No, seriously: this has been stuck in my head since yesterday, and it all belongs to Joe Romm:
A couple of thoughts from the cave, though. First off, these seems a bit peculiar: has nobody considered this before? Secondly, a long term ECS of 6C would imply a local warming at the Poles of 12C (the article even hints at up to 18C). This sounds as if it’s outside the known spectrum of variability, but perhaps someone could confirm that…
Finally, there’s a side point: like much of the other stuff recently, this is being labelled as a ‘Hansen’ paper. Hansen is not the Principle author. So why? Are some of us starting to create a ‘personality’ cult to build a representative we can hide behind? I’m not sure I like this particular tendency, especially as I realise I’ve been guilty of it myself in the recent past…
Oh Oh! My Mistake; he is the principle; thanks to Joe for pointing this out (and for visiting) .
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October 2, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Ian Hopkinson
It’s true that Hansen’s name seems to float to the top very frequently. Personally I think this is a bit unhealthy – there really are a lot of climate scientists around and by seeing Hansen and Al Gore, repeatedly, as front men for a movement it starts to look like their personal battle and in some ways like the opposition – where you get the Lindzen / Crichton combo instead.
My perception is that this has two drivers: if you go to ClimateAudit, McI’s tendency is to strongly personalize his narrative (it’s always Hansen and Mann) – never their research groups or in Hansen’s case the upstream data providers; secondly, Hansen picked up the political batten long ago and it looks from here (the UK) that there has been a sea-change in opinion in the US which now pushes him to the fore.
October 2, 2007 at 4:18 pm
fergusbrown
I suppose this is a function of a cultural phenomenon, the cult of personality, as much as anything else. from a polemicists’ POv, it’s a godsend, because you have a ready target; a ‘hom.’ to ‘ad.’, if you like…
Re Hansen’s current ‘status; did he jump, or was he pushed?
October 2, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Joe
I single out Hansen for consistent leadership — and the consistent quality of his writing. Hansen is the lead author. When I was a young graduate student in physics many years ago, my professor was kind enough to putmy name first on a publication, but he warned me it wouldn’t really matter — whoever was the most famous would be the person people ascribe the article to.
October 2, 2007 at 5:09 pm
fergusbrown
Hi, Joe: I am flattered that you should take the time to come and visit. Sorry about the mistake; I have written a correction.
Your point about Hansen’s leadership is an interesting one: it’s not easy to think of many others who are willing to stand & be counted in the same way (though this number is increasing all the time, it seems). And thanks for the warning; if EOS publishes my paper, I’ll know who’ll get the credit…
I’d still ask about the ‘personality’ issue, though: do you think we are putting Hansen on a pedestal, to some extent (this irrespective of whether he deserves to be there)? And if we are, is this a ‘good thing’?
Regards,
October 2, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Climate Progress » Blog Archive » More swiftboating of James Hansen
[...] puts up with the steady stream of disinformation launched against him. I am not trying to create a cult of personality around him, but I do feel under some obligation to give his writing as much attention as possible — as I [...]
October 2, 2007 at 8:32 pm
bigcitylib
It isn’t just CA that does this, however.
One thing I find a little disturbing is Hansen’s emails. These “appear”, are “handed down”, as it were, and are then interpreted by friend and foe alike. A bit too much like the Pope for me. I think Hansen is complicit in the process as well.
October 2, 2007 at 10:39 pm
William Connolley
As for the substance, see James Annans blog. The answer is H is probably going over the top again
October 3, 2007 at 12:19 am
fergusbrown
Thanks for the heads up, William. I had a feeling James would have an opinion on this one. Luckily, he also knows what he’s talking about. There’s something about the idea of the Poles warming more than 10 degrees that just doesn’t sound right… maybe you can help on this one; is there any palaeo comparison?
I’m not so sure about the emails; when I email people like Gavin, they often answer. If I wanted to use these, I’d ask, and a nice guy would probably say yes. This doesn’t meant that when the email was written there was a conscious expectation of publication. OTOH, if I emailed Gavin and asked him for a quote for my blog, he might well send a very different reply (and one with different substance). Either way, I don’t like the term ‘complicit’; it implies some kind of underhandedness; he can be involved in the process without any implication of dodgy dealing.
October 3, 2007 at 9:01 am
Steve Bloom
James questions how much of a temp rise will result from the ice-albedo feedback before the ice goes. Hansen makes it very clear that the two are indeed linked, which James notes, so perhaps James’ concern is that the total ice-albedo feedback may not even result in a 3C increase before the ice goes, in which case using the 6C sensitivity figure is a little misleading.
But if I’m reading the paper correctly, Hansen says that doubled CO2 => 3C fast feedback warming => 6C warming with the slow feedbacks added => the threshold for disappearance of the ice sheets, i.e. the total slow feedback is 3C. After that the ice is gone and subsequent overall sensitivity drops back to something like 3C.
As for the poles, IIRC paleo studies show that with the ice gone they were a whole lot warmer. If the planet warms 6C, 12C to 18C at the poles doesn’t seem implausible considering how cold it is with the ice present.
October 3, 2007 at 11:06 am
Ian Hopkinson
bigcitylib – I think the e-mails you refer to are the ones he’s recently started adding to his columbia hompage and which he distributes to a subscription e-mail list, in which case they are public missives. (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/)
It seems to me that he’s chosen to be political to a degree, but I wouldn’t criticise him for that – climate change is a political issue and at least some climate scientists should be addressing it as such.
On the scientific substance: his recent paper on abrupt climate change and this one on long term sensitivity seem to go beyond IPCC consensus and beyond what at least James Annan and William Connolley believe and for that reason it’s interesting science!
October 3, 2007 at 4:51 pm
bigcitylib
Ian,
Thanks for clarifying. (Hansen should consider a blog)
October 4, 2007 at 8:10 am
Gareth
He’d need a full-time moderator to weed out the wingnut comments!