For what it's worth, the real climate critique here was helpful-- i hadn't seen it originally.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/#more-691 26 June 2009 Bubkes Filed under: * Climate Science * Greenhouse gases — gavin @ 8:00 - (Chinese (simplified)) (English) Some parts of the blogosphere, headed up by CEI (”CO2: They call it pollution, we call it life!“), are all a-twitter over an apparently “suppressed” document that supposedly undermines the EPA Endangerment finding about human emissions of carbon dioxide and a basket of other greenhouse gases. Well a draft of this “suppressed” document has been released and we can now all read this allegedly devastating critique of the EPA science. Let’s take a look… First off the authors of the submission; Alan Carlin is an economist and John Davidson is an ex-member of the Carter administration Council of Environmental Quality. Neither are climate scientists. That’s not necessarily a problem – perhaps they have mastered multiple fields? – but it is likely an indication that the analysis is not going to be very technical (and so it will prove). Curiously, while the authors work for the NCEE (National Center for Environmental Economics), part of the EPA, they appear to have rather closely collaborated with one Ken Gregory (his inline comments appear at multiple points in the draft). Ken Gregory if you don’t know is a leading light of the Friends of Science – a astroturf anti-climate science lobbying group based in Alberta. Indeed, parts of the Carlin and Davidson report appear to be lifted directly from Ken’s rambling magnum opus on the FoS site. However, despite this odd pedigree, the scientific points could still be valid. Their main points are nicely summarised thus: a) the science is so rapidly evolving that IPCC (2007) and CCSP (2009) reports are already out of date, b) the globe is cooling!, c) the consensus on hurricane/ global warming connections has moved from uncertain to ambiguous, d) Greenland is not losing mass, no sirree…, e) the recession will save us!, f) water vapour feedback is negative!, and g) Scafetta and West’s statistical fit of temperature to an obsolete solar forcing curve means that all other detection and attribution work is wrong. From this “evidence”, they then claim that all variations in climate are internal variability, except for the warming trend which is caused by the sun, oh and by the way the globe is cooling. Devastating eh? One can see a number of basic flaws here; the complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales, the common but erroneous belief that any attribution of past climate change to solar or other forcing means that CO2 has no radiative effect, and a hopeless lack of familiarity of the basic science of detection and attribution. But it gets worse, what solid peer reviewed science do they cite for support? A heavily-criticised blog posting showing that there are bi- decadal periods in climate data and that this proves it was the sun wot done it. The work of an award-winning astrologer (one Theodor Landscheidt, who also thought that the rise of Hitler and Stalin were due to cosmic cycles), a classic Courtillot paper we’ve discussed before, the aforementioned FoS web page, another web page run by Doug Hoyt, a paper by Garth Paltridge reporting on artifacts in the NCEP reanalysis of water vapour that are in contradiction to every other reanalysis, direct observations and satellite data, a complete reprint of another un-peer reviewed paper by William Gray, a nonsense paper by Miskolczi etc. etc. I’m not quite sure how this is supposed to compete with the four rounds of international scientific and governmental review of the IPCC or the rounds of review of the CCSP reports…. They don’t even notice the contradictions in their own cites. For instance, they show a figure that demonstrates that galactic cosmic ray and solar trends are non-existent from 1957 on, and yet cheerfully quote Scafetta and West who claim that almost all of the recent trend is solar driven! They claim that climate sensitivity is very small while failing to realise that this implies that solar variability can’t have any effect either. They claim that GCM simulations produced trends over the twentieth century of 1.6 to 3.74ºC – which is simply (and bizarrely) wrong (though with all due respect, that one seems to come directly from Mr. Gregory). Even more curious, Carlin appears to be a big fan of geo-engineering, but how this squares with his apparent belief that we know nothing about what drives climate, is puzzling. A sine qua non of geo-engineering is that we need models to be able to predict what is likely to happen, and if you think they are all wrong, how could you have any faith that you could effectively manage a geo-engineering approach? Finally, they end up with the oddest claim in the submission: That because human welfare has increased over the twentieth century at a time when CO2 was increasing, this somehow implies that no amount of CO2 increases can ever cause a danger to human society. This is just boneheadly stupid. So in summary, what we have is a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at. Seriously, if that’s the best they can do, the EPA’s ruling is on pretty safe ground. If I were the authors, I’d suppress this myself, and then go for a long hike on the Appalachian Trail…. On Jul 1, 11:29 am, "Eugene I. Gordon" <[email protected]> wrote: > David, it is not clear that all scientists need a course in civics. However, > i would strongly support you when it comes to climate science or any other > science wherein the grant money that is available is exceptional and the > participants protect their booty by going along with the consensus. Climate > science is an old boys club. I trust nothing they say unless scientists who > are not members of the club give it a thumbs up. That has not happened. > Thumbs down is more representative. > > Certainly Lindzen has laid out the intracacies of "one hand washes the > other." It is hard to believe that is not the case. > > -gene > > _____ > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Schnare > Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 1:30 PM > To: Ken Caldeira > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: [geo] Re: Looking for critique of NCEE comments on EPA GHG review > > Actually, Ken, there is data before the agency that challenges the > projections of the IPCC, which is more important than challenging the "basic > scientific facts" laid out in the AR4 reports. > > As for the government, under common law dating to the 16th century and under > US law, EPA has a duty to seek comment and respond to all the comments, even > the stupid ones. Some say it's called democracy, but it isn't. It is the > way we, as a law-based society, ensure that the government is not arbitrary > and capricious. > > When the government fails (or refuses) to examine the "spurious" comments > made, how does the public know (1) the comments were "spurious" and (2) that > the government didn't ignore non-spurious comments at the same time. > > I'm thinking it's about time we reintroduced a course in civics to the > scientific community. > > David. > > On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Ken Caldeira <[email protected]> > wrote: > > The US Government (and most other governments of the world) have already > carefully reviewed and approved the IPCC AR4 reports. > > No new information that challenges the basic scientific facts laid out in > those reports. > > Incompetent people also disagree. Does the government have a legal duty to > examine every spurious claim? > > ___________________________________________________ > Ken Caldeira > > Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology > 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA > > [email protected]; > [email protected]http://dge.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/labs/caldeiralab > +1 650 704 7212; fax: +1 650 462 5968 > > On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 1:01 PM, David Schnare <[email protected]> wrote: > > Ken and I part ways on whether EPA should take time to clear the air on > these issues. Competent people disagree, so government has a legal duty to > take a look at the arguments. > > David Schnare > Center for Environmental Stewardship > > On Jul 1, 2009, at 12:10 AM, Ken Caldeira > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > That NCEE report is full of misleading pseudo-information that will result > in a lot of smart people having to waste a lot of time responding to a wide > range of canards. > > A report like that is a disservice, and not a useful contribution to > informed scientific discussion. > > On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 3:29 AM, David Schnare < <mailto:[email protected]> > > [email protected]> wrote: > > Dan, et al.: > > The NCEE report has been discussed at length at Wattsupwiththat.com. The > basic purpose of the report was not to impeach the IPCC report, it was to > identify science that had been developed since the IPCC report was prepared, > and to note that if that new science proved valid, then the scientific basis > of the AR4 report was put at issue. The report author, Alan Carlin, a > member of this geoengineering google group, I might add, does believe the > new science seriously undercuts the IPCC report. > > Nevertheless, the real story is that EPA had made its mind up before it > examined all the science. That violates the Administrator's stated policies > and is improper for a governmental science body. > > David Schnare. > > On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Dan Whaley < <mailto:[email protected]> > > [email protected]> wrote: > > I've run across this recently. > > <http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf>http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf > > Internal NCEE review of EPA's endangerment analysis for GHG emissions > under the Clean Air Act. > > Curious if others have developed or are in progress on a response to > these criticisms. > > Dan > > -- > > David W. Schnare > Center for Environmental Stewardship > > -- > David W. 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