Climategate - a manufactured scandal

crossposted from TennesseeFree.com

It's inexplicable to me that conservatives seem to represent the vast majority of the science deniers. I guess it's a combination of low scientific literacy, lack of education, paranoid conspiracy theories, fixed persistent party-line thinking, and perhaps fundamentalist religion/creationism. I don't know. One thing for certain, conservatives seem to hate academia and higher education. On the subject of climate change, conservatives can not seem to separate science from political agenda. They see it as one in the same, a classical persistent response pattern.

Well, the science deniers' big scandal has fizzled.

Investigations clear scientists of impropriety and dishonesty

Newsweek:

British investigators clear the East Anglia scientist at the center of it all, Phil Jones, of scientific impropriety and dishonesty in April, an investigation at Penn State cleared PSU climatologist Michael Mann of “falsifying or suppressing data, intending to delete or conceal e-mails and information, and misusing privileged or confidential information” in February.

Newspapers around the world are retracting their claims of fraud and scientific dishonesty. The campaign of lies is now exposed. Of course the Faux News right wing media machine has already spread the lies. Doesn't matter. Limbaugh and Levin tell them what to think.

For the record, yes, I believe the climate is changing, as it always has. Yes, human activity is definitely a factor in recent warming. That is accepted scientific fact. Can humans effectively halt climate change? I doubt it, I am skeptical, at least in our lifetime. The trend has already been established, and perhaps a 'tipping point' has been reached. Even if it were possible, it would be logistically impractical and improbable, at least in the short term. If it means a cleaner planet, it may be worth a try. I recognize there have been huge climate change events in the past, some triggered by seismic and impact events that would dwarf any effect of human activity and the warming we are now experiencing.

Global warming denialist organization caught misrepresenting scientists research

The Heartland Institute has just been exposed (again) for what it is, a lying global warming denialist organization.

Outrage has ensued in the climate science community over Heartland's report: “500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares” so much so that Heartland was forced to change the title of the report, and put in a disclaimer stating:

"none of the articles and news releases produced by The Heartland Institute or the Hudson Institute (the original source of the lists) claims that all of the scientists who appear in the lists currently doubt that the modern warming is man-made"

45 angry scientists so far have responded to this report by demanding that their names be removed from this widely distributed report. The report is even said to have contained names of scientists who are unable to respond... because they are deceased.

This is how denialists make their case - by lies, manipulation, and disseminating propaganda. Here is a sample of some of the scientists who've responded to this disingenuous ploy:

"They have taken our ice core research in Wyoming and twisted it to meet their own agenda. This is not science."-- Dr. Paul F. Schuster, Hydrologist, US Geological Survey

"I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite." -- Dr. David Sugden. Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh

"I have NO doubts ..the recent changes in global climate ARE man-induced. I insist that you immediately remove my name from this list since I did not give you permission to put it there."
-- Dr. Gregory Cutter, Professor, Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University

"I don't believe any of my work can be used to support any of the statements listed in the article."
-- Dr. Robert Whittaker, Professor of Biogeography, University of Oxford

"I'm outraged that they've included me as an "author" of this report. I do not share the views expressed in the summary."
-- Dr. John Clague, Shrum Research Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University

"Please remove my name IMMEDIATELY from the following article and from the list which misrepresents my research."
-- Dr. Mary Alice Coffroth, Department of Geology, State University of New York at Buffalo

"I am very shocked to see my name in the list of "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares". Because none of my research publications has ever indicated that the global warming is not as a consequence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, I view that the inclusion of my name in such list without my permission or consensus has damaged my professional reputation as an atmospheric scientist."
-- Dr. Ming Cai, Associate Professor, Department of Meteorology, Florida State University.

"Just because you document natural climate variability doesn't mean anthropogenic global warming is not a threat. In fact I would venture that most on that list believe a natural cycle and anthropogenic change combined represent a greater threat."
-- Peter F. Almasi, PhD Candidate in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Columbia University

"Why can't people spend their time trying to identify and evaluate the facts concerning climate change rather than trying to obscure them?"
-- Dr. James P. Berry, Senior Scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Blogger "Doc" at The Autopsy - identity revealed

UPDATE 8/29/10:

Seems that Mikey is lying to the ankle-biters at Protein Wisdom.

The fact is that I never threatened to call his University to discredit him. I have better things to do. I would never stoop to the level of manbaby Jeff Goldstein who threatened me as such for merely commenting on his blog, saying, "I have nothing to lose." But I did say that I wondered what Mikey's colleagues would think of having a proponent of Intelligent Design and a climate science denier as a science educator/colleague. Particularly true in retrospect, now that his pet Climate-gate scandal has been thoroughly debunked.

In our lengthy debates, I had thought I had identified "Doc" at the Autopsy, the rabid conservative, devoted Bushie, anti-abortion rights, global warming denialist blogger. Based on tracking data, I had deduced that "Doc" was "Tony" at U of Wisconsin, Barron County. I was wrong. Tony emailed me the other day and notified me of my error. My apologizes to Tony!!

"Doc" at The Autopsy is:

Michael
Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin- Platteville

After numerous debates with "Doc" in which I called him "Tony" and even made a joke of Tony's lack of hair, "Doc" never corrected my misidentification and acknowledged my apologies for poking fun of his lack of hair to which he responded:

Willy apologized for the baldness comment. All the hair remaining on my head thanks you.

In doing so, even after a photo of Tony was cited, Michael perpetuated the misconception that he was "Tony." (Michael is not balding). I find this disingenuous and cowardly.

Looking at his bio, he is the product of Catholic schooling which explains his anti-abortion stance. An entry on his blog also suggests he supports Intelligent Design. The identifying clincher is the photo on his personal website of an actor is the same actor in the photo on his blog icon. Gotcha.

It's time Michael, to take responsibility for the opinions you deliver instead of trying to hide. The normal conservative tact: deny everything, admit nothing, blame someone else... it's time to come out Michael, we found you.

As I said to Tony, at the risk of stereotyping, "he sure looks like a conservative."

UPDATE:
Mikey edited my comment on his blog, eliminating his last name and link to this post. Still a coward.
UPDATE II:
Since Mikey linked my photo on his blog with a nasty caption, touche....
Heeerrre's Mikey, (no dumb caption required). Does he "look like a Republican" or what?

Conservative ignorance on parade: Terry Frank calls the world's foremost climate lab models: "a fortune telling circus"

In an effort to educate, I posted a link to the following graph of global warming projections. Terry Frank responded:

"Get lost. And take your fortune telling circus with you. Oops. I mean your climate models."

Here they are, the world's foremost climate labs that produced the supercomputer climate models that Terry Frank calls "a fortune telling circus."

Who do you suppose knows more about climate science? The wingnut deniers like Terry Frank, or the world's foremost climate labs?

Center for Climate System Research - Japan
National Institute for Environmental Studies - Japan
Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and Analysis - Canada
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - Australia
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research- England
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory- USA
Max Planck Institute für Meteorologie - Germany
National Center for Atmospheric Research- USA

Interestingly, current data shows these global warming projections to be conservative as many climate scientists stated in my last post on the subject.

I guess though, you’ll always have people like Terry Frank who obviously don’t understand the science and argue on the basis of energy industry agendas, lock step conservative ideology, or fear of gov’t control and sacrifice. What it's really about for these simple minded people is a perpetuation of the "war on Gore" or more specifically, the "war on liberals." The ironic thing is that I was agreeing with Terry, is so far as I believe that the climate change process is already underway and there is very little mankind can do about it, particularly in the short term.

(click graphs to enlarge)

Stunning new data shows global warming accelerating - exceeding computer model predictions

Look at the facts:

• The top 11 warmest years all occurred in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January to November, currently places the year as the seventh warmest on records dating back to 1850. [story]

• The Arctic Ocean reached record high temperatures, arctic ice diminished to a record low, and ice melted on Greenland for a record number of days. [story]

• The Arctic Sea ice dropped from 7.8 million square kilometers to 4.2 million square kilometers. For comparison, the area of ice is the same as all the states east of the Mississippi River and a broad swath of those to its west. [story]

• 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record. [story]

• A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. [story]

• The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. [story]

• The Northwest Passage was open to navigation, for the first time in recorded history, ships sailed across water that had been part of the polar ice cap. [story]

• It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. [story]

• Greenland, in particular, is a significant bellwether. Most of its surface is covered by ice. If it completely melted — something key scientists think would likely take centuries, not decades — it could add more than 22 feet to the world's sea level. [story]

Quotes from scientists:

"In 2007 we had off-the-charts warming"
--Michael Steele, a University of Washington oceanographer with the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington.

"The Arctic is often cited as 'the canary in the coal mine' for climate warming. Now as a sign of climate warming, 'the canary has died.' ... At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012."
--NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally

"I don't pay much attention to one year ... but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you've got to stop and say, 'What is going on here?' You can't look away from what's happening here, this is going to be a watershed year."
-- Waleed Abdalati, NASA's chief of cyrospheric sciences.

"The Arctic is screaming"
-- Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo

"2007 set a new record, with melting [in Greenland] occurring for 25 to 30 days longer than the average of 1980 to 2006."
--Marco Tedesco, University of Maryland.

UPDATE:

Question:
What is different now than in the previous 4 Milankovitch ice age cycles?
THIS DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE PART OF A NATURAL CYCLE:
(click to enlarge)

Answer?


THIS:

Resulting in this:

Musician defeats Republican Conservative PhD Chemist in Global Warming debate - Chemist cowardly deletes rebuttal comment

It's amazing how in lock step some Christian conservative Republicans are. It even transcends their critical thinking skills - in this case, this person's own area of expertise.
----------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE IV:
"Doc" at The Autopsy identity is revealed
"Doc" is: Michael , Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin- Platteville

Apologies to "Tony" who was misidentified as "Doc"
---------------------------------------------------------------

Follow the discussion thread here where he condescends to the less informed musician and cites bogus data and Republican talking points (like the so-called "NASA error"), and uses arguments and non-peer reviewed studies by global warming denialist organizations like the European Science and Environment Forum , the Exxon-funded George C. Marshall Institute, and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

After a lengthy post on the laws of thermodynamics that he 'dumbed down' for me to understand, I posted a response that he cowardly deleted or refused to allow to post.

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

UPDATE: Thanks to a fellow blogger, my comment has been posted .
UPDATE II: comment finally posted 24 hrs after comments received
UPDATE III: Truce declared, Chemist blames akismet filter for post not going through (although identical post did get through from different IP)
New post and comment on the Global Warming debate at Doc's
-----------------

This is the post that he didn't want his readers to see:

Doc,
Thanks for dumbing down the science for me, I really appreciate it.
Welcome readers to this thread as well, I'm sure they will appreciate you dumbing the science down for them too.

Doc's essentially saying here that man-made CO2 production is too insignificant to alter global climate and that the CO2 greenhouse effect is a violation of the physical laws of thermodynamics.

Doc's science lesson is based almost verbatim on he non-peer reviewed report: "Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics,"- Gerhard Gerlich, principal investigator.

Before commenting on the science, let's examine the source. Gerhard Gerlich was quoted as saying in 1995, "the CO2-greenhouse effect of the earth atmosphere is pure fiction of people who like to use big computers, without physical fundamentals." An industry funded denialist from way back, Gerlich was a member of the European Science and Environment Forum. The agenda of this group was to discredit government safety regulations and reports on such things as genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone, pesticides, public smoking, and global warming. Gerlich's coalition fought to discredit the World Health Organisation, and attempted to rebuff the science used by the USA's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Gerlich also worked with the Weinberg Group which ran special conferences for the tobacco industry to fight regulations against second-hand smoke. Gerlich participated in the anti-global warming study co-produced by the Exxon-funded George C. Marshall Institute, "Climate Change and Policy: Making the Connection".

Gerlich's most recent article from July, again, non-peer reviewed, due to it's recent submission is just beginning to get debunked for it's misleading calculations by scientists on various blogs. Here's one:
http://atmoz.org/blog/2007/07/10/falsification-of-the-atmospheric-co2-greenhouse-effects/

Back to Doc's argument - man-made CO2 production is too insignificant to alter global climate .

The fact that CO2 levels have remained relatively steady, between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-a-million years, shows that natural emissions are usually balanced by natural absorptions. That is until very recently. Now slightly more CO2 must be entering the atmosphere than is being soaked up by carbon "sinks".

Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s, according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in February 2007. Disturbances to the land – through deforestation and agriculture, for instance – also contribute roughly 5.9 Gt per year.

About 40% of the extra CO2 entering the atmosphere due to human activity is being absorbed by natural carbon sinks, mostly by the oceans. The rest is boosting levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The smoking gun that shows the source of CO2 has resulted from fossil fuel burning and not the warming of the oceans and water vapor is found when determining the source of the increased carbon in the atmosphere. The studies are based on the ratio of the three different carbon isotopes in atmospheric CO2. Carbon has three possible isotopes: C-12, C-13 and C-14.

C-12, which has 6 neutrons, is by far the most prevalent carbon isotope and is a stable isotope. Carbon 13 is also a stable isotope, but plants prefer Carbon 12 and therefore photosynthetic CO2 (fossil fuel or wood fuels) is much lower in C-13 than CO2 that comes from other sources (ie.. animal respiration); and Carbon-14 is radioactive. Studies of carbon isotopes in CO2 has resulted in the following findings:

* There has been a decline in the 14C/12C ratio in CO2 that parallels the increase in CO2. In 1950 a scientist (Suess) discovered that fossils do not contain 14C because they are much older than 10 half lives of 14C.
* There has been a parallel decline in 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO2. This has been linked to the fact that fossil fuels, forests and soil carbon come from photosynthetic carbon which is low in 13C. If the increased CO2 was due to warming of the oceans, there should not be a reduction in the ratios of C-13 and C-14 to C-12.

There are other clues that suggest the source of increased CO2 is not related to the warming of the ocean and subsequent release of CO2 from the ocean.

* There has been a decline in the oxygen concentration of the atmosphere. If ocean warming was responsible for the CO2 increase, we should also observe an increase in atmospheric O2, because O2 is also released as the water is warmed.
* The ocean is a sink for atmospheric carbon, and the carbon content of the oceans has increased by 118±19 PgC in the last 200 years. If the atmospheric CO2 was the result of oceans releasing CO2 to the atmosphere, the CO2 in the ocean should not be rising as a result of ocean warming.

Shall I dumb this down for you doc? Oh... whoops, sorry, you're the Chemistry PhD, I'm the dumb musician. continuing....

Fossil fuels were formed millions of years ago. They therefore contain virtually no carbon-14, because this unstable carbon isotope, formed when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, has a half-life of around 6000 years. So a dropping concentration of carbon-14 can be explained by the burning of fossil fuels. Studies of tree rings have shown that the proportion of carbon-14 in the atmosphere dropped by about 2% between 1850 and 1954. (After this time, atmospheric nuclear bomb tests altered these data sets by releasing large amounts of carbon-14.)

In addition, fossil fuels also contain more carbon-12 than carbon-13, compared with the atmosphere, because the fuels derive from plants, which preferentially take up the more common carbon-12. The ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere and ocean surface waters is steadily falling, showing that more carbon-12 is entering the atmosphere.

Carbon-12 atoms dominate the chemical structure of all fossil fuels, since carbon-14 naturally decays into it over time. So....where plant tissues are loaded with lots of carbon-12 but little carbon-14, there is more fossil fuel burning. Likewise, where plants have the expected levels of cosmic ray and nuclear-created carbon-14, there is less fossil fuel burning diluting that global signal.

A study by the University of Colorado and Europe's Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Science at Saclay, France has used these measurements in corn plants to map out fossil fuel burning hotspots in the US - actually measuring how much of the carbon dioxide in a given region comes from fossil fuels.

Any questions?

Science deniers use Fox News and the WSJ to battle the world

Consider this news item reported on the Fox News website under the heading "Reality Check" from Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Daniel Botkin, global warming denialist:

Daniel Botkin writes on The Wall Street Journal's Web site ... while the United Nations suggests up to 30 percent of plant and animal life could become extinct because of climate change — the reality is that almost none of the millions of species have disappeared during the past 2.5 million years — with all of its various warming and cooling periods.

Now consider the following reports and you can see what I'm talking about. Thanks Brit Hume at Faux News for reporting "the truth." No wonder this country is living in an idiocracy. People actually believe this Faux News shit. Amazing. I guess they retired Botkin for a reason, but that doesn't stop Faux News and the WSJ from giving the old coot a platform - our so called 'Reality Check' from the front in the Republican War on Science. Ever notice that many of the big time global warming denialists are so elderly that they were educated before the advent of the personal computer?

UNITED NATIONS: HUMANS CAUSING GREATEST MASS EXTINCTION IN 65 MILLION YEARS (Reuters-- 2006)

American Museum of Natural History Official Statement on Current Mass Extinction

American Museum of Natural History Press Release on Current Mass Extinction

Fastest Mass Extinction in Earth's History (Worldwatch Report)

Earth Faces Catastrophic Loss of Species (U.K. Independent-- 2006)

SCIENTISTS AGREE WORLD FACES MASS EXTINCTION (CNN-- 2002)

Earth Faces Sixth Mass Extinction (New Scientist-- 2004)

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION by Richard Leakey

The Sixth Extinction (National Geographic Magazine)

The Sixth Extinction (American Museum of Natural History)

Wake-Up Call on Extinction Wave (British Royal Society-- 2003)

GLOBAL EXTINCTION CRISIS CONFIRMED-- 2000 IUCN Red List Released

Mass Extinction Pace Quickening: Red List 2000 Released (N.Y. Times)

Headlong Drive to Mass Extinction-- 2002 Red List Released (Toronto Globe and Mail)

12,000 Threatened Species: "Only Scratching the Surface"-- 2003 Red List Released (U.K. Guardian)

15,589 Threatened Species: "Greatly Underestimates True Number"-- 2004 Red List Released (MSNBC)

16,119 Threatened Species-- 40% of Evaluated Species Are Threatened-- 2006 Red List (IUCN-- 2006)

Life on Earth Disappearing-- Unprecedented Extinction Rate -- 2007 Red List (U.K. Telegraph-- 2007)

Global Warming Threatens Extinction of One Million Species (Nature-- 2004)

Huge Extinction Risks of Global Warming Confirmed (Reuters-- 2006)

By 2050 Global Warming Will Doom A Million Species (National Geographic-- 2004)

BRITISH STUDY CONFIRMS WORLDWIDE MASS EXTINCTION (Science-- 2004)

Two Thirds of World's Species May Be Threatened (EurekAlert/AAAS-- 2005)

What the Global Warming Denialists Don't Understand

If Global Warming is a matter of science, ever ask yourself why almost all Global Warming Denialists are conservative Republicans? The reason - a general lack of knowledge and an ingrained propaganda driven agenda.

Take, for example this quote by the lunatic Ann Coulter:

“The temperature of the planet has increased about one degree Fahrenheit in the last century. So imagine a summer afternoon when it’s 63 degrees and the next thing you know it’s . . . 64 degrees. Ahhhh!!!! Run for your lives, everybody! Women and children first!”

To the average uninformed person, a global increase of 1 degree doesn't seem much like a big deal. But when you consider that such global temperature changes are much more exaggerated in the arctic, we see that one global degree increase IS very significant, as we see today in the arctic:

CNN : Ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, long held to be an early warning of a changing climate, has shattered the all-time low record this summer, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder. Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at NSIDC, termed the decline "astounding." Most researchers had anticipated that the complete disappearance of the Arctic ice pack during summer months would happen after the year 2070, he said, but now, "losing summer sea ice cover by 2030 is not unreasonable."

Regarding the causes, it appears to the scientific community that there is a clear correlation between fossil fuel burning, atmospheric CO2 rise, and the increase in global temperatures as shown in the graphs in this previous post . Clearly, we are presently in the most drastic period of global climate change in human history.

Yes, there have been ice ages and climate changes in human history, but nothing like the warming event that occurred 55 million years ago that resulted in the melting of the arctic and mass impacts on species evolution. This event, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), was the result of a 5 to 8°C sea surface temperature rise over a few thousand years, likely caused by massive volcanic activity. The present trend would clearly indicate an event like the PETM is a likely possibility, and despite what ignorant pundits say, a one degree global temperature rise over 100 years IS a big deal. We are already seeing global climate change impacts far more quickly than the models have predicted.

If saw CBS 60 minutes tonight, you saw one of these impacts - a new age of mega-fires in the western US -- the worst in recorded history. Climate change -- global warming -- has increased temperatures in the West about one degree and that has caused four times more fires. In the Southwest alone, nearly two million acres of forest are gone and won't come back for centuries. In 2006, the feds spent $2 billion on fire fighting, seven times more than just ten years ago.

The changes are coming fast and drastic. It may be too late to do anything about it. Look at the dramatic CO2 increase that exactly parallels the increase in human burning of fossil fuels (click to enlarge):




































Want to see a true-to-life global warming denialist? Check out Mark Rose who is also a creationist who thinks much of science is 'a pack of lies.' Forget about commenting on his blog. He's too much of a coward to allow comments that contain evidence that refute his close-minded beliefs. His level of denial is astounding - a typical characteristic of religious authoritarian conservatives.