“ALARMISTS” VS “SKEPTICS”

David Evans, along with three other scientists, who accompanied Senator Steve Fielding meeting with Senator Penny Wong, argues that the “climate alarmists” will not debate the “skeptics”.

Global Warming is clearly a major public policy question and should be debated as such. The question is then whether the debate should be a scientific debate or a public debate. The scientific debate goes to the questions related to the evidence for catastrophic climate change, and the public policy debate goes to alternative ways of dealing with the consequences, based on expert judgement of probability.

Joanne Nova, a science presenter, on her blog links to the Heartland Institute as the reference for those “skeptics” who have published advertisements calling for a public debate. On its surface this appears to be a public debate on “beliefs” about understanding scientific evidence. Senator Fielding, famously has an open mind who firstly attended a Heartland Institute Conference and then went to the Wong Meeting supported by the leading Australian ‘”skeptics”.

Senator Fielding’s office provided background on his experts, including the concern of Associate Professor Stewart Franks:

He is perhaps guilty of providing a more philosophical approach to climate modelling than most. Stewart prefers to believe that if we do not understand the physics of climate change, then we might be premature in building models of it and blindly believing their clourful output. He is also a firm believer in the politicization of science by politicians, science advocates and environmental groups is a particularly dangerous development in modern technological society.

Now politicization of science is an interesting term, and the belief in it, goes to the heart of the issue (puns aside). David Evans argues that his side was composed on “independent scientists”, that is they are not beholden to public funding, and he claims many of the other side would lose their jobs if they expressed an alternative view. So can scientists on the public payroll still be scientists?

The four skeptics summarized their case in The Australian. The case that the dissents, or skeptics, made is that there is no evidence for greenhouse gases causing global warming, although they accept the evidence of mean temperature rises. The forecasts have proven incorrect in relation to “hotspots” and the measurement of ocean temperatures are unreliable.

Fielding has presented three questions and these were answered by the Government’s climatologist, Will Steffen. Tim Lambert presents the graphical evidence for refuting Fielding’s questions.

How are scientific issues to be resolved? The fundamental argument is about cause and effect. The argument is that global warming is not caused by greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, and going further that increased carbon dioxide levels do not have a detrimental effect on the earth’s climate. Therefore we should be pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. What scientific skeptics should be doing, is not engaging in political debate, but in scientific research and experimentation. As David Evans notes political debates are adversarial.

As soon as science (and technology) enters into the realm of public policy they are politicized. This is as true of the science of the atom as it is of the science of the weather.

A question for the skeptics: Do they recommend that we all take every opportunity to pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as possible?

Aside from the question, as to the consequences, the amounts of long-lived greenhouse gases are approaching levels in the earth’s atmosphere that have never been experienced.

The following graph tracks the trend of atmospheric CO2:

Source: D. Lüthi, “High-resolution carbon dioxide concentration record 650,000-800,000 years before present,” Nature, 15 May 2008.

The following comments are from the Deustche Bank Climate Change Advisors:

The global atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280ppm to 379ppm in 2005 and to our latest estimate of 385 ppm in 2008. The annual CO2 concentration growth rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995-2005 average: 1.9ppm per year) than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements (1960-2005 average: 1.4ppm per year), although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates. {WGI 2.3, 7.3, SPM; WGIII 1.3} The global atmospheric concentration of CH4 has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 715ppb to 1732ppb in the early 1990s, and was 1774ppb in 2005. Growth rates have declined since the early 1990s, consistent with total emissions (sum of anthropogenic and natural sources) being nearly constant during this period. {WGI 2.3, 7.4, SPM}

The global atmospheric N2O concentration increased from a pre-industrial value of about 270ppb to 319ppb in 2005. {WGI 2.3,7.4, SPM} Many halocarbons (including hydrofluorocarbons) have increased from a near-zero pre-industrial background concentration, primarily due to human activities

Both good sense and science requires skepticism, but allowing for the variable in play in climate science, there will be uncertainty and variation, but subject to the qualification that the results have been rigorously obtained, they should have provisional sense. To some extent we have to rely on expert opinion. The decision then concerns the conclusions that seem to be true, and what are the actions that follow. The realm of action is not that of alarmism or skepticism, but of public policy, which will necessarily be influenced by a precaution against the worst outcomes. This principle should not to unknown to engineers who have to build constructions not against absolute standards – for cost reasons – but against what is most likely.

Senator Fielding it seems to me is taking the comfortable position of denying there is a problem and a need for action. A responsible question that Senator Fielding might ask: Is doing nothing, on the balance of the scientific evidence an option, given that the preponderance of climate scientists consider that the observed global warming is significantly caused by human activity and greenhouse gases? His focus should be on public policy outcomes and not scientific disputes. It seems to me the so-called skeptics might be at a relative disadvantage since they are unable, for the most part, to engage in the relevant observations and research to discover new information. Allowing for contrary skepticism, I cannot imagine any coal company of earth allowing an independent scientific investigation of the emissions of their product. Humour aside, or what passes for humour, perhaps it is unnecessary.

The more appropriate course, it seems to me, would be the examine the action proposed by the government. This was the approach that Senator Christine Milne in her speech to the National Press Club took. She made various observations, but this to me was the significant one. Speaking of the policy implications of climate change, she observed:

This is a cultural problem. It is not a lack of climate science that holds back action. It is how we respond to the challenge that the science poses, and that is deeply cultural. It is the values that we bring to bear, what we think is good for us, our religious underpinnings, our view of power and opportunity, of what is possible in the world and Australia’s place in it. All these value judgments stop us from embracing change.

And then she elaborated on the dominant paradigm, shared by the major parties:

In Australia, the dominant economic, social and therefore Labor and Coalition view, is that resource extraction underpins wealth, power and influence ‐ always has and always will. Regardless of the physical capacity of the Earth to sustain it, regardless of the collapse of the Murray Darling or the climate impact of burning more coal or logging more forests, nothing will stand in the way of that extraction continuing. All policies to address climate change are seen through that cultural lens.

Science, like learning, is a process. What we individually experience might be related events to a larger process. Knowledge and belief are the basis for action. Democracy is a process by which we can take collective action. In relation to the changes produced by human activities on the atmosphere and the climate, the decision has to made whether we can continue not to take effective action to reduce greenhouse emissions. The evidence of global warming seems to be accepted by the skeptics, although the rate of warming in recent years has not been as expected by making straight line projections, but there has still be an increase in differences in mean temperature. I have no idea what the effect on the magnetic influence on the sun means. Perhaps it is expert opinion, and hence an argument from authority, but the relationship between long-lasting greenhouse gas concentrations in atmosphere is considered to have a cause and effect relationship with the observed increase in mean temperatures.

ELSEWHERE:

Just to reiterate, the reason that global warming is a public policy issue, a matter on which governments must now act, is that it reflects the consensus of the judgment of climate scientists. Most of us are not qualified to enter into fray. It is a bit like medical advice. I assume that my doctor is likely to know more than I do, and I follow the set prescriptions. If, as is claimed people, cannot participate in scientific debate, that is a problem with science (and we are in a bad way). Many of the objections raised by the skeptics have been addressed, for example on the Real Climate blog, and not just yesterday.

Gary at Public Opinion notes that the US House of Reps has passed a cap and trade bill which will progressively reduce carbon emissions, while in Australia the Senate has opted to stand still. He is critical of the position adopted by the Greens.

John M Broder reports for The New York Times on the legislation passed by the House of Reps  “to curb the heat trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change”.

CORRECTION:

It seems that it is not a theory of solar variation that is proposed by the Heartland Institute but the effect of the magnetic field of the Sun. There is an explanation given in Science Daily. In another article, the same publication notes with top and tail paragraphs:

Global warming is mainly caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities; however, current climatic variations may be affected “around 15% or 20%” by solar activity, according to Manuel Vázquez, a researcher from the Canary Islands’ Astrophysics Institute (IAC) who spoke at the Sun and Climate Change conference, organised as part of the El Escorial summer courses by Madrid’s Complutense University.
. . .
The role of the sun in the Earth’s climatic variations “is not inconsiderable,” but Vázquez pointed out that over the last 40 years solar activity has not increased, and has in fact remained constant or even diminished, which is why it is difficult to attribute a significant global warming effect to it, “the cause of which needs to be looked for in human activities.”

This is not quite the story that Senator Fielding and his team of four experts are presenting.

In 2007, Richard Black for the BBC also reviewed the connection between the  sun and global warming. The theory simply put:

The idea was that variations in cosmic rays penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere would change the amount of cloud cover, in turn changing our planet’s reflectivity, and so the temperature at its surface.

An exponent of the theory concluded:

“Since 1970, the cosmic ray flux has not changed markedly while the global temperature has shown a rapid rise,” he says. “And that lack of correlation is proof that the Sun doesn’t cause the warming we are seeing now.”

The scientist proposing the theory were not for some reason following the standard operating procedure:

In July, Mike Lockwood from the UK’s Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory attempted a definitive answer to the question with what appeared to be a simple method. He simply looked at the changing cosmic ray activity over the last 30 years, and asked whether it could explain the rising temperatures.

His conclusion was that it could not. Since about 1985, he found, the cosmic ray count had been increasing, which should have led to a temperature fall if the theory is correct – instead, the Earth has been warming.

“This should settle the debate,” he told me at the time. It has not. Last month Dr Svensmark posted a paper on the DNSC website that claimed to be a comprehensive rebuttal.

“The argument that Mike Lockwood put forward was that they didn’t see any solar signal in the surface temperature data,” he says.

“And when you look at [temperatures in] the troposphere or the oceans, then you do see a solar signal, it’s very clear.”

Dr Lockwood disagrees; he says he has re-analysed the issue using atmospheric temperatures, and his previous conclusion stands. And he thinks the Svensmark team has been guilty of poor practice by not publishing their argument in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

CODA:

Climate scientistMatthew England was not impressed with Steve Fielding’s suggestion that the earth has stopped warming, while accepting, as I understand it, that greenhouse gases were increasing. Now Steve has made up his mind – does that mean that he not now open minded or sceptical anymore? – that the world in not warming and human activity is not causing climate change.

There is an explicit thesis in the opinion espoused by Steve and the Heartland Institute which may not be groundless. Namely that observations for climate science can only be conducted by a closed group of scientists working mostly for governments and these scientists are subject to pressures to conform. Similarly, it could be observed that scientists working in the corporate sector, in for example the pharaceutical industry, have the same pressures. Clearly, such a thesis suggests a public policy implication, and I expect that Senator Fielding any day soon will announce this proposals to deal with his deep concerns.