from Crikey. Hat tip to Deltoid.
Viscount Monckton gets ~20X the media cover in Oz than James Hansen
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Climate scientist busted for fudging data
Nope, it isn’t Phil Jones or Michael Mann. It is Bob Carter, a co-author on McLean et al. 2009 “Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature”.
Last year, Bob claimed “We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century.”
Well a new paper (Foster et al. 2010) debunks these claims and shows the underlying analysis of McLean et al. 2009 to be totally erroneous. Oops.
See John Cooks technical overview here, but put simply, the authors transformed their data in a way that resulted in an erroneous conclusion. Their inappropriate treatment of their data greatly inflated the temporal relationship between ENSO (a natural cyclic phenomena) and warming of the lower atmosphere.
Basically, Bob and his mates used a few statistical tricks to smooth away the climate trend (have a look at Figure 3 and 4 in Foster and co. paper for how this works).
The Foster et al (2010) abstract states: McLean et al. [2009] claim that the El Ni˜no/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), as represented by the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), accounts for as much as 72% of the global tropospheric temperature anomaly (GTTA) and an even higher 81% of this anomaly in the tropics. They conclude that the SOI is a “dominant and consistent influence on mean global temperatures,” “and perhaps recent trends in global temperatures”. However, their analysis is incorrect in a number of ways, and greatly overstates the influence of ENSO on the climate system. This comment first briefly reviews what is understood about the influence of ENSO on global temperatures, then goes on to show that the analysis of MFC09 severely overestimates the correlation between temperature anomalies and the SOI by inflating the power in the 2–6 year time window while filtering out variability on longer and shorter time scales. It is only because of this faulty analysis that they are able to claim such extremely high correlations. The suggestion in their conclusions that ENSO may be a major contributor to recent trends in global temperature is not supported by their analysis or any physical theory presented in that paper, especially as the analysis method itself eliminates the influence of trends on the purported correlations.
Bob is a well-known skeptic who also happens to be a university PhD scientist at James Cook University in Townsville Australia, also home of our friend Peter Ridd.
His rightwing affiliations are outlined by sourcewatch here:
He is a member of the right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs [8], and a founding member of the Australian Environment Foundation, a front group set up by the Institute of Public Affairs.
He has made countless outlandish and false claims about climate change, climate change science and the IPCC over the years, including these gems:
“atmospheric CO2 is not a primary forcing agent for temperature change”
“any cumulative human signal is so far undetectable at a global level and, if present, is buried deeply in the noise of natural variation”
If you have the time, you can peruse his impressive catalogue of denialist talks and essays here (including his appearances on the Glenn Beck show, talks at the Heartland Institute, you get the picture).
He recently penned a screed against James Hansen in which Bob related Hansen to soviet Lamarckian biologist Trofim Lysenko. (what?!) Carter argues for an investigation of climate science and scientists. Indeed. Since he is the first prominent climate scientists to be caught manipulating data to achieve a pre-determmined outcome, is it not obvious where the investigation should begin? Secondly, he also argues that the (mostly bogus and totally overblown) problems in some of the IPCC reports should result in a policy shift. Well the logic makes sense: science should in part drive the policy. And when found to be incorrect, the policy should adapt. The same must certainly be true then of Bob’s policy prescriptions that he based on the results of his now debunked study. As Michael Tobis write, Carter made some wild policy arguments based on the McLean et al 2009 paper:
Bob Carter, one of four scientists who has recently questioned the justification for the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, says that this paper has significant consequences for public climate policy.
“The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions. The available data indicate that future global temperatures will continue to change primarily in response to ENSO cycling, volcanic activity and solar changes.”
“Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate.”
MT links to the Climate Depot story about the paper from July 2009 which includes the press release, which in turn includes these statements:
Nature not man responsible for recent global warming
Three Australasian researchers have shown that natural forces are the dominant influence on climate, in a study just published in the highly-regarded Journal of Geophysical Research. According to this study little or none of the late 20th century global warming and cooling can be attributed to human activity.
“The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely” says corresponding author de Freitas.
“We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis.”
Bob Carter, one of four scientists who has recently questioned the justification for the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, says that this paper has significant consequences for public climate policy.
“The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions. The available data indicate that future global temperatures will continue to change primarily in response to ENSO cycling, volcanic activity and solar changes.”
“Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate.”
Also see MTs analysis and related coverage (that predates the new Foster et al paper) here and the RealClimate take here (an atrocious paper…). Tamino, not surprisingly, picked up on this error a day after the paper was published. (so why isn’t he an author on Foster et al. 2010 – or is he?)
the real reason they note such strong correlation is that their analysis method removes all temperature variation which is due to trend — which of course makes it impossible for their analysis to indicate anything whatever about the trend.
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It’s certainly not true that their analysis shows “natural climate forcing associated with ENSO is a major contributor to variability and perhaps recent trends in global temperature.” It shows no such thing; their analysis removes all the effect of trends.
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Bob Carter’s statement in particular, that “The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions,” shows how little he understand the analysis he himself participated in. Of course, he wouldn’t be the first to fail to understand the impact of using estimated derivatives on correlation analysis.
read the rest here (warning, equations and graphs lay ahead)
The five things we want to know are:
1) Will McLean et al. retract the paper (and will Bob Carter admit fault or even discuss the errors publicly)?
2) Will the denial0sphere and the MSM give this story (a climate change scandal!) the same coverage it has recently showered on various IPCC hiccups?
3) Will there be an investigation as Bob Carter himself and so many other skeptics have insisted on over and over again, usually in response to bogus and unsubstantiated allegations.
4) Will Bob now reverse his policy positions and urge (vocally) politicians that may have been swayed by his bogus science to do the same? After all Bob, shouldn’t the science drive the policy?
5) Will The Australian cover this pending scandal! A scientist behaving badly!
In the CimateDepot post titled “Peer-Reviewed Study Rocks Climate Debate! ‘Nature not man responsible for recent global warming…little or none of late 20th century warming and cooling can be attributed to humans” Mark Morano (yes that Mark Morano, whom Randy Olsen describes as “arguably the loudest mouth in the climate skeptic movement with his increasingly popular website, www.climatedepot.com. He is a former field correspondent for Rush Limbaugh, helped to promote the Kerry Swift Boat Veterans story, and former spokesman for Senator James Inhofe“) makes the argument below:
Those who claim correlation using derivatives (differences) removes a linear trend miss the point. McLean et al use this method to construct Figures 5 and 6. It should be noted that detrended data was used purely to establish the time lag between the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and MGT in Figures 5 and 6. This time lag was then used in Figure 7 to show that close correlation between trends in temperature and changes in the Southern Oscillation Index seven months previously.
Figure 7 presents the data in its original form; namely, data that is not detrended, but with the time shift in SOI obtained from the detrended data. If an underlying trend existed, it would have shown up in Figure 7. One would see the temperature line rising away from the SOI line if, for example, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations had a significant influence. There is little or no sign of this.
Figure 4: Seven-month shifted SOI with (a) weather balloon RATPAC-A temperature data 1958–1979 and satellite UAH temperature data (b) 1980–1995. Dark line indicates SOI and light line indicates lower tropospheric temperature. Periods of volcanic activity are indicated.
Seem reasonable? John Cook explains why it isn’t;
Another interesting feature of McLean et al 2009 is a plot of unfiltered temperature data (GTTA) against the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) to illustrate the quality of the match between them. However the temperature signal is a splice of weather balloon data (RATPAC-A) to the end of 1979 followed by satellite data (UAH TLT) since 1980. RATPAC-A data show a pronounced warming trend from 1960 to 2008 with the temperature line rising away from the SOI line. This warming trend is obscured by substituting the weather balloon data with satellite data after 1980. It is especially misleading because the mean values of RATPAC-A and UAH TLT data during their period of overlap differ by nearly 0.2 K. Splicing them together introduces an artificial 0.2-degree temperature drop at the boundary between the two. Unfortunately, the splicing is obscured by the fact that the graph is split into different panels precisely at the splicing boundary.
A simple mistake? A mere coincidence?
This splicing + graph splitting technique is an effective way to “hide the incline” of the warming trend.
Precisely. Time for a climate audit?
To be clear, there is no way to discern the intentions of the authors from the published manuscript. This could all be a series of mistakes that just happened to produce a surprising result that aligned with the ideology of the authors. The only way to possibly determine why the authors chose the method of data transformation they did, stitched together disparate data, then effectively hid that data-melding in their figures is to ask them and/or to obtain their lab notes and correspondence about the paper. This would be invasive, but is precisely the type of scrutiny the Bob Carter’s of the world continually demand.
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References
McLean, J. D., C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter (2009), Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature, Journal of Geophysical Research, 114, D14104, doi:10.1029/2008JD011637.
Foster, G., J. D. Annan, P. D. Jones, M. E. Mann, J. Renwick, J. Salinger, G. A. Schmidt, K. E. Trenberth. Comment on “Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter. In Press at Journal of Geophysical Research (download the PDF preprint here)
UN fails, once again – Bluefin slaughter to continue
The UN has failed for a second time to pass legislation to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna from over-explotation and commercial extinction. The news came from a UN conference on endangered species, where the body also voted against ending the international trade in polar bear parts, shark parts and plans to vote to re-establish the trade in elephant parts and will consider bans on tiger and rhinoceroses “products” later this week. Wait, what is this conference about? It sounds more like a trade show for animals pieces and parts. Maybe those progressive contrarians over at the Breakthrough Institute are right about the UN being the wrong place to develop international conservation regulations. After all, a two-thirds majority vote is needed to pass anything meaningful. Is it any wonder this group is failing to simply pass legislation? And people fear a UN-run one world government?!
Atlantic bluefin tuna are listed by the IUCN as ‘critically endangered’.
From wikipedia (here): The Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), also known as the northern bluefin tuna, giant bluefin tuna(for larger individuals exceeding 150 kilograms or around 300 pounds) and formerly as the tunny, is a species of tuna native to both the western and eastern Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. Atlantic bluefin have been recorded in the Black Sea in the past, but are now believed to be extinct there. The Atlantic bluefin tuna is a close relative of the other two bluefin tuna species – the Pacific bluefin tuna and the southern bluefin tuna.
Today, the Atlantic bluefin tuna is the foundation of one of the world’s most lucrative commercial fisheries. Medium-sized and large individuals are heavily targeted for the Japanese raw fish market, where all species of bluefin are highly prized for sashimi. This commercial importance has led to severe overfishing. TheInternational Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) affirmed in October 2009 that Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks are declining dramatically, by 72% in the Eastern Atlantic, and by 82% in the Western Atlantic.[1] On October 16, 2009 Monaco formally recommended Endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna for an Appendix I CITES listing and international trade ban.
See our recent post on the bluefin travesty and the ICCAT here, where Jez says:
I’ve often wondered whether people who eat tuna from a can have any idea what a tuna fish actually looks like? How does a can of tuna still cost less than a dollar? Mainly because the average tin of tuna comes from smaller and less tasty species (usually albacore or skipjack at roughly $25 per pound), which are still plentiful* in the oceans as they require less resources to survive and reproduce. In contrast, the closely related southern bluefin tuna commands upwards of $350 per pound, yet is IUCN listed as ‘critically endangered’. With commercial extinction looming on the horizon, who will be the last person to eat a southern bluefin?
March 18, 2010, from the NYT, read it here
U.N. Rejects Export Ban on Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
By DAVID JOLLY
PARIS — Efforts to ban international trade in bluefin tuna and polar bears were rejected Thursday by a United Nations conference on endangered species, as delegates in Doha, Qatar refused to back the U.S.-backed measures.
A proposal by Monaco to extend the highest level of U.N. protection to the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin, a fish prized by sushi lovers for its fatty belly flesh, failed by a lopsided vote of 20-68, with 30 abstentions, Juan Carlos Vasquez, a spokesman for the U.N. organization, said.
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The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora counts 175 member governments, though far fewer were represented for the votes in Doha. European Union nations, whose fleets are most responsible for the overfishing of the bluefin, abstained from voting after the bloc’s own watered-down proposal failed earlier in the day.
The rejection was a defeat for environmentalists and a clear victory for the Japanese government, which had vowed to go all out to stop the measure. Japan, which consumes more than three-quarters of the Mediterranean bluefin catch, argued that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or Iccat, an intergovernmental organization, should be responsible for regulating the stock, not the United Nations.
While there is near-universal agreement that bluefin stocks are in danger, Japan’s argument resonated with other fishing nations, which were uneasy about what would have marked the first intrusion by the convention into a major commercial fishery.
But an independent review commissioned by Iccat shows that its own record on managing the fish“ is widely regarded as an international disgrace.” The agency has presided over more than two-thirds decline in the stock since 1970 — with much of that drop coming in just the last decade with the onset of huge industrial fishing operations and tuna “ranching.” And while the organization, which has no effective enforcement mechanism, has the authority to set quotas, year after year it has set the catch above the level that its own scientists say is safe to ensure the health of the species.
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This is the second time Japan has defeated a proposal at the conference to protect the bluefin. A similar proposal by Sweden failed at 1992 UN convention in Kyoto. While the bluefin vote was held by secret ballot, Japanese officials said this week that China and South Korea also opposed the measure, and Canada openly opposed it.
In a joint statement, Janez Potocnik, the European environment commissioner and Maria Damanaki, the commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, said they were “disappointed” with the outcome, and called for Iccat to “take its responsibility to ensure that stocks are managed in a sustainable way.” If no action is taken, they warned, “there is a very serious danger that the bluefin tuna will no longer exist.”
The proposal to ban trade in polar bear parts and skins failed on the first vote, by a margin of 48-62, with 11 abstentions.
read the full article here
Same old Andrew Bolt, same old slanderous story.
Andrew Bolt’s latest slander claims that CSIRO, BOM and the Australian government are in a conspiracy. Who is the fraud here? Thousands of scientists or Andrew Bolt?
Update: Here we go again. When will Mr Bolt be honest about the actual facts of the matter! Either he isnt reading the responses to his fraudulent accusations or he is doesnt care about truth. This piece was first published back on Feb 10th, 2009 – I thought it would be worth bringing up to the top to highlight Andrew Bolt’s ongoing war against science.
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After last nights airing of the Australian Story the columnist Andrew Bolt has decided to play the wounded soldier, accusing ABC Australian Story of bias. Like me, you might find this a little amusing coming from someone who spends most of his time spinning the truth on all number of issues at the expense of his unable-to-respond victims. Apart from failing to tell you that the ABC went to great lengths to put up the full video of our exchange (which is up on their website, and the fact that he got the last word), he continues to accuse the ABC of bias and scientists like me of being eco-alarmists. In a very tiresome way he has trotted out the same old accusations despite the fact that he has been corrected endlessly. So much for his adherence to the truth!
After last nights airing of the Australian Story the columnist Andrew Bolt has decided to play the wounded soldier, accusing ABC Australian Story of bias. Like me, you might find this a little amusing coming from someone who spends most of his time spinning the truth on all number of issues at the expense of his unable-to-respond victims. Apart from failing to tell you that the ABC went to great lengths to put up the full video of our exchange (which is up on their website, and the fact that he got the last word), he continues to accuse the ABC of bias and scientists like me of being eco-alarmists. In a very tiresome way he has trotted out the same old accusations despite the fact that he has been corrected endlessly. So much for his adherence to the truth!
Read on: https://climateshifts.org/?p=1105
Monbiot on the unpersuadables and the revenge of the humanities students
George Monbiot has a nice article on “the unpersuadables” here. I have been thinking about this a lot. Is there any point in public outreach, in blogging, etc? Has everybody already made up their mind regardless of what the rationale science says? Randy Olson thinks not. Neither does Juan cole. I change my mind on this daily. Ove says he once changed someones mind using the raw power of facts, something I have never experienced, at least outside of university teaching.
By George Monbiot
from here
There is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(1), will do nothing to change this view.
The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science. Writing recently for the Telegraph, the columnist Gerald Warner dismissed scientists as “white-coated prima donnas and narcissists … pointy-heads in lab coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks … The public is no longer in awe of scientists. Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more.”(2)
Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company – and precious few journalists – with a science degree, yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world. But the problem is compounded by complexity. Arthur C Clarke remarked that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”(3).
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Popular mythology – from Faust through Frankenstein to Dr No – casts scientists as sinister schemers, harnessing the dark arts to further their diabolical powers. Sometimes this isn’t far from the truth.
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There’s a possible explanation in an article published by Nature in January(7). It shows that people tend to “take their cue about what they should feel, and hence believe, from the cheers and boos of the home crowd.” Those who see themselves as individualists and those who respect authority, for example, “tend to dismiss evidence of environmental risks, because the widespread acceptance of such evidence would lead to restrictions on commerce and industry, activities they admire.” Those with more egalitarian values are “more inclined to believe that such activities pose unacceptable risks and should be restricted.”
These divisions, researchers have found, are better at explaining different responses to information than any other factor: race, gender, class, income, education or personality type. Our ideological filters encourage us to interpret new evidence in ways that reinforce our beliefs. “As a result, groups with opposing values often become more polarized, not less, when exposed to scientifically sound information.”(8)
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Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don’t want to know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes my life’s work.
Climate change in Australia’s tropical waters and the threat to the Reef
Ove is presenting at the Universities Australia National Policy Forum tomorrow at Parliment House, Canberra, along with Dr Blair Trewin, Professor Roger Jones, Professor John Quiggin and quite a few other leading authorities on climate change. The forum is being webcast to journalists, so hopefully we will be able to put a feed up here (or at least a synopsis of the days happenings).
What is the reality of climate change in Australia? What does the science show? What changes are already happening? How are farmers, land managers and the environment responding?
Leading researchers will report on:
§ The evidence of climate change in Australia today: in the climate record; in agriculture; in the environment
§ Predictions on the future of climate change and its impact on Australia – exploring the certainties and uncertainties
§ The challenges of communicating the science and of bridging scientific knowledge and public policy
§ The social and economic impact of climate change and the opportunities for Australia to respond, creating jobs and a sustainable future.
The Forum seeks to reach out to MPs, their advisers and the media; we are also inviting a range of stakeholders from agriculture, NGOs and others.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Ului approaches the Queensland coastline
WEATHER Bureau forecasters predict Cyclone Ului will turn south today, tracking parallel with the Queensland coast.
But the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre has the cyclone easing and veering towards the coast in an area between Fraser Island and Airlie Beach on Friday.
Ului was situated south of the Solomon Islands yesterday, 1400km northeast of Mackay and moving west-southwest at 7km/h. That is about half its speed of the previous day. (Read More)
Update: Ului has veered around and is now bearing down on Townsville. Let’s hope it runs out of puff …
Clive Hamilton to speak in Brisbane: why facing up to Climate Change is “Just too Hard”.
Provocative author and scholar Clive Hamilton will discuss why facing up to Climate Change is “Just too Hard” in a public lecture this month hosted by the newly established Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland.
There have been any number of urgent scientific reports in recent years emphasising just how dire the future looks and how little time we have left to act.
Around the world only a few have truly faced up to the facts about global warming; others prefer to believe denialists such as Monckton and Plimer, in an effort to continue business as usual and maintain current lifestyles.
In the preface to ‘Requiem for a Species’ Hamilton describes his new book:
“It is a book about the frailties of the human species: our strange obsessions, our hubris, and our penchant for avoiding the facts. A story of a battle within us, between the forces that should have caused us to protect the earth, like our capacity to reason and our connection to nature, and our greed, materialism and alienation from nature, which, in the end, have won out.”
This is a free event, open to the public.
Book sales, signing and refreshments will follow the lecture.
24th March 2010
5.30pm
Abel Smith Lecture Theatre (Building 23)
St Lucia Campus
(Located at the top of Campbell Rd.)
Contact: gci@uq.edu.au
RSVP essential – www.gci.uq.edu.au/lecture
The best argument against global warming
Dr Peter Gleick writes in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Here is the best argument against global warming:
. . . .
Oh, right. There isn’t one.
There is no good argument against global warming. In all the brouhaha about tiny errors recently found in the massive IPCC report, the posturing by global climate deniers, including some elected officials, leaked emails, and media reports, here is one fact that seems to have been overlooked:
Those who deny that humans are causing unprecedented climate change have never, ever produced an alternative scientific argument that comes close to explaining the evidence we see around the world that the climate is changing. [read more]
Hat-tip to Joe Romm at ClimateProgress.
State of the climate (Part 2): CSIRO and BOM accuse climate change sceptics of ‘smokescreen of denial’
Daily Telegraph, 15th March 2010
AUSTRALIA’S leading scientists have hit back at climate change sceptics, accusing them of creating a “smokescreen of denial”.
The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will today release a State of the Climate document, a snapshot of Australia’s climate data and trend predictions.
The apolitical science organisations have weighed into the debate as they believe Australians are not being told the correct information about temperatures, rainfall, ocean levels and changes to atmospheric conditions.
The State of the Climate report offers Australians an easy-to-understand snapshot of data.
“Modelling results show that it is extremely unlikely that the observed warming is due to natural causes alone,” it states.
“Evidence of human influence has been detected in ocean warming, sea-level rise, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns.”
CSIRO chief executive Dr Megan Clark said both organisations felt it was time “to give Australians the facts and information they are looking for and to do so in a way that is very transparent and available”.
“We are seeing a real thirst for knowledge from many Australians and we are responding to that huge public demand. There is a lot of noise out there and a lot of reference to other countries and people want to know what’s happening in this country.”
Dr Clark said the CSIRO had been observing the impacts of human-induced climate change for many years and had moved on from debate about it happening to planning for the changes to come.