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 Bureaucrats at the American Physical Society (APS) have issued a
curious warning to their members about an article in one of their own
publications. Don't read this, they say - we don't agree with it. But
what is it about the piece that is so terrible, that like Medusa, it
could make men go blind?
It's an article that examines the calculation central to climate models. As the editor of the APS's newsletter American Physics Jeffrey Marque explains, the global warming debate must be re-opened.
"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of
people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2
emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the
global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since
the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications
for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it
appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning
that conclusion," he wrote.
American Physics invited both believers and sceptics to submit articles, and has published a submission by Viscount Monckton questioning the core calculation of the greenhouse gas theory: climate sensitivity. The believers are represented by two physicists from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, who state that:
"Basic atmospheric models clearly predict that additional greenhouse
gasses will raise the temperature of Earth. To argue otherwise, one
must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative
cause of warming. This has not been done. Sunspot and temperature
correlations do not prove causality."
But within a few days, Monckton's piece carried a health warning: in bright red ink.
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer
review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming
opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American
Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.
Not so much Medusa, then, as Nanny telling the children what not to think.
"The first sentence is nothing more or less than a deliberate lie," writes
Professor John Brignell on his Numberwatch blog. "The second is, to say
the least, contentious; while the third is an outrageous example of ultra vires interference by a committee in the proper conduct of scientific debate."
Monckton has asked for an apology. In a letter to the APS President Arthur Bienenstock, he writes:
"If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or
formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific
justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts
primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had;
secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no
evidence) to be the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific
community"; and, tertio, that "The Council of the American Physical
Society disagrees with this article's conclusions"? Which of my
conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific
grounds (if any)?"
Believers and sceptics have spent the past few days examining the
value of "peer review", and the weight of validity that should be
placed on "publication". Monckton is a classics scholar and former
journalist, which believers maintain is enough to disqualify him from
holding an opinion.
(Whether it's science is not in question - whether it's "good
science" or "bad science" is the question. An earlier presentation by
Monckton examining questioning climate sensitivity received was examined by NASA's Gavin Schmidt on the believers' blog, RealClimate.org.)
But for anyone without a dog in this race, and perhaps not familiar
with the "state of the science" there may be a couple of surprises in
Monckton's paper.
One is how small the field of "experts" really is. The UN's IPCC is
tasked with producing a summary of the "scientific consensus" and
claims to process the contributions of some 2,500 scientists. But as
Monckton writes:
"It is of no little significance that the IPCC’s value for the coefficient in the CO2 forcing equation depends on only one paper in the literature;
that its values for the feedbacks that it believes account for
two-thirds of humankind’s effect on global temperatures are likewise
taken from only one paper; and that its implicit value of the crucial parameter κ depends upon only two papers, one of which had been written by a lead author of the chapter in question,
and neither of which provides any theoretical or empirical
justification for a value as high as that which the IPCC adopted." [our
emphasis]
Another eye-opener is his explanation of how the believers' climate models are verified:
"Since we cannot measure any individual forcing directly in the
atmosphere, the models draw upon results of laboratory experiments in
passing sunlight through chambers in which atmospheric constituents are
artificially varied," writes Monckton. "Such experiments are, however,
of limited value when translated into the real atmosphere, where
radiative transfers and non-radiative transports (convection and
evaporation up, advection along, subsidence and precipitation down), as
well as altitudinal and latitudinal asymmetries, greatly complicate the
picture."
In other words, an unproven hypothesis is fed into a computer (so
far so good), but it can only be verified against experiments that have
no resemblance to the chaotic system of the Earth's climate. It is not
hard to see how the scientists could produce an immaculate "model"
that's theoretically perfect in every respect (all the equations
balance, and it may even be programmed to offer perfect
"hind-casting"), but which has no practical predictive value at all.
It's safe from the rude intrusion of empirical evidence drawn from
atmospheric observation.
The great British-born physicist Freeman Dyson offered an
impertinent dose of reality which illustrates the dangers of relying on
theory for both your hypothesis and the evidence you need to support
it. Since 8 per cent of atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by the planet's
biomass every year, notes Dyson,
the average lifespan of a carbon molecule in the atmosphere is about 12
years. His observation leaves the "climate scientists" models as
immaculate as they were before, but suggests a very different course of
policy action. It suggests our stewardship of land should be at the
forefront of CO2 mitigation strategies. That's not something we hear
from politicians, pressure groups and, yes ... climate scientists. Source
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