I recently went through a little clash with the German climate sceptics scene, which was quite interesting. It may be difficult to follow the details for those who do not speak German, but you may still get a taste of the current "climate" in Germany.
The starting point were an article of and interview with Horst-Joachim Luedecke in a regional newspaper in southwestern Germany (Badische Neueste Nachrichten) in August. The tone of these contributions was that anthropogenic climate change is, if at all real, not significant and does not justify any expensive counter measures. Such opinions are not new, but what annoyed us at the Institute of Environmental Physics in Heidelberg was that the characterisation of Luedecke as a "retired physics professor from Heidelberg" suggested a link to our department. Luedecke is a retired professor and lives in Heidelberg, but has nothing to do with us. Hence we issued a public statement through the PR-office of the university, stating that the anthropogenic influence on climate was real and offering our expertise to the press and public as a more reliable source of information on climate change.
Of course, this statement did not fail to raise angry reactions by other German climate sceptics and I went through some rather fruitless e-mail exchanges. Luedecke issued a reply on "his" EIKE-website (see below), which contains all the original documents. The final result is that I gained a better impression of the German sceptics scene, which I'd like to share here. Luedecke is a speaker of the so called "European Institute for Climate and Energy" (EIKE), founded in 2007. Sounds good but it is just an association of German sceptics. As Luedecke explained to me, EIKE is very open-minded in terms of views of its members - as long as they fight the theory of anthropogenic climate change and oppose measures of climate protection.
As a result, EIKE publishes a wide spectrum of climate sceptic views on its website. Luedecke himself is quite moderate and argues on a scientific level. He has a little paper on the physical basis of the greenhouse effect buried somewhere on the EIKE site, which is quite good except for the last part, where he selects only those few studies (e.g. by Richard Lindzen) that suggest a negative rather than a positive feedback on the CO2-effect, thus denying a significant anthropogenic influence on climate. Luedecke has also published a book on "CO2 and climate protection". I haven't read that so I can't comment.
However, there is also lots of highly dubious material on the EIKE site. If you follow the publications link on the page you find contributions by some interesting German climate sceptics, such as the recently deceased Ernst-Georg Beck, who essentially disputes that there is an anthropogenic CO2 increase, or Gerhard Stehlik, wo has weird theories on his own on the greenhouse effect. Unfortunately, his paper on this matter which he sent me some years ago is not available on his website anymore (dead link). And you find of course the quite widely known paper of Gerlich and Tscheuschner, who maintain that the greenhouse theory violates the second law of thermodynamics and who have been refuted many times (also see Globalklima). And in its advisory board, EIKE has among others my old critic Lord Christopher Monckton Viscount of Brenchley. I'm impressed!
The EIKE site is a caleidoscope of climate scepticism from the German perspective. If you understand German and are interested in the unplumbed depths of the human mind, enjoy!
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
16 October 2010
29 May 2010
Monckton debunked
Readers of this blog have heard of Lord Christopher Monckton, who once posted a rebuttal of my rebuttal of the theories of Khilyuk and Chilingar. Monckton is a real role-model of a climate change sceptic.
Now, John Abraham from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota has posted a presentation online, in which he gives a detailed rebuttal of many of Monckton's allegations. A very instructive piece of work for all those interested in the depths of the climate change debate. Have fun!
Now, John Abraham from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota has posted a presentation online, in which he gives a detailed rebuttal of many of Monckton's allegations. A very instructive piece of work for all those interested in the depths of the climate change debate. Have fun!
01 April 2010
Greenpeace Report on Sponsors of Climate Change Deniers
Greenpeace has issued a report that seems to provide a thorough reality check on the background of the climate change denial propaganda in the US: "Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine". They also have an interesting interactive graphic that allows you to check out some details directly.
Amazing that Koch Industries, the company that Greenpeace exposes as a major sponsor of the climate sceptics, is little known in the public although, as they claim on their webpage, it is one of the largest private companies of the world. Obviously they know about doing things secretely. The company has issued a statement on the report, however.
This reminds of the Exxon Report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, on which I have blogged before. Apparently, Koch Industries easily out-spent Exxon Mobil in the area of political sponsoring. Interesting indeed.
Other blogs such as Climate Progress or ClimateScienceWatch have more details on the story. I wish I had time to study and cover this report in more detail.
Amazing that Koch Industries, the company that Greenpeace exposes as a major sponsor of the climate sceptics, is little known in the public although, as they claim on their webpage, it is one of the largest private companies of the world. Obviously they know about doing things secretely. The company has issued a statement on the report, however.
This reminds of the Exxon Report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, on which I have blogged before. Apparently, Koch Industries easily out-spent Exxon Mobil in the area of political sponsoring. Interesting indeed.
Other blogs such as Climate Progress or ClimateScienceWatch have more details on the story. I wish I had time to study and cover this report in more detail.
26 July 2009
Oops, they did it again
A little add-on to my previous post about the newest article of Chilingar et al. In fact, I only now compared it more closely with their 2008 twin-papers. I was surprised by the amount of overlap between the new piece and the two old ones. Ok, the new paper is not a one-to-one copy as the other two were, but it really is not much more than a re-arrangement of the old theories and arguments. At least close to a recycling fraud again.
Here are some examples, comparing the new paper "Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect" with the old one "Response to W. Aeschbach-Hertig rebuttal ...’’, both published in Environmental Geology (EG from here on):
- The new Fig. 3 is identical to the old Fig. 2 (and the new Fig. 2 is an extension of the old Fig. 1).
- Equations 1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4b, and 5 in the new manuscript are identical to equations 11, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 1 in the old paper.
- The new eqs. 4a, 6, and 7 are also present in the 2008-paper in slightly modified form (as eq. 8, text on p. 1571, and eq. 13.)
- A lot of the discussion around the equations is also identical or very similar.
In summary, none of the equations in the "new" manuscript are really original. There are very little if any new arguments compared to the twin-papers. So which honest journal being aware of this situation would publish this remake? Well, EG does.
Last time, when finally answering to my inquiry, the editor of EG had the excuse that they allowed Chilingar et al. to "reprint" parts of their EG-paper in "Energy Sources" because EG had a long delay in printing the piece. So then, this time they allowed them to re-use large parts of the previous paper published in their own journal? For me (and Fred Singer, it seems) EG has no excuses anymore.
Note, by the way, that neither of the twin-papers is cited in the new paper. Quite unusual that you do not quote any of your own two previous papers that contain all the equations of your present work. Plus one figure. In fact, this is self-plagiarism.
Here are some examples, comparing the new paper "Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect" with the old one "Response to W. Aeschbach-Hertig rebuttal ...’’, both published in Environmental Geology (EG from here on):
- The new Fig. 3 is identical to the old Fig. 2 (and the new Fig. 2 is an extension of the old Fig. 1).
- Equations 1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4b, and 5 in the new manuscript are identical to equations 11, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 1 in the old paper.
- The new eqs. 4a, 6, and 7 are also present in the 2008-paper in slightly modified form (as eq. 8, text on p. 1571, and eq. 13.)
- A lot of the discussion around the equations is also identical or very similar.
In summary, none of the equations in the "new" manuscript are really original. There are very little if any new arguments compared to the twin-papers. So which honest journal being aware of this situation would publish this remake? Well, EG does.
Last time, when finally answering to my inquiry, the editor of EG had the excuse that they allowed Chilingar et al. to "reprint" parts of their EG-paper in "Energy Sources" because EG had a long delay in printing the piece. So then, this time they allowed them to re-use large parts of the previous paper published in their own journal? For me (and Fred Singer, it seems) EG has no excuses anymore.
Note, by the way, that neither of the twin-papers is cited in the new paper. Quite unusual that you do not quote any of your own two previous papers that contain all the equations of your present work. Plus one figure. In fact, this is self-plagiarism.
12 July 2009
Chilingar's Greenhouse Paper
Alright, let me make some comments on the contents of the recent paper by Chilingar and co-authors in Environmental Geology: Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect.
First of all, the title is rather misleading. The paper hardly deals with the greenhouse effect, as we will see shortly. Secondly, the main "theory" presented in the paper, which the authors call the "adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect" is nothing new and has already been discussed by Eli Rabett.
The essence of the theory is that atmospheric temperature can be related to pressure (i.e., altitude in the atmosphere). The fact that the temperature profile in the Earth's troposphere is dominated by the adiabatic gradient, i.e. the effect that air cools as it ascends and expands, is of course textbook knowledge, although Chilingar et al. do not acknowledge this. If you would like to know how it works, for example, follow this link to lecture notes of my colleagues in atmospheric physics at our institute. Using this fact and a strange version of a global radiation balance, Chilingar et al. construct their equation (1) to describe temperature as a function of pressure with two empirical factors b ("scaling factor") and alpha ("adiabatic exponent").
I do not have a clue why the "precession angle" of the Earth enters the radiation balance term. One might have to follow the Sorokhtin and Chilingar references given at the outset of this discussion, but these aren't easy to find (maybe the one in Energy Sources would be available, but we already know that these authors like to duplicate their papers in that journal and Environ. Geol.). I do know, however, that the angle of 23.44° to which the authors refer is usually called the inclination angle or axial tilt, whereas precession refers to the change in the direction of the tilted rotation axis. Anyway, if you are interested in a more conventional radiation balance, see these lecture notes.
Chilingar's equation (1) has a form that fits the temperature profile in the troposphere, they only need to adjust their two empirical parameters. Adjusting b sets the temperature at the surface - this is of course where a proper discussion of the radiation balance and greenhouse effect would be needed. But the authors circumvent this by simply setting b to fit the current mean surface temperature of the Earth. The parameter alpha is indeed a well-known exponent in adiabatic gas theory. For a dry atmosphere it would be given by c_p/c_v - 1 = R/c_p = 0.4. For a humid atmosphere it has to be adjusted for the latent heat in the condensation process. Chilingar et al. introduce two further fit parameters to adjust alpha, C_w and C_r, which they refer to as accounting for the effects of water vapor and - yes, indeed - absorption of heat by greenhouse gases.
I am not sure if the radiation correction term C_r makes much sense, but in any case this seems to be the parameter by which Chilingar et al. describe the greenhouse effect. To summarise the theory thus far, it has three adjustable fit parameters: b to adjust the surface temperature, C_w and C_r to adjust the adiabatic lapse rate. Values of these parameters are found by fitting equation (1) to the current temperature profile of Earth and Venus for comparison. They are quite different for the two planets, which is not further explained. However, an essential assumption of the paper then appears to be that these parameters are somehow characteristic for the two planets, INDEPENDENT OF THE COMPOSITION OF THEIR ATMOSPHERES. This is a rather strong assumption.
The theory and the above assumption are then taken to the extreme by calculating the temperature of Earth for a hypothetical pure carbon-dioxide atmosphere. The authors explicitly state that b is kept fixed and with a bit of calculation one can verify that they also do so for C_w and C_r. Given that C_r is meant to reflect the heat absorption by greenhouse gases, I find it slightly surprising that a pure CO2 atmosphere should have the same value as the current N2/O2 atmosphere. Wouldn't it be here where the authors should discuss the greenhouse effect as they announced so loudly in their title?
Well, they don't but rather find that (given their theory and assumption) a world with a pure CO2 atmosphere would in fact be 6.5°C cooler than the present day world. Great result, isn't it? Funny, though, that Venus with its CO2 atmosphere is so much hotter than Earth. This is due to the much higher factor b and a different C_r. But for Earth, these parameters would of course stay constant even if we were to convert all oxygen to CO2. No problem with global warming there. Just a bit tough to breathe, maybe...
In the event you are not convinced by Chilingar et al.'s theory, they have a backup argument as well, very typical for the rethoric of climate sceptics. This time, towards the end of the article, they dig up the old argument that the climate and CO2 reconstructions from ice cores have shown that temperature changes lead fluctuations of the greenhouse gases, not vice versa. This is correct, but not "indisputable evidence to the fact that the changes in CO2 concentrations of the atmosphere are the effect of global temperature changes, and not their cause." This is a frequent logical mistake. Yes, temperature increases in the past have caused CO2 to rise. This does, however, not exclude the (quite probable) possibility that rising CO2 in turn contributed to warming, and does so today.
There are some other mistakes in the paper as well, of course. One of the more obvious is the list of partial pressures in the Earth's atmosphere (after equation (2), cited literally here): "pN2 = 0.7551; pCO2 = 0.00046 pN2 = 0.7551 and pAr = 0.0128 atm are the partial pressures of the
corresponding gases (Voitkevich et al. 1990)".
Apart from the typo of repeating the N2 value twice, I wonder about the values and the Voitkevich reference. Compare the above values with the standard composition of the atmosphere in any textbook...
First of all, the title is rather misleading. The paper hardly deals with the greenhouse effect, as we will see shortly. Secondly, the main "theory" presented in the paper, which the authors call the "adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect" is nothing new and has already been discussed by Eli Rabett.
The essence of the theory is that atmospheric temperature can be related to pressure (i.e., altitude in the atmosphere). The fact that the temperature profile in the Earth's troposphere is dominated by the adiabatic gradient, i.e. the effect that air cools as it ascends and expands, is of course textbook knowledge, although Chilingar et al. do not acknowledge this. If you would like to know how it works, for example, follow this link to lecture notes of my colleagues in atmospheric physics at our institute. Using this fact and a strange version of a global radiation balance, Chilingar et al. construct their equation (1) to describe temperature as a function of pressure with two empirical factors b ("scaling factor") and alpha ("adiabatic exponent").
I do not have a clue why the "precession angle" of the Earth enters the radiation balance term. One might have to follow the Sorokhtin and Chilingar references given at the outset of this discussion, but these aren't easy to find (maybe the one in Energy Sources would be available, but we already know that these authors like to duplicate their papers in that journal and Environ. Geol.). I do know, however, that the angle of 23.44° to which the authors refer is usually called the inclination angle or axial tilt, whereas precession refers to the change in the direction of the tilted rotation axis. Anyway, if you are interested in a more conventional radiation balance, see these lecture notes.
Chilingar's equation (1) has a form that fits the temperature profile in the troposphere, they only need to adjust their two empirical parameters. Adjusting b sets the temperature at the surface - this is of course where a proper discussion of the radiation balance and greenhouse effect would be needed. But the authors circumvent this by simply setting b to fit the current mean surface temperature of the Earth. The parameter alpha is indeed a well-known exponent in adiabatic gas theory. For a dry atmosphere it would be given by c_p/c_v - 1 = R/c_p = 0.4. For a humid atmosphere it has to be adjusted for the latent heat in the condensation process. Chilingar et al. introduce two further fit parameters to adjust alpha, C_w and C_r, which they refer to as accounting for the effects of water vapor and - yes, indeed - absorption of heat by greenhouse gases.
I am not sure if the radiation correction term C_r makes much sense, but in any case this seems to be the parameter by which Chilingar et al. describe the greenhouse effect. To summarise the theory thus far, it has three adjustable fit parameters: b to adjust the surface temperature, C_w and C_r to adjust the adiabatic lapse rate. Values of these parameters are found by fitting equation (1) to the current temperature profile of Earth and Venus for comparison. They are quite different for the two planets, which is not further explained. However, an essential assumption of the paper then appears to be that these parameters are somehow characteristic for the two planets, INDEPENDENT OF THE COMPOSITION OF THEIR ATMOSPHERES. This is a rather strong assumption.
The theory and the above assumption are then taken to the extreme by calculating the temperature of Earth for a hypothetical pure carbon-dioxide atmosphere. The authors explicitly state that b is kept fixed and with a bit of calculation one can verify that they also do so for C_w and C_r. Given that C_r is meant to reflect the heat absorption by greenhouse gases, I find it slightly surprising that a pure CO2 atmosphere should have the same value as the current N2/O2 atmosphere. Wouldn't it be here where the authors should discuss the greenhouse effect as they announced so loudly in their title?
Well, they don't but rather find that (given their theory and assumption) a world with a pure CO2 atmosphere would in fact be 6.5°C cooler than the present day world. Great result, isn't it? Funny, though, that Venus with its CO2 atmosphere is so much hotter than Earth. This is due to the much higher factor b and a different C_r. But for Earth, these parameters would of course stay constant even if we were to convert all oxygen to CO2. No problem with global warming there. Just a bit tough to breathe, maybe...
In the event you are not convinced by Chilingar et al.'s theory, they have a backup argument as well, very typical for the rethoric of climate sceptics. This time, towards the end of the article, they dig up the old argument that the climate and CO2 reconstructions from ice cores have shown that temperature changes lead fluctuations of the greenhouse gases, not vice versa. This is correct, but not "indisputable evidence to the fact that the changes in CO2 concentrations of the atmosphere are the effect of global temperature changes, and not their cause." This is a frequent logical mistake. Yes, temperature increases in the past have caused CO2 to rise. This does, however, not exclude the (quite probable) possibility that rising CO2 in turn contributed to warming, and does so today.
There are some other mistakes in the paper as well, of course. One of the more obvious is the list of partial pressures in the Earth's atmosphere (after equation (2), cited literally here): "pN2 = 0.7551; pCO2 = 0.00046 pN2 = 0.7551 and pAr = 0.0128 atm are the partial pressures of the
corresponding gases (Voitkevich et al. 1990)".
Apart from the typo of repeating the N2 value twice, I wonder about the values and the Voitkevich reference. Compare the above values with the standard composition of the atmosphere in any textbook...
05 July 2009
Singer Resigns from Environmental Geology Board
When I recently reported on the new piece of Chilingar and friends in Environmental Geology, I did not mention that it actually was the well-known climate sceptic Fred S. Singer who - by asking for my opinion in a mail - evoked my attention to it. I replied to him, saying that I thought the paper was nonsense. Singer's answer may be surprising: He agreed and announced his resignation as an Advisory Editor of Environmental Geology.
Well, for now he is still listed on their website. But as I stated before in this context, I take it that Singer really plays in a different league than Chilingar. He does not want to compromise his credibility by endorsing Chilingar's humbug. But someone at Envrion. Geol. must support these writings. I rather suspect another climate sceptic editor of Environ. Geol., Lee C. Gerhard, to be involved in pushing the bizarre papers of Chilingar through "peer review". Whoever it is, these articles are a shame for this journal. However, it seems only few people take notice. So much for the impact of scientific publications...
Well, for now he is still listed on their website. But as I stated before in this context, I take it that Singer really plays in a different league than Chilingar. He does not want to compromise his credibility by endorsing Chilingar's humbug. But someone at Envrion. Geol. must support these writings. I rather suspect another climate sceptic editor of Environ. Geol., Lee C. Gerhard, to be involved in pushing the bizarre papers of Chilingar through "peer review". Whoever it is, these articles are a shame for this journal. However, it seems only few people take notice. So much for the impact of scientific publications...
01 July 2009
Chilingar is Back
I had not been aware of it (nor has the climate blogging community, apparently), but the infamous climate sceptic G. V. Chilingar and his friends have a new article in Environmental Geology:
Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect
It is only available online so far, but probably will soon be printed.
If I find some time I may go for a little discussion of the paper. For the moment it may suffice to say that it just warms up their old weird "adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect", which Eli Rabett has already debunked. For some background on the authors also follow this link.
Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect
It is only available online so far, but probably will soon be printed.
If I find some time I may go for a little discussion of the paper. For the moment it may suffice to say that it just warms up their old weird "adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect", which Eli Rabett has already debunked. For some background on the authors also follow this link.
02 April 2009
Clean Coal and Sparkling Water
This is the title of a News & Views article of mine that just appeared in Nature. I had the opportunity to comment on a paper by colleagues from the noble gas and isotope community on the long-term fate of CO2 in natural gas fields. This is a hot topic because it relates to carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that may become important in fighting climate change.
Actually I don't think that the paper will or should have any great consequences with regard to CCS applications, but the media seem interested. I got several calls yesterday and for example the German magazine SPIEGEL has an article in its online issue today.
Actually I don't think that the paper will or should have any great consequences with regard to CCS applications, but the media seem interested. I got several calls yesterday and for example the German magazine SPIEGEL has an article in its online issue today.
13 December 2008
Deep fusion, deep oil, deep nonsense
The incredible paper about evidence for nuclear fusion in the deep Earth coming from some of my old papers spurred my curiosity about its background. The theory of geo-fusion seems to go back to a certain Steven Jones. He even published a Nature paper about it in 1989, in the heydays of the cold-fusion mania. But it has not been confirmed, as the search for magmatic tritium was not successful. The new paper by Jiang et al. seems to change that, but it does not convince even a tiny little bit.
It rather seems to me that this geo-fusion theory is of about the same quality as the theory of deep, abiogenic oil, of which I have already written. Alas, no deep oil or deep fusion will save us from what appears to be a serious energy crisis. Would be nice, but these theories are nonsense.
Interestingly, Steven Jones seems to like nonsensical theories. As his Wikipedia entry reveals, he is a strong proponent of the theory that the the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition during the September 11 attacks, rather than by the airplanes crashing into it. I don't have a high opinion of such conspiracy theories, as I mentioned before. It seems that Prof. Jones, as great a physicist as he may be, is due for a reality check.
Physicists (I am one!) tend to think that they are very intelligent. Sometimes, this leads them to venture into areas of which they do not know very much. I also do this, but I try to be careful. Others are sometimes overly self-confident. Such as the German physicists who tried to reject the greenhouse warming theory as contradicting basic physics. Somewhere along the way they lost track and started to produce deep nonsense. Too bad.
It rather seems to me that this geo-fusion theory is of about the same quality as the theory of deep, abiogenic oil, of which I have already written. Alas, no deep oil or deep fusion will save us from what appears to be a serious energy crisis. Would be nice, but these theories are nonsense.
Interestingly, Steven Jones seems to like nonsensical theories. As his Wikipedia entry reveals, he is a strong proponent of the theory that the the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition during the September 11 attacks, rather than by the airplanes crashing into it. I don't have a high opinion of such conspiracy theories, as I mentioned before. It seems that Prof. Jones, as great a physicist as he may be, is due for a reality check.
Physicists (I am one!) tend to think that they are very intelligent. Sometimes, this leads them to venture into areas of which they do not know very much. I also do this, but I try to be careful. Others are sometimes overly self-confident. Such as the German physicists who tried to reject the greenhouse warming theory as contradicting basic physics. Somewhere along the way they lost track and started to produce deep nonsense. Too bad.
06 December 2008
Finally: News on Twin Papers
I started this blog after Eli Rabett had pointed out to me that the reply to my rebuttal of a climate-sceptic paper had been published in duplicate in two journals. This highly unusual and suspicious event triggered me to blog about strange things going on at the fringe of science.
As a more direct response, I asked the editors of the involved journals (Environmental Geology and Energy Sources) if they were aware of the twin papers and what they intended to do about it. After a long wait, I finally got an answer.
The editorial office of Environmental Geology explained that their Editor in Chief had been informed about the second publication and had approved it. So there is no plagiarism, everything was officially sanctioned. The core of the explanation in detail:
"Due to the backlog of manuscripts, printing of the paper copy of Chilingar's comments was delayed for several months. In the interim, Dr. Chilingar contacted Dr. LaMoreaux and asked permission to "reprint" parts of his comments in the journal Energy Sources, where he serves on the editorial board. Dr. LaMoreaux gave Dr. Chilinger permission to quote from his comments to your rebuttal originally published in Environmental Geology."
Great. I am relieved. I will not stop this blog, though, as there are still enough questionable things going on within and around the scientific literature. A really funny example will follow soon...
As a more direct response, I asked the editors of the involved journals (Environmental Geology and Energy Sources) if they were aware of the twin papers and what they intended to do about it. After a long wait, I finally got an answer.
The editorial office of Environmental Geology explained that their Editor in Chief had been informed about the second publication and had approved it. So there is no plagiarism, everything was officially sanctioned. The core of the explanation in detail:
"Due to the backlog of manuscripts, printing of the paper copy of Chilingar's comments was delayed for several months. In the interim, Dr. Chilingar contacted Dr. LaMoreaux and asked permission to "reprint" parts of his comments in the journal Energy Sources, where he serves on the editorial board. Dr. LaMoreaux gave Dr. Chilinger permission to quote from his comments to your rebuttal originally published in Environmental Geology."
Great. I am relieved. I will not stop this blog, though, as there are still enough questionable things going on within and around the scientific literature. A really funny example will follow soon...
03 December 2008
Living in the Anthropocene
I recently gave a presentation at the University of Augsburg in Germany about climate change, in which I argued that we are living in a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Of course, the term is not new, it was coined in 2000 by Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen. I think it is a nice concept and useful to present modern environmental and climatic changes in the context of geological history.
Those among my readers who can read German may want to download my presentation here (others may still enjoy the graphics...). I included a final section about dubious climate sceptic literature and organisations, citing the Exxon Report of the Union of Concerned Scientists. I figured that few people here in Germany would now about the background of the propaganda machinery that is active in the US.
Those among my readers who can read German may want to download my presentation here (others may still enjoy the graphics...). I included a final section about dubious climate sceptic literature and organisations, citing the Exxon Report of the Union of Concerned Scientists. I figured that few people here in Germany would now about the background of the propaganda machinery that is active in the US.
29 November 2008
World Oil Crunch Looming?
This is the title of a recent news article in "Science", which comments on the IEA World Energy Outlook 2008. So in writing about this report, I am in good company. The tenor of the article by Science's news writer Richard Kerr is clear: Slowly the reality of limitations to the world's oil supply is sinking in. As far as I can tell, most scientists are still largely unaware that there is a huge problem approaching fast, so maybe this news piece will have some alarming effect. Of course, the experts have been playing the issue down for a long time, but recently the tone seems to be changing. Some excerpts from the article:
“It’s getting harder and harder to find an optimist” on the outlook for the world oil supply, says Beijing-based petroleum analyst Michael Rodgers of PFC Energy, a consulting company. Indeed, the IEA report as well as one coming from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA, confusingly enough) see hints that the world’s oil production could plateau sometime about 2030 if the demand for oil continues to rise. Unless oil-consuming countries enact crash programs to slash demand, analysts say, 2030 could bring on a permanent global oil crunch that will make the recent squeeze look like a picnic. [...]
“Non-OPEC conventional production is definitely at a peak or plateau,” says Rodgers. “That’s starting to make people nervous. It’s not what even pessimistic people anticipated.” Three years ago, analysts in and out of the industry predicted that projects under way or planned would dramatically boost world production during the second half of the decade, sending prices back down (Science, 18 November 2005, p. 1106). Only in the 2010s would non-OPEC producers—who had boosted their output 35% in 25 years—falter and level off their production, analysts thought. That predicted plateau may be here already. “Despite all the work,” says Rodgers, “we can’t grow non-OPEC.”
So the view of the issue has changed over the past three years, and the pessimists proved to be right. The IEA's new perspective is less optimistic than before, but what if the true pessimists are still right? Then, in fact, things may be a lot worse. The old, 2005, Science article ended with the following words: "The downside of the optimists being wrong is dire". It seems this is exactly where we are heading...
The final sentence of the recent article is also interesting, where an American energy analyst is cited saying "I just hope the Obama Administration doesn’t look at the [current] price of oil and shove the problem to the back burner." Very appropriate, as I find it hard to see any sign of the crash programs to slash demand that seem to be so urgently needed (unless crashing the economy was meant to be such a program).
Oh, by the way, crash programs are also needed to curb CO2 emissions. If properly planned, one may be able to tackle two big problems at the same time (incidentally, Climate Progress just has a nice outline of how to do that). If not, the looming oil crisis will force us into using more coal, which is a sure recipe for climate disaster.
“It’s getting harder and harder to find an optimist” on the outlook for the world oil supply, says Beijing-based petroleum analyst Michael Rodgers of PFC Energy, a consulting company. Indeed, the IEA report as well as one coming from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA, confusingly enough) see hints that the world’s oil production could plateau sometime about 2030 if the demand for oil continues to rise. Unless oil-consuming countries enact crash programs to slash demand, analysts say, 2030 could bring on a permanent global oil crunch that will make the recent squeeze look like a picnic. [...]
“Non-OPEC conventional production is definitely at a peak or plateau,” says Rodgers. “That’s starting to make people nervous. It’s not what even pessimistic people anticipated.” Three years ago, analysts in and out of the industry predicted that projects under way or planned would dramatically boost world production during the second half of the decade, sending prices back down (Science, 18 November 2005, p. 1106). Only in the 2010s would non-OPEC producers—who had boosted their output 35% in 25 years—falter and level off their production, analysts thought. That predicted plateau may be here already. “Despite all the work,” says Rodgers, “we can’t grow non-OPEC.”
So the view of the issue has changed over the past three years, and the pessimists proved to be right. The IEA's new perspective is less optimistic than before, but what if the true pessimists are still right? Then, in fact, things may be a lot worse. The old, 2005, Science article ended with the following words: "The downside of the optimists being wrong is dire". It seems this is exactly where we are heading...
The final sentence of the recent article is also interesting, where an American energy analyst is cited saying "I just hope the Obama Administration doesn’t look at the [current] price of oil and shove the problem to the back burner." Very appropriate, as I find it hard to see any sign of the crash programs to slash demand that seem to be so urgently needed (unless crashing the economy was meant to be such a program).
Oh, by the way, crash programs are also needed to curb CO2 emissions. If properly planned, one may be able to tackle two big problems at the same time (incidentally, Climate Progress just has a nice outline of how to do that). If not, the looming oil crisis will force us into using more coal, which is a sure recipe for climate disaster.
15 November 2008
IEA Calls for Energy Revolution
I have unfortunately no time to comment in any depth, but I think the newly released World Energy Outlook 2008 by the International Energy Agency (IEA) is a very significant and important document. It is unfortunate that the media hardly notice the substantial recent changes in viewpoint of these official "energy watchdogs" of the world. Because what they have to say is of enourmous importance for our future. Just a few citations from the executive summary:
"The world’s energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable — environmentally, economically, socially."
"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution."
"Oil is the world’s vital source of energy and will remain so for many years to come [...]. But the sources of oil to meet rising demand, the cost of producing it and the prices that consumers will need to pay for it are extremely uncertain, perhaps more than ever."
"Preventing catastrophic and irreversible damage to the global climate ultimately requires a major decarbonisation of the world energy sources."
"The consequences for the global climate of policy inaction are shocking."
"The world’s energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable — environmentally, economically, socially."
"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution."
"Oil is the world’s vital source of energy and will remain so for many years to come [...]. But the sources of oil to meet rising demand, the cost of producing it and the prices that consumers will need to pay for it are extremely uncertain, perhaps more than ever."
"Preventing catastrophic and irreversible damage to the global climate ultimately requires a major decarbonisation of the world energy sources."
"The consequences for the global climate of policy inaction are shocking."
26 October 2008
Watch Heat
Following the recommendation of Michael Tobis, I watched the PBS broadcast "Heat" online. It really was good, and I can only recommend it to anyone interested in the climate change issue. This is indeed an excellent piece of journalism. It's amazing how good the public media in the US often are, compared to the crap that the private stations are producing most of the time. It reminds me of my time in New York, when I used to listen to National Public Radio in my car. It was the only station that had good information and no advertising - I loved it.
Maybe the best piece of "Heat" for me was part 4, about coal, or "clean coal" as the industry likes to call it today. I particularly liked a statement of Jeffrey Ball from the Wall Street Journal: "I think there is a reality check going on about carbon capture and storage right now." Yes indeed, some of the potential solutions to the climate problem do need a good reality check. If I find the time, I'd like to come back to such issues again...
Maybe the best piece of "Heat" for me was part 4, about coal, or "clean coal" as the industry likes to call it today. I particularly liked a statement of Jeffrey Ball from the Wall Street Journal: "I think there is a reality check going on about carbon capture and storage right now." Yes indeed, some of the potential solutions to the climate problem do need a good reality check. If I find the time, I'd like to come back to such issues again...
19 October 2008
Viscount Monckton's Rebuttal of my Rebuttal
The 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a well known and entertaining figure in the climate change blogsphere. For example, Deltoid has an entire category on this self-proclaimed climate expert. Obviously, the Viscount has published a lot of controversial texts (NOT scientific, peer-reviewed papers, though) on the climate change issue. The one that I am most interested in is of course his rebuttal of my rebuttal of the Khilyuk and Chilingar piece in Environmental Geology, published on the SPPI website.
As Deltoid has rightfully pointed out, defending Khilyuk and Chilingar is not exactly a proof of being a true climate expert. But of course, Christopher Monckton has other credentials, such as being an aristocrat and having served as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Baroness herself. Quite impressive, indeed. Ok, as a Swiss I have to admit that I have no real sense for the British love of such titles, as in our country we happily got rid of foreign lords some 700 years ago. But that's another story...
So did the honorable Viscount provide a convincing rejection of my arguments? Not really, it seems to me. In his rebuttal, he shows an amazing unwillingness to discuss the issues in any detail or with any precision. He rather adds to the confusion that Khilyuk and Chilingar have initiated. Some examples:
When I tried to explain that Khilyuk and Chilingar's statement about the insignificant (less than 0.1 °C) warming caused by humanity's energy production was misleading, because the warming is not due to direct heating by energy use but to the indirect effect of CO2, Monckton just claims that the 0.1 °C are not that far from the scientific consensus, completely missing the point.
By the way, there recently was an interesting paper in AGU's journal Eos, where the direct warming resulting from releasing the energy of fossil fuels and other non-renewables was extrapolated into the future to show that it represents an ultimate limit to our ever-growing energy use. Of course, it is more than questionable whether such an enormous growth of fossil fuel use is at all possible, but it is an interesting conclusion nevertheless. Even if there was no peak oil and no greenhouse effect, the simple energy balance will eventually put an ultimate limit to growth. Unfortunately, we will see the other limits closing in much earlier, I suppose.
But back to Monckton. He also challenges my statement about the very small global mean insolation changes due to variations of Earth's orbital parameters, by asking how then the large glacial - interglacial temperature changes could be explained. Of course, it is the point of the Milankovitch theory that changes in the latitudinal distribution of insolation can drive glacial cycles even in the absence of changes in the total mean irradiation, but this argument seems to be too subtle for Monckton as well as Khilyuk and Chilingar.
Next, Monckton suggests that the indeed surprising current pause in the rise of methane in the atmosphere is linked to a recent stabilization of tectonic activity - apparently backing Khilyuk and Chilingar's claim that volcanism rather than human emissions is the cause of the rise in greenhouse gases. Interesting point, but where is the evidence that tectonic activity has changed over the past centuries or even just decades? Is there any scientific reference for this?
Monckton also does not like my argument that it may be misleading to compare the total CO2 degassing over Earth's history with the anthropogenic release over the past 250 years or so. Again, the argument that the time scale matters seems too subtle.
Similarly, Monckton just stirs up the confusion about the role of the ocean's warming in causing the atmospheric CO2 increase. Of course, Henry's law requires that a warming ocean release CO2. However, if at the same time the CO2 partial pressure in the atmosphere (due to fossil fuel combustion) increases even more strongly than that in the water (due to warming), the net effect is still an uptake of CO2 by the ocean, as has been observed for the 20th century.
Monckton seems to like simple arguments, even if they are demonstrably wrong. He also prefers the simplistic temperature history of the past 1000 years shown by Khilyuk and Chilingar over the much more detailed records of other authors (not only the much criticized hockey stick of Mann et al., by the way).
Unfortunately, reality is not always simple. And sometimes not the way we would like it to be. Even a Viscount of Brenchley cannot change this.
As Deltoid has rightfully pointed out, defending Khilyuk and Chilingar is not exactly a proof of being a true climate expert. But of course, Christopher Monckton has other credentials, such as being an aristocrat and having served as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Baroness herself. Quite impressive, indeed. Ok, as a Swiss I have to admit that I have no real sense for the British love of such titles, as in our country we happily got rid of foreign lords some 700 years ago. But that's another story...
So did the honorable Viscount provide a convincing rejection of my arguments? Not really, it seems to me. In his rebuttal, he shows an amazing unwillingness to discuss the issues in any detail or with any precision. He rather adds to the confusion that Khilyuk and Chilingar have initiated. Some examples:
When I tried to explain that Khilyuk and Chilingar's statement about the insignificant (less than 0.1 °C) warming caused by humanity's energy production was misleading, because the warming is not due to direct heating by energy use but to the indirect effect of CO2, Monckton just claims that the 0.1 °C are not that far from the scientific consensus, completely missing the point.
By the way, there recently was an interesting paper in AGU's journal Eos, where the direct warming resulting from releasing the energy of fossil fuels and other non-renewables was extrapolated into the future to show that it represents an ultimate limit to our ever-growing energy use. Of course, it is more than questionable whether such an enormous growth of fossil fuel use is at all possible, but it is an interesting conclusion nevertheless. Even if there was no peak oil and no greenhouse effect, the simple energy balance will eventually put an ultimate limit to growth. Unfortunately, we will see the other limits closing in much earlier, I suppose.
But back to Monckton. He also challenges my statement about the very small global mean insolation changes due to variations of Earth's orbital parameters, by asking how then the large glacial - interglacial temperature changes could be explained. Of course, it is the point of the Milankovitch theory that changes in the latitudinal distribution of insolation can drive glacial cycles even in the absence of changes in the total mean irradiation, but this argument seems to be too subtle for Monckton as well as Khilyuk and Chilingar.
Next, Monckton suggests that the indeed surprising current pause in the rise of methane in the atmosphere is linked to a recent stabilization of tectonic activity - apparently backing Khilyuk and Chilingar's claim that volcanism rather than human emissions is the cause of the rise in greenhouse gases. Interesting point, but where is the evidence that tectonic activity has changed over the past centuries or even just decades? Is there any scientific reference for this?
Monckton also does not like my argument that it may be misleading to compare the total CO2 degassing over Earth's history with the anthropogenic release over the past 250 years or so. Again, the argument that the time scale matters seems too subtle.
Similarly, Monckton just stirs up the confusion about the role of the ocean's warming in causing the atmospheric CO2 increase. Of course, Henry's law requires that a warming ocean release CO2. However, if at the same time the CO2 partial pressure in the atmosphere (due to fossil fuel combustion) increases even more strongly than that in the water (due to warming), the net effect is still an uptake of CO2 by the ocean, as has been observed for the 20th century.
Monckton seems to like simple arguments, even if they are demonstrably wrong. He also prefers the simplistic temperature history of the past 1000 years shown by Khilyuk and Chilingar over the much more detailed records of other authors (not only the much criticized hockey stick of Mann et al., by the way).
Unfortunately, reality is not always simple. And sometimes not the way we would like it to be. Even a Viscount of Brenchley cannot change this.
15 October 2008
No News on Twin Papers
I was motivated to start this blog by my outrage about the duplicate publication of a nonsensical climate skeptical paper, which in one version was disguised as a response to a rebuttal of mine on an earlier, similarly strange paper. As I mentioned back then, I took what I think are appropriate steps: I informed the editors of the two involved journals about this rather obvious scientific misconduct (if not the nonsense in the paper, then definitely its recycling).
So what has happened? Nothing! Apparently the editors of the two involved journals (Energy Sources and Environmental Geology) are not interested in the case, or at least not inclined to inform me about any steps they may take. Well, I somehow expected this, because, as I pointed out before, the editorial boards of these journals do not seem to be impartial on the issue. I'm just wondering what to do next....
So what has happened? Nothing! Apparently the editors of the two involved journals (Energy Sources and Environmental Geology) are not interested in the case, or at least not inclined to inform me about any steps they may take. Well, I somehow expected this, because, as I pointed out before, the editorial boards of these journals do not seem to be impartial on the issue. I'm just wondering what to do next....
04 October 2008
Politicizing Climate Science
I got the news about Richard Lindzen's new, hmm, let's call it pamphlet on the state of climate science via Lubos Motl and Michael Tobis. Interesting indeed.
One of the main messages of the treatise is that climate science has been politicized and hence is not able to provide answers anymore. Well, surely Lindzen's pamphlet does its best in politicizing climate science. Another thread of the paper is that skeptical opinions are systematically suppressed in the literature. As I have pointed out in my last post, this claim is typical for bogus science. But ok, it surely is difficult to publish something that contradicts established theory. So the claim may in some cases be founded, but if it grows into some large scale conspiracy theory, it becomes suspicious. As a general rule, I am very skeptical about conspiracy theories.
Michael Tobis criticized one gross misstatement in what he calls the Lindzen Diatribe, but suggested that others may find more grotesque mischaracterizations. Well, I think I found a number of points that are worth discussing.
One point in Lindzen's text that I found distorted was his account of the "correction" of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) paleotemperatures. I have a quite different memory of the story, in which I was to some extent involved by determining noble gas temperatures (NGTs) from groundwater that played a certain role. It is true that there was some conflicting evidence, but it was more of a problem between different paleotemperature proxies (oceanic foraminifera versus continental snowline, NGTs, etc.) than between model and data. The data available in the 1990s indicated that tropical LGM sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were about as warm as today (the CLIMAP result), but continents and high elevations were some 5 °C colder. Could that be? That's where the models came in and - hardly surprising - they said no, it was not possible. So it was essentially inconsistent data and some of the proxies had to be wrong. It seems that new evaluations of the oceanic proxies come up with cooler LGM SSTs, which more or less solves the problem. This is normal scientific progress and in no way needed to save the greenhouse paradigm.
A basic theory put forward by Lindzen is that science fosters fear to secure funding. Well, politicians on all sides, including environmental activisists, certainly use this tactics sometimes to gain votes. But scientists? I know of many examples where science actually tries to fight exaggerated public fears, e.g. nuclear energy, genetic engineering, or the recent LHC-micro-black-holes panic. The argument that fear is the basis for funding science simply does not convince me at all.
Another critique of Lindzen is that science has deteriorated by moving from theory to simulation and modeling. I completely disagree: Numerical solution of complex equations is simply the logical way forward once your basic theory is known (which is the case in atmospheric and ocean dynamics) but you want actual solutions of the equations. The reason that modeling has become so large is simply that ever better computers have made this possible, a tool that was not available to scientists in the good old times conjured by Lindzen. An example of the power of numerical modeling is weather prediction, where models using the same core physics as climate models have achieved tremendous progress. Just remind yourself of how the tracks of this year's hurricanes have been predicted accurately many days in advance. This would not have been possible by theory alone, without numerically solving the equations.
Professional scientific societies are all politicized and infiltrated by environmentalists, according to Lindzen. This is why they require impressive presences in Washington. But what about the many non-US scientific societies which all support the global warming theory (see Coby's list, for example)? Are they all affected by the same virus? Global conspiracy in science, I suppose. See my remark above about conspiracy theories.
A funny detail is how Lindzen uses a workshop invitation by an IPCC organizing committee as a proof for political bias. I may be completely blinded, but I can't see anything suspicious in the document, which Lindzen adds as appendix 1. What's wrong with listing some of the topics that should be discussed at the workshop? I don't get it.
One of the main messages of the treatise is that climate science has been politicized and hence is not able to provide answers anymore. Well, surely Lindzen's pamphlet does its best in politicizing climate science. Another thread of the paper is that skeptical opinions are systematically suppressed in the literature. As I have pointed out in my last post, this claim is typical for bogus science. But ok, it surely is difficult to publish something that contradicts established theory. So the claim may in some cases be founded, but if it grows into some large scale conspiracy theory, it becomes suspicious. As a general rule, I am very skeptical about conspiracy theories.
Michael Tobis criticized one gross misstatement in what he calls the Lindzen Diatribe, but suggested that others may find more grotesque mischaracterizations. Well, I think I found a number of points that are worth discussing.
One point in Lindzen's text that I found distorted was his account of the "correction" of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) paleotemperatures. I have a quite different memory of the story, in which I was to some extent involved by determining noble gas temperatures (NGTs) from groundwater that played a certain role. It is true that there was some conflicting evidence, but it was more of a problem between different paleotemperature proxies (oceanic foraminifera versus continental snowline, NGTs, etc.) than between model and data. The data available in the 1990s indicated that tropical LGM sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were about as warm as today (the CLIMAP result), but continents and high elevations were some 5 °C colder. Could that be? That's where the models came in and - hardly surprising - they said no, it was not possible. So it was essentially inconsistent data and some of the proxies had to be wrong. It seems that new evaluations of the oceanic proxies come up with cooler LGM SSTs, which more or less solves the problem. This is normal scientific progress and in no way needed to save the greenhouse paradigm.
A basic theory put forward by Lindzen is that science fosters fear to secure funding. Well, politicians on all sides, including environmental activisists, certainly use this tactics sometimes to gain votes. But scientists? I know of many examples where science actually tries to fight exaggerated public fears, e.g. nuclear energy, genetic engineering, or the recent LHC-micro-black-holes panic. The argument that fear is the basis for funding science simply does not convince me at all.
Another critique of Lindzen is that science has deteriorated by moving from theory to simulation and modeling. I completely disagree: Numerical solution of complex equations is simply the logical way forward once your basic theory is known (which is the case in atmospheric and ocean dynamics) but you want actual solutions of the equations. The reason that modeling has become so large is simply that ever better computers have made this possible, a tool that was not available to scientists in the good old times conjured by Lindzen. An example of the power of numerical modeling is weather prediction, where models using the same core physics as climate models have achieved tremendous progress. Just remind yourself of how the tracks of this year's hurricanes have been predicted accurately many days in advance. This would not have been possible by theory alone, without numerically solving the equations.
Professional scientific societies are all politicized and infiltrated by environmentalists, according to Lindzen. This is why they require impressive presences in Washington. But what about the many non-US scientific societies which all support the global warming theory (see Coby's list, for example)? Are they all affected by the same virus? Global conspiracy in science, I suppose. See my remark above about conspiracy theories.
A funny detail is how Lindzen uses a workshop invitation by an IPCC organizing committee as a proof for political bias. I may be completely blinded, but I can't see anything suspicious in the document, which Lindzen adds as appendix 1. What's wrong with listing some of the topics that should be discussed at the workshop? I don't get it.
27 September 2008
Junk Science 2
There is another interesting link between some climate skeptics and my old friend Jack Kenney, the heroic advocate of the abiogenic petroleum theory: Both like the term "junk science". I have already written about the "junkman" Steven Milloy, who seems to think that much of the health and environmental science and especially climate change science is junk. This is pretty bold, as he takes on large areas of mainstream science that are well established and usually would seem to be examples of "sound science", the term that Milloy and others use as a counterpart to "junk science".
Kenney's definition of junk science is a bit more sophisticated: In his paper "Science and Junk-science", he lists several examples of junk science that probably most educated people would readily agree with. Examples that he mentions are alchemy, astrology, phrenology, and yes, "creation science". I fully agree so far (especially with the latest, which cannot be stressed too much these days as a creationist is aspiring for highest powers in the US...). Then Kenney adds some more controversial examples: Freudian psychology, Marxist economics, feminist gender studies, and so on. Surely Kenney leaves the realm of natural sciences here, so I dare not comment too much. Whether one likes these theories or not seems to be more of a question of political views than of scientific rigor. Anyway, this is all just a prelude to Kenney's real attack.
Other than Milloy who takes on various branches of science, Kenney attacks only one established scientific theory: That of a biological origin of petroleum, for which he invents the nice acronym "BOOP". According to him, BOOP is a dogma, held and defended by the British/American "geo-phrenologists". It should be replaced by what he likes to call the "modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origin".
Based on my direct scientific experience I feel less competent to dismiss Kenney's claims than those about climate change made by Milloy. There are many arguments against abiogenic petroleum, but the only one on which I have direct expertise is the He isotope story. Yet it seems to be a robust and strong argument against a deep origin of hydrocarbons in many (but not all) cases. Quite possibly there are indeed some abiogenic hydrocarbons out there (at least methane), but almost certainly most of the petroleum is biogenic, despite Kenney's claims that a biological origin is impossible.
Other than knowing about He isotopes (and other technical issues) and having experienced how willingly Kenney twists the most clear-cut scientific evidence, how could one figure out if Kenney is trustworthy? In his case it is not obvious that he is being paid for what he says, quite in contrast to Milloy. His debate is a conflict between petroleum geologists, both sides obviously being somehow involved in this big business. So how then can the claims be verified? One indication is that Kenney's papers aren't published in the most reputable journals, which they should be if his revolutionary theory were deemed to deserve serious attention. But of course he would say that this is just because followers of the BOOP dogma suppress any non-conformist views. Such a claim is in itself an indication for bogus science.
But I think there is yet another indication: The style in which Kenney's papers are written, which in several points violates usual scientific standards. A typical example is the way he attacks the mainstream theory ("BOOP"). One of his papers is entitled "Dismissal of the claims of a biological connection for natural petroleum". He is not satisfied with describing and supporting his own theory, he spends much time on dismissing and deriding the opposite view, often in a rather pejorative style. Opposing claims are shown to be "without merit", "insupportable", or even "intellectual fraud". Very well established methods such as carbon isotopes are called "obscure", other evidence is called "spurious", and so on. Many terms used in the literature are given only in quotes, not to indicate a quotation as I use it here, but with a pejorative connotation. Important statements are highlighted by bold face or italics and are repeated over and over again, without, however, ever providing real detailed arguments and evidence in their favor.
This style reminds me quite a bit of Khilyuk and Chilingar, and it is a sure indication of "junk science". No scientific journal in its right mind would ever allow such botch to be published. No conspiracy of BOOP-activists is needed to detect this flaw in Kenney's papers and hence prevent them from being published. If you want to be heard as a scientist, you need not only to come up with real evidence for your arguments, but also to follow certain basic rules of conduct, both of which Kenney does not. Just as a chess player refusing to shake hands risks to lose his reputation, a scientist unable to keep the debate to a factual level becomes untrustworthy.
Kenney's definition of junk science is a bit more sophisticated: In his paper "Science and Junk-science", he lists several examples of junk science that probably most educated people would readily agree with. Examples that he mentions are alchemy, astrology, phrenology, and yes, "creation science". I fully agree so far (especially with the latest, which cannot be stressed too much these days as a creationist is aspiring for highest powers in the US...). Then Kenney adds some more controversial examples: Freudian psychology, Marxist economics, feminist gender studies, and so on. Surely Kenney leaves the realm of natural sciences here, so I dare not comment too much. Whether one likes these theories or not seems to be more of a question of political views than of scientific rigor. Anyway, this is all just a prelude to Kenney's real attack.
Other than Milloy who takes on various branches of science, Kenney attacks only one established scientific theory: That of a biological origin of petroleum, for which he invents the nice acronym "BOOP". According to him, BOOP is a dogma, held and defended by the British/American "geo-phrenologists". It should be replaced by what he likes to call the "modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origin".
Based on my direct scientific experience I feel less competent to dismiss Kenney's claims than those about climate change made by Milloy. There are many arguments against abiogenic petroleum, but the only one on which I have direct expertise is the He isotope story. Yet it seems to be a robust and strong argument against a deep origin of hydrocarbons in many (but not all) cases. Quite possibly there are indeed some abiogenic hydrocarbons out there (at least methane), but almost certainly most of the petroleum is biogenic, despite Kenney's claims that a biological origin is impossible.
Other than knowing about He isotopes (and other technical issues) and having experienced how willingly Kenney twists the most clear-cut scientific evidence, how could one figure out if Kenney is trustworthy? In his case it is not obvious that he is being paid for what he says, quite in contrast to Milloy. His debate is a conflict between petroleum geologists, both sides obviously being somehow involved in this big business. So how then can the claims be verified? One indication is that Kenney's papers aren't published in the most reputable journals, which they should be if his revolutionary theory were deemed to deserve serious attention. But of course he would say that this is just because followers of the BOOP dogma suppress any non-conformist views. Such a claim is in itself an indication for bogus science.
But I think there is yet another indication: The style in which Kenney's papers are written, which in several points violates usual scientific standards. A typical example is the way he attacks the mainstream theory ("BOOP"). One of his papers is entitled "Dismissal of the claims of a biological connection for natural petroleum". He is not satisfied with describing and supporting his own theory, he spends much time on dismissing and deriding the opposite view, often in a rather pejorative style. Opposing claims are shown to be "without merit", "insupportable", or even "intellectual fraud". Very well established methods such as carbon isotopes are called "obscure", other evidence is called "spurious", and so on. Many terms used in the literature are given only in quotes, not to indicate a quotation as I use it here, but with a pejorative connotation. Important statements are highlighted by bold face or italics and are repeated over and over again, without, however, ever providing real detailed arguments and evidence in their favor.
This style reminds me quite a bit of Khilyuk and Chilingar, and it is a sure indication of "junk science". No scientific journal in its right mind would ever allow such botch to be published. No conspiracy of BOOP-activists is needed to detect this flaw in Kenney's papers and hence prevent them from being published. If you want to be heard as a scientist, you need not only to come up with real evidence for your arguments, but also to follow certain basic rules of conduct, both of which Kenney does not. Just as a chess player refusing to shake hands risks to lose his reputation, a scientist unable to keep the debate to a factual level becomes untrustworthy.
20 September 2008
Natural and Anthropogenic Climate Change
I just saw an interesting new paper by Lean and Rind in Geophysical Research Letters . These authors performed a multiple regression analysis to determine the influence of natural (solar activity, volcanoes, ENSO) and anthropogenic (greenhouse gases plus aerosols) factors on the temperature record of the past 100+ years. Looks like a good piece of work.
The "solar activity" and "natural cycles" skeptics will not like the conclusions, though. None of the natural factors comes close to explain the overall warming trend. A citation from the paper:
"None of the natural processes can account for the overall warming trend in global surface temperatures. In the 100 years from 1905 to 2005, the temperature trends produced by all three natural influences are at least an order of magnitude smaller than the observed surface temperature trend reported by IPCC [2007]. According to this analysis, solar forcing contributed negligible long-term warming in the past 25 years and 10% of the warming in the past 100years, not 69% as claimed by Scafetta and West [2008]..."
The "solar activity" and "natural cycles" skeptics will not like the conclusions, though. None of the natural factors comes close to explain the overall warming trend. A citation from the paper:
"None of the natural processes can account for the overall warming trend in global surface temperatures. In the 100 years from 1905 to 2005, the temperature trends produced by all three natural influences are at least an order of magnitude smaller than the observed surface temperature trend reported by IPCC [2007]. According to this analysis, solar forcing contributed negligible long-term warming in the past 25 years and 10% of the warming in the past 100years, not 69% as claimed by Scafetta and West [2008]..."
17 September 2008
Sea Ice Update
Just seen on the "ill considered" blog: NSIDC and NASA have announced that the Arctic sea ice has reached its minimum extent for this year, which is the second lowest after last year's record. The announcement may be a bit early but probably it's ok. Anyway the conclusion was already clear for a while: The rapidly declining trend is confirmed.
In my opinion (though I am not really an expert on this), the decline of the Arctic sea ice is not only a visible sign of climate change but possibly the most important example of an amplifying feedback that is kicking in and may be impossible to reverse. So it's worthwile to follow the development.
In my opinion (though I am not really an expert on this), the decline of the Arctic sea ice is not only a visible sign of climate change but possibly the most important example of an amplifying feedback that is kicking in and may be impossible to reverse. So it's worthwile to follow the development.
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