Assessment of Steve Fielding’s stance on climate change
Family First Senator Steve Fielding has posted the questions he put to Penny Wong on Climate Change recently, I’ve had a look at them and posted my analysis here. I’ve tried to keep it simple but be warned, there’s a bit to it. Unfortunately this is the stuff we have to learn if we want a debate about climate change out in the media rather than something being debated between scientists. It’s not valid to say “I am unconvinced on climate change” if you haven’t examined the science; choosing to do nothing is a choice so we need to either become educated or else take the advice of the experts.
I should make it clear that I am not a climate scientist, my area of expertise is bushfire behaviour. I do however try to keep up to date with the findings and believe that my capabilities as a scientist are up to the job on this material. By all means though, please check what I’m saying against the data and the references.
Mr Fielding opens by saying:
“They [the Rudd Government] were unable to debunk a graph used by the IPCC which shows average global temperatures remaining steady over the last 15 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.”
Mr Fielding does not tell us which graph he is referring to.
What he is suggesting is that the evidence against global warming that needs to be answered is not coming from industry interests such as the Heartland Institute, but from the highest level of climate science we have, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). So lets have a look at their graphs.
The 2 graphs from the Summary for Policymakers and the Technical Summary are:
In each graph, it is very clear that average global temperatures have not remained steady over the past 15 years. I would be very interested if anyone could produce a graph which supports Mr Fielding’s claim; there certainly is not any such graph in the IPCC documentation.
Mr Fielding then outlined the 3 questions he had put to Penny Wong which he claimed she had been unable to answer adequately. I’ve listed them below and given some of my thoughts about them.
Question 1
“Is it the case that CO2 increased by 5% since 1998 whilst global temperature cooled over the same period (see Fig. 1)? If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?”
Mr Fielding refers to “Fig. 1″ to support his statement, but Fig. 1 is not provided at any point so we are left to take his word for it. If however we examine the actual data, here’s what we get:
The line shows the trend, in this case it’s rising. The number R-squared gives us an indication of how much of the temperature variation is explained by the trend. A value of 0.1075 means that the warming trend explains about 11% of the temperature variation in this period, the rest is due to shorter term factors such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation.
So what about Mr Fielding’s statement? The short answer is yes, CO2 did increase, and no, global temperature did not cool over the period. Global temperature rose on average by 0.112 degrees celcius. Not much, but Mr Fielding’s statement is dead wrong. Global temperature rose, it did not cool. What he has done is misinterpreted a statistical analysis of the period that said the level of rising was “not significant”, basically that the R-squared value was not big enough.
Now a question for Mr Fielding. Why did they count a period of 11 years rather than just a decade? Take a closer look at the graph. The year 1998 was an exceptionally warm year, whereas the year 2008 was cooler than average. What if we just counted a decade instead of 11 years? Well, if we started from 1998, the graph would look like this:
Or, if we counted the 10 years 1999 to 2008, we would have:
Notice that the line is much steeper in both cases, and that the R=squared value is nearly three times higher. In both cases, the temperature rise is much more statistically sound and the average rise in temperatures is about twice as fast (0.2 degrees instead of 0.1).
So what has happened is that either Mr Fielding or someone advising him has “cherry picked” data. At some point someone has made a decision to deliberately pick that strange number of years to capitalise on the short term variability and make the trend look weak. On top of that, Mr Fielding has gone further and instead of saying “there has been no statistically significant rise in that period”, has instead quite falsely said that temperatures have cooled.
But why are we looking at small numbers like 10 years anyway? If we look at a slightly bigger picture, it’s pretty clear that the overall trend is rising. The graph below shows temperatures from 1970 to 2008, where we can see that the last few years are nothing unusual, and that when we step back from the picture the warming trend actually accounts for 77% of the difference in temperature. You can’t get an idea of a big picture trend by measuring a short-term snapshot like a decade.
Question 2
Is it the case that the rate and magnitude of warming between 1979 and 1998 (the late 20th century phase of global warming) was not unusual in either rate or magnitude as compared with warmings that have occurred earlier in the Earth’s history (Fig. 2a, 2b)?
If the warming was not unusual, why is it perceived to have been caused by human CO2 emissions; and, in any event, why is warming a problem if the Earth has experienced similar warmings in the past?
Again, we are not given the figures that support his case, but the short answer is yes, there have been periods of warming in the earth’s history comparable to the current one. No one has contended that the current period of warming is “the worst ever” or anything like that, the point being made is that the warming is going to cause suffering and environmental destruction, and that it doesn’t have to happen if we change some of our practices.
It’s pretty easy for Mr Fielding to see why warming is a problem if he looks at the IPCC documents he should know back to front to be making such claims. Warming causes sea level rise because water expands when it gets warm and because icecaps on Greenland and Antarctica melt into the sea; this sort of thing has happened many thousands of years ago, but many thousands of years ago Holland wasn’t largely populated on land below sea level protected by dykes that can be over-topped by storm surges with even a very small amount of sea level rise. Many thousands of years ago Bangladesh didn’t have 1093 people per square kilometer, living in places where 50% of the country would be flooded if sea level rose by 1m.
It’s one thing to be philosophical and see it all as part of the circle of life, but if we have the option, do we really want those disasters to happen overseas? Do we really want more droughts and bushfires in Australia? Do we really want the extinction of an estimated 1 million species by 2050? Why does Mr Fielding not see these things as problems?
As to why the warming is seen as being caused by human induced CO2 emissions, the short answer is that even according to the documentation supplied by Mr Fielding to support his case it’s an undisputed fact that CO2 emissions cause warming, and that we’ve been releasing a lot of them over the past century. The other times the earth warmed were natural disasters; this time isn’t. It’s kind of like an arsonist saying “bushfires occur naturally, therefore there’s nothing wrong with me lighting this one.”
Question 3:
Is it the case that all GCM computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for the period 1990-2008, whereas in fact there were only 8 years of warming were followed by 10 years of stasis and cooling. (Fig. 3)?
If so, why is it assumed that long-term climate projections by the same models are suitable as a basis for public policy making?
Yes, the models would have predicted a general warming trend, but as we saw under question 1 there was no period of “stasis and cooling”. The temperatures have continued to rise steadily just as the models predicted. Again Mr Fielding does not provide us with the graph he refers to and leaves us to take his word for it, and again what he wants us to trust him on is completely wrong.
As for the second part of the question; despite the fact that his premise is completely false we need to understand that climate models are different to weather models. A climate model describes temperature over the span of multiple decades not individual years; Mr Fielding’s contention is kind of like saying “this weekend was a lot cooler than last one, where’s this ’summer’ you keep predicting?”
Summary
I’ve got to say that I am very disappointed by Mr Fielding’s statements on this subject. He has told us that the data was doing exactly the opposite to what it really was, he has told us that the IPCC have said exactly the opposite to what they really did say and he has attempted to downplay the enormous suffering and destruction that will result if things go as expected by comparing it to events many many thousands of years ago. At best it appears that he has been naive and simply accepted the word of industry lobby groups such as the Heartland Institute without reading any of the peer-reviewed material that they are trying to mislead people on.
UPDATE 16th July
I’ve spent some time discussing the issue with a few individuals arguing in defence of Steve Fielding, who have been able to shed a little more light on the issue and provide me with some documents that gave some more relevant information such as the actual document Steve Fielding gave to Penny Wong. Another writer also provided a link to Penny Wong’s answers.
In short, the dataset used by Mr Fielding (HadCRUT3) does show a slight drop in temperature since 1998 or 2002, so Mr Fielding was not deliberately being misleading on that count. This is however the only instrumental dataset that does show cooling, and if all of the evidence is weighed together there is still a clear warming trend. My earlier comments about measuring too short a time period also remain; the climate has four main cycles - some of which span a decade and unless the measurements are taken over at least 2 wavelengths (minimum 20 years), you’re measuring weather not climate. It’s like comparing this July to February last year and saying that this year is cooler. To complicate things, the evidence suggests that when these four cycles synchronise (all do the same thing at the same time) and become temporarily coupled (work together) as they started to do in 2002, they cause a pause in the warming that can last from a few years to a few decades (techo stuff here). It’s only a pause unfortunately, the four times it happened in the 20th century the warming that happened afterward caught up to the existing trend. So no, Steve Fielding did not lie about this; he just didn’t investigate the science properly.
On the down side, it does appear that Mr Fielding was misleading with his claim that the Government “were unable to debunk a graph used by the IPCC which shows average global temperatures remaining steady over the last 15 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased”. The graph used was not taken from the IPCC, but was a presentation of the data which concentrated on temperatures over a statistically invalid period and thereby misrepresenting the data. Another graph comparing current temperatures to IPCC modelling shows a completely false version of the IPCC model and it’s error margins.
Mr Fielding’s claim that the Government “shifted the goal posts and rephrased my questions to suit their agenda”, coupled with the fact that he provided no link to the government response is also very misleading. The answers were not political dismissals, but quite well worded statements of the facts. The fact that Penny Wong directed Mr Fielding to ocean temperatures is not “changing the goalposts”. Water bodies are heat sinks, they take a long time to change and therefore are a very good indicator of climatic trends rather than seasonal trends. Penny Wong’s response is an attempt to educate Mr Fielding in the science, not a political ploy.
Unfortunately, this move of Mr Fielding’s does appear very much to be a political ploy. Mr Fielding has not attempted to understand both sides of the story as he claims, but has focused his attention on the small minority of dissenting voices that are prepared to twist the statistics.
“Stormboy”/Phil whoever you are, have the courage to identify yourself properly otherwise you will enjoy no credibility whatsoever in debates about the poorly understood and approaching chaotic science surrounding global climates.
The IPCC is a political body driven by political motives which have nothing to do with global climates. I refer you to a worthwhile site http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1
Try to learn something about global climate science before getting involved in debates. All that you are able to do at the moment is regurgitate the arguments of those who support the “significant human-0made global climate change” hypothesis. Try to develop your own understanding then ADD something to the debate.
Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:22 pmPete, the last site where I introduced some of the science on climate change to skeptics I was told firstly that I was a muslim then that someone there was going to track me down. As a result and out of concern for my family I’ve gone to doing what 90% of bloggers do - just go by an alias. Does that automatically make what I say untrue?
The material I wrote directly addressed Steve Fielding’s claims; to bring in new material would be to change the subject. You haven’t answered any of the points I’ve made about it however, so I’d be grateful if you could tell me where I am wrong in what I’ve written rather than directing me to a whole lot of new issues to answer.
I’d also be interested to hear which of the 166 nations in the IPCC are driving the political agenda. I do know that the US refused to sign off on publication of the last report until it softened the wording so we know one big player was using politics, but he was on your side.
I’m interested in your thoughts, but let’s
July 6th, 2009 at 6:10 pm1) try not to change the subject
2) use facts rather than broad statements or unsupported accusations, and
3) try not to resort to insults ok?
Where are you from? Is it a secret?
July 7th, 2009 at 1:30 pmPete Ridley attempted to post this comment, but it hasn’t shown up on the site. My apologies Pete.
“For anyone who is interested, do not accept without question what Phil says. He has his views, but, as he acknowledges, “I am not a climate scientist, my area of expertise is bushfire behaviour”. Listen to his opinion, but do not accept them without doing your own research into the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis. A good starting point would be Senator Fieldings “Penny Wong”, “Fight in the Senate” and “Climate Change” blogs (Note 1, 2 & 3) but also follow the links given there.
We all have an enormous amount to learn about climate science, inclusing the self-proclaimed experts, before we can forecast what climates will be like several decades from now. At present it is purely crystal ball gazing.”
August 14th, 2009 at 9:24 amIn response to your last post Pete, may I point out again that just as on Mr Fielding’s website, you haven’t addressed any of the points we were discussing. Mt Fielding raised specific questions which were answered in detail by Penny Wong and I have also answered them above. It is reasonable that you attempt to debate the points rather than try to discredit me. Your dismissal makes you appear to be more qualified than I am, yet as I understand from what you said on Mr Fielding’s blog, you are an engineer retired from working in the oil and telecommunications industries, not a climate scientist.
Your statement that climate scientists need to learn an enormous amount more before they can forecast what climates will be decades from now is your opinion, it is not grounded in any facts. The climate scientists who do the research and modelling think quite differently to you on this, and they have a full understanding of the limitations and uncertainties in their work as well as a real understanding of how complex systems such as the climate work.
As I made clear in the article above, I encourage readers to verify everything they read here. A critical part of this is that you use peer-reviewed science as your basis. Comments on websites or in books can be helpful, but the writers are free to say whatever they like and unless you are a scientist familiar with the work, you will never know whether you are being told the truth or not. Peer-review is the only means of quality control that we have. Scientific articles are difficult to understand unless you are familiar with the science, but we need to live with this if we are to debate it.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:17 pmStormboy,
At your request on the Steve Fielding blog I have looked at your comments on Fielding’s questions. Looks good BUT I have a different take on Fielding’s intentions.
At the time of his asking these questions he had the responsibility of deciding if Oz needed Kevin’s ETS/CPRS.
Anyone in that position should be asking for the fundamental evidence supporting such a policy.In fact we all should but the media that most of us rely on shows us power ststion cooling towers belching water vapour as evidence of CO2 pollution…what hope have we got?
Given the difficulty with data collection and validation perhaps a good approach would be to look at the behaviour of atmospheric CO2 in the presence of infrared radiation. Does it do the things IPCC et al build into their models?
I don’t see this as such a difficult thing for 21st century science to explain to the general public. Science has made major steps since the time of Tyndall/Arrhenius.I suspect the behaviour of CO2 molecules is way less complex than climate modelling but it is not the normal domain of climatologists.
I don’t expect this very basic information to be available from climatologists but I am disappointed that they appear not to acknowledge that CO2’s basic behaviour is the correct place to start when modelling its effect on climate.
My own enquiries over the past couple of years have been largely unanswered by organisations who appear to support the idea that CO2 is a major driver of climate change. This lack of answers made me very doubtful about foundation of ETS/CPRS.
Perhaps Steve Fielding has similar doubts?
Regards
John Watt
December 27th, 2009 at 9:05 amJohn,
thanks for your thoughts. I agree that Mr Fielding had a responsibility to ask the fundamental questions, but I also think that he had access to the IPCC reports. It appears to me from his questions and comments that he has not read these or understood them, and I think it was quite generous of Penny Wong to give her time to answering him when he could really have found his answers by doing some homework.
I’m not totally clear on your contention about whether CO2 does the things the IPCC build into their models. I’m not aware of any peer-reviewed study that disputes this, the amount of energy absorbed by CO2 is readily measurable by infra red spectroscopy and the amount of radiation it emits is as Fielding’s adviser David Evans says “not in dispute” (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/no_evidence.pdf, page 5). So the short answer is yes, CO2 does exactly what the models say. It’s well understood and is actually the easy part of the modelling process because it’s the first equation used in a climate model. There’s not a fuss made about it because no one seriously contends it.
Where the contention comes in is in the feedbacks. All agree that CO2 is not a strong greenhouse gas in comparison to some, but the small, easily modelled amount of warming produced by CO2 triggers other things such as increases in water vapour. We also know from basic physics that water vapour is a very strong greenhouse gas which will amplify the warming produced by CO2, but it also makes clouds which increase albedo and thereby cool the earth. Which is the dominant effect? So far the evidence says that the positive feedback far outweighs the negative one and that the increase in clouds for instance produces more instability and therefore more intense, short-lived storms.
It’s this sort of complexity that means you can’t derive a good value for climate forcing by experimentation. An experiment will only deliver a valid value if the conditions are identical to the entire earth. The shape and position of the Himalayas for instance affects the monsoons quite profoundly, so an experiment that doesn’t replicate this will miss the effect of monsoon rain on the global energy budget. The way it’s done is by quantifying each individual effect and putting them together as a “complex system’s model” and seeing if it can reproduce the “emergent behaviours” of the climate. Despite the rumours, the peer-reviewed literature says that the models reproduce the temperatures very well (eg http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Rahmstorf_etal.pdf).
David Evans said “IPCC climate theory assumes a strong, positive amplifying climate feedback, principally due to water vapour” (p17). This statement is deliberately misleading and one of the reasons why his article is not peer-reviewed; he would have to remove the false statements. There is no IPCC climate theory; the IPCC are not a research organisation. The science they use is the product of all of the available peer-reviewed evidence on the subject collated by 152 lead authors and cross-examined by 650 reviewers. They did not “assume” positive amplifying feedback, they just went with the science that demonstrated this to be the case. The beauty of complex systems modelling is that if David Evans, Plimer or anyone else has any evidence for negative feedbacks for instance that are not included, all they need to do is quantify it with good, solid science and get it peer-reviewed. Then it can be included in a climate model and debunk the whole thing. You would have to ask yourself why they have not.
I hope this answers things for you a bit John, please let me know if I’ve missed something.
December 27th, 2009 at 4:04 pmI believe that Hubberts peak is true and that we are now past the point of peak oil. I think many of the current events have to do with this downturn and it won’t be long before the main stream media and population wake up and know what is going on. For me and my family, we are preparing for the next generation.
June 25th, 2010 at 6:38 pmMost of you don’t comprehend that whether or not or not global warming is occurring is irrelevant with out the leap to United States consumer control of global climate. Politicians see an opportunity for a huge government energy grab after they’ve personally come to the convenient conclusion that United States customers not only cause global warming, but the right quantity of government financial oppression will lead to a colder planet. Democrats have produced the insane leap from cause to control with zero evidence due to the fact it suites their thirst for Energy AND CONTROL. Why did pelosi and reid only permit science types who favored the global warming fraud to testify just before congress even as Republicans objected? Some of the greatest minds in planetary science had been left waiting in their hotel rooms till it was time to fly back residence simply because corrupt democrats did not need to hear what they had to say. How will democrats be Confirmed incorrect in the future? Once they cripple the US economy but the earth’s temperature Doesn’t GET COLDER. They are more then prepared to experiment along with your family’s financial future ..too as your children’s. Need to Republicans fail and this “belief system” collapse the US economy, who will pay when this horrendous experiment fails? Who paid when billions have been spent on E85 fuels before the truth of it’s failure resulted in half built and abandoned facilities and sky-rocketing food costs?
December 8th, 2010 at 9:17 pmUnfortunately, this is another case of your word against all of the experts. The Republicans were quite happy to call on a known conman without a shred of science behind him (Monckton) as their ‘expert’, because the argument against action is based around convincing people who don’t know the facts, rather than addressing reality. The evidence is clear, we need to inconvenience ourselves for the rest of the world. True, if we are less glutonous then the US won’t have such a weight problem and that might put you out of business, but there’s something a bit obscene about 2/3 of the world being hungry while 2% pays someone to help them lose weight because they ate everyone else’s food.
December 11th, 2010 at 2:35 pm