Climate Change

Those who know me are not surprised that I am a "global warming" skeptic. But rest assured that it is not from life-long iconoclast-ism, but from years of study and experience, both in the earth sciences and in computer modeling, coupled with more years of observation of the topic than even Al Gore can claim. And, unlike Al, I began my observations with a scientific background.

In fact, one of the hallmarks of science is a form of skepticism. It takes a variety of approaches. One is that the best way to prove a theory is to try, honestly, to disprove it. Or find someone else to find holes in it. If that fails, the theory is strengthened. Another is argument in the classical sense. The Talmud is an excellent example of that. To understand the truth, scholars literally argue in the margins and others reply in the margins of the margins.

So, for umpteen years, I have looked for evidence that runs counter to the "prevailing wisdom" that anthropogenic activity is a major contributor to climate change. Whoa! That's a lot of words to describe a simple concept like global warming! Yes, it is. But notice that it is conclusion-neutral. The term "global warming" all by itself is a presumption of something. What kind of science is that?

Well, I am happy to report that not only am I not alone in this search, but it looks like more people are becoming skeptical of the "science" behind "global warming" all the time - president-elect Obama not withstanding. Unfortunately, his approach seems like the same old political thinking that got us here in the first place. He probably thinks he is pandering to the masses, but more likely he has been buffaloed by talking to too few people and not using his head.

So why am I optimistic that real science will prevail, despite the incredibly political approach taken by the UN's IPCC and RealClimate.org? Well, it's not because of the equally political opposition that has resulted in so much wasted effort between the two camps. But I am hopeful that, given time, two things are happening. 1) The poorly funded (by comparison) scientific opposition is increasingly being heard and 2) the general public seems to be awakening to the importance of getting this thing right; the serious economic consequences of government meddling in this matter can no longer be ignored.

The Internet can be thanked for this. Frankly, the establishment and their "peer-reviewed" science have failed us. Witness the origin of the original Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH98) paper with the "hockey stick" graph showing recent dramatic increases in global temperature. It was published in Nature in 1998 without any peer review. Then, in the third assessment report of the IPCC (2001), it was republished despite the fact that it completely disagreed with charts published by the IPCC in earlier reports. Why? Obviously because it agreed with the political opinion of the authors of the IPCC report. Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick tried to publish a dissenting view in Nature but were rejected twice, once because the article was "too long" and again, because the 500-word revision was "too technical." What a shame, a scientific article that was too technical. They subsequently published on the Net and in Geophysical Research Letters (2005), totally demolishing the original work by Mann. They also published a corrected version of the same data which showed that there has been no significant increase in global temperature over that time period. The IPCC has yet to publish a correction and RealClimate.org continues to make excuses for Mann, et al. Not surprising, because Mann is one of the founders of realclimate.org.

McIntyre found a variety of errors in the corrections applied to the data by Mann. He also found a duplicated set of data. Here's what the corrected chart looks like. Average global temperature has actually decreased over the 450 years chosen. But what about that spike starting in 1920? Surely that's when the CO₂ began to make a difference. Well, Mann made yet another error. He applied a rather "non-standard" set of corrections there, too. McIntyre discovered that using Mann's corrections on a set of random numbers, the data always spiked at the end!

The next chart shows twelve sets of random numbers subjected to the same mathematical massage that Mann used on his data. The bottom line here is that Mann is sloppy and dishonest, he has never admitted his errors, And the folks at the IPCC who used Mann's chart without vetting it are equally careless and incapable of admitting error. This does not speak well for the IPCC nor realclimate.org. It's extremely obvious that these people can't be trusted. Yet they are asking the world economy to turn upside down, perhaps collapsing in the process! My personal approach is to refuse to believe anything they say without having it approved by an independent third party.

So much for the hot shots. But what about the rest of the members of the IPCC and who is this guy Dr. James E. Hansen who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and is a professor at Columbia? I'll have more to say about them later, but here's a clue; none of them any longer deserves the title of "scientist." Real scientists are skeptics and they spend a lot of time looking for holes in their own data and theories.

Footnote: You can click on most of the charts to see a larger version.