A long time ago I wrote The Confirmation Bias – Or Why None of Us are Really Skeptics, with a small insight from Nassim Taleb. Right now I’m rereading The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.
This is truly a great book if you want to understand more about how we think and how we delude ourselves. Through experiments cognitive psychologists demonstrate that once our “moral machinery” has clicked in, which happens very easily, our reasoning is just an after-the-fact rationalization of what we already believe.
Haidt gives the analogy of a rider on an elephant. The elephant starts going one way rather than another, and the rider, unaware of why, starts coming up with invented reasons for the new direction. It’s like the rider is the PR guy for the elephant. In Haidt’s analogy, the rider is our reasoning, and the elephant is our moral machinery. The elephant is in charge. The rider thinks he is.
An an intuitionist, I’d say that the worship of reason is itself an illustration of one of the most long-lived delusions in Western history: the rationalist delusion..
..The French cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber recently reviewed the vast research literature on motivated reasoning (in social psychology) and on the biases and errors of reasoning (in cognitive psychology). They concluded that most of the bizarre and depressing research findings make perfect sense once you see reasoning as having evolved not to help us find truth but to help us engage in arguments, persuasion and manipulation in the context of discussions with other people.
As they put it, “skilled arguers ..are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views.” This explains why the confirmation bias is so powerful and so ineradicable. How hard could it be to teach students to look on the other side, to look for evidence against their favored view? Yet it’s very hard, and nobody has yet found a way to do it. It’s hard because the confirmation bias is a built-in feature (of an argumentative mind), not a bug that can be removed (from a platonic mind)..
..In the same way, each individual reasoner is really good at one thing: finding evidence to support the position he or she already holds, usually for intuitive reasons..
..I have tried to make a reasoned case that our moral capacities are best described from an intuitionist perspective. I do not claim to have examined the question from all sides, nor to have offered irrefutable proof.
Because of the insurmountable power of the confirmation bias, counterarguments will have to be produced by those who disagree with me.
Haidt also highlights some research showing that more intelligence and education makes you better at generating more arguments for your side of the argument, but not for finding reasons on the other side. “Smart people make really good lawyers and press secretaries.. people invest their IQ in buttressing their own case rather than in exploring the entire issue more fully and evenhandedly.”
The whole book is very readable and full of studies and explanations.
If you fancy a bucket of ice cold water thrown over the rationalist delusion then this is a good way to get it.
Interesting ideas and pertinent to the discussions of Red Team – Blue Team analyses of climate change. Embrace the motivated reasoning of different perspectives to achieve better understanding?
Much of human and pre-human evolution is thought to have taken place in small groups. Being a member of such a group conveyed huge advantage relative to being an outcast. Group defense ( strength in numbers ), hunting, gathering food, mating, collective shared memory of experience were all benefits of the group that would be lost on one’s own. Genes of those predisposed to getting along in a group would have been favored over those predisposed to conflicting with the group, even if those conflicts were based on reason. The assessments and decisions of evolutionary groups may have been more survival based ( which way to migrate, whether to attack or avoid another group, whether to eat a berry or not ) than abstract theoretical questions, but this evolution appears to explain social biases.
The Rightous Mind is indeed insightful, but its realy limited to non-science (or if you prefer, non-technological) issues. The micrprocessor running the iPhone I write this on has a whole lot of tecnology, and none of it is subject to bias… it either works or it doesn’t. The problem with climate science is that it has profound political implications, and it attracts people who have a pre-existing ‘green’ philosophy. Worse yet, there is no ‘works or it doesn’t’ test that can be applied in anything less than decades. Some will argue (including me) that the field is politically biased, and its projections/prognostications/prediction reflect that bias. Of course, that could just be my righteous mind speaking. 😉
A couple of comments:
First, this is a strong argument for the adversarial system in which different points of view are encouraged and presented publicly.
Second, I wouldn’t go as far as Haidt. Some people are more biased than others just as all people are sinners but some are vastly more sinful (in fact evil) than others. The struggle to eradicate biases is a worthy struggle to be encouraged. In fact, there are people who go out of their way to mention issues with what they are arguing. These people are often not as successful as those who are less scrupulous. But, upholding up high standards is a very worthwhile activity and we should never make excuses for obviously bias and self-serving behavior.
dpy6629 wrote: “Some people are more biased than others … The struggle to eradicate biases is a worthy struggle to be encouraged”.
Eliminating bias is impossible. The best that can be hoped for is awareness of bias. The biggest problem is when, as a result of confirmation bias, people come to regard a values based opinion as provable fact.
I would say that bias, and awareness of bias, varies with the issue. An anti-abortion activist might cite scientific evidence in support of his position, which is obviously based on a moral judgement. Clear confirmation bias. But if asked if their position is based on science or morality, that person would almost certainly say “morality”. You won’t change that person’s mind, but at least there is a chance of a civilized discussion. But an advocate of drastic action on climate change probably thinks his position is based on indisputable science. There is really no way to have a debate with such a person. It is not a left-right thing; just try debating free trade with a conservative.
dpy6629 wrote: “In fact, there are people who go out of their way to mention issues with what they are arguing. These people are often not as successful as those who are less scrupulous”.
Very true. I learned that lesson back when I was publishing scientific papers and chasing grant money. But I refused to let it changed my behavior. That was a big part of why I retired early.
Only one side has confirmation bias. Just ask.
This sounds very Bayesian — having priors.
SOD: Did a comment from me get caught in moderation?
Frank, I can’t see one. I also checked the s&*m bucket and nothing there either. Sorry.
Thanks. I had trouble elsewhere to. I’ll resubmit.
I tried again and failed and again forgot to save what I wrote. I quoted a significant amount of material from a book and it is possible WordPress keeps that from happening for copyright reasons. Schools today employ software that detects plagarism. I’ll do it differently.
Thank you. This confirms my view that everyone is biased.
It has just dawned on me that that the whole “red team – blue team approach is another form of Hegelian dialectic: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.
How to differentiate between nonsense and science?
The Ultimate Confirmation. That all countries could agree that 2 degree surface temperature increase from pre-industrial would be too much for the human rase. The threat of annihilation sets up a great moral movement that increases towards moral panic and an endtime rhetoric. Two common headlines of newspapers prior to the Paris agreement: ” ‘Megastorms’ that throw thousand-tonne boulders over clifftops may be on their way back thanks to global warming.“ “The effort kicking off in Paris this week to hold the world’s nations to strict climate targets may be even more urgent than most people realize.”
The story about the Cow and the Bull and the other boulders from Eleuthera in Bahamas is spread around the world, to show the destructiveness and forces of superstorms. It`s an exiting story about what happened in superstorms 118000 years ago, when the wind and waves lifted boulders of up to 2300 tons ashore. The New Theory of Boulder Elevation came from a geologist Paul J. Hearty, and illustrate what we can expect if we don`t agree on a radical reduction of CO2 emission. This was really food for the climate scientist-activist James Hansen. “Hearty, an expert on Bahamas geology, first published in 1997 the idea that Cow and Bull and were hurled to their perch by the sea. Since then, Hansen has given the work much added attention by framing the boulders as Exhibit A for his dire view of climate change — which has drawn doubters in the scientific community.” ”That period was one where, in Hansen’s interpretation, “all hell breaks loose”: a collapse of polar ice, quickly rising seas, a shutdown of heat-transporting ocean circulation, and then superstorms spawned by a greater temperature contrast between warm tropics and cold poles.” Cited from: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/megastorms-that-can-throw-thousand-tonne-boulders-up-cliffs-may-be-on-their-way-back-thanks-to-a6754511.html
What do we know about storms blowing rocks ashore?. We know it can happen. And we know about some instances. For the block at Bondi Beach the original source gives a weight of about 235 t. “Wave-transported during storm in 1912 (Süssmilch, 2012); often cited as an example for largest coastal boulder dimensions observed to have been moved during a storm (Felton and Crook, 2003; Switzer and Burston, 2010; Terry et al., 2013.)” From: Block and boulder transport in Eastern Samar (Philippines) during Supertyphoon Haiyan . S. M. May et al. Quite some difference between heaviest known boulder moved (235 tons) and the superstorm possible move (2300 tons). Ten times stronger waves than anytime during the last 105 years? And should the temperature contrast between warm tropics and cold poles be greater during a globally warm period than during some ice age?
“Hearty and another leading Bahamas geology expert, Pascal Kindler of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, agree that the boulders are older than the surface upon which they rest and, thus, probably were moved by the sea.” Kindler`s theory was that only a tsunami could move that big rocks. In 1996 Hearty wrote that it was possible that the boulders could have been moved by a tsunami. “The waves that transported the boulders may have been initiated by tsunamis, local slumping of the bank margin, or massive storms. The unidirectional flow generated by a tsunami is capable of transporting very large blocks, but if massive storms were responsible, they must have been much larger than those occurring during the Holocene. These findings may have important implications related to global warming during the present interglaciation.” This was forgotten a couple of years later, when it was only superstorms that counted. “ Chevron Ridges and Runup Deposits in the Bahamas from Storms Late in Oxygen-Isotope Substage 5e “. He then had two other geologists with him on The New Theory of Boulder Elevation, A. C. Neumann and D. S. Kaufman.
So, how was The New Theory of Boulder Elevation received among geologists? In 2002 there was presented a paper at The 114th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America. It was from the most profiled geologists of Bahamas. Boardman, Mark R., Carew, James L., Mylroie, John E., Panuska, Bruce C., Sealy, Neil E., and Voegeli, Vincent J.: Holocene deposition in Northwest Providence Channel, Bahamas : a geochemical approach. The conclusion was that Hearty and others hadn`t got the age right, and that the boulders was younger than the ground underneath. They had never been moved. “We regard the “boulders” to be residual karst towers, which explains the presence of the caves.”
Of couse Hearty and Hansen held on to The New Theory of Boulder Elevation. So, finally in 2016, when the Paris conference should be arranged, they gathered the climate scientist community around the paper: “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 ◦C global warming could be dangerous”. James Hansen1 , Makiko Sato1 , Paul Hearty2 , Reto Ruedy3,4 , Maxwell Kelley3,4 , Valerie Masson-Delmotte5 , Gary Russell4 , George Tselioudis4 , Junji Cao6 , Eric Rignot7,8 , Isabella Velicogna7,8 , Blair Tormey9 , Bailey Donovan10 , Evgeniya Kandiano11, Karina von Schuckmann12, Pushker Kharecha1,4 , Allegra N. Legrande4 , Michael Bauer4,13 , and Kwok-Wai Lo3,4 . But now with no other geologist than Hearty. But when he had to defend his new theory against his old co-worker Kindler, he came up with some new “geologists”. “Reply to Engel, Kindler, and Godefroid’s comment …” Paul J. Hearty , Blair Tormey, Bailey Donovan , and George Tselioudis. (geologist, master degree geology, geology student and adjunct professor physics) “There is near consensus that the megaboulders on Eleuthera were transported by giant waves around the end of the late last interglacial (end-Eemian; late MIS 5e), and we welcome validation of this conclusion by our colleagues.”
Where comes confirmation bias in all this. Is the grand old man of Bahamas geology Mark R. Boardman biased by his status, position and old theories? Or is he just blind? Or has some other persons got it wrong? Perhaps biased by some moral panic?
Waves can certainly move boulders horizontally and even up modest slopes. Throwing a 1000 ton boulder through the air onto a 60 foot cliff? Uh, no.
“It`s an exiting story about what happened in superstorms …”.
Hmm. Is an “exiting story” one that indicates that reason has left the building?
“Where comes confirmation bias in all this.”
Is Poe’s Law at work here?
Much better example of group-think described here:
http://contextearth.com/2017/07/06/confirmation-bias/
From another discipline, the always excellent Timothy Taylor:
All people are not equally guilty. Religious believers are more prone to suffer from confirmation bias than people who do scientific research, who are taught to ask themselves questions and produce alternative hypotheses to test by experimentation and observations.
Scientific education and training are antidotes to confirmation bias. Of course they are not a perfect antidote to the effects of personality and social group identification.
The so called skeptics include a wide range of views and people with a wide range of backgrounds. If we limit the discussion to reasonably well educated people that have looked into the issue in depth, you get a large group of very senior and capable people that initially accepted that AGW was a potential serious problem, but having studied detailed real data, concluded that the issue “that there is some AGW and likely to lead to serious problems” was unsupported on the last half of the statement. A large number of very senior scientists that do not depend on funding to study the issue ( many retired senior scientists, or those in fields not dependent on funding on this issue, such as Physics, Geology, Aerospace Engineering, etc) came to the conclusion that the reaction was likely wrong of supporters of the claim that there is a real problem, and would likely lead to a backlash on scientists when the facts come out that data does not support the claimed problem. The strongest support for CAGW comes from those dependent on funding to continue examining the issue, and a wide group of totally ignorant people in the press and in governments. There are honest exceptions that have done the in-depth reviews of data, but they are actually few.
SOD wrote: “Through experiments cognitive psychologists demonstrate that once our “moral machinery” has clicked in, which happens very easily, our reasoning is just an after-the-fact rationalization of what we already believe.”
I agree. But scientists know about confirmation bias and other human cognitive weaknesses. In the past, we were expected to do everything possible to avoid them.
For example, we know that patients getting a placebo tend to feel better and something get better. Doctors and others treating patients want their patients to get better (that is what they are paid to do). So clinical trials with a new drug are almost always double-blind: Neither the patient nor anyone evaluating the patient is allowed to know which patients are receiving drug and which are receiving placebo.
In Cargo Cult Science, Feynman discusses scientific integrity in general and showed how flexibility in defining outliers distorted the results obtained by those repeating the Millikan oil drop experiment. Despite our understanding of these problems, Ioannidis recently published “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”. McIntyre, Lewis and others have delved into the depths of various climate science papers and repeatedly identified mistakes and dubious choices that appear to always strengthen the case for CAGW – confirmation bias.
We know how to minimize the problem of confirmation bias. In many cases, the IMPACT of scientific and other academic research has become more important than its integrity. And this problem extends in academia far beyond climate science.
Frank,
I’ll just play devil’s advocate for a minute:
1. In the Millikan oil drop experiment (that I only know 3rd hand via a friend’s explanation of Feynman’s recounting), the initial result was wrong and then everyone gradually moved towards the right answer – they should have moved immediately to the right answer but they were swayed by the previous results.
Just because all CAGW results go in one direction doesn’t mean that the CAGW hypothesis is wrong. Perhaps the earlier less CAGW hypothesis was wrong, and the later results are right. Just like the Millikan experiment. Perhaps you have the confirmation bias?
I’m not trying to be inflammatory or negative here. I’m just presenting a possible conclusion, assuming that none of us can see straight.
2. In the many paper’s I have read I find that quite often the results go in a “less CAGW” direction. These probably aren’t the ones in the public eye – that is all about PR & media management. I’m talking papers not PR.
Example A, reading papers on the ice age – to confirm the CAGW hypothesis there should be a clear tendency to find GHGs being more significant and also to find that past climate is well understood and explained by external forcing. I don’t find either tendency.
Example B, reading papers on climate sensitivity and models – to confirm the CAGW hypothesis there should be a clear tendency to shift the lower bound up and to “find” that results confirmed in experiments support the models with higher climate sensitivity. I don’t find either.
Completely different story I’m sure in “the media”, which is why I try to avoid it as much as is possible.
On the other hand, to go against my “devil’s advocate hypothesis” I should find that most climate scientists point out that RCP8.5 doesn’t seem to have any relationship to “business as usual” and instead they should be citing “business as usual” as RCP6 and the results from that scenario. That’s not what I find. Jumping back on the pendulum and over to the other side, they might feel that this is outside their area of expertise.. (leaving it to fortune tellers perhaps).
Perhaps my bias prevents me from seeing that RCP8.5 is really business as usual. Perhaps I’m just ignoring the papers in Examples A & B that demonstrate the opposite of what I claim.
And so on..
SOD: Your reply does demonstrate that my comment reeked of confirmation bias. My apologies. I do feel permanently handicapped by having read too many years of ClimateAudit, but I usually do better suppressing my biases. The best I could do this time was say: “identified mistakes and dubious choices that APPEAR to always strengthen the case for CAGW”. Emphasis added. Nevertheless, I did occasionally take the time to compare McIntyre against RC and primary sources. I usually found McIntyre more credible that RC on narrow issues and supported by primary sources.
After a decade of controversy, the SPM for AR5 WG1 says this about the MWP: “Continental-scale surface temperature reconstructions show, with high confidence, multi-decadal periods during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (year 950 to 1250) that were in some regions as warm as in the late 20th century. These regional warm periods did not occur as coherently across regions as the warming in the late 20th century (high confidence).” Who won, Mann or McIntyre?
Example B: NIc Lewis discussed the history of climate sensitivity in this non-peer-reviewed, though highly referenced, paper. You decide for yourself. (The GWPF does publish some dubious material.) Many researchers are suddenly trying to explain the gap between EBMs and AOGCMs.
Click to access A-Sensitive-Matter-Foreword-inc.pdf
Example A, Ice Ages: I recently was asked if ice cores provided support for the theory that rising CO2 causes global warming. The theory doesn’t require ANY support from ice cores, but the consensus cites this information constantly. There is an online talk by Richard Alley asserting that every major shift in the Earth’s climate (except possibly one) was caused by CO2.
At the last termination, did the rise in CO2: a) lead warming, b) lag warming by a trivial amount, so that CO2 could be the main driver, or c) contribute modestly to termination. Sorry for the vague terms,
a) There is good evidence that CO2 is correlated with warming. However, orbital mechanics plays some role in these changes and no one has proposed a mechanism by which orbital mechanics causes CO2 to outgas in the absence of warming. My inability to cite a mechanism is not proof or the absence of such a mechanism, but b) and c) seem more likely prospects.
b) Could orbital changes have produced a small amount of warming, and that warming have caused CO2 outgassing with outgassing driving the rest of termination? The evidence that there was an 800-year lag between rising CO2 and rising temperature at Vostok is now considered to be wrong and some are reporting shorter or negligible lags. However, there is great uncertainty in how long CO2 can diffuse into the firn before it becomes trapped in ice. At Vostok, the CO2 could be 2 millennia younger than the ice that encases it. Even faster-accumulating sites haven’t provided reliable answers so far.
However, if you look carefully at the amount of forcing outgassed CO2 could have caused, you need at least a millennium of rising CO2 and an ECS of 4.5 to produce a meaningful change in temperature and then more outgassing of CO2. No one is claiming that 1 K of warming during the 20th-century has contributed to the rise of CO2. It takes about a millennium for the MOC to bring deep water to the surface. CO2 could have contributed something to warming during termination, but it probably wasn’t the dominant factor. And it turns out that changes in surface albedo are believed to have caused a forcing comparable to outgassed CO2.
c) Finally, termination turns out to look nothing like the CO2-mediated global warming that is predicted for the future, with the most warming at the North Pole. During termination, warming in Greenland lagged the rise in CO2 by 3 millennia and then oscillated between the poles. In Greenland, CO2 unambiguously lags warming by several millennia, but the consensus never discusses this fact. The temperature record that correlates with CO2 comes from Vostok. That is local temperature, not global temperature. Even other ice cores from Antarctic coast show differences from Vostok. CO2 is well-mixed and therefore a global record. We should be using a composite of ocean sediment cores, not Vostok, as a measure of “global warming” during termination. When one looks into the details of what happened during the last termination, the sensible thing to conclude is that the phenomenon is too different from the coming CO2-mediated warming to be a useful model.
Frank,
Quick notes due to pressure of time, I may respond further in a day or so:
1. RC, RealClimate, is a few climate scientists, not the weight of papers.
2. CO2 is considered a lag feedback on ice age terminations/initiations, but it is not the cause. 100s of papers support this. More recently a new paper, Parrenin et al 2013, questions the lag based on a more detailed review around diffusion of gases in cores. It’s a complex subject. It’s clear from the 100s of papers supporting the old idea and the reticence to embrace this new idea that everyone does not tilt towards “the more CAGW the better”.
SoD wrote: “CO2 is considered a lag feedback on ice age terminations/initiations, but it is not the cause”.
When I look at the data I see only a very small lag (centuries) during terminations. But it looks like the lag during glacial onset is 10,000 years or more. That would seem to indicate only a modest feedback from CO2 to temperature. Also, the changes in CO2 forcing would support temperature changes of only a degree or so.
Frank wrote: “.. no one has proposed a mechanism by which orbital mechanics causes CO2 to outgas in the absence of warming … Could orbital changes have produced a small amount of warming, and that warming have caused CO2 outgassing with outgassing driving the rest of termination?”
I think I have seen such mechanisms proposed. I could search my hard drive if you would like references. Temperature is only a minor factor in CO2 partition into the ocean. CO2 accumulates in the deep ocean as a result of organisms dying and sinking. The CO2 gets returned to the surface by the overturning circulation. I think it is generally accepted that decreases in atmospheric CO2 are due to a slowing of the overturning circulation and vice versa for increases (the current one excepted). As to what causes the change in circulation, it seems that “theories abound” (to quote our host), i.e., nobody really knows. Some of the theories involve orbital changes in insolation, if memory serves.
SoD wrote: “It’s clear from the 100s of papers supporting the old idea and the reticence to embrace this new idea that everyone does not tilt towards “the more CAGW the better”.
My impression is that climate modellers live in a largely different world than paleoclimatologists and oceanographers. The latter groups seem far more skeptical of IPCC orthodoxy.
MIke wrote: “When I look at the data I see only a very small lag (centuries) during terminations. But it looks like the lag during glacial onset is 10,000 years or more.”
Here are two papers that the consensus believes address your issues.
Cuffey and Vimeux, 2001 created a “model” for isotope effects during water vapor transport that “addresses” your 10,000 year lag issue.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6846/full/412523a0.html
Ice-core measurements of carbon dioxide1, 2 and the deuterium palaeothermometer reveal significant covariation of temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentrations throughout the climate cycles of the past ice ages. This covariation provides compelling evidence that CO2 is an important forcing factor for climate3, 4, 5. But this interpretation is challenged by some substantial mismatches of the CO2 and deuterium records, especially during the onset of the last glaciation, about 120 kyr ago. Here we incorporate measurements of deuterium excess from Vostok6, 7 in the temperature reconstruction and show that much of the mismatch is an artefact caused by variations of climate in the water vapour source regions. Using a model that corrects for this effect, we derive a new estimate for the covariation of CO2 and temperature, of r2 = 0.89 for the past 150 kyr and r2 = 0.84 for the period 350–150 kyr ago. Given the complexity of the biogeochemical systems involved, this close relationship strongly supports the importance of carbon dioxide as a forcing factor of climate. Our results also suggest that the mechanisms responsible for the drawdown of CO2 may be more responsive to temperature than previously thought.
Pedro et al., 2012: http://www.clim-past.net/8/1213/2012/
Antarctic ice cores provide clear evidence of a close coupling between variations in Antarctic temperature and the atmospheric concentration of CO2 during the glacial/interglacial cycles of at least the past 800-thousand years. Precise information on the relative timing of the temperature and CO2 changes can assist in refining our understanding of the physical processes involved in this coupling. Here, we focus on the last deglaciation, 19 000 to 11 000 yr before present, during which CO2 concentrations increased by ~80 parts per million by volume and Antarctic temperature increased by ~10 °C. Utilising a recently developed proxy for regional Antarctic temperature, derived from five near-coastal ice cores and two ice core CO2 records with high dating precision, we show that the increase in CO2 likely lagged the increase in regional Antarctic temperature by less than 400 yr and that even a short lead of CO2 over temperature cannot be excluded. This result, consistent for both CO2 records, implies a faster coupling between temperature and CO2 than previous estimates, which had permitted up to millennial-scale lags.
The two papers I cited above claimed to address concerns about the idea that the “CO2 Control Knob” is responsible for almost every fluctuation in the Earth’s Climate. Looking at the big picture for the last termination, the Control Knob perspective is laughable, a classic example of confirmation bias.
1) On paper, the albedo forcing associated with retreating ice was as big as that from rising CO2.
2) The Vostok ice core measures local warming, not global warming. To determine the relationship between rising CO2 and “global warming” at termination, global warming should be measured with a composite of ocean sediment cores.
3) The last termination was not what we think of today as “global warming”. Warming in Greenland lagged 3 millennia behind initiation in Antarctica, even though D-O events show that Greenland’s temperature was easily perturbed. Then warming oscillated between the poles. Then came the Younger Dryas. Today, the northern polar region is leading a global warming that hasn’t started in Antarctica.
4) The low rate of accumulation (2-3 g/cm2) at many Antarctic sites mean that CO2 was trapped in ice up deposited up to 5 millennia earlier.
5) I suspect addressing 4) by aligning two noisy records by correlation artificially reduces the lag between them.
6) The forcing associated with the release of CO2 is too small to account for most of the warming during termination, unless climate sensitivity then was much higher than today.
7) The rising CO2 in the atmosphere in the 20th century is supposed to have come from burning fossil fuels. Why didn’t 1 K of warming produce appreciable out-gassing of CO2 from the ocean in the 20th century? Answer: It takes a millennia to get deep water with CO2 to the surface. So how could CO2 have lagged warming by much less than a millennium at termination?
8) CO2 in ice cores is nearly unchanged during the temperature fluctuations experienced during the Holocene. Nevertheless, we are expected to believe a tiny bit of warming at the beginning of termination was dramatically amplified by a combination of high climate sensitivity and outgassing of CO2.
CO2 plays an important role; it is clearly not a “Control Knob”. Nevertheless, the consensus cites glacial cycles are evidence that we can control future climate by controlling emissions.
Frank wrote: “CO2 plays an important role; it is clearly not a “Control Knob”. Nevertheless, the consensus cites glacial cycles are evidence that we can control future climate by controlling emissions.”
Well summarized. And, as you note, it seems that confirmation bias is alive and well.
Feynman: We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of
the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It’s a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It’s interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.
Why didn’t they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It’s a thing that scientists are ashamed of–this history–because
it’s apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan’s, they thought something
must be wrong–and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan’s value they didn’t look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.
We’ve learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don’t have that
kind of a disease.
Click to access CargoCult.pdf
Or, put a different way, the only one who didn’t think he knew the “right answer” when processing his data was Millikan. And his unbiased processing of the data gave the right answer – or would have if he had used the correct viscosity of air.
Frank,
A mistake like the wrong viscosity for air is something that a reviewer of the original paper should probably have noticed. But, once again, peer review is not as effective as it’s often thought to be.
Frank wrote: “We’ve learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don’t have that
kind of a disease.”
As someone who spent 30 years as a practicing scientist; publishing, reviewing, and reading papers in my area of expertise, I find Frank’s statement to be charmingly naive.
Mike: “My charmingly naive statement” is actually a direct quote from Feynman’s famous graduation lecture, “Cargo Cult Science”, about what separates science for pseudo-sciences – what he called “cargo-cult science”. For those who haven’t read it or forgotten it, some more words from Feynman.
I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are
examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the
South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw
airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same
thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to imitate things like
runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a
wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head
like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas–he’s
the controller–and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re
doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the
way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So
I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the
apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but
they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.
Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they’re missing.
But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea
Islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some
wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling
them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one
feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science.
That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying
science in school–we never explicitly say what this is, but just
hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific
investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now
and speak of it explicitly. It’s a kind of scientific INTEGRITY,
a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of
utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if
you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you
think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about
it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and
things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other
experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can
tell they have been eliminated.”
Feynman goes on to discuss confirmation bias and other challenges of doing reliable science. It appears to me that many academics today (especially some climate scientists) are more interested in the “impact” of their work (which IS precisely how scientists and their papers are judged today) rather than its integrity. Are some of today’s scientists modern versions of those described by Feynman, doing science: “with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas”? They also wanted to have an impact – by bringing wealth into their society via airplanes. Or does this metaphor apply to mostly skeptical climate scientists (and me)?
As best I can tell, ScienceofDoom is a community in the blogosphere where integrity is more important than impact. And why I appreciate those who take the time to explain what they perceive to be my mistakes.
Mike M: I might point out that the LIGO gravity wave project created artificial data meant to look a bit like a real gravity wave and inserted that data into the real data to guard against confirmation bias. Those analyzing the data knew that any event they discovered was much more likely to turn out to be an embarrassing and unambiguous false alarm, rather than the discovery of a lifetime.
Frank wrote: “It appears to me that many academics today (especially some climate scientists) are more interested in the “impact” of their work (which IS precisely how scientists and their papers are judged today) rather than its integrity.”
That is very true. More important is that grant proposals are judged on impact. In research, money is life. The result is to steadily erode the sort of extreme integrity that Feynman correctly describes as being critical to science.
Climate science seems especially hard hit. I suspect that saving the planet goes to one’s head. Cold fusion is arguably even worse, but they are wasting far less resources.
Frank wrote: “Are some of today’s scientists modern versions of those described by Feynman, doing science: “with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas”.
It is not that bad. But it is in that direction.
LIGO is a refreshing example of doing it right.
Frank wrote: “ScienceofDoom is a community in the blogosphere where integrity is more important than impact. And why I appreciate those who take the time to explain what they perceive to be my mistakes.”
I second that. And I think you have the proper attitude towards mistakes.
TRUMP and PRUITT get the SCIENCE RIGHT – NATURAL CYCLES DRIVE CLIMATE CHANGE.
Climate is controlled by natural cycles. Earth is just past the 2003+/- peak of a millennial cycle and the current cooling trend will likely continue until the next Little Ice Age minimum at about 2650.See the Energy and Environment paper at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958305X16686488
and an earlier accessible blog version at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-coming-cooling-usefully-accurate_17.html
Here is the abstract for convenience :
“ABSTRACT
This paper argues that the methods used by the establishment climate science community are not fit for purpose and that a new forecasting paradigm should be adopted. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of where the earth is in time in relation to the current phases of those different interacting natural quasi periodicities. Evidence is presented specifying the timing and amplitude of the natural 60+/- year and, more importantly, 1,000 year periodicities (observed emergent behaviors) that are so obvious in the temperature record. Data related to the solar climate driver is discussed and the solar cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity) in 1991 is identified as a solar activity millennial peak and correlated with the millennial peak -inversion point – in the UAH6 temperature trend in about 2003. The cyclic trends are projected forward and predict a probable general temperature decline in the coming decades and centuries. Estimates of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling are made. If the real climate outcomes follow a trend which approaches the near term forecasts of this working hypothesis, the divergence between the IPCC forecasts and those projected by this paper will be so large by 2021 as to make the current, supposedly actionable, level of confidence in the IPCC forecasts untenable.””
Norm: Anything is possible when it comes to unforced variability. The exchange of heat between the surface and the deep ocean depends on chaotic ocean currents. The same is true for the sun. Sometimes potentially chaotic phenomena show regular periodic behavior, sometimes irregular periodic behavior (oscillations) and sometimes no periodicity … on many different time scales.
However, judging from the Holocene, the chances of seeing an unforced or naturally-forced 1 degC change in a single century are small and a larger change even less likely. So, if the radiative forcing from rising GHG is strongly amplified, the 3 to 5 K warming produced by business as usual emissions will overwhelm any of the phenomena you refer to.
So, our future depends on rising GHGs – if climate sensitivity is high. Our host has presented basic physics and observations showing that rising GHG’s must cause some warming, but AFAIK, no unambiguous proof that climate sensitivity is high or low.
The most persuasive evidence I have seen (EBMs) suggest that ECS is 1.5-2.0 K, but AOGCMs predict that cloud feedback will become increasingly positive at the earth warms.
Frank wrote: “The exchange of heat between the surface and the deep ocean depends on chaotic ocean currents. The same is true for the sun. Sometimes potentially chaotic phenomena show regular periodic behavior, sometimes irregular periodic behavior (oscillations) and sometimes no periodicity … on many different time scales.”
Nice summary. I would add that the variations in heat flow are probably too small to have much of a direct effect in either case. The heat flow in/out of the deep ocean appears to be too small for fluctuations to matter much. (Maybe a future topic for SoD?) Astronomers seem convinced that fluctuations in solar output can not be very large. So in either case, something is needed to leverage the effect. With the ocean, changes in surface temperature distribution can produce changes in cloud distribution. Since clouds have such large radiative effects, that can impact climate. Mechanisms for leveraging solar output fluctuations appear to be much more speculative (I nearly said fanciful).
Frank wrote: “However, judging from the Holocene, the chances of seeing an unforced or naturally-forced 1 degC change in a single century are small and a larger change even less likely.”
I don’t think we know that. The instrumental record implies that there are multiple decade fluctuations capable of doubling the anthropogenic warming (late 20th century) or cancelling it out (the pause). The question then is whether such excursions can last for a century. We just don’t have data on such time scales. The instrumental record is too short, and the proxy record is too noisy.
Mike M wrote: “I would add that the variations in heat flow are probably too small to have much of a direct effect in either case. The heat flow in/out of the deep ocean appears to be too small for fluctuations to matter much. (Maybe a future topic for SoD?)”
I would like to learn more about why chaotic fluctuations can or can’t matter much. I over-simplify ENSO into a chaotic fluctuation in upwelling of cold water in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific and downwelling in the Western Pacific Warm Pool. That produces transient peaks in temperature of nearly 0.5 K which is not a small fluctuation to me. Maybe things like the AMO and PDO are slower examples of the same phenomena with lower amplitude. No one I have read discusses the LIA, MWP and other Holocene fluctuations in terms of internal variability. For the LIA, climate scientists talk about the maunder minimum (too short) or volcanos (even shorter), so I hold out hope for fluctuations in overturning.
I agree that unforced variability has the ability to cancel or amplify warming in the historical period. 1920-1945 rise, 1945-1975 hiatus, 1975-2000 rise, 2000-2013 hiatus. However, these haven’t obscured the overall warming since GHGs became an important driven around 1950. If another Maunder Minimum occurred in the 21st century and Ts dropped 0.5 K in the next two decades, the future under high ECS scenarios would only change modestly. The biggest solar forcing for the Maunder minimum I have seen is -1 W/m2 and the forcing from CO2 alone will reach 4 W/m2.
Frank wrote: “I would like to learn more about why chaotic fluctuations can or can’t matter much.”
I think they do matter, but such fluctuations not mattering seems to be pretty much baked in the cake of mainstream climate science. Here are a link and a paper (not paywalled, I think) saying they do matter:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/
C. Wunsch, “The spectral description of climate change including the 100 ky energy”, Climate Dynamics (2003) 20: 353–363, DOI10.1007/s00382-002-0279-z
Frank wrote: “I over-simplify ENSO into a chaotic fluctuation in upwelling of cold water in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific and downwelling in the Western Pacific Warm Pool. That produces transient peaks in temperature of nearly 0.5 K which is not a small fluctuation to me. Maybe things like the AMO and PDO are slower examples of the same phenomena with lower amplitude.”
That is pretty much how I think about it, but I think that the downweliing in the W. Pacific is to much shallower depth than the upwelling in the E. Pacific is from. And I don’t think that in general they balance. From what I have seen, a lot of people think the AMO is connected to variations in the overturning circulation, specifically the AMOC. Judith Curry thinks all these things are linked (global stadium wave). We know that the variations associated with El Nino are due to reasonably well understood variations in the Walker circulation. But there is nothing like that understanding of the AMO or PDO.
The 0.5 K variations in sea surface T associated with El Nino are local, global changes are maybe 0.1 K. It seems that what is changing is not so much the heat in the surface ocean, but the pattern of sea surface temperatures. Year to year variations in ocean heat content are a few times 10^22 J; a lot of that might be measurement noise. 3e22 J/yr equals 0.2 W/m^2 which would be less than 0.1 K, using a reasonable sensitivity.
Frank wrote: “No one I have read discusses the LIA, MWP and other Holocene fluctuations in terms of internal variability. For the LIA, climate scientists talk about the maunder minimum (too short) or volcanos (even shorter), so I hold out hope for fluctuations in overturning.”
See the references above. Of course, no specific event can really be discussed in terms of a chaotic process. I think that climate scientists are wedded to the idea that variations in climate must have an external cause. Otherwise, you can not hope to explain things in a traditional cause-and-effect manner.
Frank wrote: “If another Maunder Minimum occurred in the 21st century and Ts dropped 0.5 K in the next two decades, the future under high ECS scenarios would only change modestly. The biggest solar forcing for the Maunder minimum I have seen is -1 W/m2 and the forcing from CO2 alone will reach 4 W/m2.”
I think that large solar forcing is not widely accepted, the actual values is probably a lot smaller. The cooling from clouds is around 45 W/m^2 and the greenhouse warming from clouds is about 30 W/m^2. They can vary largely independently, so even modest variation in clouds could amount to a few W/m^2.
Frank said:
“I would like to learn more about why chaotic fluctuations can or can’t matter much. I over-simplify ENSO into a chaotic fluctuation in upwelling of cold water in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific and downwelling in the Western Pacific Warm Pool.”
NASA JPL research indicates ocean and atmospheric cycles due to Geo-Luni-Solar forcing. Christian Bizouard and Claire Périgaud are main researchers for this. For example, ENSO cycles linked to variations in Earth’s rotation speed driven by lunar cycles. They say no chaos involved unless you strange and think moon orbit chaotic.
Mathieu: Thanks for the information. I didn’t find any papers author by both Bizouard and Périgaud, though they both work in this area. The closest I could come was the following 2016 reference on which Bizouard is a co-author. Even if orbital “forcing” plays some role in ENSO and AMO, that doesn’t exclude a role for chaotic fluctuations in ocean currents. However, I need to remember that the existence of potentially-chaotic drivers doesn’t mean the majority of variability is unforced.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2016.05.005 A possible interrelation between Earth rotation and climatic variability at decadal time-scale.
Abstract: Using multichannel singular spectrum analysis (MSSA) we decomposed climatic time series into principal components, and compared them with Earth rotation parameters. The global warming trends were initially subtracted. Similar quasi 60 and 20 year periodic oscillations have been found in the global mean Earth temperature anomaly (HadCRUT4) and global mean sea level (GMSL). Similar cycles were also found in Earth rotation variation. Over the last 160 years multi-decadal change of Earth’s rotation velocity is correlated with the 60-year temperature anomaly, and Chandler wobble envelope reproduces the form of the 60-year oscillation noticed in GMSL. The quasi 20-year oscillation observed in GMSL is correlated with the Chandler wobble excitation. So, we assume that Earth’s rotation and climate indexes are connected. Despite of all the clues hinting this connection, no sound conclusion can be done as far as ocean circulation modelling is not able to correctly catch angular momentum of the oscillatory modes.
Introduction: In the last decades the International Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) has published several reports, concerning climate variability [1]. Many observations have been presented and analysed, including Earth’s temperature and global sea level (SL) changes, glacial melting, increase in concentration of greenhouse gases. Global warming trends are clearly seen in these data (Fig. 1) and their prediction using complex models of ocean and atmosphere dynamics is a major matter of IPCC concern. While these models include many factors, they still badly reproduce the so-called “natural variability”, mostly composed of quasi 60- and 20-year variations of temperature (up to 0.3 °C) and SL (up to 30 mm) during the last 160 years. Such variations (Fig. 1) are evidenced by the data representing the global Earth’s temperature anomaly (HadCRUT4) and the global mean sea level (GMSL) [2,3], sea surface temperature (HadSST) [4–9], and are shown in Fig. 2 after trends have been removed. The interpretation of these periodicities is not well understood. For example, 70-year temperature variations are usually related to the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) propagating in the northern Atlantic, influencing the continents of the Northern Hemisphere [4], and teleconnected with the Pacific Decadal (PDO) and Arctic (AO) oscillations. The quasi 20-year variability is inherent in the Indian and Pacific oceans [8]. These variations are often related to natural oscillatory modes of atmosphere, such as El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (composed of a few quasi-periodicities lying between 2 and 8 years) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The aim of this paper is to reassess such a link and deepen its meaning, by paying attention, at the same time, to the similarities between the climatic processes and Earth rotation changes, already noticed in references [10–12].
Frank, yes thats the paper. Périgaud added: “None of the peer-reviewers nor collaborators in 2006 had anticipated that the most remarkable large-scale process that we were going to find comes from ocean circulations fueled by Luni-Geo-Solar gravitational energy.” It play 100% role in explaining all forcing
Click to access forenote.pdf
Norman,
Are you demonstrating the confirmation bias in action? Via parody?
Citing your paper as support for your views? The editorial board at E&E has an almost invisible touch, so this viewpoint has the support of at least 1.
The Moral Stronghold speaks, and we see that “scientists” world over affirm the message. It is about the next generation paying a bloody price if the emission of CO2 continues. And we need to begin to clean up now (take CO2 out of the air). Media embrace the message too (I heard it on the news today with a “scientist`s” comment).
From the abstract: “Global temperature is a fundamental climate metric highly correlated with sea level, which implies that keeping shorelines near their present location requires keeping global temperature within or close to its preindustrial Holocene range. However, global temperature excluding short-term variability now exceeds +1 °C relative to the 1880–1920 mean and annual 2016 global temperature was almost +1.3 °C. We show that global temperature has risen well out of the Holocene range and Earth is now as warm as it was during the prior (Eemian) interglacial period, when sea level reached 6–9 m higher than today. Further, Earth is out of energy balance with present atmospheric composition, implying that more warming is in the pipeline, and we show that the growth rate of greenhouse gas climate forcing has accelerated markedly in the past decade. The rapidity of ice sheet and sea level response to global temperature is difficult to predict, but is dependent on the magnitude of warming. Targets for limiting global warming thus, at minimum, should aim to avoid leaving global temperature at Eemian or higher levels for centuries. Such targets now require negative emissions, i.e., extraction of CO2 from the air. If phasedown of fossil fuel emissions begins soon, improved agricultural and forestry practices, including reforestation and steps to improve soil fertility and increase its carbon content, may provide much of the necessary CO2 extraction. In that case, the magnitude and duration of global temperature excursion above the natural range of the current interglacial (Holocene) could be limited and irreversible climate impacts could be minimized. In contrast, continued high fossil fuel emissions today place a burden on young people to undertake massive technological CO2 extraction if they are to limit climate change and its consequences. Proposed methods of extraction such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) or air capture of CO2 have minimal estimated costs of USD 89–535 trillion this century and also have large risks and uncertain feasibility. Continued high fossil fuel emissions unarguably sentences young people to either a massive, implausible cleanup or growing deleterious climate impacts or both.”
Young people’s burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions
James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, Karina von Schuckmann, David J. Beerling, Junji Cao, Shaun Marcott, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Michael J. Prather, Eelco J. Rohling, Jeremy Shakun, Pete Smith, Andrew Lacis, Gary Russell, and Reto Ruedy
Confirmation bias or delusion? Do we live in a parrot`s nest?
James Hansen must be a master to get scientists involved in his political activism. But it is also about money. Activism as business:
James Hansen: Please give us money. “Please support OCT ” “Our Children’s Trust (OCT) is leading the effort to achieve the first punch.” “Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) simultaneously needs your financial support and/or your time. ” “Finally, I note that we also need support for our Columbia University program Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions (CSAS), which is providing the scientific basis for the legal cases, and/or for the 501c3 CSAS, Inc, which provides an overhead-free mechanism to support our work” So, how is his “science” influenced by those other agendas? Clearly the catastrophic element is important.
.. the elephant is our moral machinery. The elephant is in charge. The rider thinks he is.
Scientists don’t believe that about themselves. They think it only applies to non-scientists (or scientists who have beliefs contrary to them). They pose science as the “mind of God”. Physicists are especially conceited people. We can go back and demonstrate that science got it wrong in the past (e.g. LNT dose-response, sugar/fat). I suspect they ignore these ‘errors’ because they think their science is infallible. Mistakes of the past can’t be repeated! Is that why they are so enraged when I tell them I don’t believe their climate models?
mark4asp,
You will look forward to part two of this series then: “Why only other people have the confirmation bias“. Stay tuned.
SoD
«Many comments on this blog in various articles, and of course in other blogs, criticize James Hansen and paint him as someone who is an activist sounding the alarm and therefore his predictions – that are towards the dangerous end of the “distribution of possible outcomes” – are rendered worthless. Therefore, they can be dismissed.»
Yes, I plead guilty. I think Hansen`s predictions are worthless. And it is because they are not scientifially based. It is science-look-alike used as political propaganda. It is hypotheses presented as truth, without support from evidence. And this is very different from Nic Lewis` attitude. And it look even more scientific as he has a great court who put their name on the papers.
Let us look at his most recent paper: Young People’s Burden: Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions. James Hansen et al. 2017. It has a clear political and legal motivation (from the paper): «a lawsuit [Juliana et al. vs United States, 2016, hereafter J et al. vs US, 2016] was filed against the United States asking the U.S. District Court, District of Oregon, to require the U.S. government to produce a plan to rapidly reduce emissions. The suit requests that the plan reduce emissions at the 6%/year rate that Hansen et al. (2013a) estimated as the requirement for lowering atmospheric CO2 to a level of 350 ppm.»
The main hypotheses of the paper is (from the abstract): «We show that global temperature has risen well out of the Holocene range and Earth is now as warm as it was during the prior (Eemian) interglacial period , when sea level reached 6–9 m higher than today. Further, Earth is out of energy balance with present atmospheric composition, implying that more warming is in the pipeline, and we show that the growth rate of greenhouse gas climate forcing has accelerated markedly in the past decade.»
Where is the evidence?
«global temperature has risen well out of the Holocene range» What method can you use to show this? It looks like the method of cherrypicking some estimates for Holocene temperatures. «We conclude that the modern trend line of global temperature crossed the early Holocene (smoothed) temperature maximum (+0.5°C) in about 1985. This conclusion is supported by the accelerating rate of sea level rise, which approached 3 mm/year at about that date [Hansen et al. (2016) show a relevant concatenation of measurements in their Fig. 29]. Such a high rate of sea level rise, which is 3 meters per millennium, far exceeds the prior rate of sea level rise in the last six millennia of the Holocene (Lambeck et al., 2014).» So, there must have been no 20 year period during the entire Holocene that has had the same sea level rise. And what about all the proxies that show a warmer climate. Greenland and Antarctica ice core temperatures are among the proxies that show much warmer climate in parts of the Holocene. And sea level acceleration (which is far from substantiated) should be evidence for all time high temperatures. Nobody kan know what sea level accelerations there have been some thousand years ago.
«Earth is now as warm as it was during the prior (Eemian) interglacial period» What method can you use to show this? «McKay et al. (2011) estimated peak Eemian annual global ocean SST as +0.7°C ± 0.6°C relative to late Holocene temperature, while models, as described by Masson-Delmotte et al. (2013), give more confidence to the lower part of that range.» «Dutton et al. (2015) conclude that the best estimate for Eemian temperature is +1°C relative to preindustrial. Consistent with these estimates and the discussion of MassonDelmotte et al. (2013), we assume that maximum Eemian temperature was +1°C relative to preindustrial with an uncertainty of at least 0.5°C.» Great results from grandiose cherrypicking. Hansens co-writer on propaganda papers, Valerie MassonDelmotte, relying on models. And there is no mention of studies from around the world which show some other things. Denmark: «Summer sea-surface temperatures approached, and may have exceeded, 26–28 ◦C during early Eemian time, indicating temperatures at least 5 ◦C warmer than at present.» Greenland: «The LIG surface temperature at the upstream NEEM deposition site without ice sheet altitude correction is estimated to be warmer by +8.5 ± 2.5 °C compared to the preindustrial period.« Antarctica which show 2 to 3 degC warmer climate than today. It is not possible to know the mean temperature of the Eemian period, but most proxies show it to be more than 1 degC warmer than today. as shown in «The last interglacial (Eemian) climate simulated by LOVECLIM and CCSM3» I. Nikolova et al, 2013.
«we show that the growth rate of greenhouse gas climate forcing has accelerated markedly in the past decade.» How can you show that? I don`t know. It is just untrue. According to NOAA/ESRL annual greenhouse gas index from 1979 to spring 2016, the change in forcing was more in the opposite direction when the period was split in two. See table 2: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html.
James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, Karina von Schuckmann, David J. Beerling, Junji Cao, Shaun Marcott, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Michael J. Prather, Eelco J. Rohling, Jeremy Shakun, Pete Smith, Andrew Lacis, Gary Russell, Reto Ruedy. I don`t think this is science. Political actionism destroys the search for truth.
NK,
The defense to that suit would be that the remedy prescribed won’t have the desired effect. It won’t reduce atmospheric CO2 to 350ppmv. In fact, it would probably be hard to measure the difference in the rate of increase, given China’s current emissions and the rate of acceleration of India’s emissions. As you say, it’s not science, it’s political grandstanding. SLR reached 3mm/year in 1985 and thirty years later it’s still about 3mm/year. So much for acceleration.
What is sad, is that all the Hansen co-writers go into the trap of making impact (as Frank and Mike M have emphasized as a tendency among many climate scientists) instead of doing the work to find out some basic mechanisms. And I agree that it is a queastion of scientific integrity. The Holocene and Eemian temperatures deserves a serious investigation. And not just throwing out some numbers that suits a political agenda. The temperatures say something about climate sensitivity and natural variation. If the Eemian temperatures in average were over one degree warmer than today, and CO2 consentration was around 270 ppm, there are some interesting questions about how this can happen. By changing the climate “facts”, you can avoid some questions. You fit science to some preconcieved ideas. This take away a possibility to learn something new, which is what science should strive towards.
There has been a discussion on Judith Currys blog of a paper from Wunsch: Towards Understanding the Paleocean. from 2010. “A remarkable essay by esteemed oceanographer Carl Wunsch.”
He adresses the tendency of some persons and groups to monopolize science.
“From one point of view, scientific communities without adequate data have a distinct advantage: one can construct interesting and exciting stories and rationalizations with little or no risk of observational refutation. Colorful, sometimes charismatic, characters come to dominate the field, constructing their interpretations of a few intriguing, but indefinite observations that appeal to their followers, and which eventually emerge as “textbook truths.”
Consider the following characteristics ascribed to one particular, notoriously data-poor, field (Smolin, 2006), as having:
1. Tremendous self confidence, leading to a sense of entitlement and of belonging to an elite community of experts.
2. An unusually monolithic community, with a strong sense of consensus, whether driven by the evidence or not, and an unusual uniformity of views on open questions. These views seem related to the existence of a hierarchical structure in which the ideas of a few leaders dictate the viewpoint, strategy, and direction of the field.
3. In some cases a sense of identification with the group, akin to identification with a religious faith or political platform.
4. A strong sense of the boundary between the group and other experts.
5. A disregard for and disinterest in the ideas, opinions, and work of experts who are not part of the group, and a preference for talking only with other members of the community.
6. A tendency to interpret evidence optimistically, to believe exaggerated or incorrect statements of results and to disregard the possibility that the theory might be wrong. This is coupled with a tendency to believe results are true because they are ’widely believed,’ even if one has not checked (or even seen) the proof oneself.
7. A lack of appreciation for the extent to which a research program ought to involve risk.
Smolin (2006) was writing about string theory in physics, and I have no basis for judging thevalidity of his description (Woit, 2006, expresses much the same view). Nonetheless, observers ofthe paleoclimate scene might recognize some common characteristics, even though paleoclimatemay have better prospects for ultimately obtaining observational tests of its fundamental tenets. The group identification Smolin refers to, clearly exists in paleoclimate, exemplified by the hagiographic title of one recent paper: “Wally was right…””
Clearly Wunsch writes out of his own experience. He presents how theories of heat distribution in oceans get attention and the status of truth in media and even in textbooks, without a good scientific basis and a sound discussion of aternative understanding.
His own studies of deep ocean cooling have been met with some critisism from those who had the idea of universal increase of ocean heat. So perhaps his independant thinking has been unpopular in the consensus establishment.
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/64628/qsr_2010_may2010.pdf?sequence=1
I think that the Wunsch paper is a comment to all the paleoclimate papers that came out the years before. It began with the paper from Hansen et al 2008: Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim? Some of these papers were rather speculative or simplistic. There were no mention of wind fields, clouds or water wapor. It is all causes by CO2. Even earlier Wunsch had worked on winds and ocean circulation. “Wind fields are capable of great volatility and very rapid global-scale teleconnections, and they are efficient generators of oceanic circulation changes and (more speculatively) of multiple states relative to great ice sheets. ” From: Abrupt climate change: An alternative view
“Carbon dioxide is part of a very complicated feedback system,” Wunsch said Monday. “Assertions that you can show that carbon dioxide change led, or lagged, temperature change proves that there is, or is not, a human component is absolute nonsense. It’s much more complicated than that.”
Wunsch 2007. I don`t think he was invited to be a co-writer with Hansen.