Twenty Two Climate Truths & One Rant (Updated)

From WUWT, a particularly good summary of the gaping holes in Anthropogenic Global Warming theory (hereinafter, "AGW"):

The 22 Inconvenient Truths

1. The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature? (discussion: p. 4)

2. 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?

[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays] (discussion: p. 7)

3. The amount of CO2 of the air from anthropic emissions is today no more than 6% of the total CO2 in the air (as shown by the isotopic ratios 13C/12C) instead of the 25% to 30% said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 9)

4. The lifetime of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 10)

5. The changes of the Mean Global Temperature are more or less sinusoidal with a well defined 60 year period. We are at a maximum of the sinusoid(s) and hence the next years should be cooler as has been observed after 1950. (discussion: p. 12)

6. The absorption of the radiation from the surface by the CO2 of the air is nearly saturated. Measuring with a spectrometer what is left from the radiation of a broadband infrared source (say a black body heated at 1000°C) after crossing the equivalent of some tens or hundreds of meters of the air, shows that the main CO2 bands (4.3 µm and 15 µm) have been replaced by the emission spectrum of the CO2 which is radiated at the temperature of the trace-gas. (discussion: p. 14)

7. In some geological periods the CO2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content, and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time. (discussion: p. 17)

8. The sea level is increasing by about 1.3 mm/year according to the data of the tide-gauges (after correction of the emergence or subsidence of the rock to which the tide gauge is attached, nowadays precisely known thanks to high precision GPS instrumentation); no acceleration has been observed during the last decades; the raw measurements at Brest since 1846 and at Marseille since the 1880s are slightly less than 1.3 mm/year. (discussion: p. 18)

9. The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist. (discussion: p. 20)

10. The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO2. The observed “feedback” is negative. (discussion: p.22)

11. The maximum surface of the Antarctic ice-pack has been increasing every year since we have satellite observations. (discussion: p. 24)

12. The sum of the surfaces of the Arctic and Antarctic icepacks is about constant, their trends are phase-opposite; hence their total albedo is about constant. (discussion: p. 25)

13. The measurements from the 3000 oceanic ARGO buoys since 2003 may suggest a slight decrease of the oceanic heat content between the surface and a depth 700 m with very significant regional differences. (discussion: p. 27)

14. The observed outgoing longwave emission (or thermal infrared) of the globe is increasing, contrary to what models say on a would-be “radiative imbalance”; the “blanket” effect of CO2 or CH4 “greenhouse gases” is not seen. (discussion:p. 29)

15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ? (discussion: p. 30)

16. The trace gases absorb the radiation of the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air which is, at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body. (discussion: p. 32)

17. The temperatures have always driven the CO2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly. (discussion: p. 33)

18. The CLOUD project at the European Center for Nuclear Research is probing the Svensmark-Shaviv hypothesis on the role of cosmic rays modulated by the solar magnetic field on the low cloud coverage; the first and encouraging results have been published in Nature. (discussion: p. 36)

19. Numerical “Climate models” are not consistent regarding cloud coverage which is the main driver of the surface temperatures. Project Earthshine (Earthshine is the ghostly glow of the dark side of the Moon) has been measuring changes of the terrestrial albedo in relation to cloud coverage data; according to cloud coverage data available since 1983, the albedo of the Earth has decreased from 1984 to 1998, then increased up to 2004 in sync with the Mean Global Temperature. (discussion: p. 37)

20. The forecasts of the “climate models” are diverging more and more from the observations. A model is not a scientific proof of a fact and if proven false by observations (or falsified) it must be discarded, or audited and corrected. We are still waiting for the IPCC models to be discarded or revised; but alas IPCC uses the models financed by the taxpayers both to “prove” attributions to greenhouse gas and to support forecasts of doom. (discussion: p. 40)

21. As said by IPCC in its TAR (2001) “we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Has this state of affairs changed since 2001? Surely not for scientific reasons. (discussion: p. 43)

22. Last but not least the IPCC is neither a scientific organization nor an independent organization: the summary for policy makers, the only part of the report read by international organizations, politicians and media is written under the very close supervision of the representative of the countries and of the non-governmental pressure groups.

The governing body of the IPCC is made of a minority of scientists almost all of them promoters of the environmentalist ideology, and a majority of state representatives and of non-governmental green organizations. (discussion: p. 46)

Do read the entire post along with the explanatory appendix. This is as good a summary as I've seen in some time. The first two facts noted by the author are really the meat of it all. The foundational theory of AGW is that, as more CO2 is pumped into our atmosphere, temperatures will rise proportionately. There is no support for this theory in the historical record predating modern temperature records, nor does the theory find any empirical support in the modern records, given that we have been pumping large amounts of CO2 into the air since 1997 with NO corresponding rise in temperature.

I am always amazed when the left, most of whom seem to embrace the AGW theory, accuse the right of being "anti-science" or "science deniers." It stands reality on its head. In a sane world, the gaping holes in AGW theory would lead scientists to discard the theory and start anew. The reality is that, as more facts show the fatal flaws with AGW theory, the left just becomes more strident in trying to shut down debate and in their claims that "the science is settled."

The truth is that there is much more than science at stake for the AGW crowd. For a very significant number of players, there are hundreds of billions of dollars at play in this scam, whether from carbon credits, renewable energy scams, cushy jobs at foundations, or even outright transfers of wealth from wealthy countries to third world nations (all to be administered by the UN, of course). And there seem to be more than a few watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) pushing this AGW canard for whom the thought of saving Gaia comes with an underlying motivation to do away with capitalism and democracy. Then there are the scientists riding the gravy train of grants and recognition who have, in some cases, falsified or presented deeply misleading research, as well as attempted to severely restrict the voices of any who would raise questions about AGW. And lastly, there are the useful idiots at the bottom who unthinkingly embrace AGW and go to bed thinking themselves not only morally superior for doing so, but as they are constantly told by AGW cheerleaders, much smarter than those on the right who object to AGW on the basis of unreliable and contrary data.

No area of science is more bastardized than "climate science." I have no problems following science experiments wherever they might lead, so long as the scientific method is practiced. But all too often in climate science, there is a complete failure in this regards. It is criminal the number of climate scientists who fail to adhere to the scientific method, trying to claim peer review as the gold standard of reliability rather than a complete posting of their experiment in such detail as to allow for reproduction and verification by other scientists. Even as I write this, the EPA is preparing to issue regulations that will cost our economy tens of billions of dollars, and which regulations are based on "secret science" that has never been made public so as to subject it to reproduction or verification. It is a mockery to call it "science." It is faith being sold as science.

Yet another significant concern I have is with the numerous unexplained changes to the historical record of our temperature data, something that Jim Hansen, then at NASA, started doing in the late 90's and which continues to this day. As it stands, I have no faith whatsoever in the historical temperature record relied upon by the UN IPCC. Though, it should be noted, those records only begin about the 1880's, with the first relatively reliable efforts to collect data from thermometers.

This is not an academic debate about AGW. People's lives across the world are being effected by this scam. Hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used productively are being wasted in this fraud. Economies are being strangled by regulations designed to drive out a trace gas necessary for life on this planet. It is a travesty and, indeed, criminal. A very large number of people need to be jailed over this fraud.

Update: A perfect illustration of why such green energy scams are unforgivable in their impacts on people's lives comes from Germany:

According to EU data, Germany’s average residential electricity rate is 29.8 cents per kilowatt hour. This is approximately double the 14.2 cents and 15.9 cents per kWh paid by residents of Germany’s neighbors Poland and France, respectively, and almost two and a half times the U.S. average of 12 cents per kWh. Germany’s industrial electricity rate of 16 cents per kWh is also much higher than France’s 9.6 cents or Poland’s 8.3 cents. The average German per capita electricity consumption is 0.8 kilowatts. At a composite rate of 24 cents per kWh, this works out to a yearly bill of $1,700 per person, experienced either directly in utility bills or indirectly through increased costs of goods and services. The median household income in Germany is $33,000, so if we assume an average of two people per household, the electricity cost would amount to more than 10 percent of available income. And that is for the median-income household. The amount of electricity that people need does not scale in proportion to their paychecks. For the rich, $1,700 per year in electric bills might be a pittance, or at most a nuisance. But for the poor who are just scraping by, such a burden is simply brutal.

HT: Instapundit

While here at home, we are but a half step behind Germany:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to finalize its Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce power plant carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from 2005 levels over the next 15 years. Looking at some of the best-case scenarios for CO2 reductions, the plan could potentially cut roughly 300 million tons of CO2 annually. Because global man-made CO2 emissions reach roughly 30 billion tons annually, it’s estimated that the EPA plan could result in a possible 1% reduction in annual man-made CO2. Overall, man-made CO2 accounts for only 4% of total atmospheric CO2. So the true atmospheric reduction in CO2 from the EPA plan would be approximately 0.04%. The cost for this plan is estimated at $50 billion annually, with the loss of roughly 15,000 U.S. jobs each year. Increases in household utility bills could reach $100 billion annually.

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Arrogance, AGW, Achenbach & Science

In the debate over climate change, the central allegation of the skeptics is that the science saying it’s real and a serious threat is politically tinged, driven by environmental activism and not hard data. That’s not true, and it slanders honest scientists. But the claim becomes more likely to be seen as plausible if scientists go beyond their professional expertise and begin advocating specific policies.

Joel Achenbach, Why science is so hard to believe. Washington Post, Feb. 12, 2015

Joel Achenbach has written an article in the Post aimed at marginalizing those who question the canard of man-made global warming. This is, in many ways, a left / right issue. The vast numbers of those who fully support AGW are on the left. Alarmingly, they intend to use the supposedly settled science in support of AGW to rework the world's economy and impose a sort of green communism on the world.

Those opposed to this radical plan do not contest "climate change," but fall along an entire spectrum from those who question whether carbon dioxide is the culprit to those who believe that the vastly overblown threat of devestation -- based on failed computer modeling -- do not justify the radical left wing plans.

Ignoring the varied concerns of all who oppose the left, Achenbach sets up a straw man who is irrational and being led astray by a small number of science prostitutes being paid by dark money for their advocacy. Achenbach compares his strawman to a litany of other irrational people in a list that bears some scrutiny:

1. People of Portland who refuse to floridate their water. Achenbach fails to note that Portland is the bluest of blue left wing cities.
2. Anti-vaxxers. Achenbach fails to note that this is largely a movement of the left.
3. Anti-GMO. Achenbach fails to note that this is almost entirely a movement of the left.
4. People who contested that the earth revolves around the sun in the 16th century.
5. Those who were concerned that ebola might be spread by airborne transmission.

That last one is particularly of note. Achenbach writes:

The world crackles with real and imaginary hazards, and distinguishing the former from the latter isn’t easy. Should we be afraid that the Ebola virus, which is spread only by direct contact with bodily fluids, will mutate into an airborne super-plague? The scientific consensus says that’s extremely unlikely: No virus has ever been observed to completely change its mode of transmission in humans, and there’s zero evidence that the latest strain of Ebola is any different. But Google “airborne Ebola” and you’ll enter a dystopia where this virus has almost supernatural powers, including the power to kill us all.

Considering that ebola mortality can range from 20% to 90% -- figures on par with the mortality rate for the Black Plague that killed half of Europe in the 14th century -- only a fool would not be concerned. Thankfully, according to Achenbach, we are saved by the scientific consensus . . . . Or at least we were until, on Feb. 19, when the Washington Post ran a story, "Limited airborne transmission of Ebola is ‘very likely,’ new analysis says."

Perhaps the most offensive part of Achenbach's article is when he explains the scientific method, implying that the science of AGW is based on legitimate studies that can be reproduced by other scientists. Reproducability is the sina que non of science. The problem with so very much of AGW "science" is that the scientists do not put out sufficient information to allow their results to be analyzed by others. Steve MacIntrye has made a cottage industry out of trying to get AGW researchers to actually conform to the scientific method. The most recent glaring example of grad student Mike Wallace who wanted to analyze a study by two NOAA scientists that, they claimed before Congress, showed that the oceans were acidifying and in significant danger because of excessive carbon dioxide. When Wallace contacted the study's authors because their underlying data wasn't archived -- per the scientific method -- the authors gave Wallace the run around and then threatened his career for pursuing the matter further. It turns out that the study ignored all of the historic data that showed the oceans are not acidifying. The study was a fraud.

Wallace's experience is not an anamoly. As I pointed out in The Not So Settled Science of AGW, the scientists pushing anthropogenic global warming, as long ago as Michael Mann's hockey stick, stopped adhering to the scientific method and tried to substitute peer review in its place as the standard for reliability. It's a fraud and a travesty. Indeed, the greatest change needed in relation to government funding of science is an absolute requirement that any funded research requires the authors to post all information necessary for their experiment to be analyzed and reproduced. Anything less is not science.

After reading Achenbach's article, I am pretty sure that his target audience were those who blindly accept AGW. Achenbach is trying to reassure them of their intellectual superiority in comparison to the irrationality of the skeptics on the right. His problem is, like the science of AGW itself, his arguments do not withstand the least bit of scrutiny. As to the right, the science of AGW is so hard to believe because there are huge questions regarding the validity of the studies and computer models. As to the left and their problems with floridation, vaccines and the like, well, it would appear that they are irrational deniers of largely settled science.

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Obama & The Anti-Science Of EPA's War On Coal

. . . The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public. To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking. . . .

President Barack Obama, Memorandum, Subject: Scientific Integrity, 9 March 2009

Ah, remember those idealistic days of 2009, when our Moralizer In Chief Barack Obama promised to "restore" scientific integrity to our government. Well, those days are long gone.

Obama is using the EPA to conduct a war on coal, promoting new guidelines under the Clean Air Act that will stop the creation of any new coal fired power plants and force the shut down of many existing plants as they reach a point of needing to upgrade. Since coal is the primary source for our nation's electricity needs, this will end up costing our nation dearly - with the poor and middle class being the hardest hit.

The justification for these new guidelines is that they will save lives. The EPA is basing this assertion on two longitudinal, observational scientific studies, the Harvard Six Cities Study (HSCS) and the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II):

Both studies showed that exposure to fine particle air pollution (that is, particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 microns, or PM2.5) was linked with increased mortality. Their results provide the basis for most EPA regulations targeting air quality because, the EPA claims, such regulations will save a large numbers of lives.

There are some real questions about the reliability of the conclusions reached by the researchers. For Instance:

The association of PM2.5 with mortality shows geographic heterogeneity – no such association is seen in the western US, where the climate is dry and PM2.5 make-up differs from that in the eastern US.

Second, the results of the studies have been presented in a way that focuses narrowly on PM2.5 and precludes putting the association in perspective relative to other predictors of mortality, including cigarette smoking, income, and other factors.

Third, reports from these two studies tend to cite only supporting studies and to ignore studies that have not found an association of PM2.5 with mortality."

But here is the kicker. Those two studies are . . . wait for it . . . secret.

What what what?

Yes, the EPA is claiming that the data, meta-data, computations - in short, everything about the "scientific studies" that would allow the studies to be subject to vetting and reproduction (i.e., the scientific method) - are secret and cannot be released.

This is the polar opposite of scientific integrity.

And, believe it or not, it gets worse, the same people who "carried out the studies used by the EPA as the basis for regulation and are also involved in the implementation of EPA policy."

The ostensible reason given for not releasing the information regarding these studies is the claim that to do so would violate third party confidentiality rules:

[I]f third parties are given access to the data, the identity of study participants could become public, in violation of the researchers’ guarantee of confidentiality. The lead researcher on the CPS II study has made this argument. Supporters of the subpoena argue that the dataset could be stripped of personal identifiers.

In fact, the issue of confidentiality appears to be a dodge since large datasets of this type are routinely stripped of personal identifiers to protect subject confidentiality and enable use by researchers.

The EPA should be shut down over this. Republicans have been trying to have the EPA provide this data for over two years. The EPA has steadfastly refused. Republicans have now filed a subpoena to which Democrats have objected - their grounds:

The ranking Democratic member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D – TX) characterized Chairman Smith’s action as an attempt to make the data available to “industry hacks” in order to discredit the research and weaken clean air regulation.

The scientific method - the ability to pour over another's experiment line by line and either prove it or disprove it - is the sina que non of scientific integrity. Rep. Johnson either doesn't seem to know that or otherwise puts it in a back seat to politics. This, from Obama's EPA, is just politicized science at its very worst.

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One Small Step For Warmies, One Giant Leap For Science

Although the warmies fought off total devastation from Climategate, at least some, including notably the MET and CRU, have gotten the message that they need to be practicing real science - not political science - if they value their future. You will recall that, in January, the MET and the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of beleaguered East Anglia Univ. released their latest temperature data showing that there had been no warming for the past 15 years. Now the MET and CRU have announced:

Given the importance of the CRUTEM land temperature analysis for monitoring climate change (e.g. Trenberth et al. 2007), our preference is that the underlying station data, and software to produce the gridded data, be made openly available. This will enhance transparency, and also allow more rapid identification of possible errors or improvements that might be necessary (see e.g. the earlier discussion of homogeneity adjustments in the SH). . . .

As a result of these efforts, we are able to make the station data for all the series in the CRUTEM4 network freely available, together with software to produce the gridded data (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ and http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/).

Hallelujah. My biggest beef with the warmies has always been that their data, having never gone through the "scientific method," had not an ounce of trustworthiness. What MET and CRU are doing is how science in our modern era should be practiced. My hats off to them. This is a huge step forward for climate science. My faith in the MET / CRU data has taken a giant leap forward. I now await a similar act from NASA'a odious uber-warmie, Jim Hansen. I shall begin holding my breath in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

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Why I Take Nothing From Warmies At Face Value

Nothing makes me see red in the AGW debates like another warmie hiding data, thus negating the scientific method. Yet it seems to be SOP for warmies. The latest example comes from a urinating match between Michael Mann and Hu McColloch. You can read about it at Climate Audit. The passage that caught my eye was this:

If all of Thompson’s cores had been fully archived at the NCDC’s website, as is customary for this sort of data, it would be feasible to back out which ones he used by a least squares regression on decadal averages of all of them, region by region. The excluded ones would then simply show a zero coefficient. However, with the notable exception of Quelccaya, Thompson has kept most of this primarily NSF-funded data to himself (and a few select friends, apparently), for one, two, or even three decades after it was collected.

This is criminal. But there is a very simple solution. Anyone who accepts public funding for their research but who then refuses to make all data and methods fully available to the public should thereafter be permanently ineligible for all future public grants.

If they are not following the scientific method, than it is not science. Indeed, their findings are useless but for warmie propaganda.

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Fraud, The Sun, IPCC & Their Modeling

This is an exact inversion of the scientific method, which says that evidence always trumps theory. The IPCC is throwing away the evidence for a solar-magnetic driver of climate because it isn’t satisfied with the theories that have been proposed to account for it. This is the definition of anti-science: putting theory (or ideology, or anything) over evidence. Evidence has to be the trump card, or its not science. The IPCC is engaged in pure, definitional, anti-science, precisely inverting the scientific method.

IPCC Reviewer Alec Rawls, Omitted variable fraud: vast evidence for solar climate driver rates one oblique sentence in AR5. Watts Up With That, 22 Feb. 2012

For a superb overview of the solar theory which is at the heart of Mr. Rawls condemnation of the IPCC, see this presentation from Jasper Kirby, head of CERN's CLOUD experiment.

The quote at the top of the page is Alec Rawls's summary of the fraud he has seen at the heart of the IPCC. He makes that observation as one of the reviewers of the latest IPCC update. What he has found is how the IPCC models the climate, dismissing out of hand solar forcing and counting CO2 as a forty times more potent driver of our climate. Here is his explanation:

“Expert review” of the First Order Draft of AR5 closed on the 10th. Here is the first paragraph of my submitted critique:

My training is in economics where we are very familiar with what statisticians call “the omitted variable problem” (or when it is intentional, “omitted variable fraud”). Whenever an explanatory variable is omitted from a statistical analysis, its explanatory power gets misattributed to any correlated variables that are included. This problem is manifest at the very highest level of AR5, and is built into each step of its analysis.

Like everyone else who participated in this review, I agreed not to cite, quote or distribute the draft. The IPCC also made a further request, which reviewers were not required to agree to, that we “not discuss the contents of the FOD in public fora such as blogs.”

Given what I found—systematic fraud—it would not be moral to honor this un-agreed to request, and because my comments are about what is omitted, the fraud is easy enough to expose without quoting the draft. . . .

For the 1750-2010 period examined, two variables correlate strongly with the observed warming (and hence with each other). Solar magnetic activity and atmospheric CO2 were both trending upwards over the period, and both stepped up to much higher levels over the second half of the 20th century. These two correlations with temperature change give rise to the two main competing theories of 20th century warming. Was it driven by rapidly increasing human release of CO2, or by the 80 year “grand maximum” of solar activity that began in the early 1920′s? (“Grand minima and maxima of solar activity: new observational constraints,” Usoskin et al. 2007.)

The empirical evidence in favor of the solar explanation is overwhelming. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have found a very high degree of correlation (.5 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature going back many thousands of years (Bond2001, Neff 2001, Shaviv 2003, Usoskin 2005, and many others listed below). In other words, solar activity “explains,” in the statistical sense, 50 to 80% of past temperature change.

Such a high degree of correlation over such long time periods implies causality, which can only go one way. Global temperature cannot be driving solar activity, so there must be some mechanism by which solar activity is driving or modulating global temperature change. The high degree of correlation also suggests that solar activity is the primarydriver of global temperature on every time scale studied (which is pretty much every time scale but the Milankovitch cycle).

In contrast, records of CO2 and temperature reveal no discernable warming effect of CO2. There is a correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature, but with CO2 changes following temperature changes by an average of about 800 years (Caillon 2003), indicating that it is temperature change that is driving atmospheric CO2 change (as it should, since warming oceans are able to hold less CO2). This does not rule out the possibility that CO2 also drives temperature, and in theory a doubling of CO2 should cause about a 1 degree increase in temperature before any feedback effects are accounted, but feedbacks could be negative (dampening rather than amplifying temperature forcings), so there no reason, just from what we know about the greenhouse mechanism, that CO2 has to be a significant player. The one thing we can say is that whatever the warming effect of CO2, it is not detectable in the raw CO2 vs. temperature data.

This is in glaring contrast to solar activity, which lights up like a neon sign in the raw data. Literally dozens of studies finding .5 to .8 degrees of correlation with temperature. So how is it that the IPCC’s current generation of general circulation models start with theassumption that CO2 has done 40 times as much to warm the planet as solar activity since 1750? This is the ratio of AR5′s radiative forcing estimates for variation in CO2 and variation in total solar effects between 1750 and 2010, as listed in [the table of RF estimates in the chapter on human and natural temperature forcing factors]. RF for CO2 is entered as ___ W/m^2 while RF for total solar effects is entered as ___ W/m^2. [I'm not going to quote the actual numbers, but yeah, the ratio is an astounding 40 to 1, up from 14 to 1 in AR4, which listed total solar forcing as 0.12 W/m^2, vs. 1.66 for CO2.]

So the 50% driver of global temperature according to mountains of temperature correlation data is assumed to have 1/40th the warming effect of something whose warming effect is not even discernable in the temperature record. This is on the input side of the GCM’s. The models aren’t using gigaflops of computing power to find that CO2 has that much larger a warming effect. The warming ratio is fixed at the outset. Garbage in, garbage out.

The “how” is very simple. The 40 times greater warming effect of CO2 is achieved by blatant omitted variable fraud. As I will fully document, all of the evidence for a strong solar magnetic driver of climate is simply left out of AR5. Of the many careful empirical studies that show a high correlation between solar activity and climate, only three papers are obliquely referenced in a single sentence of the entire First Order Draft. On [page___, line ____ of the chapter on aerosols and clouds] there is a bare reference to three papers that found unspecified correlations to some climate variables, with no mention of the dramatic magnitude of the correlations, or the scope and repetition of the findings. And that’s it. Not a single other mention in the entire report. A person reading AR5 from cover to cover would come away with not even a hint that for more than ten years a veritable flood of studies have been finding solar activity to explain something on the order of half of all past temperature variation. The omission is virtually complete. . . .

Do read the whole post. Rawls goes into great detail as to how the IPCC is managing to avoid the evidence of solar as the primary driver of climate change.

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A Response To The Warmie Nonsense

In a post here, I pointed out that surface temperatures have not increased in the past 15 years, that all of the IPCC climate models had failed, and that the warmies' AGW theory, that temperatures will increase in direct proportion to the amount of CO2 pumped by humans into the atmosphere, had proven false. Indeed, today, AGW theory rests on a single untested hypothesis from warmie scientist Kevin Trenberth. As I quoted Trenberth from his essay in the WSJ:

[C]omputer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.

Trenberth had written the above in response to an essay by sixteen sceptic scientists, "No Need to Panic About Global Warming,". Those same scientists have now responded to Trenberth's essay, including his claim that global warming is continuing, just only in the deep ocean. This from the WSJ:

[A]n important gauge of scientific expertise is the ability to make successful predictions. When predictions fail, we say the theory is "falsified" and we should look for the reasons for the failure. Shown in the nearby graph is the measured annual temperature of the earth since 1989, just before the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Also shown are the projections of the likely increase of temperature, as published in the Summaries of each of the four IPCC reports, the first in the year 1990 and the last in the year 2007.

The Trenberth letter tells us that "computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean." The ARGO system of diving buoys is providing increasingly reliable data on the temperature of the upper layers of the ocean, where much of any heat from global warming must reside. But much like the surface temperature shown in the graph, the heat content of the upper layers of the world's oceans is not increasing nearly as fast as IPCC models predict, perhaps not increasing at all. Why should we now believe exaggerating IPCC models that tell us of "missing heat" hiding in the one place where it cannot yet be reliably measured—the deep ocean?

Why indeed?

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Warmie Angst & The AGW Theory Hanging By A Single Untested Hypothesis

The warmies are experiencing some epic angst over the letter published several days ago in the WSJ from sixteen distinguished scientists, addressed to our political leaders, stating that global warming is not an issue with which they needed to be concerned. The warmies have responded at the WSJ with a letter from Kevin Trenberth that is jaw dropping in its arrogance and utterly revealing about the state of the anthropogenic global warming theory.

Trenberth's first argument is that the only people that can make judgements about the validity of global warming are "climate scientists." As he puts it, "[d]o you consult your dentist about your heart problem?" But the reality is that "climate science" overlaps significantly with other disciplines, such as physics, meteorology, oceanography, statistics and computer programming to name but a few.  Trenberth gives us no reason whatsoever to discount the opinions of experts in these areas when making assessments of global warming. And as Jo Nova responds with tongue in cheek:

If my dentist tells me that my heart surgeon was caught emailing other surgeons about how to use tricks to hide declines, that he broke laws of reason, that his predictions are basically all wrong, or that his model of understanding is demonstrably wrong, then I’m listening to the dentist.

What is most troubling - and unbelievably arrogant - about Trenberth's argument is that he implies that if you are one of the non-scientists, your only recourse is to blindly trust in the pronouncements of "climate scientists."  What pure and utter bullshit.

What can - and should - we non-scientists do to assess climate science?

Number one, and perhaps most importantly, we can look at the underlying mechanics of a claimed scientific finding to see whether it is based on an experiment that complies with the scientific method - i.e., all the data, methodology, computer programs, etc. are archived and made public so that the results can be analyzed and reproduced by others. If not - and SO MUCH of climate science does not - then we should accord it zero reliability.

We can even take that a step further in evaluating experiments and just take a look at the size of the experimental sample.  If it is large and diverse, then we can mark it down as at least some indication that the results might be trustworthy.  If the sample is extremely small, that is a red flag that the scientist may be cherry picking data to get the result that they want - as happened with the infamous Yamal Tree Ring study.

We can look at how the temperature record itself is compilied - and make common sense judgments about whether the methods used are uniform and reliable.  And if they are not, if there appear to be significant problems with the numbers of temperature stations, their location, and whether they are subject to heat island effect, then we should be very skeptical indeed

We can look at changes to the temperature records to see whether there is any justification for the changes.  And if the changes are to make the older temperatures colder and the later temperatures warmer with no justification given, we can be suspicious that we are being sold a bill of goods.

We can look at the geologic record and see if the claims being made about our modern climate are reasonable within the larger picture.  So if at numerous points in history when there was no human contribution to CO2, the climate was warmer than today, we can legitimately ask why we should believe that increasing temperatures, as we emerge from the Little Ice Age, are in any way unusual, and proof of a human component to climate change.

We can look at the computer models to determine whether they are accurately predicting the heating or cooling of our climate. And if they are not (and all IPCC comuter models fail that test today), then we have no reason to trust the pronouncements of the warmies.

And we can tell whether there are gaping logical disconnects in the warmie arguments. Indeed, Trenberth makes a huge, gigantic, massive, leap in logic in his WSJ article, asking us to take an untested hypothesis as fact.  I'll save that critically important pearl for last.  First, let's deal with the following:

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter.

Wow.  I seem to recall that a week ago, all of those climate scientists at the MET and the University of East Anglia, two warmie institutions at the heart of climate science (not to mention Climategate), just told us 'unequivocally' that our planet had not warmed at all over the past 15 years.  So Trenberth is deliberately ignoring that to make his absolutist claim.  He has obvious problems with veracity.  So why should we trust anything that he says.

Actually, this latest finding from MET and East Anglia stands in direct contradiction to Jim Hansen's NASA GISS temperature record. The GISS records show red hot warming over the past 15 years. GISS and MET data line up through 1998, but diverge thereafter because Hansen claims that there is massive warming going on in the Arctic region. There is minimal coverage of temperature stations in the Arctic, and Hansen's claims are based almost wholly on a number of questionable extrapolations. Indeed, even while Hansen is showing the Arctic on fire over the past 15 years, we are seeing increases in polar ice there - something that wholly undermines Hansen's claims.  So what Trenberth is doing is the time tested climate scientist technique of cherry picking the data he wants. And since the MET data undermines his argument, he is pretending it simply doesn't exist.

And one more note before leaving the above quote. Trenberth writes that the last decade has been the "warmest decade on record." Now, I will bet that most non-scientists reading that will believe that we are experiencing world record temperatures over the course of geologic time.  But in reality, "on record" is shorthand for the period since 1880, when relatively reliable temperature record keeping began.  Warmies rarely seem to explain that when they make their pronouncements.

Trenberth later makes mention of his 2009 e-mail wherein he bemoaned the fact that the world had stopped warming and the warmies couldn't explain it.  So what has changed since 2009?  It's the mother of all logical jumps.

[C]omputer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.

Did you catch those two things?  One, Trenberth's e-mail is directly undermining the claim of Hansen's NASA GISS that we have had continued warming of surface temperatures over the past 15 years. Obviously Trenberth didn't believe it when he wrote his 2009 e-mail bemoaning the lack of warming. And today Trenberth is taking the position that the surface temperatures have not warmed, but the deep oceans have. So there is no doubt Trenberth is being less than honest when he now embraces Hansen's surface temperature numbers as definitive. But that is not the big thing.

The huge, gigantic, enormous thing in the above statement is this - Trenberth et. al, when he couldn't explain the flatlining of temperatures over the past 15 years, built a new computer model that has spit out a projection that significant warming is going on in the deep oceans. How that happens without warming the middle layers of the ocean is a mystery, but lets leave that aside for the moment.  What the computer has spit out is AN UNTESTED HYPOTHESIS.  In other words, Trenberth DOES NOT HAVE THE DATA to support his conclusion that global warming has gone deep into the oceans. Deep water temperature testing only began with ARGO in 2003, and there is nowhere near the data at this point to even suggest that the ocean depths have, over the past 15 years, absorbed the massive amount of heat that Trenberth's model projects. So simply put, no one today can validate it.  Warming in the deep ocean is not known to be "common" on the basis of any observed data. So in other words, this scurrilous man is asking us to accept the absolute truth of anthropogenic global warming not on data or proven fact, but ON FAITH THAT HIS LATEST COMPUTER MODEL may be right. That is the antithesis of science.

This is incredibly revealing.  It means that the AGW theory is literally hanging on by an untested hypothesis today. It also means that, for the first time since the global warming canard started, it is, today, capable of being falsified. After the moving of goal post after goal post, we finally might be at the point that there is no more space for the warmies to move it. It is put up or shut up time for Trenberth and the warmies. Show us observed facts, not a computer generated hypothesis..

----------------------------- Update: The addressees of Trenberth's letter have responded at WSJ:

The Trenberth letter tells us that "computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean." The ARGO system of diving buoys is providing increasingly reliable data on the temperature of the upper layers of the ocean, where much of any heat from global warming must reside. But much like the surface temperature shown in the graph, the heat content of the upper layers of the world's oceans is not increasing nearly as fast as IPCC models predict, perhaps not increasing at all. Why should we now believe exaggerating IPCC models that tell us of "missing heat" hiding in the one place where it cannot yet be reliably measured—the deep ocean?

-----------------------------

Lastly, Trenberth falls back on the tried and true argument that all people should accept the truth of anthropogenic global warming because it is generally accepted by all right thinking scientists whose papers are accepted for peer reviewed publication. Compare that argument with this:

No theory is carved in stone. Science is merciless when it comes to testing all theories over and over, at any time, in any place. Unlike religion or politics, science is ultimately decided by experiments, done repeatedly in every form. There are no sacred cows. In science, 100 authorities count for nothing. Experiment counts for everything.

That is from physicist Micho Kaku's article, Has A Speeding Neutrino Really Overturned Einstein, in the WSJ last year. It would seem that Mr. Kaku has a very different opinion than Mr. Trenberth as to what constitutes actual  "science" and how much trust should be placed in the weight of authorities.  Indeed, it would seem that Trenberth is doing anything but making valid scientific arguments.

At the end of the day, there needs to be a reckoning.  The "climate scientists" who have sold us on the canard of global warming cannot escape with their careers intact.  And to the extent that they have committed knowing fraud, they need to be punished criminally.  Those organizations that have told us the sicience is settled need to lose access to all federal funding.  And the entire system of federal grants for research needs to be thoroughly overhauled.  And lastly, we as a nation ought to demand that any scientist who receives federal funding to conduct an experiment must completely comply with the scientific method, making every bit of data, methodology, and computer programs immediately available so that their work can be validated or falsified.  This global warming scam, so costly to our world, cannot be allowed to simply fade into the night as the theory is disproven. They have caused too much damage to entire economies and they have grossly eroded the faith of the average person in the trustworthiness of our scientific community. Examples need to be made.

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Science, Anti-Science & Education

But in the end, this is a victory for science. No theory is carved in stone. Science is merciless when it comes to testing all theories over and over, at any time, in any place. Unlike religion or politics, science is ultimately decided by experiments, done repeatedly in every form. There are no sacred cows. In science, 100 authorities count for nothing. Experiment counts for everything.

Micho Kaku, Has A Speeding Neutrino Really Overturned Einstein, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2011

The above quote of Michio Kaku came as part of his discussion of the CERN finding that neutrinos might travel faster than the speed of light, thus defying Einstein's theory of relativity and falsifying virtually the entire foundation of modern physics. As Mr. Kaku, himself a physicist, makes crystal clear, what separates science from religion is reproducability. Asking the world to take the finding of an experiment on faith - or peer review, for that matter - is not science. Experiments must be archived and all data and methodology made public as the first immutable step in the scientific method. Moreover, if the results are not capable of being falsified, then it falls outside the definition of science and enters into the theological realm of faith.

Why do I bring all of this up? I for one firmly believe in the scientific method. I believe that science, properly done through the scientific method, will tell me the "how" of our world, wherever it may lead. There is no tension between my respect for science and my faith in religion to tell me the "why." And yet, according to our modern Orwellian left, I am "anti-science."

What the left means by that charge is that I refuse to accept, on the basis of peer review alone, the many warmie assertions about anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The IPCC and the modern left have, when it comes to global warming, tried to substitute peer review as the gold standard for reliability as opposed to making their methodology and data fully available for testing by other scientists. They use computer models to forecast global warming, yet they don't release the programming code so that it can be analyzed and either validated or falsified. Jim Hansen - a fraud who should be behind bars - doesn't just massage our temperature record, he blatantly alters it behind closed doors. The warmies top all of this off with the claim that the science surrounding global warming is settled. It is the antithesis of actual science as posited by Micho Kaku. It truly is anti-science.

What rattled my cage on this issue today were two posts. The first is by Rand Simberg, discussing how the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has "announced that it's going to take on climate change denial" in k-12 education:

. . . [A]fter hearing an increasing number of anecdotes about K-12 teachers being challenged about how they taught climate science to their students, she says she began to see "parallels" between the two debates --namely, an ideological drive from pressure groups to "teach the controversy" where no scientific controversy exists. . . .

“There’s a climate of confusion in this country around climate science,” says McCaffrey, and NCSE’s goal will be to ensure that “teachers have the tools they need if they get pushback and feel intimidated.” Recent surveys, such as one done among K-12 teachers in September by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), suggest that attacks on climate education are far from rare. NSTA found that over half of the respondents reported having encountered global warming scepticism from parents, and 26% had encountered it from administrators. And a December survey from the National Earth Science Teachers’ Association found that 36% of its 555 K-12 teachers who currently teach climate science had been “influenced” to “teach the controversy.”

As a threshold matter, if only 36% of science teachers in the U.S. are teaching both sides of the AGW debate, than our science education is in deep, deep trouble. Parent's need to be checking their children's science curriculum and raising holy hell if their children are part of the 64% who are being indoctrinated by the warmies. Indeed, to go one further, any global warming curriculum that does not include at least a class on Henrick Svensmark's theory - that solar activity and its effect on cloud formation is the primary determinant of our warming and cooling - is not a balanced curriculum.

As to the NCSE, they embrace the position that the "science is settled" and that the mountain of contravening theories and evidence are to ignored. The fact that warming has stopped for the past fifteen years despite steadily increasing human contributions of CO2, the fact that the geologic record shows that there has been nothing unusual about the recent warming of our planet, the fact that all of the computer models predicting global warming have proven utterly worthless, the fact that much of the "science" upon which AGW rests has never been subject to the type of analysis, criticism and reproduction that define the scientific method - all of these are to be ignored? Where in hell do people like the NCSE come from? What they seek is indoctrination, not the teaching of science as a method of acquiring knowledge. It is the very definition of anti-science.

The second post that caught my eye was an article at Space.com entitled "The Crackpot Theory of Everything Reveals The Dark Side of Peer Review." It is about an article that passed peer review yet had obvious defects in methodology and findings. Peer review is, at the very best, nothing more than a tool by which scientific publications can be reasonably sure that an article has been reviewed and found plausible by other experts - not that the findings themselves are accurate or have been reproduced. Peer review is not, and never will be, a substitute for the scientific method. It is those who would have it so that are "anti-science."

At any rate, my suggestion is this. The next time a warmie puts a bull horn up to your ear and yells "anti-science," look him square in the eye, tell him global warming is anti-science, and proceed to repetitively kick him square in the crotch until he experiences an epiphany. It seems the only way we will ever get through to these little Orwellian nightmares.

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Apocalypse Now: Life Imitates Bad Science Fiction

The plot is familiar to all readers of science fiction and horror. A mad scientist - or the U.S. military - creates a deadly virus that can destroy a substantial portion of the world's population. The bug is released, accidentally or purposefully, and the few survivors face life in a post-apocalyptic world.

Life, it seems, imitates art - or at least bad science fiction.

The H5N1 Bird Flu virus is deadly to humans. To date, 566 humans are known to have contracted the virus, of whom 332 died from it - a mortality rate of 60%. To put that number in perspective, the Black Death of 1348, which killed off half the population of Europe and led to massive societal breakdown, resulted from bubonic plague with a mortality rate of 50%. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, which killed upwards of 100 million people, had a mortality rate estimated between 10% and 20%.

Fortunately for humanity, because of the method of transmission, H5N1 has only infected a small number of people. The H5N1 is not passed by airborne transmission. And while it is a virus that requires contact with an infected host, it has never been passed by human to human contact. It has only been passed to humans by contact with infected birds or animals. The fear has always been that it would mutate into an airborne form transmissible between humans, but it has never happened.

Except, that is, until now.

The National Institutes of Health funded two studies of the H5N1, one in Wisconsin and, it is important to note, one outside of the U.S., in the Netherlands. The purpose was to see whether the H5N1 could be altered to mutate into an airborne virus. Let me just ask at this point, why? What possible need was there to experiment with this particular potentially apocalyptic virus to make it airborne? Did they stop to consider for one second the ramifications if they succeeded? Is there anything approaching adult supervision - let alone common sense and sanity - at the NIH?

The NIH research bore fruit. It appears that the researchers in Wisconsin and the Netherlands did in fact manage to genetically alter the virus to make it airborne and, indeed, transmissible between human like mammals. This from Boing-Boing:

Nobody knows a lot about this research, but, at Slate.com, Carl Zimmer explains what is known:

They’ve carried out their experiments on ferrets, which respond to flu viruses much like humans do. What few details we know of the unpublished research comes from a talk Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier gave in August at a virology conference, along with subsequent news reports. Fouchier began the experiment by altering the H5N1 virus’s genes in two spots. Then he passed the virus from one ferret to another, allowing the virus to mutate and evolve on its own inside the animals. After several rounds, Fouchier ended up with an H5N1 virus that could spread through the air from one ferret to the other. If unleashed—and if proven capable of spreading from human to human with the same high mortality rate—it could make the deadly 1918 pandemic look like a pesky cold.

This is sheer insanity. But wait - it gets much worse.

Evidently, the scientific process of making this virus airborne was comparatively easy, at least given a full working lab. And now . . . the scientists want to publish their methods, data and results. In other words, they want to put a blue print for how to make the H5N1 airborne and likely transmissible between humans into the public domain where any Tom, Dick or Mohammed can access it.

The NIH passed the papers proposed for publication to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.

On December 20, the NSABB recommended that Fouchier's study, and a similar one conducted by the University of Wisconsin's Yoshihiro Kawaoka, only be published once key data and details are removed, effectively rendering the studies un-reproducible. The board can't technically force this. But the board is also a big deal and so Science, Nature, the NIH, and the paper's authors are all listening. That's why the papers haven't actually been published yet. The people involved are still figuring out how to handle them.

So NIH paid for this research and now our government cannot definitively stop publication of the apocalyptic blue print. Moreover, by funding one of the experiments in the Netherlands, the NIH utterly assured that we would not have the ability to exercise government power over the results. Really, Darrell Issa needs to be giving the NIH a Congressional high colonic. Heads need to roll at the NIH, literally.

And on top of that, the parties are "still figuring out how to handle" the proposed papers? You've got to be kidding. How could there possibly be any thought of publishing the blueprints?

The answer comes from Peter Christian Hall writing for Reuters:

[No one in the history of biological weapons] ever tried to weaponize a flu strain—for good reason. Influenza in general is an equal-opportunity menace, particularly dangerous when a strain is so unfamiliar that humanity lacks immunity to it.

This would put at great risk anyone trying to assemble a pandemic H5N1 to launch at “target” populations. Indeed, such an attack would unleash global contagion that would swiftly and inevitably incapacitate an aggressor’s own people. Influenza doesn’t respect borders.

 Oh, well that's comforting. Human nature being what it is, it's not like anyone ever goes postal and tries to take as many people as possible with them. Nor is it like we've had any problems with, say, weapons grade anthrax sent around the country. And of course, of greatest importance, there is no billion person religion in the world that glories in martyrdom and death.  There is no theocracy in charge of a country for whom it is even questionable whether the thought of mutually assured destruction (MADD) would keep them from unleashing, say, a nuke attack. What could possibly go wrong?  Hell, just publish the results in Arabic and Farsi and write Allah Akbar at the end. What suicidal idiocy.

You really might want to call your Congressman and Senator on this one - like yesterday. I suggest you do it right before you begin building your air-tight bunker and start stocking up on bullets and MRE's.

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Hansen Not Even Trying To Hide The Decline Anymore

Why is the off the rails, capitalism hating uber warmie James Hansen still working at NASA and riding herd over our temperature records? Indeed, why is he not in jail for fraud, since he is cooking the books and becoming personally wealthy for doing so? These are but two of the life's perplexing mysteries.

How blatant is Hansen these days about his cooking the temps? This catch from Willis Eschenbach posting at Watts Up With That:

. . . Hansen’s paper says the following (emphasis mine):

The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year-mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009).

I bring it up because it is climate science at its finest. Since the observations were not of the expected range, rather than figure out why the results might be wrong, they just twisted the dials to “reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models.”

And curiously, the “imbalance suggested by climate models”, of some 0.85 W/m2, was actually from Hansen’s previous paper. That earlier paper of his, by coincidence called “Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications“, gave that 0.85 W/m2 figure as a result from Hansen’s own GISS climate model … but all this incestuous back-slapping is probably just another coincidence.

Of course, you know what all this means. Soon, the modelers will be claiming that the CERES satellite results verify that the GISS and other climate models are accurately duplicating observations …

Hansen isn't even trying to hide his bastardization of the numbers. If he doesn't like the result, he just changes it. And you don't need a PhD in physics to understand that to go from 6.5 to .85 is change by an order of magnitude.

It really is too bad that Rick Perry, the one person running for the nomination who actually gets that this is all the world's greatest scam, is simply unable to articulate it. All he would have to say is that the whole temperature record is untrustworthy and that climate scientists are refusing to subject their work to the scientific method, instead trying to argue that a corrupt peer review process should substitute. That isn't science.

At any rate, step one to sanity is to fire James Hansen and everyone under him at NASA. Step two is to open up the temprature record to full transparency, including all raw data and all of the underlying math used to arrive at the final numbers. Step three is to withhold all future funding from institutions and individuals that publish findings that do not allow for full replication by the scientific method. Step four is to start putting warmie frauds in jail. Hansen, Gore and Mann should be sharing a jail cell if there is any justice in the cosmos.

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The Warmies House Of Cards

From Ace: "Until the science is conducted out in the open, the claims of the warmists can't be taken seriously. It's as simple as that."

That pretty much sums it all up. My biggest beef with the warmies has always been their bastardization of the scientific process and their largely successful attempts to shut down all contrary scientific voices. The day our government stops funding the research of any institution that does not completely comply with the scientific process is the day AGW, as the political movement that it is, comes to an abrupt halt.

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Creationism, AGW & The Anti-Science Party

According to Steve Benen at Washington Monthly, the Republican Party is the "anti-science party." His damning evidence:

THE ANTI-SCIENCE PARTY.... This segment . . . helps reinforce much of what's wrong with the state of critical thinking in the Republican Party.

"Real Time" host Bill Maher asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) a fairly straightforward question: "Do you believe in evolution?" Kingston not only rejected the foundation of modern biology, he explained it this way: "I believe I came from God, not from a monkey." He added, "If it happened over millions and millions of years, there should be lots of fossil evidence."

Seriously, that's what he said. . . .

Let's pause to appreciate the fact that it's the 21st century -- and Jack Kingston is a 10-term congressman who helps oversee federal funding on the Food and Drug Administration. . . .

In the larger context, there's a renewed push underway for the United States to value and appreciate science in the 21st century -- our future depends on it. And while this push is underway, Republican leaders are more comfortable walking a bridge to the 18th century.

What an embarrassment.

As a threshold matter, the deeply disingenuous Benen extrapolates that since there is one Republican congressman who believes in creationism, then all Republicans are anti-science. Talk about your non-sequiturs. That would be like me extrapolating that since Benen is such an intellectually dishonest donkey's ass, that all on the far left are likewise intellectually dishonest donkeys' asses. While I happen to believe that they are, it does not follow from the single example of Benen.

And while I happen to disagree with creationism or reading the bible too literally, so what. Belief in creationism versus the big bang theory and/or evolution - the latter both embraced by Catholicism and many Christians - has no practical effect on 99.99% of modern science. Embracing either position does not establish whether a person - or an entire group of people - is "anti-science" except in the far left fantasy of Benen.

One clear litmus test to divide the science embracers from the "anti-science" folk is whether a person embraces the "scientific method." The lynchpin of the scientific method is that the scientist postulating results must "document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them."

All of that said, one place where the science/anti-science divide is of absolutely critical importantance is in regards to the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The entire theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is built on mountains of "results" that have never been verified because, in the AGW world, it is not the custom to share the information necessary to verify the results.

Left wing researchers and institutions have made an art form out of excusing their refusal to provide such information and their justifications for refusing to respond to FOIA requests (See here, here, here, here, here). They do not practice the scientific method. Instead of allowing for replicability, they demand that we accept "peer review" as the gold standard for the reliabiilty of their results. But peer review itself, which does not involve replication, is anything but a standard of reliability. That is doubly true in the AGW world, where the Climategate e-mails provided clear evidence of bias and deliberate tampering with the "peer review" process by a small clique at the top of the AGW pecking order In short, AGW proponents, including Obama's EPA, are demanding that we accept their unverified theory on faith. That is the very definition of "anti-science."

One of the most shining examples of this comes out of NASA and the GISS. James Hansen, who oversees our temperature records, has spent years making unexplained adjustments to our historical temperature records, yet he has never made public the raw numbers, nor his calculations or justifications for making changes. And there are significant issues with even the most basic question of how NASA is measuring our temperatures to begin with. Moreover, Hansen's changes have been anything but uniform, with older temperatures being adjusted downward and more recent temperatures upward. So when Hansen announces that 2010 is the hottest year on record, he is not just asking us to take his assertion on faith, he is making a joke.

Now, interestingly enough, Benen is himself a true believer in AGW, as evinced by this supremely snarky article of two years ago, wherein he takes Palin to task for daring to question AGW theory:

I can appreciate Palin being embarrassed about her beliefs now; she's obviously well outside the scientific mainstream. . . .

But Palin's record is Palin's record, and the fact remains that she's so far out there, she's rejected the connection between global warming and human activity. Indeed, she's done so more than once. This not only tells us something important about Palin's understanding of public policy, it also tells us a great deal about how she perceives and considers evidence that runs counter to her ideology

So, Mr. Benen, since you are asking us to take the theory of global warming on faith when all we ask for is honest, replicable science, tell me again, who is it here that is anti-science? "What an embarrassment" indeed.

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The Scientific Method & Its Limits - The Decline Effect

First up, for all the climate scientists out their still publishing their experiments while withholding the data and computations necessary to reproduce their results, here is a description of the scientific method and why it is used:

. . . Different scientists in different labs need to repeat the protocols and publish their results. The test of replicability, as it’s known, is the foundation of modern research. Replicability is how the community enforces itself. It’s a safeguard for the creep of subjectivity. Most of the time, scientists know what results they want, and that can influence the results they get. The premise of replicability is that the scientific community can correct for these flaws.

. . . [R]eplication is what separates the rigor of science from the squishiness of pseudoscience . . .

Actually, I think the word "pseudoscience" is an understatement. If we are asked to believe that which cannot be replicated, then we are being asked to accept results based on faith. That crosses the clear line demarking science from religion. And indeed, it is this litmus test that puts much of climate science in the latter category.

At any rate, the above comes from a fascinating article in the New Yorker by scientist Johah Lehrer, in which he discusses how "scientific truths" established under ridgid testing, are losing their validity over time:

But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants: Davis has a forthcoming analysis demonstrating that the efficacy of antidepressants has gone down as much as threefold in recent decades.

For many scientists, the effect is especially troubling because of what it exposes about the scientific process. If replication is what separates the rigor of science from the squishiness of pseudoscience, where do we put all these rigorously validated findings that can no longer be proved? Which results should we believe? Francis Bacon, the early-modern philosopher and pioneer of the scientific method, once declared that experiments were essential, because they allowed us to “put nature to the question.” But it appears that nature often gives us different answers.

This is a question with significant ramifications for science and how much trust should reasonably be placed in any particular finding as establishing an immutable truth. Lehrer goes on to suggest that both individual bias and "publication bias," are the major factors in skewed science. He goes on to discuss one recommendation:

According to Ioannidis, the main problem is that too many researchers engage in what he calls “significance chasing,” or finding ways to interpret the data so that it passes the statistical test of significance—the ninety-five-per-cent boundary invented by Ronald Fisher. “The scientists are so eager to pass this magical test that they start playing around with the numbers, trying to find anything that seems worthy,” Ioannidis says. In recent years, Ioannidis has become increasingly blunt about the pervasiveness of the problem. One of his most cited papers has a deliberately provocative title: “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.”

The problem of selective reporting is rooted in a fundamental cognitive flaw, which is that we like proving ourselves right and hate being wrong. “It feels good to validate a hypothesis,” Ioannidis said. “It feels even better when you’ve got a financial interest in the idea or your career depends upon it. And that’s why, even after a claim has been systematically disproven”—he cites, for instance, the early work on hormone replacement therapy, or claims involving various vitamins—“you still see some stubborn researchers citing the first few studies that show a strong effect. They really want to believe that it’s true.”

That’s why Schooler argues that scientists need to become more rigorous about data collection before they publish. “We’re wasting too much time chasing after bad studies and underpowered experiments,” he says. The current “obsession” with replicability distracts from the real problem, which is faulty design. He notes that nobody even tries to replicate most science papers—there are simply too many. (According to Nature, a third of all studies never even get cited, let alone repeated.) “I’ve learned the hard way to be exceedingly careful,” Schooler says. “Every researcher should have to spell out, in advance, how many subjects they’re going to use, and what exactly they’re testing, and what constitutes a sufficient level of proof. We have the tools to be much more transparent about our experiments.”

In a forthcoming paper, Schooler recommends the establishment of an open-source database, in which researchers are required to outline their planned investigations and document all their results. “I think this would provide a huge increase in access to scientific work and give us a much better way to judge the quality of an experiment,” Schooler says. “It would help us finally deal with all these issues that the decline effect is exposing.”

I couldn't agree more. And the first place to start is in the pseudoscientific area of climate science.

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The Unchanging Arrogance of Climate Scientists

The continued arrogance of climate scientists, particularly in the aftermath of Climategate, is simply jaw dropping. Exhibit 1 - Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit who is yet again denied data that would allow the scientific process - i.e., independent verification - to be applied to a recently published study:

Phil Jones and his coauthors in the recent multiproxy study (Neukom et al 2010, (Climate Dynamics) Multiproxy summer and winter surface air temperature field reconstructions for southern South America covering the past centuries) did not archive proxy data in the Supplementary Information. Many proxy series used in the study are not otherwise publicly archived. . . .

Every inquiry into paleoclimate controversies, no matter how much whitewash was applied, concluded that climate scientists should archive data. If Neukom, Jones and their coauthors publish a multiproxy article, that means the multiproxy data, not just the output. If the contributing authors are not willing to archive their data, then it shouldn’t be used in a study in a climate journal. End of story.

Nor is it sufficient for the author to provide the addresses of the various contributors and force an interested reader to obtain data from each of them individually. There’s no guarantee that they will cooperate. The obligation rests with the publishing authors.

Making matters even worse in the present case is that many of the unarchived series were published by named Neukom coauthors. If they aren’t prepared to have their data see the light of day, don’t sign on as a coauthor and don’t allow Neukom to use your data. . . .

As I wrote below in "A Question To Ask Every Global Warming Proponent," there is a cure for this:

. . . we should be demanding that our government pass legislation holding that anyone operating pursuant to publicly funded grants and who publishes studies in respect thereof without information that would allow for independent verification be thereafter banned from recieving any future public grants. I can assure you that would shake the AGW promoting academia to their core

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