(from Turning Tricks, Cashing In on Fear):
In other words, only a few weeks before the Copenhagen summit, here is a scientist in the inner AGW circle disclosing that “we are not close to knowing” whether the supposedly proven agw model of the earth’s climate actually works, and that therefore “geo-engineering” – global carbon-mitigation, for example -- is “hopeless”. Alexander Cockburn
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AGW stands for Anthropogenic Global Warming. AC sets up the conflict between the warmers and the coolers and puts 99% of left and progressives on the warmers side. Evidently, AC is a strong skeptic about AGW and uses his essay to dismantle the credibility of the warmers via the emails from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU).
The claim is that the data base was cherry picked for the warmer's while the mitigating data supporting the coolers was actively suppressed. The integrity of this data is important because the UN panel IPCC based their `Summaries for Policy Makers' on these (and other?) reports.
AC goes on to charge that much of the academic research, journal articles, and scientific publications devoted to climate change supporting the warmers was driven by needs for grant money and boosts in circulation. He includes Scientific American, Science, and Nature in the lot.
Near the end of the essay AC writes:
``As for the nightmare of vanishing ice caps and inundating seas, the average Arctic ice coverage has essentially remained unchanged for the last 20 years, and has actually increased slightly over the last 3 years. The rate of rise of sea level has declined significantly over the last 3 years, and its average rate of rise for the last 20 years is about the same as it has been for the last 15,000 years...'' AC
I realize CounterPunch is not a science journal and Cockburn is probably not used to writing about science. But if I was going to write something like the above, I would note where I got those figures. It's very simple, you write, `So-and-so found that...' In addition, I would try to verify the correctness of how those figures were found.
There are a lot of misleading implications in the above. For instance, ice coverage might have remained little changed, but the ice thickness has changed, and changed a lot more. The perimeter or area can change little, while the changes in volume can be large. What's going on here is a math trick. The rate of change of surface varies as the square of radius r of a sphere. The rate of change of volume varies as the cube of r of a sphere.
>From AC, another quote indicating a problem with the physics of the AGW
model:
``Greenhouse gasses in the cold upper atmosphere, even when warmed a bit by absorbed infrared, cannot possibly transfer heat to the warmer earth, and in fact radiate their absorbed heat into outer space. Readers interested in the science can read mathematical physicist Gerhard Gerlich’s and Ralf Tscheuchner’s detailed paper published in The International Journal of Modern Physics, updated in January, 2009, `Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics'. '' AC
Cockburn has it exactly backward. The upper atmosphere does not transfer heat to the surface. It's the surface that heats the atmosphere.
I looked up this article and found it was disputed to near derision, especially among the math-physics crowd. The essential problems with the article depend on the methods to make theoretical measures in their contra-warmer model. In other words the authors were accused of using math tricks, of similar type to my example of the difference between rates of change of area and those of volume.
We have an atmosphere which is heated from the surface. The heat is radiated away in space in greater or lesser quantities over time through the atmosphere. In the long view there is no violation of thermodynamics, because given sufficient time, the totals absorbed and radiated away will balance. However, the empirical case is the atmosphere acts like a semi-permeable insulator and slows or speeds these potential heat losses. The best candidate for this insulator effect are carbon compounds. More carbon, fewer losses, greater rise in temperature. Less carbon, greater loss, lower rise in temperature.
Go here, then scan down to comment by sylas for the arguments against the journal article Cockburn cited:
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-300667.html
``At the end of section 3.7.6, page 66, the authors make two claims. The speaks of a physically incorrect assumption of radiative balance. That's ludicrous. By the first law, there is necessarily a long term balance between the energy arriving from the Sun and being radiated from the planet. It is a physically correct implication that the Earth radiates an amount of energy into space that is equivalent to that of a blackbody at -18C.
The second claim speaks of effective radiating temperature being higher than measured averages. That is correct, and the authors are the ones who do not take this into account. The measured averages over the surface of the Earth are much more than -18C. Therefore the surface is radiating more than what you would get from a globe at -18C! Therefore the energy being radiated from the Earth's surface is MORE than the energy you get from the Sun. That IS the greenhouse effect, right there.
Good grief. It staggers me that this got published...'' sylas
Cockburn says he has followed the debate. That can't be, because there is little or no debate, except coming from the coolers. Here is a wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
``Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. Some organisations hold non-committal positions.''
Copenhagen was an utter failure with many associated problems, but the warmers v. coolers was not one of them. So IHMO that's a straw man.
CG