your spurious claims. I think I will leave you to your JunkScience and TechCentralStation fantasy world and call it a night.
Willis, your comments about me are deceitful. I haven’t tried to refute M&M’s attack on MBH98. I don’t think I need to. I have never said that Mann does not need to show his data and methods. It’s just that he has revealed them, contrary to your claim.
1. Mann still has not provided all of the information requested. If you think so, you simply have not been following the story. If you believe he has revealed it all, perhaps you’d be so good as to answer the following question:
What is the what is the cross-validation R2 statistic for the 15th century MBH98 reconstruction?
This is an important question, one that the Barton committee required Mann to answer, and one that Mann has consistently refused to answer. When you can answer that question, I’ll believe Mann has revealed all his data and methods. Until then, I’ll believe you have not researched the issue.
2. You are right that the serving of a subpoena on Mann was a disgrace. In fact, Mann disgraced all of science through his actions, not just his actions in forcing people to get a subpoena to see some of his data and methods. He even boasted to the Wall Street Journal that to ask him to reveal his data and methods was “intimidation”. I can’t think of a more disgraceful statement a scientist could possibly make.
3. Mann’s analysis has not been “independently corroborated”. It has been repeated by his friends, with the same bad data, and the same errors being repeated, and yielding the same flawed results. This is not corroboration. It’s just making the same mistakes over and over.
4. Tim, your claim that you haven’t tried to refute M&M’s “attack on MBH” is absolutely false. You have pages on your weblog about not much else. Consider this one example of many, from Deltoid, your blog:
This is clearly an attempt to refute M&M, and thus your statement is false. You have a whole page attacking McKitrick on your blog, including his work on the Mann hockeystick.
Tim, if you truly think Mann has revealed his data and methods, please answer the simple question above. If you can’t, I’ll take it as read that Mann has not revealed all.
w.
Steve said: “Importantly, the the cost of action must not be considered in isolation from the cost of inaction.”
My response:-
To borrow a phrase this is a hoary old chestnuts that seem to get repeated ad infinitum.
Lets say that the cost of action-A is $10. And that the cost of inaction is $1000. Then Steve is suggesting implies that these are the correct quantities to compare. However they are not.
What should be compared is the cost of action and the benefit of action.
If action-A mitigates the cost of inaction so that it is now only $995 then the benefit is $5. And the benefit of action-A is less than the cost so it should not be undertaken.
In order for action-A to be worthwhile its benefits must exceed its costs. It is not sufficient for the cost of inaction to be large.
For instance lets say that you are standing in the middle of the road on a dark night and there is a truck coming. The cost of inaction is arguably very high. The cost of jumping up and down on the spot is quit low. So Steves poorly framed logic would imply that it makes sence to jump up and down because the cost of the action is less than the cost of inaction.
I am pretty sure that I have been most ungenereous in my interpretation of Steves phrase. Just as he was being ungenereous in his interpretation of Willis. I am not being ungenereous in order to offend Steve but simply because I am tired of the hoary old chestnut that inaction is expensive so any action is better than none.
Costs should be compared to Benefits.
Willis – “Mann’s analysis has not been “independently corroboratedâ€?. It has been repeated by his friends, with the same bad data, and the same errors being repeated, and yielding the same flawed results. This is not corroboration. It’s just making the same mistakes over and over.”
Oh my goodness – is this the encapsulation of the war on science or what. Do you REALLY think this????
In the real scientific world independant teams use the same data with different methods to confirm or deny the study. If these teams arrive at the same conclusion then this is usually taken as confirmation of the original data. It is normal in these studies to cite the original author as an author of the new study as a courtesy.
This view that you have espressed is so warped in its thinking that it can only have come from repeated cycles around discussions with an axe to grind.
Steve, do you have links to where Lambert specifically “demolishes” the problems with nonlinearity described by Brignell? This one was new to me, so I checked out McIntyres discussion at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=397 and it seems to at least raise a point that needs answering.
A very brief summary for those who don’t want to wade throuhg the debate: in generating his temperature reconstructions (the ones that gave the now-(in)famous hockeystick) Mann assumed tree growth and hence tree-ring width (TRW) is a linear function of temperature. In fact, and unsurprisingly, trees have an optimal temperature for growth, either side of which they grow more slowly. So TRW is not a linear function of temperature, hence one of Mann’s fundamental assumptions is violated.
Now, that may not actually be a big deal. Modellers often assume linear relationships between variables that they know are not strictly correct, because most nonlinear models are intractable. However, often the results are surprisingly robust to the presence of nonlinearities (in other words, even if you could correctly model the nonlinearities it wouldn’t necessarily change much). Usually you are ok if the relationship is close to linear in the region that you are modelling.
What makes Mann’s violated linearity assumption potentially cause for greater concern is that the nonlinearity is in fact non-monotonic. That is, it’s not just that TRW varies at a different rate depending on the temperature (nonlinear), but that depending on the temperature, TRW can either _increase_ with increasing temperature, or _decrease_ with increasing temperature (nonmonotonic). I haven’t seen this problem addressed, but I haven’t had time to look hard so if someone has a source please let me know.
Ender, thanks for posting. You say:
Oh my goodness – is this the encapsulation of the war on science or what. Do you REALLY think this????
In the real scientific world independant teams use the same data with different methods to confirm or deny the study. If these teams arrive at the same conclusion then this is usually taken as confirmation of the original data. It is normal in these studies to cite the original author as an author of the new study as a courtesy.
Ender, the problem is that in Mann’s case (we are discussing the MBH98 study), both the data and the method used to analyse the data are flawed.
The data is mainly flawed by the inclusion of one of the proxy series, that of the bristlecone pines. These trees are widely accepted by dendrochronologists as not being a valid temperature proxy, as they have known dissimilarities with the temperature record. Without this proxy, no hockeystick appears.
This problem with the data is made worse by the improper centering method used by MBH98. It has been shown that this improper centering method (centering on only the modern data instead of centering on the whole data) “mines” for hockeystick shaped results.
You say (above) “In the real scientific world independant teams use the same data with different methods to confirm or deny the study.”
Unfortunately, this is only true if you have good data. If you have bad data, you must do more than just changing methods. Before changing anything, you first have to fix the data.
When this is done, and the correct centering method is used, the hockeystick disappears.
Now Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick done this, corrected both the data errors and the method errors in Mann’s study. Unlike Mann, who insists on hiding his work, Steve and Ross have made their work completely transparent. Despite this, no one has found any errors in their analysis of the problems with MBH98. Nor has anyone found any errors in their application of the corrected method to the MBH98 corrected data, which does not yield a hockeystick.
However, they make no claim that this result, even with correct method and data, really represents the past temperature record. This is because trees grow more slowly when it is too hot, just as they grow more slowly when it is too cold. Thus, when we see a narrow ring in a tree, there is no way to tell if the ring is narrow because that year was too hot, or because that year was too cold.
Any tree ring analysis working on a linear assumption (wide rings = hot, narrow rings = cold) will correctly interpret cold years. However, it will also inevitably interpret some unknown number of very hot years as being cold years. The result of this will be to depress the resulting temperature estimate. Hot periods (think MWP) will be flattened down to more nearly level … sound familiar?
We started this by discussing whether MBH98 had been “independently corroborated”. If you know of studies (other than M&M) which have corrected the known errors in both the MBH98 data and method, please let me know what their results were.
All the best,
w.
Well, in the previous posting, I obviously misplaced my blockquotes. The two paragraphs immediately following the block quote (which contains my words) are what ender wrote. These are the paragraphs about the war on science and the independent teams.
My first paragraph starts with the word “Ender”.
So the start my post above should read:
===================
Ender, thanks for posting. You say:
Willis – “Ender, the problem is that in Mann’s case (we are discussing the MBH98 study), both the data and the method used to analyse the data are flawed.”
No they didn’t
“When this is done, and the correct centering method is used, the hockeystick disappears.”
No it doesn’t
“If you know of studies (other than M&M) which have corrected the known errors in both the MBH98 data and method, please let me know what their results were.”
Click to access RuthetalJClim2004.pdf
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v433/n7026/abs/nature03265_fs.html
“Here we reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the past 2,000 years by combining low-resolution proxies with tree-ring data, using a wavelet transform technique to achieve timescale-dependent processing of the data. Our reconstruction shows larger multicentennial variability than most previous multi-proxy reconstructions, but agrees well with temperatures reconstructed from borehole measurements and with temperatures obtained with a general circulation model.”
I suggest you read
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=121 again
There is an article on the issue at Wikipedia:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_of_the_past_1000_years
Ender, thanks. I have explained in detail how both the methods and the data in MBH98 are flawed. Your response in total is:
“No they didn’t.”
I give up. That convinces me. I mean the insight, the undeniable logical power of it all.
I requested that if you knew of “studies (other than M&M) which have corrected the known errors in both the MBH98 data and method, please let me know what their results were.â€?
You cite Moberg 2005, which contains the bristlecone pine proxies. This doesn’t help, it just repeats the error. As I said, it is known that these are not valid temperature proxies. In addition, Moberg is playing the Mann game and refusing to disclose his data. Disgusting. A “Materials Complaint” with Nature has been filed.
You also cite Rutherford and Mann, but once again, in this study the errors are simply repeated with no attempt at correction.
Best to everyone,
w.
there is also a discussion at wikpedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Temperature_record_of_the_past_1000_years
In his article at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2147 Ian Castles said that “Most readers would infer from this that Dr Hansen and his colleagues were acutely concerned about the dire prospects for the planet arising from the prospective warming in the present century and a further warming which would still be “in the pipeline” in 2100. But nothing could be further from the truth.”
Well, if Hansen is not saying that his alternative was “likely to happen” how is it that “nothing could be further from the truth”? If it’s not likely to happen then that means that something worse is closer to the truth.
Ian is right that the emissions reduction regime does not need to be as relatively large as the reduction in delta atmospheric CO2/year, e.g. emissions could be maintained at the level that sinks (in particular the ocean) absorb CO2 which could probably continue for centuries. Of course this is critically dependent on how much the sinks will be affected by rising temperature.
Though it may not change the outcome of achieving 0 delta CO2 in 2100 (although it probably means the maximum CO2 level reached is higher), I should point out that the IPCC’s B1 scenario http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/521.htm is already a long way behind CO2 emissions that are actually occuring. i.e. CO2 emissions in 2004 were estimated at 10.3 Pg C http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825203.300 while the B1 scenario gives 10.63 Pg C for 2020, i.e. current emission levels are about 15 years ahead of the B1 scenario. The B1 scenario assumes CO2 emission growth of 1.5% per annum between 2000 and 2010. This compares with 4.5% growth from 2003 to 2004 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825203.300 .
So the IPCC’s scenarios can be optimistic as well as pessimistic and yes they should be updating their projections and scenarios. At the very least it might reduce the amount of time wasted on spurious arguments.
Regarding Hansen’s point that it may be possible to achieve particular emission reductions with actions that are not ‘economically wrenching’, I think he may be supported by observing the effect of higher oil prices on various economies. Even though oil prices have risen greatly, most economies haven’t been too badly affected. So I wonder why we keep getting the gloom and doom economic predictions from sceptics.
I note Willis Eschenbach is spruiking the foul smear that Mann has not made publicly available to other researchers the data and methodology employed in MBH climate modelling. The American National Science Foundation has in fact confirmed that Mann’s team have complied with standard protocols for transparency.
Even ClimateAudit.org contains a rather po-faced acceptance of the fact that American National Science Foundation disclosure requirements have been met. Nonetheless, the unrelentlessly sour Steve McIntyre oinks that Mann should also his reveal source code, even though researchers rarely do so and are not required by NSF to do so. (see link 1 & 3)
Another untruth by Willis is the claim that climate modellers who have replicated the “hockey stick� have been Mann’s “mates� who have used the same faulty data and methodology. As Professor Holdren, who is President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science says “half a dozen different studies that used separate data sets, such as those from boreholes and glaciers, have confirmed the findings of Mann’s original study.� (see link 2)
I shall address some of Willis’s other untruths in due course.
(1) http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=266#more-266,
(2) http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/jul/policy/pt_congress.html and
(3) http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=172
Willis – you got those answers because like most people who have an interest in climate science I am so unspeakably and completely fed up with answering these crock of s**t arguments about the ******* hockey stick that this is all you are going to get from me. I do not want this thread to reach 1000 posts with he said-she said arguments.
500th! Yay!