by John Ridgway
How an emergent scientific consensus results from social engineering enabled by prosocial censorship.
A recent research paper published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argued that both self-censorship and the prosocial censorship of colleagues are commonplace within the sciences — and the problem is only getting worse. Some of the figures make for grim reading:
“A recent national survey of US faculty at four-year colleges and universities found the following: 1) 4 to 11% had been disciplined or threatened with discipline for teaching or research; 2) 6 to 36% supported soft punishment (condemnation, investigations) for peers who make controversial claims, with higher support among younger, more left-leaning, and female faculty; 3) 34% had been pressured by peers to avoid controversial research; 4) 25% reported being ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ likely to self-censor in academic publications; and 5) 91% reported being at least somewhat likely to self-censor in publications, meetings, presentations, or on social media.”
The case of Lennart Bengtsson
On 30th April 2014 a Swedish meteorologist caused shock waves to reverberate across the international community of climate scientists. This was not because he had made a major discovery, nor had he been involved in a scientific scandal. But what he had done was to commit the cardinal sin of joining the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). The reason why to some this was so shocking was because he wasn’t just any old Swedish meteorologist; he was Professor Lennart Bengtsson, the former head of research at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts before becoming its director until 1990. He had then moved on to become director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. Amongst his many accolades he had been awarded the Milutin Milankovic Medal in 1996, the René Descartes Prize for Collaborative Research in 2005, and the 51st International Meteorological Organization Prize of the World Meteorological Organization in 2006. In 2009 he was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in recognition of his contribution to meteorology.
Only a fortnight later the same Swedish meteorologist caused an aftershock by resigning from the same foundation. The self-appointed guardians of scientific truth at DeSmog will tell you that it was because he hadn’t quite realised what a shower of reprobates he had joined and so he quickly learned to regret his actions. However, this is what Bengtsson said in his resignation letter:
“I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF…Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc. I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.”
Bengtsson’s censorious colleagues seemed quick to prove his point by denouncing his accusation that they had denounced him. Gavin Schmidt, for example, dismissed his reference to McCarthyism as being “ridiculous”, suggesting instead that it was the brave scientists such as himself who were the real victims of a witch hunt.
Appalling though it may seem that Professor Bengtsson should have been treated this way, he cannot claim to have not seen it coming. Earlier that same year a paper, in which he had the temerity to suggest that the projected warming was unlikely to be anywhere near as bad as others had maintained, was rejected by the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters on the basis that his findings were “less than helpful“. By way of clarification, the peer reviewer concerned added the reproof, “actually it [the paper] is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate-skeptic media side“. When Bengtsson and others, such as meteorologist Hans von Storch, condemned the rejection as scandalous, the journal’s publisher was eager to play down the comments made by the peer reviewer, claiming instead that the paper simply did not meet the journal’s high standards. Yes, that old chestnut.
Prosocial censorship
What Bengtsson had in fact been subjected to is prosocial censorship. It is a form of censorship in which work is rejected, and individuals cancelled, not because the work is substandard or flawed, but because it threatens to undermine a cherished ideology or someone else’s concept of societal safety and harmony. Such censorship is never portrayed as such, of course; the reason given is always that the individual(s) concerned were peddling substandard work leading to harmful misinformation.
For example, if you were to be an Emeritus Professor of Risk with an international reputation for expertise in forensic statistics, but you then produced work that called into question government figures that seemed to be misrepresenting the severity of a pandemic or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, you could expect your career to be cancelled on the basis that you are peddling harmful misinformation.
If, for example, you were to be a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist with more than fifteen years of experience pioneering psychotherapy for patients with gender dysphoria, but you then dared to say that everything in your professional experience had led you to the inescapable conclusion that transgender activists were guilty of promoting inappropriate physical interventions to deal with a basically psychological problem, then you could expect to be denounced as “the most evil dangerous Nazi Psychiatrist in the world” — and a transphobe for good measure.
If, for example, you were a physicist at CERN with a bright future ahead of you, but were then to suggest that the unbalanced gender representation within your field had nothing to do with patriarchy and everything to do with inherent gender traits, then you could expect to be vilified as a misogynist and ostracised by your fellow scientists.
And if, for example, you were to be a prominent climate scientist who had pointed out that self-censorship was rife within your field and that it was responsible for the absence of papers published in prominent journals that quantify both the climatic and non-climatic causations of wildfires, then you could expect the likes of the Grantham Institute’s Bob Ward to bleat that “Unfortunately, his bogus narrative has predictably been seized upon by the opponents of action to tackle climate change“. Worse still, none other than Professor Ken Rice (think poor man’s Sabine Hossenfelder) would be moved to refer to you as if you are now dead to them:
“Given that there can be preferred narratives within scientific communities, it is always good for there to be people who are regarded as credible and who push back against them. Even if you don’t agree with them, they can still present views that are worth thinking about. In my view, Patrick used to be one of those people.” [His emphasis]
Oh, the shame of it all!
In the above examples, the common narrative is one of a previously respected expert who had sadly fallen from grace because they couldn’t help themselves and had allowed their toxic opinions to compromise their ability to stick to the truth. As a consequence, they instantaneously transform into incompetent bad actors who are a danger to society, heartily deserving of prompt and emphatic prosocial censorship.
To be clear, these are not isolated examples.
There are, however, trends to be observed. Censorship is more of a problem in the social sciences than within STEM faculties. Women are keener to censor than are their male colleagues. And whilst right-leaning academics are more likely to engage in self-censorship, the left-leaning are far more likely to approve of the prosocial censorship of a colleague. Since prosocial censorship biases both the selection and promotion of staff members, it follows that the system is currently structured in such a way as to entrench the preponderance of left-leaning academics in senior positions. Worse still, the appetite for prosocial censorship is greater within the ranks of the PhDs than it is within faculty staff, suggesting that – to borrow a turn of phrase favoured by climate scientists – the problem is baked in for the future.
As the terminology suggests, those who advocate prosocial censorship will often do so for what they perceive to be the best of possible motives. Most commonly, the intention is to prevent research from being appropriated by “malevolent actors to support harmful policies and attitudes”. Sometimes the research is considered too dangerous to pursue, and in many other cases the censorship is aimed at protecting vulnerable groups. However, no matter how well-intended, the censorship comes with many obvious risks, the clearest of which is the possible suppression of the truth in the cause of a ‘greater good’.
At its most petty, all that may be at stake is one person’s reputation at the expense of a competitor. At its most extreme, prosocial censorship could involve a “wilful blindness of authorities” covering up a heinous crime for fear of offending a section of society, or for fear of giving encouragement to a right-wing that is assumed to be looking for any excuse to destabilise. Somewhere in the middle are the concerns harboured by the climate sceptic. Whilst we understand that science is not supposed to operate by consensus, we would, nevertheless, like to believe that an emergent consensus is the result of a developing common knowledge, rather than the result of social engineering enabled by prosocial censorship. Unfortunately, knowing that Professor Bengtsson’s experiences are far from unique does nothing to encourage such a belief. And, when all is said and done, that is the greatest shame of all. Prosocial censorship may seem a good idea, but it isn’t in the least bit desirable when it undermines the integrity of a discipline and causes widespread distrust amongst the wider community.
Compelling and alarming analysis. It is a profound matter if concern that this sort of subversion of science and the scientific method is carrying such influence on public policy. The impact is extremely consequential. It seems increasingly evident that very serious and costly public policy initiatives are informed by bogus and dangerously misleading data mistakenly attributed to senior scientists with the support of equally corrupt scientific journals. This is a scandal. But it is also a crisis. Dishonesty is corrosive and abusive of the public realm. It is a mystery why any credible scientist can assent to such a level of deceit.
This posting is well worth sharing. Someone with the proper credentials to question consensus, is prevented from working with others who question consensus. Proper science requires the questioning of consensus. Honest Science “Requires” the Questioning of Consensus!
An unusual percent of people who are members of the skeptical Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) are older people. That is because it is much easier to honestly question consensus after retirement when there is no career that will be destroyed. Some questioned while they were still working and lost their jobs.
I would say that
a) there is a natural tendency to become more conservative as a person ages. Just a normal part of aging.
b) we have developed far more wisdom as we age. We have a greater grasp of history, greater grasp of basic science, we have seen far more fads over the years , we may not be able to point to the specific scientific error in a narrow field of science, but we have far greater grasp of basic logic and other skills that come with age and thus are better able to ascertain the reasonableness alleged scientific conclusions.
Not quite:
a) Wikipedia (on Plato) makes a damning statement on the human element; the general listener; that few are capable to follow reasoned argumentation. I add, many are not, and some are even less interested in doing so. It is easier to repeat others than to think out. In ‘general aeronautics’, angels and SpaceX flights are equally accepted.
Remember Jacob Bronowski : “It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.”
B) No. That is equivalent to saying “the science is settled”. It is not settled; not by a long mile. Especially the climate matter, the root of the subject controversy. Both side are wrong, and both side are working from the same wrong perspective, basically the Milankovitch theory, and earlier the Stockwell/Newcomb assertion.
Anyone with a modicum of grey matter, and a more plentiful number of years, knows that this is a natural general human failing. Such is the human world.
Years ago when medical advise said for prospective retirees to find alternative interest, I ventured from engineering into Archaeology. Only to find that archaeology authors wrote their minds only after retirement; and only then you got their true opinion about historical matters. The one that near 1942 said most civilisations collapse around 4k2 yrs ago was from natural events was otracised.
It is not so frequent in engineering because nature has a way of getting back to you to bite if one is wrong.
At least the fellows as in above have not fared like Giordano Bruno.
In a social world one has to sing from the same hymn sheet. It is so in the ant world, and they see no problem with “gender dysphoria”, and they might even get a ride to the moon with another more foolish but more mentally messed up species. You see, no one ever told the sardines that consensus is their greatest enemy for survival.
Group membership confers advantages. But is also our Achilles Heel as a species. We will believe and repeat irrational things just to belong.
Actually, many, a large percent of people who questioned consensus lost their jobs, many were attacked by lawfare, I will not list all the harm that was done, much of it is well known.
When only retirees can tell the truth as they see it science is incompatible with discovering new truths.
Correct me if I am wrong –
1 My understanding/impresssion is that S McIntyre was a paleo peer reviewer up until the time that he requested actual source data as part of his peer review process
2) my observation / impression is that there is considerable criticism of S McIntyre’s person/compentency etc but little or no criticism of any specific error that he has reported on. ie nothing rebutting why any claim that S McIntyre analytical work on a specific study/proxie/math error was invalid
Joe K,
After careful study and old-fashioned fact checking, I for one have been unable to find disagreements about Stephen McIntyre’s public criticisms of various climate change research papers. It has been refreshing to learn from McIntyre about the value of compelling, detailed analysis rather than a mere short personal comment that it is wrong.
If history is to be recorded fairly, McIntyre and Ross McKitrick should live on as top examples of the use of the internet and the blog as effective methods for information leading to widespread societal change. They deserve fame in this field. Geoff S
Geoff – That was my observation – lots of name calling McIntrye & Mckitrick as old cranks (or what ever). But virtually no rebuttals disputing any of their scientific findings or criticisms of their critique of the paleo studies. Ie the paleo world has to resort to insults as defensive mechanisms since they cant overcome the actual science
I’d expect it becomes harder to do prosocial censorship when the policies to be protected are generating highly visible calamities in the politics and economies of venues like Britain and Germany. Or being challenged as they were on January 20th in the Executive Orders on climate and energy policy that came out of the new US Administration. (See links at whitehouse.gov)
As incentives change, the ice will begin to break.
“Prosocial censorship” is nothing more than a form of Noble Cause Corruption.
An excellent article, thank you.
Speaking of despicable bought and paid for opinions by scientific hacks, has the data for the Hockey Stick paper been released by Mann yet.
my understanding is that all the data has been released with the exception of the statistical verification results (r2 stats? ) ie the statistical results which confirm the robustness of the statistical validation. word on the street is the HS is not very robust. My apologies if I am using incorrect terms for the statistical results
And Mann etc, get away with grossly misleading the public, and taking legal action against those that challenged him.
Perhaps they need someone similar to Musk to go in and sort out the corruption in the universities, the same as Robert Kennedy Jr is planning to do in the Health sector.
Perhaps removing the control of the global banking industry away from the elite Jewish community may be the best place to start.
The rot starts at the top,and money controls all of these areas.
Just this week I received this from a grad school colleague:
“…. but remain an Emeritus Lab Fellow. I am still working on a few more papers that need to be written and submitted, but I am happy to be avoiding the inane bureaucracy of national labs. I am responding from my gmail so that I can say what I really think, vs. things I should not say from a “.gov” e-mail address. ”
Nothing in our email exchanges was at all controversial- we caught up on family things and discussed the closing of a 150 year old brewery in WI; we attended grad school at UW Madison. Yes, self censoring is alive, tho more toxic than well.
Thanks, John.
“However, no matter how well-intended, the censorship comes with many obvious risks, the clearest of which is the possible suppression of the truth in the cause of a ‘greater good’.” That sort of says it all.
Fortunately censorship free widely available and easy to publish formats for academic and research journals are emerging. The nascent Journal of Global Surgery is a great example: https://jogs.one/
Take the time to check it out and alert your academic colleagues to its existence and the possibility of others like it in the future. It is the way forward in pursuit of Truth in academic and scientific pursuits allowing all view points a uncensored voice.
This looks really promising.
Since the seventies, as millions have died, been injured, displaced and lost their livelihoods, a large community comprised of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), universities, governmental agencies, various institutions and enterprises and those in their employ, including thousands of scientists and public officials, have focused solely on and advocated the policy of reducing CO2 emissions as the way to fight global warming.
This “de-carbon industry” has reaped hundreds of billions in grants, revenues and carbon taxes, as the resulting increases in average, annual, global, economic costs from carbon emission reductions rose in the trillions.
The “proof ” the de-carbon faction offers that the increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 drives global warming is that at the same time the average global temperature is rising—ergo, the increasing concentration of CO2 is driving global warming.
Most agree with this point and that consensus is relatively easy to build and maintain when the scientific publications edited by the academic elements of this faction deny publication of any inconsistent suggestions out of hand and hold sway among the media and therefore with governments and society.
This censorship is not unlike how the concept of geocentricity (the Earth is the center of the universe) was generally accepted, holding sway for centuries, in part because the Sun and the sky rose in the East and set in the West and it was advocated by the Church. Disagreeing publicly meant being tried as a heretic, possibly being tortured and burned alive and in any event excluded from communion and denied entrance to heaven. This stood directly in the way of the advancement of science for several centuries.
The combination of the incuriosity of the de-carbon community and this censorship stand directly in the way of the growth and development of climate science.
Gee. Didn’t even need to mention our hostess or Roger Pielke Jr. Too many examples to choose from, I guess.
Thomas, Indeed there are far too many examples, including the ones you cite. And of course, it works both ways. Someone earlier mentioned Michael Mann, an individual who has benefitted greatly from the protection of the prosocial censors whilst maintaining that he suffers immensely from the attentions of what he calls an ‘orc army’ of denialists:
https://cliscep.com/2024/12/21/the-evil-of-banality/
I have a t-shirt with ORCS TO WIN printed on it.
And as I commented on another forum, your phrase
“Professor Ken Rice (think poor man’s Sabine Hossenfelder) …” is wonderous, as ad hom as it is.
By the way, Sabine is herself guilty of a glib double tongue – she added another line to the standard CO2 IR absorption range graph (to increase the apparent range and make it scarier) and then flicked away the question of data for her extra graph line. Oh well …
Roger Pielke Jr. has a recent Substack post where he provides a lot of new details on how his university tried to hound him out:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-get-rid-of-a-tenured-professor
Those concerned with censorship might want to comment on this latest move by the new US administration:
“Experts who serve on outside advisory panels on a range of topics, from antibiotic resistance to deafness, received emails on Wednesday telling them their meetings had been canceled.
The cancellations followed a directive issued on Tuesday by the acting director of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, who prohibited the release of any public communication until it had been reviewed by a presidential appointee or designee, according to federal officials and an internal memo reviewed by The New York Times.”
Only a Trump appointee can now be trusted for scientific truth, apparently.
(from this morning’s NYTimes.)
David, If that is true, then you are quite right to be concerned, as should everyone. Whether censorship be prosocial, self-imposed or crudely administered, it is hardly the right instrument to ensure the emergence of truth.
Considering how much nonsense, propoganda and misinformation came out of the previous administration this is a good move.
It’s rotten to the core and as we saw during Trump’s last term there was an active ‘insurrection’ within all branches of government to undermine Trump and the will of the people.
Everything needs to be examined.
If you are worried about the truth you should welcome this news instead of helping the disgraced NYT, whose only purpose is to push Democrat and deep state propoganda.
“Only a Trump appointee can now be trusted for scientific truth, apparently”
David’s take is that legacy communication protocols should not be filtered through this new administrations oversight, it’s very concerning to him–presumably we should not accept any authority not sanctioned first by prosocial overseers, regardless of voter trust in any administration not sanctioned first by collectivist authority, the command structure of truth.
It appears David doesn’t see the concerns in this respective essay.
His is a rather odd, cynical, and indeed, hypocritical take. While the flow of information is obviously now being filtered, David’s argument is that while the flow of information through a legacy Biden appointed construct is truth, obvuously, anything else not sanctioned by collectivist sensibility must be a lie; as a scientist, I’m sure Fauci would agree.
Right, David. Any employee of the Federal government should have the right to publish anything it pleases with no review whatsoever. Right.
Review of all communications by employees and consultants representing an organization to the outside world is universally established and accepted SOP.
“”…according to federal officials and an internal memo reviewed by The New York Times.”” – That statement is reason to be suspicious of the reports legitimacy…. we saw these misleading reports time and time again only to find out the truth was nowhere close.
Many media outlets have destroyed their credibility over the years.
It does however, stand to reason the incoming administration would want to review public releases from career employees to ensure it is not undermining their efforts or issuing regulatory guidance as was directed by the boss.
Ensuring they are not sowing seeds for the agenda driven administration that just left.
Western academia’s war on ‘deniers’…
A task becoming high priority is an investigation of the ownership and control of the publishers of the main scientific journals. Some have been complicit in forcing redactions of submitted papers that could have affected the overall progress of proper science.
Was it mainly for money?
Geoff S
One of Western academia’s most memorable ‘deniers’-
“Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential.” ~William Gray
“Mann et al. [about 1999]… concluded that, “the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium.” This conclusion was greeted like the triumphal return of Jesus Christ. Decades of work was overturned by one journal article. The MWP [Medieval Warm Period] had been reinterpreted out of existence. Within a few days, the research by Mann and his colleagues passed from analysis to fact… Four years later, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas (2003) reviewed more than 200 previous studies and concluded that the evidence for the existence and global extent of both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age was well established. It was hardly a controversial result, yet the Soon and Baliunas (2003) paper was greeted by a firestorm of controversy. Three editors of the academic journal in which the study had been published resigned in protest.” ~David Deming, ‘Global Warming, the Politicization of Science, and Michael Crichton’s State of Fear.’ JSE. 2005 Jun;19(2).
Seconded by John Smith.
Sure, when did Gray say that. Has he seen the last decade – nope – he has been dead. Incorrect things dead ‘deniers’ said a decade ago don’t carry a lot of weight today (as if they ever did).
Gray has been dead since 2016. Like you, he has nothing relevant to say about recent temperature changes.
Throwing unwarranted insults
And, the war on ‘deniers’ continues-
Much like the demonizing political propaganda employed by the Left in the closing days of the ’24 presidential election, Erin Prater (Fortune) reported that, “Climate deniers are like the Uvalde police ‘waiting outside an unlocked door while the children were being massacred,’ Al Gore says.” (July 24, 2022)
Yep, also true.
yes – its true that you throw unwarranted insults –
For some, comparing themselves to Galileo or victims of Mccarthy or Lysenko will never get old.
The victim-card has no expiration date. It can be played forever.
Joshua, I can’t help but think it is you who is peddling a tired old rhetoric here. Serious people have spent serious time researching this problem and the least you could do is spend some time to take it on board. Do you have anything sensible to say regarding the paper cited at the head of the article?
John –
I remember the Bengstonn incident being discussed here at Climate Etc.Acl in the day, and the melodramatic comparisons to Mccarthyism and Lysenkoism and the like. I think there’s no “research” that will make such snowflake pearl-clutching any less ridiculous.
I see no problem whatsoever with good faith and level-headed about discussions the pros and cons and reasonable boundaries of phenomena like self-censorship. In fact. I think it’s absolutely an interesting subject for serious dicussion. But I see no reason to take it seriously when people seek merely to game these phenomena to push their ideological agendas. You will, I’m sure, have plenty of favorable responses to reinforce your already made up mind. And I’m sure they’ll have no problem with facile comparisons of (mis)treatment of people like Bengston to how people where (mis)treated by McCarthy or Lysenko.
I will say it’s a good sense of timing to post this now, when there will undoubtedly be many who are very unsettled about the Trump administration codifying legally and otherwise, self-censorship across the entire scientific and public health research communities in the US. I can assure you that if you want to see people dismissing the importance of such self–{and non-self)-censorship, and in fact actually applauding it, the comments section here will be a good go to location.
John –
From that previous Climate Etc., discussion (with minor edits).
McCarthyism clearly isn’t enough [to fully capture just how horribly Bengsston was treated]. Even “reign of terror” is insufficient.
The Alamo was a tea party in comparison. The killing fields just a walk in the park. The inquisition like an outing to Chuck E Cheese’s with the kids.
Yup. Permian Mass Extinction it is. Anything less just doesn’t paint the picture.
https://judithcurry.com/2014/05/14/lennart-bengtsson-resigns-from-the-gwpf/#comment-555290
Pingback: The scourge of prosocial censorship – Climate- Science.press
Joshua, So let me see if I’ve got this right. You are prepared to discuss the issue but not with me because you presume me to have already made my mind up and I would be unreceptive to reason.
You should be aware that such impertinence does not sit well with your reluctance to address the evidence. So I will give you one last chance. Do you have anything sensible to say regarding the paper I cited at the head of this article?
John –
To each his own. I skimmed the article, but as such it didn’t seem very profound to me. Yes, self-censorship, motivated by a variety of reasons including “prosocial” reasons, can have a negative impact. The same is true, of external censorship. That seems blindingly obvious to me.
While I like that the article recognized that there’s generally a balance that needs to be struck because both can have a reasonable positive rationale as well, I don’t think it added much insight (if any) in how to evaluate that balance. For example, as far as I saw in my skim, it didn’t even dig very far into what “self-censorship” actually means in a variety of contexts.
I’m generally in favor of open expression of a diversity of views. I have been so as long as I have thought about these issues. I think that generally, society benefits from a balanced diversity. But I see a lot of what I consider unserious focus on that issue, where effectively the issue is leveraged for people to push ideological agendas. There are so many great examples. Like Musk being considered an icon of “free speech” even as he’s a blatant hypocrite on that issue. Or the way “free speech” has been a motivating issue among people who want to systematically prevent critics of Israel from expressing their opinions. There’s surely been a problem with a lack of diversity within academia but I look at it as a signal amidst the noise of a longer term trend of greater expressive agency among a wider cross-section of our society. Better calibration should always be a goal, but histrionic and exaggerated histrionics, are not a particularly optimal approach. And neither is a strengthening movement of “censorship” from the other side. Consider how many people in academia will now feel reluctant to stress “diversity” as a goal even if they feel it to be an important one.
I tend to think that the histrionics are also just part of the noise amidst the signal, and I hope that after time a better equilibrium will be the outcome. At least that’s how I’m looking at the near future when it seems pretty obvious to me that the next 20 years or so won’t pass the censorship shoe on the other foot test.
So as I said earlier, I’m all for a discussion of how to better strike these balances. If you see insight from the article in that regard, do point me to it. But just more use of the issue to push an ideological agenda I find more amusing than interesting.
One place to start might be if you consider the list of examples you referenced – each clearly intended to focus only on one side of the issue. It seemed to me no more, really, than a rhetorical flex of the muscles, not a real engagement.
Joshua, If you want to talk about “real engagement”, perhaps you could lead by example. That means no more skim reading, and no more statements such as “I think there’s no ‘research’ that will make such snowflake pearl-clutching any less ridiculous”. It also means respecting the relevance that my examples had to the points I wished to address, rather than insisting that I address instead the issues you feel more important. This is not an article intended to address the pros and cons of the online debate on censorship, nor does it even cover the pros and cons of prosocial censorship within academia. Instead, the intention is to point out the prevalence of such censorship and to raise the concern that it may lead to academic monocultures. This is, after all, the relevant point, because a lot of people hold the preconception that a scientific consensus can be taken at face value, so any factors that undermine that confidence will surely be of concern.
As for your accusation that the examples I offered were “clearly intended to focus only on one side of the issue”, what on earth did you expect the examples to have focused upon? The subject here is prosocial censorship in academia, which is characterised by the censorious rejection of heterodox views within academic debates that have a moral dimension; hence why I focused upon examples in which there was censorious rejection of heterodox views within academic debates that have a moral dimension! Furthermore, I find the accusation that the examples were “no more, really, than a rhetorical flex of the muscles, not a real engagement” to be preposterous. The last example I offered referred to the Patrick T. Brown affair, in which a climate scientist claimed that self-censorship was rife within his field but was then rewarded with a level of censorious treatment that one might have expected from Scientologists dealing with a Suppressive Person, rather than from fellow scientists dealing with a person’s sincere plea that there be more reflexive consideration. I don’t see how this example could be any less rhetorical or more engaged with the subject of my article (which is the only engagement required). It’s a perfect example of the concerns raised by it and the paper it cites. But if you want to discuss a different matter, then I’m sure there are plenty on the internet who will entertain you. After all, as you said, each to their own.
John –
I’ll get to more of this later when I have more time, but this:
Brown affair, in which a climate scientist claimed that self-censorship was rife within his field but was then rewarded with a level of censorious treatment that one might have expected from Scientologists dealing with a Suppressive Person, rather than from fellow scientists dealing with a person’s sincere plea that there be more reflexive consideration.
…is a perfect example of what I was talking about. There was a range of response to Brown. But you basically vaporized any of the response that wouldn’t fit into your cartoonist depiction. And perhaps less aggregious but (imo) still problematic, you ignored any complexity to the response at the more extreme end do the spectrum. This kind of harvesting of low hanging fruit and flattening of the landscape is suboptimal, imo, and in net effect does more to reinforce battle lines than to open a road towards progress. Of course, sometimes you have to blow up existing paradigms to refashion new ones. The pendulum is going to swing. But people don’t need to push it harder to make it swing further. (Sorry for such a mixture of metaphors.)
Joshua, That there was a widespread backlash to Professor Brown is well-documented. That the existence of this backlash is relevant to the concern I’ve raised in my article is blindingly obvious. For your benefit I will repeat, for the very last time, the point being made: Censorious behaviour, no matter how well-intended or nuanced, can lead to a monoculture, which is a bad thing when the integrity of a consensus is important. It is because I am making that point that I restrict myself to examples of such behaviour. No vaporizing, no cartoon drawing.
I have nothing further to add. I am done with this circus and all your talk of ideological agendas and battle-lines. I feel like I’ve attracted the attention of a drunkard on the last bus, determined to pick a fight.
I dont know why I am surprised, but the minute Joshua and B A Bushaw appear on this blog, the quality of comment goes down rapidly and the insults flow. In Bushaw’s case anybody who writes off Steve McIntyre in one sentence, probably deserves every insult and more. There is a serious debate to be had about Climate Change but not with either of the aforementioned. As soon as they appear I ignore all comments.
By the way very interesting article Mr Ridgeway, but don’t waste you time on either Joshua or Bushaw
What is the serious debate about climate change?
” As soon as they appear I ignore all comments.” Self negation is always entertaining.
Bushaw,
Soon after your first comments on Climate Etc., I commented that others should beware of your intentions. Later I appealed to you to slow down your flooding of this blog.
I will say again to readers that Bushaw is not of neutral intent. He has exhibited a determination to scoff at serious articles and to be rude to many who hold opinions that differ from his.
In short, Bushaw is a blog pest, perhaps once a worthy Scientist but now showing adequate anti-science conduct to be dismissed.
You can make up your own minds if you want to read him if he remains here, filling Climate Etc. with a lot of low-grade comment and, I surmise, driving away some readers who do not want to stomach this.
Maybe that is his purpose in Life.
Sound the warning bell for incoming insults. Geoff S
Geoff,
So you can’t answer the question either: What is the serious debate about climate change? Seems to me to be a simple case of paranoia vs. science, and science is winning. You insult me, I’ll insult right back: You claim to be a scientist, either that is a lie, or you are not much of one. If I make you uncomfortable, I’m good with it – you should be.
I appreciate your post, Howard.
Collectivists, like BAB/Josh, normalize collectivist thinking; for them science is the mean of expert thought–they have no original thinking to offer beyond regurgitating IPCC guardrails, which BTW, represents a 50/50 mix of science filtered through politics, as IPCC bylaws define. Their rationalizations represent the quintessential dividing line between critical thought, and ideology.
There’s an essential question that all collectivists (the prosocial class) can’t responsibly answer; how can groupthink advance science when funding for climate science requires fealty to prosocial censorship sensitivity? Said science has become a paramount equity consideration.
One can only be a critical thinker as an individualist, one can’t be a critical thinker as a collectivist. Averaging, the “mean” of thinking, can never articulate truth because, by default, it’s the homogenization of average thought.
Pushing politics into science equations creates an oxymoron that all collectivists are more than willing to embrace.
Prosocial censorship is collectivism, no unequivocal science answer will not come from it, with the possible exception for science that has no political utility.
Jungletrunks,
There are two relevant notions here. The first is the notion of the wisdom of the crowd. Professor Tim Palmer invoked this notion in his book “The Primacy of Doubt” in order to explain why climate model ensembles perform better than individual models. More recently, Van der Linden, Lewandowsky, Cook and Oreskes wrote a paper invoking the same concept to justify prosocial censorship in the form of fact-checking (they are on a crusade to protect truth and democracy from the orcs, don’t you know). Specifically, they invoked Condorcet’s Jury Theorem to explain why the consensus should always be respected. Unfortunately, what all these people don’t seem to take into account is that the so-called wisdom is compromised just as soon as the crowd start to think as a group. This has been mathematically demonstrated:
https://cliscep.com/2024/07/16/the-wisdom-of-crowds/
The truth is that there can be no wisdom of the crowd without independence of thought. That is why one should remain wary of climate model ensembles, and that is why fact-checking may not be such a good idea.
The second notion is that the integrity of the scientific method is enough to ensure that the vagaries and vicissitudes introduced by the human condition can be readily corrected for, and that is why a scientific consensus can always be taken at face value. Where one stands on this point basically determines whether you are in the orc army or are one of its detractors. To clarify my own position, it’s not that I cannot see value in a scientific consensus, it’s that I worry when naivety puts the consensus on a pedestal. There are just too many non-epistemological factors at play, particularly when the science is being employed in the pursuit of a political agenda. I’ve written many times on this subject, most recently here:
https://cliscep.com/2025/01/01/three-cheers-for-the-ipcc/
Thanks for the great essay, John.
“To clarify my own position, it’s not that I cannot see value in a scientific consensus, it’s that I worry when naivety puts the consensus on a pedestal. There are just too many non-epistemological factors at play, particularly when the science is being employed in the pursuit of a political agenda.”
I’m sympathetic with these sensibilities, “political agenda” being the operative phrase. There is certainly good science being done, we see a good amount of quality work posted on CE. Consensus becomes damaging to science when it’s politically used as a cudgel for enforcement, covid is another recent example; climate science has been a cudgel for decades now. These respective programs, and others, have been horribly damaging to the institution of science in general, to its integrity; and to the deplorable hordes of “orcs” caught up in dystopic cancel culture.
Most of the problems come from forces controlling the narrative for political purpose; the power hubs, the gatekeepers, leadership in many institutions who package the narrative. Politicians, media, activist scientists, or mere opportunists cashing in on the easy flow of money; all these forces exploit the narrative for mostly political gain, power, but also financial gain—a quid pro quo reward system governed by political goals. The purpose is to redistribute equity; money and authority, around the globe. Science consensus is merely one tool for global collectivism.
Globally, there are abundant voices of reason available to counter many of the radical ideas normalized by the hard Left, but they’re usually not invited to the discussion; mostly only collectivists are platformed, and funded. Media pressure is assertive in its attack. One is labeled a denier if they don’t agree with the CAGW narrative, even if they believe CO2 affects climate by at least some amount, most CE denizens fall in this camp. Collectivism: Marxism, or shades of socialism, fascism; these represent the overarching political bent managing cudgel style science consensus.
Ironically, science isn’t really the issue; hard Left acolytes using Alinsky/Goebbels styled tactical community organizing techniques is the causation for heavy-handed, UN led, scientific consensus. The hysterics created are powerful enough to bring those who are antithetical to said politics within the fold of the climate religion—from imposed fear and hysteria.
I think defeating collectivist politics at the poll is the only path to break down the political cudgel of corrupt consensus building science; to realign all organizations that manipulate science, those using half-truths, or lies by omission.
Well said, John. I responded earlier, but the post is in moderation. You’re essay is a very strong, I appreciate the discussion.
John … I know you won’t take Howard’s advice, for to do so would make you a statistic of your own post. ;-)
I do understand Howard’s frustrations, but Joshua, Bruce and many other commenters provide valuable opportunities to gain knowledge, which is the purpose of your post.
By the way, seeing so many signatories/co-authors of the paper I’ll take as a sign of the vibe shift that seems to be happening throughout science.
Again, thanks much.
Bill, Joshua is welcome to comment if he is prepared to make a constructive contribution. But opening with baseless accusations that I have preconceptions that I seek to strengthen through confirmation bias is hardly being constructive. If he is prepared to comment upon the evidence offered by the cited paper, he has a chance of making a relevant point. Otherwise, I’m simply not interested.
From the linked Clark study.
“Surveys of US, UK, and Canadian academics have documented support for censorship (98). From 9 to 25% of academics and 43% of PhD students supported dismissal campaigns for scholars who report controversial findings, suggesting that dismissal campaigns may increase as current PhDs replace existing faculty. Many academics report willingness to discriminate against conservatives in hiring, promotions, grants, and publications, with the result that right-leaning academics self-censor more than left-leaning ones”
From a paper on intellectual humility in higher education
“… a recent study from The Harvard Crimson’s annual spring faculty survey show that 37 percent of the 1,100 professors polled indicate that their political views are “very liberal” – an increase of 8 % since last year. Forty-five percent of respondents characterize their political views as “liberal,” while only 1 % indicate that their views are “conservative” and no faculty identify as “very conservative.”
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2023.1066519/full
Harvard, the wellspring of Western civilization advancement.
We are in deep doodoo
It’s downright frightening. There’s an increasing population of prisoners in the UK who are in prison for saying the wrong thing.
I agree frightening. Perhaps as frightening is that our MSM, by and large, don’t cover it. Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of our democracy. Of all places on earth, the UK would have been the last place that I thought this was occurring. Orwell was as prescient as anyone about recent events.
I couldn’t find any relevant UK incarceration data, but per Orwellian narrative, I did come across this interesting piece by Jonathan Turley that underscores the increasing breakdown of free speech:
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/08/22/the-united-kingdom-unleashes-crackdown-on-free-speech/
Inhibiting free speech is the essence of cancel culture. I’ve reconsidered the centric usage of prosocial when defining the woes of contemporary Western culture. Prosocial defined: beneficial to all parties and consistent with community laws and mores.
Overseer collectivists use Marxist philosophy, they will define prosocial entirely different than the way a classical liberal will (classical liberal is the fundamental philosophy for all Western cultures). The classical liberal model is based on individual liberty, and freedom—the evolution of classical liberal in the U.S. is conservatism (which politically means to have a sympathetic appeal to an earlier political philosophy based on U.S. founding principles.) It could be defined differently in select EU cultures.
I think Marx based collectivist philosophy more accurately describes the woes found in the contemporary social fabric of Western culture. The philosophy behind collectivist politics is antithetical to individualist philosophy, there’s the rub. The Left embraces Marx, this is “THE” huge problem. Western cultures across the pond better wake-up, and fast.
During the early 1960s I watched coverage of a parade led by George Rockwell, leader of a Neo-Nazi group. The commentators said while the speech by Rockwell is threatening to some, the greater threat to the American tradition of free speech would have been not to let him speak.
“ I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to my death, your right to say it.” Attributed to several.
I’ve recently read a book by Gad Saad entitled “Parasitic Mind” which chronicles the growth of pathogenic ideas in many countries that are in conflict with the values and ideals of western civilization. Free speech is one of those ideas he believes is under siege.
He is writing another book, not yet published, entitled “Empathetic Suicide”. While I don’t know precisely the theme, I assume from his earlier work and from the views of Toynbee, Durant and others that great civilizations don’t die by murder, but rather by suicide, by forgetting what made them great, I assume he will be expanding on the idea that cultural sanctions are necessary for the sustainability of our civilization.
Dostoyevsky is attributed by some with this “Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.”
Offending others by what we say is a price we pay for protecting our right to say those things, as uncomfortable as it might feel to others.
See various responses to my earlier post. I am not at all surprised that several support censorship, as long as the censor is on their side. That tells me that the real problem is not censorship. The real problem is the dysfunctional “information ecosystem” often demonstrated on the site. Whether the topic is climate change or vaccines or what happened at the US Capital on Jan 6, 2021, we have vastly different perceptions of facts, and little interest in understanding others point of view. I am in the US, but it is an international problem.
I recently came across an interesting article related to this topic. Here is a link: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol117/iss3/4/ (Beware that this is a 33 page article written by a legal scholar.) Some of it is old news, for example that social media algorithms are designed to feed you information you want to hear, so that you stay engaged for the benefit of their advertisers. Clearly this promotes division. The new insight to me is the idea that rather than having a scarcity of public expression, requiring its protection, in the internet age we have a surplus of speech. What we don’t have is enough attention span to take it all in. That allows bad actors to “flood the zone with sh*t”, effectively censoring the other side of the argument by drowning it out. (You can google the quote in the previous sentence if you are interested in learning who adopted it as a strategy.) The article does not give definitive solutions to what I consider one of the most critical issues of our time.
David – for non politically charged topics, the algorithms do tilt in a manner favorable to searchers preferences and/or favorable to the advertisers, etc
However, for Politically charged topics, the algorithms tilt extremely to the political left.
Good example is the study concluding that 12% of asthma cases are caused by gas stoves. That study is absolute junk science and blatantly obvious academic fraud. Google any variation of search words gas stove asthma errors , fraud, etc. and there will be 100+ positive hits for every one hit for the errors or fraud in the study.
Similar issues with any of the covid mask studies, or vax effectiveness studies.
David,
Thank you for your contributions to this thread.
I think I have seen these ‘information overload’ concerns expressed before. For example, there was this article in “The Conversation”:
https://theconversation.com/when-critical-thinking-isnt-enough-to-beat-information-overload-we-need-to-learn-critical-ignoring-198549
Whilst I think I can appreciate the problem, I certainly do not appreciate some of the solutions that have been proposed. For example, the concept of ‘critical ignoring’, as proposed by Stephan Lewandowsky et al, definitely looks dodgy to me – as does their idea of ‘lateral reading’. It sounds fine superficially, but I don’t think it bears close inspection. I expanded upon my concerns in this article:
https://cliscep.com/2023/03/09/a-little-less-conversation/
John … thanks for your reply. This blog has taught me much about aspects of climate science. Sometimes enjoyably, sometimes not, always revealing it has provided a Petri dish for observing the sociology of climate science. The PNAS paper you cite does an excellent job of analyzing the main structural aspects of the society of science, such as journals, faculty demographics, grant processes, etc. And I agree with their, and your, conclusions. One aspect they didn’t analyze, and I certainly don’t blame them, are blogs.
As you know, blog conversations can be as civil as having tea and crumpets, or they can be as savage as a UFC cage. In your reply above I agree with your call for decorum. Yet, a blog is not a journal, nor even a classroom. Its structure and relationships are far more resistant to control (Overall, I think Judith has done a great job.), simultaneously a blessing and a curse.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the referee’s maxim: protect yourself at all times. Joshua has a good jab. Jabs are probes used to expose defensive weaknesses. I gave you the round, as you parried it well. You maintained decorum.
Why should you have to defend yourself from such jabs? Actually, you can ignore it. Yet, if you choose to respond, remember you’re in the Petri dish, bro. Those bugs are tricky.
‘an excellent job of analyzing the main structural aspects of the society of science, such as…,’ and [I]politics[i]
A touchstone conjecture underlying ‘Global Warming’ science known as the AGW hypothesis (that humanity’s CO2 is causing global warming), was a hoax. The entire society fell victim to that hoax which was perpetrated and facilitated by the Left and academia.
Bill,
In order to respond to your advice, I’d like to start by quoting from the Clark et al study’s conclusions:
“We have more questions than we have answers. Although many members of our research team are concerned about growing censoriousness in science, there is great diversity of opinion among us about whether and where scholars should “draw the line” on inquiry. We all agree, however, that the scientific community would be better situated to resolve these debates, if—instead of arguing in circles based on conflicting intuitions—we spent our time collecting relevant data.”
So yes, there will be those, such as Joshua, who have different opinions. However, the solution is not to ‘argue in circles based on conflicting intuitions’ – the answer is to offer up relevant data. That is the sentiment behind the writing of this article, and it is why I had to insist that he respond accordingly rather than just repeat old taunts. But yes, you are right, this is a petri dish and I have to be prepared for anything.
John,
Thank you for making the point that more data is more worthwhile than more repetition of dogma.
Since climate blogs began, I have been disappointed that so few comments introduce data, especially new data. I have tried to support my comments with data, which I consider the usual scientific method when discussing science.
For example, this week I will be releasing 160 graphs showing some Australian heatwaves history, updated with 2024 data since claims of hottest year EVAH!
The widely accepted claim that heatwaves are becoming hotter, longer and more frequent is not supported.
I feel secure in dismissing blog pest Bushaw’s criticisms of me because they are wrong. He has ceased behaving like a responsible scientist. When did he last calculate and provide new scientific data?
Geoff S
Geoff – There are a lot of complexities in climate science. That being said, the activists undercut the credibility of the honest climate scientists.
The activists ( and dishonest scientists) get much of the periphial issues with climate science dead wrong or highly distorted, on issuses such as renewables, subsidies, extreme weather, using cherry picked start dates, etc.
How credible is climate science when there is some much dishonesty on the periphial issues. Why isnt there a higher level of self policing in the climate science community?
Geoff,
Last scientific data I provided was the disproof of Burl’s conjecture that SO2 aerosols are responsible for all global warming and therefore CO2 can’t cause warming. See his paper:
“Scientific proof that CO2 does NOT cause global warming”.
https://wjarr.com/sites/default/files/WJARR-2024-0884.pdf
You can see the disproof here:
https://mega.nz/file/4qc1ACyT#57PNs8KfMebGtKRfUJ3OVw4fGzn8-4mDmrw9NvguO5g
It employs the spreadsheet function LINEST, and untruncated data sets, as we have previously discussed.
I look forward to the release of your graphs. Did you send a revised version to the BOM?
From above: quote ” the answer is to offer up relevant data. ”
Not only relevant, but also new and that was unaccounted for in any of the many arguments. The problem is the new data is rarely accepted, or even considered, but it is there nevertheless.
sherro01 rightly has relevant data. But also, in https://judithcurry.com/2018/06/28/nature-unbound-ix-21st-century-climate-change/ Javier had introduce new data, the ~980yr or near millennial cycle variations in earth climate. We are nearing an inflection point, and the changes are no different than what happened in the past. It is all over the proxies of the last 8000 yrs; more evident in the holocene max. GF Dodwell had pointed to the faulty dogma on earth’s dynamics but has been ostracized up to the present day.
The real evidence is not in the CO2 trend but in the dynamic instability moments of the earth – short and very drastic-. The Maths on the ‘dynamics of rotating bodies in free space’ is more important to reveal the real situation.
Another aspect involved in the analysis is the, political science. As a researcher it is easier dealing with government and not the public because the government has the money researchers want and all they have to do is tell the government what it wants to hear. The public does not want to pay for being lied to and that is why the public must change the government; but, that will be a big battle because academia and the media are aligned with the government and against the people who are working to pay all of the bills.
Honor, integrity and respect for truth must never sacrifice the scientific method on the altar of Leftist ideology if we are to rise above superstition and ignorance.
“…respect for truth…”
An even greater challenge when a sizable segment of the populace doesn’t believe in objective truths. Protagoras must be smiling.
The climate science “consensus” (a word which will attract derision here) says that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is caused predominantly by human activities such as fossil fuel burning. This is of course but a small piece of the overall IPCC narrative. Is this small piece of the puzzle a hoax, “Western Academia’s fantasy” or is it as settled as science gets? I wonder who among the regular skeptics here will say “hell no, the CO2 rise is natural”. I wonder who among the regular skeptics here will say “yes, on this point I agree with the consensus”. I wonder who among the regular skeptics here will say nothing, censoring themselves lest they contradict others in their tribe.
A scientific consensus on climate change? What exactly has the consensus agreed upon? Climate change is a wide topic.
Is it that humans are emitting a lot of CO2 as the population increases? OK I agree. Is there a consensus on how much of the increase is due to human emissions vs. the environment emitting more CO2 as temperatures warm?
Is there a consensus that CO2 caused climate change is a dire threat to humanity? I don’t think so.
Yes, there is a consensus that human activities are the cause of the CO2 increase . Do you agree with that? If not, what is your evidence?
I disagree with you when you write there is a consensus humans are “the cause” vs a major factor for the CO2 rise.
David …
“The climate science “consensus” (a word which will attract derision here) says that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is caused predominantly by human activities such as fossil fuel burning.”
“Do you agree with that?” My answer is no.
“If not, what is your evidence?” Papers by Wijngarrten & Happer and Koutsoyannis are just a couple, amongst others, which have been presented here implying the human contribution to yearly CO2 levels are approximately 4%. The rest being natural sources.
I’m answering because the ‘consensus’ opinion is not the only opinion that utilizes the scientific method. Hence, there is legitimate dispute.
Bill,
The papers of Wijngarrten and Happer do not address the question of the cause of atmospheric CO2 rise, so citing them here is inappropriate. But Will Happer is aware of my focus on this narrow issue, and in an email to a private group conversation last summer wrote “Dave is probably right that most of the increase of CO2 is from combustion of fossil fuels.” Last month he sent me this link to a paper just posted on the CO2 Coalition website. https://co2coalition.org/publications/human-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2-how-human-emissions-are-restoring-vital-atmospheric-co2/. I do not buy the CO2 Coalition’s position that more CO2 is good, and I have discussed some errors in the radiocarbon analysis of this paper with the authors, but their analysis of the source of atmospheric carbon increases is solid.
The scientific method includes uncertainty analysis. Demetris Koutsoyiannis’s Hen and Eggs paper contains none. He makes a statistical inference that is in stark disagreement with carbon conservation without citing confidence levels! The plots he presents are smoothed with no justification other than to cover noise in the data. His argument that the growing biomass is the source of atmospheric carbon rise is ludicrous. All agree the biomass is growing but that means its total carbon content is too. Where does that carbon originate if not from human emissions to the atmosphere? The growing biomass can only be a SINK of atmospheric carbon, not a SOURCE. Even a non-scientist should understand that. DK chooses not to respond to questions about this.
With DK’s prolific writing and your encouragement, the two of you seem to want to “flood the climate science zone with sh*t” all by yourselves. You take the position “I am not a scientist and cannot judge technical arguments”, but Demetris cannot use that defense. Writers on this blog continually question the motives of people like me. Your continued claim that there is a legitimate dispute here makes me question yours. The passive acceptance of obviously wrong arguments by so-called skeptics regularly writing here illustrate the obvious fact that the scourge of prosocial censorship is alive and well in your tribe.
David … I accept that Happer’s paper, which was about the absorption rate of CO2, did not address human contribution of CO2. My bad. (It does address why he thinks rising CO2 is not of concern.) Koutsoyannis’ paper still stands and so does others that support the same conclusion. But … you just answered my next question, which is what makes you think rising levels of CO2, human or otherwise, is negative? Happer amongst others don’t think so, as you’ve shown. And there is much disagreement on whether temperature leads or follows CO2. My point is that the simple scenario of CO2=rising temperatures doesn’t seem sufficient to explain what is purported, which is a coming catastrophe. If you could show me a prediction based on such a scenario that came true, I would have to reassess my view. Thanks for your reply.
Close enough. I would say there is a consensus humans are the dominant cause.
With that, you must work for the IPCC….
CO2 is a consensus totem.
Was CO2 responsible for mid-Holocene warming? Andy May and Javier have written much about it.
Andy:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2023/02/04/the-ipcc-ar6-report-erases-the-holocene/
This paper was published soon thereafter: (Kaufman & Broadman, 2023)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05536-w
Revisiting the Holocene global temperature conundrum
“A landmark reconstruction of GMST showed peak warmth during the mid-Holocene, when GMST reached about 0.8 °C higher than that of the preindustrial period. By contrast, early transient climate modelling showed that GMST was around −0.5 °C colder during the mid-Holocene compared with preindustrial [aka Little Ice Age] temperature, followed by continued warming. This discrepancy between the late Holocene global cooling trend inferred from proxy evidence versus the warming trend simulated by climate models is known as the ‘Holocene temperature conundrum’”
More work questioning the significance of CO2.
This particular paper states that 65% of late 19th century warming was due to natural variability (the hockey stick genesis?):
Greenhouse warming and internal variability increase extreme and central Pacific El Niño frequency since 1980
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9873625/
I think David prefers to stick with the totem.
” Whether the topic is climate change or vaccines or what happened at the US Capital on Jan 6, 2021, we have vastly different perceptions of facts, and little interest in understanding others point of view.”
“Close enough. I would say there is a consensus humans are the dominant cause.”
David, dare I say you’ve proven your own point?
There is no consensus. When Koutsoyiannis published his result on this site showing that CO2 concentrations lagged temperature, I was pleased by the result, but didn’t accept the technique he used to reach that conclusion. So I used a different technique and reached the same conclusion. I also determined that sensitivity was about 5ppm/°C over 10-year periods and followed trend that suggested that temperature driven concentrations could be as high as 40ppm/°C over 80 years, which is not quite enough to account for current concentrations. So yes, there is room for anthropogenic emissions contributing to concentrations, but those concentrations have little effect on temperature.
Solar activity is driving global temperature much more than people realize. If you do have an interest in other points of view I present these two plots where I compare temperature spectrums to the spectrum of a signal related to the motion of the sun around the solar system barycenter.
https://localartist.org/media/BarySpectrum.png
The greatest influence on temperature comes from a ~900-year cycle. This cycle involves most of the planets, but is primarily driven by Jupiter and Saturn. That cycle reached a minimum during the LIA and will peak in ~2100. Next is a Neptune, followed by Uranus and then the 61-year Jupiter-Saturn beat. The GISP2 ice core cannot be used to resolve shorter cycles.
https://localartist.org/media/BarySpectrumSAT.png
Turning to temperature records we again see the 61-year beat, and another Jupiter-Saturn beat at 19.9. The 220-year and shorter cycles drive the fluctuations in temperature over the instrument record. So while temperatures will peak around 2100, there is a slight cooling period that I believe we entered in 2016.
So David, do you agree that the Sun, as modulated by the Jovian planets plays a significant role in climate? If not, how do you explain the periodicities in the temperature records?
The point I’m trying to make is that consensus is not science, especially in the presence of prosocial censorship. There are many other plausible explanations for climate change that should be presented and defended. The science is far from settled.
Robert Cutler,
You say you have confirmed Koutsoyiannis’s conclusions that temperature causes CO2 rise rather than the other way around. I assume you are talking about the decade over decade increase in atmospheric carbon over the last century, not seasonal variations. That is, you argue, like DK, that the growth is “natural”. Two questions:
1. How do you reconcile this with carbon conservation and the undisputed fact that humans emit at a rate of about 2x atmospheric growth? If you can give a coherent answer to this question, you will have done better than DK.
2. Did your analysis include uncertainty analysis, such that you can tell us what confidence level your conclusion has? Again, if you can do this you are ahead of DK.
You invite me to study your theory that Jupiter is the culprit in all this. I will put that on my to-do list. But first I have to study Christos Vournos’s theory that planetary revolution rates are key, and then Burlhenry’s proof that sulphur aerosols are the only things that matter. I am afraid it might be some time before I get back to you. Your case illustrates the problem of too much speech and not enough attention span. But I will put you at the front of the line if you provide insightful answers to my questions.
David: “the undisputed fact that humans emit at a rate of about 2x atmospheric growth?”
Agnostic, Robert, Ron, and others made compelling arguments about this subject. You couldn’t round the bases then, you struck out; now you stalk. Best to review the thread, these examples are not entirely in order:
https://judithcurry.com/2023/09/26/causality-and-climate/#comment-993985
https://judithcurry.com/2023/09/26/causality-and-climate/#comment-994001
https://judithcurry.com/2023/09/26/causality-and-climate/#comment-994135
https://judithcurry.com/2023/09/26/causality-and-climate/#comment-994291
Jungletrunks,
You haven’t understood what this thread is about. It is about social pressure felt by people to conform to the beliefs of their tribe. That pressure sometimes prevents them from saying what they know to be true. John Ridgway says that is a problem with climate scientists. I say that it is equally, probably much more so, a problem with “skeptics”. Thank you for helping me illustrate that.
You want me to go back to old conversations about carbon conservation. You defer to the expertise of “Agnostic”. Shall we set up a debate between him (or her) and Will Happer? That is not necessary, because the carbon conservation argument is so simple that you understand it and Bill Fabrizio understands it and Rob Cutler understands it and Demetris Koutsoyiannis understands it. Ed Berry understood it too but never admitted it before he faded from the scene. He showed his hand once by saying “a bad argument is better than no argument at all.” I think Will Happer would disagree with that. A bad argument not retracted destroys credibility on other issues. I am less interested in reading about Rob Cutler’s Jupiter theory if he really cannot understand carbon conservation
I always try to frame discussions in a way that people can use their own intelligence to understand and judge the issue, without having to consult experts. You understand perfectly well that if 100 units of carbon (measured) are put into the atmosphere annually by humans, and the atmospheric growth rate is 45 units annually (measured), then 55 units of carbon per year must have been transferred FROM the atmosphere TO natural reservoirs. That makes those reservoirs net sinks, not sources. Please reread Agnostic’s confused comments from a year and a half ago and tell me in your own words if you think he was on to something. I assure you he was not.
But the issue, again, is not atmospheric carbon. The issue is the tired notion repeated by Ridgway that you skeptics are objective while mainstream scientists are plagued by subjective biases. No, Jungletrunks, you are the one constrained by your peers not to say “the carbon in the atmosphere came from us”, when you know perfectly well that is the case. In the unlikely case that you have insights on the rest of the climate change probem, I am therefore less inclined to study them.
David: “But the issue, again, is not atmospheric carbon.”
You finally landed on a correct sentence.
Consensus bias is okay– Consensus using the cudgel of media to make science settled isn’t okay; the latter is synonymous with lawfare.
David,
>”John Ridgway says that is a problem with climate scientists”.
To be more accurate, I cite a paper that says prosocial censorship and self-censorship are both a problem within academia in general, and scientific fields more specifically; I would add that the evidence would seem to suggest that climate science is not exempt. The reason why I choose to emphasise this point is because there are many who would maintain that the integrity of the scientific method is such that one can be confident that a scientific consensus can always be taken at face value. I suspect, however, that the impact of prosocial censorship and self-censorship bites harder than these people might appreciate and that there are circumstances where the scientific method’s ability to correct for such impact is compromised. Again, I suggest that some aspects of climate science may fall into that category. I should also point out that there is little evidence that those who hold minority or controversial views within a field are able themselves to prosocially censure their colleagues – it just doesn’t work like that. As for self-censorship and prosocial censorship within the sceptical community at large, I don’t mention it simply because, even when it exists, it doesn’t have any bearing upon the development of scientific consensus, and that is the focus of my article.
> “The issue is the tired notion repeated by Ridgway that you skeptics are objective while mainstream scientists are plagued by subjective biases”.
But I don’t say that. Tell me where I say that. I’m just saying that mainstream scientists are human beings engaged in a social enterprise, albeit very much aided by the scientific method. I actually expect that the average mainstream scientist would be a damned sight more objective than your average untrained sceptic. Nevertheless, many scientists are not nearly as objective as we would all like to believe, and many sceptics are not nearly as ideologically driven either.
David …
– 100 units added, 45 units measured yields 55 units stored in reservoirs. No one can argue that, as stated. What is questioned is the relevance of that static example to a dynamic environment. There are questions as to the sources of the 100 units added. There are questions on the measurements. And there are questions on the number, type and functioning of the reservoirs. Do all reservoirs absorb at the same rate? Do concentration, pressure, temperature and other factors influence when/how CO2 is absorbed? Are there mechanisms within each reservoir that ‘cycle’ CO2 into forms that allow its absorption capacity to only fluctuate?
– Let’s assume you can answer those questions from my ‘stupid brain’ (ala John Ridgway ;-) ) and your simple example is correct. There are now questions about the increasing amounts of CO2. What are the dangers? What are the benefits? If there are dangers, how are they manifest? Can we see them? Does the planet have mechanisms that increase or ameliorate those negative aspects? If we take certain actions, have we analyzed the risks?
– I believe you are genuinely concerned about the increase of CO2. Your ability to express that concern is important to me as I value a free society. Science works best when inquiry is unimpeded. Which brings us back to this post.
Bill, There are always questions – most already have answers. However, they can’t be answered if you don’t specify or enumerate them, and only postulate their existence. I appreciate your effort to make it seem like there is great uncertainty where there is very little, but it is not very convincing – just a demonstration of the holes in your knowledge base.
Bill: “Do all reservoirs absorb at the same rate?”
This is an interesting question. There were three reasons I used a frequency response calculation to analyze the causality relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature:
1. It’s easier to do coherent averaging to reduce the influence of uncorrelated signals (as opposed to non-coherent averaging which only reduces variance).
2. I could get a sense how well correlated the signals were by calculating the coherence function.
3. I could potentially separate the processes involved based on frequency. In other words, I didn’t have to distort the data with, for example, a moving average filter.
It’s this third point that may be relevant to your question. In the phase response (top grids shown with different amounts of averaging), there are three or four distinct processes.
The large amplitude spike at a frequency of 1 yr^-1 is the seasonal process that most people remove from the CO2 data by applying a one-year moving average or difference function. Based on the negative phase, the delay for seasonal variations is only 0.13 year with CO2 lagging temperature.
The second process, which I have no clue what it relates to can be found at a frequency of 0.75 yr^-1, meaning periods that some 1.33 year process also has a short delay similar to the seasonal delay. There’s a potential fourth process at a frequency of around 0.6 yr^-1 (period of 1.66 years)
For all other frequencies/periods, the delay is six months. It’s reasonable to assume that this process relates to the oceans.
https://localartist.org/media/CO2_Temp_FRF_1st_detrend.png
David Andrews.
It really doesn’t matter what the level of CO2 is, it doesn’t have any climatic effect, apart from decreasing Earth’s albedo, because of its greening of our planet.
See my article “Scientific proof that CO2 does NOT cause global warming”.
https://wjarr.com/sites/default/files/WJARR-2024-0884.pdf
It is irrefutable!
Sulfur clouds on Venus are attributed to preventing 75% of the solar energy from making it hotter than it is.
J Anderton:
Yes, as on Earth, they dim the incoming solar radiation, so that if their earthly level is decreased, warming naturally occurs
A concentration of atmospheric CO2 on Venus of 97% is relatively high compared to Earth’s ~0.04% and with so much atmosphere, the atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus is 92X greater than that of Earth. So, of course… Al Gore compared Earth’s ppm increase of CO2 to Venus when predicting impending rivers-running-red climate disaster.
There is not a single Western climate change academic that would not have voted for Al Gore when he ran for president. Compare that to George Bush, the younger, who refused to sign the Paris Climate Accord known as the Kyoto treaty. Climate change alarmism has always been a Left vs right issue- i.e., more political than scientific…
My issue with the climate concerned is their absence of any comparative description of their alternative and optimal planet, if indeed there is any such a thing. Current green technology, as the future, is sold only by those who are really not the full ticket. Nuclear may be our ultimate energy source but we are due another potentially life changing discovery – battery or storage technologies perhaps which will completely cut the need for wind and solar pollution.
Fossil fuel has been burned largely to keep humans warm and it seems that all “intelligent and surviving life” seeks the same – places where it can at least survive, if not flourish longer term.
What would a reduction in carbon dioxide achieve locally since history tells us that human beings have survived in places with significantly differing climates provided they have food and appropriate shelter? Our longevity has increased because of technology, better energy provision and our ability to domesticate animals and thereby ‘farm’ a greater range of habitats with improved shelters. We have also discovered the economical convenience of conurbations but are still hampered by our more destructive activities and, of course, our wars.
Most of our worse fears have not been realised and yet we still have so much doubt about the future and I guess that may never change no matter what miracles come to light since it is our inner driving force.
Lass …
“My issue with the climate concerned is their absence of any comparative description of their alternative and optimal planet, if indeed there is any such a thing.”
Reading that reminded me of the late 60s early 70s where the left used the political term ‘reactionary’ in a derisive manner against those who supported existing cultural norms, intimating they were backward for not supporting change. Today, the climate concerned, when pressed, resort to, or grasp at, images that seem to reflect pastoralist literature or indigenous harmony; a past that didn’t exist or is incompletely described. Interesting how the Left’s terms always come back to bite them.
I would say, our worst fears have been realized many times. Earth doesn’t need us. We alone are our worst enemy and have proven that over and over again. Global warming alarmists preach their latest religion, all while enjoying the comforts of modernity, none of which would exist without the labors of those they rail against.
“I would say, our worst fears have been realized many times.”
I used the superlative ‘worst’ because the word is a position that cannot be worsened. Things can get worse but worst is unbeatable and I hope we never get there.
Our alternative worse fears of war, famine, fatal versions of events etc., all occur regularly but our worst fear – which cannot be extinction since that happens slowly more often than it happens fast – was most recently total nuclear war (the Cuba standoff as an example) and a planet too poisoned to allow human life to continue even for those in deep bunkers.
Now how does climate change compete with that nuclear war worst? The short answer is it cannot and this site shows why.
However, the UN and other untrustworthy political animals set a date for a temperature rise (which the planet already exceeded in the Holocene) with absolutely no clue from these experts as to what to expect. They’d love it to be our worst fear but thankfully the Bible teaches us that such merchants of doom can be intimidating and wicked until we free ourselves from their language and influence. A lot of people simply no longer trust these organisations, nor their work, nor the billionaire sponsors who foolishly support them.
I have a lot of misgivings about the hype created by AI and that could prove to be a new worst when one machines logic opens war on another machines logic simple because some people didn’t write their programs too well.
And that is an possible future alternative worst, since we will have literally committed suicide just like lemmings over a cliff and it will be very, very unpleasant for everyone even those who made it happen. And to think we did to avoid milder weather! Ironical isn’t it. Are we really that crazy or something?
What single legitimate reason could possibly exist that explains why Western academia steadfastly refuses to insist on robust model verification and validation in climate science? There are many possible reasons but they’re all bad, pointing to duplicity, lack of institutional honor, vested interests, ulterior motives, ignorance and fear.
Hi Lass, I’ve had a post stuck in moderation that touches on UN styled political spirits, it channels your description of “the UN and other untrustworthy political animals”. My belief is that the increasing advance of the global collectivist footprint is a top candidate for worse case cultural outcomes—it continues to advance—the Trojan Horse of conteporary culture for a dystopic global future.
Circling back to try again (originally a follow up to) https://judithcurry.com/2025/01/22/the-scourge-of-prosocial-censorship/#comment-1014309
John Ridgway made an excellent point about consensus, and academia in general: “I suspect, however, that the impact of prosocial censorship and self-censorship bites harder than these people might appreciate and that there are circumstances where the scientific method’s ability to correct for such impact is compromised.”
I doubt it’s possible to segregate science based prosocial censorship (a playground for politically science) with political censorship—the latter is cold war trench warfare.
Effecting broad cultural change through leveraging climate science represents a political golden egg for the collectivist. Two diametrically different political belief systems are not going to play well together; climate science has been reduced to a tool for cultural persuation has been realized.
I described the realized outcome up-thread: overseer collectivism is an antithetical philosophy to individualist philosophy (classical liberalism is the foundational basis for all Western culture), therefore, an individualist will not accept collectivist censorship on cultural topics. Discriminating sound climate science from “Cooked” (poll based consensus), or biased climate science is self evident where it’s been unequivocally, demonstrably pointed out. Understanding the construct of the IPCC provides further evidence for rational cynicism. John’s before comment advances censorship judgment: “there are circumstances where the scientific method’s ability to correct for such impact is compromised.” I’m coming from this step removed perspective.
I meant no disrespect to the overarching message John delivers in his essay, it’s very strong, my discussion searches for the visceral root creating the cultural impasse for scientific communication—also political science’s pop culture appropriation.
Collectivists interlock with consensus science for deliberative political change. The IPCC is a UN based institution, the auspice of its foundation was that of collectivist “light”, scientists coming together to solve scientific problems was the presentation (a noble thought at the surface); but evolutionary creep revealed its overarching directive towards collectivist world order specifically described. This is not a conspiracy, the foundational bylaws of the IPCC are literally in writing, detailed for all to see. Surprise, ala simpatico with much of academia. So it’s not hidden; much of the academic community clamors for new world order collectivism, globalism. The history of IPCC’s formation: http://journal-iostudies.org/sites/default/files/2020-01/JIOSfinal_5_0.pdf
If one distills most global cultures to their most basic expression, a philosophical dichotomy between collectivism, or individualism is revealed; these two philosophies are at the root of division. Tiered above are idiosyncrasies, cultural nuance between millions of tribes globally. China, Russia, N. Korea, Iran, Cuba, etc.; these countries, while unique culturally, are authoritarian, collectivist based societies. Soft socialism in the EU increasingly embraces collectivist principles. Yet the fundamental basis for US and all Western cultures is individualist based, each are unique cultures that share classical liberal roots. Climate science is being pulled towards IPCC collectivism. Examples, the Left in the US and EU increasingly align sympathetically with Middle East Leftism—Iran proxies; the Left fawns over Chinese effciciences, they’re apologists for the authoritarianregime. “Birds of a feather flock together”.
“My issue with the climate concerned is their absence of any comparative description of their alternative and optimal planet, if indeed there is any such a thing.”
Reading that reminded me of the late 60s early 70s where the left used the political term ‘reactionary’ in a derisive manner against those who supported existing cultural norms, intimating they were backward for not supporting change. Today, the climate concerned, when pressed, resort to, or grasp at, images that seem to reflect pastoralist literature or indigenous harmony; a past that didn’t exist or is incompletely described. Interesting how the Left’s terms always come back to bite them.
Bill,
There is not an absence. Perhaps you don’t look and don’t want to look. You might start with an overview:
“The Green Marble”, by David P Turner, ISBN-13 : 978-0231180610
Tried to comment twice. Moderation is a head scratcher.
I agree. It is strict censorship with bias. A couple of days ago, I linked a paper from the Science Journal NATURE, whose title contained the ‘d-word’ (in contrast, note, “alarmist” is just fine with the CE censors). It didn’t make it through moderation. Talk about prosocial ‘censorship’ (which is already known as peer pressure). Just this time, the ‘society’ being promoted by CE’s censorship is generally a bunch of anti-science rejectionists who would much rather deal with the E than the C. I believe David Andrews has already covered many of the fallacies rejectionists use to justify their position. There are plenty of psychology papers on the subject. I doubt they would be well received here, but you can do the literature research if you meant your past expression of interest in the subject.
The First Conclusions
Conclusions:
1). We have written the theoretically exact the planet mean surface temperature equation as a very much reliable theoretical formula:
Tmean = [ Φ (1-a) S (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴ (K) (3)
The theoretically calculated planets temperatures (Tmean) are almost identical with the measured by satellites (Tsat.mean).
2). We shall now compare the theoretically calculated Earth’s (without-atmosphere) the average surface temperature (Tmean) with the satellite measured one, the (Tsat), because we are very much interested to estimate the magnitude of the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
Planet………Te……Te.correct….Tmean….Tsat.mean
Mercury….440 K……364 K……..325,83 K…..340 K
Earth………255 K……210 K……..287,74 K…..288 K
Moon……..270,4 K….224 K……..223,35 Κ…..220 Κ
Mars……….210 K……174 K……..213,11 K…..210 K
The planet mean surface temperature New equation is written for planets and moons WITHOUT atmosphere.
When applied to Earth (Without Atmosphere) the New equation calculates Earth’s mean surface temperature as 287,74K, which is very much close to the satellite measured 288K.
3). Thus for the planet Earth the 288 K – 255 K = 33 oC difference does not exist in the real world.
There is NO +33°C greenhouse enhancement on the Earth’s mean surface temperature.
Both the calculated by equation and the satellite measured Earth’s mean surface temperatures are almost identical:
Tmean.earth = 287,74K = 288 K.
……………………
Also, there is not any +33C atmospheric greenhouse effect on Earth’s surface.
Because we have written a Universal Equation which is valid for all planets and moons in solar system.
Earth is a planet, thus when the Equation calculates for Earth’s surface the mean surface temperature Tmean = 287,4 K and the satellite measured the Earth’s average surface temperature
Tsat =288K,
Then there is no room for any significant atmospheric greenhouse effect, much more there is not any +33 °C atmospheric greenhouse effect on Earth’s surface,
and there can’t be any other significant warming because the new theoretical Planet Mean Surface Temperature Equation (Tmean) and the followed calculations don’t allow it.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Your “equation” is wrong, incomplete, and full of false assumptions.
” there can’t be any other significant warming because the new theoretical Planet Mean Surface Temperature Equation (Tmean) and the followed calculations don’t allow it.”
LMAO, not if the equation is incorrect. Even it were “correct” for the simpler, lifeless planets without atmosphere, the standard deviation for the planets you treated is 15-17 C, which, if you remember, I had to calculate for you. It is not sufficient to support your absolute statements.
There can’t be any rotational warming of earth, because Burl has “shown” that it is all caused by SO2, Cutler has “shown” that it is all caused by variations in solar irradiance, Dan has “shown” that it is all caused by human modification of the water cycle, and Christos has “shows” that Milankovitch cycles have been interpreted backwards and that is the cause of rapid recent warming. Three out of four must be wrong, extremely likely all. In contrast, a number of atmospheric scientists have published lots of papers showing the GHGs are the by far the major cause of GW and humans are the main cause of increasing. The non-publishing rejectionists have a definite problem with singular focality, and need to figure that out: It reeks of fabrication of desired results.
Please, Tell me why I should pay further attention to someone who claims to have been a mechanical engineer, but can’t do statistics or calculus (integral or differential), and cannot accept criticism of his “creation”.
Thank you, B A.
“Please, Tell me why I should pay further attention to someone who claims to have been a mechanical engineer, but can’t do statistics or calculus (integral or differential), and cannot accept criticism of his “creation”.”
Because it is a good theory.
Since Earth is a fast rotator with a thin atmosphere, maybe there is not any Greenhouse Warming Effect.
Let’s see…
Because, as you will see further on, we have written the planet theoretical average surface temperature UNIVERSAL EQUATION, and we think, it is proven now there is not any significant Greenhouse Warming Effect on Earth’s surface.
Because the Rotational Warming is a part in the UNIVERSAL EQUATION.
Because a faster rotating planet is a warmer planet.
But let’s see…
–
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos
“Because it is a good theory.”
No it isn’t. It isn’t good, and it isn’t a theory – it is a hypothesis. Theories are hypotheses that have been validated by continued work of other parties; Your hypothesis makes false and unjustified assumptions about many things (e.g., The earth is covered in water, therefore the surface heat capacity =1.) which I have explained over and, yet you refuse to fix anything.
I apologize, I never should have tried to help you and I should have stopped long before I did.
Thank you B A.
I very much appreciate your help.
–
Also, one (1) added CO2 molecule cannot warm ten thousands (10.000) molecules by 1,5°C.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
B A,
“Your hypothesis makes false and unjustified assumptions about many things (e.g., The earth is covered in water, therefore the surface heat capacity =1.) which I have explained over and, yet you refuse to fix anything.”
Do you claim Earth is not covered with water?
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com-
B A,
“Christos has “shows” that Milankovitch cycles have been interpreted backwards and that is the cause of rapid recent warming. ”
–
“Justify using Cp for liquid water when it is less than 70% of the surface and the other 30% is considering land, ice, sea ice, all with lower heat capacities.”
–
Yes, “the other 30% is considering land, ice, sea ice, all with lower heat capacities”
The Cp is a measured property of various materials.
“(land, ice, sea ice, all with lower heat capacities)”
I’ll explain, it is about the (atoms/m²), so land is mostly wet –
it is wet after rain, vast forests, grass and plants covered areas, snow, ice and sea ice – all have almost the same (atoms/m²) surface numbers, as the water has.
“(the Cp of ice is half that of liquid H20). ”
True, it is half when we warm ice, compared to water.
But it is almost the same number of atoms on the surface of ice and on surface of water, when we count the (atoms/m²).
–
*********
The Earth’s warming is because in the our times the winters are warmer, because at winters Earth is closer to the sun.
The warming is faster now, because there are more free from ice waters at the North, the sea-ice cover is smaller.
Instead of being “consumed” as latent heat, the solar energy rises global temperature.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos,
The scientific consensus (often disputed here) says that about 90% of the radiative imbalance goes into warming the oceans, which includes melting ice. If you are saying that ocean heat content rather than average global temperatures is a better measure of warming, you are on to something.
David,
the Global temperature is measured by satellites.
The Global Warming is measured by thermometers (the air and water temperatures measurements).
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Two planets (or moons) at the same distance from the sun the Tsat temperatures comparison.
There are not two completely identical planets (or moons) in the solar system, they are all having large differences – so there are not completely identical planets or moons at the same distance from the sun.
We have though distinguished that two Jupiter’s moons – the Io and the Callisto – have some very similar of the major parameters.
And, yes, both of them – Io and Callisto – both of them are the planet Jupiter’s moons, so they are at the same distance 5,20 AU from the sun.
At that distance (5,20 AU) the solar flux’s intensity is 50,37 W/m².
Also, both of them – Io and Callisto – both of them are very rough surface celestial bodies. Thus for both, one of the major planetary surface parameters – the Solar Irradiation Accepting Factor Φ = 1 .
Table of data:
……..”Bond”…N Spin…Average.cp….(N*cp)….(N*cp)^1/16..Tsat …….Albedo….rot/day..cal/gr*oC……………………………………………..K..
Io…….0,63……0,5559…….0,145……….(0,0806)…..(0,8544)……..110
Callisto..0,22…0,0599…….1,0………..(0,0599)….(0,8387)…134±11
What we have noticed is that planet Jupiter’s moons – Io and Callisto – they differ in their Albedo (a), in their Spin (N) and in their average surface specific heat (cp).
But when (N*cp)1/16 – the differences in Spin (N) and in average surface specific heat (cp) – their products in sixteenth root (in the case of Io and Callisto) are quite close to each other.
Io(N*cp)^1/16 /Callisto(N*cp)^1/16 =(0,8544)/(0,8387)= 1,0187
or 1,87 %, which means their parameter’s (N*cp)^1/16 values are very much close.
Therefore, the only major parameter, the only significant difference is the difference in “Bond” Albedo. For Io a = 0,63 and for Callisto a = 0,22
According to the INITIAL AXIOM:
T1 /T2 = [ (Flux1) /(Flux2) ] ¹∕ ⁴
Callisto Tsat /Io Tsat = 134K /110K = 1,2182
Solar Flux on Callisto (minus Albedo) = (1 – a)S = (1 – 0,22)S = 0,78 S W/m²
The same on Io = (1 – a)S = (1 – 0,63)S = 0,37 S W/m²
[(Flux on Callisto)/(Flux on Io)] ¹∕ ⁴ =[(0,78 S)/(0,37 S)] ¹∕ ⁴
= (2,108) ¹∕ ⁴ = 1,2049
When compared the
T1 /T2 = [ (Flux1) /(Flux2) ] ¹∕ ⁴
1,2182 and 1,2049 – they are almost identical.
1,2182 /1,2049 = 1,011 or only 1,1 % difference.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
All it took for a former global warming alarmist (Bengtsson) to be turned on by his former alarmists like rabid dogs was to say that if we want to avoid… unnecessary and highly expensive panic-type subsidized investments driven by political whims and the expectations of quickly earned money and instead invest available means in a well thought through long- term energy research program … whoa… wait, wait… you don’t want to start talking rational and pointing out all the mistakes we alarmists have made in the past like that Bengtsson.
Reference-
https://judithcurry.com/2013/05/13/lennart-bengtsson-on-global-climate-change/
Yes, appalling. And worse, unapologetically satisfied in the desired result. What is to be done? Complain? That doesn’t work. Write to the authorities? Nope. Must we turn to violence?
Sounding like Michael Crichton, here–
“Our worries must be put into a context as there are endless matters to worry about, practically all of them impossible to predict. Just move yourself backward in time exactly 100 years and try to foresee the evolution in the world for the following 100 years.” ~Lennart Bengtsson
e.g., who could have foreseen that the Democrat party would morph from socialists to authoritarian Communists?
John Ridgeway: You write: “As for self-censorship and prosocial censorship within the sceptical community at large, I don’t mention it simply because, even when it exists, it doesn’t have any bearing upon the development of scientific consensus.”
You are quite correct that the ruminations of skeptics have no bearing on the scientific consensus. If Demetris Koutsoyiannis wanted to influence the scientific consensus, he would seek to publish in peer-reviewed journals read by scientists. To get into those journals he would have to up his game. He would need to include error analysis and justify his smoothing of data. But there is another arena where skeptics masquerading as scientists do have an effect, and that is in the arena of public opinion. That is why all of us are here. Evaluating the integrity of the posts made on this site is relevant and is what I am trying to do.
Robert Cutler: No answers to my questions, I see. You have gone off on a tangent which is of no interest. But I understand. You have no argument to mount against the carbon conservation rebuttal to your supposed confirmation of DK’s work. And if you were to acknowledge that humans are the cause of atmospheric CO2 rise you would lose face within your tribe, so best to stay quiet. This is not a good advertisement for your work.
Jungletrunks: You write “Consensus using the cudgel of media to make science settled isn’t okay.” It is not the media that has settled the question of where the rising carbon in the atmosphere is coming from. The consensus comes from anyone willing to look at the data objectively.
Bill Fabrizio: More “What about this?” and “What about that?” I thought I had you pegged with my “Merchant of Doubt” tag. But I like “He who floods the zone with sh*t” better. (You know of course the person who coined and implemented that phrase was Steve Bannon, close advisor to 47.) You and John Ridgway express concern about a scientific “rush to judgement” on climate change. You can relax now that 47 is in charge. Scientific consensus no longer matters. You are correct that establishing human responsibility for CO2 rise is only the beginning of determining its effect and what to do about it. But for me the present conversation has been a social science experiment and integrity test. You failed by not having the courage to say, “the carbon comes from us”.
https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_620_original_image/public/2024-04/ClimateDashboard-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-image-paleo-20240405-1400px.png?itok=-g_Qgndc
The only skeptic to acknowledge the obvious is Will Happer, and even he qualified it with a “probably.” I have to conclude that skeptics are ideologically driven and a meek lot. Fly Eagles Fly
David … if you don’t like questions that challenge your position, that’s fine. But if you think bitter retorts contribute to your integrity, you are mistaken.
Bill,
It is not “my position”. It is science’s position. Your challenges are inept, but the bar is very low among skeptics. All you need to do is tell people what they want to hear and confuse the issue. Yes I am annoyed that you are successful in doing that.
David: “It is not “my position”. It is science’s position.”
You meant to say your view is with consensus, it’s not science’s position.
Many skeptic scientists acknowledge that CO2 causes at least some amount of warming, maybe most believe this; but what percent are among the 97% of all scientists? It’s not answerable. The cast of shade is long when measured at dusk. Activist scientist’s can’t be quantified either, you certainly can’t suggest they’re few. There’s reasons to be cynical, the battle of ideas can’t be won through pop culture polls couched as science (yet these are used for the consensus argument). Such polls are cudgels, they can’t be quantified if data isn’t demographically granular.
Dr. Curry has expressed some thoughts on science recipes that I’m sure you disagree with: https://judithcurry.com/2023/11/17/a-bad-recipe-for-science/
Besides my comments on the Koutsoyiannis paper, I presented two other published papers that don’t conform with the consensus narrative—they place CO2 second fiddle to warming. One would think, relative to consensus integrity; that these papers should not be the conundrum they appear to be if the science is settled.
This isn’t a gotcha, can you describe where these works (the 2nd and 3rd links) went wrong? https://judithcurry.com/2025/01/22/the-scourge-of-prosocial-censorship/#comment-1014292
Bill, your questions have been, for the most part, answered. You would know that if your “research” had been impartial. But then again, thanks for demonstrating what YOU don’t know.
JungleTrunks,
The “science” is never settled (No proofs, Burl). It’s just that most of the positions favored here become less and less probable as scientists address valid criticisms from the skeptics.
Jungletrunks,
Climate science is a complicated topic. I like to break complicated problems into more manageable pieces. The ONLY piece I have considered in this particular discussion is WHERE DID ALL THAT NEW CARBON IN THE ATMOSPHERE COME FROM? When I say that I agree with the consensus of scientists, or with established science, I am only saying I AGREE THAT THE NEW CARBON COMES FROM HUMAN ACTIVITIES. When you add a question like “How much warming does it cause” you are asking an important question, but it is off topic.
No self-described skeptic in this conversation has challenged the basic carbon conservation argument implying human responsibility except to refer to articles by Koustoyiannis, or “experts” like Agnostic. Demetris refuses to engage just as you refuse to engage, and descends into political trash talk if I press him, just as you do. Yet no one has the courage to say, “the carbon comes from us.” I believe my social science experiment is complete.
(I was wrong when I said that Happer was the only skeptic to acknowledge the obvious. It has been a while since I read it, but if I remember correctly Judith Curry did too in the book.
Bab: “the science is settled” is a long standing trope; quit flapping about and get with the program.
Andrews “Climate science is a complicated topic. I like to break complicated problems into more manageable pieces”
Brilliant, you’re not managing the problem, ignoring the unmanageable problems isn’t engaging.
Jungletrunks,
Yes, it is a trope. Sorry, I have no interest in the “program” of a coward (your words) who hides behind a silly name. Thanks for your empty taunts anyway.
Bill,
20 questions with answers:
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/climate-change-evidence-causes.pdf
David Andrews “[The rise in Carbon Dioxide is caused by humans] is science’s position.”
There have been a multitude of blames placed upon people who emit carbon dioxide as part of their need to stay alive every breath they take, with energy creating machines from coal etc, the ICE, a rise in population caused by better living conditions – especially warmth, shelter and cheaper food – and much better health, travel, and working conditions. The alternative inspired by that liar Mann without any real or cogent evidence at all or a concise picture of what it will be like simply because he does not know and neither does anybody else. Contemporary climate science generally has not put anything into a believable context unless you are a complete idiot and the panic has generated ridiculously expensive which have no chance of making stuff better. Even if successful the UK’s minute contribution to added carbon dioxide will be reduced by an amount nobody anywhere will notice. So much for science’s position.
Science has sunk to the very bottom of professional integrity and instead of discussion we find dictatorial instruction, useless, destructive and dangerous alternatives brought about by false reasoning. Just try and justify exploding batteries as necessary to save the planet to Mother Nature and she’ll have your guts for garters.
The Woke haven’t lost the plot they never had a plot to destroy us with until people like Dale Vince . I don’t mind if they go someplace else to destroy environments via massive public investment in them (My Money Whether I Like It Or Not). We have accessible gas, oil and coal in the UK available without destroying environment and beautiful country side with turbines and panels by people given luxury class lifestyles via public money for chanting the mantra and using the money as required – wind and solar virtue signals suggesting ‘we really did try’ as if anyone other than themselves believe it.
Humans do a lot of bad things but carbon dioxide omissions as warming agents isn’t one of them and has zero science to back it up. Nuclear would have sorted all this out cleanly seven decades ago when science’s position was nuclear everything. We could have had mostly efficient electricity generation with minimal harmful emissions – instead we get exploding batteries and resulting fires sometimes fatal.
Science’s position is false or indeterminate and professionals need to sort themselves out before they do even more damage to OUR planet in OUR regard (NOT).
Da Andrews. I didn’t respond to your questions because you made it obvious in other posts that you have no interests in any answer I might provide.
Of course I would be interested in a causal analyis ala Koutsoyiannis that included uncertainty considerations. I don’t think you can rebut the carbon conservation rebuttal to such theories, but would look at what you provided.
David Andrews | January 27, 2025 at 4:11 pm | “………. that included uncertainty considerations. …..”
Oddly there is a sudden respect for uncertainty as compared the fake respect shown in the paleo community.
David Andrews, you don’t seem to like Skeptics much. Do you like reality?
The main problem with the GHE nonsense is you Alarmists are unable to even define it. Ten years ago, you used to claim “back-radiation” could warm Earth’s surface. When that was debunked then you opted for claiming CO2 was “insulation”. But that was easily debunked by the fact that CO2 can emit infrared to space, but oxygen and nitrogen can’t. CO2 acts as “holes” in the “blanket”.
You don’t have any science. That’s why all you can do is slander. Prove me wrong and provide a viable mechanism that CO2 can warm Earth’s 288K surface.
I don’t know about David, but I am fine with skeptics, as long as they understand it is a two-way street.
You have the science backwards: if you don’t believe the accepted mechanism, it is up to you to disprove it. Go for it, good luck.
Clint R,
“David Andrews, you don’t seem to like Skeptics much.”
Your comment needs to be qualified. I don’t respect Skeptics who repeatedly demonstrate willful ignorance. Perhaps a short synopsis of my involvement in climate discussions will help you understand.
I am not a climate scientist. I have PhD in physics, spent most of my career with a manufacturing company applying superconducting technology to medicine and other fields, and then semi-retired by teaching physics as an adjunct. It was only in full retirement that I began looking at the climate discussion, initially as a skeptic myself. But I soon stumbled on a repeated mistake in the contrarian literature which led to this publication: Correcting an Error. Their errors misled Berry, Harde, the late Salby, and others to reach just plain wrong conclusions on the source of atmospheric CO2 rise. Five other published papers and an APS conference presentation have followed, counting two published letters in Health Physics. All have been on debunking false conclusions about where that atmospheric carbon comes from. I am completely confidant that I know where it comes from: us! I would listen to arguments against my position (i.e. the scientific consensus) , but none are made! If I get a response in a discussion, it is either an insult or a diversion. Yet the carbon conservation argument is dead simple. How else to describe this situation but the willful ignorance of skeptics? Should I respect that?
So I am a specialist debunker and am not interested in being drawn into other topics. If you want to understand how the greenhouse effect works, read an elementary atmospheric science book. If you want to gain my respect, either tell me what is wrong with the carbon conservati0n argument or acknowledge that it is human emissions causing the rise.
I have noted before that Will Happer reached out to me to show that he knows where the carbon is coming from. He knows that the intransigence of skeptics on this topics destroys their credibility on other less settled topics. Perhaps I am wrong to characterize skepticism in general by my personal experience on this narrow piece of the puzzle, but I do. That is why I have repeatedly said that the big secret in climate science is the low quality of science by the 3%.
What’s your “accepted mechanism”?
(Remember, it can NOT violate the laws of physics.)
Let’s see if the link works for “Correcting an Error” this time https://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/article/10.11648/j.earth.20200904.12
Clint,
The accepted mechanism is first described here:
Arrhenius, S. (1896). On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground. In Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (Vol. 41, pp. 237–276). https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf
Have you read it?
The accepted mechanism remains the same, and is now highly refined and tested. There’s been 129 years to disprove it – better hop to it.
I don’t feel the need to give a brief CV like David, but you can find me on Google Scholar or ResearchGate (or PNNL) using my screen name here, B A Bushaw – the name I published under – first name is Bruce.
Hey Clint, just for fun, here’s another David Andrews you can argue with:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Atmospheric-Physics-David-Andrews/dp/0521693187
Pat,
Interesting! Never heard of the guy. My middle initial is E.
David,
https://scienceofclimatechange.org/david-e-andrews-the-root-cause-of-atmospheric-co2-rise-more-clear-thinking/
I presume this is your series. You are too modest.
David Andrews,
It is open to you to conduct your own estimates of uncertainty in the D Koutsoyiannis published numbers. Then you would have something positive to contribute to science, rather than armchair critic generalisations the DK can be downplayed because he did not report error analysis.
Would I be correct to surmise that you have not done your own calculations because you do not know how to? Geoff S
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David Andrews,
“You understand perfectly well that if 100 units of carbon (measured) are put into the atmosphere annually by humans, and the atmospheric growth rate is 45 units annually (measured), then 55 units of carbon per year must have been transferred FROM the atmosphere TO natural reservoirs.”
–
Yes, I understand that.
I have a question though. If humans stop the 100 units of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere annually, and 55 units of carbon dioxide per year would continue transferred from the atmosphere to natural reservoirs…
Shouldn’t I conclude that eventually there will be lesser and lesser carbon dioxide in atmosphere?
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
You present an interesting question, Christos.
Christos,
No, you should expect a new equilibrium where the reservoirs emit as much as they absorb.
The entire science of global warming alarmism is built upon chimera. Let us assume an increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 as an avoidable consequence of modernity. Let’s work with 300 going to 400 ppm because of industrialization. A 33% increase. Sounds like a big jump, right? But, in going from 0.03 to 0.04%, does that extra 0.01% of CO2 in the air make any difference?
Comparing atmospheric CO2 levels over the geophysical record Dr. William Happer testified under oath before congress that currently the Earth is CO2-starved.
Yes.
Wagathon,
” Let’s work with 300 going to 400 ppm because of industrialization. A 33% increase. Sounds like a big jump, right? But, in going from 0.03 to 0.04%, does that extra 0.01% of CO2 in the air make any difference?”
–
Of course that extra 0.01% of CO2 in the air doesn’t make any difference. It is too small amount. It is 1 to 10000 rise.
–
Maybe there is not even a slightest Greenhouse Warming Effect on the Earth’s surface.
–
Let’s see…
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos,
(An earlier post on this evaporated.)
You are quite correct when you say that [in the industrial era] “The natural reservoirs historically emit less than they absorb.” But that is because human emissions in the current era are going into the atmosphere, and when they get redistributed from the atmosphere to the land and sea, the net flux is away from the atmosphere i.e. natural absorption exceeds natural emission.
Exactly what happens should human emissions go to 0 is, in my opinion, not as well understood as it should be. No longer would emissions be putting excess carbon in the atmosphere and disturbing the balance. The standard prediction is that a new equilibrium will be established close to where the levels were when emissions stopped. The atmosphere and surface oceans will establish a new balance dictated by Henry’s Law (averaged around the globe). The land biomass will stop growing once the atmospheric CO2 level is stable. At that point, natural emissions and absorption would be in a new balance, different from the pre-industrial one. But a legitimate case can be made that processes which transfer carbon from the surface ocean to the deep ocean will disturb that new balance by lowering the carbon content of the surface ocean and allowing more carbon to be removed from the atmosphere. One credible estimate puts the time scale for this at about a century.
Yes, David, you are right.
Also, the oil and coal deposits natural grow are carbon sinks too.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
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Here is an interesting analysis of “contrarian” scientific publications. It might shed more light on why there are so few. Many of the examples should be familiar, even a decade later.
“Learning from mistakes in climate research”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-015-1597-5
Lewandowsky is certainly familiar. Unfortunately, not in a good way.
Thank you, B A.
“Christos,
No, you should expect a new equilibrium where the reservoirs emit as much as they absorb.”
–
If humans stop the 100 units of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere annually, and 55 units of carbon dioxide per year would continue transferred from the atmosphere to natural reservoirs… then eventually there will be lesser and lesser carbon dioxide in atmosphere.
–
A new equilibrium we should not expect, because the natural reservoirs do not emit as they absorb.
The natural reservoirs historically emit less than they absorb.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
If global warming alarmists can simply ignore the medieval warming period to make reality conform to their conjectures, perhaps skeptics of AGW theory should just play along and simply ignore the scientific method?
i.e., AGW skeptics should simply abandon the quaint notion of objectivity.
Thank you, Wagathon.
I am not sure what you mean. I am not a skeptic. I do not ignore scientific method.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
False “if”, but many AGW skeptics already ignore the scientific method – not surprising for non-scientists.
Wags … “i.e., AGW skeptics should simply abandon the quaint notion of objectivity.
Objectivity is just a subset of our subjective selves. We use it, some better than others, to elicit a common view on phenomena. When that effort, which employs rational means, is met with skepticism, an irrational response is sometimes generated. ;-)
The AGW hypotheses favors the view that ‘mathematical realism’ is indispensably independent of the researchers’ intuition and beliefs. But, without the independence and objectivity of the scientific method, all of the conclusions of the global warming alarmists amount to nothing more than dogma, politics and propaganda.
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As a scientist of moderate, demonstable success, I have long been sceptical because it is an integral part of proper science.
My first reaction to Establishment global warming stories was to be extra-sceptical because there were so many unproven assertions of the type that required “then a miracle happened.”
As a 5th generation Aussie, I started to engage with our Bureau of Meteorology but was met with a series of personal insults. Later, BOM wrote that they could not consider material that was not published in a peer-reviewed journal. This was outlandish because such journals should be reserved for important material of high calibre, able to affect the progress of science, while my work was basic housekeeping of raw data, a familiar task in my career of geochemistry. Later, I came claim I was the first scientist to be locked out of “The Conversation.
A concept like self-censorship becomes academic when others censor you. A concept of prosocial censorship is bewildering because a hard scientist considers it meaningless word salad.
I was interested in the proficiency of those at the Climate Audit blog. Steve McIntyre and Ross M Kitrick ran rings around the science of several global warmists. They demonstrated the new power of the new medium, the blog. So I tried to do similar, noting that the core science of “climate change” was far from settled. Today, there remain many unresolved scientific questions that I chose not to engage with because I was retired by then and without research facilities or support. I concentrated instead on raw data quality., with blog articles.
So much climate change direction depends on measurements of air temperature, largely because the historical record had some. They were designed for various uses like agriculture and aircraft movements. I do not see the comfort taken by warmists and I am concerned by a lack of care about their quality. I will be blogging some rather unarguable information in the next few days (I am suddenly in hospital as I write this). Geoff S
Hi Geoff!
Wishing you a quick recovery.
Christos V
Seconded.
A similar event some 10 yrs ago made me shelf all my plans. So, fully resigned, I studied the enigma I had in hand. And it got solved.
So, I look forward to your posts. (and note: trail blazers have no peers).
Geoff, I always enjoy your thoughtful posts and hope you’re on the mend and able to go home soon.
Your comment “journals should be reserved for important material of high calibre” struck a nerve and raises two questions. What is the purpose of forums like this one, and, if there’s intentional censorship, what form might it take?
My personal opinion is that forums should be a place where ideas can be expressed and debated long before their ready for publication. While I expect a slightly higher level of quality from those that write articles, and that’s always true on this site, I don’t have high expectations for all posters in terms of technical abilities. I certainly would not expect a poster or author to have published an idea in a respected journal before I would give it consideration.
Two years ago, when I first made my sunspot-based temperature prediction model public I didn’t know why it worked, but had ruled out the result being a spurious correlation. By making the model public I hoped to link up with others who found the result compelling enough to investigate. I was also hoping for people point out any flaws in the idea. That really never happened, though one person on Gavin’s RealClimate website did accuse me of over-fitting the data. I found that amusing because we’re talking about a simple 99-year moving average, and this is from people who bow to the IPCC each morning.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a serious lack of scientific curiosity these days. So, I’ve continued on my own and have not only figured out why it works, but have made other discoveries about how the sun works along the way. For example, the sunspot cycle is not, on average 11.07 years. If I can stop discovering new things I’ll make everything public in the next few months.
Now to the topic of censorship in forums. I believe it happens, but not in the banning of posters, or even of ideas. It happens by making the forum less attractive to serious people who make real contributions. When was the last time you read anything from Javier? All of the forums seem to have fewer serious people than even two years ago.
Censorship is not performed by the forum owners, of course, it’s the result a few individuals who engage in endless arguments where one of the individuals knows it’s a game, and the other thinks that they’re close to winning the argument. Who knows, maybe they’re both on the same team and it’s all theater. These individuals also engage in personal attacks, which again drives good people away. What’s interesting is that it’s a different set of people on each forum. Are they assigned? I don’t know if these people are sponsored, but the previous administration was known to pay social media influencers.
There is the psychological perspective and it has little to do with science. The method of ‘dumb and brainwash’ so if possible -or the aim is- no one rocks the boat.
Who care about science if ‘he’ is ‘king of the compost heap’ (the kids’ tv series ‘fraggle rock’ was the equal of Plato for making a point in education.)
Wiki on FR “The program proved accessible to audiences of all ages, and used the fantasy creatures as an allegory to deal with serious issues such as prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, the environment, and social conflict.”
Robert, how about providing amplitudes and uncertainties, instead of conspiracy theories.
Robert Cutler,
Of the comments on Climate Etc over time, yours are some of the closest to mine especially in philosophic terms of identification of problems then setting about understanding them unaffected by much of the Establishment guff. Of course, hostess Judith is noted for that at a level far above mine.
I find limited value in selecting phrases from the writings of others and dissecting them in detail. I have more interest in the whole process from A to Z, like even if you can calculate an energy number from the interaction of radiation with selected gases in the atmosphere, you still need to know what happens to that heat by the time it no longer resides in the atmosphere. It does not build up forever, it reaches limits but few want to get involved with this far end of the process.
Thank you for your kind comments.
Geoff S
Geoff, the “miracle” is that those initial speculations triggered 50+ years of intense, global scientific research. Most scientists are satisfied with where the weight of the evidence leads, but some skeptics never will be – mostly because of (willful) ignorance. There is plenty in the psychology literature investigating that phenomena. Nonetheless, skepticism is always welcome, it just gets easier and easier to dismiss with the with growing body of research results.
“As a scientist of moderate, demonst[r]able success … ”
Care to expound on that – like degree(s) in what field(s) and publication(s). Our definitions of scientist and scientific success must be quite different; I don’t seem to find anything for you on Google Scholar or Researchgate.
Thanks for the prebuttal; I look forward to seeing the progress in your heatwave work.
I hope your hospital stay is short and without lingering effects.
B A Bushaw:
Earlier, I had referred you to my article “A graphical Explanation of Climate Change” (Google the title), but you never responded to it.
The major take-away from the article is that global temperatures always temporarily increased whenever there was an American business recession, due to decreased industrial SO2 aerosol emissions because of idled factories, foundries , etc. during the recessions.
Between the years 1854-2009, there were 32 recessions, and 14 of them caused enough of a temperature increase to result in an El Nino.
Over the 155 year period, temperatures ALWAYS increased when atmospheric SO2 levels decreased, yet you and your ilk maintain the warming since circa 1980 has been due to rising CO2 levels, rather than to decreasing SO2 aerosol levels due to Clean Air activities.
You also claim that you have proven that my “hypothesis” is incorrect, showing a bogus graph where you ASSUME, without any empirical proof, that CO2 actually causes global warming.
Recently, Dr. William Happer, and Willis Eschenbach (on WUWT) have also proven that CO2 has no warming effect.
Give it up, BA, you are beating a dead horse!
Burl, that is correct. I have been responding to your paper claiming to prove CO2 can’t cause global warming. I’m not interested in your deflections from that.
BA: You nearly hit the nail on the head with “Most scientists are satisfied with where the weight of the evidence leads,”. (Maybe, but not the engineers, because sooner or later they say it is different in the practice than simply on the academic level).
And ‘ignorance’, willful or not, resides everywhere, especially where it is found easier to ‘tow the line’; and ‘ask no questions and see no glares’. https://lawliberty.org/controlling-thought/
Or https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6962119/quotes/
“the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity.” (do we read ‘climate’ for ‘communist’?).
Secondly it is not degrees or publications that push science forward but dogged research where the herd fears to thread. Or (as in my case) stumbling on something unexpectedly and finding where and what it leads to.
Feel better, Geoff!
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Those of you who have been monitoring the pingbacks given to this article will have observed that Professor Rice has written his own response at his blog, ATTP. Since he is quoted in my article, it is his prerogative to have done so. What was not his prerogative, however, was to have based his dismissal of my article on an allegation that is demonstrably false. Specifically, he has said:
“One issue I have with many who promote the idea of there being some kind of scientific censorship is that it often seems to be more aimed at deligitimising those who criticise people they agree with, than a genuine attempt to engage in a serious discussion about a complex topic. There’s also an element of irony; essentially trying to censor supposedly censorious people. The post that triggered this seems to mostly fall into this latter category. There are various examples of supposed prosocial censorship without any attempt to address any nuance.”
The first thing to note is that the central theme of my article is that prosocial censorship and self-censorship of controversial views, however well-intended and nuanced, carry the risk of encouraging monocultures in academia, leading to the possible suppression of a truth. To illustrate that this risk exists in principle, I need only provide examples in which the individual concerned was clearly expressing a controversial view and in which he had experienced severe prosocial censorship from his academic colleagues as a result. Determining the actual scale of the risk of a truth being suppressed in each example would require a case-by-case evaluation, but this was outside the scope of the article and it would run the risk of significantly changing its focus. That’s not to say that the reader should not be provided with external links to material that assists in such case-by-case evaluation.
Which is precisely what I did. So how an article that indeed provided the reader with supporting material for each and every one of the examples given, covering background information and the nuances and complexities of the particular debate, can be said to have offered such examples “without any attempt to address any nuance” is beyond my comprehension. For the record:
The Bengtsson example is supplied with a link to an article in ‘Spiegel International’, in which the nuances and complexities of the debate are discussed at great length.
The Professor Fenton example is supplied with a link to a podcast interview which covers at some length the nature of his work, the conclusions it has drawn and the backlash he has experienced.
The Dr Az Akeem example is supplied with a link to an interview given for ‘Transgender Trend’, in which his background and credentials are provided, together with a description of his pioneering work, the views he has expressed and the backlash he has received.
The Alessandro Strumia example is supplied with a link to an article written by myself in which I discuss at length the issues that bear upon the validity, or otherwise, of the censorship he received. Amongst other things, I cover the Athena Swan Charter, evidence for positive discrimination against men within STEM and its potential downside, the possible relevance of the ‘women-are-wonderful’ cognitive bias, the merits of the scientometrics approach taken by Strumia, and his naivety.
The Patrick Brown example is supplied with a reference to an article written by the Grantham Institute’s Bob Ward, seeking to evaluate the validity of Brown’s position. This article is, quite frankly, scathing in its conclusions. Upon reflection, I should have also provided a link to my own appraisal of Ward’s critique, explaining why it is both scathing and shoddy in equal measure.
In conclusion, it is right and proper that articles such as mine should be robustly challenged, but it is equally appropriate that such challenges should not be premised upon obvious falsehoods.
“One issue I have with many who promote the idea of there being some kind of scientific censorship is that it often seems to be more aimed at deligitimising those who criticise people they agree with, than a genuine attempt to engage in a serious discussion about a complex topic”
That statement is quite evident in the paleo community.
Very much a problem is the attacks on scientists pointing out the dismissal of concerns associated with low resolution of proxies, sparseness of proxies for large portions of the globe and much narrower confidence bands, etc.
John,
If you want to complain about something being based upon obvious falsehoods, might want to review the difference between censorship and rejection.
B A Bushaw:
NOT a deflection, just more supportive data for my “hypothesis”, which you cannot refute.
Sorry, already disproven. Not interested in further.
Robert Cutler … thanks for your reply above:
Bill: “Do all reservoirs absorb at the same rate?”
As we all have, I’ve seen diagrams of the carbon cycle. To reduce it to three ‘buckets’, of human emitters, natural emitters & sinks and the atmosphere, risks oversimplifying processes that seem far more complex. Yes, while there are emit/absorb elements (plants?) that have a set ratio, there also are seemingly more complex situations, such as ocean circulation effects (particularly vertical) and chemical processes that render carbon in different forms. And all these processes seem to have their own time component, certainly not like pouring carbon from one bucket to another.
I have no science skin in the game. Just my wallet. ;-)
Thanks!
Bill,
It appears to me that you are trying to talk yourself out of the conclusions of the conservation of carbon argument by saying “It’s more complicated than that.” The beauty of conservation laws is that they allow rigorous “top level” conclusions to be drawn without knowing all the details. Forget ocean circulation, plant physiology, varying absorption rates. Carbon conservation (and a little data on human emissions and atmospheric carbon levels) tells you that land and sea reservoirs together have been net sinks for the last 60 years at least. Period. But carbon conservation does not tell you how much goes into the oceans, what happens after that, etc. That analysis requires gettiing into the details.
Thank you, David, for your sober response. I don’t argue with the ‘conservation of carbon argument’ as it is beyond my ability. But you are correct that I have questions with “rigorous “top level” conclusions to be drawn without knowing all the details.” It’s not that I disagree with the validity of that technique, so much as when such ‘conclusions’ are then used to support further conclusions, and so on. I’m not looking at the carbon. I’m looking at the structure of the argument. I realize that this is not always the best place for detailed analysis. My questions were meant to probe not club you. If it came off that way, I can only express disappointment in the social environment we find ourselves where questions are taken as threats. Enjoy your day!
Why is humanity’s CO2 a pollutant? Where is the science underlying that finding? Carbon dioxide officially became a greenhouse gas pollutant in 2009 because the EPA simply declared it to be. Attorney Michael B. Gillett informs us that, the “EPA issued an Endangerment Finding that motor vehicle emissions of GHGs cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare through climate change. 74 Fed. Reg. 66,496 (Dec. 15, 2009).”
Where was the overwhelming scientific evidence underlying climate change
Was it that… polar bears were dying?
“ Polish PM Tusk wants to ditch Green Deal to ‘save EU competitiveness“
Utopianism knocked silly by realism.
https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/01/polish-pm-tusk-wants-to-ditch-green-deal-to-save-eu-competitiveness/
The ESG movement is a form of censorship, favoring some companies over others due to political reasons. In the EU, strict ESG funds are seeing a huge outflow. This is fitting IMO. People invest to make money, not change the world.
From the souce:Funds complying with the European Union’s strictest ESG standards suffered record outflows last quarter, as investors turned away from a strategy that’s been plagued by lackluster returns, regulatory fatigue and political backlash.
From:(www)bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-29/eu-s-greenest-funds-see-biggest-outflows-ever-in-bull-market
In the US too, Jim. Larry Fink, BlackRock’s CEO, discussed this at length recently. The outflows are real
In our era, due to Earth’s orbit excentricity, we are witnessing North Hemisphere winters occuring closer to the sun.
Therefore North Hemisphere experiences warmer winters and cooler summers. As a result, Earth’s, around the year average surface temperature is less differentiated.
And it means, that because of this, Earth is getting warmer.
So Earth is for millennials now in an orbitally forced warming pattern.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Am I still being blocked?
I guess site is working again.
I was trying to point out upthread that there is no viable mechanism for CO2 being able to warm Earth’s 288K surface.
BA offered a link to an early paper from Arrhenius, that was only based on correlation. That doesn’t work if there is a violation of physics.
No, There isn’t a violation of physics, and Arrehnius’ work is based on physical causality (read the paper, dork). The correlation is just one of many pieces of evidence that support that physical causality, and many more have followed. Physicists have been testing the Arrhenius hypothesis for 130 years. But you think Clint knows best. LMAO.
“I was trying to point out upthread that there is no viable mechanism for CO2 being able to warm Earth’s 288K surface.”
Yes, you have tried to point that repeatedly. What you succeeded in doing is show that your understanding of basic physical science is very limited and mostly incorrect – sort of sophomoric.
Since BA has NO science to back up his beliefs he resorts to juvenile name-calling and insults.
So typical….
Clint says, “Since BA has NO science to back up his beliefs he resorts to juvenile name-calling and insults”
I’ve already given you the science 3 or 4 times. You can go back and look (Einstein radiative equation, among others). You either didn’t understand it, or chose not to.
Speaking of juvenile: you are a bore, and the one with NO science. I have the education with BS, MS in chemistry, PhD in Physics (AMOP, E&T), 35 years as a research scientist at a National Science Laboratory, with over 100 published papers in optical physics. You’ve already been told how to find them. Feel free to share your background and how you obtained your knowledge of science.
Sophomoric was not an insult; it was an estimation of your education level, perhaps I was too generous.
Sorry again BA, but a “radiation equation” doesn’t help you. We know photons are emitted and absorbed. That’s not the issue. The issue is that not all photons have the ability to warm a surface.
You don’t seem to understand any of this. That’s why you have to resort to insults and false accusations.
Clint – I just ran across this explanation of CO2 warming from the Columbia Climate School:
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/02/25/carbon-dioxide-cause-global-warming/
I thought it was pretty good, but you might want to drop by there and correct any mistakes.
And, by the way, do you own a microwave oven? Mine works pretty good heating coffee (and cup) – probably with wavelengths of about 10cm. How’s that work?
Pat, the Columbia link makes the same mistake as in all of “climate science”. It confuses “infrared” with “heat”. The link uses the example of a hot rock being able to warm your hand, radiatively. But, they don’t realize the temperature of the hot rock is relevant. An ice cube emits infrared, but it can not warm your hand.
And you make the same mistake as BA with his CO2 laser. Both the laser and the microwave oven are engineered devices using external energy (entropy is reduced). Try using your microwave oven without electricity or with the magnetron removed.
Thank you Pat.
” … explanation of CO2 warming from the Columbia Climate School:
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/02/25/carbon-dioxide-cause-global-warming/ ”
” In addition, “trace amounts of a substance can have a large impact on a system,” explains Smerdon. Borrowing an analogy from Penn State meteorology professor David Titley, Smerdon said that “If someone my size drinks two beers, my blood alcohol content will be about 0.04 percent. That is right when the human body starts to feel the effects of alcohol.” Commercial drivers with a blood alcohol content of 0.04% can be convicted for driving under the influence.
“Similarly, it doesn’t take that much cyanide to poison a person,” adds Smerdon. “It has to do with how that specific substance interacts with the larger system and what it does to influence that system.”
It’s like watering your garden with a firehose. Even though plants absorb water, they can only do so at a set rate, and if you keep running the firehose, your yard is going to flood. Currently our atmosphere and ocean are flooded with CO2, and we can see that the carbon sinks can’t keep up because the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans are rising quickly.
Unfortunately, we don’t have thousands of years to wait for nature to absorb the flood of CO2. By then, billions of people would have suffered and died from the impacts of climate change; there would be mass extinctions, and our beautiful planet would become unrecognizable. We can avoid much of that damage and suffering through a combination of decarbonizing our energy supply, pulling CO2 out the atmosphere, and developing more sustainable ways of thriving.”
–
Now, let’s see:
“trace amounts of a substance can have a large impact on a system,”
and
” It’s like watering your garden with a firehose.”
Pat, your analogy may be a bit vague for many here that can understand states, but not rates.
“…your analogy may be a bit vague…”.
Yeah, it wasn’t very good.
I was trying to address Clint’s refrain “15µ photons can NOT warm a 288K surface”. Like “10cm photons can NOT warm my room temp coffee cup.” Clint says it won’t work without the electricity. I guess he’s right, CO2 won’t warm the Earth without the Sun.
Pat, I tried to deal with that refrain a couple of months ago (as Clint indicated), with CO2 laser, microwave ovens, and physics tutorials. Don’t waste your time, high probability of Dunning-Kruger that just repeats the same false straw men over and over again.
Pat,
I quite like the explanation in this post, in particular the graphic at the end of the post that illustrates how increasing the altitude where energy is radiated to space and the almost constant lapse rate leads to warming of the lower troposphere.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/02/what-is-the-best-description-of-the-greenhouse-effect/
Pat, if you are trying to move away from your “microwave” nonsense, you’re going in the right direction.
BA, once again, you have NO science, only your juvenile insults and false accusations.
This author expands on the issues of linked paper by Clark
“ The issues raised by Clark et al., Krylov and Tanzman, and Stevens et al. are significant, but need to be placed in the wider context of paradigms, suppression of dissent, undone science and incorporated science. These processes mostly operate close to the sources of scientific knowledge, including decisions about what can and should be studied, and hence are often less visible than overt censorship”
Also, self censorship can emanate from more than perceived peer factors but can also be sub conscious without the scientist being fully aware of what is influencing his or her actions and decisions.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378827665_Censorship_in_Science_Deeper_Processes
What a remarkable coincidence, because I have just finished reading the exact same paper posted on this website:
https://hxstem.substack.com/p/spotlight-on-scientific-censorship
The website also includes an extensive list of supplementary reading that should more than satisfy even the nuance-hungry Professor Rice.
It also reminds me of a point I should have made more of in my article: Not all censorship that occurs for reasons other than scientific merit can really be said to be prosocial. Human nature is such that vested interests abound and biases are often deeply ingrained.
John … You may have mentioned him, but Charles Darwin seems a good example of self-censorship, yet probably due to the ‘vested interests and biases’ at the time.
Over on WUWT, see today’s “Australian heatwaves stories cop severe criticism.”
Judith and mods at Climate Etc, feel free to use the article. It is hard to select a blog for first offer without feeling bad about not selecting this one.
https://www.geoffstuff.com/wuwthea.docx
The article continues the theme of anti-science actions by The Establishment and was mentioned here in earlier comments.
Geoff S
‘Put simply, for a given value-based position in an environmental controversy, it is often possible to compile a supporting set of scientifically legitimated facts.’
i.e., the need for honesty, integrity and ethics in Western academia is more important now than ever before. Nothing is happening now that has not happened before. That’s the science!
That also applies to people that are not members of “Western academia”, such as yourself. Not being honest with one’s self (willful ignorance) is the failure that I most often observe.
… like a tick sucking blood on the back of the productive?
… an excess of objectivity.
Great line!
B A Bushaw”
“Not being honest with ones self (willful ignorance) is the failure that I most often observe”
And which is also your greatest failing
Geoff Sherrington,
Demetris has also suggested to me directly that if I want an error analysis of Hens and Eggs, I should do it myself. I find this an odd position for him to take. I am sending the following note to him by email with a couple of suggestions on what I would do:
Demetris,
You may already know that your Hens and Eggs paper has come up on the current thread on Judith Curry’s Climate Etc. blog. I have stated my main criticisms that you are quite familiar with:
a.) results in conflict with carbon conservation
b.) unjustified smoothing of data
c.) no error analysis
Geoff Sherrington has passed on your peculiar position that I should do the error analysis myself. I am not willing to commit that time because of a.), but here are some things that you should be able to do relatively quickly:
1. Your data set went to 2021, and you think showed that a T rise might stimulate a CO2 rise about 10 months later. The years since 2021 have shown record temperatures, but I don’t see any corresponding (slightly delayed) bump in Mauna Loa data. Do you? If you append the most recent data and repeat the analysis, do you still see your effect? (Of course it would still have unknown statistical significance.) Do you care to make a prediction about what CO2 will do next after the 2024 records, given its postulated sensitivity to T?
2. In your Hen and Eggs paper discussed on Climate Etc. the key plots all used smoothed data, though this was not made obvious to the casual reader. You should be aware that smoothing raises a red flag to anyone who has worked with data. It is an easy way to fool yourself (or your reader) into thinking results are significant when they are not. It raises the obvious question: WHAT DO THE PLOTS LOOK LIKE WITH DATA THAT HAS NOT GONE THROUGH YOUR ROUGHNESS REMOVAL STEP? I believe I have asked for this before. I believe this is the most important recommendation I am making.
3. If you decide that your work so far is worthy of an error analysis, your first step should certainly be to remove that smoothing. Standard techniques could then be used to estimate the variance from the scatter in the data. I do not know how to get the variance after your smoothing. A least squares fit with two or three free parameters would then give you a better indication of whether you were on to something or just chasing noise.
The best place to respond to this would probably be on the blog.
David,
I haven’t read the whole thread, so this may already have been pointed out. I think that Gavin Cawley’s comments on this PubPeer thread explain a key problem with Koutsoyiannis et als analysis.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/7828A34E1F905217D557E4F8E93CC1#
aTTP. To paraphrase: Cawley’s argument basically boils down “we can’t detect the changes in temperature caused by changes in CO2 concentrations, but we know that [CO2] drives temperature in the long-term trends.” This unsupported position assumes that there are no long-term changes in temperature that aren’t the direct result of changes in [CO2] in general, and anthropogenic emissions in particular.
Let’s take a close look at the long-term trends starting with the idea that temperature is a logarithmic function of [CO2]. Pay attention to the upper, right residuals plot. This shows the differences between a linearly detrended temperature, and a linearly detrended logarithmic function of [CO2]
https://localartist.org/media/longtrends_ln_global.png
Now compare this to a 2nd-order detrend of [CO2] against a linear detrend of temperature.
https://localartist.org/media/longtrends_2_1_global.png
Clearly the 2nd-order relationship between temperature and CO2 concentrations is a much better fit. Keep in mind that, given the 1st-order detrend of temperature this 2nd-order detrend of [CO2] suggests an integral-like relationship (e.g. accumulation).
The frequency response analysis that I did as an independent confirmation of Koutsoyiannis’ causality result also adds to the argument for an integral relationship. Look at the upper, left magnitude response response and the phase response directly below it. In both responses, with decreasing frequency, there’s no evidence that a longer-term response is distorting either. At a minimum, if [CO2] was driving temperature, I would have expected the phase response to become less negative relative to the 6-month delay line.
https://localartist.org/media/CO2_Temp_FRF_1st_detrend.png
In the amplitude response the 13.8dB marker shows that the sensitivity over 10-year periods is 4.9ppm/°C. Going up in frequency the sensitivity is less at 2.8ppm/°C (3.3-year periods). Amplitude decreasing with frequency in what one would expect of an integral-like response (e.g.1/freq).
Everything in the measured data suggests that temperature drives [CO2]. That doesn’t mean all of the changes in CO2 concentrations are due to temperature. The reason I used coherent averaging was to diminish the effects of uncorrelated signals.
For anyone that wants to understand the analysis method, it turns out I rediscovered this approach. I have the advantage of longer datasets than were available to Park in 2009.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2009GL040975
Clint R,
Who are you? What is your background? Certainly not physics. More important, tell me why I should pay further attention to your lack of education, ignorance, silly aggression, and false insults, Sad sack.
BA, once again, you have NO science, only your juvenile insults and false accusations.
(Plus, you’re violating the blog rules. Please stop.)
Methane is a product of biological processes. Carbon captures hydrogen from water.
There is very little natural gas ( methane CH4 ) in Earth’s atmosphere, because ( CH4 ) is a light gas and it escapes Earth’s gravity.
Also the Earth’s proximacy to sun develops high enough temperatures for methane not to condense.
Methane is deposited in land. But land is subjected to earthquakes, to continents movements etc…
When out of the natural reservoirs, methane is lost for Earth’s system.
Methane’s carbon and methane’s hydrogen are lost in outer space, they are gone forever.
In the long process, inevitably, planet losses hydrogen and that is why earthern atmosphere gradually gets enriched with oxygen.
When burning natural gas we return water to oceans and CO2 to plants.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos …
“There is very little natural gas ( methane CH4 ) in Earth’s atmosphere, because ( CH4 ) is a light gas and it escapes Earth’s gravity.”
“Methane’s carbon and methane’s hydrogen are lost in outer space, they are gone forever.”
Just curious, from the above, would you say that the ‘carbon cycle’ is not a closed cycle?
Thank you, Bill.
“would you say that the ‘carbon cycle’ is not a closed cycle?”
It is not a closed cycle.
Carbon also gets accumulated in oil and coal deposits.
The coal and oil deposits the natural grow are carbon sinks only. And there is not any equilibrium expected from coal and oil deposits for the CO2 emission – unless because of the human interference.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Bill,
You are relentless in trying to muddy the waters. I guess you are saying we should add outer space to the sinks. OK, outer space plus land plus oceans have together been a net sink for the last 75 years.
Thank you, Christos. Please read below, as I would like your opinion on a question.
David … if being curious and asking questions is mud, then I plead guilty. ;-) I do have some follow on questions for Christos, but feel free to wade in. And, if they are too simple or naive, feel free to ignore them.
The ocean is both a sink and an emitter. The land is both a sink and an emitter. Can we now say that the atmosphere, in addition to ‘holding’ (I personally have not heard the word sink used in reference to the atmosphere, but would appreciate clarification if it is.) CO2, is also an emitter?
Bill,
“Can we now say that the atmosphere, in addition to ‘holding’ (I personally have not heard the word sink used in reference to the atmosphere, but would appreciate clarification if it is.) CO2, is also an emitter?”
–
I think not. I think atmosphere doesn’t emit CO2.
Atmosphere doesn’t have CO2 sediments to be able releazing or absorbing CO2.
Atmosphere holds as much CO2 as the Nature permits.
The Henry’s Law doesn’t apply on atmosphere -ocean gasses exchange, because Henry’s Law is for gasses in a sealed vessel at certain temperatures and at certain pressure.
What we witness is that ocean is “hungry” absorbing CO2. Also CO2 is captured in oil and coal sediments for ever.
If it was not for us humans, Earth would have been much closer to the CO2 starvation.
The observed planet greening is the turning point back from the slow but inevitable natural ecological shut down.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Thank you, Christos.
To the same extent that the hydrological cycle is not closed. CH4 has an atmospheric lifetime, due to chemical reactivity, of about 13 years.
Understanding the short and long carbon cycles is essential, and already well understood. I see a basic failure of the scientific method: (1) Ask a question, (2) formulate a hypothesis to answer the question, (3) background research and review. (3) seems to be the general failure around here – no point in going further.
https://www.carboncyclescience.us/what-is-carbon-cycle
The atmosphere is a sink. Where do you think all that fossil fuel CO2 goes first, before it is transferred (slowly) to other sinks? There is no upper limit. It is a WMGHG with decay rate (transfer rate to other sinks) constant of at least several hundred years before equilibrium with the other sinks is reestablished. I shudder at the thought of people that can’t do statistics, but think their innate intuition can solve coupled differential equations.
Thank you, B A.
“I shudder at the thought of people that can’t do statistics, but think their innate intuition can solve coupled differential equations.”
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
B A, what you do is to relay on the temperature measurements in the Stevenson’s standartized shelters.
They measure the temperature which is influenced by the free flow of air (not forced circulation). The measured temperature is not the surface temperature then.
When a satellite measures at the Stevenson’s shelter point, the satellite comes up with a different temperature.
Yet you continue to operate the by Stevenson’s shelters temperatures measurements to determine surface radiative fluxes for the planetary surface radiative imbalance estimations.
–
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos,
No, I rely (not relay) on all temperature measurements and their uncertainties as evaluated by the experts that work with them. (You are not one).
Your singular focalism, cherry-picking, and fabrication do not apply to me.
Would you like to comment on the article?
I think it is a very important topic!
“Ancient forest uncovered by melting ice in the Rocky Mountains”
Link:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/ancient-forest-melting-ice-1.7443094#:~:text=A%20team%20of%20scientists%20from%20Montana%20State%20University%2C,temperatures%20that%20melted%20the%20ice%20previously%20covering%20it.
Interesting post, Christos, thanks.
After 6K years under ice at 3k meters above sea level (180 meters higher than the existing tree line), lead scientist Whitlock is seemingly concerned that this previous well-developed forest wasn’t always under ice. What the heck was going on circa mid-Holocene era? Whitlock says that as the temperature warms now, this forest may someday return, the current treeline is likely to move to a higher elevation. With it, the area will lose an important source of water.
Thank you Jungletrunks.
Yes, “What the heck was going on circa mid-Holocene era? ”
What I think about this EVIDENCE ia that at Holocene “Optimum” it was already cold, and the cold kept advancing and about 6000 years ago the cold covered the wonderful forest with ice.
The cold (and ice) continued advancing for some time. Then a turning point towards the warming trend commenced.
The warming continues since, and at our times the tree line is still 180 meters lower, now, when the ancient (~6k years old) forest started getting out from the ice.
How much warmer than today it should have been before the Holocene “Optimum” – just let’s sit and wait till the tree line climbes to were the ancient forest flourished…
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Just one of the many examples where proxies are poorly reconciled with other historical data – low resolution proxies being treated as high resolution because they reconcile with other low resolution proxies.
Christos TY, nice and important news.
Fits into the picture nicely. So:
First (pls) go to https://melitamegalithic.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/searching-evidence-update-2/
top pic. Note Green-Kilimanjaro, and Red-Gisp2.
Date of trees earliest 4000bce. Note at 4375bce (a precise yr date from tree rings; an early suggested disturbance) shows Kilimanjaro abrupt inflection to cold; Gisp-2 to warm. This was a first suspected date for earth tilt change/increase noted in adjacent megalithic calendars. The temp anomaly corroborated the tree rings, but not much more.
But also to note the temp curves are averaged (where today we look at peak). It is also very near an Eddy cycle root.
One may say this is still wild speculation. Except that a similar event two Eddy cycles later is known (by me) in great detail; also an earth tilt increase – a meg calendar modification [ tilt change from ~14 deg to ~25; precession change of ~150 days; date 9May2346bce (~9.30 UTC) based on Julian calendar].
The opposite happened about 3550bce. There is research indicating abrupt lowering of treeline in Northern Europe (incidentally possibly also preserving Otzi) and Sahara fast desiccation).
melitamegalithic You might find this of some interest for your search. I’m not yet prepared to disclose exactly what these signals are, but I’ve extracted them from the motion of the sun around the solar system barycenter. The dashed line is a fixed-frequency sinusoid for reference. The start of the steps in the bottom plot are at ~4360 and ~267 BC. The last peak in the middle plot is ~2100 AD. The corresponding peak in the blue trace is ~2175 AD. I think these signals modulate solar activity, but you may have a different perspective.
https://localartist.org/media/baryc4200.png
Robert Cutler: Yes those graphs are extremely interesting, and invite dissecting for a number of details that are evident.
The dashed ref sinusoid looks like the 980yr Eddy – a bit less, but with interesting correlation.
Your two steps (am i correct are -4360 and +267 ??) I would place at my -4375 from tree rings and +173. The latter is precise from historical data, records from Chinese obliquity measurements that recorded abrupt but small disturbance. In both 2346bce and 173ce the critical factor is the new moon orientation – the trigger.
Censorship might occur and impede science not from any over action by anyone but rather by the best methodologies known to the scientific community, which result in biases in the research itself.
“One vexing problem that many researchers face when attempting to publish their research in prominent, peer-reviewed scientific journals is that data are more likely to be published when they reveal statistically significant than non-significant findings. Indeed, the point to publishing research is often the pitting of theories against each other in order to determine which one provides a better account of phenomena under investigation. If the findings do not differentiate among theoretical accounts, particularly in terms of statistical significance, then, it can be argued, there is no advance in science. Thus, manuscripts in which data analyses have led to failures to reject the null hypothesis are routinely excised from many top scientific publications, perhaps in large measure because of the inherent ambiguity in interpreting such outcomes.”
“ as failures to replicate are not being published, the phenomenon in question appears to be quite robust. A corollary to this illusory robustness is what has been termed the “file-drawer” problem or publication bias. Simply put, failures to replicate well-established effects go unnoticed in a scientific discipline because they go unpublished, remaining silent in laboratory file cabinets. The important issue here is that if there are a sufficient number of failures to replicate that do not receive scientific attention, then studies that have found a particular effect become just the “tip-of-the-iceberg”, painting a skewed and unbalanced picture of the nature of the true effect in the population. This might even occur when such failures have adhered to the same methodology as previously published studies. Thus, through no fault of our own, as scientists we come to believe that these effects are real and robust, simply because we are not privy to the extent of replication failures.”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2020.1794669
“ Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) has several shortcomings that are likely contributing factors behind the widely debated replication crisis of (cognitive) neuroscience, psychology, and biomedical science in general. We review these shortcomings and suggest that, after sustained negative experience, NHST should no longer be the default, dominant statistical practice of all biomedical and psychological research. If theoretical predictions are weak we should not rely on all or nothing hypothesis tests.”
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00390/full
One detail that I should have made clear before now is that the statistician referred to in my list of prosocial censorship victims (professor Norman Fenton) held a full professorship at the time his cancellation first started. Indeed, his current status as emeritus professor is very much one of the consequences of such cancellation. My apologies to professor Fenton for not having made this clear.
Anyone wishing to acquaint themselves with the full details should follow the link provided in the article. Better still, take the time to read the various papers he has written on the subject. Alternatively, you can purchase the book he co-wrote with his colleague professor Martin Neil: “Fighting Goliath”. Perhaps then you will be in a better position to judge for yourselves whether or not there is any basis for doubting the authorized narratives.
Mr. Ridgway, What authorized narratives, who is the authorizer? Self-negation by poor word choice; I assume what you really mean is the “accepted” narratives, but that would be kind of self-defeating, wouldn’t it? We are all free to judge various (science) “narratives” – some are better equipped than others. Personally, I see irrational conspiracy theories and demonization of science as much larger problems than peer pressure.
Judging whether or not there is any basis for doubt in scientific matters is easy. There is always doubt, and warranted, as there are no proofs in science, particular social-and pseudo-science, where falsification often is not possible. I recognize the right to doubt (be a skeptic), as long as I also have the right to reject those doubts, based on my scientific knowledge.
“The social anatomy of climate change denial in the United States”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-50591-6
B A Bushaw,
You say: “What authorized narratives, who is the authorizer? Self-negation by poor word choice…”
On the contrary, I choose my words carefully. The authorizer, in this instance is Ofcom, the UK’s regulator for the communications services. It is empowered under the Online Safety Bill, clause 141, to adjudicate upon narratives that are deemed to be misleading and harmful. Platforms that are thought to be allowing such narratives are subject to sanctions under the regulations. The platforms fulfil their obligations by taking down any material that breaks their own rules. It is fair to say that, in the case of Fenton’s censorship, the narratives to be protected relate to the scale of the pandemic, the efficacy of the vaccines and their safety. I use the expression ‘authorized narratives’ to convey the essentially authoritarian nature of the processes in place.
You say: ”I recognize the right to doubt (be a skeptic), as long as I also have the right to reject those doubts, based on my scientific knowledge.”
Of course, everyone has that prerogative. May I ask what it is regarding the Fenton case that you are rejecting? Is your rejection based upon careful examination of his work, or is it because he is challenging a narrative that you have already decided to accept? The narrative that the vaccines were both safe and effective is to a large extent (at least in the UK) based upon a dataset provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Professor Fenton has questioned the fitness of that dataset for such an analysis. The UK Office for Statistics Regulation has adjudicated in his favour, resulting in the ONS making the claim that the data had never been intended for that purpose. And yet nothing has changed, and nothing will whilst YouTube takes down Fenton’s videos every time he draws attention to this problem with the data.
“On the contrary, I choose my words carefully.” Yes you do, they can still be self-negating.
I don’t reject any of the
I don’t reject any of the Fenton case, I haven’t studied it and have no opinion, and not much interest.
B A Bushaw,
You start out by accusing me of “Self-negation by poor word choice”, but when I point out the correctness of my choice of words you switch to an implied accusation of a self-negation not requiring poor choice. Given that this is a self-negation on your part, I don’t think you are in any position to lecture others on such matters. Furthermore, you responded to my use of Fenton as an example of a sceptic subjected to prosocial censorship by pointing out your prerogative to reject such scepticism based upon your scientific understanding. However, when invited to expand upon the basis of your rejection, it is revealed that you were only making a general point that didn’t even apply to the example being discussed, i.e. you admit having no relevant insight or interest in gaining it.
I trust that you are able to understand the mistakes you have made here, although I fully appreciate that no admission from you will be forthcoming. Nevertheless, I am confident that you have enough self-awareness to appreciate why I will no longer be engaging with you in what you seem to think has been a debate. As far as I am concerned, your future silence would be the most constructive contribution available to you.
Geoff,
I am not surprised that Demetris Koutsoyiannis did not respond to my suggestions, either directly to me or on this blog. He has said on other forums “I do not respond to … politically/activism motivated, comments.” It is very convenient for him to label technical criticisms as “political” when he has no answer for them.’
Bill,
If indeed you are curious, may I recommend the following from my, perhaps, “cousin”:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Atmospheric-Physics-David-Andrews/dp/0521693187
Don’t make the mistake other skeptics make of criticizing scientific ideas you don’t understand.
Time for a hiatus. I don’t have enough time to deal with all the garbage prosocial censorship I receive here, primarily from Geoff, Clint, Joe, J-trunks, and C-kid, and a bunch of others that are smart enough to stop after the first or second try.
Ciao
Gosh BA, so sorry you’re offended by reality.
Nah, I’m good with reality. I’m only offended by certain parts of it … you being one of them, along with the others listed.
Sorry BA, but you can’t stand reality.
Just like you can’t stand your “hiatus”….
Tough being an undereducated nobody, eh, Clint.
For those parents who are struggling to deal with their child’s severe emotional trauma because of the establishment’s efforts to censor all good news about global warming, they can show them this and say
“Ok kid, the coast is clear, you can get out from under the bed and begin to live a normal life again and not have perpetual nightmares about the Doomsday Glacier, aka, The Big Enchilada. You won’t have to worry about it for another 175 years now.”
From the study
“ Based on recent estimates of melt from other studies, our work simulations suggest that melt-driven combined sea-level rise contribution from both glaciers (Pine Island and Thwaites) is unlikely to exceed 10 cm by 2200. We do not include other factors, such as ice shelf breakup that might increase loss, nor factors such as increased accumulation and isostatic uplift that may mitigate loss.”
https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2023-2929/
Sure Kid, How many glaciers are there in Antarctica?
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/faq/11/how-much-rise-should-we-expect-from-greenland-and-antarctica
You seem to have trouble keeping up, so let me help you out. Meters estimated in other studies. 4 inches over 175 years in this study. No one has facts about the future. If you were up to speed on the actual science regarding Antarctica rather than being manipulated by the propaganda, you would know that the studies freely admit large uncertainties about the future GMSLR.
I hope this helps.
No it doesn’t help – you didn’t answer my question. You’re a no-name nobody with no background that engages in misrepresentation. I’ll take NASA over that any day.
Kid, wake up and read your own comments. That 4 inches in 175 years was the contribution of only two glaciers, and you conflate it with total sea level rise. They are not the only source. Yes, there is relatively large uncertainty: The above NASA article is quite short, but you apparently didn’t read it, so here it is:
“Currently, total sea level rise is about 3 millimeters per year (about one-eighth of an inch per year). Of that amount, about one-third comes from Greenland and Antarctica, one-third from glaciers (like those in Alaska or the Himalayas), and one-third from the expansion of seawater as it warms.
In the future, scientists expect Greenland and Antarctica will contribute larger amounts. By 2100, the latest estimates of sea level rise contributions from Greenland and Antarctica sum up to about 1 meter (about 3 feet), but totals may be as high as 2 meters (over 6 feet). By 2300, total sea level rise from those ice sheets may be as high as 5 meters (about 16 feet).
Contributions to sea level rise from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are expected to continue for millennia to come, with total amounts depending on how society responds to global warming.”
You can also click on the link below the article: “Understanding sea level: By the numbers”, for the details and citations of the papers reporting them.
No, you are the one not getting it. It was about the so called Doomsday glacier that is used by the establishment to create fear of the worst outcome. Thwaites is used as a public relations gimmick to mobilize support to address AGW. I didn’t conflate it with GMSLR. I mentioned it because it’s part of a narrative not related to reality and science but is used to build political support for reducing CO2.
For anyone who wants to learn about Antarctica and its potential for contribution to GMSLR from AGW needs to read this.
“A robust causal relationship between WAIS ice loss and anthropogenic climate change is yet to be established because of strong internal variability in the region’s climate as well as ice-ocean feedbacks which perpetuate ice loss”
There are too many unknown variables and complex dynamics, of natural origin, that don’t allow a simple causal relationship to be established.
My comment was about efforts to censor the uncertainty of Antarctica sea level rise to further a political agenda.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01287-w
“ Our results show that the Amundsen Sea Embayment, and so the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not vulnerable to MICI under likely 21st-century ice configurations based on a revised, more physically motivated parameterization of cliff failure. This result is robust across three different ice sheet models. However, our results do not suggest that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is stable. It has been shown that Thwaites Glacier is potentially subject to marine ice sheet instability (MISI), a feedback process involving grounding-line retreat into deeper-bedded areas (17), and which can lead to high rates of sea-level rise over several centuries. Our experiments do not preclude MISI unfolding in the future for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet; rather, we argue that the hypothetical process of MICI may not play a role in its demise in the 21st century. With the conservative cliff failure parameterization implemented in our study, the calving rate would need to be 25 times higher to trigger a retreat of the calving front after the collapse of its ice shelf.”
These kinds of uncertainties and overestimates of catastrophic SLR are not highlighted in the IPCC reports and the media because they are not scary enough. The calving rate would need to be 25 times higher.
Translation, is that the establishment is just guessing.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado7794
The establishment is also censoring any reference to the possible effects of geothermal activity in Antarctica. These studies are becoming mainstream, not some outlier, with wacky theories.
“ Geothermal heat flow is a key parameter in governing ice dynamics, via its influence on basal melt and sliding, englacial rheology, and erosion. It is expected to exhibit significant lateral variability across Antarctica. Despite this, surface heat flow derived from Earth’s interior remains one of the most poorly constrained parameters controlling ice sheet evolution.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106274
“ Geothermal heat flow (GHF) is a key basal boundary condition for Antarctic ice-sheet flow. Large-scale variations are resolved by several recent models but knowledge of the smaller-scale variations, crucial for ice sheet dynamics, is limited by unresolved variations in crustal radiogenic heat production”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106201
“ Understanding geothermal heat flow, a critical boundary condition affecting the Antarctic ice sheets, is a matter of utmost urgency.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL110098
“ Geothermal heat flow is a boundary condition for modelling ice loss. In particular, the fast-changing Thwaites Glacier of West Antarctica, and the outlet glaciers of the Wilkes and Aurora Basins of East Antarctica, are locations of great concern.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00348-y
Kid,
They make scientific projections and discuss the uncertainties. It has been long obvious that you don’t care or understand how science works.
You misrepresented the expected 10 cm rise from two glaciers as the total GMSLR. Just another NNN that can’t control his biases.
ganon
I didn’t misrepresent anything. I provided the link. You can read what the author said, take it or leave it.
10 centimeters is 10 centimeters. From 2 glaciers. How is that complicated?
For the third time. The exact numbers are irrelevant. The intent was that the establishment never promotes anything except junk intended to scare people.
What did you think 10 cm represents?
Actually, the more interesting question is why did the IPCC6 censor any reference to the possible impact from geothermal activity in WAIS? Given the expanding literature about the subject, it’s a much more intriguing issue to follow. There are dozens of studies now discussing the incredibly complex interrelationships of all the dynamics in Antarctica. Should be great fun to see how the IPCC tries to ignore and finesse these emerging findings.
Kid,
Nah, you cherry-picked the abstract of a preprint, and left out:
“We do not include other factors, such as ice shelf breakup that might increase loss, nor factors such as increased accumulation and isostatic uplift that may mitigate loss.”
While admitting that the whole WA ice shelf is unstable.
If you’d like to read the whole paper, you can find it here:
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/18/2583/2024/
Yeah, there is a lot of uncertainty – It could be a lot worse than the average projections, more likely that your cherry-picked and fabricated minimum. We know how much GMSRL is accelerating (even if you couldn’t calculate what it means).
We don’t know how much the acceleration of the acceleration is.
However, science is really about confirming hypothesis with experimental measurements. From 1993 to 2018 Ice loss from Antarctica accounted for more than 7 mm of sea level rise.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/ramp-up-in-antarctic-ice-loss-speeds-sea-level-rise/
Since you have such a strong interest in GMSLR, perhaps you could find the most recent time series for Greenland and Antarctica ice loss, as well GMSLR. Then analyze for the acceleration (4th order polynomial with 3rd held at zero).
Here’s some real science on the subject. I hope it gives you more nightmares.
Reed, B., Green, J. a. M., Jenkins, A., & Gudmundsson, G. H. (2023). Recent irreversible retreat phase of Pine Island Glacier. Nature Climate Change, 14(1), 75–81. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01887-y
Kid NNN, I never said anything about AGW in this context. And yes, of course geothermal activity under WA makes it worse. I was talking about measured sea rise. Have you ever considered that the evidence says there is likely something for children (like you, mentally) to be afraid of? Not old folks like you and me; maybe think of your grandchildren instead.
Do you have any evidence the WA geothermal activity has increased, it is thought to have been there 10s of millions of years? Or is it just a deflection from what GMSLR is doing?
Now I know you need glasses. The sentence that you said I left out was in the quote that I provided. Not only do you need glasses, you need a new memory. And the quote that you said I left out was in the link that I provided.
Did your mother have to put you into timeout when you were naughty and didn’t own up to it? You obviously didn’t read what I quoted and then when you realized your mistake tried to make up a reason for your mistake. Your subconscious is suffering from a form of cognitive dissonance, after having been exposed to years of objective truths by skeptics. It’s not a pretty picture.
The next hurricane is definitely because of AGW.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjIFlKja4AAJ2AV?format=jpg&name=4096×4096
We pretend this is a new phenomenon, but look at Alfred Wegener and plate tectonics, Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren and their discovery of bacteria causing stomach ulcers, or Jacques Cinq-Mars when he claimed human habitation in North America 24,000 years ago, well before the Clovis people. These people were all ridiculed and “canceled” long before social media became a thing. This isn’t a story about science as much as it is about people. This is how people behave. The question is, how do we break through a consensus mindset?
True, true- ‘Barry James Marshall—Discovery of Helicobacter pylori as a Cause of Peptic Ulcer’…
That’s what it took to get a Nobel back in 2005 (in Physiology or Medicine)– personally taking H pylori to prove the cause cause of ulcers… unlike Al Gore who stabbed his mentor Dr.Revell in the back, flew around the world in a private jet, took money from China and and used more water and electricity at his palatial estate than a small African nation.
Investigate the investigators, in his article about lifetime Leftist politician Al Gore and global warming (‘Let Us Prey,’ Fall 2007 Range Magazine), author Tim Findley talks about UCSD professor Roger Revelle, the first global warming heretic.
“Before he died in 1991,” reports Findley, “Revelle produced a paper with [former NASA climate scientist Frederick] Singer suggesting that people should not be made to become alarmed over the greenhouse effect and global warming.” Their article (subtitled, “Look before you leap”) said as follows:
“Drastic, precipitous and, especially, unilateral steps to delay the putative greenhouse impacts can cost jobs and prosperity and increase the human costs of global poverty, without being effective.”
Trunks, yes you are also a name-calling NNN with nothing important to say. P.O.
Which “a consensus mindset”? Is it the one based on scientific research, or the (small) tribe consensus of willfully ignorant rejectionists? It is very hard to break through willful ignorance or self-deception. It is easy to break through a science-based consensus if it is wrong; all you have to do is come up with sufficiently convincing physical causality and evidence for it being wrong – good luck with that re AGW. As for all your cases of “cancelling”, it was scientific research that fixed that and confirmed those new hypotheses through further scientific research.
The left has turned the scientific method on its head. As a consequence, individual liberty and the future of the country and even Western civilization are severely threatened. Free society now faces the clear and present danger of the liberal fascism of unchecked government-funded science authoritarianism. The fix is in the works beginning with dismantling and eliminating the federal Department of Education.
In addition, the Left has turned in public school teachers into NGOs.
The right is trying to demonize/discredit science because they don’t like what it tells them. The willful ignorance is pathetic and obvious – thanks for that.
You are free to accept that idea as ‘self-evident’ but by convention, scientists have adopted the quaint notio that all ‘truths’ require some form of justification, i.e., adherence to the scientific method and, on that ground, you fail.
Wagathon, I essentially agree with all that you’ve said. I would only underscore that the phrase “liberal fascism” is an oxymoron.
The original meaning of the word “liberalism” spoke to freedom and liberty of the individual, fundamentally (then) referred to as “classical liberalism” (what the Scottish Enlightenment Period was all about). Marx considered liberalism a cancer (its basis was centered on individidual liberty and freedom). Marx railed against all liberal “individualistic” tenets, these drove capitalism.
Facism specificially aligns to Marxist tenets, those behind all essential collectivist principles. The difference here is that Fascism strips individualism via militaristic “collectivist solidarity”– group think.
Not in agreement with all of that, but, just my opinion– equate liberalism with the idea that there is no right or wrong and should be no consequences for whatever someone decides they want to do. Where the fascism comes in is, for example, it’s condoned to just tear down a cross on a hill, even if it stood there for 20 years without objection by anybody, and irrespective of the property rights and the opinions of others.
Wagathon,
No, you are the failure, just another anti-science, anti-education NNN, with nothing important to say. Just an empty vessel playing pseudo-intellectual.
“No, you are the failure”, squawk. “No, you are the failure”.
Polly wanna, squawk.
“The question is, how do we break through a consensus mindset?”
How about we all come up with our own theories and post them on the web?
This is part of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvLnT9VHElM ‘the heavenly aspect’
The other part is the opposite, projected on others. ‘Hell fire and brimstone’.
I think that has been, and is being, tried. The consensus remains, and grows stronger. Must be terribly frustrating for the rejectionists.
In its attempt to literally take over the American economy, the Left’s anti-CO2 crusade may result in millions of deaths around the globe, especially in the Third world. Plants love CO2 and people need plants, more energy, more water, more not less personal freedom. And, more CO2.
The truth is, according to the rules of the scientific method, we are unable to distinguish the climate we see now from the climate we know can be totally explained by natural causes because, it has all happened before. All the rest is conjecture, superstition and ignorance or worse- the will to deceive (a knowing hoax).
“Plants love CO2 and people need plants, more energy, more water”
Very true, Wagathon.
Water, oxygen, and CO2 are the gas for life. Quintessentially, they’re the facts of life.
True, true… must have been channeling a rhododendron
Professors Fenton and Neil have published an article discussing the rejection of their latest paper:
https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/dirty-deeds-done-dirt-cheap
It provides a full account of the peer review comments and their own responses, together with the final correspondence citing the reason for rejection. You can therefore judge for yourself whether the ostensibly technical reasons for rejection have any merit, or whether there is in any validity in Fenton and Neil’s suspicions that the true motives for rejection were prosocial.
I will say little, only to point out that the central idea of the paper (that the existence of ‘case window counting bias’ in cohort testing inevitably has the effect of exaggerating vaccine efficacy in trials) has featured strongly in previously accepted papers, and yet the rejection of that idea was the premise used to reject Fenton and Neil’s paper.
Fenton and Neil raise legitimate issues. The reported covid vax effectiveness against death is 5x-10x better than the unvaxed. However, the math simply doesnt hold up. 80% + of covid deaths were in the 65+ age group and 85%+ of that age group was vaxed. There simply wasnt enough unvaxed individuals that would result in such a high rate of total covid deaths post introduction of the vax. Most everyone involved in the data knows there are problems with the data base and the computation of covid death rates.
It is silly nitpicking. Most people know that the immune system needs several weeks of incubation before vaccines become effective. Thus, if the goal is to evaluate vaccine effectiveness, it should be done once the vaccination become effective. It is not a miracle cure that is effective immediately at the time of injection. Calling this a “cheap trick” (an ad hom) would get you rejected from any reputable peer-reviewed journal that I am aware of.
B A Bushaw,
You seem to have missed the point. It may be that ‘cheap trick’ is inappropriate, but the reason given for the paper being rejected had nothing to do with that. The paper was not rejected because the case window counting bias was referred to by Fenton and Neil as a ‘cheap trick’; it was rejected because the statistical argument offered by Fenton and Neil for the effect of the bias appears not to have been accepted. But the bias is a recognised phenomenon, the best explanation of which I have read is provided in the Peter Doshi paper:
“In randomised trials, applying the ‘fully vaccinated’ case counting window to both vaccine and placebo arms is easy. But in cohort studies, the case-counting window is only applied to the vaccinated group. Because unvaccinated people do not take placebo shots, counting 14 days after the second shot is simply inoperable. This asymmetry, in which the case-counting window nullifies cases in the vaccinated group but not in the unvaccinated group, biases estimates. As a result, a completely ineffective vaccine can appear substantially effective—48% effective in the example shown in Table 1.”
Also, although most everyone knows that vaccines are not fully effective immediately following injection, you once again fail to appreciate the issue. The protocol adopted by the initial trials (and subsequent data collation designed to confirm operational effectiveness) was every bit as unrealistic and arbitrary as is believing in immediate full effectiveness, since it assumed zero percent effectiveness during the window, followed by an abrupt transition to 100% effectiveness at the end of the window. Worse still, there has been considerable inconsistency in the manner in which data has been collated, such that different organisations have used different window lengths as a basis for categorisation. Add to that, a definition that introduces such a window in order to allow for a deferred efficacy cannot then be reasonably used when determining safety, particularly if posited harmful side-effects could happen in the days immediately following injection. Attributing such adverse events to the unvaccinated will obviously bias the safety statistics in the vaccine’s favour. And that is what appears to have happened (at least as far as the UK’s ONS analysis is concerned).
If you think definitional inconsistency, in which there has been no universally adopted definition as to what it actually means to have been vaccinated, and concerns over protocols that treat a vaccine that has actually attained 95% of its potency as if it were still at 0% are nit-picking then we must agree to disagree.
Just to qualify the above comment. It isn’t the need to allow for a window that is the problem, and its not really the assumptions made regarding how vaccine potency develops in the body. It is the manner in which the window is handled for the purposes of statistical analysis. The problem is compounded by the absence of a universally agreed function describing how full vaccine potency develops. There wasn’t even a consistently agreed length for the window, and an analysis for determining vaccine efficacy which is as much determined by an arbitrarily defined window length as it is the vaccine’s actual performance, is bound to be problematic.
John – FWIW – If you compare the per capita death rates of the unvaxed in the Oct Nov dec 2020 time frame ( when virtually no one was vaxed ) vs the per capita death rates in the unvaxed population in the nov dec jan 2021 time frame. I only ran the number for the 65+ age group since that is where 80%+ deaths occurred. the oct nov 2020 death rates for the unvaxed was about 50 per week per 100k whereas the per capita death rate of the “unvaxed in the oct nov dec 2021 was around 185-240 per 100k.
Its absolutely implausible that the per capita death rates jumped 3x-5x for a less lethal variant.
Further the overall deaths for the total vaxed and unvaxed as a percentage of each wave in comparison was reasonably consistent with prior pandemic patterns.
Lastly, there was insufficient unvaxed population that would support the total deaths.
In summary, everyone that has taken an honest look at the data, knows there are flaws in the data and mathematical computation.
Excellent post. As you point out this phenomenon is not limited to climate science but over the last 11 years has penetrated most fields of human endeavor. I published here a blog post last spring detailing the censorship industrial complex that a host of independent reporters had uncovered starting with the Twitter files. This complex was (and still is) a vast collusion between the deep state, regime media, big tech, and Democrats to enforce really draconian censorship. Trump seems intent on dismantling it and defunding it and I hope he succeeds.
Other excellent sources are two essays in Tablet I think in 2022 by John Ioannidis, perhaps the most cited scientist of this century, Matt Taibbi and Mike Schellenberger on substack, and Mike Benz has been exposing the national security state for at least a decade. He has several excellent podcasts on how USAID is a massive money laundering operation that funds pet projects around the world, often meant to generate support for Democrats, various regime change operations around the world, or pay NGO’s who are often run by former deep staters. This is a kickback scheme too.
https://judithcurry.com/2023/04/23/how-the-disinformation-industrial-complex-is-destroying-trust-in-science/
As I said, since this blog post, a vast unmasking has taken place of just how pernicious, illegal, and corrupt this machine is. Unfortunately the UK is actually worse with actual criminal penalties for saying certain offensive (to the censorious) things.
It is indeed ironic that the very brazenness and corrupt of this criminal enterprise is leading to its demise as their over-reach I believe led to Trump assembling a powerful coalition that is very committed to reform. I hope we succeed.
I also believe that Robert Kennedy, Marty Makary, and Jay Battacharia are motivated to try to reform science itself through the government grant process which in the US has become a vast machine churning out mostly wrong findings as Ioannidis has exposed.
I left out the USAID payments to media organizations, often oversees who then generated reports that served as the basis for Trump’s first impeachment and the Russia collusion hysteria. It was in fact a soft coup against President Trump that nearly succeeded and did in fact prevent his re-election in 2020.
USAID funded the rocky mountain institute which funded the Gas stove causes asthma study (12%). A study that is junk science and has many of the halmarks of academic fraud. Then just a few weeks later, the biden adminstration begins the campaign to ban gas stoves. Raises the legitimate question of how much collusion, corruption and coordination was invovled in the process
David – good point.
USAID funded a lot of activists agendas. One being the Gas stove study causing asthma study, To put it politely, it is a very suspect Study. Then a few weeks after the issuance of the study, the biden adminstration campaigned to ban gas stoves. Seems there was a lot of coordination between the study authors, RMI and the biden administration.
Update on the Mann lawsuit against styen NR, etal
On Jan 7, 2025, NR was awarded approx $530k in fees due to prevailing under the DC slapp statutes.
On Feb 6 Mann filed appeal of the fee award.
On 2/14/2025, NR filed opposition to motion.
Eventually there will be ruling that Mann did not meet the burden of the standard set out in Harte Hanks (hopefully if the judge knows the law).
JD Vance’s important speech dealing with censorship at the Munich Security Conference:
One of those speeches that will endure past the moment
I just added German political leader Alice Weidel to my hero’s list. Vance met with her during his Munich visit.
Merkel unhinged Germany’s democracy, it’s in shambles. Germany desperately needs an injection of freedom and liberty, stat.
Weidel is a member of the Friedrich A. von Hayek Society, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is her role model—yet she’s labeled far Right—for the Left this generally means one gets a radical label for having any political stance deviating from collectivist tenets. Marx.
Our forefathers weigh in on the German idea of democracy.
https://x.com/SupMarioBro/status/1891537465707520190/photo/1
cerescokid, I’m sure the Founders would have the type of reaction shown in the portrait, or worse.
Germany’s Weidel describes herself as an acolyte of both Thatcher, and Hayek, this gives me 20% hope for that country. Thatcher too was a confidante and acolyte of Hayek’s. Hayek loathed European classical liberalism, though he had an affinity for original American style classical liberalism, more specifically Whiggism.
Unfortunately, ironically, Germany is reverting to collectivist tenets of the not-too-distant past which certainly isn’t any form of classical liberalism. Weidel correctly identifies and describes the tragic propagandization of Germany’s not too distant history accurately. Free speech is one of the first freedoms taken in all forms of collectivist governance, usually it’s the first shot across the bow for what’s coming.
This is for Wagathon: When Marx was alive, he railed against “liberals”, Marx was referring to “individualists” (classical liberals in his day, “liberal” for short), communism is based on collectivism; thus Marx hated classical liberal individualism, those who embraced capitalism. Today’s neo-liberals are also referred to as liberals, yet they’ve evolved into collectivists. How can people who don’t follow history NOT be confused by the historical overlapping of political labels and the morphing of ideology?
I can think of maybe 4-5 actual liberals remaining in the Democratic party, though some became Independents, who are individualists, the rest of the party more closely aligns with Marx, they’re collectivists, The entire Democratic Party moves like a school of herring, if one were to call themselves an individualist, this would define them as a red herring.
I’ve heard it before in places, but one can’t be a liberal fascist, because one can’t be both an individualist and a collectivist at the same time. Extreme leftism only aligns with collectivist political philosophy: communism/socialism/fascism. Historically, classical liberal fundamentally defined individualism, it evolved out of the Scottish Enlightenment era.
The political definition “conservative” wasn’t coined until the early 19th century, post French Revolution (same with Left/Right political terminology). France, followed by England, began using the label “conservative”; which meant to have a sympathetic appeal to an earlier form of political philosophy, relating to their respective monarchies. In America, classical liberalism began to be referred to as conservatism in the late 19th century as political philosophy fragmented into various new forms, neo-liberalism, progressivism, etc. Conservatism, as defined, was a sympathetic appeal to an earlier form of American political philosophy, the founding philosophy of classical liberalism in the U.S.
Jungletrunks
I was quite liberal when I was learning about the world in the 1950s. That was when I looked up to Humphrey and others who were pushing for social change….in the right direction. Today some of the positions on the left border on lunacy, not reflecting the values of liberalism of that period.
Our founders would eye roll at some of the rhetoric of today, but FDR, HST, JFK and HHH would blanch at the espoused public policies of Democrats that we hear now.
I can only imagine what they would have thought when Host Margaret Brennan said free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide in Germany. What? Where do they get these people who influence millions every week by their statements. She, along with others use the term “far right” to demonize anyone they disagree with. For millions in America, those German patriots protesting the inaction of their leaders because the best of Western civilization is going down the drain, are being characterized by journalists as descendants of the Third Reich.
And what do the young people in America think of all this? They don’t know what to think and who to believe because they are not being taught history or civics or critical thinking. They are learning the value of emotional incontinence. How to shape society around you by holding your breath until turning blue.
Well said, cerescokid
Palantir CEO, Alex Karp: “You have to get on the train”.
A brilliant, holistic interview that helps make sense of the West’s failings: it discusses Germany’s woes, why censorship is happening—an all encompassing critique of academic and institutional failings. It describes why the pendulum of Western Leftism won’t swing back to where it was from where we’re going.
Jungletrunks
I saw that interview live. Outstanding. I plan on buying his new book, “Technological Republic”, which I gather is slightly similar to a book yet to be published by Gad Saad, an evolutionary behavioral scientist entitled “Suicidal Empathy” along the lines of several historians theses that great civilizations die by suicide, not murder. They forgot what made them great.
A side note on my stupidity. I bought shares of his AI company Palantir, with entry points of $6-8. When it hit $25 I couldn’t justify its value and got out. In the next few months it went up to $50, then $80 and now around $120. Uuugghh
cerescokid, I saw the interview live too. I tried to find a link to share but could only find paid firewall versions. The voice over version posted is a Palantir narrated PR piece, though this didn’t change the nature of the interview.
Good job on the investment, I can’t tell you how many times I sold stocks too soon!
I’m staying in the Florida panhandle this month. There is a certain magic this year when I look out on the Gulf.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gj2quw2WgAA89Sr?format=jpg&name=large
A novel anthropomorphic SLR mechanism—the tide just keeps coming in.
The soft censorship of ignoring new studies helps to keep the preferred narrative alive.
This study finds no significant trend in the WAIS SMB for the last 300 years and no significant trend for AIS SMB since 1980.
The study also finds heterogeneity in regional variability
https://journals.ametsoc.org/downloadpdf/view/journals/clim/36/23/JCLI-D-22-0747.1.pdf
“ Modeling West Antarctic ice sheet growth and collapse
through the past five million years”
This study indicates that the variability of the WAIS climate conditions has been influenced by incursions of circum Antarctic deep waters onto the continental shelves.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=andrillrespub
One of the glaciers of most interest in Antarctica is the Thwaites Glacier complex.
“Our results suggest that sustained pulses of rapid retreat have occurred at Thwaites Glacier in the past two centuries. Similar rapid retreat pulses are likely to occur in the near future when the grounding zone migrates back off stabilizing high points on the sea floor.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01019-9
The Pine Island Glacier is influenced by similar dynamics as the adjoining Thwaites Glacier, specifically a shallowing of the local thermocline.
“These events in the 1940s and 1970s coincide with notable climate anomalies in the central tropical Pacific, which has been shown to have a teleconnection with the Amundsen Sea. It is possible that tropically forced wind anomalies over the continental shelf break, caused a shallowing of the thermocline, allowing more warm circumpolar deep water to access the cavity underneath the ice shelf, leading to higher melt and enhanced thinning. Previous ice-flow modelling studies have shown that a shallower thermocline can cause irreversible retreat of an idealized representation of PIG and this happens when there is a sufficient gap between the subglacial ridge and ice shelf.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01887-y
Both the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers are located in the Amundsen Sea.
“Here we present the first multi-proxy data based reconstruction of variability in CDW inflow to the Amundsen Sea sector, the most vulnerable part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, during the last 11,000 years. The chemical composition of foraminifer shells and benthic foraminifer assemblages in marine sediments indicate that enhanced CDW upwelling, controlled by the latitudinal position of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds, forced deglaciation of this sector both until 7,500 years ago, when an ice-shelf collapse may have caused rapid ice-sheet thinning further upstream, and since the 1940s. These results increase confidence in the predictive capability of current ice-sheet models.”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5510715/
More elements of natural variability affecting the SMB of Antarctica.
“ We also show that the temporal and spatial variability of ice shelf melt rates is primarily controlled by the sub-ice shelf ocean current. Identifying processes controlling ice shelf melt rate is an important step towards better projections of Antarctic mass balance and thus future contributions from the Antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53190-6
“ Between 2003 and 2015, rates of glacier retreat and acceleration were extensive along the Bellingshausen Sea coastline, but slowed along the Amundsen Sea. We attribute this to an interdecadal suppression of westerly winds in the Amundsen Sea, which reduced warm water inflow to the Amundsen Sea Embayment. Our results provide direct observations that the pace, magnitude and extent of ice destabilization around West Antarctica vary by location, with the Amundsen Sea response most sensitive to interdecadal atmosphere-ocean variability.”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9842681/
More descriptions of how natural variability affects the dynamics of the Antarctic Ice Sheet SMB.
“The Pine Island and Thwaites Ice Shelves (PIIS/TIS) in the Amundsen Sea are melting rapidly and impacting global sea levels. The thermocline depth (TD) variability, the interface between cold Winter Water and warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water (mCDW), at the PIIS/TIS front strongly correlates with basal melt rates, but the drivers of its interannual variability remain uncertain. Here, using an ocean model, we propose that the strength of the eastern Amundsen Sea on-shelf circulation primarily controls TD variability and consequent PIIS/TIS melt rates.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47084-z
Interesting regarding interannual variability. I expect the longer-term trends will depend on how fast the mCDW is warming.
More natural variability factors that are not being recognized as having an influence on the Antarctica SMB.
“Basal melting induced by subglacial hydrology is thus important for ice shelf stability, but is absent from almost all ice-ocean models.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL103765
No doubt an important process, but, do you have any evidence there has been a significant change in that geothermal flow over, say, the last 1000 (or 100) years?
I have provided links above that demonstrate the melting currently has been occurring over the Holocene and nothing unprecedented. The SMB for the continent is trendless. Geo is not the only factor, just one of several. There is no evidence the melting is beyond the parameters of natural variability.
Thanks, I’ll look at your references
Thanks again. Found what I wanted in the supplemental material for Pollard & DeConto [2009]:
“Geothermal heat flux is set to .070 W m-2 for West Antarctica,
and .0546 W m-2 elsewhere[43].”
That is, “fixed” (variation not considered important) for the 5 million years under consideration.
Good to see you taking such a keen interest in the details of these natural processes. I imagine long-term SLR would be positive feedback for the flotation effects.
You have confirmed the evidence that their is no evidence that the current events are not outside the bounds of natural variability.
From above prt quote
“current events are not outside the bounds of natural variability.”
They are well within the Holocene transitions. What has been missed is that the transitions are extreme and abrupt. The present false dogma that earth is dynamically stable has blinded science to those transition events, called ‘dragon king visitations’.
Abrupt change in earth axial tilt and corresponding precession. On the ‘temp anomaly curve’ they are likely the inflection points that are quite evident in many proxies.
melitamegalithic,
Will quantum computers be able to precisely date these abrupt axial changes? Also, are the same physics that caused these catastrophic changes to this planet apply to all planets in all solar systems? Something did happen in antiquity that seems to support some of the events in the epic of Gilgamesh. Good luck.
jacksmith4tx,
No, we just need to get round to realise the dogma is wrong.
See this pls: https://melitamegalithic.wordpress.com/2022/10/31/searching-evidence-astronomy-for-the-heretic/
Year 173CE has quite a history, but the data was considered an outlier and ignored (by myself included in earlier studies, but noticed it only in the later data) It was a minor fling. But luckily the data also pointed to 2345bce. This I have dated precisely to 2346bce, 8-9th May (~9.30 UTC; yes it can be done; there is enough historical data). Obliquity change ~14.4 to ~ 24-25degrees measurable. Precession ~150 deg. described in concealed manner in several ancient texts.
So, yes it can be figured out with a lot of digging (now done). The thing to be more sure of is the primary driver and the mechanism. It is ‘Gravity’ but the real action is still somewhat elusive.
Precession proof: Talmud Rosh HaShana 11b “Rabbi Yehoshua says: That day was the seventeenth of Iyyar, the second month of the year counting from Nisan, which is the day that the constellation of Kima sets during the day and the season that the springs diminish with the increased heat. But because the people of the generation of the flood changed their actions for the worse, the Holy One, Blessed be He, changed for them the acts of Creation, and instead of Kima setting, He caused the constellation of Kima to rise during the day and He removed two stars from Kima, and in this way He brought a flood to the world.”
See fourmilab date converter for Hebrew 17 Iyyar; yr is 1414. The polymaths have been working on that for many centuries, but did not have the full picture (dynamics of rotating objects or gyro dynamics).
There are two earlier tilt changes but more difficult to pinpoint.
(it friday, the weekend; take a still drink, we are not on stable ground, irrespective of how much we preach it).
Kid, your problem is you understand states, but ignore rates. Ciao.
Geothermal heating is getting more and more attention by climate scientists when publishing studies on Antarctica.
“To make accurate predictions of future changes of Antarctic ice-sheet, it’s essential to understand the subglacial boundary conditions, particularly geothermal heat flow (GHF). GHF is an important factor in controlling the basal thermal state and ice rheology. Areas with a thawed bed generate basal melting water and contribute to subglacial hydrology, which is a known factor driving ice sheet dynamics”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106201
“We show that the rapidly retreating Thwaites and Pope glaciers in particular are underlain by areas of largely elevated geothermal heat flow, which relates to the tectonic and magmatic history of the West Antarctic Rift System in this region. Our results imply that the behavior of this vulnerable sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is strongly coupled to the dynamics of the underlying lithosphere.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00242-3
A reminder for those who reflexively blamed the LA fires on Global Warming, it’s always more complex than just one causative relationship.
From the Mayor of LA.
“ Acting in the best interests of Los Angeles’ public safety, and for the operations of the Los Angeles Fire Department, I have removed Kristin Crowley as Fire Chief,” Mayor Bass said. “We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch. Furthermore, a necessary step to an investigation was the President of the Fire Commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after action report on the fires. The Chief refused. These require her removal.….”
“ We explore the links between elevation variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) and large-scale climate modes. Using multiple linear regression, we quantify the time-cumulative effects of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) on gridded AIS elevations. Cumulative ENSO and SAM explain a median of 29% of the partial variance and up to 85% in some coastal areas…. At the lower parts of the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers, near their grounding line, we find the Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) explains ∼90% of the observed elevation variability.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL108844