Arguments
A climate 'Gish Gallop' of epic proportions
Posted on 25 March 2011 by John Cook
If there's one thing global warming skeptics like to do, it's recycle. But alas, not "good for the environment" type recycling. Instead, they dig up old climate myths taken from the scrapheap of scientific history, sometimes debunked decades ago in the peer-reviewed literature. They dust them off and jettison them back into cyberspace. Another form of recycling is the adoption of misinformation techniques used in other areas of science. The tobacco industry mastered the merchandising of doubt - techniques that were readily adopted by climate skeptics.
Another misinformation technique originating from the creation/evolution debate is the "Gish Gallop", named after Duane Gish who in a debate spewed forth an endless torrent of talking points, rendering constructive debate impossible. You have to be crazy to attempt to answer all the points of a Gish Gallop. Crazy or Skeptical Science's own Dana "cyborg" Nuccitelli, who over just the last month tackled Gish Gallops from Lubos Motl, John Christy and Gregg Thompson.
A new Powerpoint originating in Australia, "Reconsidering Climate Change" (WARNING! 108 MB!), takes the Gish Gallop to new levels. Over the past 4 years, we here at Skeptical Science have been gradually accumulating the many skeptic arguments that propagate through the blogosphere. Nearly all of these arguments have been singlehandedly crammed into a single Powerpoint presentation. I read most of the Powerpoint, dutifully noting all the arguments it raised, although I confess I wasn't able to get past the extended rant about how those convinced that humans were causing global warming were akin to Nazis. Sorry, but I have better things to do with my time than listen to that nonsense.
Nevertheless, the number of arguments used up to that point were extensive. Here is a list of them all as well as one-liner rebuttals (which link to much more detailed rebuttals, often featuring multiple levels of information):
One last note: the Powerpoint mentions Skeptical Science in the middle of the presentation, but unfortunately links to the wrong URL, skepticalscience.com.au. However, as there are so many other errors to correct, I've registered skepticalscience.com.au and redirected it to skepticalscience.com. One less error to correct!
I would advise that you edit the post to advise that the pps file for download is over 100MB mind you, which is a ludicrous size for a presentation slide deck.
[DB] Done, thanks! It took over 3 hours just to pull the links out of the file.
How did we wind up in a position where even science is so politicized that accuracy no longer matters to a large portion of the public???
This guy should have its name on a Gish Gallop scale - all other gallops would be measured as to what extent they compare to this one.
"Trenberth was talking about the details of energy flow - not whether global warming was happening".
Not quite true.
Trenberth was highlighting the fact that in Aug09 when his now famous paper was published - he could not account for more than about 60% of the warming imbalance which was postulated by Hansen in 2005 (0.9W/sq.m)
Since then; Knox and Douglas published a paper in Aug10 which showed that 2003-08 data for OHC contect was flat or slightly negative (cooling)for the top 700m and deep ocean of approx +0.09W/sq.m (Purkey & Johnson).
Five Argo studies for 0-700m OHC by Willis, Loehle, Pielke, Douglas & Knox show **negative** OHC change, while von Schukmann (0-2000m) is the outlier showing +0.77W/sq.m.
I would like know if the Knox & Douglas paper has been contradicted or its findings overturned by more recent studies.
If not, then Trenberth's lack of warming is still with us, and in fact has gone from finding 60% of Hansen's 0.9W/sq.m to finding almost **none** of it.
I would have thought this was a serious problem for the whole theory of a positive warming imbalance.
[DB] Trenberth discusses this issue directly here on this very recent and still active Skeptical Science thread: Teaching Climate Science; a post wholly devoted to Dr. Trenberth and his work.
In addition to the Sun being cooler, the Earth was hotter -- at times a *lot* hotter -- than it is now.
According to Dr. Richard Alley (in his memorable 2009 AGU talk), sea surface temperatures approached 100F in the tropics during the Cretaceous Hothouse period. But along with 100F sea surface temperatures, you will get dangerous levels of atmospheric heat and humidity, as in dew points well over 90F. Once the dew-point hits 95 F or so, *everyone* caught outside in conditions like that for more than a few hours will die of heat-stroke. Everyone.
To keep your body's core from overheating, your skin temperature needs to be kept at 95F or below. Get dew points near or above 95F, and this becomes impossible.
If we woke up to a Cretaceous Hothouse climate tomorrow, billions of people would die of heat stroke long before they had a chance to starve to death.
A CO2 hothouse climate is incompatible with human existence.
This was covered nicely in this most excellent skepticalscience piece last year: Heat-stress-setting-an-upper-limit-on-what-we-can-adapt-to
Now, how to summarize all this in a nice sound bite...
Maybe something like this?
"CO2 was higher in the past" --> "It was also hot enough to kill most humans in a few hours."
This was the first time I have seen your one liners to counter a long Gish Gallop. I thought that they were very effective.
"Ken L #4 - the Knox and Douglass paper you reference was a horrid example of cherrypicking. See Monckton Myth #1, Cooling Oceans for a better analysis of all available data."
What precisely is a 'horrid example' of cherrypicking?
Lyman 2010 was published in March 2010, Knox & Douglas in August 2010.
Are you saying that more recent papers have refuted the Knox and Douglas results? Nothing in the link to 'Monckton Myth #1' indicates that.
"[DB] Trenberth discusses this issue directly here on this very recent and still active Skeptical Science thread: Teaching Climate Science; a post wholly devoted to Dr. Trenberth and his work."
Dr Trenberth's lecture was presented at the Symposium on Climate Change Effects on Fish and Fisheries, Sendai, Japan, 26-29 April 2009.
This predates his August 2009 paper and the more recent Lyman and K&D results.
Again where is a recent refutation of the K & D results?
Last time I looked the 'Measured" CERES figure quoted for the warming imbalance was +6.4W/sq.m
This plainly impossible number is then 'corrected' down to 0.9W/sq.m by a process which is the equivalent of a circular scientific argument.
The argument is goes like this: " Hansen (2005) thinks it is about 0.85 +/-0.15, - +0.9 for short. We build up a number of heating and cooling forcings by modelling and maths which sums to +0.9W/sq.m ".
"We then 'correct' the +6.4W/sq.m down to +0.9W/sq.m and say that the meaurement agrees with the modelling!!"
So CBD what is your latest information on the direct measurement of the imbalance?
I conducted a private correspondence with Dr Trenberth in early 2010. He is a 'class act' and was very generous with time devoted to responding while travelling to conferences etc.
Since I have not asked his permission to make public any of this exchange, I am not at liberty to quote any part of it here.
However, Since Dr Pielke responded to SKS in a very interesting thread - would you consider asking Dr Trenberth to respond on SKS to a number of questions regarding the current state of knowledge on the whole subject of warming imbalance and OHC measurement?
I am sure many regular contributors would jump at the chance to participate. Me (and I hope BP) would be happy to ask some questions.
[DB] That is a great suggestion! We'll look into it; thanks for taking the time to make it!
dana1981 and CBD:
Any futher comment or am I to assume that my points are accepted as correct?
There are too many other measurements confirming this imbalance. Consider the standard 'Trenberth diagram' of various energy flows within the climate system. These values were not just made up, but rather each is based on measurements and analysis. That is, we have long measured incoming solar radiation and identified its range of fluctuation (fairly small)... measurements of increased 'back radiation' from the greenhouse effect have been taken at the surface and found to correlate with expected results from the models, as have satellite measurements of decreased outgoing radiation in the same bands. Et cetera. The point being that these values are not just randomly spit out of a climate model in complete isolation. Each is checked against real world data to whatever extent possible.
Yes, there are many uncertainties, but when all available data points to a positive warming imbalance there are simply no grounds for claiming that imbalance is in question.
"The point being that these values are not just randomly spit out of a climate model in complete isolation. Each is checked against real world data to whatever extent possible."
Quite right CBD. The emphasis is on 'to watever extent possible',
The famous Trenberth diagram of energy flows shows TSI of approx 340 incoming, roughly 100 reflected and 240 outgoing.
Finding 0.9 in 240 is 0.375%. Are any of these quantities being measured to this accuracy?
A small change in reflection due to cloud changes can have a big effect on a difference as small as 0.9.
These are very good questions for Dr Trenberth - exactly which of the numbers are really solid and which are implied to produce the imbalance of 0.9.