You will not find a more thoughtful and eloquent commentator on the so-called Climategate and its implications than Mike Hulme. He has an op-ed just out in the WSJ. Please go over there and read it in full, and feel free to come back here and discuss.
19 comments:
Thanks for the link -- probably would not have read the piece without your note. And you are right in that the column is both thoughtful and eloquent. (Maybe I will finish his book now though it is a bit less eloquent.)
There's certainly a lot to like in that op-ed. At this point, after two weeks of trying to make sense of this wearing my journalist hat, things sort of blur together, but this appears to me to be Dr Hulme's "come to Jesus" moment, where he tries to get right with his conscience and what he believes, after having gone along with some things he's not, in retrospect, proud of.
I think the editors of Nature could use a little bit of the clarity in Dr Hulme's op-ed.
I agree that it is the one of the most succinct and eloquent descriptions of the role of science in policy that I have read. And while he talks about climate science specifically, it's just as true for the natural resource conflicts we deal with every day.
I also agree that it is a sensible article. The issue of what level of certainty is needed to establish public policy that entails cost is central to many environmental issues, and almost all public policy is created without absolute certainty.
Those who oppose a policy almost always say we don't know enough, that we aren't certain enough yet. More study . . . before we do anything serious . . . we don't really know anything yet.
The other side of this is those who exaggerate what it is that we do know, claiming for example that it is proven that AGW caused Katrina, exaggerating what actually the consensus applies to.
Part of all this is ideologues who only read (or believe) information that suits their predisposition. The other side are people who decide that the end justifies the means, because this is how the system works anyway, so they just gotta do it.
I agree.
For a scientist, it's a very good summation. What is really required though, is for a promiment individual to say that it is criminal to raise the cost of living for the poorest people in the world on the basis of a fantasy.
The fantasy is that computers can model the earth's climate to a sufficient level of detail to make a credible forecast of its future state.
A salutary lesson in academic hubris comes from LTCM, a company based on computer models of the derivatives market. Two of the employees were nobel prize winners. It lost $4.6 billion in four months and had to be bailed out by the federal reserve to prevent the collapse of the entire United States financial system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management
I agree with what Mike said, but not with his timing. It's easy to speak up now that the truth is revealed. Standing up to the bullies at his University before Climategate would have taken courage and integrety.
Okay Mike, we can all get on board with the idea that the science is never settled and there will always be a lot of uncertainty. And we should certainly understand that trying to enlist a claim of false certainty about science as a club to beat down political opponents will always end up hurting both science and politics.
That's the easy part. Now let's quantify just what we do know and what we don't. Let's be forthcoming on the amateurish computer garbage that GISS and CRU are. You can get out front on admitting what's obvious or play catchup later. But the code has been set free and the picture ain't pretty.
Let's give Anthony Watts' revelations about siting the respect and attention they deserve. The public is going to find out sooner or later.
Let's accurately describe the limitations of the GCMs. Perhaps explain how they haven't been verified or validated. Maybe even have a genuine computer modeling expert (instead of a climate science amateur) explain how fitting a curve to past data proves absolutely zilch.
Let's have the mainstream climate scientists who embraced the hockey stick (or Rahmstorf's "it's worse than we thought!" embarassment) give a public apology. Regardless of whether they were in on the tricks or just demonstrating gross incompetence, they owe the world a major mea culpa. Both were extraordinary abuses of science.
And let us all agree that there is no scientific basis for assuming positive feedback. Let's all agree that we just don't know yet. For without that key assumption, we have no basis for drastic policy measures.
Finally, let's all agree that anyone who claims unprecedented temperatures or unprecedented ice melt or drowning polar bears or drought or floods or hurricanes, etc, etc, should be horsewhipped in the public square as a fraud and a liar.
Once we've all agreed on the extent of what we know and don't know, we can start working on the science in an open, transparent manner worthy of the scientific method.
I fundamentally like what Professor Hulme says.
But, if he (or anybody else) expects to EVER divorce science from politics, the first step must be to eliminate all government funding of scientific research.
Anybody who is not willing to take that first step is just whistling past the graveyard (of scientific credibility).
Hopefully this entire affair will help people speak openly.
Mike Hulme was interviewed early this year, and the interviewer ended his article by saying
"It’s not hard to get labelled a climate change “denier”. You don’t even have to deny that climate change is real, man-made and a problem. As Bjørn Lomborg, climatologist Patrick Michaels and political scientist Professor Roger Pielke Jr have discovered, you merely have to challenge the orthodox political policy responses.Or, like Climate Audit’s Steve McIntyre, dare to scrutinise the statistical workings behind influential climate research papers. If you stray from agreeing with the political prescription, you're an immoral person.
So, how long, we wonder, before Mike Hulme attracts the same accusation?"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/06/mike_hulme_interview/
So now maybe those accusations will be made less often.
In that article Hulme talked about Bjørn Lomborg:
"It was interesting as to why he received such hate-mail from very well respected academics rather than simply engaging in the arguments,” says Hulme. “It became very very heavily and easily personalised, when actually Lomborg's position is an entirely defendable position. I mean, you can disagree with it, and you can find flaws in his argument, but let's find those flaws and let's have a disagreement, rather than suddenly becoming reactionaries overnight. And I think there's too much of that. And it's an interesting question as to why it is that people feel that climate change is somehow is the issue beyond all other issues today that one has to stand on shoulder to shoulder and not allow any chink in because it would allow the powers of darkness to somehow gain the upper hand."
Mr. Hulme sounds thoughtful, reasoned and even-handed. He frames the event in the context of the polarization of the climate debate. "Both the theft itself and the alleged contents of some of the stolen emails reveal the strong polarization and intense antagonism...". The implication is that both sides are equally to blame; in fact, we are all to blame because "we expect too much certainty, and hence clarity, about what should be done".
I think Mr. Hulme too readily absolves the climate scientists involved, who themselves have encouraged this sense of certainty, and who appear in some cases to have maintained it by distortion and evasion. I'm not suggesting that they had ill intent (quite the contrary), but I do think they see themselves as engaged in a battle for planetary salvation in which the end justifies the means.
That said, I'm looking forward to reading 'Why We Disagree About Climate Change'. And I have a great deal of respect for anyone who speaks about the uncertain state of climate science, in the face of those who say "the debate is over".
All that was missing was an apology. Hulme will not be able to escape his part in the plan to oust von Storch from Climate Research. The article reads like an attempt to turn over a new leaf, but without an admission of his own role in what went before, it's hard to be convinced that he is sincere.
Well said Stan. My views come from reading large number of very sceptical comments from scientists and computer modellers not riding the multi billion dollar climate gravy train.
Stanley Feldman, Emeritus Professor of anaesthesiology at Imperial College London has written a balanced, subtle, and nuanced account of the subject called 'Global Warming and Other Bollocks'.
The big problem is that his statement "Yes, science has clearly revealed that humans are influencing global climate and will continue to do so" isn't in the least bit true. If you substitute "local" for "global" then it is more tenable. But a large part of the so-called "evidence" is only opinion, based on the biased interpretations engendered by the "different political preferences, ethical principles and value systems", to use Mikes's own words, of the scientists involved. This is totally clear in the emails. Global warming is no more than an admitted gut feeling for many researchers. The data manipulation lies and ridiculous comparisons to unvalidated, fudge-factored models are just a comforting illusory backup for that feeling.
But the actual underlying science remains ambiguous and will be shown to be even moreso when the data and codes are finally released for independent scrutiny. There always was a clear peer-reviewed correlation to the solar cycle (Solanki etc) which worked up to 1985 (Lockwood) for the tainted global temperature data and works up to the present day for the untainted Arctic data (Soon), the partially verified US48 data and the Armagh long-term instrument data (Butler). Svensmark also showed that alternative temperature sets showed a contemporary solar correlation and Courtillot shows further solar correlation for Europe from the raw data that he had to obtain when CRU refused to release theirs.
So the lesson about climategate is that the raw data had to have an artificial warming adjustment added to the overall trend solely in order to separate out the putative manmade contribution from the well-defined solar correlation. Without all these dubious corrections, every single one of which bizarrely adds to the temperature trend, it is likely that current temperatures in the northern hemisphere are around the same as they were in the 30's or 40's which makes the solar hypothesis more valid than the AGW hypothesis. Especially so, since the "team" now rely on natural variation to explain 10 years of non-warming, having previously assumed natural variation was declining in those model runs that pretended to show that natural variation couldn't therefore be the cause of current warming: A totally contradictory storyline from the team.
All very nice.
But why oh why is this the first we have heard from someone at the heart of this tightly knit influential group?? Where was Mike Hulmes comments on the (now incredibly perceptive) network analysis that came from the Wegman Report? That, following the secretive and obstructive nonsense surrounding the Hockey Stick was the point at which reforms should have acted.
I have to remain sceptical now. Many open amdissions of "need to reform" etc. etc. from those same insiders, could now just as easily be political manoeuvering to place themselves firmly inside the circle of influence in the reform that is now desparately needed.
Mike Hulme past actions (or lack thereof) have given us no reason to take him at face value. He is certainly conflicted in any review or reform.
I am in the skeptic camp. This is a great input into the whole debate and the man should be congratulated for providing some things for us to all think about, on both sides of the equation.
hmmm . . . this situation presents a most difficult conundrum. The writer is a Certified Climatologist, but the work appears in the non-peer-reviewed literature, and the WSJ of all places at that.
But I see that RealClimate has cited Popular Mechanics now, so maybe they're slacking off on some of the pre-reading acceptance criteria and are now considering the actual content to be important.
Roger,
You might want to highlight Henninger's WSJ piece, too. He makes a very good point -- the hard sciences have much to lose if the mess isn't cleaned up.
This is a very good piece, and I hope that "Climategate" gives others the opportunity to step back and re-evaluate their positions. Some of what has gone on will be hard to forgive and forget without some "mea culpas."
It is sad, however, that peer-reviewed papers and the statements of qualified scientists had less power against the "consensus" than these few leaked, petty emails.
I wonder, how many people like Roger are still considered deniers and delayers today? Is skeptic still a bad word? Maybe there's hope for climate science.
I found the article rather bland, and I agree with Bishop Hill's comment that it lacks an apology for Hulme's role in very dubious actions.
The fact remains that 'Big Warming' from man-made CO2 remains an unproven computer modelled hypothesis.
UEA CRU has been involved in the unsound reconstruction of past temperatures in order to proclaim unprecedented modern warming, plus the IPCC rely on the unverified/unverifiable Jones et al 1990 for minimising the UHIE. Too much data withholding here - nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
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