This is how it should be: thoughtful climate science in a high school

Roger Pielke Snr maintains an excellent - informative, civil, thoughtful, substantial - blog on climate science.  He recently met with pupils at an American high school, and reports on the question and answer session here. (hat-tip: Tom Nelson)

Q&A For Climate For High School Students

What a contrast to some of the material and motivations I have reported on in this site.  Let me pick out a few highlights to encourage you to read the original post:

'In addition to these human climate forcings, natural climate forcings and feedbacks are also quite important. We need to consider these natural effects as clearly the climate is much more complex than is commonly reported by the media and even the IPCC. For example, the global average temperature anomalies are cooling!'

'Since the CO2 effect is but one of a number of first order climate influences, as discussed above, I have concluded we know much less about the future climate than is claimed by the IPCC and the media.  This does not mean we should not be concerned as to how much CO2 we insert into the atmosphere, but the claims that we know its effect on the climate is very much overstated, in my view.'

'Finally, in terms of climate metrics, I encourage your class to research yourselves from orginal data what is the current status of these metrics. You would be surprised how many of them do not follow the behavior predicted by the multi-decadal global climate model predictions, and being reported in the news.'

Pielke puts most 'climate educators' to shame with his basic scientific honesty, not to mention his straightforward prose.  When, as must surely happen one day, our curricula are cleansed of the IPCC-inspired hyperbole and scare stories, we know there are some, such as Pielke, who could fill those precious places in the curricula with decent science.  They would seek to inform and inspire the young, rather than frighten them into 'political activism' for a soul-destroying and economically ruinous cause.  A cause which is, in my view, riding on the back of speculative and wholly inadequate computer models.

Note added 7 Dec 2011:  Bob Tisdale has stumbled across a criticism on the SkepticalScience blog of Pielke's Q&A reported on above.  He has taken the trouble to analyse the criticism, and, as you would expect, shows it to be vexatious (by misdirection) and lacking in substance.  He summarises it as follows: 'Yet again, SkepticalScience has highlighted their inability to comprehend a topic of discussion, or has illustrated their need to mislead their readers, or both.'.

Climate Classroom Projects: testing the sagacity of the Royal Society

http://4umi.com/swift/gulliver/laputa/5

The regrettable participation of the Royal Society in the spreading of alarm over climate was partially corrected by their revised, and far less inflammatory statement on climate issued in 2010.

  
The new statement is full of cautions and provisos, but two of the least ambiguous remarks are to be found in paragraphs 45 and 49 relating to sea levels (I have added the emboldening):

‘45 Because of the thermal expansion of the ocean, it is very likely that for many centuries the rate of global sea-level rise will be at least as large as the rate of 20 cm per century that has been observed over the past century. Paragraph 49 discusses the additional, but more uncertain, contribution to sea-level rise from the melting of land ice.

49 There is currently insufficient understanding of the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica to predict exactly how much the rate of sea level rise will increase above that observed in the past century (see paragraph 45) for a given temperature increase. Similarly, the possibility of large changes in the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean cannot be assessed with confidence. The latter limits the ability to predict with confidence what changes in climate will occur in Western Europe.’

 

Project 1: what is actually happening to sea levels?

Recently sea levels have been falling in quite a pronounced way (Climate4You has graphical summaries).   

The projected rise in sea level by the year 2100 using a 3-year running mean has fallen to 22cm in the year 2010, and the data suggests it is likely be below 20cm shortly.  If the recent drops continue, then the naïve extrapolation will in due course be for a fall in sea level by the year 2100. 

A report of a recent study using data from an EU satellite, claims a naïve extrapolation of only 8 cm rise by the year 2100.

The C3 site has more leads.

Project 2: what is actually happening to the big ice sheets?

As for the ‘the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica’ of paragraph 49, that should provide scope for another informative class project.  Plenty of leads on the topic can be found here: http://www.c3headlines.com/are-antarcticgreenland-about-to-totally-melt/ .  For example headlines such as those below could be checked for veracity and relevance:

# New Research Out of Greenland Proves Stability of Ice Sheet Over The Last 2 Decades

# New Antarctica Research: The IPCC "Consensus" Science Is Turned Topsy-Turvy

# IPCC Science Wrong: Current Antarctic Climate Conditions Are Not Unprecedented, Peer-Research Determines

Both of these projects could be sustained over many years to come, with different waves of pupils adding to the collective insights and preparing their own summaries from the latest data.  The link to the Royal Society’s claims will add a topical touch.

Cultural aside.  If you or any of your pupils have a literary bent, you might enjoy a (re-) reading of Gulliver’s Travels to accompany these projects.  Here is a commentary on part of them by Shirley Galloway:

 ‘The main focus of social criticism in the voyage to Laputa is on intellectuals, such as scholars, philosophers, and scientists, who often get lost in theoretical abstractions and conceptions to the exclusion of the more pragmatic aspects of life, in direct contrast to the practical Brobdingnagians. Many critics feel Swift was satirizing "the strange experiments of the scientists of the Royal Society," but may also have been warning his readers against "the political projectors and speculators of the time," (Davis 149-150). The Laputians excel at theoretical mathematics, but they can't build houses where the walls are straight and the corners are square. Instead, they constantly worry about when the sun will burn out and whether a comet will collide with the earth. This misuse of reason is hilariously elaborated on in Chapters five and six, where the various experiments occurring at the Grand Academy of Lagado are described. Of course, the point is highlighted as Gulliver professes his sincere admiration for such projects as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers and building houses from the roof down. The satire in Voyage three attacks both the deficiency of common sense and the consequences of corrupt judgment (Quintana, 317).’

I guess modern Laputians would excel at computer modeling, and be constantly worrying about when CO2 will bring catastrophe.  Oh for a modern Swift to warn us against ‘political projectors and speculators’!

Note added  13 April 2012: The key claim by the Royal Society is that sea level rise rate will be more than the historical 20cm per century we have seen over the last 100 years or so.  Not much sign of that so far.  Here is a plot for a site in England:

Note added 08 May 2012.  Less than two years since their revised, more moderate 'statement' on climate (a statement that makes an utter mockery of the spirit of Nullius in Verba, but which is at least a bit more dignified than the worse tosh which preceded it), the studies are coming in to refute them.  'New empirical evidence from New Zealand scientists document the lack of "accelerating" global sea level levels. The island nation in the southern Pacific has not been swamped by the rising seas and the confirmed trend indicates only a 7 inch rise by 2100.'  See: http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/05/tide-gauge-station-data-global-sea-level-rise-nz.html

Note added on 12 December 2012.   Recent satellite surveys of sea level confirm the deceleration of the rate of rise.  Projections from recent rise rates points to an end of century rise of 13cm or less.
See: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/noaa-2012-report-finds-sea-levels.html
[using figures from this report: http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/documents/NOAA_NESDIS_Sea_Level_Rise_Budget_Report_2012.pdf ]

Note added 30 April 2013.  An update on sea level forecasts:
'Conclusions: 1. Expert climate model predictions of catastrophic accelerating sea level increases are wildly wrong 2. CO2-centric climate models that focus almost entirely on the impact of human trace emissions of greenhouse gases produce erroneous and unreliable predictions for policymakers 3. The IPCC and large government computer climate models can't predict squat'
 http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/04/reality-wake-up-call-climate-experts-sea-level-prediction-found-to-be-wildly-wrong-.html

Note added 6 May 2013.  UK Sea Levels–No Increase In Last 10 Years

Note added 03 July 2013. 'New study using GRACE data shows global sea levels rising less than 7 inches per century'.  That's less than 18cm per century.  Still not looking good for the Royal Society.  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/03/new-study-using-grace-data-shows-global-sea-levels-rising-less-than-7-inches-per-century/

Note added 28 December 2013.  'A paper published today in Global and Planetary Change finds global sea level rise has decelerated by 44% since 2004 to a rate equivalent to only 7 inches per century. According to the authors, global mean sea level rise from 1993-2003 was at the rate of 3.2 mm/yr, but sea level rise “started decelerating since 2004 to a rate of 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012.”'  http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/new-paper-finds-sea-level-rise-has.html

Note added 17 September 2014  More charts on sea-level rise 'I’ve recently looked at sea level trends on the US eastern seaboard, and shown how the rate of sea level rise was higher than now around the middle of the 20thC.  We also get the same pattern across the Atlantic.':
 http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/long-term-sea-level-trends/

Alarming the Children: creating climate activists in Africa

Outside of religion, outside of totalitarian regimes, has there ever been such targeting of the young to win recruits for a cause such as we are seeing being used by climate campaigners around the world?  With fear as the spur to catch their attention: you are going to be doomed/suffer greatly/kill polar bears/etc etc unless you, your parents, your teachers, your communities, your businesses, your governments follow the party line - a line which calls for weakening your society's ability to respond to climate variation by, for example, subsidising windfarms and discouraging more reliable and less expensive ways to generate electricity.

By what stretch of a tortured imagination, can it be found desirable to abandon the basic adult responsibility of protecting the young from being terrified of their future?  The fact that this abandonment is based ultimately on computer models that can be tweaked to produce anything the owners of them want to see [apart from verisimilitude] is even more jaw-dropping.
(text and link in brackets added 4 Nov 11)

Here it is happening in Africa.  Read this extract from a press release by UNICEF dated 31 October 2011:

'UNICEF urges media to hear the voices of children on climate change

PRETORIA, 31 October 2011 - As South Africa prepares for the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban from 28 November to 9 December 2011, UNICEF is urging media to consult with children on what they believe to be the key issues surrounding climate change, its impact on the children of South Africa, and what role children can play to address climate change.
A new study commissioned by UNICEF in partnership with the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, to be launched in mid-November 2011, highlights the importance of child participation in designing effective responses to climate change.
The study ‘The Impact of Climate Change on Children in South Africa’ highlights the expected impact of climate change on children’s health, education, nutrition, safety and access to adequate housing and sanitation in South Africa – both directly and indirectly. However, in spite of their increased vulnerability, children cannot be viewed simply as victims of climate change. Children need to be – and have a right to be – actively involved in the discussions and planning of mitigation and adaptation strategies, as well as policies and plans by various levels of government.
The study also reveals that there are a number of existing initiatives in South Africa through which children are participating in the climate change agenda. These could be strengthened to create a solid foundation for effective participation by children on climate change issues that can feed into, and strengthen policy and national response.'



(hat-tip Messenger for this link: http://newnostradamusofthenorth.blogspot.com/2011/11/unicef-children-should-participate-in.html )

Further reading
(1) Creating 'little climate activists' in UK schools

http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/02/classroom-climate-conditioning-at-work.html     

(2) Something similar in Canada
http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/03/canadian-climate-campaigners-how-to.html 

(3) Why do they pick on children?  Some thoughts here:  

http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/04/not-just-another-brick-in-wall-hey.html

(4) How much harm can they cause?  Examples here: 

http://www.eco-imperialism.com/main.php

(5) Opposition in the USA to alarm-indoctrination in schools: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/08/propaganda-pantomime-of-climate.html

Also includes this quote from the UK:
‘This week, I met a 17‑year-old pupil from a girls’ public school that, in the past, has been more famous for turning out Sloaney husband-hunters than for filling its pupils with useless scientific facts. But the stereotype is out of date, it seems. The GCSE syllabus ranges far and wide, taking in the physics, chemistry, biology, geopolitics, economics and ethics of climate change. In English lessons, girls “debate” (ie, heartily endorse) the proposition that global warming will kill us all. And guess what topic has been chosen for French conversation?
But parents shouldn’t worry that their girls will turn into eco-loons. “Honestly,” says my informant, “we’re all, like, sooo bored with climate change. I can’t wait to leave school to escape.”’

There’s hope yet!

Something for the classroom wall: Central England not part of the G in CAGW?

Source: http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi



What is so special about central England that it should escape the man-made 'global' warming we have been told is so worrisome that we must do all we can to destroy industrial civilisation, including deliberate efforts to scare children into becoming 'little climate activists'?  The projected catastrophe seems to be passing England by - that part of the sceptred isle can be seen to be enjoying a modest, and pleasant warming excursion of a kind it has seen many times before.  At least until the recent summers ill-suited for barbeques despite the fervent hopes of Met Office modellers, and recent winters well-suited for cross-country skiing.

Nothing seems extraordinary in this temperature series, one which shows a modest trend and a lot of irregular variation about it. The rising CO2 emissions look quite irrelevant.  There is clearly no basis here for alarm.  We need the services of computer specialists willing to speak as oracles of doom in order to provide enough substance for political activists to spin an entire body - the IPCC, numerous governments, and a great many in the mass media, into severe agitation.  Sadly, a great many teachers have been caught up in the swirl, and of course sadder still, a great many children have been told their societies, and of course the polar bears, are all but doomed.  Unless they obey, and get their parents to obey, and get their societies to obey, the diktats of those political activists.

Hat-tip for drawing attention to the graphic: Tony Brown.

His WUWT article today on climate (esp temperature) history is well worth reading in its own right.  He concludes:
'The globe appears to have been gently warming for 400 years- with numerous reversals and cold periods interspersed with warm ones. Within this overall trend can be discerned regions running counter cyclical to the warming trend, as was observed in the article ‘In search of cooling trends’.
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/
We estimated around one third of all stations to be cooling, a figure now endorsed by the Berkeley study. The assertion regarding lack of climate variability cited at the top of this article by two of the most prestigious climate organizations cannot be supported-there were periods around as warm as today as well as very cold periods, demonstrating great variability, no doubt there were also areas running counter cyclical to the prevailing trend, as can be seen today.'

Something to amuse you and then your senior pupils: a potted history of climate-alarmism, leaving the BEST to last

The recent spinning of the BEST results to claim they refute the arguments of sceptics by merely showing that the widely used global climate records do indeed show a modest warming in the 20th century is but the latest attempt at mass deception by those who have found advantage in climate alarmism.   Here, from Maggie's Farm, is a trenchant view of it all:

Global Warming 4.0

'I have a tough observation test for you (if you dare to take it, and I highly recommend you don't), but first a bit of history, written in my usual calm, clear, objective, pusillanimously pseudonymous style.


Global Warming 1.0 was the original theme (see accompanying photograph taken from Moon Base Alpha), basically launched by NASA's James Hansen as NASA began its decades-long plan to bankrupt the American economy by building a completely worthless trillion dollar space station as well as destroy entire nations as witnessed by the South Seas island nations who have been told that their islands will soon be inundated with water from the melting ice pack and have thus abandoned any future plans for their nations' growth.  Well done, NASA, well done.

Global Warming 2.0 was when it was realized that, dammit, the earth wasn't warming as quite as fast as it should, and the hurricanes we got clobbered with in 2004 and 2005 turned out to be the predicted results of typical hurricane patterns, not to mention that the hurricanes then had the temerity to go away in 2006 — and what a disappointment that was.  As a result, 'climate change' was created to cover more bases.

Global Warming 2.1 to 2.8 was when we saw the massive expansion of things that were going to affected by the new, improved 'climate change', and this was especially effective because you can work in both directions, hotter and colder.

Global Warming 2.9 was when earthquakes were deemed to be the result of man-made global warming.  This one was given its own special sub-version number so future historians will be able to pinpoint with precision the apex of mankind's stupidity.

Global Warming 3.0 was a little more insidious, in while it claimed that, yes, global warming was entirely man's fault, we didn't need to take such drastic measures as those espoused by the Kyoto Protocol and, later, Cap & Trade.  This version was spearheaded by Danish video rock star Bjorn Lomborg.  It was very seductive to the fence-sitters, and Tigerhawk, for one, took it seriously, as did other bloggers whose names you might recognize.

All of which brings us to today... '

[see the article link for the rest, which includes a link to an article in The Guardian in which 4.0 first sees the light of day.]

Notes added later on 25/10/11:  
(1) Dr Ball has interesting things to say about the BEST study:

'The fact they even attempted the project indicates lack of knowledge or understanding of the inadequacies of the data set in space or time or subsequent adjustments. Lamb spoke to the problem when he established the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). On page 203 of his autobiography he said,

“When the Climatic Research Unit was founded, it was clear that the first and greatest need was to establish the facts of the past record of the natural climate in times before any side effects of human activities could well be important. A worldwide record was needed particularly on the time scale of human history a project which surprisingly no other body had attempted in any coordinated way.” “We are living in a time when the glamour of the much more expensive work of the mathematical modeling laboratories, and the tempting prospect of their theoretical predictions are stealing the limelight. The confidence generally characterizing the pronouncements from those quarters has since given way to more cautious statements in later years. It does not seem to have been widely recognized that the theoreticians work was proceeding without adequate prior study (or any sure understanding) of the sometimes drastic swings of climate that have occurred over periods from a few years or decades to some centuries, often settling in abruptly and some of them still unexplained.”

The BEST study confirms Lamb’s concerns.  It adds nothing to advancing the understanding of the degree of climate change. Until that is adequately defined and described there is no hope of determining the underlying causes and mechanisms of change.  The failure to understand the complete inadequacy of the existing temperature record is troubling. It makes it appear that there is an incompetence or a political motive, or both.'
(2) James Delingpole is even more damning:
'What is going on is exactly the kind of utterly reprehensible dishonesty and trickery I anatomise more thoroughly in Watermelons. The Warmists lost the battle over "the science" long ago; that's why the best they can do now is resort to the kind of risible semantic ruse like this deliberate conflation of "global warming" with "man made global warming".'
(3) Willis Eschenbach provides a more technical assessment (but still a very accessible one):
'I remind folks again that the hype about BEST showing skeptics are wrong is just that. Most folks knew already that the world has been generally warming for hundreds of years, and BEST’s results in that regard were no surprise. BEST showed nothing about whether humans are affecting the climate, nor could it have done so. There are still large unresolved issues in the land temperature record which BEST has not clarified or solved. The jury is out on the BEST results, and it is only in part because they haven’t even gone through peer review.'
Note added 27 October 2011
This link to Nature may not last long since the comment by Prof Singer in it conflicts with and criticises their notorious stance with respect to climate science.
Extract:
'But unlike the land surface, the atmosphere has shown no warming trend, either over land or over ocean — according to satellites and independent data from weather balloons. This indicates to me that there is something very wrong with the land surface data. And did you know that climate models, run on super-computers, all insist that the atmosphere must warm faster than the surface? And so does theory.
And finally, we have non-thermometer temperature data from so-called 'proxies': tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments, stalagmites. They don?t show any global warming since 1940!
The BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature) results in no way confirm the scientifically discredited Hockeystick graph, which had been so eagerly adopted by climate alarmists. In fact, the Hockeystick authors never published their post-1978 temperatures in their 1998 paper in Nature, or since. The reason for hiding them? It's likely that those proxy data show no warming either. Why don't you ask them?
One last word: You evidently haven?t read the four scientific BEST papers, submitted for peer review. There, the Berkeley scientists disclaim knowing the cause of the temperature increase reported by their project. They conclude, however: 'The human component of global warming may be somewhat overestimated.' I commend them for their honesty and skepticism.'

( I have corrected some punctuation typos, esp. where '?' was printed instead of apostrophes, and I added the emboldening at the end.)

Note added 30 October 2011.  A useful overview in the Mail on Sunday:

(note that the vertical scales are slightly different, and the horizontal scales are very different between the charts)
Extract:
'But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of  trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.
Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no  scientific basis.
Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.
Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.'

(hat tip: Bishop Hill , where some discussion of this newspaper article can be found)

Note added 7 Nov 11.. Report of very poor data quality in the BEST study:  http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/06/best-data-quality/