Democracy Has Prevailed.

February 3, 2012

More Anti-Science From The Tribune-Review

Scaife's braintrust's latest climate spin's already been refuted.  It's like they're not really paying attention to the science - only the hype they want to believe, the hype they want you to believe.

Too bad reality's not helping their cause.

From The Tribune-Review today:
New indications that blame-mankind climate models are deeply flawed are inconvenient truths indeed for the global-warming sham.

The UK's Daily Mail reports that:

• New data from 30,000-plus measuring stations -- released by The Met Office, self-described as "the UK's National Weather Service," and the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, a blame-mankind stronghold -- confirm world temperatures stopped rising in 1997, even though carbon dioxide levels didn't.

• The sun, unusually energetic last century, is at the peak of its 11-year activity cycle -- but with only about half the usual number of sunspots.

Experts say the sun will weaken more in its next cycle, raising the likelihood of a mini-ice age. Yet the Met Office insists solar weakening will have negligible consequences. That's because its climate model -- which wrongly predicted continued warming after 1997 -- assumes that man-made CO2's climate effects far exceed the sun's.
Now let's go see why The Trib's spin's a sham.

Here's David Rose's Daily Mail article upon which they so dutifully rely.  He begins:
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Did you know that the Met Office has already issued a response to Rose's article?  Here's how it begins:
Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.

This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.

Despite the Met Office having spoken to David Rose ahead of the publication of the story, he has chosen to not fully include the answers we gave him to questions around decadal projections produced by the Met Office or his belief that we have seen no warming since 1997.
Let's go point by point on Rose's errors. First on how the temperature stopped rising in 1997.  Here's what the Met Office actually told Rose.  Remember, this is the stuff he actually omitted from his reporting:
However, what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850. Depending on which temperature records you use, 2010 was the warmest year on record for NOAA NCDC and NASA GISS, and the second warmest on record in HadCRUT3.
So there's no "confirmation" that the warming trend ended in 1997, is there?  And the part about the "mini-ice age"? Rose's work on that's a sham, too.  Here's what the Met Office actually said regarding their research:
New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.

Carried out by the Met Office and the University of Reading, the study establishes the most likely changes in the Sun's activity and looks at how this could affect near-surface temperatures on Earth.

It found that the most likely outcome was that the Sun's output would decrease up to 2100, but this would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC's B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).
But take a look at what David Rose actually did.  He cited research from the Met Office to show no rise in temperatures since 1997 - even though the research he was citing said otherwise and (using the same research) he warned  of a coming ice age - even though the research he was citing said otherwise.

That's the sham reporting the Scaife's braintrust used in its sham editorial.

But we're not done.  The braintrust ends with this:
As a group of 16 noted scientists recently observed in The Wall Street Journal: "(T)he number of scientific 'heretics' is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts."
Did you know that this has also already been refuted?

Turns out that few of those "16 noted scientists" are actually Climate scientists.  As a larger group (ie more than 16) of actual climate scientists noted in the WSJ:
Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter.
And so on.

This is what the Trib's braintrust is reduced to when it's trying to convince you the science is wrong - sham editorials on sham reporting.  If I were a reporter (an actual reporter) working at the Trib, I'd be embarrassed that Richard Mellon Scaife signs my paycheck.

1 comment:

EdHeath said...

I looked closely at some climate data (I forget where) and it seemed to me that lately temperatures have gone up and down over the past few years. Some graphs show five year trend lines, and recently those have flattened out some to only a slight rise. But still 2010 was the hottest or second hottest year on record (2011's average temperature was a bit lower, pulling the trend line down). And the extremes we are seeing, such as our weirdly mild temps while Europe is apparently freezing and buried in snow, well, weird weather is apparently a sign of climate change.

So maybe, *maybe* there is some reason to think that climate change *might* be slowing to a pause, although there is still reason to wonder what will happen as the developing world continues to industrialize. But it still annoys me that the Daily Mail and the Trib can talk out of one side of their (collective) mouth(s) about "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind" (climate change) and then lie to their readers about scientific data out of the other side of their mouth(s). It is one thing to genuinely believe that temperature measuring stations near cities are skewed by the urban heat island effect, and quite something else indeed to entirely misrepresent a scientific study and/or data, or fail to condemn the theft of emails from a University. I don't recall any conservatives saying how wonderful it was that Sarah Palin's emails (from when she was governor, a public employee) were stolen. But, that's the double standard Republicans/conservatives/Tea Partiers have, where tax breaks for the wealthy somehow create jobs, but tax cuts for the middle class and poor are irresponsible and widen the deficit.