Weathering a Storm of Climate Denial

A friend of mine, JP, started all of this when writing:

If you were to ask me 2 years ago what my key understandings were about climate change, I would have said the following:

Sea ice is rapidly shrinking (summer arctic sea ice to be gone by 2015)

Sea levels are rising and accelerating

Polar bear populations are under stress (have increased in the last 20 years)

The levels of glacial retreat around the world are unprecedented (similar retreats have been seen in the last century)

97% of scientists agree that global warming is real and an urgent problem

Any scientist who is skeptical about the claims made about climate change is a "denier" and is funded by oil/resource companies

We are seeing an increase in extreme weather events (they are actually getting less common)

Climate models are accurate in their predictions 

Every one of those things is either totally false, or a largely exaggerated claim.

This is the seventh in a series based on my response, which itself was split over a few emails.  The first was Ice Extent Challenge (in which I provided a little more context about JP) and was followed by Sea Levels Rising, Polar Bears and Climate Change, Glacial Retreat, A Worry of Climate Change Scientists and Denying Denialism.  Some of the issues may also be touched on in a series of articles on the nature of climate denialism.  Please also note the caveat.

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JP’s Claim: The statement “We are seeing an increase in extreme weather events” is either totally false or largely exaggerated and “they are actually getting less common”

There are two factors here which need to be extracted – the frequency of extreme weather events and the severity of extreme weather events.  JP’s parenthetical codicil seems to indicate that it’s a question of frequency while, from my reading, it’s more about severity.

Then there is the question of timing.  Is it merely about historical records, about which you think there would be little controversy?  Or is it about the projections produced by climate modelling?

If it’s related to climate modelling, then we must consider both the accuracy of the models and the accuracy of the data.  It’s quite possible that models, especially earlier models, have been inaccurate in their projection of extreme weather events – underlying assumptions may have been wrong, our understanding of the physics may have been immature, parameterisation may have been too coarse and the data input to the models is unlikely to have been absolutely correct (for instance there will be rounding of datapoints).

In IPCC report AR5 Part A, there is reference to Severe Storms:

Severe storms such as tropical and extratropical cyclones (ETCs) can generate storm surges over coastal seas. The severity of these depends on the storm track, regional bathymetry, nearshore hydrodynamics, and the contribution from waves. Globally there is low confidence regarding changes in tropical cyclone activity over the 20th century owing to changes in observational capabilities, although it is virtually certain that there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic since the 1970s (WGI AR5 Section 2.6). In the future, it is likely that the frequency of tropical cyclones globally will either decrease or remain unchanged, but there will be a likely increase in global mean tropical cyclone precipitation rates and maximum wind speed (WGI AR5 Section 14.6).

Note that this IPCC report is a key reference document with respect to climate change.  It basically collates evidence from 9200 peer-reviewed studies and concludes that climate change is happening, that climate change is due to human activity and that the effects of climate change (both current and future) are worth worrying about.  Per Wikipedia, the principal findings were:

General

·        Warming of the atmosphere and ocean system is unequivocal. Many of the associated impacts such as sea level change (among other metrics) have occurred since 1950 at rates unprecedented in the historical record.

·        There is a clear human influence on the climate

·        It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since 1950, with the level of confidence having increased since the fourth report.

·        IPCC pointed out that the longer we wait to reduce our emissions, the more expensive it will become.

Historical climate metrics

·        It is likely (with medium confidence) that 1983–2013 was the warmest 30-year period for 1,400 years.

·        It is virtually certain the upper ocean warmed from 1971 to 2010. This ocean warming accounts, with high confidence, for 90% of the energy accumulation between 1971 and 2010.

·       It can be said with high confidence that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass in the last two decades and that Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent.

·        There is high confidence that the sea level rise since the middle of the 19th century has been larger than the mean sea level rise of the prior two millennia.

·        Concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased to levels unprecedented on earth in 800,000 years.

·        Total radiative forcing of the earth system, relative to 1750, is positive and the most significant driver is the increase in CO
2's atmospheric concentration.

Models

AR5 relies on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), an international effort among the climate modeling community to coordinate climate change experiments. Most of the CMIP5 and Earth System Model (ESM) simulations for AR5 WRI were performed with prescribed CO2 concentrations reaching 421 ppm (RCP2.6), 538 ppm (RCP4.5), 670 ppm (RCP6.0), and 936 ppm (RCP 8.5) by the year 2100. (IPCC AR5 WGI, page 22).

·        Climate models have improved since the prior report.

·        Model results, along with observations, provide confidence in the magnitude of global warming in response to past and future forcing.

Projections

·        Further warming will continue if emissions of greenhouse gases continue.

·        The global surface temperature increase by the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5 °C relative to the 1850 to 1900 period for most scenarios, and is likely to exceed 2.0 °C for many scenarios

·        The global water cycle will change, with increases in disparity between wet and dry regions, as well as wet and dry seasons, with some regional exceptions.

·        The oceans will continue to warm, with heat extending to the deep ocean, affecting circulation patterns.

·        Decreases are very likely in Arctic sea ice cover, Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover, and global glacier volume

·        Global mean sea level will continue to rise at a rate very likely to exceed the rate of the past four decades

·        Changes in climate will cause an increase in the rate of CO2 production. Increased uptake by the oceans will increase the acidification of the oceans.

·        Future surface temperatures will be largely determined by cumulative CO2, which means climate change will continue even if CO2 emissions are stopped.

The summary also detailed the range of forecasts for warming, and climate impacts with different emission scenarios. Compared to the previous report, the lower bounds for the sensitivity of the climate system to emissions were slightly lowered, though the projections for global mean temperature rise (compared to pre-industrial levels) by 2100 exceeded 1.5 °C in all scenarios.

The IPCC report is by no means a climate denial document, but even so, it states that the number of tropical cyclones (including hurricanes and typhoons, which are basically the same thing in a different geographical location) will either decrease or stay the same and it’s only the severity that might increase, with increased global mean windspeed and precipitation rates.  The only quantitative statement I could find on cyclones was this (page 247): “In the tropics, the intensity of cyclones is projected to increase 2 to 11% by 2100, which may increase soil erosion and landslides (Knutson et al., 2010).”  Given the timescale involved, it would be unsurprising if there was little or no indication of an increase in cyclone severity in the recent past.

It should be noted that cyclones have a maximum potential intensity and thus a maximum windspeed (about 100 m/s or 360 km/hr), but so far the top speed measured was 345 km/hr in 2015.  (Prior to that, the record was 305 km/hr in 1980.)

Therefore, even if the ocean is warming and that provides more energy to spin up cyclones, then there’s still going to be an upper limit.   It would be reasonable think though that a warmer ocean would power a storm for a longer period and a greater proportion of storms would reach Cat 5.

There is a problem associated with assessing the number and severity of storms, related to the news cycle.  The whole world will hear about a storm that affects the US for days, but rarely will we hear anything about any storm that wipes out small, remote islands without a large tourist trade.  The Union of Concerned Scientists did however report an increase in hurricane activity in the North Atlantic:

Note that there is a downwards trend for hurricanes that reach the US.  The total number of hurricanes appears to be about even (on average) or perhaps increasing, but only by a little.  The data there says nothing about strength though, or duration of the storms.  The same organisation reports that there does not seem to be an increase in hurricane activity across the world, with about 90 per year, mostly in the Pacific.  NOAA report basically no change in the number of storms and their models predict fewer storms, but these storms would produce more precipitation, they would be more intense and more of them would be Cat 4 or 5.  This is also a bit hard to track, I don’t know if they bother recording a storm if it doesn’t reach land, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that they pretty much all do (reach land that is because a cyclone just keeps getting stronger while over a warm sea and will only lose power if it ends up over land or cooler water).

Looking at the records for the Atlantic, there were 2 Cat 5 in the 1950s,  (6 in the 1930s, but there don’t seem to be records for the 40s), 4 in the 60s, 3 in the 70s, 3 in the 80s, 2 in the 90s, 8 in the 00s, and 6 in the 10s.  They seem to be getting stronger, with 5 out of 6 being at 280km/hr or less in the 30s and 4 out of 5 being 280km/hr or more in the 10s, the most recent being 295km/hr (beaten only by Allen in 1980).  There’s an oddity in that in the past, there is a correlation between pressure and top windspeed, generally the lower the pressure, the faster the wind – but in the 2010s, all of the storms had higher pressures despite the wind being fast (recent slower storms were all quite short lived as a Cat 5, half an hour, three hours and six hours – these were basically ambitious Cat 4 hurricanes that didn’t really have the legs to become a proper Cat 5).

I don’t know whether there is enough data there to make any conclusions.  But if we look at Cat 4 hurricanes (in the Atlantic), we see:

Which does seem to have a distinct trend to it.  If we did something similar with Cat 5s, it would look like this:

Which again appears to have something like a trend to it.

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Going back to JP, it was claimed that the statement “We are seeing an increase in extreme weather events” is either totally false or largely exaggerated and “they are actually getting less common”.

This just does not seem to be true.  There appears to be about the same number of severe storms, cyclone or hurricanes, but there is a distinct increase in the number of both Cat 4 and Cat 5 cyclones.  NOAA reports “that, after adjusting for such an estimated number of missing storms, there remains just a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006. Statistical tests indicate that this trend is not significantly distinguishable from zero.”   They conclude: “In short, the historical Atlantic hurricane frequency record does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced long-term increase.”  That would indicate that the increase in Cat 4 and Cat 5 storms is at the expense of less intense storms, or rather those storms that do happen are more likely to be intense.

This, in any rational interpretation, means that we are seeing an increase in number of extreme weather events and, on average, weather events are becoming more extreme – although it is conceded that the number of weather events themselves are not necessarily increasing in number.

Therefore, with regard to weather events, the evidence does not support JP’s claim.

Denying Denialism

A friend of mine, JP, started all of this when writing:

If you were to ask me 2 years ago what my key understandings were about climate change, I would have said the following:

Sea ice is rapidly shrinking (summer arctic sea ice to be gone by 2015)

Sea levels are rising and accelerating

Polar bear populations are under stress (have increased in the last 20 years)

The levels of glacial retreat around the world are unprecedented (similar retreats have been seen in the last century)

97% of scientists agree that global warming is real and an urgent problem

Any scientist who is skeptical about the claims made about climate change is a "denier" and is funded by oil/resource companies

We are seeing an increase in extreme weather events (they are actually getting less common)

Climate models are accurate in their predictions 

Every one of those things is either totally false, or a largely exaggerated claim.

This is the sixth in a series based on my response, which itself was split over a few emails.  The first was Ice Extent Challenge (in which I provided a little more context about JP) and was followed by Sea Levels Rising, Polar Bears and Climate Change, Glacial Retreat and A Worry of Climate Change Scientists.  Some of the issues may also be touched on in a series of articles on the nature of climate denialism.  Please also note the caveat.

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JP’s Claim: The statement “any scientist who is skeptical about the claims made about climate change is a ‘denier and is funded by oil/resource companies” is either totally false or largely exaggerated

Scientists who are sceptical, especially with regard to more extreme claims, are just being scientists.  Denialists, however, seem to have a particular definition of the word “sceptical”.  Scientific scepticism is about impartiality prior to investigation, even if that is a position taken rather than a position held – in other words, the methodology used cannot assume the conclusion even if the experimenter already has an idea what the outcome might be and a researcher’s should filter data through their preconceptions.  A denialist on the other hand uses a much less scientific definition of “scepticism”, more oriented towards a position of doubt so they don’t approach a topic with scientific scepticism at all – they are not impartial and they are not inclined to take the position of impartiality.

I think JP is using the latter definition rather than the former.  He’s basically falling into the trap of calling denialists “sceptical” when they are rarely anything close to it.  A survey of the noisier denialists will clearly illustrate that there is little, if any, effort to be impartial.  They will certainly, however, make a show of calling out anyone else that they view as failing to be impartial – so they do seem to understand the importance of impartiality – but their targets are normally journalists, particularly the BBC.  One scientific target that I noticed that Joanne Nova has had a bee in her bonnet about is Berkeley Earth, which she refers to as the BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures) Project – as does Anthony Watts but not Tony Heller, although he does make a pun on that acronym.

Note that Berkeley Earth, as their entry page states, “(posts all their) raw data and our analysis code online to provide an open platform for further analysis … (and all their) … Berkeley Earth papers, memos, graphics and analysis code.”  Note also that the founder of Berkeley Earth, Richard Muller, is what a denialist must surely hate most … an ex-denialist, although he calls himself “a converted skeptic”.  (Muller and his daughter appear to be champions of shale, which means coal-seam gas, which means fracking – but being an enemy of coal appears to be enough of a problem to get the denialist hordes excited.)

Joanne Nova, Anthony Watts and Tony Heller, who are the three denialists that I see raised most often, are extreme enough to appear to be parodies of themselves.  They seem to be very popular among those who are already in the denier camp, but their extreme positions are unlikely to convert someone who is not yet ready to ignore evidence.  The types that I really worry about are those who rather than claiming that it’s all a big conspiracy, that academia is lying to the populace and so on, claim instead that there’s nothing to worry about with climate change and therefore fall into the chasm between right wing think tanks and those with most informed opinion.  I found four listed as “arguing that global warming will have few negative effects” (note that this website is a denialist one – apparently with some link to Roy Spencer, but otherwise no history, no mission, no location and no easily found definition of GSM – unless you already know that it means “grand solar minimum”):

Indur M. Goklany: an electrical engineer linked to the Cato Institute and the Heartland Institute.  His main claim to fame re an anti-climate-change stance is that he wrote “Ironically, much of the hysteria over global warming is itself fueled by concerns that it may drive numerous species to extinction and increase hunger worldwide, especially in developing countries. Yet the biofuel solution would only make bad matters worse on both counts”.  From that comment he seems more anti-biofuels than anti-climate-change per se.

Craig D. Idso: a geographer linked to the Science and Public Policy Institute which is a climate change denial mouthpiece (which is only 1/3 funded by ExxonMobil) and the Heartland Institute, another climate change denial mouthpiece (which might no longer be funded by ExxonMobil, but no longer discloses its funding sources) – note that Heartland was previously involved in tobacco lobbying.

Sherwood B. Idso: a research physicist doing something with water (brother to the geographer above) linked to the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, yet another climate change denial mouthpiece (and which funded in a small way by ExxonMobil and also Peabody [coalmining]).

Patrick Michaels: a Cato guy, who used to be an environmental science research professor and who is personally funded by fossil fuel companies.  The Cato Institute doesn’t seem terribly deeply involved in climate change denial (despite a stacked council), but they are against doing anything about climate change, because it’ll be too expensive and (they claim) ineffective.

Electroverse lists more people who are claiming that climate change is primarily caused by natural processes, thirty of them – I recognised about a quarter of them as denialists (Easterbrook, Happer, Kininmonth, Marohasy, Plimer, Singer, Soon, Spencer – all listed here [of those that I didn’t immediately recognise, only four are not listed]).

I think the best thing to say here is that there is a significant, albeit small minority of scientists who contest the mainstream climate change consensus – but this makes them climate deniers (at least) rather than sceptics, since they have taken a position against the notion of climate change.  Just how small this minority is compared to the numbers that agree with the consensus is unclear, and there does seem to be a direct relationship between the likelihood of conforming with the consensus and expertise in the area.  Care should be taken when using Electoverse’s descriptions of expertise (and indeed the descriptions used by any denialist).  For example, George Taylor is listed as being a “retired director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University”, which is true enough, but misleading since that position is more about long-range meteorology than climate science.  Electroverse would have been better off referring to Taylor’s membership of the American Association of State Climatologists (although it should be noted that his state governor did disown him).

There’s no good argument that climate deniers aren’t deniers but what about the notion that all climate deniers (or “skeptics”) are paid by oil or resource companies?  By “resource companies” I am going to assume that JP meant other fossil fuel companies than oil, rather than mining companies in general or wider resource companies such as timber loggers.  I’m not going to accept the idea that if it can be shown that one or two denialists aren’t in the employ of these companies, then the claim that all of them are is false.  I think the claim is more that, in general, denialists tend to be associated with organisations that are in turn linked to fossil fuel extraction companies.  So, the key question is: do denialists, in general, have dodgy associations?

We’ve already looked at four, where there was clearly a 100% hit-rate (two in the Heartland Institute, one in the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change and the other, by his own admission, being personally funded by the oil industry.

What about the other thirty mentioned as “claiming that climate change is primarily caused by natural processes”?  I’ll look at a quarter of them, selected at random, so numbers 3, 10, 2, 15, 8, 26, 4 and 14 and using DeSmog’s Orwellian list of the usual suspects:

Tim Ball – ExxonMobil funded “Friends of Science”

William Happer – Peabody (coal mining) via the CO2 Coalition

Don Easterbrook – Heartland Institute (as a speaker)

David Legates – polar bear study funded, in part, by Koch Industries

David Douglass – Heartland Institute (as a speaker)

Nir Shaviv – Heartland Institute (as a speaker)

Ian Clark – scientist on call for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (ExxonMobil funded)

William Kininmonth – Heartland Institute (as a speaker)

Wow, again, 100% hit rate!  Perhaps I’ve been unfair, in which case the reader is more than welcome to try to find anyone on that list who has not been involved with an organisation that is linked to a fossil fuel extraction company.  At this time, I do want to stress that Heartland Institute is an organisation that was intimately involved in defending the tobacco industry when it was known that their products were both carcinogenic and addictive (Heartland Institute | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) – and is still at it today.  The point is that the Heartland Institute has a track record of promoting profit over truth – they continue to do so with regard to fossil fuels:

Because the evidence of climate risk from fossil fuel use is tenuous at best, and the benefits from continuing to use fossil fuels are clearly evident, it would be a crime against humanity for governments to force people to drastically reduce their use of fossil fuels. To borrow a phrase from the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, life without fossil fuels is, “… poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Let’s keep drilling, mining, and utilizing affordable and reliable fossil fuel energy sources so that everyone now, and in the future, can live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives.

The Heartland Institute does not make details of its funding public, other than to say that they got “$5.5 million in support from approximately 5,000 individual, foundation, and corporate supporters”.  However, the Institute certainly used to be funded by fossil fuel extraction companies – although even some of those have become less enamoured with it, with ExxonMobil moving away and earning a rebuke from Heartland for being too green:

ExxonMobil had become just another member of "the discredited and anti-energy global warming movement," complained Heartland's president, Tim Huelskamp, a former Republican congressman from Kansas. "They've put their profits and 'green' virtue signaling above sound science."

In short, JP is misguided at best when claiming that the statement “climate deniers tend to be associated with oil/resource companies” is either totally false or largely exaggerated.  It seems neither false nor hugely exaggerated.  I’m not suggesting that there are absolutely no deniers out there who have no links to any fossil fuel company, there is after all such a thing as a “useful idiot”.  Finally, money is not necessarily the only motivator for climate denial in town – I can think of five other categories and will be expanding on that in the next few weeks.