Is the Faint Young Sun Problem Solved by Increased Greenhouse Gases?

[ViewsofMars]

An internationally known peer-reviewed journal NATURE has an article and commentary in the News section.

Published online 16 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1146

Sea level rise may exceed worst expectations
Seas were nearly 10 metres higher than now in previous interglacial period.
Richard A. Lovett

With climate talks stalling in Copenhagen, a study suggests that one problem, sea level rise, may be even more urgent than previously thought.

Robert Kopp, a palaeoclimatologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and his colleagues examined sea level rise during the most recent previous interglacial stage, about 125,000 years ago. It was a time when the climate was similar to that predicted for our future, with average polar temperatures about 3-5°C warmer than now.

Other studies have looked at this era, but most focused on sea level changes in only a few locales and local changes may not fully reflect global changes. Sea level can rise, for example, if the land is subsiding. It can also be affected by changes in the mass distribution of Earth. For example, says Kopp, ice-age glaciers have enough gravity to pull water slightly polewards. When the glaciers melt, water moves back towards the Equator. To adjust for such effects, Kopp's team compiled sea-level data from over 30 sites across the globe.

"We could go to a lot of different places and look at coral reefs or intertidal sediments or beaches that are now stranded above sea level, and build a reasonably large database of sea-level indicators," says Kopp.

The team reports1 in Nature today that the sea probably rose about 6.6–9.4 metres above present-day levels during the previous period between ice ages. When it was at roughly its present level, the average rate of rise was probably 56–92 centimetres a century. "[That is] faster than the current rate of sea level rise by a factor of about two or three," Kopp says, warning that if the poles warm as expected, a similar accelleration in sea-level rise might occur in future.

Climate meltdown
The study is "very sophisticated", says Peter Clark, a geologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. "A lot more of the existing ice sheets at the time must have melted than was thought to be the case," he says, such as parts of Greenland and Antarctica.

The implications are disconcerting, says Clark. If the world warms up to levels comparable to those 125,000 years ago, "we can expect a large fraction of the Greenland ice sheet and some part of the Antarctic ice sheet, mostly likely West Antarctica, to melt. That's clearly in sight with where we're heading."

Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson agrees. "Earth's polar ice sheets may be more vulnerable to climate change than commonly believed," he says.

Furthermore, even if global warming causes seas to start rising toward the levels seen 125,000 years ago, there is no reason to presume that it will proceed at the relatively sedate rate of 6-9 millimeters a year seen by Kopp's study. In part, that's because his study didn't have the resolution to spot changes on a year-by-year basis, so there's nothing to say that the rise during the last interglacial didn't occur in shorter, faster spurts, undetectable in Kopp's data.

Near future warming will also be driven by potentially faster-moving processes than those of the last interglacial. "The driver of [climate change during the last interglacial period] was slow changes in Earth's orbit, happening over thousands of years," says Stefan Rahmstorf, an ocean scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. "We're now set to cause several degrees of global warming within just a century. I would expect this to drive a much faster sea level rise."

Some scientists think that we may already be committed to a future with higher seas than had been expected. "There could be a global warming tipping point beyond which many metres of sea level rise is inevitable unless global greenhouse-gas emissions are cut dramatically, and soon," warns Overpeck.

"I have spent a lot of time talking with national security decision-makers in this country and abroad about the security implications of climate change," says Marc Levy, deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York. "I've consistently witnessed an inability on their part to take sea-level risks seriously. This study helps frame the risks in ways that decision-makers can better understand."
•References
1.Kopp, R. E., Simons, F. J., Mitrovica, J. X., Maloof, A. C. & Oppenheimer, M. Nature 462, 863-867 (2009). Article
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091216/full/news.2009.1146.html

Here is the ARTICLE.

Article
Nature 462, 863-867 (17 December 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08686; Received 27 February 2009; Accepted 11 November 2009


Probabilistic assessment of sea level during the last interglacial stage
Robert E. Kopp1,2, Frederik J. Simons1, Jerry X. Mitrovica3, Adam C. Maloof1 & Michael Oppenheimer1,2

1.Department of Geosciences,
2.Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
3.Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Correspondence to: Robert E. Kopp1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to R.E.K. (Email: rkopp@alumni.caltech.edu).

Abstract
With polar temperatures ~3–5 °C warmer than today, the last interglacial stage (~125 kyr ago) serves as a partial analogue for 1–2 °C global warming scenarios. Geological records from several sites indicate that local sea levels during the last interglacial were higher than today, but because local sea levels differ from global sea level, accurately reconstructing past global sea level requires an integrated analysis of globally distributed data sets. Here we present an extensive compilation of local sea level indicators and a statistical approach for estimating global sea level, local sea levels, ice sheet volumes and their associated uncertainties. We find a 95% probability that global sea level peaked at least 6.6 m higher than today during the last interglacial; it is likely (67% probability) to have exceeded 8.0 m but is unlikely (33% probability) to have exceeded 9.4 m. When global sea level was close to its current level (≥-10 m), the millennial average rate of global sea level rise is very likely to have exceeded 5.6 m kyr-1 but is unlikely to have exceeded 9.2 m kyr-1. Our analysis extends previous last interglacial sea level studies by integrating literature observations within a probabilistic framework that accounts for the physics of sea level change. The results highlight the long-term vulnerability of ice sheets to even relatively low levels of sustained global warming.

1.Department of Geosciences,
2.Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
3.Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Correspondence to: Robert E. Kopp1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to R.E.K. (Email: rkopp@alumni.caltech.edu).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7275/full/nature08686.html

 

[Xnn]

Xnn in a previous article I presented stated, "The Arctic Ocean marine carbon cycle: evaluation of air-sea CO2 exchanges, ocean acidification impacts and potential feedbacks . . . ." That was my third posting on the previous page.

May I please see the climate models you are referring to that don't take into account the
'melting of Greenland and Antarctica which represent to you 'most climate models'. Thanks.

Here's a link to the http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo706.html".

Here is the abstract:

Quantifying the equilibrium response of global temperatures to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is one of the cornerstones of climate research. Components of the Earth|[rsquo]|s climate system that vary over long timescales, such as ice sheets and vegetation, could have an important effect on this temperature sensitivity, but have often been neglected. Here we use a coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model to simulate the climate of the mid-Pliocene warm period (about three million years ago), and analyse the forcings and feedbacks that contributed to the relatively warm temperatures. Furthermore, we compare our simulation with proxy records of mid-Pliocene sea surface temperature. Taking these lines of evidence together, we estimate that the response of the Earth system to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is 30–50|[percnt]| greater than the response based on those fast-adjusting components of the climate system that are used traditionally to estimate climate sensitivity. We conclude that targets for the long-term stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations aimed at preventing a dangerous human interference with the climate system should take into account this higher sensitivity of the Earth system.

Most current climate models only include fast acting changes such as water vapor, clouds and sea ice. Such models tend to underestimate the amount of warming found during the middle pliocene. Geolocigal records from the middle pliocene indicate about 30 to 50% more warmer than found with feedbacks included with traditional models. Slow changes in Ice sheets and vegetation have traditionally been ignored by climate models. By slow, we are talking about process that require hundreds of years.

 

[Bill Illis]

There was another study published in Science in December that constrained the CO2 estimates at 3 million years ago to 250 ppm (300 ppm at 3.3 Mya; 325 ppm at 5 Mya; 200 ppm at 8 Mya; 400 ppm at 15 Mya and 350 ppm at 20 Mya) which are consistent/sometimes a little higher than the ones I presented before.

http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/tripati.etal.sci.2009.pdf

Published in ScienceExpress in October, reprinted in Science on December 4, 2009

 

[dmtr]

How can I tell that these studies are rigorous enough and can not be falsified? There is virtually no funding directed towards the criticism, why should I expect to see an unbiased picture? True, there is no professional criticism, but why should we expect it?

There was an article in the news: "Climate skeptic Pat Michaels refuses court request to disclose funding sources" - why should he disclose that information? It is his science that we should be interested in, that should be rigorously falsified, definitely not his funding sources.

Here is a nice site (don't worry, no criticism on that site) http://www.heatisonline.org/disinformation.cfm, just search for 'funding'. Why cutting the funding for professional skepticism should be considered as a good, well balanced approach?

 

[Xnn]

Bill;

Wow! That's a very impressive paper.

When pCO2 levels were last similar to modern values (greater than 350 to 400 ppmv), there was little glacial ice on land, or sea ice in the Arctic, and a marine-based ice mass on Antarctica was not viable.

What they mean by marine based-ice mass, is that glaciers and ice shelves were not able to exist at sea level and were constrained to higher inland elevations of the continent.

The highest estimates of pCO2 occur during the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO; ~16 to 14 Ma), the only interval in our record with levels higher than the 2009 value of 387 ppmv. Climate proxies indicate the MMCO was associated with reduced ice volume and globally higher sea level (25 to 40 meters) (3), as well as warmer surface and deep-water temperatures (2, 20).

From the charts; it looks like CO2 levels were around 440 ppm (375 to 475) during the MMCO.

Currently, CO2 levels are rising about 2ppm/year. So, we could reach 440 ppm within 25 years.

 

[Xnn]

How can I tell that these studies are rigorous enough and can not be falsified? There is virtually no funding directed towards the criticism, why should I expect to see an unbiased picture? True, there is no professional criticism, but why should we expect it?

Actually, there is a healthy amount of professional criticism. The trick is discerning between legitimate scientific criticisms and those that are politically motivated. Generally, if somebody publishes legitimate scientific research, it makes its way into the more prestigeous science journals where it is read by a number of knowledgeable people. Then other researchers will attempt to repeat the work or conduct additional studies that either extend the knowledge or contradict it. It's a continuous ongoing process.

When it comes to climate studies, every few years there is a collection of scientists that get together, review all the new papers and write up a summary. If something is questionable, or not well understood, then it is identified as having a low level of understanding.

Here is a link to the 2007 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html" .

 

[dmtr]

Actually, there is a healthy amount of professional criticism. The trick is discerning between legitimate scientific criticisms and those that are politically motivated. Generally, if somebody publishes legitimate scientific research, it makes its way into the more prestigeous science journals where it is read by a number of knowledgeable people. Then other researchers will attempt to repeat the work or conduct additional studies that either extend the knowledge or contradict it. It's a continuous ongoing process.

Can somebody give several examples, when some erroneous (and major) paper favoring the global warming was withdrawn due to criticism?

These examples will show very clearly, that there is a healthy amount of criticism. Lack of these examples again will show that there is no criticism. And you know what that signifies.

 

[baywax]

Criticism comes easily to many!

Can somebody give several examples, when some erroneous major paper favoring the global warming was withdrawn due to criticism?

United Press International
01-22-2004
Cosmic cause to global warming discredited

WASHINGTON, Jan 22, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Putting the blame for global warming on cosmic rays is just so much hot air, say 11 scientists writing in the American Geophysical Union's journal Eos.

The article in the Jan. 27 issue of Eos claims a recent paper attributing most climate change on Earth to cosmic rays is incorrect and based on questionable methodology.

Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv and geologist Jan Veizer wrote in the Geological Society of America's journal GSA Today they found a correlation between cosmic rays and temperature evolution over hundreds of millions of years, and ...

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-89667992.html

Climate Alarmists will be Discredited in 2008
Share: by atomcat | January 10, 2008 at 07:36 am
585 views | 2 Recommendations | 1 comment2008 will be the year that the climate alarmists will be discredited
Media Promotes Global Warming Alarmism by Jack Kelly at RealClearPolitics via Yahoo News:

About this time last year, Dr. Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University in Britain, predicted 2007 would be the warmest year on record.

It didn’t turn out that way. 2007 was only the 9th warmest year since global temperature readings were first made in 1861.

2007 was also the coldest year of this century, noted Czech physicist Lubos Motl.

Both global warming alarmists like Dr. Jones and skeptics like Dr. Motl forecast that this year will be slightly cooler than last year. If so, that means it will be a decade since the high water mark in global temperature was set in 1998.

And the trend line is down. Average global temperature in 2007 was lower than for 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001. November of last year was the coldest month since January of 2000, and December was colder still. “Global warming has stopped,” said David Whitehouse, former science editor for the BBC. “It’s not a viewpoint or a skeptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact.”

http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/climate-alarmists-will-be-discredited-2008

Central Plank Of Global Warming Alarmism Discredited

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, April 14, 2008
One of the central philosophies of climate change alarmism and an image that adorned the cover of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth - the contention that global warming causes deadly hurricanes – has been completely discredited by the expert who first proposed it.
Hurricane buff and professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT Kerry Emanuel asserted for over 20 years that global warming breeds more frequent and stronger storms and he shot to prominence just one month before Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when he delivered the "final proof" that global warming was already causing extreme weather events and wrecking livelihoods.

Emanuel was subsequently acknowledged with a place in Time Magazine’s "100 People Who Shape Our World" list.

Al Gore was so inspired by Emanuel’s research that he devoted the iconic front cover image of his 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth to his warning, portraying a hurricane emerging from a Co2-belching smokestack.


An inconvenient cover image – Al Gore’s depiction of global warming’s contribution to hurricanes has been completely discredited.

Unfortunately for the church of environmentalism, who ceaselessly profess to have a monopoly on truth and insist that "the debate is over" on global warming, Emanuel has completely recanted his position and now admits that hurricanes and storms will actually decline over the next 200 years and have little or no correlation with global temperature change whatsoever.

http://www.infowars.com/central-plank-of-global-warming-alarmism-discredited/

Here is the latest sampling of studies and scientists debunking Mann's "new hockey stick." Updated as of September 25, 2008.

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cach...+discredited&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari

Ocean Fertilization 'Fix' For Global Warming Discredited By New Research

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2007) — Scientists have revealed an important discovery that raises doubts concerning the viability of plans to fertilize the ocean to solve global warming, a projected $100 billion venture.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071129132753.htm

POZNAN, Poland - The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices and views of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See Full report Here: & See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' ]

http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/sma...issent-over-manmade-global-warming-claim.html

 

[dmtr]

Criticism comes easily to many!

What you gave is a list of 'criticism' papers (and indications that some of them were withdrawn, good science at work!). I was not asking for it. Let's try to make a list of withdrawn papers favoring the climate change.

Some of the papers favoring the climate change should have been erroneous. If there is a healthy criticism, these errors should have been spotted and the papers withdrawn. It would be a good indicator of a good science.

 

[Skyhunter]

Some of the papers favoring the climate change should have been erroneous. If there is a healthy criticism, these errors should have been spotted and the papers withdrawn. It would be a good indicator of a good science.

This is a false assumption.

Each paper stands individually on it's own merits. Papers are submitted to a publisher for peer review. When a paper passes the peer review it is published in the journal. If it does not pass review it can be corrected and resubmitted. I have never heard of a paper being withdrawn.

Take the time to understand the underlying physics, then you won't need to speculate about the science. Basing your judgment on how many mistakes are made is not very scientific.

 

[dmtr]

I have never heard of a paper being withdrawn.

Well. I have. It is a part of the normal scientific process. There are always mistakes and withdrawn papers. I can give you any number of examples in biology, physics, cosmology, etc. Withdrawn papers is a good indicator that errors are being spotted, that some healthy criticism is present.

Basing your judgment on how many mistakes are made is not very scientific.

On how many mistakes have been caught.

 

[sylas]

Well. I did. It is a part of the normal scientific process. There are always mistakes and withdrawn papers. I can give you any number of examples in biology, physics, cosmology, etc. Withdrawn papers is a good indicator that errors are being spotted, that some healthy criticism is present.

Papers are not usually withdrawn merely for being erroneous. To actually withdraw a paper is very unusual, and usually indicates something more drastic; fraud or plagiarism.

I'm not sure how useful it is to look for recognized errors in papers; but it can be an interesting insight into the scientific process. I suggest setting the bar a bit lower.

I can give examples of papers that have had significant corrections acknowledged in print by the authors. These are not merely new improved results, but specific identification of a clear source of error that had a major impact on the result.

This is not particularly unusual, I think; but generally it will involve an isolated unusual claim that turns out to have been overstated, rather than identification of some error which undermines a whole well established body of theory. That is what would be required to show anthropogenic global warming was based on an error.

The examples I am thinking of are not exactly "skeptic" papers, but they did stand as a challenge to conventional ideas of climate, and turned out to have been incorrect, as acknowledged by everyone involved.

• Tropical warming trends in the troposphere were substantially underestimated by John Christy's satellite temperature estimating group at the University of Atlanta Huntsville (UAH). The erroneous measure was a substantial conflict with climate models, but was resolved in 2005 when it was pointed out that they had made a sign error in corrections for a day night cycle. The error was acknowledged and corrected as soon it was pointed out. The UAH group continues to publish, of course, using the new corrected data and suitably revised conclusions.
• Estimates of a sharp rise in Earth's albedo were published in 2004, and again in 2006, based on measurements of reflected light from the Moon by Palle and colleagues. This was presented as indicating an albedo based forcing much larger than the carbon dioxide forcing. However, the rise was actually due to problems with a telescope, and the corrections were published in 2008 by the same group.
• Ocean warming estimates by Josh Willis, based on the network of robotic floats (ARGO), initially indicated significant cooling of the oceans. These results were discovered to have been distorted by problems with the pressure sensors on floats. These floats would regularly sink down and record temperature profiles with depth, then resurface and transmit results. But the sensors meant that the depth information was incorrect, and when corrected in 2008, the cooling effect was discovered to be an error.
• Steven Schwartz in 2007 published a very low estimate for climate sensitivity based on relaxation times in the temperature record. The paper was quickly followed by a rash of rebuttals in the same journal, which Schwartz recognized and in 2008 published a follow up substantially revising the sensitivity estimate upwards.

I am sure it will not be hard to add to this list.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[dmtr]

Papers are not usually withdrawn merely for being erroneous. To actually withdraw a paper is very unusual, and usually indicates something more drastic; fraud or plagiarism.

I'm not sure how useful it is to look for recognized errors in papers; but it can be an interesting insight into the scientific process. I suggest setting the bar a bit lower.

Here is a recent example of a major paper being retracted. I can give you quite a few in biology and chemistry. http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091209/full/462707a.html
This withdrawal is a good indicator that there is healthy criticism in chemistry. Peer review can't spot everything. And it is ok.

EDIT: Yeah, it's an excellent idea to set the bar lower and look for significant corrections as well.

The examples I am thinking of are not exactly "skeptic" papers, but they did stand as a challenge to conventional ideas of climate, and turned out to have been incorrect, as acknowledged by everyone involved.

I'm asking for examples of corrections and retractions of papers that did NOT stand as a challenge to conventional ideas of climate.

 

[sylas]

I'm asking for examples of corrections and retractions of papers that did NOT stand as a challenge to conventional ideas of climate.

Oh, I know. I'm just proposing an easier target for baywax to consider, and demonstrating this is in principle possible to answer. I think he'll still find the weaker challenge difficult. All the examples I have given are the other way around, indicating problems in challenges to conventional ideas.

This is as one should expect; it's the unusual or surprising results that are most often afflicted with errors; and the main body of conventional climate is based on an enormous amount of mutually supporting evidence.

The ball is now with baywax to see if he can find acknowledged errors. Not merely disagreements that are as subject to error as the original work... and perhaps more so.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[dmtr]

Oh, I know. I'm just proposing an easier target for baywax to consider, and demonstrating this is in principle possible to answer. I think he'll still find the weaker challenge difficult. All the examples I have given are the other way around, indicating problems in challenges to conventional ideas.

Sure. It's an excellent idea to look for significant corrections as well.

 

[dmtr]

I've found a couple through Google Scholar, via the search 'Retracted' in the title. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=allintitle:+retracted
But both have been retracted due to duplications, that does not require any rigorous professional criticism. Not a good evidence...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2005.07.002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0959-3780(00)00058-3

 

[Xnn]

I've found a couple through Google Scholar, via the search 'Retracted' in the title. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=allintitle:+retracted
But both have been retracted due to duplications, that does not require any rigorous professional criticism. Not a good evidence...

Actually, that is evidence of what amounts to a type of plagiarism.

Getting published in a quality science journal is something of a ticket in the world of academia. Besides looking our for quacks, the editors of such journals need to be on the lookout for those who are sand baggers. That is PHD's who are hoping to get some grant money or tenure but are not doing anything original or useful. So, what you've found are examples of where the editors have not done a good job.

 

[ViewsofMars]

Actually, that is evidence of what amounts to a type of plagiarism.

Getting published in a quality science journal is something of a ticket in the world of academia. Besides looking our for quacks, the editors of such journals need to be on the lookout for those who are sand baggers. That is PHD's who are hoping to get some grant money or tenure but are not doing anything original or useful. So, what you've found are examples of where the editors have not done a good job.

Editors of journals such as Nature and Science have done and continue to do a fine job. The articles are peer-reviewed prior to being published in such journals.

Here's an excellent example of of a retraction.

Published online 18 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1152

News

Retracted papers linked to 2007 extortion attempt
Researcher was sent e-mail demanding money.

Erika Check Hayden

Two papers retracted in the past few months have been linked to an extortion attempt. Both papers originated from the laboratory of Peter Schultz, a prominent chemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Documents seen recently by Nature show that in 2007, law enforcement officials in San Diego considered a former postdoctoral fellow from the Schultz lab as a possible suspect after another received an anonymous e-mail demanding a $4,000 payment and threatening to reveal alleged fraud.


Peter Schultz.
SCHULTZ LABOfficials did not pursue the case after the recipient of the e-mail decided not to press charges.

The retracted papers were published in Science1 and the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS)2. They claimed to describe the successful incorporation of amino acids linked to sugars at specific positions in proteins made by the bacterium Escherichia coli3. The results were seen as important because proteins with attached sugars, or glycoproteins, are common in nature and are used as drug therapies, but they are hard to produce in the lab using E. coli.

Anonymous e-mail
On 1 March 2007, Zhiwen Zhang, the first author on the Science paper and the third author on the JACS paper, received an e-mail that read in part: "you have fraud on at least 3 papers and you stole library material– I found proof." The author of the e-mail asked Zhang to send cash to a post office box in San Diego, and threatened that if Zhang did not comply, e-mails would be sent to Schultz, Scripps president Richard Lerner, and other scientists and administrators at Scripps and at the University of Texas at Austin, where Zhang began working after he left the Schultz lab in 2004.

The author of the e-mail used the pseudonym "michael pemulis", a reference to the David Foster Wallace novel Infinite Jest. The e-mail said that Schultz "will retract all your post-doctoral work", including the two now-retracted papers, and promised "you lose job".

Zhang says he did not commit fraud. "I did no wrong, no scientific misconduct and no fraud," he says. "I am the victim of an extortion case, and I have suffered dearly."

The e-mail was forwarded to law enforcement officials in San Diego. In March 2007, a southern California multi-agency task force, the Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Team, obtained warrants to search the records of Internet service providers in connection with the case. On 6 April, an officer with the task force notified Zhang that it considered Eric Tippmann, who overlapped with Zhang while both were postdoctoral fellows in Schultz's lab in 2004, to be a suspect. Zhang says that after consulting with Schultz and Lerner, he decided not to press criminal charges. Law enforcement officials have confirmed that the investigation is closed.

Tippmann denies sending the extortion e-mail or contacting Zhang after Zhang left the Schultz lab. "If I was ever briefly mentioned in any investigation, I was never contacted nor interviewed, so this must have been a very short investigation," Tippman wrote in an e-mail.

In August of this year, Tippmann and his colleagues published a study4 claiming that the experiments reported in the now-retracted papers could not have worked as described. However, Tippmann says he first became concerned about the papers in 2006 after he noticed what he alleges are similarities between mass spectra shown in the retracted JACS paper2 and in an earlier JACS paper5 from the Schultz lab. Tippmann says he also noticed other inconsistencies in some of the lab's papers. For instance, the mass of a myoglobin protein containing a sugar molecule described in the 2004 Science paper1 was reported to be nearly the same as that of a myoglobin lacking a sugar and containing a natural amino acid that was described in the 2004 JACS paper2. Tippmann says he told Schultz and other lab members about these issues, and raised concerns about other work published by the lab. Tippmann, now at Cardiff University in Wales, says he was motivated to raise the concerns after watching other lab members fail to replicate the work.

Zhang calls the issues raised by Tippmann "irrelevant". "It's all false and misleading, and it has all been cleared up," says Zhang, who says that Scripps has looked into the matter and cleared him of fraud and misconduct.

Reproducibility
Schultz says that he has reproduced all of the results questioned by Tippmann, including other work that Zhang was involved in, except for the experiments that have now been retracted. He says that he is unsure why the mass spectra in the 2003 and 2004 JACS papers contain some similarities. "My guess is in that case a mistake was made," Schultz says. "That certainly indicates things were done sloppily, which, frankly, is not the case in my other publications."

As for the Science paper, it is possible, Schultz says, that Zhang interpreted a myoglobin without an attached sugar that appeared as a contaminant in the mass spectrum as the glycomyoglobin he intended to make. "Unfortunately without the original notebooks I can't reproduce all the original experiments exactly as they were, and see what was done right and what was done wrong," Schultz says.

"I don't think fraud was committed," says Schultz. He adds that in attempting to reproduce the work reported in the retracted papers, the team "found complexities that were really unusual", such as key experiments that sometimes gave misleading results.

Zhang says that he stands by his original work. He says it is possible that Schultz's lab failed to replicate the retracted papers because it used different conditions or procedures from those he used for the original papers. The lab notebooks describing the original experiments "are no longer available", according to the retraction in Science.

In November 2007, Walter Fast, an associate professor in the same division as Zhang at the University of Texas at Austin, received an anonymous letter, claiming to be from a member of the Schultz lab, alleging that the 2004 Science paper was "fake". Fast says he gave the letter to Zhang and says that Zhang later told him that Scripps had investigated the matter and had not found any wrongdoing. The retractions "came up right when [Zhang] was going for tenure, and it's been hard for him", Fast says.

Lynn Crismon, dean of the school of pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin, says that tenure decisions are still under review by the university president's executive committee.

With reporting by Rex Dalton.

References
1.Zhang, Z. et al. Science 303, 371-373 (2004).
2.Xu, R. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 15654-15655 (2004).
3.Check Hayden, E. Nature 462, 707 (2009).
4.Antonczak, A. K., Simova, Z. & Tippmann, E. M. J. Biol. Chem. 284, 28795-28800 (2009).
5.Alfonta, L., Zhang, Z., Uryu, S., Loo, J. A. & Schultz, P. G. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 125, 14662-14663 (2003).
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091218/full/news.2009.1152.html

 

[dmtr]

Editors of journals such as Nature and Science have done and continue to do a fine job. The articles are peer-reviewed prior to being published in such journals.

Here's an excellent example of of a retraction.

This paper have nothing to do with the climate science. I'm asking for examples of significant corrections (alters the result) and retractions of mainstream climate science papers (papers that did not stand as a challenge to conventional ideas of climate).

The presence of these corrections and retractions would have been a good indicator that healthy professional criticism is present and errors are being caught.

 

[ViewsofMars]

This paper have nothing to do with the climate science. I'm asking for examples of significant corrections (alters the result) and retractions of mainstream climate science papers (papers that did not stand as a challenge to conventional ideas of climate).

The presence of these corrections and retractions would have been a good indicator that healthy professional criticism is present and errors are being caught.

It was 'a sample of a retraction' which I addressed to Xnn claim. I absolutely without hesitation detest the attempt made by people on-line to debunk or slam dunk internationally peer-reviewed journals such as Nature and Science. Retractions are not made by editors was my point. They are made by scientists themselves. In which case the original Nature article itself didn't need retraction. Errors ? No.

You seem to be attempting to proclaim negligence is the factor when that is not the case with such journals as Nature and Science, which are internationally known to be peer-reviewed prior to print within the journal itself.

Xnn previously posted an article from Science Express. Here is a snippet from Science Express. (Best to read the whole page.)

What is Science Express?
Science Express provides rapid electronic publication of selected research papers, Perspectives, and other articles that have recently been accepted for publication in Science. Each week we select several papers for online publication in PDF format within two weeks of acceptance. For authors, it's a chance to get their peer-reviewed results in front of the scientific community as much as four to six weeks before they would otherwise appear in print. For readers, it's an opportunity to connect with these hot results immediately.
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/express/introduction.dtl

Of course after the review process, an editor may or may not edit the paper prior to print.

The scientific community is alive and healthy. LOL! It's not based on opinions. It's based on evidence.

 

[flatcp]

This is an interesting discussion to be sure. Sylas I couldn't help but notice you changed DMTR's original quote in your response from "I have" his, to "I did" yours. Would you explain?

Well. I did. It is a part of the normal scientific process. There are always mistakes and withdrawn papers. I can give you any number of examples in biology, physics, cosmology, etc. Withdrawn papers is a good indicator that errors are being spotted, that some healthy criticism is present.
Cheers -- sylas

I think DMTR's question and implied criticism of the "climate" peer review system is valid in light of the what appear to have been long-term and successful ventures to frustrate the publishing of skeptic papers. I think what he is saying is 'If there isn't a good ole boys network in place you can show me by...). If (as he says) it's the case in other areas of scientific endeavors that papers in support of the prevailing theories are withdrawn, what would make a subject as contentious as climate the exception? Seems a reasonable inquiry.

As for the original topic, I am far from an expert (frankly I think the gulf between scientist and expert on matters of Earth's climate is vast with many of the former considering themselves the latter when likely none qualify) but tend to agree that if the measurements and temperature reconstructions are accurate we are and have been experiencing a trend toward warmer. I also believe that humans have contributed and continue to contribute to the soup that is Earth's climate. IMO the impact of both is greatly exaggerated thus creating a man made crisis. In political terms crisis=expediency. And if you don't believe politics is a primary driver on both sides of the issue, as opposed to the "other side" being driven by it, perhaps you are a denier. At the levels of money and power at play few, if any, are pure of intention.

Now if I may a question or 2:

1) Hypothetically, if every unnatural (meaning human?) source of CO2 was stopped today, what impact would it have on the Earth's climate and how long would it take to propagate?

2) Hypothetically, if no change in CO2 output from unnatural (meaning human?) sources occurs and in 100 years the AGT has increased 5c, what are the chances of the resulting environment on Earth being more hospitable to human life?

Thanks.

 

[sylas]

This is an interesting discussion to be sure. Sylas I couldn't help but notice you changed DMTR's original quote in your response from "I have" his, to "I did" yours. Would you explain?

I would guess it must be because dmtr edited his post after I had begun the reply. You can see this from the date stamps. (I take more than 2 minutes to write a post.)

Now if I may a question or 2:

Sure. Were you wanting my answers in particular? On that assumption...

I am not a professional expert, but I have studied a lot of the background over the years and I think I can give a pretty good summary of the conventional understanding of these things, and expand with references if required. You should take this as a guide, but check further for yourself from established references. A convenient start point with links to the major literature is the IPCC 4th AR, which is linked from the [thread=74462]Reviews on Global Warming[/thread] sticky thread.

With that caution in mind, here are my answers for your two questions.

1) Hypothetically, if every unnatural (meaning human?) source of CO2 was stopped today, what impact would it have on the Earth's climate and how long would it take to propagate?

This can be broken into two major parts. What would be the effect on atmospheric carbon levels? And then what would be the effect on suface temperatures?

If human CO₂ emissions stopped dead tomorrow, then atmospheric carbon levels would begin to fall, as carbon circulates through the carbon cycle. Because there are a number of different sinks, the atmospheric carbon levels decay with multiple characteristic time scales. This is because there are multiple sinks in the carbon cycle. For more details look for "Bern carbon model".

We expect that CO₂ levels would fall fairly rapidly at first, and then much more slowly. Currently about half of what we add to the atmosphere ends up rapidly circulated into the rest of the carbon cycle, and half goes to increasing atmospheric levels. We are now adding about 8Gt per year carbon to the atmosphere, and levels are rising at about 1.9 ppm per year, which corresponds to 1.1*2.13 = ~4 Gt.

If this stopped tomorrow, atmospheric levels would immediately start to fall at about the rate they are now rising, corresponding to that same removal of 4Gt per year but without the 8Gt of emissions. That would tail off very rapidly as other carbon sinks become loaded with respect the atmosphere, and then the decay would continue with a longer characteristic time, corresponding to the next sink, and so on.

The IPCC 4AR estimates that about 50% of the post-industrial increase would be removed within about 30 years, and another 30% within a couple of centuries, with the last 20% remaining in the atmosphere for thousands of years. More recent work shows that this is optimistic; but I'll go with it for now.

We are currently at about 387ppm, with pre-industrial levels at around 280. So by this estimate, levels would fall to around 333 ppm by 2040, and to around 302ppm by 2200. This is unrealistic off course; even with drastic controls we are going to be emitting a lot of carbon yet. But hey; this is what you asked.

As for temperature, one point that is often lost is that the ocean is currently absorbing energy as it slowly warms up. Even if we stop emitting carbon tomorrow, this warming process will continue, and as it equilibrates with surface temperatures, this flux of energy will become additional energy at the surface, contributing to further increase in temperatures. At the same time, the falling carbon levels will contribute a negative forcing, to help reduce temperatures. The upshot is that temperatures will continue to increase for a little while, and then level off, and then start to fall again.

There's already a discussion of this at [post=2344541]msg #89[/post] of thread "Estimating the impact of CO2 on global mean temperature", which summarizes information from https://regtransfers-sth-se.diino.com/download/f.thompson/migrated_data/EandH/nature08019.pdf , by M. R. Allen et. al. in Nature 458 (30 April 2009), pp 1163-1166. Check out the diagram included in the post, and for emissions stopping dead in 2000, the vertical line at about 0.4 Gt carbon, at the left of the diagram.

This is the peak temperature reached, measured against pre-industrial temperatures. Note we are currently about 0.7 degrees above pre-industrial, and hence with a dead stop to emissions tomorrow, we could expect temperatures to rise around about another 0.3 degrees, average.

Of course, a total stop gives almost meaningless numbers, as we are not going to stop dead tomorrow. Currently emissions are at about 8 Gt/year, and increasing. Even with drastic changes this will take a while to come down, so the cumulative total by the end of the century, is likely to be around the "trillionth tonne" discussed in the paper, assuming that humanity does work at moving away from fossil fuels and leaves most of the available carbon fuels in the ground. In this case the total warming is expected to be something between 1.3 and 3.9 degrees, with 2.0 as the most likely. This peak is reached sometime approaching the end of the century with a long slow tail off after that.

Another proviso is that this considers CO₂ only. CO₂ is the most significant, but the anthropogenic impact includes many other greenhouse gases as well.

2) Hypothetically, if no change in CO2 output from unnatural (meaning human?) sources occurs and in 100 years the AGT has increased 5c, what are the chances of the resulting environment on Earth being more hospitable to human life?

The issue, I think, is not how "hospitable" the Earth will be. It is rather how rapidly it will change. Our society is, naturally, adapted to prevailing conditions. Where we plant crops, where we build cities, where we live, have all come about because of the existing climate. As that changes, there will be a mismatch between where we would be best to live and farm, and where we actually live and farm.

In my view, the Earth will probably not be all that much less hospitable, in general. It is just that we will be living and farming in all the wrong places and with all the wrong crops. The biosphere generally will suffer, for the same reason. Things will adapt, in time, I would suspect; although there will be a lot of expense and disruption in the meantime. Many living things will not adapt quickly enough to new conditions, and there will be extinctions. Other living things will adapt or move in and take their place. And everything else will have to adapt to that as well. The expense and disruption is linked to the pace of change, and that is likely to be very significant.

However, my own focus has been on the physical aspects, not the societal aspects, so this is much more of a guess than my answer to your first question.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Andre]

This paper have nothing to do with the climate science. I'm asking for examples of significant corrections (alters the result) and retractions of mainstream climate science papers (papers that did not stand as a challenge to conventional ideas of climate).

The presence of these corrections and retractions would have been a good indicator that healthy professional criticism is present and errors are being caught.

Maybe also counts is the failure to retract a paper that should have been retracted by all standards, obviously http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1999/1999GL900070.shtml better known as http://www1.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-2001/synthesis-spm/synthesis-spm-en.pdf . After the rejection of the http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004GL021750.shtml. (M&M)

The allegations of M&M have been evaluated by two commissions/panels, a ad hoc commision Wegman and the NAS panel of North. Both confirmed the crtique of M&M , despite all attempts to cover that. As shown before,this can be seen from the senate hearings:

CHAIRMAN BARTON. I understand that. It looks like my time
is expired, so I want to ask one more question. Dr. North, do you
dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman's report?
DR. NORTH. No, we don't. We don't disagree with their
criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our
report. But again, just because the claims are made, doesn't
mean they are false.
CHAIRMAN BARTON. I understand that you can have the right
conclusion and that it not be--
DR. NORTH. It happens all the time in science.
CHAIRMAN BARTON. Yes, and not be substantiated by what you
purport to be the facts but have we established--we know that
Dr. Wegman has said that Dr. Mann's methodology is incorrect. Do
you agree with that? I mean, it doesn't mean Dr. Mann's
conclusions are wrong, but we can stipulate now that we have--and if
you want to ask your statistician expert from North Carolina that
Dr. Mann's methodology cannot be documented and cannot be verified
by independent review.
DR. NORTH. Do you mind if he speaks?
CHAIRMAN BARTON. Yes, if he would like to come to the
microphone.
MR. BLOOMFIELD. Thank you. Yes, Peter Bloomfield. Our
committee reviewed the methodology used by Dr. Mann and his coworkers
and we felt that some of the choices they made were inappropriate.
We had much the same misgivings about his work that was documented
at much greater length by Dr. Wegman.

Maybe also an indication of the science is the vigorous attempts to resurrect the hockeystick afterwards and the attemps to discredit the Wegman report. See this thread.

 

[Xnn]

Hypothetically, if no change in CO2 output from unnatural (meaning human?) sources occurs and in 100 years the AGT has increased 5c, what are the chances of the resulting environment on Earth being more hospitable to human life?

Thanks.

First off, 5 degree C is a lot of warming! If that were to occur, the world would very likely be less habitable due to wide spread decreased crop yields.

However, with moderate warming (1-3 degree C), some parts of the Earth will become more habitable; Canada and Russia in particular will benefit. Unfortunately, seasonaly dry region regions at lower lattitudes will suffer decreased crop yields and diminished fresh water supplies with only minor warming. Extreme precipitation events are also expected which would make flood prone regions less habitable in addition to destroying cropland.

5C of warming would probably lead to a collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and large parts of Antarctica. Sea level rise would likely be over 1cm/year. In a hundred years that amounts to 1 meter of sea levels rise; we could deal with that. However, when will it stop?

My guess is it would keep on going for about 30 meters.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-ts.pdf

 

[LBJ]

There certainly was a lot of talk in the 70s about cooling. Were you alive back then?[/QUOTE]

I was alive then and I know Geologists were talking about Global Warming as early as '72.
It was well known that the increase in CO2 dated to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
Conversely, friends who were Automotive Engineers claimed to have evidence that plants put more pollutants into the atmosphere than all the cars combined! But, only at night!

LBJ

 

[Bored Wombat]

Maybe also counts is the failure to retract a paper that should have been retracted by all standards, obviously http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1999/1999GL900070.shtml better known as http://www1.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-2001/synthesis-spm/synthesis-spm-en.pdf . After the rejection of the http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004GL021750.shtml. (M&M)

The allegations of M&M have been evaluated by two commissions/panels, a ad hoc commision Wegman and the NAS panel of North. Both confirmed the crtique of M&M , despite all attempts to cover that. As shown before,this can be seen from the senate hearings:



Maybe also an indication of the science is the vigorous attempts to resurrect the hockeystick afterwards and the attemps to discredit the Wegman report. See this thread.

I think that it is accepted that some of the methods were inappropriate. I think that it is more important that the results are correct, except for an estimation of the errors.

 

[sylas]

I think that it is accepted that some of the methods were inappropriate. I think that it is more important that the results are correct, except for an estimation of the errors.

Yes; there was nothing here even remotely close to requiring a withdrawal. In fact, it remains one first papers reporting work of this kind, and the conclusions have been confirmed by many subsequent independent investigations.

The only real issue was the way in which principle component analysis was used in the first attempt at this kind of multi-proxy reconstruction in the 1998 paper. There are better ways to do PCA. There is no hint of fraud or error; merely a case that the original methods can be improved. As it turns out, repeating the analysis with the improved methods makes no significant difference to the results; but it is a better method and Mann, Bradley and Hughes also use the improved PCA techniques in subsequent work.

This kind of criticism and response is perfectly normal in scientific work.

The idea that this is the kind of thing for which a paper is withdrawn is bizarre. It's a minor legitimate criticism; which makes no practical difference to the results, and which has resulted in improvements to the statistical methods in subsequent work, all of which continues to confirm the major conclusions of the original paper.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Andre]

Well thanks for the most excellent demonstration of my point, the defence of a confirmed flawed paper that may have been constructed because http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543

Let's quote David Deming a bit:

In 1769, Joseph Priestley warned that scientists overly attached to a favorite hypothesis would not hesitate to "warp the whole course of nature." In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known as the "hockey stick," because of the shape of the temperature graph.

Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.

 

[sylas]

Well thanks for the most excellent demonstration of my point, the defence of a confirmed flawed paper that may have been constructed because http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543

Let's quote David Demng a bit:

This is not a valid reference for the forum. It's a senate hearing; and a good sign of just who is really politicizing things in this topic.

In fact, the quote you emphasize is particularly absurd. It was given in a statement to a senate hearing by David Deming. He gives no source for the quote, saying only that it had been sent to him in an email. The email has never been provided; the person who allegedly made this statement has never been identified, and there is no context available to judge why it was said, or by whom, or what it should be removed from. As it turns out, of course, science continues to study the medieval warm period just fine.

Deming says that "Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies".

This is a strange statement in all kinds of ways.

First -- so what if the work contradicts previous work? Isn't this permitted in science?

Second -- actually, the work didn't rule out the medieval warm period. The papers by Mann and colleagues are actually very circumspect on the MWP, and certainly don't claim to rule it out. For example, in Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) which is presumably what Deming refers to, the only mention is the following:

Given the high level of skill possible in large-scale reconstruction back to 1400 with the present network, it is reasonable to hope that it may soon be possible to faithfully reconstruct mean global temperatures back over the entire millennium, resolving for example the enigmatic medieval period.​

Third -- Deming misrepresents the state of past science. The scope and extent of the medieval warm period has never been a settled thing, as he seems to suggest. It has always been enigmatic: Mann et al are more accurate than Deming on this. They refer to: Hughes, M. K. & Diaz, H. F. Was there a ‘Medieval Warm Period’ and if so, where and when? Clim. Change 26, 109–142 (1994). Deming's inference that the MWP was well understood is flatly incorrect.

Fourth -- the work was not "accepted uncritically". It was subject to quite detailed critical examination.

Fifth -- what counts more is SUBSEQUENT work. Multiple independent studies have continued to confirm the basic result of Mann, Bradley and Hughes, and the evidence is that the MWP existed, but it was primarily a NH phenomenon, and not as warm as the end of the twentieth century.

Sixth -- the alleged email Deming claims to have received but has never actually revealed doesn't make sense in the context of his own work. Deming's own paper to which he refers was strictly regional (USA) and there's no conflict at all with having regional climate extremes.

These senate hearings were under Senator Inhofe; as far as science is concerned they are irrelevant, and the quote by Deming doesn't come close to refuting the conclusions of the NAS study of the whole affair, or its confirmation in a host of ongoing research.

The REAL test of new ideas in science is subsequent research by the scientific community... which is what we OUGHT to be focusing on in this forum. Senator Inhofe's little stage play is meaningless. There are no indications of error or fraud or anything of the sort in the Mann et al paper that would suggest withdrawal was appropriate. The criticisms that can be made are reasonable, and have been addressed, and don't actually change anything.

What would make more sense for THIS science based forum is not endless focus on the 1998 paper, but a focus on all the ongoing work since by other scientists to try and replicate or falsify his work with the usual scientific method... repeating the analysis independently, with new data, new methods, new insights.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Andre]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleListURL&_method=list&_ArticleListID=1144196635&_sort=r&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=81ba2bc433606a5e75401a3ed1932a6c

But you are implying that David Deming -under oath- is lying. Anyway it is not a secret who this person was, who said "we have to get rid of the global warming". Deming told it to several others on some occasion.

 

[sylas]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleListURL&_method=list&_ArticleListID=1144196635&_sort=r&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=81ba2bc433606a5e75401a3ed1932a6c

But you are implying that David Deming -under oath- is lying.

Actually no I am not. There's no implication of the kind. I am saying his statement is absurd. And I explained why. He's a rather odd person, that's for sure; not that this has any bearing on anything... I have no reason to presume he's honest, or dishonest; but his hearsay of an unknown email with no context and no source should have no bearing on anything either.

ESPECIALLY because we are in the science forum, and we have much much better ways to proceed; like independent scientific replication of the original work, to confirm or falsify it. There's a lot of that available, which is far more appropriate to the forum and far more useful for sorting out what matters.

By the way. Can you please give something a little bit informative when you give links? Some clue as to what you are actually linking to and what point it is trying to make? If you are trying to say the medieval warm period is still considered in science -- then that is what I have ALSO said in my post... and is further demonstration of just how idiotic it would be for anyone to say "we have to get rid of the medieval warm period".

Ironically, you could have made the same point (which is also a part of my point) simply by citing the most recent paper by Mann Bradley and Hughes, and colleagues.

• http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/326/5957/1256
  by Michael E. Mann, Zhihua Zhang, Scott Rutherford, Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes, Drew Shindell, Caspar Ammann, Greg Faluvegi, Fenbiao Ni,
  in Science 326(5957), 27 November 2009, pp 1256-1260

I guess whoever sent Deming that absurd email forgot to pass it on to Mann, Bradley and Hughes, eh?

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Andre]

and is further demonstration of just how idiotic it would be for anyone to say "we have to get rid of the medieval warm period".

Maybe Try this

Sorry no peer reviewed article around, just the reports of the 1998 AGU fall meeting.

 

[Xnn]

But you are implying that David Deming -under oath- is lying. Anyway it is not a secret who this person was, who said "we have to get rid of the global warming". Deming told it to several others on some occasion.

His honesty or lack of has little bearing on the science of global warming.

 

[Eric McClean]

Even i think it is a fact but , some continents like Europe are experiencing fall in temperature that they have never ever had before , global warming is reversing itself?

 

[sylas]

Maybe Try this

Sorry no peer reviewed article around, just the reports of the 1998 AGU fall meeting.

You are linking to a google search, for heaven's sake!

Can you actually link to something specific and relevant, and give an informative label to your links so that we have some idea what it is that you are linking to and what your point is intended to be? That would help.

One of your search terms is "Overpeck". It has been widely rumoured, on what basis I do not know, that Jonathan Overpeck was the source of the email sent to Deming. As far as I know, Deming has never explicitly confirmed this or shown the email, but there you go.

In any case, Johnathan Overpeck has responded to these rumours. Here's a report carried in the Arizona Daily Star (6 Dec 2009). (http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/320270 )

The comment that Overpeck may or may not have made — no one has produced e-mail evidence — was a statement to an Oklahoma researcher back in the 1990s that, "We need to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period."

Overpeck and some of his colleagues have said the Medieval Warm Period wasn't as warm as cracked up to be, or that it was warm only in parts of the world, such as Great Britain or northern Europe, and not globally.

[... snip comments by another person...]

This comment has been repeatedly reported — but without Overpeck's name attached — by longtime warming skeptic David Deming, a geophysicist at the University of Oklahoma. In an article published last March, Deming said that back in 1995, "one of the lead authors" of a just-finished Obama administration report on climate change "told me that we had to alter the historical temperature record by 'getting rid' of the Medieval Warming Period." In 2006 testimony before a U.S. Senate committee, Deming said that in the 1990s, "… I received an astonishing e-mail from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, 'We have to get rid of the Medieval Warming Period.' "

For two years now, many bloggers have theorized that Deming was speaking of Overpeck, who before arriving at UA in 1999 was a leading National Atmospherics and Oceanic Administration paleoclimatologist. Reached at his Norman, Okla., home last week, Deming declined to comment.

Overpeck said last week that he had searched through his e-mails dating back a decade, and could find none like Deming referred to. Overpeck pointed out that he has written papers dating to the late 1990s saying that various records, including tree rings, stretching back 1,200 years, confirm earlier assertions that the Medieval period was warmer than today in the North Atlantic and northern Europe — but not globally.

"My papers are the record of fact, and in this case, I obviously did not try to get rid of the MWP," Overpeck said. "Instead, I have tried hard to be clear what it likely was and was not."​

This newsreport is confirming what I have said to you. It's nonsense to say anyone wants to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period. It continues to be discussed in the literature just fine by Overpeck, Mann, Bradley, Hughes, and heaps of other people. What on Earth Deming is talking about we don't know. He hasn't given a source, or context for this alleged email.

Overpeck also refers to Deming in terms of complete puzzlement in the private emails that were stolen from the CRU. He apparently doesn't even know him well enough to spell the name right, and had to use google to find out about him.

So did I. And my reaction was much the same... Deming is quite an oddball. Who knows what he is thinking. He does not give the email or the context, so why are you taking it seriously?

Everyone else involved in this (Mann and his colleagues, Overpeck, and everyone else as far as I can tell) continue to refer to the medieval warm period just fine; so it's just silly to think any of them want to "get rid of the MWP". The questions researchers continue to investigate are about its magnitude and scope... which are surely valid questions.

Cheers -- sylas