The Washington Post today has a front page story on the CRU email hacking and its fall out. The story has an interesting quote from Tom Karl, of NOAA NCDC, related to my fathers work that continues to reflects the myopic perspective of leading climate scientists who seek to present their own views over other legitimate scientific perspectives. Here is an excerpt from the Post story (emphasis added):For a few, however, the stolen files were confirmation that the climate establishment was trying to keep them out of the debate.
These include the familiar kind of climate skeptics, those who think that the climate isn't changing or that it isn't a crisis. But they also include a handful of researchers who think climate change is happening, but -- for various reasons -- are skeptical that mainstream science fully understands the phenomenon."To me, it's unambiguous . . . humans are altering the climate system," said Roger Pielke Sr., a research scientist at the University of Colorado. "It's just that, it's much more than CO2."
Pielke said his research shows that, in addition to carbon dioxide and other factors, Earth's warming is affected by how people alter the land. When a forest becomes a farm, or a farm becomes a suburb, that changes the amount of heat and moisture coming off the ground, he said.
But Pielke said he has seen some papers rejected and has felt so marginalized that he quit a U.S. panel summing up climate change a few years ago. One of the stolen e-mails seems to confirm the idea that he was being excluded: In 2005, Jones wrote to colleagues about some of Pielke's complaints, "Maybe you'll be able to ignore them?"
"These individuals, who are very sincere in their beliefs, have presumed that that gives them permission to exclude viewpoints that are different from their own," Pielke said.
Mainstream climate scientists say they have kept an open mind but have rejected papers that lack proper evidence. In Pielke's case, "the literature doesn't show" his ideas about the importance of land use are correct, said Tom Karl, head of the NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
Karl chose to represent what the scientific literature says. This is a different point that whether he believes that land use change affects climate , or what science will eventually stand the test of time. So I asked my father if there is anything in the literature that shows " in addition to carbon dioxide and other factors, Earth's warming is affected by how people alter the land."
The answer is unequivocally yes. Here are a few citations that my father sent to me showing that Tom Karl is just wrong in his assertion about what then literature shows:
The point being made here has nothing to do with what policies make sense in response to accumulating greenhouse gases. The point here is that a leading figure in the scientific community is publicly misrepresenting what the scientific literature actually says in exactly the same manner as was shown to be occurring in the CRU emails. It would be perfectly legitimate for Tom Karl to say that his evaluation of the evidence leads him to different conclusions than what many peer reviewed studies have argued. It is not legitimate to imply that certain science does not exist, when it clearly does. In a situation where there are competing views in the peer reviewed literature, it seems fairly obvious that the appropriate thing to do is to acknowledge that they exist, and admit that the scientific community speaks with multiple voices on this particular topic. Scientists who spin lose credibility.Carleton, A.M., D.L. Arnold, D.J. Travis, S. Curran, and J.O. Adegoke, 2008a: Synoptic circulation and land surface influences on convection in the Midwest U.S. "Corn Belt" during the summers of 1999 and 2000. Part I: Composite synoptic environments. J. Climate, 21, 3389-3414.
Christy, J.R., W.B. Norris, K. Redmond, and K.P. Gallo, 2006: Methodology and results of calculating central california surface temperature trends: Evidence of human-induced climate change? J. Climate, 19, 548–563.
Fall, S., D. Niyogi, A. Gluhovsky, R. A. Pielke Sr., E. Kalnay, and G. Rochon, 2009: Impacts of land use land cover on temperature trends over the continental United States: Assessment using the North American Regional Reanalysis. Int. J. Climatol., DOI: 10.1002/joc.1996.
Feddema, J. J., K.W. Oleson, G.B. Bonan, L.O. Mearns, L.E. Buja, G.A. Meehl, and W.M. Washington, 2005: The Importance of land-cover change in simulating future climates. Science, 310, 1674-1678.
Hale, R.C., K.P. Gallo, and T.R. Loveland, 2008: Influences of specific land use/land cover conversions on climatological normals of near-surface temperature. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D14113, doi:10.1029/2007JD009548.
Kalnay, E., and M. Cai, 2003: Impact of urbanization and land use on climate change. Nature, 423, 528–531.
Mahmood, R., S.A. Foster, T. Keeling, K.G. Hubbard, C. Carlson, and R. Leeper, 2006b: Impacts of irrigation on 20th-century temperatures in the Northern Great Plains. Glob. Planet. Change, 54,1-18.
Marshall, C.H. Jr., R.A. Pielke Sr., L.T. Steyaert, and D.A. Willard, 2004: The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132, 28-52.
Mote, T.L., M.C. Lacke, and J.M. Shepherd, 2007: Radar signatures of the urban effect on precipitation distribution: A case study for Atlanta, Georgia. Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L20710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031903.
Niyogi, D., T. Holt, S. Zhong, P. C. Pyle, and J. Basara, 2006: Urban and land surface effects on the 30 July 2003 mesoscale convective system event observed in the Southern Great Plains, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D19107, doi:10.1029/2005JD006746.
Nuñez, M.N, H.H. Ciapessoni, A. Rolla, E. Kalnay, and M. Cai, 2008: Impact of land use and precipitation changes on surface temperature trends in Argentina. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D06111, doi:10.1029/2007JD008638.
Pitman, A.J., G. T. Narisma, R. Pielke, and N. J. Holbrook, 2004: The impact of land cover change on the climate of south west Western Australia. J. Geophys. Res., 109, D18109, doi:10.1029/2003JD004347.
Pitman, A.J., N. de Noblet-Ducoudré, F.T. Cruz, E.L. Davin, G.B. Bonan, V. Brovkin, M. Claussen, C. Delire, L. Ganzeveld, V. Gayler, B.J.J.M. van den Hurk, P.J. Lawrence, M.K. van der Molen, C. Müller, C.H. Reick, S.I. Seneviratne, B. J. Strengers, and A. Voldoire, 2009: Uncertainties in climate responses to past land cover change: first results from the LUCID intercomparison study, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL039076, in press.
Shepherd, J.M., 2006: Evidence of urban-induced precipitation variability in arid climate regimes. J. Arid Environ., 67, 607-628.Shepherd, J.M., H. Pierce, and A.J. Negri, 2002: Rainfall modification by major urban areas: Observations from spaceborne rain radar on the TRMM Satellite. J. Appl. Meteor., 41(7), 689-701.
Stone, B. Jr., 2009: Land Use as Climate Change Mitigation. Environmental Science & Technology.(in press)
Kumiko Takata, Kazuyuki Saitoa and Tetsuzo Yasunari, 2009: Changes in the Asian monsoon climate during 1700–1850 induced by preindustrial cultivation PNAS published online June 1, 2009, doi:10.1073/pnas.0807346106.
My father posted on this as well on his blog.
13 comments:
Maybe WaPo would print a letter to the effect of this or your father's post if he or you sent one in?
And climate scientists wonder why non-scientist members of the public grow ever-more skeptical of anything that comes out of their mouths!?
Expressing honest uncertainty is good. Expressing honest differences of opinion is admirable. Pretending that your view is the ONLY view virtually guarantees that I'll never take your opinion seriously again.
Roger,
When your dad said “This documented lack of competence by Tom Karl on his understanding of the role of landscape processes in the climate system…” he was generously declining to ascribe an unethical motive to Mr. Karl.
Not being quite as generous I read the conflict as a clear example of a competent believer in CO2 forced global warming unethically suppressing a different viewpoint. Not even a conflicting viewpoint just different.
The leaked documents from CRU show that the core team members were incompetent at software development or statistical analysis but otherwise educated professionals attempting to advance a deeply held belief. It’s too bad that their deeply held belief was not in the scientific process.
Is this the same Tom Karl who still puts a PhD next to his name?
That optical illusion isn't the only thing that's making me want to puke.
I still have a hard time coming to terms with scientists behaving this way.
Karl's views wouldn't matter so much if he wasn't able to present them in CCSP reports whilst excluding the views of others. Climategate is our 'Berlin Wall' moment where the debate will never be the same again. We can laugh at IPCC and CCSP reports and say, yeah , we know the few scientist who actually wrote them and why. We can laugh at Michael Mann using Andy Revkin to poke fun at Steve McIntyre over 'peer review' because we know why papers aren't published - not because they aren't worthy, but becasue they are blocked by the 'climate mafia.'
This is only one of several interviews with the "Climategate clique" in which they appear to be "doubling down" on the position that the science is settled and the dissenters are insignificant if not actually crackpots. That was the clear message in yesterday's Center for American Progress press call as well. (They still haven't posted the damn transcripts, either.)
I would encourage you or your father to write a letter to the editor with the contents of this post.
I wonder if people get casual about what they say to newspapers because they know most people don't know the difference and few people will read the comments posted below the article.
This gives a lot of power to the writer of the article and the people who run the newspaper- to slant it one way or another. Or to leave it as this article does: one scientist says "A", the "mainstream" (the Science Establishment) says "not A". This leaves the reader to trust the Establishment, not trust the Establishment but there is not a requirement for each to engage in dialogue on the topic and be accountable for the accuracy of their claims.
If it weren't for this blog, what chance would there be to hear both sides?
You write:
"..in addition to carbon dioxide and other factors, Earth's warming is affected by how people alter the land."
I think your dad's various theses are a little more specific than that; as framed here, this is trivially true and I doubt Mr. Karl would disagree.
Its your dad's more precise claims that have been disputed.
By the way, any comment on the attempted hack of
Andrew Weaver's work at UVic?
-9-bigcitylib
I can assure you that on all of my father's specific views on issues of climate science that have been neglected by major assessments there is literature to back it up.
If you have evidence to the contrary, go ahead and cite it and I'll be happy to ask for his opinion.
Haven't heard about any hack at UVic.
Roger
Andrew Weaver, a climate researcher at University of Victoria told the National Post that there were two successful break ins to his campus office late last year. (It's now November-- so about a year ago.) A dead computer was taken and some papers ruffled.
There have evidently also been some suspicious incidents at the climate modeling center associated with U of Victoria.
No one knows if these are in any way connected to your father's work, Dr. Karls assessment of your fathers work or anything remotely associated with your post. However, some of the more excitable elements in climate science are suggesting this is realted to the non-authorized release of emails from CRU.
I'll give you an arguement that shows that current climate science is dishonest and that a large number of climate scientists are living in denial.
Say 15-20 years ago a small group of scientists had developed a climatic model that ultimately predicted the current lack of warming over the last decade. Would this group have been lauded by other scientists in the same field for their contribution to this type of science and would they have been rewarded by monies to continue their research?
As the Climategate emails testify the politics would never have allowed that to happen.
First of all this model back then would have been seen as an 'outlier' as all the other models projected accelerated warming.
This would have led for calls for it to be rejected as a valid model.
There would be consequences.
The scientists would have found it difficult to get their articles published in peer review journals.
The scientists would have found it difficult to gain research funding.
The scientists would have found themselves subject to personal criticism.
Their studies would not have been part of the IPCC process.
When you have politics driving science then there is very little chance that good science will see the light of day.
The politicalisation of climate science ensured that scientists could never have predicted the current decade of non-warming. There was never a chance of that happening.
That profond failure has damaged all science in the public mind. People will never be so trusting again.
Roger,
Is it accurate to say that Tom Karl is the head of the outfit reponsible for our temperature monitoring stations?
Obviously, every scientist who uses temperature data in a study has some basic reponsibility to address the question of reliability of the data. But someone has to be responsible for the maintenance of the system of stations and someone had to oversee the process of installing all the MMTS monitors. Would it be accurate to say that is Karl?
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