What is to be done when the world’s leading experts in a field come together in the largest, most extensively peer-reviewed inquiry in the history of science and arrive at a conclusion that is diametrically opposed to your own long-held worldview? Most of us would reevaluate our ideas so they actually mesh with reality. That’s called learning.

But if you are the staunchly “free market,” anti-regulation think tank called the Heartland Institute and the conclusion is that humanity must cooperate to get the world out of a worsening climate crisis … well, then what you do is simply manufacture a conclusion that is more to your liking.

Make no mistake, this is what the Heartland Institute‘s “International Conference on Climate Change” is all about. Set to begin Sunday in New York, the gathering’s guest list includes the standard roster of “scientist-denialists” — a large group of “experts” who have never published a single peer-reviewed study in their lives, along with a handful of fringe researchers who do (though rarely) publish in the field of climate science. The conference tagline is: “Global Warming: was it ever really a crisis?” and the conclusion is predetermined. “Was it ever a crisis?” … as if it isn’t right now.

By conception, the Heartland gathering seeks to establish itself as an authoritative gathering of genuine experts in climate science. The claim the Heartland Institute makes is pretty simple: “more than 70 of the world’s elite scientists specializing in climate issues” will be there.

So, Heartland says to the unsuspecting, the experts are all coming to this event, and they all say there is nothing to worry about. That actually makes the whole charade pretty easy to unmask.

We don’t have to examine every particular scientific or pseudo-scientific argument that will be advanced during the conference (that’s been done repeatedly), because the whole thrust of this conference is about who is attending, not what they are saying.

Heartland promises the “world’s elite scientists specializing in climate issues.” Really? Let’s have a quick look at the top-billed attendees as described by conference’s official agenda:

• American astronaut Dr. Jack Schmitt.
• William Gray, Colorado State University, leading researcher into tropical weather patterns.
• Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world’s leading experts in dynamic meteorology, especially planetary waves.
• Stephen McIntyre, primary author of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of climate data.[...]
• Arthur Robinson, curator of a global warming petition.
• Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
• Roy Spencer, University of Alabama at Huntsville, principal research scientist and team leader on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

Astronaut? I thought we were talking about climate!

But seriously, who are these people and should we rely on their views?

Jack Schmitt indeed has a Ph.D., but his educational training has nothing to do with climate. After earning his doctorate in geology, Schmitt became an astronaut (he walked on the moon) and later a Republican senator from New Mexico; he teaches engineering physics and promotes the acquisition of lunar resources for the private sector as chairman of Interlune Intermars Initiative Inc.

William Gray is a well-respected scientist in the field of hurricane prediction — but that is weather forecasting, not climate science. He actually compared Al Gore’s belief in global warming to Adolf Hitler’s belief that Jews are subhuman.

Steve McIntyre has studied mathematics and economics and spent 30 years in the Canadian mining industry. He is a well-known face in the climate wars as founder of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to criticizing the work of several prominent climate scientists.

Arthur Robinson is the founder of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a paper-only “institution” with no students and no courses. He himself is a chemist by training; his claim to fame in the realm of climate change skepticism is that he created the “Oregon Petition,” a fraudulent document that pretended to come from the National Academy of Sciences.

Willie Soon is an astrophysicist whose work on solar-based explanations for the current planetary warming is mostly published on the websites of the Marshall Institute, the Fraser Institute and the Science and Public Policy Institute, hardly reputable journals of climate science literature.

These, then, are the “world’s elite scientists specializing in climate issues?” Or so the Heartland Institute hopes to trick you into believing.

I have not yet mentioned Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer, who, by the way, disagree with Soon, Robinson, Gray and Schmitt. While these two legitimate climate scientists express doubt about the dangers of climate change, they both acknowledge that the world is warming and that it is due to human activity, primarily greenhouse gas emissions. Actually, this puts them at odds with most of their fellow panelists.

Lindzen is a fading star in climate research, as he hitched his wagon to the Iris Hypothesis, a proposed sort of natural thermostat for the earth that would supposedly counter any large, CO2-forced warming. Scientists trying to investigate Lindzen’s theory have reached different conclusions, and Lindzen is no longer very active in publishing peer-reviewed research.

Similarly, Spencer gained notoriety with his analysis of satellite readings of atmospheric temperatures. For some years, this analysis disagreed markedly with what climate models predicted — showing cooling rather than warming in the middle and upper troposphere. However, a few years ago, a series of errors and data problems were uncovered, and his latest work on this topic now shows tropospheric temperatures that are well in agreement with general model expectations — these parts of the atmosphere are indeed warming along with the surface.

Aside from the star billings, who else is attending?

Looking at the listing on Heartland website, we see blogger Anthony Watts, a retired weatherman (meteorology is NOT the same as climatology!). And then there’s Myron Ebell, Marlo Lewis, Fred Smith, Sam Kazman, Steve Milloy, and Chris Horner — all from the extreme free market Competitive Enterprise Institute (the organization that tried to stage a “pro-coal” counter-demonstration early this week in Washington, DC.

Lawrence Solomon, a columnist at the conservative National Post in Canada, is on the list, and British aristocrat-turned-politician-turned-journalist-turned-skeptic Christopher Monckton will be there.

Hardly “the world’s elite scientists specializing in climate issues.” In fact, none of these experts is a trained climate scientist. In the community of actual experts, the consensus is:

• The earth is rapidly warming (over .6 degrees celsius in the last century)
• Human activities are the primary cause
• Warming will continue and accelerate if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated

But in the world of political persuasion, where message trumps reality, the Heartland Institute wants you to just gas up your SUV and not worry about a thing. Like damning with faint praise, far from undermining the scientific consensus, this list illustrates just how strong that consensus really is.

Beck is the principal author of the “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic” series.

Objection:

In his June 23, 2008 testimony before the United States Congress, James Hansen called for the punishment of climate change skeptics for “crimes against humanity.” This is a mockery of free speech, the antithesis of scientific investigation, and a clear indication that global warming “science” is just another religious persecution like the Catholic Church’s persecution of Galileo.

Answer:

The accusation is simply false. James Hansen never called for punishment of climate skeptics. This urban myth is likely a deliberate misreading of his actual testimony, designed to turn a carefully worded if provocative indictment of harmful corporate propaganda into a fanatical soundbite. Let’s look at the actual statement:

Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

But the conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation if we pass on a runaway climate to our children. Humanity would be impoverished by ravages of continually shifting shorelines and intensification of regional climate extremes. Loss of countless species would leave a more desolate planet.

Hansen is clearly not talking about climate change skeptics, not even blatantly dishonest ones. He is talking about fossil-fuel company CEOs who knowingly and deliberately promote false information and doubt about the reality and potential consequences of climate disruption from fossil-fuel emissions. (It is also worth noting that he thinks they should be tried, not summarily convicted.) Given what the world has at stake, is this really such an extreme sentiment?

Imagine you are in a movie theater. Someone smells smoke and yells “Fire!”, but the theater owner, despite knowing the fire is real, doesn’t want to refund the price of admission. So rather than evacuating, he tells everyone to stay and enjoy the end of the film — there is nothing to worry about. If the fire spreads and people die as a result, wouldn’t the theater owner be responsible in some way? Readers may have their own opinions about the morality of that question, but the laws are pretty clear that yes this is a criminal case. It would be a criminal case even if the owner thought he could put the fire out by himself, and indeed tried his best.

So does the analogy apply in this situation? There is ample evidence that rapid climate change is a serious threat to human populations. Indeed the World Health Organization has concluded that people are already dying from climate change related maladies:

Measurement of health effects from climate change can only be very approximate. Nevertheless, a WHO quantitative assessment, taking into account only a subset of the possible health impacts, concluded that the effects of the climate change that has occurred since the mid-1970s may have caused over 150,000 deaths in 2000. It also concluded that these impacts are likely to increase in the future.

There is also ample evidence that the people orchestrating the propaganda campaigns know very well that they are not making a factual case at all (sometimes known as lying). There are even historical precedents for holding corporations liable for intentional disinformation campaigns that lead to death and disease, like the litigation against the tobacco industry. (It is interesting to note that there are a remarkable number of names common to global warming denial and tobacco-cancer denial, including but not limited to Fred S. Singer, Fred Seitz, Steve Milloy, and Myron Ebell.)

So while reasonable people may disagree that trying CEOs who are funding tragically harmful propaganda is a good thing to suggest, or a good thing to do, given the facts outlined above it is hardly similar to the Vatican trying Galileo for heresy! It also has no relevance whatsoever to the potential publication of skeptical research contradicting the prevailing scientific opinion.

Whatever you may think of what he actually did say, James Hansen clearly did not call for the punishment of anyone based on failure to accept the reality of anthropogenic global warming.

—–

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

“Hansen wants the skeptics thrown in jail” is also posted on A Few Things Ill Considered, where additional comments can be found, and where the author, Coby Beck, is more likely to respond.

Objection:

In October 2008, Al Gore’s science adviser, James Hansen announced yet another “hottest” month on record. After all the alarmist banner headlines sank in, yet another “correction” quietly contradicted this, and October was not particularly warm after all. This is yet another example of why the temperature record can not be trusted.

Answer:

Wow. Where to begin with this one? There are many versions of this myth around already at the time of writing (November 2008) and there will undoubtedly be many more as time goes by. They will not all say the same things so I will try to answer all of the more common memes that come up in this one place.

Firstly, James Hansen is one of the most respected and senior climate scientists working in the field today. His resume [PDF] is long and solid and his position for the last 27 years is Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Describing him as “Al Gore’s science adviser” can only be an intentionally implied disparagement. It both minimizes his expertise and attempts to undermine his credibility by association (because we all know Al Gore is out to lunch, right?). Both of these tactics are common logical fallacies. When an argument is lead by such shallow efforts, it does not leave one very hopeful for what will follow!

Secondly, and perhaps most damningly for this talking point, the alleged “announcement” is complete, 100 percent fabrication. Neither Hansen, nor GISS, ever made any such announcement. Period. The claim they did is is either an outright lie or the willing repetition of an outright lie. You think I am wrong about that? Well, let’s have the link, then!

Thirdly, the alarmist headlines are also non-existent. Not too surprising given the absence of any announcement.

OK, so the mountains are an illusion, what about the molehill?

There was indeed an error in the calculated anomaly for October 2008, placing it very high and at a new record. Through a programming glitch of some sort, RealClimate reports:

For many Russian stations (and some others), September temperatures were apparently copied over into October, giving an erroneous positive anomaly. The error appears to have been made somewhere between the reporting by the National Weather Services and NOAA’s collation of the GHCN database. GISS, which produces one of the more visible analyses of this raw data, processed the input data as normal and ended up with an October anomaly that was too high.

Nobody’s perfect, I think mistakes are bound to happen, especially in such intense data processing projects. The proof of the pudding is what happens next, and in this case the offending data was pulled in under 24 hours (with no premature announcement, remember?) and the error was investigated and corrected. (If only it would end there …**) So after the correction, how does October 2008 fit into the scheme of things? October 2008 was well above the 1951-1980 baseline average and the fifth warmest October in at least the last 128 years — very likely much longer.

Does this event really give us reason to distrust the temperature analysis? Well, I think it reminds us that this is a human endeavor and mistakes are always possible, so it is a good idea to double check both the specific process and to compare the result to the many other independent global temperature indicators. However, they all point to the same conclusion.

“Trust, but verify” as the saying goes. After verification, one must still conclude that the long term warming trend is undeniable.

**While I am a firm believer in not judging a blog by its commenters, it is still revealing to see the kind of thinking that lies behind the denialists. Check out these highlights extracted from Watt’s Up With That by RealClimate:

“I believe they had two sets of data: One would be released if Republicans won, and another if Democrats won.”, “could this be a sneaky way to set up the BO presidency with an urgent need to regulate CO2?”, “There are a great many of us who will under no circumstance allow the oppression of government rule to pervade over our freedom — -PERIOD!!!!!!” (exclamation marks reduced enormously), “these people are blinded by their own bias”, “this sort of scientific fraud”, “Climate science on the warmer side has degenerated to competitive lying”, etc. (To be fair, there were people who made sensible comments as well).

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

“October 2008, yet another phony record” is also posted on A Few Things Ill Considered, where additional comments can be found, and where the author, Coby Beck, is more likely to respond.

If you’ve been following the widespread coverage related to the upcoming election, you have likely been hearing about the rising cost of energy and the need for alternative sources of energy and fuel. At the surface, it may seem as though the energy debate is solely an economic issue, but when you become aware of the health and safety implications associated with the use of U.S. oil refineries, it is clear that this is a far bigger issue.

There are 150 operational refineries here in the U.S., all of which were built by 1976. At the time, refinery designers relied on asbestos-containing insulation to line the extensive piping that was necessary to the refinery process. In addition to insulation, asbestos was found in floor and ceiling tiles, as well as roofing tiles and even some brands of duct tape, and no one was really aware of the serious health consequences associated with the use of these asbestos products until the federal government instituted asbestos-usage regulations in the early 1980s. The regulations became necessary after researchers and medical professionals made a connection between asbestos exposure and the onset of respiratory diseases and other illnesses, including mesothelioma, a fatal form of cancer that affects the mesothelioma, or lining of the body’s internal organs, specifically the heart, abdomen and lungs.

For oil refinery workers, the threat of these asbestos-related ailments is a very serious concern. Asbestos is not a health threat unless it has been damaged or disturbed and tiny asbestos fibers have become airborne, and when this occurs, workers are at risk of inhalation. If inhaled, the asbestos fibers (which have a claw-like structure) can cling to the pleural lining of the lungs for between 20 and 50 years before the individual may begin to experience common mesothelioma symptoms, such as respiratory difficulties and chest pain. Oil refinery workers are not the only individuals at risk as a result of asbestos use in U.S. refineries: consider the residents who live nearby to an oil refinery as well. If there is a fire or an explosion, asbestos fibers can be transferred to other locations several miles away via wind currents, and nearby residents (including young children) may inhale the errant fibers without ever knowing it.

The threat of mesothelioma (also known as asbestos cancer) is a very serious issue for oil refinery workers. In the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav and Ike, it has become an even bigger issue, as many workers will return to work at flood-damaged refineries where they may be exposed to airborne asbestos. When we consider the health implications of domestic oil refinery operations, in addition to the economic concerns, it becomes obvious that now, more than ever, we must consider alternative sources of energy (wind power, solar power) and other sources of fuel (ethanol). If we eliminate a need for domestic oil, we will no longer need operating refineries, and we will essentially be working towards a decrease in workers who may be exposed to asbestos and will eventually develop mesothelioma cancer and other asbestos-related illnesses.

For additional information regarding the environmental effects of U.S. oil refineries and asbestos-related disease, please visit the Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center.

Objection: We all live on a thin crust that floats on a huge ball of molten iron, and at its core, the Earth’s temperature is over 5000 degrees C! It’s pretty far fetched to think a few parts per million of CO2 can have a bigger effect that all that heat!

Answer:

Although there is nothing wrong with the statement that the Earth is truly very hot at its center (actually as hot as the surface of the sun) the notion that it is a significant source of heat at the surface is easily dismissed with a little critical thinking. If the inner heat were really the dominant factor, then surely the day-night cycle would not be what it is, nor would you expect such variation in climates over seasons and latitudes. How can the south pole be covered with thousands of meters of ice with all this heat supposedly bubbling up from the surface? Why would a little lower angle of sunlight cause the average temperature to drop from +20°C in the summer to -20°C in the winter?

The fact of the matter is, solid rock is an extremely good insulator and the heat from the mantle propagates up very slowly and diminishes very quickly (at about 20°C/km) to almost nothing by the time it is at the surface. At the surface, the earth is releasing less than one-tenth of one Watt/m2. If you could somehow capture all of the energy coming up from the earth’s core into the foundation of an average-sized home, you might have enough to power one 15W light bulb! Not a lot of of juice when you compare it to the sun, which provides on average some 342W/m2 of energy to the earth’s surface.

And let’s not forget that what we are talking about is climate change, not just climate. So we need some kind of change in this heat flux if we wish to explain a change in the global temperature. Scientists have calculated that increased greenhouse gases have resulted in a radiative forcing of 2.43 Wm-2 which means we need that many Watts/m2 of change to account for the current warming. Back to geothermal, this means the energy flow from the earth would have had to jump by over 200 times to be the cause of the approximately 0.8°C temperature rise.

It is pretty hard to imagine not noticing that!

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

“Global Warming comes from within” is also posted on A Few Things Ill Considered, where additional comments can be found, and where the author, Coby Beck, is more likely to respond.

Objection: Sea ice at the north pole recovered a whopping 9.4 percent from 2007 to 2008 despite the doom and gloom predictions of the alarmists. Yet another wheel falls off the global warming bandwagon.

Answer:

It is true that the minimum summer ice extent in the arctic ocean in 2008 was 9.4 percent higher than the minimum in 2007. But calling this a recovery is simply not justifiable, not by a long shot. Firstly, at 4.52 million square kilometers, this measurement is 2.24 million square kilometers below the average minimum observed since 1979, when accurate satellite observations began, so we are nowhere near getting back to normal levels of ice cover (source: NSIDC). Secondly, year to year fluctuations are very large and simply reflect the chaotic nature of weather — the change over a single year does not say anything meaningful about climate trends.

So what is the trend?

There are several things worth noting in this image (courtesy of NSIDC). Not only is 2008 below the average, but it also fell well below the downward trend line — the fourth year in a row to do so. Hardly showing signs of recovery, this year is consistent with an accelerating ice loss. We can also see that an almost 10 percent jump from one year to the next is not unprecedented. The jump up from 1995 to 1996 was even larger, nearly double. The differences between 1989-1990, 1994-1995, 2001-2002, and 2006-2007 all were larger than the difference between 2007 and 2008.

We can also see that 2007 was really an exceptional record-setter and aside from that year, 2008 is lower than any other. This is hardly the “warming is over” news the climate denialist organizations and websites have been proclaiming or at least implying.

That’s what has happened, but what were the “alarmist” expectations? It is true that a small number of media reports quoted people saying there might be another record this year, maybe even total ice loss. (Can anyone show me an actual prediction?) It makes a nice sensational headline, after all, but if you look to climate science you see a predictive failure in precisely the opposite direction. No research papers from scientists in the field have predicted ice loss at the rate it has been happening. Checking the IPCC report from 2007, in the “Summary for Policymakers” (PDF) we find this on page 15:

In some projections, arctic late-summer sea ice disappears almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.

This is nowhere near a prediction of total summer ice loss by 2008. In fact, it’s looking more and more like it will be wrong on the conservative side — not the hallmark of an “alarmist”!

In short, 2008′s summer arctic ice extent observation is not a wheel off the GW bandwagon — it is one more nail in the coffin of denialism.

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

“Summer ice in the arctic has recovered” is also posted on A Few Things Ill Considered, where additional comments can be found, and where the author, Coby Beck, is more likely to respond.

Objection: The American Physical Society with tens of thousands of member scientists no longer believes that the science of global warming is conclusive. So what about that so called consensus?

Answer: The APS has not reversed its position on climate change:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

This statement was reaffirmed on July 22, 2008 in response to a controversy prompted by the publication of an article by amateur climate skeptic Christopher Monckton. That article was published in the APS Forum on Physics and Society Newsletter, not a scientific journal, and is not peer reviewed science, nor is Monckton a scientist. The material Monckton presented has been thoroughly refuted by many working climatologists and the apparent embarrassment of the APS over how this happened has prompted them to preface that article with the following disclaimer:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate”.

So, what about that consensus? Far from a skeptical institution, the American Physical Society is well in agreement with the IPCC consensus statement and their statement agrees with all the other endorsements from all the other major scientific institutions and national science academies from around the world. The consensus of scientific opinion on anthropogenic global warming is alive and well.

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

“The American Physical Society denies the so-called consensus” is also posted on A Few Things Ill Considered, where additional comments can be found, and where the author, Coby Beck, is more likely to respond.

Objection: The so called “Greenhouse Effect” which is the underpinning of the entire theory of anthropogenic global warming claims that greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere absorb outgoing long-wave radiation from the surface and reradiate it back, thereby warming the climate. But the upper atmosphere is colder than the lower atmosphere and the surface and the second law of thermodynamics clearly requires that heat flow from warmer areas of a system to colder ones, the opposite direction that greenhouse theory requires. The cooler atmosphere can not radiate energy to the warmer surface. The greenhouse effect is a myth because it violates the second law of thermodynamics!

Answer:

No argument with the second law of thermodynamics here, that one seems to be on pretty solid ground! But the train of logic above has a subtle problem in its over statement of the constraints this law places on energy flow. Given a warmer and a cooler body exchanging energy either through convection or through radiation, the fact is, energy is constantly being exchanged in both directions. The second law of thermodynamics does not apply to individual molecules, it applies to the net flow of energy in the entire system. How could it be otherwise?

When an excited molecule of CO2 releases a photon, it does not somehow “know” which way to send it. It can not aim it towards a cooler body. It is simply released in a random direction. In the case of CO2 in the atmosphere, having absorbed some of the energy radiating towards space from the surface of the earth, this random choice of direction means that, roughly speaking, half of that energy is sent back. An individual molecule is not influenced at all by the temperature of the earth’s surface.

Where the second law does apply is in the net flow of heat, and this happens because a warmer body will send out more energy overall than it is receiving from the cooler one. Lots of energy going back and forth, but on balance more is leaving the warmer body.

The IPCC has provided this nice graphic of what is going on. They have also used the analogies of a blanket and a garden greenhouse in their FAQ sections.

In the case of the simplified earth-atmosphere system, the Earth’s surface warms from the sun’s incoming shortwave radiation. As it is now a warm body floating in cold space, Earth radiates long-wave energy back out at a rate that is dependent on its temperature. If that were the whole story, the earth would have balanced its incoming shortwave with its outgoing long-wave radiation at an average surface temperature of roughly -18°C and it would be a rather inhospitable place. As it is, the content of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere absorb some of that outgoing long-wave radiation and send it back down where we all live. The earth must balance this by warming enough so that it can radiate this additional energy back out again. The totality of this natural effect is around 33°C, bringing our average surface temperature to a comfortable +15°C.

So, it is not really like a blanket, which inhibits convection in both directions, or like an actual greenhouse, which lets in the sunlight and then also inhibits convection, but both are reasonable analogies as far as they go. The scientists in the IPCC know this, they are only using these analogies to help laypeople understand the very general principles. If you hear someone attacking climate science by attacking these analogies, they are attacking a strawman.

As we have added to the greenhouse effect, the planet’s surface must now warm until it reaches a new equilibrium temperature high enough to radiate out as much again as it is now receiving.

This is all very well established and long standing physics. No basic ignored mysteries, no violations of fundamental laws, just great explanations of naturally observed phenomena all over the solar system and beyond.

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

“Greenhouse theory violates the laws of thermodynamics” is also posted on A Few Things Ill Considered, where additional comments can be found, and where the author, Coby Beck, is more likely to respond.

Objection: Temperatures plummeted over the last year (2007-2008). If you look at this data from the Met Office Hadley Centre you can clearly see that in one year alone global temperatures dropped .6°C, an amount equal to the entire warming over the 20th century claimed by the IPCC.

Answer:

This argument represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between weather and climate. Climate is generally defined as the weather conditions averaged over a long period, usually around 30 years. One can not discern a trend in climate change by looking at small numbers of years, much less a single one. On top of that, this fallacious objection is using global temperatures in a single month, not even an entire year! An even cursory look at the graph above reveals the very noisy nature of monthly temperatures, even when averaged over the entire globe. The particular Jan. 2007 to Jan. 2008 drop used for this argument is indeed large, but it is by no means the only place you could pick to draw a steep line, either up or down. Look at the huge leap up from month 219 to month 231 or the sudden drop from month 152 to month 164 (I am only using intervals of 12 months to avoid seasonal bias). This is very noisy data and those dramatic fluctuations turned out to be just that: noise.

Discerning a trend from noisy data is one of the most basic processes in scientific research, so even though this argument has a naive appeal to the majority of us with no statistical training, you can be sure that any scientifically trained individual trying to make a case for cooling out of this graph is not being intellectually honest. Please consider any source of this argument as very unreliable, either by being very uninformed about basic scientific processes, or very dishonest, hoping to take advantage of less informed people.

So what do we see when we step back and look at the whole picture?

Hadley Centre.

Clearly the last few years, far from erasing the entire warming of the 20th century, have remained far above the global baseline (1951-1990 average). We can also see that even in globally and seasonally averaged and smoothed data, there are still numerous peaks and troughs that are irrelevant to the long-term trends. On this graph, the last four or five years do look as though the trend has paused and even reversed but this is actually a misleading artifact of how the graph was produced. If you look at the page on the Hadley site that describes the smoothing method used, you will see that it is actually too soon to know what the real 2007 trend direction is. The smoothing they use requires 10 years of data on either side of the year in question. So though the trend today may in fact be down, we will not know this for sure until 10 years from now. Hadley Centre made the decision to continue the line until 2007 to avoid the appearance of incomplete data despite the fact that the last 10 years are less and less meaningful.

There is no convincing reason to think that the well established and attributed long-term trend has reversed nor that it is likely to for many years to come, even if effective global actions were taken today to stop emissions of greenhouse enhancing gases like CO2 and CH4 (methane). Short term influences like La Nina and volcanic interruptions may cause dips and slow downs but the elevated levels of greenhouse gases already in the air will eventually overwhelm the long-term.

And before you let anyone argue that the uncertainty about today I just described just means we need to wait 10 more years, please recall that we have done that and more already. Twenty years ago James Hansen was telling the U.S. senate that warming was real, significant, and anthropogenic (human caused) and the projections he provided have been largely borne out by what has been observed. The skeptics have already made us wait, and the three IPCC assessments that came out in the meantime have been more and more emphatic in their conclusions. The wait is over, the trend is clear and the cause is well understood.

It is a telling and egregious double standard for those voices that for the past 20 years have told us to wait and see are now claiming the trend is over based on such a small blip in the mountain of data.

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

“Temperatures in 2008 have plummeted” is also posted on A Few Things Ill Considered, where additional comments can be found, and where the author, Coby Beck, is more likely to respond.

When an argument from authority is invoked it is perfectly legitimate to then examine said authority’s, um … authority, to see if there is really a good reason we should take their word over the word of … well, just about everybody who would know.

I recently received notice of an excellent article about one such often-cited skeptic, the French geophysicist Claude Allegre. The article is here, is remarkably well referenced, and is written in a civil and engaging style — it is so important to write about these people with respect, even if they rarely deserve it! Kudos to the author, whose screen name is “wacki” here on Gristmill. His main site is Logical Science.

I poked around a little and saw he has similar articles on Bob Carter, Bill Gray, Richard Lindzen, Bjorn Lomborg, Patrick Michaels, and a few others. And judging from the listing on an unlinked “contents” page (so I will keep it under my hat for now), a great deal more will come!

Go read his excellent work!