Just noticed on my regular trawl through the web on a Sunday, Roger Pielke Sr. has announced that his website, Climate Science, is to cease activity on September 2nd. The archive will remain available.
There will be a range of responses to this news, some regretful, others crowing or cynical. Some may feel that it is no great loss to the blogosphere. I will not be one of those people.
Agree or disagree, like or loathe, satisfaction or frustration: irrespective of the feelings or reactions that the website generated, it has had a large number of readers for the two years it has been running.
I have personal feelings in response to this news, as I have had the pleasure of working with Roger, and have great respect for him both as a person and a scientist. I am frequently astonished by the sheer extent of his output, a workload which shames many of us, and which probably goes a long way to explaining why he is not going to keep the website up. I also have huge respect for his personal courage in refusing to bow to peer-pressure and having the audacity to continue challenging what he saw as important issues in climate change, politics, science and the rest.
But for me, the critical matter is that Climate Science is just about the only credible website I have been able to go to in recent months with any expectation of rational consideration of some important issues, from a particular perspective. It has never been a ’sceptic’ website, though too many of the commenters recently have been of that persuasion, but it has given me a lot of information about the science which might otherwise have been lost in the crowd. It has also alerted me to the complexity of the issue of land-use in relation both to the climate and the environment.
Now I’m going to have a problem: when a ‘genuine’ doubter asks where they can find a challenging, scientific approach to some of the questionable ‘orthodoxies’ of theIPCC, where am I going to send them?
I’ve left a goodwill message on CS. I repeat it here: all the very best wishes, Roger.
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August 26, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Steve Bloom
Most of all, I’m going to miss Roger’s Klingon climate metric.
Where did you work with him, BTW?
August 26, 2007 at 10:30 pm
fergusbrown
I presume you’re referring to Joules. I thought that was what WAGs bought in Bond Street. Serious for you, though Steve; your cutting wit now needs a new home. I hope you don’t disappear, so please keep us updated on where in the blogosphere you find your niche…
Just finished writing a paper together on climate science opinion, submitted to EOS: Awaiting Fred’s reply; hoping for publication. Roger encouraged me to do the research, guided and supported, and wrote a fair proportion of the final paper: as I am not even affiliated to a University, never mind a postgrad., it was an act of remarkable kindness and generosity on his part.
Regards,
August 27, 2007 at 7:50 am
Steve Bloom
NGoRF actually. I understand that at certain times of year on Qonos the gaak ranchers follow it very closely. /humor
A few points for the historical record:
Regarding Joules, scientists use it as a metric whenever suitable, whereas for the public it would be meaningless. Even if it were to have meaning for the latter, how many years would it before we had anything like an ability to state its value on a day-to-day basis? Lots, I suspect. So Roger’s obsession with this was always nonsense. At one point, by the way, I offered to get California news outlets to start using some sort of more suitable metric if Roger could suggest one, but all he could come up with was the entirely unsuitable NGoRF.
As you will recall, the Joules business is what sidetracked him onto his crusade to prove that somehow the Lyman et al paper from last year had showed that global warming was slowing even though the surface record was showing otherwise. That this might be true wasn’t especially news to anyone since the early Levitus papers had already showed that there wasn’t a perfect short-term correlation between the two. But was it true in this case? Not a chance, since the Lyman et al results were patently unphysical. Sure enough, some months later Roger got an ostrich egg square in the face when the problems with the ARGOs and XBTs surfaced.
The other example I’ll mention is his recent attack on the AR4 for not emphasizing the land use change component of AGW sufficiently prominently. Well, rude fellow that I am, I cut and pasted the relevant AR4 material showing that Roger’s claim was baseless. Did he come clean about the error? Nope. Similarly, it turns regional climate change gets plenty of attention from Roger’s colleagues (of course, since the holy grail of climate science is accurate regional forecasts).
There’s a long list of other things, including just lately his promotion of the antiscientific surface stations business and Roy Spencer’s attempted revival of the Lindzen “iris.” All of it seems to add up to some very strange and counterproductive behavior for a scientist. I won’t miss Roger’s blog.
I will look forward to seeing the paper. Roger obviously continues to do plenty of good science, notwithstanding his weird obsessions.
August 27, 2007 at 9:25 am
fergusbrown
Showing my ignorance for a second, you’ve trumped me with the NGoRf; it’s probably too early in the day. Perhaps clarification would help the casual reader (I am sure there are a couple of casual readers here).
I’d rather avoid trying to defend Roger’s position, as I’ll probably get things wrong, but as I understand it, Roger wants scientists to use a scientific measurement in their work. This is a perfectly understandable position. Where it comes unstuck is with texts like the AR4 SPM: it has to be written with its audience in mind. It is obtuse enough as things stand, without adding another layer. The IPCC uses temperatures because it is what its audience understands easily. It also happens to be ‘relatively’ easy to use. Which is the more scientific measure is another question.
On the land-use change, you are right that this is given consideration in the AR4, and a value is given for it; but whilst the IPCC concludes that the balance of forcings from land-use change is too small to consider a major problem, Roger argues that they haven’t given it enough attention; that the forcing is larger than the IPCC estimate, and that this skews the relative importance of other forcings, albeit slightly.
There have been a couple of papers recently (which I haven’t seen on CS) which look like they support Roger’s view on this. Add recent results about carbon cycle feedbacks from forests, and the undoubtedly strong influence of wildfires, and the matter of how you determine or classify the effects of these actions becomes significant.
I have often been tempted to fall in with the simple claim that the IPCC and other public documents have emphasised the CO2 message (for good reasons) at the cost of other important messages for both vulnerability and climate forcing issues, which can be argued to be of comparable short to medium term importance.
I had noticed that in recent weeks more and more guest weblogs were appearing on the site, and that some of these have been – how can I say this politely – peculiar. Sometimes it has looked as if challenging the ‘orthodoxy’ regardless has been more important than maintaining a scientific objectivity, but it is indicative, maybe, of the steady decline of Roger’s available time to supervise and research material for his site which is distinct and in character.
In summary then, Steve, whether it be Roger or anyone else, I do believe there is a genuine value to having a website, preferably run by a scientist who is at the cutting edge and understands the material well, which highlights and publicises those research papers and findings which draw our attention to issues relating to climate change which may well otherwise be overlooked. Quis custodiet… and all that.
The problem with any such effort is that it swiftly gets overwhelmed by frantic arch-sceptics either crowing or whinging uncritically, and ends up looking unscientific and ’sceptical’ itself. The task of managing this sort of content is substantial – too much for most busy scientists. Perhaps if Roger had been part of a coalition, as with RC, the burden would have been more manageable.
Finally, I do think that there are important principles underlying Roger’s website which are probably worthy of keeping. Perhaps there is an opportunity for a clear restatement and repositioning of a view which argues for not focussing exclusively on CO2 in the public debate, and for evaluating climate impacts in terms of vulnerability (this appears to be happening anyway).
Regards,
August 29, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Steve Bloom
Fergus, just to state the point for the nth time, an overall Joules measurement has the slight problem of not existing in a sufficiently accurate form as to be useful. This little fact renders Roger’s position into nonsense. Eventually we will be able to come up with some Joules figures (via lots and lots of, um, temperature readings since Joules cannot be measured directly), but until then we’re stuck with what we can actually measure. Also, putting the practical aspect of this in the form of a question, how many Joules is it out today? I kept asking Roger that and he kept not anwering.
Regarding NGoRF, a quick search on Roger’s site will find the information. NGoRF was discussed recently, which does kind of make me wonder if your endorsement is based on a comprehensive sense of what has gone on over the history of his blog.
Also, although I must say I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall, the AR4 doesn’t discount land use impacts in the slightest. I don’t know why anybody thinks even the WG1 SPM does, for that matter, since among other things land use is mentioned twice in the first substantive paragraph.
Regarding the public debate, here in California anyway the land use aspect of AGW is getting a lot of attention. More globally, I think the message about the importance of keeping the rain forests intact has finally sunk in to the public consciousness. To the extent land use has gotten short shrift in the past, it’s because its net global forcing is small and because the scientific understanding of it has somewhat lagged behind that of GHGs. Contrary to Roger’s insinuation, this isn’t because of some conspiracy to ignore it.
Anyway, Fergus, I wish I could think that the positive outweighed the negative with regard to Roger’s blog, but on balance I don’t.
August 29, 2007 at 10:21 pm
fergusbrown
Steve, I’m not really disagreeing with you on anything substantial here; our evaluation of Climate Science (the blog) is simply slightly different, that’s all. You may well be right that I’m missing some of the history, but I only intended to express my thoughts based on my experience.
For me, the biggest frustration on the blog was its apparent adoption by too many non-scientists with an agenda, whereas it could have been (may once have been) similar to RC in it’s management of the science.
Being outside the USA doesn’t help, either; the politicisation of the issue, where ’sides’ matter, is a total PITA to me. I do understand why you ended up getting increasingly frustrated by the persistent repetition of misunderstandings in the comments sections of the blog, and admire you for sticking with it when so many others simply gave up trying. Doesn’t stop me from feeling that you are being too harsh in your judgement of Roger, though.
The problem remains; are we doomed to be stuck with ‘Climate Feedback’ from now on?
Regards,
August 31, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Eli Rabett
Blogs are personal things and people move on, lose interest and whatever which is more than enough explanation for what Roger Sr. is doing. However, he was pushing some strange peanuts up the hill with an interesting amen chorus trolling in the background and there was an interesting amount of flim being flammed.
OTOH, if I were a betting Rabett, I might put some money on interesting consulting in Roger’s future, but that is just the cat in me.
August 31, 2007 at 10:03 pm
fergusbrown
I note from his publication list (is that a hint?) that Roger’s been involved in 21 papers so far this year. No. 334 was with me. He really is a very hard working bunny. BTW: I don’t think you;ll like 334 much, but please don’t; we’re awaiting appro. Our mutual mustelid acquaintance has, however, been onto the case…
September 1, 2007 at 5:56 pm
EliRabett
I have real trouble with question 6 wrt the other questions otherwise no surprises. I think you have to lump it with 7 for the scientific pov. Did you do a follow up??
September 1, 2007 at 10:39 pm
fergusbrown
It certainly isn’t a perfect piece. 6 & 7 turned out to be trickier to write than you might expect; I did the best I could. Others did say the same thing as you. I’m in the process of preparing a formal follow-up, with some other stuff besides, but I’m waiting to see if I can get a place at a university to get support and some authority. Some enquiries are going quite well, and I have some good references.
I expect the feedback on this to be quite a challenge, even before trying to formalise and analyse a bigger piece of work. JA finds the results potentially worrying, in that the number of dissenters is higher than he expected; he suspects some systematic bias, which is plausible, and would like me to test for that.
Thanks for visiting.
September 2, 2007 at 3:13 am
EliRabett
Well, if you don’t mind a few suggestions. First, I think that imputation of motive should not appear in any of the choices. The fact that the responses were so highly peaked is an indication that the questions were not well distributed, and the ones arguing that the situation is worse than the IPCC were not really different (I would say that anyone choosing 6 and 7 was really at the same point in the continuum. Something like
1. It is inherently impossible to attribute current or past trends and to forecast climate into the future. Therefore the AR4 is irrelevant and one cannot relate GHG forcing to future climate
2. While perhaps possible at some point to attribute current or past trends and to forecast climate into the future, current methods are inherently unreliable. Alternatively, while modeling might have some skill the climate data with which it is validated is insufficient to provide any confidence in attributing current trends. For either or both reasons the AR4 is only useful as a summary of current knowledge.
3. Available climate data and modeling is sufficient to attribute observed trends and forecast them into the future given sufficiently strong forcings however, observed GHG forcings are not yet large enough to eliminate the possibility of confounding factors such as solar amplification, land use changes, etc.
5. Available climate data and modeling is sufficient to attribute observed trends and forecast them into the future given sufficiently strong forcings and observed GHG forcing is large enough for this to be the case, especially in light of the observed smaller changes in other forcings such as solar. However, the uncertainty in both modeling and data does not allow one to draw strong conclusions.
6. Available climate data and modeling is sufficient to attribute observed trends and forecast them into the future given sufficiently strong forcings and observed GHG forcing is large enough for this to be the case. The current state of knowledge and the strength of the GHG forcings makes it very likely that the AR4 is correct.
7. Available climate data and modeling is sufficient to attribute observed trends and forecast them into the future given sufficiently strong forcings and observed GHG forcing is large enough for this to be the case. Uncertainties in several factors, including ice cap dynamics make possible that the AR4 underestimates the dangers associated with GHG driven climate change.
8. Available climate data and modeling is sufficient to attribute observed trends and forecast them into the future given sufficiently strong forcings and observed GHG forcing is large enough for this to be the case. Uncertainties in several factors, including ice cap dynamics make likely that the AR4 underestimates the dangers associated with GHG driven climate change.
9. The AR4 is inherently cautious about drawing conclusions and the science has advanced significantly since the cut off for consideration. The current state of knowledge both gives one great confidence in our ability to model climate and our understanding of observed climate. In all regards the situation today is significantly more dire than set forth in the AR4.
September 2, 2007 at 6:44 pm
fergusbrown
Thanks, Eli, for taking such a detailed look. Until publication, perhaps we should continue this conversation by email? I think your suggestions are excellent (but not without their own faults).
It is important to remember that the poll is only a first approach. It is worth publishing, though, not only to get further involvement from respondents and some verification evidence, but also because the results, limited as they are, have implications in their own rights.
If it were the case that a clear spread of unmoderated opinion in climate science resembles what this initial survey shows, then it does say something about the process of consensus that exists and is presented to policy makers. Of course, if it turns out that this has been aanomalous result, that too would be significant.
Regards,
September 7, 2007 at 9:10 pm
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