Re: [asa] Interpretations of climate-change data

You nailed it Burgy. This is the infamous Oregen Institute of Medicine
petition, a pet project of the late Dr. Fred Seitz,

In the March 2009 issue of Natural Selections, a newsletter of Rockefeller
University where Dr. Seitz once served as President:

> Following his retirement, Dr. Seitz became chief scientific consultant for
> R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the second largest US tobacco firm. Over
> the next decade he was responsible for the dispersal of $45 million in funds
> donated for research. Following a monumental legal settlement against
> tobacco firms in the 1990s, internal documents were released that shed light
> on the true nature of this seemly altruistic funding. The funding was part
> of a strategy to obfuscate the true health effects of smoking-a public
> relations campaign to correct "irresponsible statements made by scientists
> regarding smoking and health," to "look into the scientifically stated
> possibility that ninety percent of cancer is caused by the environment," and
> to refute the American Cancer Society's position "that lung cancer would be
> virtually eliminated by the elimination of smoking." Internal memos
> described it as "a public relations plus" and some research produced "was
> beneficial to the industry."1
>
> The tobacco industry in those years frequently trumpeted their research
> funding as a commitment to science, arguing that additional research was
> needed since the health effects of smoking were still uncertain. This was
> done, despite the fact that tobacco companies had known the health effects
> for decades, and independent studies corroborated the negative impact of
> smoking. Seitz was a seemingly willing party to the deception, having
> stated, "They didn't want us looking at the health effects of cigarette
> smoking." Regarding the source of his funding, Dr. Seitz commented, "as long
> as it was green, I'm not quite clear about this moralistic issue. We had
> absolutely free reign to decide how the money was spent." Did the research
> give the tobacco industry political cover? "I'll leave that to the
> philosophers and priests." For his troubles Dr. Seitz received $585,000 from
> R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.2
>
> In the 1990s his campaign to cast scientific doubt about global warming
> resulted in BusinessWeek labeling him as "granddaddy of global-warming
> skeptics." He worked for numerous industry lobby groups, including the
> George C. Marshall Institute (GMI), one of the leading think tanks focused
> on debunking the science of global warming, which he co-founded and chaired.
> Prominently funded by petroleum interests, the GMI served as advisor or
> home for skeptics, such as Michael Critchton, while producing no science of
> its own. While at GMI, Seitz published reports such as *Global Warming and
> Ozone Hole Controversies: A Challenge to Scientific Judgment*, questioning
> the scientific consensus. He attacked the integrity of the 1995
> Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.) report and its authors in
> an Op-Ed piece in the *Wall Street Journal*. He signed letters to the
> Clinton Administration accusing it of misrepresenting the science and was
> featured in Republican Senate reports on the uncertainty of global warming.
> The GMI was described in a 2007 report by the Union of Concerned
> Scientists (UCS) as a "clearinghouse for global warming contrarians" funded
> by Exxon Mobil Corporation. The UCS detailed how the GMI employed the same
> strategy used by tobacco companies to challenge the science of global
> warming, by obfuscating the issue by repeatedly attacking the science of
> global warming. The goal was to convince government representatives and the
> public that there was uncertainty regarding its cause.3
>
> In 1998, Dr. Seitz collaborated with the Oregon Institute of Science and
> Medicine to circulate an open anti-global warming petition among scientists.
> It was deceptively packaged to look like legitimate *Proceedings of the
> National Academy of Science* (PNAS) literature. Seitz wrote the cover
> letter including his NAS and RU credentials in a manner that made it look
> like it could be the position of these institutions. The petition, signed by
> 31,000 self-described scientists, brought a stinging rebuke from the NAS for
> its seemingly NAS origin, its deception, and position. Subsequent analysis
> by *Scientific American* found few of the signatories were climatologists
> or even scientists, and of those who were, many misunderstood the petition's
> actual position. Nonetheless, the petition is the crown jewel of skeptics
> often quoted by the Bush administration and the press. Ironically, Seitz
> himself quoted the petition as proof of lack of consensus. In order to
> justify this, he accused climate researchers of faking their science and
> claiming many told him, "I would take your side, but I would cease to be
> funded if I did."2
>
> According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) annual US
> smoking-related health issues cost $167 billion. In a recent survey of 3,000
> scientists involved in climate warming > 97% agree that human activity has
> caused warming.
>

Maybe this is just sour grapes. What did the people who knew him best think?
In an internal RJ Reynolds memorandum in August 1989 they said:

I spoke to Bill Hobbs about arranging an appointment for you with Dr. Fred
Seitz, former head of Rockefeller University and the principal scientific
advisor to the R .J .Reynolds medical research program . Bill told me that
Dr .Seitz is quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice.

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu>wrote:

> http://www.petitionproject.org/
>
> Moorad
> ________________________________________
> From: John Burgeson (ASA member) [hossradbourne@gmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:49 PM
> To: Alexanian, Moorad
> Cc: AmericanScientificAffiliation
> Subject: Re: [asa] Interpretations of climate-change data
>
> "Shotgun" posts seldom accomplish their goals, Moorad.
>
> In skimming through the morass, I noted this part:
>
> "The review also lists more than 30,000 US scientists who have signed
> a petition "
>
> Really? This sounds like Sen Inhofe's "3,000 scientists." That
> particular list was published and found to include quite a number of
> people whose expertise in climate science was about as great as your
> local auto mechanic.
>
> Can you give us any more detail on who these 30,000 US scientists are?
>
> On 11/17/09, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [http://ptonline.aip.org/images/logo_bg.jpg]
> > URL:
> http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_62/iss_11/8_2.shtml
> >
> > Published: November 2009
> >
> >
> > [Permission to reprint or copy this article/photo must be obtained from
> > Physics Today. Call 301-209-3042 or e-mail
> > rights@aip.org<mailto:rights@aip.org> with your request.]
> >
> >
> >
> > http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_62/iss_11/8_2.shtml
> >
> > Letters
> > Interpretations of climate-change data
> > November 2009, page 8
> >
> > In the January 2009 issue of PHYSICS TODAY, Philip Duffy, Benjamin
> Santer,
> > and Tom Wigley attempted (page 48<http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3074263>)
> to
> > rebut our argument that there is significant climate response to solar
> > variability (PHYSICS TODAY, March 2008, page
> > 50<http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2897951>). We find their arguments
> > unconvincing.
> >
> > The composite curve in their figure
> > 1<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#> is the PMOD composite of
> > satellite data for total solar irradiance (TSI), which has no upward
> trend
> > for the period 1980-2000. However, the second well-known composite,
> ACRIM,
> > does show a significant upward trend during that period.
> > 1<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref> We find it curious that
> > Duffy and coauthors cite the PMOD composite as the only one of
> consequence.
> >
> > For the period before 1995, any TSI composite is constructed with data
> from
> > ACRIM1, NIMBUS7, and ACRIM2 satellite experiments. The ACRIM composite
> uses
> > these data as they are published by the experimental teams, while the
> PMOD
> > composite is constructed by altering the published data on the basis of a
> > TSI proxy model and the low-quality ERBS (Earth Radiation Budget
> Satellite)
> > record. The ACRIM and NIMBUS7 experimental teams have rejected the PMOD
> > alterations as arbitrary. 2,3<
> http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref>
> >
> > Recent work 3<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref> that uses
> > measurements of solar magnetic fluxes at Earth's surface establishes that
> a
> > significant degradation of the TSI record from ERBS occurred during the
> gap
> > in the ACRIM records (1989-92), as the ACRIM team has always claimed.
> That
> > degradation invalidates the trust placed in the PMOD composite and its
> > downward alterations of the NIMBUS7 record. Thus one is forced to select
> the
> > ACRIM composite, which shows a TSI increase between 1980 and 2002, as we
> > discussed in our Opinion piece.
> >
> > Duffy and coauthors' choice of preferring an arbitrary TSI composite that
> > shows no upward trend from 1980 to 2000 clearly undercuts their first
> major
> > claim, that the Sun could not contribute to the warming observed since
> 1980,
> > and consequently everything they deduced from it.
> >
> > The second claim by Duffy and coauthors is that climate sensitivity to
> solar
> > variability is low. To support that conclusion, they cite a 2004 study
> > 4<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref> by Gerald North and
> > coworkers that summarizes findings obtained from simple energy-balance
> > models. However, Duffy and coauthors omitted that study's major finding:
> > that the empirical solar signature exceeds the energy-balance model
> > predictions by a factor of two on average, implying that the climate is
> much
> > more sensitive to solar changes than what climate models predict. Also,
> they
> > do not realize that us-ing a 10-year running average in their figure
> > 2<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#> suppresses the solar
> cycle's
> > 11-year signature on climate.
> >
> > The authors also ignore three other important points. First, our findings
> > are consistent with secular paleoclimate temperature reconstructions that
> > were recently made and confirmed.
> > 5<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref> Second, the glacial
> epochs
> > were induced by small changes in the redistribution of sunlight due to
> the
> > Milankovitch astronomical cycles--variations in the eccentricity,
> obliquity,
> > and precession of Earth's orbit; that fact suggests significant climate
> > sensitivity to changes in TSI inputs. And third, the oscillations of
> > greenhouse gases observed between the glacial epochs were not induced by
> > human activity but were a complex climate-dynamics response to the small
> > redistribution of sunlight produced by Milankovitch cycles; that fact
> > contradicts the assumption implicit in all climate models adopted in the
> > Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, that only humans
> can
> > modify greenhouse gas concentrations.
> >
> > Finally, the assumption underlying the piece by Duffy and coworkers is
> that
> > the anthropogenic global warming theory is settled, those who claim
> > otherwise are in error, and their studies should be dismissed. Yet an
> > international team of scientists has published a comprehensive research
> > review 6<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref> disproving that
> claim
> > by summarizing and organizing the findings of thousands of scientific
> > papers; their review contradicts several conclusions of the IPCC 2007
> > report, which ignored many of the papers reviewed in Climate Change
> > Reconsidered. 6<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref> The
> review
> > also lists more than 30,000 US scientists who have signed a petition
> stating
> > that there is no convincing evidence to support the anthropogenic global
> > warming theory. We remind readers about the dangers of dogma replacing
> > science.
> >
> > References
> >
> > 1. 1. C. Fröhlich, J. Lean, Geophys. Res. Lett. 25, 4377
> > (1998)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/1998GL900157>
> > [INSPEC]<
> http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/insref_abs.jsp?key=DEFAULT&prog=getinsref&id=6157460&idtype=inspec
> >;
> > C. Fröhlich, Space Sci. Rev. 125, 53 (2006)
> > [INSPEC]<
> http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/insref_abs.jsp?key=DEFAULT&prog=getinsref&id=9527008&idtype=inspec
> >.
> > 2. 2. R. C. Willson, A. V. Mordvinov, Geophys. Res. Lett. 30, 1199
> > (2003)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002GL016038>
> > [SPIN]<
> http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?key=PHTOAD&prog=spinref&id=GPRLAJ000030000005001199000001&idtype=cvips&linksmith=yes
> >,
> > doi:10.1029/2002GL016038<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002GL016038>.
> > 3. 3. N. Scafetta, R. C. Willson, Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L05701
> > (2009)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008GL036307>
> > [SPIN]<
> http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?key=PHTOAD&prog=spinref&id=GPRLAJ000036000005L05701000001&idtype=cvips&linksmith=yes
> >,
> > doi:10.1029/2008GL036307<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008GL036307>.
> > 4. 4. G. R. North, Q. Wu, M. Stevens, in Solar Variability and Its
> Effects
> > on Climate, J. M. Pap, P. Fox, eds., Geophysical Monograph 141, American
> > Geophysical Union, Washington, DC (2004), p. 251.
> > 5. 5. A. Moberg et al., Nature 433, 613
> > (2005)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature03265>
> > [MEDLINE]<
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15703742&dopt=Abstract
> >;
> > A. Eichler et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L01808
> > (2009)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035930>
> > [SPIN]<
> http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?key=PHTOAD&prog=spinref&id=GPRLAJ000036000001L01808000001&idtype=cvips&linksmith=yes
> >,
> > doi:10.1029/2008GL035930<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035930>.
> > 6. 6. C. Idso, S. F. Singer, Climate Change Reconsidered: The Report of
> > the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, Heartland
> > Institute, Chicago (2009),
> > [LINK]<http://www.climatechangereconsidered.org/>.
> >
> > Nicola Scafetta
> > (ns2002@duke.edu<mailto:ns2002@duke.edu>)
> > Bruce J. West
> > (bruce.j.west@us.army.mil<mailto:bruce.j.west@us.army.mil>)
> > Duke University
> > Durham, North Carolina
> >
> >
> >
> > The rather passionate rebuttal of the Scafetta and West solar variability
> > hypothesis by Philip Duffy, Benjamin Santer, and Tom Wigley seems to
> clearly
> > show some weaknesses in the Scafetta and West model. Nevertheless, Duffy
> and
> > coauthors ignore a data trend that weakens the argument for climate
> change
> > based almost solely on greenhouse gas emissions. Their own figure
> > 2<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#> clearly illustrates that
> > although GHG emissions have continued to increase at an enormous rate,
> > global temperatures have not increased over the past decade and have
> > actually slightly decreased overall since the record-setting warmth of
> the
> > 1998 El Niño maximum. Also, last year's apparently anomalous low
> > temperatures occurred during a year of extremely low solar activity (and
> a
> > possibly weak La Niña), despite the aforementioned increase in GHG
> emissions
> > and without a significant volcanic eruption.
> >
> > Although the various current climate models are getting better at
> > re-creating the past, they still fail in accurately predicting the
> future,
> > especially with their emphasis on GHG emissions. So it certainly doesn't
> > hurt to examine other models such as Scafetta and West's. If there exists
> a
> > single climate model from a decade ago that based climate change
> > predominantly on GHGs and that predicted the past 10 years of cooling, I
> > would love to see a reference to it.
> >
> > Benjamin R. Jordan
> > (jordanb@byui.edu<mailto:jordanb@byui.edu>)
> > Brigham Young University-Idaho
> > Rexburg
> >
> >
> >
> > Duffy, Santer, and Wigley reply: Solar irradiance measurements have been
> > made by a number of satellites covering different time periods. Several
> > investigators have stitched together the multiple records into
> composites,
> > correcting for small instrumental differences (for a comparison, click
> here
> > <http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#> ). Nicola Scafetta and Bruce
> > West make much of the fact that our figure showed the PMOD composite
> rather
> > than their favorite, ACRIM. The differences between the two, however, are
> > insignificant in terms of implications for climate; neither produces
> > anything close to the observed late-20th-century warming, even if one
> > assumes a climate sensitivity much greater than the most commonly
> accepted
> > value. Furthermore, the superiority of the ACRIM composite is not
> > established. 1<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref2>
> >
> > Scafetta and West's characterization of the 2004 paper by Gerald North
> and
> > coworkers (reference 4 in Scafetta and West's letter) contradicts that
> > paper's abstract. Far from finding that "the climate is much more
> sensitive
> > to solar changes than what climate models predict," North and coworkers
> find
> > "a faint response to the solar cycle" with amplitude "roughly what we
> would
> > expect (a few hundredths of a degree) based on simple energy-balance
> model
> > estimates." That finding contradicts Scafetta and West's argument that
> the
> > climate is mysteriously hypersensitive to solar variations.
> >
> > We used a 10-year running mean in our figure
> > 2<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#> precisely because it masks
> the
> > 11-year solar cycle; our point was that there is no significant
> multidecadal
> > trend due to solar variability.
> >
> > Scafetta and West's discussion of glacial and interglacial cycles does
> not
> > support their assertion that climate is exceptionally sensitive to solar
> > variations. As is well established, glacial and interglacial temperature
> > differences result from extremely large changes--not "small" ones as
> Scafetta
> > and West claim--in the spatial and seasonal patterns of incoming solar
> > radiation, which trigger two powerful but slow feedbacks: changes in
> > atmospheric carbon dioxide and changes in surface reflectivity resulting
> > from the advance and retreat of land ice sheets. Certainly, neither
> feedback
> > can be responsible for late-20th-century warming.
> >
> > Although this is irrelevant to the main point of contention, climate
> models
> > do not assume that "only humans can modify greenhouse gas
> concentrations."
> > Naturally occurring CO 2 variations are included either by prescription
> or
> > through modeling of climate and carbon-cycle feedbacks.
> >
> > Finally, a recent paper 2<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref2>
> > explains in detail the serious flaws in the work of Scafetta and West.
> > Primarily, multicollinearity between different climate forcing agents
> makes
> > it impossible to unravel their relative effects by considering only a
> single
> > forcing, as Scafetta and West attempt. Reference 2 further shows that the
> > statistical method they used leads to grossly incorrect results; when
> > applied to a situation with a known solar contribution, it gives a
> greatly
> > and unrealistically enhanced solar effect.
> >
> > In response to Benjamin Jordan, we note that observed temperatures
> reflect
> > both natural variability and the effects of forcings such as greenhouse
> > gases and solar variability. So in an era of increasing greenhouse gases,
> > each year need not be warmer than the previous, even as temperatures
> trend
> > generally upward. Climate models correctly predict that phenomenon.
> > 3<http://ptonline.aip.org/servlet/PrintPTJ#ref2> However, because
> climate
> > simulations are not initialized from observations in the same way that
> > weather forecasts are, they are not expected to predict the timing of
> > natural variations, including cooling episodes. Hence, the lack of any
> > warming trend since 1998 is not cause for concern about climate models.
> >
> > In summary, we do not claim that the climate is insensitive to solar
> > forcing, only that the sensitivities to different types of forcing appear
> to
> > be very similar. We are open to the possibility that unknown feedbacks
> might
> > amplify solar forcing; however, Scafetta and West have provided no
> evidence
> > of such and no reason to discard an explanation of late-20th-century
> warming
> > that is consistent with theory, models, and observations--namely,
> increased
> > greenhouse gases.
> >
> > References
> >
> > 1. 1. See, for example, M. Lockwood, C. Fröhlich, Proc. R. Soc. A 464,
> > 1367 (2008).
> > 2. 2. R. E. Benestad, G. A. Schmidt, J. Geophys. Res. D 114, 14101
> > (2009)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011639> ,
> > doi:10.1029/2008JD011639<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011639>.
> > 3. 3. See, for example, D. R. Easterling, M. F. Wehner, Geophys. Res.
> > Lett. 36, L08706 (2009)<http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2009GL037810>
> > [SPIN]<
> http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?key=PHTOAD&prog=spinref&id=GPRLAJ000036000008L08706000001&idtype=cvips&linksmith=yes
> >,
> > doi:10.1029/2009GL037810<http://dx.doi.org/>.
> >
> > Philip Duffy
> > (pduffy@climatecentral.org<mailto:pduffy@climatecentral.org>)
> > Climate Central Inc
> > Palo Alto, California
> > Benjamin Santer
> > Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> > Livermore, California
> > Tom Wigley
> > National Center for Atmospheric Research
> > Boulder, Colorado
> >
> >
> >
> > [
> http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_62/iss_11/images/8_2fig1.gif
> ]
> >
> > Raw solar irradiance measurements (top) and three composites--estimated
> > irradiance records that continuously span the entire period of
> observations.
> > Raw measurements reflect differences in instrument calibrations among
> > different satellites. The composites attempt to correct for those
> > differences. Although the relative merits of each composite are
> debatable,
> > the differences are insignificant in terms of implications for climate;
> none
> > of the composites can explain the warming of the late 20th century.
> >
> > copyright (c) American Institute of Physics
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> > "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
> >
>
>
> --
> Burgy
>
> www.burgy.50megs.com
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>

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Received on Wed Nov 18 15:10:04 2009