Relevant

19 Feb. 2010 (updated): Recently, the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit's director (now under investigation), Phil Jones, agreed to an extensive "Question and Answer" dialogue with the BBC reporter Roger Harrabin. For the moment, we offer the following links and a few quick notes...

This first link is to PJTV's interview with Steven Mosher, Author, "Climategate: The CRUtape Letters." (Length: 11 minutes) Mosher suggests that these questions were most likely orchestrated as part of an apparent media strategy to throw a few bones to "skeptics," avoid major discrepancies, and ultimately allow the CRU to return to normal operations.

Our second link is to the actual BBC article, in which there are a number of important acknowledgements:

• A comparison of the "rates of warming" trends for 1860-1880, 1910-1940, 1975-1998 and 1975-2009. According to Jones, they "are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other."
• The trend for the period 1995-2009 is, in Jones estimation, a positive trend, but not statistically significant.
• Jones confirms that "we would all accept that palaeoclimatic data are considerably less certain than the instrumental data." Jones does goes on, however, to say that he is convinced that the most controversial data (Briffa, et al.'s work involving "Yamal") is "sound."
• Also regarding uncertainties, Jones says: "There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well."
• The main factors Jones apparently relies on in his yet unwavering support for the AGW theory are that "we can't explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing." Those are pretty limited natural factors to consider, especially when the IPCC acknowledges in its 2007 report (AR4) that before 1950 the sun explained over 50% of the temperature increase.
• Jones asserts that the main reason he does not believe the Medieval Warm Period was not global is the that "the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions." (emphasis added)
• Jones also notes, with regard to the assertions of "unprecedented" warming/warmth during the late-20th century, that "Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the [Nothern Hemisphere] and [Southern Hemisphere]) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented."

The last point would certainly seem to explain why the MWP could not possibly be considered global in extent, even though "The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia." The impression we get is that the MWP was local to only those areas for which there are records of it, and it quickly became "normal" everywhere else between those areas. Interestingly, Jones does admit there is much debate about if the MWP was a global event. (So much for consensus and the science being settled?)

We still don't seem to be seeing the American mainstream media dig into the issue beyond a few sound bites. Mosher believes that the "bunker mentality" adopted by the CRU leadership lead to an "erosion of scientific ethics and scientific practices."

An excellent article by Prof Tim Ball, that initially ties to Jones' "interview" with BBC reporter Harrabin, should also be read. It digs deeply into several critical aspects of both research and the application of research findings or developments into the GCM models that the IPCC relies upon so heavily. Included are comments about Earth tilt and orbit, and precession of the Equinox.

Finally, we highlight a guest post by Indur Goklany on the highly-rated science blog, WattsUpWithThat, which provides excerpts of the BBC "interview" with Jones with annotations by Goklany.

Links:

• http://www.pjtv.com/video/Specials/Climategate’s_Frost%7CNixon_Moment%3A_Steven_Mosher_Follows_The_FOIA/3100/
• BBC Q&A:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
• "IPCC Corruption Included Ignoring Facts and Science": http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/20029
• http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-science-is-settled-issues/#more-16418

15 Feb 2010: The general public is often lead to believe that the much-vaunted peer review process is THE "Golden Standard" in research. In speaking with members of the American public, the general impression appears to be something like this: Peer reviewed papers are subjected to such careful and thorough examination that all errors can be identified before a paper is accepted for publication, which implies that peer-reviewed research is without error.

A key point at which to start is to note that reviewers are generally volunteers; they receive no compensation and often little acknowledgement. They are also [supposed to be] anonymous to the author(s) of any paper they review. At the same time, the editorial staff and reviewers are supposed to keep submissions confidential. Because of these things, the rigor of a review is limited by the willingness or resources of the review to dig deep. Further, a reviewer may know the author(s) of the paper they are reviewing, and thus be biased one way or an other. Former professors and former students, former colleagues, competitors at other research institutions. Reviewers also often do not have access to the supporting data, computer code or other basic. That is, they often only have the paper documenting the research. If something is not present in the paper, the reviewer will be unlikely to know of its existence. Finally, reviewers may be given limits of what they can request of the author.

Remember too that more publications in a researcher's curriculum vita or resume, can enhance his or her reputation, leading to offers of tenure (which may bring better pay). Tenure is usually considered the equivalent of "job-for-life."

Of course, nothing stops anyone from citing literature that is not peer-reviewed while implying that it has been, or for even summarizing the research document correctly.

Unfortunately, we have much evidence that peer review is no longer so good (if it ever was), and the evidence continues to mount. It's evident in many fields, from genetics, to environment to medicine. Consider, for example, the case of Hwang Woo-Suk, the South Korean veterinarian who had claimed to have cloned embryonic human stem cells. His results had been published in the major scientific journal Science.

The recent Climategate incident, which made public selected emails, computer code and other documents (some of an advocacy nature) from the Climactic Reserch Unit at the University of East Anglia provides the means to see how, in the matter of climate science, the system can be twisted to benefit some, and erect barriers to others. That is, the system's value is overstated, and that the process in use by too many "professional journals" has become corrupted. Some may assert that there was concern that "bad science" might be published, but the perception of "good" and "bad" are subjective terms. What should matter most is if the work is based on good scientific observations and reproducible, and that it adds positively to the understanding of some phenomenon.

Highly respected researchers David H. Douglass, Professor of Physics, University of Rochester, New York, and John R. Christy, Distinguished Professor, Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama at Huntsville, provide a discussion here and here about how a paper they co-authored with others was delayed from print publication for nearly a year by the Journal while a challenge could be mounted by another group. The challenging paper (the review, acceptance and publication of which was accelerated by Journal staff) was published as a separate paper. The normal route would have a civil exchange of comments and responses to the original paper.Why? Douglass, et al., would have probably been afforded the closing remarks in the exchange. An addendum submitted to the Journal by Douglass was apparently "lost" by editors at the Journal of Climatology system.

Transparency? Ethics? What are those???

Read More:

Climategate documents archive:  http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php">http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

Christy & Douglass:

• http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/21/gaming-the-peer-review-system-ipcc-scientists-behaving-badly/
• http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/a_climatology_conspiracy.html

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-Suk (Hwang Woo-Suk)

26 January 2010: In our previous (updated) post, we discussed the IPCC's use of "grey literature," the non-peer reviewed literature produced by think tanks, and environmental "conservation" and "advocacy" groups. IPCC Chairman Pachauri has insisted the recent revelations about use of a WWF pamphlet was due to proper procedures not being followed, and indicating that it is, in essence, an isolated case.

It's become clear that Pachauri is either incorrect or has been mislead; the IPCC has used such citations frequently, including in the AR4, or 4th Assessment Report published in 2007.

On the EUReferendum site, the headline is "Not one, but two ... and counting" in reference to an additional use of the very same WWF reference discussed in our prior post about the apparently inaccurate pending demise of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. The first use of the 2005 WWF document ("An overview of glaciers, glacial retreat, and subsequent impacts in Nepal, India and China" [emphasis added]) was in Chapter 10 of the Working Group II report on Asia. Now the very same WWF report is seen referenced in Chapter 8 on Human Health, authored by a different team. And the scope of the WWF report is also, apparently, much greater than its title as the Chapter 8 authors apply its findings to "the Himalayas, Greenland, the European Alps, the Andes, Cordillera and East Africa" as well. That appears to be a substantial increase in scope.

We thank Canadian blogger, Donna Laframboise. Her research has identified many instances where WWF reports are the solitary citations for various IPCC claims, including including several which they consider "an agenda for action." Ms Laframbroise has also scratched the surface on citations to Greenpeace reports.

We're certain many people provide donations to the WWF (also known as the World Wide Fund for Nature) intending for good things to be done for nature. But the WWF is, and always has been, an advocacy group (see "How We Do This" at http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/). The IPCC calls itself a "scientific body." Environmental activists and certain politically active individuals often claim that oil companies, for example, cannot be trusted to generate unbiased reports. Why the double standard?

18 Jan 2010: The IPCC relies on the best available science, right? It appears increasingly as not. In late 2009, it was discovered that a graph used in its latest report (2007) had come from … Wikipedia!

We now have new revelations that the IPCC’s 2007 report used statements promoted via a 2005 report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental advocacy group. The WWF statement was, in turn, based on a non-peer reviewed 1999 article in New Scientist. The WWF report also included a basic math error in which the total glacial loss value was divided by 21 years, instead of 121. The now admittedly speculative comment to a reporter from one scientist, Syed Hasnain, was the IPCC’s sole basis for its “very likely” conclusion that all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035. The IPCC term “very likely” means a likelihood of greater than 90 per cent. One article, not peer reviewed, admittedly “speculative” equates to 90% likelihood? Some odds.

The coordinating lead author, the scientist having oversight of this IPCC report section, is one Professor Murari Lal who has reportedly admitted a significant lack of knowledge about the IPCC report section: "I am not an expert on glaciers and I have not visited the [Himalayan] region so I have to rely on credible published research. The comments in the WWF report were made by a respected Indian scientist…” It's hard to think of one non-peer reviewed article by a Journalist as "credible published research," and Prof. Hasnain’s apparently agrees: "The magic number of 2035 has not [been] mentioned in any research papers written by me, as no peer-reviewed journal will accept speculative figures."

Professor Lal has now publicly admitted to the UK's Daily Mail that he knew the statements had not been verified, and that it had been included intentionally to ">In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

Despite the IPPC's statement of principles that its reports should be neutral with respect to policy," it appears IPCC authors like solitary statements on impending doom, including those in the so-called “grey literature” as opposed to the real scientific reports from multiple independent researchers. It is also now much more clear that demonstrated knowledge in a particular field is not needed to oversee preparation of IPCC report chapters.

14 December 2009: Answers to many “chicken and egg” type climate questions could have a significant impact on our understanding of both the climate system and manmade global warming. One key question is if the Global Circulation ("climate") Models (GCMs) used by the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are correctly programmed to reflect scientific fact, or if the mechanism is merely assumed to be correct. In an invited talk today (16 December 2009) at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco, Dr. Roy Spencer from The University of Alabama in Huntsville will discuss that challenge of answering questions about cause and effect (also known as forcing and feedback) in the climate. Spencer’s interest is in using satellite data and a simple climate model to test the simulated feedback processes contained in climate models that are used to forecast global warming.

At present, modelers viewing satellite data see warm years and fewer clouds, then assume that warmth caused the clouds to dissipate. This would be a positive feedback in the climate system, which would theoretically lead to strong global warming. GCMs are programmed to reflect this assumption. Spencer argues that scientists can't measure feedbacks the way that people have traditionally tried to do it. “My question to them was, ‘How do you know it wasn’t fewer clouds that caused the warm years, rather than the other way around?’  It turns out they didn’t know. They couldn’t answer that question.”

“Feedbacks will determine whether the manmade portion of global warming ends up being catastrophic or barely measurable,” Spencer said recently.

One problem is the simplicity of the climate models. Because cloud systems are so complex and so poorly understood, all of the climate models used by the IPCC use greatly simplified cloud parameters to represent clouds. But the calculations that set those parameters are based on assumed cause-and-effect relationships. Those assumptions might be working in the wrong direction, Spencer said. “What we have found is that cloud cover variations causing temperature changes dominate the satellite record, and give the illusion of positive feedback.”

Using satellite observations interpreted with a simple model, Spencer’s data support negative feedback (or cooling) better than they support positive feedback. “This critical component in global warming theory – cloud feedback – is impossible to measure directly in the real climate system,” Spencer said. “We haven’t figured out a good way to separate cause and effect, so we can’t measure cloud feedback directly. And if we don’t know what the feedbacks are, we are just guessing at how much impact humans will have on climate change.

“I’m trying to spread the word: Let’s go back to basics and look at what we can and cannot do with measurements of the real climate system to validate both climate models and their predictions.”

A former NASA scientist, Spencer is a principal research scientist in University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Earth System Science Center.

For more information:
Dr. Roy Spencer, (256) 961-7960,     This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phillip Gentry, (256) 961-7618,     This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We are pleased to provide a mirror post to Dr Roy W Spencer's invited presentation on estimating cloud feedbacks from satellite measurements available here in PDF form. These are copies of Dr Spencer's draft slides for the presentation. The presentation title is: On the Diagnosis of Radiative Feedback in the Presence of Unknown Radiative Forcing ... or ... Observational Evidence that Cloud Feedbacks could be Negative, Not Positive

This is a highly technical presentation, and appears to build on a paper ("Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration," in PDF format) published by Spencer & Braswell in the Journal of Climate in early 2008.

The evidence from Spencer's research suggests that climate system feedbacks appear to be negative (causing cooling), while most if not all GCMs now in use rely on positive ("warming") feedbacks for their projections of future temperatures and other climate conditions.

14 December 2009: We hear about this one regularly, usually referencing some kind of trend, a comparison to an average over some period of time, or a reference to the current year being the xth lowest. The difficulty with on-going predictions of an "ice-free Arctic" is that, in fact, the extent of Arctic sea ice hit a low in 2007. That's two years ago! As of this writing (12/14/09) Arctic sea ice extent is nearly 11.5 million sq km, up more than 100% from the summer low of 5.25 million sq km. There really is no trend in these recent data from year to year. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind...

1. We only have satellite records since about 1979. That's 30 years, not even half the current US life expectancy. So, those comments about any given year's ice extent being among the three or four lowest "ever," might make one think how short "ever" really is. Thirty years isn't even a blip in geological timescales. It's impossible to gauge -- with real accuracy and reliability -- the values for ice extent for the last relatively warm period, the 1930s and 1940s, much less any time prior to the Industrial Revolution. Various satellites and instruments have been used, so we cannot directly compare data from on to another.

2. Satellite measurements tell us nothing about the cause of warming. If warming now is predominately natural, for instance, sea ice would be decreasing anyway, just as it would be if the recent warming were due to some combination of anthropogenic ("man-made") and natural factors. Thus, analysis is very hard and relies on very limited data. It becomes essentially impossible to rule out natural factors for Arctic sea ice extent variations.

3. Averages are statistical constructs from a range of data points. Averages, by their very nature, require that some measurements be above the it, while others are below it.

4. Predictions from limited data must be viewed with caution. Because we have nothing to compare against for other warm periods, regardless of which was warmer, we have only assumptions on which to base predictions. It would be somewhat akin to predicting when and how much rain will fall each week next spring based on yesterday's snowfall, or lack thereof.

5. Like all other parts of the world, the Arctic has seasons. This includes "summer" when ice melts. By mid-September, Arctic sea ice has typically reached its minimum for the year and begins to quickly rebuild to a typical March peak. If, for example, we look at just recent years of AMSR-E satellite data (2003-present), which provides a consistent measurement base, it's easy to see that:

• Arctic ice extent runs an average winter peak of 14.3 million square kilometers (sq km).
• The average summer low is 5.3 million sq km.

Here are the values for Arctic Ice Extent since 2003 (all in million sq km):

Notes:

• Arctic sea ice extent has reached 11.3 million square kilometers and is still GROWING in 2009!
• The winter peaks for 2008 and 2009 were among the HIGHEST in the period since 2003.
• Arctic sea ice has NOT been in a continuous downward trend since even 2003, and since 2007 we've trended up. Statistics show there is little variation in the record.
• Precise sea ice records against which to compare are very limited, and even in that period we have multiple instruments, each measures sea ice a little differently, and overlaps in the records between instruments is also limited. Data from one instrument cannot be directly compared to that from others.