So what about the Himalayan glaciers?

You've probably seen in the press that an error has been found buried in an IPCC text. It said the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 and it turns out that the statement has no scientific backing. The denial industry has gone into paroxysms of rage/joy, but the claim wasn't even featured in the document summary. The fact is that no-one knows for sure what is the state of these glaciers because they simply haven't been studied enough despite the fact that 2bn people rely on them for drinking water. Have a look at this short video and you'll see that we'd need to take a closer look because the limited information we have doesn't look good.

Monbiot vs Plimer

I know I've been a bit obsessed about the denial movement of late, but you really must watch George Monbiot take apart the darling of the denial circuit, Ian Plimer, and his dodgy science. Enjoy!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/12/15/2772906.htm

You can't kill a zombie

Ben Goldacre writes the regular Bad Science column in the Guardian. Normally he sticks to medical issues, particularly the MMR scare, but he turned his scathing eye to climate change denial this week and gave us a new phrase - "zombie arguments". These are the arguments that keep coming back no matter how many times you blow it to smithereens - global cooling in the 70s, mediaeval warm period, no warming since 1998 and all the usual suspects. You can try using the well rehearsed responses listed at Grist, New Scientist or try the heavy artillery of scientific argument at Real Climate, but you won't kill zombies with mere facts - they keep coming back.

BTW, I had lunch on Saturday with a leading climatologist. He's very relieved that none of his e-mails to Phil Jones at CRU have been through the denialists' distortion mill and says that Phil Jones is a true gent and completely above reproach. The New Scientist debunking of the e-mail allegations is worth a read - there really is nothing in it.

Lord Lawson "fiddles climate data"

Nigel Lawson is another non-climatologist who believes he is qualified to review the evidence on climate change. He has recently been in the press harrumphing over the CRU e-mail hack revelations.

Shame he has been found out fiddling the 21st century climate data on the logo of his new objective climate change think tank to show a cooling trend.

This is the latest in a long line of faked data from the sceptic/denier camp - eg Pat Michaels misrepresenting James Hansen's predictions to Congress and Christopher Monckton's fictional IPCC prediction. [update - we should add Booker, Plimmer, and Durkin to this list]

Should we have an independent review? Or just laugh?

Monckton/Gore Rap It Out

Climatologists are human shock!

You've probably heard the furore over the leaked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. If you are a climate denier/sceptic then this is the proof you've been waiting for that the whole thing is a socialist scam to enslave the world. Even George Monbiot says that heads should roll. Rejoice!

Except...

When you look at it, it's all a big fuss over nothing. Let's look at the "smoking guns":

1. One researcher says he's used a "trick" to deal with the "decline". This has already been misinterpreted by The Telegraph that the "decline" refers to recent years' temperature data when it doesn't. It refers to a way round a problem marrying historic tree ring data and actual temperature data. The whole "trick" was so devious the researcher published what he did and how he did it at the time in the prestigious scientific journal Nature and it was accepted as scientifically sound by their (very strict) peer review panel.

2. The censorship of research. This refers to the controversy in 2004 over the editorial policy in the journal Climate Research and again the row was very public at the time. Several editors resigned in protest at the acceptance of a number of (sceptical) papers which they felt did not meet proper academic standards. Academic politics can get quite bitter.

3. Freedom of Information requests. Again this has all been in the open, although I believe that in general data should be shared, even with people who will misinterpret it, deliberately or otherwise.

4. One researcher is frustrated he can't explain why 2008 was relatively cool. If you've worked in academic circles, there are always problems like this to solve.

What else do the e-mails tell us? That climatologists can be truculent, defensive and sometimes rude about others in private. Well, just like the rest of us then...

The whole fuss has got the denial brigade back in the media just before Copenhagen. You'd think someone had planned the whole thing.

Also, Nigel Lawson has launched a new "cross-party policy forum" on global warming which is going to carry out an objective review of the evidence. Except the board of trustees and scientific advisors are packed with the usual suspects from the denial circuit (Lindzen, Stott, Plimer - the best that money can buy). The banner of the website shows temperature data from 2001-08, nailing their colours firmly to the mast. Looks like the Heartland Institute on Thames, then.

Ho hum.

Blind faith or sound science?

The case of Tim Nicholson, who successfully sued his employer Grainger plc for unfair dismissal on the grounds that he believed too deeply in environmentalism akin to a religious belief, has generated more in column inches than it arguably deserves. But, never one to eschew a bandwagon, here's my take on faith vs science on climate change.

To start with, most if not all of the commentary is oversimplistic in order to make a good headline. To get a sensible understanding of this situation, we've got to split the 'green position' into three.

First of all, take the science of, say, climate change. I once heard a Met Office climatologist tell an audience "I often get asked at parties whether I believe in climate change. I respond that you might as well ask me whether I believe in mountains. It [climate change] is simply a physical fact." Estimating the likely impacts of man-made climate change is where the real scientific debate takes place and that is a matter of observation, modelling, debate, peer-review and all the other objective processes of scientific endeavour. Faith does not, and should not, get a look in.

Secondly, there is the deeper value-driven belief system when it comes to the environment. Everyone (OK, almost everyone) is an environmentalist. Who isn't amazed by the splendours of nature - the Grand Canyon, wildebeest migrating across the Serengeti or an eagle in flight? This taps into a deeper part of our soul - our attachment to our natural habitat. This is subjective and will manifest itself in different ways for different people. This is the closest environmentalism comes to faith.

Thirdly, there is political outlook. There is no doubt that the physical phenomenon of climate change is convenient for those with an anti-capitalist, anarchist mindset - just look at any major protest. Despite claims to the contrary, you rarely see many men in Pringle sweaters or women with blue rinses at a Climate Camp. That's not to knock those protesters, but they would have to admit themselves they tend to come from a particular mindset. People's politics change, so this can't be faith either.

Many of the commentators on the Nicholson case, deliberately or otherwise, have mixed up these issues. We get told that if we don't get in step with "the climate change orthodoxy" we get howled down (who by? go to any online debate on climate change and see who is doing the howling). Let's get it straight. Man-made climate change is a scientific fact. The enthusiasm or tone of argument of those who promote action on climate change does not undermine that fact or make it an article of faith.

I would like now to throw the "faith" issue back at the climate change denial brigade. I went to a very academic and quite religious school in Northern Ireland. On the subject of evolution we got a very schizophrenic education. We'd go to Biology and get the science in an objective and rigourous manner, then to Religious Education, where a man in a dog collar would try and disprove that science using what I now recognise as some very dodgy scientific arguments and some stuff he simply made up. Reading the ramblings of a climate change denier like Christopher Booker of the Telegraph (who also happens to be a creationist) reminds me of my old RE teacher. They start with an assumption they are right (faith), ignore the core evidence (blind faith) and pick out (or make up) a few 'facts' which they say bring down more than a century of climate science (self delusion). Straw men are set up to be knocked down, experts are derided and laymen are quoted as soothsayers. Despite this, they get the book deals and the newspaper columns - just like many other huxtsers in other lines of human endeavour.

So, whether greens are coming from a scientific or a political angle, it cannot be argued that climate change is "eco-fundamentalism". The only fundamentalism in the green debate is from the denial brigade. Fact.

I understand the ice cores! Victory is mine!

I appear to have won my mini-war with some denier acquaintances by outflanking them on the battle of the ice cores.

The denier argument goes like this:

"The ice cores show that past temperature rises happened before carbon dioxide concentrations rose, therefore temperature drives carbon and not the other way round, hence man made carbon emissions will not cause temperature rises."

The statement is true, the conclusion is 180° out.

The ice cores show the relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide under natural warming (there were no power stations or SUVs). So something other than carbon pushed up temperature (slowly), leading eventually to the slow release of carbon dioxide and methane (eg from melting permafrost and other climatic changes). This carbon will have then contributed in turn to that warming which lasted for 5000 years before starting to cool again. So we would expect to see what we see in the ice-cores.

The current situation is quite different. Carbon dioxide is rising faster and further than in the ice cores due to man's activity. Temperature rises are lagging behind the carbon rises. Using the deniers' own logic, this lag proves that man-made carbon emissions are driving current temperature rises.

QED.

BTW: the full explanation can be seen on the excellent realclimate.org.