The fossil fuel industry, just like the tobacco industry before, is trying to get people to ignore science and the facts so that they can continue to destroy ur wolrd and our health without consequences. Thank you for shining a light on this strategy, Andrew. I had not heard that scientists and attorneys were workiing together to highlight the facts!
Thanks so much for the kind mention, Andrew—I appreciate you pointing your readers toward the sensitivity piece. It means a lot coming from you, especially about a subject that I think people have a tough time understanding.
One of the weirdest stories must be that of a 2010 article on Spencer's blog. He has a simple model, he knows the feedback parameter is set to 3W/m2/K, but when analyzing model output he only gets 2.08W/m2/K..
"Here are two example plots from the model, run with a 50 meter deep ocean and a feedback parameter of 3 Watts per sq. meter per deg. C…but the output of the model suggests a feedback of 2.08, rather than 3"
And concludes from it..
"if our climate system generates the illusion that it is sensitive, climate modelers will develop models that are also sensitive, and the more sensitive the climate model, the more global warming it will predict from adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere"
He casts doubt where he could have (and should have) provided certainty. The pheonomenon he describes is that of regression dilution due to applying a simple OLS regression where it is illicit. He could have asked any statistician to resolve that "mystery".
And it would have been important, as it does not just affect his little example, but the whole of climate science. Everywhere people are using illicit OLS regressions on the interannual proxy which is then generating a slope lower than the Planck Response, falsely suggesting WV was a pos. feedback, which is actually strongly negative. Of course this would have resolved "climate change" 15 years ago..
Is there any science to extreme event attribution? I know that individuals closely aligned with an agenda of litigation have attempted to influence the National Academies' Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence for federal judges while hiding their conflicts of interest.
I know that individuals dedicated to climate litigation sponsored a working group at the National Academy of Sciences dedicated to producing documentation of Extreme Event Attribution; half of the members of this working group had no obvious connection or experience in climate science.
I know that the organization called World Weather Attribution has produced models purporting to show the increase in the magnitude of extreme weather events, based on an assumption that all changes in number or severity of extreme events are due to increased global mean surface temperature, while explicitly excluding all other explanatory variables.
Scepticism is always important and attribution studies are peer reviewed unlike ex cathedra announcements from the Trump administration unsubstantiated by any reputable science. What we're talking about here (if you bothered to carefully read the article) is the manufacturing of doubt by vested interests and the politicians in their deep pockets. This is an industry that has been generously funded by billionaires and corporations who see climate change as a major threat to their wealth and business models. The term 'merchants of doubt' is also the title of a book by historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway which details the shameful history of this enterprise.
Hi Russell, the point is not lost on me. While pointing out nefarious actions of big tobacco and big oil is the thrust of the article, we need to make really darn sure that the underlying science must be valid. If the underpinnings of extreme event attribution can't be validated, then the entire premise of "Merchants of Doubt" and hence, this article, is moot.
It’s important to note that the raison d’être of WWA was to aid the campaign for climate action and litigation by tying extreme weather events to climate change to the maximum extent possible and as quickly as possible.
Doubt is a good thing. If you don't have doubts you're a religious fanatic, not a scientist. Doubters should be heard and their arguments understood just as well as the other side.
As for liability, I don't doubt that eventually a jury of 12 undereducated citizens will decide a case against a fuel fossil company. I hope this will happen not in America though because I'd like to keep my house warm in the winter, cool in the summer and car moving. As do you and all others who pretend that fossil fuel industry burns the fuels itself. (Well, they do to the extent that they need provide us with electricity. But the real users are us, not them) So, you and I and every consumer should be held liable if we are honest.
> Are climate scientists trying to put their thumb on the scale to achieve a predetermined, politically motivated result? Are climate scientists improperly letting their politics invade the science of the IPCC?
Not sure this "attribution science" is actually science per se. It is a useful method of reaching a genuinely "informed assessment" when done properly without bias. In such complex systems as weather and climate, this may well be the best we can achieve anyway.
The problem is that if it becomes mainstream, it is too easily biased by the self-appointed cognoscenti. It could degenerate into a situation like "one doctor's interpretations versus another doctor" in a court case. The legal judiciary is an "approximation" of justice and nobody calls it a science. But it is the best we can do.
We saw this with "Inference Science" over a decade ago, which sounded great but could have ended-up being overseen by priest-like experts and luckily it was not accepted by most scientists.
Nevertheless, I see nothing unreasonable in the conclusions presented here. Climate has continued to change and we see weather changes as well. Logic would suggest that weather events surely must change more or less in accordance with the overall longer-term climate change that is happening.
An example is evident in many cold-climate seafloor sediments where big clusters of large exogenous rocks sit right in the middle of fine-grained claystones. These are situations where an iceberg has drifted into lower latitudes and as it melts, the glacial moraine within the iceberg builds up on the top of the iceberg and eventually this top-heavy load of stones overturns the iceberg, dropping a heap of these moraine stones onto a seabed of unconsolidated claystone.
The fossil record is also full of localized weather events that occur within a longer-term change in climate, benefitting some species and suppressing other species. It makes logical sense and the scientific record supports it.
When I look at a patient's risk factors for having a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years, I use a validated risk calculator backed by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology. The risk factors include age, gender, serum cholesterol, history of hypertension, diabetes, etc. It then gives me a risk score to tell the patient. All of these variables have been risk-stratified using real world observational data like heart attack event rates, heart related deaths, hospitalizations, etc.
When it comes to risk attribution climate science, to what historical observations do you rely on to validate the accuracy of your findings? In other words, how do you tether your findings to the real world? Because we all know that the term "risk" can only be validated by what has actually been observed previously and how trends have occurred over time. If we don't have that firmly established, then it turns into "magic" instead of science. It's like the idea that we can only run counterfactuals if we actually have the "factuals" to base them from.
To piggyback on the above idea, and to put it in more concrete terms, it is now widely understood that indexed global temperature related deaths, including heat related deaths have been significantly reduced over the past 50 years. While the climate community accepts this fact, some state that heat related risks have escalated over the same time frame. This is a simple impossibility since future risk must be tethered to a "real world observation" baseline. Think of my heart attack risk analogy above. Future risk must be connected to real world observations (rates of heart attacks in those with diabetes, high cholesterol, etc.)
The broader aim of the power structure is to eliminate science for the good of the people, as opposed to the trillionaires building space rockets with taxpayer subsidies generating ever more concentrated wealth and power for themselves.
This is how late stage capitalism works, with the rich grabbing as much as possible while the living biosphere including humanity collapses under the weight of polycrises, led by climate. The latest science indicates to me that the climate has or is about to enter a phase of irreversible climate collapse.
We need to build a new and better civilization after this capitalist system collapses, if we can survive the collapse.
I posted a comment here yesterday and it seems to have disappeared. It was not accusatory. In addition, it contained links to serious peer-reviewed analyses of attribution science.
I'll repost the links, in the hope that this was accidental and not censorship.
Willis's predictable comment shows up as "1 reply hidden" on Google Chrome, but can be "unhidden" with a click. At least one of my recent comments has been mysteriously hidden the same way.
Thanks, Mal. I see it now. Way down at the bottom of the comment thread it says "1 reply hidden", and when I click that I find my comment.
Curious.
In what you term my "predictable" comment, I listed a number of presumably "predictable" peer-reviewed studies of problems with attribution studies. Do you have any comments on them, predictable or otherwise?
Science has become politicized because of the money involved, especially grants and, as pointed out here, in possible lawsuits. The other side of the fossil fuel industry are the benefits mankind obtains from the use of them Mr. Shreve (nearby) says the fossil fuel industry is "destroying' the world. Really? The thousands of benefits obtained by using fossil fuels are to be ignored because there are some tradeoffs? My guess is the scientists arguing against fossil fuels wouldn't even have a job without fossil fuels because they would be working on a farm without machines. In all, I find the entire argument an effort about money and another group trying for a free ride.
Thank you for this article and information. Doubt seems to be a well working product and Oil and Gas learns from Tabacco. Have you heard of great strategies that supports the fact based science in politics (if it’s not just facts)? What is the best narrative/strategy in favor of health and climate?
The fossil fuel industry, just like the tobacco industry before, is trying to get people to ignore science and the facts so that they can continue to destroy ur wolrd and our health without consequences. Thank you for shining a light on this strategy, Andrew. I had not heard that scientists and attorneys were workiing together to highlight the facts!
Thanks so much for the kind mention, Andrew—I appreciate you pointing your readers toward the sensitivity piece. It means a lot coming from you, especially about a subject that I think people have a tough time understanding.
One of the weirdest stories must be that of a 2010 article on Spencer's blog. He has a simple model, he knows the feedback parameter is set to 3W/m2/K, but when analyzing model output he only gets 2.08W/m2/K..
"Here are two example plots from the model, run with a 50 meter deep ocean and a feedback parameter of 3 Watts per sq. meter per deg. C…but the output of the model suggests a feedback of 2.08, rather than 3"
And concludes from it..
"if our climate system generates the illusion that it is sensitive, climate modelers will develop models that are also sensitive, and the more sensitive the climate model, the more global warming it will predict from adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere"
He casts doubt where he could have (and should have) provided certainty. The pheonomenon he describes is that of regression dilution due to applying a simple OLS regression where it is illicit. He could have asked any statistician to resolve that "mystery".
And it would have been important, as it does not just affect his little example, but the whole of climate science. Everywhere people are using illicit OLS regressions on the interannual proxy which is then generating a slope lower than the Planck Response, falsely suggesting WV was a pos. feedback, which is actually strongly negative. Of course this would have resolved "climate change" 15 years ago..
Great writeup Andrew! We gotta get masslve class action lawsuits from every angle to stop the false,illl fools.
Is there any science to extreme event attribution? I know that individuals closely aligned with an agenda of litigation have attempted to influence the National Academies' Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence for federal judges while hiding their conflicts of interest.
I know that individuals dedicated to climate litigation sponsored a working group at the National Academy of Sciences dedicated to producing documentation of Extreme Event Attribution; half of the members of this working group had no obvious connection or experience in climate science.
I know that the organization called World Weather Attribution has produced models purporting to show the increase in the magnitude of extreme weather events, based on an assumption that all changes in number or severity of extreme events are due to increased global mean surface temperature, while explicitly excluding all other explanatory variables.
Is there any reason that doubt isn't appropriate?
Scepticism is always important and attribution studies are peer reviewed unlike ex cathedra announcements from the Trump administration unsubstantiated by any reputable science. What we're talking about here (if you bothered to carefully read the article) is the manufacturing of doubt by vested interests and the politicians in their deep pockets. This is an industry that has been generously funded by billionaires and corporations who see climate change as a major threat to their wealth and business models. The term 'merchants of doubt' is also the title of a book by historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway which details the shameful history of this enterprise.
Thanks for the reply. Can you point me to one or two of those peer-reviewed attribution studies?
If funding by billionaires makes published statements disreputable, are studies and statements funded by the Bezos Earth Fund also disreputable?
Hi Russell, the point is not lost on me. While pointing out nefarious actions of big tobacco and big oil is the thrust of the article, we need to make really darn sure that the underlying science must be valid. If the underpinnings of extreme event attribution can't be validated, then the entire premise of "Merchants of Doubt" and hence, this article, is moot.
It’s important to note that the raison d’être of WWA was to aid the campaign for climate action and litigation by tying extreme weather events to climate change to the maximum extent possible and as quickly as possible.
Doubt is a good thing. If you don't have doubts you're a religious fanatic, not a scientist. Doubters should be heard and their arguments understood just as well as the other side.
As for liability, I don't doubt that eventually a jury of 12 undereducated citizens will decide a case against a fuel fossil company. I hope this will happen not in America though because I'd like to keep my house warm in the winter, cool in the summer and car moving. As do you and all others who pretend that fossil fuel industry burns the fuels itself. (Well, they do to the extent that they need provide us with electricity. But the real users are us, not them) So, you and I and every consumer should be held liable if we are honest.
> Are climate scientists trying to put their thumb on the scale to achieve a predetermined, politically motivated result? Are climate scientists improperly letting their politics invade the science of the IPCC?
Not all of them but some of them absolutely are.
Please name one climate scientist doing that.
Storm chasing instead of ambulance chasing. You’re right - follow the money!
Not sure this "attribution science" is actually science per se. It is a useful method of reaching a genuinely "informed assessment" when done properly without bias. In such complex systems as weather and climate, this may well be the best we can achieve anyway.
The problem is that if it becomes mainstream, it is too easily biased by the self-appointed cognoscenti. It could degenerate into a situation like "one doctor's interpretations versus another doctor" in a court case. The legal judiciary is an "approximation" of justice and nobody calls it a science. But it is the best we can do.
We saw this with "Inference Science" over a decade ago, which sounded great but could have ended-up being overseen by priest-like experts and luckily it was not accepted by most scientists.
Nevertheless, I see nothing unreasonable in the conclusions presented here. Climate has continued to change and we see weather changes as well. Logic would suggest that weather events surely must change more or less in accordance with the overall longer-term climate change that is happening.
An example is evident in many cold-climate seafloor sediments where big clusters of large exogenous rocks sit right in the middle of fine-grained claystones. These are situations where an iceberg has drifted into lower latitudes and as it melts, the glacial moraine within the iceberg builds up on the top of the iceberg and eventually this top-heavy load of stones overturns the iceberg, dropping a heap of these moraine stones onto a seabed of unconsolidated claystone.
The fossil record is also full of localized weather events that occur within a longer-term change in climate, benefitting some species and suppressing other species. It makes logical sense and the scientific record supports it.
Hey, so...I'm curious Andrew...
When I look at a patient's risk factors for having a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years, I use a validated risk calculator backed by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology. The risk factors include age, gender, serum cholesterol, history of hypertension, diabetes, etc. It then gives me a risk score to tell the patient. All of these variables have been risk-stratified using real world observational data like heart attack event rates, heart related deaths, hospitalizations, etc.
When it comes to risk attribution climate science, to what historical observations do you rely on to validate the accuracy of your findings? In other words, how do you tether your findings to the real world? Because we all know that the term "risk" can only be validated by what has actually been observed previously and how trends have occurred over time. If we don't have that firmly established, then it turns into "magic" instead of science. It's like the idea that we can only run counterfactuals if we actually have the "factuals" to base them from.
To piggyback on the above idea, and to put it in more concrete terms, it is now widely understood that indexed global temperature related deaths, including heat related deaths have been significantly reduced over the past 50 years. While the climate community accepts this fact, some state that heat related risks have escalated over the same time frame. This is a simple impossibility since future risk must be tethered to a "real world observation" baseline. Think of my heart attack risk analogy above. Future risk must be connected to real world observations (rates of heart attacks in those with diabetes, high cholesterol, etc.)
The broader aim of the power structure is to eliminate science for the good of the people, as opposed to the trillionaires building space rockets with taxpayer subsidies generating ever more concentrated wealth and power for themselves.
This is how late stage capitalism works, with the rich grabbing as much as possible while the living biosphere including humanity collapses under the weight of polycrises, led by climate. The latest science indicates to me that the climate has or is about to enter a phase of irreversible climate collapse.
We need to build a new and better civilization after this capitalist system collapses, if we can survive the collapse.
I posted a comment here yesterday and it seems to have disappeared. It was not accusatory. In addition, it contained links to serious peer-reviewed analyses of attribution science.
I'll repost the links, in the hope that this was accidental and not censorship.
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/fingerprinting.html
A non-technical version of one of the above links is
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/at99.backgrounder.pdf
See also an analysis of the Hall et al. paper on attribution
https://judithcurry.com/2011/03/15/reasoning-about-floods-and-climate-change/
My best to everyone,
w.
I didn't delete your comment, not sure what happened to it.
Willis's predictable comment shows up as "1 reply hidden" on Google Chrome, but can be "unhidden" with a click. At least one of my recent comments has been mysteriously hidden the same way.
Thanks, Mal. I see it now. Way down at the bottom of the comment thread it says "1 reply hidden", and when I click that I find my comment.
Curious.
In what you term my "predictable" comment, I listed a number of presumably "predictable" peer-reviewed studies of problems with attribution studies. Do you have any comments on them, predictable or otherwise?
w.
Thanks, Andrew, I appreciate the clarification.
w.
Science has become politicized because of the money involved, especially grants and, as pointed out here, in possible lawsuits. The other side of the fossil fuel industry are the benefits mankind obtains from the use of them Mr. Shreve (nearby) says the fossil fuel industry is "destroying' the world. Really? The thousands of benefits obtained by using fossil fuels are to be ignored because there are some tradeoffs? My guess is the scientists arguing against fossil fuels wouldn't even have a job without fossil fuels because they would be working on a farm without machines. In all, I find the entire argument an effort about money and another group trying for a free ride.
Thank you for this article and information. Doubt seems to be a well working product and Oil and Gas learns from Tabacco. Have you heard of great strategies that supports the fact based science in politics (if it’s not just facts)? What is the best narrative/strategy in favor of health and climate?