NZ climate scientists run from challenging questions

UPDATE: I forgot to add in the main post below, some of the main points in the briefing. One is that the IPCC's next report, AR5 will see an increase in its sea level predictions by 2100 from an upper limit of 60cm to more than 90cm and possibly 1.5 metres. Another, and this one had me smiling given previous correspondence with alarmists, debunked the oft repeated myth that methane clathrates and hydrates on the ocean floor pose a major threat. To their credit, despite everything else below, not even the IPCC team were prepared to go where Gareth Renowden routinely treads.  The IPCC/NZ briefing is available as a podcast from this page.

I've just attended a major briefing on climate change by the NZ Government's "leading" climate experts, David Wratt, Tim Naish, Andy Reisinger and a couple of others. As a propaganda exercise drip-feeding a largely tame media, it was exceptional. As an informed appraisal of the latest science, it was just plain wrong, and it was tightly controlled to avoid any of the main speakers being challenged.

First of all, our first choice of attendee, Dr Vincent Gray, was banned from the event held at taxpayer funded Ministry for the Environment. Investigate magazine was informed last night that Gray was not an approved, accredited journalist and therefore would not be permitted to attend. Our response was that this was a gross invasion by the State into dictating who, or who could not, write for or represent Investigate magazine, which had already been formally invited to send someone.

I told them last night that no Government agency had a right to dictate which journalists/columnists could represent a publication. I wanted Gray there because I'm on deadline and he was as well briefed on the latest science as I was, unlike many of the daily media in attendance.

Secondly, I attended and listened to a disappointingly out of date and out of touch with the latest science presentation from all the men involved.

When I began asking a couple of questions, I was muted, and told privately I would be allowed to ask some later. Instead, they opted not to unmute and closed the news conference with no further challenging questions.

I may post audio in due course, but at no time was I rude or impolite. Just asking firm questions. Here's the text I've just described:

First question, 11:10am

Investigate: Andy, you put up a slide suggesting a 1000 year residence time for CO2, I'm just looking at a list of peer reviewed studies. Nearly 99% of them suggest the maximum residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 10 years. Can you explain how you get to 1000 years please?

Reisinger: I've never seen a peer reviewed study that suggested a residence time of ten years, I'm afraid.

Investigate: I can quote you some (gives details). The only people I can see on this list who go beyond 20 years is the IPCC report of 2007.

Reisinger: Which contains a large amount of peer reviewed studies, and the most recent understanding of climate science.

Investigate: Well, how do we explain this list of 30 peer reviewed studies suggesting a residence time of ten years? Doesn't that have an impact on our presumptions about climate change?

Reisinger: As I say the most recent IPCC assessment statement of understanding does not actually support that.

Investigate: But these peer reviewed studies do.

Howard: Ian, I have to say, I'm a climate scientist too and I've never seen a peer reviewed study that suggests a residence time of ten years.

Investigate: I'll forward it through, but what I'm suggesting is that the science on this is not settled.

Wratt: I would disagree.

Howard: We'll have to agree to disagree.

The list of studies I was referring to is this one:

You can read more about the residence time of CO2 here:

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-5-15-years-only/

Or read Junge's study here showing 15 years RT

UPDATE: The IPCC's own report discloses CO2 may have a residence time as low as 5 years (and up to 200), and adds that not enough is known about this as it depends on different factors. Forget their obfuscation for political reasons, (this was buried in the fine print), the peer reviewed studies above are pretty unanimous and it would be a struggle for me to accept IPCC's high option as gospel in the face of the above.

What I'm curious about is how on Earth the NZ scientists can justify the extrapolation out to 1000 years! And for two leading NZ (and UN IPCC) scientists to deny knowledge of low CO2 residency beggars belief. It's there in the IPCC report.

Then a further question five minutes later:

Investigate: You mentioned about species extinction becoming a problem with global warming. Are you aware of Oxford University's statement that "alarming predictions that climate change will lead to the extinction of hundreds of species may be exaggerated" and that species adaptation, which biologists specialize in, has not been taken into account by climate scientists?

Reisinger: Well the study that's mentioned in that graph is not a study by climate scientists but biologists using the knowledge that was available at that time. And it is a moving field because we are only now seeing the warming and implications this has on various species. I'm not saying that this is a definite figure and all those species will die; as Howard was saying in his introduction adaptation can reduce some of those impacts, but it is very unlikely that adaptation would reduce the impacts from 25, 30% extinctions down to zero."

Investigate: Without tying it up on the one point, I'll just give you this synopsis from Oxford scientist Kathy Willis -

Ministry for Environment official: Ian, I don't want to interrupt you, but –

Investigate: She's made the point that the climate modeling and species modeling that's been done is far too obtuse –

MfE: We do have people waiting on line

Investigate [now muted] But these are relevant questions.

Here's what I got hit with:

[11:18:12 a.m.] Peter SMC (in private): I am happy to unmute you again if you will let me know through the chatbox that you have a question and wait on your turn to be called

[11:18:29 a.m.] You: that's ok...i have about eight further questions

[11:19:25 a.m.] Peter SMC (in private): Alright, noted. We will put you in the queue

[11:25:02 a.m.] You (to Peter SMC): By the way, having now listened to the presentation and seen the graphs, if this is state of the art science from NZ's perspective I'm appalled, just quietly.

[11:25:41 a.m.] You: Massive holes in the evidence, much built on suppositions, and often in contradiction to peer reviewed data

I waited patiently for a call that never came.

[11:33:04 a.m.] You (to Peter SMC): can i get some questions to Tim please

[11:40:22 a.m.] Peter SMC (in private): we are running short on time

[11:40:27 a.m.] Peter SMC (in private): I'll see what we can do

[Announcement that press conf had ended]

[11:41:09 a.m.] You: Peter...you assured me I could ask questions!

[11:43:40 a.m.] You: Questions that were not answered: Tim, you quote ice mass loss from Antarctica, but my understanding is we do not yet have full satellite coverage of Antarctica What is your evidence of mass loss given the incomplete data?

[11:44:32 a.m.] You: Greenland surface melt going through holes in the ice and lubricating ice sheets, found to be "inconsequential" in peer reviewed studies this past year. Your response?

[11:44:43 a.m.] Peter SMC (in private): Yes. You did get to ask questions, as many as anyone else in the room. Please do follow up by sending your questions to the researchers if you'd like further clarification. We can help coordinate if possible.

[11:45:04 a.m.] Sarah Gibbs: Which study is that in Ian?

I then cited the studies (Utrecht Uni; Uni of Washington/Woods Hole) that I'd printed on pages 185 to 187 of Air Con.

I then began by firing off other questions on the chat process addressed to the scientists, but visible to other media like Sarah Gibbs. Unfortunately the plug was pulled by MfE before I could save the updated chat.

So from memory, here are some of the questions I typed seeking answers to:

Question for Wratt: You cited the Antarctic warming study of Steig et al from earlier this year. Are you prepared to tell the media assembled here that in actual fact satellite records show no warming over Antarctica since 1980, despite rising GHG emissions, and in fact a cooling? Can you confirm that the Steig study you've shown the media contains errors?

Question for Wratt: You've stated there's been a temperature increase of 0.5C between 1980 and 1999 globally. Why did you not qualify that by pointing out the exceptional El Nino year of 1998 that pushed up temperatures? What is your comment on citing ten or twenty year cycles as proof of global warming?

Question for Wratt: Did any of the GCMs used by the UN IPPC forecasters predict the specific temperature deceleration that has occurred since 2002, despite rising GHG emissions?

Question for Wratt/Reisinger: Given that CO2 is central to UNIPCC and NZ government policy on climate, and your presentation this morning, what are the implications of the new University of Bristol study showing that the balance between airborne and absorbed CO2 has stayed the same since 1850, despite human-caused emissions rising from 2 billion tons a year to 35 billion?

Question for Wratt/Reisinger: The new study suggests terrestrial ecosystems and oceans "have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had previously been expected". Doesn't this prove that the science on CO2 is nowhere near settled and in fact our understanding in the IPCC reports may be utterly wrong?

Question for Wratt/Reisinger: How much confidence can the media here have in this presentation, when its data conflicts with two peer reviewed studies in the past week suggesting emissions from deforestation have been grossly overestimated by the IPCC – in the words of one study "by at least a factor of two"?

Question for Tim Naish: You talk about the dangers of current warming in Antarctica leading to massive melt in as little as 300 years and sea level rises of many metres. How do you reconcile that with the study published in PNAS in 2006 on elephant seal colonies that proves elephant seals lived much further south than their current Ross Shelf breeding sites, between 600 BC and 1400AD, suggesting it was "substantially warmer [then] than at present". Is there evidence of a 7 metre sea level increase or decrease between 1000 and 1400AD that would correspond to massive melting from a much warmer Antarctica?

Question for Naish/Reisinger: You've portrayed massive sea level rise over time, and extended the IPCC estimates out. But given that sea level rise for the 20th century averaged 1.7mm a year, and recent studies such as Leuliette and Miller (2009) show SLR of only 1.5mm a year between 2003 and 2007 (supposedly the hottest decade), how accurate are your forecasts and what is the evidence in support of catastrophically rising sea levels?

In summary, my impression of the press briefing was "propaganda stunt", deliberately timed to hype up Copenhagen in four weeks. Given that AR5 is not due for release for several more years it was not a genuine justification for a press briefing.

Secondly, these scientists boasted that they or their NZ colleagues "controlled" the production of two of the four major IPCC AR4 reports. If true, then based on their shoddy presentation today, if these men are the smartest guys in the room then frankly we need a bigger room.

Perhaps they should read Climate Depot or WattsUpWithThat. And it wouldn't hurt for them to avoid further embarrassment by reading Air Con

Comments

[AcidComments]

"Pacific islands are not suffering rising sea levels from man made global warming, but often from a combination of natural erosion (see the life cycle of coral atolls) or human stupidity, such as dynamite fishing in the coral lagoons a few decades ago that seemed like a great idea at the time but which killed coral and destabilised the protective reef structures, allowing tidal surges to hit the fragile islands.

Also not to mention.

Yet another Inconvenient Truth. Some Pacific Island Nations rather you didn't know.

Dredging Coral for roading material!

[Pattrick Smellie]

Ian, as one of the journalists in the room, I was delighted you were shut down and am quite certain in my own mind it was a merciful accident, given the shocked look of the operator when it happened. I predict you would have hogged an enormous amount of time with your crackpot posturing. As you said in your chat exchange, you had eight more questions. Hey, well, so did I buddy, and I got two away, just like you.
Pattrick Smellie

[iwishart]

Patrick...they've already admitted they muted me. Go back to your liberal chardonnay set handwringing. Being attacked by you is like being savaged by Noddy.

Mobile email sent via Palm Treo

[iwishart]

And Patrick...perhaps before you go you can demonstrate how informed you are on climate change by answering the questions above

Mobile email sent via Palm Treo

[iwishart]

And Patrick...on second thoughts before you decamp you can demonstrate your superior knowledge of climate science by answering those questions above. That'll determine whether you are a hack or a journalist.

Mobile email sent via Palm Treo

[peter]

Ian

Fancy someone accusing you of crackpot posturing!

Reminds me of Michael Drake's article in the latest Infestigate Magazine!!

Ha Ha Ha!!!

[fletch]

Why is it generally these media leftists who want to believe in such things as global warming? Being journalists, you'd think they'd know when they're being bullshitted to; surely they're not that gullible? Or does the charisma of Obama and his ilk hold them in such a sway as to blind them?

I just don't get it. God, guys, open your eyes and do some actual investigative journalism instead of sucking down and reporting everything you're given in your press releases, otherwise you're just drones repeating what you've been spoon-fed.

The mainstream media just LOVES disaster. They love it when someone dies, or a little girl gets trapped in a storm drain - and don't deny it. They love the 'Breaking News' and the worse the better.

Maybe that's why they love AGW - it's the fairy tale disasters are made of.

As Don Henley once sang -

'We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five/
She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye
Its interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry'

[robk]

fletch

"They love the 'Breaking News' and the worse the better."

Yep, then they can hop on a plane and burn some carbon.

My impression is, there are not too many 'investigative' journalists left.

And with the massive budgets available to powerful people to fight the few who don't just copy and paste Reuters, it's amazing how well and how often "Infestigate" gets to the nub of the matter.

[robk]

Peter

"crackpot posturing!"

Anyone who uses as many exclaimation points as you do - and yet say so little - could surely be accused of this... ;-D

[AcidComments]

"Yet another Inconvenient Truth. Some Pacific Island Nations rather you didn't know.

Dredging Coral for roading material!'

We can also add to that.

Dredged Coral aggregate.

And this admission in a Joint Japan/Fijian Climate Change Report on the Pacific Islands.

Addressing Climate Change and Sea Level Rise in the Pacific Islands

lResearch Center for the Pacific Islands, Kagoshima University
Kagoshima 890-8580 Japan
2School of Marine Studies, Faculty of Islands and Oceans,
University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
3Institute of Marine Resources, Faculty of Islands and Oceans
University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

Hard structures also change the nature of coastal processes and often have to be used around the whole island. On Nukufetau, Tuvalu for example, the construction of seawall on one end of the island eroded the other end completely. The construction of the causeway on Tarawa, Kiribati interfered with the natural flow of currents and was blamed for the disappearance of Bikenman, an islet opposite the causeway.

[David Wratt]

Ian: To repeat my earlier point: the time a given individual CO2 molecule remains in the atmosphere (the “exchange lifetime” of my previous post) is not the appropriate timescale for determining the influence on climate of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, for the reasons I have already outlined. What is important is the length of time for which atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide remain elevated. If the “exchange lifetime” were the determining timescale then we would not now have atmospheric CO2 concentrations 37% higher than pre-industrial levels.

Regarding the paper by Knorr on the airborne fraction of CO2: This is not a personal area of expertise for me. However from my reading, the appropriate section of the IPCC Fourth Assessment (WG1, Section 7.3.5.3) does not claim that the airborne fraction should have exhibited a significant trend through the 20th Century. What it points out is an expectation of a higher fraction in the atmosphere by the end of the 21st Century (e.g. WG1 Fig 7.13). Knorr et al’s paper is an analysis of past values of airborne fraction, not a prediction of how the fraction would change under significantly warmer temperatures in future.

[David Wratt]

Ian: One further point before I move on to your other questions: You say in your blog that the briefing said that “the IPCC’s next report, AR5, will see an increase in its sea level predictions by 2100 from an upper limit of 60cm to more than 90cm and possibly 1.5m”. We did not claim to know what the AR5 will say – that will depend on the evolving scientific literature, the lead authors’ assessment of it, and the consideration of review comments. What we did was to point out some developments in the literature regarding dynamic ice processes in Antarctica and Greenland since the Fourth Assessment, and their implications for future sea level rise.

[David Wratt]

Ian - A response to your next question - "Does the Steig et al study of Antarctic Temperature contain errors?": These authors published a corrigendum in the 6 August issue of Nature, providing corrections to the confidence levels on the trends published in their original Nature paper, and noting there was a typographical error in a supplementary table of automatic weather station locations. However they conclude that “The corrected confidence levels do not change the assessed significance of trends, nor any of the primary conclusions of the paper.”

Steig et al’s conclusion statements include: "Mean surface temperature trends in both West and East Antarctica are positive for 1957–2006, and the mean continental warming is comparable to that for the Southern Hemisphere as a whole. This warming trend is difficult to explain without the radiative forcing associated with increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations".

Regarding your related question - "Do satellite records show a cooling over Antarctica since 1980?" No, not for the average over the whole continent of the surface temperatures. NASA has produced a map of surface temperature trends over Antarctica based on satellite skin temperature measurements from 1981 to 2007 – see http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8239 . The text accompanying this map states: “Across most of the continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean, temperatures climbed”.

Johansen and Fu (Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 34, L12703, 2007) analysed satellite temperature trends through the Antarctic troposphere from 1979 - 2005 ( the Steig et al paper and the NASA map above consider only surface temperatures). They find variations across the seasons: cooling of tropospheric temperatures in summer and fall, warming in winter and spring.

[David Wratt]

Ian - Your next question claims of me that "You’ve stated there’s been a temperature increase of 0.5°C between 1980 and 1999 globally". I do not recall ever having stated that – and I would certainly not have implied that anthropogenic effects had caused 0.5°C of global warming over two decades. Regarding your question about the 1998 temperatures being pushed up by an “exceptional” El Niño: Yes, they were. When I show a global temperature plot I usually make the point that we appear to be seeing a combination of natural variability (e.g. El Niños, La Niñas) with an overall upwards anthropogenic trend. The 1998 El Niño is why that year was a little warmer than subsequent years

[David Wratt]

Ian: Regarding your next question - "Did any of the GCMs used by the UN IPCC forecasters predict the specific temperature deceleration that has occurred since 2002, despite rising GHG emissions?": These models did not set out to predict exact temperatures in particular years. As I’ve stated above, we appear to be seeing a combination of an upward trend from anthropogenic effects, with natural year-to-year variability superimposed. The models analysed for the Fourth Assessment set out to provide projections for the overall temperature trend for a range of possible greenhouse gas emissions, together with an estimate of the size of the “band” of year-to-year variability around this. Regarding your comment on “temperature deceleration”: As you seem to imply in your previous question (where you question the use of “ten or twenty year cycles as proof of global warming”), I would caution against the use of just a few years of temperature observations to decide whether temperature is “decelerating”

[David Wratt]

Ian: Regarding your question about the implications of the airborne fraction findings of the University of Bristol (Knorr) study: As I point out above, Knorr et al’s paper is an analysis of past values of airborne fraction, not a prediction of how the fraction would change under significantly warmer temperatures in future.

Moving on to your next question - "The new study suggests terrestrial ecosystems and oceans “have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had previously been expected”. Doesn’t this prove that the science on CO2 is nowhere near settled and in fact our understanding in the IPCC reports may be utterly wrong?" Answer: I cannot find the quote you give anywhere in the Knorr paper. Some relevant words in page 4 of Knorr’s paper are “It is difficult to rate this as a strong indication that land use emissions are systematically overestimated, as it depends on the validity of the statistical model”. This very cautious statement in one paper seems rather underwhelming evidence on which to base your assertion that the IPCC reports “may be utterly wrong”.

[David Wratt]

Ian: Regarding the last question in the list you posed for me: "How much confidence can the media have in this presentation , when its data conflicts with two peer-reviewed studies in the past week suggesting emissions from deforestation have been grossly estimated by the IPCC – in the words of one study “by at least a factor of two”?" - Response: I assume you are referring to the paper by Knorr (which I have discussed above) and the paper by Van der Werf et al (Nature Geoscience, Nov 2009). From my reading, the words you have quoted (“by at least a factor of two”) do not occur in either paper. The emission estimates which Knorr shows in his figure 2 as giving the best “optimisation including statistical predictors of interannual variability”, scale land use emissions down to 82% (ie reduce them by 18%). The paper by Van der Werff et al suggests updated rates of CO2 emission from deforestation and forest degradation are 23% less than those given in the 2007 report of IPCC Working Group 1. However, that report states (Section 7.3.2.1) that “the land use carbon source has the largest uncertainties in the carbon budget”, and the estimates from Knorr and from Van der Werff listed above are within the ranges of uncertainty listed in IPCC Working Group I Table 7.2.

I don’t see any conflict between Werff et al and our presentations last week. Werff et al state that: “reducing fossil fuel emissions remains the key element for stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentrations”.

[Ian Wishart]

David, I'm on print deadline for Investigate so cannot respond in detail until later this week.

However, you have queried a direct quote of mine in relation to the Knorr study, and you suggest I am wrong in my interpretation of Knorr.

Let the record show that you'll find that direct quote in the second paragraph of the University of Bristol news release that accompanied the study last week:

http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2009/6649.html

The study says exactly what I suggest it did.

Having said that, it is a matter of logic as much as anything else, that if human CO2 emissions have gone from 2 Gt a year to 35 Gt since 1850, yet the fraction has remained the same, then obviously the biosphere is soaking it up.

Nothing "historical" about it really.

[David Wratt]

Ian: What I said was that I could not find the quote you referred to anywhere in Knorr's paper. It is the paper which has been peer reviewed - not the press release.

What the biosphere is "soaking up" is a fraction of the emissions - not the whole lot. That is why we've experienced the 37% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations
since pre-industrial times, which I referred to earlier tonight.

Regards - David Wratt

[Ian Wishart]

I should add, the quote about emissions from deforestation that you also query appears in the same news release, and its full context is this:

"Another result of the study is that emissions from deforestation might have been overestimated by between 18 and 75 per cent. This would agree with results published last week in Nature Geoscience by a team led by Guido van der Werf from VU University Amsterdam. They re-visited deforestation data and concluded that emissions have been overestimated by at least a factor of two."

Without rechecking the audio, I'll take your assurance for now on the 0.5C issue and assume that someone coughed at a crucial point - the phone audio was muffled at times when people turned away from the microphones.