WSJ's Stephens tortures science to claim "global warming is dead"
Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens erroneously suggested recent scientific research supports his claim that "global warming is dead." In fact, the scientists themselves have explicitly rejected such a conclusion.
Stephens falsely suggests scientific findings about Arctic ice disprove global warming
From Stephens' April 6 Wall Street Journal column:
So global warming is dead, nailed into its coffin one devastating disclosure, defection and re-evaluation at a time. Which means that pretty soon we're going to need another apocalyptic scare to take its place.
As recently as October, the Guardian reported that scientists at Cambridge had "concluded that the Arctic is now melting at such a rate that it will be largely ice free within ten years." This was supposedly due to global warming. It brought with it the usual lamentations for the grandchildren.
But in March came another report in the Guardian, this time based on the research of Japanese scientists, that "much of the record breaking loss of ice in the Arctic ocean in recent years is [due] to the region's swirling winds and is not a direct result of global warming." It also turns out that the extent of Arctic sea ice in March was around the recorded average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
But the scientists themselves have rejected this conclusion
Scientists' findings on wind impact do not disprove that global warming is shrinking Arctic ice. Stephens cited a March 22 Guardian report about a study published in Geophysical Research Letters to support his claim that "global warming is dead." Quoting the Guardian, Stephens wrote:
But in March came another report in the Guardian, this time based on the research of Japanese scientists, that "much of the record breaking loss of ice in the Arctic ocean in recent years is [due] to the region's swirling winds and is not a direct result of global warming."
However, the Guardian report further stated, "The study does not question that global warming is also melting ice in the Arctic." The article further noted that Masyo Ogi, one of the authors of the study, affirmed the role of warming in ice loss:
"Both winter and summer winds could blow ice out of the Arctic [through] the Fram Strait during 1979-2009," she said.
A number of other factors were also responsible for ice loss, including warming of the air and ocean, she added.
The study said that "the combined effect of winter and summer wind forcing" accounts for "roughly 1/3 of the downward linear trend of SIE [Arctic sea ice extent] over the past 31 years."
NISDC says March Arctic sea ice data "doesn't show...any indication that global warming is over." To support the claim that "global warming is dead," Stephens also stated that "the extent of Arctic sea ice in March was around the recorded average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center [NSIDC]." As Media Matters' Dianna Parker has noted, Stephens' source, the NSIDC, has directly rebutted claims that Arctic sea ice data for the month of March is evidence that global warming is not happening. The Daily Mail reported, "The scientists who released the data stressed that last month's rise was part of yearly variations in ice cover and could not be taken as a sign that global warming is coming to an end." The report further quoted NSIDC's Mark Serreze stating:
What this doesn't show is any indication that global warming is over. If you look at the Arctic as a whole we might get to average amounts of sea ice for the time of year. But the ice is thin and quite vulnerable and it can melt very quickly.
Revkin: "[N]o one should expect to find much broad meaning in short-term variability in Arctic sea ice." Science journalist Andrew Revkin recently noted, "The bottom line, expressed here before, is that no one should expect to find much broad meaning in short-term variability in Arctic sea ice - in one direction or another. If there is a death spiral, expect a lot of loop the loops along the way. Those most passionately pushing for and against action on greenhouse gases have a tendency to jump to the National Snow and Ice Data Center Web site to chart each wiggle."
NSIDC's long term data indicate that "ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past thirty years." NSIDC's long term data (in contrast to data for one month of one year) indicate that "[w]hile Arctic sea ice extent varies from year to year because of changeable atmospheric conditions, ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past thirty years. During this time, ice extent has declined at a rate of 11.2 percent per decade during September (relative to the 1979 to 2000 average.)" From an October 6 NSDIC analysis:
In addition to the extent, scientists are also concerned about the volume (thinness) of Arctic sea ice.
There is no consensus on when Arctic will be completely ice free in summer. Stephens quoted an October 2009 Telegraph report stating that, "An analysis by Cambridge University has concluded that the Arctic is now melting at such a rate that it will be largely ice free within ten years." However, predictions of when the Arctic sea will have an ice-free summer vary from 10 years to several decades into the future. The Telegraph reported on April 7, 2009, that Walt Meier, research scientist at NSIDC, "said thinner sea ice is less likely to survive the summer and predicted the Arctic Ocean will be effectively ice free sometime between 2020 and 2040, although it is possible it could happen as early as 2013." On October 15, 2009, National Geographic reported that NSIDC's Serreze said of the widely varying predictions, "When we lose the ice really depends on the natural variability in the system":
Dueling Dates for Arctic Ice Melt
The new data, presented by the Catlin Arctic Survey and the international conservation group WWF, support the view that the Arctic will be ice free in the summer within about 20 years.
Most of the ice melt is expected to happen within the next ten years, [sea-ice expert Peter] Wadhams said in his statement.
Serreze's group in Boulder, though, is on record saying the Arctic's summer sea ice will fully melt around 2030. Other groups have put the ice-free date as late as 2100.
Why such seemingly wild guesses?
"When we lose the ice really depends on the natural variability in the system," Serreze said.
A good example of this is the record low year of 2007. That summer saw a perfect storm of climatic conditions: warm temperatures plus wind patterns that broke apart and pushed large chunks of ice out of the Arctic.
The summers of 2008 and 2009 have seen some recovery of Arctic ice, though the long-term trend is still for shrinking ice, Serreze said.
Will the slow, steady trend be the norm? Or will another year like 2007 come along and wipe out the Arctic ice?
"These are the unknowns," Serreze said. "We simply don't know."
The Telegraph article quoted Meier's statement that "[m]ost people would agree it is not a matter of if we lose the summer sea ice but when."
Stephens misleadingly referenced "now debunked claim about disappearing Himalayan glaciers" while discussing "the Arctic ice panic"
From Stephens' April 6 Wall Street Journal column:
The difference between the two stories has little to do with science: There were plenty of reasons back in October to suspect that the Arctic ice panic-based on data that only goes back to 1979-was as implausible as the now debunked claim about disappearing Himalayan glaciers. But thanks to Climategate and the Copenhagen fiasco, the media are now picking up the kinds of stories they previously thought it easier and wiser to ignore.
Scientists' studies show glaciers throughout the world are melting rapidly
Vast majority of glacier research cited by IPCC remains strongly supported. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently acknowledged that it's 2007 report erroneously cited a paper that said Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. However, IPCC said the conclusion that "[w]idespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century" is "robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment." Climate scientists wrote in a January 19 post at RealClimate.org that the erroneous statement on Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035 "cannot be described as a 'central claim' of the IPCC" because it "did not make it into the summary for policy makers, nor the overall synthesis report."
Data continue to show that glaciers are thinning. The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) -- in coordination with the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) -- issued a report in March 2008 showing that, according to a UNEP press release, "Data from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled." The study looked at 30 glaciers in the Alps, the Andes, the Cascade Mountains, Svalbard, Alaska, Scandinavia, Altai, Caucasus, and Tien Shan. WGMS later updated its data for 2007-2008 and asserted that the "new data continues the global trend in strong ice loss over the past few decades."
2009 study shows Swiss glaciers melted by 12 percent over the past decade. Scientists at the ETH Zurich university reportedly issued a study in 2009 showing that Swiss glaciers had retreated by 12 percent over the past decade. A Reuters article quoted Daniel Farinotti, research assistant at the ETH, as saying, "The trend is definitely that glaciers are melting faster now. Since the end of the 1980s, they have lost more and more mass more quickly." The article also noted that "Swiss glaciers have lost 9 cubic km of ice since 1999, the warmest period of the past 150 years, with the most dramatic decline coming in 2003 when they shrunk by 3.5 percent in 2003."
Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson says glaciers all over the world are melting. According to a January 20 Guardian article, "Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, said there is strong evidence from a variety of sources of significant melting of glaciers -- from the area around Kilimanjaro in Africa to the Alps, the Andes, and the icefields of Antarctica because of a warming climate. Ice is also disappearing at a faster rate in recent decades, he said." From the article:
From the Alps to the Andes, the world's glaciers are retreating at an accelerated pace -- despite the recent controversy over claims by the United Nations' body of experts, leading climate scientists said today.
Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, said there is strong evidence from a variety of sources of significant melting of glaciers - from the area around Kilimanjaro in Africa to the Alps, the Andes, and the icefields of Antarctica because of a warming climate. Ice is also disappearing at a faster rate in recent decades, he said.
"It is not any single glacier," he said. "It is very clear that these glaciers are behaving in a similar fashion."
[...]
But there was evidence gathered from a variety of sources that there has been significant melting of glaciers - from the area around Kilimanjaro in Africa to the Alps, the Andes and the icefields of Antarctica - and that the rate of ice loss was accelerating.
"Those changes -- the acceleration of the retreat of the glaciers and the fact that it is a global response -- is the concerning part of all this. It is not any single glacier," he said
Scientists now had evidence collected over a long period of that decline from samples of the ice core and even collections of plants from mountains that were left ice-free for the first time in more than 5,000 years, Thompson said.
The World Glacier Monitoring Service shows a similar picture. In a 2005 survey of 442 glaciers, 398 -- or 90% -- were retreating, 18 were stationary and 26 were advancing.
"Glacier expert" Michael Zemp: "Glaciers are the best proof that climate change is happening." According to a CNN.com article, glacier expert Michael Zemp said he "believes that the errors shouldn't shake people's belief in climate science." It quoted him as saying, "Glaciers are the best proof that climate change is happening. This is happening on a global scale. They can translate very small changes in the climate into a visible signal."
Or maybe we'll be lucky and they won't even then. After they all drown, maybe the stupidity can end.
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IMHO
It shouldn't even be a political issue anymore. Let science battle it out.
Besides, as a scientific issue, this thing has been settled. The scientific community is in near universal consensus, and their urgent recommendations are to reduce carbon emissions and do it now. The enaction of policies to mitigate global warming, therefore, are necessarily a political issue. Scientists can't force polluters to clean up, nor can they enforce mileage standards, help homeowners retrofit their homes, push green economy initiatives, or any of the hundreds of necessary and beneficial government actions in upcoming climate legislation.
While the science tells us that it is real and that it is something we can and should affect, any action would HAVE to be political in nature. There is nothing that scientists could do on their own. It can't just be scientific; it also needs to be political.
Unfortunately, I'm coming to the conclusion that public perception has been so polluted by propaganda about issues that are scientifically meaningless (pirated CRU emails, error about Himalayan glacier) that there is doubt in the public's mind that isn't justified by reality. It's a lot like the ignorance that makes so many not accept the reality of biological evolution. If they don't want to believe it they'll overemphasize anything that seems to justify their doubts.
I'll agree with you that we probably won't see political action on it. We, as a world, will end up suffering the end effects of ACC and our grandchildren will wonder why we didn't take action when we could. We're going to end up simply trying to adapt, at much greater cost than we would face if we acted now.
I still say the public will not welcome another huge piece of expensive legislation on an issue that polls near the bottom on people's radar. Politicians can try, but they won't be popular. And politicians don't do much that isn't popular.
Just a thought, though I'm not adamant or anything...
Still, it's good to know that there are things on which libs and cons can agree, even in this current polarized atmosphere.
:)
Of course, it's the liberal's fault when a large part of the citizenry is ignorant.
Just like it was Galileo's fault when he was imprisoned by the church for correctly asserting that the earth revolved around the sun. He should have been more convincing. Loser.
Notice Righton refuses to comment on whether or not taking action on global warming is the right thing to do, he just comments on the likelihood of it happening, and makes fun of those who are actually doing something to get it done. Brave stand, Right on.
Yes, the part where you said "It shouldn't even be a political issue anymore. Let science battle it out" is where we disagree. Just as I stated. A couple of times. Should it have been three?
The public won't accept it because a large portion has been sold faulty information. They've been convinced that there's a level of scientific doubt that doesn't actually exist. While that's a fact, it doesn't change the facts that something could and should be done. It simply means that what could and should be done probably won't.
Let's look at the idea of fault. I may be wrong, but I think that you accept the reality of biological evolution. Why do you think a very large percentage of the American public doesn't accept it? Is it a failure of scientists and teachers? Or is it due to successful efforts by all types of creationists to cast doubt on the science, no matter how scientifically flawed those cases are? I think that what climatologists are facing with regard to ACC is very similar to what paleontologists and biologists are facing with regard to evolution. It's ridiculous in both cases to say it's their own damn fault, that they should be able to disprove the lies faster.
Well, not everyone thinks that government is the answer to everything, that their intrusive, over regulating, inefficient hands in the middle stirring the pot will solve or address anything substantively.
So perhaps, just perhaps, the public is wising up to an automatic government fix. And it has little to do with the actual science at all. Imagine that.
Think about it. Green Jobs could save the now-destroyed manufacturing base that conservatives allowed to be plundered by greedy corporate interests in profit-only thinking, thus allowing them to keep foreign workers in virtual indentured servitude. And, when there are more people working, there are more people paying taxes, buying things, and investing in companies who put American livelihoods over profit margins, thus preserving their own best interest and getting more money, and a better rep.
We liberals can contribute more if you'll allow us to make more than minimum wage. And with HCR in the law books now, which will eventually lead to smaller debts for Americans, they will have the money to invest. See how it all comes together?
I assume that was tongue-in-cheek? Please, tell me it was.
Also, you seem to have nothing to say about all of the other things I had to say. Can't refute it? Of course not. It's impossible to refute the truth. Have a nice day.
Cute little either/or there.
Therein lies your problem as to why most of the drivel you post is worth refuting. I just couldn't resist your minimum wage enslaved comment. It was too damn funny.
If you count, that's three classes, though with the way you conservatives ran us into the ground, the middle class has been pretty much destroyed. So yes, two. And as for you, you say what I say isn't worth refuting, yet you offer me no alternative, nor do you try to "enlighten" me. All this points to you being nothing more than an agitator. If we are such idiots here, why are YOU here?
Not worth refuting, as I said.
Oh, and I come here for the free valet parking.
And he wonders why I don't get to participate in reasoned, fair debates, as though it's my fault. This site doesn't get many reasonable, fair conservatives and when it does, they agree with US that the rightwingers are poisoning the debate and refusing to participate in fair debates using facts and evidence instead of lies, distortions and omissions of relevant info.
You're the only one who made it an either/or. Are you making fun of yourself now ?
You don't seem to understand that being short-sighted is WRONG. Only thinking about what might benefit us today without a concern for how it might affect us a generation from now is a recipe for disaster and an abdication of the responsible behavior our leaders should exhibit.
And that's the biggest failing of those on the right - the blinders that they put on that restrict their vision to only look at what's good for them right now.
That same strategy put the Republican Party they're in right now, in fact. Rove thought that the strategy he was pushing would lead to a permanent Republican majority, but in fact it was only a terrific short-term strategy and it sucked in the long term, didn't it?
We can't afford to think that we can only deal with short-term issues and we can just put off dealing with these other longer term goals at some other time. But I understand that it's your side's goal that we behave that way, since to the undereducated public, that can make sense. But it's the wrong thing to do, and Obama is dedicated to doing the right thing, not the politically popular thing that satisfies the public's base instincts.
Whether you are right or wrong is irrelevant, there is no political will to start pumping up laws or legislation on this issue. In that sense, "global warming is dead". For the foreseeable future.
This post by MMFA isn't about what you tried to turn it into.
What's that all-website call for more "fair and reasonable debate" from posters again?
Phony.
Hypocrite.
My post DID respond to things you said in the original post you made on this thread and to MMFA's point. You baselessly tried to claim it didn't. That's not participating in a fair and resasonable debate.
I haven't proven anything that you claim happened here. I caught you behaving like the paid troll that you are. And there was no personal animus on display in my post. Just like calling Son of Sam a murderer isn't a personal attack, neither is calling YOU out for YOUR behavior a personal attack.
Your failure to participate in that fair debate doesn't mean that I didn't do MY part. Your failure reflects upon YOU, and YOUR distortion of the actual events is YOUR failure.
Funny, whenever I say how you lied about bintx and others, you are right there with links (even if they don't back you up, you do it anyway) - why can't you do the same with my simple request here?
Because it has never happened and it doesn't exist, that's why.
I never LIED about bintx - YOU LIED about what I said, and I documented that 6 different times.
When you MAKE a personal attack on me, I choose to respond.
This allegation that I've never had a reasonable debate that I can point to is bogus and irrelevant to anything - just because YOUR side doesn't come here to participate in reasoned and fair debates doesn't make any failure of that happening MY fault, which is the strawman argument that you've been making.
Since it's a bogus strawman argument, there's NOTHING I should do to defend myself against it. Make a legit argument, like that I lied when I didn't, and I'll defend myself against it with links disproving your assertion. Every time you've claimed that I've lied, I've been able to provide links that have disproved your assertion.
mahkevin1@aol.com to me 12:31 PM
So time will tell, but the world is obviously warming and it's obviously mankind's GHG. I see. Inscrutable logic.
First of all, even Phil Jones of Climategate fame has admitted that there has been no statistical global warming since 1995, despite your claim of "overwhelming evidence of a warming world." Maybe you should set him straight?
So all that dramatic Arctic melting in the 1920s and 30's was wholesome and natural, while the less dramatic warming of the past few decades cannot be. It has nothing whatsoever to do with solar cycles, geothermal activity and cyclical oceanic circulation patterns. Obviously the oceans, which have 1,000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, can be heated dramatically and its ice melted by slightly less frigid air that lacks the heat energy to produce such changes.
Temps jumped dramatically from 1860-1880. They then cooled. It was warm from 1910-1940 or so. It cooled from 1940-1975. It warmed from 1975-1998. They've been flat or slightly declining since 1998. Do you detect a pattern? You seem to believe that all major natural climatic variation ceased sometime in the 20th century.
Spectral absorbtion qualities of greenhouse gases demonstrate that a doubling of CO2 would result in about a 1 degree increase in the absence of feedbacks. This is not controversial. In order to accept alarmist scenarios you have to assume a highly positive feedback mechanism. There is no evidence that such a mechanism predominates. There is plenty to invalidate it. CO2 levels have been much higher in the past and so such mechanism has produced catastrophic results.
During the last decade and a half when CO2 amounts have risen there has been an increased, not decreased, infrared radiation flux to space, in defiance of model projections. Little or no global warming has occurred in the last decade. Why?
On the logarithmic nature of CO2, just one of countless sources: In the February issue of Hyrdocarbon Processing magazine, Dr. Pierre Latour, a chemical and process-control engineer writes, a tripling of CO2 from current levels (approximately 388 parts per million) would not produce any additional warming.
“CO2 only absorbs and emits specific spectral wavelengths (14.77 microns) that constitute a tiny fraction of solar radiation energy in earth’s atmosphere. The first 50 ppm [parts per million] of CO2 absorbs about half of this tiny energy, [and] each additional 50 ppm absorbs half of the remaining tiny fraction, so at the current 380 ppm, there are almost no absorbable photons left. CO2 could triple to 1,000 ppm, with no additional discernable absorption-emission warming.”
The interrelated phenomena of solar activity, oceanic patterns, water vapor, clouds and precipitation systems drive the climate. A trace greenhouse gas like CO2 does not. It's theorized that CO2 can drastically alter atmospheric water vapor content, but its ability to influence water vapor levels has been wildly exaggerated. Consider this:
According to Wallace Broecker, a leading world authority on climate at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University: “The ability of humans to influence greenhouse water vapor is negligible. As such, individuals and groups whose agenda it is to require that human beings are the cause of global warming must discount or ignore the effects of water vapor to preserve their arguments.” I guess Columbia must be in the pay of big oil.
Dr. Willie Soon, a solar and climate scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, challenges the theory that blames CO2 emissions for global warming while disregarding the sun’s influence on climate. Oh no, Harvard's been bought off too.
The theory that increasing CO2 levels lead to warming is false, according to Soon. In fact, the process is exactly reversed: Increases in CO2 follow, rather than precede, warmer climate periods, he says. “Published papers [analyzing ice core data] clearly, clearly show that it is always temperature that rises first by at least several hundred years . . . then the CO2 curve response follows. It is a very clear scientific consensus on this issue.”
Lindzen at MIT is another thoroughly corrupted denialist. So are Spencer, Christy, Gray, Ball, Idso, Singer, Plimer - to name just a few - and the tens of thousands of other scientists who reject the alarmist cause.
I'm too busy to go back and forth on this. Just show me when past CO2 levels of 560 or 600 or 700 ppm have led to thermal runaway or any other environmental catastrophe. Then get back to me. NOT UNTIL THEN.
All we're left with is righton, who isn't wacky enough to be a denier, but is wacky enough to say important issues should be ignored because the propaganda trying to dismiss these issues has been pretty effective.
Wacky stuff, huh?
Does righton believe that GW should be a front-burner issue ? Or that it should be ignored for some other reason than the denier's forces making it politically dangerous ?
I guess it's easier to simply call somebody a liar for pointing out what was said than to explain how seeing through the BS is a lie.
But then, I see a whole crew of right wingers at this site accusing MMFA of being dishonest for documenting the lies of their heroes. It must make sense to them.
So I would climb down from your phony pedestal scolding others about dishonesty whey you displayed it blatantly yourself. If you can't effectively rebut what I said without doing that, I understand. But at least admit it.
Then what does this mean?
That sure sounds to me like you don't think congress should take action. If not, could you translate it for me, perhaps providing examples of what you mean?
But you're not saying we should ignore it, just that we shouldn't try to do anything about it.
I also love how Byte Man shows how it could all tie together and the resident neocon chose to focus on one sentence in Byte Man's post and nothing more, well except to claim it was "typical liberal bellyaching". It would be rather funny if it weren't so sad. Personal responsibilty apparently only applies to liberals in neocon land.