Bishop Hill Diary date
Feb 1, 2013 Climate: WG2 Climate: WG3 THE FISHER HOUSE - VON HUGEL INSTITUTE SEMINAR
Sponsored by The Tablet
Global Warming & Equitable Development: Ethical and Political Priorities
Chaired by Williams of Oystermouth (Rowan Williams)
(Master of Magdalene College, former Archbishop of Canterbury)
Panel Members
Lord Deben (John Selwyn Gummer) Chair of Committee on Climate Change
The Rt Hon Justine Greening Secretary of State for International Development (TBG)
Professor Sir Brian Hoskins FRS, Director of Grantham Institute of Climate Change, London
Professor Richard Lindzen Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor Peter Wadhams Professor of Ocean Physics, Head of Polar Ocean Physics Group, Cambridge
Professor Anthony Kelly CBE, FRS, Emeritus Professor & Distinguished Research Fellow, Cambridge
Professor John Loughlin, L'Ordre des Palmes Academiques, Von Hugel Institute Director, Cambridge
Wednesday 6 March 2013 at 17:00
Fisher House
Guildhall Street, Cambridge, CB2 3NH
Free entrance. The seminar will be followed by refreshments.
For further information www.vonhugel.org.uk or www.fisherhouse.org.uk
Reader Comments (47)
"Equitable development" = everybody having access to a copious, cheap and reliable electricity supply (and no corrupt politicians, no vested interests, no troughers).
Kelly and Lindzen. (both on GWPF academic advisory council) - Excellent.
I first read it as 'Williams of Motormouth'....oops....
But on reflection...........
Who is Lindsay Southcombe ?
""Equitable development" = everybody having access to a copious, cheap and reliable electricity supply (and no corrupt politicians, no vested interests, no troughers)."
Feb 1, 2013 at 7:49 PM | Phillip Bratby
....says the man who denies the basic physical properties of carbon dioxide, even though the owner of this blog admits that the science is correct.
-----------------
What, you mean the fact that if you warm aqueous solutions of bicarbonate then they expel CO2 into the atmosphere? People knew that before Arrhenius, so why do so many choose to ignore it when they speak 'climate-sensitivity' w.r.t. CO2, instead of the converse?
For those wondering, 'Ocean Physics' is a special form of physics which relies on a voting system rather than science.
"For those wondering, 'Ocean Physics' is a special form of physics which relies on a voting system rather than science.
This seems to be true.
Very little empirical evidence has actually been collected for 'ocean acidification' but it is generally regarded as a 'fact' because a lot of people hope/expect/predict/pray that if they collected (a lot) more data it would show the result they hope/expect/predict/pray for.
But since collecting the data would be rather difficult, tedious and expensive, the consensus is that they'll take the wish for the deed. And as long as enough oceanographers vote for it, then lo! it shall be.
What the exact physical mechanism that translates the expectation of an oceanographer based a mile high in Boulder, Colorado, 1200 miles from the sea into the chemistry that governs the interactions of a molecule of CO2 in the North Sea off Felixstowe is a bit of a mystery.
But if Mann and Co can believe in the ludicrous concept of tree ring teleconnections, then I guess anything is possible.
Should a fellow sceptic ever be at a loose end and needing amusement, I recommend to ask an Alarmist (preferably Catastrophist) to show their observational OA data. Many a happy hour can be spent watching them squirm....
A Lord, a Rt Hon and 5 Professors, chaired by a Clergyman gathered together to discuss:-
“Global Warming & Equitable Development: Ethical and Political Priorities”
I wonder how long the room is booked for, maybe until hell, or The Cam, freezes over?
No worries, “The seminar will be followed by refreshments”
Unfortunately because the "consensus" is so rigorously policed by Mann, Schmidt, Trenberth, Connolley and others, its supporters cannot get their heads around the idea that people thinking for themselves will have differing opinions. They think others are as monolithic as they are.
The thrust of the seminar, I would suggest, is that the vulnerable, rather than venerable, young Rt Hon Justine Greening, Secretary of State for International Development, will be targeted to deploy some of the billions of Cameron's ring-fenced international aid funding towards fighting the mythical beast of 'climate change', rather than assisting with conventional humanitarian aid. I genuinely hope she can see through the bluster and target funds towards existential problems, not dubiously putative ones.
@pharos
'I genuinely hope she can see through the bluster and target funds towards existential problems, not dubiously putative ones'
H'mm. I'm sure she will be given lots of encouragement to spend her funds in such a way as to benefit the various businesses of John Selwyn Beefburger as well........
The good news is that Lindzen will likely have never heard of the rest of the panellists. So will be able to speak his mind with no preconceptions. Unless he is lulled into a catatonic state of ennui by Rowan Williams droning on about the place of gay marriage in the climate change communion of something equally obscure.....
The needle has got stuck. Assertions as can be found in The Physical Basis are not evidence. Unlike Mr Hart and Mr Alder who are scientists and can understand original data, it appears their opponent can only parrot the chapter headings of IPCC documents and hurl abuse.
'H'mm. I'm sure she will be given lots of encouragement to spend her funds in such a way as to benefit the various businesses of John Selwyn Beefburger as well.......'
If it's packaged suitably.......
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/9164183/A-dotty-EU-directive-will-help-make-Gummer-richer.html
Breaking news... Sabotage suspected at toppled wind turbine as second is brought down
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/9841848/Sabotage-suspected-at-toppled-wind-turbine-as-second-is-brought-down.html
Interesting that this is reported in the "earth" edition of the DT :-)
Jack Hughes
LOL !
If the police come to my door, I will say " it wasn't me, constable, I'm a Guardian reader". Ask one of these UKIP people that frequent this blog.
It's called projection.
Am I right, or am I right?
I challenge you to show the published observational datasets that show that ocean acidification is actually occurring."
Feb 1, 2013 at 10:10 PM | Latimer Alder
Since you probably regard any contact with IPCC reports as anathema, perhaps you would prefer to read some of the papers direct.
ftp://soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/Acidification%20Pacific%20Byrne%202010.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165993612002427
My apologies to the laymen present as the latter paper is still paywalled, but the scientists here should be able to access it.
@entropic
Thanks for the link to the total of 2000 observations (750 in 1991, 1350 in 2006) in Byrne et al, along one small part of the Pacific.
I love this sentence from their intro:
'Recent changes in seawater pH induced by ocean–atmosphere gas exchange are thought to be substantial, with far-reaching chemical and ecological effects [Doney et al.,2009], yet direct observations are sparse'. Yep - and 'sparse' is a vast and charitable overstatement.
I observe that my back garden thermometer records this amount of max/min data in about three years. Neither I, nor you, would likely consider that small amount of data as observational proof of any global changes in temperature.The same applies to 'ocean acidification'. 2000 observations in the north Pacific is insufficient data to work with.
I also observe that other studies have shown very large (+/0.5pH) natural seasonal and daily pH variations. Byrne et al does not describe any methods for correcting for such differences. We do not know that they are not comparing apples and pears. No data site was sampled more than twice. Many only once.
Data behind a paywall may have been published to 'Big Grant funded scientists', but is not generally available to 'amateur scientists' like me. Perhaps you will tell us how much data (how many observations) the paper's authors collected. And from what site(s).
@entropic
'Since you probably regard any contact with IPCC reports as anathema, perhaps you would prefer to read some of the papers direct.'
Not anathema at all. Just totally irrelevant in this case. The IPCC is a literature review, not a collector of original data.
If I wanted a new single by the Rolling Stones, I'd go to Mick and Keef direct, not ask a Stones tribute band to come up with one. Same idea..first hand, not second hand.
I see Zebeddddea's fallen off the Magic Roundabout again. Brian will sort it out.
O/T but sort of relevant.
DCI April Casburn - Justice Fulford's statement included " a very serious matter when men or women who have all the benefits, privileges and responsibilities of public office use their positions for corrupt purposes".
Any of the panel members spring to mind? Shame Tim Yeo is missing and of course Chris Huhne has Monday on his mind.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
With the greatest deference .....
So as not to mislead the unwary ..... maybe like me
Latimer Adler: surely a cherry-picked literature review.
Panel member Prof Peter Wadhams claimed on Newsnight a few months ago that the albedo effect of the reduced Arctic ice was "the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man." As greenhouse gas forcing has has been increasing at about 0.04 W m-2 per year, that would be about 0.8 W m-2. On the other hand, Hudson computed that the "radiative forcing caused by the observed loss of sea ice in the Arctic between 1979 and 2007 is approximately 0.1 W m-2."
.
In this post*, Prof Wadhams claims that when the Arctic ice minimum is near zero -- in about 3 years, he reckons -- the sea-ice albedo effect will be 1.3 W m-2, or about 80% of the total anthropogenic warming to date. In contrast, Hudson computes a value of 0.3 W m-2 for this scenario.
[*Disclaimer: the post purports to present Prof Wadhams' calculations, but was posted by someone else and is written in the third person. Hence, it's possible that it does not correctly reflect Prof Wadhams' understanding. It's interesting that the post links to an article about Hudson's observation that a naive calculation of albedo change, ignoring cloud cover, results in an overestimation of the effect. And then does not account for cloud cover, or seasonal effects, as Hudson did.]
So presumably there is an equal and opposite effect from the increase in Antarctic sea ice, or do these things always work in one direction only?
Reduction of oceanic pH is a marginal field at present. Data has to be collected directly by sampling, which is slow and expensive.
There is no direct requirement for ocean pH data for weather forecasting, so there is no central database and no data collection system, as there is for weather station data. If you want to know what is happening in a particular region, you must go to the literature.
Paywalled literature is another topic. In our society scientific journals have to pay their way. Their stock-in-trade is scientific papers. Giving them away free is not economic. The second paper is not about a particular region's pH changes. It discusses how ocean pH is measured. I was naive enough to think you might be interested.
Your sneering attack on the field suggests you seek propoganda advantage rather than any real knowledge.
So presumably there is an equal and opposite effect from the increase in Antarctic sea ice, or do these things always work in one direction only?
Feb 2, 2013 at 11:51 AM | David S
Summer Antarctic ice is fairly constant, apart from brekup of ice sheets, since there's a continent in the way of further reduction. Higher Winter ice extents have little effect since albedo is irrelevant when there is not much illumination to reflect.
For a more detailed discussion of what's happening in the Antarctic try:
http://nsidc.org/icelights/2012/11/14/arctic-melt-versus-antarctic-freeze-is-antarctica-warming-or-not/
Sorry Mr E but summer Antarctic sea ice, as we speak, is well above the long term average, and with the lower latitudes involved must have more of an effect on the albedo than its equivalent in the north,
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
It is above average. Be careful, though, of trying to read across between Arctic and Antarctic too much. The dynamics of the two poles are very different.
The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land, and with a lot of heat exchange between latitudes. The dominant factor is temperature, with the ice edge usually defining a temperature contour.
The Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean. The Southern Ocean winds and currents help.isolate the system from the warming at lower latitudes. The Southern Ocean is warming and winds are increasing. The increased windspeeds are thought to be spreading the ice, rather than any temperature change.
It would be interesting if you could find Antarctic margin temperature data for this year. A reduction in temperature would support your hypothesis, no change would support the wind hypothesis.
You know where they are coming from when you see "ocean acidification". Sounds nasty. Unlike "oceans becoming marginally less alkaline, possibly".
And as usual there isn't very much actual data.
@entropic man
I did not read your second paper since it was - as you say - behind a paywall. Not for any lack of desire to do so.
And the 'in our society' line is a bit rich. Scientific papers are published by academics mainly for other academics to read. There are plenty of pretty cost-free alternatives to conventional publishing (this blog and many others being fine examples) but, once again, it is academics that choose not to do so because of their own chosen metrics of citations and 'high-impact journals'. That journlas have to pay their way os very little to do with 'society', and a great deal to do with the convenience and conventiosn of academe.
And 'amateur scientists' like me wonder why - when we have already paid for the work to be done through our taxes - distributed to academics as grants - we should have to pay a second time to see the results of what we have commissioned.
So less of the 'in our society' please, and a bit more emphasis on - because academics find it convenient.
As to your remarks about 'a sneering attack on the field',and 'propaganda', I'm sorry that you fell I am doing either by bringing to wider notice the facts that the researchers themselves admit.
That there is very little data that shows ocean acidification is actually occurring at all (''observational data is sparse'), let alone that it is going to lead to the destruction of the human food chain or the end of life as we know it - or whatever 'cause du jour' it is currently hitched up to.
To my mind it is the researchers themselves who are guilty of propaganda. Every paper confidently asserts that 'OA' is real, is occurring right now and is an existential threat to something or other. The choice is whether to believe the authors are too stupid to realise that there is little evidence to support this view or too disingenuous to admit it.
The authors of Byrne et al are to be commended for their honesty...and should stand as a shining light to others in their field. And if by showing up their colleagues they are conducting a 'sneering attack'', then I 'd be happy to be associated with that effort. If a 'field' would rather its dirty washing wasn't publicly aired, then it needs to be laid open to public scrutiny. A closed bunch of mutual backscratchers all agreeing (implicitly or explicitly) not to worry too much about actual observations is neither a healthy nor a trustworthy field.
@nw
'You know where they are coming from when you see "ocean acidification". Sounds nasty. Unlike "oceans becoming marginally less alkaline, possibly".
Very good point.
Chemists would prefer to call it 'neutralisation' as the alkalinity is (supposedly) reduced.
Others might prefer 'purification' as the resulting solution tends nearer and nearer to pure water (pH=7.0)
But neither 'neutralisation' or 'purification' summon up the image of little Johnny going for a dip in a foaming and fuming sea of aqua regia and returning with his sensitive soft parts hanging in shreds from his exposed bones as he rages against CO2 in his death throes.
That graphic picture is reserved for 'acidification', and it is no coincidence that it has been adopted by what Entropic calls 'the field'. The cynical among us might think that it is better for attracting grants too.
You might notice that I used "reduction of ocean pH". I dont like "ocean acidification" myself.
I'm not clear what you are complaining about here.
Are you objecting to the phrase?
Are you complaining that more research should be done?
Are uou building conspiracy theories about researchers providing false evidence?
Are you saying that no reduction in ocean pH has taken place? If so, can you provide data falsifying the hypothesis?
@entropic man
I am complaining about researchers and activists who loudly assert to all and sundry that 'OA' is a scientific fact (not just a hypothesis) and yet have only scant (a few thousand observations max) data on which to make any such assertion.
I go sailing off the coast of S.England a lot. The nearest published pH data comes from over 2000 miles away. If you live in Australia it is nearer 4,000 miles and from India nearer 10,000. Byrne et al (which you referenced) show that even in the few places that have got some measurements, many do not show any pH change at all.
At best, therefore 'OA' is a local, not a general phenomenon and it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
The term 'ocean acidification' is doubly misleading since it wrongly implies that 'acidification' is taking place on an oceanic scale. And ignores that the resultant seawater still remains to be mildly alkaline.
If researchers in this field are so loose in their terminology that they do not consider this to be a major scientific error, or so flabby in their thinking that they cannot understand it, then 'sneering attacks' are what they deserve.
There is a certain amount of evidence that some in "the field" have an agenda other than the scientific:
"Interestingly, one of them stated quite openly in a meeting I attended a few years ago that he deliberately lied in these sort of elicitation exercises (i.e. exaggerating the probability of high sensitivity) in order to help motivate political action."
See also various climategate emails.
With this in mind, when one sees loaded phrases like "ocean acidification", graphs which are presented to look like huge temperature increases, unlikely prognostications about the impacts of exaggerated sea level rise, etc., one tends to assume that these are examples of said agenda at work rather than an honest desire to present legitimate scientific results.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
This will be a pretty frustrating and purposeless gathering, I think. A mixture of luminaries, some committed to science and some to religion, dancing around the periphery of CAGW, the issue they would probably rather ram down their opponents' throats. Useful discussion on that, however, impossible. After all, you'd scarcely expect Stephen Hawkin (no God because there's nothing for him to do) to have anything much to say to a village clergyman (I believe .....) So the organizers' hope that global warming will provide a starting point acceptable to both sides for the political, etc issues Greenings presence suggests they want aired will probably not happen and both sides will pontificate away as if the other does not exist.
One thought, however, that does entertain. I see one Sir Brian Hoskins, presumably Bob Ward's boss, is on the panel. How will his style match up to Bob's usual polemical rant? Will contributions be invited from the floor? Will Bob be present and will he be given a turn? For that reason alone, let's hope the proceedings are published.
Entropic man
I have a problem with hypotheses — at least as you appear to describe them.
I have a hypothesis that the sun is in reality nothing but a large light bulb. Now do I demand data from you falsifying that hypothesis or do you demand some form of empirical evidence from me to justify at the very least why I believe that hypothesis worthy of consideration?
As Latimer (and many others) have pointed out the concept of "ocean acidification" is a misnomer (and a deliberate one, I would submit) and that the best that can be claimed is a very small reduction in alkalinity.
Even that is doubtful for the reasons already stated above and I would have thought before anyone demands data to refute the idea considerably more evidence to support it would be necessary even to accord it the honour of being called a hypothesis.
Much the same argument applies to much of climate science and its assorted adjuncts, of course. The null hypothesis is (or should be) still that climate variability is the result of natural forces influenced at the margins and at local levels by man's treatment of his environment. I would like to see a lot more (indeed any would be nice) empirical evidence to support the increasingly well-worn argument that "this time it's different".
"Does not have access to library facilities" OR "does not have a budget for access to paywalled papers" = "not a scientist"?
Come on.
Michael Jackson
I dont like "ocean acidification" myself; it is technically not incorrect, but is a catchy shorthand more appropriate to the media than to the science.
How science should be done and assessed is a whole topic in itself.
Popper proposed a system of hypothesis generation, testing and falsification. This involves attempts to demonstrate that the hypothesis is wrong. Any hypothesis that repeatedly passes this falsifiability test becomes a theory and is provisionally accepted as a description of how the world works.
The statistical approach uses the concept of confidence. If you can demonstrate your hypothesis statistically to 95% confidence it is regarded as probably correct. If the calculation generates less than 5% confidence it is regarded as probably wrong. Intermediate values are not particularly usful either way, though values close to 5% or 95% would encourage further research.
Regarding your hypothetical hypothesis :-)
"I have a hypothesis that the sun is in reality nothing but a large light bulb. Now do I demand data from you falsifying that hypothesis or do you demand some form of empirical evidence from me to justify at the very least why I believe that hypothesis worthy of consideration?"
The answer, of course, is both. If this hypothesis were to be seriously proposed, you would be expected to defend it by providing evidence that it was correct. Those attempting to falsify it would be expected to provide evidence that it was false.
Both sides would do further experiments to test the hypothesis and, in due course, one of two outcomes would emerge.
1) The hypothesis is demonstrated to sufficient confidence than most of those involved accept it as the best available explaination, until something better emerges.
2) The hypothesis is shown to be a poor match to reality, and is rejected by most of those involved.
Remember that "proof" in science is a meaningless concept, though you can sometimes achieve it in mathematics. "Disproof" is sometimes possible, but most science is still conditional.
Occasionally enough new hypotheses are validated in a field to generate a whole new world view, which becomes a new paradigm, as happened with plate tectonics.
Regarding you null hypothesis, I regard the published and peer-reviewed literature on climate change as falsifying the null hypothesis; you do not. I doubt either of us will change the other's mind here.
@martin a
I think the distinction Entrropic was groping towards was between:
'Big-grant funded academic scientist' and 'Citizen scientist'
Those in the closed and incestuous world of the former sometimes forget the existence of the latter.
@entropic
'1) The hypothesis is demonstrated to sufficient confidence than most of those involved accept it as the best available explaination, until something better emerges.
2) The hypothesis is shown to be a poor match to reality, and is rejected by most of those involved'
Umm...what you have described is a process of arriving at a consensus, not that of testing a hypothesis. The 'test' here is nothing to do with the properties of nature but a test of human beliefs. And AFAIK climatology is the only 'science' where consensus is considered to be important as compared with scientfic evidence.
In chemistry, for example, it matters not a jot how many people think reaction A will cause the test tube to turn blue nor how many think it will cause it to turn red....what matters - and the only thing that matters - is what actually occurs. Does it turn red or does it turn blue..or does it surprise everybody and turn green and fizz up? Only experiment and observation can tell us this - not opinion or expectation or belief or consensus.
Which leads us neatly back to changes in ocean pH. It doesn't matter what you expect it to do, nor what I expect it to do, nor how many eminent supporters your side or my side may have. Until the work is done to see what Mother Nature is actually doing, we just don't know.
Our answer is not 'yes' or 'no' but 'null'. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
Entropic man
You're right. We are not about to agree on whether the literature nullifies the null hypothesis, largely because (in my opinion) the literature does not start to address the hypothesis that it claims to be supporting.
As I and others have said, and many times, the outputs of computer models may be of assistance but they are not empirical and they are not evidence.
I also am of the opinion that the contention that CO2 is the main driver of global warming "because our models don't work if we don't include it" does not a hypothesis make.
I agree with you that we both need to address the question of whether or not there is evidence that the sun is a big light bulb but since I am the first person in at least several hundred years to propose this rather revolutionary idea I would have thought that there is a considerably greater onus on me than on you to provide some sort of evidence or proof or call it what you like.
The same applies to the rather revolutionary (again, in my opinion) idea that late 20th century warming is driven by CO2 when there is no evidence that it has been so driven in the past when both temperatures and CO2 levels have been higher or that the oceans are becoming "more acid" when the evidence for this claim is based on data which can most politely be described as sparse.
Trenberth may find it more convenient to pontificate on whether the burden of proof should be reversed but I for one think he is wrong. At this stage at any rate.
What we do have evidence for is that "scientists" on the warmist side are prepared to behave in unethical ways in order to further the "cause" of CAGW. Couple this with the paucity of actual reliable data on which to base their conclusions and the alarmist language they use when presenting their "results" and alarm bells should be ringing.
Or is the sound drowned out by the rustling of grant application forms?
Don't have to, there is hard evidence that they admit to doing it when they think we won't find out.
Mike jackson
NW
Latimer Adler
I am more interested in questions like:-
When an IR sensor looking down through the atmosphere measures the intensity of the outward longwave radiation, the amount of energy leaving at the main CO2 absorption wavelengths around 13micrometres is half the amount expected from normal black body behaviour. Where has that energy gone and what effect has it had?
Your contributions sound more like a political discussion than a scientific one, so I'll leave you to it.
@entropic man
Doesn't sound like you have much to say about ocean pH then.
And I;d (not very) respectfully submit that it si you - with your very 'human' talk of ideas being accepted or rejected by the majority - exactly the same as happens at any party conference - that is indulging in 'politics' in the widest sense.
I just want the bass to be observed data - not opinions..
Is that not 'science'?
Or has it morphed into some giant academic opinionfest since I left Big Grant funded academia a while back?
Entropic man
I'm afraid that my lack of knowledge of physics prevents me from answering your question but I could surmise that it could be something to do with the fact that earth is not a black body. Or perhaps because it is actually a rotating sphere.
I'm sure there are physicists who could explain but as Latimer says, we were talking about ocean acidification and anyway, our host gets twitchy when we wander down the radiative physics route!
No problem, I'm sure the next duty warmist assigned to BH comments will be along soon. If only they could come up with something new