You have published two responses in recent Journals to my letter on global warming (OGJ, July 7, 2008, p. 12). One is from Donald E. Hibbard (OGJ, Oct. 6, 2008, p. 14). The other is from David Archibald (Oct. 27, 2008, p. 12). You also published a letter from Gerald Westbrook that did not respond directly to my letter (OGJ, Nov. 3, 2008, p. 12). I would in turn like to comment on these three letters.
There is no doubt that the debate over the existence of global warming gets emotional as it touches the heart of our business. It is my contention, however, that these above communications are clouding the debate, not being based on sound science.
Let us take Mr. Hibbard’s letter first. His sole argument was, “An article by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon published in the December 2007 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reports research that strongly rejects the theory that hydrocarbons are primarily responsible for global warming. Their research is backed by the endorsement of 31,072 American scientists.”
The referred article originates from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. I looked them up on the web. The Chemical & Engineering News, in their editorial of June 9, 2008, refused to carry a letter which quoted this same reference published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.1 The editorial said that this journal “is not indexed by Chemical Abstracts Service, Pubmed, or ISI’s Web of Science, and articles published in this journal have argued that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional, that ‘humanists’ have conspired to replace the ‘creation religion of Jehovah’ with evolution, that HIV does not cause AIDS, and that the ‘gay male lifestyle’ shortens life expectancy by 20 years, etc.”
The only reference of the institute’s work on climate change on their web site is to this paper and a petition. The paper itself is full of errors, cherry-picking of data, and omissions. I invite readers to make their own judgment by reading the review by Michael MacCracken, past-president of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences.2
On their web site this institute lists just eight faculty members (of whom two are dead), no classrooms, or student body. As concerns the petition, despite being frequently cited by global warming critics as showing that thousands of scientists disagree with the consensus on global warming, it contains almost no people with relevant expertise, and its vetting was so lax that it included many fictional signatories.
Now for Mr. Archibald’s letter. I note that he did not counter the points I raised in my previous letter concerning his cherry-picking of data in his work nor to his abuse of the climate change model. I took a look at the most recent reference supplied with his letter, from March 2008.3 In this 30-page paper he gives no references to the majority of his data, which is a good thing for him since examination shows he has cherry-picked to the extreme again. The first figure, which is claimed to be “The 29 years of high quality Satellite Data,” does not say which satellite; the vertical axis is missing a label; and the title does not match the data, while the next graph shows sea ice, with no source reference, but while claiming that no changes are happening is mislabeled, while it does indeed show a trend. In the third figure we see data for five rural sites around Georgia. Archibald then asserts, without any attempt at proof, that the variation seen is due to solar effects and then suddenly jumps his conclusion from these five stations to cover the whole of planet Earth! These five stations are all in a small region, while there were hundreds of stations available. Guess what? They all show the same trend down. The possibility that these five stations were representative is so small to be insignificant, and yet from this Archibald draws one of his major conclusions. I am only up to Fig. 3 and could go on, but I will save readers the pain. This non-peer reviewed article does not qualify as science.
The last letter was from Mr. Westbrook. He started by asking what three distinguished physicists have in common and tells us that they are all sceptics of global warming (note the “are,” as if in the present; one of them is dead), while ignoring the many thousands of physicists who accept global warming as a reality. In fact, none of the three named have ever authored a testable theory, produced data, or presented papers explaining the current global temperature trend. Mr. Westbrook denigrates the 0.6° C. temperature increase seen in the 20th century and in doing this shows he does not understand climate science since small changes in mean global surface temperature do indeed matter, and this temperature increase is continuing. He says that increasing CO2 levels help plant growth, but he ignores the hundreds of millions of people who will be affected by rising sea levels [as though] sudden changes to habitat will have many knock-on consequences. Mr. Westbrook says, “Physicists might hold the key to this diagnosis,” and he then places the blame fairly on solar warming (ignoring the massive evidence from the increase in CO2 levels and the known physics). Direct observations tell us that solar forcing has not changed substantially in at least 30 years, and important though it is, physics without an understanding of climate science is pretty worthless in a debate over the climate. His letter also includes a number of political points, which should have no place in a debate over science.
Debate is at the heart of science. None of the aforementioned pieces stands up to independent review. Reading the letters column of OGJ, one could easily get the impression that the debate has not reached a conclusion on whether we have climate change or not and the reasons for it. The science, as well as the empirical results, are all now well-established and recognized.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produced the definitive work on climate change, has now produced a number of reports. Although much maligned by the skeptics, the process the IPCC goes through is highly scientific, contains much advanced statistical analysis, and many checks and balances. The rules are that the work may present only previously published research, based on peer-reviewed scientific papers. The IPCC reports are essential reading for those interested in climate change.4 No one else has come up with a scientifically credible reason (i.e., passes the test under peer analysis and review) to explain away the changes happening to our climate.
Scientific skepticism and scrutiny are welcome parts of any discussion, of course. They are an important part of the overall process. But unscientific and highly dubious writings, such as those referred to here, should be understood to be just that.
Jeff Temple
PetroKazakhstan Oil Products
Shymkent Oil Refinery
Kazakhstan
References
- “Defending Science,” Chemical & Engineering News, June 9, 2008, http://pubs.acs.org/cen/editor/86/8623editor.html.
- http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/file-uploads/Comment_on_Robinson_et_al-2007R.pdf.
- http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/solar-cycles/ArchibaldLavoisierAGM.pdf.
- The Synthesis report from the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Report can be seen on http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf.
