The reality of science is that a scientific career is made by showing that all the people around you believe something that’s not true. If a scientist could provide evidence that the climate theory is incorrect and that global warming is not a product of human activities, he or she would be held up as the Darwin or the Einstein of climate science. We’re highly incentivized to show that all our colleagues are wrong. If we could come up with good evidence that they’re wrong, we would be out there publishing it.My experience publishing peer-reviewed work that has yet to show evidence of a greenhouse gas signal in the disaster loss record has yet to celebrated by the climate science community, but if Caldeira's views of the dynamics of the scientific community are correct, then it is only a matter of time;-)
21 July 2009
This Doesn't Jibe With My Experience
Ken Caldeira of Stanford University explains how scientists who show that common wisdom is flawed receive a welcome, even celebrated, reception in the scientific community:
23 comments:
The lack of celebration of your research is in part because it is not conclusive. There are studies which purport to show such a signal - they are not conclusive either. Such work wouldn't be celebrated until it is more widely accepted.
Furthermore, I have inferred that you expect such a signal to show up some day. So even if you succeeded fully now, it would be a temporary result.
More broadly, I doubt that the celebration that Caldeira speaks of is instantaneous. Those whose strongly-held beliefs get overturned will not celebrate right away. It would take time. But that person would eventually be considered a major figure.
-1-Dean
That was a bit tongue-in-cheek (hence the smiley;-) What is the opposite of celebrated?
But since you raise the point, what is it about my research that you find "inconclusive"? I'll assert that it is pretty conclusive and am happy to debate the point. This is not a matter of conflicting studies.
I always put studies to this http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 rule of thumb.
If they pass this test, they are worth taking seriously.
When Robin Warren and Barry Marshall proposed - with evidence - that ulcers were caused by bacteria, they were met with derision by the consensus-holders of the time. The world's greatest experts in the causes and treatment of ulcers ridiculed and dismissed them. It took years for the consensus to break, and in the mean time patients suffered unnecessarily.
In fact, the widely held understanding of scientific revolutions holds that in many cases, those who uphold the "consensus" position do not admit there error publicly and happily in the name of science - they more often simply go back to their labs silently and then die off, being gradually replaced by those for whom a new "consensus" is the standard.
In particle physics, a new breakthrough that overthrows the old consensus can be welcomed easily - sometimes. In a politically and ideologically charged topic like climate change, the consensus position has calcified to a point that the possiblity of error is not allowed. The idea that debate has been closed on mathematically-modeled hundred-year climate forcasts is so absurd that the single position calls into question the entire story. I heard a scientist on the radio once who said that the consensus on climate change is as sure as that on the second law of thermodynamics. Am I to believe that this benighted soul is ready to celebrate proof that the entire AGW hypothesis is wrong?
Thirty years from now, when global warming is clearly not happening on an apocalyptic scale, there will be no Nobel Prizes awarded. There will be silence, and "at least we tried to err on the safe side."
Hi,
"But since you raise the point, what is it about my research that you find "inconclusive"? I'll assert that it is pretty conclusive and am happy to debate the point. This is not a matter of conflicting studies."
If I can play Devil's Advocate (he's really not such a bad guy...a man of wealth and taste ;-))...the (Silvio) Schmidt et al. (2009) paper seems potentially to conflict.
They conclude: "In the period 1971–2005, since the beginning of a trend towards increased intense cyclone activity, losses excluding socio-economic effects show an annual increase of 4% per annum."
If the majority of "increased intense cyclone activity" has been caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, then they've discovered "evidence of a greenhouse gas signal in the disaster loss record."
Mark
"We’re highly incentivized to show that all our colleagues are wrong. If we could come up with good evidence that they’re wrong, we would be out there publishing it."
The trouble with that assertion is that a multi-billion-dollar industry is built on the assertion that CO2 is a problem. So a CO2 researcher who shows CO2 isn't a problem destroys his industry.
I would be a lot more convinced that climate change researchers would put their money where their mouths are (so to speak) by betting on what will happen to parameters such as future global temperatures, future sea level rise, future levels of malaria, and all the other phenomena that are claimed to be affected by CO2 emissions.
-5-Mark
Thanks, however that paper does not conflict with our work at all. In fact, it is a replication of our work using a different dataset for losses and a different adjustment procedure. They even acknowledge that their work confirms our analyses.
They do find a trend since 1971 in losses. So do we. They speculate as to its cause, using a series of if/then statements.
But there is nothing in that paper that contradicts our work, to the contrary.
Hi Roger,
"They do find a trend since 1971 in losses. So do we."
Then that's a potential conflict with your assertion that research has "yet to show evidence of a greenhouse gas signal in the disaster loss record."
So it may not conflict with your research, but it potentially conflicts with your assertion.
P.S. Better get back to work... ;-)
It is actually quite rare for a scientist to receive instant renown for advancing a hypothesis contradicting the accepted wisdom. Look at the abuse Barry Marshall received when he advanced the H. pylori hypothesis in 1982. Even after he published experimental proof in 1985, it took 20 years for him to get the Nobel prize, which is about how long it took for his most senior critics to retire.
A more common case is Alfred Wegener, who had to endure symposiums organized to denounce his work and got no recognition during his lifetime.
The only case of instant recognition, that I can recall is the work of Bednorz and Müller on High-temperature superconductivity. In this case, they had a recipe that was easy for other labs to reproduce.
-8-Mark
There is no conflict as there hasn't even been a greenhouse gas signal identified in the landfall record. Over the period of record landfalls have decreased (see CCSP). Over the period that our dataset focuses on (1900-2008) there is no landfall trend. I can pick out a few time periods within that record that show a trend, 1971-2005 among them. But that doesn't make a particularly compelling argument for causality.
With respect to the relationship between global warming and hurricanes, it should be noted that even the very most vocal hurricane alarmist has reconsidered his stance.
I think Dr. Pielke is winning this one. Maybe 20 years from now he will be properly rewarding for his contributions.
Oops! I meant to say "rewarded", not "rewarding".
My bad.
Caldeira is obviously referring to some faraway planet. Here on Earth it's just too easy to find very good scientists whose careers have been hindered by their findings going against the established consensus. Check what happened to Elkanah Billings, Reg Sprigg, and JLK Thudichum.
ps the most important word in Caldeira's statement: "good". Four letters to remove away all pretence of scientific objectivity
Roger - Hurricane landfall strikes me as one of the most coarse measurements available. I'm not qualified to debate the issue as I don't have the time or resources to find the primary sources. But one study I had heard about was Kerry Emanuel's. Didn't he measure some accumulation of hurricane energy and find an increase? I'm talking about a potential general increase in extreme weather, not in economic losses or some orger secondary measure.
And I would add that the case for extreme events is probably weakest with hurricanes. The US climate Extremes Index shows a decades-long trend, but is only for the US. I also remember reading about a drought index which indicates an increase in drying, though I'm not sure if such a trend qualifies as an extreme event.
Dean,
The hurricane landfall record is actually the 'best' data set that we have, because it is the least influenced by changes in observation technology. Even 150 years ago, we were pretty good at detecting the landfalling hurricanes and measuring their strength. Away from the coast, however, most storms were sparsely measured and actual peak intensities were almost never observed.
In the last 10 years alone, we have added Doppler Radars to the aircraft which can detect peak winds that would have previously gone undetected. Each advance in technology allows us to better sample the storms further and further from land. This skews the data and is the primary flaw in Emmanuel's study and in all the arguments that hurricane numbers and/or intensities are increasing.
The same considerations must be made when observing climate extremes anywhere in the world. Our ability to detect extremes and 'severe' weather has been increasing steadily. If this is not considered, then the result of any study showing an increase in severe weather and extremes is flawed and worthless. Most studies arguing that a human induced climate change signature can be found in the record of extremes and severe weather events, ignore the reality of improved observations.
I can not believe that this could be done so consistently unless there was a common motive among various researchers. Funding comes to mind as a probable explanation.
After reading the complete interview with Ken Caldeira, I had to come to the conclusion that he is somewhat removed from reality. Almost every one of his 'facts' is unsupported opinion at best, or demonstrably wrong at worse.
In the past, the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality was considered a disorder in need of treatment. Today it appears to be a prerequisite for tenure at Stanford:-)!
Dean sez:
“one study I had heard about was Kerry Emanuel's”
Uh, Dean, are you referring to the same Kerry Emanuel who recently reversed his stance on the relationship between global warming and hurricanes?
Yes, I think you are referring to the single most vocal hurricane alarmist ever -- now a FORMER hurricane alarmist. Oopsie!
But, considering that, when it comes to climate change, our media are self-described propagandists, it is not at all surprising that you were only aware of Emanuel’s former position and not his current position.
As it turns out, Emanuel is just another in a very long line of alarmists turned skeptics.
Dean - It seems you are swimming against the tide and clinging to an increasingly discredited theory.
Jim - I didn't say that landfall was a bad data set, I said it was a coarse data set. It may well be that the most coarse data set is also the most accurate.
I agree with your comments about the difficulty in detecting a signal of AGW extreme climate events, and I agree that none has positively been identified. It will take a while for the signal to develop and be detected. But none of this has much to do with the underlying research on AGW. Extreme events are by their nature rare and thus their signal would be hard to detect. Positively identifying such a signal will likely be the last thing we are positive about when it comes to AGW.
I tried to bring up SBVOR's link on Emanuel changing position, but it kept hanging up.
Dean sez:
“I tried to bring up SBVOR's link on Emanuel changing position, but it kept hanging up.”
The article I linked to was published in the Houston Chronicle on April 12, 2008 and is titled “Hurricane expert reconsiders global warming's impact”.
This Houston Chronicle article is a slow loading page. But, if you are patient, it will load.
I finally got the Houston Chronicle article. But I don't much trust popular media on global warming. They tend to go to one extreme or another in many cases.
So I emailed Emanuel himself and asked him if it was an accurate portrayal. He responded that the article was exaggerated and somewhat inaccurate and offered this link for the real deal:
ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/Emanuel_etal_2008.pdf
but it doesn't much change the underlying fact that he isn't predicting a terrible increase in hurricanes, and thus isn't seeing them now. But it also doesn't weaken the general theory of AGW at all. It is simply an update to trying to predict what it will cause.
It's one thing to debate what AGW will do wrt hurricanes, but saying that CO2-connected greenhouse might be undermined by this one study is not far from suggesting that we might discover that there is no such thing as gravity. The greenhouse process was discovered almost 200 years ago and the CO2-greenhouse connection is as much a part of established science as gravity is. The earth would be an iceball without it.
With the year of astronomy, Galileo is celebrated sometimes as if almost forgeting he was not part of the scientific consensus of the day... To transpose to our times, Imagine a climatologist who would demonstrate with real data, satellite imagery, synoptic charts and meteorological parameters measurement that the past 50 years climatic evolution is in direct contradiction with the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming or climate change advocated by the government scientists assembled by the IPCC i.e. the promoted -but not real- politically correct consensus of our days... Would anyone think that scientists and the media would want to know more and celebrate this climatologist the same way they pontificate now about Galileo? Or do you think they'd rather cater to the consensus? So far not so good for the Galileo of our times...
Professor Marcel Leroux (1928-2008) French climatologist.
Based on real observations he wrote his thesis published by the WMO in 1983, republished by Springer Praxis in 2001 "the meteorology and climate of tropical Africa ". His understanding of the structure of the meteorological equator led him to rethink the atmospheric circulation and in 1993 publish the seminal paper on "The Mobile Polar High: a new concept explaining present mechanisms of meridional air-mass and energy exchanges and global propagation of palaeoclimatic changes" Global and Planetary change (7) 1993, p69-93 and since wrote books among which "dynamic analysis of weather and climate" which English second edition will be released in 2010.
So contrary to the assertion of Mr Caldeira, indeed the equivalent conceptual revolution of meteorology/climatology to what plate tectonics did to geology has already happened, and everyone is ignoring it, except Leroux's former students or those like me who simply were struck by his Cartesian demonstration. It is time as we approach the first anniversary of his passing to encourage reading his work.
-21-Dean sez:
“It's one thing to debate what AGW will do [with regard to] hurricanes, but saying that CO2-connected greenhouse might be undermined by this one study is not far from suggesting that we might discover that there is no such thing as gravity.”
1) Who said such a thing (in reference to that particular study)?
2) Does CO2 contribute to a warmer climate? Yes. But the greatest impact is seen between 0 ppm and 100 ppm.
3) Does each additional molecule of CO2 contribute exponentially less warming than the one which preceded it? Yes.
4) Could human beings EVER contribute enough CO2 to the atmosphere to result in anything even remotely resembling a catastrophic change in the climate?
A) If you place your blind faith in deeply flawed computer models cited by the IPCC, one might say maybe. But, with every assessment, the IPCC worst case scenarios become less and less hysterical.
B) If you find peer reviewed science more credible, a different conclusion emerges.
Click here and answer the question “Is CO2 a primary driver of climate change?” And, proceed on from there.
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