In response to a letter in the Telegraph on 19th April from the President of the Royal Society, Lord Rees of Ludlow, asserting that the evidence for human-caused global warming "is now compelling", 41 scientists have written to the same newspaper contradicting Lord Rees. Published in the the Telegraph today, the letter claims:
1. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise', and
2. Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future.
This is the third 'climate change consensus' letter in as many weeks, click here for links to previous letters.
Edward Celiz from Bodham Halt, Norfolk, has written to the newspaper complaining that:
"If I read another word about climate change, I shall go mad. Of course the climate is changing. That is what climate does, and has done so for billions of years. Do these scare-mongering pseudo-scientists really believe that puny man can control the unimaginable forces of nature by sticking a windmill on his roof, throwing away his fridge and planting a few trees?
Global warming? Perhaps, but what's the betting that in a few years they will be telling us that they have got it wrong? That, in fact, the earth is getting colder?
My advice? Leave it to God."
And I'm an atheist.
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ionolsen23 I just don not have anything to say right now.
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Coby, Thanks for your detailed comments. My answer to some of them is in the moderation pipe, I hope.
Thanks Coby for your detailed answers to the issues that I'd raised.
Of course I agree with you that it's not useful to judge a scientific issue from statements by the Minister for the Environment. But the statement that the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol 'represents a small but essential first step towards stabilising atmlospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases' is a politico-economic statement, not a scientific one.
Here's the concluding paragraph of the report of the unanimous all-party Committee of the House of Lords into The Economics of Climate Change:
'The important issue is to wean the international negotiators away from excessive reliance on the 'targets and penalties' approach embodied in Kyoto. Hence there should be urgent progress towards thinking about wholly different, and more promising, approaches based on a careful analysis of the incentives that countries have to agree to any measures adopted.'
It seems that the 17 scientific academies agreed to the statement drafted by the Royal Society in 2001 in a matter of days, without conducting any analysis or seeking the advice of persons with relevant expertise, such as political scientists, economists or - dare I say it - politicians or former politicians.
You say that 'If the current Canadian gov't is ignoring its own scientific institutions, this is to their shame and is a comment on politics not science.' No, in my view it is to the shame of the scientific institutions that they have pronounced on issues that are beyond their competence. They should now be reviewing how their decision that Kyoto was 'an essential first step' was made, and whether they still think it is true.
I accept your point that the IPCC statement on recent temperatures can reasonably be paraphrased using the word 'rapid'.
I don't think that we are in disagreement on the risk management question. Of course it would be illogical to insist on complete certainty BEFORE ACTING. But when (for example) Robert Watson, former IPCC Chair, told the UNFCCC that it was 'indisputable' that the last decades of the 20th century were the warmest of the millennium, he was not making a scientific statement (at least in my view).
On the MWP, I'll defer further judgment until the US National Research Council Panel has reported. At the least I'd expect that it will be found that interannual variability was significantly greater than shown in the iconic graph.
Ian,
An answer is in the moderation pipe,
Best wishes.
Ian,
Regarding "head counts", I wish to emphasis that this page of mine is very specifically targeted at the common misconception that there is a raging debate in the scientific community about the general conclusions regarding AGW. Contrast these institutional positions with the question about a global warming signal in hurricane trends, you will not find conclusive statements about this because there is (for now) a legitimate debate on this question. Until a few months ago, NOAA was unique in having a definitive "natural cycles" attribution on their site. This has been removed in the wake of the recent revelations of political pressure emanating from the Whitehouse as it seems it did not represent an agreement within that institution.
But I concede your point, you are quite correct in noting the distinction between "head count" and "institution count". I have tried to address that in this article:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/04/position-statements-hide-debate.html
If you are familiar with Benny Peiser's counter to that, but not his serious problems, see here:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/03/what-about-peiser.html
I don't think it is very useful to judge a scientific issue from statements by the Minister of Environment. If the current Canadian gov't is ignoring its own scientific institutions, this is to their shame and is a comment on politics not science. Policy decisions are necessarily a mix of politics and science but that does not mean that particular questions within this broad and complex issue can not and should not be addressed as strictly scientific.
Regarding the issue you take with how I phrased the position, I think I am justified in the use of the word "rapid" and offer this TAR quote in my defense:
"the rate and magnitude of global or hemispheric surface 20th century warming is likely to have been the largest of the millennium"
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/071.htm#235
I have ammended the IS you highighted and the phrase now reads "this climate change IS LIKELY TO HAVE BEEN DUE TO anthropogenic emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning" to reflect the text near the bottom of this page:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/007.htm
I think the last five years of research will add more strength to these statements in AR4, but I will wait.
Regarding that John Zillman quote, the context of it is also relevant to the whole should we worry question:
"I believe the models are now remarkably good at simulating most of the essential climate forming processes in the atmosphere and the ocean and even the behaviour of the total climate system at the global scale. And, though I would not have said so a decade ago, I now believe, as does the IPCC, that there is no more than a one in three chance that the observed global warming over the past century is entirely natural in origin."
Scientists are properly very cautious in what they say, and it is often inappropriate to interpret the kinds of qualifiers they use in formal venues as if it were everyday vernacular. Surprise, I have an opinion on that too!
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/04/scientists-arent-even-sure.html
Regarding 1/3 chance, 95% probability etc etc I think people need to take a step back and consider that we are talking about risk management and as such insistence on complete certainty is highly inappropriate. If you were sitting on an airplane preparing for take off and heard a sudden wrenching metal sound and felt the plane shake and then the captain came on the intercom and informed you "there is at most a one in three chance that was nothing to worry about folks", would you want to take off?
Regarding the MWP, all I can say is the studies keep coming in. I think it is important to remember, however, that study of the past can be very informative, but it is not explanatory of the present nor predictive of the future.
I don't think your issue with the IPCC graph http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figts-5.htm is fair. Any given graph can be:
a. intentionally misleading
b. misleading
c. potentially misleading
d. perfect
This graph is a (c) because a naive reader might compare the dotted 1998 line with the black smoothed trend. However, it is not (b) or an (a) because that graph contains the interannual variability over its entirety, as well as error bounds on each year. The 1998 line serves to make the legitimate point that by this analysis it is very unlikely that any single year in the past 1000 NH years matched 1998 and thus 1998 is likely the highest annually averaged NH year since 1000AD.
Thanks Coby for your reply to my question and also for your reply to Cathy.
I accept your first point in response to Cathy, in relation to funding. However, I find the 'head count' on 'the whole global warming issue' on your website to be quite unconvincing.
This is an institution count, not a head count. You list the Royal Society of Canada as having agreed to a statement that says that 'The ratification of this [Kyoto] Protocol represents a small but essential first step towards stabilising atmlospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.'
Is this part of the 'whole global warming issue'? My reading of recent statements, including comments made only yesterday by Canada's Environment Minister, suggests that the present Canadian Government does not share this view. And I don't believe that it could be held by every member of the Royal Society of Canada (I note that, unlike many other national academies, the RSC includes economists).
You attribute to all of these institutions the position that 'the earth is undergoing a RAPID warming trend that is outside the likely bounds of natural variations and this climate change IS primarily driven by anthropogenic emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning' (EMPHASES added).
Did the IPCC say 'rapid'? Contrast your statement with the following statement by Dr John Zillman, Principal Delegate of Australia to the IPCC from 1993 to 2003, President of the World Meteorological Organization from 1995 to 2003 and Australia's Director of Meteorology from 1978 to 2003. John was Review Editor of several key chapters of the IPCC Third Assessment Report. He is the President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and was recently elected to the Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science. In launching a book by Bill Kininmonth (one of the signatories of the recent sceptics' letters) in November 2004, John Zillman said:
'I now believe, as does the IPCC, that there is no more than a ONE IN THREE chance that the observed global warming over the past century is ENTIRELY natural in origin' (EMPHASES added).
It is a big step from such carefully expressed statements to the position you present as one that commands near-universal support.
I don't agree that 'the idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today' has been shown to be incorrect. This and related issues are currently being examined by a Panel of the US National Research Council. On the basis of the reports that I have seen, including the presentations of several participants, the proceedings at the Panel's hearing early in March did not reflect well upon the IPCC or upon the leading scientists in the proxy climate milieu.
I agree with your statements that 'A trend is not established by a single data point' and that '1998 is a single data point'. It is regrettable that the IPCC had no scruples about giving such prominence to this single data point in some versions of its famous diagram: see http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figts-5.htm
I see my reply to Cathy has appeared a few comments up.