The New Republic

Mr . Plumer,

Have you read Climate Change Reconsidered: The Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)?

heartlandstore.org/.../1934791288.htm

If so, have you written about the book's contents?

- bulbman1066

July 11, 2009 at 11:13pm

No, sorry, I wasn't aware it existed. And honestly, I'm not that keen on shelling out $154 for a book from a group that regularly publishes utter nonsense on scientific issues. That said, I can always ask, and if they care to kick me over a free copy, what the hell, I'll take a look.

- Brad Plumer

July 12, 2009 at 1:03am

The book can be downloaded in pdf form for free.  There is a place on their web page where you can click and do that.

- bulbman1066

July 12, 2009 at 5:39am

Here's the URL for the web site where you can download the book for free.

www.climatechangereconsidered.org

- bulbman1066

July 12, 2009 at 5:56am

Thanks. I have to say, having just read the first chapter, this Heartland book is awfully unconvincing. Most of the early sections involve misrepresenting or selectively quoting scientific research. The author, Fred Singer, has a reputation for doing that, but I was at least hoping he'd be less obvious about it.

For instance, Section 1.2 is about radiative forcing, and discusses aerosols. This was something that climate scientists were somewhat more uncertain about back in 2001, when the IPCC's Third Assessment Report was compiled, and then studied and learned a lot more about in the ensuing six years (the IPCC's 2007 Fourth Assessment Report has a long section on this topic—what was learned, what uncertainties remain, etc.).

So the Heartland book tries to show that there's still a lot of uncertainty about aerosols by citing a study from… 2001 that raised some questions, without even bothering to note that there's been a lot of research done on this area since. A bit hackish, no? Then the authors appear to conflate aerosols with greenhouse gases at one point, which would be a really basic error.

Most of the first chapter of the Heartland book follows this method. The authors will cherry-pick some (legitimate) scientific study from, say, 2002 that raises some question or other and then will imply that no one has bothered to address or investigate the problem since—presumably because scientists are trying to suppress the truth or what have you. But in almost every case, a few seconds of searching on the Internet reveals that, yes, climatologist have actually addressed the study in question.

On the upside, at least the book's long and has footnotes. That'll no doubt impress plenty of people.

- Brad Plumer

July 12, 2009 at 11:21am

The book doesn't conflate aerosols with greenhouse gases.

"Over much of the planet’s surface, the

radiative cooling influence of atmospheric aerosols

(many of which are produced by anthropogenic

activities) must prevail, suggesting a probable net

anthropogenic-induced climatic signal that must be

very close to zero and incapable of producing what

the IPCC refers to as the “unprecedented” warming of

the twentieth century. Either the air temperature

record they rely on is in error or the warming, if real,

is due to something other than anthropogenic CO2

emissions."

Aerosols are cooling and not warming in their effect and are treated as such in the book.  They are particles suspended in a liquid or gas, and are not gases.  

You write: "So the Heartland book tries to show that there's still a lot of uncertainty about aerosols by citing a study from… 2001 that raised some questions, without even bothering to note that there's been a lot of research done on this area since."

Not so.  Singer cites a study on aerosols from 2004 and a study on biological aerosols from 2007.   According to Singer the authors of the the second study point out that the IPCC Report of 2007 doesn't even mention biological particles.

I'm not saying that Singer is right and his opponents are wrong.  I'm saying that there are scientific heavyweights on both sides, and that we should keep an open mind.

- bulbman1066

July 12, 2009 at 4:52pm

Hm, you must be looking at a different chapter. Section 1.2 of this Heartland book sticks pretty closely to older studies and ignores a lot of follow-up work, even by the very authors they cite. I would certainly agree that the impact of aerosols (especially on cloud formation) is one of the biggest remaining uncertainties in climate science. A lot of climatologists would agree with that. But this Heartland report doesn't seem like a thorough or systematic assessment of those questions--they just seem to be offering up scattered quotations to give the impression that it's all up in the air.

- Brad Plumer

July 12, 2009 at 7:03pm

I was referring to Section 2.8, entitled "Aerosols", pp.48--51 and should have said so.  Sorry.

I gather that the role of clouds in general is the $64,000 question.

I'm not saying you should read the whole book, but you need to give it a fair look.  The objections to AGW raised by the authors are are shared by a lot of name brand scientists, and need to be answered.  

- bulbman1066

July 12, 2009 at 7:34pm

A brilliant article from an actual scientist:

www.spectator.co.uk/.../meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

Confirms our theory that it's fat, wealthy liberal elitist d-bags in first-world countries who have too much time on their hands, don't believe in any religion, and have used "the environment" as their cause celebre to fill their otherwise meaningless lives.

- jwl2672

July 13, 2009 at 2:12pm

That would be this Ian Pilmer?

scienceblogs.com/.../silenced_plimer_somehow_appear.php

The people who grab at straws to "disprove" a scientific theory that they do not like act like they do not understand the scientific process very well.  There is no wide-spread conspiracy to "hide" or "mis-interpret" the data.  Data is objective;  hypotheses and theories that are dis-proven by non-refuted data will fall by the wayside quickly.

And of course because one "actual scientist" disagrees with a theory, that invalidates the work of all of the other apparently "not-actual" scientists.  Obviously,

Pilmer makes some pretty basic errors in his book, notably rabbiting on about the sun but not providing any new data to displace the currently accepted line of thinking.  After all, solar irradiance is not a difficult thing to measure, and its not like we've not been doing it for some time.  If that was a coup-de-grace to the theory, wouldn't it have been noticed before?  Of course it has been noticed, discussed at length, and rejected as too small to explain the changes in temperature that have been observed.

Also, he's made some rather telling comments like

"There are a large number of punters who object to being treated dismissively as stupid, who do not like being told what to think, who value independence, who resile from personal attacks and have life experiences very different from the urban environmental atheists attempting to impose a new fundamentalist religion."

Shorter: My personal experience with the weather, probably constrained to a very small geographic region, is far more relevant than actually studying the issue and trying to understand it.  That's real science at work there, that is.

- Nari224

July 13, 2009 at 4:37pm

Oh, here's another Pilmer gem

"If we had carbon pollution, the skies would be black with fine particles of carbon" (climaterealists.com/index.php)

Apparently the study of Geology requires no knowledge of Chemistry, nor does it introduce one to any of the suspiciously non-black forms of carbon, say, such as diamonds.  

- Nari224

July 13, 2009 at 5:20pm

Easy JWL, Insulting people who have different opinions is wrong no matter which side does it.

I am sceptical too, but I am also looking at the evidence that Brad has been kind enough to provide to me. I doubt that I personally can put my arms around the subject, but I am willing to be persuaded.

That said, my feeling now is that warming is a given and that antropogenic GHG's plays a part. In the attached report, I got a better sense as to how the models now being used compare with actual data. My first impression is that the models systematically predicted higher than actual temperatures over the thirty years that satellite data was available.  I have asked others that I consider far more technically astute than I to review the reports.

The second attachment from MIT apparently is a statistical analysis of probable climate change using these model. Now, given that the models appeared to over predict actual temperatures in the thirty year study period, I have my doubts about their usefulness over a hundred or so yearr into the future, but I am not saying that the the MIT analysis is not valid. However, when I used to test plant data against several hypotheses,  I would throw out the outliers and only use the plausible data for a statistical analysis. I am now in the process of determining if the MIT study did that.

It is hard for me because I do not have the ability to devote full time to this and it is extremely difficult and time consuming to gather all the relevand data, maybe even impossible. I am not sure that I am up to the intellectual challenge either. This is complex stuff.

I fiind it insulting that non-technical people like Paul Krugman can have the temerity to condemn any and all scepticism as though it was a criminal act.

Also, even if the science is totally valid, the way the issue is being handled politically is scandalous and will not achieve its own stated goals.

www.climatescience.gov/.../sap1-1-final-all.pdf

globalchange.mit.edu/.../abstract.php

- r.ennis

July 13, 2009 at 5:38pm