UK Scientist Exposes UN Tinkering With Global Warming Data
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The Telegraph has a series of articles by a distinguished scientist named Christopher Monckton who effectively depants and spanks the author of the Stern Report which has the Brits agog with panic, even to the ridiculous extent of hiring ubiquitous oaf Al Gore to lecture on how the global warming trend is ruining the planet. I believe that it's about time that British pundits brush up on Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay, a good look at what they and their American leftist-loony pals are exhibiting in full-blown delirious froth-mouthed hue and cry. The herd of independent minds has rarely been more unanimous and mis-informed.
But Monckton delivers the goods in a straightforward fashion, catching the UN and its Canadian puppet in full delusionary falsification [Canada should pray that its frozen wastes warm up a bit!]:
This week, I'll show how the UN undervalued the sun's effects on historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century's temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect.
Next week, I'll demonstrate the atrocious economic, political and environmental cost of the high-tax, zero-freedom, bureaucratic centralism implicit in Stern's report; I'll compare the global-warming scare with previous sci-fi alarums; and I'll show how the environmentalists' "precautionary principle" (get the state to interfere now, just in case) is killing people.
So to the scare. First, the UN implies that carbon dioxide ended the last four ice ages. It displays two 450,000-year graphs: a sawtooth curve of temperature and a sawtooth of airborne CO2 that's scaled to look similar. Usually, similar curves are superimposed for comparison. The UN didn't do that. If it had, the truth would have shown: the changes in temperature preceded the changes in CO2 levels.
Next, the UN abolished the medieval warm period (the global warming at the end of the First Millennium AD). In 1995, David Deming, a geoscientist at the University of Oklahoma, had written an article reconstructing 150 years of North American temperatures from borehole data. He later wrote: "With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. One of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said: 'We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.' "
So they did. The UN's second assessment report, in 1996, showed a 1,000-year graph demonstrating that temperature in the Middle Ages was warmer than today. But the 2001 report contained a new graph showing no medieval warm period. It wrongly concluded that the 20th century was the warmest for 1,000 years. The graph looked like an ice hockey-stick. The wrongly flat AD1000-AD1900 temperature line was the shaft: the uptick from 1900 to 2000 was the blade. Here's how they did it:
• They gave one technique for reconstructing pre-thermometer temperature 390 times more weight than any other (but didn't say so).
• The technique they overweighted was one which the UN's 1996 report had said was unsafe: measurement of tree-rings from bristlecone pines. Tree-rings are wider in warmer years, but pine-rings are also wider when there's more carbon dioxide in the air: it's plant food. This carbon dioxide fertilisation distorts the calculations.
• They said they had included 24 data sets going back to 1400. Without saying so, they left out the set showing the medieval warm period, tucking it into a folder marked "Censored Data".
• They used a computer model to draw the graph from the data, but scientists later found that the model almost always drew hockey-sticks even if they fed in random, electronic "red noise".
The large, full-colour "hockey-stick" was the key graph in the UN's 2001 report, and the only one to appear six times. The Canadian Government copied it to every household. Four years passed before a leading scientific journal would publish the truth about the graph. Did the UN or the Canadian government apologise? Of course not. The UN still uses the graph in its publications.
Even after the "hockey stick" graph was exposed, scientific papers apparently confirming its abolition of the medieval warm period appeared. The US Senate asked independent statisticians to investigate. They found that the graph was meretricious, and that known associates of the scientists who had compiled it had written many of the papers supporting its conclusion.
The UN, echoed by Stern, says the graph isn't important. It is. Scores of scientific papers show that the medieval warm period was real, global and up to 3C warmer than now. Then, there were no glaciers in the tropical Andes: today they're there. There were Viking farms in Greenland: now they're under permafrost. There was little ice at the North Pole: a Chinese naval squadron sailed right round the Arctic in 1421 and found none.
Making the Canadian government and the UN look like fools doesn't require a triple-digit IQ, but evidence that there is a deliberate attempt to falsify data harks back to what Richard Feynmann called "cargo cult science."
Feynmann correctly foresaw that the urge for big bucks to underwrite Big Science would bring hucksters like Gore and Stern out of the woodwork to gain political, financial, or Nobel-nitwittery gain.
Feynmann had the integrity that is lacking in much of Big Science nowadays, particularly in various embedded lobbies in the US Government such as NOAA and NASA which have advanced the warming hypothesis for their own appropriations agendas. Leftist campuses also pursue parallel Chicken-Little deformed hypotheses to popularize their own agitpreppie academic snipe hunts.
Monckton's entire article is available at the top link in pdf. It should make interesting reading for the unconverted.
But of course to those who worship "reason", "Science", and "progress" Scientists are like secular saints, they can't possibly be influenced by these petty concerns can they?
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
Michael Crichton was on to something with his book "State of Fear." A lot of the humbuggery and flimflammery that swamp gas chasers are touting has to do with what Dr. Monckton says in the Telegraph pdf. article as "No Problem Means No Funding."
I think that's what Kyle is referring to in his comment above ironically referring to "secular saints" above. Of course, Al Gore deserves a category all by himself, as his expertise in science roughly matches that of John Kerry's in military heroism [barely a scratch in three months, but lots of leverage].
I can tell you that the analogy that is more appropriate would be "No controversy, no funding". If scientists really wanted to get more funding they wouldn't be talking about a consensus and calling for solutions in areas outside of their expertise - they would be highlighting the uncertainty in their own field.
If there's no consensus on an issue, there's no urgency. No urgency, not much funding. OTOH, known doomsday problems always attract a bunch of funding. Problems need to be examined endlessly for their cause and their possible effects and, of course, there are solutions to be studied. Once those solutions are undertaken, progress needs to be monitored and more solutions studied. Seems like there's plenty of money available for global warming research considering how much of a "scientific consensus" there is.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
I'll agree with you partially - better understanding of the effects is needed - this is where the controversy is, not whether or not GW is human caused. But, remember it wasn't the scientists who were saying we needed to study the problem more and then increased the funding for government research.
it wasn't the scientists who were saying we needed to study the problem more
I must have missed the news day where all the scientists of the world proclaimed that no more research needs to be done and they are now refusing any grants offered.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. -Ronald Reagan
Not sure I would describe him as a "scientist":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton%2C_3rd_Viscount_Monckt...
I'm not sure I'd call wikipedia an unbiased encyclopedia either, so I won't bother to follow your link.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
Lord Monckton has been a journalist and Conservative staffer; he isn't a scientist. How that affects, say, the statistical methods that generated the "hockey stick," I can't imagine.
The definition of scientists "A person having expert knowledge of one or more sciences, especially a natural or physical science."
So do you have expert knowledge of Mr. Monckton's training and research background?
It amazes me how often when people present information that disputes the Church of Global Warming pronouncements, the person presenting the information is attacked rather than the information.
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Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
that Sir (?) Monckton bases the majority of his argument on the "hockey stick" controversy, which any reputable scientist know deosn't really matter - although he claims it does, of course, since it's the basis of his argument. Of course he probably knows (but negelcted to tell us - strangely) that the National Academy of Sciences recently studied the hockey stick in depth and one of the more important conclusions was...
Surface temperature reconstructions for preiods prior to the industrial era are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conlcusion that climatic warming is occuring in reponse to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence.
So even if we eliminated most everything Sir Monckton is complaining about, the conclusions would remain unchanged.
His only other criticism worth responding to is his UN conspiracy theory that the IPCC is hiding the fact that CO2 increases in the past lag behind temperature increases (true - by about 800 years) because they didn't put graphs of CO2 and temperature on top of one another.
It's true that there is no graph like that in the IPCC report, but it's also true that the IPCC never claimed that CO2 was a climate change initiator. Rather they say the intiation is caused by changes in orbit, and CO2 only serves as an amplifier once the process is started - hence the time lag. Of course most reputable scientists are aware of this effect as well - so much for the conspiracy.
deemed a heretic and there is now talk of punishment by some sort of Nuremburg Inquisition for even daring to question a so-called "consensus" that is rejected by many of the most eminent climatology scientists alive today.
Prof. Deming's experience with the Canada/UN Abolition of the Middle Age Warming Period, [and the subsequent 300-year cooling period]is a harbinger of High-Hockum to come. The quack-science rush to embrace a hockey-stick graph invented in 1998 to eradicate huge amounts of scientific evidence should alert true scientists that their papers will be rated as to belief rather than the scientific method.
That's what Feynmann meant by "Cargo Cult Science." Although even St. Richard would be astounded by the sudden scientific elimination of entire mini-epochs of climatic cooling and warming. Monckton's paper speaks volumes, whatever his credentials.
But nothing astounds when hucksters like the Inventor of the Information Superhighway and the High Priests of Royal Academicide converge to establish a new Reformation, with 95 Judgement-at-Nuremburg Theses.
of the most eminent climatology scientists alive today, eh? Really, who? I bet you $20 (sorry I'm poor at the moment) you can't name over 60 worldwide. The latest IPCC was authored by close to 2500 people. How much of an overwhelming majority does it take to call it a consensus? Let's say it were cancer research, who's word would you take?
Unfortunately, it seems like some members of the real church are confused about global warming. I volunteer as a lector (Scripture reader) at Mass at my local parish, and I just got an E-mail today from the coordinator of lectors asking all lectors to lobby Governor Rell (R-CT) not to approve the construction of a new coal-fired power plant, which would REPLACE an old plant, provide the same amount of power with lower toxic emissions, but the same amount of CO2 emissions.
I work in the environmental field, and if you can get the same amount of power with less emissions of toxics such as sulfur dioxide (which produces acid rain) that's a GOOD thing, and if Gov. Rell wants to help the environment, she should APPROVE this project. But to the CO2-obsessed global-warming fanatics, if it doesn't reduce emissions of CO2 (which is non-toxic), it goes against the Governor's "pledge" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Why any churchgoers would ever support this is a mystery to me, except that maybe some of them are just plain ignorant of the facts.
Why doesn't the Governor just ban soda pop and beer, which also emit CO2, and don't produce electricity? (sarcasm off!)
I did E-mail the lector coordinator to set her straight about this as well, but there does seem to be a lot of cluelessness in the "church of global warming"!
The bad news: Conservatism is hard to sell. The good news is that it works.
scientist is not "reputable."
The Middle Age Warming and the subsequent cooling period give the lie to the Chicken Little pronunciamentos of pseudo-scientists who call those who disagree with them "disreputable" or some other version of the trope "heretic."
Richard Feynmann was one of the greatest physicist/scientists of the twentieth century and his prediction of "cargo cult science" is prophetic in its unmasking of the gimcrackery masquerading as "scientific orthodoxy" nowadays.
I didn't say that directly now did I. Although, because of the slanting of the science Sir Monckton performs, I don't have much respect for the man.
Let's look at another example - he quotes a study by Sam Solanki (apparently a reputable scientist in his eye and mine too!), which states that the sun's output has been increasing the last 11,400 years. True enough, the study does say that - but as far as its influence on recent human induced global warming, what else does the same study say (right there in the abstract).
Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.
Now why would Sir Monckton leave out this crucial information from the paper? a) he didn't really read it or b) he's trying to mislead us or c) both.
There are scientists that I disagree with on global warming, they just don't hang their arguments on easily disproven talking points.
Numbers. Yes, the College of Cardinals had a vested interest in a certain view and Galileo had his own view. Galileo was outvoted, so I guess the Cardinals won that World Series! Do you subscribe to paint by the numbers too?
The erasure of the Middle Age Warming Period and the subsequent cooling period to support the eager throngs of Big Science acolytes waiting at the trough for Big Government to dispense the simollians is EXACTLY what Cargo Cult Science is all about. NO PROBLEM MEANS NO FUNDING.
Mr. Shifty's college of cardinals is missing "a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty."
You can't disappear entire epochs without lacking "a kind of scientific integrity," and my guess is that there are a lot more honest Galileos out there among the crowds of Cardinals than clutch-popping shifty knows about.
Oh, and your little cheap shot about the 9/11 debunkers isn't clever, about on the level of your grammar. "who's word would you take" shows your literacy is on a level with your understanding of scientific integrity. [hint: "whose"]
understand what wrong with me grammar. Why you so mean? Me thought conservatives not elitist. How come you talk me in third person and no hit reply to this button - who you talking to?
Now that we're past the personal attacks part of the program (I promise to be more careful in the future - thanks for the productive comment), why are you so against the Scholars for 911 truth? Have you read their peer-reviewed papers? They seem to have gone through more scrutiny than the Monckton piece. Surely, if they are wrong or using misleading information, you can prove to it. After you have completed that exercise as a warmup, apply these same techniques to the Monckton piece and get back to me with the similarities. If you're the champion of scientific integrity, prove it. Screaming Galileo does not make it so.
I'll help you with yet another example of why the journalist Monckton is no Galileo:
Monckton critizes the IPCC for using the wrong constant in Stefan-Boltzman's equation for climate sensitivity. He thinks that the IPCC should be using the originally derived constant, which any sophomore physics student can tell you applies only to a blackbody radiator and that the Earth is far from a perfect blackbody.
He then goes on to use this "better" constant to show that the climate is not as sensitive as the models predict. Here's the funny part: one of his other conclusions is that the climate fluctuated greatly in the past - suggesting that the climate is more sensitive than current models show. Now, how can both of these conclusions be true? Surely as the defender of scientific integrity this conflict must have also puzzled you?
I think you should also stand up for history revision as well. Monckton claims the Chinese Navy sailed around the north pole in 1421 as proof of past arctic melting. Where did he get this from? The "noted" historian Gavin Menzies?
Wasn't that fun - so I guess you're going to force me to address the MWP controversy. Was it warmer globally than the current era, maybe it was or maybe it was just a regional phenomena - nobody has proven definitively yet. Can you? Were there flaws in the Mann model, yes. They have largely been addressed in the scientific literature (i.e. here). The conclusion that human induced global warming is and will continue to happen reamins unchanged. You can take your broken hockey stick and go home now, the science has moved on.
It used to be called fudging it. Now I believe its called smoothing the input data set.
When Robert Millikan first measured the charge of the electron, he wasn't about to publish every measurement he made. No, he made a note on each trial of his experiment, throwing out the ones he didn't think looked right.
Unfortunately his error was only compounded the effect described by Richard Feynman in the piece Moe linked to today, where later attempts were psychologically skewed toward matching Millikan's result, and so it took years longer than it should have for us to get the charge measured properly.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
We had an experiment to measure Avogadro's number by creating an oil film on water in a petri dish. I complained that there was almost no way to perform the experiment successfully, The TA pointed out to me that most people in the lab had arrived at the correct answer.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1782/
Global warming has always struck me as a religious issue not a scientific one.