Climate: LNG in B.C. vs Alberta tarsands

[OldBlackDog]

2 new papers on the ‘pause’

by Judith Curry

Two new papers were published last week of relevance to the hiatus.


For background, see my invited presentation to the American Physical Society on this topic: Causes and implications of the pause.

First, lets take a look at the ‘spin’ surrounding this issue and these papers:

Climate Central: Looming warming spurt could reshape climate debate
Scientific American: The pause in global warming is finally explained.
Quartz: Scientists now know why global warming has slowed down and its not good news for us
The titles pretty much speak for the articles: The inference is that hiatus has now been explained; and that it should end soon with a warming ‘burst.’

And now for the spin-free zone. Lets take a look at these two papers and see what we can actually infer and and learn from them.

Quantifying the likelihood of a continued hiatus in global warming

C. D. Roberts, M. D. Palmer, D. McNeall & M. Collins

Abstract. Since the end of the twentieth century, global mean surface temperature has not risen as rapidly as predicted by global climate models (GCMs). This discrepancy has become known as the global warming ‘hiatus’ and a variety of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the observed slowdown in warming. Focusing on internally generated variability, we use pre-industrial control simulations from an observationally constrained ensemble of GCMs and a statistical approach to evaluate the expected frequency and characteristics of variability-driven hiatus periods and their likelihood of future continuation. Given an expected forced warming trend of ~0.2 K per decade, our constrained ensemble of GCMs implies that the probability of a variability-driven 10-year hiatus is ~10%, but less than 1% for a 20-year hiatus. Although the absolute probability of a 20-year hiatus is small, the probability that an existing 15-year hiatus will continue another five years is much higher (up to 25%). Therefore, given the recognized contribution of internal climate variability to the reduced rate of global warming during the past 15 years, we should not be surprised if the current hiatus continues until the end of the decade. Following the termination of a variability-driven hiatus, we also show that there is an increased likelihood of accelerated global warming associated with release of heat from the sub-surface ocean and a reversal of the phase of decadal variability in the Pacific Ocean.

Published in Nature [link].

The paper is further explained by

Co-author Doub McNeall’s blog post
University of Exeter press release
JC comment: I think this paper is a useful contribution, and I have no concerns/questions about the methodology they used. The interesting result is that once you have a 15 year hiatus (something that is already pretty unlikely), then according to climate models, the probability of it continuing another 5 years is 25%.

Atlantic and Pacific multidecadal oscillations and Northern Hemisphere temperatures

Byron A. Steinman, Michael E. Mann, Sonya K. Miller

Abstract. The recent slowdown in global warming has brought into question the reliability of climate model projections of future temperature change and has led to a vigorous debate over whether this slowdown is the result of naturally occurring, internal variability or forcing external to Earth’s climate system. To address these issues, we applied a semi-empirical approach that combines climate observations and model simulations to estimate Atlantic- and Pacific-based internal multidecadal variability (termed “AMO” and “PMO,” respectively). Using this method, the AMO and PMO are found to explain a large proportion of internal variability in Northern Hemisphere mean temperatures. Competition between a modest positive peak in the AMO and a substantially negative-trending PMO are seen to produce a slowdown or “false pause” in warming of the past decade.

Published in Science [link].

The paper is explained by:

Michael Mann at RealClimate: Climate Oscillations and the Climate Faux Pause.
The press release from Penn State: Ocean Oscillations caused false pause in global warming.
JC question to Michael Mann: How can the pause be both ‘false’ and caused by something?

Bob Tisdale critiques this paper in two posts at WUWT:

Michael Mann and company redefine multidecadal variability and wind up illustrating climate model failings.
Another couple of notes about Michael Mann’s faux pause post and Steinman et al. 2015.
Punchline: The Steinman et al. (2015) analyses do not explain the slowdown and stoppage of surface warming in the Southern Hemisphere…and, as noted in the earlier post, they had to redefine multidecadal temperature variability to try to explain it in the Northern Hemisphere.

JC comment: I agree with Bob Tisdale’s comments on this paper. I do not regard the Steinman et al. paper to be a useful contribution owing to methodological problems in ‘reinventing’ the AMO and PDO indices; this issue was discussed in these previous posts:

Critique of Mann’s new paper characterizing the AMO
Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century
Interestingly, they create a new index the NMO, which is the average of their AMO and PDO; sort of like a ‘poor man’s stadium wave.

JC reflections

I found the Palmer et al. paper to be interesting, in that given a 15 year hiatus, that the models predict a 25% chance of 5 more years. My take on how the pause will play out is summarized in the stadium wave post: I expect that the natural variability will contribute to a continuation of the hiatus into the 2030’s, with solar and volcanoes being a wild card.

With regards to the Steinman and Mann paper, they state in the Penn State press release:

Using a wide variety of climate simulations, the researchers found that the AMO and PMO are not significantly correlated; they are not part of the global “stadium wave” oscillation, as some researchers had claimed.

Their arguments are based on the assumption that model simulations provide ‘correct’ estimates of both the forced signal and the correct level of intrinsic multidecadal variability. The Kravtsov et al. paper shows that this assumption is not justified.

Brilliant to use climate models that don’t correctly simulate internal variability, particularly the PDO, to claim that the AMO and PDO aren’t correlated and not part of a stadium wave oscillation. /sarc The stadium wave paper showed that it is the lag that gives rise to maximum correlation between the AMO and PDO. Steinman and Mann conclude that the linear detrending is likely to cause artificially high observed (lagged) correlations between the AMO and PDO in the stadium wave.

So where does all this leave us? Internal variability only partly explains the pause – how big that part is remains somewhat unclear, but there is growing evidence that it is the major cause of the pause. The critical issues are how long will the pause last, inability of climate models to simulate a pause beyond 20 yrs with increasing CO2, and what will happen once the internal variability flips to a warming situation.

Is there a looming ‘warming spurt’ at the ‘end’ of the pause? Maybe, but it depends on what is going on with the sun. Many solar scientists expect a coming solar cooling. How increasing CO2, solar cooling and internal variability will play out in terms of influencing the global climate over the next several decades is of central importance to our understanding of the climate system, which still has substantial uncertainties (no matter what the IPCC, EPA etc say).

Bottom line: The pause in global warming is NOT finally explained.

 

[GLG]

A few years old but still good

Uploaded on Sep 9, 2009
http://www.ted.com Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change.

[DjeIpjhAqsM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjeIpjhAqsM&feature=iv&src_vid=JrJJxn-gCdo&annotation_id=annotation_1114854983

 

[GLG]

2 new papers on the ‘pause’

by Judith Curry

Is that one of the people that is being investigated by US Congress for the fossil fuel influence in her testimony to congress?
Serious stuff right there.... Perhaps she should "paws" with the climate denial till she can clear her name.

 

[ClayoquotKid]

Is that one of the people that is being investigated by US Congress for the fossil fuel influence in her testimony to congress?
Serious stuff right there.... Perhaps she should "paws" with the climate denial till she can clear her name.

"Clear her name" ?!?

What happened to sticking with the science?

 

[GLG]

"Clear her name" ?!?

What happened to sticking with the science?

Nice try...

[Dj0PYdl99tI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj0PYdl99tI&t=498

 

[GLG]

CK I'm OK with talking about the science are you and if so what about the cherry pick?

A very interesting debate is going on over on Judith Curry website in regards to the Monchton, Soon etal paper.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/03/01/lessons-from-the-irreducibly-simple-kerfuffle/

I'l point out two things that have not been addressed by the Monckton and his simple climate model. So does the paper have value? Yes it does if these problems are addressed.

Before I get to that lets set this up....
We have climate deniers, climate skeptics and climate alarmists.
It seems to me that climate deniers refuse to believe that CO2 has any effect on temperature. Some also refuse to believe that the earth is getting warmer (hoax theory) or if it is, it's natural (no mechanism, it just is).
We then have Climate skeptics that accept greenhouse gas theory but argue that the sensitivity is low and therefore it will not be a problem for many years to come. (100, 200 years perhaps)
Last we have climate alarmist that accept IPCC at face value and all the science that goes with it.

Next we need to know what the paper means. I'll just copy paste from Judiths website.



The important part is Climate Sensitivity this is the bone of contention between climate skeptics and climate alarmists. Climate deniers just refuse that there is any effect CO2 has on temp (doh).... This is important when we try to calculate the effect that doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere and what the temperature will be.

For this we will use Rud Istvan's explanation on how the math works.





Now for the part I see wrong with the paper.
No explanation as to why Monckton used these 2 numbers in his calculations to get his sensitivity.
OBS: HadCRUT4, 63 yr at (hidden number)
OBS: RSS, 17 yr at (hidden number but looks like zero: OBD has this in his sig line)
Average is 0.09 (looks like a weighted average)

So what problem do I see here?

Is this not just a cherry pick of the data to get that 0.09 to make the rest of his calculations work?
Why use 63 years when you could use 30 years? The reason is that if you want to lower this number you go back further in time to before things started heating up. It's all about the average and the amount of samples.
here is an example. 1+2+3+4+5+6 (60 years) avg is 3.5 or 4+5+6 (last 30 years) avg is 5
So now we see how moving the starting point has an effect on the number to use in the Monckton calculations.
Next there is the 17 yr number. Why is this number used? Why not 20 of 30 yr. Well this is the RSS satellite data and it only goes back so far. But if you use all the data you get the number .125 and not zero. Again Monckton needed this number to be zero or his calculation (average) would not work out and it would then mess up his final model. That would have put his sensitivity higher and he can't have that can he.

So if Monckton want's to fix this then his model will have value as a "on the back of an envelope" quick calculation that would be great for anyone that want's to get an idea what doubling of CO2 means in the future. I would like to see it in MS Excel so as new information comes in the we could see the results and when we could expect a 2C world.

So far from what I'm reading is that the climate deniers are cheering Monckton and they don't see that the model needs CO2 to behave as a greenhouse gas and that is at odds with their hoax theory. (there not quick on the uptake) The climate skeptics are looking at it and have reservations on it's value. And the Climate alarmists are dismissing it as junk that should never have made it past peer review.

My guess is that the paper will get retracted so that the inputs can be corrected and we will see if the conclusions are still the same. If not then the paper goes to the dustbin of other failed ideas from the Lord Bunken.

So OBD an CK what are your thoughts?
Is either of you up to the task of commenting?
You both claim to know something, time to prove it.

 

[GLG]

Or how about this?
[cJIW5yVk__w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJIW5yVk__w

 

[OldBlackDog]

Naomi Oreskes, THE Merchant of Doubt herself, uses tactics of the tobacco lobby

Naomi Orsekes’ big intellectual contribution to the climate debate is her fantasy that skeptics copy tactics from the tobacco lobby. It’s a trick to reframe real criticism — Dr A spots a real error, but Oreskes waves the “Tobacco tactic!” red flag. Stop the conversation!

Not only are these ad hom attacks tactics as old as the stone age, bone obvious, and used in every political hot-potato debate, but “tobacco tactics” are the stock and trade of Prof Naomi Oreskes. She’s make a whole career out of mimicking the tobacco industry.

Oreskes wrote an entire book designed to denigrate scientists based on tenuous links on unrelated topics with 20 year old documents. She is The Merchant of Doubt — it’s what she sells — “doubts” about the motivation of skeptical scientists. Her fantasies about skeptics using tobacco tactics is pure psychological projection. Perhaps she isn’t aware?

In a science debate about the climate, the only things that matter are evidence and reasoning about the climate. Those who can’t point out flaws in the science debate launch personal attacks from the gutter instead. What has tobacco got to do with Earth’s Climate? It’s not a forcing or a feedback, but the smoke sure clouds the public discussion.

A. O. SCOTT, NY Times, reviews the movie about her book and unwittingly writes a parody of Oreskes:

The pro-tobacco strategy also called for smearing critics and invoking noble ideals like personal freedom against inconvenient facts like nicotine addiction.

Oreskes “smears critics” and invokes the noble ideal that believers in man-made climate change are doing it to help the poor and the planet. That doesn’t fit the facts, where believers get paid three thousand times more than skeptics, and don’t care when the poor starve, or when their pet projects end up chopping and frying the wildlife they were meant to save. Hey, accidents happen, but it’s the response (or lack of) to the unintended consequences that telegraphs their real intentions.

The reference is to the long campaign to obfuscate and undermine attempts to make the public aware of the dangers of cigarettes. As early as the 1950s, tobacco companies were aware — thanks to their own research — that their products were hazardous and habit forming, but they waged a prolonged and frequently successful campaign to suppress and blur the facts. Their tactics included sending dubiously credentialed experts out into the world to disguise dishonesty as reasonable doubt. “We just don’t know.” “The science is complicated.” “We need more research.”

Who suppresses and blurs the facts in the climate debate? Could that be people who talk about tobacco instead of clouds and humidity?

Who sends out dubiously credentialed experts? Sounds like the Nobel Prize winners, who got “Peace” prizes because they weren’t smart enough to win a Physics prize (like these skeptics did). Or worse, is it like people who didn’t even win a Nobel Peace Prize but like to pretend they did? Is that dubious enough?

As for telling the world the cop-out “the science is complicated” — it’s not what skeptics do, instead it’s the alarmist modus operandi. The science is so “complicated” only certified approved climate experts can see the future, and riff raff like brain surgeons, nuclear physicists, and Fourier mathematicians are too stupid to be able to form an opinion on something as complex as a climate model. Besides, thousands of these independent “non-climate-experts” are being paid by Phillip Morris to seed doubts. You’ve never seen a conspiracy theory as big as this one.

What’s remarkable is that Orsekes is playing the weakest of hands, yet some journalists, columnists, and “scientists” can’t see through it.

From a post I wrote about The Merchant of Doubt in 2012:

Oreskes, the Queen of Climate Smear, ignores the big money, has no evidence, throws names

The skeptics seed doubts by questioning the evidence and pointing to contrary results (isn’t this known as “discussion”?). Oreskes seeds doubts by digging through biographies, analyzing indirect payments of minor amounts, hunting through unrelated topics and tenuous associations from 20 year old contracts.

Oreskes can name virtually no significant funding for skeptics. Skeptics are almost all unpaid volunteers, working out of professional and patriotic duty, appalled by the illogical, anti-science sentiments of people like Oreskes.
The enormous “vested interests” are well over a thousand to one in favor of alarmism as measured by funding, yet Oreskes has not even considered them. The largest proactive skeptical organization (Heartland) has a budget that is one hundredth of Greenpeace and WWF’s combined. Funding for alarmist research since 1990 is at least $79 billion, and probably a lot higher. Funding for skeptical research is so small, no one can add it up. The oil giants like Shell and BP mostly support alarmism and carbon markets. The global carbon market was worth $176 bn in 2011, about the same as the global wheat trade, and the renewables investments added up to $243 bn in 2010. These are very large amounts of vested interest. Because Oreskes is blind to the real money in the debate we can only assume she is an activist rather than a historian.
She resorts to twenty year old documents about tobacco funding to smear by association because she has so little real evidence of actual funding or misbehavior of skeptics. As it happens, Fred Singer was never directly paid by a tobacco company, has never doubted that smoking causes cancer, but corrected a scientific statistical error in a paper on passive smoking. He deserves thanks. Oreskes owes him an apology.
While skeptical scientists always criticize the scientific claims of the Climate-Fear Lobby, Oreskes can’t fight back on that front, because she’s completely out of her depth. She wrote that a pH of 6.0 denotes neutrality (p. 67) and that Beryllium is a heavy metal (p. 29) and she blames “Oxygen-15″ in cigarette smoke for being the cause of lung cancer, though she could not explain how this radioactive isotope is generated in cigarettes. She doesn’t realize it has a half life of 122 seconds. No wonder she trawls through the gutter instead of debating a guy like Fred Singer on the science. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Political assault on climate skeptics?

Watch: MIT’s Dr. Richard Lindzen on Fox News: ‘The whole thing is fairly absurd’ – ‘We are demonizing a chemical — a molecule essential to life – CO2′


Lindzen: 'These guys think saying climate changes, saying it gets warmer or colder by a few tenths of a degree should be taken as evidence

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4097599281001/political-assault-on-climate-skeptics/?#sp=show-clips

 

[GLG]

Naomi Oreskes, THE Merchant of Doubt herself, uses tactics of the tobacco lobby
.

Thanks OBD for the copy and paste......
After reading it I wondered...
I re-read it again and now I have doubts about the new movie coming out.

Thanks OBD you are a perfect merchant....... well maybe not....

 

[GLG]

Political assault on climate skeptics?

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4097599281001/political-assault-on-climate-skeptics/?#sp=show- his lips moving but nothing up stairs

Well OBD I suppose we should have some doubt then about climate change because fox news found one of only 3 scientist in the world that is a climate change denier. Makes you wonder... makes you doubt.... Makes you, OBD a merchant of doubt.

97% of the worlds climate scientist have confirmed man-made climate change is real and it dangerous.

If your child had a fever would you just ignore 97% of the doctors and pretend that it was not a problem?

 

[GLG]

Science in a video... climate science from the 97% side.
[C2ngavUkmis]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ngavUkmis

 

[OldBlackDog]

Merchants of ‘smear’ movie slanders eminent Physicist Dr. Fred Singer – Singer Fires Back!

Dr. Singer: 'I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are confident that we will prevail.'

'Oreskes book “Merchants of Doubt” contains a number of serious scientific errors; also, it is not in accordance with the kind of scholarship expected from an academic historian. Instead of primary sources, she relies on secondary and even tertiary sources who have obvious, demonstrated agenda.'


By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotMarch 6, 2015 5:36 PM with 1 comment

Climate Depot Exclusive

Also Sent by Registered Mail to Robert Kenner Films,

134 So. Norton St, Suite A, Los Angeles, CA 90004

Dear Mr. Kenner, March 6, 2015

I am writing this letter on the advice of my attorneys, who suggested that a friendly letter from me to you might avoid having to take legal action.

I’ve been informed that your new documentary “Merchants of Doubt” refers to me as “Liar for Hire”. If correct, that is a very serious accusation which of course cannot be backed up in any way.

The word “Liar” implies not only telling something that is not true, but telling an untruth knowingly. So even people who disagree with me on climate-change science (and such people do exist) would have to prove that I don’t really believe what I say – that I am saying it in order to mislead.

The word “hire” implies that I am being paid directly, i.e., that I am on salary by some entity such as an oil company — or that I am taking money from a source that is supported predominately by such money and that I am aware of it. We would judge that hire is also very difficult to demonstrate.

I have some experience with libel suits; thanks to Kirkland & Ellis, we prevailed against an environmental lawyer, a groupie of then-Senator Al Gore. It took a lot of my time and was costly. I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are confident that we will prevail.

My good friend, the late J. Gordon Edwards, professor of entomology at San Jose State University, sued the New York Times for libel and prevailed in a jury trial. The NYT had referred to him as someone who is being paid to lie. We think there will be no problem to demonstrate “malice.” (That is, “knowledge that [the libelous statement] was false or [made] with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”)

Mind you, I am not now accusing you personally of malice, but it is rather too bad that you got mixed up with Naomi Oreskes. She claims to be a historian of science; unfortunately, she has only demonstrated that she’s a great polemicist with a rather well-defined bias. Her book “Merchants of Doubt” contains a number of serious scientific errors; also, it is not in accordance with the kind of scholarship expected from an academic historian. Instead of primary sources, she relies on secondary and even tertiary sources who have obvious, demonstrated agenda.

In her book, she attacks four physicists, three of whom were quite distinguished and are now deceased. I have felt it my obligation to defend their reputations posthumously.

I hope that you will respond positively to this letter and suggest ways in which the situation raised by your documentary can be rectified. Your reputation based on your past work is excellent and we should do everything possible to maintain it that way.

Sincerely yours,

Fred Singer

 

[OldBlackDog]

Dr. Fred Singer’s Original Critique of Naomi Oreskes book:

Merchants of Smear: Oreskes and Conway

SFS/ 6/16/2011

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/science_and_smear_merchants.html

Professor Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California in San Diego, claims to be a science historian. One can readily demonstrate that she is neither a credible scientist nor a credible historian; the best evidence is right there in her recent book, “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,” coauthored with Eric Conway. Her science is faulty; her historical procedures are thoroughly unprofessional. She is, however, an accomplished polemicist, who has found time for world lecture tours, promoting her book and her ideological views, while being paid by the citizens of California. Her book tries to smear four senior physicists – of whom I am the only surviving one. I view it as my obligation to defend the reputations of my late colleagues and good friends against her libelous charges.

Oreskes is well known from her 2004 article in Science that claimed a complete scientific consensus about manmade global warming; it launched her career as a polemicist. Her claim was based on examining the abstracts of some 900 published papers. Unfortunately, she missed more than 11,000 papers through an incorrect Internet search. She published a discreet “Correction”; yet she has never retracted her ideologically based claim about ‘consensus.’ Al Gore still quotes her result, which has been contradicted by several, more competent studies [by Peiser, Schulte, Bray and von Storch; Lemonick in SciAm, etc].

Turning first to her science, her book discusses acidification, as measured by the pH coefficient. She states that a pH of 6.0 denotes neutrality [page 67, MoD]. Let’s be charitable and chalk this off to sloppy proofreading.

Elsewhere in the book [page 29], she claims that beryllium is a “heavy metal” and tries to back this up with references. I wonder if she knows that the atomic weight of beryllium is only 9, compared to, say, uranium, which is mostly 238. A comparison of these two numbers should tell anyone which one is the heavy metal.

Her understanding of the Greenhouse Effect is plain comical; she posits that CO2 is “trapped” in the troposphere — and that’s why the stratosphere is cooling. Equally wrong is her understanding of what climate models are capable of; she actually believes that they can predict forest fires in Russia, floods in Pakistan and China – nothing but calamities everywhere — and tells climate scientists in a recent lecture: I If the predictions of climate models have come true, then why don’t people believe them? [see http://tinyurl.com/3wrvon2] Perhaps because people are not gullible.

But the most amazing science blunder in her book is her hypothesis about how cigarette smoking causes cancer [page 28]. She blames it on oxygen-15, a radioactive isotope of the common oxygen-16. I wonder if she knows that the half-life of O-15 is only 122 seconds. Of course, she does not spell out how O-15 gets into cigarette smoke, whether it is in the paper or in the tobacco itself. If the latter, does she believe that the O-15 is created by the burning of tobacco? If so, this would be a fantastic discovery, worthy of an alchemist. Perhaps someone should make her aware of the difference between radio-active and ‘reactive’ oxygen; the two words do sound similar.

I am sure one would find more examples of scientific ignorance in a careful reading of the rest of the book. But why bother?

Having demonstrated her scientific ‘expertise,’ let’s turn to her historical expertise. Any careful historian would use primary sources and would at least try to interview the scientists she proceeds to smear. There is no trace of that in Oreskes’ book. She has never taken the trouble to interview Dr. Robert Jastrow, founder of the NASA-Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and later Director of the Mt. Wilson Astronomical Observatory and founding president of the renowned George C Marshall Institute in Washington, DC. I can find no evidence that she ever interviewed Dr. William Nierenberg, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who actually lived in San Diego and was readily accessible. And I doubt if she ever even met Dr. Frederick Seitz, the main target of her venom.

Seitz was the most distinguished of the group of physicists that are attacked in the book. He had served as President of the US National Academy of Sciences and of the American Physical Society, and later as President of Rockefeller University. He had been awarded numerous honorary degrees from universities here and abroad, as well as the prestigious National Medal of Science from the White House.

Instead of seeking first-hand information — in the tradition of historical research — Oreskes relies on secondary or tertiary sources, quoting people who agree with her ideology. A good example of this is her discussion of Acid Rain and of the White House panel (under Reagan, in 1982) chaired by Bill Nierenberg, on which I also served. Here she relies on what she was told by Dr. Gene Likens, whose research funding depends on portraying acid rain as a very serious environmental problem. It most definitely is not – and indeed, it disappeared from view as soon as Congress passed legislation designed to reduce the effect.

An amazing discovery: I found that Oreskes gives me credit (or blames me) for inventing ‘cap-and-trade,’ the trading of emission rights under a fixed cap of total emissions [see pp. 91-93]. I had never claimed such a priority because I honestly don’t know if this idea had been published anywhere. It seemed like the natural thing to suggest — in order to reduce total cost, once an emission cap had been set. My example involved smelters that emit SO2 copiously versus electric utilities that burn coal containing some sulfur. I even constructed what amounts to a ‘supply curve’ in which the bulk of the emission control is borne initially by the lowest-cost units.

Of course, Likens and some others on the panel, antagonistic to coal-burning electric utilities, objected to having my discussion included in the panel report. Nierenberg solved the problem neatly by putting my contribution into a signed Appendix, thereby satisfying some panel members who did not want be responsible for a proposal that might let some electric utilities off the hook.

We have established so far that Oreskes is neither a scientist of any sort nor a careful professional historian. She is, however, a “pop-psychologist.” It seems she has figured out what motivates the four senior physicists she libels in her book; it is “anti-communism.” Really! This is not only stated explicitly but she also identifies them throughout as “Cold Warriors.”

Well, now we know at least where Oreskes stands in the political spectrum.

*****************************************************************

Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer pioneered upper-atmosphere ozone measurements with rockets and later devised the satellite instrument used to monitor ozone. He is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service (now NESDIS-NOAA). He is a Fellow of the Heartland Institute and the Independent Institute. His book “Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1500 Years” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) presents the evidence for natural climate cycles of warming and cooling and became a NY Times best-seller. He is the organizer of NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change, editor of its 2008 report “Nature – Not Human Activity – Rules the Climate” <http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf>, and coauthor of “Climate Change Reconsidered,” published in 2009, with conclusions contrary to those of the IPCC <http://www.nipccreport.org/>. As a reviewer of IPCC reports, he presumably shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore and 2000 others.

 

[GLG]

Another science in a video from the 97% consensus side...
[aqmw46Q4LdE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqmw46Q4LdE

 

[GLG]

Merchants of ‘smear’ movie slanders eminent Physicist Dr. Fred Singer – Singer Fires Back!

Dr. Singer: 'I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are confident that we will prevail.'

You go Fred.... we know you are for hire. I would be good to get it out in court.
Show the world who butters your toast at 5000 a month...

http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/(1-15-2012) 2012 Heartland Budget (2).pdf

 

[GLG]

Dr. Fred Singer’s Original Critique of Naomi Oreskes book:

Merchants of Smear: Oreskes and Conway

SFS/ 6/16/2011

http://www.american dink.com/2011/06/science_and_smear_merchants.html



Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer pioneered upper-atmosphere ozone measurements with rockets and later devised the satellite instrument used to monitor ozone. He is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service (now NESDIS-NOAA). He is a Fellow of the Heartland Institute and the Independent Institute. His book “Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1500 Years” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) presents the evidence for natural climate cycles of warming and cooling and became a NY Times best-seller. He is the organizer of NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change, editor of its 2008 report “Nature – Not Human Activity – Rules the Climate” <http: www.sepp.org="" publications="" nipcc_final.pdf="">, and coauthor of “Climate Change Reconsidered,” published in 2009, with conclusions contrary to those of the IPCC <http: www.nipccreport.org="">. As a reviewer of IPCC reports, he presumably shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore and 2000 others.

Fred Singer for hire if the price is right....

If he follows through and sues I'll pledge $100 to the climate science defense fund
http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/

I suspect he is just blowing smoke.....

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[GLG]

Merchants of ‘smear’ movie slanders eminent Physicist Dr. Fred Singer – Singer Fires Back!

Dr. Singer: 'I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are confident that we will prevail.'


The word “Liar” implies not only telling something that is not true, but telling an untruth knowingly. So even people who disagree with me on climate-change science (and such people do exist) would have to prove that I don’t really believe what I say – that I am saying it in order to mislead.

The word “hire” implies that I am being paid directly, i.e., that I am on salary by some entity such as an oil company — or that I am taking money from a source that is supported predominately by such money and that I am aware of it. We would judge that hire is also very difficult to demonstrate.

I have some experience with libel suits; thanks to Kirkland & Ellis, we prevailed against an environmental lawyer, a groupie of then-Senator Al Gore. It took a lot of my time and was costly. I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are confident that we will prevail.

Fred Singer

Well I wonder what this other suit that old smokey Fred is talking about. Might be a good story if we could only find out...... Well I guess the Internet never forgets there OBD and neither do I..... neither do I OBD... some team you have there.

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/revelle-gore-singer-lindzen
The Cosmos Myth

Did S. Fred Singer trick Revelle into an association to achieve an agenda? When the sequence of events is examined, the intentions seem to implicate his agenda. "The energy companies reportedly began taking steps to prevent the public from believing that humans are warming the planet" ... "as early as the 1980's". It looks like even then, Singer was working with Michaels, Balling, Ellsaesser and Lindzen.

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT THE REVELLE-GORE STORY

The 1991 Cosmos paper, “What to do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap,” is not “Revelle’s article.” That is a myth, perpetuated at first by a few participants and now being spread by the many people they have misled. Revelle did not write it.
Revelle, the grandfather of modern global warming science, former Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and former science adviser to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, was deeply trusted as an objective, careful and honorable scientist. He was worthy of that trust.

As early as the 1980s, the energy industry began taking steps to prevent the public from believing that humans are warming the planet. Revelle’s belief until his death that global average warming in the 21st Century would probably fall in the range of one to three degrees Celsius, a position well-known to his colleagues, held great sway in science circles and policy bodies. Revelle's student at Harvard, Al Gore, was gaining public attention through the 1980s and he was passionate about what Roger had led him to see.
The Cosmos article states that warming in today’s century will be “well below normal year-to-year variation.” This can only be taken to mean less than about 0.2 degrees Celsius, ten times less than Revelle’s actual belief. How did this happen?
The Cosmos article is S. Fred Singer’s work. Singer may urge that Revelle was a co-author technically, simply because he allowed his name to be used. Since publication of the Cosmos article, however, Singer has been shown to be the sole author of the major points of the paper, including the constantly quoted conclusion, by virtue of prior publication by Singer alone in the journal ES&T. The evidence is found in the linked documents below.
Revelle’s actual, participatory, authorship cannot be demonstrated beyond a single review of the galley proof, a lengthy session for Roger at a time when his physical ability to pay attention for many minutes was severely eroded. About the article and this session, Revelle's long-time secretary, Ms. Christa Beran, remembers in a 1993 sworn affidavit: "[…] Roger had been very reluctant to be involved in this enterprise. […] I know it was not one of Roger's priorities. [...] I do not remember seeing any review by Roger of any text by Dr. Singer before a day in February 1991 when he came to Roger's office. [...] I am sure that Roger and I together never worked on the article [...] After a series of unsuccessful attempts to get Roger to work on this document, Dr. Singer must have decided that the only way he was going to get this thing done was to come in person.”

Evidence:

• Christa Beran Affidavit, 1993
• S. Fred Singer Deposition, 1993 (6.65 MB)
• Justin Lancaster Affidavit, 1992
• Singer ES&T article conclusion
• Singer ES&T article -- FULL
• Cosmos -- Singer's Same Conclusion (Who's Author?)
• Revelle said "one to three" degrees Celsius
• Normal yr-to-yr variation is less than 0.2 degrees C
• The Cosmos Galley Proofs
• Cosmos article as published

THE TRUTH

1. Revelle did not write the Cosmos article.
2. S. Fred Singer claimed sole authorship of the major statements of the article in his ES&T paper months before he put the finishing touches on his Cosmos Masterpiece.
3. If S. Fred Singer is sole author of this material, then Revelle cannot be an author.
4. If S. Fred Singer is not sole author of this material, then he has admitted in his deposition to ethical concern about one author publishing under his own sole authorship material that was co-authored.
5. Revelle appears not to have had full information --- not about the ES&T publication and not about the many energy-industry agents who were busy at work here.

more at this link http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/revelle-gore-singer-lindzen

snip to this part
This shameful manipulation and exploitation of the life and teaching of a great scientist and humanitarian cannot stand. For my friend and colleague, for all those who have been misled by this Cosmos myth, and for the honor of a courageous and committed politician and journalist, it is important that I hereby fully rescind and repudiate my 1994 retraction and make available the evidence that supports my statements.
J. Justin Lancaster



So OBD this is the team that you think has the moral high ground and Fred Singer as one of your leaders. See those other names popping up there OBD ???? looks like the whole team less "Soon"

Fred Singer using a man on his death bed in the service of doubt a true merchant in the worst sense of the word and for what, money? What a disgrace from team 3%

 

[OldBlackDog]

I,am sure he would like to know it.
Why don't you send him an email and tell him so.
I am sure you can send it via the site I took it from.

You go Fred.... we know you are for hire. I would be good to get it out in court.
Show the world who butters your toast at 5000 a month...

http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/(1-15-2012) 2012 Heartland Budget (2).pdf

 

[OldBlackDog]

Merchants of Smear

Conspiracy theorists make an ad hominem attack film about climate-change doubters.
Why don’t more Americans favor environmental regulations? Why don’t more politicians take action to stop global warming? Merchants of Doubt, a new documentary based on the 2010 book by historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, posits an answer: A clique of mercenary scientists have published deliberately misleading studies meant to raise doubts about dangerous man-made global warming. They sow confusion on behalf of their nefarious masters in the fossil-fuel industry.

Merchants of Doubt is conspiracy theory on the order of The Matrix or The X-Files, except that it is presented as non-fiction. Far-right extremists once evoked a Communist conspiracy to put fluoride in the water supply; now we have the progressive Left evoking a capitalist conspiracy to put dangerous doubts in the idea supply.

Consider Merchants of Doubt the Bulveristic sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore’s 2007 “documentary” wasn’t altogether evenhanded, but at least it paid homage to the ideal of presenting “scientific data” about climate change. It aimed to convince the public on rational grounds. Sony Pictures Classics’ Merchants of Doubt (which opens today in American theaters, following its December 2014 launch in the U.K.) retires this apparently quaint concern and moves directly to the task of demonizing the remaining skeptics. Who needs to debate the scientific merits of the case for global warming when “consensus” has been achieved? Instead, the film concentrates on maligning the motives of skeptics of anthropogenic global warming.

Professional magician Jamy Ian Swiss, backstage at his Los Angeles Magic Castle show, opens the film with a digression on the ethics of deception. Magicians are “honest liars,” he says, who have a “moral contract” with their audience, who know they’re being fooled. Climate-change “deniers,” on the other hand, are closer to the category of “con men” — rent-a-scientists who perpetuate the mirage of debate and enable politicians to delay what director Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.) deems urgent climate regulations. As Swiss flips a deck of cards, the cards swirl in midair and revolve to show the faces of some of these scientific hirelings.

The film is well-shot and amusing to watch, with Swiss and his cards serving as a kind of narrator throughout. But Merchants itself engages in deception. At the same time that it accuses the public of falling for pseudo-scientific showmanship and believing the safe, soothing messages they want to hear, the film presents a caricature of climate science — one that comforts the choir of climate-change alarmists and ignores serious scientific concerns. The product that Merchants hawks is smear.

Merchants implies that the scientists in Swiss’s deck have sold out to Big Oil. But most of the film’s 96 minutes actually focus on the mid-century battle over the health risks of smoking. Kenner, following Oreskes and Conway’s lead, traces the stories of tobacco CEOs who knowingly lied on talk shows and radio programs about the carcinogenic, addictive nature of cigarettes. A New York PR firm, Hill and Knowlton, advised Big Tobacco that to deny outright a growing scientific consensus on the harms of smoking would blow the industry’s credibility, and instead they ought to create space for public uncertainty. RG Mills and other tobacco groups hired scientists to write papers that were inconclusive or promoted unrealistic standards of evidence. So long as smoking was actively debated within the scientific and political communities, legislators would refrain from heavy regulation, and customers would continue to purchase Mills’s products.

The link from yesteryear’s merchants of smoking doubt to today’s climate-change doubters is tenuous and depends almost entirely on an argument from analogy. Analogies, of course, can create powerful impressions: Think of Arthur Miller’s success in picturing the Salem witch trials as the template for Congress’s efforts during the Cold War to uncover Communist subversion. The propagandist is not concerned with whether the analogy is fair, but only with its capacity to mold public perception.

Kenner mashes up clips of tobacco CEOs averring that “there is no consensus” about the harms of smoking with clips of Cato Institute and Heartland Institute scholars swearing that no consensus exists on global warming. Oreskes, in an on-screen appearance, manages to cite S. Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz, two prominent climate-change skeptics who had once contended that smoking isn’t necessarily harmful, but admits that she can’t prove that they were manipulated by money. (Her own theory is that because both began their careers during the Soviet arms race, they became obsessed with anti-Communism and fought any scientific study whose conclusions seemed to invite government regulation.)

Cue the smear tactic. What Merchants of Doubt lacks in evidence, activists have endeavored to make up in public animosity. Last week the New York Times pummeled astrophysicist Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon for linking temperature variations to sunspot changes and accepting research grants from fossil-fuel companies — though Dr. Soon’s funding was entirely above-board, and his research has not been challenged on its merits. Representative Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) then launched an investigation of his own into seven professors who have expressed skepticism toward anthropogenic global warming, suggesting that they too had been compromised by money. Surely the synchrony of these investigations and the film’s U.S. release is no coincidence.

“Who has bought whom?” is the real question viewers should ask. Climate skeptics receive pennies compared with the billions that go to climate conformists. The EPA alone has spent more than $333 million in the past 15 years sponsoring sustainability fellowships, in addition to another $60 million in sustainability-research grants. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records show more than $3 billion in grants for climate-science research since 1998 (including more than $89 million in 2014), while the National Institutes of Health has granted in the past four years alone $28 million for research on climate change and another $580 million on “Climate-Related Exposures and Conditions.” National Science Foundation records show more than $1.7 billion since 1998 in sustainability research grants. Even the National Endowment for the Arts, not normally associated with scientific research, invested $2 million over the same period. Virtually all of this money goes to scientists within the “consensus.” And recent external studies of the EPA, NOAA, and other federal agencies that solicit global-warming research have uncovered evidence of widespread conflicts of interest and incestuous peer-review relationships of the sort Kenner wants to ascribe to the skeptics.

Perhaps Sony Pictures should consider a follow-up: Merchants of Doom.

— Rachelle Peterson is a research associate at the National Association of Scholars.