“As I promised last time, Julie, our discussion will be
based on SINTEF
A24071, Consensus and Controversy. This report provides an overview of the
anthropogenic global warming issue as of April 2013. In our discussion we will cite page numbers in the report
which will guide interested readers to the report’s references to the original
literature.”
“It was interesting, Curmudge, that this report introduced
the rather benign terms, ’consensus’ and ‘contrarian,’ to characterize the two
sides of the global warming debate.
Formerly (and perhaps currently) the consensus people had called the
people on the other side ‘deniers’ in a syntactical effort to include them with
those who ‘denied’ the Holocaust.”
“The animosity of the opponents continues to shock me, Jaded
Julie. It clearly represents more
than just a disagreement between scientists over the significance of their
findings. Global warming has
become the newest apocalypse of eco-theology, and it includes such visual
imagery as the calving of ice from the Greenland ice sheet. As noted in the SINTEF report, the
concept of apocalypse ‘instigates a sense of both fear and urgency to the
discourse of climate change, and sparks political efforts and/or slogans to
reduce emissions and save the climate.‘ (p. 8-9)”
“That helps me understand things, Old Guy. Shall we now share some of what the
SINTEF report says about the ‘consensus’ story? Because this has been so widely publicized, there’s not a
lot for us to say.”
Consensus
Perspectives
“ ‘The consensus camp includes all positions that voice some
sort of alarm (from conservative and sober to more liberal and apocalyptic) and
also those more focused on finding solutions to the perceived threat from
man-made global warming.’ (p. 10)
Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have
consistently stated that ‘the consensus of scientific opinion is that the
Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities.’ This was supported by large numbers of
scientific papers and numerous surveys of earth scientists. In a notable study by the Berkeley
Earth Surface Temperature project, land was warmed by 1.5 C over the past 250
years and ‘humans are most likely the cause.’ (p. 21) A ‘definitive’ conclusion was provided by Gro Harlem
Brundtland speaking before a U.N. commission, ‘What is new is that doubt has
been eliminated…It is irresponsible, reckless, and deeply immoral to question
the seriousness of the situation .
The time for diagnosis is over.
Now it is time to act.’ (p. 6) “
“Wow, Curmudge!
Man the barricades; wave the flag.
Don’t just stand there; do something.”
“Calm your fervor, Madame Miserables. Although
Ms. Brundtland spoke after ‘The Hockey Stick’ had been published, ‘Climategate’
had not yet been exposed. We
discussed both of these last week.
In addition, papers and books criticizing the consensus studies began to
appear in 2008-2011. A book by
Bell, ‘Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming
Hoax’ was published in 2011. Roy
Spencer stated, ’I would wager that (none of) the 928 articles stacked on my
desk demonstrate that our current global warming is not due to natural causes.’
(p. 22) ‘Scientific merit does not
derive from the number, productivity, or prominence of those holding a certain
view—truth by majority rule or oligarchical fiat.’ (p. 24)”
“ Here’s an interesting paper, Curmudge. Recall that the original ‘hockey stick’
downplayed the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age; some say they were
hidden to exaggerate the man-made character of the current warm period. (p.
33) A paper by Ljungqvist
published in 2010 shows a reconstruction of a ‘distinct Roman Warm Period c.
1-300, reaching up to the 1961-1990 mean temperature level, followed by the
Dark Age Cold Period c. AD 300-800.
The Medieval Warm Period is seen c. AD 800-1300 and the Little Ice Age
is clearly visible c. 1300-1900, followed by a rapid temperature increase in
the 20th century.’
‘Decadal mean temperatures seem to have reached or exceeded the
1961-1990 mean temperature level during substantial parts of the Roman Warm
Period and the Medieval Warm Period.’
‘The “hockey stick” graph is in considerable disagreement with most more
recent temperature reconstructions.’ (p. 31) ‘Moreover, it is relatively uncontroversial that the
temperature curves during the last decade or so have stopped increasing and
seem rather to be flattening out and decreasing.’ (p. 33)”
“Julie, the SINTEF report is unusual in that they discuss
the social science of ‘climategate.’
Grundman stated that, ‘climategate revealed problematic practices of
climate scientists which are only partly recognized.’ ‘What the emails reveal are practices of leading climate
researchers acting as zealous gatekeepers in a scientific and political
project.’ As an example, he
mentions ‘the trick of omitting inconvenient data from the time series in the
hockey stick.’ (p. 39) ‘I view
Climategate as science fraud, pure and simple.’ (Austin, p. 57)”
“Old Man, your zeal for digging into this sad tale exceeds
my interest in discussing it further today. Let’s put the hockey stick in the penalty box and talk about
the contrarian perspectives next week.”
Kaizen Curmudgeon
Link to posting from blog archives: Implementing a Culture of Safety 12/04/08
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