Salon liked my post "How do we really know humans are causing global warming?" but wanted something more in-depth and ... serious. The result is "The cold truth about climate change: Deniers say there's no consensus about global warming. Well, there's not. There's well-tested science and real-world observations [that are much more worrisome]."
James Hansen read the first draft and wrote me back, "Very important for the public to understand this -- why has nobody articulated this already?" I don't know the answer. All I can say is that while I was writing the article, the central point dawned on me:
The more I write about global warming, the more I realize I share some things in common with the doubters and deniers who populate the blogosphere and the conservative movement. Like them, I am dubious about the process used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to write its reports. Like them, I am skeptical of the so-called consensus on climate science as reflected in the IPCC reports. Like them, I disagree with people who say "the science is settled." But that's where the agreement ends.
The science isn't settled -- it's unsettling, and getting more so every year as the scientific community learns more about the catastrophic consequences of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions.
The big difference I have with the doubters is that they believe the IPCC reports seriously overstate the impact of human emissions on the climate -- whereas the actual observed climate data clearly show they dramatically understate the impact.
I point out many instances of this in the article. For instance, "The recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat (PDF) is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models" -- and that was a Norwegian expert in 2005. Since then, the Arctic retreat has stunned scientists by accelerating, losing an area equal to Texas and California just last summer.
I also discuss the fact that "the scientific community, the progressive community, environmentalists and media are making a serious mistake by using the word 'consensus' to describe the shared understanding scientists have about the ever-worsening impacts that human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions are having on this planet." Part of the reason is that "When scientists and others say there is a consensus, many if not most people probably hear 'consensus of opinion,'" whereas, as I explain, "science doesn't work by consensus of opinion. Science is in many respects the exact opposite of decision by consensus."
Another reason is that the IPCC "consensus" clearly understates what we face from uncontrolled greenhouse-gas emissions. As the article concludes:
Why are recent observations on the high side of model projections? First, as noted, most climate models used by the IPCC omit key amplifying feedbacks in the carbon cycle. Second, it was widely thought that increased human carbon dioxide emissions would be partly offset by more trees and other vegetation. But increases in droughts and wildfires -- both predicted by global warming theory -- seem to have negated that. Third, the ocean -- one of the largest sinks for carbon dioxide -- seems to be saturating decades earlier than the models had projected.
The result, as a number of studies have shown, is that the sensitivity of the world's climate to human emissions of greenhouse gases is no doubt much higher than the sensitivity used in most IPCC models. NASA's Hansen argued in a paper last year that the climate ultimately has twice the sensitivity used in IPCC models.
The bottom line is that recent observations and research make clear the planet almost certainly faces a greater and more imminent threat than is laid out in the IPCC reports. That's why climate scientists are so desperate. That's why they keep begging for immediate action. And that's why the "consensus on global warming" is a phrase that should be forever retired from the climate debate.
The article is long, so my final paragraph was cut:
I do believe in science. And I do believe in real-world observations. Perhaps the central question of our time is whether those who don't will stop those who do from saving the planet.
I'll make the final sentence the basis of a future article.
For now, I'll try to follow my own advice and stop using the word consensus ...
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
View as Flat
Pangolin Posted 5:24 pm
27 Feb 2008
So bad things keep happening "faster than expected."
Put the Carbon Back
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Pompey Road Posted 1:53 am
28 Feb 2008
I remember during my childhood 50's and 60's we got 6 to 8 snow storms on average each winter that accumulated from 4 to 8 inhes on average.
We have not had a substantial winter in East Kentucky with any appreciable amount of snow fall for 15 years. Have one late one on now with about 2" accumulation.
Is this a trend, is this scientific? No, but I am the stick your head out the window if you want to know what the weather is kind of guy.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it may be a duck.
I am glad because of the price of natural gas now that we are getting warmer winters. We have not had any serious drought in the summer yet, and I live quite a distance from the sea. My mountains keep the severe winds off me, tornado's are super rare. No major flooding in over 30 years.
Global warming, I don't know but if this was the stock market I would go with the trend or if anybody is giving odds I would make this bet.
The food production in the nation at large is still quite good. The only linkage to higher food cost now is high price of oil and using a food staple as an alternative fuel, Corn.
However water shortages and drought seem to plague the rest of the country. We have plenty here if they would just keep from polluting it and quit covering up fresh water streams with mountain top removal method of coal strip mining.
Ain't that the way it goes, even when you end up on the plus side of the global warming cycle humans will manage to F#*k it up despite dodging the bullet and getting a reprieve.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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robertogreen Posted 2:41 am
28 Feb 2008
this quality of public intellectual writing needs exposure in forums where real consensus is achieved by our elites. the WAPO, foreign affairs journal, national journal etc.
still and all, great article. i too believe in science, and real world observation. and you have crystallized in those two (cut) sentences why i am so hard on the religious or those who believe anything fantastical--e.g. astrology. we just don't have time for that crap anymore--it's literally too dangerous for our real world circumstances.
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:07 am
28 Feb 2008
I haven't seen this much backpedalling since Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that she "opposed NAFTA" even when Tim Russert shoved quotes of her saying it was an economic boon in her face!
All of a sudden there's no consensus and not only that, it's not needed.
Shades of NGW!!!
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christophersj Posted 7:19 am
28 Feb 2008
But this Jabailo guy: is he for real? I'm a big free speech advocate and, like many of you, have chosen to just ignore his troll behavior and move on down to the next post.
But now, after all of this time, and continuous posts with half tuths or downright falsehoods, I am wondering if he needs a slap! What a pure example of an immature jerk!
I have several theories about who this guy really is. Lets take a poll:
A member of the Grist staff pretending to be a dolt to anger others, cause controversy, and increase page views.
An adult who still lives in his mother's basement with a computer, without a job, and has a puckish spirit and enjoys irritating others to pass his time.
a Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute, working along side a row of staffers who spread lies across the internet all day long.
Just another person in need of medication with a lot of free time on his hands.
Thanks for participating.
There are plenty of well worded challenges that come through these forums, taking aim at environmental assumptions, but this is not what this guy is doing. He's a wrong headed smart-ass with bad reasoning.
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David Nicholson Posted 7:55 am
28 Feb 2008
I find the graph that shows the usage of the terms "Global Warming" and "Global Climate Change" over time to be interesting and telling.
How long does a cooling trend need to be before "Global Warming" is no longer an appropriate way to refer to contemporary changes in the global climate?
What would the data gathered over the next decade need to look like to disprove the consensus theory/hypothesis (take your pick)?
Let's agree on a criteria so the Infidels will have to convert if you are right.
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JonBoy Posted 2:49 pm
28 Feb 2008
"Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming"
"Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on"
Click here for the whole story
The fact is this past year we have all four of the big temperature keepers (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) showing a way cooler year. And this has been predicted by the Old Farmers Almanac who use sunspot activity to predict temps to an 80% accuracy. So we have science here.
I guess we have to stop putting out CO2 or we will all be under 40 feet of snow before we say "Yo, wher'd da sun go?"
Ok now for you who will say ..it's only one year so forget it.
Wrong we have had patterns on record since the year 1900. We show a warming after a cooling from 1900 to 1940.. then we have a cooling from 1940 to 1980... then we had a warming up until now.
Of course during each of these times we have had years that varied from normal as that is how the earth has always worked. Fact is we have lived in the best years the earth has ever had for mankind to live. We cant have that forever. WE cannot stop the cooling that is coming now.. as we couldnt do squat about the natural warming during the 1980's until now.
Its not accurate to think the climate changes on a dime either. It might get warmer for a year then again cooler, then way cooler again , just as it has during the last 110 years of records we have.
Unless, maybe the new Ice Age is due now.
Naturally Im Right!
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Lester Reales Posted 8:46 pm
28 Feb 2008
It's pretty rare to find a real consensus in science because scientists make their careers by coming up with new explanations for observed phenomena. The fact that there is such strong agreement among scientists on the issue of global warming is actually pretty striking. If someone had an theory that successfully explained the observed climate trends without including the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, it would be groundbreaking, career-making work. The fact that there is a "consensus" on global warming is testament to the fact that there is no compelling reason to believe humans are not changing the climate.
The contrarian scoffing at the "IPCC consensus," with the implication that it arose out of some kind of political arrangement (rather than decades of research) is just petty sophistry. New words will not change these people's minds, since moving the goalposts is their stock-in-trade. Every time one of the contrarian arguments is disproven, they move on to some even more unlikely claim (or they just keep using the old one and hope no one notices). It is the "god of the gaps" argument translated to atmospheric physics.
Even though the purpose of adopting new terminology may be to frame one's argument in a way that the public is more likely to understand, I haven't seen many name-change proposals that sound better than what we have already. The ones that I saw on Andy Revkin's Dot Earth post certainly didn't seem (to me, at least) to be any more convincing than plain old "global warming" or "climate change." I hope that whatever word might be used to replace "consensus" would sound a bit less cloying than the suggestions there.
David Nicholson and JonBoy, those who claim that global temperatures are currently decreasing are either being deliberately misleading, or they have zero understanding of what it takes to establish a statistically meaningful trend. The past 10 years of global temperature data are all within the expected range of variation for a continued warming trend, so there is no evidence for cooling. One good proposal for testing the hypothesis that global temperatures continue to increase over the coming decades (and distinguishing it from the hypothesis that temperatures are stable or declining) is on Tamino's blog, here. If those criteria are met (two years with average temperatures falling outside the 95% confidence limits of the 1975-present temperature trend), then I'll reconsider the idea that we are experiencing pervasive global warming. Would you concede that global warming is occurring if two years rise above the 95% confidence limits for a stable-or-declining temperature trend?
-lessreal
P.S. - I actually agree with you (D.N.) about the use of the word "denier." I believe that the terms "pseudoskeptic" and "climate contrarian" are much more descriptive. For those who continue to make claims that have repeatedly been proven false (and there are a lot of them out there, it seems), I reserve the term "disingenuous boob."
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David Nicholson Posted 4:38 am
29 Feb 2008
If the Kuwaiti oil fields are set ablaze the resulting smoke and soot will enter Earth's upper atmosphere and we will experience "Nuclear Winter". A year without a Summer. The consensus among scientists is overwhelming regarding this point.
The resulting die off of oxygen producing phyto-plankton in the world's oceans could spell the death of our species.
*
I did not suggest anything about any trend in temperatures. That would be silly. I don't know what the climate will be like in ten years. I just know that it will continue to change as it always has.
*
Ted Danson was kind enough to let us know about the consensus that the oceans would be dead by the mid 1990s. This would happen because we were reaching a tipping point. Man was throwing the oceans into an imbalance that was beyond recovery.
Any questioning of this "fact" was met with jeers and sneers.
*
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JonBoy Posted 8:39 am
29 Feb 2008
We are going into the new cooling period no matter how many scientists are christian hating, socially left leaning, Global warming believers.
Consensus is found in most science and most finds in science are proven before they can be agreed on. Yes we will have to learn more and more about the natural climate and how it works. But to take a false political claim and call that science then push a fake consensus through a propaganda machine, doesnt amount to science at all.
Naturally Im Right!
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christophersj Posted 11:13 am
29 Feb 2008
You guys make it so tough for me. Should I believe your half baked ideas or those of the IPCC, NASA, NOAA, AGU, and the vast majority of published and peer reviewed studies?
Man, I just cant decide. This is gonna keep me up tonight...
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Pangolin Posted 12:56 pm
29 Feb 2008
The names remain the same but the posts keep coming and the whole flock of them change the direction of their arguments with the organization of a flight of swallows. They don't have to worry about the merits of their arguments only their volume.
Since Exxon's profits alone last month exceeded the annual GDP of Africa there is more than enough money to go around.
As the US already has a problem incorporating reality into it's public policy these tactics will likely prove effective until it is far too late for a change of course to have any benefit. What am I saying, that could be now.
Put the Carbon Back
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David Nicholson Posted 4:59 am
04 Mar 2008
I expected a flurry of debate over why the predictions had been so wrong. Instead...silence.
The "Oceans will be dead before 1995" people have never been called to task, either.
Citing two examples where the AGW folks were dead wrong is now called a "half-baked idea".
How utterly pathetic and intellectually dishonest.
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christophersj Posted 7:42 am
06 Mar 2008
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mwildfire Posted 11:14 am
06 Mar 2008
I base my guess on the depressing reality that both my sisters, despite high IQs, are into the denier mode now...and one of them believes that soy food is dangerous and its popularity is a conspiracy by ADM and Cargill, the other that the government is building internment centers for dissenters all over the country.
Yeah, a tendency to paranoia does run in the family, but I think there is another factor here, taken from a line tossed off at the International Forum on Globalization's Triple Crisis forum in DC last September: "Of course, we have to realize that most people will remain in denial as long as they can." People don't want to believe that a drastic change in lifestyle is an imminent necessity--and Exxon is only to happy to fund the production of "information" on which to base denialist claims.
All this said, I am suspicious that jabailo and David Nicholson and JonBoy are not three people.
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snedunuri Posted 1:09 pm
08 Mar 2008
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