“Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming”

E&E Publishing is spending a lot of money on reporting most people won’t ever see » Nieman Journalism Lab

 

Ah its behind a paywall :-( I know you can get it for me, but the graph explains about all I need to see. It appears people were reading things into the NOAA study that Karl says aren't really there.

The models do indeed predict more heat, and its important to figure out why temperatures are different. Yes something with the oceans is likely, but can someone model it and make better predictions. That may help nail down sensitivity and help figure out if we are doomed or simply need to mitigate.

 

Every time somebody says "behind a paywall", My brain changes those words to "I am too lazy to go to the library or even send an email to the author".

Every time.

50 to 100 times per year I email authors for this reason, because there are journals I can't access. You are welcome to consider this irrelevant, but it often leads to interesting communications. Just as it might for any of you.

Or take the BobW approach and just send money to a publisher. Hard for me to argue against this, as we are (sort of) in the same business.

Climate sensitivity is an important concept, but it seems not to be a number. Seems to be a dynamic thing, related to time constants of CO2 changes and of Earth system responses. If T to CO2 doubling responses were 1.5 oC on 100 year scale and 4.5 on 1000, (just to pick numbers) what would that mean? How should we proceed?

 

How is this TL;DR. Really I am too lazy or have better things to do than to look into the details here. It is not that I disagree with the authors, I looked at that graph and it looked similar to my idea on that NOAA study (which I read), which says people are reading too much into the NOAA study.

Sure but I don't think its worth my time to find the nuances here. This study is really standing up for solid science not overselling results from a study. Hey the author of that other study seemed to agree that NOAA had been oversold by some (politicians? advocates of climate change disaster).

The big takeaway I got was Mann switched to the side of lets follow the science, versus his previous stand of we need to protect the shaky data from the deniers. Excellent change of mind. Mann was one of those overselling the NOAA results. I'm glad he got aboard this paper and followed the data to results the data really points to now.

 

US government is estimated to have spent $80,000,000,000.00 (80 billion) to propagandize Global Warming.
You guys project your own inadequacies onto your opponents .But your funding source is only funding "science" that supports their political objective.
Compared to the Koch Bros who spend a few million and part of that goes to BEST.
.
Look at Phil Jones who has had tens of millions in grants( he mentioned US DOE in climategate emails I gather thats his funding).Michael Mann has multi million dollar grants.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2401179/posts
Whereas CO2 skeptics get nothing, but risk their careers and funding by speaking out.

 

Source?

 

To be clear ,climate scientists have been bought to provide Global Warming evidence.
No global warming evidence =no money no career.Global warming evidence= $millionsMassive climate funding exposed « JoNova

Massive climate funding exposed « JoNovaIts funny but Anthony Watts has to ask for website donations to enable him to attend the AGU conference in San Francisco.
This is from Davis ,Ca to SF,CA .He has the worlds most viewed science blog ,Watts Up With That.
No skeptic has Koch funding .No skeptic has any big oil funding.
Whereas Mann is probably in a 4 star hotel all expenses paid with an enormous speaking fee.
Follow the money.

 

Is that why you call me a "liar", and tell me to "STFU"?

Or are you just getting desperate?

 

If you care to make an intelligent point I will acknowledge it.This is actually a challenge Fuzzy1.
Make a comment ,on topic, which is intelligent.

 

In all other contexts, a 'liar' is a person who tells lies.

Last month, you specifically called me a liar, merely because I linked to many different Arctic sea ice graphs, beyond the single graph of which you approve. How was that a lie?

Or did I lie in other posts? If so, be specific. Show me, so that I may correct them.

If you remain unable to point to specific posts where I lied, not helping me correct errors, then you are acting like an impetuous juvenile. Increasingly desperate, falling into more name-calling tantrums.

 

A very useful graph can be found in link @30 and 31 and I present it here



Recently stable research funding (at approaching 2 billions per year) is not news. It is A LOT OF MONEY. It is similar to annual fishing licenses in Colorado, or less than 1/10 of pet-food sales in US. I don't compare it to (days or weeks of) US military spending. If I did, this thread would be moved to Fred Political. Instead let us consider those 2 billions. I only offer personal knowledge here, and anybody else's is just as good (or better) than mine.

Some of those 2 billions pay for satellites. Sadly I don't know how much in a broad sense. But using OCO-2 as an example, I guess it cost 0.1 billions prior to launch and 0.01 billions per year to keep the data flowing. Satellites are EXPENSIVE, and yet they provide unique data to understand the earth system.

Scientists write grant proposals and about 10% of those get funded. Money goes to University X,Y or Z and 50% or more of that goes to 'indirect costs'. What University does with that money is totally up to them. Could be 'keeping the lights on', subsidizing student tuition, or subsidizing athletic programs. To my knowledge there is no 'oversight' on how universities spend indirect costs. I don't think there should be. Why would Congressional self-declared non-scientists be the right folks to oversee science funding? Could they make US universities BETTER? One is obliged to realize that students from all over the world aspire to enter US universities now.

OK, a grant proposal gets funded and the university 'skims' its half or more. Remaining money gets spent to do science. Unless mojo's most hated scientists have 'special situations' (unknown to me), they can get a total of 3 months salary from such eternal funding. Generously supposing 150,000 dollars per year salary, that is 30k per year. If you can purchase a Ferrari and a luxury house with that flow, you are a smart fella.

Where does the rest of the grant money go? Paying undergraduate and graduate salaries, heavy computer work, analyzing chemical samples, or whatever else the grant proposal claimed would get done. In my experience, how grant recipients spend their slice of the pie is much more closely monitored than how universities (that got the funding in a real sense) spend their indirect costs pie slice.

Would I change the current research-funding situation? HELL NO, unless somebody makes a strong case that something different is better. Some congressional self-declared non-scientists want US to reduce funding for Earth-system science. Maybe they shall have their sway. Then scientists and students will just go to Europe or China, and US will become a minor player in this area of science.

Ding ding ding!, Congress, you can't keep things from becoming known just by shutting of the water. World is big. Science also happens elsewhere. Sorry you missed the memo.

+++
The larger and rapidly growing money in linked graph is Climate Technology. Until somebody tells me better this means that US is spending big money to get energy with less CO2 release, and (maybe) take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Maybe JoNova and our mojo want to put a cork in that as well. Makes no difference; if US does not, somebody else will.

We need more energy. Renewables (other than nuclear) provide it without taking water from agriculture. Ag will need at least the current amount of water, and likely more. The human enterprise will address energy, food and water in these next few decades. Whoever addresses them well will profit. It need not be the US, and if Congress wants it not to be, their will be done.

Purposefully I did not include +CO2 and +T because I think these will be minor issues for two decades at least. But they are fun to talk about.

What shall we talk about? What shall we do?

 

Well their are lies damn lies, and statistics. That one is a damn lie a completely made up false number. Here is an editorial from a guy that doesn't like US funding. Nowhere does he find money for propaganda.
The Alarming Cost Of Climate Change Hysteria

Ok over 20 years $32.5 billion on Reasearch for some of the most important questions of our time. The rest was for R&D subsidies and foreign aid. There is no line item for foreign aid. I would think we would want to do scientific resarch before spending the mitigation money, not fight it Maybe some of that $32.5B was used to publicize the research but that is hardly propaganda and its no where near your $80B. Fossil fuel subsidies are about $20B/year or many times more during this time period.

Koch brothers are just one of the funders of ALEC which lobbies for fossil fuel subsidies and against green energy. ALEC funds heartland which funds a lot of zombie science that is just wrong as well Anthony Watts website and a PR arm throwing out anti green energy propaganda. So no this is not correct. Many legitimate skeptics are funded as part of that roughly $32B in climate research funding. This was posted after my post. How was my post propaganda. Read it again, and check your own biases before you accuse others.
.

No Phil Jones was part of East Angolia and got most funding from british sources. There may have been a little doe or nsf money on a project he worked on with american researchers, but it would have been tiny. Obviously some people like M&M are quite well funded, and less um scientific sources funded by heartland and West Australia, so no lots of funding on both, and funding should not be the test its peer review, and nothing heartland puts out in their missives passes peer review.

Watts is a blogger not a speaker, they don't get paid to go to conferences except by their institutions or other sources. Watts gets funding from heartland, which is only partially funded by alec which has a lot of koch and fossil fuel control. So wrong there, but his test should be his reaserch which is garbage. His blog covers other peoples research, some of which is legitamate, but those other people may actually get speaking slots and perks.

I know people that speak at these things and they don't get much of a fee, certainly no where close to hillery speaking to goldman ($635K for 3 speeches), or trump (millions of dollars now part of fraud lawsuits, no question it was fraud, the question is how much he owes) in his made up trump university. Mann does get speaking fees at other non-scientific conferences that may be higher. I believe he asks for $10,000. That No one is getting rich off of research here compared to other fields. I believe heartland only pays folks like watts $1000 for a speach to them. Watts probably makes more off his website than mann gets from penn state.

 

In topics such as this it's sometimes more important to understand the who rather than the what.

"A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host".

"Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!"

 

I don't think the numbers are wrong. But mojo is mischaraterizing things like wind and solar subsidies and propaganda for climate change. Perspective is important.

If the world needs to mitigate ghg that $44B or so in Research money that includes things like satelites and equipment to core glaciers from 1989-2015 seems kind of cheap, not a waste at all If the claim is there are still questions to be anaswered this is a rather small price.

In 2013 alone solar subsides were $5.3B and wind $5.9B in the US. This years budget renewed them both. That is more than 5x more than research, and doesn't include the government subsidies for reducing ghg in automotive of heating. There is other money being spent for mitigation. I just don't understand why people would want to cut the research funding. A simple tarrif on imported oil would help protect industry and more than pay for it. Hell oil and coal subsidies are much higher than basic climate research as part of the budget, and that doesn't include any externalities.

 

'Climategate' professor Phil Jones awarded £13 million in research grants - Telegraph
Equals $18,000,000.00

 

Not sure that posting a 2009 media story strongly supports the notion that we are facing an urgent current problem in this area. Posting an expansive guess of climate research funding overall was more stimulating.

But when throwing pasta at the fridge to see what sticks, I suppose that one does not carefully sort through the pasta. Just throw.

None of our 'smilies' seem to convey the idea of pasta throwing. Maybe somebody has a design for :flail:

 

well we have gone from $80B to $18M hmm how much was US

DOE and Jones’ Delete Request « Climate Audit
That looks like less than $2M for jones, his staff, equipment and travel from the US. Why is it important, it means Phil Jones violated the FOIA agreements associated with the DOE progarm. Bad European scientist mainly paid by european grants. Is it $80B for propaganda or some big some? no. In perspective the new US bomber is $29B which is about all the money spent by the US government on climate change Research between 2000 and today.

Try again.

 

Comparing Earth science to military funding seems like a ticket to FHOPol.Maybe it won't be noticed though

Complaints about the enormity of science funding (in this field or any other) probably won't stop. But, what if anything should we do about it? A House Science Committee 'vast defunding'. seems harsh and motivated by other-than-scientific concerns.

Perhaps we'd do just as well with fewer global climate models. I'd rather see them take on the challenges of getting the ocean right, rather than just being cancelled.

We need to keep tracking, T CO2, sea level and many other things from the ground. As well as orbital platforms. Think not? Think we'd be better off not knowing? By the way, ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand. Pliny the Elder got that wrong. Some people may aspire to, but leave ostriches out of it!

It may very well be true that some grant proposals, and published scientific articles, try a bit too hard to tie into climate change. While complaining about that, please don't lose sight of the possibility that fundamental knowledge can have value. Whether or not it tries too hard for climate-change tie ins. Science it littered with examples of people who were looking for one thing (often very arcane), but instead found something with very real valuable applications. Genetic sequencing and editing come first to mind, but there are many others.

Once again, even if climate change is minor this century, we need more energy, food and water. We just do. (AustinG is much more optimistic than I about the food thing). How to get more of all those, without research would be profoundly optimistic. So, be careful with that budget axe. If you get energy by (any) hot->steam->spin turbine approach, it directly competes with agriculture for water. This is not a trivial matter.

There is X amount of soil for the food thing. It is truly a huge amount, but it is already very well 'subscribed'. Research into crop efficiency (water and and nutrients) is not what I'd want to axe. If US opts out, the work will still get done somewhere else. Profits will go somewhere else. That is OK, unless you like the idea of US being a technological leader.

Many crops require insect pollinators. The UN has just released a bleak report on pollinator status (they are such worriers you know). Withdraw from that 'field' as well?

There is water, air and soil pollution. US improvements have been huge, but much of the world lags behind. Again, technological improvements and profits will (pretty much) happen where the research is done.

Current air quality is causing some amount of accelerated mortality, lost work productivity, and health-care costs. Again, go to the UN reports for the bleakest perspective. Or elsewhere, I don't care. Does this deserve research $$$?

Could bore with other examples, but the point is, some research areas are important w/ or w/o climate change. Some of them, may aspire to link to climate change. Maybe that's a mistake. But it sets up a situation where 'I am not a scientist' legislators could wield the axe poorly. Shall we make them the deciders on how these $2 billions per year are spent?

One would like to think that decision ultimately belongs to the voting public. Choose according to your own rational assessments of short- and long-term benefits. FHOPol, here we come!

Got a new research grant? Will it make you rich? I posted 50% indirect costs and a total of 3 month's salary (summed across all grants). I think those are generally accurate. But, consider a couple of 'hot' examples, Penn State and Columbia University. It should be a simple matter to find that info on their web sites. If not I am confident that polite email to a Dean of Sponsored Research would be constructively answered. In other words, these are not 'secrets'. There is no need to make an FOI request or subpoena emails. There is no need to rely upon affinity websites. Just ask' somebody who knows the answer.

I will apologize here to AustinG on the subject of lazy. He does read a lot of stuff, and his knowledge in some areas we discuss here far exceeds mine. There you go, champ, your lawn is intact.

My visceral response to "behind paywall" is to the words, not the speaker. It will not change. If you want to see the words "behind paywall" frequently, read comments at RealClimate. Dang those guys are whiney. Those words appear less in WUWT and Judith Curry's. It either means that they make the small library effort, or that they just don't care to know. I could not tell you which it is

 

Yikes, I wasn't trying to send it there that is mojo that seems to think the $40B or so in research since 1989 is $80B and 100% spent on propaganda not knowleged. Hey is there fraud, waste, abuse, in that $40B, sure, but we are talking trillions to spend for global warming insurance. Its small compared to that. Isn't it better to know than to speculate.

OK why the bomber? Its in the news. Its insurance against some future war. Current bombers are better than any other countries and I don't think they are catching up. The price for development is about the same as that that funded all climate research form the Us goverrnment since 2000. Still some people think this insurance is worth it. Why isn't knowledge of the earth worth as much?

Well here we see one of mojo's issues come to the fore. The stuff about doe funding for jones, meant he should have been required to show and share his data per foir. I think mann got battered enough in court over not that he finally relased his, and magically we could do science (peer review). Back to this paper on the OP, I think there is some vidication of the people that brought mann to court over foia requests. Mann himself was on the side of this new paper and said, that its important to put out the data even though it could help the enemies of doing something to slow the climate change.

He moved to the side of we need to hide what we don't know, to we need to be clear about it so that scientists can help figure it out.